Integrate Your Faith
Tom Shrader explores Paul's pursuit of spiritual maturity in Philippians 3, emphasizing that authentic Christianity cannot be segmented into just Sundays or church settings but must be integrated into every aspect of life. Using Paul's example of pressing on toward the goal while forgetting what lies behind, Shrader challenges believers to live with focused purpose and humility, understanding that God has saved and gifted them to be part of His work in the world.
“If your father is the king, you oughta look like it.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: How Do I Stay Straight in a Crooked World (2006)
Recorded: 2006 at Cannon Beach Conference Center
Duration: 1 hr 5 min
Themes: purpose, maturity, fear, humility, faithfulness, perseverance, calling, ordinary, struggling with fear, seeking purpose, feeling ordinary, new believer, young adult, parent, mentor, navigating worldliness
Scripture: Philippians 3:12-14, Philippians 2:5, Romans 12:1-2, Isaiah 55, 2 Timothy 2:4, Acts 17:5-6, Genesis 3, 1 Corinthians
Theological Themes: sanctification, spiritual maturity, christian living, discipleship, integration, holy living, biblical purpose, spiritual growth
Full Transcript
Johnnie, thank you, that's the perfect prayer to close what we talked about this morning. Do not be afraid. We don't need to be afraid. God knows that He made us this way. We tend to be fearful. What are you saying? Don't be afraid, not because you're so strong—you aren't—or so wise—you aren't—but because He is a great God. And so there is the story.
It is good to see you and to be with you again tonight. It's funny how time goes. It feels to me like we've been here about a month and a half now. And I look down and I saw this is session five. I'm saying, oh my gosh, we're not halfway done yet. So you look fresh and good for you and I'm glad you are.
I've been reading—Jeff was nice enough to give me a copy of the book of Angeline, which is about really the McNeils that started this, but about Mrs. McNeil in particular. This is a wonderful story. It's just a simple story. Some of you came and saw the movie the other day. Susan and I came and saw that little film again the other day. These are just wonderful, wonderful stories.
The Power of Ordinary People
My fear is we read them and go, wow, that is really something. That God was incredible and she was an incredible—in fact, the subtitle's A Woman of Faith—and we go, you know, that's really unbelievable. Yes, it is unbelievable in the sense that it's not an ordinary occurrence, but God works through people like this. And let me just—through people like you.
Sometimes we get all excited about a Joseph or a Moses or an Abraham and all this stuff, and they seem to be pretty cool guys. But they're ordinary guys. And the Christian faith is filled with ordinary guys. And when I say guys, I use that term men and women, so I don't put a gender to it. Guys—ordinary people. Ordinary people like you.
In fact, as I read the scripture, especially as I get into the New Testament, especially as I look at 1 Corinthians, God seems to say, you know what? I specialize in ordinary guys. In fact, when He writes to that church, He says, there aren't many of you who are wise. There aren't many of you who are wealthy. There aren't many of you who are powerful.
That's what I see as I travel around and I look at our own church. Are there many in our church who are wealthy? We got some people that have some dough, but really not many. Most of us just slugging it out. Many wise? No, there's some PhDs around and there's some really smart people around, but kind of in the church, not really. Powerful or connected? Well, we'll see some politicians next month around church for another couple months or so, but once that election's over, we don't see them again.
God uses ordinary people and does extraordinary things. And I'll tell you why, because I've thought about this a ton. If He uses somebody—like if somebody comes in and he's a speaker and he's tall and he's handsome and he's articulate and he's got all these words and he strings them together and he never says—when he's done, I'm telling you, you're gonna go over to the coach house and here's what you're gonna say. That guy was really something. It's exactly what you'll say. When I'm done, you go over to the coach house and you say, God is really good. That's really good. He just used an ordinary guy. This is a wonderful story of how an extraordinary God uses ordinary people.
The Legacy of This Place
In the midst of this, there's some really interesting things here. I don't know what you paid to be here this week, but the first week, this conference center was open to be here a week, room, board, food, $16.50. Pretty good deal, huh? In the middle of this is a little dinky bear. There's some pretty interesting things. Archie's dad—so Mr. McNeil's father—preached with Spurgeon and Moody. That's pretty amazing stuff.
Here was the purpose statement that they had at the very beginning, 1945. Cannon Beach Christian Conference Center is interdenominational and works with the church at large. It presents the word of God in its entirety and its simplicity. That's how I got here. It challenges Christians to consistent Christian living. It stresses the word of God, the walk with God, witnessing, and missions.
That's exactly—now I'd never read that paragraph until today—that's exactly what we're talking about this week. That is exactly the whole point of these 12 sessions together, how to stay straight in a crooked world. But the Bible's the word of God and it gives us a map for how we're to live. So logically, we continue to want to learn from it. When we make decisions, if we are really bright and wise, not just intelligent, but wise, we'll use that book for decision making.
Then we saw this morning we can live confidently. We don't need to be afraid. Why? Because God is a great God. God is a powerful God and He will do great things in us. There's nothing in this world that you need to fear, not death. I guess we could say the other side, not life. You don't need to fear having enough or not having enough or rejection or loneliness or insignificance or anything else, because He is a great God.
Integrate Your Faith
Tonight, we're going to look at session five and I just titled it, Integrate Your Faith. I had a fancy title, but I got lost in the title myself. So I figured if I did, you would.
And you see why we didn't use it. The idea was this, that I have to take my faith and integrate it into all aspects of my life. I can't segregate it to one part of it. So if you're somebody who's walking around saying this Christian thing really is great on Sunday and it's really good at a conference center, but it really doesn't work in the real world, it was designed to live in the real world.
