What Kind of Year Was 2015?

Tom Shrader uses 2 Timothy 4:6-8 to present four essential questions for evaluating spiritual growth over the past year. He challenges listeners to move beyond typical material assessments and instead examine their understanding of self-evaluation, the value of time, their spiritual battles, and their anticipation of Christ's return. Drawing from Paul's final words, Shrader emphasizes the importance of stewarding time well and fighting the spiritual battle with eternal perspective.

“I want you to be homesick for a place you've never been.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Past-New Year 2016

Recorded: December 10, 2015

Duration: 39 min

Themes: evaluation, time, stewardship, spiritual growth, self-examination, priorities, perseverance, eternity, year-end reflection, spiritual assessment, mature believer, life evaluation, spiritual mentor, church member, seeking growth, annual review

Scripture: 2 Timothy 4:6-8, Galatians 6:3, Psalm 90:12, Ephesians 6:10-11, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, Jude 3-4, Revelation 22:20

Theological Themes: sanctification, spiritual maturity, biblical stewardship, self-evaluation, eternal perspective, spiritual warfare, christian discipleship, spiritual assessment

Full Transcript

A new year but the same old thing for us. Literally 15 years maybe, we've done this same or very similar exercise where we take a week and look back at, in this case, 2014. Next week we'll give you some advice on how to make this a great year. It is essentially the same points every year.

So we ask, what kind of year was 2014? To do that, the minute I say that, if I say give me a numerical value 1 to 10—10 being it was an incredible year, 1 being I never want to see those four numbers in that order again—to do that you have to have some sort of evaluation.

I told Sandy the other day, I'm done trying new restaurants. I am so sick of these new restaurants. They're all kind of hip and cool and all this, and they're great about everything but food. That kind of is the reason I'm there. I want them to get me back to the teepee, get me to Five Guys. I might as well be self-service in half of them anyway. In the old days, that would have been negative. Now, let's just offer an insight that I wanted to share with you.

So I went to a new joint the other day, and somebody said, "How was it?" And I said, "It was like a two." Well, to do that, you see, unconsciously I evaluated the ambience, atmosphere, the food, the process, how long I stood in line, the menu—I mean, all these things I don't have a clue what they are, and just all of that stuff.

How We Naturally Evaluate

When I say to you, "What kind of year was 2014?" you do something similar. So you look and go, "Well, I made more money than I did the previous year, which is good. Got more stuff." I don't need to have more money to get more stuff, because I can get you into a bedroom set today with no payments till 2017. So I can take care of that.

But it's that normal. It's what we've always traditionally called typical inventory questions. So if you go to Fashion Square and you stop 10 people and say, "What kind of year was it?" those are the questions that they would ask: How did I do health-wise, etc.

What we suggest to you is that there's a more profound set of questions to ask. While this will not be new to you, I think it's valuable. Samuel Johnson wrote, "We need to be reminded more than instructed." He's not saying we don't need to learn. He's saying we need to go back to those basics over and over again.

So we're going to take 40 minutes or so and give you some questions and ask you to evaluate the last year in light of these questions. Maybe at the end of this, you'll come up with a different numerical value for the year than you did a minute ago.

The Importance of Self-Evaluation

Here's the first one. If you have Bibles, you can open them to Galatians chapter 6, verse 3. Paul says, "If anyone thinks he's something when he's nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own action."

You had a good year if you understood—this sounds so obvious—the value of the very thing we're doing right now, and that's the importance of self-evaluation. It was Socrates who said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."

There's natural times. My friend Jerry Smith and I were invited into a ministry at our Gilbert campus called 710. They describe it as a hub ministry. Kind of everybody in there is at a stage of life where they're getting ready to move to the next one. They're in college ready to get out. They're out of college ready to get their first job. They're on the cusp of dating, thinking about maybe getting married.

