Ground Rules for Dealing With God
Tom Shrader presents five principles for properly approaching God from Ecclesiastes 5. He warns against treating God as a casual friend rather than maintaining proper reverence and awe. The teaching emphasizes listening more than speaking, keeping commitments made to God, and understanding who we're truly dealing with - the Creator of the universe who deserves our fear and worship.
“God hates religion, and by religion, we mean this meaningless, ritualistic, go-through-the-motions, half-hearted commitment to whatever it is you're doing.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Reflections From the Top of the Heap (2002)
Recorded: 2002
Duration: 41 min
Themes: reverence, fear, worship, commitment, listening, respect, awe, obedience, casual believer, struggling with commitment, new believer, pastor, church member, young adult, mentor, parent
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 5:1-7, James 1:19, Mark 4:1-20, 2 Corinthians 1, Mark 4:37-41
Theological Themes: fear of god, reverence, worship, covenant keeping, biblical spirituality, proper worship, devotional life, spiritual disciplines
Full Transcript
Today, we look at session 4 of our series titled "Reflections from the Top of the Heap." Let me remind you what we're looking at. We are examining words that were written by Solomon. The word Ecclesiastes means "one who has assembled the facts." Solomon writes at the end of his life, looks back over life, and says, "Here's my assessment. Here's what life is all about." He stops and takes an inventory, examining all the different areas of life and looking closely at them.
Solomon looks at life and says, "Listen, if I evaluate life on a horizontal plane, it's meaningless. I'm never going to find satisfaction." When he's talking about satisfaction and happiness, he's talking about something from a permanent perspective. He's never going to find it in this life apart from a meaningful relationship with the Creator God. He doesn't tell us that yet—he's saving that for his close. He is making this point again and again and again, taking that point and breaking it down yet again and again and again.
Solomon's Assessment of Life's Pursuits
Solomon is saying, "Listen, if you think you're going to find happiness in sex or in booze or in just making money or building buildings or building a house or trying to get yourself all up to speed on the arts and the literature, you're not going to find happiness there." Last week, we looked at work, and Solomon says if you think work is going to make you happy, it isn't. Next week, we talk about wealth, and he says if you think wealth is going to make you happy, it isn't.
Dropped in the middle of this, kind of like a parenthetical insert, is this discussion on a relationship with God—a discussion on religion, if you will. On the surface, it might look like that doesn't fit, but it fits perfectly because here's what he's going to say: work won't make you happy, wealth won't make you happy, and religion won't make you happy if it's meaningless ritual.
God's View of Meaningless Religion
If you're with us for the first time or relatively new to the group, this statement may surprise you, but it's accurate: God hates religion. By religion, we mean this meaningless, ritualistic, go-through-the-motions, half-hearted commitment to whatever it is you're doing. There's a tendency to say, "Oh, that's those denominations." Well, it could happen in any denomination. It can happen at Scottsdale Bible Church or East Valley Bible Church where everything is just ritual.
You go in and go through the motions—stand up, sit down, do the whole thing, listen, make a note or two, and out the door you go. It's just as meaningless as if you've been sitting there speaking Latin. It's the same thing. It's meaningless, and that's what he's attacking.
The Interest in Religion vs. Practice
We have some statistics on your outline. These are a little bit dated, and those numbers would change a little bit. Twenty-six percent of people said they were interested in dancing. That was the question: "What are adults interested in?" Computers—that number would be higher now. Natural foods. There's something really wrong when there are more people interested in natural foods than dancing, I think. Physical fitness—a lot of people interested in it. I would suspect not many doing much about it. Religion: eighty-one percent of people say they're interested in religion.
There's a corresponding question from a different poll that's pretty significant. That question is: "Who goes to church? And how often do they go to church?" Forty-four percent said they go every week, sixteen percent said regularly, twenty percent said occasionally, eleven percent said rarely, and nine percent never. Here's something that's fairly interesting to me. If you take those top three numbers—those people who are at church from occasionally to every week—and total those numbers together, you get eighty percent.
It seems that what we say we're interested in, at least in this case, we're giving some effort toward. Eighty-one percent said they're interested in religion. In our culture, typically, if you talk about religion, we think church. So if we're going to measure that, eighty percent are involved in church. That's a huge number, and I believe the reason for that is this universal desire to put some sort of meaning in life.
