True North

Tom Shrader concludes a marriage conference by emphasizing that God's Word must be the foundation for marriage and all of life. Using the illustration of a compass providing true north, he teaches from 2 Timothy 3:16-17 that Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction. He encourages couples to make their mutual faith in Christ their strongest asset.

“When you take this book and you hold it in your hand, and you read this truth, you understand true north.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Marriage (2002)

Recorded: 2002 at Cannon Beach Conference Center

Duration: 55 min

Themes: marriage, foundation, scripture, guidance, faith, salvation, direction, truth, married couples, newlyweds, struggling marriages, husband, wife, new believer, seeking direction, marriage conference attendee

Scripture: 2 Timothy 3:16-17, John 14:15, John 14:21, John 14:23, John 15:10, 1 John 2:3, 1 John 5:3, Hebrews 4:12-13, 1 Corinthians 5, Genesis 1:1

Theological Themes: biblical authority, scripture authority, biblical inerrancy, sola scriptura, soteriology, salvation doctrine, biblical sufficiency, word of god

Full Transcript

That You sent Your Son, Jesus, to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. God, thank You for paying the price for our sin. God, thank You for that cross and the salvation that we find there. And when we hear those words, there indeed is no way that we could ever deserve or possibly earn that salvation, and it's a gift from You. And God, it's the greatest gift we will ever have. We thank You for that gift. We praise You for the giver of that gift, for Jesus. Thank You for who He is and what He's done in our life. God, we worship You. We praise You this morning. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, good morning. It is good to see you and obviously great to be with you. As we close this section out, let me do a couple of things first.

Resources and Websites

Let me talk to you a little bit about resources. I've mentioned a couple of websites, and yesterday in particular, I had several of you ask about websites. So, rather than give them out individually, let me just give you a couple of suggestions here. Larry Wright. And that website is Discover Life. That's discover-life.org.

Our church website, we're East Valley Bible Church. Our church website is ebbc, the initials, ebbc.org. And on that website, if it's up and running, you will find, we're in the process of transitioning a bunch of things there, you will find there all of our weekly messages are there, and just lots of different resources.

And there's one more website I'll give you. It's all one contiguous, run-together phrase. Priority Living AZ. Priority Living AZ, the initials AZ. All run together. PriorityLivingAZ.org. And that's the website for what we do during the week. And on that website, it's separate from the church. Those are two separate entities. And you will find there the weekly studies that we do in the marketplace. You'll also find there a list, probably going back a year, year and a half, of all the messages that we've done. Same thing, by the way, on the website at church. I think they're cataloged for a couple of years anyway. And the notes are on there as well.

At Priority Living, you'll also see a list of everything we've done. And you can order anything that you want off of that Priority Living website and we'll mail them to you. Those are all free of charge. The church, I think, operates a little bit different. I think there's a nominal charge there. My point here, and I hope you understand this, I don't mean this at all by way of self-promotion. I don't have a clue whether you ever go to that site. I don't make any money off this site. Those are resources that are available to you. We want you to take advantage of them.

Recommended Reading

Let me mention two books to you. There are lots of books on marriage. And probably the idea is, who needs another one? Well, I'm walking out of my office probably six months ago and I get this envelope and in it is a book on marriage. And I thought, and the guy, it was from someone in California. And they said, you know, you spoke at our thing, we appreciate what you said, it touched our hearts, all the very, very nice things you want to hear. He said, I'd love for you to have this book as a gift.

Right then our discipleship guy was walking through and he said, read this book, will you, and mark it up and just highlight the stuff I need to read. Because I'm not going to read that book. He came back about a week later and he said, this is the best book on marriage I've ever read. And it has become just a resource in our church that's just swept right through. It's called Sacred Marriage. Are any of you all familiar with that book? Anybody in here familiar with that book, Sacred Marriage? One guy. Let me just recommend it to you.

Gary Thomas. And I owe you a, I should have listened to you. See? I just, it was a delay, time delay on it. But Sacred Marriage, this book has just swept through our church and is just a terrific resource. Sacred Marriage, Gary Thomas.

Addressing Pornography

The other book, and we did not talk about it. I would do this if it were a men's conference. We did not really talk about the proliferation that we're seeing in the areas of pornography. We've had a couple of conversations with people as kind of sidebars to this. There's a couple of resources out. One of them is called Every Man's Battle. And it's become again a book that we've got a whole class built around that now.

Internet pornography is just, and in a room like this I'll guarantee you there's a boatload of people involved in it. It's just, it's so available, it's anonymous, and it's affordable. And consequently you're just bound to see people locked in this. And it's very hard to break. It's a very difficult sin to break.

