New Spiritual Strategies for a Changing World
Tom Shrader concludes an eight-session series on staying grounded in a changing world by presenting five essential spiritual strategies. Drawing from Acts 2:41-47, he emphasizes the critical importance of church fellowship, serious Bible study, generous giving, fulfilling God's work, and sharing the Gospel with others. He challenges believers to move beyond private faith to active engagement in God's kingdom work.
“Your religion is a very personal matter but it is not a private matter between you and God.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: How to Stay Afloat in a World That's Circling the Drain (2002)
Recorded: 2002
Duration: 44 min
Themes: fellowship, evangelism, giving, faithfulness, community, discipleship, perseverance, commitment, struggling with faith integration, new believer, isolated christian, church member, mature believer, facing cultural pressure, seeking spiritual growth, wanting deeper community
Scripture: Acts 2:41-47, Hebrews 10:24, 2 Timothy 2:15, 2 Timothy 3:14-17, Luke 12:32-34, 1 Timothy 6:6-17, Ephesians 2:8-10, John 17:4, John 1:35-42
Theological Themes: ecclesiology, church fellowship, biblical authority, scripture study, stewardship, generous giving, great commission, kingdom work
Full Transcript
Today is the last session of what was an eight-session series, though we only did six of them. The title is How to Stay Afloat in a World that's Circling the Drain. What we're really talking about is in a world that's got so many changes in it, how do we keep things in perspective? We talked about adversity and anxiety and career and polite things you'll never hear in polite conversations, relationships, and spent a great deal of time on that. Today we talk about spiritual strategies.
Now what I don't want you to think is that we said, "Oh man, this is a study, so we've got to get spiritual stuff in there." That's not what we did. Probably, at least in my mind, I know of no organization that is more focused on biblical life change than we are. What we're saying to you always is that what you believe must affect how you behave. It has to. You cannot say you're a Christian and then somehow segregate your Christianity from the rest of your life. There has to be this integration that takes place in your life. You can figure out the adversity and figure out all this other stuff, but the way that you make your faith work is to make that faith real, to make it vibrant.
Spiritual Trends in America
When we first did this series, we were just coming into the 90s, and so we were looking at the status of what we'd seen in the 80s and the tendencies. As it related to spiritual things, we saw five things that we talked about. Number one, people were staying away from organized religion. They preferred disorganized religion.
There's an old book, old in the sense that it was written in the early 80s, called Megatrends 2000, where John Naisbitt was talking about what we would be doing in the year 2000. He had a section on religion, and he talked about this. You've got the quote in your outline: "When people are buffeted about by change, the need for spiritual benefit and belief intensifies. Most seek reassurance in one of two directions, either through inner-directed, trust the feelings inside movement, or through outer-directed, this is the way it ought to be, authoritarian systems. Both are flourishing today."
What I want you to see is that we are a very spiritual nation. I read somewhere not long ago that the three most religious countries in the world are India, Poland, and the U.S. As you see shifts in religion, things changing, I think Naisbitt has it right. People tend to go in one of two directions.
Two Spiritual Directions People Take
They either go toward something that is inner-directed, and that's what the new age type of movement is—trust your own instincts, unlock the giant that's in you. If you go to the bookstore, if you could compare it to a decade ago, I'll bet the spiritual new age religious speculation section is five times larger than it was ten years ago. There is just a plethora of information out there.
A lot of this spiritual material is saying unlock the giant within you. You can do it. If you can believe it, if you can conceive it, you can achieve it. That kind of junk. All you've got to do is dream it, and it's going to happen, and you have the potential, and the spirit is in you. That has flourished.
The other side is equally true in that people are looking for "this is the way it is" type of religion. I don't read this in a negative way, although it certainly could be. I think people are looking for answers.
The Appeal of Truth-Telling
We get a lot of people who come in from out of town, and they hear about the studies. A friend brings them—they're usually vacationing, not in June, July, and August. I remember years ago when they were looking for a pastor over at Bethany Bible Church, and the first guy that they ever tried to recruit was J. Vernon McGee. They said, "Will you accept the job?" and he said, "I will not accept it, and I'll give you three reasons: June, July, and August."