It's funny, my career was essentially commercial real estate and I don't know how much you know about that, but we had evidence every day of the depravity of man in that business. It's a cutthroat, difficult, hard business. And in the midst of that business, I saw that my faith had huge practical application.
Open your Bibles if you would to Philippians chapter three. We had been in that section and part of our whirlwind sessions these few days, but we're going back there. We're going back there tonight. Give it a little context and move it around a bit.
Philippians chapter three, look at verse 12, would you? And let's read that then we'll pray, come back and spend a few minutes and try to tear this apart. Philippians chapter three, verse 12, Paul writing to the church at Philippi, he writes this, "Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Verse 13, brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind, reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
Father, that is Your word. It is a timeless word. I pray that somehow my inadequacy gets out of the way and You speak clearly through Your word tonight. We pray that in Christ's name, amen.
Ministry Is the Real World
When I mentioned my background is in commercial real estate, when all of a sudden God saved me, started to use me, I began to teach. The more that I taught, the bigger the classes got. And finally, one day I reached the point along with Susan where we said, "We're going to abandon this career and we're going to see what God does." We did not have a plan. We did not have a job. We did not have really anything, but we decided that we wanted to be available and that teaching seemed to be the thing. And so we started to do it. God seemed to bless it. And that was really the genesis of working with Larry and then Priority Living.
I would have people that would come to me and they would say this: "Don't you sometimes wish that you could be with us in the real world?" Never heard an expression like that? Let me tell you something and I mean this humbly. I see more real world in a week than you see in a year. Birth, death, marriage separation, marriage comes together. I've had days where I'll be in the church for a funeral at a graveside back for a wedding, stopping in between to listen to a husband and wife who hate each other and can't wait to tell each other that. It's a day.
One of the most poignant moments I ever had was a gentleman who died in our church. We're now at the graveside and I'm standing there. I don't know how, the gravesite to me, and I enjoy funerals. I really do enjoy doing funerals. I like doing them. The gravesite is really a difficult time in the sense that it's very brief. It's usually just a matter of 10 or 15 minutes and there's no hiding what's going on there.
The cemetery we're at, the way they did it is they cut that hole. It's a very precise hole that they're going to put the body in and they don't camouflage it at all. There sits the casket and I'm standing there and I have this picture just like this. Here's the casket with the gentleman in it. Here's his daughter and she's holding his five-week-old granddaughter. And just sitting there, I'm saying, this is like an out-of-body experience. Here's the whole bookends of this existence. Here's the baby. Here's the child. Here's the grandpa. Here's everything in place. That's the real world. And it's important for you to understand it's an ambassador for Christ. You take the real world. As you go into the real world, you take your faith with you.
A Political Lesson from 1960
There was a moment, I was 11 years old. It was 1960 and John Kennedy was running for president. And I've always been kind of politically inclined. I'm intrigued by it. And I was raised in a Catholic family. Went to Catholic grade school, high school, college. So John Kennedy was like a patron saint for us.
I don't know if you remember at the time, but there was a lot of controversy about John Kennedy being a Catholic. And that if John Kennedy was elected president, the Pope would be running the country. John Kennedy went, as I remember, to Houston. He met with this large conclave of Protestant ministers, 700, 800 of them. And John Kennedy said this, "I will pledge to you that my faith will not affect the way I govern." He kept that promise.
And I remember as an 11-year-old boy thinking, well, that doesn't make any sense at all. Does that make sense to you at all? Can you imagine interviewing a guy for a job and you say, "You know, I've seen you somewhere. I've seen you around, where have I seen you?" "Cannon Beach Christian Conference." "That's right, that's where I saw you. Yeah, where do you go?" "Oh, I go to Portland Bible." "Really, you go to Portland Bible? And you're into that?" "Yeah, I am." "You do anything?" "Yeah, I'm into young life too."
Can you imagine that guy then saying this, "But I want you to understand something. What they teach about honesty, integrity, hard work, that will not affect the way I work for you"? I can't even imagine saying that. You'd say, "Hey, get out of there." The whole reason you'd hire the guy would be based on character. We're at a crisis. I alluded to it earlier. And anytime you do politics, you always get people who are concerned, but this is not about a party. This is about a person who's a president.
and a world, a country that says—this to me is fascinating—we don't care what you do in your private life. Benjamin Franklin talked about leadership. Lots of books written on leadership. Go into Barnes and Noble, shelves of books on leadership. Franklin said there are two things that you need regarding a leader. Number one is competence. Number two is character. Then Franklin wrote this: If you can only pick one, pick character.
Well, if character by definition is what we do when nobody's looking, we as a country watch the president do whatever it was he did and said it doesn't really matter what he does when no one's looking. That's the equivalent of saying what? Character doesn't matter. Character doesn't count. We don't care as long as the stock market is up. We don't care as long as there's peace. We don't care as long as we're okay. Isn't that an amazing way to live? And I'm telling you that infiltrates the country.
Let me give you a couple of statistics. These are incredible statistics. Three out of four black children today are born out of wedlock. One out of four white kids are born out of wedlock. And those numbers are rising. When you look—because we used to say, well, it's a black problem—it's not. If you look at statistics now, drug use equivalent, I mean, it's just the same. Here's a stat: 1,200 kids every day drop out of high school. You live in a country that's lost its moral compass.
We Need God's Truth for Direction
We need Jesus and we need God's word. We need this truth. We need to find direction. We've alluded to it before. Isaiah 55: my ways are higher than your ways, my thoughts are higher than your thoughts.
Well, let's look at this passage we have before us, Philippians chapter three. Remember the context we talked about the other day. Paul has given His credentials, His religious pedigree. He has taught and written to us that He takes all of those things, all those degrees, all that religion. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He said that is but rubbish, that is but dung as compared to knowing Christ.
