Lets Get On The Same Page
Tom Shrader introduces a study of 2 Timothy by examining the book of Ecclesiastes, where Solomon demonstrates that life 'under the sun' (apart from God) is utterly meaningless despite pursuing pleasure, wealth, wisdom, and achievement. Though everything may feel out of our control, it remains firmly in God's control, and He gives meaning and joy to those who fear Him and keep His commandments.
“Life bankrupts those who invest in it.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: CBCC August 2008
Recorded: 2008 at Cannon Beach Conference Center
Duration: 39 min
Themes: meaning, purpose, control, fear, wisdom, joy, commandments, vanity, searching for purpose, feeling empty, questioning meaning, seeking direction, mature believer, bible teacher, life transitions, spiritual confusion
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 1:1-3, Ecclesiastes 1:2, Ecclesiastes 1:4-11, Ecclesiastes 1:12-18, Ecclesiastes 2:1, Ecclesiastes 2:15, Ecclesiastes 2:24, Ecclesiastes 3:12-13, Ecclesiastes 4, Ecclesiastes 5:10-17, Ecclesiastes 7:14, Ecclesiastes 12:8, Ecclesiastes 12:13, 2 Corinthians 5, Isaiah 45:6
Theological Themes: sovereignty, divine control, ecclesiastes, biblical wisdom, fear of god, reverence, meaninglessness, providence
Full Transcript
Good evening, everybody. How are you? Great. I didn't expect that. I'm glad that you are here, and we are going to have a great week. As Jeff said, my name is Tom, and some of you I know. We've already had a chance to reconnect with some old friends and make some new friends, and we're looking forward to it. As Jeff said, we're here for half a week, so we're here through Tuesday night. When I say we, it is me and my wife Susan. Susan's with me, so we're happy to be here.
I'm not sure I fully comprehend this. We said, "here's Tom," and there was silence. I said, "here's Susan," and you applaud. I'm not sure what's going on. Anyway, we are glad to be with you. We came in this afternoon. We're actually on vacation, and we're taking five weeks off just traveling and hanging out and doing nothing. We came off a vacation to come here because even working here is like a vacation. We love it here.
We're from Arizona, and it's hot down there. They keep saying dry heat, and I have yet to understand if that makes any difference. 110 is 110, and that's what we've learned. I'm actually from Iowa originally, and there are almost always people around. Any Iowa connections at all here? Just a few. Where are you from? That's Nebraska, really. Where were you from? I saw a hand. Where are you from? You're just pretending to be cool. Well, I'm from Iowa, so like Mila, we're really laid back. Well, not really.
What We're Going to Study
Let me tell you what we're going to do. I've got 30 minutes here tonight, and we have seven sessions together, and the other six are a little bit longer. We'll do about 45 minutes in those. We're going to study a flyover of the book of 2 Timothy, so that's what we're going to look at in session two through seven. I want to make sure we are all on the same page, and that means really understanding God and who He is and who we are and who God says we are.
This year I have probably done a little bit more. I did a men's conference, which I hadn't done in a long time. I did a family camp, which I haven't done in a long time. I don't know about up here. I can't speak to Oregon or Washington, but I'm talking to people, and I have two things.
My Background
Jeff mentioned a little bit, explaining to people who you are. I'm from a commercial real estate background, and so I moved down to Phoenix in 1975 and ended up after a few years of wandering around aimlessly going into commercial real estate and spent some time in there. It was in the midst of that that God changed my life, and what He put in my heart almost immediately was a desire to study His Word. I wish I was a little more spiritual in the sense that these people just study for the sake of study. I study for the sake of being able to share it and to see what it does in my life. That's my passion, and I can't play any instruments. To be absolutely honest, I can't do hardly anything but talk, so that's what I do.
I realize, too, a friend of mine said - there's a mentor. I have a mentor by the name of Larry Wright. Larry's been, outside of my family, the most influential person my whole life. Early on, I said, "I want to teach." He said, "Can I give you a hint, a helpful hint?" I said, "That would be great." So I got my paper and my pen, and I'm ready. He said, "If you're going to speak," I said yes. He said, "It would be good to have something to say." I said, "Well, I'm not sure I need to write that down." And he said, "No, I think you should, because not everybody who gets up to speak has something to say."
