Random Thoughts on Living Ordered Lives, Part One
The title is an oxymoron, I get it. Random (unordered) thoughts on order (nonrandom).
I began serving in ministry at 18 years old as a youth intern. At 19, I became a full-time youth pastor. The mark of my life at that time most certainly was not order. Interestingly enough, I talked to the pastor I served on staff with years later, and he asked me if I was still unorganized. What a way to be passive-aggressive. Lol
I am not using myself as a perfect standard for what an ordered life looks like but simply reflecting on how I have grown in bringing order to my life. Below are a few things that have helped me:
# 1. The Person of God
As a young man, I would say that I had a willingness and zeal for the things of God but had not considered God, as a person, very carefully. I was willing to go wherever and do whatever the Lord called me to do. I will give you an example. When Elisa and I met, I made it very clear to her that I would go wherever and do whatever the Lord called me to do. This was important to me because I wanted the woman I would marry to know this and to be on the same page as me. The way that I, as a young man, communicated this was something like this: “I will go wherever and do whatever the Lord calls me to do even if that means living in a cardboard box.” Elisa was immediately turned off by that. Why? Not because she wanted worldly things but because she wanted an ordered life, and living in a cardboard box didn’t seem to be an ordered life.
But what was my scapegoat for cardboard-box living? It was God “calling me” to do it. Now, I completely understand that people may find themselves living in a proverbial cardboard box through circumstances outside their control, and the emphasis of what I was saying was on a genuine, sincere desire to please the Lord. But I was immaturely using God’s calling as justification for living an unordered life.
What wrecked me was carefully studying the person of God. What does it mean for God to be ordered? John Frame, in his book The Doctrine of God, said, “God’s nature is orderly, not chaotic.” God is not confused, disorderly, or divided against himself. His works reflect his wisdom, purpose, and character. “For God is not a God of confusion but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33).
If our God is a God of order, then increasingly becoming like him ought to produce order in us. “Be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Ephesians 5:1).
# 2. The Purposes of God
Directly tied to the person of God are the purposes of God. All of the purposes and plans of God flow directly from the person of God. We have seen this in Genesis in recent months. What is the earth like in Genesis 1:2? It is dark, formless, and void. Or we might say that it was without order. What does God do there? He brings order to it, fills it, and makes an inhabitable world that has a clear purpose and design (Genesis 1:2–31). God separates light from darkness, waters from waters, sea from dry land, and then fills the realms he has formed. Creation itself displays the ordering wisdom of God.
I have also learned about order as it pertains to my role as an image bearer and dominion taker (interesting title, I know). When I lived on a half-acre lot, I was less diligent as the man of my household in caring for the property I owned. Everything that needed to be done existed on a make-believe list of things to do that never actually got done. Or if something did get done, it was way too late. The grass needed to be mowed. The shop needed to be organized. That place in the hallway needed to be painted. The list went on and on. Admittedly, I was a sluggard. And God’s Word doesn’t speak too kindly of sluggards (Proverbs 6:6–11; 24:30–34). Not to mention, the church was much smaller then—less shepherding, less oversight, less counseling. We had no kids then, just me and Elisa.
Now we have two kids, more land, a bigger church, more people, more administration and oversight—more, more, more. And yet, by God’s grace, there is more order now than there was when I had far less to manage. The answer was never merely having fewer responsibilities. I needed to learn to faithfully exercise dominion over the responsibilities God had already given me.
What about the family? Two young people who have lived their own lives—and very different lives at that—get married, and how are they supposed to function without chaos taking over? God’s purpose is for husbands to lead by loving their wives and faithfully managing their households (Ephesians 5:25–29; 1 Timothy 3:4–5), women to be homemakers (Titus 2:4–5; Proverbs 31:27), and children to obey their parents (Ephesians 6:1–3). God has not left the family without structure. He has given it an order for its good and his glory.
When Elisa and I first got married, we lived in Kentucky. I served on staff at a church with a growing youth group and a growing church. My mentor was my pastor. Life was as good as it gets, or so I thought. Elisa came home one day and **said to me, “Ryan, there is nothing spiritual about our marriage.”
Ouch!!!! But she was right. Everything spiritual about our life happened within the four walls of the church building, and that was it. There was no family worship, no talk of the Bible; there was only talk about vocational ministry. There was no order in the home, none!
Now, by no means are we perfect, but we have order in our home, and it is ever growing. We practice family worship, we budget, we communicate well, we have planned family days, weekly family meetings, and more! Can you not say that God is glorified by such order? You bet he is! And we are most certainly better because of it!
What about the church? Just consider Titus 1. Paul says that he left Titus in Crete to “put what remained into order” (Titus 1:5). Again, in 1 Corinthians 14:33, 40, Paul says, “God is not a God of confusion but of peace,” and therefore, “all things should be done decently and in order.”
