Lessons Learned from the Life of Larry Wright

Tom Shrader reflects on nine spiritual lessons learned from his mentor Larry Wright, who died ten years prior. He examines how true conversion leads to a changed life, the necessity of spiritual discipline, and how trials reveal God's purposes. Drawing from principles like biblical authority and finishing strong, Tom encourages believers to live transformed lives rooted in Scripture.

“If your life is not changed, your thought processes, your desires, if they aren't changed, then you have no biblical assurance of your salvation.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Standalone Teachings

Recorded: October 27, 2011

Duration: 39 min

Themes: mentorship, discipline, trials, authority, conversion, transformation, perseverance, legacy, grieving mentor, new believer, seeking spiritual growth, pastor, mentor, struggling with loss, young adult, mature believer

Scripture: James 1:2, 1 Corinthians 5:13, Isaiah 6, Philippians 3:12-14, 2 Timothy 2:4, 2 Timothy 4:7, 1 John 2:14, Ephesians 6

Theological Themes: biblical authority, sanctification, spiritual discipline, conversion, discipleship, spiritual maturity, providence, perseverance

Full Transcript

We're going to do something today that's a little bit unique. Roughly 10 years ago Larry died, and I thought I would go back because right after Larry died, I did a message on Lessons from the Life of Larry. I realized some of you have heard a lot about Larry, but you don't know him at all. Next week I'll bring you a CD that will have this message on one side and on the other side will be Larry. You'll get to hear Larry do his testimony and it'll just fill in some spaces. It'll be inadequate, but hopefully it'll whet your appetite to hear more about Larry.

When Larry died, he's the closest person that I've had relationship with that have ever died. My parents were still alive. My father's subsequently died. My grandmother and grandfather I really didn't know them other than the last seven years. We never really had any sickness around us. I've never been in the hospital. My father was never in the hospital. My mother had a bout with cancer years ago. She's a tough little chick - she's about this big. In those days the chemo and stuff was a lot uglier than it is now, and so she told the doctor, "Do whatever you want to do while I'm here, but that's it. Whatever happens after this, that's it." So she's 84 now and walks three or four miles every day, and then after dinner she'll walk a mile or two every night.

So I'd never had anyone close to me die. To put this in perspective, Larry's - I always say outside of my immediate family because I don't like to offend them - but outside of my immediate family, Larry's the most influential person I've ever had in my life. So I remember when he passed away, Jim Dobson used to say when your last parent dies, no matter how old you are, you're an orphan. Larry in a sense was my only spiritual parent, so there's an orphan.

People would say to me, "You know, who's gonna take Larry's place in your life?" People say the stupidest things. They don't mean to, they just don't think it through. And I would say to them, "How would you replicate that person in your life? How would you replicate your mom or your dad?"

What This Study Reveals

So let me take you through the things I learned. Here's what I realized, and I'm probably just in a moment of - all I do is think all day long, which is not good. But what I realized when you study this lesson, it tells you a lot about Larry, but it tells you an awful lot about me. I didn't realize how much of me was in this. So I think I've got nine points. I'll elaborate on them, ramble a little bit, and then we'll just call it a day. We'll try to quit on time. That's our goal.

Point One: The Bible Says It, That Settles It

Here you go. Point one: The Bible says it, that settles it. Those of you who are Christian veterans will remember that bumper sticker that said, "The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it." Well, I always hated that bumper sticker, and here's why. Let me fill this in for you: The Bible says it, that settles it. It doesn't matter what you believe. Your belief in terms of whether this is true or not is absolutely irrelevant.

God is - in a sense, it's like the law of gravity. So let's say you say, "I just don't believe this law of gravity. I hear a lot about it, but it's kind of hype." And so you go down to one of the tall buildings downtown, and you leap off and go, "I don't believe in the law of gravity." Whether you believe it or not is irrelevant - you will experience the consequence of the law of gravity.

It doesn't really matter a whole lot about what you believe about God. He is. In a world where we want to define God, He defines Himself. Then He tells you who He is. He doesn't ask you to modify it. He doesn't ask you to cut and paste it or add to it. He says, "Here's who I am," and He tells us that in His Word. So the Bible becomes the absolute key in all of life.

