Don’t Be a Jerk When the World Doesn’t Like You
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | We're back with guest Trip Lee.
00:00:07.220 | Trip, in your new book Rise, you write this, quote,
00:00:10.340 | "I don't mean to sound like a conspiracy theorizing
00:00:13.420 | "doomsday prophet with canned food
00:00:15.800 | "stacked ceiling high in my basement.
00:00:18.420 | "I assure you I only keep enough canned food
00:00:20.700 | "in the house for the week ahead of me.
00:00:22.860 | "But we do need to think about what it means
00:00:25.040 | "to be faithful to Christ in a culture
00:00:27.300 | "where our presence is less and less appreciated."
00:00:31.560 | End quote.
00:00:32.400 | Yes, we do need to think about this
00:00:34.120 | and we all wanna be liked and accepted,
00:00:36.660 | but faithfulness to Christ means we won't be liked
00:00:39.060 | by the world ultimately.
00:00:41.040 | So how do we live in the world
00:00:43.140 | seeking to influence the world positively,
00:00:45.600 | but without living for the approval of the world?
00:00:48.920 | How do you personally find balance in this?
00:00:51.840 | Yeah, that is tricky.
00:00:53.840 | And something I had to think a lot about
00:00:56.280 | even while writing this book Rise
00:00:57.960 | because I'm writing to a generation that's growing up
00:01:00.400 | with that really decrease in appreciation
00:01:03.760 | for serious Christians.
00:01:05.160 | And I think scripture really gives us lots of ways
00:01:08.000 | to kind of think about this and navigate this
00:01:10.620 | because it's not like after Jesus and the apostles
00:01:13.800 | and the early church, everybody always loved Christians
00:01:16.640 | and was excited for them to be around.
00:01:18.320 | And then just recently,
00:01:19.540 | people have started not to like them.
00:01:21.120 | Peter writes to young Christians in 1 Peter,
00:01:24.200 | he says, "Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable
00:01:26.880 | so that when they speak against you as evil doers,
00:01:28.720 | they may see your good deeds
00:01:30.680 | and glorify God on the day of visitation."
00:01:33.600 | You know, Peter's really clear,
00:01:35.120 | hey, live such good lives among them
00:01:37.440 | that they'll see your good deeds and glorify God.
00:01:39.240 | He's saying, they are gonna speak against you
00:01:40.640 | as evil doers, that will happen,
00:01:42.360 | but you should live such a good life.
00:01:43.880 | Even when they try to do that,
00:01:45.280 | they'll look into your life
00:01:46.240 | and they'll see so many good deeds
00:01:47.900 | that it's gonna lead to glory for God himself.
00:01:51.040 | And I think that's what we're really seeking to do
00:01:53.080 | is to live these really faithful lives in public
00:01:56.120 | that show the goodness of God.
00:01:58.080 | And so it's not as if while living in the world,
00:02:00.800 | we just say, hey, we're gonna do what we do.
00:02:02.280 | We don't care what anybody thinks about anything.
00:02:04.120 | No, no, no.
00:02:04.960 | We do absolutely care about the way we live our lives
00:02:07.880 | because it does say something very, very clearly
00:02:10.740 | about the God that we serve.
00:02:12.900 | But when people still don't even like us,
00:02:15.280 | even though we're trying to do
00:02:16.480 | what Peter's calling us to here,
00:02:18.760 | there are a few things I talk about in the book
00:02:20.200 | that I think we should do.
00:02:21.120 | And one of them is we should stop being so surprised.
00:02:23.760 | We should stop getting shocked
00:02:25.560 | when people are annoyed that we're serious about Jesus,
00:02:29.160 | because it's not like Jesus said,
00:02:30.560 | hey, follow me, everyone will love you for.
00:02:32.640 | Jesus says, others will hate you for my name's sake.
00:02:35.880 | So we should stop being so surprised.
00:02:38.020 | And we have to fall out of love with being cool
00:02:40.320 | and being liked by everybody.
00:02:41.860 | Because at the end of the day,
00:02:43.640 | it's not gonna be cool to really pursue Jesus
00:02:46.900 | with everything you have.
