What Kind of Year Was 2002?
Tom Shrader guides the congregation through an annual year-in-review exercise, contrasting worldly measures of success — income, possessions, status — with deeper spiritual ones drawn from 2 Timothy 4 and Psalm 90:12. He identifies four marks of a truly good year: practicing honest self-evaluation, understanding the value of time, letting spiritual victories outpace defeats, and anticipating the return of Christ. Drawing on 1 Timothy 6 and Ephesians 6, he argues that contentment flows from recognizing that material things are temporary, while the crucial longing of the human soul can only be satisfied by a relationship with Christ.
“Godliness with contentment is great gain. We brought nothing into the world, and we can't take anything out of it.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Year in Review
Recorded: 2003 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 1 hr 19 min
Themes: year in review, contentment, time management, self-evaluation, spiritual growth, material possessions, second coming, priorities, feeling successful but empty, struggling with materialism, reflecting on the past year, seeking life purpose, working professional, mid-life evaluation, new year planning, chasing worldly success
Scripture: Galatians 6:3-4, Psalm 90:12, 1 Timothy 6:6-8, 2 Timothy 4:6-8, Ephesians 6:11-12, 1 Corinthians 9:24-25, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, Jude 3-4, Revelation 22:20
Theological Themes: sanctification, eschatology, return of christ, stewardship of time, biblical contentment, spiritual victory, soul satisfaction, temporal vs eternal
Full Transcript
Introduction: Looking Back at 2002
This is the first of two weeks that we take every year to stop and do what I think is a very healthy exercise. This week, we look back and evaluate the last year. Next week, we look forward in anticipation of the year ahead. We have been doing this at the church and at Priority Living for at least ten years now, and we use essentially the same measuring tools.
Because of that, you can fall into a spirit where you say, "I know all this stuff." I am not particularly concerned if you can regurgitate it back. What I am concerned about is whether it is changing your life. It is not enough to understand it and know it — the question is whether you are implementing it into your life.
I received an email from a man who said that three years ago he heard this and ignored it. Two years ago he heard it and listened to it. Last year he heard it and made some changes in his life. He pulled out his day timer and said, "Look at this — here are the notes from last year, and I cannot wait to measure my life this year against the same standard."
Assigning a Number to Your Year
Here is what we do. We ask you the question: what kind of year was 2002? Not what was it like nationally, not what was it like in your business — what was it like in your individual life? If you were to put a numerical assignment to it, was it a one? Was it a ten? One meaning, "I never want to see those four digits in that arrangement ever again," or ten meaning, "I wish every year was like this." What kind of year did you have? Take a second and assign a number to it.
It usually happens pretty quickly. To evaluate something like that and arrive at a number, consciously or unconsciously, you have to ask yourself a series of questions. If we are talking about a restaurant and I say, "How was it?" and you say, "An eight," you are evaluating ambiance, service, food, or some combination that gets you there. When we look at our year in review and examine our life and say, "What kind of year was it?" there are typical questions we might ask.
The Typical Questions People Ask
When I say typical, I mean if I went down to Chandler Mall and started interviewing people — "What kind of year was it, one to ten?" — these are the kinds of things they might think about to arrive at that number. Did you make more money than the year before? In 2001 you made thirty thousand, and in 2002 you made sixty thousand — or conversely, in 2001 you made sixty thousand and in 2002 you made thirty thousand. That is going to have some effect on that number.
We separate that from the next question: did you acquire more things? Because you can acquire things without money. You can walk in today and get a beautiful bedroom set with no payments until 2004. You can acquire things without necessarily expending any money to get them. Or perhaps you improved your position — you were a salesperson and now you are a sales manager. There is a certain sense of prestige that comes with that: longer hours, more pressure, less money, but prestige, and maybe that matters to you.
Or perhaps you advanced your image in the eyes of your friends, and you did not really know it until the Christmas party this year when you walked in the door. There was a murmuring that took hold, and then all of a sudden they recognized you were there. A hush fell over the room. They said, "There they are — they've arrived." I have thought about taking the last one out this year, but I leave it in: you caused envy in the eyes of your enemies. You had those who did not like you, and this year you were able to give them concrete reasons not to like you.
