What I Learned on My Summer Vacation, Part 2 (2001)

Tom Shrader continues his annual 'What I Learned on My Summer Vacation' series by revisiting the September 11 attacks as a spiritual wake-up call for Christians to examine their priorities. Drawing from Peggy Noonan's prescient 1998 essay and 1 Thessalonians 5, he challenges believers to resist the entanglements of busyness and materialism that erode faithful living. He closes with a call to rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks in everything, seeing the current crisis as an extraordinary opportunity to live and share the gospel.

“The challenge, in my mind, is to master the mundane, the ordinariness of life — that there are things that you do all day long that have to be done with meaning and purpose and direction.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: What I Learned on My Summer Vacation

Recorded: 2001 at East Valley Bible Church

Duration: 41 min

Themes: prayer, gratitude, busyness, materialism, priorities, rejoicing, crisis, evangelism, feeling overwhelmed, questioning god in tragedy, struggling with priorities, navigating national crisis, busy professional, new believer, parent processing tragedy, person seeking purpose

Scripture: 2 Timothy 2:4, 1 Thessalonians 4, 1 Thessalonians 5:12-18

Theological Themes: eschatology, sanctification, biblical inerrancy, sovereignty of God, 1 thessalonians 5, providence, spiritual awakening, theology of suffering

Full Transcript

Review of Last Week's Key Points

Today I want to look at the second part of what has become an annual tradition for me — taking two or three weeks when I come back from summer break to talk about what I learned on my summer vacation. I've decided it will just be these two weeks. Because of the extraordinary events of September 11th, I want to talk about those again today, and then I think that will be it. I have other things to cover, but we'll pick them up as we work through the normal flow of studies. That day seems to have had such a profound impact on us individually, on us corporately as a church, and obviously on the nation — and perhaps on the entire world as things unfold.

Let me do a brief review of a couple of the key points I made last week. First, we are in this for the long haul. The president is in a very interesting position. If he does what he says he is going to do, we need to understand that he said it is not just bin Laden we are after — we are against those individuals, those organizations, and those nations that support terrorism.

There is this thing they are calling a coalition that has come together, and I think it will stay together long enough to get bin Laden, maybe. But if the president does what he said he is going to do — and by the way, if he doesn't, he is a one-term president — this coalition is going to fall apart. There is no way this coalition is going to hang together when they go after Saddam Hussein. It is going to be two French planes and an Englishman and us. There is no country that is going to hang in on that deal.

If the president does what he said he is going to do, and I think he will, this is going to be a long haul. We need to be ready for it, prayed up for it, and prepared for it. We need to understand that opportunities are going to come. It is going to be very expensive in terms of human life — we can reasonably assume American forces are already on the ground in Afghanistan, and some of them are going to lose their lives. It is going to be very costly to the economy as well. You may see that as bad, but it can also be a very good thing.

The Importance of Sound Doctrine in Difficult Times

Here is the second point. Doctrine is really important — it always is — but in difficult times it is especially important that we understand what the Bible says, particularly as it relates to God. Remember this: God either caused or allowed this. What you will see from people who do not accept Scripture as the inerrant Word of God, people who feel they have to rescue God's reputation in moments like this, is extraordinarily bad theology — especially as it relates to the power of God. They seem to feel they somehow have to vindicate God. Remember, it is God who said, "Who made the deaf, who made the dumb, who made the blind? I did." You do not have to rescue God's reputation. God is more than comfortable with you understanding that He either caused or allowed this.

The second point, and as we get a little further from the events of the 11th it gets a little easier to make this: not everyone who died on that day went to heaven. I don't know if you saw the prayer service at Yankee Stadium last Sunday, but it was beyond ecumenical — they did everything but sacrifice a goat, and Oprah emceed it. At one point a man got up, said some variation of a prayer, sat down, and everybody clapped. At the end of the event, Oprah said, "I believe every time you lose a loved one, you gain an angel, and on the 11th, she gained over 6,000 angels." I'm sure that made some people feel good, but the problem is it is wrong.

