Myths of Spiritual Growth
Tom Shrader addresses six common myths about spiritual growth, beginning with the false belief that spiritual maturity happens automatically after conversion. He emphasizes that growth requires intentional effort, community relationships, and life experiences that test faith. Drawing from various scriptures, he argues that true spirituality combines biblical knowledge with practical obedience in everyday circumstances.
“Spiritual growth is intentional. Spiritual growth is deliberate.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Miscellaneous
Recorded: September 12, 1996
Duration: 41 min
Themes: growth, maturity, discipline, obedience, community, effort, faith, purpose, new believer, struggling with growth, plateau in faith, mentor, parent, young adult, feeling stagnant, business professional
Scripture: Philippians 2:12, Hebrews 5:12, 1 Corinthians 8:1, Ephesians 5:8, James, Genesis 3, Proverbs 20:30
Theological Themes: sanctification, spiritual formation, discipleship, spiritual maturity, biblical obedience, progressive sanctification, spiritual disciplines, christian growth
Full Transcript
The lesson that we're going to do today actually picks up exactly where we left off last week. Last week, what I learned on my summer vacation, the last point was it's good to get away, it's great to get back. The great to get back part comes not from not wanting to travel. It comes from the purpose or the mission or what we do in life.
We ended with the Priority Living mission statement: to cause biblical life change in businessmen and women by teaching the timeless word of God in a contemporary context. I'm involved with a group of people who a few years ago started a church. If you take the church purpose statement, the church has as its core statement to teach one another God's truths and live biblically changed lives. When you lay those statements down next to each other and you look at the other things that at least my life is involved in, that word life change is everywhere.
We are not about conducting studies for the purpose of analyzing things and studying or examining life to no end. There's a purpose in it. When somebody says to you, and I know some of you wrestle with this, "I want to ask a friend to this thing on Thursday morning, what do I call it? Is it a seminar?" Some guy called, I don't know who he was the other day, somebody invited me to your thing on Thursday noon and what is it? I said, "Well, what did they tell you it was?" He said, "Well, they said you were a motivational speaker." I said, "Well, I don't know. Not by the looks on their faces." What we're about is biblical life change.
A Different Kind of Answer
While I was on vacation, I was driving to the golf course one day riding with my father mostly and we would listen. He's all excited because he's got a new CD: Barry Manilow sings like great big bands. It's fine as far as that's going to take you. I'm with my brother and I said, "Let's get some music going here." There's one of my all-time favorite Fleetwood Mac rumors. I said, "What is all this Jimmy Buffett stuff?" Because the only Jimmy Buffett I know is Margaritaville and I didn't like it. He said, "You never listen to Jimmy Buffett?" I said, "John, Jimmy Buffett, I just blow this stuff off. I don't listen to Jimmy Buffett. I don't like Margaritaville." He said, "There's a lot more to Jimmy Buffett than Margaritaville." So he puts in the new Banana Winds CD.
Let me tell you, it is really good. There's some words in there that are problematic for some of us, and it would be nice if he didn't use them. But the message and the rhythm and the music is unbelievably good. I would not say that I'm a parrot head yet, but I'm on my third CD in 10 days. So I don't know what that means.
At the beginning of the Banana Winds CD, in the little leaflet that has the lyrics, Jimmy writes a note. He talks about his origins and all this. By the way, we're on the cutting edge here: Cher last week, Jimmy Buffett this week. Here's what Jimmy Buffett said: "Who I am and how I got here and where I'm going are questions whose answers have not yet been written."
I really did like the music, and I really did think that Jimmy had in those songs some incredible messages that really do relate in a lot of ways to the stuff we talk about. But I've got news for you: the answer to the question who am I and why am I here and where am I going has indeed been written. It was written 2,000 years ago, and I've got a copy of it right here in my hand.
The Universal Question
This is really important. What we believe with all of our hearts, and now all the scientific data supports it, is that men and women truly are wrestling. Here's Buffett - I don't know much about him. My brother tells me he knocks down about $60 million a year from records and cafes and all this stuff. He's got all the stuff in the world, but at his very core, he's saying, "What is this all about?" What Jimmy Buffett is saying is, "I don't know. I've got some idea."
Here's what society says: who am I, why am I here, where am I going has some very confusing answers to it. Various answers that are in opposition to one another. So here's what we say: because there are many answers to this question, there's no answer. That's the conclusion we get.
