James Session 3
Tom Shrader examines James 1:5-12, emphasizing how believers should seek God's wisdom during trials while trusting His sovereignty without demanding specific outcomes. He teaches that Christians are stewards, not owners, of all their resources - time, money, health, and relationships - and calls them to invest these assets according to God's priorities of His Word and people rather than pursuing temporary earthly goals.
“There is nothing you can do to make God love you more than He does right now, nor is there anything you can do to make Him love you any less.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: James (2009)
Recorded: 2009 at Cannon Beach Conference Center
Duration: 1 hr
Themes: wisdom, trials, stewardship, trust, sovereignty, endurance, maturity, priorities, facing difficult circumstances, struggling with finances, questioning god's plan, new believer, parent, mentor, young adult, feeling overwhelmed
Scripture: James 1:5-12, 1 Corinthians 10:13, 1 Peter 4:12, Hebrews 11:6, Proverbs 1:7, Proverbs 2, Ephesians 1:17, Philippians 1:9, Colossians 1:9-10, 2 Timothy 4:6-8, Deuteronomy 10:14, 1 Chronicles 29:11, Psalm 24:1, Psalm 50
Theological Themes: sanctification, spiritual maturity, divine sovereignty, biblical wisdom, stewardship theology, trials and testing, character development, providence
Full Transcript
Welcome and Community
They do this to me deliberately, you know that? They put that stuff out there, and then they say, "Tom, it's up to you." I don't know what to say after that, other than you could have brought the stool over for me, Jim, but that's all right.
I hope you had a good day. It was great to be with you all this morning, and I love seeing you all. I love Sunday. That's the day when the community comes in, and also when the students are here. I think it really gives an opportunity for those of you who have kids who are students to see what we're doing over here, and I love that connection. I love that energy in the room.
That was just great music—inspirational to us, motivational. To hear that word "holy"—that word means "other than." It's a word really reserved for the Holy, Holy, Holy. He's other than us. The songs that we sang of praise, especially when we talked about "In Christ Alone"—as we were singing the words, I was just going through them. I think tomorrow I'm going to come back and ask you guys to put those words up when I teach, and maybe exegete part of that song. It was perfect for us, for our setting.
Beginning Our Study in James
We are in the book of James. Why don't you open your Bible to James chapter 1? As I told you that first time, we'll just work our way through this, and we'll see how far we get. It is so rich, and really, honestly, if we just take the parts of this that we've already studied, if we could get those in our life, just those, that knowledge right there is life changing.
There are a couple of principles tonight. One in particular, if you apply it in your life, I guarantee you it will turn your world right side up.
Welcoming Trials as Friends
Let me read you James chapter 1 from the Phillips translation:
"When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives, brothers, don't resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends."
That's interesting, isn't it? Welcome them as friends. Counterintuitive, certainly not natural, supernatural.
"Realize that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance. But let the process go until that endurance is fully developed, and you will find that you have become men of mature character with the right sort of independence."
The Right Kind of Independence
Now, what He's talking about is not independence of God—dependent upon God—but independence of the stuff of this world. That's the kind of independence we want.
When we were raising the girls, we really had a pretty simple objective. We certainly were parents that had a very individual way of parenting our girls. First of all, you don't treat kids the same. Every once in a while somebody would say, "I treat all my kids the same." Why would you do that? They're not the same. You can't treat them the same. You can't have the same standards for each one. They're just different. You've got to deal with them differently.
At our house, our girls had no chores, no jobs, no responsibility at all. And we raised them that way. Within their rooms, even, they could do whatever they wanted in their rooms. One of our girls would repaint that room every three or four months. Haley's room was such a mess that you could not walk through it and not step on something. And I would say, "It's fine, just don't let any of it cross over that line outside into here."
Our Parenting Objective
We understood this: Our objective was to make our kids independent of us, but totally dependent upon God. That was our parenting objective. And that's the same thing that really God does as He parents us here. You will become men, women, people of mature character with the right sort of independence—independence of this world, but total dependence upon God.
I hadn't been a Christian very long when I saw this or heard this phrase: "Christians are so heavenly minded, they're no earthly good." I thought, "Well, that's really interesting." So I remember filing that away. And as I hung around with Christians, I discovered that's not accurate. I discovered that most Christians I know are so earthly minded, they're no heavenly good. And the call is to be so heavenly minded, we become of earthly good. See how that happens?
Freedom from False Gods
When I think independent of this world, I'm freed up. My chains have been broken of sin and of trying to find satisfaction or fulfillment in this world. You'll never find it. Whatever that is other than God, you're trying to find satisfaction in—whatever it is, it will never satisfy you.
In about an hour and 20 minutes, Susan and Janet Eyre and I are going up to Jeff's house to speak to the summer staff. And one of the points I want to make to them is that whatever you're pursuing other than Christ will never fulfill you.