What I heard this week that may be the most alarming of anything that I've heard from some of our high school leaders is that we're finding a growing number of young teenage girls involved in this. And my suspicion would be that again it's available, it's anonymous, it's affordable, it's a point of curiosity for them. And so you are kidding yourself if you don't think this is a real issue. And that book has been helpful to many.

Additional Resources

Another resource, and maybe you all know something about it that can help me out. We got a call at the church from somebody, and I want to say it's coming to me as I'm talking, something like Covenant Eyes. But this is a guy who's got some software that he puts on your computer,

Those are resources I just throw out to you. I have no vested interest in any of them. But I want you to know, which you already know, that there are tools out there for you.

We close this morning. We probably have about a half hour or so. Let me just try to summarize this. I was going to make some comments on children and grandchildren, but I'm not going to have time to do that. I would recommend to you, if you go on our website at the church, the day after Haley's wedding, I talked about child rearing. There's a message on there with some points and an outline very similar to what I have on there. If you go on our website, all you have to do is click to that and it's right there.

The Foundation: Salvation in Christ

I want to make sure that we understand, again, that the essential thing we want to begin with, before we talk about marriage or anything else, is that we know Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and the wages of sin is eternal life in Christ Jesus. We find salvation in Him and no one else.

If you are someone who is a religious person, while that is fine, that does not at all mean salvation for you. Salvation is found in a relationship with Christ and Christ alone.

USA reported the findings of a poll, and I have no idea how they get this, but they had a series of eight things. They said, if you were rich, what would you pay? People said they'd pay $55,000 to be president for a day. $83,000 for great beauty. $206,000 for a reunion with a loved one. $259,000 for eternal youth. $285,000 for talent. $407,000 for a great intellect. $487,000 for true love. But at the top of the list, far ahead of everything else, $640,000 to know that you had a place in heaven.

We got a deal for you here today, my friend. But isn't that so typically human to think we have to buy that? Here's what I'd pray: here's somebody saying, "I'd give all this to go to heaven," but what they'd never do is submit their will to the Lord Jesus. Obviously that's what it means to be a Christian.

Summary of Marriage Principles

We've talked about a variety of things. Let me summarize them for you quickly. These vows that you made at your time of marriage are unconditional, and they anticipate problems and difficulties. That's part of life.

We encourage you to have realistic expectations, and that means defining those expectations. Sex is a key part of the marriage relationship, and we put, in a sense, the burden on the ladies for that. We said, you're the ones who are really going to carry that. Then we said, communication and sharing your dreams. There, guys, the burden is yours.

Susan and I, this was our last morning that we can be here, and she likes to eat down at a place called Lazy Susan's. So we went down to Lazy Susan's to eat, and we're sitting there. I said, "I want to get a paper because I want to check out the football scores, and we've got lots of sports to check out." So we're sitting there about ten minutes, and she reminded me that the man is responsible for communication. So I gave her the living section and said, "Go ahead and read it. I'll get her through this. She'll grow out of this."

The Freedom of Forgiveness

Then we talked about forgiveness, and in forgiveness, what we're really talking about is the freedom that comes from forgiveness. I didn't talk about it last night, but let me just elaborate on it a little bit. It's freedom from sin. You're no longer in the bondage of sin. You are free to do good works.

We continue to battle with sin, and probably everyone in here can give some testimony to some sin that you struggle with. We continue to struggle. That's part of the normal Christian life. But we really can have victory in that we have a strength in us that allows us to overcome that.

It's not just freedom from sin, but I think also in the Christian faith and the life with Christ, we find the freedom to be the person God created us to be. That's a huge issue. We don't have to try to live up to someone else's expectations any longer.

I meet with businessmen who are 40 or 50 years old and still worry about what their mom and dad think they ought to do and how they ought to be. I'll tell you in my life, I think a lot about my mom and dad and what would they think of this stuff. I mean, there's a certain healthiness to that, but it can so quickly become something that is sad. All of a sudden you are living to please people rather than to please God. All of a sudden you are living up to somebody else's expectations and obviously that's not good.

Growing Deep in God

Here's the last part, and this is the way that I close the personal comment section of a marriage. Finally, grow deep in your knowledge and love of God and of His Son Jesus Christ. God has revealed Himself to us through His Word, the Bible.

