Driven By Love And Humility
Tom Shrader explores why Christians struggle to change, arguing that true transformation comes through understanding our complete dependence on God's grace rather than our own efforts. Using Peter's denial and restoration as an example, he demonstrates how humility flows from recognizing our spiritual bankruptcy and Christ's perfect love. He challenges believers to examine what idols compete with God for first place in their hearts, emphasizing that lasting change occurs through deeper relationship with Christ rather than behavioral modification.
“The godliest I feel is at that moment I come to Christ, and from that point on, God is just gently exposing my sin to me.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: CBCC August 2012
Recorded: 2012 at Cannon Beach Conference Center
Duration: 1 hr 1 min
Themes: humility, transformation, grace, idolatry, dependence, restoration, love, change, struggling with change, feeling spiritually dry, battling idols, new believer, pastor, struggling with pride, seeking restoration, parent
Scripture: Ephesians 4:1-2, John 13:33-35, Luke 22:54-62, 1 John 5:21, 2 Corinthians 5, Philippians 2, 2 Peter 1, 1 Corinthians 1:18-31, 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, Matthew 5:3, Jeremiah 9:23-24, John 14, John 15:4-5
Theological Themes: sanctification, becoming holy, total depravity, spiritual bankruptcy, justification, grace alone, christian growth, spiritual maturity
Full Transcript
Opening Prayer and Welcome
Provide us salvation that we find it in You, no one else. Our hearts wander. We, for our own reasons, pursue false gods, idols. God, remind us again that false gods never fail to fail. They'll disappoint us every time, and yet our heart can be pulled toward them.
God, we pray this morning that those words that we sang, that You would drill those deep into our heart, that we would desire You and only You, and we would look to You and nowhere or no one else for salvation, that we find satisfaction completely in You, that we can be here today. There's a privilege and an honor, God, and I pray that we don't waste time, that You remind us today of the grace we have, that we have been forgiven, that we are Your kids, that we live in communion with You. God, take that truth and put it in our heart. We ask it in Christ's name, amen.
Well, good morning. Great to see you this morning. When we get to this day now, we kind of start to get in our groove. Everybody gets a little comfortable. That first day or two's a little awkward. Everybody's polite. I watch everyone yield in line, and by now you're knocking each other out of the way and saying those things that you wanted to say.
I've heard a lot of stuff about my legs, and here's my favorite comment of all time. I'm sure it's not original, but it's the lady that said to me, "My daughter said, 'Look at mom, a man riding a chicken.'" So that's my favorite. That's my favorite of all time. So I apologize for it. It is what it is. I'm comfortable with it, so thank you so much.
Let me just say what I know you are thinking. We're grateful, Brian, that you were here last night, could be with us and look forward to it, and I'm excited about each and every night, so thank you very much. Thank Brian as well. Would you please?
God's Amazing Coordination
One of the things that's interesting, and I'm sure I've done this before, but I don't remember when, is to share a week like this. Brian and I did not talk about what we were going to cover materially. As you heard him say, as he's just praying away, he was coming. God was laying on his heart to talk about marriage.
It is amazing to me that he picked up with exactly the verses we left off with. He picked up exactly what we looked at on Saturday and Sunday, 2 Corinthians 5, and then Philippians 2. So what I want to do this morning is pause and let you have your private time of prayer, asking God for big things for this week. Maybe in your family, maybe in your life, maybe in your marriage, maybe your heart just needs to be restored, maybe it's rest, maybe it's a healing - emotional, maybe physical, spiritual. And then we will establish and remind each other again, the Bible's our final authority, and then we're going to talk about the gospel, past, present, and future.
So there's our morning, so let's pray quietly. Go before Him.
A Time of Prayer
Father, we do, we lift up our hearts to You. Right now, we boldly ask, not based on our worthiness, but based on the worthiness of Christ, we boldly ask for this week, specific things. For the amazing scenery and terrain, and for the heritage here, but thank You more than anything for the way that for almost 70 years, You've used Cannon Beach Christian Conference Center to bring honor and glory to Yourself.
God, thank You for that. Thank You for Jesus. His life, His death, His resurrection, the fact that He has saved us, the fact that one day we know we'll be in heaven, but that while we're here, we have the power to know Him in the resurrection, and God, let that transform our life. We ask it in Christ's name, amen.
Our Direction for Today
Let me tell you where we're going today. I've got three things I want to do. I want to expand a little bit on what we talked about Saturday and Sunday. I want to share a conversation I had with somebody - won't embarrass them, you'll have no idea of knowing who they are, right, Sandy? No, kidding, it wasn't Sandy. Just a conversation and a question, and then build a little bit upon what Brian talked about last night. So that's what we want to do. We want to come back to the reality of that gospel.
The Foundation of Our Message
So we have said that we're going to build the balance of the week around the idea of 2 Corinthians 5, that indeed we're new creatures, and that in all these things, God is reconciling us to Himself through Christ, and then gave us what He identifies as the ministry of reconciliation and the word of reconciliation, so we're ambassadors. So we have this gospel.
That's what we said first day, right? That we are worse off than we can ever imagine. That if sin were blue, what would we be? Smurfs, that's exactly what we would be. And sin has permeated us, but we're more loved than we ever dreamt.
