"I am not afraid of failure. I am afraid of succeeding at things that
don't matter. I am not afraid of failure. I am afraid of succeeding at things that don't matter."
You might recognize those words from the great missionary, William Carey. I think he was just
giving voice to thoughts that we've all had at one time or another. We know there are a lot of things
in life we could do, a lot of things in life we could succeed at, but we know intuitively there
are very, very few things in life that really actually matter. There's only a few things in life
that will make a difference to the world, that will make a long-term difference to the people we
really care about. And we know it would be tragic if at the end of our lives we looked back and
saw that we had succeeded at all kinds of lesser things, all the while failing at the much greater
things. Just think how many people have gone to the grave with extravagant wealth and with all
kinds of possessions, but with a broken marriage or with children who barely even know them.
Just a little while ago, I stayed with a family down south, and their next-door neighbor had
built this huge, huge home. He and his wife had built it together and then they had doubled it
in size so they could host great parties, and then their marriage had fallen apart and she had
left and taken the children, and now he was living alone in this ten thousand square foot house. So,
by one measure, he had succeeded. He had a giant home and a beautiful car and the wealth
to support it all, but then by a more important measure he had failed. By those measures, he had
nothing at all. He was wealthy, but destitute. He was an object of envy and an object of pity.
Don't we all live with this fear that we'll succeed at the lesser things while failing
at the greater things? You know, it's not like those lesser things in life are bad things. Some
of those lesser things are actually very good things. It's just that they are lesser. They're
not those matters of first importance. There's an order to life, and we know that sometimes
those lesser things can look so attractive. They can be so distracting, and they can
keep us from giving attention to those few things that matter so, so much. See,
succeeding at the lesser things at the cost of the greater things is its own form of failure.
What does it matter if you become CEO but lose your family along the way? What does
it matter if you win the gold medal but you lose your spouse? Or like Jesus said,
"What does it matter if you gain the whole world but lose your soul?" And we are really,
really bad at making these assessments. We're so tempted at times to throw away
all those big things at the cost of the lesser things. Really, succeeding at lesser
things at the cost of the greater things is the worst form of failure of them all.
But there's a solution, there is an antidote. And the solution is productivity, productivity that's
rightly defined according to the Word of God, a kind of Bible-based productivity, a Bible-defined
productivity that helps us identify what are those things that matter most, then helps us
pursue them and succeed at them. That kind of productivity helps us identify and pursue those
few things that God means for us to succeed at and it helps us avoid the million and one lesser
things that really just matter so much less. I wonder if it would surprise you to know that the
Bible speaks about productivity, that the Bible tells us, it calls us to live productive lives?
It might not use the word "productivity," but it's full of these calls for us to understand it and
pursue it, full of calls for us to steer away from those lesser things so we can give our attention,
our focus to the greater things. The art of productivity is the art of succeeding at things
that matter. At its best, productivity is ensuring that you're succeeding at those things that matter
the most. It's meant to ensure that you don't have that moment where you look back on your life and
realize that you've succeeded just at the fleeting things, at the minor things, those things that
don't matter. Maybe you've got more followers on Facebook or Pinterest than anyone else you know,
but it's been years and years since you've shared the gospel with someone and encouraged them to
become a follower of Jesus. You got the raise and you got the company car and you got the
corner office. Well done! But your family can barely even remember what you look like. Shame!
See, productivity defined by the Word of God keeps you from focusing on those lesser
things and ensures that you are focusing on the things of the greatest value. So,
I believe if we read God's Word and we see what God has to say,
we would come up with a definition of productivity that goes something like this:
"Productivity is effectively stewarding your gifts, your talents, your time, your energy,
and your enthusiasm for the good of others and the glory of God." It's effectively stewarding
your gifts, talents, time, energy, and enthusiasm for the good of others and for the glory of God.
