Living An Examined Life: Become A Person Of Ambitions
Tom Shrader redefines ambition from the world's pursuit of money, fame, prestige and power to five biblical priorities: improving relationships, increasing freedom from enslaving habits, intensifying godly passion, expanding perspective through learning, and being strengthened by the Holy Spirit. Drawing from Paul's intimate letter to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1, he calls believers to examine their lives and pursue Christ-centered ambition rather than worldly success.
“You were bought at a price, don't become slaves of men, but whatever I'm enslaved to is robbing me of my joy.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: An Examined Life (2002)
Recorded: 2002 at Cannon Beach Conference Center
Duration: 1 hr
Themes: ambition, priorities, relationships, freedom, passion, learning, examination, purpose, redefining success, career professional, seeking purpose, mid-life reflection, struggling with worldliness, new believer, spiritual mentor, parent
Scripture: 2 Timothy 1:1-6, 1 Corinthians 7, Romans 9, Philippians 1, Ephesians 6:13, Acts 20, 1 Timothy 6:6-8
Theological Themes: sanctification, spiritual growth, biblical priorities, holy spirit, christian living, spiritual maturity, discipleship, transformation
Full Transcript
Lisa, thank you very much. I just had a great experience. I'm sitting next to Lisa while we're singing, and all of a sudden I realize she's just way off key. So I'm trying to help her over there. We're worshiping along and opening our eyes and see the Lord and all that. Hang in there, kid. You'll be something someday. I can't sing a lick. I wish I could, and that was just so humbling to sit there. So finally, I'm just lip syncing. I look like Milli Vanilli over there. I can't get it down.
What a great day. I've got to tell you, I loved that parade. You all have the same favorite part of that parade. What was it? That little wiener dog with that bun around it? How great was that? That was so cool. That girl was just walking along with that dog. That was great.
Susan and I thought, she said, all these restaurants will be closed for the parade. I said, they're not going to close for the parade. Let's go. We'll get in. We'll beat everybody. Well, sure enough, they were all closed. We got up there and we ate, and we came back. I had a cheeseburger, and we laid down, and I fell asleep. All of a sudden, I heard the band.
Maybe it's stereotypical, but I figured, this will be a little dinky band. This is going to be over there in the band shell doing the best they can. They were terrific. So I went over there for an hour, and they were great. I got to meet and talk to some of you. Just a spectacular day.
I know some of you are going to want to go down and look at the fireworks tonight. We'll pray for you, because that's a bad decision, but you go ahead and do it anyway. That just sounds like a mess and a hassle to me.
Setting the Stage for Tomorrow
I'm still struggling. I think what I'm going to do tomorrow on how I want to do these last two messages, let me tell you what I think I'm going to do. In the morning, I'm going to talk to you about the missing ingredient in most people's lives. I've been a Christian since 1980, and God has been very, very good to me over the last, now almost 20 years, that I've been able to teach and speak and travel, and really in the church. If I could deliver one message outside the gospel itself, I think it would be this one.
So I'm going to do that in the morning, and then tomorrow night, I've got a little film clip I want to show you tomorrow morning. I always loved Charles Kuralt. I always liked Charles Kuralt's stuff. So I've got about a five-minute clip of a story that Charles Kuralt did probably 15, 20 years ago now. It's just a terrific story, so I want to show that.
Then tomorrow night, I think I want to do something that's almost pastoral in nature. Even more than teaching, it's just really sharing from my heart, and I want to talk about Haley's wedding. When we meet tomorrow night at this time, it will be exactly one week to the minute that she was married. So I want to talk about that, and I want to show you the video collage that we did tomorrow night, and then just talk to you from my heart to yours as a mom, as a dad, as a grandparent, and hopefully it'll be beneficial to you as well.
The Reality of Change
There was a great line in the song that Lisa just sang, a time brings change, but change takes time. That's a great line. Time brings change. It's inevitable. Things around you begin to change. You can fight it all you want, but you can't stop it. So you want to be on the front edge of that.
Not all change is progress, however, so we're going to be careful in what we change. Some things need not ever be changed, but as people, we want to change. So here's what we're looking at. We're looking at this whole idea of living an examined life, trying to be proactive, trying to think our way through life.
This morning, we talked about taking an inventory, and hopefully, I'm not naive. I doubt that any of you spent much time thinking about what we talked about this morning, and that wasn't mine. I never thought you would. I'm not stupid. I just figured sometime over the next three, four months, that ought to click with you, and I hope you get the tapes. Basically, because I make a lot of money off those tapes. Actually, I don't make a dime. So I hope the tapes are fun, and I hope it'll help you think it through.
The Challenge of Ambition
This follow-up now, we're going to challenge you. There's a characteristic, and I want you to see this. It's a characteristic that's rarely associated with the Christian life and its ambition. There was a gentleman who wrote a book that was a New York Times bestseller several years ago, and the name of the book was Ambitious Men, Their Drives, Dreams, and Delusions, and the guy's name was Shrelly Blotnick. Now, I assume that's not a pen name, because I can't imagine somebody saying, "I'm going to guess that's his name."
Blotnick did an interesting thing. He did a study on ambition. Here's what he found. Here's what he wrote. "The one thing that has changed is that people look on ambition more favorably now than any time during the last 25 years. In fact, both men and women see themselves as somewhat defective if they can't comfortably claim to be ambitious."