Through the Scriptures, God provides the blueprint for life. By obediently following God and His Word, your life will be built on a solid foundation. You will enjoy the good times in the fullest way possible, and in the tough times you will have a peace that transcends all human understanding, knowing and experiencing the presence of God.

As we've met together in discussing and preparing for your future, I'm convinced you have many things in common that will be helpful to deepening your love, but I'm certain your strongest asset is your mutual faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. A Christian marriage produces two people who are as much the same as any two people can be. Christians in marriage have the same Lord, the same family, the same children, the same future, and ultimately the same destiny. That's God's plan for marriage, a marriage that will last a lifetime.

The Authority of Scripture

Let me read it to you again. God has revealed Himself to us through His Word, the Bible. Through the Scripture, God reveals His blueprint for life. Open your Bibles to 2 Timothy 3, a passage that you are familiar with, and at least I would hope that you are. It's a passage that is kind of the classic apologetic for the Scripture.

I will tell you what I believe. I believe that the Bible is the infallible, inherent, perfect Word of God. There are no contradictions, there are no flaws. There may be things in there that we wrestle to understand, and there may be things that are difficult at times for us to comprehend. There is no doubt in my mind that if we open this up to questions, you could stump me quickly, and you may even be able to point out apparent contradictions.

Wrestling with Apparent Contradictions

I'll give you an example. I had not been a Christian very long, and I got together with three other guys, none of us knew a lot about the Scripture, to start a small group study. We decided to study in the book of James. At the time, Larry was teaching the book of Romans. I called Larry one night and said, "Larry, I don't know if you've read all this, but I found a contradiction." He said, "Really, what is it?" I said, "Well, James says Abraham was saved by works. Romans, Paul says, Abraham was saved by faith. Now, it can't be both. Somebody's wrong." He said, "Boy, that sounds like a good one. You better work on it and figure it out." And that was the last I heard from him, because he's not into giving you a lot of answers.

Obviously, as we understand that, on the surface, you could easily look at that and say that's a contradiction. James is speaking about the evidence of salvation, so he's looking at Abraham's works. Paul's talking about the mechanism of salvation. He's looking at faith. There may be a lot of things that we look at and need some explanation. But this is the infallible Word of God.

This is something that has to be embraced and has to be nurtured by our culture. We need to understand that the world that we live in does not buy into this blanket statement that this is the infallible Word of God.

The True North Illustration

I did a men's conference one time at Forrest's home, and this was one of the great illustrations I ever saw. A guy got up and he said, "Okay, now gentlemen, when you came in, you got a little brown envelope. Take out that brown envelope. Would you please hold it in your hand? Don't open the envelope. Hold it in your hand."

He said, "I'm going to count to three, and when I count to three, I want all of you men to point to true north. One, two, three." There were guys pointing in every direction, fingers pointing in eyes. We were all over the place.

Then he said, "Take that envelope, rip it open. Take what you find, hold your hand out, place this object in your hand. Let it sit there. We're going to let it sit there for ten seconds. Then look at this. I'm going to count to three, and then you all point to true north. One, two, three." Every hand in the place went to the same direction. What they were holding in their hand was obviously a compass.

In your life, what gives you true north is this book. When you take this book and you hold it in your hand, and you read this truth, you understand true north. It's the final authority in your life. It has to be.

The Supreme Court Analogy

A couple of years ago, we got in the middle of that presidential election. We heard hanging chads and dangling chads, and we had chads all over the place. We didn't know what to count or not count. It was a mess. We had the Secretary of State of Florida battling with the lower courts of Florida, and then that court would reverse it, and everybody would get all excited for about a half an hour, and then this court would reverse it, and then the other side would get excited. We were going to recount. Remember the recount? Then all the recount had to be done by such and such a date. It was pretty chaotic. Probably a great testimony to the strength of the system that it survived that, but pretty chaotic.

All of a sudden, there was a point at which it was done. Do you remember that? It's when the United States Supreme Court said, "Here's what we think." Boom. And that was the end of it.

Now we still may argue. I saw James Carville the other day saying, "Al Gore won that election." And Robert Novak said, "He ain't flying in Air Force One." They're arguing back and forth, and we can argue until we are blue, but once that Supreme Court said, "That's it," that was it.

That Supreme Court equivalent in your life is this book. We can talk and talk and talk about what we think, but ultimately, if I can go to this book, and this is what the Scripture says, that settles it.

Before you. 2 Timothy 3, verse 16: all Scripture, and by that, Old Testament, New Testament, all the canon, all Scripture is inspired by God. That is, it is God-breathed. The writers were sometimes told exactly the words to say. Often times God used their minds, and their vocabulary, and their experiences. Regardless of that, we have the perfect, infallible, and inerrant Word of God. It's God-breathed.

