September 10, 2021, was a day a father won’t forget. It wasn’t the day our eldest learned to walk. It wasn’t his first day of school (that actually came a few days later). It wasn’t the day he learned to ride a bike (“Dad, let go! Let go! I can do it!”). No, Friday, September 10, 2021, was the first time my son saw death.

And not just any death. This was “Grama Sally,” my wife’s grandmother. During trips to Los Angeles, our son had met Grama Sally, hugged her, talked with her, took pictures with her. He knew her. And yet there she was, lying strangely still — too still to be asleep — in a large, beautiful, wooden box, surrounded by flowers, pictures, and lots of tears. I remember his eyes — tiny vats swirling with confusion, curiosity, and fear. Looking around, he knew he should be sad, but he also didn’t understand enough to know why, which made the whole scene more unsettling. Whether you’re a father or a five-year-old, nothing can fully prepare you for moments like these.

I could write a dozen articles about that day, but for now, isn’t it interesting that my son could live five whole years and not be confronted with death?

Veiling Mortality

I started noticing how strangely absent death seems from everyday life when Ray Ortlund quoted a line about the Victorian era (roughly 1820 to 1914), when people talked more freely about death, but almost never about sex. And now, the opposite is true. The line sent me searching for days when death was a more visible member of society.

Grief in American society today is relatively discrete. We talk about “respecting the family’s privacy.” When someone dies, a group of loved ones put on some nicer clothes, attend a brief viewing, then a short service, and finally a burial, often with a reception afterward. All of this might take place in only half a day.

In the 1800s in Britain, however, people grieved very differently — and far more publicly. Widows, in particular, often wore elaborate gowns long after the funeral (sometimes for a year or even two). An entire fashion industry rose around death. This meant that, on any given day, it wasn’t strange to see someone grieving for all to see. Five-year-olds couldn’t avoid the dark clouds walking in and out of crowds. Their kindergartners were forced to ask questions our kids rarely think to ask.

Given how little time and attention (and fabric) we now give to death, should it surprise us that it blindsides us like it does? As a society tries to suppress and hide the reality of death, it inevitably becomes less prepared for it. I, for one, want to be ready when it comes for me — and it will come for me, and you, and everyone you know, unless Jesus returns first. As I help raise three young lives, one of my great burdens is to prepare them to die well.

Could Death Be Better?

When my own death draws near, I want to face it like the apostle Paul. I want to be as prepared for death as he was, so that I can live as fully as he did before he died. We could go to several passages, but Philippians 1 holds up the grave as boldly and beautifully as any other.

As he writes, he sits in a Roman prison, with no assurances that he’ll ever sit anywhere else again. His friends were afraid. After many scares before, this really could be it. “It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death” (Philippians 1:20). While others would have been consumed by worry, regretting all that would be lost and left undone, Paul embraced the prospect of the end, even a seemingly premature end.

A few verses later, he expresses confidence that God will deliver him from prison (verse 25), but that confidence doesn’t come from his circumstances. Everything he could see issued a different forecast. He knew he might die. And that haunting thought did not disturb him.

To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:21)

When you read him, death doesn’t seem like death at all. Hope has somehow drained death of its shadows, of its bleakness. For Paul, death is like the demonized man in Mark 5, who broke through chains, cut himself ruthlessly, and cursed the sky for years — until he met Jesus. Then, people found him “sitting there, clothed and in his right mind” (Mark 5:15). Christ does that to death for all who live in him.

When he surveys what life and death offer him, Paul doesn’t merely tolerate and receive the latter; he prefers it. “Gain.” “Better.” “Reward.” He doesn’t despise his life in Christ on earth — “If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me” (verse 22). But he knew enough to gladly trade all he had now for what comes next.

Better Life by Far

Paul, like the rest of humanity, was born enslaved to the fear of death (Hebrews 2:15). Consciously or unconsciously, we grow up and live under the oppressive, terrifying reality that we will die. And that fear makes people do all manner of sinful and irrational things. Paul wasn’t immune to the dread that terrorizes millions. So what changed his perspective on death? What lens could he possibly put over the grave to see gain?

“Death is only better than life if death means getting closer to Jesus.”