So we were in there to impart what wisdom we've accumulated over the years, and I met a half dozen young men and women who either graduated or getting ready to graduate in May. They were doing this self-examination. There's an old saying: I've never met a young man who's not arrogant and an old man who's not filled with regrets. These arrogant young men were already filled with regrets. "What was I thinking when I majored in anthropology?"

The Reality Check

I don't know if this is true, by the way, but as we're talking, one of the guys is Googling, and the number He gave was 70%—76% of college graduates get a job that does not require a college degree. I don't know what that means, but it's pretty interesting. Means you could have saved some dough maybe.

But those are natural times of self-evaluation. Paul says, "If anyone thinks he's something when he's nothing, he deceives himself. You should go ahead and test your own actions," but it's very hard to do.

One of the phrases that's popping up in our discussions over and over again is this idea of self-awareness. What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? I remember doing my self-evaluation when I was at Motorola: strengths and weaknesses. "Arrives way too early, stays way too late." Those were my—that's how I looked at myself. They're early, they're late. That was supposed to be—it's going to be a long year.

The Challenge of Seeing Ourselves

The ability to look at myself and see myself as I really am—you need to test yourself, and you're going to need input outside of yourself. For many of you who are married, the person that can help in this process is that spouse, but they need to be given permission to enter into that discussion.

Susan used to say to me, "If I tell you something, will you promise not to get mad?" That would make me so—it literally would set me off like a rocket when she said it. Because I would say, "I don't get—I don't know what you're talking about. I don't get mad." "Well, yeah, you do." "Are you nuts?" You know, and that would start that discussion.

But she'd come along and say, "I'm sure you don't see it, but you need to take a look at that." You had a great year if you understood the importance of self-evaluation.

The Other Side of the Coin

Now, let me turn the coin. The other side of the coin is it's not all criticism. My observation is when we ask somebody to evaluate something, they typically look at the criticism. "Here's the things that I see that are wrong." A lot of times, it's to hear the good things.

When you were in that environment, this is what you bring to the project. You had a great year if you understood the importance of self-evaluation. Let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to 2 Timothy chapter 4. For me, it's kind of a sweet spot—it's the end of Paul's life. We're going to pull out of it, as he looks back at his life, some things that are important for us to look at in our daily activity.

2 Timothy chapter 4 verse 6, Paul says, "I'm already being poured out as a drink offering. The time for my departure has come." You had a great year if you understood the value of time.

Understanding the Value of Time

Let me give you a verse. I give it to you every year, and it's one of those that you need to go back to again and again and again. Psalm 90 verse 12: "Teach us to number our days aright that we may gain a heart of wisdom." Help us understand the finiteness of life.

It's a year ago this coming Saturday, January 10th, that I had my heart surgery. Now, since then, my heart has beaten about 3,600 times every hour, about 86,000 times a day. Since last year, my heart has beaten about 31 million times. So has yours. I don't know how many heartbeats I have, but 31 million less than last year.

The psalmist says, I want you to number your days aright. I want you to understand this, not so you're filled with panic, not so you can go, "Boy, I've got to get this bucket list together and accelerate it." No, so you gain a heart of wisdom. You gain a heart of understanding.

Remembering Those Who Have Gone Before

I do this every year, and I'm always surprised at the names on the list. You go back and see who are some famous people that died this year. Just as I was going back, I don't know why this popped up—I must have been looking at something. The most expensive drink Starbucks has ever served. They just did it. There was a gentleman, William Lewis, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, just ordered a Starbucks drink. The cost of it was $83.75. 99 shots of espresso and 17 pumps of vanilla. All I can see is him taking a sip and going, "This isn't right. Can you make it again?"

But here are the people. You forget about these people. There are significant people that passed away this year: Maya Angelou, Lauren Bacall, Ben Bradley, Ruben Hurricane Carter, Ann B. Davis, Jim Garner, Casey Kasem, Joan Rivers, Mickey Rooney, Ariel Sharon, Shirley Temple, Eli Wallach, Robin Williams.

