What I Taught at Summer Camp 2009
Tom Shrader condenses seven summer camp sessions into one message built around three interconnected themes: the universal problem of sin requiring a transformed heart, the ongoing spiritual battle requiring an informed mind, and the call to a radical life defined by the love described in 1 Corinthians 13. Drawing primarily from Romans 3 and 5, he explains that sin separates every person from God, that Christ's death is the only remedy, and that grace—not religious effort—is what distinguishes biblical Christianity. He closes by urging both students and the congregation to resist the pull of idols, fight the battle of the mind, and demonstrate love in a way the world cannot explain.
“What separates biblical Christianity from everything else is this thing called grace — God moving. While we were yet sinners, not deserving anything, not doing anything right, while we were his enemies, Christ died for people like us.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Summer Camp
Recorded: 2009 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 32 min
Themes: sin, grace, love, spiritual warfare, heart transformation, idolatry, radical living, the mind, teenager, young adult, new believer, struggling with sin, feeling spiritually stuck, student ministry, questioning faith, parent of teens
Scripture: Romans 3:10-18, Romans 5:6, Romans 5:8, Romans 5:10, Genesis 1, Genesis 2, Genesis 3, Genesis 3:8, Genesis 6:5, 1 Corinthians 2:14, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, 2 Corinthians 5, Philippians 2, Philippians 3, Philippians 4:6, 1 John 5, James 1:2, James 1:14-15, John 3:16
Theological Themes: hamartiology, original sin, justification, sanctification, soteriology, grace alone, spiritual transformation, 1 corinthians 13 love
Full Transcript
Introduction
If you don't have a Bible and you raise your hand, the guys will bring you one — raise them real high because they are hard to see in here. When you get a Bible, go to the New Testament; it starts renumbering there, at page 120. If you brought your own Bible, we are going to the book of Romans.
I have missed two Sundays, and several people have asked how my vacation was. I have not been on vacation. Let me tell you where we have been. Susan and I drove over to San Diego, and then we had Sunday through Thursday to kick back, study, and get ready for the students who arrived on Friday for summer camp. So we had four or five days of really great time.
I mean, we just lay around — and I sounded like my dad. I do not know what I do all day; I am so busy. It is five o'clock, it is happy hour. We went from breakfast to happy hour with nothing in between. We went to bed about nine, so it was perfect.
Then the students arrived, and that changed the schedule around just a bit. But I took that time preparing for them, and I am going to give you in the next thirty minutes what I gave them in seven sessions.
Three Things We All Need
We talked about three things, and it occurred to me while I was there going through this that it would make a great series. Three things: a transformed heart, an informed mind, and a radical life. That is not true only of students — it is true of everyone. I have asked you to open your Bibles to Romans chapter three.
The reason I need a transformed heart is because something is wrong with my heart. When I talk about heart, I do not just mean the organ that pumps blood — I mean who I am. There is something wrong with me. We sense that. You sense that there is something wrong with the world, and you sense there is something wrong with the people around you, and when you are really honest, you sense there is something wrong with you too.
In the quiet of your heart, you know something is not right. You know there is something missing. You know there is something going on that, for whatever reason, causes you to be attracted to things that are wrong. And nobody has to tell you they are wrong — you instinctively understand that they are.
A Universal Indictment
How did we get that way? That is really important. Romans chapter three, verse ten addresses this, and the first thing to note is: it is not just you. In that sense, I can take the pressure off — but I will put the pressure right back on, because it is not just you, it is everyone. Paul makes a universal indictment, and it is not just New Testament, and it is not just Paul. Genesis chapter six, verse five describes that same condition of man.
That is the state of roughly fourteen billion people who have ever been born — they are born in that condition. I have a group that meets on Thursdays at ten, and one of the guys could not be there this week because he was not feeling well. The text said, "Won't make it — sick and worthless." That was actually a great description of what we are talking about here. There is no one, and there is no exception.
How We Got This Way
How do we get this way? That is really important to understand, because if I understand how we got this way, perhaps I can figure out how to fix it. Paul tells us that it was through one man that sin entered into the world, and death entered through sin. The historic account of how all of this began is in Genesis chapters one, two, and three.
God created man. Man and woman were in the garden, naked and innocent — that is the end of Genesis two. Then in Genesis three, the serpent appears, tempts Eve, she eats, and she gives the fruit to Adam, and he eats. When that happens, Genesis three, verse eight tells us that man began to hide, and man was afraid. That is the effect sin has on us. We all inherit that — Adam's sin nature is in us. That is our nature. That is who we are. There are no exceptions.