Look at this a little bit earlier. We're going to be all through this passage. Look at Philippians chapter two. There's a wonderful phrase that Paul uses as He's talking about Jesus. Philippians chapter two, verse five: "Have the attitude in yourself which is also in Christ Jesus."
The Attitude of Christ
Now when I think of attitude, I tend to think of somebody with a swagger saying, "Boy, that guy's got attitude," right? I tend to think of cocky. To me, the epitome of cocky is going to a high school boys basketball game. I mean, those guys are cocky. They're just all the same. They all swagger out and then they do this and whatever it is they're doing down here and they just have this "I'm really cool" attitude.
Webster defines the word attitude this way: The mindset by which I evaluate or direct my life. The grid. Have the attitude in you that's in Christ Jesus. What's that attitude? Well, here it is: "Jesus, who although He existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but He emptied Himself"—not of His deity, but of His glory. "He emptied Himself taking the form of a bond servant being found in the likeness of man, being found in the appearance of man. He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." Now you go and do likewise. That's what He's saying. You live this way. That's the characteristic. That's the mark of your life.
Keep that place in Philippians marked because we're coming right back to it, but turn to the left to the book of Romans to a passage that if you hung around with us for a while, you would have worn out in your Bible. Romans chapter 12, verse one and two. Now you can hear the "mm" when you get there, huh?
The Call to Be Different
"Therefore"—now the therefore is the culmination of chapters one through eleven—because of all this doctrinal truth, because of all that's gone on, because of all the fact that no one's good, no not one, not a religious guy, not a pagan, we're all lost. No one is good, no not one. That's the condition of man. No one does good. But while we were yet sinners, Christ died so we could have eternal life. What can separate us from the love of God? All these things.
"Therefore, because all that's true, I urge you brethren by the mercy of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship." It's the only reasonable thing to do. And here's how He summarizes that: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
Authors paraphrase that. Let me give you some of the paraphrases. "Don't copy the behavior of this world." I think the Phillips paraphrase says, "Don't let the world squeeze you into its mold." And I like that. One is copy—that's me emulating it. The other is squeeze you into a mold to say that the world is actively soliciting you.
Eugene Peterson in His paraphrase, The Message, deals with verse one and two of Romans chapter twelve this way. I love it, just listen: "So here's what I want you to do, God helping you. Take your everyday ordinary life, your sleeping, eating, going to work, walking around, and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him."
Now listen to what Peterson does with verse two. Not a translation, paraphrase: "Do not become so well adjusted to your climate that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what He wants from you. Respond quickly to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."
That's the call. It's for you and I to be different. It's for you and I to be unique. The scripture does not allow us to take faith and let it be some abstract thing. James talks about it over and
over and over again. If you have faith, you will have works. The works are not meritorious toward our salvation. The works are the result of our salvation. Do you understand what I just said? Because I don't know that that's clear.
What he's saying is this: Our salvation is not earned, but the fact that I'm a child of the king, I ought to look like it. Our girls have changed a lot over the years, but when they were little, they looked just like us. If I waltzed them in here and put 12 kids up here and you had no clue which ones were mine, here's what you'd do. You'd go, "I think it's that one and that one with the little round face and the little freckles. I think it would be them." You know why? Because they look just like me.
You've seen that, haven't you? Where they got the people walking the dogs and the dogs start to look like the people or the people look like the dogs. I don't know which, but the point is they're hanging around together and pretty soon you look like a schnauzer. I don't know how that happens, but it happens, doesn't it?
Here's what he's saying. He said, "Listen, if your father is the king, you ought to look like it. I ought to look at you and see Him." And you better understand that's your mission. We'll talk more about that. That's really tomorrow. It's really good the way that this came out and then we have two sessions tomorrow that absolutely are inseparable. They go together. Can't pull them apart. I'm supposed to begin to look like Him. I'm supposed to begin to act like Him. There's supposed to be a difference in my life.
Seven Points from Paul's Example
I want to break this apart. Look at verse 12. Here's where we're going. I want you to see, I've got seven points here that he makes. Number one, here's what he says, and this is an inspiration for you and me as we live. He said, Paul speaking, "I have not already obtained it." In other words, here's what he says. I'm becoming, I'm growing, I'm learning. I'm gaining in knowledge and wisdom.
The word that we use to describe God, one of them, is holy. It's a tough word to define because the minute we say holy, we think of some activity or we think of somebody with a halo or we think somebody who's been through a process of canonization. That's how we think. Holy means other, separate. God is other than us. God is different than we are.
It's hard for us sometimes to even get our arms around this because everything we do is becoming, it's changing. Susan and I are having a lot of these conversations lately and I'm having a lot of conversations with a lot of people and we're talking about here's life, here's different things. I was talking to a guy the other day. He's a little bit older than I am and he had a great phrase. He said, "I'm entering that phase called the rest of my life."
We're becoming, we're changing. Things are changing. Our bodies are changing. My stuff, it just doesn't work. Things aren't moving. It's sagging and bagging and dragging and it really doesn't matter what I do. I can't seem to stop it so I gave up but you see how that happens. I'm evolving. I'm changing but God doesn't change.
The Need for Accurate Self-Assessment
Paul said, "I haven't already obtained it" and he says this, look at it: "Nor have I already become perfect." The idea that he has there when he's talking about perfect is not without flaw. He's talking about the idea of maturity. He has an accurate view of himself. That's hard to get, isn't it?
I have never seen a show, American Idol, until this year. I'd heard about it and I'd seen parts of it and last year, I think, not this year, the year before, the kids, my kids were into it and watching it so I watched the final show but I couldn't handle it. I mean, nobody ever sang. All they did were the teasers to the other. So I walked out. This year, I watched some of the beginning and I learned that's the best part. When they're going around the country doing these auditions.