Here's the deal: They're idols, right? And false gods. And false gods never fail to fail you. So whatever you're trusting—whatever it is you're trusting other than Christ for fulfillment, any person, place, or thing—they cannot do what you're asking them to do, what you're trusting them to do. So when we understand this idea of endurance, we're independent of this world, dependent upon God.
Asking for Wisdom
Now, verse 5, from Phillips: "And if in the process any of you does not know how to meet any particular problem, he has only to ask God, who gives generously to all men without making them feel foolish or guilty. And he may be quite sure that the necessary wisdom will be given to him."
Verse 6: "But he must ask in sincere faith..."
without secret doubts as to whether he really wants God to help or not. The man who trusts God but inward has reservations is like a wave of the sea carried forward by the wind, one moment driven back, the next. This sort of man cannot hope to receive anything from God, and the life of this man of divided loyalties will be revealed unstable in every turn.
So what we've looked at is that James, writing to these scattered tribes, these refugees, has told them that they will encounter various trials. We said this morning, they're inevitable. They're varied. They're multicolored. They arrive unexpectedly. We know they're coming, but we're not sure when or what they'll look like. Sometimes we're not even sure when we're in the midst of them what they'll be like.
One author writes this: the problem James introduces is the problem we face when things do not go as we'd like them to go, and things don't go the way we've planned. It's the problem we have when we find ourselves asking, why did this go wrong? Why did God let this happen? Why did this happen to me? Of all the questions I'm asked, that is probably the one I've heard most often. Misfortune comes into our lives. Unexplained tragedies occur, and we ask, why? Why did this happen? We gave you some reasons this morning, but I want to go back and touch on one that I moved right over really quickly.
Trials Reveal Who We Really Are
These sufferings and trials do this: among all those things we talked about this morning, they reveal ourself to ourselves. So you think you're doing really well, and then along comes this trial or difficulty. You think you are really patient, but you don't really know until that patience is put to the test. You say you really love somebody, but you really don't know if you love them until they act in an unlovable way. They reveal who you really are.
In come these trials. I have a friend who, a couple weeks ago, did something really stupid, and this person is going to end up in serious trouble and will probably end up going before a judge this week and will probably end up spending some time in jail, just days. But that's not the issue. The issue is, how do you respond to that? And since that stupid incident 16, 17 days ago, this person has responded in an extraordinary way. Reveals who we really are.
When Trials Come Unexpectedly
Trials come in this unexpected fashion. In September of 2004, Susan and I were walking right down here. We had walked down to Haystack Rock and turned around and walked back. We were just coming up to the stairs that lead into Pacific View over here. And what we do often when we're away is we'll talk about, could you live here? And what about this? And we get very reflective.
So we were reflecting on our lives. And I was saying to her, you know, unless something really tragic happens, we are financially in pretty good shape. Not wealthy, but taken care of. We have been saving prudently for years and decades, preparing for that time when we've been retired. Kids are raised, and now they're married. And I told the boys when they married them, you know, you can count on us for advice, but I'm not giving you any money or anything else. If you can't take care of her, don't take her. And I don't want her back. She's yours in all that comes with it. Good luck. Godspeed.
So we're right down there. And I said to Susan, about the only thing that could screw us up would be if one of us got sick. That was in September. It was in November that she came in to me and said, something's really wrong with me. Something's really wrong. And she went to the doctor, and the doctor said, well, I just think this is really a bad infection. It didn't ring true to her.
About two weeks later, she was at the computer one night. She said, come in here and take a look at this. And here's this disease, and there's 11 or 12, I don't remember how many symptoms there were. And she said, I have all 11 of them. This is what this is, and I'd never heard of it. It's called inflammatory breast cancer. It's the worst kind of breast cancer you can get. Very rare, predominantly among African-American women. Like four or five years ago, the survival rate beyond five years was like 2%. It's higher than that now.
She went back to the doctor, and the doctor said, in all my practice, I've only seen this once. It's really rare. I doubt it's that, but I'll biopsy it just to make sure. And indeed, that's what it was.
Walking Through the Fire
So since that very day, it was November 22nd of 2004—how do you remember that, Tom? Both our son-in-laws were born on the same day, same year. It happened to be November 22nd. We had a family meeting that day when Susan told the boys and the girls what had happened. And so when you look at her, you need to understand that essentially now for almost five years, five years this November, she's been in either radiation or chemo continually for those five years. Doctor told her real early, you got about six months to live.
What's been amazing to me is to watch her in the midst of that. She's an extraordinary gal, and I've said this about 14,000 times. She is everything that a man could ask for in a wife, everything a kid could want in a mother, everything a friend would want in a friend. But I had no idea the depth of strength or determination that she has. Some of it is just her own stubborn will. And most of it, I believe, is the fruit of the testing of faith that produces endurance.