I am pretty confident that on the morning of the 11th, there was a firefighter who transitioned from life to death, and when he woke up, he was standing in hell next to a hijacker. We either believe this Book is true or we don't, and we cannot set it aside in difficult times. Now, let us be certain we understand — we are touched by this. I watched that event at Yankee Stadium, and when they were singing and the camera showed survivors clinging to one another and just heaving, there is something wrong with you if you are not moved by that. If you are not swept away in grief and a sense of loss and the sheer magnitude of this — the mayor said the other day it will be another 180 days, six months, into spring, with baseball starting again before the cleanup is finished — you have to be touched by that. But we cannot let our feelings overwhelm the truth. The challenge for us, and it is a difficult one, is to share the truth in love.

Things Must Never Go Back to the Way They Were

Here is where we ended last week, and where we pick up this week. "Things will never be the same" — that seems to be a chant going on right now, said with a kind of nostalgia. Here is my point: things will never be the same, and for you and me, let us make certain of it. Don't let things go back to the way they were.

It seems to me that basic civility had simply gone. Mario Cuomo made an observation after this — and he is a man of his word — that he was shocked and surprised, that he had never seen anything so beautiful as New Yorkers reaching out to one another in the midst of this crisis. He was surprised. Apparently things had reached such a point in New York that people are shocked when others help one another.

Mastering the Mundane

A lady remarked recently that when someone tipped his hat to her, she was amazed. Someone held the door. People were looking each other in the eye. What a great wake-up call. The fact that things may never be the same could be a really good thing.

There are all sorts of people talking about how these are great times to reach out to people who don't know Christ, and they are. What I want us to do is make sure that in the process of reaching out, we have examined our own lives first. Things will never be the same, and that's okay.

An extraordinary number of you have said to me in the last couple of weeks, "I didn't realize how absorbed I'd become in the things of this world, how far I'd drifted away." Those moments when you first met Christ and started to walk with Him and experience Him and live for Him — those had faded over the years, and you've just become swept away in the momentum of the day. My personal view is I'd be shocked if there was somebody hurting in the middle of this crisis and you wouldn't reach out to them. That's not the challenge.

The challenge, in my mind, is to master the mundane — the ordinariness of life. There are things you do all day long that have to be done with meaning and purpose and direction. There are other things you have to avoid. My hat goes off to the heroes who rose to the significance of a momentous event, but I am amazed at the people who live day to day and find meaning and purpose and direction in the ordinariness of life — not in an extraordinary event.

Making a Bed

A couple of guys and I, for the third straight year, went up to Pine Top for a couple of days — Thursday and Friday, coming back yesterday afternoon. It was strictly fun and golf. One of the things you have to do when you leave is clean up the cabin. What I did yesterday was strip the bed and make it, which doesn't sound like much, but I hadn't done that in a while.

I was in the process of making this bed and the sweat was just dripping off my nose as I went from side to side to get those sheets in. In the middle of it, I thought, how does Susan do this? I came home and said to her, "I'm really glad to be home." She said, "Well, I'm glad you're home." I said, "I really do appreciate you." She said, "Thanks." I said, "You know what I did today? I made a bed." And after she came to, here's what she said to me.

Susan has always been my true north. She always brings me back. When the girls were little and I'd come home and she would just be wiped out from changing diapers — I remember one day when it had just gotten to her. They were both in diapers and it was just a mess. I said to her, "What you've got to do is make sure you understand that you're not doing it for today or tomorrow, but you're doing it for decades from now, before you ever see anything."

There's not even a shadow of a doubt in my mind — two of the greatest things in our life were Sarah and Haley. They were amazing young women. I'll tell you why: two things — God's grace and Susan's love. And that love was expressed through the dirty diapers.

Let me just say this to the moms: some of you never get an encouraging word. Have you noticed that? You never change a diaper and the kid says, "That's a good one right there." They never do. I don't think I've ever said, "Susan, thanks for making the bed." And this is my firm belief — it's in that ordinariness of life that you find greatness, not on the mountaintop. The mountaintop simply shows you what's happened in the mundane, whether you really have it or not.

The Soldier on Active Duty

I want to spend my time responding to what I've heard from so many of you about how distracted you've become. There is a verse I return to again and again: 2 Timothy 2:4 — "No soldier in active duty entangles themselves in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as soldier."

He is talking about a soldier, and he specifies this is a soldier on active duty. A soldier on active duty cannot be entangled in the things of this life. When these soldiers moved from reserve status to active status, there were things that kicked in — a great many things were done for them. This soldier didn't open his orders and say, "Afghanistan — hmm, what should I wear? What's the weather like?" They simply go. Transportation, clothing, food, instruction, where to sit, where to stand, where to move — all of it is handled, because the goal is no distraction so you can focus on what is in front of you.

