Integration of Our Faith

Tom Shrader addresses the dangerous tendency to compartmentalize faith, arguing that Christianity must permeate every area of life rather than being confined to Sunday services or controlled settings. Using Philippians 3:12-14, he outlines seven principles for developing an integrated Christian worldview: acknowledging we're still growing, having an accurate view of ourselves, living purposefully, maintaining singular focus, forgetting the past, straining toward the future, and giving everything we have. He emphasizes that believers are called to turn the world "right side up" through purposeful, focused living that makes the invisible God visible in every sphere of influence.

“Our faith is a deeply personal thing, but it is not a private thing.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: How to Stay Straight in a Crooked World (2001)

Recorded: 2001

Duration: 41 min

Themes: worldview, purpose, focus, integration, growth, compartmentalization, boldness, authority, struggling with compartmentalization, new believer, workplace challenges, business owner, feeling disconnected, seeking purpose, young professional, navigating secular culture

Scripture: Philippians 3:12-14, Philippians 2, Romans 12:2, Isaiah 55, John 17, Acts 9, Acts 17:5-6, 1 Corinthians, 2 Timothy

Theological Themes: sanctification, christian worldview, biblical authority, spiritual maturity, discipleship, lordship, holistic faith, transformation

Full Transcript

The premise of the series, and it's dangerous, is that you're Christians. Now, I am more than confident that the majority of you may be, but I'm certain it's not unanimous in this room. I'm sure you're not all Christians. But what we're talking about here is we're speaking to those of you who know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

Last Sunday, NASCAR. Tragic. Here's Dale Earnhardt, close to the end of the race. Most of you now have seen the clip, Into the Wall He Goes. And I've heard them talk about how tragic this is.

Let me tell you what's tragic. If Dale Earnhardt doesn't know Christ, I have no idea whether he does or not. If Dale Earnhardt doesn't know Christ, the man is in hell today. Now, that's tragic. It's not that he's 50 years old and dies in a car wreck. It's that if he doesn't know Christ, he's in hell. I mean, that's the stakes that are at issue here.

Building the Foundation for Christian Living

Well, if I'm a Christian, then how do I begin to live? We say, well, there's a couple of things. I've got to establish the Bible as the final authority of my life. I've got to continue the process of learning. I have to begin this idea of making good decisions, that means godly decisions.

And then last week we said, now I live life boldly, confidently. Not because we're so smart, but because since we know the Scripture, since we have the mind of Christ, since we know what God thinks about these things, now we can make good decisions, we make godly decisions. Now we don't have to be afraid of anything.

Here's the fifth point. We'll spend the whole week on it today. And that is, develop a pattern of integration over segmentation.

The Danger of Compartmentalizing Faith

Now, we've used this phrase before in our study of Daniel. What we mean is this. Develop a lifestyle where my faith invades every area of my life. You cannot compartmentalize your faith.

You can't say for a second, I'm a Christian, and certainly I've got to tell you, when I'm at the Doubletree on Thursday morning, there's a lot of application, I hear this all the time. But then the doors swing open and now I go out into the real world. And the idea is, this stuff works real well here, it works real well on Sunday, it works real well in some controlled settings, but you just need to know overall, it doesn't touch every area of my life. That will lead you into a path of destruction.

And about every six months I tell this story, because I love it, it's a classic. I'm in the middle of a real estate deal and the guy on the other side screws me. That, by the way, in the real estate community, that's not going to get you headlines. That's a fairly common occurrence.

What he does is, I think, clearly unethical and maybe illegal. But that means nothing to me, because it's not going to make any difference, because I'm not going to do anything. But the guy's supposed to be a Christian, that bugged me.

A Real Estate Deal Gone Wrong

So at the end of the thing, when clearly it's going south and I'm going to get it, I said to Him, I thought you were a Christian. And it's such a stupid thing to say, it's a dumb thing to say. But I'm glad now, in fact, as I was saying it, I was thinking, I wish I had those words back. But now I'm glad I said it, because His comment was a classic.

