Word.

I work in church operations, which means I spend an inordinate amount of time with young, single volunteers, many of whom are recent converts. When I first started, it quickly became clear that most young Christians have no idea what Christian dating looks like practically. Here are some insights to help Christian men date in a way that honors God.  

1. A DEFINITION OF INTENTIONAL

“Intentional” is one of those words that sounds right, but no one really knows what it means. So I would like to clear that up. Here is my working definition for intentional and how it relates to how a Christian man should pursue a woman. 

The intentional man repeatedly and constantly goes first and takes on all of the risk of rejection. He always lets the girl know where he stands so she feels secure and isn’t left guessing. (On the other hand, don’t weird her out by talking about marriage on the first date.) 

Approaching her initially:

Intentional: “I’d like to take you out on a date.”

Unintentional: “Wanna hang out sometime? My roommates are all gone this weekend.” 

Paying the bill:

Intentional: “I’ve got it.”

Unintentional: “Can you cover half the bill? I’m pretty broke right now.” (My wife believes this communicates, “You are worth about $20, but not quite $40.”)

Following up after a date:

Intentional: “I had a great time tonight, and would definitely want to do this again. I will give you a call this week.”

Unintentional: “I’ll call you sometime.”

Bringing other people in:

Intentional: “I’ve really enjoyed getting to know you. Would you like to have dinner with my Community Group leader and his wife?” (This is a way to honor her by pursuing outside accountability from a godly couple.)

Unintentional: “I don’t know if you really wanna meet my friends yet . . .” I.e. “I don’t really want you to meet my friends yet,” and as Chris Rock says, “If you have not met his friends, you are not his girlfriend.” (In this case, there’s a disingenuousness where he’s not being fully open with his whole life with the woman and is cordonning off the relationship from other areas of his life and people who know him. This is a guy who’s only selfishly protecting himself and shielding himself from any accountability and consequences, and he cannot be trusted as the protector of someone else.)

Things are going well:

Intentional: “I think you are a godly, beautiful woman, and I have great time with you. I would like to pursue a relationship with you.”

Unintentional: “Soooooo, what do you think about us?” Or, “I am not sure where I stand. What about you?”

Things look like they could go well for a long time:

Intentional: “I don’t date for the sake of dating, and marriage is a long ways away, but I couldn’t be happier with how things are going. I think you’re amazing.”

Unintentional: “Things are going OK I guess, we’ll see.”

Recognizing the end of the relationship:

Intentional: “I am sorry, I don’t see this progressing past friendship.”

Unintentional: (Time passing . . . cold shoulder . . . you stop calling . . .)

Ultimately, the unintentional guy’s responses are selfish because they put his interests before the woman’s, and they’re moreover cowardly because he avoids addressing where the relationship is, leaving the woman marooned in relationship limbo.

The man in the relationship should always have an answer for three questions: 

WHAT IS THIS RELATIONSHIP? 

WHAT ARE YOUR INTENTIONS? 

HOW ARE YOU DEMONSTRATING THOSE INTENTIONS RIGHT NOW?

The big idea is this, men: Don’t keep her guessing. Let her know exactly where you are at all of the time. It is a risk of course, but better on you than her. Own it. 

2. CLEAN YOUR ACT UP TODAY, NOT ‘WHEN’

You’ve probably heard some guy say this: “I will clean my act up when I find the right girl.” It’s not true. The lie is that once you find the right girl, all your problems will go away—you just need the right motivation, right? Wrong! If Jesus isn’t motivation enough to grow in maturity and pursue godliness, then you are not ready to pursue a woman. 

The truth is that when you’re in a relationship, you get their crap on top of your crap. That’s double crap. It is hard to start a healthy relationship with two immature people drowning in crap. Men, get your life together first, know where you are going, then invite a girl to come along (Prov. 16:1–9).

3. PLAN AHEAD

Don’t spend time with your girlfriend without a plan. Decide ahead of time the prudent time to say goodnight and where you should go. If a frat boy goes to a party with the attitude, “I’ll just see what happens” he will end up drunk and who knows what else. The same goes with dating: your judgment will be impaired when you are together (the opposite sex has that effect). Also, you are not fooling anyone. Every girl knows what “Do you want to go to my place and watch a movie?” means. The battle is won by not putting yourself in that position. And if you do find yourself in the bad position, flee. Literally, get out. Not joking. Make sure she can get home safe of course, but seriously, get out of there. (1 Cor. 6:18). 

Don’t be prideful. Spend time in prayer, think it through, soberly acknowledge your weak and sinful state, and don’t set yourself back (James 1:15).

