Memorial Day (Mon)
Tom Shrader examines the believer's role as a messenger of the gospel, drawing from 2 Corinthians 5:20 where Paul describes Christians as ambassadors for Christ. He emphasizes that while the message of the gospel never changes, believers must be thoughtful messengers who adapt their methods to reach different cultures and audiences, following Paul's example of becoming "all things to all people." Shrader stresses that lifestyle matters greatly, as the world will evaluate God based on how His children live and behave.
“You are a display case for the work of God.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: CBCC Memorial Day 2007
Recorded: 2007 at Cannon Beach Conference Center
Duration: 58 min
Themes: evangelism, witness, testimony, lifestyle, mission, service, character, ministry, sharing faith, new believer, missionary, pastor, cross cultural worker, struggling with witness, parent, mentor
Scripture: Matthew 5:16, 2 Corinthians 5:17-20, John 9, Luke 10, 1 Corinthians 9, Acts 16, Acts 17, Ephesians 5:15-16, Psalm 90:12, 2 Corinthians 11:24-26, Philippians 3:12-14, 2 Timothy 4:6-8
Theological Themes: ambassadorship, gospel message, contextualization, cultural adaptation, christian witness, great commission, incarnational ministry, biblical evangelism
Full Transcript
Well guys, thank you very much. That was special for us. It's been a great week. Thank you all for being here. It was fun to meet the Bean family. They need a little work. I can tell you, if the best they could do for that country song was the Bean Patch, they need some work. My new slogan is the Bean family is a gas. That was pretty good. I had "gives you gas," but that seemed like it was too much for me.
So it's been fun. Thank you, Janet and Jeff and the team for allowing us to be here. Obviously, thank you for coming. And I want to thank especially Chris and Lisa and Mila for coming together and just leading us in worship. What a wonderful time. I appreciate that so much.
I've been listening to Mila, and he reminds me of somebody. Here, you've got to come up here a second. Get your guitar. Now, I've been thinking. He reminds me. I'm listening to him. He reminds me of somebody. This is driving me crazy. I'm undone.
I know you play in coffee shops and stuff, and just give us like a smorgasbord. If you don't know what that is, Chris could explain it to you, I'm sure. Give us a smorgasbord of James Taylor, Tiny Bubbles. It kind of all runs together for us. So just kind of boom, boom, boom. Like we're in a coffee shop late at night. We're pretty lit up. But don't make it long.
A Professional in Our Midst
You are now a professional. I'm paid for this. Thank you, man. Thanks for enduring that. I know that was not good. I'm sure you hated that. We hated every minute of that. I can imagine this is probably the last time Landon's ever given a dollar to anything. Thank you so much for the buck.
If you don't think Landon misses his wife, he misses her so much that he wore her blouse today, just to be close to her. I know she's not back up, so I'm safe.
That was fun. It probably is good this is the end. I want to give you all a heads up. Let's do Trading My Sorrow. I want to end on kind of an upbeat, so maybe we can put the screen back down to get the words not now, but at the end, and maybe close with that.
Our Foundation Text
Matthew chapter 5 verse 16 has been the verse that we've really been looking at. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
So it's important for us now to see we got the two parts there. Let your light shine. People can see it. Make the invisible God visible. And then to glorify your Father who is in heaven, which they will not do unless you tell them to. So I think I want to close. We talked a little bit about the message and the gospel, but now I want to talk about you the messenger.
So let's pray and we'll get started here. Father, thank you for this place and this time that we can be here. Thank you that we can laugh and have fun. And yet at the same time, we pray that the words that we sang a little bit earlier today would ring true in our hearts, that we are desperate for You, that we are lost without You. God, I believe that that's the key to our personal growth. Keep us desperate people, desperate not for the world or the world system, but desperate for You and Your blessings, for Your trials and Your difficulties that You either allow or cause in our life to allow us to be the men and women You'd have us be, to make us worthy messengers. God, remind us that we are lost without You, that we live in this world as aliens, strangers, citizenship not here but in heaven. Keep that ever in front of us. We pray to You in Christ's name. Amen.
The Ministry of Reconciliation
2 Corinthians chapter 5 is where we're going to hang most of the time this morning. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creature. The old things have passed away. New things have come. Now, all these things are from God." He's talking about the love of Christ, His death, salvation. All these things are from God who reconciled us to Himself through Christ. And now, here's what we're looking at. Gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
We said in this ministry of reconciliation, there is the message. We talked about that last night. It's the gospel. Jesus died for our sin, rose again. We believe that. We come to Him in repentance and faith and we are now His kid. We're delivered, rescued, saved, redeemed. We move from darkness to light. We move from danger to safety. We move from death to life. Now, we take that message to the world.