00:02:48.440 | And so we have to be okay with the fact
00:02:50.480 | that we won't be the ones that the culture looks to
00:02:53.320 | as the coolest, or even in our day and age, the nicest.
00:02:57.520 | They're gonna really speak against
00:02:58.980 | a lot of the things that we do.
00:03:00.360 | But we also have to be compassionate and not combative,
00:03:03.200 | because the temptation is gonna be,
00:03:04.920 | they're fighting me, let me fight back.
00:03:06.980 | Or we have some Christians who the only way
00:03:08.840 | they can think of to really fight for the glory of Jesus
00:03:11.740 | is to yell at people for everything they do
00:03:14.160 | that they don't personally like
00:03:15.680 | or that they don't see in scripture.
00:03:17.120 | And instead, we wanna be very compassionate.
00:03:19.560 | It doesn't mean we don't say hard things to people,
00:03:21.440 | but we wanna do it in a very loving and gentle way.
00:03:24.080 | So the gospel itself is already offensive enough.
00:03:27.000 | We don't need to add offense to it
00:03:28.780 | by being jerks about everything.
00:03:30.520 | We don't need to add offense to it
00:03:32.200 | by being very condemning and self-righteous.
00:03:34.480 | We don't need to add offense to it
00:03:36.600 | by being incapable of actually loving
00:03:38.640 | and being in relationship with people.
00:03:40.440 | We really wanna show people the compassion of Jesus,
00:03:43.280 | even as we say very hard things.
00:03:45.560 | I've seen it, it's easy to say hard things to people
00:03:48.440 | when they can tell that you care about 'em and love 'em,
00:03:50.880 | when they don't feel like your project.
00:03:52.480 | And when there's a track record that you have with somebody
00:03:55.160 | of genuinely loving them and caring for them
00:03:58.240 | and taking interest in their life and serving them,
00:04:01.160 | when you say a hard thing, it may still be hard,
00:04:04.400 | but it fits into a different context.
00:04:06.800 | They can't just say,
00:04:07.640 | well, it's just 'cause this person is hateful.
00:04:09.720 | They say, well, nah, it is something much deeper than that.
00:04:12.560 | And we have to stand firm.
00:04:14.000 | People are really gonna wanna kinda push us
00:04:15.960 | off what we stand on.
00:04:17.820 | They are gonna try to evangelize us and proselytize
00:04:21.280 | and push us off of faith in Jesus,
00:04:23.280 | but we are gonna really have to stand firm.
00:04:25.480 | And that's only gonna happen
00:04:26.640 | when we have a very deep faith in the gospel.
00:04:29.360 | And we can't be afraid to tell people
00:04:31.080 | very clearly about Jesus.
00:04:33.320 | We can't, with our desire for approval,
00:04:36.000 | decide that the gospel's offensive,
00:04:38.480 | therefore I won't share it.
00:04:39.840 | That's the thing that makes us distinct.
00:04:42.200 | That's the incredible message that we have for everybody.
00:04:44.800 | And we wanna share it freely
00:04:47.040 | and pray that the Lord will give us grace.
00:04:48.580 | It'll be hard, but I am very curious to see
00:04:53.480 | the way that it impacts our evangelism
00:04:56.380 | and the way that it impacts this next generation.
00:04:59.520 | - Outstanding, thank you, Trip.
00:05:02.480 | Jesus never said, "Follow me,
00:05:03.740 | "and people will love you for it."
00:05:05.460 | That's a brilliant line, very true.
00:05:07.580 | Thank you, Trip Lee.
00:05:09.040 | I was earlier quoting from the new book titled
00:05:11.840 | "Rise" from Trip Lee, and you can find it
00:05:14.020 | in the new album by the same title at amazon.com.
00:05:17.660 | Well, what's the key to being insecure
00:05:19.980 | for the rest of your life?
00:05:21.420 | Trip Lee will explain how tomorrow.
00:05:23.500 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.
00:05:24.460 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:05:27.220 | (whooshing)
00:05:29.560 | (whooshing)
00:05:31.880 | [BLANK_AUDIO]