And, more importantly, how often do we honestly apply the word “productivity” to our spiritual lives? Is this kid’s face a good metaphor for the overall productivity of your Christian life as well? As a pastor, I’ll confess productivity isn’t a word I try to think about very much. This job doesn’t lend itself to products and tidy outcomes very easy to quantify. Sometimes I’m planting seeds, sometimes I’m watering, sometimes I’m guarding crops and sometimes I’m enjoying a harvest – I need to be content to work diligently doing all these. It is hard to measure spiritual productivity on a silly Excel chart or PowerPoint slide and, whenever we attempt to do so, it feels fake, forced and depressing. Productivity, efficiency and effectiveness feel like foreign concepts in spiritual conversation.
We’re supposed to be productive, effective and useful as followers of Jesus. We may not like to hear that, but it is true. So how do we do that? How do we become productive?
Open your Bibles to the first chapter of 2 Peter. I heard a truly wonderful sermon on this passage at a lunch meeting on Monday. The pastor wasn’t discussing spiritual productivity specifically, but his powerful message and choice of Scripture passage inspired me to consider it. As I read from the New Living Translation this morning, please listen closely to what wise old Peter, probably toward the end of his life, taught us on this subject…
This letter is from Simon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ. I am writing to you who share the same precious faith we have. This faith was given to you because of the justice and fairness of Jesus Christ, our God and Savior. May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord.
By His divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know Him, the One who called us to Himself by means of His marvelous glory and excellence. And because of His glory and excellence, He has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share His divine nature and escape the world's corruption caused by human desires.
In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God's promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. [NIV: For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.]
But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins. So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Do these things, and you will never fall away. Then God will give you a grand entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Let me blunt. This Christianity thing is not supposed to be just some Jesus and Kevin cuddle fest. It is that – it is wonderfully that – but it is not only that! Do we get that?
We’re supposed to be productive, effective and useful. We’re supposed to accomplish things. By the power and leading of the Holy Spirit, we’re supposed to be moving mountains into the sea and people toward the Kingdom. We’re supposed to be seeing the “even greater miracles” Jesus promised us. And we’re not supposed to be settling for anything less!
The path to this sort of wonderful, productive Christian life is found beautifully described for us in these verses. In Peter’s exemplary attitude and words, we find four critically important aspects of the truly productive Christian life.
Productively Called
The first aspect of the truly productive Christian life is something the Apostle displays beautifully for us in the very first words of the passage. Simon Peter begins this short letter by introducing himself as “Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ.” I have been called to be an apostle, productively sharing the Good News of Jesus to any who will listen, but I am first a servant. I am first a slave. I am first an obedient soldier under a Commander’s orders.
I will never be a productive Christian if I mess up the order of those two words. It is wonderful, it is glorious that God has called me to be an apostle, but first and foremost, I am a servant. I will never be a good apostle until I am first and most constantly a good servant.
How many of us are unproductive Christians because we’re too proud to do the servant stuff Almighty God constantly calls us to do along the way to our apostleship? How many of us get really excited about participating in a great, epic adventures for God, but have a very hard time showing up to scrub toilets, make sandwiches or wash walls or feet?
Remember the great Army commander Naaman’s interaction with the prophet Elisha in 2 Kings 5? Naaman wanted to be healed of his awful leprosy and the prophet simply sent a note back telling him to dip himself seven times in the Jordan to be healed. Naaman went away mad because the instructions seemed so mundane, undignified and downright unspiritual. Finally, one of his servants says, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it?” Naaman listened to his servant, obeyed and was healed.
How often do we miss the great apostolic miracles God has for us because the path to receiving those things is a lowly, servant’s one? We’re all excited about seeing the miraculous, apostolic fire falling from heaven but we’re unwilling to gather the lowly sticks and kindling to get any fire going. We love the dramatic apostle stuff, but the servant stuff is unappealing.