The Universal Quest for Meaning
Any person who has done any thinking for any length of time has grappled with those great questions: Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? All those questions. There's a story about Dr. Leakey as she goes and comes back and talks about her experience living with the gorillas. In the beginning, a student asks her a question about why she does this, and her answer is this: "I want to know who I am and how I got this way." That's it—how do I get here? What's this about? Where am I going?
Those are legitimate questions, but you don't go study gorillas to find out the answer. Where do you get the answer? Make sure you get this: we're asking legitimate questions, and legitimate questions deserve legitimate answers. Where do I go to get answers?
Ground Rules for Dealing with God
Here's what today's topic is: the ground rules for dealing with God. There are two things in there that we kind of resist. One of them is rules. If you're anything like me, I don't like rules. At church, I'm pretty adamant saying, "Boy, let's not have a bunch of rules, because if we're going to have them, we're going to follow them." But I think you get all hung up, and now you've got to make a rule, and then you've got to have a book this thick to try to control every sort of behavior and anticipate every situation.
We often approach problems with a casual attitude. Why don't we just give people some common sense and intelligence and let them figure it out? We don't need a bunch of rules.
But here's what we need to understand: we're establishing ground rules for dealing with God—not gods, not small g. We're talking about the God of the Bible here. We're talking about an objective, not a subjective truth.
I was years ago at a prayer breakfast, and they had a speaker. Obviously nobody had screened this guy, but he was a national figure and very well known. Everybody in the valley here knows him. He got up and started talking about God. He said, "Getting to God is like this: if I'm in New York and I want to go to Atlanta, there's a lot of ways for me to get to Atlanta. I can use U.S. Air, or I can use American Airlines, or United Airlines, or Continental, or Delta. A lot of ways for me to get from New York to Atlanta. It really doesn't matter which airline I use, because ultimately, they're all going to get me to Atlanta."
Then he makes this profound connection: "That's the way it is with God. It really doesn't matter what road you take. The issue is that you get to Him. So if you want to go down this Buddhist road, or you want to go down this Hindu road, or you want to go down this denominational road—it doesn't matter, because we all worship the same God, and we'll get there the same way."
The Problem with Religious Pluralism
That's simply not true. Now, we are a pluralistic society, to be sure. We embrace that and encourage that. We encourage the freedom for you to worship wherever, whoever you want. But that does not mean for a second that every form of religion is equally true. They can't be. They're mutually exclusive by definition.
This whole idea that we're all worshiping the same God is a gigantic sham that definition eliminates. We could all be wrong, but we can't all be right. When we talk about worshiping God, we're talking about it in a very narrow sense. We would say to you, God's an objective truth.
How can you know God? Well, you can look out and see His creation, and the creation speaks of a creator. All you have to do is look around this room, and you don't have to be a rocket scientist here to understand that there had to be somebody who built this. You're driving by day by day, and all of a sudden it's just there the next day. A big bang theory for a hotel? I don't think so.
It doesn't work that way. Somebody had to draw the plans, and somebody had to go through probably four, five, ten, twenty years with the city or town. Then they had to go through coming back again and again and move this and do this, and then somebody had to build the thing. This hotel demands that there's a creator of it, just like the world demands there's a creator—it's God.
Knowing God Through His Word
That's what the stars tell us. We can look out and know a little bit about God. We can know He's powerful. We can know that He is glorious. But we can't really know Him through nature. I can only know Him through this book. I've got to get to His revealed Word. I have to know what God is truly like, which means I have to get into—there aren't many people that would have this.
Here's my Bible, and here's a coupon for fifty cents off a deck of bicycle playing cards. I don't know what that means. Not a good thing. The Baptists, we're losing the Baptists now. But this creation tells us there's a creator, but I can't know much about Him from creation. I've got to get to this book.
So we want our ground rules for dealing with God. We're going to get Him from this book. Five points today, not complex, pretty simple, out of the book of Ecclesiastes.
Ground Rule #1: Listen More Than You Speak
If you have your Bibles, please open them. Always beneficial. Do you need them? Do you have to have them? No. Always helpful to have them. Ecclesiastes chapter five. Here's our first point: if you're going to go with God and deal with God, it might be helpful to open your ears and shut your mouth.
Here's what Ecclesiastes 5:1 says: "Guard your steps when you go to the house of God." Now, Solomon was talking about a specific place here. We're talking about maybe a church setting, but really, for us, we're talking about life as we begin to deal with Him. "Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools who do not know that they do wrong."
