Blue Jean Theology Part 13
Tom Shrader teaches through James 4:11-17, addressing two key issues: improper judgment of fellow believers and arrogant planning that excludes God. He warns against speaking against one another while emphasizing that life is uncertain and brief like vapor, requiring humble submission to God's will in all plans and decisions.
“I'll bet 80% of it is under your control, and there is a significant percentage of your workload that you have to do to cover your monthly nut, because your monthly nut is way higher than it ought to be.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Blue Jean Theology (2011)
Recorded: 1996
Duration: 45 min
Themes: judgment, pride, planning, humility, criticism, submission, wisdom, brotherhood, struggling with pride, critical of others, planning major decisions, church conflict, business owner, church leader, mature believer, feeling judgmental
Scripture: James 4:11-17, 2 Corinthians 7:9-10, Isaiah 6, 2 Timothy 4, 2 Timothy 2:4
Theological Themes: sanctification, spiritual maturity, biblical wisdom, christian conduct, godly living, wisdom literature, practical theology, christian ethics
Full Transcript
We are working our way through the book of James. Let me remind you there is a tape day, so you can grab tapes on the way out if you missed them on the way in. As we work through the book, and I know for some of you this is becoming a bit of a drudgery, we have to paint a picture almost every week so that you have context here.
Understanding James' Purpose
It's really important to understand that James is not writing a book telling you how to become a Christian. If you approach the book with that in mind, you're in real serious trouble. What James is doing is saying, if you say you're a Christian, then I ought to see these things in your life.
He addresses a group of people, and there seems to be a fundamental problem that manifests itself in a variety of ways in these people's lives. Here's the problem: they are a hearer of the Word, but not a doer. Remember, we looked at this second or third week.
Now, here's what James is not saying. He's not saying doing is everything and hearing is nothing. He's saying it's not an either-or, it's a both-and. You must be a hearer of the Word. In other words, you got to understand what this baby says. It's not enough just to be doing, doing, doing. First, I've got to know why I'm doing what I'm doing, but then I have to be moving.
We don't want to see a situation where we've got somebody who's just taking in, but literally spiritually is constipated, and nothing's going on, and nothing's happening. I'm a hearer. I'm a doer.
The Problem of Worldly Wisdom
As they work their way through this, that problem manifests itself in a variety of ways. Ultimately, we get into this issue of life. He uses the term wisdom here. He said, here's the problem in verse 14: If you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, don't be so arrogant and don't be lying because that isn't godly. You say you're godly. You're not godly. Godly looks like verses 16, 17, and 18.
But the way you're acting—and he's talking about now the way you're just ripping each other, and the way you're cutting down, and the way you're arrogant, the way you're showing favoritism—he said, that's not godly. That's selfish and jealous. It's not the light that comes from above. It's earthly. It's not supernatural. It's natural. It's not godly. It's demonic.
Here's what he says: Wherever you see that selfishness and jealousy, and that ambition, that selfish ambition, you see all sorts of disorder, and all sorts of every evil thing.
The Source of Conflict
Then he begins chapter 4 with this: What's the source of quarrels and conflict among you? He just got done saying, if I'm not living a godly life, my life will be in disorder. Now he comes to this body of believers. He said, you're ripping each other apart. You're committing murder. Now, they're not stabbing one another. They're ripping each other with their tongue.
He said, here's the problem: You are arrogant people, and here's the reason why. You're a whore. You say you're in love with God, but you spend all your time cozying up to the world. You say that godly things are important, but you spend all your time in earthly things. You say you're moved by the eternal, but you live and think and operate in the temporal. That's the problem.
He said, you need to understand something. God is a jealous God. Not in the sense that you and I see jealousy—we're jealous when we have something over there, or there's something over there we wanted. God is jealous in that He wants what's absolutely best for you. What's best for you is to have Him as your Lord and your Savior. That's what's best for you. That's why He wants that.
God's Opposition to Pride
Having said all that, God is opposed to the proud. He's not neutral here. He's opposed to the proud, but He gives grace to the humble. Now, He gives them the solution to this arrogance.
Here it is: Submit, therefore, to God. That starts the whole process. There are about ten verbs in here. If I remember, they're all in a continuous sense. They're certainly an imperative. It's not a once-and-for-all submission, although that's what salvation is, but it's a continually drawing near to God, and He draws near to me. That's the process.
