Packer didn’t actually say this, but it can be inferred from his amazing little book, The Plan of God. What I took from this book is that the plan of God is so amazing that every human being alive should want to know about it, and how else will they come to know about it than through us.
If you were alive in the 1960s you’ll remember a song by Dionne Warwick called, What the World Needs Now. Even as I child I remember it. If you were, I’m sure the tune will pop right back into your head like it did mine, and it will be hard to get out. Written by Burt Bacharach, the chorus goes like this:
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
No, not just for some but for everyone
I recently finished this little book by Packer, and reading the passage below brought this vapid song to mind. As with The Beatles’ All You Need is Love, there is some truth, but that all depends by what we mean by love. The only love the world needs is that displayed by God in Christ for our sins. As the Apostle John says, “we love because he first loved us.” As Christians, we have the answer for what every single person in the world needs: Jesus! Every longing, every need, every frustration, every dream, every hope, the answer to every disappointment, every betrayal, every everything is found in Christ!
Why don’t we share it more? Possibly, if we really believed it, we would. We would become a little more annoying for Jesus.
And that’s all you have to be, just a little more annoying. That can take many different forms, and none of them have to be in the least confrontational. In fact, to do it you just have to get good at dropping hints. There are an infinite variety of ways to do it, and all it takes is practice. Sometimes I just drop God or the Lord in sentences, or say I’m a Christian, and tell them what it means for the circumstance we’re discussing. Ideally, I want them to ask me questions, but sometimes I ask them. I wrote a post a few years back about Greg Koukl’s wonderful book, Tactics. That book is worth its weight in apologetics gold because he teaches us how powerful simple questions are, and we don’t have to know much. As Christians, however, we should know more about not only what we believe but why we believe it. In fact, I’m quite convinced that we ought to know as much about our Christian faith as we do about our occupation of favorite hobby. But back to our heathens.
If there is nothing there, and their heart is currently dead to the things of God, they will either completely ignore me, or blow me off. Then I move on. Koukl in Tactics, though, says what we’re doing regardless is putting a pebble in their shoe. We never know when God might use that little pebble, which to us could have been a throw-away line, to annoy them into curiosity about the faith they’ve thus far rejected even thinking about. Sometimes, though, they want to engage, and we’re off to the races. There is nothing better than talking to someone about Jesus who doesn’t know him, but is curious about him.
Before you ever get there, though, you have to have the motivation to want to do it. If you believe you have the answer to every question of life, chances are you’ll want to share it. I encourage you to contemplate Packer’s eloquent words, and pray for God’s Holy Spirit to convict you of keeping Jesus to yourself.
And now we begin to see what the Bible really has to say to a generation like our own which feels itself lost and bedeviled in an inscrutably hostile order of things. There is a plan, says the Bible. There is a sense of things, but you have missed it. Turn to Christ; seek God; give yourself to the service of His plan, and you will have found the key to living in this world which has hitherto eluded you. “He that followeth me,” Christ promises,” shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12). Henceforth you will have a motive: God’s glory. You will have a rule: God’s law. You will have a Friend in life and death: God’s Son. You will have in yourself the answer to the doubting and despair called forth by the apparent meaninglessness, even malice, of circumstances: the knowledge that “the LORD reigneth,” and that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28). Thus, you will have peace.
How many people in our age are looking for peace, but looking in all the wrong places? Because we live in a secular age, that would be most people.
Circumstances or God in Christ
Even as Christians we are prone to this temptation because instead of seeing God alone as our fulfillment, we look to our circumstances. This is, of course, perfectly natural and nothing in and of itself is wrong with it. Everyone wants pleasant circumstances they like rather than horrible circumstances they hate. Where we get into trouble is thinking it is the circumstances that fulfill us and bring us peace. The problem is that even when we think we have everything we want, and things look just like we think we want them, something is still missing. We feel it, we know it.
A few years ago my son called me into his room to show me a video of an interview by a famous British musician. He had played a venue most musicians dream about, the iconic Wembley Stadium, and was asked in an interview what that felt like. He wasn’t at all excited, just blasé, and said something like it was great, but you know, just another gig. You could tell the interviewer was perplexed. I imagined him thinking, what? Wembley, and you weren’t excited about it? I had taught my son nothing will fulfill us in any ultimate sense outside of Christ, and he explained this was a perfect example of that. It looks like he got the message.
What exactly is that blasé or empty feeling about things that we think should fulfill us? It is God telling us to not turn the good things he’s given us into ultimate things, blessings into a curse. That’s how idolatry happens, and it can be anything in our lives. Augustine called the correct approach to God’s good gifts right ordered loves. There are certain things we love more, others less, but our number one love is God himself in Christ, our Creator and Redeemer. When we’re feeling that nagging emptiness in spite of everything being great, it is God reminding us not to think anything other than Him will bring us true peace and happiness. Living life in a fallen world in a fallen body among fallen people will always be problematic, and our hope of the Resurrection is our ultimate hope. In the meantime we can learn from the Apostle Paul who knew horrific circumstances for much of his life (Philippians 4):
11 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
The Greek word Paul uses for “secret” is interesting: to initiate into the mysteries, to instruct. The word was also used as part of a metaphor in “the initiatory rites of the pagan mysteries” for those having been initiated. This “secret” or mystery is Christ! In him we can be “content in any and every situation.” And Paul knew whereof he spoke.
Whenever anyone is going through hard times, I encourage them to read this passage in 2 Corinthians 11 where Paul gives us a powerful description of his suffering life:
Whatever anyone else dares to boast about—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast about. 22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham’s descendants? So am I. 23 Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. 24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26 I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. 27 I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. 28 Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. 29 Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?
30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.
Because of the cross and the resurrection of the dead, our eternal destiny relativizes everything on earth. Modern secular people are looking for this eternal perspective that will finally put all the stuff of their life in perspective, only they don’t know it yet unless someone tells them. None of the stuff will ultimately fill the God shaped vacuum in their souls.
The Path to a Life of Meaning
Everyone we encounter is looking for meaning, hope, and purpose that somehow makes sense of this ridiculous thing we call life. If people stop and think about it for even two minutes, they will realize how bizarre it all is. The devil does not want them to ask the big questions, so he does his best to keep them focused on the petty and mundane so they ignore the profound and eternal. They need to be told that everything they are looking for is found in their Creator, the God who made and died for them that they might have a relationship for God’s glory and their ultimate good. Another quote by J.I. Packer says it typically well:
The only man in this world who enjoys a complete contentment is the man who knows for certain that there is no more significant life, than the life that he is living already; and the only man who knows this is the man who has learned that the way to be truly human is to be truly godly, and whose heart desires nothing more—and nothing less—than to be a means, however humble, to God’s chief end—his own glory and praise.
This is the mystery or secret Paul learned that not only allows contentment whatever the circumstances, but also how to live a life of ultimate significance, no matter what it is God has called us to. For most of us, that is a simple, mundane life of making a living, and if we have the blessing of raising a family, teaching them that the Glory of God is our ultimate good. This is the only place where true meaning, and what comes with it, fulfillment is found.
Upwards of 50,000 people kill themselves in America every year, and many more try. Drugs, legal and illegal, are rampant among those trying to fill the emptiness of their lives. Distraction like sports and entertainment are what other people chase to give their lives meaning. Every one of these people is looking for Jesus, and when they encounter you, they encounter Jesus. Maybe they will meet him through you, so don’t be afraid to be just a little more annoying for Jesus.
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