I've learned that I have some interesting opinions, but people don't tend to be interested in them. But you are interested in what God says and how it relates to our life. And that's been my passion. So I teach in a church. I'm part of a group that started a church amazingly 17 years ago now. I've been working the last year and a half to transition my role there. I still teach, but I got out of any sort of other leadership positions to speak of. I'm really focusing on teaching.
Through the week, I have a ministry in the marketplace. So three times during the week, I teach in a setting that's different than a church, though they're now all in churches, which is amazing. To take what we consider the timeless Word of God and put it in a context we can understand that relates to today. That's real easy to do. I'm going to show that to you in just a second. I want to take a book that's almost 3,000 years old, and I want you to see how fresh it is for us here today.
Current Economic Climate
I got a lot of friends that are still in the real estate business. Over the last probably four or five months, I got a lot of phone calls and a lot of breakfasts and a lot of coffees talking to these guys. It started by saying, "Hey, there's a little hiccup." And now they're saying, "This is really getting ugly." That's what I'm hearing. You guys may be immune to it up here, but that's what I'm hearing down there a lot.
I think we found the tipping point in gas price. It's $4. Our food cost in Phoenix is up about 22%. Job losses are starting to really increase. The jobs that are available are paying maybe 70% of what they used to pay. Those that are remaining in their jobs are hearing from the bosses, "You know what, we used to have five people that are going to do this job. We're now going to do it with three. So we're going to keep you. Here's a deal. We're not going to cut your salary, but we're going to increase your workload."
I'm seeing that everywhere. So frustration levels are very high. Anxiety, very, very high. Lots of questions, lots of concerns. Well, God in His sovereignty has had me teaching over the last however many weeks from the book of Ecclesiastes. On June 22nd, it's a Sunday. I'm sitting at my desk Sunday morning.
At 4:34 AM last Sunday morning, I was getting ready for church. Sunday is a big day for me, so I get in there really early. And right in the middle of preparing this lesson, MSNBC posted an article on their website with this headline. It was like God saying, "Tom, this lesson really needs a good illustration. Here it is."
Here's the headline: "Is Everything Spinning Out of Control?" Dateline Washington. The article went on: "Midwest levies are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are falling. Airfares, college tuition, healthcare are unaffordable. Wars rage out of control with no end in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the war against terrorism. The can-do bootstrap approach embedded in the American psyche is under assault. Eroding is a sense of powerlessness that's chipped away at the country's sturdy conviction that destiny can be commanded with sheer courage and perseverance."
The sense of helplessness is even reflected in this year's presidential election. Each contender offers a sense of order and hope. Republican John McCain promises an experienced hand in a frightening time. Democrat Barack Obama promises bright and shiny change. Even so, a battered public seems discouraged by the onslaught of dispiriting things.
An Associated Press poll says a barrel-scraping 17% of people surveyed believe the country is moving in the right direction. An ABC poll puts the number at 14%. A retired corporate manager in Rochester, Minnesota says this: "It's pretty scary. People are thinking things are going to get better and they haven't. And then you go and hide in your basement because tornadoes are coming through. If you think about things, you have very little power to make it change."
The Great Question of Our Time
The article closed with this paragraph: "Why the vulnerability? After all, it's the 21st century, not a more primitive past when little in life was assured. Surely people know how to fix problems now. Maybe, and just maybe, the 21st century will be about this: a great unraveling of some things long taken for granted."
Really an interesting article. And really interesting if you put it against the backdrop of what God says in His Word, but specifically in the book of Ecclesiastes. I love the question: "Is everything spinning out of control?" It feels like that sometimes, doesn't it?
It really doesn't even matter what's happening in the rest of the world if you've got particular things going on in your life. If gas prices go to a buck and a half and unemployment drops to essentially full employment and you get a raise and everything is going well, but in the midst of this you've got a problem relationally, physically, emotionally, spiritually—there's this sense sometimes that everything's spinning out of control.