Understanding Love at a Deeper Level
That when I look at love, and I tried to share a little bit of that yesterday, even as I'm - it sounds even weird, I didn't even know the words - trying to get to know Sandy deeper after 11 weeks, I feel like I know her a lot, and yet I know I've only scratched the surface. And I know that in our relationship, that if it were not for me being certain of her commitment to me, and hopefully her certain of my commitment to her, that this love would be based on performance, it would be conditional. I love you if, I love you because, I love you when.
But when we come to the cross, we come to a whole different depth of love. So that Jesus tells us to go, and to love one another as He loved us. So that becomes then the measurement, the barometer for us.
God's Amazing Achievement
In his book, In the Grip of Grace, Max Lucado writes this: "Paul announces that God has a way. Where man fails, God excels. Salvation comes from heaven downward, not earth upwards." It gives you something to think about. This is amazing.
Ponder the achievement of God. He doesn't condone our sin, nor does He compromise His standard. He doesn't ignore our rebellion, nor does He relax His demands. Rather than dismiss our sin, He assumes our sin, and incredibly, sentences Himself. God's holiness is honored. Our sin is punished. We're redeemed. God does what we cannot do, so that
we can be what we dare not dream: perfect before Christ. LoCato continues, "Please note, salvation is God-given, God-driven, God-empowered, God-originated. The gift is not from man to God, but from God to man." Grace—and that's what's different than anything else.
As we talk about humility, we talk about grace. Every time we teach grace, all of a sudden, we seem to get stuck on this concept. It's so foreign, so different. Grace is created by God and given to man. On the basis of this alone, Christianity is set apart from any other religion in the world.
Every other approach to God is a bartering system. If I do this, God will do that. I'll either be saved by my works—what I do—my emotions—what I experience—or my knowledge—what I know. By contrast, Christianity has no—here's a word we don't use much—whiff. Christianity has no whiff of negotiation at all. Man is not the negotiator. Indeed, man has no grounds from which to negotiate.
The Problem with Spiritual Negotiation
That's what we do often, isn't it? With God, we come to God, and God says, "Here's my standard." You say, "That's an interesting standard. I'm glad you have that standard." It's almost like buying a house. It's on the market for $100,000. You say, "That's a great asking price. I'll give you 90." He says, "No, I'll take 98." "Well, 98. Now I'll give you 92." "I'll give you 93." And you have what we call a meeting of the minds.
But we come to God, and God says, "Here's my standard: it's perfection." You say, "God, that's a great standard. Here's how much I'll give you. Here's how much I have." And God says, "No, it's not about you, it's about me."
So Ephesians is where Brian left off last night. Let's go back. It's where we left off yesterday morning. Let's make sure we just summarize this, and again, then I want to talk. Here's a question somebody asked me yesterday: "Why do you think we are so sinful? And why don't we change more?" Brian mentioned it last night. I think I mentioned it to you as well.
Understanding Our Common Struggles
One of the most difficult things coming in to a group like this is knowing exactly what to talk about. In church, it's pretty simple. We know where our church is, the majority of people. We have a sense of what they need, sense of timing, what's maybe going on in the community at the time. But one of the things that I've learned after doing years and years and years of these is in this sense: we can predict what to talk about, and that is everybody's the same.
Every time you get together, whether it's a men's conference, a couple's conference, a family conference, every time you get together, you come into another church or another place to speak, people want to talk about getting an understanding of God and who He is. Then there's like this giant sense of frustration. Now, here's what's interesting. The better the church, the better the place—in a way, cut me slack here because I don't know if this is true—I think it's true. The more devoted the followers of Christ, the more frustrated they are with their own lack of change, or their own lack of sin.
It can go in a whole bunch of different ways. It can go in a way that says, "I'm gonna clean up my act. I'm gonna become very religious. This is what I'm gonna do." All of a sudden, there's a lot of rules and laws. You can walk into a church like that, and you can almost sense it. There's no joy.
I was speaking at a church about a year ago and came in. I like to get there a little early and set my stuff around and walk around the room. Most people don't know who I am, so it's real easy. I can just say hi and talk. Then all of a sudden, they find out, "Oh, you're the guy that's speaking." They treat you differently once that happens. So I set my stuff down and went and talked, came back. All my stuff is gone, and there's some people sitting there. I said, "I left some stuff here." They said, "You know, these are our seats." That told me a whole lot about them, about the church.
But my assumption is, for the majority of you anyway, if you're here, you've spent time, energy, money, and effort to be here, that you're serious to some level about your faith. You want to know Christ more, you want to grow more: how do I change?
The Revolutionary Concept of Humility
So I'm going to talk about that, and then pick up on that beautiful idea of humility. There's humility and forgiveness and legacy that Brian talked about last night. The idea of humility: have the mind in you that's also in Christ Jesus.
I'm told—I'm not an expert—I'm told that at the time that Paul wrote, there was not a Latin or a Greek word for the word humility, that either the Christians, perhaps even Paul himself, had to invent that word. That's how foreign that concept is to the natural man.
Second Corinthians—or I'm sorry, Ephesians chapter two, verse one: we were dead in our sins and trespasses. Who are we in and of ourselves? Verse two: we're a son of disobedience. Verse three: we're a child of wrath. But verse four changed it all: "But God, but God being rich because of the great love with which He loved us."
God's Love as the Foundation
There's what love is. It's not about our love for Him; it's His love for us. "For God so loved the world." First John four: "This is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us, and He sent His son to be our"—any chance you remember the word at all? Wow, that's impressive—"propitiation." To satisfy His wrath. So I'm saved by God from God, and I'm saved for God. God delivers me.
