Everyday Life

Tom Shrader explores how Christians must understand God's sovereignty over all circumstances, including suffering and trials, which God uses for believers' growth and His purposes. Drawing from Romans 8:28 and personal experiences with his wife's cancer diagnosis, Shrader emphasizes that God either causes or allows everything in believers' lives to work together for good. He warns against the twin dangers of expecting exemption from suffering as Christians and the pride that can derail spiritual growth.

“Everything that happens in your life is either caused by or allowed by God.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: September 2007

Recorded: 2007 at Cannon Beach Conference Center

Duration: 58 min

Themes: sovereignty, suffering, trials, growth, perspective, pride, purpose, trust, facing cancer diagnosis, experiencing hardship, questioning god's plan, dealing with illness, spouse, caregiver, struggling with doubt, mature believer

Scripture: Romans 3:23, Romans 5, Romans 8:1, Romans 8:28, Romans 8:31-39, John 10:24-30, Isaiah 6, James 1:2-4, Philippians 1:6, Philippians 3:12-14, 2 Corinthians 4:8-18, 2 Corinthians 5:17, 1 Corinthians 1:26-29, 2 Timothy 3:12

Theological Themes: providence, god's will, sanctification, spiritual growth, divine sovereignty, romans 8:28, theodicy, biblical worldview

Full Transcript

Understanding Who God Is

It's crucial for us to keep that emphasis on God and who He is. Let me use Louie Giglio again as he writes about God. This is a wonderful book. How many of you have ever read or seen the book, I Am Not But I Know I Am? How many of you can read? That's a good start. Well, I would recommend this book to you. This is a wonderful book. I Am Not But I Know I Am, Louie Giglio.

I read from it earlier today. Let me read another part. He's talking about God. God is big. And I am convinced that the key for me to understand truly who I am, because I'm reminded daily that I'm a fairly insignificant schmuck, but I need the perspective sometimes. God brings that.

Giglio writes this: the scripture tells us that by the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of His mouth. He spoke and it came to be. He commanded and it stood firm. In other words, God created the cosmos without lifting a finger. When He created the heavens, He did it all without the aid of a how-to-make-a-universe kit, without an existing photo or template or diagram.

God was creating in the truest sense of the word, speaking the world into existence out of absolutely nothing. God is the one who makes light fly. And He quotes from Isaiah: He sits on the throne above the circle of the earth and its people are like grasshoppers to Him. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy and stretches them out like a tent to live in.

The Magnitude of God

"To whom will you compare me? Who is my equal," says the Lord. "Lift your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls them each by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing."

God is more, again Giglio now, God is more massive than our wildest imaginations, bigger than the biggest words we have to describe Him. He's doing today, sustaining the galaxies, holding every star in place, stewarding the seemingly chaotic events of earth to His conclusion within His glory, within His story. He is constant. He blinks and a lifetime comes and goes.

To Him one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years like one day. All of human history could be written on His fingernail with plenty of room left over for more. God is doing well today, thank you. He has no dilemmas, no quandaries, no counselors, no shortages, no rivals, no fears, no cracks, no worries.

He is self-existent, self-contained, self-perpetuated, self-powered and self-aware. In other words, He's God and He knows it. That is something that we want to keep in front of you tonight, is God and who He is.

The Foundation for Understanding Life

I am convinced that for me to begin to understand life, live in life, enjoy life, keep a perspective in life, and we're going to talk about all these things tonight, I really need to understand who God is. That's what happens, and we're not going to turn there. But if you're into it, Isaiah 6, it's just a great example.

Isaiah at this point in time, it's a key time, it's the year that King Uzziah dies, and the nation of Israel has had a sense of peace now for thirty, forty, fifty years, and now he's dead and what will happen. Isaiah has a vision, you remember that, Isaiah 6? It's often used in the context of worship. He sees the Lord high and lifted up on the throne, and His robe fills the temple.

He has this magnificent view, vision of God as He really is, and what he sees there, and this is really important, what Isaiah sees there is Jesus. He sees Jesus seated on the throne, where Jesus is today, where He will be when you and I arrive in heaven. He sees Jesus.

The minute that Isaiah sees Jesus, here's what Isaiah says: "Woe to me, for I am undone." I thought I had it all together. There's a little bit of different scholars that disagree a bit, but many believe He was a prophet at this point in time, one who highly respected, maybe like you, deeply religious. "But woe to me, for I am undone."

The Come-to-Jesus Moment

How do I become undone? How do I, one who thinks I have it all together, understand that I don't at all? All of a sudden I see God as He really is. The minute Isaiah has this come-to-Isaiah moment, where he realizes who he really is, he is now ready to be forgiven, now, and this is key.