Much of what I have said above from personal stories could be said here again. When I first began in ministry, all I had was the fire of the gospel ignited in my heart and a heart full of gasoline. But you cannot pastor a church on zeal alone.
Ecclesiology is the study of the church, and my ecclesiology has developed radically over the last 15 years. A good conviction of biblical ecclesiology will bring order to the church and to the lives of the members within it. Scripture gives us qualifications for officers, responsibilities for members, patterns for worship, practices for discipline, commands concerning fellowship, and a mission to pursue. The church is not ours to organize according to our preferences; Christ has already given order to his church.
God's purposes reflect God's person. The God who is himself orderly creates, commands, and governs according to order.
# 3. The People of God
While “the people of God” sounds like I am referring to the church at large, I am not talking about that. I am talking about particular people who have sharpened me for the sake of living an ordered life. And these people are most certainly found in the church.
“Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17).
We all know this verse and likely agree with it, but consider it in light of what I am talking about—living an ordered life. For iron to be heated, forged, and molded for its purpose, it must go through real heat, real forging, and real molding.
I am afraid we have given mental assent to this verse but not real practice to it. We often think that sharpening happens from a distance. How do I know? Because we do not get close enough in proximity to people to be sharpened. We do not let people in. Or if we do, and someone points something out, then we disagree with them and justify why what they are saying isn’t true.
Scripture presents something very different: “Faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Proverbs 27:6). Faithful friends sometimes wound us precisely because they love us enough to tell us the truth.
I remember a mentor I had who spoke directly, plainly, and boldly to me. I cannot count the number of times that we had conversations that rubbed me the wrong way, that I initially disagreed with, or that caused me to justify why he was wrong. And then I would leave the meeting and think…and eventually realize he was right. He had confronted a failure or weakness in me, and I did not like it.
A dear friend and I worked through some serious interpersonal issues, and today I count him, perhaps even more than before, as an even dearer friend. How did it happen? Honest conversation, repentance, confession, tears, hurt, forgiveness, and prayer.
These kinds of relationships establish order because they remind us that we are not always the highest authority in our own lives and that God has placed real, flesh-and-blood people around us to correct, counsel, confront, and sharpen us. Many Christians will acknowledge the authority of Christ and the Word, but very few have ever been wounded **through the faithful correction** of another brother or sister and actually come out on the other side better and more ordered. “Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid” (Proverbs 12:1). Biblical correction is one of God’s means of bringing the disorder in us into submission to his Word.
I am not advocating for being rude, harsh, or mean. But Christians ought to be able to “speak the truth in love” to one another (Ephesians 4:15). This was one of the ways that God brought order to my life—the voice of the people of God who sharpened me. Sharpening rubs off rough edges, exposes weaknesses and sins, and helps conform us more closely to Christ. That kind of sharpening brings order, and that order brings glory to God.
# 4. The Perseverance of God
Lastly, God preserves his children and progressively conforms them to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29–30). The work of sanctification is the work of the triune God bringing more and more order into the lives of his children.
We are not left to accomplish this in our own strength. “It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). The God who began the work will complete it (Philippians 1:6).
This does not make us passive. Rather, because God is at work in us, we are commanded to “work out” our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12–13). We labor to put our lives in order because God is graciously at work ordering us according to the image of Christ.
Baked into the perseverance of God is a timetable. Sanctification ordinarily happens over time, and time does heal some things—so long as time is not used as an excuse to wallow in self-pity, remain in sin, or neglect obedience. Yet Scripture also places boundaries and urgency around certain things. We are not to let the sun go down on our anger (Ephesians 4:26–27); reconciliation is to be pursued rather than indefinitely postponed (Matthew 5:23–24); repentance is a matter of “today” (Hebrews 3:13–15); and we are to make the best use of the time God has given us (Ephesians 5:15–16). There is a time to mourn and a time to laugh (Ecclesiastes 3:4), a time to work and a time to rest (Exodus 20:9–10). Maturity recognizes that while God patiently sanctifies us over time, his patience must never become our permission to remain unnecessarily disordered.
I wish I had done some things quicker and other things differently. And I have learned from things in the past **so that I might** do them differently in the future. All of this is a part of the providence of God as he brings greater order into our lives. The ordered life is not built in a day. It is built through years of repentance, obedience, correction, wisdom, failure, growth, and the persevering grace of God.**
Next week I want to give some specific areas of our lives that need order.
Jonathan Edwards made it his aim to live an ordered life. He clarified this in his seventy resolutions with statements such as Resolution 5: “Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.”
That is a worthwhile ambition—not merely to become more productive, organized, or efficient, but to increasingly bring every part of life under the wise and good order of God.