And there was one guy. They're interviewing his parents and they just said, "I know he's going to win. He's incredible. He's unbelievable. He sings at weddings and all over. He sounds just like Elvis. He's going to win." And they talked to his girlfriend and they talked to him and he said, "I'm just really confident. I'll be surprised. I can't imagine, I can't win." And this guy starts to sing and it's horrible. He sounded like me. He didn't sound like Elvis at all. And honestly, I'm thinking, "Can he hear that? Has he never heard that?"
I just am amazed. Those first three or four weeks, I'm amazed at the people that say, "I'm really good. I'm really talented." And then they sing and you say, "You're awful." You know what that is? It's really hard to get an accurate view of ourselves. Our heart is deceitfully wicked.
Our Critical Nature and Self-Deception
It's funny how, I don't know about you. I assume you're like me. I hope you are. I'm very critical. It's amazing how I can look at somebody. Susan and I are at lunch today and there was a couple at a table and I was fantasizing their whole life for them. And I was fairly hard in my judgment. It's amazing. The only person I give the benefit of the doubt is myself. I've noticed I'm pretty lenient on me. I've said, "Well, you know what, Tom, you know, there's a lot of stuff going on and I understand why you're that way." Isn't that amazing?
He said, "I haven't already obtained it." How do you get an accurate view of yourself? Well, God's word is a mirror, if you'll look at it. Honest friends, if you can find them, they're hard to get. Friends tend not to be honest with you. There's kind of, if you'll allow it, there is a natural sphere of relationship that can help you see yourself as you really are if you'll
The Challenge of Honest Self-Assessment
Let them, and that's a spouse. Now there's a problem with this. You have to allow that spouse to share with you without fear of reprisal. I alluded to it the other day. I'm trying to write some stuff and I gave it to Susan. I said to Susan, just read this, and you know, I'm not a very good writer. When I said that, I was hoping she'd come back and say, gosh, this is really good. I think you're being too hard on yourself. So she read it and she said, this is bad. It's not very good. And I thought, well, gosh, it's not bad. But it's hard, isn't it, to get an accurate view of yourself?
Paul had it. You have to understand something in relationships - male, female, husband, wife, boss, employee. Somebody said it this way, and I think it's true: In every relationship, at every moment, we are doing one of two things. We're either ministering to the other person or manipulating them. In every moment. My heart is so wicked, sometimes I don't know which I'm doing. I'm saying, oh, sweetie, you really look good. I don't know if I'm ministering to her to encourage her or if I have something else in mind.
You need an accurate view of who you are. And what you'll battle in that is that besetting sin. What's your besetting sin? Pride.
Timothy: A Model of Genuine Humility
Go back to chapter two just a second. There's a wonderful little thing that's kind of just dropped in this. Paul's talking about Jesus, He's talking about His humility. We saw Him in chapter three. Look in verse 19 of chapter two: "I hope in the Lord to send Timothy to you shortly so that I also may be encouraged when I learn of your condition." So Timothy's going to come, he's going to report back to me.
"I have no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare." Now think about this. I don't have a clue what church you go to, but imagine that in your church, you're getting a letter from the apostle Paul and he's saying, I'm sending you a guy and I've got nobody like this guy. This is a one of a kind guy. This is the best guy I have. You would be all excited saying, well, boy, this guy must be a heck of a preacher or a great administrator or a real organizer. There must be something really special about this guy.
There was. Do you see? Listen, look at this: "I have no one else like him. I have no one else of kindred spirit. I have no one else who's genuinely concerned." Look at that verse 20. How about you? "For all the others seek after their own interests, not those of Jesus."
Humility: A Foreign Concept to the World
When Paul was writing, he was trying to explain this idea of humility, which I believe is at the essence. We talk a lot about love and I got that. But in terms of the Christian living, humility is at the core of it. In the Greek language, there wasn't a word for it. When I read that, I thought this is interesting. Paul's writing and saying, I've got this thing. It's the essence of Christian living. You better get this down. If you don't have this down, you're never going to be worth anything to me. Oh yeah. And the world doesn't have a word for it.
That's how foreign humility is to the world. The world doesn't even get its arms around that. The world says, no, feel good about yourself. Think about yourself. I love - this is - you can talk about any time of year you want, there is no time of year better than this time of year because football's starting. This is the best time of the year.
The World's Focus on Self-Esteem
I'm all right with pro football. Janet's a real pro football person. I'm a really college football guy. I love football. September 2nd, I can tell you right where we're going to be. The whole family will gather as the University of Iowa plays the University of Montana. We will watch every play of every Iowa game. We wait all year for this.
I love John Madden. I like to listen to Madden. I love that. Madden will talk about the dirt in the trenches. All this stuff, they'll go with it. But if you're listening to Madden - there they are, let's say the Steelers are playing the Broncos and the Broncos are down 21 to nothing at half. How about the Steelers are playing the Raiders and the Raiders are down 21 to nothing at half. That's even better.
But here they are. They'll come out, and Al Michaels will say, John, what did the Broncos have to do the second half? And here's what Madden will say. And you listen. Here's what he'll say: They need to get something going because they need to feel good about themselves. What? Feel good about themselves. You're behind 21 to nothing. We're playing football. Our identity is not attached to this. But that's what the whole world says.
The Materialism of Pride
It's an extension of what we talked about this morning. Wear this, live there, walk like that, write with that pen, write on that paper. There are stores - and I'm sure you have them up in Seattle and Portland and around - there are stores in Phoenix that are stores that sell nothing but ink pens. Ink pens. Guys are paying like $250, $300, $400 for ink pens.
