75. Life-Maxing? No, No, No...Try This Instead

0:00Beppe come new, get 10 minutes of spiritual formation every weekday with John Orberg. I want to talk to you about how you can maximize your life today. There is tremendous potential in you. Did you know that? And it can be optimized. It can be realized. You are surrounded by voices maybe more than ever before in the human history who are able to tell us, here's how to maximize your life. In fact, there actually is a word for those folks now and they are maxers. They're influencers, but they will tell you, looks maxing has become a big deal. There are people who are so devoted to this that it's not only exercise and diet and kind of obsessive commitments to sleep and cosmetic procedures and steroids and you don't have to look like you do right now. You got potential and then beyond that other kind of maxing, status maxing, productivity

1:03maxing. You can be doing so much more than you're doing right now. Wealth maxing, reputation maxing, sleep maxing, gym maxing, health maxing, but it's kind of a strange thing. The maxing approach, how do I maximize my life? How do I maximize myself? It rarely turns out all that well. There is something inside of us that always wants more. That's a good thing. Jesus himself said, I have come that you might have life and have it to the full, really have it to the max that your experience of life might be maximized. When it pulls favorite words, he would use it to describe what God is up to, perisiro, to overflow, talk about grace to the max, love to the max. But this is all different than self-maxing. In fact, in the book, we're going to get to the Psalms in a minute.

2:03But in the Bible, there's a lot of maxers, people who are trying to maximize themselves, and there's a pretty consistent result with it. Maybe the most famous looks, maxer, in the Bible. There's a number of them, interestingly enough, and they're generally men, interestingly enough, even as they are often in our day. Here's one of them we read about. In all Israel, this is 2 Samuel 15, there was not a man so highly praised for his handsome appearance as Absalom. He had maxed his looks. From the top of his head to the soul of his foot, there was no blemish in him. Whenever he cut the hair of his head, he used to cut his hair once a year because it would become too heavy for him. This guy would have thick head hair. He had maxed his hair. He would weigh it. Its weight was 200 checkles by the royal standard. He grew about five pounds a year a year. He maxed his looks. Now, as you may know, if you're kind of a Bible person, you know much about Absalom,

3:07he ended up rebelling against his dad, getting caught in a very foolish, horrible, tragic, awful war. He died because his lovely hair, apparently, had not been cut for a while, and he got stuck in trees, and he was trapped. That's what got him killed. He maxed himself to death. And then there was a wealth, Maxer, who had a fabulous crop one time. He said, I know what I'll do. Beer barred. I'm going to max out my wealth. And God came to him that night, and he didn't call him Maxer. He didn't call him real wise. You fool. Tonight your soul is going to be required of you. There was Solomon. He kind of maxed out wealth and pleasure, had a thousand wives and concubines. If you're a little child and you're watching this and you're wondering, what's a concubine? Ask your mom and dad. That whole maxing project, in many ways, goes back to Genesis chapter 3 when Adam and Eve were in the garden, and they are in paradise, and they are with God, but a little voice

4:10comes along whispers to them and says, can you really not eat from the trees? Distorts what it is that God said. If you do this, if you cross this boundary, your eyes will be open and you will be like God. Now that's maxing. God maxing. There's no boundary to what you might do, what you might become. We all have this little voice inside of us. Luc means rights about it in his book, Carrying and Commitment. He talks about how when we make commitments, we kind of limit ourselves. Tells a story about, I mean, it ends up leaving his wife because he thinks there's so much more joy in breaking a commitment and going into a different adulterous relationship. He says, why should we keep a commitment, Luc says, just because we made them, that's not enough reason for myself, maximizer. Being spilled the beans, I'll have to tell you more about myself maximizer, Luc writes.

5:13He is that go getter inside me, who tells me that my first job in life is to realize my potential. I have a simmering pot full of uncooked potential with him, and myself maximizer believes I have a right, maybe a duty to bring it to a boil. Myself maximizer is the part of me that whispers exciting things to me about my untested capacity to feel things I have never felt, experience things I have never experienced, become things I have only dreamt about becoming. He hints that commitment keeping is a sucker's game. A moral scam to cheat people like me out of their last chance for happiness. He tells me, I might be a lot better off, I kept myself free to cut bait, move on. When he's twin, the commitment keeper inside of me reminds me that I have promises to keep. Myself maximizer swavly nudges me to invoke the bottom line of happiness.

6:17Why should I let a mere commitment stand in the way of my inalienable right to the pursuit of total fulfillment? That's the self maximizer, maximizing what's in it for me. How do I get ahead? How can I increase my status or my success and my security or my advantage? Now there's kind of an inborn desire for more inside of us that is not always the wrong thing at all, but the tendency to put self at the center of my decision making process, that's what leads me into trouble. I've shown some of you long time ago, there was a sketch. It was actually done in a church that I was part of about a hypothetical pastor who is driven by ego. And even though this is my line of work, he is a pastor. Everybody kind of knows out of the service, out of the surface that it's really all about him. And how do I grow something bigger? Just because I go into this profession, it doesn't make me wholly healthy, right, virtuous.