If you're here and you're searching, let me say with all the humility I can muster, you came to the right place because we got answers for you. It's not confusing to us who you are or why you're here or where you're going. We're not wrestling with that. Now how that manifests itself, that may be difficult for us, but we've got answers. The answer's right here: the Bible, the Word of God, the owner's operating manual for your life.
The Only True Answer
A guy new to the study a couple of weeks ago, and afterwards I met him. I said, "What did you think?" He said an interesting phrase: "You're hung up on that Bible thing." Well, better than the homophobe deal. But it's not hung up - it's just that that's all we have. You don't give a rip what I think. I don't care what Peter Drucker has to say, per se.
To those core questions, those Jimmy Buffett questions - who am I, why am I here, where am I going - only God can answer them. It is true that there are many answers to the question given, but there's only one that's true. That is, you are here to bring honor and glory to God, and you do that by coming to His Son Jesus Christ in repentance and faith.
When we ended last week, we had this unbelievably simple, linear graph of your life. It has, every one of you, these two elements: birth and death. What we're hoping is that God would add a third element to it called conversion. That would be a point in time when you would understand that you were lost.
You would make a decision, a conscious decision, to believe Jesus is who He said He was, that Jesus would do what He said He'd do, and you would begin to plan your life and death accordingly. That you were a sinner separated from Him by your sin, but if you would come to Christ, that sin would be forgiven. So what we're trying to do, literally, is take every one of you. I understand the theology of this, by the way. Please don't write me a note on this. I know God's the one who does the change. But He uses people and organization. Our desire is that God would use us to move you down this line.
If you're here today, and you're not a Christian, we are excited that you're here. We're honored that you're here. In some ways, we exist so you'll come into a place like this, a bar on a Thursday morning, and you'll hear the Word, maybe for the first time. Maybe you'd never get to a church and you'd never want to go to a church, but somebody will get you to that thing on Thursday. We hope you hear the Gospel. We hope you weep. We hope you repent. We hope you come to Christ.
And many times, the lessons are directed at you. Today, it isn't. Today, we're talking about, from this point, conversion to death.
The Reality of Spiritual Stagnation
I said a lot came out of last week. As I was getting ready to teach one of the studies last week, a guy said something to me that was fascinating. He said, "I'm 43 years old. I've been a Christian since I was 20. So I have 23 years as a Christian, 20 years as a non-Christian. And I've got to tell you, after 23 years, I don't feel like I'm anywhere in this thing."
See, that brings to light the issue of spiritual growth, and that's what we're going to talk about. Those of you that think you enjoy the wit and the humor, as sparse as it may be, it's really absent from here on today. There just isn't a lot of it. We're going to talk about spiritual growth from the point of conversion on.
The Challenge of Measuring Spiritual Growth
It's a hard thing to get your hands around because it's so hard to quantifiably measure. Sarah came in the other day, Sunday morning, and I was in the back studying. She said, "Dad, will you go back and measure me?" I have a room in our house. It used to be a sewing room. Now it's a computer study room. It's a very small room. And when you close the door, behind it is an area where the whole room is wallpapered except for this one area. And on that area, since the girls could stand up, we've marked how tall they are.
And it's pretty neat. Sometimes I get visions of sitting there on the night before they're married looking at that chart, wondering how neat it will be. But there it is. In a way, a whole visual graphic illustration of their physical growth. And Sarah, who's 16, it was really something to me because I know she put on weight. You can see it. She told me the other day, I think 16 pounds this summer, which she desperately needed. Almost a year ago now, she was 80 pounds. So it's pretty neat that she has the weight. But I didn't realize she'd grown taller. And in the last, I don't know, seven months, she's grown like an inch and a half. And you could just go, and she could say, "I knew it, I felt it, I thought I was taller."
Well, here's what happens. Spiritually, there's no wall I can go to. Spiritually, there's no line I can draw. In fact, in a paradoxical way, the most spiritual I'll ever feel, let me use another word, the most godly I'll ever feel is at the point of conversion. The most godly I'll ever feel is when I know God the least, because as I begin to know Him more, I begin to see who I am, and I see the chasm between He and I is so great that I'll never get there. So there's one sense in which the godliest I feel is at this beginning point, not further down the line.