Now, the problem lies in this. What does it mean to be ambitious? What's the definition of ambition?
Blotnick's Research on Ambition
Here's what Blotnick did. Blotnick got together different scenarios, filmed them, and showed them to people. So he took control group studies, and he said, "Now, you look at these people, and you tell me what characteristics you see that they're displaying that you would identify as ambitious." So in Shreli Blotnick's approach to ambition, here were the five things that he saw.
Number one, a desire for more. Then Blotnick writes this: "At first, a person must have a desire for more. More of what? Someone was considered ambitious only to the extent that he wanted more money, fame, prestige, and power. If he stated he wanted a happier life, the public didn't view that as evidence of ambition."
Happiness doesn't qualify, in their eyes, as an appropriate goal. So there had to be this pursuit, as they defined it, for money, fame, prestige, and power.
Secondly, there was an emphasis on quantity. Very similar to the first, but now the drive was for more. It was quantitative. It was irrelevant to the observers whether the people in the videos were having a good time or not. That wasn't the issue. The issue was, were they focused on accumulation? What he wrote was this: "Second, in judging whether someone is ambitious, the public doesn't care about quality. They only care about how much. In monitoring audience reaction, ambition was a quantitatively oriented word."
So they're watching these things, they see people in these settings. If they saw people having fun, they tend to downgrade them in the area of ambition. They had to be pursuing more. Quantitative accumulation was the deal. We might call it hoarding. Getting more, more money, more fame, more prestige, more power.
The Rush to Accumulate
Here's the third thing: there was a shortage of time. Watnick wrote this: "Third, they were not inclined to give a person forever to accomplish the goal. To be judged ambitious, they had to be in a hurry." They had to be more in a rush, and then they were called ambitious. They had to want the big four—money, fame, prestige, and power—right away or not later than 9am in the morning. "I'm late for a very important date." Everybody's in a hurry. No one's got time. Everybody's late.
I did the experiment, although it's not even much of an experiment anymore. We landed in Houston. Now, our flight was three and a half hours late. So that's part of it. We landed in Houston, and before we got off the plane, I counted 11 people on cell phones already on the phones. We're always late, and that's kind of a mark of somebody that's successful. They're always hustling. They're always moving. They don't have time for anything or anyone. Everything fast, fast, fast, fast, fast.
These cell phones are the biggest curse God has ever sent on this planet. And I know how helpful they are in many instances. I have a cell phone, and I have never had an incoming call. I turn it off. I'm not hostage to that cell phone. That cell phone's a tool for me to call out. If I wanted somebody to know where I was, I'd call them and let them know. But everybody's in a hurry.
The Endless Pursuit
Here's the fourth thing: there's an absence of satisfaction. Now, stay on this slide for a second, because I want you to see how this builds. A desire for more, an emphasis on quantity, a shortage of time, and an absence of satisfaction. Does that explain to you why so many people are frustrated? I've got to get more. I've got to get it in a hurry. And there's absolutely no end to this thing at all.
It's as though we are running a race. And every time we round the corner and we see the sign that says finish, it's on casters and they keep moving it. I'm going to tip my hand. That's what we're going to talk about in the morning tomorrow. So many people are so frustrated because they bought into the world system. And this is the world system right here: Get more. Get it fast. And don't you dare be satisfied. How could you be anything but frustrated?
The Rolling Stones really did—this is ironic to me. It might not mean anything to you. The Rolling Stones are getting ready to go on tour again. I think this is their fifth farewell tour. But the Stones are going out on tour. I think they go out next month. This is how far we've come. And the tour is sponsored by Ameritech. I just see that as ironic. I don't know. We were against everything and now we're selling stocks. Ameritech.
The Open-Ended Quest
Here's the fifth thing. The quest had to be open-ended. If somebody said, "Once I make a million dollars, I'll never work again, laying in a hammock and smile," that person was more goal-oriented than ambitious. If the word ambition were to truly apply, they felt the person had to be willing to strive virtually until the day they died.
So if you said to somebody, "Show me somebody that's truly ambitious," this is how it would be: At the very end of your life, you deny hospice. You deny help. You go cold calling. At the very end, you're knocking on that door. One more. "I may not be able to fulfill this, but here, call the office in the morning." And that's how they saw ambition.
If you said, "Here's what I want to do. I just want to have a bunch of stuff and be satisfied," that was goal-oriented. See that? And we're going to add the fifth equation to it, and you see how frustrating this is.
Ruthless Self-Focus
An obsession with self. Listen to what Blaknick writes. This is great. Finally, the person had to seem—I like this—somewhat ruthless. To the extent that he was concerned about other people's feelings, to that degree, they downgraded the level of ambition they saw in him. If he gave the appearance of being out for himself, people were reluctant to call him ambitious unless that was present.
So you put all those things together, you see how frustrating life is. If you run the whole list and you see them all there, you see that people have a desire for more, and this emphasis on quantity, and all of these things together—if you see those things in place, you understand the frustration in the world around you.
A New Approach to Ambition
When we say to you, be ambitious, we clearly aren't asking you to have a desire for more, and a shortage of time, and a lack of satisfaction. Here's what I'm talking about: We're talking about a new approach to ambition. If that's the traditional, normal thinking, I'm going to ask you to be ambitious in a different way.