He said, I am, but I don't let it affect the way I do business. So I said to Him, if anybody doubts that, have them give me a call, because I can testify that, no, that's true. You are a man of your word when it comes to that. So we see the lunacy of that comment.

We had 1960, classic example, John F. Kennedy standing before the Protestant ministers, I think in Houston, if I'm not mistaken, saying, my faith will not affect the way I govern. Now, at the time, the issue was he was a Catholic, and if he was elected president, the pope would run the country, and that's what he's responding to. These Protestant ministers clapped for this.

Wait a minute, this may be the sickest statement a person can make. My most intimate relationship on earth, other than with my spouse, with the creator God of the universe, my most intimate relationship on the planet, won't affect the way I do business?

The Absurdity of Private Faith

Can you imagine sitting down today, and you're interviewing somebody, and you're interviewing for a job, and you start to talk, and all of a sudden you see, well, you live up in Scottsdale, what's it like up there? And all of a sudden the person says, well, I go to Scottsdale Bible Church. You say, really? You go to Scottsdale Bible Church? Are you a Christian? Yes, I am.

I'm a Christian, I go to Scottsdale Bible Church, but I want you to know something. When it comes to business, that's not going to have any impact on the way I live. My honesty, my integrity, what the Scripture calls me to service, none of those things, they're not going to affect me at all. Don't worry about it. This is ludicrous.

Our faith is a deeply personal thing, but it is not a private thing.

Character and Leadership

Now, this is the first time I've articulated this next thing in public. So, I'm working it through, but I think it's pretty good. It's a comment on where we are socially.

About six, eight months ago, I read just a little article that was talking about Benjamin Franklin's view of leadership. And Franklin said, there's two things you need that are critical to leadership, competency and character. And then he said, if you can only pick one, pick character.

Now, when we define character, I'm sure if we go to the dictionary, you got ethics and all that stuff. But the working definition, at least the one that I've heard for as long as I can remember, is that character is what you do when nobody's looking.

So here we go. Character, is this Benjamin Franklin? I don't know. He would seem like he had some authority. Character is critical to leadership. Character is what you do when nobody's looking. You have a president, former president, you have a former president that everyone says, it doesn't matter to us what he does in his private life.

If that's true, then we just have one more statement: character doesn't matter. I gave this guy a free ride for eight years, periodically pointing out that he's a pathological liar. But you cannot miss what's going on right now with this guy. This guy is the most immoral. He has no authority to talk to you about any issue.

What has been removed now is the spin machine, and the only reason we endured this guy is because we said the economy's good. Now we say we've got nothing to do with the economy, and now we go, gee, and what blows me away is everybody's surprised by this. For eight years, forget eight years, from the time he avoided the draft, to the time he smoked but didn't inhale, to the time he literally raped a woman in the White House, this guy's been given a free ride.

Now we look, and everybody's concerned about Eminem and Elton John. They're the natural progression of the moral leader, the bully pulpit that says, it does not matter! It doesn't matter what I do in public! Am I doing a good job for you? How's your pension plan?

It matters deeply what we do in private. It matters deeply every area of our life. It matters deeply. This Christian faith has to permeate your life and touch every aspect of it. When it comes to wanting to know how to live, I've got to understand what God says in Isaiah 55: "My ways are not your ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways and my thoughts are higher than your ways, higher than your thoughts."

Having the Mind of Christ

Get your Bibles, open them up to Philippians chapter 3. That's where we're going to spend some time today. In Philippians chapter 2, Paul's talking about Christ. He said, "Have the mind in you that's also in Christ Jesus." The NIV translators say, "Have the attitude in you that's also in Christ Jesus."

When I think of attitude, I kind of think of somebody walking with a cocky attitude. I think of the teenagers - they just have an attitude. If you go to a high school basketball game, you can barely stomach the teams coming onto the court right now. They just, you just look at them and just, gee, it's awful.

