Success – God’s measure

Philippians 2:3-11 (ESV)
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

(This is part 7 of our multipart study on Success in the Bible)

Success. What have we learned? That success is defined by how you measure it, and the perspective you measure it from.

Too often we all measure success by our own or others standards. It is natural for us, it is even encouraged by all those around us. It is taught in our schools, taught by the examples that we all see around us, especially in mainstream media.

So how should we measure our success? Success is measured by God’s measurement.

In the verses above written by Paul, our topic is addressed perfectly – ‘do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit’. Selfish ambition is when we measure success by our own standards (selfish – self centered), or when we try to meet or exceed the standards of others (often termed ‘ambition’). Interestingly, the older English translations such as the King James translate this as ‘vain glory’. How fitting! There is glory indeed in worldly success, but it is all vain – it is all for nothing.

And then Paul completes our example – again with Jesus. Jesus who is in very nature God, a member of the trinity, the very God who created this world, and in all things sustains this world (Colossians 1:17). How was Jesus successful in all things? By humbling Himself like a servant, and doing the Fathers will.

What perspective should we see our success from? We need to measure it from God’s perspective.

Don’t measure success by your own standards – that is foolish and self centered. Don’t measure yourself compared to others – we are all different, created specifically by God for a purpose, and each purpose is different from the others’.

Romans 12:3-5 (ESV)
For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another

Find God’s will for your life and do it – that is the true measure of biblical success, exampled in the life of Jesus, and offered to us all.

At the start of this series I suggested you take a look at your life and define to yourself what you are striving towards, how you personally define success. Take some time and see how that measures up with God’s standard. Maybe you are right on course, maybe you need a little fine tuning. Maybe you are going the wrong way all together. Even if you are totally off track, what matters is that you find out what Gods plan for your life is – and act on it.

The past is gone, your sins are forgiven – go forward in the grace God gives you and be successful – in Him.

Success in the eyes of Who?

John 6:60-69 (ESV)
When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?”

Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

(This is part 6 of our multipart study on Success in the Bible)

Over the past few days we have taken a look at a few Biblical examples of success. We could easily spend the next month just going through more examples – Abraham, Noah, many of the Judges, many of the Kings of Israel. The prophets often are great examples of success and failure – especially Jeremiah.

The one thing that has been common across our study though, and remains common in these other examples, is success is defined by two things – the measurement and perspective.

Our measurement is what we define success by. For one person success is money, another is fame, another is power. For another it is family, happiness, early retirement or the ‘good life’.

Our perspective is where the measurement is coming from. Are we measuring ourselves, or are we measuring others (and maybe comparing our measurements – for some people success is purely being ‘more successful’ than others). We may be measuring ourselves or others by our standards, our perception of their standards, or Gods standards.

So before we conclude, let’s take a look at one more Biblical example. Jesus.

By the measurement of the world, we could say of Jesus ‘what could have been’. During the first year of his ministry, commonly called ‘the year of popularity’, Jesus was wildly successful. People were being healed of everything. Jesus’ teaching was strong, but not particularly divisive. In reality, people hadn’t yet seen what Jesus stood for – they just saw a guy who obviously was empowered by God to perform miracles, and they liked what they saw.

Looking deeper, there was a concept of the Messiah that he would come with power (which Jesus certainly had done), but then politically free the Jewish nation from the bondage of Roman rule, and setup the kingdom of Israel again. The measure of success of the religious leadership and many of the people influenced by them was their own, and was not set by God. So when Jesus’ teaching started getting ‘difficult’, such as the teaching in John 6, people couldn’t deal with it. When Jesus started showing righteousness and driving all the corrupt sellers out from the temple starting in John 2, the leadership finally saw Jesus as a threat, not as a Messiah, and pronounced Him a failure.

Even by our measurement now in the world, Jesus was a ‘good teacher’, who preached peace to the people and was killed as an example. But ultimately, a failure.

What is our measurement? It is ours, not God’s. What is our perspective? It is our own, not God’s. What have we learned from the other examples as well? That true success is defined from God’s perspective, and from God’s measurement.

So from God’s perspective, the incarnation of the Son of God on this earth was an utter, perfect success. Jesus lived a sinless life. He obeyed all of God’s commands, and in the process, fulfilled the law totally. At the end of His life he died a substitutionary death for all, that anyone who accepts can be freed from bondage to sin, from punishment for sin, and reconciled to the God that created them.

At the very moment that the religious leaders and even the demons rejoiced that Jesus had failed, when He died on the cross, the greatest success in the history of man had just taken place under their noses and they hadn’t even noticed. While they were gloating on their success, in reality, they had the most dismal failure imaginable.

And just to prove it, three days later Jesus rose from the grave, showing success in defeating even death, proving to all who would take the time to look that what was accomplished was an unexpected, yet total success.

