Excellence

Tom Shrader explores biblical excellence through Jesus' humanity in Luke 2:52, showing how He grew intellectually, physically, spiritually and socially. He defines excellence as performing to your God-given potential while rejecting unrealistic limits others place on you. Using Jesus as a role model, Shrader emphasizes that true excellence comes through preparation, performance with divine authority, and perseverance despite criticism from family, community, and religious leaders.

“You've got truth in your hand - this was written by the one true God in His effort to communicate to us the mind that He has that He wants us to know how we're supposed to see life and view life.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Life Management (2001)

Recorded: October 25, 2001

Duration: 45 min

Themes: excellence, potential, growth, perseverance, purpose, preparation, authority, criticism, seeking purpose, professional, parent, struggling with expectations, facing criticism, young adult, mentor, developing potential

Scripture: Luke 2:52, Mark 1:21-22, Mark 3, Mark 6, Mark 12, John 8:44, John 8:48, Luke 23, 1 John, Matthew 5:14, Psalm 119:71, 1 Corinthians 12-14

Theological Themes: sanctification, becoming holy, spiritual maturity, biblical excellence, christlikeness, spiritual formation, divine calling, christian living

Handout Link

Full Transcript

We are back into a series that we started a couple weeks ago. We had a little break in there, and the title of the series is life management. If you're one of those—and I happen to be one of those—who make this a little harder, I enjoy a little more the chapter by chapter, verse by verse, or even something that's a little more formalized or structured than this. But we're going to spend seven or eight weeks on this with the idea and the premise being this: frequently we meet people who are doing very well in business but not so well at home, or who are doing very well in business and home but not so well in other areas of their life.

What we're saying is let's stop and let's take a look and let's see if there are some principles we can put at play in our life that would allow us to experience success—whatever that is—success in all of the areas of our life. Are there some things that we can do in that?

The Foundation of Purpose

We started the first week by saying here's the beginning point, and that is the idea of having a purpose. That's a little more dated now than it used to be—it used to be a much more clear process in terms of it was much more talked about. But what we're saying is a real clear understanding of not just what we do but why we do it—who are we and in our life what's the thing that if you cut me, this is what I believe.

I was driving in today listening to a tape, and on the tape the speaker was saying, "This is what I'm all about," and then he laid out this passion. "This is what I'm all about. This is what my organization is all about. This is what we're all about." Then he just laid this out and he went back to it again and again and again. It's probably the third or fourth time I've heard him speak, and I will tell you he's absolutely right—every time you hear him, this is the emphasis of what he talks about.

On the surface it sounds so simple, but it's harder, it seems, for an individual maybe than a corporation, for whatever reason. Most of the corporations have a mission statement—here's our purpose statement, here's our core values. Rarely do people have them, and yet somehow we think that corporation needs them to be successful and stay on target, but we don't. So we spent 45 minutes really appealing with you to try to get a sense of understanding of who you are, what you're about, and all those kinds of things in that process.

Let me just reiterate to you, this is a great deal of work. I've talked to a couple of people who were indeed challenged, and so they decided they were going to try to move through this process, and they said, "This is really a lot of work." And it is, but it's work that's really important. So that's what we talked about the first week.

The Challenge of Heroes

What we said is it's helpful to have heroes. In my office at church I've got three photographs—I've got photographs all around, but I've got three dominant pictures on my wall. They are one of Winston Churchill, one of Robert E. Lee, and the other of Ronald Reagan. So I'm in the process of making some changes, and I'm looking around and I'm trying to think, "Okay, it's time to look at these guys."

So I would say to people, "I'm thinking about a picture of so-and-so," and they say, "Well, you know, he..." and then they'd lay this out. And I go, "Okay, well, he's out." I've gone through this dance with about 15 people, it seems like, and every time I mention a guy, they point out all his foibles to me. "You know, you're going to have this guy? If you understand that at one point in his life he did this..." I said, "Well, yeah, but you know, he's not perfect." What's dawning on me is I need a picture of a perfect guy, so I'm scouring the internet for a snapshot of Jesus is what I'm looking for, I guess. I want a picture, but there aren't any. I've got caricatures.

Jesus as Our Model

When we want a role model for this series, we said we're going to do something that on the surface can be dangerous, and it's this: we're going to use Jesus' life and try to draw some principles from that. Here's what we said—you've got to understand the theological truth that Jesus is fully God and fully man. Most people, myself included, are going to get one of those out of balance—that's just the way we are. We're going to emphasize the deity at the exclusion of His humanity, or emphasize the humanity at the exclusion of His deity. We just tend to move that way.