When you go to Webster, here's Webster's definition of attitude, and it surprised me. Attitude is the mindset by which I evaluate or direct my life. Have the attitude, the mindset, the grid - have the attitude, the mindset in you as you evaluate and direct your life that Christ had.

Paul tells us in Romans 12:2, "Don't be conformed to this world." Don't let the world squeeze you into its mold, Phillips translation says, but be transformed. How? By the renewing of my mind.

Actions Flow from a Changed Heart

We have a tendency, and this will move you right to legalism in a heartbeat. We have a tendency to look at actions and begin to evaluate everything by actions. You know, they're a good person. They don't do this. They don't do this. They don't do this. They don't do this.

These actions flow from a changed heart. That's what we're looking at. Have the mind in you that's in Christ Jesus. Have your mind renewed. What we're going to look at now is developing a Christian worldview and now implementing it into my life.

Seven Principles from Philippians 3

Let me read to you Philippians chapter 3, beginning in verse 12. Paul writes this: "Not that I've already obtained all this or I've already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I don't consider myself yet as having taken hold of it, but this one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

Seven things in there that we want to get to you so you now put them, integrate them into your life.

First Principle: We're Still Growing

Here's the first thing he says. He said, "I have not already obtained this." There's an understanding in Paul's life, in your life and mine, that we're still growing. Here you go. We're becoming. We're developing. We aren't static.

This, by the way, is one of many things that separate us from God. Do you understand that God is not becoming? God is not developing. God doesn't begin His day and go, "I wonder what I'll learn today. I wonder what new is going to come in today. I just can't wait to see what's going to happen today." God knows all these things. When it comes to us, we haven't already been to a point where we know all of these things. We continue to gain wisdom and understanding.

Second Principle: We Haven't Reached Perfection

Then he says this, and it's the second thing. He said, "I have not reached perfection or maturity." You and I, as we begin to take our faith and move it into the other areas of our life, need to have an accurate view of yourself. This is really hard to do.

If you want a very practical way, but a very easy way to see how people can deceive themselves, the next time your church has tryouts for the choir, go and listen. Because you've got people there, and you hear them and you go, "You really think you can sing? Do you really think that's singing?" Cats fighting, that's what this sounds like. "I have a beautiful voice."

My heart, your heart, is so wicked and so deceptive that even as believers walking closely with the Lord, sometimes we have a hard time even figuring and judging our own motives.

The Ministry or Manipulation Test

Somebody said once, and I really think it's true: in every relationship, at every moment, I'm either ministering or manipulating. In every relationship, at every moment. So maybe you're here today and you're just good buddies. You're guys, you hang out together, couple of gals, you just do stuff together, husband, wife, whatever it is.

In the middle of all this, I'm telling you, in every relationship, at every moment, because I think this is true, from the time you say hello to the time you say goodbye, you're either ministering to that person or manipulating them. My heart is so wicked that sometimes...

I don't even know the difference. Especially when it comes to Susan. I'll come home. This happened to me just as recent as a couple of hours ago. I said to her, "Boy, you look beautiful tonight. I mean, your hair just looks, you look good." I don't know in my heart if I'm trying to edify her or if I'm trying to romance her for perhaps my own personal satisfaction and gain. I presume that when she's talking to me virtually every night, saying how great I am, I assume she's doing the same thing. I'm assuming it's manipulation on her part too. She's just trying to get me in the sack. That's what she's doing. I know what it is. It's all of that.

Now, the reason it's hard—give you this little tip, then we move on—the reason it's hard to get an accurate view of yourself is because this battle with the flesh is a battle with your number one sin, and that's pride. C.S. Lewis calls it the ultimate vice, a complete anti-God state of mind. If you can eradicate your pride from the equation, God will do extraordinary things in your life. I will tell you this: number one obstacle to ministry in the church, the pride of the senior pastor. There's just no question about it. I'll bet in your business, number one obstacle to really an efficient, effective machine is your pride. It's just always in the way.

The Mind of Christ: Humility

In fact, let me go back to what He said. Have the attitude in you that was also in Christ Jesus, and then what He talks about is Christ's spirit of humility, Christ's willingness to go and to be obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. He said, "I want you to think like this."

