Perks or Purpose?

When stuck in traffic, my eyes gravitate to bumper stickers.  Here are some interesting ones:

“If you lived in your car, you’d be home by now.”  True.

“Want a taste of religion? Bite a minister.”  I don’t recommend that one.

“What If the Hokey Pokey IS Really What It’s All About?”  Now that’s deep.

“I don’t care what you love, what your other car is, who you brake for or what you’d rather be doing.”  A bumper sticker decrying all other bumper stickers.

And one more: “Boldly going . . . nowhere.”

Hey, that’s how we feel sometimes – boldly going . . . nowhere. As someone once said, “It’s important to learn the difference between motion and direction.” Just because we’re on the go doesn’t mean we’re going anywhere worthwhile. What’s the difference between motion and direction? In a word, purpose. Motion is simply movement. Direction is motion harnessed to a purpose.

It’s like one of those cartoons which appeared in The New Yorker magazine a few years back. It showed a man running toward the end of a rainbow only to discover that at the end of the rainbow was a pot of baked beans. And that’s how it is for many people – they spend their lives chasing that elusive pot of gold, only to discover that it’s a pot of beans. In other words, many of us pursue the perks of life instead of the purpose of life. We boldly go somewhere – only to discover it wasn’t worth the trip.

We all reach a point in life when we must evaluate what it is we’re living for. Most of us reach that place gradually. Some of us, on the other hand, reach that point of evaluating our life quite suddenly – due to a sudden crisis. Rather than a slow evolution – we find ourselves rudely awakened.

The apostle Paul understood that. His life evaluation moment was so sudden and significant that he found it necessary to change his name just to express the difference in his life.

Paul, whose given name was Saul, had a very comfortable position in life, until he met Jesus. Saul was from a prominent Jewish family. He was a member of the Pharisees, the Jewish ruling council. We can assume that Saul was well respected among the other Jews. He was sincere in his observance of Jewish laws and customs, keeping himself far from any impurity. And he was zealous in his persecution of this new sect called Christians. No doubts kept him up at night. He knew who he was, where he was going, and what he was all about. Until . . . he had an encounter with Jesus.

We read in Acts 9 that Saul was on the road to Damascus, on his way to persecute even more Christians, when he was blinded by a bright light, and he heard the voice of Jesus calling to him. A few days later, healed of his blindness, he was brought to the home of a Christian man. As soon as Saul, now known as Paul, regained his sight, he was a changed man. He began telling everyone that Jesus is the Son of God. And this was the end of Paul’s comfy life.

The Jewish leaders – Paul’s old friends and colleagues, his brothers in the faith – turned against him. And because of his new found faith in Jesus, they were determined to kill him. If Paul’s experience was anything like the experience of persecuted Christians around the world, he lost more than just his friends. He probably also lost his family, his job, his home, his reputation. And that was just the beginning.

As a Christian preacher, Paul was continually harassed and threatened, beaten and thrown in jail. Read through the book of Philippians sometime and note its joyful tone. Then, remember that Paul wrote this letter from a musty prison cell. This was a man who had lost everything – but don’t start feeling sorry for him yet. In Philippians 3, Paul writes, “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ . . .”

What about you? Are you still chasing “preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits, popularity?” Are you striving after the perks in life? Or are you striving after its purpose?

There is a whole generation of exhausted, hard-working, well-meaning men and women who are stuffing themselves with knowledge and yet are suffering from relational anorexia. We know things, not people. We know how to do work, but we don’t know how to be a friend. We know what it takes to get ahead, but we don’t know who we can depend on to help keep our heads above water when life becomes overwhelming. We know how to make a living, but we don’t know how to make a life.

Paul had all the right knowledge and all the right connections to guarantee his success in life. Then, suddenly Paul knew that he was completely ignorant about the most important thing a human life could experience: A right relationship with God. Filled with knowledge, Paul was starving to death. Only an intimate, personal relationship, a wholly different kind of “knowing” and being “known” satisfied all Paul’s cravings.

Everyone who deals in data knows the old maxim “knowledge is power.” The corollary of that law insists that crucial knowledge like power should never be shared. In stories about organizations like the FBI or the CIA, agents are always being curtailed by the power structure’s biggest safety net: The old “need-to-know” rule. If you can perform the task at hand without having any real information about the whole operation, then you have no “need-to-know.” Only those in charge, those with all the power, “know it all” and see the big picture.

Those who “know Christ” operate under a completely opposite mandate. All who genuinely “know Christ” are also those who cannot wait to “make Christ known” to everyone else. There are so many out in our communities, our neighborhoods, our households, who do have a “need-to-know.” It is up to those of us who “know Christ” to reveal his love to them.

On Easter morning, Mary Magdalene was reduced to tears by the sight of the empty tomb. The angels confronted Mary and asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” She replied, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know….””

There are too many “theys” out there, conglomerates of faceless, hostile “theys” whose job it is to make it hard for us to “know” and easy for us to “not know.”

– There are the “theys” of materialism urging us to invest in possessions instead of treasures.

– There are the “theys” of intellectualism advising us to trust only our heads and never our hearts.

– There are the “theys” of commercialism persuading us to spend the contents of our wallets instead of extending the power of our hands.

– There are the “theys” of politicism dividing us into factions instead of joining us into teams.

– There are the “theys” of racism, sexism, and ageism frightening us into hiding in enclaves instead of gathering us into communities.

What you don’t know can hurt you if what you don’t know is Jesus Christ.

Stop pouring your energy into stockpiling knowledge for the sake of gaining possessions in this world. Start knowing Christ and making Christ known to the world, and the genuine treasures of this life and the next will decorate your life.

In 1960, Adolph Coors III, the powerful head of the Adolph Coors Company, was kidnapped and murdered. His family, and especially his oldest son Adolph IV, were in shock. For years afterwards, the younger Adolph Coors wandered aimlessly through life. He joined on at the Coors Company, only to be assigned the most menial and humiliating jobs. Finally, he worked his way up to a vice president’s position. He had the wealth and power that are the birthright of the Coors family.

Along the way, Adolph became a Christian. As part of his new life, he wrote a note of forgiveness to his father’s killer. Finally, in 1979, he was offered the promotion he had always dreamed of in the company. But Adolph Coors IV wasn’t sure he wanted it. He began evaluating his life and his priorities in terms of his faith. And suddenly, the perks no longer seemed to have a purpose. So Adolph left behind the job he had tried all his life to obtain. Today, he tours the country telling others of his journey of faith.

There will come a time in every person’s life when we must evaluate our purpose in life. Are you here to “grab all the gusto you can get?” If you were to lose everything tomorrow – your job, your friends, your family, your security – would you have anything left? Many people down through history have lost everything for the sake of Christ, and they testify to the fact that he is worth it. Knowing Jesus – knowing his power and his promises and the hope of eternal life with him – is the highest purpose in life. It is the possession that transcends all possessions.

Do you know Christ?