Transcript
Ben Fallon: Thanks for joining us for another week of “Ask Paul Tripp.” Today's question comes from someone who's reading “Lead: 12 Gospel Principles for Leadership in the Church,” because, Paul, in the book you write, “Success is more spiritually dangerous than failure.” This listener asks, “How do we keep success from growing into pride? How do we stay low while still striving for success and accomplishment? Is it wrong to want to be successful, even pursue becoming the best?”
Paul Tripp: I love talking about success. If the goal is to live for the glory of God, that everything I do is for His glory, then I should want to do everything I do with excellence, and I should want success. I believe in Christian gospel ambition–we should be ambitious. But there are temptations that go with that ambition, and surely temptations that go with success.
And the primary temptation is that I begin to take credit for what only God could do or produce. That's the big spiritual temptation. No one is independent. No one is self-sufficient. No one has accomplished anything in their life on their own. It's just, I want to say it again. No one's independent. No one's self-sufficient. No one has accomplished anything on their own. Every form of success is the result of many hands on me over many years. The way I like to think of it, and these are all things that you need to preach to yourself to keep low when success is high, is success is deeply relational. Success is always the work of a community. I'm never successful on my own.
Think about all the things that are in place to make me successful. I need gifts. I need God's empowering grace. I need a whole range of experiences. I need teachers and mentors and encouragers. I need God-given opportunity. I need a location to do my work. I need a calling to do my work. I mean, there are just all these things that only God can provide for me that are the essential ingredients of success. So, you have to preach that gospel of relationship and sovereignty to yourself. And I think you should have a little note on your mirror that you look at in the morning that says, “I have not accomplished anything independently or on my own alone!” Because that's the reality of it; that's why we worship. That's why we pray. That's why we give praise. That's why we pursue small groups. That's why we do all of those things because we know we're not independent.
Now, wrongful pride, the arrogance of success, denies everything I've just said. And the danger is, because I've attributed to myself what I couldn't have done alone, I begin to think that I don't need people, think that I don't need wisdom outside of myself, think that I don't need God's help, and I begin to live a spiritually isolated, spiritually independent life, closed to the help of others, closed to the critique of others, and that is a recipe for big time spiritual danger.
And so, I want to get back to a theme–I think every time I answer a question, this comes up. You have to be aware of your self-talk. What are the things that you are saying to you about you; are they biblically rich; are they gospel appropriate; because the greatest influence in your life is you because no one is in that constant conversation that you are with yourself? And you just see this in Scripture. There is no independent, self-sufficiently successful biography in all of the Word of God–None! You can only argue that there is one, and it's Jesus. But Jesus in his humanity was a combination of God-like self-sufficiency and human dependency. Jesus had to eat, he had to sleep, he had to submit to human government. So, independent success is just a delusion, and that truth needs to be preached to yourself.
I want to say one other thing. Surround yourself with people who don't think you're all that, who aren't sycophants, who aren't enamored with your success. I say this all the time; “I have a friend who has lunch with me, and he always says to me, ‘I'm not having lunch with Paul David Tripp, I'm having lunch with my friend Paul.’” And I love that. He is saying, “I'm not living on the aura of your success. I'm going to treat you like a real person, and I'm going to say things to you that I think you need to hear.” And I'm very thankful for that. So, this is a big battle. We're losing influential people because they've been taken down by the pride of success.
BF: A follow-up question for you on that note, Paul, “How have you personally found success? Now you're a best-selling and award-winning author, millions of copies of books sold, and whenever we travel, someone's going to recognize you, or they'll ask for your picture, or they'll want you to sign a copy of their book. Of course, they'll share a beautiful story of how God has used your material to bless them. But how has success been dangerous for your heart?”
PT: I have to say that I'm deeply, deeply grateful for the success that God has given me. I'm not grateful because that gives me power or anything like that. God has given me and my wife, Luella, this wonderful life of ministry that we're deeply grateful for. I do find success burdensome and dangerous. One of the ways is that people treat me like I'm something different than they are, and like I've arrived. And it was once tempting for me to listen to that. It's not for me anymore. And when people encounter me, and they want to take a picture with me, which, you know, in ways is uncomfortable for me because I don't want to be the focus of attention; I want it to be Jesus, and they say things about me that I know aren't true.
A couple of things I always say when they thank me for my writing, I always say, “I write what I need. I'm the first audience of my writing. I'm convicted by everything I write.” And I really mean that. And then I say again and again, “Would you pray for me that I would live what I write?” Now, that's for them so that they remember that I am a real person, and it's for me that I remember that I am a real person. And that confession, I think, is important. I'm not on the other side of the battle; I have not arrived; I often live inconsistency; I need the help of God's grace and God's Word and God's Spirit and God's people.
Yesterday, I had this really interesting experience of discussing a particular passage with somebody. And I went to this passage that I have been to ten-thousand times; it's one of the more familiar passages of Scripture. I saw it in its context, and it took on a completely new meaning to me. And I realized, “I'm not done studying God's Word. I don't know it all.” And it was both convicting and encouraging, but a reminder that I cannot let my success convince me that I've arrived.
And I find it burdensome now, that in our culture at the end of a conference, people don't really want to talk to me. They just want to get pictures with me. Or they want me to sign a book. And that's okay, I'm not going to embarrass a person. And I, on one hand, I get that. Some of that's just thankfulness for my ministry. But I don't want, at the end of preaching the gospel for three hours, for it to be about me. And that's a burden. Sometimes after a conference, I just like to disappear. And that may seem unfriendly, but it's because I want the focus to be on Jesus and not on me.
BF: The first chapter of Paul's book, “Lead: 12 Gospel Principles for Leadership in the Church,” is all about the dangers of achievement. If you want more from Paul on this topic, and while it's specific to pastors and ministry leaders, there are gospel truths in there for all of us, no matter what our vocation or calling. Thanks for listening to “Ask Paul Tripp.”
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