Here's what we're saying, and we're going to try to parse this all the way through—whether we can or not, I don't know. What we're going to try to do is to say you can't duplicate His deity. Obviously, He walked on water—you don't. When He comes and there's a group of 5,000 and they need to eat, He takes a loaf and the fish—you can't. He's God. So for you to emulate the God stuff is silly.

But He's also man, not at the distraction of His deity, and there are some things that we see in His life that we can pull out and they become extraordinary principles for us. For example, we talked about purpose. We said the purpose for Jesus' life was very clear—it was stated before His birth, it was stated at the onset of His ministry, and it was stated by the Lord Himself. And that was He came to save His people from their sin. There's this whole purpose that's the driving force in Jesus' life. Other things happen—we know that He came not to be served but to serve. So we can pull some principles out of that.

Today's Focus: Excellence

Today we look—and you have your outline in front of you—today we look at this issue of excellence. The one thing I'm confident of is that excellence is a relative term. Voltaire said this: "Mediocrity is excellent in the eyes of the mediocre." It's a great quote—it's a relative thing.

So I say excellence, you may think, "Well, raised lettered business cards," or "good landscaping at the office," or "something that's freshly painted," or "a facility that's taken care of," or "gourmet coffee—that's what's real excellence—really good gourmet coffee." Well, that's not what we're talking about today.

One other just warning as we start this series—unlike...

Most of what we do is pretty yuck free—not a lot of laughs in this. I don't know why because of the topic; it's not like it's overly serious, just not a lot of laughs in here. This series is really designed for you to hold a mirror up to your life and to take a look at your life and to see how you're doing. It's never that we do something with the idea of having you look at your life so you're filled with despair. You may look at your life and you may see great flaws, you may see great gaps, you may see sin, but there's always hope in the person of Christ. So we want to keep that hope in front of you even as you look—we want to keep hope alive in you.

Defining Excellence

Here's how we're defining excellence, and I got to tell you I'm not real fond of the definition, but I think it'll hit the point: by performing your full potential, you'll exceed the expectations imposed on you by others, and I would even add by yourself. When I hear "full potential," I got to tell you I got a little red flag that goes up, but I start thinking of human psychobabble and "be all that you can be" in the human sense and grab all that's in you and unlock the giant. That's not really what we're talking about here.

Here's what we're talking about: God created you uniquely and differently and specifically to perform the function He's got designed for you in the body of Christ. God allowed or caused in your life all these different backgrounds and circumstances, always working good in your life. We know this—God causes all things to work together for good. You are today, in a sense, a creation that's been molded for the life that God has for you to lead.

Now there's obviously some general things that apply to all of us. We need to read the scriptures, we need to meditate on the scriptures, we need to pray—all of this presupposes that I have an intimate personal relationship with Christ. These are all things that apply to all of us, but it now starts to manifest itself in different ways.

God's Unique Design for Each Person

We happen to be studying the spiritual gifts at church—we're in 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14. The point I tried to make the other day was even two people who had the same gift are going to manifest it in radically different ways. You may have the gift of teaching, and that gift of teaching may be used to just intimately touch a dozen people or so, or it may be used in a setting like this, or may be used for thousands. You may have the gift of evangelism and you may be especially effective in evangelism one-on-one or two or three people, but highly impotent in front of a group of 3,000. There's nothing wrong—what we want to do humanly is elevate one, make it numerical, say this is—no, that's not the point.

The point is you were created by God for a purpose: overarching to give Him glory, we know that, overarching to enjoy Him, but it manifests itself differently. Excellence, when I grabbed that, what we added in the definition is—and becomes a real important part today—is to reject the limits, the unrealistic limits that others and maybe even yourself put on you.

Breaking Free from False Limitations

I went to school with a kid, and it was Kirk Burkhardt—is a great guy—and early on, as I remember, about the fourth grade, the nuns declared that he was stupid, he was dumb. So after a while he played to that role. He didn't really understand that, and so then we get to high school. Now you got smart class and dumb class and honors class, and so now he, you know, in the beginning they always say, "Well, I just sign me up for the dumb English. I'm dumb," and went all the way through dumb, got out, and college wasn't even an option for him.

