God’s Start-ups

“Great are the works of the Lord,” says the writer of Psalm 111, “studied by all who delight in them” (v. 2).

Great are the works of Brownie Wise, Art Fry and Lonnie Johnson, studied by all who love stories of successful startups. These folks put energy and creativity into small projects that became really, really big.

Brownie Wise, for example, was a secretary at an aviation company in 1947. She began to sell brooms at parties in private homes to make a little extra cash. Soon she began to offer a product called Tupperware, and her “party plan” sales technique took off. Today, party businesses are thriving, offering everything from jewelry to candles to animated Bible stories.

In 1974, Art Fry was working as a project developer at 3M. He wanted a better bookmark for his church hymnal, so he and Spencer Silver, a colleague, invented Post-it Notes. The 3M Company now sells 50 billion of them annually.

Lonnie Johnson was working as a nuclear engineer in 1982, and he invented an environmentally friendly heat pump. But guess what? It was also a very cool water pistol. Known as the Super Soaker, his water pistol sold 200 million units in its first 10 years.

Great are the works of Brownie, Art and Lonnie. Without them, we wouldn’t have Tupperware, Post-it Notes or Super Soakers. Our leftovers would spoil, our bookmarks would fall out and our summer picnics would be much less fun. Drier, perhaps, but less fun.

These were all startups – small projects that quickly became very, very big.

Much the same process occurs in Scripture, as small innovations turn out to have huge implications. Psalm 111 is a song of praise for God’s wonderful works, a celebration of the spiritual projects that have touched and transformed our lives. Call them God’s startups.

The psalm begins by speaking of God’s “righteousness,” which endures forever (v. 3). Righteousness is one of God’s most innovative projects, beginning with the people of Israel and continuing with the Christian church. In the Old Testament, Job was one of the first examples of a righteous man, “blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil” (Job 1:1). In the New Testament, we encounter a righteous woman named Dorcas, who was “devoted to good works and acts of charity” (Acts 9:36).

These two were not self-righteous – holier-than-thou, self-satisfied, smug. No, they were truly righteous, which means being in right relationships. Self-righteous people are annoying, while truly righteous people are a joy to be around.

A life of righteousness includes treating your neighbor as you would like to be treated, neither oppressing them nor being oppressed. It means that you keep God’s will, and put energy into good works and acts of generosity. A righteous person follows the example of Jesus in stressing that the most significant matters of the law are “justice and mercy and faith” (Matthew 23:23).

Rule-following alone can make a person self-satisfied and smug, which is why God’s righteousness goes beyond a checklist of rules and regulations. You cannot be truly righteous without being in a right relationship with God and with the people around you.

Of course, none of us can achieve righteousness on our own. We need help, which is why God has sent Jesus, his start up, to assist us. “We know very well that we are not set right with God by rule-keeping but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ,” says Paul to the Galatians (2:16).

Psalm 111 also speaks of “covenant,” another of God’s significant startups (vv. 5, 9). After the great flood, God made a covenant with Noah, saying, “I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants.” God promised never again to destroy people with a flood (Genesis 9:9, 15). Then God made a covenant with Abram, saying, “I will make my covenant between me and you, and I will make you exceedingly numerous” (Genesis 17:2).

A covenant is a promise-based relationship, one in which God promises to be our God and we promise to be God’s people. The good news is that God is always faithful to the covenant, even though we people sometimes waver and fall away. You might think of the covenant as being God’s “Like” button, a divine version of the button that we push on Facebook when we like something.

Did you know that the “Like” button itself was a startup? In 2007, a team of Facebook developers and designers built a working prototype of what they called the “Awesome” button. A couple of years passed before CEO Mark Zuckerberg approved the “Like” button, and then it quickly took over.

The covenant is God’s eternal “Like” button. All through the Old Testament, God renews the covenant and calls people back to faithfulness. Then, in the New Testament, God makes a new covenant – a covenant through Jesus Christ. According to Hebrews, “Jesus has now obtained a more excellent ministry, and to that degree he is the mediator of a better covenant” (8:6).

From the beginning of salvation history to the end, God keeps pushing the “Like” button by repeatedly renewing the covenant. God’s faithfulness becomes a model for our faithfulness, especially as we try to honor our commitments in the covenant of marriage and other important promise-based relationships.

The next of God’s startups is redemption. Psalm 111 says that God “sent redemption to his people” (v. 9), from the earliest days of the biblical story. Redemption was needed in the ancient world when people had been confiscated to reconcile a debt. The redeemer was the one who paid the debt for the debtor, buying back what had been confiscated. In a similar manner, prisoners of war were redeemed through the payment of a ransom.

God fashioned this idea of redemption and made it big, extending it far beyond the paying of debts and the saving of prisoners. Over time, the word described any kind of rescue or deliverance, and God became known as the Ultimate Redeemer. God redeemed persons from death (Job 33:28), and God redeemed Israel from Egypt (Exodus 6:6).

In the New Testament, Jesus became our Redeemer. He redeems by his death, giving us the forgiveness that we cannot give ourselves. In Christ, God redeems us from slavery to sin, in order to adopt us as children (Romans 8:12-23).

On top of a mountain outside Rio de Janeiro is a statue that stands 98 feet tall, with outstretched arms that span 92 feet. Standing on a 26-foot pedestal, it dominates the skyline. From a distance, it appears to be either a cross or a person extending a welcoming embrace. The statue is called Cristo Redentor, which means “Christ the Redeemer.”

It is considered to be one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. But it pales in comparison to what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. Today, the redemption offered by Jesus is truly the greatest wonder of the world.

Righteousness. Covenant. Redemption. These divine startups have become very big, growing beyond the people and places in which they were first introduced. They have exploded like the tutoring provided by a hedge-fund analyst named Sal Khan, who started out by helping his cousin with math via Yahoo. Then he moved his instructional videos to YouTube. Now he runs an education nonprofit called Khan Academy, and his videos have been viewed 1.25 billion times.

Even bigger than Khan Academy are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them. When we study God’s startups, we discover that covenant-keeping is the foundation of solid marriages, family relationships, friendships and Christian commitments. When we marvel at God’s innovations, we realize that redemption is needed by all of us who require a forgiveness that we cannot give ourselves.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” says Psalm 111. “All those who practice it have a good understanding” (v. 10). By respecting God’s startup efforts, we gain wisdom and understanding about what is most important in life. And by accepting the gift of God’s righteousness, covenant and redemption, we gain a relationship with God that is greater than any human innovation.