Here's some very practical things that you can do, that you need to approach ambitiously. Here's the first one: Improve relationships. I'm speaking here on a human basis. None of us were meant to go through this life alone. Paul writes
This to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 1. "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, to Timothy, my dear son." Now, we know that Timothy is not Paul's biological son, but he is his spiritual son. There is a relationship there that is extraordinarily close.
It is amazing to me how having the Holy Spirit and being a brother and sister in Christ can draw us closer than just sharing a chain of DNA. That's why you can sit on the tarmac in an airplane and talk to the person next to you as they're reading a Chuck Swindoll book, and all of a sudden you see that, and you strike up a conversation, and in 20 minutes, you've had a more intimate conversation with them than perhaps you've had with your siblings in 50 years. Why? Because nothing draws us closer together than the Holy Spirit working in people's lives.
I really think that Paul needs a makeover. Paul needs a new image. He has this image as this stark, sterile, hostile, not caring guy, and that's just not the Paul that I see when I read Scripture.
Paul's Heart for Timothy
"Paul to Timothy, my dear son, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Jesus Christ our Lord." That's what he wished him. Two years ago, I was working at Coal Banker, working commercial real estate, and one of the girls in the office was getting married, so they're passing this card around where you've got to write something. Everybody writes, I hate it, because I never know what to say. So they write it, they're passing it around, and the gal in front of me writes something and passes it over. And here's what she wrote: "On this special day, I wish you all the world has to offer."
I thought, what a curse. Pestilence, sickness, suffering, cancer, heart attack, economic ruin. We know what the world has to offer. Paul says, I don't wish you what the world has to offer. I wish you what God has to offer: grace, and mercy, and peace. I don't need what the world has to offer. I want what God offers, and it's grace, and it's mercy, and it's peace.
The Order of Grace and Peace
You will see those words, grace and peace. Here, Paul inserts mercy, and periodically does that. But Paul frequently uses just the words grace and peace, and they will always be in that order. You'll never see peace and grace, but always grace and peace. Because God extends to us His saving grace, and once we have His saving grace, now we can have peace.
The world's looking all over for peace. They try to smoke peace, they try to snort peace, they try to drink peace, they try to earn peace, they try to touch peace, and the world will never find peace, because peace comes from a relationship with God. We want the peace of God without having peace with God, and Paul says that's not possible. First there has to be peace with God, that's grace. That's God's extending unmerited favor to us. And then there's mercy, and then there's peace.
Paul's Personal Care
"I thank God, whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear conscience, as night and day, I constantly remember you in my prayer." Paul says, I'm thinking about you all the time. Do you see how personal and intimate this is? This isn't the heart of a sterile, non-caring guy.
Look at verse 4, "recalling your tears." Now I believe that Paul's favorite church on the planet was the church at Ephesus, and that's where he left what I would argue is his favorite person on the planet, and that's Timothy. In Acts chapter 20, you don't need to turn there, but it's fun to go back sometime and read it. In Acts chapter 20, Paul's saying goodbye to the elders at Ephesus, and there are real tears, by the way. As He says goodbye to them, He says something very similar to what Jude says this morning. He says, watch out for the wolves in sheep's clothing. There's that message, that message is all through Scripture. Boy, it's tough out there, but watch out for the guys that sneak in here.
"Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so I might be filled with joy. Do you hear the passion there? I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother, and then in your mother, and now I'm persuaded lives in you." Paul didn't have just a casual relationship with this guy Timothy. He loved him, he cried with him, he prayed with him.
The Need for Godly Friends
That's what you need. You need friends. Now, I'll give you a couple tips about friends. Here's the first thing. Those friends, those friends that you go to for counsel and comfort, ought to first and foremost share your faith. I have a great job, and I got a lot of freedom, so I can periodically be in a restaurant at 10 in the morning or 2 in the afternoon, and if you ever have that opportunity, you can pretty much hear some really bad psychology being practiced all around the restaurant. As two people sit together and she says, "Oh, he's awful," and the other gal says, "Well, don't stay with the jerk," and then away it goes. You need somebody that shares your conviction.
Here's the second thing. I'll give you a big tip here. Guys with guys, gals with gals. I get very leery when somebody, when some lady says, "Oh, my best friend, the guy I can really open up to is one of the guys in the office." Not good. I don't believe, and I know some of you are just going to kill me for this, but generally speaking, 99% of the time, guys and gals just aren't capable of those type of relationships without them getting intimate.
"She's so special. I can just talk to her. We know what each other's saying even before we speak it." Not good. Gals, look. When he comes up to you, I'm going to just tell you. You're out there, you're doing your thing, and he said, "Hey, thanks for listening to me. I'm really glad you listened to me. I really don't have anybody I can talk to. The guys, they make fun of me if I talk to stuff like this, but you, I can just open up my heart and you listen to me." He's just working you, ladies. No guy thinks like that. There aren't any sensitive guys that don't make those. Man, you've got to be careful. I'm telling you, this is bad stuff. I can't tell
You see how many guys and gals started off with just a Coke break at lunch or just a casual lunch and they ended up in deep, intimate relationships. You need friends. Now, some of you don't have friends. Here's what I'm going to tell you, and I just know that because I work with a lot of people and they just don't have friends.