You are soldiers in the army that Christ has assembled to infiltrate this world, and it is essential that you disentangle yourself from this world. There was an article in the September 7th edition of USA Today by a man describing how pickpockets operate, especially at airports. One ploy is that someone will throw a ticket down, you reach to pick it up, and another person lifts your wallet. Another involves a coin dropped on the ground — your natural reflex is to reach down and pick it up.

The Nature of Distraction

The most important thing about the distractions thieves use is not the specific type — criminals change their methods constantly. What never changes is that they distract you in some way. If you find yourself being distracted by a stranger, be alert. The same thing applies to your life and mine as a Christian. What kills us and robs us of the power that we have, of the things God is doing in our lives, are the distractions that are thrown in our way — the deal, the new client, the new club, the new person, whatever it is. Paul's admonishment to Timothy and to us is to not live an entangled life.

A Word from Peggy Noonan

I am going to read to you a rather long article, and I want to acknowledge that reading an article aloud is fundamentally a mistake — but I think we can overcome it. You will want to read this article in its entirety afterward, so if you go to the website under message notes for today, you will find a link to it. It was written by Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and one of the great minds in this country, who writes regularly for the Wall Street Journal. She wrote this particular piece for Forbes, and it was later reprinted. The article was written November 30, 1998 — almost three years ago at the time of this message.

My hope in sharing it is singular: to call you to examine your life and see if perhaps she is not writing directly to you. It has been edited heavily, so if it does not make complete sense in places, that is my doing, not hers. Here is what she says:

> History has handed us one of the easiest rides in all the story of man. It has handed us a wave of wealth so broad and deep that it would be almost disorienting if we thought about it a lot, which we don't. We know such comfort. Lately, this leaves me uneasy. Does it you? Do you wonder how and why exactly we have it so different, compared to thousands of years of peasants? Is it possible that we, the people of the world, are being given a last great gift before everything changes? To me, it feels like a gift. Only three generations ago, my family had to sweat in the sun to pull food from the ground.

She then lists the marvels that are part of our everyday lives — the computer and so on — and observes that we would feel amazement, even a mild disorientation, if we were busy feeling and thinking long thoughts instead of doing: planning the next meeting, appointment, consultation, presentation, vacation. We are too busy doing these things to take time to see, feel, parse, or explain amazement. Which gets her to time. We have no time. Is it that way for you? Everybody seems so busy. I would add: why? What is behind that?

The Command of Affluence

Here is what she says next:

> All our splendor, our comforts, takes time to pay for, and affluence wants to increase. It carries within it an unspoken command: more. Affluence is like nature, which always moves toward new life. Nature does its job. Affluence enlists us to do it. We hear the command, more. So we work. The more you have, the more you need, the more you work and plan.

This is odd in part because of all the spare time we should have. We do not, after all, have to haul water from the creek. We do not have to kill an antelope for dinner. She can microwave a lean cuisine in four minutes and eat it in five. She should have a great deal of extra time — more so than the cavewoman — and yet she does not feel that she does.

> We've invented new technologies so that work can be done more efficiently, more quickly. But we have less leisure time, it seems, because these technologies encroach on our leisure time. You can be beeped on safari, be faxed while riding an elephant, receive an email while being menaced by a tiger. If you can be beeped on safari, you will be beeped on safari. This gives you less time to enjoy being away from the demands of time.

No Hiding Place

> Twenty years ago, when I was starting out at CBS on the radio desk, we would try each day to track down our roving foreign correspondents and get them to file on the phone for our morning news broadcast. I would go to the daily logs to see who was where, and not infrequently it would say, "Smith in Beirut is out of pocket." But now there's no out of pocket. Now everyone can be reached and found anywhere, anytime. Now there is no hiding place. We are in pocket.

> I live a life of only average intensity, yet by 9 p.m. I'm quite stupid, struck dumb with stimuli fatigue. I am tired from ten hours of unconscious strain of planning and meeting and talking and thinking. If you clench your fist for ten hours and then let it go, your hand will jerk and tremble. My brain trembles.