What I want to talk about this morning, just for a few minutes, is now the messenger. Now, as you go to the world, what's the condition of your heart?
Ambassadors for Christ
So, in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 20, "therefore we are ambassadors for Christ." An ambassador is someone who represents his land, who delivers
the message of his land, who is a temporary resident in the place that he is currently sent to. He is there as a citizen who is to create a reputation of thirst for those in that land for the message that he represents. You are an ambassador. You are a witness is the term that we might use.
When we talk about a witness, we're talking about somebody who simply gives an expression to what's happened in their life. I love John chapter 9 and I think of you and me every time I read through the chapter. As Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from birth and his disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned that this man or his parents that he would be born blind?" That was the common thought of that day. If somebody had this kind of sickness that either it was a judgment on them themselves or perhaps in this case the parents.
Jesus has a wonderful answer. "It was neither this man that sinned nor his parents, but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him." I want you never to hear that verse again or read it again without thinking of yourself as being a display case for the work of God.
You Are God's Display Case
I want you when you walk into a department store and you see those wonderful display cases that are putting jewelry or some product in the best possible light. I want you to realize that you are a display case for the work of God. That is exactly what we are saying. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they see your good works.
You are God's representative. You are an ambassador. They look at you and they see Him. Your life becomes a picture of God's grace and mercy and love. People will be astounded by the fact that in this world you are different and unique. That there is love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness and faithfulness in your life. And then you say it's not me, but it's Christ in me.
Suffering as God's Megaphone
That's one of the wonderful privileges about suffering or pain. All of a sudden the world, when you suffer pain, two things begin to happen. Number one, you see God work in your own life. See these things that you would have never chosen, selected. God begins to work in you and you begin to see God. It's as though suffering or pain were His megaphone. His megaphone as He screams to you.
And then, here's the other thing suffering or pain does, it allows the world to see you respond in a supernatural way. So that people will say to you, "I don't know how you do that. I could never do that." And you say, "Neither could I, but it's Christ in me."
The Testimony of the Blind Man
This man is healed. Jesus heals him. And then there's a dialogue. They come along and they said, "Who opened your eyes?" And he said, "The man who they called Jesus made clay anoint him and gold washed." "Where is he?" "I don't know." Then the Pharisees said to him again, "How did you receive your sight?" And he said, "He applied clay to my eyes and I washed and I could see."
Now there's this big debate about God and Jesus and he certainly isn't a godly man. And they said to the blind man again, "What do you say about him?" He said, "I say he's a prophet." This starts this whole debate. So they call in the man's parents. They're saying, maybe this wasn't even the guy who was born blind. They said, "No, that's indeed him." And they start to ask them questions, but they refuse to respond. They're afraid of what the Jews might do to him. Already agreed if they confess Christ, this is a problem. They won't do it. They said, "Listen, he's of age. You go ask him."
So they come back to him a second time and they said, "Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner." And the blind man says, "He's a sinner. I don't know. One thing I do know, I was blind and now I see." And they can't let that go. "What did he do? How did he open your eyes?" The blind man said, "I told you already. Do you not listen? Why do you want to hear this again? You don't want to be his disciple too, do you?" And they revile him. He said, "You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses." And then the man has an encounter yet again with Jesus.
The Simple Power of Witness
To be a witness is simply to proclaim what God has done in your life. This is really important. It is never too early to be a witness. If you know enough to believe the gospel, you know enough to share the gospel. Now, hopefully as you walk with Him, that message begins to grow deeper and maybe more real. So when I go to junior high, high school camp in a week or so, I would deliver that message to them. It's never too early, never too soon to share the gospel. If you know enough to believe, you know enough to share.
I want to add maybe to this group, this is risky because again, it's a stereotype like tiny bubbles perhaps. It's never too late to share the gospel.
Correct Motives for Ministry
I'll give you a couple of things that I think are incumbent upon us as the messenger as we begin to live and share this gospel. Number one, you need to make sure your motives are correct. In Luke chapter 10, Jesus has sent out the disciples and they come back and here's what they say. "Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this. Do not rejoice in all these things that are going on, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven."
Our joy is not in our activity in and of itself. Our joy is in our salvation. Our motive as we begin to live this Christian life, especially as we begin this process of evangelism, is not to earn God's favor or to try to repay Him. Our debt is beyond anything we can repay. But as God begins to transform our lives, we begin to approach the world in a way not to be served but to serve, and the greatest service that we can bring to the world is the message of the gospel.