Until next week, bring order to your life based on these four principles. May God be glorified by your efforts!
SDG,
Ryan Wade
I began serving in ministry at 18 years old as a youth intern. At 19, I became a full-time youth pastor. The mark of my life at that time most certainly was not order. Interestingly enough, I talked to the pastor I served on staff with years later, and he asked me if I was still unorganized. What a way to be passive-aggressive. Lol
I am not using myself as a perfect standard for what an ordered life looks like but simply reflecting on how I have grown in bringing order to my life. Below are a few things that have helped me:
# 1. The Person of God
As a young man, I would say that I had a willingness and zeal for the things of God but had not considered God, as a person, very carefully. I was willing to go wherever and do whatever the Lord called me to do. I will give you an example. When Elisa and I met, I made it very clear to her that I would go wherever and do whatever the Lord called me to do. This was important to me because I wanted the woman I would marry to know this and to be on the same page as me. The way that I, as a young man, communicated this was something like this: “I will go wherever and do whatever the Lord calls me to do even if that means living in a cardboard box.” Elisa was immediately turned off by that. Why? Not because she wanted worldly things but because she wanted an ordered life, and living in a cardboard box didn’t seem to be an ordered life.
But what was my scapegoat for cardboard-box living? It was God “calling me” to do it. Now, I completely understand that people may find themselves living in a proverbial cardboard box through circumstances outside their control, and the emphasis of what I was saying was on a genuine, sincere desire to please the Lord. But I was immaturely using God’s calling as justification for living an unordered life.
What wrecked me was carefully studying the person of God. What does it mean for God to be ordered? John Frame, in his book The Doctrine of God, said, “God’s nature is orderly, not chaotic.” God is not confused, disorderly, or divided against himself. His works reflect his wisdom, purpose, and character. “For God is not a God of confusion but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33).
If our God is a God of order, then increasingly becoming like him ought to produce order in us. “Be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Ephesians 5:1).
# 2. The Purposes of God
Directly tied to the person of God are the purposes of God. All of the purposes and plans of God flow directly from the person of God. We have seen this in Genesis in recent months. What is the earth like in Genesis 1:2? It is dark, formless, and void. Or we might say that it was without order. What does God do there? He brings order to it, fills it, and makes an inhabitable world that has a clear purpose and design (Genesis 1:2–31). God separates light from darkness, waters from waters, sea from dry land, and then fills the realms he has formed. Creation itself displays the ordering wisdom of God.
I have also learned about order as it pertains to my role as an image bearer and dominion taker (interesting title, I know). When I lived on a half-acre lot, I was less diligent as the man of my household in caring for the property I owned. Everything that needed to be done existed on a make-believe list of things to do that never actually got done. Or if something did get done, it was way too late. The grass needed to be mowed. The shop needed to be organized. That place in the hallway needed to be painted. The list went on and on. Admittedly, I was a sluggard. And God’s Word doesn’t speak too kindly of sluggards (Proverbs 6:6–11; 24:30–34). Not to mention, the church was much smaller then—less shepherding, less oversight, less counseling. We had no kids then, just me and Elisa.
Now we have two kids, more land, a bigger church, more people, more administration and oversight—more, more, more. And yet, by God’s grace, there is more order now than there was when I had far less to manage. The answer was never merely having fewer responsibilities. I needed to learn to faithfully exercise dominion over the responsibilities God had already given me.
What about the family? Two young people who have lived their own lives—and very different lives at that—get married, and how are they supposed to function without chaos taking over? God’s purpose is for husbands to lead by loving their wives and faithfully managing their households (Ephesians 5:25–29; 1 Timothy 3:4–5), women to be homemakers (Titus 2:4–5; Proverbs 31:27), and children to obey their parents (Ephesians 6:1–3). God has not left the family without structure. He has given it an order for its good and his glory.
When Elisa and I first got married, we lived in Kentucky. I served on staff at a church with a growing youth group and a growing church. My mentor was my pastor. Life was as good as it gets, or so I thought. Elisa came home one day and **said to me, “Ryan, there is nothing spiritual about our marriage.”
Ouch!!!! But she was right. Everything spiritual about our life happened within the four walls of the church building, and that was it. There was no family worship, no talk of the Bible; there was only talk about vocational ministry. There was no order in the home, none!
Now, by no means are we perfect, but we have order in our home, and it is ever growing. We practice family worship, we budget, we communicate well, we have planned family days, weekly family meetings, and more! Can you not say that God is glorified by such order? You bet he is! And we are most certainly better because of it!
What about the church? Just consider Titus 1. Paul says that he left Titus in Crete to “put what remained into order” (Titus 1:5). Again, in 1 Corinthians 14:33, 40, Paul says, “God is not a God of confusion but of peace,” and therefore, “all things should be done decently and in order.”