My First Encounter with Larry

When I went to hear Larry for the very first time, I walked into this Bible study at Phoenix Country Club, and here's exactly how it happened. My life was so screwed up. I went to a guy in our office, and I said, "I know you go to a Bible study. Can I go?" And he said, "It's for anybody." So with the bar that high, I was it. I just remember looking and afterwards, God did this amazing thing. Like a two or three months later, I said - I just had a curiosity because I'm inviting everybody I know to this - "Why would you never invite me to this?" And here's what he said. This is more of a comment that I like. He said, "It just never occurred to us that God would save a guy like you." That's okay too.

I walked in and there were probably like about this section of people in the room. And when I sat down and Larry got up, I'd never seen anything like him. He was this little kind of munchkin, almost a character, a cartoon figure. And he started to talk, and it was like literally like in the movies where everything was swept away and it was just the two of us in the room.

What I heard that day for the very first time is what we'd call the gospel or the good news. Now I've been in religion all my life, but it was the first time I heard that I could know that I would be saved based on grace through faith. I'd never heard that before. I'd heard Jesus had died for me, but it was presented to me more like a joint venture partnership where He was the general partner but I was the limited partner and still had to make a contribution. When in reality, He did it all. We sing that song, "Jesus did it all."

Well, it's not just this part about getting into heaven, but it's this part about life. So in my life, every incident I'm dealing with and every question I have is either answered in this Word, or God gives me principles for which I ask wisdom in the application of them to figure out life. That's not always easy because you get in issues so often that are wisdom issues. They're not right, they're not wrong.

When I'm trying to figure out what to do in life, I want to seek counsel, but my counsel always is: does the Bible speak to it? What are the principles and then it's wisdom? Larry really taught me that what we do is we study the Word of God so that we would know the God of the Word. It's not that I study the Bible so I can run a category in jeopardy. Some of the people that I like least are the people that know the Bible really well, but it's meant absolutely nothing in their life and they project it.

My very first one-on-one with Larry was at the Humpty Dumpty on Central north of Camelback. Larry would say, "I only hang out at classy places." We walked in and I walked in with a swagger, and I would ask him the tough probing questions about Adam and Eve and Noah and Jonah. "You don't believe all this?" Here's what I remember—his answers vaguely—but I remember he had something I've never been able to master: he had a loving firmness. He never yielded. I walked out of there thinking he told me the hard thing, but he really loves me though, and he doesn't even know me.

The Authority of Scripture

The very first thing that Larry taught me is: the Bible says it, and that settles it. My mission is to understand that life is an open book test and God gave me this book. All I got to do is open it and then begin to seek what God wants to say to me through it.

True Conversion Leads to Change

Here's the second thing: true conversion leads to a changed life. I'll meet people all the time who'll say, "You know, when I was five I asked Jesus into my heart. I went to a summer camp thirty years ago and I prayed a prayer around a campfire. But there's never really been any change in my life." Here's what I would say to you: I would not cling to that moment as a moment of salvation because if there hasn't been a changed life, then I think you have—and I mean this to be scared, this should be scary—you have no biblical assurance of your salvation at all.

In First Corinthians 13:5, Paul says, "Test yourself, examine yourself to see if you're in the faith." Well, what's the test? There's two tests, two categories: there's a doctrinal test and there's an experiential test.

What Makes Us Christians

What makes us Christians is not what we do; it's what we believe. You'll hear that term misused all the time. Somebody will say, "You're not acting very Christian." Well, what do you mean? And then they'll lay out behavior. I'm going to come back to behavior in a minute, but what makes me a Christian is not my behavior.

Here you go: we're getting ready for Thanksgiving here in a month or so. There'll be all sorts of Buddhists, Hindus, secular humanists who will go down and feed hungry people. All sorts of people who are not of the Christian faith who will build houses for Habitat for Humanity, who will run a race for the cure of cancer—all that stuff. I'm not saying don't do that. I'm saying here's the sequence: if I don't believe the right things, my behaviors essentially are irrelevant in terms of my relationship with God.

I have to believe the right thing to be a Christian. That is, the Bible reveals who I am: I'm a sinner. And they really drive that home by showing me who God is. It's always the Isaiah 6 process: I see the Lord high and lifted up. "Woe to me for I'm undone." God cleanses me, and then God says, "You know what, Isaiah? We've got a lot of work to do. Who should I send?" And then Isaiah says, "Here I am, send me." But I'm not ready to go until that moment.