This last one often surfaces with the phrase, "They are shooting at me from all directions — from my left, from my right, from the front. They are shooting at me from all directions. I must be right." That reasoning, of course, always avoids the possibility that perhaps you are a person who is universally disliked, and we do not want to overlook that possibility. But there they are. You can add to that list — there are other things — but that is a typical set of questions.
Putting the Typical Questions in Their Proper Place
I will say this a couple of times today, because there are three or four things I will repeat. I am not saying these things are unimportant. If you were making a certain income and you spent last year unemployed, it is going to have some effect. As a Christian, you want to bring honor and glory to God through your good works, and being recognized for that matters. I am not saying these things are insignificant. What I am saying is that they are not the most important things. They are not the most significant things. I do not want to demean them — I only want to put them in their proper place.
What I am suggesting is that there is a more profound set of questions. As you begin to evaluate your life, there are five or six inventory questions that will determine, to a large measure, what kind of year you truly had. This is not an all-inclusive list — you can add to it or even take away from it. But let me give you five or six of them.
The First Profound Question: Self-Evaluation
Here is the first one. Did you recognize the importance of the very thing we are doing right now — self-evaluation? Scripture says, "If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own actions." Do you do that? Do you have an accurate assessment of who you are — what your talents are, what your gifts are, what your strengths are? Have you stopped to think about it?
Susan and I are in the process of moving, and I have tried to limit my responsibilities in that endeavor as much as possible. But the part I know is coming — and the part I am dreading — is that I have to get my office ready to move. And that means there...
Going With the Flow
There are literally hundreds of books that are not going to make the cut. They have to go, because I am not going to move them and they are not that important. Well, there are a couple of books in there on a subject that we do not even talk about anymore. It was a hot topic fifteen years ago: midlife crisis. We used to talk about midlife crisis constantly. There were shows about it, KTAR was covering it, everybody was talking about it.
I think the reason we do not hear that phrase anymore is that we do not wait for midlife to have our crisis anymore. We are having crises at twenty-three, at twenty-five. We are in a constant state of crisis. But a midlife crisis was a specific moment in time — I would say between thirty-five and forty-five — where we would stop, and one of two things would happen. We would either look up and say, "How did I get here?" or we would say, "I wanted to do this, this, and this. I accomplished this, this, and this, and I am miserable, and I am in crisis."
I deal with guys all the time who just let life move along. They are in high school and they think, "I do not want to go to work, so I will go to school." They get out of school and say, "I better get a job." They start to date, they get married. People are allowed in the apartment, so they need to get a house. They get a home, they have kids — and then one day they wake up and say, "How did I get here?" They just moved along. I would describe it as going with the flow.
Going with the flow is great if the flow is taking you where you want to go. But if you want to go to Flagstaff and the flow is taking you to Tucson, that is not very good. You have to stop and look at where you are. You have to be proactive. Your life will never be what it could be if you do not stop and take an honest inventory of your strengths, your weaknesses, where you are, and what you want to do.
The Importance of Self-Evaluation
I am not just talking about in business, although that is important. I am talking about in your spiritual life as well. And you have to have somebody help you with a portion of it, because every one of us has blind spots — things we cannot see, though we think we can. For me, it was dancing. I always thought I was a pretty good dancer, but I never got very high marks.
You have things in your life that you think you do very well and you do not, and other things that maybe you do very well and you do not even realize it. You need somebody in your life to help you see both. Frequently, that is someone close to you — often a family member, many times a spouse. I have discovered from personal experience as well as from others that if you will allow that spouse to give you input without recrimination, you can get remarkably good insight from them.
I use our church as an example. I will regularly — weekly — say to Susan, "How was the service? How was the message?" Almost always she will say it was great, it was fine. But periodically she will say, "Not your best. Not very good. You missed this, you did not do this, this point was not clear, I do not know why you made that other point — it was belittling. Why would you do that?" And she is sometimes right about it. Three thousand people come through here in a week, and she is the only one who will tell me. I am not saying she is the only one who sees it — she is the only one who tells me.