James offers us similar advice in James 1:19: "Be slow to speak and quick to listen, slow to anger." There's an old Jewish proverb that you have one tongue and two ears, and that tongue is hidden behind a wall of teeth. The idea is to stop and listen.
I was in a situation just last week where this guy's coming in, trying to tell me a story. He wants me to do something, and he lays all this stuff out. He's got notes and all these things, and everything in me wanted to get to the conclusion. I just sat back and made some notes and listened and relaxed. Then I realized at the end that I didn't have all the facts, and he couldn't give them to me. I said, "You know what? That's not enough. I'm going to need another two or three people to fill in the gaps."
Slow to speak, quick to listen. When I approach God, this ought to be the thing that's first and foremost on my mind—that I want to listen.
Applying This to Sunday Worship
The same thing applies to dealing with God as you deal with Him, for example, on a Sunday. We're talking about church. It is not at all unusual for me to talk to somebody or listen to somebody say, "I went to church today and I didn't get much out of it." I can almost guarantee you why.
I know how a typical Sunday is for most people. Get together Saturday night: "What service should we go to tomorrow? Well, what's on TV? Well, the Cardinals. Well, we can go to any service. You know, we'll go all day. It doesn't matter. We'll just go all day to church." So I kind of...
The Wrong Way to Approach God
Let me paint a picture for you. Someone figures they'll go to church and do it this way. They kind of get to pull things together. It's a little bit of a hassle because there's family members. They're kind of on each other. "Hurry up, girls. Hurry up and get dressed. Get that hair ready. Come on, guys. Let's go."
It's a hassle getting down there. Stop and get a bagel or something because we're a little hungry. Stop at the bagel store. Everybody's lined up. They're out of the bagels you want—it's never that way on Sunday morning. Get there and it's a pain to get parked. He's right on the line. If the jerk wasn't on the line, you could have gotten in there, but you can't because you don't want to get your car dinged anyway.
So now you move down there. You fight all the way in. You have to get through all these people. Then there's a greeter. The greeter never says hi—why would they at this point to you? You've got this scowl probably. You get in. It's too cold. It's got to be too cold or too hot. Too loud for sure. Can't they turn that bass down?
When they go through this whole thing, the guy gets up to teach and you walk out and say, "I didn't get anything out of that." Well, I can help you out with this: you got out of it exactly what you put into it.
The Right Way to Approach Church
That is not the way you approach church. You ought to be Saturday night and Sunday morning praying. You ought to be praying for the ushers, praying for the people that are going to teach the Sunday school class, praying for the people that are leading the worship, praying for the guy that's teaching, praying that God would open your heart.
By the way, after four or five or six years, how much new are you going to get out of here each and every time? I think you'll always get something new, but do you think it's going to be a page turner in terms of just notes, notes, notes like it was the first day when you didn't know anything? You're growing. You're developing. And the more you grow, the more worship becomes meaningful.
All of a sudden the music's not just a warm-up act. It's real worship. When all of a sudden you understand, this is the Creator God of the universe, and you are praising Him and worshiping Him. I would suggest that you get fairly good at it, because if you're a Christian, that's part of what you're going to do in heaven for eternity.
That's what he's saying: keep your ears open, keep your mouth closed.
Don't Be Hasty with Your Words
Here's the second thing—don't make a lot of these fast moves. "Don't be quick with your mouth. Do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven, and you are on earth, so let your words be few. As a dream comes when there are many cares, so speech of a fool when there's many words."
There's a couple of things in here. One, the point he's making is: listen, take your time. Pace yourself. There's a great phrase in there—do you see this? This will keep you quiet: "God's in heaven, you're on earth, let your words be few." We sang that great praise song, "Let My Words Be Few," that we happened to sing in church last Sunday. Terrific song.
But here's the principle, and we've lost some of this: God's in heaven, and you're on earth. What Solomon is saying is, He's God, and you're not. He's in heaven, and you aren't. He's the potter, and you're the clay.
We've Lost Reverence for God
I believe—and we'll talk about it more, because these kind of all enfold each other—I believe one of the things that's happened, and it's a bad thing, is we've developed this almost friendship with God. We have taken God and molded Him into our own image, the way we want Him to be. We've lost all sorts of reverence for Him. There's no awe anymore. So I'm blowing in and treating Him like He's one of the guys down at Friday's.