So now he goes into the army, and in the army he discovered, "You know what? I'm not stupid, and there are things that I can do." The last I heard he'd completed his master's degree at the University of Michigan, was working on his PhD, and was teaching. My point here is how many—I would tell you I sit with a lot of business guys, and oftentimes we'll start talking about life, and I watch 50-year-old men begin to tear up and weep when they talk about the fact that all they ever heard from their mom and especially their dad was "You're dumb, you're stupid, you'll never get it, I'll never amount to anything."

Oftentimes it's you who have really achieved because you're going to show up. You're going to do one of two things with that—you're not going to stay in neutral. You're either going to say, "You know what? I am stupid, it's not worth it," or you're going to say, "I'll show you." But there's still something—again, understand me, I'm not into a bunch of psychobabble. I'm just saying that's the way it is, just like you feel nurtured when somebody says to you, "I love you and I care for you." Do I find my meaning in that person? No. But it reminds you, I think, of how powerful words can be.

Breaking the Chain

Even those of you who have had that awful experience, that painful experience, you are the ones who can break that chain. You don't have to treat others, and especially your own kids, that way. So what we're talking about is avoiding that and building a situation where God's doing His thing in our life as we obediently follow Him. We're working—again, as Jesus becomes our role model—we're looking through this excellence.

Jesus as Our Model of Excellence

We looked at His life—excellence, if you will, through preparation—focusing on Luke chapter 2 verse 52. Jesus has moved now, and basically we're talking about those silent years. In Luke chapter 2:52, here's what Luke writes: "Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and in favor with man." He grew intellectually, He grew physically, He grew spiritually, He grew socially. We know now that His deity isn't changing—God doesn't become or develop. We're speaking of His humanity.

He grows intellectually—He's learning, He's reading, He's studying, just like you need to do. He grew not just intellectually, He grew physically.

Physical Growth Matters Spiritually

Spend a second on this because I'm really convinced it's important. As you well know, for years those who've been around for years, you know that I've always struggled with weight. I mean it's just an ongoing battle, and I'm convinced it always will be. The only success I've had in dealing with that has not been through discipline because I have none. The minute I see—you want to see somebody said give me a picture of Satan working in the world? That's an easy deal: 99-cent triple cheeseburgers. That's Satan working in the world right there. I don't even have to scratch my head and say gee, what is that? How about Vegas? No, not Vegas—99-cent triple cheeseburger.

About four years ago, and I have no idea why it took that long for me, about four years ago I realized this is not a physical issue, it's a spiritual issue. God has given me a body and a level of health, and He's called me to do a ministry just like He's called you. We're supposed to respond by saying I can't get there because I'm tired, and I'm tired because I've abused my body. It's really an important issue. What makes this even more effective message for you is I don't have anything to sell—normally the guy tells you this and he's got powders to sell you. I don't have any powders or pills to sell you. I'm just telling you—you need to look at this. It's really important.

Jesus's Spiritual Growth Pattern

He grew intellectually, grew physically, He grew spiritually. He grew in favor with His Father, and again—as this God-man. How do I understand this? What's Jesus do at the end of a hard day? You know what I try to do? I'll go home and I'll say, "Okay, I just don't want any distractions. Don't let that phone ring. Turn on a little TV, and okay, it's been a hard day—I'll watch Frasier and then just doze off." That's how I cope with a hard day.

What's Jesus do? He says, "It's been an incredible day. It's been a hard day. It's been an extraordinary work day filled with so much pressure. I'm so tired—I'd better pray tonight for an hour or two. I better commune with the Father," because Jesus understood I can do nothing apart from Him. How did He begin His day? Well, He's up and He's with His God, worshiping His God, communing with His God.

True Fellowship Is Vertical First

I did a thing where I was teaching on fellowship a couple of months ago, so I decided—what did the great teachers say about fellowship? So I started going back looking at the Spurgeons and the Calvins and the Luthers. What do they say about fellowship? You know what fellowship they talked about? They didn't even talk about it. When we say fellowship, we think of fellowship hall—let's eat and let's say "How about those Diamondbacks?" That's fellowship.

When they talked about fellowship, they rarely talked about this horizontal fellowship that we're obsessed with. All they talked about is vertical fellowship with God, because if I've had vertical fellowship with Him, the most natural thing is I want to be with His people. If I have vertical fellowship with Him and I'm fellowshipping with Him, then all of these other things start to take care of themselves and they get addressed and I begin to be concerned about them.