Evaluation Means More Than Criticism
There are two things to note there. Number one, Susan is doing your job for you. Number two, you do not have to tell me she is doing it — I am not looking for emails and additional input. But do you see that dynamic?
Now here is a point that gets missed all the time when we think of self-evaluation: we tend to think only of criticism. Jim Harper had a fascinating experience a few years ago. He took a group of guys over to the Shepherds Conference, and on the second day he said, "I am going to give you an assignment. Tonight when we meet, I want you to give me twenty-five observations from the day." So they got together that evening and he said, "All right, time for evaluations." Five guys spoke. That gave him one hundred and twenty-five observations — and every single one of them was a criticism. He said, "I did not tell you to bring me a hundred and twenty-five criticisms. I said, bring me twenty-five observations."
Holding somebody accountable does not just mean criticism, criticism, criticism. I was with a man last Friday, and I said to him, "You are a leader. I think you are a leader." He said, "Well, I do not see it." I said, "People follow you. You have that quality." Sometimes when you are pouring into somebody's life and giving them input, it is not to say, "That is wrong, that is no good." It may be to say, "Do you see this in yourself?" Every person in this room who is a Christian has a spiritual gift. It may be that you are not using it. Some of the greatest input you can receive is to have the people around you say, "When you do this, things happen. People respond." You had a great year if you understand that.
Do You Understand the Value of Time?
Here is the second thing, and I will spend a great deal of time on it because I think it is so important: do you understand the value of time? I love the book of Second Timothy, and here is the reason why. Paul is at the end of his life and he knows it. He writes, "My life is being poured out as a drink offering."
I mentioned that I am cleaning out my books, and I have noticed a small trend among them. There is a book called *The Last Year of FDR*, books on the last years of Napoleon, the last years of Robert E. Lee, *The Last Day of Lincoln's Life*. I am drawn to that kind of ending.
Numbering Our Days
Paul's assessment was accurate from our perspective, in that we have no communication from the apostle beyond this letter. He said, "I'm at the end of my life." Psalm 90 verse 12 ought to be your little screensaver: "Teach us to number our days aright that we might gain a heart of wisdom." Help us understand this. Help us see this.
It's not that we don't know it. Everyone in here understands we have a certain number of days — 365 fewer than we had last year when we went through this. Help us not merely know it, but understand it, so we have wisdom. Not knowledge, wisdom. So we can take that knowledge and somehow let it make a difference.
A Father at His Daughter's Wedding
June 28th of this year, I stood right here. Haley stood right there. Tyler stood right there. And in a moment in time, Haley Schrader became Haley Johnson. An incredible moment — one I had thought about from the day she was born, the same as with Sarah's life.
I've got a hundred stories, and they'd all be just like the stories you have. Some of you, I've watched you over there — you're the ones with the little kids, and you look like the Grapes of Wrath coming to church. You've got bags hanging all over, you're wheeling them in, and you can't even fathom this day. I'm telling you, it's coming for you faster than you can imagine.
I can remember when we used to go to Los Arcos Mall every Saturday. Sarah would walk along and tell us where to go, and Haley would just be there in the stroller. We'd come in the west end every week, and there was a pet store — we'd look at the dogs, look at the cats. Then we'd go all the way through the mall. They loved to go to Miller's Outpost because there was that whole village set up there, and sometimes there was a train. We'd go all the way through the mall, all the way back to right where we came in, where there was a cookie store. We'd go in every Saturday, get cookies, and just sit and talk and look around.
And now I'm standing here thinking: Haley Schrader is now Haley Johnson? This doesn't seem right. I spent 21 years protecting her, watching her, and now he's in charge? What has happened? Shouldn't he be Tyler Schrader — doesn't that make more sense?
My response may surprise you, because I suspect it's different from what you anticipated. I did not find myself saying, "I wonder where the 21 years went." I found myself saying, "I wonder what the next 21 years will be like — if there are 21 years. Will they go by that fast?" Interesting, isn't it? Teach us to number our days aright.
The Themes That Define This Ministry
I am deeply committed to this concept. I believe it is an essential part of your Christian growth. I had breakfast with Tyler on Friday, and he said something he has said to me before. When he talks about East Valley Bible Church — and especially when he talks about my teaching and ministry — he said, "I think of three or four things. You always talk about the sovereignty of God. You always talk about the freedom that we have in Christ. And then you always come back to that idea of the finiteness of life, which connects with Christ's coming again and with this issue of contentment."
