What I Learned on my Summer Vacation 2016
Tom Shrader reflects on the 15th anniversary of 9/11, drawing parallels between that national tragedy and personal crisis moments in our lives. Using Romans 8:28 and other passages, he teaches that in times of uncertainty and suffering, we must hold firmly to three truths: God is sovereign and in control, all earthly things are temporary, and God works all circumstances together for good. He warns that suffering can make us bend our theology to defend God's reputation rather than trusting His character.
“Uncertainty and suffering makes liberals of us all - we start to bend our theology to save God's reputation.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: What I Learned on My Summer Vacation 2016
Recorded: 2016
Duration: 43 min
Themes: suffering, sovereignty, crisis, trust, hope, uncertainty, tragedy, faith, experiencing tragedy, facing uncertainty, grieving loss, questioning god, struggling with doubt, navigating crisis, dealing with suffering, needing comfort
Scripture: Romans 8:28, Daniel 4:34, James 1:14-15, 1 Peter 5:7, Romans 3:23, Romans 3:10, Romans 6:23, Acts 4:12, John 14:6, 2 Corinthians 4:16
Theological Themes: providence, god's sovereignty, romans 8:28, theodicy, divine control, eternal perspective, biblical worldview, theological foundation
Full Transcript
About a month ago, I got a call from one of the East Valley newspapers from the editor asking me if I could do an interview about 9/11, which I thought was really odd. I said I could talk about anything, but why are we doing this? He said, "I was in your church the Sunday after 9/11, and I remember what you said." I said, "Really? That's very odd, because from week to week, people don't remember what you say." And he said, "Yeah," and went, "bam, bam, bam." I said, "Wow, that's really good. Not good that you remember it, good that I said that, if that's what I said."
So I said sure, and we scheduled the interview. I went and started going through some notes, and I found a file from the message I did the week after 9/11. This Sunday is the 15th anniversary of that. I went through this and thought, "Hey, do we want to do this?" I've been thinking about this.
Sandy and I were up in Lost Canyon Ranch in Williams doing an event for 400 student leaders from GCU. By the way, if you're a basketball fan, GCU this year goes and plays at Duke, then they come back and play San Diego State, then they host Louisville, then they're going to McKale to play the U of A. So I see four and O in their future, or O and four in their future. Marley's head will burst by the end of that. But they're really good and they have a great philosophy.
The Decision to Revisit 9/11
Tim Griffin is the gentleman who's in charge of student development, and his philosophy is the students should disciple one another. So we were up there with the leadership team. While we're up there, I'm playing through this, and I said to Sandy, "I think I want to do the 9/11 talk when we go back to PL." Just an FYI, I'm going to teach at our Arcadia congregation at 33rd and Camelback this Sunday, and I'm going to do the same message. So if you normally go there, you get to stay home and watch the first Sunday of NFL football.
She said, "Are you going to tweak this or update it?" And I said, "No." I typed this outline and looked at the outline today. I did this myself, and I am really impressed. It took about Monday and Tuesday to get it done, but I wanted to get these in front of you so that we had these points to hit on today. There's a spot in the middle that becomes the real meat of this.
Where I Was on 9/11
I did this the Sunday after. To give you the background, I was at the Homestead on my way to speak to a group of 200 MasterCard executives. The topic they gave me was contentment, which doesn't go together with MasterCard executives. On the morning of 9/11, we were at Appomattox. It was a stop along the way to see where Lee surrendered to Grant.
It's so hard to go back in time. We're walking through, and we're in a little gift shop, and there was a little stool with a radio on it. The lady running the gift shop said, "A plane just ran into one of the Twin Towers." I said, "Oh, wow." Now if you heard that today, you immediately think terrorist. But she said, "How bad a pilot must this guy be?" I said, "Well, it must have been like a little Cessna or something." We didn't have that background.
We're walking over to go into the very room where Lee surrendered to Grant, and the park ranger came up and said to us, "You've got to leave the park. The country's under attack." I said, "We're not going to hit here. We're in the middle of nowhere." He said, "No." I said, "I'm from Phoenix. I'm never going to get back here again." He said, "You're out of here."