The Power for God's Work

You may even be around this stuff for a long time, and you may be working and trying to please God, but you're pooped and tired and it doesn't feel right and it's so hard. Almost always, that's because you're trying to do God's work under your power. I'm not saying don't be pooped. I'm saying it's a good pooped. It's not a frustrating pooped. It's not an exhausting pooped. It's not an angst pooped. But you get that? If I know Christ, my life should change.

Larry's Transformation

Larry used to say I was the most selfish person in the world. Let me just fill in: years ago, Larry was like the dominant figure in town in the radio business when radio was really big. It was like if the Dave Clark Five came to town, it would be Larry who'd be on the stage at the fairgrounds introducing them—the "Stacks of Wax" guy. Somebody once came to Larry to try to tap the inner gentle Larry and said, "Well, what if something happened to Sue or the girls?" Larry's response was, "Whatever." Larry would say, "This is as selfish as you can be."

Well, my question is always: how did that self-centered, selfish, self-confessed most selfish person in the world—how did he become what I would describe as the godliest man I know? Well, he didn't do it on his own. He didn't clean up his own act. God changed his heart, so then He transforms his mind, so he leads a radically different life. That's the sequence. It's not unique to Larry; it's God's sequence.

God Wants Radical People

God wants radical people. God would be all down with occupying Phoenix for Him—you see what I'm saying there? He wants to change your heart, and when He does that, He's going to transform it and then He's going to renew your mind. Your mind's going to think differently. You're going to see things differently, see yourself differently. And then that leads to a radical life.

I'll have guys all the time talk about Larry and teaching, and I spend a lot of time with young guys. A lot of the questions I'll get is, "You know, I want to do what you do. Tell me the secret." They're always looking for some answer and all this stuff. Here was the answer: Larry so filled himself with the Word of God—not to preach a message to change you, but to have God change him. And then you just sat and watched this changed guy spit out on you everything that God was doing in him. And that's really what this was.

Larry's old phrase, which he stole from Spurgeon, was, "If you cut me, I bleed the Bible"—so immersed in me that...

It just pours out of me. Larry is not a complex guy to figure out. If you said to Larry, "What do you do?" Here's what Larry would say: "I teach Bible." That's all he ever said. What do you do? He wouldn't talk about Iowa football. "I teach Bible." Larry lived Bible.

I've got a whole bunch of people I know that teach Bible, but their life is just a sham. Not saying we don't sin—I've got my own issues. But I'm saying their life is not lived under biblical transformation. So for you here, here's what you need to know. If your life is not changed, your thought processes, your desires—it doesn't mean perfect, but if they aren't changed—then you have, listen closely now, then you have no biblical assurance of your salvation. You may point to a time when you asked Jesus into your heart, but I'm telling you, if that's true, your life will change.

Spiritual Growth Is Really Work

Here's the third point: Spiritual growth is really work. There's a guy by the name of Enoch, and the only problem using Enoch as a model is at the end of this thing, he doesn't die and God takes him to heaven. That's kind of a big bar. But here's what the Bible says about Enoch—two really simple things: Enoch walked with God. Enoch pleased God. So here's what I would say about Larry: Larry walked with God. Larry pleased God.

But don't confuse that with simple spiritual growth. The Christian life is not complicated. I've got all these—but this is so complicated. It's not. It's very simple to understand. It's difficult to do. I meet so many guys and they can run corporations and they can make a lot of money and they can be a leader, and a lot of them will give speeches when they get their industry together and they push them up there at the Wynn Hotel to speak or whatever. And then they'll come to the Bible and they'll go, "This is so complicated, I can't figure it out."

Here you go. My five-year-old grandson got a new Bible the other day. So I went down—it was a little league game Tuesday night, so it was good for me. So I went down to watch him and we're walking out and I said, "Hey buddy, I heard you got a new Bible. What were you reading? Are you reading yet?" And he said, "Yeah." I said, "What were you reading last night?" He said, "Nahum"—one of the minor prophets.

Here's my deal: If he can read it with his little pencil in his hand, some of you who have PhDs—unless it was granted from the University of Arizona, that's the way I understand it. If you have a PhD from the University of Arizona, that's like Thomas Jefferson Law School. It doesn't matter much. If you've got a PhD, my guess is you're sharper than my five-year-old grandson and you ought to be able to understand this.