This idea, and this is what we talk about when we're talking about change, we're talking about the life, we're talking marriage, we're talking about application: it's that the gospel has a past—I have been saved. It has a future. There's one day, don't know when, could be today—hope so in a way—where I'll go to heaven. That's certain. My salvation, based on who Christ is, not
My salvation is as certain as the saints who are already there, based on who Christ is. But there's this today, and the gospel applies for today. There's this strength for today, to live in a way that's not powered by me, but powered by God, by His Spirit. The call then is love.
As we looked at Ephesians 2 and moved to Ephesians 4, we said there's kind of a change where we move from doctrine to practical. We said, walk in a manner worthy of your calling—Ephesians 4:1. In other words, if you're a follower of Christ, look like it. What's it going to look like? Verse two: with all humility. When we look at humility, we're going to look at love. To me, they kind of come together.
Jesus' New Commandment
Back to the gospel of John—we're going to be around a couple of different passages today in this section of John chapter 13. I'm going to ask you to do something that's almost impossible for us to do, and that's to insert ourselves into the scene in the moment. Jesus with His boys, Jesus understanding that the crucifixion is right there, He's preparing them for this.
Even in the midst of this angst—and we know there's angst: "Father, if there's another way to do it, let's do it. If there's a plan B, now's the time. You can pass this cup from me, God, let's do it." But we can't. In the midst of that, His concern shifts to the disciples and He gives them a charge.
John chapter 13, verse 33: "Little children, I am with you a little while longer. You will seek me. As I said to the Jews, now I also say to you, where I am going, you cannot come. A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. As I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
The Standard of Love
Remember what we said? If we could put ourselves in that moment at that time and He said, "Here's how they're going to know if you love me"—it's a blank slate at that point. He could have said anything, but He said, "Here's the measurement. They're going to see your love and your care for one another."
Peter speaks up and says, "Lord, where are you going?" Jesus answered, "Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow later." Peter said to Him, "Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you." Jesus answered, "Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times."
All sorts of speculation for sure, but I think Peter understands there's something significant happening at this moment. Here's what he says, and I think he's dead sincere: "God, our Christ, I would die with you. I'll lay down my life for you."
Peter's Denial
I want to play this scene out. It's John's gospel. To the left is Luke's gospel, Luke chapter 22—in a sense, the rest of the story. So familiar to us that I'm afraid we almost take it for granted.
Jesus is then arrested, Luke chapter 22, verse 54: "Then they seized Him and led Him away, bringing Him into the high priest's house, and Peter was following at a distance. And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them. Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, 'This man also was with Him.' But he denied it, saying, 'Woman, I do not know Him.'"
A little later someone else saw him and said, "You also are one of them." But Peter said, "Man, I am not." After about an hour had passed, another insisted, saying, "Certainly this man also was with Him, for he too is a Galilean." Perhaps his dialect gives him away. But Peter said, "Man, I do not know what you are talking about."
Immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed.
The Look
In verse 61, Luke tells us something that the other gospel writers don't about that moment: "And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how He had said to him, 'Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.' And he went out and wept bitterly."
The other gospel writers don't tell us that. I remember reading that and going, "Can you imagine that moment where all of this comes to play?" There's Jesus and Peter is watching this. "I never knew Him. I never knew Him. I never knew Him." And he remembered. He didn't have to think back very long—just a few hours. He remembered what indeed Jesus had said. And He looks at him intently. I can't imagine the scene.
Learning from Failure
It's clearly a key moment in Peter's life, and Peter walks away and weeps bitterly. We learn a lot about Peter here. It's just like you. Here's where we learn the most about how we're doing spiritually—not when things are good, but when we're sinning. What's your response when you sin? What's your response when you sin?
Peter becomes known here as a man who truly changed. One of the things about Peter that I always find a little bit frightening is we restrict Peter to the gospels and never let him get to the book of Acts. We never let him get to that moment when the Spirit of God indwells him and he stands up and says, "Listen, I might have blown it back there, but there's only one name under which a man may be saved, and that is Jesus. And I have to preach this."
To me, there's a pattern there. There's a pattern of repentance, and that repentance flows from humility and flows into a transformed life.
Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit
Matthew chapter 5, verse 3: "Blessed are the poor in spirit." That's how Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount. Here's how Eugene Peterson paraphrases this: "You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you, there's more
Fighting the Battle Against Pride
I keep coming back to that same thing. Gentlemen, this is a football. I keep coming back to that blocking, tackling over and over and over again. I'm a great sinner. He's a great Savior.
The last time I was here, walking down Hemlock, there's a kid coming the other way and he's got on a t-shirt that says, "I'm the wretch the song's about." Not long before that, I had been in a church, big denominational church and they said, "We're going to sing number 51." Happened to be Amazing Grace. I thought, well, I don't need this. I don't need the words. "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound." We're singing and here's how it went: "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a soul like mine."
I thought, oh my gosh, I screwed this up. I must have made an error. And they changed that word from "wretch" to "soul." And I thought, as long as you need to see yourself in a good light, you're never going to experience the forgiveness. You're never going to feel the need for it. "A wretch like me." Blessed are the poor in spirit. Remember, I'm over here, I'm a beggar. I can't even look up. I'm totally dependent upon You to meet my need. Spiritually, I bring nothing. The only thing I bring to salvation and sanctification is my sin. Jesus is the rest. Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Humility as the Mark of Christ-likeness
So now I look at that turn that we see in Ephesians 4. If I'm going to live like Christ, have the mind of Christ, it's going to be marked by humility. Now, if I were to flip that around and say the opposite of that, the opposite of humility would be pride.