Much of what I have said above from personal stories could be said here again. When I first began in ministry, all I had was the fire of the gospel ignited in my heart and a heart full of gasoline. But you cannot pastor a church on zeal alone.
Ecclesiology is the study of the church, and my ecclesiology has developed radically over the last 15 years. A good conviction of biblical ecclesiology will bring order to the church and to the lives of the members within it. Scripture gives us qualifications for officers, responsibilities for members, patterns for worship, practices for discipline, commands concerning fellowship, and a mission to pursue. The church is not ours to organize according to our preferences; Christ has already given order to his church.
God's purposes reflect God's person. The God who is himself orderly creates, commands, and governs according to order.
# 3. The People of God
While “the people of God” sounds like I am referring to the church at large, I am not talking about that. I am talking about particular people who have sharpened me for the sake of living an ordered life. And these people are most certainly found in the church.
“Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17).
We all know this verse and likely agree with it, but consider it in light of what I am talking about—living an ordered life. For iron to be heated, forged, and molded for its purpose, it must go through real heat, real forging, and real molding.
I am afraid we have given mental assent to this verse but not real practice to it. We often think that sharpening happens from a distance. How do I know? Because we do not get close enough in proximity to people to be sharpened. We do not let people in. Or if we do, and someone points something out, then we disagree with them and justify why what they are saying isn’t true.
Scripture presents something very different: “Faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Proverbs 27:6). Faithful friends sometimes wound us precisely because they love us enough to tell us the truth.
I remember a mentor I had who spoke directly, plainly, and boldly to me. I cannot count the number of times that we had conversations that rubbed me the wrong way, that I initially disagreed with, or that caused me to justify why he was wrong. And then I would leave the meeting and think…and eventually realize he was right. He had confronted a failure or weakness in me, and I did not like it.
A dear friend and I worked through some serious interpersonal issues, and today I count him, perhaps even more than before, as an even dearer friend. How did it happen? Honest conversation, repentance, confession, tears, hurt, forgiveness, and prayer.
These kinds of relationships establish order because they remind us that we are not always the highest authority in our own lives and that God has placed real, flesh-and-blood people around us to correct, counsel, confront, and sharpen us. Many Christians will acknowledge the authority of Christ and the Word, but very few have ever been wounded **through the faithful correction** of another brother or sister and actually come out on the other side better and more ordered. “Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid” (Proverbs 12:1). Biblical correction is one of God’s means of bringing the disorder in us into submission to his Word.
I am not advocating for being rude, harsh, or mean. But Christians ought to be able to “speak the truth in love” to one another (Ephesians 4:15). This was one of the ways that God brought order to my life—the voice of the people of God who sharpened me. Sharpening rubs off rough edges, exposes weaknesses and sins, and helps conform us more closely to Christ. That kind of sharpening brings order, and that order brings glory to God.
# 4. The Perseverance of God
Lastly, God preserves his children and progressively conforms them to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29–30). The work of sanctification is the work of the triune God bringing more and more order into the lives of his children.
We are not left to accomplish this in our own strength. “It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). The God who began the work will complete it (Philippians 1:6).
This does not make us passive. Rather, because God is at work in us, we are commanded to “work out” our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12–13). We labor to put our lives in order because God is graciously at work ordering us according to the image of Christ.
Baked into the perseverance of God is a timetable. Sanctification ordinarily happens over time, and time does heal some things—so long as time is not used as an excuse to wallow in self-pity, remain in sin, or neglect obedience. Yet Scripture also places boundaries and urgency around certain things. We are not to let the sun go down on our anger (Ephesians 4:26–27); reconciliation is to be pursued rather than indefinitely postponed (Matthew 5:23–24); repentance is a matter of “today” (Hebrews 3:13–15); and we are to make the best use of the time God has given us (Ephesians 5:15–16). There is a time to mourn and a time to laugh (Ecclesiastes 3:4), a time to work and a time to rest (Exodus 20:9–10). Maturity recognizes that while God patiently sanctifies us over time, his patience must never become our permission to remain unnecessarily disordered.
I wish I had done some things quicker and other things differently. And I have learned from things in the past **so that I might** do them differently in the future. All of this is a part of the providence of God as he brings greater order into our lives. The ordered life is not built in a day. It is built through years of repentance, obedience, correction, wisdom, failure, growth, and the persevering grace of God.**
Next week I want to give some specific areas of our lives that need order.
Jonathan Edwards made it his aim to live an ordered life. He clarified this in his seventy resolutions with statements such as Resolution 5: “Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.”
That is a worthwhile ambition—not merely to become more productive, organized, or efficient, but to increasingly bring every part of life under the wise and good order of God.
Until next week, bring order to your life based on these four principles. May God be glorified by your efforts!
SDG,
Ryan Wade
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