Now, do you remember when we talked about this? We said when Paul came to write about this essential ingredient in the Christian life—humility—when Paul came to write about that to the churches in the first century, he got to the Greek vocabulary, and there wasn't even a word for humility. He had to make one up. That's how lost we are. I love this point. Literally, Paul said, "I want to talk to you about humility," and they said, "That's not even in our vocabulary." And he's saying, "Well, if you don't have it, you don't have the mind of Christ." You have to have an accurate view of yourself.

A Life of Purpose

Here's the third thing that He says. He says, "I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me." This is really important. What he's talking about here—we'll spend a second on it too—is he's talking about a life that is purposeful. He said, "I understand Christ took hold of me, and I press on toward that."

Now, hang in there with me. We're going to make a distinction that's really important. We're going to make a distinction between goals and purpose. A goal is something that's short-term. It's something that's measurable. It's something that you can attain, and it's stepping stones for something greater than itself. Purpose is long-term. A purpose is almost impossible to measure. It extends beyond life, and it's never attained.

Now, hang in there with me, because I think I can help you see what's important here. A goal and a purpose are two radically different things.

Goals vs. Purpose: Understanding the Difference

So, if I say to you, it's February, and in January, I made a promise to myself I'd read through the Bible in a year. Is that a goal or a purpose? That's a goal. If I said to you, I've determined that in my life, I'm going to be holy as God was holy. Goal or purpose? Purpose.

Now, here's the distinction. Goals are something that I achieve. I can measure them. Purpose is something that extends beyond life.

Maybe you're sitting here, and you're one of those great type A people, and you set goals all the time, and you're meeting all your goals, and yet there's a sense of frustration. Why would that be? I'll give you a couple of reasons.

The Problem of Mutually Exclusive Goals

Number one, it could be you've got mutually exclusive goals. So, here's your goal. I'm going to be a great dad. I'm going to be a great mom. I'm going to be a great spouse. I'm going to develop my business. I'm going to increase my business this year by 12%. I want to take care of myself physically. My handicap's 15. I want to get it to 10. I need to work closely with my extended family. My parents are getting older. I need to spend time with them. I've got a situation over here where I want to develop this relationship around this other thing, and I want to grow spiritually, and I want to be active in my church. All good things.

Here's the problem. You don't have 250 hours in a week. You've only got 168, and you're going to want to sleep a portion of that. So, here's what I'm doing. I'm achieving these goals, and I'm meeting these goals, but these goals aren't in line with my purpose. You see what I'm saying? Does that make sense to you at all?

So, I've got this goal, and this goal is to—I've got a 15 handicap, and I want to be a 10. And at the same time, I've got this purpose statement that talks about growing close to Christ, and understanding Christ, and growing spiritually. I'm achieving that goal. I'm increasing my business. I'm doing these things, but if they aren't in line with my purpose, I'm doomed for frustration. Do you see that?

The Mission Statement Example

I was on a plane, and I'm talking to this lady, and she's with this national company, and we're talking about her company. I said, "You know, I've been to one of your stores, and I liked it. I thought it was good." So, she said—we're talking more and more—and all of a sudden, she reaches in her pocket, and she pulls out a little laminated card with a mission statement on one side and core values on the other. I said, "Oh, well, that's pretty cool." And most of you now, I mean, they have to have that. That's just part of the deal. That gives you something to talk about in the staff meetings, and then you go back and put it in the drawer and forget it until the next staff meeting. But you got this thing. So, I said, "Well, that's pretty cool."

And I said, how come you have that? She said, well, everybody gets on the same page. We have locations all around the country. We're on the same page. You begin to see excellence. You begin to see what's important. It defines who we are. It's part of being successful.

