A few years ago I published, Mission Idolatry. My point was that our deepest worship is not expressed by the twenty minutes of Sunday morning singing, and that the object of worship is whatever brings us most life (whatever we dream about as we wait on hold with Comcast). Our source of life can be career, romance, or money. The most devious is our devotion to mission.
I was surprised by a reader who emailed me saying, “Our biggest purpose on earth is impact; we are created for one thing, and one thing only: to live a legacy life and to leave a heritage of impact. My worship is the impact I leave.” Never mind that his “one thing only” included two things; in his rush to impact, he missed the Jonathan Edwards’ quote:
It is true that by doing great things, something is worshipped, but it is not God.
I’ve read dozens of articles on impact. The modern twist shifts the focus from “leaving” a legacy to “living” a legacy. It emphasizes impact before death.
But doesn’t that “living-a-legacy-life” idea reek of self-praise? You never see Jesus crying, “Go ye forth and make a name for yourself! Bust your butt so that everyone will forever remember the legend of your great legacy” (3 Samuel 13.13). Scripture is counter-cultural when it says,
Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not. (Jer. 45:5 KJV)
The Only Influence that Counts
“Living a legacy life” has a long pedigree with many prominent ancestors:
- The people in the Plain of Shinar loved the idea. They cried, “We must make an impression; let’s make a name for ourselves,” and they began the tower of Babel. (While they didn’t leave the legacy they wanted, they did leave a legacy, of sorts.)
- King Saul begins very humbly, and God commends him for it. But after a military victory, Saul decides his military prowess must be memorialized, so he builds a monument in his own honor. And God takes his kingdom away.
On the other hand, John the Baptist left an impact so great that Jesus says, “Of those born of women, none is greater than John.” Greater even than Abraham, Job, Moses, and David.
What was John’s legacy? That he never built a monument to his legacy. When his followers left him to follow Jesus, John approved, saying, “I’m just the friend of the groom; he is the real deal.” John’s greatest effect is his worship: “I must decrease and he must increase.”
Of all the forms of worship, none is more addictive than our quest for significance.
Legacy is Worship
God’s sees through the self-glorifying, self-deceptions concerning our legacy-lives:
Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me.” (Jer. 9:23-24)
The Hebrew word for “boast” is the same Hebrew word used in “hallelujah.” Hallelujah literally means, “Glory to Yahweh” while “boast” in these verses literally means, “Glory to me.”
Christianity has always taught that our purpose on earth is worship. It is in our DNA. Unfortunately, we always worship the wrong thing. If it isn’t a golden calf, it’s our golden name. We want to do great things for the Lord. Why? We sing the 21st Century Handel’s Hallelu Chorus: All glory to me!
God can do everything without us, but he loves connection, the partnership. Jesus uses a boy’s fish and loaves to feed 5,000. He could have rained down meat and manna (a Biblical version of “it’s cloudy with a chance of meatballs”), but he chose to partner.
God invites us into companionship with him, and that partnership is an incredible honor, but only when we forget ourselves and point the glory to him.
If his legacy-life is friendship with us, maybe we can leave our best impact by letting our legacy go.
Sam
Insidious Creep
Great post, Sam. As I cover in my book , “Like Eating Jelly with Chopsticks”, so many believers are convinced they must make an impact for God, in order to deserve His love. Many of those have doubtless struggled with trying to impress their own parents or other figures of authority in their lives, without realizing that God is already impressed and gratified, simply because they have chosen to Love Him as He has loved them.
It seems we humans always have to make life more complicated than it need be in order to feel, at the end of the day, as though we have personally accomplished something great! But it’s not necessary. To have loved God wholeheartedly, and to have wholeheartedly accepted HIS love… that’s really what matters!
Addicted to significance? Oh wow! I can’t even wrap my mind around this comment.
Hi Linda,
I know, it’s a scary thought. But isn’t it true? Don’t occasionally scratch and claw for recognition? (Or sit dejected because we’re afraid to scratch and claw.)
All the while, he simply loves us. Our fruit is not to prove something or earn it; our fruit is simply His love passing through us.
Sam
Hi Jack,
I mostly agree, but the gospel is so slippery (since it doesn’t depend on us), we still occasionally get the rug swept from under us.
For example, I KNOW you are 100% committed to the gospel, yet you end your comment like this:
But that is misleading. The gospel is not us wholeheartedly loving HIM; it is HIM wholeheartedly loving us, even (maybe especially) when we fail to return his love.
Thanks
I think you are confusing impact with attribution. You are spot on regarding “making a name for myself”. But Jesus and his disciples was purposeful (“to seek and save the lost” (Lk 19:10); “that they may have life, and have it to the full” (Jn 10:10); “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some” (1 Cor 9:22)). If we don’t bear fruit, there are unpleasant consequences (Jn 15:2). You’re right that we shouldn’t seek credit, but there’s nothing wrong with impact, my friend. There’s nothing wrong with building “something beautiful for God”, only putting our plaque with our name on it.
Hi Bill,
No, I think it is most of believers who mix and conflate impact with attribution.
Jesus goes out of his way to say that some plant, some plow, and some harvest; but it is God (and God alone) who gives growth.