Our productivity as believers begins with a properly prioritized sense of our calling. We must understand the true nature of any productive calling. But that’s just the beginning…
Productively Gifted
The second aspect of the productive Christian life is enormous. While it is critically important we understand our servant-first calling in Christ, it is even more important we understand what we have received in Christ. We have been given everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
We have been productively gifted. This is huge! We have been given everything we need to accomplish whatever God intends for us to accomplish in this life. Everything!
How many of us are completely unproductive because we’ve somehow managed to convince ourselves we are unqualified or incapable of being productive in any way? Nonsense! Baloney! We have already been given everything we need for a fully productive Christian life!
Over the course of my life, I’ve discovered myself to be unqualified as a starting middle linebacker for the Minnesota Vikings. I know this is hard to believe, but they’ve never even called me for a tryout! I’ve also found myself completely unqualified as a classical cellist or funky jazz bass player. I’ve never been asked to model clothes for GQ magazine or lend my name to a Nike basketball shoe. There are all sorts of things I just can’t do – my list of failures is long. There are all sorts of gifts and abilities I have not been given. But that doesn’t mean I’m not qualified to be a productive Christian or productive person. While I know I haven’t been given some gifts, I know I have been given other gifts. I have been given everything I need to be wildly productive in this life. As a matter of fact, I have been so very well equipped by God, so lavishly equipped by God, I am simply not allowed to even consider an unproductive life.
And neither are you.
Do you believe me? Or better yet, do you believe the Apostle Peter and the written Word of God? You better! We have all been very productively gifted.
Productively Growing
But there is a productive growth process through which we proceed in order to see those gifts used productively for the Kingdom. And that’s where the next section comes in…
This is very interesting. Look again at verses 5-8 – do you see the growth process? If we honestly, by faith, believe God has accepted us through His son and gifted us to become productive followers of Him, then there are series of disciplined, growing steps through which we must proceed. We must add to our faith goodness, to goodness knowledge, to knowledge self-control, then perseverance and godliness and brotherly love in increasing measure. Only by constantly engaging ourselves in this ongoing process will we finally end up with the love for others we need to become fully productive and effective followers of Jesus.
Do you see the simple process? As the Apostle Paul told us famously in 1 Corinthians 13, we aren’t going to accomplish anything except by love and yet love for others is actually found here at the very end of a long, qualifying process of discipleship. Do you suppose many of us are unproductive Christians simply because we refuse to embrace the growth process Peter describes here? We don’t productively love people simply because we haven’t faithfully walked through and embraced all these steps enabling us to productively love? I think so.
Productively Visionary
The fourth and final aspect Peter alludes to is found in verse 9. The Apostle Peter says anyone who refuses to accept all these things is going to end up nearsighted and blind. They will never become the productively visionary people we are all called in Christ to become. They will not be able to see beyond very short distances. They will not see or understand the deep things of God or the movement of His Spirit. They may not see much of anything at all. How productive can any of those nearly blind or blind folks be spiritually?
And yet the reverse is also true. If we properly embrace our calling, discover our true gifting, and commit ourselves to the constant, Christian growth process we will find ourselves able to see what is coming. We will be productively visionary. We will make our calling and election sure. We will never fall and we will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom.
You didn’t come to Christ to be unproductive, shortsighted and blind. You just didn’t.
This isn’t about just Jesus and you – this is about Jesus and you and all you can possibly do! Don’t let anyone ever tell you a full and gloriously productive Christian life isn’t possible for you. Don’t for a second believe you aren’t gifted and qualified to accomplish great things.
You are fearfully and wonderfully made. You were born on this earth to become a productive follower of Jesus. You are both servant and apostle. You are called and very fully gifted. You have already been given everything you need for life, love and godliness – you have been given everything you need to live a full and very productive life in Christ. Don’t accept anything less. Be productively and wonderfully Christian.
May God help each one of us see the staggering importance and possibilities of our lives!
Amen.
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