I said, that's really neat. I said, do you have that for your life? And she said, absolutely. Here's my mission. No, I said, no, no, no. I don't mean for the company. I mean for you. You yourself. What's your personal mission statement for your life? What are your core values? And she said, well, and then all of a sudden she starts to say, well, we kind of know what they are. And I said, no, we don't know what they are. Why is it incredibly important for the corporation to have a sense of who they are and why they do what they do, but you as an individual, it doesn't really matter? It's not that big. It's not that important.

The Power of Personal Mission

I must have spent a month working on a mission statement probably ten years ago. It started a couple paragraphs, and it ended up after a month with one sentence, and it was this: to mature in my faith by developing a lifestyle resulting in others coming to Christ and growing in Him. What were key to me was the idea of maturing, which meant I was growing, and the idea of lifestyle, because I wanted what I said and thought and taught to be part of my lifestyle, to be able to reach out to others and to see them grow in their faith.

What do you got? What's your purpose? What's truly important? Because when you answer this, what happens is all your other decisions become much easier to make. And all of a sudden, it affects everything that you do. When I look at a USA Today, I'm continually looking at it in light of how is it going to help me mature? How is it going to help me teach others? How is it going to help me communicate to people who don't know Christ? Every one of those issues. Do you have that in your life?

That's what Paul's talking about here. He said, I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Are you one of those people who are achieving, you're successful, you're checking off your goals, but you're frustrated in the midst of this? The reason may be that your goals are very different from your purpose, and they just need to be aligned. Need to bring them together.

The Focus of One Thing

Paul says this. Then he said this. He said, there's this one thing I do. Now, we know he did more than one thing. In the book of 1 Corinthians, Paul says, I preach Christ and Christ crucified. That's it. I was determined to teach Christ and Christ crucified. Well, we know he's with that church in Corinth for a year and a half. We know he talked to him about all sorts of other issues. What he's saying is, there is a focus to my life. There's even a focus to my teaching. Even when I'm going to talk to you, Paul says, even when I'm going to talk to you about family, it's going to be in the context of Christ.

Is there that focus? Is there that intensity in your life? It's the old John Madden when the game's going to be won in the trenches, and they get the camera right down, and you see the linemen looking right in the eyes of one another. In fact, this is a great story to me. When I think of intensity, and I think of focus, and I think of football, and I think of the look, and I think of the eyes, who do you think of? Mike Singletary is all you think about. All I think about is Mike Singletary and those eyes beaming.

A Story of Intensity

So, a few years ago, I'm doing a conference, and Mike's in about the third row. I get up, and all of a sudden I look out, and there, there's no helmet, but they're the same pair of eyes. They're just looking at me. They're just looking. They're just looking. Everywhere I went, his eyes were right there. I'd say something that was extraordinarily witty and funny. He'd go, ha, ha, ha. And then he'd just look. All he did is look. He just looked at me for three days.

Very little response. He'd write a lot of stuff down, but he'd just look at me just like this for three days. And then he had to leave. It was a four-day conference. He had to leave early. His wife was there, and I said, hey, she said, hey, don't worry, Mike had a conference that he had to speak at, so he's gone. I said, well, that's fine. She said, here's what she said. This is a great... She said, you'll never know how much Mike enjoyed that. And I said, nope, I don't think I will. Because all he did is just stare. And here's what this is. It was so cute, really. She said, he's a little intense. Yes, he was.

But what he is, is I saw... And I've talked to some people lately about different characteristics of his life as he's developed it. But what I saw there was the same intensity that he had, not just with the Bears, but at Baylor. Because there's a focus in his life. He is single-minded. Paul said, this one thing I do. Are you like that? Is there a singleness? Is there an intensity to your life?

Three Illustrations of Focus

When Paul's writing to Timothy in 2 Timothy, he uses three illustrations. He said, don't entangle yourselves in the affairs of everyday life. He said, no soldier does that. He talks about a soldier. He said, then be disciplined like an athlete. And then be hardworking like a farmer. He uses an athlete, a farmer, and a soldier as illustrations.

