The Good Life

Psalm 1

“The good life is for the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that

sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and

who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,

which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers. Not

so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand

in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord watches over the

way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.”

This year, the youth group began with a new series on “The Good Life.” It’s a positive title for a

series that walks through the notorious “seven deadly sins.” So why the title? In the beginning,

God has freely offered the gift of the good life to us: happiness; flourishing; freedom compelled

by love. However, instead of trusting our good God, human beings pursue a false version of the

good life on their own terms, dragging themselves and creation into decay. As the Psalmist

affirms, the way to life begins by recognizing and avoiding the paths that leads to destruction.

Each of the seven deadly sins are exactly that. But moreover, they are false pursuits of the good

life. That’s what makes them so “deadly”. The seven are not individual sins, but habits, (“ways of

the wicked”, if you will). If virtue is defined as habits of the good life, we’re dealing with seven

vices, an older word for distorted and false habits of chasing happiness.

One ancient Roman poet said, “To flee from vice is the beginning of virtue” Far from being an

outdated list, understanding the seven vices is central for Christian discipleship. They have

been for a long time.

Following the words and life of Jesus, some of the earliest Christians took to the desert to face

these vices head-on. What did they find? They encountered testing. They learned humility. They

discovered the difficult path to the good life, the Jesus way of not living for yourself. It was this

path that enabled them to be like a well-watered tree that grows even in a desert.

In the desert, following the way of Jesus, the desert Christians found happiness that doesn’t fit

the world’s definition, a definition authored by the vices, all of which find their root in pride. Pride

is what fuels each vice. If love is the chief virtue, pride is its opposite. Pride seeks good for

oneself alone. Love desires the good of others.

In last week’s youth group, we saw a good example of this as we looked at Pride’s first offshoot,

vainglory. Vainglory is an older word for “false glory”, or attention gained through illegitimate

means. This vice includes doing good things for the purpose of being seen or praised. For

example, take the pretenders or “hypocrites” (literally, “actors”) Jesus addresses in his most

famous sermon (Matt. 6).

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do,

you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not

announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be

honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.”

What is the way out of this deadly sin? What remedy can be found? The Christian life is not

merely sin management, but actively cultivating virtuous habits. These are habits of the good

life, the process that sin tries to shortcut in hopes of obtaining the product. In vainglory’s case,

praise is its own reward. But there’s so much more. There is heavenly reward for the one who

lives for God’s glory. It’s the freedom that’s part of the good life, the freedom of delighting in

God.

Jesus continues, “But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right

hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in

secret, will reward you. And when you pray... go into your room, close the door and pray to your

Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

The way out of this particular vice is practicing good deeds when nobody’s looking. Or rather, as

Os Guinness phrased it, living for an audience of One.

I invite you to integrate language about the seven deadly sins into your thinking about your walk

with Jesus as the desert fathers did. When ignored, they continue to fester and grow, tightening

their deadly grip on our joy. But by addressing each with the remedies of Christian spiritual

practices, we can see the freedom that comes with the good life.

To close on a practical note, here is a brief description of the seven vices along with possible

remedies. Much of these were borrowed from the book Glittering Vices by Rebecca Konyndyk

DeYoung, a book I commend you to check out.

Vainglory (Pride) - “Image is Everything”

Practicing good deeds in hiddenness (Matt. 6)

Envy - “Bitter when others have it better”

Prayers of Thanksgiving: Thanking God for the good you see in others

Sloth - “Resistance to the demands of love”

Regular acts of love that require sacrificing your love of leisure

Avarice (Greed) - “I want it all”

Simplicity: Giving up or selling possessions

Wrath (Anger) - “Slow to forgive, quick to get even”

Silence and Solitude: Create space for reflective distance (Jonah 4)

Gluttony - “Feeding your face and starving your heart”

Fasting: Tempering the things that have a grip on your happiness

Lust - “When love’s flame starts a house fire”

Spiritual Friendship: The greatest love and source of intimacy, the love that “lays down

one’s life for his friends” (John 15).

Father, you created us for the good life you freely offer us. But we try to grasp our own means of

happiness. Through your Son, deliver us from evil. Deliver us from the control these vices have

in our lives. Help us to live by your Spirit, the spirit of freedom, as we walk the way of

righteousness that we might have life. Amen.