Transcript

00:00 Paul Tripp: Hey, Shelby.

00:01 Shelby Abbott: Hey Paul.

00:02 Paul: We're here again to talk about this thing called faith.

00:07 Shelby: This is part three.

00:08 Paul: Yes, I've loved our conversations so far. Before we get back to Hebrews 11 — we've been walking through Hebrews 11 because it is such an awesome treatise on faith and what it looks like to live by faith — I wanted to take a bit of a moment to do a little bit of introduction today.

00:36 Sunday, I'm preaching from Galatians 2:20. Paul speaks autobiographically, but he speaks for all believers. "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me and the life I live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me." The life I live by faith and I began thinking faith is a lens.

01:09 It's a way of looking at everything that looks at life through the lens of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I do that because I believe that that is true. I believe it is my hope and life, not just here, but in the future.

01:32 And so, what does it mean to sort of put on my gospel glasses and to think of faith as being the most valuable interpretive lens of the human existence. Well, there's five things that have to be included in that.

01:59 First is that I believe that there's a God of awesome glory who sits on the throne of the universe and rules with absolute power and sovereignty, that the beginning and the end, and the middle and the end of all things is not about us. It's about Him.

02:27 As we've talked about before, that the four most important words in the Bible are "in the beginning, God". God's onsite first and everything that is created and everything happens after that happens according to His will.

02:47 Now, I don't think most believers live that way. I think we become God-amnesiacs and so, we actually live as if life is about us — my comfort, my happiness. I think much of what we now call deconstruction is because people think that God has disappointed them.

03:22 Maybe the church has disappointed them or they wonder if God's promises are real and true. And there are a whole lot of avenues of that, but... I mean, this sounds unkind, but you have to get there. God's not in the business of pleasing you.

03:49 If God's goal is to please Shelby and Paul, He's a massive failure because you and I are both dealing with things. Let's just take physical things that are amazingly displeasing to us. If we were sovereign, they wouldn't be in our lives and so... man, we're talking about a bedrock commitment of faith here, that if you don't carry that, you'll find the Christian life frustrating, discouraging, and maybe hopeless. I mean, it could be, "Why, if God loves me, would He give me this job?" Or, "Never thought that my children would be this difficult and push back at me so much."

04:45 Shelby: Why are there so many problems in my marriage?

04:46 Paul: Yes, or, "I just want to go to a church where I'd be encouraged and my church is a mess right now." To start with that — "life is not about me, my will, my wants, my feelings" — means I have to surrender to the will of Somebody greater. That's the first one.

05:14 Second one is human beings are made in God's image and they're made to live for something bigger than themselves. We're made for transcendence. Now, that's the corollary to the sovereignty of God because that gets us in trouble, too, because I don't want to live for anything bigger than me.

05:49 I want life to make me happy, to make me satisfied. I want prayer to be like putting money into a vending machine and pressing a button, and getting what I want. I just want God to be a great, big divine vending machine in the sky.

06:12 Shelby: Right. We'd rather Him be someone like Santa sometimes, as opposed to actually God.

06:18 Paul: Yes, but that second commitment of faith is so important, the "made to live for something bigger." The Bible talks about that in many ways — "made for fellowship with God, made to seek His kingdom" — but it gets down to it's not.

06:42 Life is not about "how do I cobble together my best definition of personal happiness and try to get things in my life that make me happy, and push out everything that doesn't make me happy. But isn't that in the life of many Christians?

07:01 Shelby: Oh, yes, functionally, that's how they live all day, everyday.

07:05 Paul: I mean, why do we get to the point of being irritated with our spouses, maybe even getting to point for some people where we hate them? Because they don't do our bidding. They do things that don't make us happy. I had once, a husband say to me, "I can't stand the sound of her voice," and before I said anything, I thought, "He's not saying he doesn't like the thing she says."

07:41 Shelby: He likes a part of who she is. Well, she can't change her voice.

07:44 Paul: That's right, I didn't choose how my voice sounds.

07:49 Shelby: I hate my own voice, too.

07:50 Paul: What is she supposed to do about that? And I thought that's how deep our selfishness is.

07:59 Shelby: Yes, it's very revealing that comment.

08:01 Paul: I mean, I would understand him saying, "She says things that I just think are stupid." Now, that could be bad, too, but we have something to work with. But her voice?

08:15 Shelby: It's like, "Change your eye color." It can't be done.

08:20 Paul: Wow, and I'm going to say these are my struggles, too. Luella is methodical. She believes that you should slow down and do things as perfectly as it can be done. I can't relate to that at all.

08:49 Shelby: Really, that doesn't seem like your personality?

08:51 Paul: I want to get things done as fast as I can and accomplish as much as I can. So one night, we're getting ready to go to bed. And we were living in a house, it was an older house and there's a tile floor. And we came up from the basement where our TV room was and Luella said, "The kitchen floor is dirty. This is the only time where no people are going to be trampling through it. I'm going to wash the kitchen floor."

09:33 Shelby: Right at bedtime.

09:36 Paul: So I'm standing there talking to her and I said, "Well, you want me to stay up or...?" She's, "Oh, no, you can go to bed," and she's got a pail and something to wash the floor with and a toothbrush. And then, it hits me.