I'm continually understanding who He is and seeing Him more clearly, and as I do, inevitably, I see myself as I am. Inevitably, a process of cleansing and purifying starts.
Understanding True Repentance
Verse 9—we didn't spend hardly any time on verse 9, and no time last Thursday noon on verse 9, and they were lined up afterwards. They said, what the heck is verse 9? We didn't have any t-shirts. I keep saying, I don't think that would make a very good... We wouldn't sell that t-shirt much.
What he's saying there is in the context of be miserable and mourn and weep. What he's talking about there is real repentance. Absolutely critical to your understanding of that verse is 2 Corinthians chapter 7, verses 9 and 10, where Paul says there's a sorrow that is just nothing more than sorrow. It's human sorrow. You just kind of cry a little bit and you moan a little bit, but there is a sorrow, a deep, intimate sorrow that leads to repentance.
You're sitting across the table from somebody and you've got one person that's truly repentant and one that isn't. At that moment, when they're dealing with those issues, they'll frequently look the same. Time is the revealer in that area. There should be real repentance. That's what he's talking about here.
In that entire process, you humble yourself in the presence of the Lord and He'll exalt you. We've spent three weeks working our way, four I guess, working our way through those verses, but that's the context and that needs to be fresh in your mind as we approach today's topic.
The Simple Solution to Spiritual Dryness
In your life, if you feel spiritually dry, if you feel spiritually dead, the problem is very simple. You've pulled away from God and the solution is draw near to Him. When you draw near...
to Him and you see Him, in his book Knowing God, J.I. Packer makes an interesting observation. He says when I understand who God is, the rest of life's problems fall into place on their own. He's not saying at that point all life problems go away. He said all of a sudden, I've got perspective.
The Vision of God Brings Humility
Isaiah 6. Isaiah is like the godliest man in Israel. They'd have a meeting and they'd say, "Isaiah, you pray, you're the godly man." He was the godliest man in all of Israel. He sees this vision of God and these seraphims and all this stuff going on, and this godliest of godly men, the minute he sees God, he says what? "Woe to me, for I am undone." I came in here thinking I had it all together. I'm in real serious trouble.
Well, he's got low self-esteem. No. He saw God. See, as long as Isaiah was looking at all the other people in the nation of Israel, he was the godliest man around. But however that gap was between Isaiah and those others, let's say it was like this, when he saw the infinite holy God, holy, holy, holy God, when he saw that, he realized the difference between he and God was infinite in the chasm.
And once I see that, again, if you want to microwave your spiritual growth, the way you do this, the way you jumpstart this, the way you get this moving, is to not study you and how you relate and what are your gifts. We'll save that for another time. The way you jumpstart this thing is, who is God? What is He like? What does it mean holy, holy, holy? What is grace? What is mercy? What is justice? Who is God?
When you understand who He is, who you are, two things happen. Number one, you begin to see who you really are. Number two, you begin to say it doesn't even matter. Humble yourselves. Oh, He's there to give grace to the humble. That's you and me.
The Problem of Speaking Against One Another
Now, a passage of scripture that is pretty familiar, I think, to many of you. And we're going to take a little bit of a different twist as you would expect, I guess, as we got into it. He said, "Do not speak against one another, brethren." Let me offer you the observation. I've lost count. I believe that word "brethren," this is like the eighth or ninth time we've seen it in the book. And every time we see it, it's right when he's about to whack them alongside of the head.
Because he's coming along and he's saying, "I love you, man. I love you, man. You're mine. We're one. We're on the same team. We're on the same page. I'm not just beating you up to beat you up. I'm one of you. You're one of me. We're brothers. We're sisters. We're in this together. But because I love you, I've got to tell you, this is the truth." Don't be speaking against one another. That's no good.
"He who speaks against a brother or judges a brother speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you're not a doer of the law, but a judge of it. There's only one lawgiver and one judge, and that is the one who's able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge your neighbor?"
Let me read to you from Eugene Peterson's modern English paraphrase of this section and see if it doesn't kind of come to light pretty quickly. He says this: "Don't badmouth each other, friends. It's God's Word, His message, His royal rule that takes a beating in that kind of talk. You're supposed to be honoring the message, not writing graffiti all over it. God is in charge of deciding human destiny. Who do you think you are to meddle in the destiny of others?"