But you don't know if you got it until you go on the fire. You can talk a big game, right? It's like right now. I don't know. Like, we're coming in. We're 40 days away from the greatest time of the year, and that's college football. It doesn't get any better than college football. College football is the best. We've got to go through Major League Baseball to get to college football. Well, there's a new coach at Tennessee this year, and he's been
The Reality of Tests and Trials
Mouthing off how he wants a piece of the Florida Gators. Well, he's going to go to the Swamp in November, and we're going to find out, because he's talking a good game. I'll tell you what. Tune in that day, because I got just a sneaking suspicion that the Gators are going to take care of him really good. Because it's one thing to talk a good game. It's another thing to play the game. I learned that in my life. It's one thing to join a gym. It's one thing to say that you've got endurance and faith. It's another thing to have that test.
Paul's writing to the church at Corinth. It's a screwed up church with all sorts of problems. And he's writing, and he writes to them. And let me just read these words to you. He writes this: "No temptation or test has overtaken you, but such is common to man. Here's the key. And God is faithful, who won't allow you to be tempted beyond that which you're able to endure, but will provide with the temptation, provide a way of escape that you will be able to endure it."
These tests, and it's kind of a warning, and we're camping here for a while. These tests, you need to understand something. They'll do goofy things in your mind. He says, you'll have these tests, but understand this. They're common to man.
The Illusion of Unique Suffering
You have a sense, and you get in the midst of these tests to think, nobody's ever been tested like this. Last October, I went and got a flu shot. I'm always leery of a medical procedure that's done at Home Depot. But I went anyway. I had like the world's greatest nurse. She was this kind of happy little thing, and I said, "You doing all right?" And she said, "You know what? I think I can get one more shot out of this needle today. I think you're the 17th one. I think it's got one more in it." And I said, "Really? That's not a very good idea." That's kidding.
Well, the year before, I didn't get a flu shot, and I got the flu. I was laying in bed. I'll never forget it. Dark, shades drawn, very, very sick. Susan came in and said, "Can I get you anything?" I said, "No." She started to leave. I said, "Susan, experts tell us there's 6 billion people on the planet, and they estimate that approximately 6 billion people lived prior to this time. 12 billion people in total comprise what we call mankind since the beginning of time. None of them have ever had the flu as bad as I have right now, none of them ever."
That's the tendency that you have when these trials come. But they'll never push you past your limit. God knows the maximum elasticity of your faith. And He writes this: He said, when I was weak with my thorn in the flesh, God gave me strength. God's grace is sufficient. Because when I'm weak, I'm strong.
The Foundation of Christian Life
So that's how the Christian life begins. It doesn't begin from a position of strength. It begins from a position of weakness. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Here's what that means. That means to be a beggar, spiritually bankrupt, and to acknowledge that. You bring nothing, nothing to the party.
That's what grace is. Grace is unmerited favor. You come before God, totally unworthy and undeserving. And God, this is really important, and God gives grace to you in spite of you, not because of you. He doesn't look at you and say, "Boy, there she is, there he is. They have potential. If I can just get a hold of them and kind of smooth off some of those rough edges, boy, is that a winner for me." You are totally unworthy. In spite of you, God saves you.
Why do we belabor this point? Here's why. Because He loves you and accepts you unconditionally.
The Radical Truth of God's Love
I'm about to tell you something that if you let it kind of drift into your brain, it can change your spiritual life. There is nothing you can do to make God love you more than He does right now, nor is there anything you can do to make Him love you any less. Think about that.
Because if you're out there just trying to be acceptable to Him and pleasing to Him and get Him to love you, there's nothing you can do to get Him to love you any more. You are wasting your time if that's the motive. Or maybe you're sitting here in utter shame tonight. Because you came in here with a big old honking Bible and you're at a Christian conference center. And inside right now, you know there's something going on in your life.
By the way, everybody has something they do that makes them feel sad when they do it, mad when they do it, and feel stupid when they do it. It may be going to that website. It may be going to that crutch, that food, that drink, that sex, that job, whatever it is. And you're sitting here right now inside totally embarrassed before God. Well, let me tell you something. He doesn't love you any less than He did before you got involved in that.
The Fear of Preaching Grace
I think we're afraid sometimes to really preach grace. We'll preach grace for salvation, but we don't preach it for living. We're afraid. You start telling people God loves them anyway, and we're afraid that they'll what? Just go and sin more and more and more.
Martin Lloyd-Jones, not exactly a screaming liberal. Martin Lloyd-Jones says, if you are preaching grace and they are not accusing you of teaching antinomianism, licentiousness. If you're preaching the Gospel and that's not happening, then you aren't teaching grace. People I know are scared to death to really talk about living by grace. That freedom right there.
When you hear the words that God can't love you any more or any less, and you're sitting there in the midst of sin, does that make you want to go and sin more? I don't think so. I think it humbles you and breaks you before Him. Doesn't it?