09:57 Shelby: She's going to be on her hands and knees all night.

09:58 Paul: She's going to clean the grout between the... I think she's not going to be up here for a week and I'm immediately irritated. I would have gotten a big mop and with it swipe, swipe, swipe, to bed.

10:14 Shelby: Yes, sure. That's what a normal person would do.

10:24 Paul: And that's just, I mean, she's not doing something against me. This is not intentional. "I'm going to get under Paul's skin." This is a reflection of who she [is]. It's actually a reflection of love for her family, but I'm irritated. That's shrinking life down to the size of my wishes.

10:45 So God of awesome glory rules the universe. I'm made in His image, made to live for Him, made for something vastly bigger than me. Third thing is the unspeakable tragedy of sin, that this cosmos is not okay because it's been broken by sin.

11:13 Romans 8 talks about the whole world is groaning and literally, this cosmos is in pain, waiting for redemption. So the world's not going to function like we would want it to. It's not going to function the way God intended. That sin is corporate and that sin is individual.

11:41 We're broken and fallen by the same sin. The ultimate human pandemic, the one that no one has ever been able to escape is not COVID. It's sin and it's destructive in every way, and leads to death. And it is the horrible bad news that you wish you could deny that everyone has to face and most people are in massive denial of their sin; and we live in a culture that would mock the concept of sin.

12:42 And I would confess that there are moments where I work to deny my sin, preach the gospel of my independent righteousness, to make myself feel better about myself, to call my sin less than sin. "His sin is sin, but mine's not." But you can't believe the gospel without accepting its bad news.

13:09 And if you are a parent, wow, you see it. If you're married, you get it. If you're all able to be honest, I mean, marriage exposes us you know, I will confess this stuff has come out of me and marriage and parent I didn't think was in me.

13:42 Shelby: Yes, it happened for me as well, not necessarily in marriage, but when we started having kids. And we had kids, I realized there was a lot of anger that came out of me, a lot of frustration, a lot of selfishness, and a lot of irritation focused in the wrong direction because my kids would irritate and they weren't even trying to do it.

14:02 They're just babies or toddlers, but that would make me be irritated and frustrated with my wife and with my circumstances, people I worked with, that kind of thing. And it just exposes what's actually going on.

14:18 All that was there before. It just now, all of a sudden, got exposed by the circumstance of raising children and a lot of people think, "Well, if I didn't have as many kids or if I were married without kids, this would be a lot easier." Maybe it would be a lot easier, but that sin would still be in there, and it's God's grace to actually expose those things in order to get rid of them, in order to redeem them.

14:46 Paul: Yes, I've heard of businessmen who own their own business saying the same thing. "I never realized how angry I could be until I began to have people work for me and I'm thinking they're affecting my bottom line, this thing that I worked hard to build and just the anger, the inner rage that goes on."

15:12 So we have a God of awesome glory who sat on the throne of the universe that life is really about Him, people made in His image, made to live for something bigger than themselves, made to live for Him, His kingdom, the tragedy of sin that's inescapable. Fourth thing is the existence of glorious, rescuing, forgiving, justifying, reconciling, transforming, and delivering grace.

15:49 Shelby: So the third one sets up the fourth.

15:50 Paul: Yes, that there's hope for us and the message of scripture is very clear that no sinner is beyond the reach of God's grace. And so, practically, for me, one of the commitments I've tried to carry is I want to look at no one and treat no one that I come across as being beyond the possibility of redemption because I believe in the power of God's grace.

16:32 Shelby: Yes, a lot of people struggle with that one as well because they have someone in their lives or they run across someone at a particular time that goes, "Yes, that person is just beyond the reach of God," or, you know, you see people.

16:50 I have someone who's close in my life who would have said they were a Christian for a long time, ended up deconstructing, as you mentioned before. I just recently had a conversation with him and I thought to myself, "He is so far gone now, so far gone. The only thing that will rescue him is the grace of God," which, when I said that, I was like, "Well, that's the only thing that rescues any of us."

17:17 Because we start to think, you know, an argument or the way I live my life is going to transform them or they're going to see the error of their own ways and maybe God could use any of those things, but when you look at someone and they are not believing and they are beyond anything that a human being could help them to transform, then you're starting to actually get it. You're starting to get that we need the rescuing power of grace to deliver all of us from our sin. Nobody's too far gone because I wasn't too far gone.

17:55 Paul: Yes, there's another rendition of this where somebody has mistreated you and you walk away thinking, "I hope they get there someday." That is the opposite of grace. You know, one of the ways I thought about this is we want mercy for us, but judgment for somebody else and often, when we look at the world, the evil in the world, we'd say, "Well, why doesn't God do something?"

18:29 Well, if God would abandon His mercy and only act as a judge, none of us could sustain it. It's amazing to me that everyday, God withholds His judgment so that His mercy may reign, so that more people will have an opportunity to turn to Him. Isn't that beautiful? Now, because of that, because He withholds His judgment, I have to live in a messy world and often, I don't want to live in a messy world, but it's because mercy triumphs over judgment.