It's profitable for things He outlines here: teaching, reproof, correction, and training. It's good for teaching. Some of your translations may say doctrine. What that speaks of is the doctrinal content. It's not good for teaching in the sense that we're talking about the dialogue. We're saying the Bible provides us the curriculum to teach, the content to teach. It's good for doctrine.

The Bible's Role in Reproof

It's good for reproof. That is, it rebukes wrong behavior. It exposes sin. It rebukes wrong behavior. Maybe you've been in a situation where you're dealing with somebody, maybe it's a friend, maybe it's a family member, maybe it's a child, and all of a sudden you're saying to them, "Hey, how about this? How about this? How about this? This isn't right." And they say to you, "Who made you king? Who made you queen? Who are you to tell me what to do?"

Well, the answer is, I'm not anybody to tell you what to do. And the last thing we want to do is be judgmental. Now listen closely. We've got to be real careful on this. Every person I know, whether they know the Bible or not, says this: "The Bible says, 'Judge not lest ye be judged.'" Everybody says that. Well, let's make sure we understand what that says.

In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul writes to this church at Corinth and says, "I want you to take this guy that's in that church and throw him out." Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5, "I've already judged this guy." What the Bible is saying is, we don't want to get into a lot of preferential issues. Whether you think it's okay to wear a t-shirt, or you think I need to wear a tie on Sunday, whether you think it's alright to watch TV or go to a movie, we can argue about these things till we're blue. I think we're going to find very little Scripture, at least in my mind, to support many of those things.

But the Bible says, when it comes to judging, we need to judge sin because God has already judged that. Very, very important distinction. We are constantly making judgments. Some of them are just wisdom. But we also make judgments that are in line with what God has to say. That's why the Bible is good for teaching and it's good for reproof. It exposes sin.

The Living Word That Pierces

Hebrews 4:12, let me read it to you: "For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing as far as the division between the soul and the spirit of the joints and the marrow, able to judge the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. There is no creature hidden from His sight and all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do."

There's something about just teaching this Word. And I've learned a lot of times you've got to be very careful. We've got to be very careful to be able to take criticism. We get a chunk of criticism, not near as much as you might imagine, but we get criticism. And you can easily, maybe you do, when criticism comes your way, it's easy to get defensive. But I've got to stop and listen and say, is there anything there? Oftentimes, what people are criticizing is not me, it's just that they're under conviction.

I'll give you a great illustration. One Wednesday night, I'm teaching this Bible study. And there's a gal that comes up and she said, "I am so excited." I said, "Well, that's great. Why are you excited?" "My sister is here. My sister won't go to church and my sister is not a religious person at all, but I convinced her that she needs to be here tonight. So be extra good." See, I like it when they say that. "Make sure you're good." I said, "Oh, wow. Boy, if I'd have known that, I would have tried." See, I wasn't going to really try to be good tonight, but now I'll try because your sister's here. Because that really doesn't matter to me, but that's okay. Once your sister's here, we're glad she's here.

So I just did my lesson. Did my normal thing. I'm just up there and I'm just doing my deal. And this sister is shutting down like mad. Body language went from open to closed to, I mean, almost fetal position in that chair. I thought, well, sister ain't liking this deal, but that's alright. And I don't know her and we won't see her again and maybe God will work in her life.

They leave. I finish up and I'm going out to the car and I see these two gals under a light and they are going right after each other. My car's over here, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to walk over this way just to see what was going on. So I went by and I said, "Hey, what's happening?" And the gal that's there regularly says, "Go ahead and tell him." And the other one said, "No, no, no. Don't tell him." "Tell him. He can handle it. Go ahead and tell him." "He said, no, I don't want to." "Just tell him." And she said, "Well, I know what happened in there tonight." And I said, "What happened?" She said, "My sister called you and told you I was coming and you took your whole lesson and adapted it to me." And I said, "You know, no. What you're experiencing is God working in your heart and the Word of God convicts you. It opens you. It lays you bare," Hebrews 4:13 says.

It's a word that was used in Greek literature to describe a neck where they would pull all of the clothing down and prepare the neck to be clearly severed from the head. The Word of God lays you bare.