The Sufficiency of Grace
He'll give you the strength. God's grace is sufficient for whatever He brings into your life. Again, as I said, He knows the maximum elasticity of your faith. He knows just how far He can test you.
Well, in the midst of this, what we need, back to James 1, verse 5, is wisdom. Wisdom within the context of the trials. John Stott writes in a word, we need this thing called wisdom. The wisdom that sees all life as
serving the purposes of the Lord. Or your situation may somewhat be different. You accept that your circumstances are designed by the Lord to exert those pressures and impose those tests which in due time will bear fruit of increasing maturity. God brings these into your life. He knows exactly what you need. And if you lack wisdom, all you have to do is ask.
It's not knowledge. The librarian at Harvard made an interesting observation four or five years ago. She said, "We have too many books." Well, I'm not sure we don't almost have too much knowledge. I was sitting down here thinking, I should have brought this DVD. The "Did You Know" DVDs. Have you seen those? If not, some of you have iPhones or Blackberries or something with you. You can go online. Just YouTube, "Did You Know?" and you start to see these facts. And one of the early ones is 4 minutes and 13 seconds of just facts. The largest English-speaking nation in the world: China. It's just amazing stuff. The world's changing so fast and we feel it change.
But wisdom isn't knowledge. It's the application of the knowledge. We do Bible study. If we were in university, we'd call it a science class. We would say that what we do in Bible study is the classroom, and then we go out and when we test that faith, we go to the lab.
Defining Wisdom
Here's how I define wisdom: the ability to connect the dots. To see things and see how they work together. Now, I'll never do that apart from this book. Solomon tells us in Proverbs 1:7, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fools despise wisdom and instruction." The fear of the Lord is a reverential awe of God.
A little bit later in Proverbs 2, He said, "My son, if you'll receive My words and treasure My commandments within you, make your ears attentive to wisdom, incline your hearts to understanding. For if you cry out for discernment, lift your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver and search her as hidden treasure, then you will discern the fear of the Lord and discover the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom. From His mouth comes knowledge and understanding."
In the midst of trials in particular, we need to refocus. We need reorientation. We need to find our true north in the midst of that. We need this knowledge of God and who He is.
Paul's Emphasis on Wisdom and Knowledge
It's all through Paul's writings. Ephesians 1:17. He said, "I pray that the Lord God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation of knowledge of Him." And then, understanding, being enlightened.
In Philippians 1:9, He said, "This is My prayer, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment." Colossians 1:9: "For this cause also, since the day we've heard of it, we do not cease to pray for you and to desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and spiritual understanding."
Why? Colossians 1:10: "That you may walk worthy of the Lord." He says, "I want you to know these things." Why? So that you'll live a life. Walk. It can be used in a variety of ways. In one way, it's used to describe a primitive mode of transportation where we place one foot in front of the other. That's not how it's used in Colossians 1:10. The word walk means lifestyle. We know the Word of God, so we begin to live in a way to develop a lifestyle of guidance, of understanding, of strength, of patience.
God's Generous Gift of Wisdom
If we ask, God will give to us. I love the word "generously." It carries the idea of single-heartedness. It's to do something unconditionally without bargaining. He gives it to us without reproach. That means without severe reprimand.
If you're a parent, you can relate to this. You have had moments when your kids come to you and they say, "Can I have some money? Can I have $5?" And you give them $5. And then they come back a little bit later and they say, "Hey, can I have $5?" And you give them $5. They come back a little bit later and say, "Can I have $5?" And sometimes as a parent, at least I did, sometimes as a parent, I feel like a human ATM. Like if I didn't have this $5, I don't know if you'd love me anymore. And you will say something to them somewhere in that chain of events. You'll say, "Didn't I just give you $5?"
There's a great Saturday Night Live skit where this guy drives up to an ATM machine or a bank tower ATM, puts his stuff in and pulls out $50 and then the next day, he comes in and he pulls out $50 and the next day he punches in $50. And you hear this voice say, "Bob, I see you got $50 yesterday and $50 the day before. What are you doing with this money, Bob?"
God never says to you, "I gave you wisdom yesterday and the day before and the day before. What are you doing back here again, Tom?" He gives generously without reproach. It'll be given to him.
The Condition: Faith Without Doubting
But then He puts this one condition on it. And that is that you ask in faith without doubting. And then He said, "Here's what it's like when you doubt. You're like one who doubts. It's like the surf of the sea driven, tossed about. For let not the man expect that he will receive anything from the Lord. He's double-minded. He's unstable in all his ways."
This idea of faith. Faith is the evidence of things hoped for, evidence of the things that are not yet seen. How important is faith? Hebrews 11:6 says, "Without faith, it's impossible to please God."