4. GUARD HER HEART 

I went to a Christian college and I can’t tell you how many times these “good Christian guys” started dating by using the faith as a tool for manipulation. They would start a daily Bible study with a girl they just met, and position themselves as the ultimate confidant and authority in the girl’s life and leaving her heart completely exposed to a immature boy. A mature man knows that the person that can do the most damage to a woman’s heart is him, and he takes that very seriously. This is very difficult line to walk, and takes a lot of wisdom and discernment, but here are some indicators that you may be crossing the line:

You just started dating, and you are sharing “heart” things with each other that you haven’t shared with closest friends and/or mentors that you have known for years. 

You are isolating yourselves as a couple and not listening to people whose opinion you used to value (Prov. 15:22), saying things like, “They just don’t understand what we have.”

Your individual Christian walks become intertwined, and you end up pursuing and becoming closer with each other more than becoming closer with God. 

5. PHYSICAL TOUCH

The Bible only outlines two categories for Christian women in relation to Christian men: either she is a sister in Christ or she is your wife. There isn’t a middle ground. The lie is, “We’re halfway married, so we can do 50% of the married things.” That is not true at all. You need to put physical touch in two categories: acts of affection or acts of desire. 

Acts of affection are ways that you show that you like, appreciate, and cherish  the women that you are dating. Think of it as a affectionate father with his daughter. He hugs her, snuggles her, kisses her on the forehead, holds her hand, stopping at any type of sexual satisfaction whatsoever. He just wants to make sure his daughter knows that he loves her. 

Acts of desire are acts that are reserved for marriage. Foreplay is designed for one purpose: to build the desire to have sex, which it does well. Think of foreplay like and freeway on-ramp: it’s purpose is to transition you to full speed. You don’t see cars hanging out on on-ramps, never intending to get on the freeway. Physical touch is designed to progress, and it is naive to think you will always be able to keep your desires in check. Failure and sin is all but inevitable. 

In short, you know what you are doing. If you stop for a moment and think about it, you know which category the physical touch you are doing falls into. It is different for everyone. It is not helpful for me to tell you where the line is so that your conscience will allow to you run up to that line and hang out there for a while (Titus 2:6). If you are asking the question “How far can we go and still be in the clear?” your heart is in the wrong place to begin with. 

I would encourage any couple who is focused on the physical to change their focus to friendship (Song of Sol. 2:7). Building a friendship will set you up for a strong marriage far more than a physical connection. The physical connection will come later, you don’t have to worry about that. But you have freedom, in the midst of gospel community, to pursue friendship and have fun.

HE’S CALLED US TO HOLINESS

There is a right way, there is a best way, and it is the same way: God’s way (1 Thess. 4:3–8). God did not give us rules just to steal all of our fun; he’s called us to holiness, and the rules are for our joy and protection. The process of dating is an exercise in putting Christ on the throne in all things. So embrace it, and don’t just endure it. 

By Artist Lecrae

The truth is: God is still at work! 

Thanks to everyone who is downloading and spreading the "Church Clothes" mixtape. 

I'm blown away at the response. It’s humbling and pushes me to keep going. 

 At the beginning of my musical career, my intention was to enrich and give hope to the listener (it still is). I was volunteering at a halfway house, and the young men there embraced Hip Hop music that encouraged their low ideals and detrimental perspectives. Over the years, some, due to their new found faith in God, had their ideals changed but now had few musical offerings. There were always Christians doing Hip Hop, but the music was usually inaccessible or unpopular.  I would listen to the radio and wonder where was the Christian's perspective being heard in Hip Hop culture? "Contemporary Christian Music" had developed, "Gospel" had its lane, but where was Hip-Hop that articulated faith in Jesus? Hard to find.

 Interestingly enough, those genres are the only ones categorized based off the content and not the style of music. Though it gives people identifying marks for their music, it can also (in many ways) limit their reach. Many people take these titles to mean the music is for an exclusively Christian audience. If indeed the true Gospel is what transforms people outside the faith, then why should the term Gospel seem exclusive to those in the faith? Of course that's not the intention, it's just a reality that any missionary should consider. 

 As far as Hip Hop music done well by Christians, there were always a few groups and artists over the years that helped ease my woes; but I was not at all content. The general market was flooded with Hip Hop artists, but I rarely heard anything that embodied a worldview that God would endorse. Trying to be a part of the solution, I took to the studio and recorded an album. It captured my southern roots, love for lyricism, and I tried to make it as current in production as I could. (I produced most of it.) The result was a tool for my fellas at the halfway house and other areas with similar struggles.  That project opened doors for me to travel a bit—mostly prisons, churches and inner city outreaches—and perform my songs. I found that I had a gift for catalyzing people toward truth and creating anthems for Christians to live sacrificially and unashamedly for their faith. 

Personally, I couldn’t simply talk about change. I had to be apart of it, so I spent my life living in the inner city, doing foreign missions and serving in the local church. All of that was ammunition for my Rebel album. My life bled out in that project, and the result was God showing tremendous fruit and people's lives being transformed by His power.