Here's what he says: don't you be hasty with your words.
The Hasty New Convert
This happens to me probably three or four times a year. Somebody will come in, and they're new. There was a gentleman that was here new today, and you can just spot him because they're looking around, and we're always glad when new people are here. But somebody will come in new, first time. You'll watch him, you say hello to him—suspicious, as they should be, looking for the basket for the money. We have that on the way out.
Then all of a sudden, as you talk, you see them warm up. When it's over, they'll climb over people to get to the front, and they'll say, "How long have you been doing this?" Fourteen years. "I don't know how you keep this—for fourteen years you've been doing this? This is the greatest thing I've ever been to. This makes sense, that makes sense, this is the greatest thing I've ever been."
Two things: Number one, "I will guarantee you, I'll be here every week until I die." Number two, "You better get a bigger room. I'm going to bring my family, I'm going to bring my friends, I'm going to bring my co-workers, I'm going to bring my boss, I'm going to bring everybody I know. There's no way you're going to get everybody in this room."
Next week I'll kind of come in and look around, do the lesson, run out and get the obituaries to see if perhaps this person's passed away. Cancel the order for the Bank One ballpark.
The Parable of the Sower
In the parable of the sower and the seed, Jesus is giving us a parable and then He explains it. Let me just read to you from Mark 4: "Do you understand this parable? How do you understand the parable? Here's the explanation. The sower sows the word and these are the one who are beside the road where the word is sown and when they hear, immediately Satan comes and he takes the word away that's been sown in them. And in a similar way, there are the ones who are the seed, where the seed is sown on the rocky place. When they hear the word, immediately they receive it in joy and they have no firm roots in themselves. It's only temporary."
He says, watch out. I had a great teacher in this area...
Larry. I would be standing next to Larry and people would come up to him and they would go through that whole thing: "This is the greatest thing, God's changed my life," and so on. They'd walk away. I said, "Isn't that terrific?" And here's what Larry would say: "We'll see. Let's see."
At the time, I didn't really get it. I thought, "Gosh, how can he be so almost uncaring about it?" He wasn't uncaring. What he was saying is, "Listen, this isn't proven in a day or a week or a month. This is a lifetime deal."
We were talking not long ago in a setting where I was talking about my conversion. That was the topic. Susan happened to be in the room and somebody said, "Susan, why don't you tell us your story about it?" I'm telling you, she's from a different planet or something, because her account of this thing was a little bit different than mine.
She said that I used to come home to her every night and say, "You're going to hell. You're going to hell." And she said it got to the point where her only thing was, "If you're not going to be there, that may not be that bad." That was her conclusion. She's a feisty little thing.
But she would say, and this is how she tells it: "You know, I watched Tom change, but I kept saying to him, 'This isn't going to last. I mean, you're the guy with three pairs of running shoes in the box in the closet. They've never been out. That's you. I mean, what do you want me to do with your ab blaster and these 40 cases of Slim Fast that have never been opened? We've got powder, mega powder and all this, and you don't do any of it.'"
But what struck her was, over a period of time, she couldn't deny the change. See, if you're really His, there will be those quick spots at the moment. There will be that enthusiasm. There will be this "let's go." But you know what? That doesn't go away. It channels itself into a permanent, long-term, life-changing experience.
Approaching God with Careful Words
So I approach Him. How do I approach Him? Well, I approach Him with words that aren't hasty. I don't want to be the seed that was cast by the side of the road that all of a sudden sprang up and then goes away.
I have had people say to me, "I tried that stuff. I tried Jesus. I tried that Christian. And it doesn't work." Well, let me help you out. This isn't like changing toothpaste. This isn't "I tried it and I didn't like it." This is a marathon, not a sprint.
Keep Your Promises to God
Here's the third thing: when you're dealing with God, make no promises that you do not plan to keep. Verse 4 or 5: "When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it. He has no pleasure in fools. Fulfill your vow. It's better not to make a vow than to make a vow and not fulfill it."
Here's what he's saying again: if you're going to do business with God, let your yes be a yes. That's what we see in the New Testament. If you say you're going to do something, you do it. And it translates to the smallest things.