What This Doesn't Mean
Here's what he's saying. He just got done telling them you're murdering one another, and the reason is you're speaking one another against one another without any sort of justification. And who are you to begin to judge the heart and the motives of your neighbor? You can't look into the... I mean, that's one of my all-time favorite Woody Allen lines when he says he was thrown out of metaphysics class for looking into the soul of the boy next to him. And it's like that. You can't do that. You can't look in. You can't look in. All the people laughing were Jesuit trained. You can't look into the heart. You don't judge my motives. You haven't got a clue. You see me 45 minutes a week in this setting. You don't have a clue.
Now, here's what this verse is not saying, and I want to spend just a second on this. I'm not going to beat it to death, but for most of you, you've heard this. You can name this tune in one note, and you've heard it many times. Some of you are new. This verse is not saying, "Don't judge."
If you've got somebody who says they're a Christian, and they're involved in something that the Bible says is sin, and they say to you, Jesus gave you a system to deal with that person. If you've got somebody that's involved in stealing, they just steal, and you go to them and say, "That's wrong." It's not saying you can't judge that. You're to judge that. You're to deal with sin that the Scripture calls sin, and with someone who says they're a Christian and unrepentant, you have a prescription of how you're to deal with that. That's not what he's saying here.
Remember the contest back in chapter 2? They were judging and showing partiality, saying to the rich people, "Come on up here, sit up here in the front." Now, you poor stand back over there. That's what he's saying. I don't want you to get into that kind of judging. God'll take care of that. God'll be the judge of that. God'll figure that out.
Planning Without Acknowledging God
Now, verse 13, through the end of this chapter, starts a passage that you're probably familiar with. "Come now, you who say, today or tomorrow, we shall go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." Here's the problem, he says. "Yet, you don't know what your life will be like tomorrow. Your life is just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or do that. But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Therefore, to the one who knows the right thing to"
Do and does not do it, to him that is sin."
Let me make some general comments, and then I want to come back and have you take a look at something here that might shed some new light on this whole issue. Let me comment on what he's obviously saying, and at the same time not saying.
He says, here's the problem. You say, "Today or tomorrow, we'll go to such and such a city, we'll engage in business there and make a profit." He's not saying there's anything wrong with profit. No profit, no money, no Thursday morning study. Let me tell you, all of the things that you see that are of God, they're not going to happen. God's God, but by and large, you need to understand those flow out of material things. Those fuels, so much of that, make those things possible.
There's nothing wrong. He is not condemning material things. Never would we condemn material things. We would condemn materialism, but never material things in that context.
The Problem Isn't Planning—It's Attitude
He says, here's the deal. There's nothing wrong with planning. By the way, he's not saying, "Uh-oh, I don't want you making a bunch of plans." He's just saying, here's the problem. You start to see the threat all the way through. The problem is your attitude.
You're saying, "We're going to go into this town. We're going to take this town by storm. We're going to do this and this and this and this. We're going to make a profit, and there's nothing going to stop us." He said, "Wait a minute. You don't have a clue what tomorrow will be like."
For one thing, part of the uncertainty is you don't know what your life's going to be like. Because your life is like a vapor. To me, the best illustration, human illustration that all of us have ever seen of that, is when we're watching those astronauts in the shuttle. They're about two minutes and 20 seconds into the flight. They ask for permission to power up. They get permission from NASA to go full throttle. They said, "Going full throttle." They go full throttle, and life is like a vapor. Full throttle, boom, dead.
Life's Uncertainty and Fragility
So, here's what he's saying. He's saying that as you approach life, you need to understand that there is a finiteness to you. There is an uncertainty about the future, and you don't have a clue what could come up today. That discomfort that you feel, it's time for that annual checkup anyway. And it's a spot. It's a spot on the lung. Boom.
You're minding your own business. You're just trying to get out of here. You're trying to get out and on to Lincoln. And here comes some guy who feels that red lights are a violation of his rights. You can't control those things.
When my daughter had her accident in September—October—I can't tell you how many people said to me, "Oh, I'll bet that really demonstrated for you how fragile life is." And I said, "Have you never been to one of my lessons? I talk about it every week. I think about dying every day." Oh, no, no, no. I don't think I need to spend a bucket load of time on this. In your heart of hearts, you understand this. Life is uncertain. You are finite. You don't know the future.