Do you understand that you can go right down here to Walgreens and get one of these babies for 19 cents that writes right on a page? But you know, when you pull this out and you pull out that pen, you go like this, everybody goes, ooh, ah. I'm going, why do we want to write with that? I'm afraid I'll screw it up. Have you got a free one? Have you got something that says State Farm Insurance on it or something? That's what I'll use.
That's that part, that word - I want to come in, Paul said, we don't have a word for this, it's called humility.
True Humility: Seeing Yourself as God Sees You
That's what you need to strive for, humility. Humility really is just seeing yourself as God sees you and then submitting. We hate that word. There's another word we hate. We don't want to hear submit. Submit means yield, lined up under.
Here you go, He's the king. You aren't. And the sooner you figure that out, the better your life will be, not circumstantially, but relationally with Him.
him. Paul's got this wonderful, accurate view of himself. I haven't already obtained it. But here's the third point. I press on, I keep going, I keep moving.
Goals Versus Purpose
I want to talk a bit about goals and purpose. That's kind of the hot button, lots of books on that. Do you understand the difference between a goal and a purpose? A goal is something that's short term and it's measurable. It's attainable, it's a stepping stone. A purpose is something that's long term, very difficult to measure, rarely attained. It becomes a defining point for your life.
So if I say to you, I'm going to read through the Bible in a year, is that a goal or a purpose? It's a goal. Now, if I say to you, here's my purpose, to be conformed to the image of Christ or to be holy, that becomes a purpose.
Now, I know this is abstract, but hang in there with me. That's why you can have all these goals and be achieving these goals and still be frustrated because you've got goals that don't have anything to do with your purpose. You've got these goals that don't facilitate your purpose. And oftentimes, this is really important, your goals can be mutually exclusive.
The Impossibility of Doing Everything
So you sit down beginning of the year and say, all right, I want to get this together. I'm going to be a really good parent this year. I'm really going to spend time with my kids and I want to increase my business by 12%. And I've got some brothers and sisters that I've really neglected and I want to spend some time with them. And my handicap's 15 and I want to get it to five. And my parents are aging and they need me to help them. I need to be available at least a half a day or maybe more a week to take care of them. And I've really let myself go physically. So I'm going to start to work out about an hour a day. And I've been going to this church and I'm really going to get involved in it.
Let me tell you something, there is no way you're going to do all that stuff. It isn't going to happen.
I sat in a staff meeting with our staff the other day and I said, you have to understand something. These people that we're asking to help us, they've got things like jobs and kids. They got 55 hours a week they're working and they got kids and they need to take care of themselves. And we're saying to them, men, you need to be with men, women, you need to be with women. If you're married, you need to be in a couple study. You need to be serving. You need to be doing this. They can't do it all. You can't do it all.
The Necessity of Intentional Living
You've got to sit down and take a really hard look at your life. If you don't, you're just going with the flow. Inertia is going to take you away from where you really want to go. Going with the flow sounds great unless the flow is going somewhere you don't want to go. If I'm trying to get to Tillamook and the flow is going to Astoria, going with the flow isn't helping me at all.
I sat down years ago to try to write a purpose statement. I thought, you know what? If all these businesses have purpose statements, maybe we ought to have one. And we spent a long time on this. And it was a couple of paragraphs. I got it down to a sentence and it was this: To mature in my faith by developing a lifestyle resulting in others coming to Christ and growing in Him. And there were some operative words in there like lifestyle.
You Need a Board of Directors
Can I tell you one other thing you need in your life? I hate it when somebody says here's what you need, but here's what you need. You need a board of directors. Cannon Beach Christian Conference Center has a board of directors. Intel has a board of directors. Starbucks has a board of directors. Probably the places you work or the people you work for have a board of directors. You need it too.
You need people who can give you some honest input in your life. You need people who can look at, who know you enough to ask the hard questions, to not be offended. You have to be honest in this process. And all of a sudden, you begin to see your life differently.
This One Thing I Do
I'm pressing on. Pressing on to what? In fact, isn't that what he says in the very next verse? I'm pressing on so that I may lay hold of that for which Christ laid hold of me. But this one thing that I do, I love that phrase.
Now, we know that Paul did more than just one thing. But when he says, when I preach, here's all I preach. I preach Christ and Christ crucified. Well, we know he taught all this other stuff. What's he saying there? He's saying, this was the preeminent thing in my life. There was one thing. If you cut him, here's what he bled.
Now, what's that thing for you? Now, if your answer right now is I don't know, that's okay as long as you're getting ready to answer the question. But you need to be able to answer it. If you can't, I'm telling you, you're just going to wander through life and you're going to accomplish nothing.
Mike Singletary's Eyes
I was doing a Pro Athletes Outreach NFL conference, I don't know how many years ago. And in the third row, right where the gentleman is with the Nebraska shirt, right there, there was sitting Mike Singletary. Some of you remember Mike Singletary, don't you?
If I said to you, Susan doesn't know who Mike Singletary is, describe his predominant physical trait, what would you say? His eyes, everybody says it, his eyes. Now, I've read a lot about Mike Singletary. I've heard a lot about Mike Singletary. I'd never met him.
I'm up there teaching and I'm telling you, he's sitting in that third row and everywhere, it was just like, just exactly like that. He's just sitting there just like this and everywhere I went, he just went like this back and forth. It was so intimidating, I could not even look at him and I'd say something incredibly funny and he'd go, ha, just like this, just like, I mean, literally, I thought, he's going to hit me?
He had to leave a day early and his wife came up to me and said, don't take it personally at all, Mike has a speaking engagement, Mike had to go and I said, that's fine.