So how do I know I'm growing spiritually? Well, we're going to take a different approach to it today. You have in front of you some outlines. Myths. Six things that aren't indicators or truths about spiritual growth. So six myths, and then followed by six true statements. And we'll work our way through them. They don't need, very honestly, a great deal of comment. In many ways, they're self-explanatory.
Myth 1: Spiritual Growth Is Automatic
Here's the first myth. That somehow, spiritual growth is automatic once you're born again. Now let me say the obvious to you. Something dead doesn't grow. If you've got a dead plant, you're not pruning it. It's dead. So if you're going to grow spiritually, and I know this is elementary, but I've discovered in these theological talks we often miss the elementary. If you're going to grow spiritually, it presupposes that you're alive.
And I know for some of you, that's fingers on a chalkboard to hear this born-again thing. I didn't say it. Jesus did. And He put it in pretty strong terms. "You must be born again." It's a necessary condition. It's not optional. If you intend to spend eternity in Heaven, you're only going to be there because you've been born again.
Just because you're born again does not ensure that you will grow. The author of Hebrews writes to his readers and says this: "Though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need somebody to teach you the elementary truths of God's Word all over again." He doesn't say you're not believers. In fact, before this, he says, "because your ears have become dull." There becomes a point where I don't want to hear the basics.
The Need for Fundamentals
I have an interesting thing that I wonder. And that is, how good a golfer can I really be? To which my friends always answer, not near as good as you think. Well, I find that if I'm going to get any better, I've got to go and do the things that aren't a lot of fun. If you watch the average guy go and hit golf balls, he sets his bag down, gets out his driver, and starts pounding them. That's not how you're going to score. It's going to make very little difference in how you score. When you go hit some chips and putts, that's where you're going to score.
And I don't coach the kids anymore, but I did, I think, 3rd grade
The Fundamentals Come First
When I coach 4th grade and 5th grade girls basketball, even these little girls, when you give them the ball, they want to go to the free throw line or the top of the circle or the three-point line and start banging away. Yet when it comes time to shoot a layup, they're always on the wrong foot. There's not a lot of glitz and glory in learning the basics.
You've got all these guys that want to hit home runs, but other than Brett Butler—and he busted his hand at it the other day—there aren't four guys in the major leagues that can bunt. We want to skip those basics. The author of Hebrews says you've missed the elementary truth. And since you have, there's no growth. It doesn't just happen.
Spiritual Growth Is Intentional
The truth is that spiritual growth is intentional. Spiritual growth is deliberate. In Philippians 2, Paul writes to this church: "Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling."
Now, some take this to mean salvation is by works. I've sat down with many people who've said, "Are you familiar with this verse?" I said, "I think so." "Well, see right there, it says work out your salvation." No, it doesn't say work on your salvation. It says do the things that result from being saved. That's what it says.
In a paraphrase in the Living Bible, Ken Taylor says it this way: "I want you to do the things that result from being saved. Obeying God with deep reverence and shrinking back from all that might displease Him. For God is at work helping you to want to obey Him and then helping you to do what He wants you to do."
That's what this verse says. If I am not progressing, I'm regressing spiritually. In the ultimate sense, I either use it or lose it. That growth is not automatic, but it is intentional. There has to be first and foremost a desire for you to want to grow spiritually.
Myth 2: Spiritual Growth Is Mystical and Only for a Few
Here's the second myth: that somehow this spiritual growth is mystical in nature and that it's only for just a few. After one of the studies last week, a gentleman came up and asked me to define the two words "religious" and "spiritual."
When I hear the word "religious," I think of somebody engaged in activity. Go to this. Go to that service. Do this. Every time the doors are open, go there. Very religious activity.
When I think "spiritual," I think almost in mystical terms. I see somebody sitting down in a position where they're all bent up like a pretzel, and you walk by and you're not sure if it's the air conditioner or the person making that sound. There's this idea of incense or burning.
On the other extreme, it may be religious in your mind. You've got this idea of somebody taking vows of poverty and chastity and obedience and solitude. Those are the spiritual guides. If you want to find spiritual guides, you've got to go to the jungles of Zimbabwe or to the monastery somewhere. That's where spiritual guides are.
That's an absolute lie. Spiritual growth and spiritual maturity is not just for a few—it's for everybody.