Someday, you're going to be on that list. That's the whole point of this. Someday, you'll be on that list too. There's not an exception to this. We don't know when.

The Urgency of Living Wisely

There is my deathclock.com. I go on it every year just to make sure. You put in your age, gender, body mass, and then disposition. If you put me in as normal, and you're not doing anything on September 9, 2023, you could swing by the Gilbert campus, and we'll be doing a memorial service. If you put me in as optimistic, and that's the new me, October 28, 2036. That's interesting. Just that attitude, you pick up 13 years. If you put in pessimistic, it says, "I'm sorry, but your time has already expired. Have a nice day." So I'm not pessimistic.

I was watching the other night some basketball. I haven't watched basketball in a long time. I watched a little college basketball. I watched Duke. They started three freshmen. It was so much fun to watch. They were actually passing. There was a bounce pass or two. There were a couple of passes before the shot. It was like basketball.

Then an NBA game came on, and I'm watching it. Now, you know the rap on the NBA. Play along with me. The rap on the NBA is, you watch the game, but you really only need to see what? Last two minutes. If you're in the arena, you're just kind of watching. It's a typical NBA game, so you've got elephants and dancing girls and everything but basketball.

Don't Wait for "Two Minutes" Warning

Then all of a sudden, you hear "two minutes, two minutes." It feels like, whether it's true or not, I don't know—it feels like everything goes up a notch. Now, these guys are extraordinary athletes. They can't play at that level the whole game. But it feels like everything goes up a notch.

Here's the point I want to make. Many of us are living as though we're one day going to wake up and hear "two minutes, two minutes," and go, "OK, I'm going to kick it now. I'm going now. I'm going to be God's guy now. I'll be God's gal now." You're never going to hear that. You don't need to wait to hear that.

"Teach us to number our days aright that we may gain a heart of wisdom"—that we'll be able to... I define wisdom as the ability to connect the dots.

Learning from Generational Wisdom

Sitting with those young men and women the other night, it was so interesting to watch them. You could just see them dismissing everything we were saying. I've struggled for years to try to say this when I deal on a generational basis: this is really important for you to get. I've been where you are. I am where you'll be. I've been there. I've done the school thing, the job thing, the wife thing, the kid thing. I've done all of those things. That doesn't mean that I've got the definitive word. But I have something to offer. Someday, you're going to be where I am.

I remember the last time I saw my grandma. She was frail from as early as I can remember. She was very opinionated. She loved professional wrestling. She loved Vern Gagne, if you remember Vern Gagne. She loved Bobby Knight. She used to say, "Tommy, he only has that one little plaid coat. I don't know why they don't get him more clothes. He just has that one little plaid jacket."

I went to see my grandma. Her morning man on the radio was Ronald Reagan at WHO. She was the first one I ever heard call him Dutch. I was a politics guy early on. My grandma, in her own weird way, was into politics. She'd talk about Dutch. She would talk about how she'd just listen to him, "Tommy, listen to him. Listen to how nice he sounds."

The Reality of Aging

what he's saying. Maybe we could listen to that too. And I went to see her. And it was always a jab. So when I moved out here, she was a big Twins fan. So if the Twins were playing on the West Coast, I know she'd be up. And I'd call her. And I'd usually be drinking all day. And I'd go, "Grandma, what do you think?" "They can't hit. And they need to find pitching." And we'd go back and forth.

So I went in to see her. I can't remember what, but I fired a shot at her. And nothing came back. I thought, "Oh, well, maybe she didn't hear me." And so I got around. And then I started with this whole thing again. And she didn't get it. And I remember she said, "Tommy, can you help me? Can you help me get in the bathroom?" And I remember taking her in there. And she had a stool. And she had some sort of contraption that made it so she didn't have to get all the way down and all the way up.