But when these giants of the faith talked about fellowship, they didn't talk, as we seem obsessed with, about how we relate to one another. They talked about how do we relate to a holy God? Because if I understand who this holy God is, now I'll figure out how to live the rest of this life through the power of the Spirit and the power of His Word.

Jesus's Social Connectedness

So Jesus grows intellectually, He grows physically, He grows spiritually, and He grows in favor with man—He grows socially. There was something—again, I as kind of a hardcore Calvinist, when I read the Gospels I'm struck not by Jesus's doctrinal soundness, although obviously it's there. I'm struck by His humanity. There's something about—He wasn't unapproachable. The kids loved to run and play and jump around on Him. The sinners weren't put off by Him.

Wasn't that one of the charges? "Look at Him—He's hanging out with a bunch of whores, and He's hanging out with a bunch of legal minds, and He's hanging out with tax collectors." They weren't put off. There was something about Him where He wasn't just a little nerdy guy who got His Bible out. There was something different. He was approachable. He was socially connected. Somehow He understood people.

Meeting People Where They Are

When He went to the woman at the well, He didn't say, "Well, let me tell you what the prophets wrote," because He knows that's a waste of time—she doesn't know. He said to her, "Tell me about the husband. How's that going? How's the marriage?" BAM—He connects. When He goes to the Pharisees, He doesn't say, "How's the little lady?" He says, "Let me talk about the Old Testament."

And Paul did it. When Paul comes into Athens, he blows into Athens. What does he say? He blows into Athens and he says, "I'm here to talk about the unknown God. You worship the God—the unknown God—the one you worship." And then he quotes their poets. He quotes the authors of the day. There's some connectedness there, and somehow that has to take place.

Combining Doctrine with Humanity

The new Table Talk—R.C. Sproul's magazine—the new Table Talk is on Spurgeon. The first—I only read the first article yesterday—and basically what they're saying is here's this guy who combined doctrinal soundness with an ability to communicate with people. And they're saying people of our ilk, typically when they teach, are teaching in kind of a sterile way or living in a sterile way. It's not approachable. See what I'm saying? There's something in Jesus about all of this.

From Preparation to Performance

So He's prepared. Here's the second thing: in His life, things happened. There was performance. He comes to Capernaum. Mark 1, verses 21 and 22: "They go to Capernaum. He goes to the Sabbath. Jesus went into the synagogue..."

began to teach and the people were amazed at His teaching. Then it tells you why—not because He was eloquent, although I assume He was. I don't know if Jesus ever stuttered. There's a question we could probably debate: Did Jesus ever stammer? Did He ever say "uh"? I don't know. But they were amazed. It doesn't record that they were amazed at His eloquence. What they say here had nothing to do with eloquence. They didn't talk about eloquence. They didn't talk about His stage presence. They didn't talk about His delivery. They didn't talk about His dominant personality from the front. They were amazed at His teaching because He taught as one who had authority. They were amazed at what He said.

Now here's why I spend time on this—this is really important. You too can teach that way. You too can share your faith that way. You can dazzle your friends not with how witty you are, but with what this book says. You've got truth in your hand. Sometimes—and it seems like most of the time—we so underestimate the power of this Word. This was written by the one true God in His effort to communicate to us the mind that He has, that He wants us to know how we're supposed to see life and view life.

The Desperation for Truth

I'm watching the other day on television and there's one of those ads where this guy is a psychic, and they need testimonies to sell it. So you've seen them—they'll talk to him and they go, "Well, what was it like?" And here's what they say: "He said, 'I'll bet you're somebody who has dreams and you don't often pursue them,' and I said, 'Oh that's right! It was like he knew me!'" That's seven billion people, buddy.

But here's the deal: I read an article once that said it's three hours and ninety-nine cents a minute. The average call to the psychic hotline is thirty-eight minutes. And then at the bottom, in the bottom right, under it, it says "Entertainment Only." We don't know nothing! That's what they ought to write: "We're just guessing." That's about $130 or so. Isn't that amazing? $130 to call somebody that doesn't know anything. Here's what they're saying: "This is a joke." You could be watching Seinfeld for free.

For me, I don't know how you think of those things, but I watch this stuff and I'm thinking, "What would possess somebody?" And you know what would possess somebody to call? That's how desperate we are for answers. They are people who are really hurting and searching and they're struggling. They just lost their job, or they just had a spouse walk out, or they're in the midst of trying to put together a relationship and they're saying, "I don't know how to do it. Can you tell me how to do it? Is this going to work?"