As people come in and they look at this, and they look at what we do in the mornings, and then they come into a room like this, especially in the winter when we add more tables and it's filled and crowded and we run out of food, they want to go home and do this. "Why can't we do this?" My answer is, "Boy, there's no reason you can't. Knock yourself out. You should be able to do it."
When they say, "Give us a tip. What do you think we ought to do?" they're always looking for some hook or gimmick. They're always looking for the marketing. They're always looking for what did you do to get people here. As you all know, we've never done anything. What we do that I think is attractive at Priority Living is tell you the truth. I think that's what people are looking for.
The Church's Response to Panic
You have that in the churches right now. You have denominations that are absolutely shrinking, and they're panicked. As they panic, what they do is exactly the thing that's pushing people away. They move away from the truth and try to become all things to all people. You can't do that. You've got to tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may.
George Barna says that the average Christian now has somewhere between three to five church homes. What he's saying is it depends on what they're teaching from the front, who's teaching, whether they like what's going on, how their kids feel. That's one trend.
Here's a second trend: People are looking for truth in these bite-sized
The Problem with McSpiritual Culture
I was at the bookstore just before I came up here, buying a Bible for Haley's birthday and getting it imprinted with the name Haley Johnson on it. I said, couldn't you put Schrader Johnson on there just for the sake of the thing? I thought that would be a cool deal - trying to give her that identity thing.
While I was there, I'm looking at these books, and I cannot believe how many books there are that are now patterned after that Prayer of Jabez model. I don't mean this critically at all, but there are 999 little books that are 70 pages and double-spaced. John MacArthur's got one. Everybody's got one. There's probably a lot of money in it.
But I think what it is, is an acknowledgment that people are going to buy big books but only read little books. Publishers even acknowledge it. They're going to tell you if you write a book, you better get everything you've got to say in those first three or four chapters, because that's about all anybody's going to read. This is the McBible, if you will - the McSpiritual Nugget, the bumper sticker theology.
Modern Cultural Trends Affecting Faith
Here's the third thing: people are sick of financial appeals. They are leery. They are not going to respond to those types of things. They're very distrusting of financial appeals.
The fourth thing is people are emphasizing career over competing priorities. There is this battle, and did you see where I said competing priorities? I mean, there are good things. Every person in here has more good things in their life than they can possibly get to.
I remember asking somebody not long ago, "Have you read any good books lately?" And he said, "Absolutely not. I've given up reading good books. I am getting old and I only have time to read the great books. I don't have time to read good books anymore." What he's saying is there are a lot of competing things here for my attention. I've got to figure out what those things are, and I'm going to have to say no to some very good things.
The fifth thing is people are not into proselytizing for spiritual causes. In other words, here's what they say: "I've found the answer to my problems in my life and for my life, but religion is a private matter and my faith is private, therefore I don't want to shove my religion down your throat."
Those are certainly the trends that we saw in the 80s. They're still there in the 90s and maybe more prevalent even now.
Strategy One: Get Into Fellowship
Here are five new strategies. Number one: we're going to encourage you to get into fellowship. You've got these in your outline. Let me give you the verses because I don't think they're there.
Acts chapter 2, verses 41 to 47. Luke writes this: "Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about 3,000 were added to their number that day. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need."
You Need to Be in a Church
You need to be in a fellowship. This is absolutely critical. You need to be in church.
Priority Living is not a church. We're not designed to be a church. We're not structured to be a church. We don't want to be a church. We don't do baptisms. We don't celebrate the Lord's Supper. We don't have elders. We don't discipline. This isn't a church. We don't have small groups.
Every once in a while, somebody will come in and they'll get into Priority Living and they'll say, "This is great, but we need to go to the next step, which means we've got to get people and network people together." No, that's a church. We are an unusual organization in that we know who we are, we know what we're going to do, and we're content with that. This is all we're going to do. We're not a church.
You need to be in a church. Get this: if you've got to decide between church and Priority Living, I'm telling you right now, it's the church. You've got to be in the church.
What to Look for in a Church
One of the saddest things I hear is when somebody comes up to me and says, "I've learned more in the last month in a Priority Living study than I have in the last five years in my church." And I always say the same two things: "Thank you" and "Get a new church."