But one problem I faced was that, in my hood, only the kids in after school programs and the Christians were feeling it. Sure, some were rejecting the Gospel but others didn't give it a spin at all due to the labels placed on it.  I was respected by my non-religious friends, but my music to them was very limited and didn't speak to any areas of life other than salvation and living right.  I sought advice and was led to books by people like Francis Shaffer, CS Lewis and others. (There are links below.)

I was challenged in more ways than you can imagine. 

Desperate to help the lost, broken and hurting, I tried building relationships with my newfound understanding. It was difficult and awkward, but God showed me plenty of grace.  People came to Jesus and grew deeply, and I found I was liberated and matured in ways I could not articulate. 

I'm starting to get it. God hasn't changed my vision, He's expanded it. 

 Only 4% of all Americans have a biblical worldview and only 10% of Christians see the world with a biblical lens. (There's a test link below to check ya self!)  

 We tend to wear bifocals—partially seeing things as spiritual and seeing other things as secular or non-spiritual.

 We limit spirituality to salvation and sanctification. As long as we are well versed in personal piety and individual salvation, we think we're good. But most Christians have no clue how to engage culture in politics, science, economics, TV, music or art. We tend to leave people to their own devices there.

We subscribe to views like, "Politics and movies are evil or of the devil," and we don’t touch them. Leaving them to be dominated by non-biblical worldviews. Or, since we don’t have a philosophy or filter, we do it the way culture says to...chasing vain ambition. 

Most professing Christians have no idea how to direct their careers with biblical lenses, but instead of praying for and offering solutions we usually just shake our heads and dismiss these “sellouts & compromisers.”

 We are missing out on the gospel's power of redemption and glorification in all things. 

 The whole idea of a secular/sacred divide was born because ancient Greeks (specifically Plato) thought matter (or things) was preexisting and eternal. They thought matter contained the ability to resist the gods or just God--making it evil. But as Christians, we defeat that claim with the doctrine that only God is preexisting and eternal. He is the source of ALL creation.

 PSALM 24:1 “The Earth is the Lord's and all it contains.”

 In Genesis 1, God repeatedly identifies His creation as good, meaning no part of creation is inherently bad or evil.

 Paul in 1 Tim 4:4 says, “Everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving."

 I can already hear people saying, "So pornography and crack is good if embraced with thanksgiving!?" Obviously not. The origin of objects and God's intended function are what's good; it's man's direction that distorts them. So the origin and function of sex is good, but the depravity of man to direct and distort it into pornography is a manifestation of man's darkened heart. 

 Is there such a thing as evil music?  Well, the artist’s heart may be evil and because of that you are hearing their heart. Matt 12:34 says that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The heart is therefore the problem, not the music. Changed hearts produce changed music. 

 When Adam and Eve rebelled, they sinned. The trees didn’t sin, the ground didn’t sin, humanity sinned. The natural world was, however, affected by human sin. Humans were the housekeepers of God's creation, so their sin had a ripple affect into the natural world.

 Humanity had authority and there is a consequence for authority. If the owner of a house is lazy, the house is going to catch the effect of his laziness. It’s going to look ragged and filthy. It’s not that the house wants to look ugly or creepy, but the people’s sin has affected it. Even good things fall to the depravity of people.

 Evil and disorder are not intrinsic, built-in or inherent in material things like art, dance, or alcohol. "The heart is wicked," the Bible says in Jeremiah 17:9. We take those things and distort them, because the human will and volition are rebellious and wrong. 

 Paul writes in Romans 14:14 nothing is unclean itself. It becomes unclean when sinners use it to express their rebellion towards God. The line between good and bad is therefore not in the thing, the music, the movie, the politics, but in the heart.

 A butcher knife is usually depicted as an evil murderous tool. But God made the ore and wood and man can use it to make a knife that cuts food and feeds people.

 A skull is typically viewed as evil and demonic, but God made skulls. We all have them and they are VERY good. They protect our brains! So wearing a skull on your shirt doesn’t make you less of a Christian, even though society has given it negative associations.

 All this to say that the "secularizing" of things or music speaks more to the heart's intention on not painting a picture that God would endorse. After all, food, music and school buildings are just things. They don’t have a soul or mind and can’t have intentions. The people who are involved in them do.

 Worldliness does not mean engaging culture, it's when the culture shapes your thoughts over God. Jesus prayed we would remain in the world but protected. He also tells us the gates of Hell will not prevail against us. Gates were established to protect cities, so for the gates not to prevail would mean we are trying to storm them. We are here to engage culture not run from it.

 Wrestling with worldly ideas challenges us and gives us new ways to depend on God. Is this my new direction? No, it’s just an expansion on what I’ve already been doing.

 Will I continue to write songs like "Don't Waste Your Life" and "Go Hard"? ABSOLUTELY!  But after seeing how powerfully God is using my latest efforts, I will also write songs to engage culture and speak to things that humanity in general will wrestle with and think on.