The Bible's Work in Correction

The Word of God is good for doctrine. It's good for reproof. He also says here it's not just those things, it's for correction. It's the restoration of something to its proper condition. It appears only here in the New Testament. It's the only place you'll find this word. And it speaks of taking an object that's fallen down and putting it back in its right place. Or helping something

The Bible's Complete Guidance

Back to its feet. If this were to be knocked over, we would correct it. We would bring it back to its proper place. It's not just that the Word of God comes along and says, "Well here's the truth. This is the way it is." But it also says, "Listen, as you fall under this conviction, let me tell you how to get right again." It's not just condemning. It's correcting.

It's good for doctrine, and it's good for reproof, and it's good for correction, and it's good for training in righteousness. The Scripture provides training. Originally, this idea of instruction was used to talk about training a child. So the phrase that I use is this: The Bible tells us what's right, what's not right, how to get right, and how to stay right. The Bible tells us what's right—that's doctrine. What's not right—that's reproof. How to get right—that's correction. And how to stay right—that's instruction.

So that's the valuable, important Word of God. I doubt that I need to make a plea for you to understand what the Word of God is. I do probably need to plead with you to incorporate it in all your life.

George Washington Carver: A Life Guided by Scripture

There was a gentleman by the name of George Washington Carver. George Washington Carver was born in 1864, about the end of the Civil War. He was born on a plantation in Diamond Grove, Missouri. His father died right before his birth. When he was an infant, his mother was kidnapped by slave raiders. She never returned. He grew up on a plantation.

He was a sickly boy and consequently was not used out in the field, but he became because of his frailty a very helpful domestic chore provider. He became known, even as a young man, as the plant doctor. He was fascinated with plants. He learned to read and write and spell. There were no schools at that time for African-Americans around the country generally, but certainly not in Diamond Grove. And yet at age 10 he learned all of this and in 1890 he enrolled at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa.

He excelled in art and music. He became the first African-American to enroll at Iowa State University. He got his actual master's degree there and was Iowa State University's first African-American faculty member. In 1896 he completed his master's degree and went to work with Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee Institute.

Some extraordinary things about George Washington Carver. He was a brilliant man. His work resulted in 325 products that were created from the peanut and 100 products more from sweet potatoes. He is a man who was renowned throughout the whole country. He died not that long ago, really, in 1943. Henry Ford tried to hire him. Thomas Edison offered him literally a six-figure income and he turned it down.

Carver's Source of Wisdom

In 1921 George Washington Carver testified before a Senate subcommittee. Let me read you just a little brief part of that question and answer. Senator asked, "How did you learn all these things?" Carver: "From an old book." The Senator: "What book?" Carver: "The Bible." The Senator: "Does the Bible tell about peanuts?" Carver: "No sir, but it tells me about the God who made the peanut and I asked Him to show me what to do with the peanut and He did."

It was said that George Washington Carver would not go into his laboratory without one book. He carried very few scholastic things with him. He carried some notebooks, but the only book he carried with him into the laboratory was the Bible.

The Bible as Life's Owner's Manual

I want you to understand, this isn't just that book that you spend your quiet time with and then you check it off and say "I'm done." Listen, if you're trying to figure out how to make a marriage work, you're not going to find anything better than this. If you're trying to figure out how to raise kids, it's right here. If you want to try to figure out what kind of an employee to be, right here it is. Or you want to try to figure out what kind of a manager to be, it's right here.

You want to talk about human relationships, it's right here. You want to talk about how to deal with difficult people or situations that are hard, it's right here. This is the owner's manual for your life. It's very important to understand that this was written by the God who created you and created this whole world.

The Simplicity of Creation

Just started a new book this morning on this whole evolution thing and I don't get into it. You just need to know I'm just not a scholar. I don't have a real inquisitive mind. Our church is blessed with having a lot of people who are 400 times smarter than I am and that's terrific and I'm glad they're there. But I'm reading a book right now on just a little bit of evolution and the only reason I am is because I don't even see how you sell this thing.

I don't understand how anybody can even get into this. It just seems to me so obvious that nothing cannot create something. I mean, to me, I wear out after the discussion on that one right there. But obviously there had to be an unmoved mover. Obviously something had to move this into existence and I think you could divide it. And then we're going to argue after that, but you have an evolutionist that says this thing just kind of continues and you have a creationist that says somebody began it.

How did it begin? How did all of this start? How can we know these issues? Here you go. I'll read it to you. It's real simple: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." I'm done. I mean, I don't know what's left. I don't know what other things we've got to figure out and I don't know the point of figuring it all out. All I know is there. And let me tell you something: God was comfortable telling me that. That's all He told me. So apparently, that's all I need to know.