Write Your Plans in Pencil
He's not saying don't plan. He's saying this: Rather than chisel those plans in stone, write them in pencil with the understanding that God has the eraser. He's not saying don't plan. He's not saying don't have a direction. He's not saying any of that stuff. He's saying God is sovereign and God is in control. And when you make plans and you exclude God, that is arrogant and boastful and evil.
You see, that's what's going through all this book. They're either thinking like the world system thinks or they're thinking like God thinks. You cannot begin to mix those two. They will not mix. And the basic fundamental problem that these people have and you and I have as well is our pride and our arrogance.
Pride: The Greatest Obstacle
You can take it all the way through. I'll guarantee you the greatest obstacle to your spiritual growth is your pride. The greatest obstacle to ministry in the local church is the pride of the senior pastor, the ego of the elder board. Guarantee it. It's just the way it is.
And until that person overcomes or that board or you or I, until we deal with that pride and that ego, which is in a continuing battle, there is a point at which I even become proud of how humble I am. How goofy is that? Isn't that nuts? But that's just the way we are. I don't do this and I don't do this and I don't do this. I'm so humble. Man, I feel good about how humble I am. And now I'm pride all over again. So I've got to be very careful in this whole process.
Here's what he's saying. That's arrogance. And there's two types of sins. There's sins of omission and commission. When we talk about sins, we tend to talk about the things we do. But he's saying, "Look, if you know the right thing to do and you don't do it, that's wrong."
I came across a great quote from one of the Puritan writers. And let me just paraphrase. He said this: "God, I find myself not doing the good that's right in front of me and walking miles to pursue evil and sin." And that's the way we are.
A Different Perspective
Now, I can spend, and we have in the past, we could spend lots of time on these verses. But I want to go a different way, if I could. Because I think we've missed this part of it. We see that life is uncertain, and we see that we're finite. And I think sometimes we use that as an excuse to say, "Well, God is God, and I'm just going to move out of the way."
Here's what got me thinking about this. In the last three or four months, I've spent an awful lot of time with people who are struggling with frustration in their spiritual lives. And I try to say, "OK, what's the deal here? What's the ticket here?" And while I can't say this is the answer, this is the core of a lot of it.
Hang with me. I've got seven, I've got about 22 minutes. And just let me talk, OK? And hang in there. Every person here, and I know this, to get here, it's 7 o'clock. You've got to fight the parking. You've got to fight traffic before you fight the parking. You've got all sorts of...
I know that there are some of you here who just have a bucket load of questions. 1996 is the year of spiritual things. This is a spiritual thing. Somebody invited you to this, and you're here. To you, we are delighted you're here. In many ways, the reason we meet here is for people like you to come. We're glad you're here.
But you're not the focus of the next 20 minutes. The focus of the next 20 minutes are those of you who say, and in fact, truly are Christians, to have you look at your life. Hang in there with me.
The Good Fight
At the end of his life, Paul says, "I fought the good fight. I finished the course. I kept the faith." Every person here who's a Christian and serious about their faith, and I think there's some level of seriousness, or you wouldn't come to this. You may go to church because that's the thing to do, but you've got to be almost neurotic to have to get up to come to this just out of obligation—something's wrong with you. You're here because you're serious. You may be frustrated. You may be floundering, but you're serious.
Every person I know wants to hear that at the end of their life. Hang in there with me. Get a picture in your mind at the end of your life. I'm not into a lot of visualization, but imagine the end of your life.
Here's how I see it—my life. I see myself in an Art Linkletter bed, one of those Art Linkletter beds, and Susan's there with her walker, and Sarah's there, and Haley's there, and their husbands are there, and their kids are there, and the grandkids are there, maybe the great-grandkids are there, and they're all gathered around, and they're weeping because the patriarch is about to die. That's how I see that. What will we do? "Oh, Dad, do you remember?" And then we'll get by all the memories, and they'll say, "Oh, Dad, oh, Dad, well done, Dad." And I'll say, "Yes, I've fought the good fight."
The Test of Today
Isn't that the way? That is the way. And you laugh, but that's the way you see some variation of that. When I say see the end of your life, you've got a spot out there in the future that you see something like that happening.