19:05 Shelby: Yes, and the complaints that naturally come out of us when we don't see people getting theirs, it's essentially a minimization of our own sin. It's like, "I'm a good one, they're a bad one. They deserve to be punished."

19:19 But when you look at it from the perspective of God, all of us deserve to be punished. All of us are bad. We're way worse than we think we are. We're way more loved than we think we are and we're also way worse than we think we are.

19:32 Paul: Yes, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. In your most righteous moment, you still don't measure up. So God of awesome glory, people made His image made to live for something bigger themselves, the tragedy of sin, the glory of grace.

19:56 And the fifth thing is the surety of eternity, that right here, right now is not our final destination and everybody is heading towards some kind of destiny, and there are only two alternatives — either the torturous separation from God in hell or the glory of eternity in the new heavens and new earth, where peace and righteousness reign forever and ever.

20:31 Now, if you say to yourself, "Yes, I believe the gospel, that's those five things you have to believe," but belief is not just something you do with your brain. It's how you live your life and that's why at the end of Ephesians 3, beginning in chapter 4 after Paul's done this amazing gospel rant —one of the most beautiful in all of scripture — he says, live a life worthy of the gospel.

21:08 Now, it's basic saying. I want to show you what it's like to live out this message in your marriage, in your parenting, with your money, with your sexuality, with your emotions, with your communication, I mean, in the church.

21:25 Shelby: Every aspect.

21:27 Paul: Yes, it's just amazing and that's why I think we need to keep clarifying that faith is a lifestyle. It's a lens for looking at everything, but that lens formed for me a lifestyle. I mean, who in my life do I look at and I think they're beyond redemption? Who am I constantly angry at because they don't serve my sovereign will?

22:11 Where do I forget that God exists and makes it all about me? Where am I more concerned about the sin of somebody else than I am about my own? Where do I act like right now is all that I have and I got to grab everything I can get right now because I only have this life? And I think those are pretty convicting questions.

22:37 Shelby: Yes, indeed and I think also what came to my mind as you were speaking to are people — and this is me, I will admit — people who get their theology correct and they're able to answer all the questions correctly if they were quizzed on it, yet their life would not be a reflection of what their theology communicates and there are people who live like that on the regular.

23:07 You would look at their lives by seeing what they do, what they say, how they respond, all of those things and you would go, "They actually don't believe what their theology states," and that gap between those two things is actually where God wants to meet all of us and close it, and help us to live as if we actually believe what this book says.

23:34 And so, faith is, yes, something that you can articulate. Like you said, think of it in your brain, but if your life is not a reflection of the things that you think about when it comes to correct theology or the things that you answer correctly, you've got a huge problem because that, functionally, the way you live is the best argument for what you actually believe.

24:01 Paul: Yes, your true belief is your functional theology. Two of the angriest men I ever counseled were two of the best non-seminary-trained theologians. They were guys who just loved the labyrinth in nature of biblical theology and they had studied it; and, wow, for that reason, they were really hard to counsel because they would throw everything back at you and argue about everything, but that theology hadn't transformed their living and it was all about them, and everything made them angry.

24:57 I mean, if everything makes me angry, that's me in the center of my world as king, but they could have passed a third-year seminary level theology exam, no problem. So, as we've said before, the enemy of our souls will gladly give you your formal theology. He'll give you your Sunday morning church attendance, episodic moments of ministry if he can rule and control your heart and that's where the spiritual war exists.

25:34 So I'm going to start by looking at the necessary elements of the biblical narrative, the gospel story and ask the question, do we really live like this? Do I carry these things with me? When Luella is slower than I like her to be, do I say to myself, "This is not about me." My call by God is clear — to love her and that means patience and grace. Or do I just go with my emotions of the moment and forget everything I say I believe?

26:22 Shelby: Yes, and I think that anger — for example, since you mentioned that — is a good check engine light almost of like, "Hey, there's something wrong going on the inside." Not too long ago, my check engine light came on my actual car and when it did, I was like, "I got to get this addressed immediately because I have no idea what's happening."

26:47 A buddy of mine came over and he had that little computer that you can plug in and tell me what it was, but I even found driving just to the grocery store a couple miles away made me nervous when the check engine light was on. What if we were that intentional with our lives, which are infinitely more important than a car, and paid attention to those areas where the light is on and we're just kind of going about our lives?

27:17 Paul: Well, let's talk about that. That's as a wonderful illustration. That's why I like talking to you, Shelby. But there are other check engine lights — a passage in God's word, people that God has in your life that God uses to just point out things that you're not seeing that you need to see; and we can be so defensive and so hurt that somebody doesn't think we're perfect.

27:52 And years ago, we're coming home from church, and Luella was driving and I'm sitting in the front seat, and I think it was Darnay, was the only one with us that Sunday. He was maybe 11 or 12 and I'm sort of irritated by the way Luella is driving, and sort of nipping at her.

28:29 Shelby: Which every driver loves, by the way.

28:30 Paul: Well, it's always helpful and encouraging, and you get out of the car a better driver. Darnay says, "Dad, may I say something?" Oh, it's one of those moments where you should... "I should have said no." He says, "Maybe it's not mom's driving. Maybe it's a heart problem."

28:56 Shelby: Wow, as an 11- or 12-year-old. Wow, that's insightful.