You've got to get a new church. If you're not learning anything, get out of there. Don't reform it. Don't fix it. Get out. It's bigger than you. It's slower than you. And unless you're in a position of authority, it isn't going to move. Get away from it.
What do we look for in a church? George Barna says the number one thing people look for in a church is a place that's caring and sharing. I would suggest to you, try the Elks. They care and they share. The Masons. The Moose Lodge. "I want a place where my needs are met." Nobody is going to meet your needs like Nordstrom. They've built a whole dynasty on this.
Those are legitimate things, but those aren't primary. The primary thing is they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching. The most important thing to look for in a church is a place where the Word of God is taught. Not just taught - where they open with a verse and then this guy talks about whatever he wants to for an hour and then comes back with three things that begin with P and a PowerPoint. That's not the thing. I mean, here's where it is. This is what it says. That's what you need in a church.
This isn't church. Do you want a place that's caring and sharing? Yeah. But they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship. That's what it is. You need to bear one another's burdens. Hebrews 10:24 says, "Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give
up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another.
One of the issues that I see, priority living could certainly be thrown into this category, although I think we go out of our way to say this to you at least once a month: you've got to choose between us and church, choose church. One of the problems with the world we live in, in this country, are all the parachurch organizations — the Young Lifes, the prison fellowships, the priority livings, and the list goes on and on. All of a sudden I'm involved in this at the expense of church. Most of those organizations don't do a very good job of moving people into the church.
God designed the church. You need to be in a church. You need to have skin to skin fellowship, prayer, the Lord's Supper, the Apostles' teaching. So in a world that says, "I don't want organized religion," you come along and say, "No, not only do I want it, I desperately need that." You need to be in a church.
Get Into Learning
Here's the second thing: you need to get into learning. It's okay to read little books, but you need the truth. Paul writes to Timothy and he says this: "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed, who handles correctly the word of truth." In other words, I have to take this word and I have to be able to understand what it says.
There's a sense in which you are all theologians. By that I mean you all have a theology. You all believe something. What we need to do is to learn how to handle this word. And you know what? You can do it.
I was talking to a guy, he says, "I'm a baby Christian." I said, "Really? How long have you been a Christian?" He said, "Seven years." Now just think of this in a physical sense. Can you imagine? Seven years is what? Second grade? Third grade? Can you imagine going into a third grade class and saying, "All right, you babies." Now we know they're not adolescents or we know they're not adults. If you've been at this seven years, can I suggest to you, and you don't know anything, you've got problems, my friend, and it's your fault.
We had a young guy at our church. His sophomore year of high school, he was converted. He graduated as valedictorian at Mesquite a year ago. I mean, this kid is off the charts, brain-wise. He's at the U of A. Yeah, I guess he didn't want to work very hard. Actually, he was in my office the other day. I saw him at church and he's home on summer break. He was in Scotland. And I said, "Why don't you come in and see me?" And he came in and I said, "How are you doing, Greg? Is school hard?" And he said, "Not that hard." I said, "Are you working?" And he said, "I study 80 to 90 hours a week."
I didn't study 80 to 90 hours in four years. I said, "What are you going to do next summer?" And he said, "You know, I think I have a chance to go to Germany and intern with Mercedes. I'd love to do that just to sharpen up my German. It's a fascinating language. When I read the Bible through the first time in German," this kid's been a Christian three and a half years. Now, he is brilliant. My point is, in three and a half years, you ought to know quite a bit, you know? If you read 10 pages a day over 365 days, over three and a half years, you've read a lot of books. And you begin to understand what the Word says.
Handling the Word Correctly
Paul says, you need to handle the Word correctly. "But as for you," he's writing to Timothy, "continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you've learned it. And how from infancy you've known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ. All Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."
Here's where we find the answers, right here. I need to read and understand that Word. He said, "This is the truth you've become convinced of." What Paul's saying there is not, "You've studied it and now you're convinced of it." Paul's saying there's that intellectual aspect, but there's an experiential aspect. You've heard about this since you were a kid. Now you've heard it come to truth. You've seen it played out before you.