He tells us just two verses later: “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (Philippians 1:23). Death is only better than life if death means living closer to Jesus. And it does for those, like Paul, who trust and follow him. As we step through the grave, “we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). And he will be so stunning, so arresting, so satisfying, that seeing him will change us. “What we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). Death will introduce us to a glory that will not only sweep us off our feet, but swallow and transform us.

One day, I’ll wake up in a better-by-far world, surrounded by better-by-far sights and tastes and opportunities, and I’ll experience it all as a better-by-far me. A better world, because Christ’s reign will be seen and felt in every inch and breath. Better adventures, because we’ll eat and work and travel and laugh and swim and reign with the one who made it all. A better me, because I will have never been more like him. That’s how death loses its sting. That’s how the prospect of losing all can grow to feel like gain.

Living to Die

This perspective doesn’t merely prepare us to die well, though. It also prepares us to live well until we die. And ironically, while dying well will mean living more fully than ever, living well will mean repeatedly dying to ourselves. Paul can say, “I die every day!” (1 Corinthians 15:31). What does he mean?

He tells us in Philippians 1. “If I am to live in the flesh,” verse 22, “that means fruitful labor for me.” And what would that fruitful labor be?

I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again. (Philippians 1:25–26)

“While dying well will mean living more fully than ever, living well will mean repeatedly dying to self.”

Because he was prepared to die, Paul was freed to live, not for himself, but for others’ joy in God. In other words, he was freed to spend his life preparing people to die well, giving them reason after reason to live for Christ and long for heaven. He spent the little time he had on earth (even in prison!) looking for creative and costly ways to win and mature souls for the next world. He knew that dying well on his last day meant dying well every day.

And so if we want to live and die well, we die, as long as we have breath, so that others might finally and fully live in Christ.

I was waiting in line with my sons for a roller coaster when the T-shirt caught my eye: Kindness is free — so sprinkle that stuff everywhere.

I’m sympathetic to the message at one level. To many, the world feels meaner in recent years, and perhaps especially so since the last election cycle, COVID-19, and civil unrest. Yes, genuine human kindness, in the most basic of senses, has often been sorely lacking. More kindness would indeed be nice, and perhaps shine in new ways in times when we’re coming to expect meanness and outrage everywhere.

But as admirable as the instincts behind the message are, the initial claim is badly mistaken. No, real kindness — the kind we really long for and need — is not free. And perhaps it would help us all to come to terms with that up front. Real kindness is costly.

This Harsh World

Deep down, we know that we live in a mean world — too mean to keep the meanness constantly at the forefront of our minds. Yet at times — more frequent for some than others — the meanness, the evil afoot in this world, accosts us. Even as bright as some days appear, there is a “present darkness” (Ephesians 6:12), still under the sway of “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4). Pretender though he is, and numbered his days, his “domain of darkness” (Colossians 1:13) is real, and “the power of darkness” (Luke 22:53) treacherous.

And not only has the world out there gone mad, but far too often the sway of the world, and the indwelling sin in us all, brings that meanness in here, into the people who profess to be Christ’s. Tragically, the very people who are to make Jesus known by their love for each other (John 13:35) can be harsh, quarrelsome, impatient, shrill, nasty.

It’s only human to respond in kind. But Christ requires of his church what is more than human: respond in kindness.

Virtue in a Vacuum?

In part, internal conflict in the Ephesian church prompted Paul’s second letter to Timothy. At the letter’s heart, the aging apostle gives his protégé this arresting charge:

The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. (2 Timothy 2:24–26)

Christians have long celebrated kindness as one of the heavenly virtues. Yet we live in a day that often makes very little of kindness. We assume it’s free. We celebrate “random acts of kindness.” We think of kindness without context. Of course, in our mean world, it is pleasant to be surprised by a stranger’s kindness, free and random as it may seem. Sure, sprinkle that stuff everywhere. But the Christian vision of kindness is far deeper, more significant, and contextualized.

“Kindness is not random or free, but a costly, counter-intuitive response to meanness, rather than responding in kind.”