Now this is really significant, in my mind anyway. When we talk about faith, He's talking about faith in Him. Faith in who He is. At one point when Christa was singing, she had this whole thing of these attributes and words of God. Omnipotent, Almighty, Alpha, Omega. It went on and on and on. I can't do it. I could, maybe, but I don't want her to feel bad. I want her to feel it's a unique gift. It is. I couldn't do that in a million years.
Faith is to believe those things. That's what faith means. Really important here. He's not saying—
that you have to have faith that He will resolve the situation. So, let's stay on Susan's cancer. I have absolute faith. Total, 100% faith that God can heal her. I believe that. I believe He can do it right now. I have absolute faith that He can.
Really important now. Hang with me. Make a transition here. My faith that He can heal her does not in any way obligate Him to heal her. You get that? That's the faith He's talking about. It's not faith in the outcome.
I'm in this study with a pastor and he happens to be a pastor from Assemblies of God Church and his wife has cancer and he said, "I'm believing God to heal her." I said, "I don't have a file for that. I don't think you're called to believe that." Because somewhere along the way my assumption is she's going to die. I don't mean to be at all crass here, but if Susan somehow is not taken by the cancer, something, somewhere, sometimes is going to get her. She's not Enoch. At least I don't think so. Maybe. But I don't think so.
Somewhere along the way, we're believing God for whatever. No, no, no, no. I'm believing God that He's who He said He is. And that doesn't obligate Him. Do you get that? That's a huge deal. That doesn't obligate Him in any way, shape, or form to heal her.
God's Sovereign Freedom to Act
So we see all through Jesus' ministry, we see times when Jesus heals when they weren't believing at all. We see other times when Jesus said, "Well, your faith has healed you." We see sometimes when people are going, they had no faith. They weren't Christ's followers. But He's healing them.
See, here's the deal. He's God. And He's going to do whatever He wants to do. That's what makes Him God. He is sovereign. That's what we keep singing. That's what we keep saying. And then when He acts that way, we get discouraged by that. We want to manipulate and maneuver Him. We start to even think, boy, we get a little angry.
Especially if you were converted as an adult. If you came to Christ after, let's say, age 21, in all likelihood, you've got some things in there that are really kind of yucky things in your life. I sure had a boatload of them. I got 30 years of that. It's not at all uncommon. In fact, I think it's typically human for somebody to reach a point where now they've come through all that, God saved them, now comes this yucky thing in their life as a follower of Christ, and they say, "I don't understand this. Why didn't He zap me then? Have you noticed lately what I've been doing for you?"
Don't Be Surprised by Trials
Peter says it this way in 1 Peter 4. Peter says this, verse 12: "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you which comes upon you for your testing, as though it were some strange thing that was happening to you." Don't pretend for a second that somehow this is not supposed to happen. Don't think that somehow you're undeserving or unworthy and therefore God's doing it to you. That's not it at all, or allowing it. Nor should you question His love for you.
He's trying to teach you something. What? Well, we don't really know. That's why we ask for what? Wisdom. God, teach me. Show me. How tragic it is to go through all of this and pay this extraordinary tuition of turmoil and unrest and sacrifice and suffering. God, teach me.
A Hero of Faith
My friend Larry Wright, my mentor, that man that I mentioned to you last night had rheumatoid arthritis. He was and is my hero. Outside of my immediate family, there's no one in this world who's had more impact on me than Larry. And he was physically a pathetic-looking creature. He was all knotted up. And he would carry his Bible just like this. And his knees were kind of gone. And then he had cancer in the throat and they cut out like half of this. He was just a pathetic little guy. A little creature. A little guy like this. Walking around. He'd walk like this.
And then he'd get up right to the podium and he'd drop that Bible down on his hip to get it up there like that. And then when he opened that Bible, it was like somebody just breathed air into him and he became Superman. And then it was over. He'd just take this and shuffle away.
I'm standing next to him one day and this really kind, grandmotherly figure came up to him and said, "Oh, Larry, haven't you suffered enough?" And he said, "Apparently not." Note to self, don't talk to Larry.
God's Work Through Our Struggles
God's working in your life. You're tossed to and fro. Jesus said nobody can serve two masters. You'll love one and hate the other. Elijah rebuked the nation saying, "How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him. If Baal is, follow Him."
We're in the midst of this. We pray for wisdom and He gives us that. "My ways are not your ways," says the Lord. "My ways are higher than your ways," says the Lord. Give me wisdom. It's that big picture. It's to see that God is at work.
Ask for wisdom and He gives it to you. And you see that He's sovereign and in control. And all of a sudden, you begin to share that burden. All of a sudden, He begins to work in your life. You please Him. He brings meaning to your purpose and suffering.
Rich and Poor in God's Kingdom
Here's what He says in verse 9. We're going to get through verse 12 here. "Let the brother of humble circumstance earn glory in his high position. Let the rich man glory in his humiliation." Why? Well, because like flowering grass, he'll pass away. "And the sun will rise with a scorching wind and withers the grass. And the flower falls off and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed. So too, the rich man will, in the midst of his pursuits, fade away." Right in the midst of him.
"Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, for once he's been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to him."
Paul writes to Timothy about this at the very end of his life in 2 Timothy 4, verse 6. He said, "I'm already being poured out as a drink offering. The time for my departure has come. I fought the good fight. I finished the race. I kept the faith. In the future, there is light up for me the crown of righteousness," that same crown of life, which the
Our Eternal Reward
Lord, the righteous judge, will award me on that day. And even then, I can kind of hear that and go, well, good for you, Paul. That's cool for you. But then he says not only me, but also for all who have longed for His appearance. That's all of us who know Christ as Lord and Savior. We long for that day when He will come again or we'll go to be with Him.
I think this is a direct correlation here to age. I think as you get older, you yearn for that day. I think as you live a little bit longer, you more and more desire—I wish it was to say, to see Jesus, but it's more to say for me, and this just reveals how pathetic I am—it's more a desire to get out of here than a desire to be with Him. I pray every day that He would make me love Him more and more and that I would desire to be with Him. But the longer I'm here, the more I yearn for Him.
God's Challenge to Our Pursuits
He seems to chastise us right in the middle of our pursuits. He's not saying that what we're doing is unimportant. He doesn't say that. He simply says, listen, if you're one of those rich men, you're one of those who are pursuing your goals and you're goal-oriented and you're goal-driven, and there's nothing wrong with that, by the way. I believe God is all about ambition. But He's just saying, if your ambition is related to your status here, you need to understand there's a temporariness to all of this.
He talks about our relationship with our stuff. Probably you've heard this. There are over 500 verses in the Bible that deal with prayer, less than 500 verses that deal with faith, but over 2,000 verses that deal with money or stuff. Roughly 288 verses or 10% of the Gospels are devoted to the subject of stuff. When Jesus wanted to make a point, He would tell a story, a parable. He told 38 of them, 16 of them deal with stuff.
Why? Stuff is a great barometer of where we are spiritually. God defines our orientation and our relationship with stuff.
The Foundation of Stewardship
We've got roughly 10, 15 minutes. You get this. You get this point right here, and your life will be changed. Here's what He says. You and I are not owners, but we are stewards.
So God starts with a macro view. God claims ownership over the whole universe. Deuteronomy 10:14: "To the Lord your God belong the heavens and even the highest heavens." First Chronicles 29:11: "For everything in the heaven is yours. Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom. You are exalted as head over all." "Who has claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me," God says.
He claims ownership over the universe, and He starts to narrow it down. He claims ownership over the earth. "The earth is the Lord's," Psalm 24, "and everything in it, the world and all who live in it. For He has founded it upon the seas and established it on the waters."
God's Ownership of All Things
For every living thing He claims ownership. "For every animal of the forest is mine. The cattle on a thousand hills." He doesn't say a thousand cattle. It's representative of everything. A thousand hills, all the cattle are on it. "I know every one of them. Every bird in the mountain, every creature in the fields are mine. If I were hungry, I wouldn't tell you. The world is mine and all that's in it," Psalm 50.
Then He says every tangible asset is His. "The silver is mine. The gold is mine, declares the Lord." God claims ownership over the universe, the world, everything in it. He has transferred possession of these things to us, but not ownership. Get the subtlety there?
Understanding Our Role as Stewards
So when I reach into my back pocket and I happen to have some money tonight, normally I don't, I have a tendency, and I'm not going to get nitpicky about this, I have a tendency to say, this is my money. To be technically accurate, it's God's money that's been entrusted to me. Let me broaden that out. You just invested a breath. It's not your breath to invest, it's God's. We are responsible to God for every asset in our life. All of our material assets, our health.
Here's something, because our material assets really do differ from person to person. Some of you have a whole bunch of money, some of you don't have hardly any. But the one thing we all have is 168 hours this week. So let's talk about stewarding our time. God transfers possession of these assets or resources to us, but not ownership. We're stewards. We have the responsibility as a trustee.
He's determined the dimensions of your responsibility. Again, to some of you, He's given much. To others of you, He has given very small fields for you to harvest. But to all of us, He's given something.
The Challenge of Motherhood as Stewardship
My two daughters, our two daughters, are stay-at-home moms. So Haley has a boy, Braden, who's three, and Yale, who's a year and a half. Sarah has a daughter, Gracie, who's two and a half, and Reagan, who's 13 months, and she's pregnant again. We told Janet at dinner tonight, Susan and I are going to try to have a kid this year. No, I'm just kidding.