I'm driving away. I don't know if I can express this right. I'm driving away going, "I know that's my future. But I can't see myself there." I know that's where I'm headed. And the other day, trying to turn the car, my hands aren't working. There's some kid behind me honking at me. And I thought, "I'd love to get out and just whack you in the head, except I'd get killed and my hands don't work." But I thought, "Buddy, I used to do that. Relax. This is all I got. I can't get this wheel around any faster. Leave me alone. I'm not trying to ruin your day. All I want to do is get coffee and get out of Circle K. I'm not trying to change the world."

Watch him get on the escalator at the mall. "Step on the thing." Well, when you're not really sure, this sounds like—that's a scary experience. That's a little scary stepping on. It's moving. I don't know. I can't see myself there, but I know I'm going to be there.

Becoming a Steward of Time

And the value of that is if I can grab that, I become a steward of my life. All of a sudden, I'm stewarding the most important resource I have, which is time. So I sent Jamie a note the other day. And I said, "How about coffee on Thursday?" meaning today. And he called. And I had sent him a text at 6:30 in the morning. And I was out, so I missed his call.

So he said, "So you can text me at 6:30, but you can't answer the phone at 7:30." I thought, "Not much of a pastor's heart here, buddy. What are you jumping on me for?" I said, "Jamie, I didn't have my phone." And "Oh, man, I can't find anything." He said, "Well, I got this appointment at 10:30." I said, "We'll do it again." He goes, "But I don't want to miss it." I said, "I don't want to miss it either."

So he said, "Well, let me move this around so we can have coffee today." Now, is coffee that important? I don't know. But whatever he had going, when he thought about it, the coffee was more important. Well, all of a sudden, what happens when I understand the value of time is my priorities change. Life changes. The pursuit of the American dream—all of those things in their proper perspective.

A Word to the Young

So talking to a bunch of young men and women, I don't want to discourage them about their future. I just want to say to them, make sure you don't make the mistake of thinking, "Hey, when I get this, I'll be fulfilled."

I taught yesterday morning. And then there's a friend of ours who teaches a ladies' Bible study on the West Side. And she asked if I would come in and do an interview at 9 o'clock. So I got to get from Gilbert to Peoria. And I'm coming around. And I thought we were invaded by aliens, but it was just Phoenix Stadium when I get around the corner. That got to be the ugliest building on the planet, I would say, in the old days, in a negative way. But we can learn. What I would say now is we can learn from that if we build another stadium.

The Emptiness of Achievement

And so I get there. And I'm thinking, here's all these signs. Have you been out there lately? And there's all of these cranes. And they're putting this up. And the whole world's going to be looking at that building in a couple of weeks. And these guys are going to be busting their back. And "If I can just get that ring, and if I can..." And it's really important. But it isn't going to make you happy.

It was Charlie Waters who said to Cliff Harris, after they won their first Super Bowl, "Who do we play next?" That was one of the guys—and I wish I could find it—one of the cowboy linemen. And I don't know if it was Bob Lilly. He was talking about winning the Super Bowl and the celebration and going out and going through the tent the next day. And there were the empty cups, and there was the junk, and they still had to figure out how to get to Dallas.

So this is not to de-energize you. It's to say, put these things in your proper perspective. And I understand the value of time. I only have so many minutes.

The Death Clock and Living with Intensity

I know I've used the illustration on the death clock before, but for a while, that was my screensaver. And so on death clock—I don't know, have you ever been on death clock? But on death clock, what you do is you punch it in, and you hit the button, and not only does it tell you when you'll die, but it tells you how many seconds you have, and then it starts counting them down.

So this thing is spinning. It looks like the national debt. This thing is spinning, and I remember one day so clearly, I'm sitting, this guy's droning on, and I'm looking at my computer, and I'm thinking, "Hurry up, I'm dying. I mean, look at this clock, I'm dying. Go, go, go, get a point. What's happening? I don't have time." And to live with that intensity is such a blessing.