The Journey Home
So we then drove to the Homestead. We got there and went to check in. We're almost the only people in the whole entire hotel. There was a letter from MasterCard saying, "We've all driven back to New York City. Stay as long as you want. Charge everything you want to MasterCard. Here's the account. It's set up at the hotel." I said, "Well, I wouldn't have it any other way. That seems totally appropriate." So we got up to the room.
Here are general observations. They don't have much to do, frankly, with 9/11 itself, but here's what I learned. This is a big point: September 11, 2001, was a corporate moment that we now identify as a 9/11 moment. What I've come to realize is that we have individual 9/11 moments all the time in our life. This is one where we were all focused on this, and these things are true in our personal 9/11s.
A picture's worth a thousand words. We're just listening to the radio, and we check into the hotel. When I turned on the TV and you saw the towers, it changed everything in terms of understanding. We learned this: that distance softened the impact. Here's how this shook out. It was 9/11, and I said, "We got to get out of there." Susan said, "Did you read that letter? We can stay as long as we want and charge it to them. Let's enjoy this." I said, "No, I've got to get home."
The Long Drive Back
So we had tickets for Dulles on 9/13. That wasn't going to work. I called Amtrak, and the operator said, "Our lines are flooded. We can't get through." I had a Kia. This is in the old days, one of the little small Kias. So I called Budget, and I said, "I've got this Kia. I'm at the Homestead. I need to get to Arizona. I'd like to come in and get a bigger car." They said, "Well, there aren't a lot of cars. Why don't you bring that one in?" I said, "Well, that doesn't sound like a good idea."
So we got in the Kia and started driving. It took us four days. We went down the street into a gas station mini mart, and a guy said, "Can I help you?" I said, "I need a map." He said, "Where are you going?" I said, "Phoenix." He said, "Go right."
down here, which I think was Interstate 40. Make a right. When you get to Flagstaff, make a left. You don't need a map. I said OK. That's what we did. We took a shortcut through.
But as we're driving, the further we got away from there, the less impactful it was. When we were at the hotel, everybody was talking about somebody they knew. The same thing is true in your own 9/11s. If you go on YouTube and you type in search Cleveland Clinic, there's a great video in there on seeing the people in the hospital, not as you perceive them, but through what's really happening in their life. Chick-fil-A has the same one, where you're greeting somebody to take an order, and it'll bubble over their head: "Just lost their wife. Parents just died." Until you're in that, it's pretty hard to understand it.
Susan used to say to me, "I'm so tired." I would say to myself, "We're all tired. Get up." "I have a headache." "Well, I have headaches. There's a bottle of Tylenol." Now I find myself trying to say to people, "I'm so tired." The further I am away from a 9/11, the harder it is to understand the impact of it.
We ended up in Henrietta, Oklahoma, at a place called the Pig Out Palace, which was naugahyde, duct tape, and the napkins were roll of paper towels. All these executives, all these guys in coats and ties. But the people in Henrietta didn't seem to care as much as the people further east did.
We Need Each Other
Two more things: we really do in life need each other. You can't go through this alone. Just in terms of the Christian life, you can't fulfill the great commandment—love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and then love your neighbor as yourself—or the great commission—go and make disciples—if you don't have people around you. If you're not in contact, at least at Gilbert Sunday, the passage was from the Sermon on the Mount: be salt and light. Well, there's all sorts of pictures there, but in a general sense, for salt to work and for light to work, there has to be contact. 9/11 really did kind of start that idea of a community.
There were two more things, and they were more of just general observations: this terrorism thing is now really raised, and it's going to be a long haul. To sit here 15 years later and look back and say those things are really true. But the gist of this—that's a 15-minute introduction.
Doctrine Is Essential in Uncertain Times
The gist of this is what I want you to see on the second heading: in 9/11s, in big corporate ones, but in your 9/11s, doctrine is essential in uncertain times. This language is clear to me, but my fear is it'll be sloppy to you, and the language will overshadow the point, so think favorably about this. The old saying: fatigue makes cowards of us all. Uncertainty and suffering makes liberals of us all. Now, I don't mean liberal politically. I don't want to argue with you. I mean theologically. We start to bend our theology to save God's reputation.