What's interesting is that was not something I set out as a goal. That's just what I'm all about.
Godliness with Contentment
There is a passage of scripture I want to show you — 1 Timothy 6. It's like other scriptures you may have encountered in your life: the first time you read them, you immediately say, "That's it. That's key." The first time I read this, that's exactly what I said. This passage may mean nothing to you — I'm not saying it has to. I'm simply saying it did to me, because the word contentment was there. And as I looked around at Christians in particular, I did not see content people.
Paul says, "Godliness with contentment is great gain." I believe there is an equation there, and I also believe the two are inseparable. If you are godly — consistently, genuinely, authentically walking with God — there will be contentment. He continues: "We brought nothing into the world. We can't take anything out of it. If we have food and covering, with those we should be content."
I spent not minutes or hours but days thinking about this passage, over a period of years. It seems to me the flow is clearer if you temporarily set verse seven aside. "Godliness with contentment is great gain... we have food and covering — with those be content." Do you see it? He is talking about contentment, and that thread runs through the whole passage.
But here is the problem. The Creator God of the universe wrote it, and He does not make mistakes. So verse seven is there for a reason. Put it back in. It doesn't break the flow — it makes the flow. That took me three years to work out. There is no way you are going to be content until you understand that you came into the world with nothing and you are leaving with nothing.
If you think that while you are here you will find significance in possessions, Paul strips that idea away from you. Job says the same thing. The psalmist says the same thing. It is a repetitive theme throughout scripture: you came with nothing, and you are leaving with nothing. The most natural human impulse is to come into the world, acquire things, and think you must hold onto them. But scripture says you cannot take any of it with you. If you want to find contentment in this world, you must come to grips with the fact that the material —
Contentment and Godly Discontent
There should be a godly discontent in your life, a dissatisfaction in your life. You should hunger and thirst for Him more and more. You should want to know Him more and love Him more and pursue Him more. So in that spiritual sense, in that eternal sense, there is a constant discontent, a lack of satisfaction. In the material sense, however, there should be a total sense of contentment.
Victories and Defeats
You had a great year if your victories exceed your defeats. Paul says, "I fought the good fight, I finished the race, I kept the faith." We are talking about victories and defeats, and that implies we are in a battle — not in some metaphorical way, but in a real sense. This is reality.
In Ephesians chapter six, Paul writes: "Put on the full armor of God so you can take your stand against the devil's schemes." When we think of putting on armor, we think of putting it on and taking it off. But there would be no point in a soldier wearing armor to go shopping — it would only prove cumbersome. The Greek meaning of "put on the full armor of God" is to put it on and leave it on.
The reason Paul uses that particular phrasing is this: as a soldier of Christ, you are in battle 24-7. You do not go into battle and out of battle. You go into battle and you stay in battle. So you put on the full armor of God — that is the understanding of His Word, the power of His people around you, the sharing, the praying, and all that goes with it — in order to stand against the schemes, the craftiness, of the devil.
The Reality of the Enemy
You have an enemy. A poll taken a couple of years ago found that 80% of those who identify themselves as born-again do not believe Satan is real. They say there is an evil out there, a force, but no personal Satan. That has to make him smile ear to ear. If you do not believe there is an enemy out there, how easy are you to defeat?
Stand against his schemes, his craftiness. Scripture tells us he comes like a roaring lion, like a subtle serpent, or like an angel of light. The word "struggle" in that passage means hand-to-hand combat. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against spiritual forces of evil. You and I need to take our stand, put on the armor of God, and leave it on, because we are in constant battle against his craftiness and his schemes. His desire is to destroy you, and he will lie and use any tool available — he does not care how, only that he destroys you.
Finishing the Race
Did victories exceed defeats? Did you fight the good fight? Paul also says, "I finished the race." Did you finish as strongly as you started? Paul writes these words at the end of his life. I have a friend who is a pretty recognizable figure in the Christian community, especially in Southern California. He is seventy now, and when I ask him what he is working on, he says it is one singular thing: finishing strong — not disqualifying himself.
