When my daughter and her other senior teammates ran their last track race together, the four of them held hands and crossed the finish line together, shouting, “The class of 2008 Rules!” It was a beautiful moment. The coach, however, hung his head, both smirking and bemoaning the display. Even though they finished first, second, third, and fourth en masse, the judge stripped them of their placements and awarded their points to the other team pulling up the rear. Nice guys finish last, right?
In a selfish world, “Nice guys finish last” is an anthem to cruelty and trickery on the road to success because, there, success is measured through short-game thinking about the satisfying of greed and passions, and the quelling of fear in the accumulation and securing of stuff. There, “whoever dies with the most toys wins,” however you define “toys.”
According to Scripture, however, the ideal Christian assesses life differently; I call this Kingdom accounting, because, in God’s Spiritual Kingdom, success is declared by other measures. Ask my daughter about that loss and she beams with pleasure. It was a moment of solidarity between those who had shared much over their four years together, a glimmering crown of comradery. In fact, she is prouder of that moment than of all the wins over all those years of competition.[1] Just so, in Kingdom accounting, “nice guys” finish first.
I’m being a tad playful with my use of “nice guys.” Kingdom Accounting means measuring the value of things according to God’s perspective. It isn’t about being “nice,” so much as being loving, and we must never mistake being pleasant and soft for being loving. Love seeks the good of others and, sometimes, because we live in a world populated with sinners like you and I, that demands some pretty unpleasant things. You have to play a long-game when trying to determine what does and doesn’t actually do good. Sometimes we have to choose between conflicting desires and warring parties. People tend to respond to incentives of personal gain, loss, pain and pleasure, but it is often hardship, struggle, self-denial and suffering that rewards us best in becoming the people God wants us to be.
So I want to give you a bird’s eye view of what it means to be a Christian in practical terms. Far from requiring us to shave our heads, wear itchy brown robes, and eat plain food with just enough calories to keep us from starving to death, the Christian journey is one of finding the path of life that God laid out for us in His creation. Finding and walking this hard but joyous road entails devotion to Jesus Christ in prayer, worship, and Bible study, but honestly, it has been my experience that 80-90% of being a disciple of Jesus is striving to become a genuinely good person. Walking on hot coals not required.
Now, we shouldn’t assume going in that we already know what it means to be a good person, though most foolishly think they do, which is one of the reasons we need prayer, worship, and Bible study. A good portion of what ails us as human beings can be diagnosed in the fact that we are not truly good people, even when society tells us we are, and that we need God to teach us how to be. This is hard in a time when we are being inundated from every direction with messages telling us that being a good person means having no expectations for others… never making anyone feel bad about themselves or about what they do… that it is good and kind to accept whatever other people declare about themselves without challenge.
Rather, to do good means to cause good when that good is judged by long-term outcomes not short-term feelings or the deceit of immediate results. Disciplining a child does not please the child, but it secures the significant natural benefits of being a disciplined person. So too, the happiness of instantly gratifying childish wishes leads down a road of ultimate misery.
The eternal state of the soul is the ultimate long-game.
This principle applies broadly, whether it is misguided charity that does more harm than good, or strict morals that pain the wanton, but bring life and joy to the practitioner… or the criminal justice system where governmental brutality against evil doers increases the safety, order, and prosperity of society. Scripture tells us plainly that love “does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth.”[2] And goodness can start there in knowing that we do not have “your truth” and “my truth” but THE TRUTH.
So here is a panoramic of Christian discipleship. Desire the good of others and seek God to know what that looks like. It will seldom include poking them in the eyes and kicking their shins, but some may feel like you have when you speak truth to their lies. Focus on your responsibilities for doing good in every relationship you have. You are a child of parents that you should honor if they still live. It’s not always easy, and is often fraught with weird complications.[3] If you are a spouse, love them and study and pray about what that looks like in your situation. Do you have children? Raise them to find the path of the life that God has laid out for them in the world. Do you have neighbors? Bless them, pray for them, seek their good. Seek good for the waiter, be a blessing to the checkout girl, respect those in authority in any given situation. You are a citizen; be a good one. Obey the law. Respect other people’s rights. Give an informed vote, and seek the good of your community, even if it requires resisting unjust governance. That is not a contradiction, but a tension, and a lesson in wisdom.
Ask yourself today, “Which of these needs, is crying out the hardest?”
~Andrew D. Sargent, PhD
[1] This is not an attack against competition, for healthy competition does great good for the markets and for the whole of humanity through healthy markets. This is a recognition that there is more to life than outmaneuvering others to get what you want for yourself. Fair play, honestly, integrity, kindness, charity, and even losing at times have rewards that the selfish soul will never reap.
[2] 1 Corinthians 13:6 in the New Testament.
[3] A friend of mine’s mother was a practicing witch and allowed others to sexually abuse him as a child. We talked earnestly of how he could honor his mother in her aged hour of need, without exposing his own children to her evil.