One day, I teach a Bible study and there are probably about 350 guys in it. I walk in the back. I'm going to go down here and I'll use Steve for this. I walk in the back row. There's a guy sitting here. He's sitting in the end. I walk by and I say, "Hey, I'm glad you're here this morning." Just like that. I walk up to the platform. Getting ready to speak, I look down. There's a pair of feet. I look up and it's the guy I touched in the back, and he said to me, "Thank you for touching me on the shoulder and telling me you're glad I'm here. I'm so lonely." And that used to be something that was common to guys. I find it common with women now. People are lonely.
How to Get Friends
You need a friend. Here's what you ought to do. I'm going to tell you how to get friends. Those people throwing candy today, that's one way. Throw candy at people. That won't work. I didn't know there was a little kid standing next to me today and they're throwing candy. I didn't know the kid there. They're throwing these Tootsie Rolls, and I'm grabbing them like this, and I realize that kid, and I said, "Creep. I like that."
Make a list. Make a list of the characteristics you want in a friend. Write them down. Just write them down. And then see if they're present in your life. Because if you want them in a friend, so do other people. If they're not present in your life, I'll guess that's why you don't have friends.
Some of you operate under the theory that every silver lining has a cloud, and you're determined to find it and let everybody know where it is. And then you wonder why nobody wants to spend time with you.
The Danger of Negativism
Howie Hendricks—you know Howie Hendricks? Many of you do. Somebody called me one day and they said, "Howie's teaching. He was doing the golfer's hometown. He's doing the Bible study. Let's go out and listen to Howie." And Howie's out there. Howie's doing Howie, and he's got all of His stuff going. And I'm just watching. For me, it's to watch a master ply His trade. And then Howie said this: "No marriage in the world can withstand a constant barrage of negativism."
I guess that caught my attention because that's the way I tend to be. I take up marriage, although you can leave it in there. No human relationship can withstand that. Your church can't withstand a constant barrage of negativism from the people in the pew. You can't do it. You'll just rip the thing apart.
If that's what you want, fine. I can't tell you, because I've got this card that says "Pastor." It's a great card because it gets you into meetings I could never get in otherwise. And you go into these meetings, and I can't tell you how many guys are frustrated. And when you talk to them about why they're frustrated, it's because they've got people warring over everything. Ted used a line last night: "We try to keep everybody slightly dissatisfied." Well, nothing does that faster than music. And not a week goes by that I don't get notes: "Too loud. More hymns." So then we'll put a hymn in, and they'll go, "That was a great hymn. Why don't we sing hymns all the time?" And we'll put all hymns in, and they'll go, "It's not loud enough. More drum. Less drum." I had two notes back-to-back one week. This one said, "Music was too loud and contemporary." Next one says, "Why are we singing all the same old stuff?"
If you bring that into a relationship, if you're at work, go to a restaurant and sit and hear four people from the same office. And listen to them talking about the memo they just got from the home office. And how everybody there is stupid. And everybody there is dumb. And nothing makes sense. And it was better before.
Four Things Paul Does to Keep Friends
I'll give you four things Paul does in His life, that I see in the scripture to keep friends. Here's the first one: He prays for them. Did you hear what He said? "I constantly pray for you night and day." Do you pray for your friends? You can be miles and miles—I had a lady one time tell me, a friend of hers, she'd been a friend there in Phoenix. Her friend had moved, I don't know, somewhere on the other side of the country. She said, "We're closer now than ever before." I said, "How is that possible?" And she said, "With her gone, I found myself praying for her daily. And we feel closer than ever before."
Here's the second thing: Paul writes letters. That's what this is. This is a letter. So Paul prays for them. He writes letters. Do you write letters? Not much anymore, do you?
The Power of Written Words
I was in a bookstore and I found a book that I would never buy, but I thought I'd read. I figured Borders would want me to read it. And it was Ronald Reagan's love letters to Nancy. And I don't know—Oregon, I don't know much about the Northwest. Politically, you seem somewhat confused. So I'm here to straighten out. But I happen to be, just personally, I don't mean this to be a dividing issue, but I happen to be a fairly big fan of Ronald Reagan. And I think if you go back, and you see some of these speeches that are written, all of a sudden you realize, there wasn't a speechwriter. Dutch is sitting down writing these things. It's pretty amazing.
These love letters are incredible. I don't know if you've seen the book. But it's an incredible book. And in one of them, I'm reading this and He writes, it's just a note, "To my first lady. Here's a good beginning: I love you so much more than I did 365 days ago. And so much less than I will 365 days from now." I said, "Man, that's good." So I said, "I need a pencil and paper. I've got to write this baby down." Because I'm not going to buy the book, but I'll use it.
So I get this card and I write this card and I give it to Susan. She looks at it and I said, "Not much reaction." She said, "I don't know—"
If I understand it. I said, "Well, let me see it. I love you so much more than I did 365 days ago. And so much less than I will 365 days from now. Love, Ronnie." Oh, I didn't mean to love Ronnie. I'm a little carried away. There's something about a written card.
Here's the third thing that he did. He prayed for me and wrote to me. The third thing was he visited. Up to the very end. When he's writing to the church at Rome, he's saying, "Listen, I want to stop and see you and then I'm going to Spain." A lot of scholars think his real desire was to get to England. Doesn't matter. Don't know.