So by the measure of many, even by our own measure before we understood God’s plan, Jesus was at best a ‘good teacher’ who was killed before his time, at worse a total failure. And yet, by the measure of the Creator of all things, he was a total success.

What does this mean for me?

Well, two things.

First, stop measuring success the wrong way. We will go into this more in tomorrow’s post.

Second, if you have thought that Jesus failed, and still think that way – it’s time to think again. What Jesus accomplished was not a failure to create a movement, or a failure to live a life of peace. What He did was utterly defeat all of the powers of this age. What He did was fulfil the righteous requirements of Gods law on our behalf, so that we might finally be brought back to the way things should be – you in right relationship with the God who not only created you personally, but also created the whole world, the whole universe. Want success in your life? It’s time to look more into Jesus.

Galatians 1:3-5 (ESV)
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Success in all the Wrong Places

Philippians 3:4-6 (ESV)
Though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Sometimes we can have amazing success – but in all the wrong places.

(This is part 5 of our multipart study on Success in the Bible)

Many of you will know the story of Saul of Tarsus – the same Saul we know as Paul the Apostle to the gentiles. Saul had significant ‘worldly’ success in his chosen field, that of being a Jewish Pharisee.

For a start, he was born of the tribe of Benjamin – the only tribe other than Judah that stayed faithful to King David when Israel was splintered. Sometimes being born into the right place or in the right family can make all the difference – Saul was. Not only was he a Pharisee, the most ‘strict’ sect of the Jewish religion, he was from a family of Pharisees (Acts 23:6). He was educated not in Tarsus where he was born, not in some outskirts of Judea, but in Jerusalem, under the renowned teacher Gamaliel – one of the most influential Rabbis of his time (he also appears in Acts 5).

So Saul had the birth, the upbringing, the lineage and the education to be a success. Added to that, he was zealous for his ‘religion’, to the point that he was one of the key persecutors of the early Christian Church.

Yes, Saul of Tarsus was a successful Pharisee. Even had he not been converted, I have no doubt he would still be remembered for his zeal and success in persecution of the church.

But, Saul of Tarsus met Jesus. After all this success as a Pharisee, he finally realised that his success was not in the right places, but in the wrong. Let’s take a look at what Paul the Apostle continued to write after his testimony above.

Philippians 3:8-14 (ESV)
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Paul realized his success was in the wrong places, and counted all of that success ‘as loss’. He then made it is goal to have true success, by aligning his life to what God wanted.

And you know what? After that, I am sure he was thought a failure by his old buddies back among the Pharisees. But we know he wasn’t – he reached thousands in his life for Jesus personally, thousands more directly with his letters, and finally millions upon millions with the record of that in the Bible. Depending on how you count it, Paul wrote 13 or 14 of the 27 books in the New Testament – an amazing testimony of success in two places – firstly in the wrong place, then finally in the right place.

Success – Doing Things the Right Way – The Ark

1 Chronicles 13:5-14 (ESV)

So David assembled all Israel from the Nile of Egypt to Lebo-hamath, to bring the ark of God from Kiriath-jearim. And David and all Israel went up to Baalah, that is, to Kiriath-jearim that belongs to Judah, to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the LORD who sits enthroned above the cherubim. And they carried the ark of God on a new cart, from the house of Abinadab, and Uzzah and Ahio were driving the cart. And David and all Israel were celebrating before God with all their might, with song and lyres and harps and tambourines and cymbals and trumpets.

And when they came to the threshing floor of Chidon, Uzzah put out his hand to take hold of the ark, for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah, and he struck him down because he put out his hand to the ark, and he died there before God. And David was angry because the LORD had broken out against Uzzah. And that place is called Perez-uzza to this day. And David was afraid of God that day, and he said, “How can I bring the ark of God home to me?” So David did not take the ark home into the city of David, but took it aside to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. And the ark of God remained with the household of Obed-edom in his house three months. And the LORD blessed the household of Obed-edom and all that he had.

(This is part 4 of our multipart study on Success in the Bible)

When David had ascended to be King of Israel, and moved into Jerusalem as his ‘capital’, he determined to bring the Ark of God to the City.

The Ark was the most Holy symbol in the nation of Israel – it contained the staff of Moses that had budded, the original copy of the 10 commandments and a gold jar of manna. It was a symbol to Israel of who God was, and what He had done for them. It was in essence a visible representation of God on this earth, and when the temple was completed, the Ark was in the holiest place.

It could easily be said that bringing the Ark to Jerusalem was the right thing to do – it was still sitting in ‘limbo’ after it had been captured by the Philistines and returned on a cart. The Ark was always kept with the King, and before that, in the tabernacle of God, all the way back to Moses. Not only David, but all the people of Israel agreed it was the right thing to do. Interestingly, it is specifically noted that Saul (who had shown he liked to do things his own way), did not seek to bring the Ark to its rightful place.