Now God says, we've got a whole bunch of stuff to do. I've got to find somebody to send. Who should I send? And Isaiah says what? "Here I am. Send me." You and I are not ready to live this life until we have had that moment of understanding God and who He is.

At that moment, God forgives us. At that moment, He cleanses us. At that moment, our guilt and shame is gone. Our sin is forgiven, and we are now ready to be His. I think I saw a shirt at dinner, it went by me quickly, and I think it said, "God purpose." Is that what that says? God purpose? I do once I understand God and who He is, because He's left me here for a reason.

The Universal Condition of Sin

Again, I'm going to invite you to open your Bibles to Romans chapter 3, and we're going to do a little flyover, then we're going to come back and we're going to get really practical, hopefully tonight. Romans chapter 3, verse 23, and this is really a summary statement of all that's taken place to this point. Paul has laid out systematically a case against all of mankind, religious people, non-religious people alike.

He says, here's the conclusion, Romans 3:23, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." All have missed the mark, none without exception, all of us in the same boat. We manifest it at various degrees, but it's so important to understand that there is no difference essentially, fundamentally, between you and Jeffrey Dahmer. It's a huge statement.

I remember one time trying to make a point to a guy, and I said, you know the difference between Adolf Hitler and me, Tom Schrader, and he said, yeah, one little mustache. The point he was making, we were exactly the same. We're all in the same condition.

Our Peace with God

At Romans chapter 5: Therefore, having been justified by faith, this is so important, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ. We have been justified by God, we now have peace with Him. We were at war with Him. We now have, and this is so important, we now have peace with God. Therefore, we can now have the peace of God.

That's what the world's looking for. Here's the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. That's what the world's looking for. Where do I find that? I find that after I have peace with God. I have peace with God. Why? Because while we were still without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. Verse 8: God demonstrated His love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. I'll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon the cross, what took place.

No Condemnation

Look at Romans chapter 8. Now I get to chapter 8, and Paul is continuing now this marvelous truth. Therefore, verse 1: there is no condemnation for those who enter Christ Jesus. You and I stand not condemned, we stand in peace with God. And we stand in peace with God, and we need to make this point, this is essential. We need to understand that we are absolutely secure in this relationship with Him.

Paul tells us, Philippians 1:6, that He, God, who began a good work in you, speaking of salvation, will continue it till the day of Christ Jesus. You're in Romans 8. Look at Romans 8, verse 31. What shall we say then? Now Paul's built this incredible case. He said all of those that God foreknew, He predestined. All He predestined, He called. All He called, He justified. All He justified, He glorified. All along the way, the language says this: there was none lost. God totally at work in salvation.

Absolute Security in Christ

What shall we say then? Here you go. If God's for us, who can be against us? Who can separate us, verse 35, from the love of Christ? That's an important thing for us to grasp. It's not our love for Him, it's His love for us. What can separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword? No.

But in all these things, verse 37, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor heights, nor depths, nor any other created things shall be able to separate us from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus. You cannot get any more secure in a relationship than that. It can't be any more solid. This is an unbreakable union that God has with His people.

Jesus and His Sheep

Let me just pound this point just a little bit further, and then we'll roll on. Turn to the left to the Gospel of John, John chapter 10. There's this moment, and I love Jesus. I love to watch how He operates. I love to listen to Him and to try to learn and to see how, no matter how you think about Him, He's always amazing to you.

John chapter 10, verse 24, the Jews surround Him, and they said to Him, "How long are You going to keep us in doubt? If You're the Christ, tell us plainly." Now, here's what they're saying. They're saying, if You're the Messiah, these are the Jewish leaders, if You're the Messiah, You tell us. We want to know, because if that's who You are, we want to make sure we know. We want to make sure we understand.

Jesus said, "I told you," verse 25, "I told you, but you don't believe. The works I do, I do in My Father's name. They bear witness of Me. But you don't believe. Why? Because you're not My sheep." Verse 27: "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand. I and My Father are one."

Jesus Claims Divinity

Now, that last verse, John 10, verse 30, is somewhat lost on us, right? "I and the Father are one." What's He saying? Here's what's cool. We don't have to guess or wonder, because the Jews took up stones to stone Him. Jesus said, "Many good works I've shown to you for My Father, for which of these do you stone Me?" And the Jews answered Him and said, "For a good work we don't stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself out to be God."

So you have people all the time saying, "Jesus never said He was God." That's exactly the statement that He's making there. I am God. And as God, here's what He says: "My sheep, those of us who have our faith and trust in Him, My sheep, hear My voice." And then He says this: "I know them." Now what He's talking about there is an intimacy of relationship.

He Knows Everything About You

But I want to show you something else. And He also knows all about you. I'm teaching right now through the week through Revelation 2 and 3, Jesus speaking to the churches. And I'm at the very first, I'm at Ephesus. And Jesus begins with this phrase, wonderful phrase: "I know your deeds."