Mike loved you more than you'll ever know," and I said, "Really?" And he said, "Yeah." And I said, "I gotta tell you something. It was kind of intimidating." Here's what she said: "He's a little intense." I'm tense. Here's what you need to be. Now, you're not going to be there physically, but you need to be there at least intellectually, emotionally. You need to have that same focus.
That's what Paul's saying. "There's this one thing I do." Again, back to the NFL. When they get that shot, there's a lot of great shots, but when you got the alignment, you got the offensive guy and he's looking, and here's the defensive guy looking right at him and they're just kind of digging in like bulls, especially if it's cold and they're breathing and here comes that air. There is such intent, there is such focus, there is such intensity. That's how you need to live. Isn't that what Paul's saying? "This one thing I do."
Now, his thing doesn't have to be your thing. Your thing doesn't have to be my thing, but there needs to be a thing.
The Soldier's Focus
In 2 Timothy, wonderful book, one of my favorite books, and I like the end of life books. I went one summer and all I read were last years of Napoleon, last years of Robert E. Lee, the end of Lincoln's life, all end of life stuff. And I like that because especially if a person senses that, all of the trappings seem to fall away, don't they? It's like visiting somebody in the hospital when they're really sick.
The difference between visiting somebody in the hospital when they're really sick and kind of talking to them at church are two different things. If we're at church, we're kind of going, "Hey, how about the Seahawks? What do you think about the Diamondbacks? Think it's going to rain?" When you're in the hospital and the doctor's just told this person, "Listen, you're not going to make it," all of a sudden, they don't care about any of that stuff. They have conversations at a level they've never had conversations before.
In 2 Timothy, Paul tells us that he senses he's about to die or be killed. So there's this wonderful letter that he's writing to his protege. In 2 Timothy chapter two, verse four, Paul writes this: "No soldier in active duty entangles themselves in the affairs of everyday life so he may please the one who enlisted him."
That's incredible. He uses a metaphor, you and me, of soldiers. No soldier in active duty, not in the reserves, active duty. No soldier in active duty entangles themselves in the affairs of everyday life. Part of what the service does is take away those entanglements.
You understand that they don't get up over in Iraq every morning and go, "Hmm, what should I wear today?" Because have you noticed I always look somewhat splendid in a different shirt? And so Susan and I started—that's how we started. I got all my shirts. I'm a little picky about it. So the first thing I did when I got here was make sure all my shirts were pressed. I hung them up. I said, "Okay, Susan, tell me. There's 12 talks. I have 12 shirts here. What shirts should I wear in what order?" And she said, "No one cares." I said, "Sure they all care."
Well, so I spent, I don't know, an hour, an hour and a half when we got here figuring out my shirts. These guys don't get up in Iraq and go, "Hmm, what should I wear?" They don't get out of the mess and say, "Boy, I don't know what to order. Look at all—" No, you'll have this or you won't eat at all.
Living to Please the One Who Enlisted Us
No soldier, that's you, in active duty, that's you, entangles themselves in the affairs of everyday life. Why? To win the battle? That's not—it's funny. He switches imagery there in the sense that he doesn't say, "No soldier in active duty entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life. Don't do that so that he can be victor, experience victory." No, so that he may please the one who enlisted him.
Here's what he's saying. You and I need to be disentangled from this world so we can put a smile on God's face. He enlisted you. He brought you into His service. No soldier in active duty entangles himself. What are the entanglements? What are the things that entangle you? And they're all the same when we work them through. And they're all things that pull you away from the one thing that you do. "This one thing I do."
The Swift Passage of Time
We were talking at dinner the other night—Susan and I and John were at dinner. We're just talking and laughing and talking about different stuff and talking about kids and talking about how quickly it went by. And there was really a cute kid next to us tonight that was eating and his grandma was feeding him. And I mean, I just laughed. She's shoveling this stuff in. It was amazing. She was going, "Whew, whew, whew, whew."
And the only reason we're laughing is this is exactly, "Hey, this is what I watch every night. This is how Haley does it." And then as soon as he's done with that, grandma then got a little napkin and wetted it. And Janice said, "Okay, now he'll start to cry." So he wiped up. And then you pick him up. And then I got over there. They said, "Would you like to hold him?" I said, "Sure, I'll be happy to hold him." But as I'm holding him, I know what's coming next. I know what's coming right around the back. And it was just predictable. And it was just, you could just sit there and just mark your clock by it.
It seems like it was yesterday that I watched Susan changing our kids. I didn't get in—well, I wasn't involved in a lot of it, but you get the drift of that. And now there's been weddings and grandbabies and funerals. That's us not long from now.
Since I was a little boy, it scared me that my life would mean nothing. How do you waste a life? You just take these verses and flip around. Don't do one thing, do a bunch of things. Be easily distracted. Go from thing to thing to thing to thing to thing to thing. Just go all around. Do whatever you want to do. There's a lot of focus here. "This one thing."
I do. I don't sense balance in Paul's life, by the way. I know there's a place for balance, and put me down as yes for balance. But balanced people don't tend to accomplish great things. As I read this book right here, I didn't pick up balance in this woman's life anywhere. No, there was nothing balanced about her. Is there perspective? Sure. But this one thing I do.
Then He says this in verse 13: "Forgetting what lies behind." When Paul writes about the past, He almost always talks about His conversion. When He talks about the future, He almost always talks about heaven. He says, "Forgetting what lies behind."
Breaking Free From the Past
I meet a ton of people who are absolutely incarcerated to their past. Lots of bad stuff. I get it. I've shared just a small portion of mine. I have a lot of stuff in my past.
