Paul Tripp: Life is about two profoundly important relationships; my relationship with God and my relationship with my neighbor. These relationships form the core drama of the Biblical story.
Kate Crowley: Welcome to Right Here, Right Now and today's program from Paul Tripp Ministries. Join us as Paul connects the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life. Now, here's Paul Tripp.
Paul Tripp: Chet was simply a super successful guy. There just was no way of getting around it. Now, often like successful people, Chet's success started early. Chet was naturally athletic, and so he began to excel in sports very early in his life. He was also pretty good at school and almost always was at the top of his class. Chet's athletic success got him a scholarship at one of the nation's best colleges, and though he had a stellar collegiate career, he worked hard at his schooling as well.
For four years, he carried a double major of history and economics, and even with all his athletics, he graduated with honor. Chet met a wonderful lady and was married right after college. It wasn't long before Chet began climbing the ladder of career success. And because of his success, he was able to provide well for his family. Because of the success of his career, Chet's wife and two little girls had to move around the country quite a few times.
Cindy didn't like to have her and the children uprooted so much, but she told herself that Chet was a good man and a good provider. Chet worked long hours so it was hard for he and Cindy to get much time together, and it seems as if the girls were growing up way too fast. Cindy ate most suppers alone with the girls, and Chet would often come home and kiss the girls good night after they had already fallen to sleep.
Most of the family vacations they took were really company trips, and Chet would be in and out for the entire time. Chet gave very liberally to his church and was always very serious about choosing the right church each time they moved, but he didn't have much time left in his schedule for ministry. Chet had accomplished everything he had dreamed of accomplishing, but one night, he sat on the edge of his bed, and he felt empty. Do you know what in the world was wrong with Chet?
Music: "It Was A Very Good Year" by Ray Charles with Willie Nelson
When I was seventeen, it was a very good year.
It was a very good year for small town girls and soft summer nights.
We'd hide from the lights on the village green when I was seventeen.
Kate Crowley: This is Right Here, Right Now with Paul Tripp and, today, a look at relationships. By the way, let your friends know they can join Paul here on radio or via the website. And remember, it's his goal to remind you every day that there really is help in Jesus Christ, right here, right now.
There's also a complete list of resources available when you go online to paultrippministries.org. This includes Paul's book, War Of Words, as well as his most recent blog on current issues. You don't want to miss that. It's all at Paul Tripp, spelled T-R-I-P-P, paultrippministries.org.
Right now, back to series titled, "What's So Important About the Bible Anyway?" with today's important message, "It's All About Relationships," as Right Here, Right Now continues.
There Are Hordes of Chets Around Us
Paul Tripp: I'm deeply persuaded that there are hordes of Chet's around us. You may be one of them. On the surface, things look very good. You see material and career success. You see what looks like a pretty good marriage. You see children who do not seem to be out of control. You see people who attend church regularly and give liberally. You don't see loads of conflict, and you don't see loads of dysfunction. From a distance, things look very healthy. Yet all things are not good, and things are not as healthy as they seem. Beneath the surface, there is something very, very wrong.
You see, there's a gap in Chet's life that is so significant that it affects everything he does and everything he says. Did you see it as I was telling Chet's story? There is something missing that, if present, would radically alter his marriage, his parenting, his career, his friendships, and his relationships to the Body of Christ. There is something essential that Chet is missing. The problem is that he doesn't know he is missing it.
The success of Chet's life has masked the fact that there's something very wrong with the way that he is living. In fact, it would not be wrong to say that Chad has missed the whole point of it all.
For all his success, for all the time and energy, for all the accolades, for all the material possessions, for all the things that he's been able to experience with all of his hard work, Chet has missed the whole point of it all. For all the time and energy and hard work of his life, Chet is not the success that he thinks he is. Hear me say that - he is not the success that he thinks he is.
For example, Cindy feels it and so do the girls. They want to be thankful for all of Chet's hard work. They want to look at him as a good man, but they do wonder why he doesn't spend more time at home; they do wonder why he's always too busy.
Here's what you need to understand about Chet. Although it all looks very right, it really is all very wrong. There is something amiss that is so profoundly important that it twists and distorts everything else in Chet's life. No, he's not addicted to pornography; and no, he is not having an affair with his secretary; and no, he does not have a secret gambling or alcohol addiction.