So I need to remember this. Number one: God is sovereign. Webster defines sovereign this way: above or superior to all others, supreme in power, rank, authority. He wills, He chooses, He carries on as He wishes.
Where Was God on 9/11?
If you could get in a time capsule and go back to just following 9/11, there were a million conversations that launched around this idea: where was God on 9/11? And the answer was this: the same place He was on 9/10, and the same place He was on 9/12, and the same place He is today.
I made the reference in your outline, but I didn't put the passage there. You're welcome to turn there—it's Daniel 4:34. I can give you the backdrop. There's a guy by the name of Nebuchadnezzar. He's arguably the most powerful guy in the world. We pick up the story at the end, but what's happened prior to this one episode in particular is Nebuchadnezzar one night is walking on the top of the wall surrounding the city. I don't remember the stats of the wall—it's something like 50 or 60 feet high, so wide they used to race chariots around it. For our context, he's got a cigar and brandy, and he's surveying all of this, humming his favorite song. Remember that? "How Great I Art?" It's right in the middle of the third chorus of this that God says, "Really?" Bop. He then spends years wandering in a field, naked, eating grass.
In Daniel 4:34, he is in a field and gives you his testimony. He said, "At the end of this period, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my reason returned to me. I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored Him who lives forever. For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, His kingdom endures from generation to generation."
God Is In Control
God is in control. He's supreme. We've said some version of this to you a million times. One of the problems with our theology is it does not ascend high enough to allow God to be God. We create a God in our own image. The political season, especially this one, is amazingly frustrating, but the minute they begin to talk about theology or God, it's a God thing. It's a God that they make up. It's a God that has to be nice enough, kind enough, powerful enough, but not too powerful, to appease 60% of the electorate.
Every one of these speeches ends with, "God bless you, God bless the United States of America." I'm not saying don't do that. I would love a discussion, if you want to have it, and they don't: tell me about your God. Because the God of the Bible is in control. He's absolute. He's the final authority. He says, "Who made the deaf, who made the dumb, who made the blind? I did. Who brings what we would perceive as the good and the bad? I do."
In the middle of this whole discussion, I need to remember that God is in control. Here's the second point, and 9/11 really brought this:
It is that things are temporary. Job saw it, Solomon saw it, Paul wrote about it, saying in essence, I came naked into the world, I leave the world naked. We know it, but 9/11 crystallizes it.
You'll see, football kicks off this weekend, actually tonight, and somewhere in this 16, 17 game season, somebody will have a tragic accident, or a child that dies, or some incident, and the players will say, this really puts everything into perspective. It happens every year. Why do I need that 9/11 moment, corporately or individually, to put it in perspective?
I'm teaching in a couple of weeks, one session at ASU to some apparently really gifted students on leadership, and I am truly one of the least qualified people to talk about this. But everybody I talk to, when I say I'm going to go do this, it's the same thing that happens at GCU, or any time we're going to go in and talk to younger people, is really, you need to tell it to them like it is. Well, here's the bottom line, they're never going to get it, because no matter what you say, they think they're the exception. If you could get it now, those 9/11 moments drive home how temporary life is. All these things around us, they're passing away.
Personal 9/11 Moments
And I made this, just in our own life, how we might use this, when we say, well, I've been cancer-free for five years. My divorce was final three years ago. I lost my job six months ago. Those are all kind of personal 9/11 moments, where I need to kick into this reality that all of this is temporary.
I was talking to the gentleman who heads up our counseling department at Gilbert, and we were just talking about life and how you do it, and same question, Tom, how you feeling? His daughter's had, I bet she's had 30 surgeries in the last 10 years. 10 years, and it's just tough stuff. And He said, have you seen that little book from John Piper? I said, no. And He started, and I said, well, I'll go over and get it.