What Sin Does to Us
So what does sin do? You have it right in front of you. Here is the first thing: it separates me from God. God and I are no longer in union. That is what happened to Adam and Eve — they were in this incredible union with God, but that union is broken. They begin to hide; they are afraid. Sin causes me to be separated from God.
Verse eleven of Romans three shows the second effect: sin causes me to be unable to understand God or the things of God. First Corinthians 2:14 tells us the natural man cannot understand spiritual things. Some of you have had that experience — you have sat down with people who do not share your faith, laid this out for them, and felt like you might as well have been talking to the piano. Well, yes, you might as well have been. But it is not their fault, and it is not that they are stupid. It is that they do not have the Spirit of God in them. That is the effect of sin.
The third thing that happens is there in verse eleven as well: none of us seek after God. Now wait a minute — you may say that you know people who are seeking God. But they are seeking a god with a small "g." They are not seeking the one true God. The philosopher Voltaire said it this way: God made man in His own image, and man has been returning the favor ever since. We create our own god.
Whatever gives me comfort, whatever gives me safety, whatever gives me security, whatever gives me significance, wherever I find my worth — those are my god. So I may run after a food god, or a sex god, a drug god, a business god, a fun god, an enjoyment god. I may try to discipline myself and whip myself into shape and try to find satisfaction somehow.
Seeking Idols Instead of God
I know something is wrong, and I am seeking an idol. That is what the Bible calls it. That is what John says in 1 John chapter 5, when he closes the book: guard your hearts against idols. An idol is anything in your life that takes a place rightly reserved for God alone. It could be athletics, it could be your kids, it could be school — it could be anything.
The fourth thing sin does is that we not only seek these false gods, we turn to them for satisfaction. Verse 12 says they have turned aside, together they have become useless, of no value. We begin to worship the creation rather than the Creator. We are drawn to the creation, and we ignore the Creator. Why? Verse 18 tells us: because there is no fear of God. We do not fear Him. We have no sense of awe of Him anymore.
The Nature We Are Born With
Now that is everybody. That is how you come into the world. I have four grandkids, and Brayden is the oldest. Brayden will be four in November, and Yale will be two in August. Brayden calls almost every day and says to either Susan or to me, "Will you come down and watch me hit balls? Boom. Boom. Boom." And I will say, "Put your mom on the phone. Don't you have a thermometer?"
Brayden called the other day and said, "Papa, Yale wants you to come down and watch me hit balls." Now, Yale has not strung two thoughts together in his whole life. Susan said, "Oh, isn't that cute?" I said, "Susan, I am really serious — do you see how evil this is? Do you see how manipulative that is?" Somehow, without a class, without a seminar, without a tape or a CD series, Brayden figured out that maybe Yale would be the pull that would get me to come and watch him. Who taught him that? No one. That is who we all are. That is why we need a transformed heart.
Religion: Our Attempt to Fix Ourselves
So immediately, when we sense something is wrong, we try to do something about it. That is called religion. Something is broken, so I will fix it. My heart is broken, I will fix it. I am separated from God, so I will seek Him. I will create a god — one who will not have too much control or power, because I have created him and he is going to do pretty much what I want. But I will create that god.
Grace: The Solution God Provides
Turn one page to Romans chapter 5, because here we see how the sin problem is actually solved. Romans chapter 5, verses 6, 8, and 10. Verse 6: "While we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly." Verse 8: "God demonstrated His own love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Verse 10: "While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son."
Essentially the same thing is said three times. While we were — verse 6 — helpless; verse 8 — sinners; verse 10 — enemies, Christ died. There is the solution. God moved. What separates biblical Christianity from everything else is this thing called grace. While we were yet sinners, not deserving anything, not doing anything right, not pleasing God in any way — while we were His enemies, while we hated Him, while we spat at Him, while we despised Him, while we rejected Him and sought other gods — at that moment, Christ died for people like us. That is grace. That is what biblical Christianity is all about.
New Creatures in Christ
So Paul can write in 2 Corinthians 5 that you and I are new creatures. Maybe you are here today and you do not know Christ. Would you not love to start over? Would you not like a mulligan on life? I cannot give you that in every aspect of life, but your heart — which is your central problem — can be transformed through a work of God.
