(upbeat music) - Pastor John, you have a new book out, a little 50 page book titled Risk is Right, Better to Lose Your Life Than to Waste It. And I wanna talk specifically to a Christian who's considering taking a risk. I think we all have dreams, aspirations, things that we think God has called us to, but that does not necessarily confirm that we should take those risks.

Talk with us for a little bit about the difference between a right risk and a wrong risk and how the church and how our Christian friends can help us determine which risks God is actually calling us to. - The church that is the body of Christ, both corporately as we gather in preaching and praying and singing and confessing and the smaller manifestations of it, our small group, the people around us who love us and care for us, it is always playing a role in the choices we make about the risks we take.

Even when we don't even know they are because we learn everything we know about God and everything we know about the Bible from the church, from our parents, from small group, from Sunday school teachers, and everything we know about the Bible and the world informs the choices we make.

And then there's the more immediate and specific counsel that we receive from people who have gifts of wisdom and gifts of experience, who can speak into our lives with regard to marriage and jobs and patterns of life that may seem foolish to them and they can help us avoid stupid mistakes in our lives, which would create risks that are just totally unwarranted and unnecessary.

So that's the piece of the church. I just think none of us should live in a bubble where we're making all these decisions by ourselves. God ordained that we would be helped by the people around us. With regard to what risks are foolish, it would be risking your life for something small or turning it around and being unwilling to take no risk for something big.

In other words, the principle is proportionality. The bigger the hoped-for outcome for the glory of God, the greater the risk that it's wise to take. And the smaller the outcome, the more selfish the outcome, the more insignificant the outcome, the more foolish it would be and unwise it would be for you to take a big risk for that small payoff.

So Christians use biblical criteria to discern what's the hoped-for outcome here that God is calling me to pursue and what's the nature of the risk. And then within that dynamic, that balance, I think only the Holy Spirit can make plain when it's right to risk and not. I'll give you a concrete example.

There are many times when missionaries are told, "You need to get out now because situations are developing in this culture that are gonna be very dangerous for you." And missionaries always face a difficult choice at that time, and some will say, "You're right, I should go." And others will say, "No, we've identified with these people for 20 years.

We stand with them, we die with them, we're staying." And I think both of those choices can be right because the Bible clearly says, as John Bunyan pointed out, there's a time to fly and a time to stand. Paul sometimes stood and was stoned, and sometimes he got in a basket and escaped, and only the Holy Spirit can make plain when we do the one and the other.

- Thank you, Pastor John. You will find the new book, "Risk is Right," at DesiringGod.org. There you can download the entire book as a free PDF and find links to buy printed copies if you wish. And if you have a question for Pastor John about his other books, please email those to AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.

Please include your first name and your hometown in that email. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)