Now let's do this. Rather than fast forward it 20, 30, 40, 50 years, let's fast forward it 12 hours. Let's say the end of the life came today. Could you say, "I fought the good fight," and would you hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant"?
The reason I do this is because I believe with all my heart, if you couldn't hear it today, it's unlikely you'll hear it in 25 years. I honestly believe that. My goal today is meager. It's to have one of you take this seriously and make some changes. That's my goal. Can't get it any lower than that. Just one person.
The Problem of Entanglement
Here's the problem, I think. Paul says "I fought the good fight" in 2 Timothy chapter 4. There's a little nugget tucked away in 2 Timothy chapter 2, and I think it's verse 4, when he says, "No soldier involved in active duty entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life so He might please the commander that's recruited Him."
Here's what He's saying. A soldier has not a lot of decisions. I was talking to Mr. Putney before we started about World War II and some terrific things. Well, in World War II, they didn't get up every morning and say, "How many guys want to wear brown? How many guys want to wear red? Anybody want to wear yellow?" They just said, "Put on." They didn't even say, "Put on." They just said, "Leave on what you got on."
They didn't say, "What do you want to eat?" They said, "Hey, the swill's going to be ready, and if you don't want to eat it, you're going to hang on until tonight when we got this swill warmed up." They didn't say, "Go up there and then figure out if you want to go left or right or maybe you won't." They're going up here and left. They took away all of those everyday decisions.
Freedom Through Limitation
That's why Solzhenitsyn says, "I found true freedom in the gulag." Because when I'm in the gulag, I don't have any choices to make. I think that's why you see Bunyan and Solzhenitsyn, so many of these people writing these great works while they're in prison, because they're free from the entanglement of everyday life. You see that?
Your life is filled with decisions. I'm going to meet a guy in here for breakfast, and we're going to sit down, and they're going to say, "What would you have?" Well, I'm looking at all of these things, and finally I'll say, "I'm on a new deal now. I had, last week I had poached eggs. I haven't had eggs in a long time." Let me help you out. Eggs are really good. I forgot how good eggs are. They're better—this is going to hurt—they're better than chocolate.
The Tyranny of Choices
So here's what I'm guessing. First it was oat bran, and then I found out it's not that good. Then it was coffee. It's not going to hurt me. Then it was my meat, which I've been cooking, because I didn't want to get this other stuff. So I'm guessing sooner or later eggs are going to be okay. I'm ahead of my time. I'm on the cutting edge. I'm into eggs. You have your apple a day. I'm going to have my two eggs a day. I'm going to die, but I'm going to be smiling on the way. But I'm going to die anyway. That's the point of the lesson. So it doesn't matter.
When I go in and I want to say eggs, she'll go, "How would you like those eggs? Basted, scrambled, fried, up, down, hard, easy." Now I work through that, then she's going to say, "Would you like potatoes with that? Or would you like fruit? What kind of fruit? We've got strawberries. We've got berries." I don't care. Toast. That's what I want. "Wheat, white, sourdough, jam, orange." And all I'm trying to do is get breakfast. Look at those choices and decisions you have to make.
I'm telling you, a friend of mine and I are reading through a biography of Stonewall Jackson right now. And he said the other day, "Can you believe how disciplined this guy is?" And he really is. He's like all of them. I'm a little goofy, but they are disciplined. But they had no distractions. Or minimal distractions.
a hardship, to be sure. You and I have lives that are filled with distractions. And here's what I've discovered. Most of us are active soldiers who are deeply entangled with everyday life. So we never get to the point of pleasing the commander that recruited us. We never get there.
And that is why you are and will continue to be and will die spiritually frustrated. Here's why. If you sit around with guys, I like to spend a lot of time with old men and old women. You talk to old men, you talk to old women. And you say to them, especially if they're at that point where they've got gowns on with no backs on them, because at that point, nobody cares. Here's what they'll say: What matters, Tom, is faith, family, and friends. Faith, family, and friends.
Most of you who are Christians would even say what really is important is faith, family, and friends. But all of your investment capital—time, energy, effort, and money—how much of it is going into faith, family, and friends? Here are the things that I think can entangle you. The list is endless. These are things that I believe never get you to a point of really being able to be spiritually fulfilled.