If you come in repentance and faith, you acknowledge that you are a sinner, that sin has separated you from God, that you do not care about God, that you have hated God. But Christ died, and if you trust in that — "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him will never perish, but have everlasting life" — if you believe in Him, that is grace.
The Ability to Do Good
When you are the recipient of grace and you understand that truth, if you are truly a Christian, you are now united with God. You can begin to know Him. You now have the ability to do good — something you did not have before. You may even say, "I am doing the same things I always did." The whole point is that you are now doing them with a different heart.
That was the problem with the Pharisees. They were praying, they were fasting, they were doing all the right things — but they were doing them with the wrong heart. God did not say quit doing them. He said quit doing them with that heart. He said, "When you pray, when you fast, when you give, do it with a new heart."
The Gospel Requires Brokenness
We are incurably religious. We are always trying to figure out what we can do, what we must do, how we can fix it. There has perhaps never been a culture like the one we live in that is more individualistic, more focused on self-esteem and self-reliance, and that probably makes the gospel even harder to receive — because the gospel never applies to a person's life until they are broken, until they are desperate, until they have filed spiritual bankruptcy.
But once I know God, I am forgiven — not guilty anymore. I can have the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. I am in a permanent relationship with Him. Heaven is my future. It is looking bright. I have ultimate victory, but —
The Battleground Within
I am in a constant battle between now and death, and I am losing some of these battles. The battleground is not so much out there as it is in here. That is where I am fighting this battle. My heart is transformed and the Spirit of God lives in me, and now I am ready for life. What I need now that my heart is transformed is to inform my mind. That is where the war is raging.
That is why Paul can write in the book of Philippians, after saying "my desire is to know the power of the resurrection" and "I've rejected all of this religion, and now I embrace Christ," and then write: "I haven't already obtained it. I'm not perfect, but I press on to lay hold of that for which I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus." This is the very reason Christ died for him. He continues: "I don't regard myself as having laid hold of it yet. But one thing I do, I forget what lies behind. I reach forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
That sounds so noble. And everything Paul says there is absolutely true. Yet literally a half a page later, he writes: "Be anxious for nothing." He writes that because it is a scary, anxious world we live in.
False Hope vs. Real Hope
Susan and I were watching Christian television the other night, and there was a man on who said, "This is your year of Jubilee." He was going back to the Old Testament, back to how God dealt with the nation of Israel every fifty years — property goes back, everything is restored, everything is put back. "This is your year of Jubilee."
I have a fundamental problem with this. How do you know 2009 is the year of Jubilee? And beyond that, here is what he said: this is the year that that spouse will come back, that that kid will believe, that that mortgage will be paid, that you will get that job, that that disease will be healed. I said to Susan, I honestly do not know how you could say that. In my mind — and I understand there is a certain judgmentalness to this — you either have to be ignorant or a crook to say that.
Now, this is what makes it problematic. This man seems like a very genuine, very nice, very sincere, very sweet man. But are you telling me that in a church of 32,000 people, you are not going to do a funeral this year? Or have a divorce? Or a suicide? Or a kid go to jail? Or have no one lose their home? Do you honestly believe that?
Based on other interviews I have heard with him, I believe he would say he is just trying to give people hope. I would rather give people no hope than a false hope — and ideally, give them the real hope. But when you tell someone, "This is your year of Jubilee, your spouse is coming home," and 366 days later that spouse has not come home, all that is left to say is, "Well, you must be the problem." And that is exactly how religion creeps back in.
The Trap of Earned Outcomes
Paul says in Philippians 2 that he was very religious and was spared from that. Yet we tend to flip right back into it. A problem comes into our life and we immediately think, "I must not be praying enough." We do essentially the same thing that preacher is doing, just in a quieter way.
We are going to have Tim Kimmel here in November, and Tim is going to give you some great material on raising children. What I will not tell you is that if you follow his steps, you are guaranteed to have a good kid. Maybe you will, and maybe you will not. You can do everything right and have a messed-up kid. You can do everything wrong and have a great kid. You can do everything right and have your business go under. You can do everything wrong and have your business succeed. There is no guarantee.
Unhappiness by Design
I want to take this a step further, and this is risky. I have said that I do not think God is particularly concerned about our happiness, but about our joy. I want to go one step further. I am almost convinced that for our own good, the majority of our time, He wants us unhappy.