Years ago at the church, Susan decided she wanted to get the gals together to do something. So she said, "Let's go to Casa Grande, because we're at the south end of the valley. We'll go to Casa Grande, take the gals down there, do an outlet mall, do lunch. So we'll do a sign up." Twenty-four gals sign up. She's got a young lady working with them. She said, "All right, I'll get the car."
So Susan said, "Get transportation for 12." And the gals said, "No, no, no. Twenty-four signed up." Susan said, "Have you ever done this before?" And she said, "No." She said, "Get transportation for 12." Day comes, 10.
Now do things come up? Sure things come up. But have you noticed how they always come up all the time for the same people? It's always somebody who says yes. Listen, what he's talking about here is somebody who says, "I'm going to do it" all the time knowing they aren't going to do it. He said, you need to be very careful in this. And he says this vow thing, this promise thing, is serious business.
Marriage Vows as an Example
Now I know what you're saying: "Well, we don't do vows like this anymore." No, but let me rattle off some vows you've made: "For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do you part."
Now what that vow means is that you're in this thing forever, in the good times and the bad. That anticipates problems. Now every time we talk about this, there's no question we've got people in here that have been divorced. And what I'm not trying to do is just lump pain on you. What I'm saying is, do you understand, in the relationship you're in now, do you understand the seriousness of this thing?
There aren't a bunch of outs here. Better, worse, richer, poorer, sickness and health, love and to cherish, as long as we both shall live. Now the end result of this may be that you start praying today, "God, take her home." But the point of this is you made the promise. Do you see what I'm saying?
We've become so familiar with God and everything's so disposable that we just negotiate and we just do it away and whatever it'll be, it'll be.
Don't Try to Void Your Foxhole Contracts
Two more points. Do not try to void your foxhole contracts. This is what he says, verse 6: "Do not let your mouth lead you into sin. Do not protest to the temple saying, 'Well, it was a mistake, I didn't mean to do this.' Why should God be angry at what you say and destroy the work with your hands?"
He's saying, "Listen, when you say you're going to do it, you don't recant and say there was something wrong here." I'm going to prove a point in this because that foxhole has a negative connotation. I think it's a good connotation.
Virtually every conversion to Christ is a foxhole conversion. That's the whole basis of conversion. When I come to Christ, I'm saying that I can't do this on my own, that I'm spiritually
I am spiritually bankrupt. There's nothing in me that has any spiritual value at all. All I bring to it is my sin.
Let me do something with you. How many of you became Christians after age 18? Let's see your hands. A pretty good number. Out of that group, how many of you became Christians in the midst of desperate situations or hurting situations or economic hardships or family problems? Let's see your hands on that. A good number - a good percentage of that percentage.
Why? Because that's how God often works. He often takes you and beats you down and beats you down and puts you in circumstances that hurt and are painful for your own good, because it helps you come eyeball to eyeball with the fact that you can't do it.
We're teaching this Sunday out of 2 Corinthians 1, and Paul says, "We were in Asia. We were completely, completely overwhelmed to the point we thought we'd die." And God did it in order for us to not depend on ourselves. As long as you are working this out yourself, as long as you want to do it your way, then God's going to say, "Have at it. Good luck." It won't work.
God Uses Desperate Circumstances
There is nobody on this planet who lived a more self-absorbed, self-centered, selfish life than me. I used to say - and I'm not kidding about this - here's what I'd like to have happen at my funeral: I don't want to be in a casket. I want them to put me in a chair. And I want them to carry me out, and I want them to play Sinatra singing "My Way." How selfish is that?
God uses those circumstances, though, because you know what? That kind of attitude isn't going to last long out there in life, because they're going to beat the snot out of you, and they should.
December 13, 1979. If you take an Arizona history class, you'll find out it was a pivotal day in the history of Arizona. It was the day that Ed "Too Tall" Jones fought down at Civic Plaza. It was the only time that Ed "Too Tall" Jones boxed here in this valley. Remember him? He used to play for the Dallas Cowboys. He fought that day. I think in his career, "Too Tall" fought ten or twelve times. On the undercard was a guy by the name of Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini.
Well, little known fact: a good buddy of mine - it was his birthday, so he and I decided that we'd go to the fights that night. Well, you can't just go to the fights, and on a birthday, you've got to get prepared for it. So we started about noon that day, getting prepared for it. We're drinking a little of this, and a little of that, and a little of this. Let the record show that Civic Plaza ran out of gin and scotch, so you're forced to drink beer.