In American Christianity, C.S. Lewis has a wonderful line where he defines pride. He says pride is a complete anti-God state of mind. Then he has this great little illustration: It was through pride that Lucifer became the devil. Humility says, "What about you?" Pride says, "What about me?"
I come back to it again, and I hope it's true, that the Christians had to invent a word. It's beyond comprehension. And we begin to see that struggle. If you love the world or the things of the world, that struggle in the world, why don't we change?
Understanding Why We Struggle to Change
Here would be my contention. I think a lot of us really do change. Why that sin? Why are we so blue? That was the question yesterday. Here's what I really think happens. The godliest I feel is at that moment I come to Christ. From that point on, God is just gently exposing my sin to me.
Heather was here yesterday. Heather's parents are the ones who started the conference center. And years ago, I was just talking to her about all the changes that they've seen. And she was telling me some of you older folk will remember the name J. Vernon McGee. She said the first pastor she ever saw in shorts was J. Vernon McGee. Black wingtips, black socks, and shorts.
So J. Vernon McGee tells this story. Monday was His day off. He happened to be in the office. He got a call from a lady in the church. This lady's a 93-year-old old lady, and she said, "I need to see you. Are you there right now? I've sinned greatly." And he confesses, just out of curiosity, he wanted to meet with her to see what would happen.
And she came in, and she said, "I didn't sleep all night. I've sinned so much." He said, "What did you do?" And she said, "Yesterday when I left church, remember I told you that that was a good sermon? And it wasn't." Now, how many times have you done that? What happened to her? At 90, she's so into it. I think what God does is just show us how wicked we really are. And that sin begins to grow in terms of my perception of it.
The Root Problem: Idolatry
Why do I not change? Well, that struggle with the world allows me some measure of looking at this change. Why do I not change? There's a verse that's tucked in. You don't need to turn there. It'll be easy to remember. It's 1 John 5, verse 21. John just ends this letter. John just ends this letter. He's writing a letter. It's a book about knowing. I want you to know who you are. I want you to know that you're forgiven. I want you to know that you have eternal life. And here's how it ends. "Little children, guard yourselves from idols." Bam, he's done. This is how he ends.
In the Amplified, let me read this to you. And I will tell you, here's why there's a difficulty in changing. Here's the Amplified: "Little children, guard yourselves from idols (for instance, false gods), from anything and everything that would occupy the place in your heart due God, from any sort of substitute for Him that would take first place in your life."
Why do I not change? Because I allow things in my life that take the place of God. Because at a moment in time, a decision moment, I say, "God, here's what I think You would have me do, or here's what You would have me do. Either clearly prescribed in Your word, or at least enough indication that I kind of get, this is where You'd have me go. But you know what, God? I tend to be the exception to every rule. I know this is how it goes for most people, but You need to see, God, that's not the way it is for me."
God's Call to Boast in Him Alone
When we arrived and we checked into our room and there's a little desk in there, and a Bible was open, and it was open to Jeremiah chapter nine. And I had just the day before made a note on Jeremiah chapter nine. Thus says the Lord, Jeremiah 9:23: "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom. Let not the mighty man boast of his might. Let not the rich man boast of his riches, but let him boast who boasts of this, that he understands and knows Me."
There's the struggle. Humanly, I want to talk about my wisdom. Here you go, what I know. My might, my power. Maybe who I know. My riches, what I have. There's the struggle, and the world comes and says, here's where you'll find happiness. Christ says, here's where you'll find joy. Here's where you'll find momentary relief.
Isn't that what Jesus said? I'll give you peace, but not peace as the world gives. What kind of peace does the world give? Temporary, fleeting, expensive? It's expensive peace.
There's hardly a day goes by—I mean, I tend to be a creature of habit, and I go to my USA Today a lot. I'll hit the news, I'll hit the sports. There's rarely a day goes by that there isn't a story of somebody who just lost everything for a momentary decision.
Athletes and Poor Decisions
Athlete, I mentioned college football. I'm a University of Iowa fan. That's very frustrating. It's better than being a Cub fan, but not much. Spring training this year, I saw my favorite. I've seen this year before, I love it. It's got a Cub logo on the front, and on the back it says, any team can have a bad century. It's been a long time. Unless you're a Cub fan, you don't really understand the burden of that.
We are having an amazingly difficult time at the University of Iowa with our running backs. And we have gone through seven running backs in the last three years, good players. We had a kid picked up, breaking and entering on Friday. Monday, possession. Now, I personally don't think it's the athletes. I just think that's the culture you're in. It happens to be the athletes, and it's there.
But I'll say to Sandy, how dumb are these kids? Here's this kid who's got everything before Him, and He puts a scholarship and everything on the line. What's He thinking? He's thinking about, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to smoke a little peace, or snort a little peace, or touch a little peace. Jesus said, I'm going to give you a peace, but it's not that peace.
The World's Standards vs. God's Way
Here's what the world says. It's important what you know, and who you know, and what you have. And God says, you know what? That's not really how I do it.
1 Corinthians chapter one, Paul is writing to the church at Corinth. He's talking about the gospel. He says the word of the cross, 1 Corinthians 1:18, is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it's the power of God. He talks about the Jew is looking for sign, and the Greek for wisdom. And along comes the gospel, and the gospel is bewildering to both of them.