Growing in Fire, Not Cooling Down
I was talking to a guy not long ago and he said, "You know, when I first became a Christian, I was so on fire. And now, you know, I know a lot of this stuff and I'm teaching a class." And what he was saying is what I hear frequently. "When I first became a Christian, I was so on fire. And then it's kind of just manifested itself a little bit differently."
It strikes me that it ought to be exactly the opposite. When you first become a Christian, you've got this bike, but it's got training wheels on it. You've got this knowledge, although it's very little of it, and your ignorance on fire, but you're on fire. It strikes me that after walking 10 or 15 or 20 or 25 years with the Lord, that your faith ought to be more real than ever. I ought to be more on fire after 20 years than after 20 days. That's how it seems to me. See, and that's what walking with Him means. You become convinced of this.
This is, if you will, this is the classroom. We ask you to take your faith out to the laboratory.
Job's Example of Faith Tested
Job's a great example. If I say, word association, if I say Job, you say suffering. If I get a hundred people together that don't know the Word of God, and I talk about Job, they're going to talk about the patience of Job. The patience of Job. Do you realize that Job didn't have the patience of Job until the end of the book? He didn't have the patience of Job. All this stuff starts hitting him, and he's hanging in there, but he's running out of patience real fast. And his friends are leaving him, and his wife is deserting him, and everything is being taken away from him. And now there's that suffering, that struggle with God.
When we think of Job, we think of Job in chapter 42, who said, "Before I heard about
You, now I've seen You. That's what faith means. My faith gets bigger and deeper and stronger because I walk with Him more and more, and I begin to learn. I learn intellectually. I learn experientially. I should be continuing to grow and to grow and to grow and to see my faith.
If I say to you, are you really doing well? How are you doing in your Christian life? What should a Christian be doing? Almost always, I'll get things like, well, you should be having your quiet time. You should be reading the Word. You should be praying. You should be going to church. You should be giving. You know what? The Pharisees did all of those, and Jesus called them hypocrites. Isn't that something?
The True Evidence of Christian Growth
Here's what I should see in my life. If I'm a Christian, according to the Word of God, what I should see are not those specific actions, though they should be there. What I should see is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control—the fruit of the Spirit. That's going to manifest itself in a variety of ways.
We don't know if you've got love until we bring somebody unlovable up next to you. I had something happen about a year ago that's never happened to me before. On Sunday morning, when I got up and drove to church, I got every light green. That's never happened to me before. You know, I scored 100% on the patient test that day. I was patient as can be as I drove along. We don't know if I got patience until we put a few red lights in there.
You know what they just put on my street? Not my street per se, but the street I have to drive down to get home? They just put speed bumps there. Some idiot in our neighborhood called the city and said, we've got so much traffic, we want speed bumps. I now have to drive—there's no other way to do this. I need a Hummer to get to my house. Some moron has put speed bumps and it says no more than 20 miles an hour. And 20 is too fast. It's 15 miles an hour. It is amazing to me how hard that 45 seconds has become in my day. Isn't that stupid?
Learning Through Testing
We can study this stuff until we know it inside out, but we know we've learned it when we take it out and put it to the test. Haley's in this accelerated program, not because she's bright, but that was the program that was open. The first test they gave—out of 35 students, 33 of them failed. I said, we've got an issue here, one of three. Either A, we need to tighten up admissions down there because they're letting idiots in. B, the test just has nothing to do that correlates with what's going on in the classroom. Or C, this teacher can't teach a lick.
Now, my basic tendency is to say, you've got a problem with the teacher or the test, because I don't believe I've taught till you've learned. The burden's not on the student. The burden's on the teacher to teach. Now, some of you are going to learn slower than others, but you're going to learn when you've got the Word and now you've got the experience. And you know what? It takes time. In a world that says, I want McBible and I want it fast and I want to microwave the McBible, we're saying, no, this takes years to figure out.
Get Into Giving
Here's the third thing. You're not going to like this. Get into giving. Now, let me be really clear here. If you're new to this study and you're saying, I knew it. I knew there'd be a hook. I knew there'd be money. There are people who've been here for years and they've never heard us talk about money. This isn't about us. This is about you.