God's Call to Every Believer
Paul writes to the church at Rome: "Present your bodies as a living sacrifice." He writes to all of us and says, "Take time and trouble to keep yourselves spiritually fit"—to every one of us.
Some of you do this. We start talking about spiritualness or godly people, and all of a sudden you paint a portrait of a spiritual person that is absolutely unattainable by you. There's probably not a person here today that's going to sell everything and move to the jungle to work with natives, and only then are you spiritual and you die in the process. That is not what God is talking about.
God is talking about living in a spiritual way. It's got very little to do with mysticism. It has everything to do with life.
The Goal of Moral Perfection
Let me help you out, at least from my perspective. Let me tell you what my goal is. My goal is a morally perfect life. That's my goal. I think that's your goal.
It's interesting. I'll talk to people and they'll say, "Oh, I'm a rotten sinner." Really? Tell me about it. "I sin all the time every day." Really? What's your favorite sin? What sin did you commit yesterday? You know what I think? I think we've listened to people say, "Oh, I sin all the time. I'm just a rotten sinner." We've heard that so much that we've said it. But in reality, when I say, "Well, tell me all the sins from yesterday"—not that I'm your confessor, but just so we can deal with it—most people are stumped to really come up with something.
The desire here, the goal here, is moral perfection. I will not attain it, but that's the goal. And that's what God expects from every single person who calls Jesus his Lord and Savior. That's the target.
Listen, the same Spirit that indwelt the Apostle Paul indwells you. The same God that Paul served, you serve. The same Word that you have—of course, Paul wrote much of it—but the same Word that you have is the same Word Paul had. The life that's committed to Christ is the goal of every believer. "Present your bodies a living sacrifice." That's what He said.
Myth 3: Instant Growth Through the Right Key
Here's the third myth. This is a great one. Spiritual growth can occur instantly if you find the right key. It's as though somewhere in here there's a button. If we can just hit it, everything will fall into place.
Maybe it's a seminar. It's a tape. It's this book. It's having breakfast once a month with someone. All that's going to do is deplete your savings.
Listen, there's no one singular thing. This is a publisher's dream, to have a bunch of people running around thinking, "This book, this tape, this message, this study, Thursday morning—that's the ticket." There's no ticket.
Other night, and I won't tell you who they were, but Oral Roberts and Benny Hinn were on. Oral Roberts said, "Today, tonight, you need to write the biggest check you can possibly write. You need to give the biggest bill you can possibly give, right now." I thought, well... Why? Then he said, "Because God wants to give you His best. And you can't have His best until you give Him your best. And when you give Him your best, then He gives you His best."
See, where does that end? So now when I get His best back, do I just give it back to Him, and it's an all-cash transaction? Do I just keep cash flowing it back to Him, and it never ends? I'm saying to myself, who really can... I mean, obviously I know this is a multi-million dollar business. These guys are either ignorant or charlatans. There's no in-between.
The Spiritual Lottery Mentality
Who gives to that? You know who gives to that? People who think, "I'm going to write this check, and it's a spiritual lottery is all this is." This may be the ticket. "I got a hundred bucks to spend on the lottery, or a hundred bucks to spend here. I'll give God a shot this month." See, and that's how that happens.
There's no key. There's no switch. There's no singular move that you throw. It doesn't work that way. Spiritual growth is a process, and it takes time.
Some of the most fascinating conversations to me are when somebody comes up and says, "I want to do what you do." I said, "Okay, it's not that hard." "What do I have to do to do this? What do I have to do to go over here? What do I have to do over there?" Then I'll start talking to them about three years of this, 20 hours of this every week, and move over here. All of a sudden it's, "Well, I'm not sure I want to do that."
The Van Cliburn Illustration
It's when Howie Hendrix goes to Van Cliburn and says, "Listen, I would do anything to play the piano, anything to play the piano like you." Then he says, "Let me ask you one question, because I've always wanted this. How much do you practice?" Van Cliburn said, "Four hours a day on just scales." Howie said, "Eh, maybe not anything to play the piano like you." See, this takes time.
Rick Warren, and I should have at the beginning given real credit here, some would say I've borrowed very liberally or plagiarized from Rick Warren most of this stuff, but in it he describes these steps of spiritual growth. That I come to know Christ and I begin to grow in Christ and then I begin to serve Christ and I do that by serving and sharing with others. That process is a life-long process. There's no point at which you are done.