Now, that may sound simplistic to you. If it does, I apologize. I just think it's the way it is. Now, I need to understand. This was the point I was making in this marriage ceremony. Number one, God's revealed Himself to us through His Word. Here's the second thing: By obediently following God and His Word, your life will be built

If you say you're a Christian, I think it's legitimate for the people around you to say to me, prove it. Show me that. I want to take you on just a quick exercise. Turn to the Gospel of John, will you please? And again, I assume stuff that's familiar to you, but I just want you to see it.

We're going to go from the Gospel of John, and then I'll make some references out of that. It's just one point made again and again and again and again. John chapter 14. This is the third time in four sessions we've been in this passage. Let me recommend to you, John 14, 15, 16, and 17 for your personal study. It is a great place to go mining for jewels.

Red Letters and Black Letters

John chapter 14 verse 15, Jesus red-lettered words here. Let me make this point too. My Bible's a red-lettered Bible. Probably many of you have red-lettered Bibles, meaning that the words of Jesus are in red letters. You have some of those, don't you?

It's a great mistake if you think the red-lettered words are more important than the black-lettered words. They're all the Word of God. These red-lettered words are of no more value than the black-lettered words. They're exactly the same. And you make a mistake if you think otherwise.

The Jefferson Bible

This little baby right here. You ever seen one of these? It's called the Jefferson Bible. You ever seen one of those? How many of you have ever seen the Jefferson Bible? Obviously you guys have. Other than that, how many of you have ever seen the Jefferson Bible? Well, we're going to dazzle you.

This is a Bible written by Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson did this. He took the Bible, this big old cumbersome book. It was awkward. It was hard. It was difficult. What Jefferson did was go to the Gospels. He took out the words of Jesus and he assimilated them and assembled them in this little book in a chronological order.

Some of the comments at the beginning. This is Jefferson writing. After he did this, he said, there will be remaining the most sublime, benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I perform this operation for my own use by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book and arranging the matter which is evidently His and which is easily distinguished from the diamonds. Listen to Thomas Jefferson's version of Scripture. Easily distinguished from the diamonds in a dung heap.

A Brilliant Man's Theological Error

Now, this guy is S-M-A-R-T. Thomas Jefferson, way smarter than I am. It was John Kennedy who said as he had the best and the brilliant minds gathered in the White House, there have not been so many brilliant minds gathered in this room since Thomas Jefferson dined here alone. This guy is brilliant.

When it comes to theology, dumb as a post. That's what he's saying. He's saying this Scripture is a dung heap, but I got the jewels out and the jewels are the red-lettered words. See, Jefferson took out all the stuff he didn't like.

Here's what he ends up with. He continues to write. I have this wee little book of materials which I call the philosophy of Jesus, a paradigm of His doctrine, made by cutting the text out of the book and arranging them on the pages of a blank book in a certain order of time or subject. The most beautiful and precious morsels of ethics I have ever seen. It is a document of proof that I am a real Christian. That is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus.

A Dead Jesus

Thomas Jefferson is no more a Christian than this podium is a Christian. He doesn't believe in anything supernatural. That's what he did. He rolled all the supernatural out of here. I'm told I haven't done it, that if you go to Monticello you'll actually see there the pasted together version of the Jefferson Bible.

Well, listen to what happens when you rip out all the supernatural, all that you don't understand, all that you don't like. Let me read you the last verse of the Jefferson Bible. "There they laid Jesus and rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher and departed." That's all there is. If there's nothing supernatural, you just got a dead Jesus who was a great teacher.

The Cultural Problem

See, and that's the problem in this world. And I get kind of exercised over this issue because this is what you see in the culture today. You see people who want to take Jesus as a teacher and say, I love the teaching of Jesus. Oh, could that man preach? But I refuse to believe that He was God coming to flesh.

That's what Gandhi did. Gandhi read the Gospels every day. The Mahatma. And I have a certain affinity for the Mahatma. When you look at his life, there's a classic photograph, maybe you've seen it, of all the contents, earthly possessions at the end of his life. Where his sandals and his walking stick, his glasses and his prayer book.

Here's what Gandhi said. Gandhi said, I love the teachings of Jesus. I read the teachings of Jesus every day. But I refuse to believe that Jesus or any other person was God who came to die for me. Now, based on that testimony, might we not say Gandhi's the nicest man in hell? Because he's certainly not in heaven, is he? And what we do is we get sidetracked with all these magnificent things that he did. They were all filthy rags before a holy God. Because he didn't know Jesus.