29:00 Paul: And I mean, that's this God helping this little boy to speak better than he knows and understands.

29:06 Shelby: Yes, you're like, "Oh, out of the mouths of children."

29:09 Paul: So respect and slapped him. No, I didn't.

29:14 Shelby: It's not funny.

29:15 Paul: I'm just, first, humiliated and then, just grieved. And I sat there in silence for a minute and I said, "Darnay, you're right. This stuff irritates me way more than it should." And he wasn't being impertinent. He wasn't, you know, "I disrespect my dad, so I want to expose him."

29:44 He's just a little boy's speaking out of what he had been taught, but there's an instance where God is using the words of this little boy to bring me back in line. God's not condemning me. He's reaching out arms of love and drawing me near. It doesn't feel like that.

30:05 Shelby: Yes, right. Sometimes God's loving grace and His warm welcome to you feels like a slap across the face, depending on how it's delivered.

30:14 Paul: Yes, yes, but that was a red light flashing and I could pay attention to it or I could deny it. That one was hard. It's pretty much exposure of the moment.

30:33 Shelby: Yes, yes, especially as a grown up with our kids, we think we're the ones to teach them, we're the ones to pour our wisdom into them, we're the ones to guide them spiritually and every now and then, God will flip the script and teach you some wisdom, teach you some humility through the people you're pouring into. Don't ignore those things.

30:54 Paul: Well, there's another way of taking this conversation and it is you are always preaching some kind of gospel to yourself. The most irreligious person does that. There's something they say about their identity, about meaning and purpose, about right and wrong, literally, about God. And the gospel that you preach to yourself will be formative of your desires and your choices and your words and your actions.

31:30 So that's another thing I want to think about. What do I preach to myself everyday and how does that shape the way I live? I've said this so many times. There's a preacher that you and I listen to way more than any preacher who's up front on Sunday morning and that preacher is us.

31:53 No one's more influential because no one talks to us more than we do and so, are the things I'm saying to myself when I'm in traffic, when I'm at a store, when I'm with my kids, when I'm with my husband or wife, when I'm with my friends, at my university, at my high school, at my job, am I saying things to myself, preach to myself the true gospel in a way that orients my responses or am I preaching to myself some subtle, false gospel that takes my emotions, takes my thoughts, desires in a different direction?

32:35 Shelby: Yes, and I think sometimes it's difficult to figure those things out, those check engine lights, unless someone else points them out to us, which is the grace of God. So if you have someone who's close to you, whether it be a friend or a spouse or children or whatever, and they can speak into your life, that is the grace of God. That is the grace of God moving into your life to help wound you, in a sense, that you're able to have the ultimate kind of healing.

33:02 The danger, I think, for — I'll just speak more myself — is when I know that my actions and my words are in line, yet my thought life is not. I found that I am an incredibly judgmental person. I like to say I have a PhD in pointing out the speck in other people's eyes when there's a log in my own from Matthew 7 and that sometimes, by the grace of God, He will interject in my thought life and go, "Hey, by the way, do you see what you're doing here? Do you see what you're thinking here," and again, that is the grace of God.

33:40 And so, I think that only comes by sticking your nose in the word all day everyday to help transform the inside of you because people can't read your thoughts, God can. And if you're preaching to yourself a narrative that's unhealthy and not in line with scripture, you got to change and the way that you learn how to Change is by reading God's word.

34:04 Paul: There's another discipline here that I have tried to follow, and it came out of the fact that my marriage exposed how angry I was and I was in the process of destroying my life and ministry. I realized I had to work to be more aware of my private conversation.

34:38 Shelby: Your internal dialogue.

34:38 Paul: Yes, listen more to my internal dialogue instead of just going with it and I think there's grace for that. I think God can empower that and I've prayed for years that God will help me be more aware of what that internal conversation that I'm having; and it's been really helpful to me because there were moments where Luella would do something or one of my children would do something and all of a sudden, that conversation begins, anger conversation.

35:26 "Why do they do this? Blah, blah, blah, blah," but I would just go with it and I'd follow them, and say and do things I shouldn't do or say. It's been really important for me to stop and say, "Okay, what are you thinking right now? Why are you thinking that?" It's been tremendously helpful.

35:51 Shelby: Yes, all those thoughts are the seeds that lead to the growth of sin in your life. Now, if you were to yell at your kids or something like that, or say something rude or unkind, that's an obvious manifestation of the seed that already existed in your life.

36:09 Again, it's easy for other people to see the manifestations and point those out, but if that's all we're doing, if that's all we're addressing are the are the manifestations of what's going on internally, it's never going to get better. You're never going to get better and so, we need to go after the roots of that stuff.

36:29 We need to address the seeds and pray that God would do that, that He would transform us from the inside because, you know, Jesus was saying, "You say that it's wrong to commit adultery. I say, if you look at a woman lustfully in your heart, you've already committed adultery with her."

36:47 That's Jesus going after the seed. It's Him being intentional about addressing what's going on in your heart. People don't just have affairs immediately with someone. There's a thought process that happens. There's a heart posture that happens for often, a long, long time before it manifests in adultery.