Gentlemen, that is both terrifying and comforting. Here's what He's saying: I know everything there is to know about you. There is nothing hidden. Guys, everything you've ever done, everything you've ever said, every thought you've ever had, everything you intended to do but didn't do, He knows them all. Everything you're going to do, what you're thinking at this moment, He knows them all.

Terrifying that someone knows you that transparently, isn't it? Susan probably knows me better than anyone on earth. And yet, I'm going to tell you a little secret, she doesn't know it all. I got a whole bunch of stuff I've hidden from her. Why do we hide stuff from people? Well, maybe we're ashamed about it. Maybe we're thinking that, you know what, if she really knew this, because she's got this kind of image of me, if she really knew what I was really like, if she really knew that I was that much of a derelict, she might not love me anymore. Here's what's unbelievable, and here's the comforting thing, is that

God knows you, all about you, nothing hidden from you, and He loves you anyway with a love unbreakable. That is really important. There is one person, Jesus, who in this world knows you perfectly, and He says, "You know what, you're my boy anyway." There's nothing you can do to break this relationship. There's nothing that can come into your life—do you remember the list there from Romans chapter 8: height, depth, no other created thing—that can break that relationship. That relationship is rock solid.

Having said that, now we've got to live life. I was trying to get the chorus of the song that Dave wrote about everyday life, and as close as I could come to it, it had the idea that it really manifests itself in how I deal with my neighbor and how I face trouble. And the question was: Does the truth I believe translate to my feet? Working out in everyday life—that's what we're going to talk about.

God's Love Doesn't Exempt Us From Difficulty

Here is what God does. He loves you, and because He loves you, He does not make you exempt from the difficulty of life. Here is something that is part of every Christian life, though we somehow oftentimes think it shouldn't be, but God says it is. Not only does God say it is, He says that it's a promise.

I had not been a Christian very long when I was in a bookstore, a Christian bookstore, and I'm checking out. There was a book called The Promises of God, and it was a gold leaf leather bound book, and the promises of God were too expensive for me. But I found later a paperback book, and in there were some wonderful promises that God made to you and me.

You know what I discovered? In this book, The Promises of God, there were some promises that didn't make it to that book. Let me read one of them to you: "Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution." That didn't get in that promises book.

Jesus' Promise of Suffering

I want to talk about pain and suffering. The night before Jesus was killed, when He gathered the disciples together—and you all should read and study this; oftentimes people say they're looking for something to study, and I'm going to give you something great to study: John chapters 14, 15, 16, and 17. That's Jesus saying goodbye to His homeboys. And in there He says, "Here's the deal, guys. If they persecuted Me, they'll persecute you. A slave is not greater than his master. In this world you will have tribulation."

There are two wonderful polar mistakes that you can make regarding suffering. One is to think there'll only be a bit of suffering and God will always take care of it and heal you. The other is to think that God's not in the healing business or relieving suffering business anymore. Neither is true. In this world you will suffer.

Now the reason I talk about this is because I don't think you're going to have an everyday real Christian life until you understand and accept suffering.

God's Involvement in Our Suffering

R.C. Sproul writes this: "To remove God from human suffering is to quit the pilgrimage of faith. God majors in suffering. He disciplines and disciples and displays Himself in holy involvement in all suffering. Rather than be removed from our suffering, it's these circumstances that allow us to see God at work."

I said to you before, one of the significant moments in my life happened here at Cannon Beach. Let me tell you about it. It was three years ago, September 2nd, 2004. Susan and I had done a Labor Day conference here. We try—and Jeff and his staff are really wonderful, I'm sure it's an annoyance to them but they are great—we try to come in a day early or a day late and squeeze an extra day in. They're very gracious to allow us to try to accommodate us somewhere, and we love it. We love to get away. We love it here.

A Conversation That Would Prove Prophetic

Labor Day was a zoo. The day after there was no one here, literally. Labor Day, you had to actually say "excuse me" and walk down the beach. On the morning of the 2nd, there was no one here. Susan and I left our room and walked all the way down to Haystack Rock, turned around and walked back. We're on the way back and we're just on the other side of the hotel right just to the south of the campus ground. We're right in front of it.

When we get away, we often talk about things like, "Could you live here? Would you like this?" that kind of stuff. And I said, "Suze, we have been very diligent. We have been conscientious. We have prepared. And barring just some wild economic catastrophe, we're going to be okay financially. The only thing that could screw us up is if one of us got sick."

Early November, she said to me, "Tom, something's wrong with me." And I said, "Well, you know, go to the doctor. That would be the thing to do."