Faith and Works

But now I know Christ. We've done a magnificent job of teaching salvation by grace alone through faith alone. We're saved by grace. We're saved through faith. But that faith is never separated from works. In other words, because I'm saved, I will evidence those works. See, where Gandhi

and Jefferson have it backwards. They're saying because I'm good, I'll be saved. That's not right. But don't separate these things. That's what Jesus said.

Look at John 14:15: "If you love me, you'll keep my commandments." Look at verse 21: "He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me." Verse 23: "Jesus said, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word." There'll be a sense of obedience there. Look at John 15:10: "If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love."

You better turn to 1 John because you need to see it. Same author, different book. Almost all the way to the back of the Bible. John says it there again at least two times, and you may find it more often than that. 1 John chapter 2, verse 3: "And by this we know that we have come to know Him if we keep His commandments." Same book, chapter 5, verse 3: "For this is the love of God that we keep His commandments." By the way, look at the second part of that verse: "And His commandments are not burdensome." His yoke is light. This is the joy of our heart to please our God.

The Wisdom of Obedience

Here's what Jesus says: If you love me, you'll keep my commandments. That's what it will be. They're not burdensome. Look, life's got problems with it. I guarantee you how to make it tougher: disobey God.

I can't tell you how many times, usually a woman will come into our office and say, "My life is so troubled because my husband isn't a Christian." Now, sometimes that happens because they're converted afterwards. We have an ongoing discussion in our church. We would never marry a believer and a non-believer. That's kind of a given. Our discussion is, would you marry two non-believers? Our general feeling is no, because you're setting them up to be unequally yoked. I don't want to argue with you on that. I'm just telling you how we think this through.

But now this person comes in and I'll say, "Well, did you get converted?" "No. I was a believer, but oh, he's such a nice guy. He was that close to becoming a Christian, and I thought if I married him and he lived with me, that would push him over the edge." Evidently it did. He was that close, and now it's this close. You pushed him over the edge. Sometimes God is gracious. But if you're a Christian and you marry a non-believer and He told you not to do it, why would you not expect that to be a difficult situation? Even if it's a good situation, it's never all it can be.

I can't tell you how many great gals we've got in our church whose husbands aren't believers, and they'll tell you, "I can't go home and talk about things with him. My kids and I can't rejoice in my kids. I can't do it." If you love God, you will keep His commandments. That is, there will be something different about you.

Peace That Transcends Understanding

Here's the third thing I mentioned. We've got about five minutes left. You will enjoy the good times in the fullest way possible, and in the tough times, you will have a peace that transcends all human understanding, experiencing the presence of God. We talked about that earlier. There will be in your life a sense of joy.

If you listen to Mark describe what he and Joyce dealt with as they dealt with their son and his sickness, I guarantee you if I'm on the outside watching that, I saw a peace that transcends all understanding in the midst of that difficulty.

Susan and I had an experience not near as radical as that, but we got a call one night. Susan was visiting her mother. I was doing a men's conference, and we got a call that our daughter Sarah had been in a car wreck. I said, "Well, I'll drive back. I'll get there." They didn't really have a condition. They were just taking her to the hospital.

So we're driving back down. The cell phone rang, and they said she's had a brain seizure. When I got there, they prepped me and said, "Listen, when you get in here, we want you to be prepared for this. She does not look good." We went in, and she had been in a very, very serious car wreck. A total on her car. She was in a little Honda with a friend and got T-boned right on her door by a pickup truck with three kids who had stolen the pickup truck, were drinking, and were out just running around. It's just a sad thing.

Wrestling Through the Night

There she laid, and I can tell you some stories about that first night that were absolutely gut-wrenching. Because of the brain seizure, they couldn't give her anything for the pain because they didn't want to mess up the brain waves. They wanted to know what was there and what was accurate. So she laid there just in pain.

When she'd wake up, because of the tube down her throat, she had the sensation she couldn't get enough air. So she would try to grab that tube out. They said to me, "If she grabs that tube out, it's going to be ugly because that tube's got to go back down there and we can't knock her out to do it." So she and I laid there and wrestled all night basically. She'd look up at me with those eyes. I can remember it like it was yesterday, with those eyes that kind of said, "Dad, what are you doing? Why would you not let me have air?" It was an extraordinary thing and it went on for a while.

