Be a YES Man!

One of this summer’s movie releases has been ‘Yes Man’, the latest comedy from Jim Carrey. ‘Yes Man’ is the story of Carl Allen, a bank loans officer who is all about indifference and apathy. He declines any invitation to go out with his friends. He declines any invitation to do anything. As a result, Carl’s life is going nowhere. But one day his life is transformed by a self-help guru who shows him that life is about saying ‘Yes’. In fact, Carl is now compelled to say ‘yes’ to everything. That’s where a lot of the comedy for this movie comes from. In Carl’s obsession to embrace life with all it’s possibilities, he has to say ‘yes’ to every home shopping advertisement, every unappealing costume party invitation, every question in which he is asked to do something, from ‘Would you like to learn Korean?’ to ‘Would you like to organise my fiancée’s bridal shower?’

‘Yes Man’ isn’t a great comedy. It has its funny moments, but the humour isn’t consistent throughout. And I should warn you – its M rating is well deserved. But as I was watching this movie, the overall premise of this story got me thinking about the Christian life. See, is the Christian life more about saying ‘no’ to certain things or is it about saying ‘yes’? This is worth thinking about for yourself – if you’re a Christian, does not doing things or doing things define you?

It seems that often people only view Christians as the ‘no men’. For many, they only see Christians are those who say ‘no’ to fun and freedom. We should be asking ourselves – is this view deserving?

If we look at the bible, we see there is a place for saying ‘no’. Titus 2:11 says ‘For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives.’ This means that Christians will be radically counter-cultural. They can’t help but be different from those around. But in an effort to be pure and untainted by the world, has this ‘no-ness’ actually gone too far? Have Christians become ‘wowsers’ to the detriment of showing that they are people who actually enjoy life and all the good things that God provides?

Let’s not just focus on ‘No’. The bible tells us that Christians should also be about saying ‘yes’. In fact I would say the weight of instruction in the New Testament is all about being freed up to say ‘yes’ to all sorts of things. Just think about our current Sunday sermon series on ‘the fruit of the Spirit’ from Galatians 5:22-26. To live the true Spirit-empowered Christian life is about saying ‘yes’ to acts of kindness, goodness and faithfulness. It’s not just about refusing to do certain things. It’s about doing stuff! Galatians says that the entire law (which we think is all about telling us not to do certain things) is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbour as yourself” (Galatians 5:13-14). Love isn’t about sitting still and doing nothing. It’s about embracing life, taking opportunities to be in relationship with others and serving others. When you look at the life of Jesus – that’s certainly what he did!

“Yes Man” provides us with a really good reminder. Christians are people who will say ‘no’ to ungodliness and worldly passions. But the great thing that should really define those who follow Jesus, the thing that should be our overriding passion – is to say ‘yes’. ‘Yes’ to relationship. ‘Yes’ to acts of love, compassion. Christians are those who embrace life as it truly should be lived.