That's a wonderful question. That's the question we're going to start with tonight and answer for you. Is everything spinning out of control? Here's the answer: Yes and no. Yes, it's spinning out of your control. No, it's not out of God's control. That's an important thing for us to be able to get our arms around.
Life Has a Way of Humbling Us
One of the things I've learned over the last 15, 16, 17 years is there are people who hurt—just real live hurt. I had a kid that stopped me the other day and we were talking, and I just wanted to throw up on his shoes. He was so arrogant and so cocky and probably so much like me in the old days.
I thought, you know what needs to happen? This kid just hasn't lived at all. Because once you experience life over a period of time, inevitably you run into something. You bump up against it and you go, "You know what, I can't get through this." I just can't stand those big conferences where "if you can conceive it and you can dream it, you can achieve it." That's just a crock. That's not true. "You can be whatever you want to be." That's not true. I've dreamed for years about dunking. It isn't going to happen.
I'm a big sports fan. We are coming into the best time of the year: football season. This is the time of the year. Baseball—no thank you, I'm sleeping fine. Basketball—I don't care. Football—I care. I happen to be a college football guy simply because Sunday is not a convenient day for me. But football, it's that time of year. And you listen to all this: "We just believed in ourselves." What has that done?
God Will Humble Our Self-Reliance
God will eventually, if you just believe in yourself, bring you to a crucial point where you're going to understand you can believe in yourself all you want, but ultimately you're going to come up short. You're going to hit something bigger than you. Some obstacle. Something you can't control. Is everything spinning out of control? It's out of your control. But it's not out of God's control.
When I was a little boy, there was a lady I saw for the first time on Ed Sullivan. I have no idea why I just remember her singing. Her name was Mahalia Jackson. She was singing, "He's got the whole world in His hands. He's got you and me, brother, in His hands. He's got the little bitty baby in His hands. He's got the whole world in His hands."
I didn't understand that. I didn't understand what it meant. But I'll tell you what I get now: for those of us who are followers of Christ, we are in His hands. Though it feels at times like things are just spinning out of control, they're beyond our control, but they're not beyond His control.
Getting on the Same Page
It's important for us to get on the same page as we go through our series together. When we look at the book of Ecclesiastes, written 3,000 years ago, it answers some amazing questions. Let me give you a list of them: Where is God when bad things happen? How can I keep from being bitter toward
God? How do I deal with the uncertainty of life? What do I do when I'm not sure what God wants me to do? When bad things happen, is it because I don't have enough faith? Here's a great question that Solomon answers. Is it okay for Christians to have fun? Solomon doesn't pull any punches.
If you have a Bible, you are more than welcome to open them to the book of Ecclesiastes, though it may be a bit of a struggle to follow along, because we're going to kind of fly over this book. But I think it's a perfect introduction to where I want to go when we get to 2 Timothy.
Solomon's Unique Position
Let me tell you a little bit about Solomon. Solomon is absolutely unique. God tells us in His word that He said to Solomon, "Solomon, I'm going to give you whatever you want." Solomon says, "Give me wisdom." God says, "Okay, I'm going to give you that. But because you didn't ask for yourself, and because you didn't ask for the lives of your enemies, I'm going to give you all sorts of stuff way beyond this." Solomon is unique among all people that have ever lived. In every way, Solomon is unique and becomes for us this iconic person.
Solomon sets out to try to find meaning in life. Solomon sets out in an unrestricted way. This is really important. You and I can say, well, we're going to go try to find out what life is all about, just like Solomon did. Here's the difference. We all have limits. We have financial limits or moral limits or legal limits.
Solomon's making the laws, he's setting the tone, and he's got all the resources. He's king. He's got all the resources you can imagine. What the book of Ecclesiastes is is Solomon saying, "I'm going to try to find the meaning to life. And I'm going to look and look and look and look and look. I'm going down every road." So that Solomon, if he was here today talking to you, and you said, "I'm going to go find meaning in X," Solomon would say to you, "Been there, done that." It doesn't matter what it is.
The Conclusion First
He begins this book with his report. He's going to talk about his journey. It's a 12-chapter book. He talks about, essentially, in chapter right after the very introduction in chapter 1, through almost the end of chapter 12, he talks about his journey. He talks about these amazing discoveries. But he always comes back to the same thing.