 So, thank you for supporting me and helping the success of the mission and vision.  I’m not concerned at all with being a "star". I got in this to bring hope and that's how I'm going out. 

Love y'all 

Lecrae 

Links:

Biblical Worldview Testing - http://www.nehemiahinstitute.com/peers_test.htm

Francis Shaffer - http://amzn.to/KnKnab

Chuck Coloson - http://amzn.to/JWeM1Y

Nancy Pearcy - http://amzn.to/Lng2Q7

CS Lewis - http://amzn.to/J9A4bs

Does becoming a Christian mean the end of my fun? That’s an interesting question and I think a fair one to ask. There’s a certain picture of Christianity that’s often painted. When people think of Christianity they think of different things. Some think screaming TV preacher, others think white guy in a suit or old black grandmother in a big church hat. Some think political conservatives or those people who don’t like science. But very few people think Christianity and think: hey, that would be a fun thing to do! Becoming a Christian doesn’t seem fun to people.

Christianity has gotten a reputation as a killjoy. It’s something for boring people and old people. One rapper in a song says, “If you scared, then go to church.” Apparently Christian churches are for timid, scared punks. People think becoming a Christian means you have to wear suits and long dresses, and listen to bad Christian music, and stop being cool. First of all, some of y’all aren’t cool in the first place, but that’s another story.

I just watched this Ja Rule interview yesterday. He was talking about his experiences with churches. In his experience churches always said come as you are, but never really meant it. He never felt welcome. And when people asked if he accepted Christ into his life, he said he wasn’t ready. He thought that meant he had to make gospel records now. The picture that he had been given of Christianity was one where you had to change everything about yourself; you had to stop enjoying everything you’ve been enjoying. As if becoming a Christian is the last thing you’d do if you wanted to enjoy yourself!

What is Fun?

Here’s how fun is defined in the dictionary. Fun is: A source of enjoyment, amusement, or pleasure. There’s no question that becoming a Christian means your understanding and experience of enjoyment, amusement, and pleasure will change. If you’re wondering if it can stay the same, it can’t. There’s no doubt that becoming a Christian changes the way you see life.

The question is: does it help or hurt your fun? Is Christianity the enemy of your enjoyment, amusement, and pleasure? Or does it help you experience enjoyment, amusement, and pleasure in their true sense? Has everyone in our culture gotten it right? Are Christianity and fun on opposite ends of the spectrum?

I think one of the reasons people talk about Christianity this way is because of the way Christians are portrayed in the media. Any Christian guy in a movie or TV show is the worst. They’re usually judgmental and corny. People unfairly caricature many Christians and give attention to the most ridiculous stuff.

The second reason is because some Christians and those who call themselves Christians give off that vibe. They contribute to the stereotype. Some Christians really don’t enjoy anything and they blame it on God, as if it’s HIs fault.

So what do I think? I have two answers to the question for tonight. Does becoming a Christian mean the end of my fun? My first answer is: No

I. No – Becoming a Christian Does Not Mean the End of Your Fun

If you really think about it, it’s an odd question to ask. “Does becoming a Christian mean the end of enjoyment, amusement, and pleasure in my life?” It says something about God to ask that question. If being a Christian means following God through faith in Christ, then to rephrase the question it’s asking: Does God want you to have an un-enjoyable life? To answer yes says something untrue about Him. He’s the Creator of all life. Of course he wants you to enjoy the life that He created.

It’s like asking if Jay-Z or Kendrick Lamar wants you to hate his newest album. Did he want you to just suffer through it and hate it? Or like Steven Spielberg wanted you to hate his movie, or he wanted you to doze off because you hated Lincoln so much. Well of course not! They made it, in part, so that others would enjoy it.

Life is different, because it’s not just some form of entertainment, but there are similarities. What we know from Scripture is that God is a good God. He created life. He made us in His image and He wants us to live that life to the full. He wants us to enjoy life and praise Him for it.

Proof

There is nothing in the Bible that suggests that God does not want us to enjoy our lives. When you read the Bible that’s just not the picture you’re going to get. The way people talk about Christianity you’d think there was a verse where Jesus says, “If you follow me, you must be miserable, hate everything, and drag others down with you.” But you’re not going to find any verses like that.

Instead you’ll find God wanting us to enjoy our lives. I’m going to read a couple of passages that I think point this out.

People think God wants to keep us from good things, but that’s a lie. Listen to James 1:16-17.

Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (James 1:16-17)

God doesn’t try to keep us from good things; God is the Giver of all good things. He’s the source. That’s like the kids at an orphanage asking if the people who pay for their shelter and clothes want good things for them. They paid for everything so what do you mean? It’s an illogical question.

God created friendship and marriage. God created smiling and laughter. These are all gifts from God. So to act like he doesn’t want us to enjoy them is ridiculous.

What about Jesus? Does he have anything to say about this? In John 10, Jesus contrasts Himself with false teachers. These false teachers lead people astray; they were bad shepherds. Jesus calls them thieves.

