This is the Radical Experiment. Over the next year to pray for the entire world. To read through the entire Word. To sacrifice your money for a specific purpose. To spend your time in another context. To commit your life to a multiplying community. Will you take the challenge? In light of all that we have seen, will you take these practical steps to break out of the American dream and to begin abandoning your life to a radical gospel?
Consider what you might feel after a year of being intimately exposed to the heart of God for every nation in the world. Contemplate what you might know about the glory of God after a year of listening closely to his voice. Think of all the possessions you have now that you would realize you do not need, and think of all the dire needs that would be met as a result of your sacrifice of them. Wonder about where God might lead you—near or far, to a reached people or maybe to an unreached people who have never heard the gospel until they meet you. Reflect on the community of faith that would surround you as you find yourself in relationships that are the primary avenue through which your life will impact the world.
What happens when men and women begin following Christ with all their hearts into all the world? In this book I have sought to crack open the door and provide a glimpse into what it might look like. But this book is just that: a glimpse.
I want to help you in this. And I want to connect you with resources and people who, like you, are on a journey of radically following Jesus. Go to the Web site that accompanies this book (www.radicalthebook.com) for more stories, links, and helps that can make your one-year experiment a thrilling success. And please, if God is doing something special in your life as a result of your Radical Experiment, leave a story about it on the Web site so that others can be encouraged.
I have so much more to uncover about radical discipleship to Jesus, and the church I am a part of has so much more to explore. I fear that in sharing some of their stories, I have communicated that everything in our church is aligned with the person and purpose of Christ. Unfortunately it is not. We have far to go. I also fear that I have given the impression that everything goes smoothly and wonderfully when we attempt to recover the essence of the gospel in the church. Let me assure you that the opposite is true. I have wondered if it might be beneficial to include an additional chapter filled with the not-so-positive e-mails that have come my way as we have tried to work out the core truths of the gospel in our faith family! I am not without fault, and I have made many mistakes. I have so much to learn about what it means to be a pastor, and the great evidence of God’s grace is that the church I pastor has stuck with me as long as they have. I love them more than I could have imagined when I first started to lead them, and one of the deepest, most undeserved joys of my life is pastoring a church in America that I believe, under the power of the Holy Spirit of God, can shake the nations for his glory.
I also fear that in addressing unbiblical foundations inherent within the American dream, I have created the impression that every facet of the American dream is negative. This is certainly not the case. Though we have much to learn from our persecuted brothers and sisters in lands where there is no freedom, and though we have much to learn from impoverished brothers and sisters in lands where there are few resources, I am grateful to God for the freedom and resources he has given us in the United States. These gifts from God have certainly not been without cost, and if we did not have such freedoms and resources, many of the opportunities we have to take the gospel to the nations would simply not exist. The challenge before us, then, is to use the freedoms, resources, and opportunities God has entrusted to us for his purpose in the world, all the while remaining careful not to embrace ideas, values, and assumptions that contradict what God has said in his Word.
We have seen the cost of following Jesus. Give up everything you have. Sell your possessions, and give to the poor. Go to places of great need and great danger, where you may lose your life. Give your life for the sake of Christ among the nations. The cost of picking up a cross and following Jesus is steep. It costs you everything you have. But in the end, the reward is sweet. You gain more than you ever had.
In the words of Jesus, “No one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age… and in the age to come, eternal life.”5 When you do the math on this, this really is no sacrifice. In the introduction to Jim Elliot’s biography, his wife, Elisabeth, wrote a summary of his life and death that seems most appropriate at this point. She said:
Jim’s aim was to know God. His course, obedience—the only course that could lead to the fulfillment of his aim. His end was what some would call an extraordinary death, although in facing death he had quietly pointed out that many have died because of obedience to God.
He and the other men with whom he died were hailed as heroes, “martyrs.” I do not approve. Nor would they have approved.
Is the distinction between living for Christ and dying for Him, after all, so great? Is not the second the logical conclusion of the first? Furthermore, to live for God is to die, “daily,” as the apostle Paul put it. It is to lose everything that we may gain Christ. It is in thus laying down our lives that we find them.6
As Elisabeth Elliot points out, not even dying a martyr’s death is classified as extraordinary obedience when you are following a Savior who died on a cross. Suddenly a martyr’s death seems like normal obedience.
So what happens when radical obedience to Christ becomes the new normal? Are you willing to see? You have a choice. You can cling to short-term treasures that you cannot keep, or you can live for long-term treasures that you cannot lose: people coming to Christ; men, women, and children living because they now have food; unreached tribes receiving the gospel. And the all-consuming satisfaction of knowing and experiencing Christ as the treasure above all others.
You and I have an average of about seventy or eighty years on this earth. During these years we are bombarded with the temporary. Make money. Get stuff. Be comfortable. Live well. Have fun. In the middle of it all, we get blinded to the eternal. But it’s there. You and I stand on the porch of eternity. Both of us will soon stand before God to give an account for our stewardship of the time, the resources, the gifts, and ultimately the gospel he has entrusted to us. When that day comes, I am convinced we will not wish we had given more of ourselves to living the American dream. We will not wish we had made more money, acquired more stuff, lived more comfortably, taken more vacations, watched more television, pursued greater retirement, or been more successful in the eyes of this world. Instead we will wish we had given more of ourselves to living for the day when every nation, tribe, people, and language will bow around the throne and sing the praises of the Savior who delights in radical obedience and the God who deserves eternal worship.
Are you ready to live for this dream? Let’s not waver any longer.