Lessons from John Piper's Hospital Bed
When I said little book, you can look at it, and this is really, it's probably half the size in terms of height and width of a normal book, and it's 74 pages. It's called Lessons from a Hospital Bed. There's a forward by Joni Eareckson Tada, and she's telling her story, and in this kind of first chapter, Piper writes this.
Piper said, people ask me, how's your health? And I used to answer, fine. I don't answer that way anymore. I say now, I feel fine. There's a big difference. The day before I went in for my annual physical, I felt fine. The day after, I was told I had cancer. In other words, I was not fine.
For all I know, I have cancer right now, or perhaps a blood clot. This is my kind of guy. Or perhaps a blood clot is ready to break off and go into my lung. I mention these things to simply say this. You and I are both very vulnerable right now. You may be in a hospital. I'm at home. But neither one of us knows for sure how well or how sick we are. Instead of saying, I'm fine, I think we should say, I feel fine. This fits with the Bible.
Life Is But a Vapor
And then He quotes what I have in front of you there, James chapter 4: "Come now, you who say, today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit. Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away."
I don't know how that makes you feel. When I read it out loud, I can almost feel myself shrinking in the middle of that. When the space shuttle, the Challenger, blew up, Benson drew a cartoon. And the cartoon was a picture of the shuttle exploding. And under it, He quoted this verse, life is but a vapor.
When we hear that, and I want to make sure you really broaden your thinking here. When I hear that, I think of that instantaneous moment where everything's taken away. But what we're saying is, even if you live to be old, life is still a vapor.
The Reality of Age
Tomorrow is my last day, I think, of my physical rehab, I think. I think I've graduated out. And so they want me to go into this group. And I said to the lady who's my therapist, I can't go in there. She said, what do you mean? I said, they're so old. And I said, look at them. I mean, they're old. I mean, they're really old. And she said, Tom, they're doing more than you're doing. There was a lady in there, 92, who had just leg pressed her weight, which was 20 pounds more than I had. I said, I can't go in there. I said, how old is that guy? And she said, well, He's 94.
Here's what I want us to see, is even if I lived to 94, life is still a vapor. This is still temporary. You can't beat it. You say, I'm going to go to such and such a city. And He says, in verse 15, instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that. But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. This thing is passing away.
Watching Time Pass
I'm watching my grandkids, and the 10-year-old, Brighton, He's my, we're doing fantasy football again. This is a fundamental error. We're doing fantasy football again. And He's over, and I'm going, He's like really grown up. This is our second year doing that. He said, you know, every year we do this, which meant the year before, you take me to breakfast at IHOP. I said, really? Is that true? And He said, yep. And He said, you get pigs in a blanket, remember? And I said, you are what you eat. And so I said, let's go.
And so it's morning, and I said, let's go early, because IHOP clientele don't tend to be the first people up in the morning. They're just getting over from eating at the Golden Corral. So they barely have time. So I said, buddy, why don't we go to the mall and walk? I need to get my steps in, it's too hot outside.
So we're walking in the mall, and He said to me, do you think there will be a World War III? I said, man, you're 10, your head's going to explode. I mean, think about girls
And I'm watching him process it, and he said, "Who are you going to vote for this year?" I said, "I don't know. Whatever it is, I'm not going public with it." And he said, "You know, I've really been thinking about it." I'm thinking, he's like a little guy, he's like a human. And I remember I used to take him every Tuesday night for a walk and lay him on the bed, and we had a ceiling fan that had a big long string on it, and I'd swing that string, and for an hour, I could occupy him. That was like the other day.
I need to understand, in these 9/11s, that whatever is going on in my life is temporary.
God Works All Things Together for Good
The third point is, God works all things together for good, Romans 8:28. And we know. It's really important here to get the whole verse. A lot of times when I'm in a camp or retreat or maybe a setting like this, I won't do it now, but I'll ask somebody, "Can you quote Romans 8:28?" And there's always somebody that wants to prove how smart they are. So they'll blurt out, "All things work together for good."
Well, that's partially true, but it's preceded by, "And we know God causes." See if I start this verse in the middle and say, "All things work together for good," that verse is kind of about me. That verse is not about me, in a section that's not about me. This is about God. God causes all things to work together for good.