A Night That Changed Everything
You're driving home, and you've been doing this now for about eight or nine hours. I get on Camelback Road, and I'm making that journey out. At that point, we lived kind of right over here, at McDonald and Hayden, sort of that area. So I got pretty close to home, and I thought, "Man, I better stop. The last part of the journey's hard. I better stop somewhere. Where can I go? What's a classy place?" So I ended up at Tuba City Truck Stop and Country Club.
I don't know if you remember that place. The last time I talked about this, there was a guy here who said he owned it. The door handle was a gas pump, and he said he still had the gas pump at home, and that he would bring me the gas pump - which is great, but he evidently didn't hear the first part of the thing about a vow, because I've never seen the guy since.
So I stop in there, and go in. There was a restaurant, but there was a bar on the left, and I had a couple of drinks. Pull out on Camelback Road, moving along, heading home. See the emergency lights behind me. I pull over to let the car by. The car pulls over behind me.
The beauty of God is so good. The beauty of it is, out comes a female police officer, Barbara. That's what her tag said, Barbara. But to me, Barbara, Babs - it's all the same. So we got to know each other, and she said, "Why don't I give you a ride down and show you where I work?" That's what she said. It was "take a drunk to work day," apparently.
So along I go, and we go through the process. I had been through that before in Tempe. If you have a choice, it's a little easier in Scottsdale than Tempe. They're nicer to you there.
The Moment of Desperation
I called Susan. Susan came in the door. She was 18 days away from delivering Sarah. And I'm riding home - that's not true, I'm riding home - and I'm listening to the silence. And I get to bed, and I'm laying there, and I'm saying, "This is crazy."
I get up the next day, and I said, "This is nuts. What am I doing? I got a baby coming. I got a wife. I got a career that's just kind of coming together. This is nuts."
It was about three months later that I walked into that Phoenix Country Club and heard Larry Wright speak. And when I walked out of that place - and this is not hyperbole - I literally shook. I got to my office to get the phone book to find Larry Wright, and the pages just trembled as I dialed that phone to get with Larry to say, "I've never heard anything like this before."
The Gospel That Changes Everything
He shared with me the gospel: that salvation comes not from a church or not from my works, but by believing Jesus is who He said He was, and that that belief is a real thing that will change my life. There will be works, but I'm saved by grace through faith.
It was something that took place now over 22 years ago. I think it's real. But I'm reminded all the time that it came out of desperation, humanly speaking. God used these circumstances in a human way to bring me to Himself. God did the work - I've got that figured out. But He works through desperation so often, so don't be afraid of that. Just know in those moments of desperation when you make a commitment that you need to keep that.
By the way, don't think that because you have come to Christ in repentance and faith, everything will get well. We had a guy in a study, and here's what he said to me: "I became a Christian 10 months ago. Since then, my mother has died in the process of dying an agonizing death. My business has gone in the toilet, and my fiancé has left." I wanted to ask if there was any correlation between the last two, but I didn't have the courage.
See, you can't judge your spirituality by your circumstances. I mean, if that's the case, then the Apostle Paul has to be just a pauper spiritually, and Bill Gates must be a spiritual giant. You come out of desperation, and let me give you a little key to walking with the Lord in a deep way: Stay desperate. Don't try to take the control back. Just let Him have it.
Understand Who It Is You're Dealing With
Here's the last point. Understand who it is you're dealing with. Verse 7: "much dreaming and many words are meaningless, therefore stand in awe of God."
One day, Haley had to be about 12, and a couple of weeks before that, Susan said, "What did you say about me in one of those tapes?" I said, "Oh, I don't think anything, Susie." And she said, "No, you must have said something. Can you get me one of those tapes?" And I said, "Oh, I don't, whatever, you know, you've got better things to do."
So I came home, and Sharon had brought her a tape. She's listening to this tape. Haley walks in. I'm standing there. Haley walks in and said, "What are you doing, Mom?" She said, "I'm listening to your dad." And Haley said, "Well, let me listen." So she put on the earphones, and she listened for probably two or three minutes. And I'm standing there. She put those down, and she said, "You, my friend, are an awesome dude. You, buddy, are an awesome dude." I said, "Well, thanks."