1 Chronicles 13:3-4 (ESV)
Then let us bring again the ark of our God to us, for we did not seek it in the days of Saul.” All the assembly agreed to do so, for the thing was right in the eyes of all the people.

So what was wrong then? The people, with a good heart and clear conscience decided to do the right thing, gathered, and bring the ark to themselves. But they failed. To find out why, let’s see what happened when they finally succeeded….

1 Chronicles 15:11-15 (ESV)
Then David summoned the priests Zadok and Abiathar, and the Levites Uriel, Asaiah, Joel, Shemaiah, Eliel, and Amminadab, and said to them, “You are the heads of the fathers’ houses of the Levites. Consecrate yourselves, you and your brothers, so that you may bring up the ark of the LORD, the God of Israel, to the place that I have prepared for it. Because you did not carry it the first time, the LORD our God broke out against us, because we did not seek him according to the rule.” So the priests and the Levites consecrated themselves to bring up the ark of the LORD, the God of Israel. And the Levites carried the ark of God on their shoulders with the poles, as Moses had commanded according to the word of the LORD.

Why did they fail the first time? Because there was a specific way the Ark was meant to be treated. There was a specific procedure. In their first attempt, whilst they had the zeal to bring the Ark, they took no regard for how it was to be taken. They decided to do things their own way – and ironically, they did it the same way the Philistines had dealt with the Ark, rather than how God had specified they move it.

So when they finally did it the right way, they were successful.

What does this mean for me?

There is often a right and wrong way to do things. I am sure you can think of things in your life you could do and fix right now – but you would have to cut corners. You would have to not do things the right way, but your own.

Let me share from my own life right now. I have a small amount of credit card debt – it’s not massive, but I wish it wasn’t there none the less. In fact, I could have paid it off easily last year, with change, had I reduced my giving to God. But I believe I am called to tithe – to give out of the first fruits of what I earn to God, as recognition that He is in control, and He is the one to provide. Maybe some would argue the debt is bad and I should deal with it – but I would also argue that it is right I do it the right way, by continuing to honor God first, and deal with my own self-created problems second… I know God will ensure that it gets dealt with, properly, in his time. I will be successful – but I need to do it right.

So. If you want God to be on your side, you need to first do it right. How can you apply this to your life?

Success for a time – John the Baptist

(This is part 3 of our multipart study on Success in the Bible)

Everyone in Judea at the time of Jesus also knew of John the Baptist. From the conception of John, the local people knew he would be someone special – since his Father had been made mute by the angel Gabriel. And then when he was born and named, his Father could again speak – there was no doubt that he was going to something BIG.

We don’t hear much of John’s life up to about a year before Jesus own ministry began. But we know that ‘The Word of God’ came to John, and he began to preach in earnest.

A quick aside into history, since Malachi there had been no prophet in Israel. That was now over 400 years, and yet some people were expecting something to happen, waiting for the ‘office’ of prophet to again be filled by someone. And when John came on the scene, judging by the reaction of the crowds who went to see him, people thought a prophet had finally returned. In fact, people wondered aloud whether he was the Messiah himself.

He wasn’t a popular preacher by his message, but it was obvious he was a prophet, like the ‘prophets of old’. Take a look at the message he preached – it wasn’t one for the light hearted!

Matthew 3:7-12 (ESV)
But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

John’s popularity and success skyrocketed – he was the talk of all Judea. But this success didn’t last!

John 3:22-30 (ESV)
After this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he remained there with them and was baptizing. John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because water was plentiful there, and people were coming and being baptized (for John had not yet been put in prison).

Now a discussion arose between some of John’s disciples and a Jew over purification. And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness—look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him.” John answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’ The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease.”

What perspective! John knew that he was here for a time – for a season. There was a reason he was called, there was a reason he grew successful. And yet now that the reason had passed, he was content, as he had been successful.

His measure of success was that he did what he was called to do – then got out of the way.

In the same situation now, many of us would wonder – was that success truly from God? When we are successful in our lives but it ‘moves on’ from us, and we descend back to where we came from, what are our thoughts? Do we struggle and look around for what sin might have caused our fall (which may be the case, but it also may not)? Do we try and change things just a little that our success might continue? Do we run around, looking for help, advice, assistance all in the wrong places, that we might try and bring back the success we once lived? Do we sit back and condemn ourselves for failure, or become depressed because our moment of glory has passed?

Or do we accept that the success was for a time, and it is now time to move on.

What can we learn from John?

Sometimes, success is for a season – it is not any ‘fault’ of ours that the time of success has passed, it is just that the time has passed.

And in truth, sometimes a full measure of success is knowing when the season has ended, and rather than striving against God by trying to become ‘successful’ in our own eyes again, we should accept our new station and move on.

Philippians 4:11-13 (ESV)
Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Philippians 4:4-7 (ESV)
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.