It's all around us, and you've heard me push on this before. I watched Ellen had her 2000th show the other day, and I think Ellen is really funny. And one of her surprise guests was Oprah. I hadn't seen Oprah in a while. Oprah was looking good. I like Oprah. Oprah came out, and they had their little moment.
And every time I see Oprah, I think of how we use her in here. Because Oprah says, "I believe everything happens for a reason." And this is how you dialogue with the world around you. They may have a totally different theological view than yours, but they believe everything happens for a reason, and for no other reason than Oprah said it. And so you say, "Well, if that's true, that everything happens for a reason, there has to be somebody in control, or some power, or something that's moving things, causing things, organizing things."
What this verse says is that it's God who causes all things to work together for good. It doesn't say God causes all things. God's not the author of sin. But what it says is God takes the 9/11 moments of our life and works them all together. The very fact that this is true means God must be all-powerful, and He must be all-knowing. And that's either extraordinarily comforting to you, or scary, or maybe both.
Those things that when you sit and you talk with somebody, those things you hope they never learn about you, God already knows them. That hurt and pain that you have, God already knows it. So that Peter writes in 1 Peter 5:7, "Cast all your cares on Him." Do you remember how that verse ends? "Cast all your cares on Him because He cares." He really cares for you. He wants what's best for you.
God Either Caused or Allowed What Happened
So I made these grand points at the end, and we've got about 10 minutes. Number one: the 9/11, the big one, and the 9/11 in your life, God either caused it or allowed it. Now, it's interesting because I run within my tribe theologically, so we all do. I can make these statements and everybody goes yes. Every once in a while, I'll get outside the tribe and I'll make a comment like that. And people afterwards really want to discuss that, challenge it.
But if God doesn't cause or allow something, then He's really not God. Could God stop 9/11? Sure He could have. Did He force these guys to fly these planes? I don't know. All I know is God's in control. See what I mean by suffering? It makes us, all of a sudden, we want to run out and think that we're God's PR guy or gal, and we have to defend His reputation in the marketplace. God either caused or allowed it.
The Question of Eternal Destinies
Here was a thing in the midst of 9/11 that I felt really needed to be made as a point. What was the eternal destination of those who died in the attack? And on the back of that outline, I copied three cartoons that were in the newspaper that week. And all three kind of captured the conventional wisdom.
You see the hijackers and what is, I assume, Satan saying, "You've reached your final destination." Hijackers are in hell. Here's the firefighters at the pearly gates. "You've reached the top." There's a picture drawn by a teenage girl in Pennsylvania. And you see the smoke coming up from the towers and what represents the thousands of people who were killed there, and I presume that's Jesus. And so what this conveys to me is that the hijackers are in hell, and the people who died in the attack are in heaven.
Well, I don't want to speak about the hijackers, but I will tell you this. Some of you are very proud about how sincere you are about your faith. If sincerity is the issue, these guys are pretty sincere. I can't imagine, piloting that plane, how fast your heart had to be beating and how big your eyes had to be as you're flying that baby into that building. So if it's sincerity that gets me to heaven, you may need to rethink your position.
On the other side of the coin, I'm not in heaven because I was a hero. See how this suffering really challenges us?
What the Bible Says About Salvation
Here's what the Bible says. Romans 3:23, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Everybody. Romans 3:10, "There's none righteous, no, not one." Romans 6:23, "The wage of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus." What do I need to go to heaven? Be a hero? Die tragically? No, I need to believe in Christ.
Acts chapter 4, verse 12, "There is salvation for no one else. There's no other name under heaven that's been given among men by which we may be saved." Meaning Jesus. John 14:6, Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me."
Really, in moments of 9/11s, in moments of uncertainty, in moments of
Things Will Never Be the Same
My last point brings mixed emotions. I said things will never be the same. If I retrace my story, 9/11 was on a Tuesday. We left the homestead on Wednesday. We drove Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday to get home in that little Kia, driving across Interstate 40.