The Number One Entanglement: Money and Stuff
Here's the first one, and it's a biggie. Money. Stuff. Things. I have no idea where they get these statistics, but I use this one because it makes my point perfectly: 90% of the people who apply for the mission field never get there because of personal financial problems. Now, get this. These aren't just people off the street. These are 90% of the people—9 out of 10—who say, "God called me to go and do this. God put a call in my life to go from here to there." But they couldn't go because they needed stuff.
How would you like to be their defense attorney at judgment time? Johnny Cochran isn't going to get these guys out of this deal. They were called. They said they were called. And they couldn't go because they needed stuff.
Here's my conclusion, and I think to this group, it's an idea that is in the crosshairs and right on the mark: Most of you have won the game and don't even realize it.
The Vegas Analogy
I used to go to Vegas a ton. We're on the way to Vegas. I hear the same thing every time. Different numbers, but I hear the same thing: "When I lose $1,000, I'm going to stop. When I lose $1,000, I'm going to quit." So this person goes to Vegas. And inevitably, what happens? They lose $1,000 because that's their goal. That's the target. I want to lose $1,000. I'm not going to be happy until I lose $1,000.
Now here's what's the irony of this. If you said to that person, if they're up $1,000, what do they say? Let me tell you what they say. I know what they say. "Give me the dice. I'm hot." If on the plane you would have said to them, "Would you be happy up $1,000?" Here's what they'd say: "I've never won. I'd be happy with $10. If I could win $1,000, that would be a perfect trip to me."
Here's what I want you to see. They achieved what would have been a perfect trip, but because there was no definition to it, they played until they achieved their goal to lose $1,000. And for most of you, my contention is, if you took the time to define your life, especially in these material areas, you would have won by winning a long time ago. But there's no definition, so you just keep going.
It's Not About Utility—It's About Pride
And it's not about utilitarianism. It's about stuff. When you pay $250 for an ink pen, we're not talking about writing here. It's not a writing issue. You spend $15, $20, $30 grand on a watch, it's not about time. Here's what I've discovered: You go, "What time is it?" and they'll tell you, and then you know. Not that hard. And you're up a whole bunch of money.
If you're driving a car that costs $80 or $90 or $100,000, you're not talking about transportation. You're talking about something way bigger than transportation. You're living in a house that costs a million or two million dollars. You're not talking about shelter here. You're talking about something way more than that. And what you're probably talking about is you making a statement. And I suggest to you that statement is driven by pride and ego.
Just like when I said the number one obstacle to ministry in your church is the ego of the senior pastor—I can't tell you how many of you went like this: "Yep, that's right." The number one obstacle to you being effective in your ministry is your ego and your pride that probably manifests itself in desire for material stuff.
The Need for Limits
I'll tell you this: Until you put a lid on your dreams—in other words, until you get to a point where you say enough is enough—you will never be satisfied. Here's the flip side of it: And you will always be spiritually frustrated. Always.
I was with a guy last week and he said, "I want you to help me put together a business plan." He's a home builder and he's a neat kid. He's just trying to figure some stuff out. And we started to talk for a while and I said to him, "I'll help you with a business plan, but I can't do a business plan for you until you have a life plan. Because your life plan ought to drive your business plan."
But you've let your business—every one of you probably—have let your business plan drive your life plan.
When Business Drives Life Instead of Life Driving Business
What do I mean? Your kid says, "Dad, will you coach soccer?" "I'd love to, but I don't have the time." Not making a value judgment, because your life may even be enhanced if you don't coach soccer. What I'm saying to you is, if you're not going to coach soccer, let it be because of your choice, not fate.
That's why I say, when we talk about uncertainty in life and not being in control, that's absolutely right. But I'll bet 80% of it is under your control. I'll bet that there is a significant percentage of your workload that you have to do to cover your monthly nut, because your monthly nut is way higher than it ought to be. You've got a spare bedroom or two, because
Friends and relatives come from the Midwest to visit you. Well, now you've got to finance that 10 or 15% extra, you've got to furnish it, you've got to clean it, you've got to air condition it, you've got to deal with it, you've got to put it on a 30-year mortgage and begin to handle it. And I'm telling you, you'd be way better off if you kept the house where it was. Two things would happen. Number one, you'd save money. Number two, when your relatives came, you could put them at the Biltmore and be money ahead, and they'd be happy. Everybody's happy. See how this works?