I cannot imagine getting to the end of my life and saying, "Well, I had a great start, and there were some highlights along the way and certainly some fruit, but I didn't finish." I have to believe — and there is no way we could know it here — that as Paul sees these words penned, "I finished the race," there is a smile on his face and a sense of pleasure. He did not disappoint Him along the way. He started strong and got stronger.
Even within the church, we can talk about evangelism and soul-winning so much that we forget about continuing. We can be so concerned with the beginning — is he a believer? yes, now let's start working with him — that we neglect the long work of equipping and strengthening. The church is about that as well.
The Athlete's Discipline
Paul uses an athletic metaphor in 1 Corinthians 9, writing to the church at Corinth. For those who are familiar with Corinth, it was a pagan city, and one of its defining characteristics was its athletic games, second only to those in Athens. So Paul relates to his audience — a great teaching model. If you are going to teach and connect with someone, use something they already understand.
Paul writes: "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets a prize? Run in such a way as to get a prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training." He is pointing to people they already know and admire — these athletes would have been heroes in that city. In fact, competitors entered into a contract six months before the games, committing to a strict diet, exercise, and training program so that when they lined up at the starting line, every participant was as prepared as they could possibly be. They may not all have been equal in ability, but they were as prepared as they could be.
Paul holds up that level of discipline as an example. Then he adds something striking: these athletes endure all of this to receive a crown that will not last. If they won, they received hero status for the rest of their lives, they paid no income tax, and their children could not be drafted. Yet Paul calls it a crown that will not last. He says this, I believe, to draw a contrast — because we are running for something far greater.
The Temporary vs. The Eternal
I am not saying that these things are unimportant. They are fine things, good things, but they are not the most important. Paul makes a striking observation: these athletes are knocking themselves out to get a crown that is significant but does not last. We are in a race to get a crown that lasts forever. That is significant.
This brings us back to the very last lesson we taught out of 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verses 16 through 18: sometimes we become so focused on the temporary that we miss the eternal. Friday night, we crowned a new undisputed college football champion, the Ohio State Buckeyes. Two years ago, the champion was Oklahoma, under Bobby Stoops, who went 13-0 and won the national title. The next day at a press conference, Stoops made this observation: "After it's all over, you say, now what? The best part of it was the pursuit, the preparation. Once it's over, it's a little anticlimactic. The best part is going for it."
That strikes me as very odd. You just went 13-0 and won the national title, and you are saying the best part is already behind you. I guarantee I know what is going on in his mind — he already has a recruiting trip next week, and the pressure to do it all over again next year is already there. I am not saying it is not important. I am saying it is not the most important.
A Crucial Longing Only Christ Can Fill
I want to read something to you from one of my notebooks — something I wrote down during a time of personal reflection. It seems too good to be mine, so I may have copied it from someone, but let me read it and see if it is helpful.
"Many things in life satisfy for a season, soothing a temporary need, like a cool drink of water on a hot summer day. The comfort is genuine and real, but it is fleeting. These reoccurring needs and solutions are with us all our lives, always addressed but never permanently removed. Beyond this is a crucial need that can never be satisfied by a person, place, or thing. The reason for this is simple — it is not supposed to be taken away by any earthly thing. Only by a relationship with Christ will this crucial longing be satisfied."
You have certain things in your life that you need and that can be met by a person, place, or thing. When I got here this morning I was a little hungry, and I knew there would be food back here for the praise team. I had a piece of fruit and a small bit of ham and egg, and the hunger was gone — met for a moment, though it has since returned. We need food. We need to be loved. There is something about human touch that is irreplaceable; when Susan reaches over and puts her hand on my arm or my leg, I find it very comforting and exhilarating. We need a place to sleep, a place to stay, a place to worship.
But you also have a crucial longing that cannot be met by any person other than Christ, or by any thing or any place. That longing is designed to draw you into an intimate relationship with Christ, and the problem is that we try to fill it with a person, place, or thing. So you look back at 2002 and say you achieved your goals, exceeded your targets, and yet you are frustrated. It may be that you are not focusing on the most important thing — developing and nurturing that relationship with Christ — and instead you are trying to meet that deepest need with a person, place, or thing. It will never work. You had a great year only if you understood that.