No, there is something even more profound going on in Chet's life than if those things were going on in Chet's life. Do you know what it is? As you have been listening, have you discovered what Chet is missing? Do you know why, after all his success, Chet sits on his bed that evening and feels very empty? Do you understand why, for the first time the next morning, Chet doesn't want to go to work? Do you see what's missing? Do you see what's wrong?
I will give you a hint - what Chet is missing is what the Bible is all about. What Chet is missing is the core content of the story. It is the core Biblical definition of a successful life. What Chet is missing is big, and for all of his success, Chet simply wasn't created to live the way he's living.
Music: "Fine Line" by Paul McCartney
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage
It's about time you understand which road to take
It's a fine line and your decision makes a difference
Get it wrong, you'll be making a big mistake
Come home brother, all is forgiven
We all cried when you were driven away
Come home brother, everything is better
Everything is better when you come home and stay
Come on back, come on back
Come on back to me
Reducing the Bible to Rules and Beliefs
Paul Tripp: What has Chet done with his life? Well, here's what he has done. Chet has reduced the Bible down to a set of rules and a list of beliefs, and this has allowed Chet, as long as he professes to the beliefs and does not step outside of the boundaries of the rules, to define success anyway he wants.
The way Chet deals with the Bible leaves Chet in total control of his own life. For Chet, that means hard work and enjoying the good things that work can purchase and produce. No, Chet doesn't beat his wife, and he doesn't abuse his children. He isn't a drunk, and he isn't unfaithful to Cindy. And no, he has not "technically" forsaken his faith, but he has lost complete sight of what the faith is all about.
The Bible, as we've been observing now for several programs, is much more than a set of rules and a set of doctrines. Let me, today, talk to you about what is missing in Chet's life, and in talking to you about what's missing in Chet's life, I'm going to talk to you about the Bible; it's about the one grand theme of the great Biblical story.
The great story of the Bible has one grand theme running throughout. The theme is relationships. You say, "What Paul? That's it? That's what's wrong with Chet? Is that all?"
Well, hang on with me for a moment. The Bible says that you and I are people, who have been made for relationships, and the pursuit of those relationships is to shape everything we do and everything we say. In fact, not only is the story in the Bible all about relationships, the Bible's definition of human success is entirely relational.
In Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus defines success by a person's heart commitment to two foundational relationships. A person who is successful in God's eyes will love God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his mind. This is the first and most influential of these two foundational relationships. And two, he will also love his neighbor as himself.
What does this mean? It means that I was created to be a person who lives in community: first, in a vertical community of worship, love, and obedience with God; and second, in a horizontal commitment of loving community with my neighbor. The Bible story is all about the pursuit, or the breaking, of these two communities.
Redemption is all about being restored once more to community with God. And because I have been restored to community with God, I am beginning to be restored to community to my neighbor.
Where do you see this theme? You see it from cover to cover. You see this theme in the Garden. God actually pursues community with Adam and Eve. Although the scene is hard for us to grasp, God actually comes down into the Garden of Eden to walk and talk with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. What a mind blowing thing to think about; God is pursuing relationship with the people He made, and He looks for them in the garden so He can hang out with them, spend time with them, talk with them.
The people that God created are wired to find their identity, and meaning, and purpose in the context of daily worshipful community with the Creator. They were designed to love Him. They were designed to worship Him. They were designed to be His representatives on earth. Everything they did and everything they said was meant to flow out of the commitment they have to a relationship with Him. You cannot look at Genesis without concluding that the chief purpose of the existence of human beings is relationship with God.
But there's another relationship in Genesis, and it jumps off the page in Genesis 2. It's our relationship with one another. God looks at Adam and observes that it's not good for Adam to live alone.
Now what is God observing? God's observing that He's made Adam as a social being. Now, this makes sense, because if Adam is made in the likeness of God and God is a community - three members of the Trinity dwelling in perfect community with one another - then if Adam is made in God's likeness, then he is also made for community as well. There's something very wrong about him living by himself.
So God creates a suitable companion for Adam. Now God has positioned Adam not only in vertical community, the one for which he was created, but in the horizontal community for which he was created as well.
But something tragic happens. Adam and Eve violate the community that they were made for with God. They step outside of that community to act independently. They disobey God, and so their community with Him is broken; and when their community with God is broken, immediately you see the effect on the community with one another: they break community with one another. The fracture in these two communities is so deep that by Genesis 4, we shockingly see a brother murder his brother out of envy.