That our motivation is the messenger now. What I'm talking about now is not the message, but your heart as you begin
to leave this place and you begin to live this transformed life. Ensuring the gospel, our motive, is because we love Christ and we understand that He is the answer to the world's problems.
Here's the second thing: It matters how you live. Your lifestyle matters. Paul writes to the church at Thessalonica and he says, "I didn't come to you in word only." He talks about all the other things that accompanied him, his mindset as he began to minister there. He writes in 2 Corinthians 1, "For our proud confidence is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and godly sincerity we have conducted ourselves in the world especially toward you." It matters how we live. Colossians 4:5: "Conduct yourself with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of your opportunity." It matters how we approach this. That's why He says, "Let your good work shine in such a way that people see them."
Living Out Our Faith Through Relationship
Someone asked me last night, and it's an absolutely wonderful question, and very graciously asked, and they want to take exception. They said, "I think it's not important just that we evangelize, but there's all these other things. Feed the hungry, all those things that come with it." And that's exactly right. That's what I'm saying. That's the heart of the messenger, is that there is this lifestyle that says it matters how we live, that God cares for the hurting.
Someone had a question last night about random evangelism versus, I'll use the phrase, relational evangelism. In other words, standing down on the street corner and stopping people and saying, "Do you know Christ? Here's the four spiritual laws. Do you know Jesus has a wonderful plan for your life?" Is there anything wrong with that? No, there isn't obviously anything wrong with that. The gospel is being proclaimed.
But it seems to me as I read through, especially in Jesus' life, that relationship becomes a key platform for sharing the gospel, certainly in our life. God will give you opportunities, I've had a lot of them, where you'll come into an environment, somewhat hostile sometimes, certainly at least subtly adversarial, and you will have the responsibility to speak to people that you don't even know about a Jesus Christ that you do know, and try to share with them how He is the answer to whatever questions they have in their life, whatever their issues are.
The Power of Daily Relationships
But by and large, here's what's going to happen in life: you're going to be slugging it out every day. You're going to be at the office, or at school, or in the neighborhood, or at the club, or playing golf, or whatever it is. And there will be people with whom you have a relationship, and oftentimes they're going to say, "You know what, there's just something different and unique about you. What is it?" And you will have in that context the opportunity to make the invisible God visible, and to speak the truth boldly.
It matters what your neighbors think about you. Our church, and somebody, I think when Jeff introduced us the first night, said it's a large church. I don't really think of it that way, and it isn't, I mean, in comparison to other churches. But most churches love to think they are this, we really are this. We are a regional church, meaning people do drive a long way to come to our church. We have some doctrinal distinctives that draw people from around the valley, and we have just wonderful things that God has blessed us with, and extraordinary, so I have an amazing staff.
We've been at that church almost six years, and I've only had two guys leave in 16 years. And one left, we knew when he came, he was probably going to leave to take a senior pastorate. We were just helping him. Another guy left last July. He was my right-hand guy, and left to move to Pennsylvania. When he was loading the truck, he said, "This is a mistake." He knew it, and he was back. He came back a month ago. He was one of the greatest. Susan, I'll be on the phone talking to him, and Susan will say, "Are you talking to your girlfriend?" Because my life exponentially improved when he came back.
Creating Ministry Through Geography
Well, because we got people driving, we will have people drive, I don't know, 30 to 45 minutes to come to church. Well, that's a tough deal, so here's what we've done. We've taken the area we serve, or the region we serve, and divided it by towns. And we have set up essentially five churches within the church, put a pastor in each town, and said, "Now you go and minister to these people." And to say to these people, "Now you begin to minister to your neighbor."
So when you go to a Little League game, it really does matter if you're part of East Valley Bible Church. And if you got on an East Valley Bible Church hat, that's a good thing. Not because we want to sell hats, but other people are going to go, "Wait a minute, East Valley Bible Church, do you go to that church? I go to that church." And you begin to have this relationship, and out of relationship, here's what we're seeing. That for many people, especially the further away they are, their last contact with East Valley Bible Church is me. They've developed relationships. They've gone to a small group. They've joined an area gathering. And all of this is done by lifestyle. It matters how you live.
