Oh, to be 28 again.
And worth $19.1 billion dollars.
19.1 billion dollars. That’s 19 with nine zeros that follow. And that’s a recent estimated value of Mark Zuckerburg, CEO of Facebook, a social networking site that began in a Harvard dorm room and progressed to a company now expected to be worth $100 billion.
There are a myriad of ways that one can respond to this. But most responses will fit into two categories. Inspiration or despair. Many may be inspired by this young entrepreneur whose ingenuity and hard work seem to know no bounds. I suspect most, however, will be discouraged.
This discouragement comes from the “gospel” that is being preached from rooftops, from classroom lecterns, from dining room tables, and often from pulpits. What’s the good news? The success of the self-reliant. “If you can believe it, you can achieve it.” “If you work hard enough, you can be anything you want to be.” “If you try hard enough, you can be the best in the world.”
Both Christians and non-Christians have built their lives and their kingdoms around such notions of desire and achievement. But this self-centered appetite for success is not new. It didn’t begin in an ivy league apartment in 2003 or even with the National Council for Self Esteem in the 1980‘s. It started in a garden. And the promise wasn’t that two children could be presidents or astronauts or teachers or lawyers someday. It was that they could be gods. And in one grasp, in one “click,” they friended (Thank you Mark Zuckerburg for not only achieving our dreams, but also expanding our vocabulary!) the Devil.
Now it’s not that the Bible is against working hard or accomplishing goals. Quite the opposite. Jesus had much to say about achievement and wealth and work. But as the all-wise God, the new lawgiver, and perfectly obedient Son, Jesus is not only the epitome of success but the one who gets to define the terms. And in the Sermon on the Mount he reorganizes the entire paradigm.
Poor in spirit, mournful, and meek are not the typical virtues a Fortune 500 company seeks in potential CEOs. Those words aren’t usually found in the personal mission statement of the shining resumé. Yet poor in spirit, meek and many other unnatural characteristics describe those who will have the most success. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. They will be eternally satisfied. They will inherit the earth.
Success is not to be defined by the cover of Forbes’ magazine or even the white house with the picket fence.
This is not the way of the fallen world, but it is the way of the triumphant Kingdom. Jesus says that real happiness, real blessedness, real success, real satisfaction doesn’t come from using what you’ve got to work to get something you don’t have so that you can be someone that you’re not yet.
Instead, blessedness begins by realizing you don’t have it and you can’t achieve it. But the blessing is that in following Christ, you get it anyway. You get it all! (Just not all at once.) And once you realize you’ve inherited the earth, you don’t have to fight tooth and nail to take it. You can fight against the one who promised what he couldn’t give. You can glory in the one who’s given you everything.
As disciples of Christ, life is no longer about the injuries that come from Jack and Jill playing king of the hill. It’s about a life and an identity found in the one who climbs a mountain, not to beat his chest in defiance of humanity, or even to celebrate stock values (which prove to be so fleeting) but to sit down and explain the way kings and queens will rule for eternity--in meekness, mercy, and with pure hearts.
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