I guarantee there are far more people praying with the Dow Jones at 8,700 than when it was at 14,000. I know that in your life, when every deal is closing and every check is cashing, you are not praying the way you do when you have gone a year and a half without making a deal. I think God gives us moments of exhilaration, happiness, and joy in the smallest ways. We went out the other night to watch Braden hit balls — just to watch him with his helmet on, stroke the ball, and see the joy in his face. That was a little bit of happiness. It lasted a little bit of time.
There may be ways I need to temper that statement, but I do not want to temper it too much, because I do not want you to lose the impact of what I am saying. Life is a struggle by design. Life is hard by design. That is why Paul says, "Count it all joy when you encounter various trials" — because they are coming by the boatload. Why? For your own good. It is not that God is masochistic. God loves you so much that He is going to keep you in union with Him, and He will use whatever it takes to accomplish that.
Instinctively, we want to worship the gift and not the Giver. Think of it this way: it is Christmas morning and you are a ten-year-old child. Would you rather have the presents your mom and dad give you, or their presence? I will help you out — the presents. In the same way, as God blesses us over a period of time, I am convinced that for most people — not everyone, but most people — we begin to drift toward the gifts and away from the Giver.
The Battle Within
For most people, the desire is for the gift. But Jesus said we are settling for too little — we need to have the Giver. That struggle is internal. It is in the heart and in the mind. James 1:14–15 says each one of us is tempted when we are carried away and enticed by our own lusts. There is something inside of us.
So we fight this battle. Though the victory is won, though I am as sure of heaven as the saints that are already there, I still fight this battle with the world system, with an enemy called Satan and his demons, and with my flesh. My flesh is weak. "Carried away" literally means to drag bait in front of you. "Enticed" means to pull somebody out of their safe surroundings. That battle takes place within. It is waged all around you. That is why Paul says to set your mind on the things above.
So you have to do an honest examination. What are the things you want most? Here is a great way to find out: what is your greatest nightmare or fear? Is there something in your life that, if you lost it, life would not feel worth living? Where do you turn for comfort? Where do you find your value and your worth — physical appearance, possessions, relationships? What do you want most from life? What makes you happy?
Because you live in a world that screams at you all day long: use me, buy me, take me, drink me, touch me, sleep with me, snort me, rent me, try me just once — you will like it, nobody will know. That is the whole world around you. And that battlefield, before it ever happens out there, begins right in here.
Winning the Mind Game
For me, I have to keep saying to myself, do not let your mind go there. It could be anything — it could be food. I am really wrestling, really working hard to try to eat correctly. So I will be driving to a restaurant, and the whole way there I am saying to myself: you like salad, you like salad, you like salad, you like salad, you like salad. I hate salad. The only thing I like that is green is chocolate mint ice cream — that is the only green I like.
So a server comes over and says, would you like to look at a menu? Not really. Would you like to order? What would you like? I said, do you want me to order or do you want me to tell you what I would like? Because I can give you two different answers. And she will generally decide it is not worth the hassle, and I will say, just give me a salad. But we are not done yet, because we have two more significant decisions to make. Number one: dressing. I do not eat anything that begins with words like vinaigrette. So I will say, whatever you have the most of, a loaf of that, whatever. And we are still not done, because there is one more decision. Bread. What kind of bread do you have? No — get that bread away from me, because if you bring it, I will eat it.
It is all a mind game. Because once you are eating and you are done, you are essentially satisfied and full. You can apply that principle to anything.
What God Is Really After
The reality is that in the normal Christian life, you are going to win some and you are going to lose some. And the person telling you it is a year of jubilee — that you will win, win, win, that the prodigal child is coming back and everything is going to turn around — I am sorry, but that is not necessarily true. Because God is not as concerned about that circumstance resolving as He is concerned about your heart.
The question I have in the midst of hardship is: what is God teaching me? What is God doing in me? At the very core, He is trying to draw me closer to Himself. The other night, one of my grandchildren came running full bore with his arms out and I just took him, flipped him upside down, smacked him on the belly, and swung him around. He just went nuts. And I was chasing him and he ended up just hanging on to Susan's leg. That is what God wants from you. He wants you hanging on to Him, and sometimes you will not do it unless He brings hardship and pain into your life — and even then, He does it for your own good.
So when I am sitting down facing major problems — and there are big ones, and I make no effort to minimize them — I have to look not at the problem but ask: what is God doing in my life? He wants me close to Him.