The Burden of Being Watched
There's a burden to that, by the way. When you go back to work on Tuesday, and they say, "How was your weekend?" And you say, "It was great." And they say, "What did you do?" And you say, "Well, I went to this Cannon Beach Conference Center." And "What is that?" And "What was that about?" And "What did you do there?" And "We sang these songs." And "What did you do?" And "What else did you do?" And you are identified with church or Bible study or anything that. People begin to watch you very closely.
And my experience is they will judge you to a standard higher. Here you go. Higher, typically, than you have for yourselves. We are so wicked. When we evaluate ourselves, we are very gracious. And evaluate ourselves
Evaluating Others vs. Ourselves
We tend to evaluate ourselves by our intentions. But we tend to evaluate other people by their behavior. We tend to give ourselves benefit of the doubt. These people are not going to cut you slack. They will look. And you don't like it. It's not fair. It doesn't remove judgment from their lives. But you will be judged.
And here's the deal. They will form an opinion of your Father based on you. And how you act. And you know that, humanly. You got your kids in the car. And your boss has invited you over to the house for a barbecue. And said, bring the family. So you're right around the corner. He lives right around the corner. You stop the car and you say, all right, listen up. I'm telling you right now. If I've got a problem with you tonight, I'm going to knock you from here to Spokane. Don't be messing around in here.
Now, why do you say that? Because you know that this guy is going to evaluate you by your kids. What's true humanly is true supernaturally. There's a lost and dying world that's going to look at you and evaluate your Father by how you act. Your lifestyle matters.
Living with Urgency and Purpose
There should also be, and I don't know how to say this, other than to just kind of get it out there, there should be a sense of urgency in your life. And purpose. Paul tells us in Ephesians 5:16, verse 15, he says, "Therefore, be careful how you walk." What does that mean now? He's talking lifestyle. "Making the most of your time because the days are evil" and days are wasting away is what he's saying. Making the most of your time.
One of the translations says, "redeeming the time." The word that's translated "time" there speaks not of an hour, a minute, but more likely of an allocated season, more likely of a lifetime. Make the most of your life.
Psalm 90, verse 12. The psalmist writes, "Teach us to number our days aright that we may gain a heart of wisdom." I teach that verse every year. I use it as an evaluation of the year. Psalm 90, verse 12: "Teach us to number our days aright that we may gain a heart of wisdom."
Now, do you know who wrote that psalm? Moses. Moses writes that psalm. And I remember when I read it, "teach us to number our days aright," I'm thinking, this is pretty incredible. But now I'm going, Moses has got 120 years. And he's speaking with urgency. And he's saying, "teach us to number our days aright." Help us understand this. The finiteness of time. There's an urgency. We don't have forever here. God left us here for a season. God gave us a job to do. And there is an urgency to that.
Gaining a Heart of Wisdom
"Teach us to number our days aright that we may gain a heart of wisdom." Wisdom isn't knowledge. Wisdom is in a sense knowledge applied. It begins to allow me to take the facts and to enumerate and put them in order. Understanding. The word that I associate with wisdom is discernment.
And the way that I define discernment - this is me now. I don't know that I've read this anywhere else. The way I define discernment is this: the ability to connect the dots. To see life as it is and gain that idea of wisdom. That heart of wisdom. And there's something about knowing that I don't have forever.
Now, you have enough time. But you don't have forever. Think with me. If God's given you something to do and God has an assignment for you, there's no way He's going to give you something to do, an assignment for you, if He doesn't give you the time. If you're saying I don't have enough time, then either A, you've added a bunch of stuff to the assignment God's given you. Or B, you've dismissed it completely. You have enough time to be the man, the woman, the student that God's called you to be. But there's an urgency to it. That's what Paul's saying. Don't waste the time.
Balancing Urgency with Peace
I battle with that. I can waste hours and hours and hours. I am proficient at wasting time. And yet I understand that God's left me here for a reason. Let me try to get this together. So there's a sense of urgency. But I'm not in a hurry. That's what he's saying. I don't have the overload.
I, by the way, I don't know how to figure this out in my own life. I don't know how busy to be and what's too busy and what's too much and what's not enough. So I'm continually trying to say to God I don't know this. I can't figure this out. Open doors, close doors. And I don't know how effective that prayer is. Open door, close doors. Give me wisdom. Who's the person that really you want me to minister to at this moment, in this time, in this way?
So that my life is filled - and I think it's from God, I hope - my life is filled with these divine interruptions. So I'll have my whole day planned. And I'll show up and there'll be somebody there and they'll say there's somebody out there that says they need to meet with you. And so often those divine interruptions, those things that never show up on a blackberry or any other berry, those divine interruptions that never are on the schedule and there was never a note or an email or a request, those divine interruptions oftentimes are the most significant moments in my life. Yet at other times I have to say you're going to have to tell him to go away. I simply can't get there right now. But there ought to be an urgency in life.