“The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)

This goes directly against what people often say in our culture. They think God wants to steal. Steal our joy, happiness, and free will. That God wants to kill us and drag us down. But Jesus says, He came to give is abundant life or a full life. He wants us to live our lives to the full.  We’ll talk more about that later.

In Psalm 16, David is talking to God and here’s what he says.

“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forever more.” (Psalm 16:11)

So coming closer to God doesn’t lead to boring sadness, it leads to joy. Not just any joy but fullness of joy. And there are pleasures. Not five minutes or five years of pleasure, but pleasures forevermore.

I could go on for days with passages like this. Christianity is not the enemy of enjoyment, amusement, and pleasure. It’s actually the road to true enjoyment, amusement, and pleasure.

True Joy

Last week, my wife and I went to see Gravity in IMAX 3D. You know they give you these big clunky glasses to put on. But what if instead of those glasses we brought our sleep masks from home? You know those things you put on like glasses that block out all the light? You don’t see anything but darkness.

Now what would have happened if instead of 3D glasses we put on the sleep masks? We’d miss the whole movie. But since we put on those 3D glasses it was amazing. It was like we were in the movie. I was holding down my drink so it didn’t float up in the air. Stuff was around us. Stuff was coming at us. The glasses brought that experience to life.

We treat God like he’s trying to hand us that sleep mask in the movies, when really he’s trying to hand us the 3D goggles. He’s not trying to block our joy, and leave us in the dark. He wants our joy to be enhanced and to the full. He wants us to enjoy life as it was meant to be enjoyed. Sadly we don’t always know what that looks like.

Our problem is we’re under the impression that fun means doing whatever we feel like in any given moment. But if we really think about it, all of us know that’s a bad idea. Who wants to be a slave to everything they feel like doing? We’re fickle.

My son wants to have fun and he thinks sticking his finger in the outlet is the best way to do that. He needs guidance from me. And if my son is going to have fun instead of dying he has to trust me. He thinks walking down the stairs looks fun. But as an adult, I know that he doesn’t walk well and he’ll tumble down.

God is the Creator of life and He knows. We would all acknowledge that we’re not all-knowing. There are things we don’t understand. And because we’re sinners, we value the wrong things. We have to trust God and His character.

Some people think, “that sounds nice but God has all those commands that tell us not to do fun things.” And you’re right; there are commands that forbid us from certain things. But is it so that our fun will be ruined?

That brings me to my second answer to this question. Does becoming a Christian mean the end of my fun? My second answer is: Sometimes.

II. Sometimes – Following Jesus Will Mean the End of Some of Our Fun

I don’t want to deceive you. Becoming a Christian does mean you will have to deny yourself. There are things that you enjoy that are bad for you, things that in the long run steal joy instead of giving it.

Drunkenness seems fun but leads to stupid decisions. Sex before marriage seems fun, but that deep level of intimacy was never meant to be enjoyed apart from that lifelong commitment under God. It’s the deepest way you can give yourself away to someone else. Sometimes lying seems like it leads to fun but it harms us and others.

As we’ve already acknowledged, God created all of life and He knows how it’s supposed to be enjoyed. His commands are for our good. At His right hand are pleasures forevermore. And when we disobey Him, we are moving away from true joy. God doesn’t keep us from the good life; we keep ourselves from the good life when we disobey Him.

And as a loving act Jesus calls us to deny ourselves.

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” (Luke 9:23)

What does it mean to deny yourself? Denying yourself means saying no to yourself. Refusing yourself. Rejecting what you naturally want to do.

This doesn’t sound nice and fluffy. You probably wouldn’t put that on a hallmark card. This isn’t very encouraging to the disciples. Is Jesus just being controlling and mean and insulting?

If we were perfect, asking us to deny ourselves would be ridiculous. If we were always good and wise asking us to deny ourselves would be strange. But if we’re flawed asking us to deny ourselves is loving. If we’re misled and messed up, asking us to deny ourselves is helpful.

You can’t always trust yourself. There are things that you enjoy that are bad for you. How many times have you made decisions that seemed fun, but you had to deal with the consequences later?

Jesus is saying if you want to follow me, you have to stop following yourself. It’s like asking someone for directions. If you realize you’ve been going the wrong way, and you ask someone to help you, you can’t keep going your way. Following Jesus is in one sense admitting that you’re lost and in need of someone to direct you. So Jesus is saying, let go. Give me the steering wheel. You’ve given yourself to me. I’m the Master. I’m the Leader. This is what it means to come after me.

If my wife said, if you want to be my husband you have to deny yourself and follow me. I’d be like huh? If my son said that… I’d really be surprised since he can’t talk. If the president of the United States said that, I would reject it. Even if my pastor said, deny yourself and do whatever I say no matter what it is, I’d go to another church. Why? Because I don’t want to give the reins of my life completely over to another sinful person. That’s ridiculous. It doesn’t help me. They can’t lead my life perfectly either. They have their own issues.

