The Emperor's Got No Clothes // How to Live an Extraordinary Life, Pt 8

A Different Perspective Official Podcast

Have you ever had that experience of being the “odd man out” if I can use that old phrase. Everybody seems to be in agreement about something … and you’re looking at this thing and what you really want to say us “Ahh, excuse me but I think – I think the Emperor’s Got No Clothes”? So what do you do?

We're continuing our chat again today about what it means to live an extraordinary life. I think deep down we all want to do that, but you know what it's like, 99% of life is a humdrum. We just have to keep going and keep going and doing the things we have to do to make the whole thing tick over.

By the time we get home at the end of the day, we're way too exhausted to think about living an extraordinary life. Well that's a great formula for wasting your life, would you agree? We have one life to live on this earth you and I; it will either count for something or it won't; it will either impact people in a positive way or it won't.

It's confronting isn't it? Because the idea of wasting our lives is the most appalling thought, yet many people do and the way you do it, is a day at a time.

A great friend of mine, my former business partner and mentor for many years, Graham, had a great saying; he said that 'mediocrity begets mediocrity'. In other words, as long as we go with the flow and stick with the masses in the grey middle ground and don't ruffle too many feathers, we'll be okay.

Mediocre people love being surrounded by other mediocre people. No one stands out. No one makes a difference. Everyone's comfortable ... and so this whole group think happens, we perpetuate the status quo, we all live quietly, unassumingly, uncontroversially wasting our lives. That's how it goes, that's what happens. Yuck!

Do you see what happens when we take a look at life from a different perspective?

Yeah it's challenging, yeah it can make us feel uncomfortable, but hey sometimes we have to think about these things. Sometimes we have to make some changes because some of us are missing out on the extraordinary lives that God always planned for us.

Okay so where are we going with this today? What do we have to learn about this group think mediocrity thing from Jesus, today? Well here it is, have a listen and let's chat about it, Matthew Chapter 5 beginning at verse 17. Jesus said:

Do not think that I've come to abolish the law, the prophets. I've not come to abolish but to fulfil. For truly I tell you until heaven and earth have passed away not one letter, not one stroke will pass away from the law until all is accomplished.

Therefore whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of God. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of God.

For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and the Pharisee's you will never enter the kingdom of God.

Now maybe at first, that passage doesn't quite gel with what we've been talking about so far, which is wasting your life by participating in this group think, herd mentality, pervasive, compelling, comfortable mediocrity. But in fact that's exactly what this passage is all about, here's why.

The Jewish people had become complacent over the centuries until God sent them John the Baptist and now Jesus. He hadn't sent them a prophet for three, four hundred years. That's rather a long time.

So here's what they'd settled into.

Well you know, we're God's chosen people after all and we have the Law of Moses, the Torah (this was their law) and we have our religious leaders. So long as we dot the I's and cross the T's and play the game and tick the boxes, hey we're okay, we'll just muddle along and God can take care of Himself.

That's what was going on here and when Jesus came along and started calling a spade a spade, well the religious leaders who were powerful, who were wealthy, who had positions of honour and everybody bowed down to them (well come on, they'd made it) and Jesus all of a sudden comes along to threaten their power and their influence and their wealth and their comfort.

So what was the easiest thing for them to do? Rely on religion of course. Tell people that this radical Jesus who, by the way, had none of the religious credentials and breeding that they had, was speaking and teaching and preaching things contrary to the law of Moses, which was to the Jews sacrosanct.

That's how you'd undermine Him right? And that's why the first thing He does in this passage, is to set people right about this ridiculous allegation. Don't think I've come to abolish the law or the prophets; I haven't come to abolish them but to fulfil them.

Truly I tell you until heaven and earth pass away not one letter, not one stroke of a letter will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

But now He goes straight on to challenge their comfort zone, the idea that they were pretty much okay because they were kind of obeying Gods law mostly. Okay I'm not perfect but who is? So I'll be alright.

Not according to Jesus:

Therefore whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of God. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of God.

Stop doing this comfort zone thing, stop doing this grey mediocrity thing. Mediocrity is not okay. Either you're falling short of the law and you're in serious trouble or you're fulfilling the law and keeping the law with all of its six hundred and thirteen commandments and prohibitions in which case you're fine.

So people which one is that exactly? And then the absolute clincher. He strikes at the head of the serpent of mediocrity in their midst, the hoy-faloy religious leaders of the day:

For I tell you unless you're righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisee's you will never enter the kingdom of God.

See, striking at mediocrity was at the very centre of what Jesus was about. He confronted it, He addressed it, He challenged the people and you know what, it's this one thing that He did that got Him crucified. That's how much the world hates someone who challenges the steady predictable powerful base of mediocrity.

And whenever you or I stick our heads up from the crowd and stand out, whenever we reject mediocrity be it religious, be it professional, be it personal, someone’s going to come after us too with a meat cleaver because people are threatened by anyone who dissents from the creed of mediocrity.

But let me ask you this: do you think that mediocrity is going to get us an extraordinary life? Do you think that mediocre and extraordinary are comfortable bed fellows? And that's the point isn't it? It's either one or the other, you can't have both.

So your life … mediocre or extraordinary? Going with the flow or swimming against it? Sticking with the anonymity of the herd or sticking your head up and being different? They're questions that matter.

The greatest lesson I ever learned was to stop judging myself by the response of other people. Now I don't mean that we should be belligerent and arrogant and disregard good counsel, but if we spend our lives being people pleasers, we're going to be mediocre because that's what the crowd wants us to be. Because if we do the extraordinary, it rubs their noses in their own mediocrity.

That's why they want us to continue to be part of the herd. That's why mediocrity is always the enemy of the extraordinary.

So if you're comfortable with the mediocre, if you're afraid of going against the flow, if you're concerned at what other people think when you use your God-given gifts and abilities to do the extraordinary, well that's fine I guess.

But know this: you're well on the way to living a wasted life.