See, what matters most in life, what matters most in the universe, what matters most to
God is the glory of God, and God calls us to bring glory to Him in every way in every area
of life. This whole world exists from God and for God so it can display the glory of God. So,
in Psalm 19 we read, "The heavens declare the glory of God. The sky above proclaims
His handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge." This world
is constantly proclaiming the Word of God. Do you hear it? Do you see the glory of God? This
world exists for His glory. And if this world exists for the glory of God, then so do we. If
the stars and the planets and the animals and the trees, if all of them exist for the glory of God,
then how much do we who are made in the image of God? We are meant to join in this chorus. You
and I exist to display God, to deflect all glory and honor away from ourselves and onto Him. So,
Romans 11:36, "For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever."
We are meant to live lives that glorify God in every way and in every moment,
which raises the question, "How do we do this? How can we live in such a way that we're glorifying
God?" We bring glory to God when we do good to others. See, there's nothing more precious that
God has made than people, people He's made in His own image. So, no wonder then that
God tells us to do good to them. No wonder then that He tells us to serve them, to live for them,
to love them. And all through the Bible, we see this link: We do good for others;
that brings glory to God. So, Jesus says, "Let your light shine before others, so that they
may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." Peter says,
"Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers,
they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation."
Do you see that we do good to others and God gets the glory? God gets the glory through the good
things we do. Well, that means that the greater things in life are the things we do for others,
not the things we do for ourselves. The greater things in life are the things that we do for the
benefit of other people. The lesser things in life are the things we do for ourselves,
for our own good. And so, this is why the Bible then is full of these calls to good works,
good works meant to serve other people. Now hear me, these are not the kind of good works that
merit our salvation before God, not the kind of good works we do to draw the eye of God,
to draw us to God. No, these are good works that flow out of our salvation from God.
God has freely saved us through the gospel. He saved us by grace alone, through faith alone,
in Christ alone. He's given us these great gifts, the gift of peace with God, the gift
of justification, the gift of security forever. Best of all, He's given us the gift of Himself,
of this real and living relationship with the Creator of the universe. And so, of course,
then our hearts overflow with gratitude. They overflow with love for Him and this desire to
do what He calls us to do, to make sure that He gets every bit of the glory that is due His name.
So, when Paul writes to the church in Ephesus, he says, "We are His workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."
God saved us so we could do good works. God saved us so we could do good to others. This is God's
purpose in saving us. So, when Paul writes to Titus, he says, "I want you to insist on these
things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works."
He writes to the congregation in Galatia. He says, "So then, as we have opportunity,
let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith."
Do you want to succeed at the greater things in life? Then, you need to direct your life at
bringing God glory by loving other people, by doing good to other people. This is why I can
say productivity is effectively stewarding your gifts, talents, time, energy, and enthusiasm for
the good of others and then the glory of God. Productivity is taking everything you are,
everything you've got and consecrating it to God and to His service. It's using all of it,
everything you are, everything you have to do good to others. It is taking your spiritual gifts,
your natural talents, your time, your energy, even your enthusiasm and deliberately directing
it to doing good to others, trusting that as you do that, you're glorifying God.
Just pause for a moment. Isn't that the kind of life you want to live? Doesn't this sound like
the kind of life that really matters? Imagine that many years from now you're looking back on
your life. If you look back on a life that's full of doing good to others, there's no way
you would think, "I failed." But if you look back and you saw a life of living for yourself,
for your own good, for your own glory, well then, of course, you would look back and say,
"I succeeded at things that just don't matter. I failed at the things that matter the most."
I think we all long to be remembered something like this: "He gave his gifts,
his talents. He gave it all, all he had for the good of others and the glory of
God." Isn’t that why the church wept for Dorcas when she died? Isn't that why the
church was so glad to commend Barnabas to the service of others? Isn't that why we
honor our Christian heroes like William Carey and Eric Liddell and Amy Carmichael and Jim
Elliott and on and on? They gave all they had in service to others and they did it
out of this desire to glorify God, to see His name magnified. Their lives mattered.
Their lives were significant. No one accused them of failing at those greater things.
