Safety Is a Myth
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Pastor John, you have a new book out,
00:00:06.020 | a little 50 page book titled Risk is Right,
00:00:08.280 | Better to Lose Your Life Than to Waste It.
00:00:09.860 | And one of the more profound points you make in the book,
00:00:11.740 | I think, is the idea that safety is a myth.
00:00:15.420 | I would love for you to unpack this little phrase
00:00:17.180 | for us in this podcast.
00:00:18.340 | What do you mean when you say that safety is a myth?
00:00:21.140 | - Well, it's a myth both as experience teaches us
00:00:27.380 | and as the Bible teaches us.
00:00:29.540 | So go with experience first and then the Bible.
00:00:32.300 | You can't put enough padlocks on your door
00:00:38.220 | and enough bars on your window
00:00:42.780 | to keep a heart attack from happening.
00:00:44.680 | There is no guarantee that anybody
00:00:50.980 | is going to live another breath.
00:00:53.780 | And therefore all the efforts that we make
00:00:56.380 | to keep ourselves safe are ultimately an illusion
00:01:01.380 | in terms of absolute security.
00:01:03.540 | Our life is in God's hands.
00:01:06.340 | Come now you who say, let's go up to such and such a city
00:01:09.460 | and spend a year there and trade and get gain.
00:01:12.300 | You do not know your life.
00:01:13.580 | It's like a vapor.
00:01:15.140 | You are arrogant.
00:01:16.700 | You ought to say, if the Lord wills,
00:01:18.940 | we will live and do this and that.
00:01:20.500 | So there's no safety in the car to get you there.
00:01:23.040 | There's no safety in the building while you're there.
00:01:25.620 | There is no guarantees that you're gonna live.
00:01:28.780 | So that's what experience teaches us.
00:01:30.940 | Safety is an illusion in terms of its guarantee.
00:01:35.740 | The Bible makes it worse for us.
00:01:38.580 | Jesus said, if they called the master of the house,
00:01:41.540 | Beelzebul, how much more are they gonna malign
00:01:43.740 | those of his own household?
00:01:44.980 | If they persecuted me, they'll persecute you.
00:01:47.820 | Paul said, through many afflictions,
00:01:49.740 | you must enter the kingdom.
00:01:50.820 | Peter said, don't think it's strange.
00:01:54.780 | If when the fiery ordeal comes upon you.
00:01:57.380 | In other words, it's not strange.
00:01:58.620 | It's normal to suffer in this world.
00:02:02.340 | And Paul says in 2 Timothy 3, verse 12,
00:02:07.340 | everybody who desires to live a godly life
00:02:10.260 | will be persecuted.
00:02:12.180 | So the New Testament is just replete with promises.
00:02:16.460 | You're not going to be safe.
00:02:19.020 | You're going to suffer.
00:02:20.140 | Take up your cross and follow me.
00:02:23.000 | Anybody who belongs to a people movement
00:02:26.740 | that has a crucified Savior and Lord at the head of it
00:02:30.220 | can count on a Calvary road themselves.
00:02:33.980 | And so my argument is you cannot avoid risk
00:02:38.980 | and therefore embrace it for kingdom purposes.
00:02:42.820 | - Yeah, that's a great point.
00:02:44.980 | So this illusion of safety then is holding a Christian back
00:02:49.140 | from taking a risk.
00:02:50.740 | And what are the risks that you are specifically
00:02:52.960 | addressing in this book?
00:02:54.200 | - Anything that would deter you from doing the will of God
00:03:00.440 | because it's negative and it might happen to you.
00:03:03.920 | Risk is a peculiar thing.
00:03:06.320 | In order for there to be risk, there has to be ignorance.
00:03:09.800 | So God can't risk.
00:03:11.640 | I hear people say God took a big risk in creating humankind.
00:03:14.400 | He did not.
00:03:15.560 | Or God took a big risk in sending his son into the world.
00:03:17.880 | Absolutely, he did not.
00:03:19.000 | He knew exactly what would happen to his son.
00:03:21.020 | He knew exactly that we would fall
00:03:22.700 | because he was planning redemption
00:03:24.340 | long before he created the world.
00:03:25.660 | The Bible is crystal clear on that.
00:03:27.360 | God was never and can never take a risk
00:03:30.800 | because risk demands ignorance.
00:03:32.540 | That is, if you know that you're gonna be shot
00:03:37.300 | when you stand in front of your wife,
00:03:41.580 | you don't risk being shot.