I don't know if there's any job on the planet that in its primary time is less satisfying in terms of thankfulness and gratitude than being a mom with a little kid. It's so difficult. It's so challenging. It demands you staying on them. Raising a kid is pretty simple. Doing it, however, is not easy. To understand it is pretty simple, right? You ever seen the show Dog Whisperer or whatever that is? That's what it means to raise a kid. If you watch that show, it's the same. The principles are exactly the same.
You give them boundaries. When they cross it, you disappoint them, and you're consistent. You cannot vary. They will push you and push you and push you. If you say no, and then you give in, they win. And they keep track of that. And they build up this capital of no's and victories. And I'm telling you, you're going to have to deal with that at some point in time to break their will, but not their spirit. But your life as a mom is invested in just serving them. The illustration I love is just changing
a diaper. There's never been a kid who jumps up and says, "Look at that baby, mom. Look how tight that is. Good job, mom. Way to go, mom. There's nothing getting out of there, mom. Nothing. That baby's airtight, hermetically sealed, mom." No, what does the little varmint do? Just walks down the hall. But God's given you that kid, and it's not your kid, it's His kid to steward.
See, I'm on a campaign. I'm going to give the rest of my life to this within the Christian community, and that is to get you to understand that every person in this room who's a follower of Christ is in the full-time ministry. It's driving me nuts that somehow you think what I do is somehow more significant than what you do. It is not. There is no division between the secular and the sacred. Everything we do is sacred.
Money is good, profit is good, business is good. Now, it certainly can be used for bad, but it's good. It is important for you to understand that. Everything that He's given you. So when you go back down from this experience at the end of this week, and you go back into what we so lovingly call the real world, you go back into the mission field.
We Are All Missionaries and Ambassadors
Everybody who's a follower of Christ is a missionary. Now, there's always somebody who wants to argue with me about the technical details. I'm not interested in the discussion at all. You're a missionary. Now, if you don't like that, we'll change the term. How about this? You are an ambassador. You represent Christ everywhere you go.
I know I wasn't here for all the announcements, but the last time that we were here, I think Janet made the comment to you: When you go into town with these little badges on that say "Christian, Canon Beach Christian Conference Center," you're going to be conscious that you're wearing that badge as you wear it into town. That's certainly true. But you shouldn't have to be told that. If you take that badge off, you still represent Christ everywhere you go.
And in this world that says, "Here's what's really important: money, power, possessions," we say, "Those are fine. I'm all over that." I like stuff. I like material things. I like cool shorts. I like cool shirts. It costs my friends a great deal of money to keep me in poverty. I'm okay with material things, but not with materialism. I don't find my identity in that. My identity isn't attached to where I live, or what I wear, or what I drive, or where I work.
I was somewhere the other day and I was talking to a lady. I said, "What does your husband do?" I've never gotten this answer before. It was a great answer. She said, "He's a garbage man. He picks up garbage. He picks up garbage five days a week. Paid for by the town of Gilbert, but he's employed in service for the Lord Jesus Christ." That's every one of you. That's every one of us.
God's Investment Strategy
God has given us these resources, and one day there will be an accounting. For to whom much is given, much is demanded, expected. Some day you will give an accounting, and He expects you to invest your time, energy, effort, and money in alignment with His investment strategy.
If you were to go to an asset manager—we're just getting ready to do this right now, Susan and I (Susan doesn't even know about this). We're getting ready to transfer our stuff from one guy to another. Now, I hate this, so there's a gentleman who works for me at the church, and he's going to meet on Tuesday and just do that for us. But the conversation will go something like this: "What are Tom's investment goals? What are his strategies? What does he want to accomplish?" And then we'll invest accordingly.
Well, here's what you need to ask. Since you're a steward, not an owner, you need to ask: "What are God's investment goals? What are God's investment strategies? What does He really care about?" I can net it out for you. He cares about His word, and He cares about people.
How This Changes Everything
When you begin to look at life from this perspective, it changes everything. Let me tell you how. I get this question all the time: "How much money should we give to the church?" Everybody asks the question. It's understood that I'm to give, right? And everybody asks that question. How much money should I give to the church? And then there's all sorts of answers. I think the answer really is, you're supposed to give generously. I don't know that there's necessarily a formula.
But here's what I will do with them. I'll challenge the question. I'll say, "Let me rephrase the question and see if it doesn't change your answer. Rather than say, 'How much money should I give to the church,' let's ask this question: 'How much of God's money should I keep?'" I'm not saying it necessarily does, but it might change the answer, don't you think?
How much of God's time should I invest in myself? And then figure it out. I love to play golf. But you need to understand that to play golf, for me, is a six or seven, eight hour investment. I don't think God wants me investing eight hours every day in golf. But some of you who are retired, you really face this challenge. You have a lot of time that's no longer committed. And yet I hear this all the time from retired people: "I don't know where the time goes. I don't know how I used to get everything done."