Here's the last thing. He networked. That may sound odd to you. That may even have a negative connotation to you. But Paul says, "Listen, I'm sending a guy to you. And I've got no guy closer than this guy. And you better embrace this guy. His name's Timothy." Paul's constantly saying, "Listen, I'm sending this guy and I want you to see this."
I love it when somebody says, "Hey, I'm in Phoenix and so-and-so told me to call and told me to stop by and see the church." I love that stuff. Or when we've got somebody coming out. There's nothing better than that. So here's the first thing. You need, in this fresh approach to ambition, you need to improve human relationships.
Increase Your Freedom
Here's the second thing. You need to increase freedom. That should be a 4th of July kind of message. Someone told me not long ago that they believe there were more people in slavery now than at the time of the Civil War. 1 Corinthians chapter 7, Paul writes this: "You were bought at a price. Don't become slaves of men."
Now would we become slaves to men? Here you go. If you're enslaved to Bank of America. Or you're enslaved to work. Or you're enslaved to booze or drugs. Here you go. You're enslaved to gossip. You can't stop talking.
I'll tell you what we see at epidemic proportion. And that is enslaved to the internet and the internet pornography. Because, let me tell you why. Because it's accessible. And it's affordable. And it's available. And it's anonymous. You can drift in and drift out. You don't even know sometimes what you're getting into. Guy's addicted to that all over the place. We're at the point of our church where we're actually beginning a whole area of ministry to guys in that area. Because it's epidemic. And I'll tell you something. If you've got teenagers, you've got teenage boys. I guarantee you they're into this stuff.
Addicted or enslaved to exercise or golf. Here you go. Here's the problem with that. Whatever I'm enslaved to is robbing me of my joy.
The Right Kind of Slavery
I am supposed to be enslaved. Don't mistake that. Paul says, "I'm a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. You were bought at a price. Don't become slaves to men." But oh, we're to be enslaved. We're to be enslaved to the Lord. We're to love Him and obey Him. That's the slavery we're supposed to be in. Slaves to Him. Love Him and know Him and obey Him. And love Him more and know Him more and obey Him more.
Anything in your life that has control of you is robbing you of your joy. That's one of the things. I was in a church a couple of years ago. Because I don't travel much anymore. And I came in. I'm visiting. I'm teaching in this church.
So I came in. I got there about 10 minutes earlier. I set myself down right here. My stuff. I got my bag and I got my stuff. Some guy said, "We want you to meet somebody." So I go back and I do my thing. I come back out. And all my stuff's gone. And I look and it's a rollback. And there's two people sitting where my stuff was. And I said, "Oh, this is my stuff." And they said, "Yeah, these are our seats." I said, "Really? Okay, these are your seats." Now they don't know me from a post. So I figured, okay.
Missing Joy in the Church
So I go back and I sit down. And because you're part of what's going on, they give you a list of what's going on in the day. And I'm meeting people. And it is the deadest place I've ever been. And I'm looking to see. We're going to sing. "I got joy, joy, joy down in my heart." So I'm saying, "Well, I can't wait to see this."
So all of a sudden, I'm watching. And then we go, "I got joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. Where? Down in my heart. Where? Down in my heart." I'm thinking, "You know what? That must be so deep down there that I can't even see it. Because you got so much joy so deep." But I don't see many Christians with real joy. Why? I'll tell you why. Because they're not living the life that God designed you to live. And one of the reasons is, I'm in bondage. My life's got me all tied up. I'm not free to be who God called me to be. I owe too much money. I'm working too hard. I got some sort of addiction or obsession that's going. My life's all out of whack.
Switched Price Tags
And the things that God... Tony Campolo wrote a book a while ago called "Who Changed the Price Tag." Did you ever see that book? And the premise was this. When Campolo was a little kid, he and an associate would go into a store. They'd find something they wanted, like a transistor radio with a $5 price tag on it and an ink pen with a dollar price tag on it. And they'd switch the price tags. They'd buy the transistor radio for a buck.
He says, "Now I've grown up and I look around and somebody's switched all the price tags. Success is really valued. And family is really dismissed." If you buy into that, you are enslaved.
Intensity of Passion
Here you go. Here's the third thing. Improve relationships. Increase in freedom. Thirdly, an intensity of passion. A passion increase. And there's a word, and I know it's appropriate and I know it's fair, and I use it every once in a while, but I've got to tell you, I really can't stand this word. And the word is balance.
If I said to you, "We're going to do word association with you. I'm going to give you a word and then you give me the associated word with it. The Apostle Paul." If I gave you a dictionary, you'd never stop at balance. In fact, Paul said this: "There's one thing that I do." Now that doesn't sound like a balanced guy to me. "There's only one thing that I do." Now we know he did other things.
I know he did other things, but Paul's saying balance. I don't think so. Balanced people don't seem to me to accomplish great things. Passion.
A Generation Without Passion
In a recent survey, 47% of high school students said they could not imagine anything worth dying for. Not country, not family, nothing. Not their faith. Well, you know how this goes. If there's nothing worth dying for, then there's nothing worth living for. That's why you have a whole generation who says, "whatever."
We have a friend who works in the barrio in Phoenix. She's been down there now for 20 years. She said, "I do not know one Hispanic girl that I'm working with who dreams of her wedding. In the barrio, they don't dream of their wedding. I know many of them who think of their funeral." Isn't that interesting? An intensity of passion.