Not saying you can't come up here afterwards and stump me with stuff. Sure, I don't even care. But what I'm saying is the nuts and bolts of this is not complicated. You sin, God sent a savior, it's Christ. And I will tell you this—if you don't know Him, it does become difficult because you don't have the Holy Spirit in you to help you understand it. So that's part of that process.

The Spiritual Battle We Face

Now, why is it difficult? Because we talked about it last week. You have an enemy—Ephesians chapter six. You're in a spiritual battle. You have an enemy who's Satan. He's the angel of light and a subtle serpent. He's a roaring lion; he wants to destroy you.

And not just Satan, but you have the world system. First John 2:14—lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, boastful pride of life. They're not from God; they're from this world. So you live in a system and they're competing values. You should feel, in a sense, conflict all day long because you're going to have people whose value systems are the world's value systems. They're going to produce not just a mindset that's different, but obviously a consequence that's different, and they're going to be in radical conflict all the time. They'll cross over some.

So you can come—and this is why I say there's certain issues that I don't think you should spiritualize, but there are certain issues that need to be spiritualized. A lot of times, I'll talk about just things that need to get done. There's not really a Christian way to do it. There's not a Christian way to change your oil. But I do think when you get to things like money, it brings in all these other aspects from the world.

I know very few people who are successful in the world's economy and equally successful in God's because both are so demanding and ultimately put you in conflict. Can it be done? Sure, you're the exception. But by and large, it's difficult to do, if not impossible to do.

Paul's Example of Pressing Forward

Here's what Paul tells us in Philippians chapter three. He's talking about, "I have all these things." He's talking about his credentials. And he says, "I count them but dung compared to the surpassing value and knowledge of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord."

I'm going to give you a little assignment here. Read Philippians 3:12-13. You can go beyond that, 14, but I want you to listen to the language. He says, "I press on. God laid hold of me. I press on to fulfill the purpose for which He laid hold of me. I reach forward." Think of a race, but don't think of it in the context of a marathon where somebody wins by two or three minutes. Think of it as sprint, where you see two competing athletes at the finish line and you see one literally dive to get to the tape. That's the imagery that's there.

I wrote this, and again, there's so much reflection to me: Discipline without motivation is drudgery. So just to say, "Discipline yourself," because the Christian life is demanding. "Deny yourself, take up your cross, follow me." Those are maybe—you can't sugarcoat that. We just taught a series, just took a little, like five weeks on the scandalous sayings of Jesus, the tough ones, and that's one of them. Well, if all you're doing is denying yourself and taking up your cross, and that's just all you're doing, and you don't

Some of you may be bone dry spiritually, and it may be because you don't understand the whole deal. Paul says, "I got it, and I press on." In the imagery here, there are two competing things that never really come together. So when I talk about Larry, I talk about Larry changing.

I saw him change in two ways. One, that pride was swept away. I'm not saying he nailed it cold. I'm just saying that pride was swept away. The other thing that was a huge change to me was Larry in terms of tenderness. He would go, "I'm the most selfish guy in the world," and yet I spent roughly two decades with him. What I saw in two decades is how much God softened his heart.

The Transformation of a Heart

He and I would sit down at breakfast and I would start to describe a situation that I was dealing with in the church about somebody, especially in marriage—that was his soft spot. And he would just begin to weep for people he didn't even know. That's what that life does and that's how that life begins to change. You begin to see that.

You can know all these principles and never do them. The first time I ever talked on parenting, my mom was there. Those of you that know me, I've mellowed a lot. I used to be a little more of a grinder. I'm doing this parenting talk as though, at this point I probably have a five and a four year old, I'm doing it like I figured it all out.

My mom sat in the back and I would make these huge points. My mom would sit in the back and this is what she would do: she'd just shake her head. For the whole time, for 45 minutes. So we're all done and everybody's leaving and I said, "You want to go get something to eat or something?" And she said, "Sure." I said, "You know, I couldn't help but notice that as I made these points, you would shake your head. Is there anything wrong?"

When Knowledge Isn't Enough

She said, "No." I said, "Did I say anything that you would say is wrong? You disagree with it?" She said, "No." I said, "Well, what is the problem?" She said, "We did every one of those with you and none of them worked."

See what I'm saying there? There's a change that takes place. You can discipline, discipline, discipline. If ultimately you don't have motivation, you'll either wear the person out, or what you'll really create is a rebel because you're giving them all these laws to comply with and they don't have any firepower.