The Messenger's Responsibility
Here's the fourth thing as a messenger. Now I'll just give you a heads up here. Some of you aren't going to like this part. That's okay. The ability and the burden to communicate the message is on you. Not the listener.
Open your Bible if you would please to the book of Acts. And I want to use the Apostle Paul as what I think is a really wonderful illustration of this. I'm going to give you three things here and you'll kind of be all right with one of them and you're not going to like the second one and you're going to hate the third one. That's why we left it for the last message. We wanted to alienate you at the end of the
Understanding Your Listener
Weekend, not the beginning. We wanted to alienate you at the end of the weekend, not the beginning. Three things. Number one, you as the communicator, it's your obligation to understand your listener. Number two, you need to adapt to the culture, not the culture to you. Come back and unpack that. And number three, you need to be relevant.
Now for some of you, that's fingers on a chalkboard in there. So here's what I'm saying. You are sharing the gospel. It's important for you to understand your listener. We talked a little bit about this. To understand their experience. To be willing to, in essence, realize that certain words are going to communicate certain things.
Not that I'm afraid to say sin, I'm not. But I want to explain to people what that means. I don't want to be communicating in a way that has no relevance to the listener. And I adapt to the culture, not the culture to me. I adapt. By that I don't mean I assume the values of the culture, but I am more than willing to use the methods of the culture.
The Getting Connected Experience
And I'm relevant. We do this thing once a month at our church called Getting Connected. And it's once a month. Everybody that's new is invited to come to lunch. And there's some of our staff that meet with them and give them a satellite flyover view of East Valley Bible Church.
And then when I finish the 10:30 service, I come in. And while they are just finishing lunch, I will then dialogue with them. It's all about dialogue. They drive the whole thing. They drive it all. And it'll go an hour to an hour and a half. And there'll be questions that are always the same. I'll always get the same questions. Where did you go to seminary? That's always one of the earlier questions. Tell us about Susan. When we hear about Susan, tell us about Susan.
I will hear this. We've been church shopping. Now, I have no problem if I'm leaving a church, I want to evaluate. But I will tell you this. As you talk to people about church shopping, make sure that they get out of that as quickly as they can. When you move into a church shopping mode, you become extraordinarily critical. And once you land, it's best to take that criticism and set it aside.
The Relevance Discussion
Then there will be questions about, why do you do this? And why do you have three services? And I will deliberately use the R word, relevant. And immediately certain people begin to respond to that. And I understand, because what they've seen is, churches in such an attempt to be relevant, throw away anything that represents doctrine for the idea of being relevant, relational.
That's not what we're saying. What I try to say to people is, I want to follow the pattern that we see in the Apostle Paul. So Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 9, to the Jews I became a Jew, to those without the law, without the law, to the weak I became the weak. It matters.
Paul's Adaptability: The Timothy Example
There was a wonderful scene in Acts 16. Paul comes to Derbe and then to Leicester. There's a disciple there named Timothy. He's the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was Greek. He was well spoken of by the brethren who were in Leicester and Iconium. And Paul wants to take him with him.
So do you get the scene? Here's this young guy, Timothy. We're going to learn a bunch about him later, right? Here's this young guy, Timothy. Paul's saying, okay, there's something special about him. Resume's good, credentials good, references check out. He's got a Jewish mom and a Greek dad.
So Paul wants to take him with him. And he took him and circumcised him because he was of the Jews who were in those parts and they all knew his father was Greek. He's going to work with the Jews. He knows this is going to be the problem. Can you imagine that meeting? All right, here's the deal, Timothy. I got good news and bad news for you. The good news is you're going with us. The bad news is Maury over there has a knife and snip, snip.
Understanding Cultural Context
Okay? Because you can't go without. Why? Is he under that? No, he's not under the law, but he knows that's going to be a problem to those Jews who are listening to him and say he's uncircumcised. Which always makes me wonder, how would they really know? But that's a whole different issue. Let's give them something to talk about.
Paul's Method with the Jews
So look at chapter 17. Look at what Paul does. Okay? Paul's moving and he comes into Thessalonica, verse 2. And according to Paul's custom, he went to them and for three Sabbaths he reasoned with them from the Scriptures. Now he's dealing with the Jews.