And then He says this, I love it, verse 26. He kind of describes the church. Consider your calling, brethren. He's speaking to this church. There's not many who are wise according to the flesh. There's not many who are mighty, and there's not many who are noble. He says, look around. There's not a whole bunch of you that are wise by the world's standards. There's not a whole bunch of you that are powerful.
We rarely see politicians in church until right now. We'll see a ton of them now, from now until the first Tuesday in November, then we won't see them again. But we don't see a lot of powerful people hang out, some. We don't see people with a lot of money, some.
God Uses Ordinary People
He says, isn't that interesting? Here's what the world says. Man, if we're going to take this and move this organization called a church, we better have a strategic plan with strategic people and strategic places with strategic resources. One of the things I love about the movie that we show here every time you come to God Be the Glory, it is simplicity of how God just did this with ordinary people.
I have a friend whose father hates Christ, and He defines missionaries as losers chasing losers. And then everybody gets offended. I'm going, that's what Paul just said. Here are a bunch of losers. By definition, you start by saying, I'm lost. I need to be found.
When I first moved to Phoenix in 1975, apparently Campus Crusade somebody had a movement going on called I Found It. Remember that? So I pull into a Circle K, first Circle K I saw. There's a van out there. There's a bumper sticker on it that says I found it. I respond, it's the way I think you would want. I stopped the guy. I said, I found it. What is it? And He said, I don't know, man. That's my brother's van. So that was how God used that van in a special way.
I found it. What's it say? I'm lost. So when somebody says to you, oh, you're a bunch of losers. You go, oh, no, no, no. And you resent it. You go, that's what the scripture says. By the world's standards. That's why the cross is foolishness.
The Gospel Doesn't Make Sense to the World
Even then, to me, we struggle. Go, oh, it makes sense. Really? So this makes sense. I want to make sure I get this. This makes sense to you. Before the foundations of the earth, before God created. Make sure we get this now. God created. He didn't manufacture. We manufacture. He creates. He makes something from nothing.
So we, here you go, here's the piano. Someone manufactured the piano, had all of the raw materials and resources, and from it comes a piano. There's void. There's nothing. God creates. He says, let there be light in their light.
That God who created that, at that moment, knew that He was going to create man. Now think about this. And thousands of years ago, this guy, Adam, that Brian talked to us about last night, ate and sinned. And when He sinned, He plunged you and the whole world into ruin. Not just humanity, but the whole creation around us.
And the solution to that is that this God, who's really one God, but in three persons, is going to become human and die on a cross. And when He died, He died for us. And if we believe that, we go to heaven. That's out there, man. That would not be how I humanly would think of it, I don't think. You can see why it's foolishness to the bright, might see it all there, prove it to me.
I'll be my favorite. I look at a lot of wives who come to church, husbands don't, and they'll say, do you have a book or something that I could give my husband? He's a very bright man. We can give Him one of my tapes.
No, he's a very bright man. That is what you're hearing him say. He's got a lot of degrees. He's very smart. I've never been much of a debater. Here's the interesting thing: Paul wasn't either, apparently.
Look at 1 Corinthians 2, verse one. "When I came to you, brethren," now, does this sound like your picture of Paul? "I didn't come with superiority of speech or wisdom or proclaim to you the testimony of God. I determined to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you," this is Paul, the apostle. There's a whole bunch of pastor search committees that should read this. "I was with you in weakness, in fear, in trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the power of the Spirit of God."
Probably because I'm not, but I'm always leery of the guys who are perfectly coiffed, who have all their words. I've been through this. When they're done, you'll hear it over and over again: "Isn't he something?" That's not the objective of preaching. When we're done, they're supposed to say, "Isn't Jesus something?" Not me, not him. Come in weakness.
Thinking Small About Humility
I want to do a little bit of application of what Brian talked about last night, and then we'll let you go. I love the idea of the humility, the forgiveness, the legacy, the relationship. But here's what I've discovered in my life: when I hear that, I need to think small, not big. Because I tend to think big.
Okay, I'm going to yield to Sandy. "Sandy, where do you want to go on vacation?" "I'd like to go golfing. I know you don't golf, so it's not going to be a lot of fun for you, but you can maybe stay in the cart and watch me." That's always fun. But Sandy, I'm going to yield to you. "Where do you want to go on vacation?" She's going to say swim. I can't swim, I don't know how to swim, don't want to swim, don't like water on my face. Showering is traumatic for me, so I don't want to do that. So I think that.
It's the same. I want to just tweak you here. I'll tweak you with your kids. Tweak you in all your relationships, because we think of humility. Okay, I'm going to think about you. Think not of those big things. Oh, we go to Disneyland every year. That's once a year.
I say this, I say it more for effect. I think it's true, but I say it for effect. Most people I know I don't think really love their kids. Because they don't act like it. Summer's that time, and we see it. Where kids go from camp to camp to camp, to activity to activity to activity. The mom and dad are busy trying to get more so that they can keep the kids going from camp to camp to camp. Because it's easier to change you from camp to camp to camp than for me to dump into your life.
Dying vs. Living
I'm going to go down here and don't know what's right. I think it's easier to die for your kids than to live for them. I'm going to make this statement. This is a bold statement. I think this is true. I would die for Christ. If right now they burst in here, and they said, "Listen, we're Oregon, we've got new rules, you can't preach this stuff. You either deny Christ, or we're going to kill you."