If you're going to really follow Christ, you need to be a giver. You need to give your time, your energy, your effort. And we don't like to talk about this. You're dough. Don't give it here. You forget us. You don't have to give it here. We'll take it, but don't give it to us. I'm just saying the average person who identifies themselves as a born again Christian gives 2.3% of their income toward charitable entities, tax-deductible entities. The average citizen gives 2.4%. Something's wrong. That's what Jesus said. Where your treasure is, there your heart be also.
What Jesus Said About Giving
And He said this. Luke 12: Don't be afraid. For the Father's pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourself that don't wear out. A treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.
I'm talking to a guy the other day and he said, you know what? He said, I have experienced—this is a great phrase—he said, in the last two months, I have experienced serious asset erosion. That's the phrase he used. And a lot of people have. I mean, some guy the other day on TV had $600,000 and now he's down to $18,000. And you know what? That guy's culpable on his own. You've got to be—yeah, you've got some serious issues at that point. And it's not all business fault at that point.
Wrestling With Plan B
And the reason this is so real to me is because I wrestle with this stuff. See, how much is enough here? If I've got this retirement program and I'm funding the retirement program and that's the program, then do I need a plan B? Do I need a follow-through, backup plan? Because I've done that. I've kind of got a little pocket where I threw some cash and in the last six months, I've experienced in this plan B some serious asset erosion.
You know what's interesting? I don't feel bad about the money being gone. I feel bad that I had a slight plan B. What am I doing? Why have I got a plan B? And it's not much. It's just something that was there. You know what I'm saying? We've got this and this is the... Is it okay to have a plan B?
Here's my conclusion. No, it isn't. Whatever your plan B is, give it away. It just makes me sick that I had A and I could have given A away and now I've got A minus majority of A and now I've lost it. Where I could have given that to the kingdom of God and who knows what God... You know what? I don't care what God would have done with it.
up to Him and His people. I don't care. Here you go. Here's what Paul writes to Timothy. Let me recommend the passage to you because we go through it over and over again. 1 Timothy 6, verses 6 through 17.
Now, I'm not going to spend much time in the beginning of this. Godliness plus contentment equals great gain. We've talked about that until we're blue. Let me focus on this. "Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth which is uncertain but to put their hope in God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command those who are rich."
The Problem with Defining "Rich"
Here's why we can never get at you. Because the minute we say rich, you think anybody that has more money than you. That's how you define it. Nobody wants to play the rich game. Everybody likes to look rich and have people think they're rich, but when we get to this, nobody's rich. Maybe Bill Gates, don't know about him.
Yesterday I had on a good-looking shirt, kind of unlike today. I had on a good-looking shirt yesterday and a guy said to me, "Did you get a new shirt?" I said, "You know what, I didn't. I found this in the closet. I just haven't worn it in a couple of years." I was in the closet the other day. I found a great pair of slacks. They still got the tags on them. That is rich.
Two Temptations of Wealth
He said instruct those who are rich not to do two things. Number one, be arrogant. Apparently people who are rich are tempted to be and oftentimes give in to the temptation to be arrogant. To either be cocky and prideful about how they got it or that they got it. Some of you just flat got lucky. You got the right mom and dad. You fell into it. Others of you worked really hard and made it work. And now you're proud of that.
Here's how it manifests itself. I've never been around a sales organization that doesn't have this problem. The top 10 people sitting in a room having a cup of coffee. All of a sudden the term management comes up and they all say, "When are they going to get their act together? What do they do anyway for the money we pay them? They wouldn't exist if it wasn't for us." You never hear the bottom 10 saying that. They're in there saying, "I need management." There's some arrogance that's associated with money and success.
Here's the second thing. You put your hope in wealth and the uncertainty of riches. Larry used to say, "Riches are like a grease pig. The minute you squeeze them, they..." And I think that's part of it. I think there's another part to this. We have a tendency, even as Christians, to think that money will do for us what only God can do.
Money Cannot Solve Every Problem
I know a lot of Christians and I know they've got problems in their life and they're convinced if they just had more stuff, man, it'd be okay. If I could just get out of this one situation, everything would be okay. And you're trusting stuff to do what only God can do. Only God is going to make you truly happy.