Fighting the Good Fight

So you had a great year. You understand the value of time. Then look where he goes in verse seven: "I fought the good fight." You're in a battle. So it's fair to ask, did your victories exceed your defeats?

I'll give you a second while you mark 2 Timothy, and you turn to the left to the book of Ephesians, Ephesians chapter six. It's one of those instances where the Greek really helps. Ephesians chapter six, verse 10. Paul says, "Put on the full armor of God..."

So that you can take your stand against the devil's scheme. Our struggle's not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, authorities, powers of this dark world against spiritual forces of evil and heavenly realms. So He says, put on the full armor of God.

Now, here's how I read that, and I think most people would read that in the English. Put on the full armor of God, fight your battle, take it off. In the Greek, the "put on the full armor of God" is in a tense and a setting that says it's a once and for all action. Put on the full armor of God and leave on the full armor of God.

When do I put on armor? When I go into battle. If He's saying put on armor once and for all and leave it on, what's He telling me about the battle? It's 24/7. All of the news networks yesterday were exploding over what was going on in France and is that going to spill over into Germany and will it end up in Globe, Miami and it's coming all over and we have this enemy and it's unknown, we're not really sure and they're relentless and we need to be relentless. They're nothing compared to Satan who's out to destroy you against, take a stand against the devil's scheme. It implies craftiness, cunning, deception. You have an enemy.

The Reality of Our Spiritual Enemy

George Barna years ago did a survey. 80% of those who identified themselves as Christians did not believe Satan was real. That's particularly dangerous. I'm not a violence movie guy and I hope you don't think less of me and half of you will think more of me but I don't like those scary movies and there's different kind of scary movies.

There's one where there's the guy and the enemy and he's out there and you know he's there and he's going to get you. He's coming to get you, he's around the bend, you can hear him, there they are. That's scary. To me, the real scary one is where the woman is at the sink washing the dishes, the window's there but she doesn't know the guy's out there and they give you that picture that, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, oh man. He's out there, he's over there behind the tree. She's singing, she doesn't know. That's scary.

Well, if eight out of 10 of you don't think Satan's real, you're the lady washing the dishes. He's out there to destroy you and he comes as a subtle serpent to give you something that looks good, what he did with Eve, or he'll come as an angel of light. Usually, that's some sort of false truth that's wrapped around the idea of love or he'll come as a roaring lion but you're in a battle.

Evaluating Your Spiritual Progress

Now, if you were to graph your spiritual life from January 1 of 2014 to December 31st, what's the trend? It's rarely this straight line up. I've thought a ton about it because personally, I don't feel like that skyrocket. I feel a little like this. I look back and I go, there were those first steps where you're just accelerating and everything's new and it's fresh and you're just taking off. And then you start to settle in and then there's a step back.

I'm not saying it needs to be like that. I'm just saying, what's the trend? What's the victories? If I'm losing, then I need to go in and make what we would call some halftime adjustments. I mean, you call an audible.

The Challenge of Finishing Strong

I finished the race. Paul says, I finished the race. How am I doing? Bob Craning and I were having dinner. He was in town for something and he called and he said, what are you doing? And I said, I can always eat. And he said, well, let's have dinner. And I said, what are you working on? And he said, I'm working on finishing strong.

I didn't feel very well yesterday. So I was home and I had up my Roku and I had out lectures and I ended up with Dallas Theological Seminary Lectures and I end up with Howie Hendricks doing a lecture on leadership. And he shared this stat. He said, in the Bible, there are roughly a thousand men who are in some position of leadership or authority. A thousand men. And of those thousand, a hundred of them are leaders that we have enough information about to build a sentence around or something in there. We know something about them. And of those hundred that we know, only a third of them finish strongly.

So a thousand to a hundred to 30. This isn't a guaranteed thing. This isn't this guarantee that I'm going to bust the tape. And as I'm in it longer, I can see how.