Now, I'm pragmatic. I know myself well enough to go, "Well, how do you kill people? Do you burn them slowly? Do you rip off their skin?" "No, we blow their brains out." Perfect, perfect, okay. Here's the deal. I think I would say, if peer pressure, if nothing else, I think I would say, "Okay, give me this, but don't miss, okay? Bam." In that instance, I think it's much easier to die for Christ than live for Him.
Much easier to die for your kids. Your kid's out there, and Jeff mentioned it yesterday, and they get swept away, and they're out there flailing around, and you're out there, you're going to go and try to save them no matter what. You'll risk your life. Much easier to die for them than live for them. It's the small things. That's what that humility is. To me, it's those small things.
A Marriage Illustration
Give me an illustration. Susan and I were married 32 years, and I got to know Susan well in 32 years. One of the probably really good things is you get to know each other well, but you can take each other for granted. So this happened like three years ago. It's a Monday or Tuesday night, I don't remember what, and she said to me, "Will you watch Dancing with the Stars with me tonight?" And I said, "I don't think so. I don't think that's going to be happening. No." And she said, "Well, I watch football with you." And I said, "But you like football." And she said, "No, I like being with you."
From that moment on, I watched Dancing with the Stars. I now know what a Kardashian is. Like, I didn't know before that. I learned a lot. I learned Brooke Burke is cute. I learned that, okay? I watched every episode of Dancing with the Stars for like three years till Susan passed away. Now, I hesitate to tell the story in this sense, okay? It puts me in a good light, but let's not do that. Let's look at her.
Honestly, I am not kidding. Football, college football Saturday is big at our house. You're either at our house or one of my daughter's houses. If it's a morning game, we have breakfast. If it's a noon game, afternoon game, we have lunch or dinner. Everybody's together all the time. Susan has done this for 30 years. I thought she liked it. What's really cool is apparently she liked me in the midst of that. If you love someone, you say, "You know what? Your agenda, not mine."
The Main Problem in Marriage
Let me read you the quote again from Tim Keller. We started with the first night talking about sinfulness. He said, "If two spouses each say, 'I'm going to treat my self-centeredness as the main problem in the marriage,' you have the prospect of a truly great marriage." I need to come to every situation, every encounter, whether it's with my wife, whether it's with Sandy, whether it's with the kids, whether it's in a family, whether it's in the church, I need to come to it and I need to say, "Okay, why..."
am I feeling this way? What sinful in me is popping up at this moment? Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who see themselves as spiritually bankrupt. It's not to have a low view of yourself, it's to have an accurate view of yourself.
Why don't many people change? I have a friend who's a golf pro, and one day we're out. I have a really simple golf swing, very efficient golf swing, not very effective, but very efficient. It's very small, very compact. Boom, boom, very simple. So we're out and I'm just hitting balls, and I'm asking him about a couple of things. He said, listen, and every time he'll check my grip, and then we'll get up, he'll set some lines down, and we'll make sure they're square. And then he'll go, just swing it. Just swing it from there.
I said to him one day, if 10 people take lessons from you, how many people get better? And he said, one, usually. And I said, why is that? Now you could guess this. Ability, desire, effort. Some of them just don't have the ability. Some of them have enough desire, in other words, they're frustrated enough, they'll say, I'll take a lesson. Which, if you're a golfer, by the way, taking a lesson is the most frustrating thing you can do, if you're not hitting it well, changing it, that's not good. And then effort. He'll say, even the guy who can really do it and begin to see it, after a while, he just doesn't practice anymore. Why don't we change?
Divine Power for Godly Living
Turn with me to the back, 2 Peter chapter one. Here's what we know. Ability's not our problem. 2 Peter chapter one, Simon Peter, verse one. A bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ, grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining, not just to life, we got that, but He goes, life and godliness.
Well, what is godliness? Well, it's godly living, it's obedient living. Here's what He's saying. I've given you the ability to do this, because I've done it, in essence, for you. It's resting in me, it's abiding in me. It's the power that's multiplied by the knowledge of God and the knowledge of Christ. I've given you everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him, through knowing Him experientially and personally.
This idea of knowing Christ, you know that distinction between knowing about Him and knowing Him, but think about knowing someone. So I enjoy Brian, we've been together half a dozen times maybe, maybe a few more or less, but we're never going to have a deep relationship, probably based on a couple of things, just time. He's in Memphis, I'm in Phoenix. Space, what we do, the things that come in around it, availability. But the big limiting factor, because we could overcome all them, he could move to Phoenix. If he really wanted to be my friend, that's true. Corey's from Phoenix, family's there, so he could move to Phoenix.
Here's a real limiting factor in any relationship, how much does he want me to know about him? That's the big thing. It happened with the shooter in Denver. It's every time there's one of these, the neighbors go, we never dreamt it could happen, he's the nicest guy, evidently not. Something's off, he let him see what he wanted them to see.
Does God limit Him? He says, no, here I am, you want to know me? Ask, ask anything, ask anything in my name. Boy, the minute we think of that, we think of a whole bunch of stuff. Do you ever think of this? God, here's what I'd like to do, here's what I want to ask, that I know you and the power of the resurrection more than anything else, God, that's what I want. Does that ever hit the list? Because He said, I've given everything to you, I'm not holding it back. You have the ability.
The Power of Christ Living in Us
I don't know about desire and effort. I don't know about the deepness of it, those moments where I feel so close to Him that the Christian life isn't about my effort. It's not I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Paul can't even figure it out. That there's this duality. Who wrote the book of Romans? Well, Paul wrote it, but the Holy Spirit wrote it. Who lives this Christian life? Well, I live it, but it's Christ living in me.