So here is the bottom line. You've got this much investment capital, time, energy, and effort. Now when you take that much out and you put it toward work, and that much out and put it toward exercise, and that much out and put it toward recreation, and that much out and say, I've got to eat and sleep, you've got this much left to invest in the things you told me were truly important: family, faith, and friends.
Now you see why you're spiritually frustrated. That's why you're spiritually frustrated. That's why the vast majority of your time, energy, effort, money is going to stuff that you say is fifth and sixth and seventh and eighth on your order of priorities. And here's what's interesting. The deeper you grow spiritually, the more frustrated you become because you're measuring everything by activity. And none of your activity is lined up in order with your priorities. That's how this happens. That's why you're frustrated.
The Activity Trap
That's why I was talking to a guy the other day, and two of them, and they said, we'd like you to come and speak to us. And this was terrific. One guy said, we want you to talk about this. And he laid it out. And the other guy said, we've heard 15 messages on that. That's the case with most of you. You've heard this stuff a thousand times. When will you do something about it?
What you need to do is not run out and buy a new book. Not an activity thing. You're on the way, and you're in there, and you're in the bookstore, and you're checking out. You've got a new book, and you see somebody from the church, and you say, hey, how are you doing? They say, great. You say, what are you reading? I'm reading Sproul's new book. He says, Sproul's new book is good. Have you read MacArthur? No. MacArthur. Now I've got MacArthur. I'm on my way to the thing. He says, hey, those are great.
Now you're going in and some arrogant guy says—there's one in every church—I don't read anything published after 1900. I only read the classics. You go, okay, I'll put these down. Spurgeon. Luther. Calvin. And then you're on your way to do something, and some well-intended person says, what are you going to do? And you say, this weekend I'm going to Mexico. What are you going to Mexico for? Oh, there's an orphanage and a group down there, and I'm working with them. They're down there, and they're needy. Do you understand that there's needy people right here in the valley? And you say, yeah, okay, I'm not going to Mexico. I'm going to the valley.
And all of a sudden, you're just like a ping-pong ball or a pinball. You're bouncing all over with no direction at all. See, the problem in that illustration is not that you aren't motivated. You are motivated, or you wouldn't be here. It's not that you aren't serious. You are serious, or you wouldn't be here. I think the problem is you're ignorant. You just never stopped to define this. And if it's not defined, you'll never be spiritually effective, at least to the maximum of your ability, and you'll be frustrated forever.
The Growing Frustration
You're going to die. That's why I said you can fast forward if you want. You're going to be more frustrated when you die than you are right now. I guarantee it if you're serious about your faith.
Let me give you, because we've got like four minutes left, let me give you a couple other things that will really mess up ministry. Marriage. Marriage will do this. And those of you that are married, Godspeed. But let me talk to the singles. The most important decision you have to make in your entire life other than what to do with the person of Christ is who to marry. And I'm telling you, you are way better off single than you are to marry somebody who's not a Christian.
Choosing a Godly Spouse
And I tell, my girls are sick of hearing this, but I'll tell them, I'll say, what do you look for in a date? And they'll always jack me on. Big, tall, and dark, and handsome, Dad. And I'll say, yeah, right. Okay? Like you could get somebody big. No. I say to them, no, a Christian. No. No, no, no, not a Christian. A man, and I'm talking to my girls, a man who knows the Lord and is growing with Him and has a plan for how God's going to use him.
I don't want some guy that says, yeah, listen, you girls are so beautiful that you could be one of the greatest soul winners in all time. Because all you've got to do is sit down with a guy and say, are you a Christian? And he'll say, well, is that really important to you? And you say, yeah, it is. And he'll go, sure I am. Yeah, I am. What do I have to say? What do you want me to say? How do I do that? I'm for that. And he doesn't give a rip and he's no more a Christian than this table.
If you're single, you better get a godly man or a godly woman. If you don't have those, you're never going to have time to minister out here.
Marriage Counseling Reality
That's why when we're dealing, I don't marry many people because I make them—inevitably here's what will happen. They'll call and say, can you marry us on May 5th? I doubt it. I don't even know. The last person that I met with, we got two sessions into it or three sessions, I don't even remember which. And I said, you guys should never, no one should marry this girl. She was terrible. She was the most prideful, arrogant girl in the world. And I said, no one, I will not marry you. They went, now here's—now they went and found a guy to
Of all the things I do as a pastor, performing weddings is the most serious because when you bring two people together for better, for worse, and forever, I'm telling you, if that starts out with problems, you have no chance.