Susan and I were home just a few weeks ago for my dad's funeral, and we're driving around. One of the things I did was say, "Okay, everybody in the van, I'm going to give you a Tom Schrader life tour." I took them to where I was born, every house I lived in. I took them to the yard where I played my first game of pitch, threw my first no-hitter. I took them to where I hit my first home run, where I went to school—grade school, high school, college. I took them to all this stuff. I love those memories, but I'm glad I didn't see anybody I knew. They always start with, "Hey, do you remember when we..." and I'll go, "Not really, parts of the night."
I know people that are incarcerated to their past. Here's what's very important—watch this. It's as though I'm walking through life, dragging a ball and chain of shame. Jesus comes along, clips it free, and I reach over and pick it up and carry it with me the rest of my life. He set you free.
The Gift of Forgiveness
We were teaching Sunday school one day, and we had a guy at the door—one of these really happy guys. You need those as greeters. You need happy people. I've never been a greeter. No one in our family's ever been a greeter, really. I'm coming in, and this guy said, "It's a great day!" I said, "Yeah, it's a great day." He said, "It's going to be a very special day." I said, "Really?" He said, "Yeah. There's a girl here this morning who went to high school with you." I said, "Oh, this isn't going to be a good day. This isn't going to be a happy day. This isn't going to be a happy occasion. Who is she? Which one? What does she know? What has she experienced?"
Don't you love this? "I forget what lies behind." You've been forgiven. This is really important. I meet people all the time who say, "I can't forgive myself." I don't get it, but I hear it, so it must be true. But that's pride. If the Creator God of the universe says you've been forgiven, who are you to not forgive yourself? What are you thinking about? You—that's exactly right. You're thinking about yourself.
Paul's Radical Forgiveness
He said, "I forget what lies behind." I am convinced that somewhere along the way, Paul had to go into some home church, share with them, and notice that there was a lady who wasn't paying much attention. I can't prove this from Scripture, but I think He went over to the lady afterwards and said, "You don't seem too happy. What's the problem?" She said, "I'm a widow." He said, "Yeah, how long have you been widowed?" "Since you and your marauders came through here, Paul, and pulled my husband out and killed him."
It seems logical to me that somewhere along the way that had to happen. You know what I think Paul did at that moment? I think He said, "Ma'am, I am so sorry. I've confessed that as sin. I am so sorry. Where are the elders? Elders, can you help this lady?" Then I don't think He had to take three years off and process it all. I think He went to the next house and began the process of teaching all over again.
Reaching Forward
Here's the sixth thing. He said, "I'm reaching forward to what lies ahead." This is really a key. Paul is saying, "I'm not distracted by the past. I'm not plagued by failure. I'm not even distracted by the good things."
Do you know the name Donald Gray Barnhouse? Donald Gray Barnhouse preceded Jim Boyce at Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. Someone years ago gave me a 33-and-a-third record—the big old records, before cassettes. I didn't even know that these guys used to cut records, teaching records. He had a Corrie ten Boom record, all these things, and Donald Gray Barnhouse.
On it was this picture of this incredible guy. He was just this stud-looking guy—big old guy in a gray suit, white shirt, gray tie. Then you hear Him and it's like, "Hello, this is Donald Gray Barnhouse," and you can just feel the earth tremble.
The Carnival Illustration
He's telling this story about a carnival coming to town. He's talking about this thing they had that spun around. You got in it and it spun around and had lights on it, and you became very disoriented. The objective was to wind your way through this thing.
Here's this sophisticated man—"Hello, I'm Donald Gray Barnhouse"—and He's saying, "I'm in this thing for almost an hour and I can't get through it." Finally, the carnival worker takes Him aside and says, "I'll show you how to get through it. Do you see the end down there? Do you see that mirror? I can watch what goes on in here through that mirror." He said to Donald Gray Barnhouse, "Put your eye on that mirror and you'll get through this."
Literally—this is Barnhouse's story, not mine—Barnhouse said He spent 60 minutes in there and couldn't get through. He puts His eye on that mirror and walks right through this whole thing. That's exactly what Paul is talking about.
is saying. I press on. I'm not distracted. I press on. I move ahead toward the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. God saved me for a reason. I don't lose sight of that. Again, I'm not distracted by the past. I'm not plagued by failure. I see heaven as my home. But I know that I have purpose until then.
I had not been a Christian very long when I started to hear all these little bumper sticker phrases. Here was one of them. You know those Christians? They're so heavenly minded they're no earthly good. I thought, okay, well, that's pretty interesting. After about a year, I said, that isn't even close. It's this: We're so earthly minded, we're no heavenly good. If I'm heavenly minded, I will be of earthly good. That's really important to understand.
The Value of Being Heavenly Minded
If I'm heavenly minded, if I'm thinking about God and His glory and being with Him in eternity and all this other stuff, if that is just permeating my thought process, if it's engulfed me like a cloud, then I will be of great earthly value because all my values change. I'm not that old guy. I'm this new guy. I have purpose. It's not about me. It's about Him. That's exactly what he's saying here. I'm pressing on. I'm pressing on toward that upward call. That's what I'm all about. Haven't laid hold of it yet.
Then look at how he exits this whole session. He said this. And he said, I'm pressing on for the upward call. The implication will be, I'll give it everything I got. I'm going to give it everything I have.
Turning the World Right Side Up
Acts chapter 15 - you might make a note of it. You don't need to turn there. Paul is moved, traveled. He's arrived now in Thessalonica. They are worried. It says in Acts chapter 17, verse five. And I'm going to read again from Eugene Peterson's The Message, the paraphrase. The Jewish leaders were jealous, so they gathered some worthless fellows from the street to form a mob and start a riot. They attacked the home of Jason, searching for Paul and Silas. They could drag them out of the crowd. Not finding them there, they dragged Jason out and some other believers, and they instead took them before the court.