The Discovery

She went to the doctor and the doctor said to her, "You have an inflammation, an infection in your breast." She said, "All right." She began to take medication and it wasn't getting any better; it was getting worse.

She called me one night and said, "Look at this." She was on the internet, WebMD—which I'm sure every doctor in the world hates—and she said, "Tom, look at this. There are 12 symptoms to this disease and I have all 12 of them. This is what I have."

So I sat down and I began to read about it, and it's called inflammatory breast cancer. Now I thought breast cancer—well, this is a different kind of breast cancer.

The more I read about it, the more I understood some of her trauma. The five-year survival rate on this cancer 10 years ago was 1%. It's very aggressive. It's really the worst of the breast cancers you could have. Very rare, 1% of all breast cancer is inflammatory breast cancer and of the majority of those, and for whatever reason, who knows why this stuff happens, the majority of them are in African American women.

She goes to the surgeon and he said, "Susan, I've been at this 20 years. I've seen like one case. I don't think so, but if you want, we'll do a biopsy." He called and he said, "Why don't you and Tom come in?" We're walking in and I said, "All right, Susan, if that's what this is, I'm telling you something. This guy's a surgeon. All surgeons know is cutting. He's a friend of ours, by the way. All he knows is cutting. You're going to want to cut, but let's be slow."

We sit down. He's from Germany. He's a stoic guy. He's a wonderful guy, very stoic guy. He begins to cry and he says, "We can't do surgery." I said, "We're screwed."

A Journey Through Cancer

That started a sojourn for us. That started a trip for her that included all sorts of things: chemotherapy, surgery—I think she's had four or five of them—radiation, to the point where she could hardly function. She was functioning for about an hour a day.

The worst thing that could happen to somebody who was sick would be to have me as a primary caregiver. I lobbied the governor to sponsor a bill supporting medicinal marijuana for primary caregivers. I thought that made sense. Still do. If you've got a petition in the back, you can sign it on the way out.

At one point, she's functioning for about an hour a day. We get through that. The doctor said, "You know what, we're doing all right now." Then one day, she said, "I can feel it's back." We go in and it's there again.

We go through a whole other round of surgeries and all that goes with it and he said, "You know, the darndest thing, this isn't even related to that other one, this is a totally different cancer. It has nothing to do with that one. But we got it." Then she says to me, "I think it's back again." We go back in and he said, "Here's the deal. The deal is that we can't cure this. We're going to try to control it."

The Santa Claus Story

At Christmas every year for the 20-somethings at church, I dress up like Santa Claus and she dresses up like Mrs. Claus. Now, I'm a modified Santa Claus. I wear flip-flops and no wig or anything. The thing is, the kids pay like $10 to have their picture taken with us and the money goes to some, you know, I don't know, somebody—people are hungry or whatever, wherever they put it. So we sit there, Mrs. Claus and me, and all the 20-somethings come and all the girls sit on my lap and get their picture taken. It makes you kind of wish Christmas was every day.

I have pictures from that night. When I came in to teach the 20-somethings, I showed them these pictures of Susan as Mrs. Claus. I said, "Do you remember that night? Do you remember her smiling? Do you remember all this?" They said, "Yep, it was a great night." I said, "It was exactly two hours before that that the doctor told her the cancer's back again."

That was last Christmas. Been on chemo ever since, but we're containing it. Two weeks ago, the doctor said, "It's on the move again."

Dealing with Well-Meaning People

Now, I have all sorts of problems and challenges with all of this. I have people, and I understand they're well-intended people, who've given me fruits and nuts and juices and all sorts of things. I give them to Susan and let her do whatever she wants to do with them. I have people who love us.

But I will tell you the people that I would love to take and stuff their head in the toilet. Let me tell you about these people. They are the ones that say, "If I had enough faith, this cancer would go away." You know what? There is nothing in this book that teaches that.

I mean, somewhere along the line, that theology has to fail you, doesn't it? Isn't there something that's going to come in and sap you eventually? It's interesting. It has nothing to do, really, with Susan's spiritual condition. If anything, it's probably the cancer has been a good thing in the sense that it's brought us a little bit closer together. It reminds us all that we are short-termers.

A Life-Changing Phrase

So here's a phrase that I've developed. Remember this. This is important now. If you're one of those that write things down, write it down. Remember this: No matter how bad it gets, it can only last a lifetime. It's very important to understand.

God does not promise that I can find in this Word that in this life He is necessarily going to take everything away from you that relates to suffering and pain and trials and difficulty. James chapter 1 verse 2: "Count it joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials."

Now let's stop and hear what God's saying. Count it, reckon it. It's a term. It's an accounting term. Take it, count. Count it joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials. Now that makes absolutely no sense at all except for the next verse: "knowing"—that's the key phrase—"knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance."