I was in a meeting not long ago and a guy made this comment: "If you've got a problem money can solve, you don't have a problem at all." Now we can debate it, but do you get what He's saying here? If you've got a problem and we can find a financial solution to it, then you really don't have a problem.
I'll give you a problem. Inoperable brain cancer. Now you've got a problem. All the money in the world. It's always interesting to me when one of those Saudi princes flies in and they put him up at St. Joe's and they give him a floor and he's spending a quarter of a million dollars a day and all this. And you know what? They still can't save the guy. That's the problem.
Get Into the Work God Has Prepared
You've got to get into giving. Here you go, the fourth thing. When everybody wants to sit back and they've got these competing forces and try to figure out what's going on, you need to get into working. And by that I mean you need to get into what you need to do, that job from which you cannot retire or resign. It's the work that God's prepared for you.
"For by grace you've been saved," Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, "through faith. It's not of yourself. It's a gift of God. Not by works so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works." Let me be really clear here. We're saved by grace through faith. We proclaim that. So why did He save you? To do good works. And the works that you're looking for, to bring honor and glory to Him.
The night before He died, Jesus prays this prayer, John 17:4: "I brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave Me to do." Can you imagine at the end of your life praying that prayer? Father, I brought glory on earth because I did what You called me to do. The work You gave Me to do.
God Will Use You Until the End
One of the most exciting things I can tell you is, God is using you. And He will use you. How do I know this? You have not yet assumed room temperature. When you do, He's done with you. Until that point, He will use you all the way through to the end. And He may use you more powerfully at the end.
We've got a guy who is attending our church, and he's part of the ministry that's starting to the Hispanic-speaking community. I don't speak Spanish. I learned a great phrase the other day, "pastor principal." I like that one. That's me. And "cerveza." Those are the words I know. I'm not much help.
But what we know is that we care for and love those in our community who are struggling, many of them from the Hispanic-Latino community. They don't speak English. We need to if we're going to minister to them. So we've got about 40 people at our church learning Spanish. And we've started this ministry.
A Powerful Lesson from a Dying Child
One of these guys, I think he's from Bolivia, his daughter, 14 years old, has brain cancer. She's had three or four surgeries. She isn't getting better. Here's what she said to her folks the other day: "It's okay. Don't worry about it. It's all right. I'm going to die. I'm going to heaven. I'll see you there. That's what you've taught me since I was a little kid."
See, some of the most powerful lessons that you will teach will be, I believe,
in those moments of hurt and pain often associated with the end of your life. I one time prayed this: "God, I want to die a suffering, agonizing, prolonged death." Now, the next day I was praying and I said, "You know what, I got carried away yesterday. I was feeling especially spiritual." But my thought was this: I think that could be the most powerful exclamation point to your life.
It gets back to what we talked about earlier. This is all classroom. It's terrific for me to stand in here and say, "Trust God, do this, trust God, do this." Let's now see how it works in your life. That's why in our life, when Sarah had her accident and the brain seizures and all that went with it, it was one of the most powerful teaching times in our lives. We didn't say anything that we've been saying differently for 10 years, but now people looked at us and said, "You know what, they really do believe this. God really is God." We had nurses calling us from the hospital saying, "We're afraid you guys are in denial." And I said, "Well, I'm not in denial, I'm looking at these bills. I can't deny these bills. No denial here."
Faith Is Personal, Not Private
It's not just fellowshipping and learning and giving and working. It's getting into recruiting. Your religion is a very important, personal matter. It is not a private matter. It's certainly a very personal thing between you and God, but it's not a private matter between you and God.
If you're one of those that are going around and just saying, "You know, this is between me and God. I found the answer for me and I found what works for me," I had a lady that was very unhappy with me after some lesson I taught about the narrow way and Christ is the only way and this is the only truth. She came up afterwards and she said, "I believe this is true for me." And I listened to her for a long time. I finally just couldn't handle it anymore. I just said, "That's just a silly statement. It's either true or it's not true. We believe this is true."
Andrew's Example
I've read this passage a billion times and I don't know why I didn't see it. "The next day, John the Baptist was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, 'Look, the Lamb of God!' When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, 'What do you want?' They said, 'Rabbi, where are you staying?' 'Come,' He replied, 'and you will see.' So they went and saw where He was staying, and they spent that day with Him. It was about four in the afternoon. Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, 'We have found the Messiah.' And he brought him to Jesus."