Now, listen to this. This, again, is a paraphrase. Acts chapter 17, verse six. Paul and Silas have turned the rest of the world upside down and now they're here. Here was the enemy's assessment of Paul and Silas. They've turned the world upside down. Not even talking there about a movement, not even talking there about a church, talking about two guys.
And their assessment is inaccurate, isn't it? They didn't turn the world upside down, did they? They turned the world right side up. Genesis chapter three turned the world upside down. Genesis chapter three is when distortion came into the world.
When the Price Tags Got Switched
If you take out Genesis chapter three, which obviously a lot of people would love to do, it really is interesting, because Genesis chapter two ends with Adam, Eve, and the garden naked and happy. Genesis chapter four, in essence, brings in murder, war, killing, strife. If you just went from chapter two to chapter four, you'd have to say to yourself, what happened here? Something had to happen here. What was it? Genesis three. Adam and Eve sinned. And when they sin, they plunge us into ruin. They turn the world upside down. Christ comes along and turns the world right side up.
Tony Campolo wrote a book a few years ago called Who Switched the Price Tags? And it has a wonderful introduction to it. Campolo says, when we were kids, we used to go into this drug store, and one of us would distract the clerk, and then we would see something we liked. Let's say it was this pen over here, and that pen was a dollar, but over here was a ball that was a quarter. We'd switch the price tag so that we could get that pen for a quarter.
Campolo says, when I went out in the world, I started to look around, and all of a sudden, I realized somebody switched all the price tags. What God says is really valuable and important, man tends to dismiss. What man says is esteemed and valuable, God doesn't seem to put a lot of emphasis on. We touched on it earlier. Man says, knowledge, power, wealth. God says, you know what? They don't interest me. Humility, obedience, service.
Kingdom Values vs. Worldly Values
Isn't that what the disciples did? The disciples would come along, Jesus is walking, this is a great story. Jesus is walking along, the boys are behind Him, and they're talking. They're chatting. And He said, hey guys, what are you talking about? What is it you're chatting about? Eh, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. And the scripture says, they were embarrassed. Why? Because they would argue about which one of us is the greatest.
And so Jesus says, hey boys, I understand that. That makes sense to me, wanting to be great. He said, let me tell you how to be great in the kingdom of God. To be great in the kingdom of God, to get to the top of the ladder, you start at the bottom, you're a servant. The word means minister, or ministry. That's what God esteems, service.
Understanding True Humility
Now, let me tell you something about humility, and we're out the door here. Humility isn't just quiet talking. It isn't just a soft, gentle spirit. It isn't a task. We tend to associate, and this bothers me, we tend to associate humility with a task. Oh, he works in the parking lot, he's so humble. Oh, he cleans the restroom, he's so humble.
Humility has nothing to do with a task. You can be proud and arrogant, and all the time you're cleaning this toilet, you're going, I'm way better than this. I deserve a lot more than this. There's no humility. Don't assign some humility to the task.
Humility is you using the giftedness God has given you with a spirit that acknowledges that it's a gift from Him, and to Him be the glory for whatever the gift is. That's what humility is all about. That's what you've been called to do. You've been saved for a reason. Here's the reason, to be
Part of what God does as He turns the world right side up. He's gifted you, He's given you a gift, use it. He saved you to be part of something bigger than you. Don't you want that?
I love this staff that's here this year. The staff that's working over in the dining room, the staff I've seen in the co-jobs, they have a great attitude. I love being around young people. I love being around younger people for this reason: They're dying to be part of something bigger than themselves. And the same is true of you and me. Once we understand God's plan, that God saved you for a reason, He'll use you for a purpose.
We Are All Miniature Solomons
I'm part of that generation. We've had it all. I wrote this phrase, I love it: We're all little miniature Solomons. Our generation is. We don't have it to the extreme that Solomon has it, but we've kind of had it all. He had, what did he have? He had 300 wives and 700 concubines, the original 700 club, 700 concubines. And then he wrote all these books and he wrote this poetry and he built these massive structures. We've kind of done that.
My generation had an anthem. We really didn't necessarily have a flag that went with it, but we had an anthem and the anthem went like this: "I can't get no, what? Satisfaction. And I try and I try and I try." I'll spoke it, I'll stroke it, I'll do anything I can to try to find some satisfaction. I can't get it.
The Great Wealth Transfer and Our True Design
There's something really interesting taking place in this country right now. We are in the process—this is staggering—of transferring $6 trillion of wealth from one generation to the next. Our generation's going to go through that 6 trillion like this. I've tried and I've tried and I've tried and I'm never going to get satisfaction in this world. You know why? You weren't designed to get satisfaction in this world. You weren't created to be happy in this world.
You'll get momentary little shots of it, just enough to keep you going, but you're never going to find it permanent, are you? That's because you aren't designed for earth. You're designed for heaven.
Closing Prayer
Let's pray. Father, thank you for that truth. God, thank you that you've saved us and gifted us, that you do guide us with your word and with your Spirit. Father, we pray that you would use us in a powerful and a mighty way. God, if we start talking about things like change in the world, no, I don't think so, but how about influencing our world? Our world may be the place where we work. It may be that little baby that we're feeding those peaches and pears to and then changing that diaper to influence and affect that world.
Oh, God, that you'd save us and that you had a dream for us and a purpose for us. When we stop and think about that, God, that blows our mind, the creator God, you set into works the process of saving and using us. God, thank you. Thank you for saving us. Thank you for using us. Thank you for purpose.
God, to those especially that are here tonight and all of a sudden they're going, you know what, that really makes sense. Don't let this be a life-changing experience that lasts a day or a week. There's no way, Father, that doesn't ring true because it's your word. Now, will you apply it to our heart? Give us the wisdom to know what to do and the courage to do it. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.