It is always a question of motive. If I really (really) want to rob a bank but don’t because of fear of jail, my heart still wants to rob that bank. (That is why Jesus talked of lust as guilty as real adultery.)
God wants us to have pure hearts, hearts that want HIS name on that plaque. Anything else smells of Babel: “Come let us make a name for ourselves.”
Sam
Does our impact inspire? Certainly! Jesus’s life inspires me to “do all things as unto the Lord.”
Excellent; let us do things as unto the Lord, so that he gets all the credit, every last drop of credit.
Remember: it is his kindness that invites us to join him in service. He doesn’t “need us” as much as he “wants us.”
Thanks
Not only do I think you’re right, I think that your point is exactly the point (at least one of two main points) of Abraham’s offering of Isaac. Isaac WAS his legacy. God asked for it. Abraham said to the servants who went with him, “The boy and I will go up and we will return to you.” But all he could see was that he was killing his legacy–and trusting God to keep His word even when He calls us to give back what we thought was “my ministry.”
(The other main point was that Isaac foreshadowed Christ’s atonement.)
Hi Bruce,
Yes, I think God calls us to sacrifice our “natural” gifting (Ishmael” and our “supernatural” gifting (Isaac).
Real worship is giving all to him. But most of us want to keep back the tiniest bit, just for ourselves.
God can still use us when we are impure–look how he used Balaam’s ass–but do any of us really want to have the legacy of a mule?
Sam
Hi Sam, as always, thanks for sharing this stuff! Today it really hit me and I sat and pondered it for a while, I read some of the comments too, but none of them touched what was happening for me. I couldn’t help linking this message to some other words I could see on my screen too, Insidious Creep. I know that I dream and yearn for significance when parts of me are unloved. It “creeps insidiously into daydreaming wonderful adventures in which I am a respected, adored heroin, or striving to prove to all those at home and at work why they should respect me, but really it’s all about that frightened, insecure place within that hasn’t been fully given over to God yet. When He lives in all of me, He is my all and nothing else matters. I am so thankful to hear His message through your words, God bless us both.
Hi Andrea,
I always love your comments; you are honest and personal.
I think we all have those dreams of acclaim and adulation and adoration. At least you are honest enough to admit them.
Slowly but surely God is moving us all into the light, the light where he is glorified.
Is that really such a scary thing? After all, that glorious, all-powerful, majestic being … loves us.
Sam
I struggle with this post. One of the ways I see Christian’s idolatry is worshipping their own humility. They err on the side of false humility. They hide their light under a bushel for fear someone will see God’s greatness in them and think it’s a human victory.
The Jonathan Edwards quote really breaks my heart. Even sinners who run fast on legs made by God glorify God more than saints who sit home lest someone mistake them for God.
What this policy has led to is withdrawal from society. Christian’s afraid of the power God gave them acting pias about it. They fast as though holy, from their own destiny because if their heart desires it it must be wicked.
The world has suffered for it. We’ve withdrawn from places of influence and the world grew dimmer. We stopped being fathers at home, at church and in business–leaving our kids to be raised by school, our congregations to follow a rule book, and the work place is worst of all.
At work they tell us when to show up and when to leave, what we can’t say and how we must act, they govern what we wear, take care of our healthcare and vacation…they are parents! But when they don’t need you they fire you.
Why don’t Christian’s start their own business? Because it requires them to believe God made them for a purpose. What if they were to succeed and someone got the wrong idea? We do this with women when we make them hide their beauty so a man doesn’t lust.
Taking our humility into our own hands is idolatry.
Worried you’re stiving for greatness instead of glorifying God? Go stand before God. In less than a minute you’ll get a better understanding of your own limits. It’s not about legacy or worship. Both are automatic if your life comes from connection to God.
Jesus was whipped in obedience to his purpose for the father, should we all be whipped? That won’t make us holy. When our goal is to honor our father our sweat is worship. So is our glory.
Hi Sir Bunch,
I love it when you challenge me; iron really does sharpen iron (and marshmallows just make me fatter).
I agree that too many believers sit back, doing little to nothing, out of fear, false humility, or inertia.
But there are also way too many believers (and always have been) speaking the words of angels with noisy gongs and clanging cymbals. I call them celebrity pastors, whether they are pastors, ushers, pray-ers, alms-givers, or foot-washers.
It’s still a question of heart motivation. Remember in Acts 8 where Simon the Magician (who “called himself great”) is converted to faith, but then offers to buy power from Peter to add to his greatness.
I think it better we make our impact by pointing day and night to HIS greatness, and by offering ourselves not FOR ourselves but for his glory (like the widow who offered her two pence, which made more “impact” that riches, but she did it silently).
Yes, we should obey, “Go into all the world” and we should remember “he fulfills his purposes for us.”
But if we don’t see the danger of idolatry, our impact wont be worth tuppence.
Sam
I am enjoying your book. Total agreement so far. Amazing to read someone else express what is in my heart! HOWEVER: reading your posts is very difficult as the print is so FAINT, reading it is VERY difficult!! Is there any way to adjust that? Only have this problem with your blog. Blessings!
FONT MUCH IMPROVED! THANK YOU BUNCHES!!!!!