Is this your life? Are you stewarding all that God has given you for the good of others and
God's glory? Would your family be able to say, "He devotes himself to good works"? Would your
church be able to say, "She does good to everyone and especially to those who are
of the household of faith"? Because that's the life God calls us to. That's the productive life
according to God's definition of productivity. That's the life God created you to live,
but it's not an easy life. It's not easy because there are endless challenges to this kind of life,
endless challenges to this kind of productivity, a million ways that our productivity is hindered
and interrupted and destroyed. Some of them are just a natural consequence of living in a world
that's full of sin. Some are just our own sin rising up within us to interrupt and interfere.
Just briefly, let me highlight three challenges to productivity that I think are especially prominent
in a world like this one. So, just imagine that you spent time considering your life.
You've thought deeply about the ways God has gifted you and the talents He has given you,
the opportunities you got, all of that. You've planned how you can use all of those things to
do good to others and bring glory to God. Then you get busy with life. You begin to live your life,
where you'll encounter the problem of distraction. Distraction haunts us in
this always on digital world. Distraction haunts us because we're surrounded by
devices that are made equally for mindful productivity and mindless entertainment.
So distraction, it seeks us out and finds us. It's like every new generation of devices finds
new ways of being distracted, creative ways of barging into our lives to pull us away
from what we're doing and to push us toward something else. But distraction really just
masks laziness. We want to be distracted because it's hard to be productive. It's hard to live that
life of productivity, so we want to be pulled away from it. It's easier to be pulled away.
To be productive, we need to find ways of shutting out distractions. We need to find
ways of removing them so we can focus on the things that are truly significant. Now hear me,
entertainment is not wrong. Rest is not wrong. Netflix isn't intrinsically evil.
I don't want to go back to a world without YouTube, but they've got to take their proper
place. We can't allow them to distract us from those things that matter most.
And then, there's the problem of procrastination. Over the last few decades, we've seen this big
shift in the workplace where more and more of us have jobs that involve knowledge work. So,
we're not on factory floors generally or assembly lines with somebody hovering right
over us and telling us what to do. So many of us sit at desks and we stare at screens
and we can choose any moment whether we'll do our work or delay our work. Too many times,
we put off our responsibilities until tomorrow so instead we can feed on a
million little digital snacks, a little form of entertainment. How many times have we set
out to do good to others but then be distracted? And then procrastination
works hand-in-hand with distraction to become an even deeper form of laziness.
And then, there's a problem of busyness. We measure ourselves by our busyness. We
think that busier is better and really the only alternative is busyness or laziness,
and so we frantically pursue way too many tasks, way too many responsibilities,
and it all displaces the things that matter most. You know,
so much of busyness is simply not understanding our limitations, not understanding that God
doesn't call us to do everything, but to do a few things and to do them very, very well.
Distraction, procrastination, busyness, somehow they all collide in the world of laziness. We
get busy, so busy, and the busier we get the more we procrastinate and get distracted and
then deadlines creep up and suddenly we're crazy busy again. Perhaps, we need to recover
that middle ground of diligence. I'm not busy. I'm not lazy. I'm being diligent. I know the
few things that God has called me to, and I'm doing them to the best of my abilities. I am
not afraid of failing at the things that matter most because I'm not getting hung up on those
things that just don't matter. I'm being productive in the best sense of that term.
Friends, God calls us to live productive lives, not according to our definition of the term,
not according to anyone else's, but according to His. God calls us to live this kind of
productivity that involves glorifying Him by doing good to others. He calls us
to deal with whatever will keep us from that, distraction and procrastination and busyness,
every other hindrance so we can instead effectively steward all that He has given us,
our gifts, our talents, our time, our energy, our enthusiasm for the good of others and the glory of
God. That's the life He calls us to. Just like he says in 1 Corinthians 10:31, "Whether you eat or
drink or whatever you do," every bit of it, all that you are, "do it all to the glory of God."
Thank you.