I don't expect a guy who doesn't know Christ to act like he does. With kids, it's really difficult because everybody wants their kids in heaven. I got it. I do too. But so often we'll talk about our issues and the reality is you're trying to make a kid who's not converted act like he is. I deal with that with young kids a lot.

Trials and Suffering Are for Our Benefit

Here's the fourth thing: trials and suffering are for our benefit. Larry taught me that. James 1:2: "Count it all joy when you encounter various trials, knowing the testing of your faith produces endurance." So when you say, "Listen, I want endurance," God says, "All right, then we need to have trials."

I'm driving along one day, I'm listening to one of Larry's tapes and he makes this statement. I literally pulled the car over. Here's what he said: "I'd rather suffer obediently than prosper disobediently because I know my obedient suffering is as temporary as my disobedient prospering."

So we have two competing views here. I'd rather suffer obediently than prosper disobediently. Well, why? That doesn't make sense. I'd rather suffer than prosper. Why? Because I know both of them. I know my obedient suffering is as temporary as my disobedient prospering.

The Eternal Perspective

If you just say, "Would you rather suffer or have prosperity?" Put me down for prosperity. Here's the problem with that. The word that's modifying each is that the suffering is in obedience, the prospering is in disobedience. How can I get a view that says I'd rather suffer than prosper? I want to understand both of them are temporary.

I'm driving along. I write this down. I call Larry. I read it to him. He said, "Wait, wait, wait, hang on. I want to write that down." He said, "Where did you get this?" I said, "You said it on one of your tapes." He said, "Wow, that's pretty good."

Here's what I got to get. I now need to be able to see things through God's eyes. A lot of my friends want to talk about a lot of doctrine and I'm down with doctrine, but I'm not going to argue about a lot of doctrine because a lot of it doesn't matter. But right now where I am with Susan, if I didn't have my theology—I'm not even saying being a believer, I mean my theology.

When Theology Becomes Personal

We're having a very hard time right now because she's saying it is very difficult in this sense. Unless God intervenes in some extraordinary way, she's going to die within a week probably. How do you leave there? How do you go? How do you go home?

I spent Saturday, Sunday, I didn't have any sleep for like two days. The girls are in there and I said, "Girls, we can't do this. We can't do this. We can't just keep going like this." Ultimately I said, "You know what? Here's the deal. I do think you could see a little bit of comfort in there. You could see her, although there was anguish when she would say, 'Tommy, help me with this.'"

But ultimately the comforter to her is not me, though I'd love to be, it's God. If she's going to die when we aren't there, God will be there. God's sovereign. He's in control. God is not in heaven going, "Boy, I really screwed this Susan thing up. I don't know what happened there." That's the angst of that. That's my theology. That's my doctrine.

It doesn't give me an excuse to be apathetic. But I don't look at it. I just do the best I can. So the girls and I, we had dinner Monday night and we had to talk.

about some stuff. We had dinner last night, and I said, "Listen, girls, I got it. I leave every night before they do. I mean, they just want..." And I just said, "Listen, I can't. I'm falling. I'm just wiped out. I want to go home and go to bed. And you just got to promise me you're out of here by 10." I know it's hard because she's just... you can't do it. God is God, we're not. So there's the theology in all of that. In the midst of suffering and pain and hardship, God's doing great things through her, even as she lays there.

Hardship Reveals Reality

Here's the fifth thing. Hardship reveals reality. Out of the suffering and pain and hardship and all that stuff in your life, all of a sudden you see reality in the midst of it. It's like 9-11. 9-11 is my favorite illustration because we had this corporate moment. We had a corporate moment on 9-11 and you all know it. I don't need to describe it.

Literally, this is not exaggeration. Our church is in an industrial park, and people are knocking on our door. "Open the church, we want to come in and pray." You could do that outside, but that's okay. I tend to be a cynic, you all know that. Our people are talking about revival and all this stuff. I said, "I can tell you what this is going to be. I know this. We're going to experience a life-changing moment that lasts two weeks."

The first Sunday after 9-11 was like Christmas. The second Sunday after 9-11 was like Good Friday. The third Sunday they thought, "I've given it all, I need a week off." Why? We had a powerful moment the other day. We played a tape from a gal who got saved through 9-11. It was really an interesting story.

Isn't it interesting? In a moment like that, they felt they needed something because their life was out of control. But once it was kind of back into control, they said, "I'll take control again." Here's something you need to know. That was a corporate moment. People are having their own 9-11s individually all the time. They can be little or they can be big.