The Authority of God's Word

And you're sitting here with a book that you can buy for a few bucks that has the mind of God—that isn't guessing. While it is filled with things that will bring you great joy, if you will—entertainment in that sense—it's filled with profound wisdom. You've got that. Jesus had that. Jesus spoke with authority, and I think humanly you can be at that same point where you begin to touch and affect lives.

Obviously Larry's death is still so fresh in my mind, but what made Larry so powerful was that he always took things through God's grid. I'd say he had great wisdom—yeah, he did, because he knew the God. Now it doesn't do me any good to say this to you, and it doesn't do any good to know this book if you don't know the Guy that wrote it. But if I have the Spirit of God applying the Word of God to my heart, stuff's going to happen around you. You can't stop it.

A Pastor's Question About Power

I had a guy yesterday—and again I hesitate to tell the story because I look like a very good guy in this story and I don't—but I had a guy that came out yesterday afternoon. He said, "I'm a pastor. I'm teaching. I've been through seminary. I know the language. I've done the things." He said, "What I do is I come here on Sunday night to your church to be fed. How do you do a lesson?"

I said, "I don't know. How do you do it?" And he took me through this procedure that he was trained in. It's not that there's anything wrong with it. You know what he wanted? I didn't figure it out till he left, which is too bad. But what he was saying is, "I see stuff happen here, and I don't see stuff happen over there." That's what he was trying to figure out. He wasn't trying to figure out how I did it, because what he did think is how I did it related to that.

Listen, I asked how he taught, and he said, "Well, I just kind of do topical lessons or whatever." I said, "You know what? Here's what I know: the power is in the Holy Spirit and the wisdom's in the Word. Even—and I don't mean this in a self-deprecating way—even an idiot like me can be used if I'll just cling to this and not worry about all these other things."

I'm saying that to you too. You can have extraordinary power when people are coming to you and saying, "How come your marriage works and mine doesn't? How come you've got peace in the middle of this thing? How come that whole September 11th thing didn't throw you off like it did me?" You can talk about wisdom because of this.

The First Critics: His Family

Okay, quickly now. Here's Jesus: He's prepared, He's God come in the flesh, things are happening around Him. Does that mean now everybody's going to get all excited about it? No. Now the critics come.

Here's the first critics: His family. In Mark 3, Jesus enters the house and the crowd gathers, so He and His disciples were not even able to eat. His brothers and sisters, His family, hear that He's there and they say this—this testimony doesn't get talked about much—they say, "You know what? He's out of His mind. He's nuts. There's something wrong with Him."

The hardest place for you to live this truth is with your family, especially those...

I remember sharing my faith one time with my brother. I have three brothers, so when they get the tapes, they'll never know which one it is. I was telling him about my faith and laying this out, and it's so hard. I mean, I'm intimidated in that environment, and so are you.

I'm telling him and I'm kind of done or toward the end, and he starts laughing. I said, "Well, what's so funny about that?" He said, "No, no, no. Do you remember the time that you passed out down on Third Street and one of your friends who drove a pizza truck picked you up and brought you home?" He said, "You remember that?" I said, "Not in detail, but I remember waking up smelling like pepperoni. Now that you mention it, yeah, I remember how drunk you were." It's just really interesting that it's that way.

Now ultimately, here's hope - obviously Jesus' family gets it. But don't think everybody's going to get all excited about this.

The Critics in His Community

Then there were the critics of His community. Jesus comes back into the hometown and it's the same process. He goes in and He begins to share, and they say in Mark 6, "Where did this man get these things? What's this wisdom that has been given to Him? How does He do these miracles? Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't that Mary's boy?" And again, for those of you who struggle with this idea, especially for those who come from a Roman Catholic background, this is very difficult because your church teaches that Mary was forever a virgin.

The problem with it is right here, because they go, "Isn't that the carpenter's son? Isn't that Mary's boy?" And then His brothers - then they name them - and His sisters. So we know that this teaching of perpetual virginity is wrong. Though it lines up with tradition, it's contrary to scripture. That ought to give you a glimpse of what happens when you elevate tradition to the level of scripture - you're vulnerable to all sorts of things.

But that isn't the point of this right here. The point is they're going, "Hey, we hung out with this guy. We went to school with this guy. He's a carpenter. How's He doing these things?"

