Noblesse Oblige by Scott Applegate

This book was released by a pastor & author from Westminster, Colorado in 2009.  Scott is the pastor of Novation Church, a non-denominational bible-first church that serves the community each and every day, spreading the Gospel through practical works and teaching. We will publish each chapter weekly, and encourage you to read it and digest it each week in order to search for and live God’s true calling on your life. Through this series you will learn to search for your Noble: Living, Purpose, Vision, Mission, Ability, Faith, Action, Assignments, and Death.

“Life is the sum total of what you do with moments given you…you have no control over when you die or (most often) how you die, but you do have control over how you live.” Erwin McManus

“…Death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart.” (Ecclesiastes 7:2 NIV)

Chapter #1 Noble Living

There is nothing that exposes a person’s world-view or what is truly important to them like the unthinkable realities of life. The unthinkable realities of life are the realities of suffering, cancer, death, accidents, and betrayal just to name a few. If we are going to live well we must ask ourselves often: “if the unthinkable happened today in my life where would I have regret?” If we are going to live well and complete our “noblesse oblige” we must ponder the reality of our death often.

The terrorist attack on 9-11-01 forever changed our lives. It will always be etched in our memories. Do you remember what you were doing or where you were? I do. I was taking my oldest daughter to pre-school. I tuned in to the local sports talk show, but they were not talking about the big game played the day before. In Denver, if they are not talking about the Broncos the day after a big Monday night game, something bad has taken place.

That day brought so much death, so much fear, and so many questions. The week before 9-11, I lost a close friend in a freak car accident. He was 35 years old with a beautiful wife and a lot of life ahead of him. When the unthinkable realities of life show up, our first response is usually to ask “Why did God allow this to happen”?

On September 10th 2001, I wrote the following in my journal as I wrestled through my friend’s death:

“God, as I think through Kevin’s death and the questions surrounding his family, I have realized that you do not ask us to answer the unanswerable 7 questions in life, but you only ask us to answer the answerable. What questions did you ask that I can answer? You asked: “who do you say I am”. My answer? “You are the Son of the living God, my Savior and Lord.” You asked: “will you follow Me?” “With all my heart, regardless of circumstances!” Help me to focus on the questions I can answer. Are you good? Yes you are.  Are you faithful? Yes you are. Are you in control regardless? Yes you are.”

The next day our country was attacked and we were experiencing incredible chaos and were trying to answer some huge questions.

Numbering our days

Prior to these two events I was semi-obsessed with dying. I would wake up in the middle of the night and have anxiety about when or how I might die. I would think of my children and what would happen to them and then my heart would race. I would think: “Did I play with my kids enough, what would they remember about me? Will Christ be pleased with how I spent my life etc.?” Ironically, after my friend passed that obsession and anxiety lifted. When someone close to you dies it tends to bring everything in your life back into perspective.

We are only given one life to live and we are free to use it how we wish. Moses prays in Psalm 90:12: “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom”.

Moses understood that unless we gain God’s perspective of life we will not live a life beyond regret.

Numbering our days means we realize that life is fragile and short. Scripture teaches: “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” (James 4:14 NIV)

James is not saying that our lives are insignificant, but that compared with the timeline of eternity the length of our lives are a blip on the radar screen.

The Earthly and the Eternal

Numbering our days also means that we are to distinguish between the temporal and the eternal. We must remind ourselves everyday that our hope is not in our earthly life, but in eternal life with Jesus. There are so many things that are constantly trying to detour and distract us from focusing on eternity. Life is a gift to be opened and spent for eternal purposes. We are to enjoy the ordinary things of life to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31), more importantly, however, we are to live boldly and take risks for the eternal Kingdom of Christ (Acts 20:24).

No regrets equals living well

At the risk of sounding trite, let me ask you, would you live your life differently if you knew you had exactly one month to live? What would change in your life? What risks would you take? People’s death bed regrets are usually never filled with “I wish I would have watched more TV” or “I wish I played on the internet more,” but they are usually filled with regrets about relationships and wishing there were more opportunities to live life to the fullest.

In a survey of people over the age of 95, they were asked one question: “If you could live your life over again what would you do different?”

Their responses were: They would have reflected more, risked more, and done more things that would live on after they were dead (Maxwell, 2002, 38). Do you want to spend 95 years of living and look back and have regrets of “coulda, shoulda, woulda?”

“I could have done this, I should have done that, it would have been different if I had done something different with my life.”

In my opinion, one of Tom Hanks’ best movies was Joe Versus the Volcano. It is a story about a man who lived in the doldrums of the mundane. He went to his same boring job every day. His life was boring. He had zero passion or vision for anything. He was a hypochondriac convinced that some terrible disease was slowly killing him. He went to the doctor and was told he had a terminal disease called “Brain cloud”. He was told that he had six months to live. He then received an opportunity to be a savior for a tribe on a tropical island “The Whapunies”.

He figured what did he have to lose given the fact that he was already a dying man?

On the Whapuni Island there was a volcano that was going to erupt unless there was a willing sacrifice that would jump in and appease the volcano. So the rest of the movie is about his adventure of jumping in. The moral of the story was that by accepting the adventure he realized he was not really sick, he just did not have anything to truly live for. By following the risky adventure his life was changed forever.

Joe Versus the Volcano is a humorous and heartwarming look at living life beyond regret. Continue on and you will find how the noblesse oblige will change your life and cause you to live beyond regret as well.

Noble questions to ponder

-If the unthinkable happened today, where would you have regret?

-What could you do to arrange your life in such a way you could avoid that regret?

-What are you truly living for today? Personal peace? Happiness? Success? Wealth? Eternity? Others?

Comment your thoughts below and let us know what you think about these questions.  Would you have regret?  Do you now?  Help your neighbor by letting us know how you overcome those feelings.