00:03:43.060 | You sacrifice yourself, period.
00:03:45.100 | That's not a risk, that's a sacrifice.
00:03:47.480 | And so you give your life for her.
00:03:49.660 | And that's what Jesus did.
00:03:50.940 | But most of us live every day
00:03:54.740 | not at all sure what will happen to us.
00:03:57.580 | If we write this letter to our son or daughter
00:04:01.700 | to try to witness to them,
00:04:02.960 | we don't know if it will backfire.
00:04:05.380 | When we try to witness to somebody at work,
00:04:07.280 | we don't know how it will go or whether they'll criticize it
00:04:09.900 | or whether we'll lose our job.
00:04:12.140 | When a person goes over the field in the missions field,
00:04:14.300 | he doesn't know whether he's gonna be arrested.
00:04:17.220 | There's just a thousand things
00:04:20.100 | that we don't know might happen to us.
00:04:22.500 | And my point in this book is we choose to risk.
00:04:27.500 | We embrace risk.
00:04:30.420 | We don't minimize risk.
00:04:32.900 | We walk into risk.
00:04:35.060 | And the way we decide what's right risk
00:04:37.860 | and what's wrong risk is that the greater the outcome
00:04:42.020 | that we hope for, the greater the risk it's right to take.
00:04:46.620 | And the greater the likelihood of harm,
00:04:50.620 | the greater the outcome you better be aiming at.
00:04:53.640 | Which is why I think a lot of risk
00:04:55.620 | that people take is just dead wrong.
00:04:57.780 | I mean, I'll give you my own personal bias.
00:05:00.740 | I think taking life-threatening risks
00:05:05.180 | for sheer pleasure is wrong.
00:05:07.860 | So I wouldn't, it's gonna really offend some people,
00:05:11.300 | I wouldn't skydive and I wouldn't hang glide
00:05:15.780 | for just sheer pleasure.
00:05:17.740 | Simple reason, one simple malfunction, you're dead.
00:05:21.740 | For what reason?
00:05:22.660 | Fun, that's a bad idea.
00:05:25.020 | Whereas I would support skydiving and hang gliding
00:05:28.660 | in order to accomplish some great goal for another person,
00:05:32.140 | some sacrificial goal.
00:05:34.340 | Everybody knows that driving a car down the road
00:05:36.380 | is taking a risk, but we do it because number one,
00:05:39.620 | getting somewhere is valuable and the risk is small.
00:05:43.220 | Same thing with getting on an airplane.
00:05:45.220 | You risk your life getting on an airplane.
00:05:47.260 | I think getting on an airplane just for fun
00:05:49.180 | would probably be foolish.
00:05:50.500 | But getting on an airplane to go somewhere
00:05:52.300 | at a certain amount of time with minimal risk
00:05:55.180 | and high payoff, that would be right.
00:05:58.460 | - Okay, so it seems for you then, Pastor John,
00:06:00.340 | that risk-taking is quite directly tied to faith.
00:06:03.900 | - Yes, I think there's a way to take risk
00:06:08.900 | as a arrogant and proud glory seeker.
00:06:13.300 | So I'm not saying that only believers take risk.
00:06:15.860 | I'm saying the only way to rightly take a risk,
00:06:19.180 | the taking of a risk that honors Christ is to say,
00:06:23.460 | I love you, I trust you, I believe you're in control.
00:06:28.100 | Only you can provide the strength to do this
00:06:31.320 | and only you will govern the outcome
00:06:33.660 | and I am willing to walk into this risk
00:06:36.420 | for kingdom purposes and for your glory
00:06:38.740 | because I'm trusting you.
00:06:40.780 | And the reason I can trust you
00:06:42.020 | is because you died for me and you rose for me.
00:06:44.820 | So the gospel is underneath my readiness to risk by faith.
00:06:49.820 | - Excellent, thank you, Pastor John.
00:06:53.180 | You will find his new book, "Risk is Right"
00:06:55.100 | at DesiringGod.org.
00:06:56.680 | There you can download the entire book as a free PDF
00:06:58.820 | and find links to buy printed copies if you wish.
00:07:01.700 | And if you have a question for Pastor John
00:07:03.020 | about his other books, please email them
00:07:04.500 | to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.
00:07:07.300 | Please include your first name
00:07:08.340 | and your hometown in that email.
00:07:09.800 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:07:11.060 | Thanks for listening.
00:07:12.180 | (upbeat music)
00:07:14.760 | (upbeat music)
00:07:17.340 | [BLANK_AUDIO]