Hey, by the way, this is kind of cool. Everybody, you've all been great to ask how she's doing. Tyler's out of town, so last night, she slept at our house. And it was really nice. She left me a little note this morning saying, "Daddy, will you come down and kiss me goodbye this morning?" So they can go away. He can take her in marriage, but he'll never take her out. I got her. I still have her.
You asked. They are doing great. Thanks for asking. They are doing great. It is so much fun. I didn't know how much fun this would be to watch these two. And I'll tell you what, they're teaching me. And I think, I put this actually in a marriage retreat I just did, I think I understand why they're doing so well. I've never seen two people come together in marriage who are not trying to change each other. She just looks at him, and he's got some little quirky things he does, and she just looks at him and says, "He's got some quirky things, doesn't he?" He looks at her and says, "Man, she's incredible, isn't she?"
And these two, just the other day, I talked to Tyler long distance the other day, because his grandfather died. So he was calling to ask me about some things. And he said, "You know what I've realized is that not many people have a marriage like Haley and I do after three or four months." So they're doing great.
Stand in Awe of God
Stand in awe of God. New American Standard translates it this way: "stand in fear of God." Great story. Let me read it to you. From the Gospel of Mark, Jesus and the disciples are doing their deal. They're working. They decide to go to the other side of the sea. They climb in the boat.
And the story tells us that there arose a fierce gale, Mark 4:37, "fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that it was filling up. And Jesus is asleep in the stern on a cushion. And they awoke Him and said, 'Teacher, do you not care that we're perishing?' And being aroused, He rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Hush and be still.' And the wind died down, and it became perfectly calm."
These are all fishermen. It must have been one heck of a storm, because these are all fishermen, and they're fearing for their lives. And they are afraid. And Jesus gets out of this sleep, stands up, looks at nature, and says, "Be still." And it's like glass.
If you're these disciples, at this point, what do you feel? Because you were afraid. We don't need to guess. "And they became very much afraid and said to one another, 'Who is this?'" See, that's what we're talking about. Boy, being afraid of a storm is one thing, but coming face to face with the power that created the storm is a whole other thing. That's the kind of fear.
Don't Reduce God to Your Own Image
And if you're treating God just like the big guy upstairs, if He's just a chum of yours, He's just a friend, He's this little entity that you've turned into something other than the God of the Bible, you've taken all the fear out of that. Somebody said it this way: God created man in His own image, and we've been returning the favor ever since. In other words, we take a God, and we make God what we want Him to be.
Let me help you out with this, and we've got to go here. We've got a minute and a half. It doesn't matter what you think about God. It doesn't matter what you feel. He is. That doesn't change Him. Your objective is to embrace Him as He is, to understand who He is.
How do you understand who He is? You read this book. You study this book. You hang out with His people. You hang out where His people hang out. It's a good Bible-believing church. And I'll mention it again, the classic work, Knowing God, J.I. Packer. We have sold hundreds and hundreds of that book, copies of that book. And Packer has a great line in there. Here's what he says: when you know who God is, the rest of life falls into place. That's exactly right. When He's in His proper place, you're in yours, and everything around you gets its proper perspective.
Solomon, at the end of his life, he says, let me just tell you something, my friend: Stand in awe of God. So we own some ground rules for dealing with God. Number one, He makes the rules. Number two, you follow them. And they're non-negotiable rules.
Susan, I made an offer on a house yesterday.
been in the same house 21 years. It's like the time maybe to move, and so we're ready to go. That's interesting, because we offered them a lot less than they've had it listed for. My hope is they're going to come back with a counteroffer, and we have a price, and frankly, we're already close to it, so this may not take long.
But see how we negotiate? You go down today to buy a car. You go in to negotiate. Asking price is just a place to start. The problem is that becomes so ingrained in your nature that now you come to God, and you want to do the same thing.
God says, here's what I want. You say, that's good. Not bad. Here's where I am. I'll give you that. He says, no, I don't think so. Well, how about this? No, you don't understand, my friend. This is non-negotiable. This is the standard. Anything else is unacceptable.
Ground rule for dealing with God. There they are. Next week, we'll look at this whole thing about wealth and money and satisfaction out of stuff.
Father, help us see this truth. Thanks to the men and women that are here, and what a great reminder to me each and every week that they got other things to do and other places to be, that they are here today as a testimony to Your working in their life and Your grace. Father, we praise You and worship You in Jesus' name, amen. Have a great week. We'll see you next week.