> When a man can work at home, he will work while at home. When a man works at home, the wall between workplace and living place, between colleague and family, is lowered or removed. Does family life spill over into work life? No. Work life spills over into family life. You don't wind up taking your son for a walk at work. You wind up teleconferencing during softball practice. This is not progress. This is not more time, but less time.

The Dilemma We Were Warned About

Stop there. In 1969, I took a sociology class — and took it again in 1970, because the teacher did not communicate very well. That is thirty-one years ago. In that class, we were asked to look into the future, to understand the marketplace and the world, and to project what was going to happen. This may sound like fiction to you, but many of you were in classes similar to this, and I assure you it is absolutely true. Here is what we had to wrestle with: the extraordinary dilemma that Americans would face in the year 2000. With the proliferation of the computer and the challenge of maintaining full employment, those teachers were convinced, as they looked into the future, that —

The Illusion of Leisure

In 1960, the prevailing forecast was that Americans would soon be working no more than thirty hours a week, perhaps even twenty-five, because there simply would not be enough work to go around. At the time, gas was about thirty cents a gallon, and the prophetic stock of that era — the way people looked at the dot-coms later — was Winnebago. Winnebago went from one dollar to five to ten to fifty to one hundred and fifty dollars a share. In Forest City, Iowa, where Winnebago was headquartered, there were newspaper stories about paperboys who were worth half a million or even a million dollars, because at Christmas people would simply give them Winnebago stock as a tip.

That was how people envisioned the future: a proliferation of computers and an abundance of leisure time. They got the proliferation of computers right, but it has not opened us up — it has made us more accessible. You cannot get away from it. That phone rings everywhere. We have to announce every week in church to check your cell phone, because it rings all over: in restaurants, in the car, it does not matter. You do not have more freedom; you have less.

For most of you, there is no time to think. Not time to ask yourself what to do next, but time to ask yourself why you are doing it at all. That is her point.

Exhausted by Our Options

She writes with real force, so listen to this: "The bad news is that our options leave us exhausted when we pursue them and embarrassed when we don't."

She goes on: "Mom hasn't noticed, but she's half mad from stress. Her face is older than her mother's, less innocent. She doesn't have that mother's soft maternal weight. Kids do not feel a pillowy yielding when they hug her."

I remember my grandmother had a rocking chair she would sit in, in her kitchen. I would go and sit right next to her — not on her lap, but beside her — and work my arm in close, and there was a lot of her to hold onto, and I would sit and just rest there by the hour. I will tell you, it simply felt good. It felt comforting.

She does not have her mother's soft maternal weight. "The kids do not feel a pillowy yielding when they hug her. They feel muscles and smell Chanel body moisturizer. Mom never wanted to be Barbara Billingsley. Mom got her wish."

Now apply that to yourself.

A Warning Written Before the Fall

Let me remind you — and I will do so again in a moment — that she wrote this on November 30th, 1998. She asks: what will happen? How will the future play out? And then she says: "We're going to get more time, but it's not pretty how it will happen. So if you're in a good mood, stop reading here, go hug the kids, relax, have a drink, and a nice pointless conversation with your spouse."

Then she continues: "It's been said that when an idea's time has come, a lot of people will likely get it at the same time. In the same way, when something begins to flicker out there in the cosmos, a number of people — a small group at first — begin to pick up the signals. They start to see what's coming. Something's up."

"And deep down where the body meets the soul, we are fearful. We fear down so deep that it hasn't even risen to the point of articulation. That with all our comforts and amusement, with all our toys and bells and whistles, we wonder if what we really have is a first-class stateroom on the Titanic. Everything's wonderful, but a world is ending, and we sense it."

The Weight of What Is Coming

She is not speaking of an economic depression. She writes: "I mean we live in a world of three billion men and hundreds of thousands of nuclear bombs and missiles and warheads. It's a world of extraordinary germs that can be harnessed and used to kill whole populations, a world of extraordinary chemicals that can be harnessed and used to do the same. Three billion men, and it only takes a half a dozen bright and evil ones to harness and deploy. What are the odds it will happen? Put it another way, what are the odds it will not? Low, nonexistent, I think."

Remember — this is November 30th, 1998. She continues: "When you consider who is gifted and crazed with rage, when you think of the terrorist places and the terrorist countries, who do they hate most? The great Satan, the United States. What's the most important place? Some would say Washington. I would say the great city of the United States is the great city of the world. The dense, ten-mile-long island of Manhattan, where the economic and media powers of the nation reside, the city that is the psychological center of our modernity, our hedonism, our creativity, our unthinking arrogance."