If you can remember the movie The Right Stuff, when John Glenn was re-entering the atmosphere, that's what it was like for us driving back home for four days. It was fascinating. I got a phone call—no cell phones then—on Wednesday saying that our Gilbert campus is in the middle of an industrial park, and the people in the industrial park wanted us to open a church so they could come in and pray. Is that okay? Well, sure it's okay. It's kind of cool they want to come in. It's amazing that God doesn't hear their prayer in their building and not ours, but that's a whole different theological conversation.
I don't know if you remember this, but this is a huge deal. That Sunday after 9/11 was like a Christmas Eve. At our church, we had chairs set up down all the rows. We took the students and had them sitting up front on the floor just to get everybody in. That was the big buzz. There's a revival taking place in the country.
The Revival That Wasn't
I tend to be cynical, and I go, we'll see. The next week, nobody on the floor, but still the chairs. The next week, no chairs. The experts tell us that within three to four months, there were 5% fewer people in church than before 9/11, which is an amazing thought.
Frank Switzer and I had breakfast last week, and we were talking about it. Frank, who's an amazingly thoughtful guy, was saying, what does that say? Because it says people came to us. It's kind of what you want. There was a tragedy, and they came to us. But either they didn't get an answer or didn't get the answer they wanted. For whatever reason, they said, tried that.
I remember saying at the time, my sense is this will be one of those life-changing moments that lasts for six months. Things have never been the same if you're trying to get through an airport. But in some ways, after a 9/11, when I survive it, and the sun still comes up, and the planes fly again, and the stock market bounces back, I'm almost in worse shape than I was before because I survived the tragedy. There's an arrogance to that phrase, and I don't mean that.
Your Personal 9/11 Moments
I want us to see that in these 9/11 moments of our life—not just the big one, but in the 9/11 you're going to have this week—you may be in it right now. This is one of those messages. I guarantee you Sunday, when I'm done, I'll have a half a dozen people say, I really needed that because I'm in this right now.
We live in this world. We live in a fallen world. We live in a world where we say to you all the time, if things are really good or things are really bad, we can say to both groups, this too shall pass.
You're going to have—and I'm around more and more people who are dealing with their parents and their demise and their kids and their grandkids. I go pick up the grandkids at school, and I don't do it very often because it's a hassle. I'm not that good a guy, and I'd rather see Haley get hers or Sarah get hers. Well, when I go to pick up the grandkids, I'm stunned at how many grandkids are being picked up by their grandparents.
A World of Hurt and Pain
Our flag football starts Saturday, and I remember last year being absolutely stunned at how many kids were there with their single mom. I think we're down to something like 35% of kids living with their biological parents who are married. There's so much hurt and pain.
I don't know if I'm just at a soft spot in my life, but all I see is hurt and pain all around me. In the midst of that, here's what I know. This is true. This word is true.
2 Corinthians 4:16: "Though the outer man is decaying, the inner man is being renewed day by day, for momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison." Here's what I need, "because we look not at the things that are seen, but the things that are unseen. The things that are seen are temporal. The things that are unseen are eternal."
A Message of Hope
My desire is that this is a message of hope in the midst of a lot of tough situations. Let me tell you where we're going starting next week. I don't know. We're going to go in one of two places. I want to teach a book of the Bible just because I need that for my own heart right now.
We're either going to do the book of Ecclesiastes or the book of Philippians. I'm a little afraid of Ecclesiastes because I end up in a dark spot on my own anyway. I had somebody come up yesterday and say, when I heard you teach Ecclesiastes, it brought so much hope into my life. I don't know how that happened, but that's a pretty cool deal.
I'm guessing one of those two next week. We'll be looking at a book and spend 8 to 12 weeks probably in one of those books. If you have friends who enjoy Bible study, that'd be a great time for you to invite them to join us. We'll pick up there next week.
The CDs from the last two weeks before break are available. Grab those on the way out. Take them with you. We'll see you next week.
Let's pray. Thank you for this truth. Thank you for these 9/11s that we have in our life, individually, collectively. God, they are moments of potential growth for us, drawing us closer to You, closer to Your power, closer to the Word. God, let them achieve that in our life. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.