The Religious Leaders' Opposition

It's not just His community and family. Now the leaders - it's in John chapter 8, verse 48: "The Jews said to Him, 'Aren't we right to say that you're a Samaritan and you're demon-possessed?'" That's John 8:48. Right before this, Jesus has given them some information. Jesus has tried to help them with their root - they don't need to go to Salt Lake on a family tree for this deal. Jesus has it for them.

Jesus says - remember what He says in John 8:44 - "You are of your father the devil." They're charged, and they go, "You too, you're a demon," and they go back and forth with this whole dance.

My point in all of this is your family may not always be there, your friends - and isn't it true of your friends, especially if you became a Christian as an adult? There are those people who have this awful, terrible struggle in them because instinctively they admire how God's changed your life, and at the same time they don't want to see you do better.

When Friends Struggle with Your Growth

We had a guy in my office one day, and he was just frustrated with what God was doing and that my life was changing. His answer was this - he described it this way. He said, "You used to be, when it came to sin, you were like 31 flavors. We could bring you any sin and you always had just the right topping to add to it, just the right little spin to make that sin deep. But now you're vanilla." I thought for a minute and I said, "Yep. And have you noticed that when you're in trouble you dial 1-800-VANILLA? That's why we're sitting here right now."

That's true. It's just the way it is. They may well admire what you will do and how you are, but they're not going to endorse it, and let me tell you, not necessarily.

At least in Jesus' life, His competitors didn't. Here you go - later they sent Him, Mark 12, the Pharisees and the Herodians. These two groups hated each other. This is like putting Ted Kennedy and Rush Limbaugh in the same room - they can't stand each other. They agree on nothing. What one stands for, the other hates. What one hates, the other loves. But they came together for this purpose.

The Testimony of His Enemies

Later they sent the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch Him. So they're trying to catch Him, and here's what they say to Him. Listen to these words: "Teacher, we know that you're a man of integrity. You aren't swayed by men because you pay no attention to who they are, but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth."

They're trying to catch Him, and yet in the midst of this, you know what they say? They say the truth. I remember when I first read that, I thought how awesome it would be if at the end of my life someone could say sincerely, "You're a man of integrity. You weren't swayed. You taught the truth."

Here's Jesus - He's our role model in a sense. Again, I want to say it because I know how easily this could be misunderstood - not in the deity, but in His humanity. And even in some of these instances, we may be stretching, and if we are, I apologize for that. But there are principles here.

The Pattern of Growth and Opposition

Look at the humanity. You ought to be able to identify with the fact that now you have a purpose, and now God's prepared you, and now you begin to grow intellectually and physically and with friends and with your God. And that doesn't mean that everybody's going to come along and say, "Yeah, you're something special."

But look at the final analysis. We've got about five minutes here. Look at the final analysis here. In the final analysis, look at how He was judged. His competitors say, "You're a man of integrity." His earthly judge, Pilate - Pilate called together, Luke 23...

Pilot called together the chief priests, the rulers, and the people, and he said to them, "You brought me this man, speaking of Jesus, as one who was inciting the people to rebellion. I have examined Him in your presence and found no basis for your charge against Him. Neither has Herod, for he sent Jesus back to us. As you can see, He has done nothing to deserve death."

Here's what you need to understand: Pilot is trying to get a guilty verdict. Pilot's not looking for due process, and he's not at all concerned about trying to find Jesus guilty if he can do anything he wants. He's got the FBI, he's got the Secret Service, he's got the CIA, he's got Woodward and Bernstein - he's got everybody all over this thing. "Find me the dirt on Jesus," and he brings it back and says, "I can't find anything." He sends Him to Herod - this is the scum of the earth, Herod - and Herod says, "I can't find anything."

Sometimes I think in the passion of understanding that Pilot said "beat Him" and "we need to kill Him" and Barabbas and all that, we forget that through all that process, Pilot never found guilt with Jesus. Not just as an earthly judge.

The Testimony of Jesus's Followers

Look at His followers, all those who are around Him, somewhat skeptical. Here's John's final analysis, and why John's view to me is so valuable: John tells us in First John, "We saw, we were eyewitnesses to this." In fact, John is described as the disciple that Jesus loved. As you would expect in our wretched day, there are those that try to somehow take this relationship of Jesus and John into some sort of homosexual relationship. It's just awful.