"If someone does the big, terrible thing to New York or Washington, there will be a lot of chaos and a lot of lines going down, a lot of damage, and a lot of things won't be working so well anymore. Plus, a lot more time."

A Blow That Reorders Everything

She then describes what such an event would mean at a deeper level: "The psychic blow — and that's what it will be as people absorb it, a blow, an insult that reorders and changes — will shift our perspectives and priorities dramatically and for longer than a while. Something tells me more of us will be praying, and hard, one of the side benefits of which is that there is sometimes a quality of stopped time when you pray. You get outside time."

She then shares this: "I think of a friend who lives on Park Avenue who turned to me once and said out of nowhere, 'If ever something bad is going to happen in this city, I pray each day that God will give me a sign — that He'll let me see a rat stand up on the sidewalk so I'll know to gather the kids and go.'"

She absorbed that conversation, and two years later — just a month before she wrote this piece — she poured out her fears to a former high official of the United States government. His face turned grim. He apologized; she apologized for being morbid. He said no. He thought the same thing would happen, and he thought it would happen within the next year and a half. She was surprised further when he mentioned that an acquaintance of his, a former arms expert, expected it in a matter of months.

And here is how she concludes: "So be good, do good, and pray."

This is a remarkably perceptive woman.

Living in Uncertain Times

Things are never going to be the same, and that can be very, very good. In a sense, on September 11th, the rat stood up on the sidewalk and screamed to all of us: take an inventory of your life. Stop and take a look. How are things going? I don't mean just what does the accountant say. I mean, what would your spiritual accountant tell you?

How would he say your investment of your time, your energy, your effort, and your money is stacking up with what you say is most important to you — that personal, intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ? I believe things are never going to be the same. I believe it's going to be long and ugly, and that's good for us.

Christians do best in difficult times. As you look back over your life and pick out one or two or three or four of the most significant moments — when God reached down and grabbed you and took hold of you — weren't those usually times of hurt and pain and suffering? We don't do very well when things are moving along smoothly. Those are the times when we say God did it all, God's really something, and then we write a book to tell how we did it. We give Him all the honor and glory, but then there's that little look that says, why wouldn't He bless me?

How to Live: Paul's Word to the Thessalonians

Open your Bibles, if you would, to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, because Paul talks to this church about this very thing. What's significant is that in chapter 4, Paul has talked about end times — about how this world will end in the sense of how the resurrection of Christians will take place and they'll be united with Christ. Then he talks about what he wants us to do until then. He tells us how to behave toward church leaders, toward one another, and then toward God Himself.

He says this in verses 12 and 13: "But we request of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you and have charge over you in the Lord and give instruction, and that you esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Live at peace with one another." As you prepare for these times of uncertainty, remember that you are to appreciate these leaders for three reasons. Number one, they are appointed by God. Number two, they give you godly instruction. Number three, they work diligently.

How to React Toward One Another

How do we react toward one another? Paul says: "We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with all." That idea of the unruly refers to those whose life is out of line — often those who are simply idlers. So he says: warn the idlers, tell them to get to work, put courage into the faint-hearted, and help those who are weak, especially those who are weak in the faith.

When Jesus taught — at least in the teachings that survive in the Word — the most frequent prohibition He gave us was: do not be afraid. Jesus is continually saying, do not be afraid. Why? Because He created us, and He knows what we are like. He knows we are naturally fearful people.

We are afraid of everything. We are afraid when the market goes up and afraid when the market goes down. I have spoken with dozens of groups and I have a talk called "What Are You Afraid Of?" We simply open it up and ask people to share what they are afraid of. I have done it with men's groups, women's groups, business groups, and with kids. We did it over at ASU in Tempe, and we have done it all over. Inevitably, you get the same things: afraid to die, afraid of suffering, afraid of a life that is just meaningless. I will pull up a PowerPoint showing every one of those fears, and people say, "How did you know?" Because we are all the same.

So do not be afraid. Put courage into people. Help one another. How do you put courage into somebody? You take God's Word, you open it up, and you teach them.