The Purpose of Trials

So when you say, "God, I want to grow, God, I want to be strong, I want to be your guy, I want to go the distance, I want to break the tape," God hears, "Let me suffer, give me trials."

Romans 5:3: "Not only this, but we also glory in tribulation." How can that possibly be? "Knowing"—there's the key word—"knowing that tribulation produces perseverance."

See, you and I know something. We rented a car when we landed at Portland. Portland is the greatest airport. Portland is the greatest airport in the country. I love that airport. For whatever reason, I love getting in there. Great place to rent a car. We rented a car with a GPS thing on it, which I've never had before. So I don't know how—I'm trying to punch it and figure this whole thing and how you'd do it. I forgot I had left it on and we were driving into

Seaside and we had done something and then all of a sudden the thing said this, whenever possible, make a legal U-turn. Well, apparently I had overshot my landing. God's word comes back and in essence speaks to us and says, you know what, there's times when you're going to have to make a U-turn. There's times when you're going to have to revisit this again.

Now let me tell you what happens in suffering and pain. Almost inevitably, we start to mess around with who God is when suffering comes. Because we're trying to figure out why is this happening. Why is this happening to me?

Wrestling with God in Our Pain

I just finished teaching Wednesday and a man came up to me. I would suspect he was about 30, don't know, coat and tie. He said, I'm a real estate guy, I've got a real estate business, I know you were in the real estate business, I know that's your background, I've heard a lot about you in business, I've heard a lot about you, I want you to pray for me. My 20-month-old daughter drowned in a pool at home two weeks ago. That just rips my heart out. And it was the four-year-old that opened the door for the 20-month-old to get out. And he said, my wife is just struggling with this.

I want, that's why I wish I had a pill or some dust or something, I want, I don't even know what to say sometimes. Susan the other night, it was the first night after the doctor said the cancer is back, she said, Tom, I can feel it, it hurts so much. And you know what I've learned, and this is counterintuitive for me, I've learned to be quiet and I just held her and we kind of just cried together and laid together for a half hour or 45 minutes. I wanted to say something to this guy or his wife to take away the pain and then I realized, you know, God gives us pain.

God's Sovereignty in Our Suffering

We get some really goofy theology when suffering comes because we seem so concerned about protecting God's reputation. Here you go, this is important. Everything that happens in your life is either caused by or allowed by God. If that's not true, He's not God, right? Everything.

Could God have stopped that baby? Sure. Could God take away the cancer? Sure. Could God have stopped 9-11? I mean, that was a big one. Where was God on 9-11? Same place He was on 9-10 and 9-12, okay? Didn't move a foot. And He either caused or allowed that, and I'm fine if you say He didn't cause it, but at least He allowed it because if He couldn't stop it and He didn't know it was going to come, then He isn't God. He certainly isn't the God that we've got in this Word.

The Foundation of Our Knowing

Now where I find my strength and my comfort is this idea of knowing. Count it all joy when you encounter various trials, knowing. Look at Romans chapter 8, verse 28. I don't know that I ever go anywhere that I don't spend some time on this verse. And we know. Boy, that's an important word. There it is again.

You know what's going to happen to you? It's like if you've never had a white Taurus and you drive into town and you rent a white Taurus, all you see are white Tauri's everywhere you go. All you're going to see now is that word know. It's everywhere. God wants you to know. That's why He gave you this word.

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God and those who are called according to His purpose. And we know something. And we know that God causes everything in life, even my sin, to work together for good.

The Qualifier That Changes Everything

It's not a universal promise. Do you see the qualifier? To those who love God. That's not everybody. Here's what Oprah says. Oprah says, and I've heard her say it a lot. I watch Oprah once a week. I watch Oprah on Monday. You know why I watch her? For your benefit. So you don't have to.

Here's what Oprah said. Oprah said, I believe with all my heart that everything happens for a reason. I hear that all the time. I watch these goofballs on TV and on radio and they say, I believe everything happens for a reason. That's a very important statement, isn't it? Because if that, and by the way, I think that's true. If everything happens for a reason, and I don't think Oprah intends to say this, by the way. If everything happens for a reason, then there has to be somebody in control.

The Logic of God's Attributes

If all I have is a one verse Bible, and in that one verse is Romans chapter 8 verse 28, and we know God causes all things to work together for good, to those who love Him and call to God and His purpose. If all I have is that one verse, then here's what I know. I know God is all-knowing and I know God is all-powerful. Because there's no way He could work them together for good if He wasn't all-powerful. And there's no way He could work them together for good if He wasn't all-knowing, right?

Very important, boys. We've got to hang in there. This is a big deal. If He's all-powerful but not all-knowing, He's watching, watching, watching, and goes, oh man, if I knew that was going to happen, I would have stopped it. Or if He's all-knowing but not all-powerful, He's going, no, no, no, aw, shucks, I would have done something but I couldn't do anything. This is God. This is who He is.