He begins the book by giving you the conclusion. I love that. He doesn't take you through all the stuff. He says, "Let me tell you up front. Here's my conclusion." Look at it. Ecclesiastes 1:1: "Here are the words of the preacher, the son of David, the king of Jerusalem." And again, we believe that's Solomon.
Here he says, here it is: "Vanity of vanities, says the preacher. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. What advantage does a man have in all his work which he does under the sun?"
Key Words to Understand
Now, there's a key word and a key phrase, if you're going to understand the book of Ecclesiastes. The word is vanity. It means meaningless, empty. It's temporary. It's like a vapor. Poof! That's what he's saying. Poof! I love doing that. He said, that's what it is. It's all poof. It's all puff. It's all vanity. It's all the vanities. I've looked at it all. We're going to have to understand what he says. I looked at it all. I studied it all. Poof!
And then the phrase is "under the sun." And "under the sun" means this: life apart from God. Seven times in this book, Solomon says, "Go, eat, drink, be merry, have fun." It just doesn't seem to go with the rest of the book. It's a book that is used by atheists, secular humanists. It's a tough book.
A Difficult Book to Understand
When I was teaching it, Susan said a couple times, which I thought was complimentary, "You know, I've read and read and read, and I didn't get this out of here." And I've got to tell you, I don't with a casual reading. I had to really, really, really study hard. But when you work all your way through it, you get it down to just a really simple little idea.
Tommy Nelson, in his commentary on this book, he summarized it. Here's his summary of the book of Ecclesiastes. I love this: "Materially speaking, life is short and then you die. You'll lose everything you own to the next generation. Your children will rent your house, purge your possessions, spend your inheritance. Ultimately, you'll be a distant memory at the Thanksgiving meal. Now, go get them, tiger."
That's this book. I mean, by the third week, I said to the ushers, as people are coming in, "Go through their purses, go through their wallets, take all sharp objects. Don't let them come in anymore" because it's just week after week after week after week after week of them saying this. And I found myself swept away in how much I love the book. It's all meaningless. You can't find meaning and happiness in this world.
Solomon's Demonstrations
Let me take this like the first few chapters. My book, I brought my old Bible, the first Bible I ever had. So it's a Ryrie study Bible. And Ryrie has broken this first section into the idea of demonstrating his thesis. So here it is. It's the futility of, and then he's got this.
Chapter 1 verses 4 through 11: It's the futility of the cycles of life. You see it in verse 4: "A generation comes, a generation goes, the earth remains forever." He says, it doesn't matter. You just come, live, die, go. It doesn't matter. That haystack rock couldn't care less about you. You're going to be gone. Spit, ashes, poof! And all haystack rock's still going to be there. A bunch of birds on it. That's what he says.
And then he says, in chapter 1 verses 12 through 18, he said there's the futility of wisdom. He says in verse 13: "I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that's been done under the sun. It's grievous, a task which God has given me to the sons of men and will be afflicted with." And here's what he says, you're never going to understand this stuff. It's never going to make sense to you. You're never going to get a look at life under the sun, there's the phrase now, and make sense of it.
In chapter 2, in verse 11 verses, he talks about the pursuit of pleasure and wealth.
Solomon's Pursuit of Everything
Come now, I'll test you with pleasure, so enjoy yourself. And behold, it too was futile. He said, I denied myself nothing. And he talks about building houses. Now, Solomon built the temple, right? Big project. Solomon builds the temple. It took him twice as long to build his house as the temple.
This is a huge project. And you will see, he's got plants and groves in the middle of this desert. And he pursues unparalleled wealth. Gold and silver beyond anything that anybody, including Bill Gates, has ever had. And then he pursues materialism.
Look at chapter 2, verse 15: "Then I said to myself, as the fate of the fool will also befall me, why then have I been extremely wise? This is vanity. For there's no lasting remembrance of the wise man and the fool, inasmuch as the days are coming, all will be forgotten. And how will the wise man and the fool alike die?" So I hated life.