Let me put it in a phrase I think you can remember: There's no way to microwave your spiritual growth. There's no way to just put it in and pop it and turn it up to full power and now it's done. It simply takes time. Tapes are helpful, conference may be helpful, certainly solid preaching is helpful, serving is helpful, but all in all, it takes time.
Myth 4: Spiritual Maturity Is Measured by What You Know
Here's the fourth myth, and that is that spiritual maturity is measured by what you know. Some have, I think, mistakenly fallen into the trap that says the ultimate proof that I'm spiritual is I can quote Bible verses. Is that I know where the book of Ezekiel is. I can find it.
Paul tells the church at Corinth, knowledge in and of itself just puffs up. Love builds up. Spiritual maturity is measured in two ways: by what I know and by what I do. By my belief and by my behavior.
In the book of James, and I think it was in here last year we studied the book of James. In the book of James, James makes this point over and over and over again: What you know is terrific, but what you know must produce in your life a result.
Behavior Should Show the Difference
Ephesians 5:8: "Though once your heart was full of darkness" - now that is the biblical way of saying once you were a pagan, heathen, puke - "once you were lost, now you're full of light, your behavior should show it." There ought to be a difference.
One of the things that to me has been over the last years amazingly interesting is how free the singles talk to me about how they're sleeping around. That blows me away. I understand doing it. I don't understand talking about it. I don't know how somebody can come and sit and sit and sit and listen and listen and listen and say, "I'll just go shack up. It's for a day, it's for a night, it's for a week, it's for whatever until I'm done. And then I'm going to go on to the next deal and that's just the way it is."
"Hey, Tom, it's the 90's." Well, I got that figured out. I mean, when Paul wrote this stuff, they were going, "Hey, Paul, it's 58." They're doing this and they're saying, "Get with it. This is Corinth, man. You're not in Ephesus anymore, you're in Corinth, buddy." Listen, these are profound truths.
There's nothing to me that is more disturbing than to have somebody who I know who's working for a guy that comes to the study and say, "You know what? I know the guy comes to your study, but let me just tell you something. This guy is abusive to his people. He's awful. And you know what's worse? It's on their credenza. It's that big gold leaf Bible. Man, I'd hide it." That's my own view. If you're going to put a little fish in your car, you better not be cutting me off. I don't have a fish on my car. I wouldn't put a fish on my car. There ought to be in your life a distinctiveness there.
Five Levels of Learning
Now here is, again, from Rick Warren, five levels of learning. That it begins with knowledge, and that it moves to something called perspective. By perspective, and this is, I think, one of those great keys, that's why I put some sub-points. Perspective is a framework. All of a sudden, for the Christian, and the Christian alone, by the way. For the Christian, the world starts to make sense. That's not that I can explain it all, but I can understand it all. We have people who go around and wonder about why do babies die? Why do people get sick? Why is there suffering?
Let me tell you why. Read Genesis 3. Now, I may not understand why this specific baby... I may not understand that, but that's why those things happen. When I have perspective, all of a sudden, it causes me to love God more, because I see who He really is. All of a sudden, when I have perspective, I can resist temptation. The Bible says there's a way that appears right to man, but is wrong. Why? Because I can understand it.
I mean, I come back to this sexual sin. It would be very difficult, I think, to be single, when you've got a bunch of people, whether they're men or whether they're women, who are willing to engage in sexual activity, and everybody around it is doing it. Why would you not do that? Because there's a larger framework.
I went to an accountant years ago, and I remember driving down Pima Road, taking him to his office, and he said, "Let me give you a little accounting advice." I said, "Okay." He said, "You better puff your expenses, and you better rely on this thing, because you're going to pay way too much tax." I said, "Really? That's interesting." He said, "Yeah." I said, "Is that common practice in your industry?" He said, "Every one of my clients do it."
So, my former accountant, I thought, gave me all the license in the world to do it, but I don't do it. Why? No, I'll probably never get caught. Here's why I didn't do it. Now, this is a novel approach, because it's wrong. You've got all these guys, Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, Ross Perot, it makes no difference. Everybody's running around, trying to figure out where your button is, and it's probably tax cuts or more jails or whatever. Never, never, never will you hear them say, "We're not going to do this, let me tell you why. It's wrong!" Oh, wow, that's pretty rough. And then we launch into this stupid discussion. Well, I don't know that unless I have a larger perspective.