There is a red light at McQueen and Elliott, and somehow they have programmed that light so that if my car comes – I'm not kidding you, I don't know how they do it. I didn't know they had the technology, but they have programmed that light. I am not kidding. They have programmed that light so if my car comes, that light must turn red. It has to turn red. If it's red, it will stay red longer. They have done that. That's a 9-11. I'm embarrassed to say it is. It drives me absolutely out of my mind every day. That's not very big.

Well, what these things do in your life is just kind of reveal who you really are. You can only fake it for so long. You can never really fool yourself in that context. Everything that comes into your life, God causes or allows. Why would He do this? For your good and His glory. All you got to do is keep saying those sentences all over and over again because that's the answer to everything. God causes or allows everything. He's in control. Why would He do that? For your good and His glory. Even in the midst of your worst moment, it's your greatest opportunity to reflect the glory of God in your life.

Boundaries Expand Your Ministry

Boundaries expand your ministry. Or I'll say it maybe in another way because at that point you'll go, "Well, I don't have a ministry," but you do. Boundaries expand your life. Larry's, in an odd way, Larry's arthritis – he was very limited physically – was his greatest asset. It would drive me nuts. How can a guy with a fraction of the energy that I have accomplish more than I do? It's because he didn't have a lot of competing things.

So my phone rings and somebody says, "Let's play golf." Well, there it goes six or seven hours. "Let's go to the ball game." Okay. Larry likes sports. He liked the Dallas Cowboys. He liked to watch baseball, but he saved himself hours of aggravation in travel time.

So it's 2 Timothy 2:4. Some of you are probably out on your way to get a tattoo today. Here would be a good one to tap onto you. "No soldier in active duty entangles themselves in the affairs of everyday life, so He may please the one who enlisted him." My challenge is not to try to make life more complex. It's to make it more simple.

I'm at the oncologist the other day, and there's a girl who's got – and I'm not exaggerating – at least a foot of paper in front of her. She's going through to get them into stacks to begin to file them. I said, "Hasn't it been cool that we can go paperless?" Every one of these things that we said was going to make life easier can, if you're disciplined enough to use it that way – which you aren't – it makes it more complex.

The second time I took my sociology class in college (first time the teacher just didn't communicate very well), the second time I took it, here was a question we dealt with. This would have been in 1969 or '70. I'm not making this up. "With the advent of the computer, what will Americans do with all their free time?" The work week is going to have to be shrunk to 30 hours to have full employment because the computer is going to do everything. The computer is doing more than they ever thought it would, but it hasn't necessarily – it's good – hasn't necessarily freed you up. So boundaries are really good.

Contentment

Let me give you a couple more real quickly. To be content, I talk about it all the time. Martin Luther wrote this: "I've held many things in my hand, I've lost them all, but whatever I've placed in God's hands, I still possess." So it's to be content. To be content with the person you are, to be content with the way God made you, to be content with the spouse.

Larry wrote poetry, not everyone knows that. I love Larry's poetry, because I like... I have zero... like allegory, lion, witch in the wardrobe. You could say, here would be my version of hell, is to have to read that book over and over again. I don't get it. I don't get the closet. My girls would go, "Dad, why doesn't He just say this?" I don't...

get allegory. It's the same with poetry. One of them was reading this poetry the other day, and I'm thinking about our old dog Rudy. The longer they'd read it, I just thought, "Really?" Larry wrote poems. Let me read you this one:

"Not knowing does not cause me anguish, although there's much I don't know. The greatest frustration I have to face is the knowledge my life doesn't show. I know that my days here are numbered, this plight is not a cause to be sad. My soul shall be happy should my headstone read, he lived up to the knowledge he had."

That's all I want—just be content.

Following in Larry's Footsteps

Here's what happened. I got this idea, so everywhere that Larry went, Tom was sure to go. I followed Him everywhere, and then one day I had this moment where I thought, "I wonder if I could teach." Absolutely out of the blue, Larry came to me and said, "I think you should teach."

So in my mind, I thought I'd get two or three, maybe ten people—whatever. Give me the ones that either already know everything they need to know, or you know, whatever. Give me those. He said, "No, here's how we're going to do this. You're going to substitute for me."

Now, Mark Hewell is here. Mark subs for me, Frank subs for me—it's very hard to do. It's not because they can't be better teachers than I am. It doesn't matter. You're here and associated with a person up front.