Christian kindness is no common courtesy or virtue in a vacuum, but a surprising response to mistreatment and hurt. It is not random or free, but a costly, counterintuitive response to meanness, to outrage, rather than responding in kind. As Don Carson comments on 1 Corinthians 13:4, “Love is kind — not merely patient or long-suffering in the face of injury, but quick to pay back with kindness what it received in hurt” (Showing the Spirit, 79).

Companions of Kindness

One way to see that Christian kindness is not random is to observe the kind of company it keeps, especially in the letters of Paul — who would be “the apostle of kindness,” if there were one. No one sprinkles costly kindness like Paul.

Among other graces, kindness often appears hand in hand with patience and compassion. Patience appears side by side with kindness, and in the same order, in 2 Corinthians 6:6 and Galatians 5:22: “patience, kindness.” So also, Paul presses them together in Romans 2:4, in speaking of divine patience and kindness: “Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?”

So too, as we’ve seen, Christian pastors — “the Lord’s servant” in the midst of conflict — “must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, . . . patiently enduring evil” (2 Timothy 2:24). Kind to everyone — isn’t that surprising? The opponents here are false teachers. They must not be coddled or encouraged. Rather, they must be exposed and corrected — and yet that is no license to treat them harshly or with meanness. Opponents can be patiently endured and gently corrected. In fact, it would not be kind to a false teacher, or the church, to let him continue in error. Exposing his error and gently correcting him is kindness.

As for compassion, Ephesians 4:32 memorably explains the command to “be kind to one another” with the word “tenderhearted” (or “compassionate,” Greek eusplanchnos). Kindness is an expression of a tender, compassionate heart. Colossians 3:12 puts all three together, with humility and meekness: “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.”

Kindness, we might say, is a kind of secondary virtue. Compassion and patience, in various ways, make kindness possible. A compassionate heart leads to kindness, and external actions that give expression to that kindness. So also, patience makes internal kindness and its external acts possible. Patience gives emotional and practical space for kindness to ripen and move outward in physical acts. True kindness and its expressions (which are not random or free) complete and extend its companion virtues. The fruit of kindness needs the roots of patience and compassion, and they need kindness.

Costly Kind

Our young kids are still honest enough with themselves, and us, to admit to how costly kindness can be. When a sibling is mean, or someone on the playground, their natural response (and ours) is not to be kind, but to respond in kind. Which is why we consider kindness a Christian virtue — which doesn’t just happen spontaneously without practice and the enabling of the Holy Spirit. Kindness, Paul says, is the produce of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23; 2 Corinthians 6:6), not of the natural human heart.

Real kindness requires intervention from the outside, both from God’s Spirit and also his divine Son stepping into our mean world, showing us a different way, and doing it, climactically, to our eternal salvation and joy. As my wife and I have learned in almost fifteen years of marriage, kindness toward each other begins with God’s kindness toward us in Christ. Only then can we really find the resources to overcome evil with good, triumph over annoyance with patience, and rise above meanness with kindness.

In other words, the heart of how we become kinder — not with free, random, imitation kindness, but with thick, genuine, Christian kindness — is knowing and enjoying the kindness of God toward us, and doing so specifically by feeding on, and taking our cues from, the very words of God.

Behold His Kindness

Our world, in its rebellion and cosmic treason, is no meaner than in its meanness to God himself — God who is holy and just. And yet what shocking kindness he displays, even toward the unbelieving. Our heavenly Father “is kind to the ungrateful and the evil” (Luke 6:35). Even those who live the hardest, meanest of lives are surrounded by rays of God’s common kindness, as we might call it: beautiful days, human minds and bodies and words, friends and family, food and shelter, the everyday divine kindnesses we take for granted until they’re gone.

“Even those who live the hardest, meanest of lives are surrounded by rays of God’s common kindness.”

As Paul preached at Lystra, even “in past generations,” before Christ, when God “allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways,” he showed the unbelieving his common kindness, and “did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:16–17). Such kindness even in our day, gratuitous as it may seem to us, is not wasted. It is not random but has purpose: “meant to lead you to repentance” (Romans 2:4).

Yet in the fullness of time, “the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared” (Titus 3:4), bringing salvation — God’s special kindness — through faith in Christ. Such divine kindness not only brought eternal rescue for God’s long-chosen people, but it engrafts even strangers into God’s ancient tree of blessing through faith (Romans 11:22). Jesus is Kindness incarnate, whose yoke is not severe, but (literally) kind (Matthew 11:30). He is the Lord whom we, with new Spirit-given palates, taste as kind (1 Peter 2:3).