Finding God in the Midst of Pain

So nothing's coming into my life that isn't first passing through this filter. I wrote this wonderful observation. God has structured and organized our lives to include problems, pain, and suffering. Our mission is not to stop the suffering but to find God in the midst of the hurt and the pain, not to be so absorbed in the pain to try to find simply a way out.

If all we did was have pain and suffering and hurt and sorrow in our life, that'd be tragic if there was no rhyme nor reason to it. Suffering's part of life. You aren't exempt from it.

The Reality of Everyday Life

See if you're going to live that everyday life, there's some things you need to understand. You're no different than anyone else. When you came to Christ in repentance and faith, God didn't say, ah, well, now you're out of the human race. In fact, He says, you're going to have all the normal pain and suffering that every other person has plus something called persecution.

My father, a little over a year ago, died. Never been

In the hospital his whole life. Other than World War II, he got a purple heart there, but came back healthy, and his doctor said to him, you got a bad heart, you're just going to fall over dead someday. Saturday night he went down, he watched Lawrence Welk, went upstairs, fell over dead. As I talked about that, it was right about the time that your dad died, wasn't it? And I talked about it in here, and I think your dad had died just before that, because when I came in here, I wanted to talk about what I learned from that.

Jeff loves Jesus. That doesn't exempt him from parents that die, or children that go sideways, or deals that go bust, or hurt, or pain. I have talked more since this morning about kidney stones than I care to talk about my whole life. But to you all who want to tell me stories about them, none, by the way, are comforting. You have not helped me. Your quest to provide me comfort has provided me no comfort.

The Reality of Christian Suffering

This is just life, guys. And you got to get this. I know I'm grinding this home, but I'm just telling you, there is, it's almost unspoken, that when somebody comes to Christ, there's this idea, I know my path will not be strewn with roses, but when God brings trials and difficulties and circumstances into our life, it's almost instinctively, we start to wonder why.

I was with a group of seven pastors last week. And the question had to do with God, and the question was, have you ever been mad at God? And I understand that it's okay, and I understand all of that stuff. And they went around, yes, yes, yes, and they got to me, and they said, have you ever been mad at God? And I said, I've been very angry at Adam. But I have never been angry with God. Now maybe I just haven't been tested hard enough yet. But I don't know why I would be angry with God.

I'm not saying to you, deny your feelings, I'm just saying they're misplaced if there's anger toward God. God is not arbitrarily just throwing things at you for the purpose of watching you suffer. He's not some sort of cosmic killjoy. He's not trying to see how difficult He can make your life. But He is trying to conform you to His image.

Testing Our Faith in God

It is very easy to sing, Jesus, you're all I need. You'll never know if He's all you need until He's all you have. Real easy to sing that when I'm cruising along. Real easy when I'm on vacation, and I get a text message that said, investments are up 3.5% this month. Pretty easy when you're cruising along and everything is fine.

Now in that James passage, James chapter 1 verse 2, he says this, count it all joy when you encounter various trials. The word various there means multicolored. Like Joseph's coat of many colors, multicolored. Multicolored trials. I want you to see, this is so important, I want you to see this.

If I say to you, God's going to test you tonight, when you wake up tomorrow morning, you are going to have one of the most severe tests you can imagine. What would it be? You start to formulate that a bit. And I will go ahead, though I am not clairvoyant, I'll go ahead and I will tell you what most of your answers are. They're in this category: economic challenges, death of a loved one, health, those are the challenges.

The Test of Prosperity

You know the greatest test, one of the greatest, most difficult tests you can have is the test of prosperity and health. That's an incredible test, isn't it? Very easy to follow Him when everything else is kicked away. When you're sick, when the doctor says there's a spot on there, that's active again, we don't have anything we can do, it's very easy for me to pray. I just kind of do that. I just kind of say, you know what, we need to pray about this. It's not so easy when the deal makes. That's a trial. Count it all joy when you encounter various trials.

My friend Larry Wright, remember Larry? Here's what Larry said, I would rather suffer obediently than prosper disobediently because I know my obedient suffering, and this is the key, is as temporary as my disobedient prospering. Let me say it again, I'd rather suffer obediently than prosper disobediently, here's the key, because I know my obedient suffering is as temporary as my disobedient prospering.

No matter how bad it gets, it can only last a lifetime. D.L. Moody on his deathbed said, soon you'll read in the newspaper that I'm dead. Don't believe it for a moment. I'll be more alive than ever before.

Our True Home

Randy Alcorn writes, happiness or unhappiness on earth cultivates a hunger for heaven. By gracing us with deep satisfaction, God holds our attention. The only tragedy is when we're satisfied prematurely to settle for earth, to be content in a strange land. We are not happy here because we are not at home here. First Timothy 2:11, we're like foreigners or strangers in this land.