We have become, I believe, a nation that's lost its passion. We have a national anthem. We have a national motto. At least we did. We have a national symbol in the eagle. I think if we said, "You know what, we need a national color. A color that captures the heart, the mind, the imagination of the American people." And if we did a referendum, I think we'd discover that the color that perfectly demonstrates who we are is beige. That's who we are. We don't even sin with vigor anymore. There's no passion.
Paul's Radical Love
Paul writes this in Romans 9: "I speak the truth in Christ. I'm not lying. My conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit. I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. But I wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers and those of my own race, the people of Israel."
Paul says this. I know it can't happen, but this is how passionate and this is how deep my love for the Jews are. If it were possible, I'd give up my salvation for them. Do you live that way?
John Wesley was driving the church people crazy. And finally they couldn't take it anymore and they said, "Wesley, what's the deal? We can't get these guys to come to church. But you get these miners and they come out of the mines and they're dirty and they're tired and they're fatigued, but they come and they listen to you. How do you get them? What's the secret?" And Wesley said, "Light yourself on fire because everybody loves to watch somebody burn."
Living with Authentic Passion
You know what? I'm not faking this stuff. I care about this because I know this is the truth.
We had a guy who used to do a Bible study down in Tucson and one day there was a guy who came in and he sat down. I'm watching him and the whole time he's sitting right over here and I'm talking. I'd look over at him and he's sitting there shaking his head. Every time I look at him he'd go back and forth. So finally this guy got up and left and they said, "Do you know who that is?" And I said, "Never seen him before." And he said, "He is a very high profile Jewish attorney here in town. I can't believe he's at the study. This is incredible. Very high profile." I said, "Oh, all right."
Next week he comes in. He sits there. Every time I look at him he shakes his head. He does this for five weeks. Five weeks he's sitting there. And it's driving me crazy. So finally at the end of the fifth week I said, "Could I see you for just a second? I just got to ask you something." He said, "Yeah." I said, "For five weeks every time I look at you, you put your head down and shake your head from side to side. Why is that?" He said, "I've been here five weeks. And you have not said one thing I agree with." I said, "Let me ask you a question. This is not a profound insight, but it's a question. Why would you come? Why would you get up at five o'clock in the morning and come here?" He said, "I don't agree with anything you say, but I love to watch you say it."
That's how much we're hurting for passion.
The Power of Truth-Telling
I can't find, and this is just me, and I talk about politics a lot. This is the longest in my adult life I've gone without a TV. This is incredible. I'm ready to give away the shower for a television if I could just get a television. If I got this out, Susan and I are here. If I don't see a TV all the way through, it will set a record for the longest I've gone. I love TV. I watch a lot of TV, and I watch a lot of politics, and I have a love-hate relationship with it, but mostly hate. These guys, you know what? They just don't tell the truth. And by that I mean, they just won't shoot straight with you. They just won't be honest with you.
See, I think there's something contagious about somebody that just tells the truth. I think that the church, the body of Christ, is ready to explode around those that will just tell the truth.
We've reached a point in the body of Christ where we're so concerned about reaching the people who aren't Christians and bringing them into the church that we've lost the ability to worship and study the Word together. This is me now, and this is not the position of Cannon Beach Christian Conference Center, and I'm sure they'd love to distance themselves from this. But I think this whole movement that says, "let's get people into the church, and we'll do Sunday." That's not church. You're designed to come on Sunday to worship, to praise, to study, to encourage one another, and then you go out into the world and evangelize. You don't bring them into church to evangelize. It's church. It's by definition the body of believers coming together to worship. This is me.
Finding Your Authentic Niche
By the way, I'll give you this. You can be a quiet, soft-spoken guy and still be passionate. There's nothing worse than some guy who's faking it. I feel very strongly about this. All you got to do is carve out your niche and then cling to that niche. It's not a matter of being someone else. It's being you. How did God create you?
Create you to be flamboyant? Did God create you to be quiet? It doesn't matter. Intensify your passion.
Expand Your Perspective
Two more things and then off to the fireworks you go. Expand your perspective. So you're improving relationships and you're increasing your freedom and you're intensifying your passion. You're expanding your perspective. Paul writes this in Philippians 1: "This is my prayer, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight."
Now what he's talking about, first and foremost, is about the knowledge of the Lord. If you want to know that there's a God, you can walk down to the beach tonight and see it. I was just in a situation where I was invited in to an absolute, total, secular audience. I'd give you the name of the group, but I don't want to do it. But let me just tell you, it's one of the largest companies in the world.
The last thing, I had to send them my PowerPoint ahead of time so that their legal department could sign off on it. I had included a scripture verse. They jerked it out. I included a quote. There's a book called The 100 Most Influential People of All Time. It's a total secular book. And it identifies the 100 most influential people. Number one is Muhammad. Number two is Isaac Newton. Number three is Jesus. Number four is Buddha, then Confucius, then Paul. They jerked that quote out.
Well, I wanted to get in here, the creator part. So I put in the Declaration of Independence. I'm thinking, it's a legal department. They can't pull out the Declaration of Independence. Well, they left it in. So now, I'm in the door. Because I can say, we're created. Well, if we're created, there must be a creator.
