CHAPTER 118

The Discipline of Simplicity

Pam Arlund

Pam Arlund is a missionary, trainer, and Bible translator with All Nations International. She served in Central Asia, where she helped several previously unreached Muslim people groups to know and love Jesus. She has written numerous books and articles on missions. She is the co-editor of the fifth edition of perspectives and a Perspectives instructor.

We are a people of desires. God also desires. God desires to be with His creation and to enjoy fellowship with His people. Out of His great desire, God created a way for us to be united with Him—through His Son, Jesus Christ. Because God desires, He created us also to desire. God’s desires are only ever holy and perfect. However, we contain desires and longings for both good and evil that can rob us of our joy by creating inner turmoil (Rom 7:15–20).

Jesus explained how to restore peace to our souls in John 15:8–11 (ESV):

By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

As God is glorified by the fruit in our lives, our joy becomes complete. As a spiritual discipline, simplicity is focused on how to live a fruitful life. When we live for God’s glory, we live a fruitful life. We are living beings that can bring forth fruit for His global purpose. As we abide in love, we bear fruit for God and joy grows to fullness.

The discipline of simplicity allows us to take command of our desires and live intentionally. Spiritual disciplines are a way of ordering and taming our lives to make them useful and purposeful to God. Simplicity is not merely denying our desires. Instead, simplicity aligns our desires with God’s great purpose. As our desires match God’s, we will experience fullness of joy as He is worshiped among all peoples and languages.

God has invited us to bear much fruit, which means He has entrusted to us relationships, goods, and time that can either bring fruit to Him or not, depending on our stewardship. Stewards are people who cultivate goods for the sake their master—not for their own gain or reward. By definition, stewards hold possessions that do not belong to them. A life of simplicity recognizes that we are stewards—not owners. God has given us wealth, wisdom, gifts, material goods, and relationships so that we can be fruitful, be productive, and accomplish His global purpose.

Seek First

Jesus spoke about how believers should relate to life’s basic necessities when He said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things [food, drink, and clothing] will be added to you” (Matt 6:33 ESV). Jesus further went on to instruct His followers to be free of anxiety and worry about the future (Matt 6:34).

Why did Jesus say to seek first the kingdom? Because He knew that we seek all those other things first. However, if we try to pursue our every desire, we end up in internal conflict and the dysfunctional brokenness of conflicting desires. Without His power, we cannot live in the freedom and simplicity of a life lived for His glory alone.

Although Jesus encouraged us to be free from anxiety, that is not always easy. Jesus never meant for us to simply ignore the very desires and needs that He formed and gave to humanity.

What He meant was that when we live for God’s purposes, we can freely offer the fullness of our lives to Him and get a greater sense of joy in return. We will no longer be driven by a desire for material possessions.

Once we live a fruitful life unto God, we can be extravagant towards God with our hearts, our talents, and our treasures. We steward our hearts for His glory when we take the love He gave us and then give it to our enemies. We steward our talents for His glory when we take the talents He has given us and give them away in service to others. We steward our material possessions for His glory when we take the possessions He has given us and use them to bear fruit for God.

When our primary hunger in life is for His glory, then the normal human desires of material success, work advancements, or the latest fashions simply become second-rate pleasures. They are no longer the primary things we seek. Indeed, God might entrust into our care much wealth or great jobs. However, they are not our focus. Instead, Jesus and His global purposes have become the focus of our lives. That focus makes all the difference.

Because the New Testament church focused on bearing fruit for Christ, they wanted to give generously and cheerfully (2 Cor 9:6–8). The early church modeled a lifestyle of giving to the poor (Acts 2:45–46; 4:32; Gal 2:10), caring for widows (Acts 6:1; 1 Tim 5:3), and taking offerings for those in famine (Acts 11:29; 2 Cor 8–9). They also gave to missionaries and their families so that Christ might be worshiped to the ends of the earth (Luke 8:3; 1 Cor 9:3–6; Phil 4:15–18).

Our Reason for Being

Not too long ago, I toured a magnificent ocean liner called the Queen Mary. I had read an article that talked about how this beautiful cruise ship had thrown off all of its encumbrances when its purpose changed. Originally, the ship existed as the ultimate luxury cruising experience. “Each passenger was given an elegant and intricate place setting and a luxurious stateroom. These elements of the Queen Mary were essential for her to fulfill her purpose.”¹

But then World War II broke out, and suddenly the Queen Mary had a new mandate. When her purpose was luxury, she transported three thousand people at a time. But in this crisis, she needed to move fifteen thousand military personnel across the Atlantic as quickly as possible. The luxuries became an encumbrance. Soft beds were replaced with bunks stacked eight high. The fifteen distinct pieces of silverware and china became a simple metal plate and a lone fork.

For many people during World War II, participation in the war effort meant spending their time folding bandages, helping raise money, finding items to recycle, working extra shifts, or caring for families who had lost a loved one in the conflict. Their time, skills, and teamwork were all seen as crucial to successfully winning the war. Nothing else was as important as winning the war.

This could initially seem like a parable of self-restraint or self-denial, and there is a place for that (Matt 16:24). However, this parable points to other more fundamental questions: Can we be content in times of luxury and times of want? Can we simply follow the invitation of Jesus into any season, whether those are seasons of abundance or lack?

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul talks about this way of living:

I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength. (Phil 4:11–13 NIV)

Paul says clearly how his contentment is possible: “Through him who gives me strength.” Paul’s contentment is not found in plenty, nor is it found in want. Simplicity is neither a pursuit of comfort nor a prescribed minimalism. It wasn’t that he denied himself material possessions, for that would still set his eyes on the material world. Instead, Paul didn’t consider them a factor in the contentment equation. His eyes were fixed on Christ, and his possessions and life were focused on God’s purposes.

Living Simply for His Glory

In a similar way, Jesus invites us to live for something greater than ourselves: His global glory in an evangelized world. God has entrusted to His people particular resources that can glorify God by bearing fruit for His glory. Following the discipline of simplicity, Christians can live simply so that more can be given to God’s work among the as-yet unevangelized peoples of the earth.

Naturally, lifestyles of simplicity do not look the same in different cultures. Some believers will still have more material resources than others. There is no one fixed way to follow Christ.

Nevertheless, believers embracing the discipline of simplicity can be bound together in the joy of living with less so that God’s glory will be declared to the ends of the earth. The focus is not on living with less per se but on envisioning God being worshiped in every language on earth. That vision brings joy as we reflect the joy on the Father’s face back to Him.

For some of us, we will find it much more difficult to give time than possessions. For some, simplicity will mean a conscious decision to be less involved in sports, hobbies, or other recreational activities in order to spend more time in a variety of pursuits that bring glory to God. Obediently honoring a Sabbath rest and enjoying God’s creation, friends, and family can also bear much fruit. Some pursue work while others pursue pleasure, but simplicity pursues fruit for God’s glory in all things. The discipline of simplicity sparks conversations with God about our needs, wants, and desires. It changes the way we go through the grocery store and what we do on the internet.

The discipline of simplicity cannot be sustained over the long haul without a decisive commitment to spend time knowing, following, and abiding in Christ. Simplicity begins and is sustained by beholding Christ and finding our hearts aligned with His. Jesus said to abide in Him to bear much fruit. It is a joy to see His life bear fruit in ours.

RETURN TO LESSON 15: World Christian Discipleship

Notes

1. Ralph Winter, “Reconsecration: To a Wartime, Not a Peacetime, Lifestyle,” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement: A Reader, ed. Ralph D. Winter and Steven C. Hawthorne, 4th ed. (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 2009), 722.