Keeping the Faith: A Body of Truth to Be Preserved
Here is the third thing Paul says: "I fought the good fight, I finished the race, I kept the faith." The idea here is not simply that Paul maintained personal belief. He is saying he kept this body of truth — he preserved it and passed it on.
Jude expresses the same idea in Jude 3 and 4. He writes, "Dear friends, I wanted to write to you about our shared faith, but I felt I had to write to you to urge you to contend" — and this is the same Greek word we looked at earlier, translated elsewhere as "struggle" or hand-to-hand combat — "to fight hand-to-hand, once and for all, for the faith." It is the same phrase Paul uses: this body of truth.
If there is a fight to be fought, there must be an enemy. Who is the enemy? The ACLU? The media? Hollywood? The liberal left? The radical right? Republicans? Libertarians? No. It is not an enemy out there — it is an intramural struggle. Jude continues: "For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you." It is people inside the church, people who claim to be Christians.
You can identify them in two ways. First, they are godless men. Second, they turn grace into license. Do we believe in the grace of God? Absolutely. But they take that grace and use it as a license for something it was never meant to permit.
Living with the Expectation of Christ's Return
The last point, and we will spend just a minute on it, is this: you had a good year if you anticipate the return of Christ. Earlier in the eight o'clock service, Gary used the phrase, "Wait till your dad gets home." We always use that phrase in a context of fear and trembling. But as Christians, we cannot wait for our Dad to get home. When is He coming? Paul says he cannot wait for Him to come — there is a crown waiting. The last words we have from the Lord Jesus are not found in the Gospels or the book of Acts, but in the book of Revelation, where He says, "Behold, I am coming soon." Do you live with the understanding that it could happen any day? Do you long for it?
Let me tell you something about my life. I have a great life. I love most of it. I could not have a better wife. God has given me great kids. Tyler has come into the family, and it could not get any better than Tyler. I like where I live, where I go to church, and what I do. I love my life. Yet I am eager for it to move on, because I am leaving here to go home. When you understand that, it changes everything. It allows you to be content. It allows you to see life clearly. It allows you to accept the sovereignty of God and keeps you focused.
What Kind of Year Was 2002?
Now here is the question, and we close with what we started with: what kind of year was 2002? Some of you looked at those typical questions and said eight. When we look at these more profound questions, it turns out it was a two. Others of you said it was a two at the start, and now it is an eight. I am not that concerned with assigning a number — what matters is what the year actually meant.
If you had a good year, let me say something you do not hear very often: congratulations. Good going. Good for you. Celebrate. Go to Baskin-Robbins, run by Sonic, get yourself something to eat. However, let me remind you of what you hear on the radio all the time — past performance does not guarantee future results. So be careful.
A Word to Those Who Had a Difficult Year
If you had a bad year, let me spend a moment with you. It is not your spouse's fault. It is not your mother's fault. It is not your father's fault. It is not my fault. If you had a bad year, especially if you were here a year ago when we went through this, and you were a three then and you are a three now — that is your responsibility. Nobody else can move you along. You have to do it yourself. You have tools available. You have power around you. If you are a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit. Let's go.
Do not let another year pass where you sit at the end and say it was another three. Fix it now. Start now. Get into the Institute. Start serving. Live for Him. I am not saying you are a bad person — I am saying there is an attitude here that we can get fixed. Do not spend the next six months feeling bad about it, only to arrive at the holidays having done nothing and find yourself in the same place again next year. Start now.
Next week we will come back and give you some concrete things you can work on in this area. Let's pray.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for this truth. Thank You for what You have given us. God, for those who are here and hurting, let them come forward so that the men at the front of the worship center can pray with them. God, for those who had a great year, let them be encouraged and let them finish strong. For those who had a tough year, a hard year, a bad year, God, help us understand that with Your strength we can do great things. Father, we want to hear in our lives, "I fought the good fight. I finished the race. I kept the faith." God, with Your strength and Your power, we will be able to say that. We want to. We ask it of You in Christ's name. Amen.