It's what we saw in Philippians 2, 12, 13, who gives me the desire, who gives me the passion. How much does Christ want to be known? He loves you, and He loves you perfectly.
Christ's Promise of Dwelling Places
One last flip, back to the Gospel of John, and we'll let you go to lunch. I wonder if you have sand castles to build. So He said, here's what I want you to do. This is how they're going to know that you love the disciples. And then understand, it's going to be traumatic, verse one of chapter 14. He said, don't let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places, if which so I would tell you. I'm going to go and prepare a place for you, and if I prepare a place for you, I'm going to come again, and you'll receive me to yourself, and where I'm going, you can go also, and you know the way.
And Thomas says, we don't have a clue what you're talking about. We don't know the way. I think we know the way. Here's what He says. I'm going to go and prepare a place for you. Now, I'm not sure what that exactly means. Is He going to go and prepare a place that's customized for me? Am I going to have this dwelling place? That I'm going to come in, and there are the pictures. There's a show that used to be on TV. I don't know if it is, and I'd never seen the show. I've only seen the end of it. It was on Sunday night, and I would get home, and it was extreme home makeover, so they would take a family that was living usually with difficult circumstances.
with difficult physical circumstances and financial circumstances, and they'd rebuild the house in a day, which is discouraging because we can't get a permit in three months in Phoenix, but they'd get it done in a day. Then there's the end where there's light, and they'll say, "Pull away the bus." I wonder if I'm going to get to heaven, and Jesus is going to say, "Pull away the bus. There it is." He prepares a place that's home for me.
Here's why it's home for me: it's because He's there. This is what I've been praying lately—that I would want to be with Him more and more. Every funeral, especially when somebody's suffered, I get it. It's the absence of tears, the absence of pain. That's not the big deal about heaven or life after death to me. This thing that we sing about—we'll be with Him forever.
The Need for Divine Help
He says, "I've got to go, guys." Verse 15 of John 14: "If you love Me, you'll keep My commandments." That's going to be tough, so you better ask the Father. There it is again. If you start to pray, is that one of the things we pray? "Father, help me keep Your commandments. Help me love You more." That seems to be the trigger.
"I'll give you another—He'll be a helper, and He will be with you forever." Verse 18: "I will not leave you as an orphan. I will come to you. After a little while, the world will no longer see Me, but you'll see Me." Verse 25: "These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you, but the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you these things and bring remembrance of these. My peace I leave you, My peace I give you, not as the world gives. Do not let your heart be troubled. Do not let your heart be fearful."
The Foundation of Change
Real change is going to come when I know Christ and know Him deeply. That's what's going to cause that change. I think in my life, it's never going to be enough, because as I change, I'm going to see my sin. I'll begin to see it in little ways where I never saw it like that before.
Why don't I change? Let me read it to you again, 1 John 5, verse 21, and I'm going to read it from the Amplified: "Little children, keep yourself from idols, false gods. From anything and everything that would occupy the place in your heart due to God." Proverbs 4:23: "Above all else, guard your heart"—the depository of our wisdom, our affections, all that we are, the center of who we are and how we think. "If anything and everything that would occupy a place in your heart due for God, for any sort of substitute for Him would take first place in your life."
He said, "Here's why I don't change: it's because my heart's pulling away." I'll want the peace of the world, even though I know it's a loser.
The Losing Investment of Worldly Peace
Imagine this: imagine if I came in today and said, "Listen, I've got a stock I want to sell you. Now, it's not a good stock. In fact, we're very certain it's a loser. We have every reason to believe that by the end of this week, it will be absolutely zero. Would you invest?" Before you laughed, I did twice, so...
The world comes along and says, "Here you go. I'll sell you this. It's going to be momentary," and that's sin, right? Sin is fun. If sin's not fun, you're not doing it right. Sin is fun for a season. But at the end of this, there's always that price to pay. The scripture comes along and says, "Listen, that's a loser. You can invest your time, energy, effort, whatever you want in that, but it's a false god. You're asking it to do something that it can never possibly do."
Asking the Right Questions
I asked a question last night, by the way, that was really a good question, and I didn't think about it fully until I got home, and I'm continuing to work this through. I think this is a great exercise: "Do you love me?" "Yes." That isn't it. "Why?" I started asking, "Why do you want that so much? Why are you so driven in that career? Why is that career so important to you?"
I remember Tiger at one point, and athlete after athlete will do it. Tiger had signed the big Nike deal and all that, and he was saying, "I just have to take care of my family." Whoa, way beyond taking care of our family here. Why is that so important to you? Why is that job so important to you? Why is that person so important to you?
That's what we have to do with our students. "Why is that guy so important to you? Why is that girl so important to you? What does she give you that should be coming from Christ? Security? Identity? Why is that relationship..." "Why do you love me?" "My hope is in You alone." You sang that and then repeated it over and over again, and the world comes along and says, "How about this hope?" God says that's going to make you happy. Are you happy? Do you feel that?
Realistic Expectations for Change
I made a list just talking to myself. That's a bad sign. Just talking to myself, I made a list of three things in terms of change that may or may not be helpful. Number one, in terms of this whole process of change, you need to have realistic expectations. I find it very frustrating to read some of these biographies where I look at these guys who spend hours and hours in prayer, charting out a life that I don't think I'm ever going to... I'm never going to sit and pray three hours a day or four hours a day or an hour. I don't know if that's realistic. That's why I think it's important for you to find the normal Christian life. What does this thing begin to look like?