37:06 Paul: Yes, I mean, my crass way of saying that is your body will only ever go where your heart has already gone, but you reminded me — I think this is a really helpful conversation, I want to extend it — you reminded me of what James says. It's such a helpful passage.

37:28 He says, "What causes fights and quarrels among us? Now, that is the quintessential human question. Who hasn't asked that? That's Rodney King after the beginning of the L.A. riot saying, "Why do we have such trouble getting along?"

37:47 Shelby: Is that what he said? I don't remember that.

37:49 Paul: Yes, yes. Everybody is asking that question. Well, not everybody gives James' answer. He says, "Don't they come [the conflicts] from your desires that wage war within you?" That's bad enough, but it doesn't stop.

38:07 He says, "You want something and you can't get it, so you kill and you covet." And then he says, "You adulterous people." What is he talking about? Well, what he's talking about is — and this is a brilliant biblical insight — that human conflict is rooted in spiritual adultery.

38:39 I'm getting mad at you because I've forsaken my true Lover for another lover and guess who that lover is? It's me. This is brilliant and if I had surrendered everything in me in love for God, I wouldn't be dealing with this anger all the time. I mean, the initial instinct of anger is to explain it by looking out of yourself. Ask a child who has hit another child why they did that, and they'll tell a story of what that other child did.

39:23 Shelby: Yes, they took the toy from...

39:24 Paul: "They took this from me," or, "They did this to me. They always do this to me."

39:28 Shelby: Yes, "They said this."

39:31 Paul: And James says, "No, you will never understand that kind of conflict by looking out," so you have to look into your side. What set of desires has this person gotten in the way of," and then, he says, "But that's not enough. You have to look at the failure of your love because that's really the root." I mean, the question for me is do I love God so much that I've been completely freed of unrighteous anger? Lord, rescue me.

40:11 Shelby: Yes, and honestly, that's the perfect response because there was a time in my life when everything that you just said would have not felt like a blessing to me. It would have felt like a curse because I would have said in response to what you just communicated, "I need to try harder. I need to be better. I have to act more righteous. My works need to improve because I like to rely on myself."

40:42 I like to have control and so, white-knuckling my way into righteousness is what I used to try to do. It's exhausting and by the way, it creates more anger because it doesn't happen the way that you want it to happen. It's an uphill battle and you get frustrated at more people, and you get frustrated at yourself.

41:01 The correct response is exactly what you just did. "Lord, help me. I need You." It's the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. "Blessed are the poor in spirit." We need God and God likes needy people, if we'd just be willing to admit that we're needy.

41:19 Paul: Yes, every command that God gives us is utterly impossible to keep and we do well of thinking of ourselves as a bundle of weaknesses held together by cords of grace. And what James is saying again — to get back to this "Am I preaching the gospel, these five things shaping my life" — he's saying, "Your problem is you're so angry because you're preaching the false gospel of your wants, your needs, your desires, as if that is the central meaning and purpose of the human life."

42:06 That's actually theology. That's a false theology, but that's a theology and that false theology is propelled by spiritual adultery, that no matter what I say about loving God, I love myself more than I love Him.

42:32 Shelby: "Yes, I like how you articulated that human conflict is rooted in spiritual adultery. Those manifestations of sin in our life — the way we act, the way we talk, the way we treat other people — those negative things that are sinful are rooted in spiritual adultery. It's cheating on our Lord.

42:55 Paul: Let me talk more practically, more personally. When God exposed to me the depth of my anger and that it would destroy my marriage, what was destroying my marriage —

43:10 Shelby: This is your conversation with Tedd, your brother?

43:12 Paul: Yes — and would destroy my ministry. I went to scripture to just understand my anger and one of the passages that God used to begin to transform it was this James 4 passage. And I can remember first, when I came across the "you adulterous people" thought. What in the world is he talking about?

43:47 And I can remember how devastating it was when I realized he was talking about the fact that I had taken the love that I should have for God and replaced it with love for me and my problem with Luella was not first, that I didn't love Luella enough.

44:20 My problem was I didn't love God enough and that's why I didn't love Luella enough. That was transforming to me. That set me on a pathway I am so thankful for and I'm not that guy anymore. It's just, am I capable of anguish here, but I am not that man dominated by that anymore.

44:42 And it took the utter humiliation and devastation of facing what this was really about, that it wasn't first, that I needed to find seven keys to loving Luella more. I mean, I will say it. I hate marriage books that reduce marriage down to that.

45:09 I just don't think that ever works because there's a deeper failure of love that destroys marriages and it's not horizontal. The horizontal stuff is the fruit right of the failure of that deeper, deeper love.

45:28 Shelby: Right, yes, and I think all of us need that 2 Samuel moment of Nathan coming to David and saying, "You are the man," because the interesting thing about David after he commits adultery and has Bathsheba's husband killed is that he's outraged by the story Nathan tells about a rich man stealing a poor man's lamb. And when you just pause there before...

45:55 Paul: It's a very righteous response.

45:57 Shelby: Yes, it's the ultimate hypocrisy. It's like you are being a hypocrite in your outrage for wanting something, right? David says, "This guy deserves to die," and then, Nathan goes right there, and he says, "You are the man."