When Paul's dealing with the Jews, that's what he would do. He would go. He would speak to them. He would reason from the Scriptures. He would talk about Jesus. He'd say, here's this Old Testament. Here's the prophecies. It spoke of a Christ, a suffering Messiah. You know all about it. He'd quote verse, chapter. He'd say, that has been fulfilled. That's Jesus.
Paul's Approach in Athens
But now he comes to Athens. Okay? He's going as far as Athens and receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as was possible. They left. So he says, send Silas and Timothy. Now Paul's hanging around in Athens. What does he do?
He's waiting for them in Athens. His spirit is being provoked within him as he was observing a city full of idols. Paul's walking around. He can't sit still. He's walking around Athens and he sees this town that's filled with idols. There were as many as 35,000 gods that were being worshipped in Athens at the time. I don't know that that's accurate at all. So it was easier to find a god than a man.
So he's reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles and the marketplace every day with whoever happened to be present, anybody that's around. And now he's invited in. He's invited in to a conclave of the greatest minds that Athens had, the Assyrians, the Stoics. And their idea was to look at new ideas. And they said, okay, Paul, you're different. What's the deal?
Look at verse 22. Men of Athens, I observed that you are very religious in all respects. While I was passing through and examining the
objects of your worship. I know you're religious. How do I know that? I'm looking at the objects of your worship. I observe and examine the objects of your worship. I also found an altar with this inscription, 'to an unknown god.' Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, I proclaim to you."
Now to me, that's the height of relevance. He understood their culture. He's walking in. He's observing. Now I don't know what we might do as we begin to relate to that, but later on, if you look in verse 28, he's quoting their own poets. He was savvy. He understood these Athenians and their culture, at least to the extent that he could connect the gospel message to their culture.
There is nothing wrong with that. And I would say the burden was on Paul, as it is on us, to be able to make that connection. We don't assume the values of our culture. Now in our culture, for example, it's a lot of songwriters. So we have songwriters. We would connect.
Understanding Our Culture Through Its Voices
Now I tend to be a little bit dated on that. I'm not up to speed on Fergie and all the new things. But I would say something like, here's Lennon. What does Lennon say? I'm talking about John now. Some of you are really stuck in the old days. Here's what Lennon says: "Imagine." That's heavy. And then you have other songwriters. Jimmy Buffett. So he looks around, evaluates life, and his conclusion is let's get drunk. That's his answer. And then Bob Dylan. What's Dylan say? I never know what Dylan's saying.
The point is, I did a message. I would not hold it up as the greatest message ever preached, but I exegeted a Madonna song. Just to say look at what she's saying here. And to a bunch of college students, I said this is what she's saying. This represents who you are and how you think and what's all around you. Let me tell you what God's answer is to these questions that she's asking.
She had a song, "I tried to be a boy. I tried to be a girl. I tried to be rich." She's saying I tried all these things. What's that saying? And you go right in. You say look at 3,000 years ago Solomon dealt with this. 3,000 years ago Solomon wrote a book called Ecclesiastes. The word means one who assembled the facts. Solomon sat down toward the end of his life and said I tried all of this.
Solomon's Ancient Wisdom for Modern Questions
And Solomon lists in there all the things he did. And the way that I like to say it is I tried all of this. So he lists all these things. Second verse, first chapter: "meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless." But he has a key phrase in there. What's the key phrase? "Under the sun."
So he says listen, I amassed a fortune, silver, gold. I tried the greatest wines. I tried to be philanthropic and build these public projects. I built elaborate real estate. I did the arts, 700 wives—the original 700 club—700 wives and 300 concubines. Pat Robertson stole that idea. I'm just teasing. But Solomon said, think about it, because some guys are saying sex, that's basically three gals a day for the whole year and their whole purpose is to put a smile on Solomon's face. And he said I tried all those things and here's what's: fear God and keep His commandments.
Solomon figured all this out way before Madonna or Trump or any of these other people. For you to be relevant is not a scary thing. Don't be afraid of that. For you to assume the values of the culture, not good. But for you to understand the medium, I am absolutely convinced that if Paul were around today he'd be on King if he had the chance, he'd be on Oprah, he'd be using the web. I mean if he's going to be to the Jew a Jew and to the Gentile a Gentile and to the weak the weak, I guarantee he's going to use that. Never compromising the message but understanding that the methods do matter.
Methods Change, Message Remains
Susan and I were watching a couple of weeks ago, when I say watching, I mean just flipping through and one of the channels that I was watching was a couple of years ago, 21 years ago. And so Cliff Barrows is there looking great. I mean he's a great guy. Cliff Barrows is there and he said I just want you to welcome Evie. And Evie had these dimples, she's hiding money in those dimples in there and her husband, aren't they like Swedish or something, and he's singing and there's a staff that's going to lift them right out of them.