But Jesus Christ is not another sinful person. He’s holy, He’s my Creator, and He died so sinners could be reconciled to God. He’s trustworthy. He knows what my life should look like. He’s not being mean, He’s loving me. Being a Christian means that you sign up to say no to yourself sometimes.

If you’re not saying no to yourself regularly, you should ask yourself whether you’re really following Jesus. Because we’re wrong regularly and we need His help.

Solomon’s Example

One of the realest books in the Scriptures is the book of Ecclesiastes. It’s probably written by Solomon. In it, he talks about how everything is meaningless. Since he had had a lot of everything, he speaks from experience. Here’s what he said.

“He who loves money will not be satisfied with money.” (Ecclesiastes 5:10)

So you could take this, as here we go. They hate everything, including money. God doesn’t want me to enjoy it. Or you could see it as God protecting you from chasing after something that will never satisfy you

Listen to what he says later:

Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God. For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart. (Ecclesiastes 5:19-20)

Is that a contradiction? Enjoy money? I thought he said it won’t satisfy you. God gives joy, not money. Money doesn’t satisfy you, it just makes you want more money. It’s dumb to live for it. You can enjoy something, without living under the false assumption that it will satisfy your soul. God is trying to protect us.

Our problem is that we want to worship the gift instead of the Giver, Creation instead of Creator. We want to worship the canvas instead of the painter, the pages instead of the author. We want to pursue money instead of the One who provides all things. And Jesus calls us to deny that and follow Him.

Christians are not trading fun for boredom, or joy for sorrow. They’re trading temporary joys, for everlasting joys. They’re trading deadly joys, for life giving joys. They’re trading fleeting, fickle joys, for stable, rock solid joys.

III. How Do We Enjoy Things Rightly?

We live by faith in our Creator.

We All Live By Faith

Whether we realize it or not, all of us are people of faith. Every human being. Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Agnostics, Atheists—all of us live by faith, we live in light of what we believe in any given moment. Those of you who are athletes practice really hard. Why? Because you believe it will make you better at your sport. Or how about this? Some of you put the address in Google Maps to get places. Why? Because you believed that your phone would give you the right directions. If you believed your phone would trick you, which I think mine does sometimes, you wouldn’t have used it. I could go on and on. But we all live by faith.

I think the good life is living by faith in a good God. He tells us how to enjoy His creation rightly. He leads us to joy.

Any time we treat anything other than God as an end in itself we’re not enjoying it correctly.

Fun’s Not Enough

But maybe you think, I don’t want that. I want to have fun. Being amused, enjoying yourself is not all life is about. If you think it is, you’re in for something scary. If you build your life on the foundation of fun, it’ll come tumbling down when life is hard. Fun, being amused, enjoying yourself right now is not enough. Why not go after eternal joy?

And it’s not enough to wait till later. Why wait to start living? Stop chasing the fake thing and start chasing the real thing.

It’s like ignoring the NBA, because you would rather play NBA 2K on PlayStation. Stop chasing the fake thing, and embrace the real thing that’s available. C.S. Lewis expressed a similar sentiment when he said this:

“We are half hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.  We are far too easily pleased” – C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

I used to think life was all these fleeting pleasures. Then I became a Christian. There were things I read early on as a Christian that demolished my old picture of the good life. Here’s an example.

To Die Is Gain

All of us have heard people talk about death from time to time. We’ve heard people say,“Nothing in life is sure but death and taxes.” One popular rapper said, “I’m trying to beat life cause I can’t cheat death.” People understand that death cannot be avoided. But as a young Christian, I read a verse about death in the Bible that was like nothing I had ever heard before. The Apostle Paul spoke about death in a strange way. Paul didn’t just say death was certain, he took it a step further. He said, “to die is gain.” What!?

Death is when your brain, your heart, and your lungs stop doing their job. Death means the conclusion of life and separation from family members. Death means your life’s work is over. Unlike our other trials, death is, for the person who dies, literally “the end of the world”– the end of this one anyway. So how could death possibly be gain? I can’t make money when I die? I can’t increase my status when I die. It just didn’t fit with my old views of the good life.

Well in order for me to understand what Paul meant by these four words—to die is gain—I had to understand the four that came right before them. In Philippians 1 Paul explains why he seems to be ok with either staying alive or dying at the hands of his persecutors. He writes in verse 21, “To live IS Christ.” With those words, the apostle told me what life is really all about- not money, not my job, not even family- but Jesus. How could my self-centered, status-obsessed worldview survive next to that truth?

Life has no meaning apart from Christ, because Christ is what it’s all about. Therefore to enjoy things rightly, we have to enjoy them in a way that testifies to that truth.