46:12 Now, that was a person speaking into David's life. Tedd spoke into your life. Other people speak into our lives. Sometimes it's the word of God that speaks into our lives. You know, Tedd was the catalyst for you, but you went to James and you were like, "Oh, this is Nathan calling me out saying, 'You are the man.'" All of us need that. We just need people to speak into our lives and sometimes, it's the word of God itself.

46:36 Paul: It also tells us that Nathan was smart because this man had killed people so, probably, it wasn't best to burst into the throne room and say, "You're a murderer and adulterer."

46:47 Shelby: Yes. "How can I get in there a little bit?"

46:50 Paul: It's very wise. I think it's very wise. One of the ways that God can use you in a person's life to see what they're not seeing is pick something in their life. David was a shepherd. He hooked him by something he could actually relate to and he had the expected response, and we know where that went.

47:14 Well, again, what kind of gospel am I preaching to us? Where the rubber meets the road in everyday life, faith means I'm preaching the true gospel to myself all of the time and it's shaping the way I live.

47:31 Now, the reason why I said it that way is no one is with you enough and knows what's going on inside of you enough to preach that to you all the time. It has to be a discipline that you're willing to pick up. Am I examining my eternal conversation? Am I tracking back... why was I so angry in this moment and what was I thinking? What was I telling myself in that moment?

48:05 That takes intentionality. It's what God's called you to. When He says, "Be holy as I am holy," this is what He means. He means living with intentionality, not just going with whatever. I was so good at going with my emotions and never asking myself the question. Clearly, Luella is a wonderful person. She would never intentionally do evil against me. Why am I so angry at her at this moment?

48:35 Shelby: Yes, and going with your emotions is ignoring that check engine light which, again, we would never do with a normal car. Well, there are some people who ignore it and that ends in disaster, is on the side of the road.

48:49 But I think, yes, my response to it was, "I have to get this addressed immediately because I don't want to be without my car. I don't want to be stuck on the side of the road. I don't want my wife to drive it with the kid and be stuck on the side of the road. I care about addressing this because it's telling me there's a problem."

49:07 Why do we go about in life, ignoring the check engine light on the dashboard of our souls? We should be going after it. We should be asking people, "How do I take care of this?" We should be going to the word. How do I take care of this?

49:22 We should be seeking wise counsel. We should be in and amongst... we should be asking questions of people to say, "Hey, can you point out certain things in my life where you go, 'That's not actually in line with what the scriptures teach.'" We need to be bold with that. That's the intentionality you mentioned.

49:38 Paul: So if you're a man or a woman, here's something to do. If you're single, go to a friend who knows you, who's been with you a lot and say, "Would you write down for me five character qualities to describe what you've experienced with me?

50:01 Shelby: That's scary.

50:02 Paul: If you're a husband, do that with your wife. If you're wife, do that with your husband. If you're a parent, do that with your children. God will use that for good in your life. It's hard, it's humbling. You're going to have to work not to defend yourself, not to get angry. You have to promise the people that your eyes can do that, that you won't get angry at them.

50:31 Shelby: Yes, you're not going to respond...

50:32 Paul: They can be honest. It will be real helpful and I want to say again, just keep holding yourself in front of the mirror of these five themes that we've talked about. They are the principal themes of the biblical narrative, the principal gospel themes.

50:53 God of awesome glory rules the universe. I'm made in His image, but I'm made to live for something bigger than myself — Him and His kingdom. The horrible tragedy of sin that is still inside of me — I have been I have been forgiven, but sin has not yet been eradicated. The awesome message of rescuing grace and then, that I'm marching toward a destiny of some kind.

51:26 And I just don't think you can go back again, put on those glasses everyday, look in the mirror of that everyday. And when you ask, "How am I doing," it's not to beat yourself up. It's not to get depressed. It's to say, "God, You love me. You've purchased me as Your child. Give me grace. I need Your help."

51:53 Shelby: And I like that you use the illustration of the lenses, too, because — I mean, you know this, I know this — because we have bad vision. When you wake up in the morning everyday, it's not clear. It's blurry and you have to put on your glasses in order to see the world correctly; and we have to put on the lenses of the gospel in order to see things with accuracy.

52:16 If we don't, we're stumbling around in blurriness and every morning when you wake up, you have to put on your glasses. If you don't put on your glasses, it's going to be a bad day. So, love that illustration. It's a helpful reminder to say there's a problem with me just like there's a problem with my eyes, and I need something outside of me in order to correct me and help me see appropriately, which is the gospel.

52:43 Paul: That was a brief introduction.

52:45 Shelby: A one-hour... very brief.

52:49 Paul: So back to Hebrews 11. Again, I want to say that you could read Hebrews 11 and sort of think, "Well, we get this introduction to what faith is and then, we just get a bunch of random examples; but I've proposed that this passage is much more intentional than that. It is written to address issues of faith that are important and it shouldn't be surprising to us that a portion of God's word is intentional.

53:31 Shelby: Just a portion. Oh, oh, maybe the whole thing.

53:34 Paul: So let's read where we are in our discussion. Hebrews 11:13-16, if you would read that.

53:45 Shelby: Yes, sure. ¹³These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. ¹⁴For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. ¹⁵If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared for them a city.