Running to Win the Prize

Part of its motivation, 1 Corinthians chapter nine, Corinth was an interesting city. Corinth cared about three things. Sex, booze and drugs, and sports. So a little bit like Scottsdale. That's all they really cared about. Sex, booze and drugs and sports. Consequently, they had the second most important competition of athletic events in the world there, the Corinthian Games. And Paul, often when he wrote, would use that as a way to connect with his audience.

He wrote this: "Do you not know that in a race, all the runners run, but only one runs to get the prize? Run in such a way to get the prize. Everyone who competes into the games goes into strict training. But they do it to get a crown that won't last."

Personal Discipline in the Race

So today, even though it's been three weeks, I got back in the groove. I get up a little bit earlier, it takes me a little longer to get ready. Went into Circle K, dutifully stood in line to get my coffee, got in the car, drove down. Normally I drive down through South Scottsdale. I just love to drive around down in there and look around at the buildings and the architecture. But I was a smidgen late, so I didn't do it.

So I came up, came over McDonald, and then down over Lincoln. I'm the only guy on the planet that uses cruise control on Lincoln, probably. So I got my cruise control set at 39 on Lincoln, and I'm coming

Over Lincoln I get in, I get settled, I get all done. I know that Steve will get here early, and I love to talk to him. So he comes in, he sits down, and he says, "How's Sandy?" I said, "Fine." He said, "Is she training for anything right now?" I said, "No, P.F. Chang's is coming up, but it's a half. She doesn't have to train a ton for that. She just did her long run, and now she's tapering," which is my favorite part of preparation—the tapering. I carb load and taper. That's what I do well.

What he knows intuitively is if she's going to compete at one of these—she's going to swim or run or whatever it is—she has to train for that. I could sign up today for P.F. Chang's, for the Phoenix Rock and Roll. There's no real barrier; all you have to do is make sure your credit card clears and you're in pretty much. In Corinth, you signed a contract that said you would adhere to a dietary regimen, an athletic regimen. You would go into—here's the phrase He used—you go into this strict training.

He said it's important people adjust their lives. You get it, right? You watch a documentary or you look at training camp and you see these athletes prepare—it's grueling. Two-a-days, three-a-days, all of this. He said they go into this and they readjust their lives, their diet, their time, and they do it. His phrase: they do it to get a crown that won't last.

The Temporary vs. The Eternal

Now, if you won an event in the Corinthian Games, all of a sudden you were exempt from taxes for the rest of your life. That's a big deal. Your children could not be drafted into the armed service, and you had a status in the land as hero for the rest of your life. So Paul's saying these guys train to get that, and that doesn't last.

Now He's talking to us as Christians. He said, "But we do it to get a crown that'll last forever. Therefore, don't run like a man aimlessly. Don't fight like a man boxing the air. I beat myself, I make myself a slave so that after I've preached to others, I don't disqualify myself." I fought the good fight. I finished the race. The last part of verse seven: I've kept the faith.

Keeping THE Faith

He uses here—and it's important—the definite article. When I was online looking up deaths from 2014, there was a quote that popped up. I don't know how, I don't know why. It was from Tom Cruise, and he said this: "Individuals have to decide what is real and true for themselves."

Now I'm not looking to Tom Cruise for my theology. Here's what he's saying: you have to find what's true for you. Paul doesn't say, "I kept my faith" or "our faith," but "I kept THE faith." What he's saying is, I had a body of truth that was passed on to me, and I passed that body of truth on.

Jude chapter three, verse four: "Dear friends, although I was eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write to you and urge you to contend"—it's the same word we saw back in Ephesians six that was translated "struggle"—"contend for the faith once and for all."