There's nothing wrong with that and God used that to bring people to saving knowledge of who He is. But if you did it today, they would say that's just goofy. It would make no sense to try to go out unless you were trying to reach that culture, that person. If you were at Sun City, I'm not making a judgment here, but I'm saying if you were at Sun City you might use something like that. But generally speaking, no.
Generally speaking, again as I look at the McNeils, generally speaking I think, and I asked the question of Heather yesterday, I think if her mother came back today I think she'd probably have a little bit of, she'd be astounded maybe with the informality that we have. She'd say wear shorts. I'm just making a pitch for that. I just, I think she'd say I get it. I get why they wear, I get that. She's the one who had ashtrays all over the joint because she said I want people who aren't Christians to come here and often times they smoke and I don't want smoking to be the issue. I want Jesus to be the issue but not compromise the values.
Four Gospels, Four Audiences
Did you ever wonder why four gospels? If all God wanted to do was just get us to the message why does He do this? Each one of these gospels has a very distinct purpose. Matthew is writing primarily to a Jewish audience. One commentator said Matthew speaking of the gospel is written by a Jew, about a Jew, to Jews. So Matthew gets chapter 1 verse 1 and he's talking about genealogy. There would be no value doing that to the Greek. I don't know genealogy, I don't care, what is this? And he unpacks it. Forty Old Testament passages are quoted in the gospel of Matthew. Frequently, Matthew will make a statement like this,
Matthew 1:22 records that Christ was born of a virgin that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Old Testament, and Matthew is trying to bridge that and say all that Old Testament pointed to Christ. The Old Testament matters to them. He's the fulfillment of that.
Mark comes along. Mark's writing to this generally Roman audience likely, and his whole theme is the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and so he presents Christ as a servant. When he talks about things like they killed the Passover lamb, Matthew would never say that because the minute he said that they go, "Well we know what that is." When Mark talks about the Mount of Olives he says it's opposite the temple. All the Jews would know that; there would be no point. Mark's just wasting ink if he's writing to the Jews.
Luke comes along, the only Gentile writer we have in the whole scripture, the physician. Luke will say it was his right hand—the precision of the historian physician. William Barclay writes this speaking of Luke: Here's a man who is writing with care and who wants to be as accurate as is possible for him.
John comes along. John says I'm going to go way before genealogy. "In the beginning was the word. The word was with God. The word was God." And John's the only one of the people—I'm writing this. John chapter 20 verse 30: "And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, not written in this book, but these were written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ the son of God and that in believing in Him you might have eternal life." The whole point of John's gospel was that you would believe. That's why when somebody asks why we have four gospels—because there are different groups of people.
Don't Fear Relevant Ministry
There is nothing—please, and I plead with you—don't be afraid of the word relevant or culture. Are there dangers to it? Yeah. So don't do the dangerous things. Don't assume the values of the culture. But the method is fine.
Be Prepared to Pay a Price
We had a couple more things real quickly and then we'll get you out, get you to lunch and you all can head home. Be prepared to pay a price for this. There is a price that's associated with living for Christ. It may not be the price, for example, that Paul had to pay.
Paul gives a little bit of summary of the price he paid in verse 24: "Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes, three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned." I always stop there to point how the words change in culture. Stoned in that day meant capital punishment. "Three times I was shipwrecked, a day and a night I've spent in the deep. I've been on frequent journeys, and dangers from rivers, and dangers from robbers, and dangers from my countrymen, and dangers from the Gentiles, and dangers in the city, and dangers in the wilderness, and dangers in the sea, and dangers among false brethren."
There's dangers of living for Christ. You may not face any of these. Jesus says, "Which one of you when he wants to build a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?" He's saying to you that to follow Christ has an associated cost with it.
Don't Grow Weary
It's important for you to not grow weary. I remember I had not been a Christian very long and I remember reading Paul's admonition: "Don't grow weary of doing well." And I thought that's a strange thing to say. Why would you grow weary of this? I'll tell you why. Because it's hard.
This is the hardest thing I've ever done. I've done a lot of business stuff—that's my background. Played sports when I was a kid. I actually had a little bit of a limited career. I went out for basketball but they already had one. But I played a lot of baseball, a lot of sports, did a lot of business. I've done a lot of things. This is the most difficult thing I've ever done.