Do Not Repay Evil for Evil

Then Paul says, back in verse 15, "See that no one repays another with evil for evil." That has a great deal of application right now. I am seeing all sorts of people who just want to get back at someone. They are shocked, surprised, and now they are angry. They want to get even. But that is not your job. Your call, as Jesus says, is to love your enemies. If your enemy has no coat and you have two, you are called to give your enemy a coat. It is not your job to get even.

Does that mean we simply let wrongdoing continue? No — that is not what is being said. That is the job of the government, not of the individual. So this applies as we deal internationally, but it also applies as we deal with one another. We are to forgive.

How to React Toward God

This brings us to what is perhaps the most important section — and in one way these are ordered backwards, because this is actually the foundation for everything else. How do we react toward God? "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

Start with that last phrase: this is God's will. We hear this question all the time — how do I know God's will?

Knowing What We're Called To

A couple of weeks ago, a man asked me how I received my call to ministry at East Valley Bible Church. I told him I didn't know. He seemed puzzled, as though he expected me to say I was in the backyard when a bush broke into flame. Here is what I know for sure: I know what God told me in His Word — that I shouldn't commit adultery, shouldn't steal, shouldn't cheat, should love one another. All of those things I know. I am called to that. Outside of that, I don't know.

That is why I think Jerry Falwell's comments were so damning. He made that comment without having the foggiest idea why God called or allowed the events that took place. That is a stupid — and I recognize that is a very strong word — but that is a stupid comment to make, because you simply don't know. Could God look down and judge? How much sin does it take for God to justify wiping us out? Well, that threshold is one we blew past a long time ago. We don't know whether God is purifying us. I hope He is. He certainly has our attention. But I cannot say God did this because of homosexuals. That is inflammatory and it is an ignorant statement, because you don't know. It doesn't say that in here, does it?

Rejoice, Pray, and Give Thanks

Here is what I do know that God has called us to do — three things: rejoice, pray, and give thanks. We are to rejoice. We are to be joyful. Joy is appropriate at every point in life. Rejoice always. Be cheerful. Get rid of that long face.

Pray without ceasing. He is not necessarily speaking of repetitious, continuous prayer. He is talking about persistent, regular prayer. That is where we find strength. That is when we acknowledge God and who He is. When we go to our knees in prayer, what we are demonstrating is our dependence on Him.

And in everything, give thanks. One of the characteristics of a pagan is that they are ungrateful. In everything, give thanks.

These Truths Apply to Your Individual Life

One of the things I have noticed in the last couple of weeks is that we have become so focused on this singular event that we fail to understand these same truths apply to your individual life. Life hasn't stopped. People are still dying. They are getting married. Marriages are falling apart. People are being hurt. People are sinning. All of this continues.

These are words of encouragement not just to the people of New York and Washington and Pennsylvania. These are encouraging words to you. You are to be thankful in everything, to rejoice always, to pray without ceasing. Why? Because you know Christ in a personal way. That is why. We have said it a billion times, but it is so important to remember: no matter how bad it gets, it can only last a lifetime.

These are magnificent times. It seems to me these are times that are crystallizing — even for pagans — the spiritual truths before us. They may not embrace our God. They may not embrace our faith. But these are opportunities where we can rise up and say, "You want to talk about God? Let me show you God."

The Name of Jesus Changes Everything

Have you noticed that as long as we keep talking about God, everybody stays at the table? As long as we say God did this, and God did that, and God is good, everybody stays in the conversation. But the minute we say "Jesus," they are gone. As long as we speak of God in general terms, people say, "I'll stick around for that." But once you say Jesus is the only way, they say, "I fold. I'm out of this game."

You have a great opportunity as individuals, and we have a great opportunity as a church, to infiltrate this world for the Lord Jesus Christ. We are soldiers called to serve in His army, but it is essential that we not become entangled in the affairs of everyday life.

Evaluate Your Own Life First

Before you go out into the workplace, before you go out to share your faith, will you constantly be evaluating your own life? Some of you are at a place where, when you start to share Christ, the biggest obstacle people have to hearing your words is your life. You need, through the power of the Spirit, to fix that.

Some of you need to go — to the office, to the club, to someone's house — and gather people together and say, "I'm sorry. I'm wrong. You have taken a moment to look at my life, and what I have given you is a bad example."

Next week we return to our study of 1 Corinthians and will pick up in chapter 12.

Father, help us see this and apply this. God, may Your Spirit do this work in our lives. That is our prayer. That is what we ask. We ask it in Christ's name, amen.