In each one of those, what you saw was that you saw the soldier who's disentangled so he can please his master. You saw the athlete who says, I'm going to train and work hard because I want to win that prize. And you saw the farmer who says, I'm going to work diligently. The word in the Greek means literally to the point of exhaustion. Because I understand there's a long-term process here and there's no way I'm going to reap that harvest if I don't work now. Now he said, now you be like that.

Deal with one thing here. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I don't hear the phrase midlife crisis anymore.

Used to hear it every day. I mean, it was every day. There's another word that I used to hear all the time that's kind of gone away. And the word's burned out. We used to hear burnout all the time. And that kind of has passed. But we have a lot of people that are worried about burning out.

Let me help you out here. I don't believe that if you are gifted by the Lord and called by the Lord to a ministry, I don't think you're going to burn out. It doesn't make sense to me. He gave you the gift. He gave you the call. You're not going to burn out. The only way you're going to burn out is when you try to do His work your way under your power.

Are you going to get tired? You're going to get pooped. You're going to get beat. I have the privilege, and it is an absolute privilege, of teaching five times on Sunday. I love it. We have all these people that seem so worried about, oh, you're going to get tired. Burned out? How am I going to get burned out? I'm doing what He called me to do in the gifted area.

Are you tired at the end of the day? Yeah. What do you think? I'm whacked out at the end of the day. 7:30, I'm pooped. I'm in bed at 8:30. But I'll tell you what. I'm pooped, but it's a good pooped. And I'm concerned much more about people rusting out than burning out. All these people, they're going to get tired. All these people, I'm too busy. I don't know if I have enough time. I'm gauging myself. I don't want to die with a gas tank that's still half empty. That makes no sense to me at all.

Paul's Single Focus

I come back to this whole balance thing. It's not there. Paul says, there's one thing I do. This is it. This supersedes everything else, and it's worth the totality of my life. I've been called to this, and I pursue that call.

Now, He gives you a very helpful tip in this process. Here's what He says. I forget what lies behind. I don't need to relive all that past. When we read Paul, and he talks about the future, most often he's talking about heaven. He does make mention of, for example, when he writes to the church at Rome, I want to get to Spain. And so there's some of that. I long to see you, those kind of things. But most of the time, when Paul talks about the future, when he talks about the past, the only time he really tends to spend much time there is in his own conversion. And he speaks of it just briefly from a learning time.

Let me help you see the practicality of that. With heaven assured, and the certainty that it's there, it allows him to focus on today. So Paul says, I forget what lies behind.

Freedom from Past Guilt

We did this exercise, I think, in here last week. How many of you became a Christian after age 18? And just a bucket load of hands go up. A lot of people like that. You're my favorite kind of people. Because, most likely, you've had a pretty good time of sowing those wild oats. You've got a lot of sin in there.

Now here's the deal. All that's forgiven. I know of no illustration better than to say for some of you, for years, in fact, even in that Intimate Issues Conference, that was one of the questions. How do I get over the guilt of my past? This is a no-brainer. I'll tell you how. Real simple.

You've been walking around like you're carrying a ball and chain. Now you come to Christ, and there's freedom. He reaches down and cuts that free, and the majority of you reach over and pick up a ball and start carrying it with you. Forget it! I don't live in that. I can't be held victim to those things that lived in the past.

Paul's Example of Moving Forward

I'm convinced this happened. I have no way to prove this from Scripture, by the way. But I'm convinced that when Paul, we know in Acts chapter 9, we know Paul's devastating the church of Jerusalem. We know he's devastating everything around. We know that he's then converted. We know he spends some time back in Jerusalem.

I'm convinced that as Paul's preaching, he comes into a house, a house church, and he begins to teach, and all of a sudden one woman captures his eye, and he says, what's your name, ma'am? And she says, I'm widow Goldberg. And he said, well, how long have you been a widow? And she said, since you and your bandits came in here and killed my husband. That had to happen! There had to be times when Paul's preaching and teaching to somebody where he has killed one of their relatives. Maybe a husband. Maybe a child.