You'll never be completely happy on earth simply because you were not made for earth. Oh, you'll have moments of joy and catch glimpses of life. You'll know moments, even days of peace, but they simply don't compare with the happiness that lies ahead. This is not our home.

I rented this car, and in my life I've rented a lot of cars. I have never, ever taken a rental car and rotated the tires or changed the oil. I've never taken one and had it washed. You know why? I didn't mind. For many of us, this life, which is designed to be temporary, is being treated by us like it's permanent.

Understanding God's Purpose in Suffering

And the key in all of this life, the key is for you and for me to understand all this is passing and to understand that God brings into our life those moments of suffering for purpose and for reason to give us perspective. Here's what I said. I said I wanted to talk to you tonight and tomorrow about the things that will help and the things that will hurt as we begin to live this Christian life.

When I was here, either Labor Day or last year or whenever it was, we talked about Matthew chapter 5. Matthew chapter 5, verse 13, 14, 15, 16, and let me just read it to you. You all know it, many of you. You're the salt of the earth. Verse 14, you're the light

of the world. Verse 16, let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. Here's what it says. It says there should be something distinctively different about you and me. That was the point of Dave's song. My evidence of my following Christ is not when I'm here singing these marvelous songs. It's when I go out into that world.

Your Greatest Sin

Let me take 10 minutes here and talk to you about your greatest sin because I know what it is. C.S. Lewis says it's the ultimate vice. C.S. Lewis says it was through this that Lucifer became the devil. You know what it is? Pride. Pride.

One of the most difficult things that we can have in our life is a clear understanding of who we are. I have never until last year seen the show American Idol, never saw it. We babysit now on Tuesday night, American Idol is on. And over the course of the year, I watched almost all of them.

You know what? The show really wasn't very good once they got to Hollywood. All the good stuff was the first three, four, five shows. And I didn't know the whole plot. I just knew that they picked somebody and I didn't know how they got there.

The first night they're on, they're talking. They're talking to a mom and she's talking about her son who's trying out for American Idol. And she said, "He's incredible. He's unbelievable. He sounds like Elvis. When he sings, the girls just swoon. He does these wedding receptions and when he begins to sing, everybody goes crazy."

Talked to his dad and said, "I'm so proud of the boy. I don't know if you talked to his mother, but he sounds like Elvis." They talked to him and he said, "I think I'll win this competition. I don't know if you talked to my mom or talked to my dad, but I sound like Elvis."

He got up. He was the worst single singer I've ever heard in my entire life. He sounded like me. And he's all done. And of course, Simon Cowell said, "Turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off." And Paula Abdul, she said, "I like your shirt." And the other guy, "You're out of here."

And so he goes out and he comes out, have you seen the show, I assume. He kicks the door open and he comes out. "They don't know anything. They never met him. When's the last time you met him? They're idiots. They don't know anything." I'm saying, here you go. How deceived must this guy be?

Paul's Humble Example

Look at Philippians chapter 3, verse 12, will you? We'll close with this tonight. Tomorrow, I want to talk about what I think is the missing ingredient in most of our lives. And then I want to talk a little bit about the pace of the life that you and I have.

Here's what Paul writes. And again, I'll give you some context here. Paul has been talking about his own life. He's been talking about the secret, really, to understanding who we are, meaning a humble life. And then when he gets to chapter 3, he begins to talk about his own life and he's beginning to say, "If anybody can put pride in the flesh, it would be me."

And then he lists all the things he is. Circumcised on the eighth day. By that, he meant that he didn't have anything to do with that. He meant a godly family. He didn't go on the eighth day. "Hey, mom, let's go." He said, "I'm circumcised on the eighth day, the stock of Israel, tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew of Hebrews, Pharisee, zeal." But all these things that were gained to me, all this religion, all this stuff is loss.

Look at verse 12. "Not that I've already obtained it, or I'm already perfected, but I press on for that, that I might lay hold of that for which Christ has laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself as having apprehended it. But one thing I do, forgetting those things that lie behind and reaching forward to those things that lie ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of Jesus Christ."

You know what he says? He says, "I have an accurate view of myself. I'm not already there. I haven't already attained it. And I'm all about one thing. I'm all about pressing on. I'm all about staying focused. I'm all about understanding that God saved me for a reason. And this one thing I do is I press forward. I forget what lies behind."

Forgetting What Lies Behind

I've taught that before, and I think I mistaught it. I don't think he's saying, though it's part of it, I don't think he's just saying I'm not guilty and I'm not caught in the depth of my sin from before. I think he's saying, "You know what? I used to try to earn God's favor, and I forget all those things that I thought were going to please God. Those things that I did that I thought would find favor with God, I forget all those things, and I accept from Him the gift of grace and mercy that I find in Him and Him alone."