The Modern Wine Culture and Solomon's Experience
He says, I'm pursuing everything here. Pleasure. Wine. He talks about wine. Fine wine. Wine's a thing now, I guess. By our house, there's a little convenience store. It's a gas station, really. But it has this convenience market in it, and it has a wine cellar in it. You can go buy wine in it.
It's like everywhere I go, all their cellars... The other day, I ordered a chili dog, and the guy said, "We have a cabernet that would be wonderful." I mean, it's like everywhere you go, they're pumping wine at me. And Solomon's saying, I didn't get blasted out of my mind. I kept it under control. I think I would find it there.
Then he talks about sex, and he talks about a thousand women. He had a thousand women at his disposal that were there only to please him physically. I think it was 700 wives and 300 concubines. The way I remember that is it was the original 700 club. That's how I remember those 700 wives.
The Cycle of Life
So he's got wives. He's got everything. There's no end to this. We could just keep going. He goes through this whole thing, and then he says in chapter 3, he said, "You know, I know there'll be a group someday that won't be able to write lyrics, so I'll write it for them. There's a thing. There's a season. Turn, turn, turn." And so he writes this, and he goes, "Listen, here's the cycle. It's just the cycle of life."
I don't like doing weddings. I do a few of them. I just did the best wedding that I've done in a long time. The bride was a... Her dad played in the NFL, and she was a real jock. And she just was this really cool gal, and she married a guy who's in Southern California training to be a boxer. So he's like, I don't know, 6'4", 230, and she's this big athlete.
And they so wanted to be married. They were so excited about getting married. He and I are back in the back waiting to come out, and he's just like this. And I said, "Hey, man. Hit a wall or something. You keep looking at me. I mean, you're going to kill me." And we get out, and we're standing up there waiting, and he's so nervous, and she comes out, and he said, "Oh, my gosh. Look how beautiful she is." And they come down, and he is crying. I've never seen any... She's just shaking.
Funerals and Life's Reality
I was glad I did the wedding, but I enjoy the funerals more. Because the funeral's like, you know, the wedding, it's the bride's special day, blah, blah, blah. The funeral, there's nobody's day. Okay? He's dead. And I'm doing... We're at the graveside. I don't do many gravesides. I usually do the church, and somebody does the graveside.
But I'm at the graveside, and the casket is over the hole, and there they are. And I'm telling you, that is a sobering moment. And I'm there, and they decide, I don't know why they decided, "We're going to stand there while they lower the casket." And as they're lowering the casket, next to me is the guy's daughter and his two-week-old grandbaby. And I thought of Ecclesiastes 3. Here's the season. And it's just a matter of time before the grandbaby's there, and it has grandbabies, and it doesn't matter. It's the cycle of life.
Life's Unfairness and Money's Futility
He talks about wisdom. He talks about all sorts of things. In chapter 4, he talks about oppression. He talks really about how unfair life is. There's these awful, wicked people, and they live to be an old age. And there's these young, godly people, and they die in their youth.
Chapter 5, I will tell you this. Chapter 5, verse 10 through 17. You ought to be going to those again, and again, and again, and again, and again. Here's what he says. "Whoever loves money will never be satisfied with money. Whoever loves abundance with their income, this is vanity. When good things increase, those who consume them increase."
I love verse 12: "The sleep of the worker is pleasant, whether he eats much or little, but the full stomach of the rich man doesn't allow him to sleep." You know what he's saying is? The guy with the most money seems to sleep to last. The hourly guy, he just puts in his day, he goes home, gets a big burrito and a big gulp, watches "Everybody Loves Raymond," scratches himself and sleeps like a rock. But the guy who's had the steak and the cabernet, he's up all night thinking, "Did I get the insurance? Did I buy it? Did I get the material in to make the product?" And then he says, it doesn't matter anyway. Whether you're the sleeping guy or the awake guy, you're all going to die anyhow.
The Answer Hidden in the Text
This book is relentless. I love it. And he doesn't let you away from it. Yet, seven times, go back and look at chapter 2. We'll do this really quickly. Look at chapter 2, verse 24: "There's nothing better for a man than to eat and drink and tell himself that his labor is good."