Well, let me tell you something. You better figure out where the time goes. You're going to give accounting for that time. There's this kind of silly idea that we just work to make a living and we reach a certain age, and then all of a sudden, we're just done. Years ago, Susan and I were invited into this 55 and older Sunday school class to teach. So they called and they said, "Will you come and teach?" I said, "Sure." And so they said, "Come and visit the class."
and in two weeks, you'll teach. So we went in and we walked around the class, and they didn't know why we were there. Then middle of the week, leading up to our teaching, the guy called and said, "Will Susan teach?" I said, "Well, she doesn't teach, but I'll ask her. I can't imagine she's gonna say yes." So I said to Susan, "Do you teach?" And she said, "Yeah, sure. Can't be that hard. I've seen you do it." I mean, I think that's what she meant to say.
So I said, "All right." So it's the night before. I said, "Listen, here's the deal. I'll go in, set it up, do my deal. You get up and do your thing. I'll come and clean it up, and we'll be out of there." And she said, "That's fine." So I went up and I said my introduction, and I asked Susan to speak. So welcome, Susan.
So Susan got up and she said, "Guys, men, you don't have to listen. Men just like to talk to women for a bit. I was walking through this classroom last week, and I heard many of you ladies say, 'We've raised our kids. We've done our stuff. Now we're gonna live for ourselves.' I'd like you to find one verse, just one. Not a book, not a chapter, one verse in this Bible that teaches it's time to live for yourself." And she sat down. And I got up and I said, "That's why we don't let her talk much in public. Everybody thinks I'm hard-nosed, but I'm easy compared to her."
The Promise of Perseverance
But that's what He's saying. He's calling us. He said, "Listen, blessed is," look at verse 12, and then we'll stop. "Blessed is the man who perseveres under trials. For once he's been approved, he'll receive that crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love Him."
If we persevere, not to gain our salvation, but as a result of our salvation, we'll see a correlation. We'll see a correlation to that reward that He gives us. I'm not sure what that's gonna look like, but I know it's a promise. It's to focus on the eternal, to not lose heart. No, the outer man is decaying day by day because momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory.
Here's what grace tells us, that we are helpless, yes, but hopeless, never. It is really clear to me as I read through the scripture that Jesus is communicating to us that He's the vine, we're the branches. We can do nothing apart from Him. Yet we're to strive, we're to work, but we're absolutely helpless without His strength, but never hopeless.
The True Source of Hope
Abraham Lincoln said, "The last best hope for mankind is this nation you live in." It's a wonderful nation. I love this country. I have some very strong views about this country. I don't think, and it makes me sick if you have to listen to it, that the American people are our greatest resource. There is nothing, here, get this, there is nothing in the DNA of the American people that's better than any other nation on the whole face of the earth, nothing.
What makes this country great is not the people, it's the system, and we're screwing this system up day by day by day. I love this country. I love this system. Best ever devised by man. Flawed, to be sure, but an amazing system. That's why you can watch a refugee come in with a bag with all of his possessions, and in five years, they own four restaurants and three apartment buildings. Why? The system.
But the last best hope for man? I don't think so. I don't put my faith and trust in the system, even though I love the system. Or the government. That's another thing I'm sick of hearing. Government's a necessary evil. That is not true. Government is good. We have people in it, sometimes, that aren't so good. But God says order's good. God puts government in place for our own good. That's why we're to submit to the government.
The last best hope for man is not this country, or any asset, any person, place, or thing, other than the person of Jesus Christ.
The Simple Truth That Changes Everything
When I came in tonight, I don't know if you were here yet, but Clark was playing "Jesus Loves Me, This I Know." Love that. My grandson called the other day, and that's what he was singing. "Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him belong. They are weak, but He is strong."
And when I got off the phone, here's what I thought. He's gonna spend the rest of his life unpacking that singular truth, that Jesus loves you. It's beyond our comprehension, sometimes, how much He loves you.
I want to start right there tomorrow. I want to take that song, "In Christ Alone," pull some of those verses out, and then tomorrow, when we gather tomorrow morning, we're gonna talk about something I really know. I got a PhD in this baby. We're gonna talk about sin. I can speak with authority on this.
Let me pray. Father, thank You for Jesus. Thank You that He loves us. Thank You that He cares for us. Just to hear that amazing, simple truth, "Jesus loves me, this I know." How do I know it? The Bible tells me so. God, will You just drill that deep into our heart, how much You love us. We can't make You love us any more or make You love us any less. It's amazing grace, God, that You've saved us.
You brought us here to this place in time. No accident, no accidents in Your economy. You're the sovereign, great, holy God. Father, I pray now for our time of fun and relaxation, for a time with family and friends. I ask that You would bless our time as we head up to be with the staff, that we would be able to just look at some really simple truth, and then let it transform our life. God, remind us You're the owner. You've transferred possession to us, but not ownership. God, thank You for loving us. We pray to You in Christ's name, amen. Have a great night, we'll see you in the morning.