I'll tell you what I think Paul did at that moment. I think when Paul was confronted with that, he'd say, I'm deeply sorry. I've confessed that. God's forgiven me. You take care of widow Goldberg. And then I'm convinced he finished up, went down the street to the next church, and started preaching again. I don't think he said, well, I'll tell you, there's some awful stuff. I need to take a two-year sabbatical to work this stuff through.

Look, it's over. It's either forgiven or it isn't. I can't undo it. There's nothing I can do about it again. I'm forgiven, so I move on. Paul says, I'm not a victim of the past. I'm not a victim of the past.

If you're carrying around a bunch of guilt, and you're a Christian, please understand, you've been forgiven. Now, if God's forgiven you, you forgive yourself, and away you go. I think it's as easy as that. Make sure you learn, by the way, because you'd be a real idiot, to go through all that hurt and all that pain and duplicate all those steps again. But learn from it.

Straining for What Lies Ahead

He says, I forget what lies behind. And then the sixth point, he said, I strain for what lies ahead. I'm looking to the future. I want desperately what's out in front of me. That's what I want.

Donald Gray Barnhouse. That name probably means nothing to most of you. But he was a man who was a pastor at 10th Presbyterian Church. Somebody a few years ago gave me a 33 and a third RPM album of Donald Gray Barnhouse teaching. And you just see him, and he's this studly looking great big guy, and he's got this great voice. Everything I'm not.

Barnhouse used this illustration of going to a carnival in Philadelphia. He was this very dignified man, talking about encountering a tube at the carnival - something you could walk into and stand up in. It stretched about 35 feet, moved around and wound around, and the object was to walk through it without getting knocked over. But you were always getting knocked over.

Here's this giant of a man, Barnhouse, who was absolutely enthralled by this tube. He spent an hour in this tube, just getting knocked all over the place. Finally, the carnival worker said to him, "Look, see the end down there? You go in here, I'm at the other end. There's a mirror. I can look in that mirror and see you through the tube." Barnhouse said, "Yeah, I see it." The worker said, "Let me give you a tip. You look at that mirror. You see me. You keep your eye on that mirror, and you're going to get right through this tube."

Barnhouse, who spent an hour doing nothing but falling over a few feet into it, now got in, fixed his eye on that mirror, and walked straight through that tube. He said, "That's exactly the point of 'I strain for what lies ahead.' It's so clear in my mind that that's what's out there. It's so clear in my mind that that's where I want to go, that I'm not distracted by the past. I'm not plagued by the failures that I have. I'm not distracted even by the good things - and there's a lot of good things that can distract me."

Complete Focus and Commitment

Barnhouse said, "This is it. See how this begins to tie together? I understand that He's called me. I understand that I'm supposed to be there. Here I go." That's what I want to do.

Finally, Paul says basically, "I'll give it everything I've got." Verse 14: "I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me." I'm going to give it everything I have. I'm forgetting the past. I'm looking to the future. I've got this one thing. I've got it right in the crosshairs. And it's so worthwhile that I'm going to give my whole life to it.

Turning the World Right Side Up

Now, what happens when you live like that? In Acts chapter 17, Paul and Silas come into Thessalonica, and the Jews are very concerned about this. They organize a mob to come against them. Let me read to you from Acts chapter 17, beginning in verse 5, from the New Living Translation:

"Jewish leaders were jealous, so they gathered some worthless fellows from the street to form a mob and start a riot. They attacked the home of Jason - that's where Paul and Silas were staying - searching for Paul and Silas so they could drag him out into the crowd. Not finding them, they dragged Jason and some of the other believers out and instead took them before the council."

Now, here's the testimony. This is what they would say as the accusation of these Jews: "Paul and Silas have turned the rest of the world upside down and now they're here, disturbing our city." They meant this in a critical way. Here's what they were saying: "These guys have shaken up the whole world, and you better grab hold of it, guys. Now they're here."

We would change that phrase a little bit. Paul and Silas have turned the world right side up, not upside down. It was already upside down - that's the whole point. The world we live in right now is upside down. What God calls good, we call evil. What God calls evil, we say is freedom. Now, along comes Paul and Silas and they turn the world right side up.