Everything is better when enjoyed in the context it was meant to be. When we treat anything like an end itself it’s wrong. We should them as a means to the end of God’s glory.

Should we just have sex with as many women as possible? Or even just whoever you’re in a close relationship with? Sex Is best enjoyed in a marriage covenant. Two people committed to one another for the rest of their lives, not going anywhere. There’s no need for insecurity, no shame. Friendship is best enjoyed in this context. There’s humility, forgiveness, grace, love.

Money is best enjoyed when it’s not worshipped. Power is best enjoyed when it’s not worshipped. What happens when it goes away? Wine in moderation is better than drunkenness. And f course you can enjoy music and movies. But think about how they relate to the meaning of all life: Christ. Everything is best enjoyed when it’s submitted to Christ.

We are broken, and Christ came to put us back together. When we worship money, or friendship, or sex, it’s an offense to God. And we deserve to be judged for those offenses. But God sent Christ. Jesus didn’t have a problem with enjoying the wrong things, or enjoying good things in a sinful way. Yet Jesus took the punishment for our offenses on the cross. He rose from the grave and offers us eternal life.

If we’ll leave our old ways behind and cling to Christ we can be forgiven, and we can enter in to the joy of our Master. We will not live our best life now. But He’ll give us joy and pleasure forevermore.

The Sabbath is not a mandate for Christians, but it’s still a good idea, a gift from God to enjoy. Yet there are plenty of ways we sabotage the Sabbath rest God intends for us.

The Sabbath is a gift from God, which means Satan and our own sin will stand in the way of our enjoyment. No matter what the Sabbath looks like for you, you’re likely to experience a few of these obstacles along the way:

1. A POOR WORK ETHIC

If you don’t do your work during the week, you will end up doing your work on your day off. If you are disorganized, lazy, late, or prone to procrastinate, your day off will get devoured by a bunch of tasks that should be done already.

2. RELIGIOUS RULES

Let the Holy Spirit guide and direct your Sabbath. Religious people want to remove the Holy Spirit and replace him with their rules, but their rules never work. We are not to be filled with rules; we’re to be filled with the Spirit who helps us to obey the word of God. Everyone’s day off is going to look a little different. If you find something that works for you, you can make rules for yourself, but you can’t impose your rules on anybody else—because you didn’t write the Bible.

3. OBSERVING A SABBATH DAY WITHOUT A SABBATH HEART

Sometimes you get to your day off, but you’re still anxious, stressed, sleepless, and unable to sit down and enjoy it. Your heart isn’t able to Sabbath. Perhaps your identity is in your work, so when you’re not working you lose all sense of value. Or perhaps you need to find away to take your thoughts captive. I always carry a notebook, and if something comes to mind on my Sabbath day, I write it down so that it’s out of my head and I can get to it later.

We are not to be filled with rules; we’re to be filled with the Spirit who helps us to obey the word of God.

4. A PHARAOH

Our pharaoh today tends to fit in our pocket. One of the great Sabbath-killers is the smartphone: ever-present, dominating our whole life, interrupting at all hours, and demanding our constant attention with e-mails, social media, articles, calls, texts, and more. Technology will kill your Sabbath if you don’t establish some boundaries. If your phone does not Sabbath, your soul cannot Sabbath.

5. NOT PLANNING YOUR SABBATH—IN PENCIL

Have you ever made it to your day off only to find you have no plan and no idea how you want to use it? The day disappears before you even begin to enjoy it. Or maybe you’re more likely to over-plan and turn your Sabbath into another day filled with tasks. Plan your Sabbath, but plan it in pencil. Allow a little flexibility and spontaneity, and make adjustments as you go.

If your phone does not Sabbath, your soul cannot Sabbath.

6. RESTING FROM YOUR WORK INSTEAD OF RESTING FOR YOUR WORK

Work is not sinful. Before sin ever entered the world, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it” (Gen. 1:15). It wasn’t until after the Fall that work became toilsome. In some way, a fruitful Sabbath must prepare you and energize you for the work God has called you to do during the other six days of the week.

7. STIMULANTS INSTEAD OF SABBATH

We sabotage our rest when we use stimulants instead of Sabbath. Rather than taking a break, we consume coffee, carbs, candy, energy drinks, and soft drinks all day. Then we go home stressed, we watch TV, we surf the Internet, and some will drink into the evening. The result is a population full of caffeinated, drunk, grumpy, phone-answering, Sabbath-violating wrecks. We call it “America.”

Plan your Sabbath, but plan it in pencil.

On this point, it’s worthwhile to consider God’s pattern at creation, which includes the refrain, “And there was evening and there was morning” to mark each day (Gen. 1). According to the Bible, a new day starts a sundown. Your day doesn’t begin when the alarm goes off; it starts with a healthy dinner and a good night’s sleep to replenish you for the daytime ahead.

The average person needs 8–9 hours of sleep and gets much less than that. Those who cannot get time to sleep because they have too much work are forgetting that part of the work God has assigned to them is sleep.