The same idea is in chapter 3, verse 12: "I know that there's nothing better for them than to rejoice and do good in one's lifetime. Moreover, that every man eats and drinks and sees good in his labor." Here's the answer. Do you see it in verse 13 of chapter 3? "That's a gift from God."
The Book's Framework
Now, let me just close this. Chapter 1, verse 2: "Vanity of vanities." Chapter 12. Here's the book end. We're all the way now at the end of the book. Chapter 12, verse 8: "Vanity
Life Bankrupts Those Who Invest in It
"Vanity of vanities," says the preacher, "all is vanity." And yet, this is a book about hope. Because what Solomon is saying is, under the sun, apart from God, life has no meaning. Yet, God wants us to enjoy life. I think God wants us to have fun. God has put these things at our disposal for us to enjoy and to use. He's given us these blessings in our life so we can have fun.
Not in some frivolous way. God is not concerned about our happiness. God is concerned about our relationship with Him. He's concerned about joy. Not happiness. That's what the world is after—the world's after happiness. And what Solomon is saying is, happiness is not a worthy goal. You're never going to find it. And I can tell you, because I've tried.
Wherever you look, haven't you had those moments in your life? Sure you have. Where you thought, "if I just..." and then you fill in the blank. If I just get that scholarship. If I just make that team. If I just make All-State. Oh, if I could just get her to go out with me. Oh, if I could get her to go steady with me. Oh, if I could get her to marry me. Oh, if I could get her to leave. I mean, it's that cycle. It just goes on and on and on.
If I just get it, I'll be happy. If I get it, I'll be happy. And even as Christians, we fall into that same thing. If I can just get that, I'll be happy. And God says, happiness isn't worthy of you. I want to be concerned about your joy.
Here's the message of this book: life bankrupts those who invest in it. That's such a powerful thought. Life bankrupts those who invest in it. Jeff mentioned that some of you are college graduates or college students meeting at Fireside or wherever you're meeting. Let me just tell you something: if you can get this now, the earlier you get this, the better off you are. If you invest in this world, you'll be bankrupt. Even if you're sitting in a 10,000 square foot house, you'll be bankrupt and miserable.
The Answer: Fear God and Keep His Commandments
Where's the answer? Well, chapter 12, here's what he says, verse 13: "In conclusion, when all has been heard, now he says, I've heard everything. Fear God and keep His commandments, and this applies to everything. For God will bring every act to judgment and everything which is hidden, whether it's good or whether it's evil."
God says over and over again to these people, listen, I understand how unfair life looks, and here's where it all balances out. Not in death, but in judgment. You're all going to die, right? Statistics on death are impressive: one out of one people die. You're going to die. And God says, it's not death that's the great equalizer—it's judgment.
Because everything is not spinning out of control. I understand how it looks, God says. It looks screwed up, doesn't it? It looks really screwed up. It just doesn't seem like that guy should prosper. This doesn't seem right. This doesn't seem fair. This doesn't seem appropriate. That's our cry, isn't it? What about me? What about my agenda? What about my protection? Instinctively, we cry that.
God Made Both Prosperity and Adversity
There's a wonderful little secret talked about in chapter 7. Look at chapter 7, verse 14. It's really wonderful, helpful advice. Chapter 7, verse 14: "In the day of prosperity, be happy. In the day of adversity, consider this: God made one as well as the other."
Isaiah chapter 45, verse 6: "I am the Lord, there's no other, the one forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity."
A.W. Tozer says this—and if this was true 60 years ago, it's really true today—he said, here's our problem: Our theology does not ascend high enough or descend low enough. It does not ascend high enough that allows God to be God, or descend low enough to allow us to be who God says we really are, which is a sinful, helpless, hopeless people apart from Him.
God Is Sovereign
This whole book of Ecclesiastes, as I read through it over and over again, here's what I kept coming back to: God is sovereign. He is the great God. Who am I, the clay, to question the potter? I cannot explain everything that comes into my life. And you know what? I don't need to. If I'm supposed to understand it, He'll tell me. If not, I don't need to know. I don't need or deserve any explanation.