The Bathroom Revelation

So I would come into Larry's study, literally, and if I was carrying my Bible, everybody was happy. If I had my Bible in a folder, everybody was sad, because they knew that meant I was teaching.

It's about the fourth time I'm teaching, and my stomach's in a knot. I mean, there's no delicate way to describe this. So I go into the restroom and I'm sitting in a stall with the door closed. As I'm sitting there, the door opens, and in walks two guys.

Just as one says, "I've heard so much about Larry Wright. I cannot wait to hear Him today." The other guy said, "Well, Larry's not here today." "Oh, who's teaching for Him?" He said, "I don't know His name—kind of a short, heavy-set guy who thinks He's really funny."

So I'm sitting there, my feet shrink up, and they do their business and leave. I call Larry the next day, and He said, "How did it go?" I said, "You know, I don't know, but something interesting happened." He said, "Well, what was it?" So I tell Him that story, and He said, "Well, who were they?" I said, "I don't know. I never saw their face."

Now, I'm going to give it to you in real time, because you've got to know Larry. So He said, "Who was it?" I said, "I don't know. I never saw their face." And He said, "I bet you'd recognize those shoes anywhere."

Learning to Be Yourself

Well, I learned early on that I'm not Larry. I can't be Larry. Larry's smarter than me. He's a better communicator than I am. He's got a great voice. I'm not.

Here's what I learned in teaching a long time ago: I got one shot at this. I'm just going to be me. If that works, fine. If it doesn't work, fine. But I can be the best me I can be. I can't be Sproul or MacArthur. And it's to be content in all of these different areas that God gives you.

Finish Strong

I'll give you the last two real quick. Finish strong. It's 2 Timothy 4: "I have finished the race." How perfect that Larry died behind the platform praying before He went out to teach. It's not run to the tape—it's run through the tape.

If you put everything together today that I've talked about—trials and hardships and difficulties and strains—it's not easy. You put it all together, just trust me, you can grow weary. That's Paul's admonition. I remember the first time I read it, I thought, "That's weird. Don't grow weary of doing well." I thought, "How could that happen? I'm doing well." You can grow weary.

Keep Short Accounts

And then the last one is keep short accounts. I had this idea in my mind of how Larry would die. There would be this moment where we would have this kind of kumbaya moment where I could tell Him everything I felt and He could, in a sense, bless me. It's what I wanted. I wanted to know that I'm approved by Him.

But it didn't happen this way. I was teaching on a Sunday morning and they came back and said to me, "Larry's had a massive heart attack." Why would you tell me this before I'm going out to teach? Makes no sense to me. There were people who loved me and said, "You'll want to know this."

Well, so I finished my message. I went back to my office and there was a crowd gathered there, and I knew then what had happened. I got zero left to say to Larry. It's just that I wanted to say it again and hear it again.

I mean this: He had some way of doing it. Maybe He didn't do it with everybody—I don't know. But with me, when we said goodbye, it was as though that could be the last time. It's even with Susan, and it's been wonderful with the girls. Really? There's nothing left to say. I mean, there's nothing. I kind of want to say it again, but keep short accounts.

Heaven Becomes Sweeter

Here's what God does, and it's amazing. Every day—and this is sad because I ought to just want Jesus more than anything—but every day He's making heaven a sweeter place with people I know. Isn't that sick? That's sick in a way, because Jesus is kind of it.

So in this life, you have all these legitimate desires, and they will be in a way softened and satisfied even momentarily on this earth, but ultimately perfectly in heaven. As you get further away, it happens less often. But there's rarely a week goes by that I'll be in a meeting—I was in a meeting the other day—and Larry hated meetings. "Meetings are where minutes are kept and hours are wasted." He hated them.

I'm in a meeting the other day and I'm listening to these people drone on about this crap I don't care about, but I have to be there. I don't yet know why. I'm looking at it and I just started to smile. I thought, "Oh my gosh, if Larry was here, He'd..."

be out of his mind. There's rarely a week that goes by that I don't wonder what would Larry think? What would Larry say? What would Larry do?

Larry wasn't perfect. I'm not saying he didn't have flaws. I'm just saying he's the godliest guy I've ever been around. So that's that. We'll pick up next week. We'll start a new series.

Father, take these truths, drive them home in our life. We worship You in Christ's name. Amen.