Living with Purpose

Don't you want that to happen in your life? Wouldn't you love to have them say that? "Here comes Becky and she's turned this office right side up. Here comes Mark - he turned our neighborhood right side up."

I'll give you a little tip. This doesn't happen automatically or by accident. As I read through the words of Christ, it's very clear to Him: "I came to seek and save the lost. Here's what I did. Here's why I was here." In John 17: "God, I finished everything You gave me to do." When you read Paul's writing, there is a deliberate nature to his life.

He didn't just say, "Okay, God, what do You want me to do? See what we hit." He said, "Whatever happens to me, you must live in a worthy manner of the good news about Christ, as citizens of heaven." Here's what he's saying: there ought to be a difference in my life. Paul doesn't go randomly. He said, "Here I go. That's one thing I do. I understand my call."

Understanding Your Call

Do you understand that? Do you understand it's not just "I made a decision for Christ"? I went to a breakfast somewhere and checked a box, or I prayed to receive Christ, or I sat down with a friend at the coffee shop and I prayed to receive Jesus. That's not the end - that's the beginning.

If all God wanted to do was get you into heaven, He would have killed you right then. He's got a purpose for you. He's given you a gift. He's given you a call. He saved you for a reason. There's something in your life, I'm telling you this, bigger than you. This isn't a bunch of Tony Robbins blowing smoke at you - this is the truth. You don't have to create it. You don't have to wish it. It's true.

God saved you for a reason and called you for something bigger than you. He saved you for a purpose. He's given you a gift. Do you understand that, like Paul, you've been called for the prize? Like Paul, do you forget what lies behind and do you press on to the future? Do you understand that this purpose extends beyond this life?

There's this little thing that's happening that I see. My generation - those of us baby boomers - there's a whole bunch of these people who are now saying, "You know what? The dog caught the car. We're here. We wanted..."

Money. There are about six trillion dollars that are going to be passed to my generation by the generation ahead of us in the next decade or so. Can you imagine that? This generation of mine is going to inherit six trillion dollars. How fast will that go through our fingers?

So all of a sudden, now there's no need to work. Now, all the material needs are met. My generation is starting to come and say, "You know what? There's got to be something more to life than this." We're coming up empty. We've done everything. Our anthem as a youth was, "We didn't get no satisfaction." We've now lived that out. We're little miniature Solomons in our own way. We've had everything. Now what?

The Problem with Complacent Christians

And I see it even in the Christian men and women. Come into a study. Go to church. Check the box off. Got it done. And now, what do I do?

You know, that's your fault. That's nobody else's. The Creator God of the universe saved you by design. He chose you. He gave you a spiritual gift, and He's put a call in your life. I'm talking now to those of you that are Christians for a second. That's you we're talking to. We're not talking about a bunch of lost pagans. They've got their own problem. We're talking to you.

The Firepower We Already Possess

We've got enough firepower right in this room right now to turn Scottsdale right side up. We're not going to. Don't get carried away and think something's going to happen. We're not going to. We're not going to do it. But there's enough firepower in here right now to turn Scottsdale right side up. We don't need any more than this.

You know what? We don't even need half of you. We probably only need about ten of you that are fully committed, fully committed to make a difference in this world for the Lord Jesus Christ. And you will see God begin to turn not the world, but your world right side up. You ought to see stuff like this happening all around you every day. And if you live that life, driven like this, focused, you will.

What's Next: Making God Visible

Now, we've got to say here you go. Got me all jacked up here. Trust me. Just take a deep breath. It'll pass. But you're all jacked up and now I'm all ready to go. The coach put me in the game. What do I have to do?

Next week we'll talk about the first task, and it's a big one, and that's to make the invisible God visible. That becomes your first task.

Father, help us do that. Help us see that You've saved us for a reason, and there's a purpose in our life. God, allow us to live that life that has such satisfaction in it, such joy in it, because we are living as men and women committed to You. God, we pray that in Jesus' name. Amen.