Here's the third thing: work. You can figure that out. I'm not saying work less. What I'm saying is you better figure out how work is your ministry because you're going to spend 60 hours a week there. If you carve out time to sleep and carve out time to eat, carve out time to recreate and carve out time for work, and you don't see any of those as ministry, how can you be anything but frustrated? You're bound to be frustrated.
God put you where you are for a reason. This message is not a call to leave the workplace. It's silly to me that we all get together in the church and then the church tries to figure out how to reach out into the marketplace. The easiest way to reach out to the marketplace is train you to affect the people that are already around you because you're already there. We're trying to find plans how to infiltrate. We've already infiltrated the enemy ground, but we don't have any soldiers that are fit to fight there.
Bad Friends and Negative Influences
Here's the fourth thing: bad friends. This is interesting. We tell our kids - I don't have to do it much anymore because they've got it figured out - we were walking through the mall the other day and I said, "Hey girls, look at that." They kind of glanced and they said, "Dad, I know, don't bring somebody like that home." I said, "That's exactly right. Don't even let him in the car. Don't even walk on the same aisle with him. Stay away."
We tell our kids, "I don't want you to hang around with him and I don't want you to hang around with her," and that makes sense. Don't be with them. "How come, Dad?" "Because you're going to be..." "No, I'm going to witness to them." Yeah, witness. You're going to get more of them on you than you get on them. Then you turn around and hang around with these people who are living like hell and you think you've had a profound effect or it won't affect you.
Two more things quickly. Addictions. I was talking yesterday with a guy that's really struggling spiritually, and we've got some pretty sharp people with discernment. They said the problem here is this guy is obsessed with being debt free. Now I think debt free is a good thing. My wife and I are 39 payments away from being debt free. I'm so excited about that I could spit. We're there. We are close. We can see the finish line. The problem is when it ruins and distorts the rest of your life.
The Need for Mentors
Here's the last thing: a lack of role model mentors. I don't mean heroes. Mickey Mantle is a hero. Spurgeon is a hero. I'm talking about somebody you can dial up on the phone and say, "I'm in trouble, I need you, let's meet for coffee." You've got to have those people in your life.
You've got to have mentors and people you are mentoring. Let's say there are 130 people in the room today. Let's say you're 75th. Well, you've got 75 people who know more than you. Find one and have them teach you something. You've got 75 people that don't know as much as you. Find one of them. You have to be continually in this cycle.
The Foundation of Spiritual Fulfillment
It starts with you defining your life and what's truly important, and what you really want to see God do in your life. There are three things I started the morning with Him today. I'm in the shower. Three things I remember every day. Number one, I'm saved by grace through His work. I did nothing. Number two, I'm preserved by the work, and I'm part of it. He will let you play a gigantic part if you'll get out there and be willing to play it.
The only thing stopping you from living a spiritually fulfilled life is you. The only thing stopping you is you. If you're spiritually frustrated, the reason you're spiritually frustrated is you. If God seems distant and the whole thing - see how it all ties in? The whole thing is you draw near to Him.
What is it I'm supposed to do? I haven't got a clue what you're supposed to do. But you will know as you draw near to Him. He'll make Himself clear to you. All of a sudden, listen to your friends. They're saying, "What do you like doing? What gives you the charge? What is it that when you're done you may be pooped but you just want to sleep so you can go do it again?" Not drained, just pooped.
I have no idea what that is for you. But I will tell you this: I guarantee you if you can't say "I fought the good fight today," in all likelihood you're not going to say it at the end of your life. There's no definition in your life. If you have already achieved what you said you needed materially, then you're done with that end of it. If your life is continually driven by these temporal choices, you'll never get to the eternal. You'll never get there. You can't get there. If you do, it's purely by accident.
Prayer
Father, thank You for all of this, for the great opportunities that You have placed before us. We listen to this and this is tough stuff. I pray that You would give us a heart that's receptive to this message and that we would not be trying to figure out the life of the person to our left or right. We'd look at our own life. Some people in this room are very frustrated. They're good, sincere people.