The Real Enemy

If you are a relatively speaking, connected, evangelical Christian, your email box is filled with material that would try to convince you that our biggest enemy is the ACLU, or the liberal left, or Planned Parenthood, or the mainstream media. When Paul writes about keeping the faith, Jude three tells us, here's the enemy: "Contend for the faith that was entrusted once and for all to the saints. For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago"—here's the enemy—"have slipped in among you. They are godless men who change the grace of God into license or immorality and deny Jesus Christ as our only sovereign Lord."

The enemy isn't out there; the enemy's in here. The enemy comes in and says, "Listen, you're forgiven. Do whatever you want to do. Boys will be boys, girls will be girls. It's 2015." And they'll deny Christ. They'll change Christ. The enemy is not somebody out there with a website; it's somebody that's in the pulpit in here, or has a music stand on Thursday morning, or can gather people together, frequently teaching out of a Bible.

He says be careful, contend for the faith. Not in this combative, argumentative way—don't need to argue all the time. All I need to know is, I need to be shrewd, filled with and led by the Spirit to go and to say, here's what the Bible says about Jesus. Here's what the Bible says about life.

Anticipating His Return

Last point: did you anticipate the return of Christ? Second Timothy 4:8: "Now there is in store for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award me on that day, and not only me, but all who've longed for His appearing."

The last words that Jesus says to us, recorded in Revelation 22, is "Yes, I'm coming soon." There is this moment where either Christ will come again, or I'll meet Him, and then when He comes, I'll be caught up in the air with Him—second or first Thessalonians chapter four—and we will be with Jesus forever. All of a sudden, that changes my perception on life.

Longing for Home

I'm thinking a lot about the year. What kind of year was it? What did we do? One of the things that I was really looking forward to this year was going home. I put an extra day in going home, because we were going to go to Cedar Rapids, and then we were driving down, and we were going to go to Sheraton, and Albia, and Oskaloosa, and Ottumwa. We were going to go to all these places.

We got to Sheraton, and I could find all the places, but they weren't the same. Albia was kind of boarded up, but it was better than Sheraton. Fairfield was the best of the cities, but that's because the Maharishi Mahayoga came in, and it's now the center of transcendental meditation work management in the world.

I want to go home. When somebody says to me, "Where are you from?" I always say Iowa. I don't know why. I love that stupid place. Not enough to live there. I don't want to live there, but it's like home. So this becomes really hard. To be homesick for Kinnick Stadium in the fall is a very easy...

When I turn on that game, and I see the press box, and there's the stadium, and the sky's blue, and it's a black and gold day, it's just weird. It's goofy. It's stupid. And they play the fight song, and I'm all emotional. I'll be in church the next day, and they'll be talking about Jesus, and we'll sing "How Great Thou Art," and I'll go, "Can you hurry up? I got lunch to get."

Here's what He's saying: I want you to be homesick for a place you've never been. I want you to yearn for this, not just to get out of here. My yearning is all selfish.

Our Perspective on Eternity

We're talking about that heart surgery thing, and how easy it was in terms of getting ready, and it was no big deal in the sense that, what's the worst? You know, I die. Okay, well, if that's it, I'm in heaven. I had another one of those the other day with a clever Christian guy. "How you doing?" "Better than the alternative." Really? So the alternative is to be with Jesus. Being here listening to me is better than that? Your bar is too low, my friend. You need to rethink your life.

Conclusion: What Made for a Great Year

You had a great year if you understood the importance of self-evaluation, and the value of time, and your victories exceed your defeats, and if you fought the good fight. You had a good year.

So some of you, when we asked what kind of year was 2014, some of you at the beginning of the hour were a three, and now you're an eight. Some of you were an eight, and now you're a three. You figure it out. Next year, we'll use the same questions.

What I find valuable in an exercise like this is to give me something to do. So next week, I'll give you four or five, six things on how to make 2015 the greatest year of your life.

Father, thank You for these truths. We do need to be reminded as much as instructed. We know these truths. Drill them deep into our heart. Let us be men and women who bring honor and glory to You. We pray that in Jesus' name, amen.