Kindness Coming

As Christ, by his Spirit, shows kindness to us, in his word and in our lives, he also forms us into instruments of his kindness to others. “God in Christ forgave you,” Paul says in Ephesians 4:32. Therefore, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another.”

Ultimately, it is the kindness of God that melts an unforgiving spirit, softens a hard heart, and transforms unkind actions. In Christ, we become the kind of people who see others, and have compassion for them, and exercise patience toward them, and show kindness to them, knowing not only that we ourselves have been shown kindness but that “in the coming ages [God himself will] show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7). We have only begun to taste the kindness of our God.

“Embroiled in petty priorities.” It was a devasting observation, and I resonated with it.

I came across these words recently from an evangelical statesman saddened to watch some Christians “responding with increasing nationalism, sometimes with almost frightening ethnocentrism.” They are “caught up in a flag-waving nationalism,” he said, “that puts the interests of my nation or my class or my race or my tribe or my heritage above the demands of the kingdom of God.”

His tone was hopeful, even as he spoke with seriousness about those who had “become embroiled with petty priorities” — trivialities, he said, “that constitute an implicit denial of the lordship of Christ.”

Most surprising of all to me was that these words had been written more than thirty years ago.

‘World Christians’

That evangelical leader is Don Carson, and he was writing in the early 90s. In the final chapter of The Cross and Christian Ministry (1993), he sounds a call for “world Christians,” that is, genuine believers in Jesus who

(1) self-consciously set their allegiance to Christ and his kingdom “above all national, cultural, linguistic, and racial allegiances,”

(2) commit themselves “to the church everywhere, wherever the church is truly manifest, and not only to its manifestation on home turf,”

(3) see themselves “first and foremost as citizens of the heavenly kingdom and therefore consider all other citizenship a secondary matter,” and

(4) are “single-minded and sacrificial when it comes to the paramount mandate to evangelize and make disciples” (116–117).

I first read Carson’s words about ten years after their publication, but now, another two decades later, they feel even more prescient. The need remains. Seasons of flag-waving come and go, but the New Testament vision of world Christians endures.

How might we, then, evaluate ourselves and whether we are such “world Christians”? Has our world’s course and patterns and “cultural moments” dulled the global scope and Great-Commission interests of our faith? How might we freshly check our own souls — particularly in the hype of an election year — whether we are world Christians or worldly ones?

The New Testament’s key texts on heavenly citizenship come from three different epistles and authors: Paul to the Philippians, the first letter of Peter, and the epistle to the Hebrews. To linger over these key texts, let’s ask four questions to gauge if our sense of heavenly citizenship is alive and well.

1. How singular is my citizenship?

First comes a question about identity and primacy. Sometimes we hear the language of “dual citizenship” — that Christians, in this life, are both citizens of heaven and citizens of our earthly nation. At one level, of course, this is true. Our various earthly citizenships are real and consequential, and so too, if we are in Christ, and have his Spirit, we are truly citizens of heaven as well. For that, the go-to banner is Philippians 3:20: “Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

At another level, however, the “dual citizenship” language can be misleading. “Dual” might give the impression of equal priority and weight. But for the relative importance of these citizenships, try this: evaluate the significance of earthly alongside heavenly, and of momentary alongside eternal. Philippians 3:20 says nothing about duality of citizenship. It mentions but one citizenship: heaven’s. Paul does not pause to emphasize that Philippian believers are Roman citizens as well, with all the attendant rights and duties of that citizenship. Rather, the apostle dares to declare to believers in Jesus, living in the Roman colony of Philippi, “our citizenship is in heaven,” with no qualifications about their earthly status besides.

“Our life-orienting allegiance is not to an earthly fatherland but to our heavenly Father — and to his Son, at whose name every knee will bow.”