REMEMBER THE SABBATH

Look at your whole life. Seek to arrange your days in such a way that allows you to get things done, and make sure that one of those things is resting in God, enjoying time with him, using the life he has given you, and being with the people he has surrounded you with. That is the heart of the Sabbath.

Are you prone to kill yourself by working too hard? Or do you avoid work as much as possible? In which direction is the Holy Spirit calling you to repent? A Sabbath cannot save you—only Jesus can do that—but there is great wisdom in working hard for six days and then enjoying a true day off as he did while on the earth. 

Tolerance. The modern, cultural elite praise this virtue in every school setting, media outlet, and job training workshop. There seems to be no truer way to love another person than to fully accept everything about them. Christians have often joined the tidal wave of this mainstream value and often long to be known for their acceptance of others' opinions and lifestyles. On the surface it seems to be a positive virtue, one that exemplifies the life of the Christian.

But have you ever considered that tolerance is never encouraged in the Bible? The fruit of the Spirit includes love and kindness, but missing from the list is tolerance. In fact, Christians aren't called to tolerance, because we serve an intolerant God.

Just consider a few stories from the Old Testament:

The Garden: God didn't tolerate Adam and Eve's sin. He didn't accept their lifestyle choice to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He banished them from Eden and left an angel with flaming swords to guard the entrance so they couldn't return.

Noah and the Flood: While the sanitized version of this story is pleasantly detailed in children's storybooks, we cannot forget this story is about immense judgment. Picture a tsunami of destruction instead of a nursery filled with smiling stuffed animals. The flood involved terror, suffering, and death. It was a catastrophic event that only one family survived.

Uzzah: One of the most uncomfortable accounts of divine intolerance is found in 2 Samuel 6. This story recounts Uzzah's attempt to steady the ark of the LORD after an oxen stumbled on the journey back to Israel. When he reached out and touched the ark (an expressly forbidden action), God didn't say, "Well, his heart was in the right place. I know he was just trying to help." Uzzah's instinctive response was met with God's intense anger, and Uzzah was immediately struck down.

We could go on and on throughout the Old Testament, considering Achan, Korah, Aaron's sons, the Canaanites, and the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, just to name a few. All perished by the very hand of God. He did not tolerate their sin; he punished it.

Greater Judgment

Lest we somehow think Jesus represents a different God than the one of the Old Testament, though, consider his teaching to the disciples in Matthew 10:14-15:

And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the Day of Judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.

Jesus claims a greater judgment than Sodom and Gomorrah for those who reject the message of the gospel. He warned many would believe they knew him, only to learn they have been rejected with these words: "Depart from me, all you workers of evil!" (Matt. 7:21-23; Luke 13:22-27) Rather than find welcome into God's kingdom, they would find themselves in a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Both the Old and New Testaments display a God who doesn't tolerate sin. Yet there is one story in Scripture that demonstrates most clearly the intolerance of God.

It is the story of the cross.

Take a fresh look at the terrifying and uncomfortable reality of the cross. Here is an innocent man—whipped, beaten, nailed to a tree, bearing the sins of the world. For you. For me. Is this the picture of a tolerant God who ignores evil? No, this is a gruesome picture of divine wrath and judgment. The story makes no sense if God is a tolerant God.

The cross demonstrates God's character in all its complexity. It shows his love, kindness, and mercy united with his justice, holiness, and wrath. It perfectly demonstrates a God who surpasses understanding. The Lord is giving us a glimpse into the immensity of his love for us. The love of God is not a tolerant love. It is much better. It is a redemptive love.

Tolerance Is Unloving

Sin must be paid for. To tolerate evil is to deny justice. God unleashes his full wrath on evil because he's good. If good tolerated evil, it would cease to be good. Refusal to tolerate sin, then, is an essential part of loving others well. It might be tolerant for a mother to let her children play in a busy street or run with scissors, but it's not loving in the least.

We also should hate sin because it's harmful, even if we don't always understand the harm that may be caused. As a child is unaware that a car may quickly appear, we must understand that we're unaware of all the dangers of sin. God, our loving Creator who understands our frame more fully than we do, bids us to flee from evil and find abundant life in him alone. Life outside the revealed will of God doesn't ultimately fulfill; it leads to misery and emptiness.

As his people, then, how should we live? Romans 12 provides helpful insight:

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. . . . Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." To the contrary, "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

God calls us to abhor evil, while at the same time warning us against being agents of his wrath. We should hate the act of stealing while showing mercy and compassion to one who steals. Loving people well doesn't mean we must embrace the choices they make. It means we openly welcome and embrace all who come into our lives with a heart of understanding and the message and hope of the gospel. We love people well when we call them out of sin into relationship with King Jesus. It may not be the world's definition of tolerance, but it's the truest way to love.

Boys!!!

Spoken Word by Propaganda