54:27 Paul: So there's two things that just jump off the page that are significant issues of a life of faith — identity and destiny. Both of them are in this passage. It says, "Having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on earth."

54:50 That's identity. Now, why would He say "strangers and exiles"? This is really interesting to me because here's the reason. You can only get your identity in two places — horizontally or vertically. That's your only two options and so, if I put my personal hope, meaning, and purpose, they answer the question of who am I in the hands of whatever is out here, how is it going to affect the way I live?

55:38 If I put my identity in the hands of other human beings, then I'm going to absolutely be a slave to their definition of me and their acceptance of me. That means the last thing I want to be is an exile or an alien. I want to be "in". Who can't relate to that?

56:07 I mean, one of the ways the Bible talks about that is fear of man, that I have this God-given desire to be loved, but sin distorts that. And that could be a teenager who compromises what he actually knows is right or wrong to get acceptance of peers.

56:37 That could be a man who cheats on his taxes, so he has more money so he can be viewed as being successful. That can be a wife who says, "All I ever wanted was a husband who could make me happy." Wow, that man's cooked. He's never going to pull that off. I mean, the renditions are just endless.

57:07 I had a boss who was a rich man who collected cars and he had a great big garage, and now the cars were lined up on his driveway; and he pulled in with a new sports car and I was his gardener. And he said, "What do you think?" And I said, "Benny, I think it's not working." He says, "What are you talking about? It's a brand-new car." I said, "I think what you're trying to do will never work."

57:37 Shelby: Wait, how old were you when this happened?

57:39 Paul: I was 26.

57:41 Shelby: Wow, that's wisdom at 26.

57:45 Paul: And he said, "I don't know what you're talking about." I said, "When will you ever say to yourself, 'Another new car won't satisfy my heart.'" He said, "Man, Tripp, you are raining on my parade." And I said [to] myself, "Lord, may it be a monsoon."

58:11 Shelby: He's like, "Now, get back to the bushes."

58:14 Paul: But it was just so apparent to me what was happening.

58:17 Shelby: Yes, that's obvious.

58:17 Paul: I mean, "Come on, you don't even have places to store these vehicles anymore," and he was a man who like... just that his identity was the accumulation of things. Now if I'm willing to be a stranger and an alien, it means I'm seeking, I've attached myself to something that the world can't supply — that's God and His Kingdom — and so, that makes me look weird and strange, as if I'm from a different planet.

59:03 Well, I'm not from a different planet, but I'm definitely from a different kingdom. Now again, this just poses this question — where am I looking for identity? I mean, one of the things parents do is they put their identity on their children and, you know, it's the success of their children that somehow become their success. What a horrible burden for a child to have.

59:42 I know my kids never got up in the morning and talked to one another and said, "How can we give mom and dad identity today? I think dad's lacking in meaning and purpose. How can we impart that to him today?"

59:56 Shelby: "I'm going to get a better grade today. I'm going to win the track meet."

1:00:00 Paul: "Just for dad."

1:00:01 Shelby: Yes, just for dad.

1:00:03 Paul: No, that's not happening. It's just... it never works. You know, you can put your identity in your career and a minor change in the economy happens, and you're done. I mean, think with the rise of AI, all the middle management level of people who sit behind computers everyday who won't have a job.

1:00:27 Shelby: Yes, I was just listening about this, like how it used to be in corporations a pyramid of one person at the top and then, the more people you need at the bottom to be able to do the work. And now, it's going to be a diamond. There's going to be so many people that are eliminated on the bottom that used to have security.

1:00:45 Like, when I was younger, it was like, "Oh, if you get into computer programming, you'll have a job forever," and that's not necessarily the truth anymore. So if you put your identity in how you code and how much money you make, then when that's stripped away from you — which it might be stripped away from you — where does that leave you? You have to ask those kinds of questions.

1:01:06 Paul: So faith means I'm willing to be an alien. I'm willing to be an exile.

1:01:15 Shelby: Can you quickly identify what "exile" means though, just for people who may not know what that means because it can be a little bit of a confusing word.

1:01:26 Paul: An exile just means you... well, we use "exile" in a different way than it's being used here. We think of somebody who has been exiled because they've done something wrong.

1:01:38 Shelby: Yes, like kicked out.

1:01:40 Paul: Yes. This just means I'm living in a place that's not my home. That's what it means and so, I've got to say to myself all the time, "This is not my home, this is not my home, this is not my home, this is not my home."

1:02:00 So that may be... let me give an example. It may be a Netflix series that is hugely popular, I like to watch, but it has stuff in it I should not have in my eyes and part of my meditation; and I say, "This is not my home."

1:02:19 And there're just a million renditions of, "This is not my home. This is not where I'm finding my satisfaction. This is not where I'm finding my meaning and purpose. This is not the acceptance that I'm seeking. I'm an exile and I'm willing to be viewed as a stranger."

1:02:38 What's the experience of strangers? They're misinterpreted. They're misunderstood. They're often mistreated. Faith asked me the question — faith in God, the kind of faith we've been defining — asked me the question, "Are you willing to be a stranger and an exile," and I have to say, "Sometimes."