Remember this: the Christian life is not one size fits all. If everything goes right before the week's over, I'll get to the Nike outlet. You'll go in and you'll buy a hat. The problem—all the hats have O's on them and S's, OS. What is a beaver and a duck and all this? But there'll be hats and there'll be the hat: one size fits all. I come to Christianity and go, "One size fits all. How Brian lives His life..."
All that is bringing the world system into this and saying, "Here's what Brian's church looks like. That's what our church should look like. Here's what Brian's days look like." Brian's a very bright...
Embracing Your Unique Design
You see the frustration there? What about you? How did God design you? How did God sovereignly place you together? What's your giftedness? And to think that somehow it's going to come out identical is not a good thing. Identical is silly. What's a realistic expectation? And then set your mind on this.
I just got through teaching the first six chapters of the book of Daniel. There's this moment at the very beginning of this story when Daniel and the boys are taken captive out of Jerusalem and brought to Babylon. Daniel is confronted with some dietary changes. It says in Daniel chapter one, verse eight, that Daniel determined in his mind—this is a huge deal. Daniel resolved in his mind that he would not defile himself.
That story then over those six chapters spans 70 years, 75 years, 80 years. Never do you see anything but resolve in this guy, Daniel. Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds to determine ourselves. Here's what we tell our kids: pre-decide your decisions. If I'm going to change, I need to sit here now and figure out—change what? What is it I want to change?
I can tell you what needs to be changed: your heart. What we'll go to is our behavior and we'll be like Christian kids who are compliant but not converted. What's realistic?
Gaining an Eternal Perspective
Here's the second thing: grab an eternal perspective as a measuring stick. What does God say are indeed those things that are going to last? The outer man is decaying. The inner man is being renewed day by day. Look not at the things that are seen, but the things that are unseen.
The third thing is to determine what's really important. All of a sudden, I see those things that really matter and I begin to say, why am I spending so much time on this stuff that by definition, I don't think is that important? Why am I spending more time trying to play golf than I am trying to develop a relationship with my kid? Why am I spending more time at the gym and in exercise than I am exercising in a relationship with my wife?
I have a friend and He's taught me a lot. He has a lot of money. His son asked him one day, "Dad, are we rich?" He said, "I'm rich, you're not." He taught me a lot of stuff. He taught me a lot about marriage counseling.
The Importance of Ranking Priorities
He said, "Here's what happened to me. I would sit down with a couple and I would say, list the 10 things that are important to you." So He said, "All we do is they'd list them and if they had the same 10 things, I got excited. But," He said, "then I learned something. You needed to rank them in order of importance."
Dancing was important to her. She wanted to go out every Friday night and they'd dance and have fun. He would dance like if He'd been to a tavern for a while and then went to a wedding or something, but it wasn't a big thing for him.
It would be really important for you, I think, to be able to say, here's what God says is important and here's what I say is important and here's the order in which I rank them. And then begin to look and say, why am I spending my finite resource of time, energy, effort, and money on the things that God says are not important? Why am I doing that? And then wondering, why am I frustrated?
The Path to Holiness Through Christ
J.C. Ryle, in his classic book "Holiness," writes these words: "Would you be holy? Would you be a new creature? Then begin with Christ. You will do nothing at all and make no progress till you feel your sin and weakness and flee to Him. He is the root and beginning of all holiness. And the way to be holy is to come to Him by faith and be joined to Him."
"Do you want to attain holiness? Do you want to feel a deep, real, hearty desire to be holy? Then go to Christ. Wait for nothing. Wait for no one. Linger not. Think not to make yourself ready. Go to Him. In the words of the simple, beautiful hymn: 'Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling.' There is not a brick nor a stone laid in the work of our sanctification until we go to Christ."
"Would you continue to be holy? Then abide in Christ. He says Himself, 'Abide in me and I in you.' And He that abides in me and I in Him shall bear much fruit" (John 15:4-5).
The Reality of the Christian Struggle
J.C. Ryle says a true Christian is one who not only has peace of conscience, but is at war within. He says that's the normal Christian life—that struggle, that difficulty, that pull. What do I do in the moment of that? How do I change?
Here would be hopefully words that would be encouraging. Number one, you need to know you can. Number two, you know you have the ability because He's given you everything pertaining to godliness, to life. It's to come to Him, it's to pre-decide those decisions. It's to see those moments. It's to pray that He would change your heart and your love for Him.
The more you love Him, the more you'll love the things He loves. And the more you'll desire the things that He desires. And let me tell you, that struggle never ends. He's redeeming us. There's a sense in which He's pushing back in our life now in some imperfect way the effects of the fall. I'm back in communion with Him, but it's not perfect until He comes and He restores.
Looking Ahead
What I want to do the rest of the week is talk about the practical outlook of this. So how do I become that ambassador? I become that minister of reconciliation. We'll talk about that through the rest of the week.
Let me pray and then we'll adjourn. Father, thank You. Thank You for the love that You have for us. It's a perfect love. God, I pray that You would overwhelm me and us every day with Your love and provision. God, thank You that You give us everything we need. We lack nothing pertaining to live a life that is godly as You unleash Your power through Your Spirit. Father, thank You for that. Again, we pray for today. There will be a time—
A Time of Safety and Reflection
May this be a time of fun and reflection, a time of safety. God, that You would take Your word, drill it deep in our heart. We ask it in Christ's name, amen.