What they were was a disciple that Jesus loved, and they had something far more intimate of a relationship than anything physical. I'm talking about the intimacy of a heart connected to a heart. When John looks at Jesus and records it in his gospel, he said, "He came to those who were His own, but His own wouldn't receive Him." Jesus comes to the Jews and they said, "Get out of here." "Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, or of human decision, or a husband's will, but born of God."

Let me stop there because there's the origin of your Christianity today. If you're a Christian today, it's not because you made a decision. See what He says? It's not because of ancestry. You're a Christian today because of an act of God in your life.

The True Source of Salvation

You may say, "Oh no, no, no, maybe most of them in there, but not me. You need to hear my story. I went to this convention and I prayed to receive Christ. I asked Jesus into my heart. I walked an aisle. I checked the box." That skirts the issue. The issue is: why did you walk an aisle? Why did you check the box? Why did you respond?

Men and women, I'll just tell you, if you will grapple with this and embrace this - if you're sitting there today and say, "You know, I got this relationship with God, but I always got to turn it up, always got to get something going" - I think that's what you see in a lot of Christendom. I think that's the attraction. I just have to tell you, when I look at something like Channel 21 and I watch that, I ask myself: why do people watch this? Why do they watch all this hootenanny stuff going on? I'll tell you why: because the relationship with God is so lacking power that they just think that having all this commotion and a lot of jumping and jiving - that's where the power is. That's not where the power is.

The power is understanding God knew He is. It's letting your God be God. If you're sitting here today and you have a faith that has no power, it's because you've taken God, put Him in a box, and it generally begins at the point of salvation. You put Him in a box of salvation. You took salvation and you took credit for it.

I did this for years. For years I said, "I know God works in salvation, but let me tell you something: there was a mustard seed of faith, and I produced the mustard seed." The Scripture says you can't even produce a mustard seed - it's all of God. That's what John says: it wasn't by any act or will. And then he said this: "The Word, Jesus, became flesh, lived amongst us. We've seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son." Eyewitnesses.

You Are the Light of the World

All of this comes to this conclusion: when Jesus was here, He said, "I'm the light of the world." As He's communicating in the Beatitudes, He says this: "Now you're the light of the world." Matthew 5:14: "You are the light of the world. Let your light shine before men that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in Heaven." You see what that is? That's how your life looks.

See, if Jesus is yours - because this is kind of a controversy, I don't get it, but it's kind of like a controversy about this: can Jesus be my Savior and my life never change? There's a lot of people, including some powerful theologians here in the valley, who say, "Yeah, that's true. Yes, you can take Him as Savior and nothing ever changes." What do you do with this? "If you love Me, you'll keep My commandments." Listen to the charge: "Let your light shine. You are" - these are not my words, these are Jesus's words speaking to you - "You're the light of the world."

Now our light's different than His. When He was the light of the world here, He was a primary source, if you will. We'll use this imagery: He was the S-U-N, Son. We are lights - that sounds a little New Age-y, but hang in there with me. We are not the light S-U-N. We are moons. By that I mean His light reflects through us. We're not the primary source of the light. You can't do anything apart from Christ, but in Him, stuff happens.

You know that - things happen. Are they happening in your life? Because if they aren't, something is desperately wrong. Listen closely, we've got to go: something is desperately wrong with you. Not with Him, not with this Word, not with His Spirit - something's wrong with you. And if something's wrong with you, you can fix it. The normal...

The Christian life is not just this constant struggle and pain and grunt and groaning. The normal Christian life has all that suffering in it. The normal Christian life has all those things in it. Let me grasp here—I'm going to just pull this out. I've got the New Living so I haven't checked this verse in the New Living so hopefully it will be there. Psalm 119 verse 71—the psalmist writes this: "The suffering you sent was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your principles." So there is suffering and God uses it so that now I learn His word.

But the normal Christian life is for our light to shine to those around us. That's what He says: let your light shine so that when people see your good deeds they don't go "you're something" because they'll do that—that's all they really know. They're going to come to you, but ultimately what I'm doing and you're doing is deflecting any praise. Listen, if you see anything in my life that is good or valuable, it's of God. The rest is the real me.

Handling Opposition to Your Purpose

As you define your purpose, you will understand that people are going to come around you and they're going to distract you from that. They're going to tell you that that's not real and they're going to tell you that you can't do that. Some of it is just helpful, good, constructive criticism and listen to it. But oftentimes it's people—roadblocks the demons and Satan and your flesh throw in front of you all the time wanting you...