You know what was interesting? One of the nurses at the hospital wanted to come in and talk to Susan and me because she thought we were in denial. Denial? I'm getting a bill for this. How can I deny this? I'll show you this bill. I'll show you denial. Here's fifty grand worth of denial. Are you nuts? What she saw was the peace of God that transcends all human understanding. It wasn't us

That did it. It was God. Here's this little girl. You're a 14 or 15 year old girl. Your whole thing is physical appearance. I mean, there's a lot of pressure on that. So about the third day she said, "Hey, Dad, have you got a mirror?" I said, "Oh, honey, they don't have any mirrors around here. They don't have mirrors. You don't want a mirror right now."

So she's laying down and I said to the nurse, "I'm going to go get something to drink." I took the days and Susan took the nights. I went down and got something to drink. I came back and said, "Do you have to wait?" "She's going to the bathroom." I said, "Oh, no. There's a mirror in the bathroom."

So I came in and she's laying there. I said, "You alright?" She said, "I don't look very good, do I?" I said, "Well, you look a lot better than you did yesterday. I mean, you didn't look very good two days ago." Here's this little girl and I'm telling you, not one time did I hear her complain or ask why me. She got all the way down to 88 pounds. We'd walk her around. All she could drink was that Ensure. And then she liked those Jack in the Box milkshakes. I don't remember what they were. Something like pumpkin or something. Peanut butter. That was it. She lived on those things for as long as they had to wire her jaw shut. She broke her jaw and a bunch of other stuff.

Is she just a good kid with the right position? No. She knew the Lord. So there's a joy in the midst of that.

Your Most Important Asset

The last thing I say, and then we've got to close, is that as we've met together and discussed and prepared for this and your future, I'm convinced you have many things in common. The most important asset is your mutual faith in Christ. Well, I haven't met with you. I don't know you. But I know this: if you're here and if you're Christians, that is an absolutely true statement. The most important asset that you have in your life, obviously, but in your relationship with one another is your relationship with Jesus Christ. That's what needs to be nurtured.

I had last night—there were two couples sitting over in the rec room and I had a chance to talk to them. I was wired, laying in bed, recreating the conversation and just seeing and listening to these couples and their heart and their passion for some stuff that's going on in their life, great stuff that God's doing and some other things. One of the ladies made this comment and it's absolutely true. She said, "I love my husband very, very much but I love God more."

It's very important for you to understand: I love Susan very, very much and I love my children very, very much, but I love my God more. Because I love my God more, I can love Susan more than I ever could otherwise. I can love my kids more than I ever could otherwise. I can love life more than I ever could otherwise because there's a joy that fills your heart. It's not artificial. It's not something you've got to crank up. It's God living in you.

The Laboratory Awaits

Here's the challenge and we end every conference with the same thing: This is the classroom. You are about to go into the laboratory. If God's done anything significant in this weekend in your life, I can pretty much guarantee you that the trials and the difficulties and the challenges will come quickly. You won't be home very long and the kids will be there. The kids will be driving you nuts.

I would guess by two or three days from now, the stubble will be back and the goatee could be there. You get the point, don't you? This is the truth. This is the thing that you have to embrace.

Well, we want you to know, and I want you to know, that I really do appreciate you being here. Again, on behalf of Janet and Jeff and the whole staff, we are really grateful that you're here. I encourage you to make Cannon Beach just a regular part of your life. I met somebody yesterday and we were talking about it. They were here on the 4th of July and they said it was their 8th 4th of July in a row. I'm just telling you, it was just a terrific time. So get that schedule and let this be a regular part of your life.

If you're down in the Phoenix way, please stop and see us. You've got those websites and if there's anything that we can do for you, we would love to help you in absolutely any way we can. So, the best thing I can do now is pray for you and let you get to lunch.

Closing Prayer

Father, thank You for this truth. Thank You for Your word. God, thank You for this magnificent place. It is an awesome place. To walk down that beach and to just see this one silly rock sticking there. And everybody gathered around it taking pictures. God, we got the flowers and we got the grass and the clouds. We got this whole creation. It is a physical picture of Your might and Your power.

God, what I know is what Abraham knows: that You bring life from death. God, we were dead one time in our sin and trespasses and You brought us to life. God, maybe there's marriages that are dead and You can bring those to life. Lives that just become bored and meaningless. It's the very thought that we had this morning. Paul talked about it. When he said, "I'm not getting any younger." What's scary is he's my age.

Father, we aren't getting any younger. Help us understand how little time we have. It may only be 40 or 50 years. That sounds so long. It's just a fraction of time. God, make us faithful stewards of the life You've given us. Let us work this to the point where we're pooped. But it's a good poop, Father, because we're serving You. One day, we're going to be with Your Son Jesus forever and ever and ever. Till then, God, use us up. We pray that in Christ's name. Amen.