Evidence of the Creator
And my point to them was this. You can look around the world. You go to a fine restaurant. And you have a terrific menu. It happened in here the other night. The first night we were here, they had pot roast. They were cutting this pot roast with a fork. The pot roast was incredible. And Susan said, I wonder how the chef prepares this.
How did she know there was a chef? Nobody told her there was a chef. Nobody said, the chef's in the back. You go into a restaurant and you say, my compliments to the chef. You weren't in the kitchen. The meal demands a chef. Creation demands a creator.
This is real simple stuff. This is not complicated stuff. There has to be a creator. We can all disagree on who He or she or it is. But to say that there's not a God, you've got to be really a fool.
It's going to take me to know the creator God. How do I know God? Well, I know Him through His Son. And I know Him through this book. I've got to study this book. If you want to expand your perspective, you've got to study this book.
Embracing New Technology and Ideas
I want to take this to a deeper dimension, though. A different dimension. I don't know if it's deeper at all. It means expanding your perspective in the world around you. I predicted years ago that the computer was a fad. Now, I'm not ready to concede yet, but I may be wrong. I may have missed this one. You know why? I'm telling you why. Because I was intimidated by it. I didn't understand it. I didn't understand how it worked.
I love this thing now. I get on there, and here's what I do. I get that mouse going, and every time it says, do you want to do something? I say, yes. I have no idea where I'm going, but what a ride it is. Yes. And then pretty soon it'll lock up, and I'll say, Michelle, can you come here and fix this? And she'll go, where did you do it? I said, I don't know. Just every option it gave me, I say yes.
Bridging the Generational Gap
Let me talk to those of you that are a little older here. Here's what I've discovered. I've discovered that the younger people are dying to have a relationship with you. My now son-in-law, at the rehearsal dinner the other night, his grandpa was there. It was really cute. He wanted to talk about his grandpa, and he was serious as can be. He said, can somebody wake up Grandpa? I want to talk about him. When he came back from his last trip to Denver, what he talked about the whole time was his grandpa. Talking to his grandpa.
These young people are dying to have a relationship with you. It's kind of cool. You know why? You're linked to the past. They'll say, wow. I mean, you were alive when Kennedy was shot? Yeah, I was. And there's a whole connection there. I had a guy in one of the studies that worked on the original team at General Motors that invented and created the automatic transmission. What a blast this guy was.
Here's what I've seen. There's a gap between the old and young, and I'll tell you whose fault it is. The old people. You're pulling away. They're dying to be with you. Don't be afraid of them.
Young People Want to Connect
Here's what I've discovered. They'll talk to you. I saw a kid the other day, and this guy has stuff hanging everywhere. He looked like he fell in a tackle box. He had stuff hanging everywhere. He had it hanging all over. I'm not kidding. He had stuff pierced all over. And he's got a scowl. You know how they have that scowl, and he's got that scowl? But you know what? They just have that scowl.
Here's what I'm telling you. I said to him, I said, I don't want to bother you, and if you don't want to talk to me, that's fine. But I said, did that hurt? That looks to me like it would hurt. He said, man, this one really hurt. I said, really? I'm telling you, they'll talk to you. They're dying to talk to you.
We had a kid, about 13 years old on campus the other day, smiling ear to ear, and I'm thinking, what could have happened? I said, what happened? Here's what he said. I just got an email from my grandpa. Go for it. Expand your perspective. Connect with Him.
I'm watching about, it would have been about six months ago now, I'm watching an episode of Leave it to Beaver. I'm not making it up. And Beaver is at the firehouse. So if Beaver's at the firehouse, who's he talking to? Gus. So there's Gus.
He's talking to Gus. So he's talking to Gus, and I'm watching. And here's Gus. Gus is this old man. Gus doesn't get out and throw balls with Beaver. He's not playing catch. He's not playing Nintendo. You know what Gus did? He listened, and he talked to Beaver.
Gus was one of Beaver's best friends. Beaver loved Gus. Why? Because he talked to him and listened to him. I think oftentimes we think, here's what we've got to do. We've got to become like them. You don't have to be like them.
I speak every year at our junior high, high school summer camp, and I don't connect with them at all in terms of trying to look like them or sound like them. But you know what? You just shoot straight with them. Don't be afraid of this.
Expanding Your Perspective Through Lifelong Learning
Expand your perspective. You never stop learning. I heard Milton Friedman the other day. Milton Friedman is now 91 or 92. Milton Friedman said, "I just read a book that will change the world." He's 91 or 92. Milton Friedman's forgotten more than I'll ever know. He's still reaching, learning.
As you look at all this, you ought to be a little bit intimidated. You ought to be a little bit intimidated in this whole process. You've got to improve relationships and increase freedom, intensify passion, and expand your perspective. And you ought to be saying, "I can't do that." Perfect. We've got the answer for you.
Strengthened by the Holy Spirit
It's the last thing. You're strengthened by the Holy Spirit. You can't do not just this list. You can't do anything. Apart from me, you can do nothing. Again, it's from the pen of the Apostle Paul, and he writes this: "For this reason I kneel before the Father from whom His whole family on earth derives its name, and I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with the power through His Spirit to your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith."
On January of 2001, we saw a transfer of power. William Jefferson Clinton transfers the power to George W. Bush. What I love, and I'm a little cynical, are all the newscasters saying the next day, "President Bush looks so presidential." Well, yeah. You think it's got anything to do with a big seal out in front and an Air Force One behind him? I can look presidential standing there. He looks so presidential.