7:21And so he broods over how to do this and then he calls his staff in one day and he tells them, you know, this is the old org chart. Me, everybody else, but it's not getting us where I want us to get too quickly enough. So I was thinking and thinking, last night it came to me a new org chart. Me, bigger me and everybody else. Now that's the maxil route. Here is another way. There is another way. Post a boy for this might be John the Baptist. And if you're a Bible person, you might know this story in the gospel of John. John has drawn lots and lots of people to him. And then one day Jesus comes and Jesus is baptized by John and Jesus begins his ministry and people start going to Jesus. And John's disciples don't like this because as long as John is a big deal and they're John's disciples, then they're a big deal. So they tell him, you know, this is about more, more followers, bigger influencer, more

8:25likes, more shares, more people, more baptisms, more numbers. He's getting more. You got to figure out somebody to get more. You got to figure out a way to max. And John says, no, I told you that I'm not the Messiah. He's the bridegroom. John has this real clear vision of who he is. From the friend of the bridegroom, the friend of the bridegroom would guard the bride on the night of the wedding. And then when the bridegroom came and he heard that voice, he would step aside. John says, that's who I am. I'm the friend of the groom. He's the groom. That joy, the joy of the friend is fulfilled when the groom comes and you will not rob me of that joy. I must decrease. So he must increase. And then of course, when Jesus comes, while we discover about Jesus as he doesn't show up and say, okay, time for me to increase. When Jesus gives the Yordshire, ironically, even though he's the Messiah, it doesn't look

9:28like this. What's it look like while it's laid out in Philippians chapter two because he is in very nature, God, he hums himself. Makes on the form of a servant makes himself nothing. He minimizes himself. He means he doesn't max. But of course, what he understands is actually, therefore, because he has done this become obedient to the point of death, even death on across. Therefore, therefore, God has exulted him in giving him the name that is above every name. Meaning is the way to maxing, not my ego, not my agenda, not my little project, not my stuff, my ability to experience life and love, enjoy and meaning and purpose and hope and faith in the kingdom of God. Meaning is the new maxing. There's a lot of new things that aren't true. Fifty-eighth the new forty, it's just fifty.

10:30But in the kingdom of God now, the way to the abundant life is actually as we, I, you, me seek to pour ourselves out. And instead of maxing my opportunity, my money, my looks, my me, me, me, me, me. So the invitation today is if you want to enter into maximal life, I've come to you and might have life, maximal love, maximal joy, maximal peace, maximal relationships, then men. Try some time today to minimize myself, not to engage in self-promotion, but actually promote the idea or the work of some other person and rejoice when something goes well for them. Instead of trying to maximize how can I get more, I actually give some money, I actually give some time today. I actually write a thoughtful, helpful, encouraging email, I actually pause to have a conversation, I actually stop and listen for a while to another person.

11:31I actually try to serve somebody else. For a couple thousand years now, his followers have discovered the truth of what John the Baptist said a long time ago, I must decrease my ego, my grandiosity, my reputation, my appearance, my, what's everybody thinking? And ironically, as that decreases, he and his life and his love inside me increase. And then the life that is really abundant, that life that runs out your ears, life to the max comes. So get out there today and men to max. Oh, Psalm 146 is the Psalm. I never got to the Psalm, I can't believe it. Read it on your own if you want to. Don't put your trust in princes, influencers. God, the maker of heaven and earth, upholds the oppressed, gives food to the hungry, sets the prisoners free, gives sight to the blind, lifts up those who are bowed down, loves

12:31the righteous, watches over the foreigner, sustains the fatherless in the widow. God is caring for just as Jesus did those that look like the least of these. And when we devote our lives in giving in that way to people who look like they are at the bottom in the men, then we enter that stream of life too. Psalm 146 is a bonus material. The who's up for some life, meaning today. What do you think you could do to put that into practice? How to minimize yourself? We're so into life, maxing, taking full advantage, maxing out our potential, doing everything that we can to be as productive as possible. I thought the teaching was refreshing. So I'd be curious what you're thinking about. What God is prompting your heart to do to take action in from this teaching.

13:33You can let us know in the chat on YouTube or you can text it to us, email it to us, all that contact info is in the show notes. But beyond that, even if you don't want to tell us, just tell somebody, talk to a friend, your spouse, to your neighbor, to your kids about how you might want to minimize yourself a little bit today. And in so doing, see what God might do in the lives of the people around you. We're glad that you're here to find out more, head over to becomenew.com. We'll see you next time.