The Power of God's Perspective
All of a sudden, I can handle trials. All of a sudden, if I have God's perspective, it saves me from error. So, as I'm growing, if we're going to mark this off, I've got knowledge and then perspective, from that comes conviction. Conviction is kind of a combination of values and attitudes and commitments that come together, and they produce in me a motive.
So that knowledge tells me what to do. Perspective tells me why to do it. Skills tell me how to do it. But conviction comes in and says, "Do it!" It's not enough to just know what to do, or how to do it, or why to do it. At some point in there, you've got to do it. That's what conviction does. And as this develops, I end up with this thing called character.
There's a guy in this study, in this room right now, and he called me the other day and he left me a note. He left me a note and left me a phone number. I wrote it down and along with about five other notes, I lost the note. When I saw him today, I said to him, "Hey, I wanted to call you, I lost the note." Now, if I was him, I would think, "Yeah, alright, I'm sure you did."
Here's another note. And in your mind, the reflex reaction is, "You're lying!" Because that's how we do it. The minute I see somebody, I say, "I tried to call you and the phone lines are down." See, that's what the fax machine has done. It's stolen that, "It's in the mail." "We'll fax it." "The fax is broken." "The phone doesn't know how to work it." I mean, it's a thousand things. Character is that reflex reaction that says, "I didn't call you because I screwed up." And that I'm ever, ever developing.
Myth Number Five: Spiritual Growth Is Private
Here you go. Here is myth number five. That spiritual growth is a personal and private matter. That's half right. Spiritual growth is a personal matter. It is not a private matter. It may be deeply personal to you, but it isn't private.
When John Kennedy, in 1960, stood before the Protestant ministers in Houston or Dallas, I forget which, and said, "I'm a Roman Catholic, but what I believe will not affect how I govern," I cannot imagine a more silly statement. In other words, the most intimate, personal thing in your life has no effect on what you do. That doesn't make any sense. "I'm a Christian, but it doesn't matter. I'm a gay person, but it won't affect the way I govern. It's not going to affect your..." Something as intimate as that isn't going to affect the way you look at life? Are you kidding me? You're lying.
If you're a Christian, it may be deeply personal, but it cannot be private. It cannot be private in the sense that it cannot help but affect the way that you look at life. One. Two, it's not private in the sense that you deeply need other people to grow. To the extent that you don't have other people around you, they are there to round you off.
The Essential Role of Relationships in Growth
I'll be incredibly honest with you. I have found that my experiences in this study, and with some of you as a result of it, in church and in other places, are often experiences I would not desire, but you have brought to my life a dimension that wouldn't be there if I lived by myself, or in just my immediate family.
This Bible is filled with challenges. These are just but a few. These "one another" deals. Love one another, pray for one another, care for one another, serve one another, encourage one another, be kind to one another, accept one another, don't judge one another, teach one another, fellowship with one another, sing with one another, don't speak evil of one another, show forbearance toward one another, give preference to one another, don't speak evil of each other. The Bible is filled with these "one another's." Because if you're going to grow spiritually, you are going to need relationships.
If you're going to grow in love, you're going to have to find somebody to love. And you're going to learn love the best if it's somebody that's unlovable. If you're going to grow in patience, now think about this, if you're going to grow in patience, you have to get in circumstances that demand patience. You're never going to know if you have a peace that passes all understanding until you get yourself into something that demands peace and couldn't possibly produce it.
How are you going to understand you've got self-control until you're in a situation that tests your discipline? You'd never know it. All of those fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control.
The Bible Study Myth
Here's the last myth: that all you need to grow is Bible study. Let me say it again. I know there are some of you in this class and in other classes that we have who are involved in going back to seminary. That's great stuff. I know some of you are reading all the time. That's terrific stuff. There's nothing wrong with that.
I begin by saying we believe this is the Word of God and you should know it. Somebody has said you should know and familiarize yourself with this book until your blood is biblene - until it literally pours through the veins in your heart. But knowing it is not the only part of the task. There has to be in it experience.
Classroom and Lab
Here's the picture, if you will. Bible study is the classroom. Life is the lab. Did you ever take a science class like that? You had classroom and they said, "Here's how all this stuff works. Now, go down to the lab to see if it really works." That reminds me of the definition of an economist: somebody who wonders if something that is working in practice would work in theory.