God Chooses the Weak

Guys, 1 Corinthians chapter 1, Paul talks about us. Here's what he says, verse 26, "For see your calling, brethren, there are not many wise according to the flesh, and not many mighty, and not many noble are called. God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise. He's chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame those which are mighty."

God did not bring you into His family because there was something special about you. I'm sitting next to a pastor, and we happen to be at a concert. And this was a secular concert, and people were flocked around this guy, and the guy said to me, "Gosh, if God saved him, He could really use this guy in a mighty way."

You know what? God doesn't save people like that very often. He chose the weak. Not many rich in the body of Christ, not many millionaires, not many PhDs, not many politicians. We don't ever see them in our church until October of election year.

You know what He chooses? Broken down old real estate guys like me and you. Ted Stockfish, you'll never know Ted Stockfish. He was a guy who God saved, and Ted's heart was broken over women who were battered and single moms. So he started buying duplexes and houses and remodeling and putting people in them. I came to him one day, and I said, "Fish, there's something amazing about you. God used you in an

The Power of Ordinary

He said, "Tom, you were my inspiration." I said, "Really?" He said, "Yep. When I saw that God used you, I realized God could use anybody." And he meant it. I mean, it wasn't a slam. He said, "There's absolutely nothing special about you at all, and yet I've seen God use it over and over and over and over and over and over again."

What Will Stop You

Here are the things that will stop you as you're walking with Him. When all of a sudden there's pain and suffering that comes into your life, if all of a sudden you try to read something into that and you begin to say, all of a sudden God's left you or abandoned you, that's going to stop you. Here's what's going to stop you cold: pride. When you begin to think you're something when in fact you are nothing at all.

Treasures in Earthen Vessels

Let me tie it together. One passage of scripture, and we'll close. Let's look at 2 Corinthians chapter 4. Here's what Paul writes: "We have this treasure"—He's talking about the gospel—"We have this treasure in earthen vessels."

Verse 8: "We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed. We're perplexed, not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed." Did I tell you this is the apostle Paul? Did I tell you in many cases that's just the normal Christian life? We're hard pressed in every direction, not crushed, perplexed, persecuted, struck down. How can I sustain that?

Look at verse 16: "Therefore, we don't lose heart. Though the outer man is decaying, the inner man is being renewed day by day. For our momentary light affliction"—that's life by the way—"For our momentary light affliction is producing for us a weight of glory far beyond all comparison."

The Eternal Perspective

Here's the key: "We don't look at the things that are seen, they're temporal. We look at the things that are unseen, that's eternal." Here's what can stop us as we begin to live this everyday life—all of a sudden we take ourselves and we begin to see ourselves not in an eternal sight but in a temporal sight.

When we leave here, do you understand that within days some of you are going to experience extraordinary trials and difficulties and it doesn't mean that God's changed? It doesn't mean that God doesn't love you. It doesn't mean that God's abandoned you. It means that you're human and He's right there in the midst of it. Some of the greatest moments in your Christian life are going to be in the midst of this suffering and hurt and pain.

A Powerful Witness

One of the most powerful messages that Susan has ever preached has been as people watch her in this process, knowing really that she's in the process of dying because it's not theoretical anymore. What will stop you fast? Pride.

Tomorrow we're going to talk about the missing ingredient in your life. Tomorrow we're going to talk about a couple of things that as we leave here, go back home, those things that come in, rob your joy and destroy this life.

You Are a New Creature

God loves you and wants to see you in this everyday life. He wants you to let your life shine in such a way that people see something different and distinct and unique about you and they give Him the glory. He's left you here for a reason.

You are a new—we're in 2 Corinthians 4. Just one more chapter, 2 Corinthians 5 verse 17: "If anyone's in Christ, he's a new creature and the old things have passed away." You're a new creature. I'll pick up right there tomorrow as we worship Him on Sunday morning.

Let's pray together. Father, thank You for these guys. I pray that in the midst of all of that rambling and discourse, You take those things and You apply them to our life. Maybe this is more about where I am than where they are. That in this life there will be suffering and pain and difficulty and hardship. That doesn't mean that You've abandoned us. That's normal.

In our life, there are going to be moments where this pride will break through and You call us not to be proud and arrogant but to be humble, humble before You. God, take this ordinary, everyday life. Take our time with our neighbor. And when we face the troubled times, God, does this truth that we believe translate to our feet? Is this faith working itself out in everyday life? God, thank You for grace and mercy and love. Let us be the men that You've called us to be. We thank You. We bless You. We worship You. In Jesus' name, Amen.