A little phrase in there: the first thing he did was go get his brother. You're walking around saying this is a very private matter and you've got people all around you who are going to hell. And you may well be the vehicle that delivers the gospel that redeems them.
A Challenging Exercise
I've suggested this to you before and I mean this in a non-judgmental way, understanding that you're flawed and that you're not God and that you can't see into people's hearts. When you go back to the office today, make a mental list. Either get the inter-office directory or just walk down the hall and try to figure out heaven or hell for each of the people on that list. Maybe it's best to get the extension list and just make a copy, a clean copy and just get the name where nobody's going to see it and just write next to them: hell, hell, hell, hell, hell. "Gosh, that must be a real estate guy." Hell, hell, hell, hell, heaven—and that's your own name. You put a question mark by that. Hell, hell.
It is amazing to me. People run to church to say, "We want to get plugged in, we want to be out of the internet, we want to care about the lost, we want to do all these things," and you're living right in the middle of them and for five years they don't have a clue who Jesus is. Something there isn't working. The first thing that Andrew did was go and tell his brother.
God Works in Unexpected Ways
I used to, when I was at Coalbanker, there was a guy down there and I would hear him: "Rainer! Rainer!" So I figured that was me, so I'd go in and he would just harangue me. So I'm sitting out there one day and he goes, "Rainer, come in here." So I go in and he said, "I watched War and Remembrance last night. Holocaust, millions of Jews dead. Where's your God now, buddy? Why would your God allow a Holocaust to happen? Why would your God allow something that horrific to happen?"
I said, "Do you honestly think I can answer this? It might be He allowed that to happen just so we would have this moment. I don't know. But I do know that sinful men do sinful things."
Two weeks later: "Rainer!" I'm thinking, "What was on TV last night?" I walk in, he said, "Close the door," which was a different thing. I closed the door and he said, "I want to tell you something. Last night I became a Christian." I said, "Really? Why didn't you tell me about Jesus?" Something led me there.
You Never Know Who God Is Working In
You've got no idea—this is my point—you have no idea whose life God's working in. You don't have a clue. You don't have the foggiest idea who He's working in. I have seen big, tough rugby guys who don't care about anything weep in brokenness over their sin. And I've seen these soft, tender little guys that are that close to Jesus who die that close to Jesus, which is the same as being a million miles away.
Your objective in mind is to share the truth. And the truth isn't just that Jesus changed your life. We've got way too much of that truth going on. "Boy, here's what I was and now I found peace. My life was meaningless, now I have purpose." Fine, dandy. Here's the problem: you were a sinner on your way to hell, now you're a saint on your way to heaven. That's what the Savior did. Do you have life and purpose and all that?
goes with it? But the world's fundamental problem is not adultery or homosexuality or materialism. The fundamental problem of the lost world is their lostness. It's their sin that manifests itself in a variety of ways.
Imagine in the midst of a smallpox attack, you have gallons of serum that would save them, vaccination, and you sit there with it in your garage and never use it. You've got the same thing here. You've got people dying spiritually on their way to hell. You have at your disposal the answer and I would venture to say you aren't using it.
The Call to Action
When we're talking about new spiritual strategies in this world that's changing, we're talking about you changing your attitude. Understanding how critical church is, understanding how important learning is, understanding that giving is essential, essential attribute of a Christian. That you're into the work that God's prepared for you and that you are sharing this truth in love.
This isn't a hammer that you go out and start whacking people with. In love and grace, you're sharing the truth of the gospel.
Take a little break now for summer. When we come back, if you're quiet, you can just hear the electricity cracking in the air with the highly anticipated annual, What I Learned on My Summer. Oh, you can feel the electricity. The problem is I've got to learn something, so we'll do that.
We will send you a card and remind you when we start again. I believe the date is September 12th. We'll remind you of that. If we don't have your address, just leave us something in the box and we'll make sure we add you to the mailing list.
Father, help us see this truth and let it change our life. We pray that in Jesus' name, Amen.