What is the Biblical story about? It is all about the shattering and restoration of these two communities. The core drama of the Biblical story is the drama of these two relationships. That drama is on every page of the Bible. That drama is what causes human beings to live the way they live. That drama is what God is addressing throughout all of Biblical history. That drama is what sends Jesus to earth to live, suffer, and die.
Two relationships; two chords going throughout the whole Biblical story; two relationships providing the drama of sin and redemption. You were made for relationships with God. It is what is meant to define you and everything you do. You were made for relationship with other people. This community is meant to shape your daily living. The Bible is all about relationships. That theme runs cover to cover.
(Music Interlude)
Paul Tripp: Well, let's go back to Chet. What is the thing that is missing? I hope you've already caught this, I hope you've already seen it.
Why is Chet, with all his accomplishments, all his achievements, and all his success, sitting on his bed feeling completely empty? What's wrong with Chet's living? Here it is: Chet's approach to life has nothing to do with these two relationships.
Chet's career life is not driven by a love and worship of God, and if it were, it would look very different. Chet's use of time, his energy, and his gifts are not driven by his relationship with God; if it were, Chet would be making many very different choices. Chet's use of his money is not driven by his relationship with God, or he would have made many different investments. Chet's investment in Cindy and in the girls is not driven by relationship with God, or his life with them would be very different.
You see, although Chet thinks of himself as a person of faith, he is living, on the street level, an utterly godless life. Now hear what I'm saying here before you get confused. I don't mean that he has rejected his belief and become a functional atheist. No, I mean that relationship with God, the will of God, the plan of God, the call of God, the glory of God, have nothing to do with the decisions Chet makes and the actions he takes. Inside of that veneer of faith, Chet is his own king, ruling his own kingdom as he pleases. His practical everyday living has nothing to do with relationship with God.
But there's something else that needs to be observed about Chet. He has no commitment to relationship with people either. Now you're saying, "Paul, are you crazy? How can you say that? The man is married!" Well, look closely. Chet's lifestyle - his daily schedule - is not driven by a commitment to his marriage and his children, let alone other human beings that God has placed in his life as well.
Chet's quite content with the distant relationship he has with his wife, and he's quite content with kissing his girls after they've already gone to sleep. What role do these people have in Chet's life? For him, they're almost not treated like people. They're elements of Chet's definition of what successful people have.
Now, I know this is going to sound terrible, but it's true. Chet's wife and his girls are like human knickknacks on the coffee table of his success. There's little active love; there is little active intimacy in these relationships. Chet is married to a wife with whom he is not close, and he is the father of girls he does not know. Chet has been successful by his definition, but he has not been successful by God's definition. He simply has not. Chet has missed what it's all about - relationship with God and relationship with others.
Music: "There Is A Fountain" by Selah
There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel's veins
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains
Lose all their guilty stains
Lose all their guilty stains
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains
Why the Bible Matters to Chet, and to You
Paul Tripp: So why is the Bible so important to people like Chet and like you and me? You know, the Bible is so important because it keeps reminding you and me and Chet over and over again what life is really all about.
Life is about two profoundly important relationships: my relationship with God and my relationship with my neighbor. These relationships form the core drama of the Biblical story.
Let me read a passage of Scripture that reinforces this:
Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, like a root out of dry ground: he had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering, like one from whom men hid their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows; yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought peace, was upon him and by his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:1-5)
Why would Christ be willing to face this? Why would He be willing to face such rejection, such pain, such suffering? This is the Biblical story: Jesus was willing to be rejected, not only rejected by us, but on the cross, rejected by His father, so we could know acceptance. He allowed His relationship to be torn asunder so we could know reconciliation with God and reconciliation with one another, right here, right now. That's the Biblical story.
Kate Crowley: Paul Tripp and the series, "What's so Important About the Bible Anyway?" today's lesson, "It's All About Relationships" here on Right Here, Right Now.
And you can discover how important your words can be in showing others God's grace when you pick up a copy of War Of Words by Paul Tripp. In this book, Paul gets to the heart of your communication and reminds us of the importance of sharing words of grace and freedom. That's War Of Words.
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I'm Kate Crowley. And be sure and join us for more hope and encouragement from Paul Tripp Ministries tomorrow, here on Right Here, Right Now. See you then.