Enjoying God, Not Just Performing for Him
The answer may not simply be to pray more, study more, or do more. That is the problem with a religious mindset. Here is the dialogue: Tom, are you praying enough? No. Do you love Susan enough? No. Do you spend enough time with the grandkids and the kids? No. Do you study the Bible enough? No. Are you nice enough to people? No. Do you do anything enough? No. That is religion.
God made me to enjoy Him. And when I enjoy Him, I will enjoy even the parts of life that are painful. He did not make me to enjoy this life as an end in itself — He made me to enjoy Him. That is really important. That is what it means to have an informed mind.
A Radical Life Rooted in Love
The last element is a radical life. The moment I say that, you think of activity — and rightly so. But I want to go a little deeper. Moving from Romans into 1 Corinthians 13, the more time I spend with it, the more I am convinced of what you already know: the greatest of all is love.
The night before He died, Jesus gathered the disciples together and said this: "They will know you are My disciples if you —" and at that point, He could have put anything in that blank. He had a blank slate. He could have said anything. If —
Loving One Another
Jesus did not say they will know you are My disciples if you study enough, or if you believe enough. He said they will know you are My disciples if you love one another. What does it mean to love? Your definition is in 1 Corinthians 13, beginning in verse four. Love is patient. It is long-suffering. It is kind. It is gracious.
Love is not jealous. Jealousy can mean "I want what you have," but here is a different and worse side of jealousy: "I don't want it — I just don't want you to have it." Love does not brag. The only time that word is used in the New Testament, it carries the idea of trying to make others jealous. It is not arrogant. Napoleon once said, "I am a man like no other." That would be arrogant.
Love does not act unbecomingly — in other words, it is not rude. The shooting at the Holocaust Museum that week was absolutely tragic, but one detail people were making a big deal of was that the guard who was shot had been opening the door for the gunman — an act of simple kindness. That is what we are supposed to do. If you want to see how rude people have become, go stand by a shelf in a bookstore and watch how many people walk straight through you without ever saying "excuse me."
I was in a bookstore about a year ago, and after the fifth person walked through me without a word, I muttered to myself, "Am I invisible or what?" A rather large fellow turned around and said, "Did you say something?" I said, "No." Love does not act unbecomingly.
The Heart of Love
Here is the key: love does not seek its own. It does not get provoked or angry. It does not keep score. It does not rejoice in sin — it rejoices in truth. And I have been hammering away at 1 Corinthians 13:7: love bears all things. It covers the other person. It believes the best. It hopes all things and endures all things. The world has never seen anything like that.
Paul says in Philippians 2, "Have the mind in you that is also in Christ Jesus." His picture there is humility, selflessness, this kind of love. How rare is it? Paul says, "I am sending you a man named Timothy. He is the only one I have who is like-minded with me." And what separates Timothy from everyone else is that he genuinely cares about others.
A Transformed Heart, an Informed Mind, a Radical Life
Here is what we said to the students at camp, and here is what we say to you — this is really the core of our message. My heart must be transformed because I am a sinner separated from God. That is step one. If you have not yet responded to the gospel, this is the day to believe.
Once you believe, you are in spiritual warfare. That warfare plays itself out in your actions, but it starts in your mind. Do not let your mind go there. From that foundation, you live a radical life — not just in what you do, but in why you do it and how you respond. The motive changes everything. All of a sudden you are very different, because your natural flinch, which is "what about me," is replaced with "what about you?" That is amazing, and it is not age-graded. I watch twelve-year-olds get that. I watch eighteen-year-olds get that.
Here is the question: do you get that? If Valley Bible Church is made up of people who have transformed hearts, who are fighting noble spiritual battles with informed minds, and who are living radical lives, this will be a compelling place. It will be compelling individually. It will be a compelling place to come and worship, to come to an event on a hot summer night, to come to a women's ministry or a men's gathering — because people will look and say, "I don't see that out there. I see it here. What is different?" A transformed heart. An informed mind. A radical life.
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Father, thank You that we can come before You, that we can call You Father, that we can worship You. I thank You for the week we had at summer camp and what You did in the lives of so many students. God, I pray they would continue to walk with You and grow in You. I pray for those students for whom You did not move in an obvious way — that You would still work in their lives, maybe now, maybe today, maybe in the next year, and that You would draw them to Yourself. God, thank You for faithful parents and friends who supported and made that whole event possible. Thank You for dads who sacrificed as part of the dad's crew, and for staff who worked so diligently. We love You because You first loved us. We praise You and worship You in Christ's name. Amen.