A Christian needs experiences to produce growth. Proverbs 20:30, paraphrased: Sometimes it takes painful experiences to make us change our ways.
When Theory Meets Reality
I got a call from a guy the other night. He's about my age. His sister is two years younger. I did not know her. She lives in Garden City, Kansas. And she was the belle of Garden City, Kansas. She was in everyone's life. She was a center part of people's lives over and over again. She had three teenage daughters and a great husband. Her husband was a farmer. And they were just perky, just all over the place.
She came to visit her brother three weeks ago and then went back to Garden City. Settled back in, didn't feel particularly well. Went to the doctor. The doctor put her in the hospital. They said, "We can't really treat you. We got to get you to Wichita." And she died the next morning. Viral pneumonia. New strain.
He's trying to process all this. And as I'm saying to him, "I don't know how you are. I will confess to you how dark I am. I think about dying of cancer. I imagine: What would it be like if Susan got cancer? What would it be like if the kids got cancer? Or if I had a heart attack? Are we stronger, or we just get old?"
I saw a couple of old people shuffling along Southern the other day. And I'm just saying, "That's my future right there. Trying to beat it over to get that dime cup of coffee at McDonald's and 15 refills. And I'm going, that's my future. That's me right there." I never fantasize about just dying. So consequently, I haven't even role-played this one.
It Looks Good on Paper
And he's saying, "Tom, that's it. I mean, that's exactly right." And then he made this comment. And as I frequently do, I write it down. He said, "I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have this Bible. But I got to tell you, moments like this - here's His phrase - it really looks good on paper." In other words, it's one thing to say God's sovereign, but now this gal, this curvy gal just dies.
See, it's one thing to talk about... We have our men's retreat up at Prescott this weekend. That doesn't mean much to you. But what it means to me is it was one year ago this weekend that Sarah was in her car accident. It's one thing to say God's in control until the phone rings at a quarter to one and says, "We need to tell you something. She's in intensive care. And she just had a brain hemorrhage." And now what do you do?
The Greatest Test
And I don't think some of you understand this - some don't. Sarah's car accident is one of the greatest things that ever happened to us in our life because everybody around us saw that it wasn't just us spouting these things off, but now we had an opportunity to live it. Everybody that knew us, their view was 20-20 of that incident.
We even had a nurse from intensive care call us and say, "Are you guys doing okay?" And I said, "Why?" "I sensed you were in denial." Denial? I mean, there she is, all cut up, beat up, stitched up, broken up, wired up. How am I going to deny that? In other words, what she said is, "It's just unusual for us to see somebody handle it quite like that."
So I said to her, "Well, that's because God's in control." And then she said what so many of you said: "I know she's coming back. God is good." And I had to say to her what I've said to some of you: "God is good even if she dies. God isn't good because she got better, but if she died, God's bad. No, God is good. And although there are times in my life where things happen that I frankly can't get in a box and I can't explain, I know this: God is good."
God Is Good, All the Time
I was talking to a guy and using this phrase, and he said he was in a group one day. And here's what was happening. They were chanting. One side was saying, "God is good." And the other side was saying, "All the time." And then they'd go, "All the time, God is good." So that the chant... and he was not in the hall, he was down the way, and so the chant that he heard was this: "God is good, all the time, all the time, God is good." And that's the chant.
Relationship, Not Philosophy
If Christianity were a philosophy, then our primary activity might be studying. But Christianity is a relationship and a life. So our primary endeavor is to study and to live.
I told you in the beginning, not a lot of yucks in this one. This is just kind of right in your face. And it says very simply that if you're here and you don't know Christ, you'll never grow spiritually. You're kidding yourself coming to something like this and thinking this is your answer, this is your ticket. You'll grow only when you know Christ as your Lord and Savior.
And those of you that know Him have to take a hard look at yourself. And it may be oftentimes that you're growing and you don't even realize it. It's like Sarah the other day: I fought it, but I didn't know it. It's life.
The Path Forward
God is going to arrange the circumstances that are going to give you that test. Next week, we start a series talking about life. How to get your life under control. How to evaluate your life. What should life be? What should it look like? Next week we start.
Father, please, give us eyes to see this and ears to hear it. A heart and a desire to live it. Father, we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen. See you next week!