I hear—this makes me sick—I will hear people say, "When I get to heaven, I'm going to ask..." When you get to heaven, you're going to shut up and praise Him. You're not going to ask Him, "Where were You on September 11th?" Are you nuts? He's God. He's awesome. He's holy. He's the I Am. He's everything. I'm nothing. I mean, that's what this book is all about.
This came to me this year. I was just reading, and I realized this: Here's the story of creation and sin. This is the story of God fixing it. It's amazing! And we arrogantly, even as Christians, come in with all this "Why? Why? Why?"
We Don't Need to Figure Everything Out
I am not a bright, intelligent, academically strong person. And I have a curious enough mind, but you know what? I just don't burn a bunch of brain cells trying to figure out stuff that I don't know the answer to. I have all these friends, honestly, a few years ago, they're trying to figure out when Jesus is coming again. I said, "Boys, He told you nobody knows the day or the hour. I mean, let's go watch Seinfeld or something important." I can't understand why you want to pursue this.
I don't understand why babies die. I don't understand it. I got a broad sense of the answer, which is sin. I don't understand why you have pain and hardship in your life. I don't understand why you get cancer. I don't understand why these great, wonderful people seem to die and have endless hardship and difficulties in their lives, and these jerks that you can hardly stand have oodles of money and all this. But you know what that is? All that shows is we don't have the right values in life, because God says that's not a blessing.
The Foundation for Everything
We've got to get on the same page the first night, and it's this: all of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. No one is good, no not one. Apart from Him, our life is helpless and hopeless, and there's nothing we can do about it. There's a blanket indictment that God issues against all of mankind, and that is all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The wage of sin is death, but the free gift is eternal life in Christ Jesus and nowhere else.
Somebody gave me this the other day. It's an obituary of a guy that I used to work with. Big, long obituary. This guy did a bunch of stuff. This guy was a real business... Here's the end: "If the sum of life is measured by good deeds, then this guy lived a fulfilled life. He made an indelible, positive difference in the world and touched many lives. He'll be missed."
Well, he'll be missed, but the sum of life is not measured by our good deeds. The sum of our life is measured by whether we bow our knee now or later to Jesus Christ.
Biblical Christianity vs. Everything Else
Here's the basis for everything we're going to talk about in these next six sessions: God has spoken to us through His Word, the Bible, that we are lost without Him, we're incurably religious, we're always looking... Here you go. You got over here Biblical Christianity and then you got everything else. Don't even try to confuse them or sort them out. You got Biblical Christianity and then everything else.
Everything else is religion. It comes in different shapes and sizes and forms. Some has Jesus in it, some doesn't have Jesus in it. It's got all sorts of deal. It's over here with this lie that there's lots of paths to God. There's not lots of paths to God. There's one way to God. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me."
These paths do not lead to heaven, they lead to hell. They lead to destruction. They lead to an empty life here. God is the one who created and God is the one who establishes the rules. He says, you come to Me through Christ or you don't come at all.
Your Ministry of Reconciliation
Once that takes place, once God has reconciled us to Himself, He says in His Word—let me just read it to you—in 2 Corinthians chapter 5: "If anyone is in Christ, he's a new creature, the old things have passed away. Now, these are the things that are from God who reconciled us to Himself and then gave us a ministry of reconciliation."
If all He wanted to do was get you to heaven, He should have taken you there at the point of salvation, but He didn't, did He? He left you here. Why? Because you are an ambassador for Christ. Paul writes to Timothy at the end of his life and says to this young pastor, "I want you to go into this world, into these last days, and I want you to be an instrument that I'm going to use to touch the people around you."
That's what we're going to talk about in these six sessions that we have left together.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for this Word, for the truth. God, this life is absolutely empty without You. That we can be here is such a blessing. Father, thank You for this place for Jeff and Janet and the team that are here, and the way they serve You so faithfully.
I pray for these three days that I'm here, that Susan's here, that You'd use us, that You would take the people that are here who are really hurting and we might be a source of encouragement to them, to those who are going strong, that we can say, keep up the good work, continue the fight.
To those that are here that are saying, "I don't think I buy any of this stuff," God, will You break their hearts? Pound that heart of stone into a heart of flesh. God, we love You for one reason, because You first loved us. God, use this time, we pray to You in Jesus' name, Amen.