We've seen, here's George W. Bush. 9-11, all the things that go with it. He's got extraordinary power. He can say, "I want it," and it's done, virtually. And yet I want you to understand this. You have more power than George W. Bush. George W. Bush, as Commander-in-Chief, cannot change a heart.
The Power to Transform Hearts
That's the fundamental problem. The fundamental problem that we have is not just continually trying to modify behavior. We have to do something deeper. We have to change people's hearts. My life has changed radically. You know why? Because the Holy Spirit did it.
You were not meant to live filled with guilt and remorse and depression and anxiousness and loneliness and fear. Here's what should be present in your life. See if the list sounds familiar. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. The fruit of the Spirit. That's what your life's supposed to look like.
If you say you're a Christian, you're saying I have the indwelling Spirit of God living in me, then what should be evident in my life is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. That's the power of the Holy Spirit to transform a life. All of a sudden, your life has a whole new flavor. The colors, and this sounds odd, the colors are brighter.
Even in the down times, you understand that there's meaning and purpose. So as you approach these trials and difficulties, you're joined with the Holy Spirit and really in anticipation of seeing what's God going to do. "God, how are you going to get us out of this one? Father, what are you teaching us now?"
Practical Targets for Change
Here you go, I make a list. I think there's a list of objectives. And they're just targets for you. Cultivating personal relationships. Finding a friend. This is the year to remove some of these constraints from your life.
Listen, if you're in debt, then this is the time to start to get out. And it takes time. It may take you seven years, eight years. We had a couple in our church. This guy had a business, he went broke. He and his family, he had four girls, moved into an apartment, and stayed into that apartment, and stayed there for seven years, I think it was, until they paid off their last debt. It's an awesome thing. So maybe it's going to take you some time.
Maybe you have some sort of a bondage or an addiction. Maybe it's taboos. Who knows what it could be? This is the time to stop it. "Well, it's hard." I know it's hard.
Personal Examples of Breaking Free
Here's what I did. I used to drink like a fish. When I was a non-believer, I would spill more than a night than most people would drink. I drank and drank and drank. I quit that December 11th, 1980. I just woke up the next morning and I said, "You know what? God, this is not working so well. You better take this away." And it was gone. Never had another drink. I don't tell that story very often because it's discouraging to some people who've tried and tried and tried.
Two years ago, December, I decided to quit drinking coffee. Now, please don't feel judged by this, but I'm not judging you at all. I just was sick and I was feeling awful and I said, "I ought to be able to redeem something out of this. I'll quit drinking coffee." This was the toughest thing I ever did. Man, was this hard.
If you got some restraint, get rid of it. I don't know what it is.
Finding Your Passion and Continuing Growth
Find a passion and ignite it. What lights you on fire? What is it that when you're doing it, you feel like you're hitting on all six cylinders and everything's moving? Whatever it is, get yourself in a position where that's what you do.
Get educated. Start reading. Start listening. I know this is going to sound really weird. Get yourself on the internet. Get yourself hooked up. There's a whole world out there. You ought to be reading.
Education is redundant. Education by its definition is continuous. And then, stay active. Active in the Lord. As God begins to work in your life.
Taking Time to Examine Your Life
I am not naive. I know you have a lot of stuff going on. But I want you to think about this over the next couple of weeks. The tapes are available, and I have no idea what they cost, but nobody's making any money on the tapes. Those are just here to support and encourage you. I'm saying listen to that tape.
This morning we talked about examining your life. Take the next time. Maybe you're getting ready to go on vacation. Take a month. Sit down as a couple if you're a couple. Sit down as a single if that's where you are in life. Sit down and figure it out. Just look at your life and start to evaluate it.
Look at this list. Expand this list. Be ambitious. When Paul says, "this one thing I do," let that be your chant too. This one thing I do. It's Christ and Christ crucified.
The Missing Ingredient: Satisfaction
There's an ingredient that's missing in most of our lives. I alluded to it tonight. It has to deal with this whole idea of satisfaction. I will tomorrow morning take you to 1 Timothy 6, verses 6, 7, and 8 and following. We'll take a look at those. We'll look at this contentment issue. Then tomorrow night I just want to share with you some stuff that I hope is encouraging to you.
Pray with me, would you please? As Ted comes to close this.
Father, thank You. Thank You for this magnificent day that You've created. And yet it's not over. There are people who will be headed out and headed down to seaside. God, we pray for safety for them. We pray that they would have fun. We pray for the high school students that are out, that will be on their way back in a half hour or so. Again, that they would have a time that's safe.
God, thank You for the people that are here. I pray that You use this time for us to examine our life and for us to see how You'd have us live. God, I pray that we'd look back on this camp maybe 10 years from now and say, it was right there that God began to really work in my life. That's what we hope for.
Father, I pray for those families that are here using this as a time of family reunion. That can be tough. Sometimes there's challenges. God, I pray that You'd draw those families close together. There is something that is almost unsurpassed in this world. That's seeing generations of the same family gather together, smiling, hugging, loving one another because they love You.
Father, we pray Your Spirit would open our eyes and our hearts and our lives would be transformed by Your work. We pray that in Christ's name, amen.