Business is for me fifteen thousand times easier than church. And I think the reason is all those are battles, but this is—the essence is a spiritual battle. And Satan, although I'm not egotistical enough to think that Satan would mess around with me—he's got bigger fish to fry than me—but maybe his demons would. And Satan's always trying to wedge something in, whether it's between Susan and me or the elders and me.
Press On Toward the Goal
Paul kind of nets it out. He said this speaking of his own life. He's talking about knowing Christ and the power of Christ. He's talking about his former life. He said this: "Not that I've already obtained it" (Philippians 3:12) "or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet. One thing I do: I forget what lies behind and I reach forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
You need to maintain your determination. You need to continue. How do you continue? You continue by keeping an eternal perspective.
Keeping an Eternal Perspective
At the end of his life, Paul writes this: "I'm already being poured out as a drink offering, the time for my departure has come" (2 Timothy 4:6). He's going to die. He senses it. "I fought the good fight, I finished the course, I've kept the faith. In the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous judge will award me on that day." So at this point I'm going, "Good for you Paul, rah rah rah." "Not only me, but also to all who have loved His appearing."
Here is the way that I stay motivated and focused. Here's the way that as I battle becoming immersed in culture but not assuming or assimilating the culture—I try to cultivate a healthy desire for heaven. I love this. Max Lucado from his book "When God Whispers Your Name": "Unhappiness on earth cultivates a desire for heaven. Happiness on earth cultivates a hunger for heaven by gracing us with deep dissatisfaction. God holds our attention. The only tragedy then is when we are satisfied prematurely, to settle for earth, to
Finding Home in a Strange Land
We are not to be content in a strange land, to intermarry with the Babylonians, to forget Jerusalem. Let this encourage you as we get ready to depart: we are not happy here because we are not at home here. We are not happy here because we're not supposed to be happy here. We are like foreigners and strangers in this world.
You will never be completely happy on earth simply because you were not made for earth. Oh, you'll have moments of joy. You will catch glimpses of light. You will have moments, even days of peace, but they simply do not compare with the happiness that lies ahead.
On his deathbed, D.L. Moody reportedly said, "Soon you will read in the newspaper that I am dead. Don't believe it for a moment. I will be more alive than ever before."
Understanding Our Purpose
When I understand that truth—when I understand that God did not create me to be at home here, that I'm a sojourner, I'm an ambassador moving through with an extraordinary task and responsibility and privilege to preach the gospel, to make the invisible God visible, and to speak the truth boldly—everything changes.
I don't live in some Pollyanna world. I know the world is difficult. I know the life you live is hard. I got it. I understand it. I've been at this over twenty years, and I've met not necessarily you, but people like you all over, primarily out west. I don't do much east. I mean people who were hurting. I mean marriages that have fallen apart, businesses that are destroyed. I've met lives where there aren't any problems, which is the biggest problem, because they got no problems and they're still miserable and they can't figure out why.
The Gospel Answer
The answer in every situation is the gospel. We come back to the gospel again. That's why Paul said, "I preach Christ and Christ crucified." God saved you. Again, I started with the assumption that we're all Christians. I'm sure that's not true. I don't know which one of you aren't. If I did, I'd single you out and embarrass you. No, I'm teasing. But my assumption is most of you are Christians.
God saved you in an incredible transaction. You traded your sin and guilt for His righteousness. Now that's a good deal. And you take your sorrow and your pain and all that goes with it, and you trade it. You exchange it for His righteousness.
Does that mean life is easy? Not necessarily. But it means life has a purpose and a reason. And the reason is for you and I to live transformed lives: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, love the unlovable. In the midst of that, the motivation is not to earn heaven. We are not driven by the idea of earning heaven or pleasing God or satisfying His wrath. Christ did that. We're here to glorify Him.
We're trading this life for the next. We're trading our sorrow. We'll sing about it in a minute.
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Let's pray. Father, thank You for the wonderful truths that we find in Your gospel message, that we can be here in this wonderful place to hear Your word. What a privilege that is.
God, as we now close our time together, we pray that You would use all that we've said and all that we've done. That You would use it all for Your honor and Your glory. God, I pray that as we leave this place and go back into the world, that it would be with lives that are transformed with meaning and purpose and direction.
Father, as we've said a thousand times, it seems like already: thank You. Thank You for Cannon Beach and all this. More than any of that, thank You for the gospel message that transforms our life. God, we have traded our pain, our sorrow, our suffering for Christ's righteousness. Grill that in our minds and hearts. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.