And if so with Roman citizenship two millennia ago, then so too for whatever earthly citizenry we find ourselves born or received into today. If we are in Christ, our most fundamental identity and allegiance is to Jesus and his church, far above and beyond any earthly nation. Our citizenships are starkly asymmetrical. In light of eternity and the preciousness of Christ, we are Christians first, and a thousand times Christians, before we are Americans or Canadians or Filipinos. World Christians, Carson writes, see themselves “first and foremost as citizens of the heavenly kingdom and therefore consider all other citizenship a secondary matter.”

In Christ, our life-orienting allegiance is not to an earthly fatherland but to our heavenly Father — and to his Son, at whose name every knee will bow, beginning with ours.

2. What’s my default perspective?

Second comes a question about recurring perspective. We might say, Do you intentionally and regularly reset your mind and heart to the values and interests of heaven or of earth? And where does your soul habitually default?

In contrast to the citizens of heaven, Philippians 3:19 says this about earthly citizens: “Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.” It’s one thing to deal with “earthly things.” We all live in this world and unavoidably engage with the things of earth. But it’s another thing to set our minds on earthly things, to default to them, to reset and recalibrate our energy and attention over and over again to the world’s standards and priorities and interests, rather than heaven’s.

In similar language, Colossians 3:2 says, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” The question isn’t whether “earthly things” come into our daily purview, and indeed occupy, in various degrees, much of our waking hours. The question is perspective and mindset. Do we engage the countless things of earth with heaven’s vantage and values? Do we reset and return to Christ’s own perspective through rhythms of hearing his voice in his word, having his ear in prayer, and belonging to his body in the covenant fellowship of the local church? Or do we default to news and politics, ESPN, the market, the weather, the latest obscure digital updates on the lives of friends and family?

However earthy our lives and callings, in Christ we “seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:1). With our eyes regularly glancing upward, we actually will be more effective and fruitful down here, navigating life with heavenly wisdom and proper perspective, rather than being swallowed up in petty priorities. Those concerned most about God’s global cause will do the most and best at home. Hearts in tune with the Great Commission will make us far more effective, not less, in our local context.

3. Do I profess (and practice) a ‘stranger’ status?

Some are strangers and don’t know it. Others know it but try to hide it. In the great faith “hall of fame” chapter, Hebrews 11, the author speaks of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Jacob, and all the pre-Christ examples of faith, saying,

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. (Hebrews 11:13–14)

Not only were they “strangers and exiles,” but they acknowledged it. How so? Not simply in their own hearts, but they said it out loud (“people who speak thus”). They were not heaven’s citizens in camouflage, living and looking just like their fellow earthly citizens. Rather, they were different to the core, knew it, owned it, lived it, and said it.

So, ask yourself, Am I a stranger here on earth in any real senses, and am I willing and eager to make that known? Do others know that I’m different than the rank and file, and how do they know that? To draw in 1 Peter, do I, as a sojourner and exile here, abstain from the passions of the flesh that wage war against my soul, and is my conduct in the world honorable, so that even those who speak against me see the genuine good I do (1 Peter 2:11–12)?

4. Where, really, is the source of my hope?

Sadly, some profess Christian faith, yet manifestly find their day-in, day-out animating hope elsewhere. This gets to the heart of Carson’s concern thirty years ago, and the ongoing need in our day.

This world is clearly no utopia. We all long for change, but where, really, do we look for that change? What or who will bring about the changes we ache for? At bottom, what is our heart’s driving hope for the changes we so desperately need in our own lives and in our world?

Healthy humans can’t help but hope — whether it’s politics and parties, human intellect and progress, wealth and riches, work or escape from work, we hope in something, or someone. The question is whether your hope, my hope, is a distinctively Christian hope or just a small variation on the world’s unbelieving dreams.

For Christians, Hebrews 13:14 says, “Here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.” That city to come is “the heavenly Jerusalem,” “the city of the living God” (Hebrews 12:22), made not with human hands but the hands of God himself (2 Corinthians 5:1), and prepared by Christ (John 14:2–3). In the end, this holy city, the new Jerusalem, will come “down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Revelation 21:2).

With this city in view, we are dissatisfied with any and every mere human nation. We “desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one,” knowing our God “has prepared for [us] a city” (Hebrews 11:16). And from that city, the citizens of heaven await our Savior (Philippians 3:20). This is our primary identity, our default perspective, our glad profession, and our orienting hope as world Christians not “embroiled in petty priorities.”