1:02:59 That may mean I got a golden opportunity to share the gospel and I don't because I don't want to be viewed as being weird. Maybe it's somebody I work with and now, I know forever they're going to be viewing me from the vantage point of this conversation.

1:03:19 Shelby: There are all times when we can have examples of ruining it and not doing it well; and then, doing it well and still viewed as a weirdo in the in the lives of other people.

1:03:35 Paul: Let me give you an example. This is one that if teenagers ever hear this... I was a senior in high school and I was pretty well-known in my school, and mainly because I'm crazy. But my friends knew that I had some moral boundaries, so there are a lot of parties I wasn't invited to.

1:04:19 But there's this end-of-the-year party at a rich kid’s house and someone said to me, "I think this is a party that you could go to, you'd be comfortable with." So I roll with a bunch of guys and we arrived there.

1:04:39 I went in the house and right there in front of me was everything I shouldn't be part of. There [are] drugs, there was alcohol, there's already sexual stuff going on. I mean... and it just flooded inside of me, "I can't be here. I can't be here. I can't be here."

1:05:07 There were no cellphones in those days. There was no Uber. That Friday night, I ran out of that house and I walked five miles home, and I knew that would probably end most of the relationships I had with those kids, but I knew I couldn't be here. And I didn't know the full implications of that, but I remember just thanking God.

1:05:49 That's being a stranger in exile. Now, I look back and think I didn't know anything. That was literally God reaching down and yanking me out of that place because I don't know where that would have gone for me and what I would experience that I got hooked to, and who knows.

1:06:11 Shelby: Sure, that led to it and another series of disastrous decisions.

1:06:15 Paul: And I'm not telling a story to make me a hero of faith because I didn't know and understand one little piece of what I now know and understand, but I knew one thing — that I knew I couldn't be here and I know I was willing to be misunderstood, but I had to get out of there.

1:06:36 Shelby: Yes, that's a great illustration to use, simply because of the time period that you're talking about. Anybody can relate to high school, what it's like to feel the peer pressure, what it's like to be viewed as other, as an exile. That's the time that you don't want that to ever happen.

1:06:54 You never want that happen. During lunch, you don't want to be the kid who's sitting by yourself at a table. You want to be with people and yes, unpacking that, I could feel it when you were talking. I could feel that decision, that angst of, "I shouldn't be here and I'm going to choose to go home," and the ramifications of that.

1:07:16 Paul: Well, it may be you're in a residential university and you're with two roommates who aren't believers in your dorm. It may be lunchtime at your job and there's a conversation going on that you should not participate in and you shouldn't laugh at what they're saying.

1:07:41 There's just so many renditions of this. Where am I getting my identity and if it's horizontal, what kind of compromise is that forcing me to make? Am I willing to say, "My identity is in Christ. It is the most important thing. He is the one that gives my life meaning and purpose and joy and satisfaction, and I'm willing, because of that, to be a stranger or an alien."

1:08:24 Shelby: Yes, I think maybe one other area that people may not necessarily think about is I've noticed there in Christian circles, there can be this kind of competition, almost, for righteousness or getting things correct and if there's that desire to want to look good in front of other people if you run in Christian circles, you might compromise there as well by just saying the things that you think you need to say or answering questions correctly in a way or one-upping other people.

1:09:00 I've seen that a lot. I tell my ministry story and then, you tell your ministry story in order to make it seem even better than that and that's subtle. It's really, really subtle; but at the same time, you should know that that's looking for your identity in horizontal places.

1:09:18 You're looking to be accepted by the Christians around you and so, you play the game. You say the things, but your heart isn't in it and God is very clear in scripture, if your heart isn't in it, He doesn't count it, so we got to be careful with that, too. You're smiling.

1:09:32 Paul: I was reminded of the Brian Regan routine where, you know, it's a party and everybody's trying to one-up story and there's an astronaut to walk to the moon. "I walked on the moon." Actually, what often we think is identity in our righteousness is not really that. It's "my identity is in your seeing my righteousness and applauding my righteousness". That's what really hooks me.

1:10:01 I want to be seen as being righteous. That's the Pharisees doing their alms in public so people would see them and declare that they were righteous. We call it self-righteousness, but it's actually seeking your approval of my righteousness.

1:10:19 Shelby: Yes, that's a really good distinction.

1:10:20 Paul: And that's what you're talking about there. I'm not satisfied with my righteousness being private. You could argue that that's what self-righteousness would be, but it's often not that at all. I'm parading my righteousness because your acceptance of my righteousness, your acknowledging my righteousness is really where I'm getting my identity.

1:10:40 Shelby: Yes, and that's why I want to mention that. You gave a great example of that in high school and seeing the obvious things that you shouldn't have done. Sometimes, things are not as obvious and so, I wanted to point out that like, "Hey, if you're looking for your identity in the opinion of other people, even as believers, you're in a really dangerous spot."

1:11:00 Paul: So faith has to address identity.

1:11:03 Shelby: Identity is one. Exiles, aliens.

1:11:06 Paul: Philosophers say that the question of questions is "Who am I". Why am I here? What is my life about? So identity is an inescapable issue of faith and that's why it comes up in this chapter. The second thing that this little paragraph addresses is identity.

1:11:34 Shelby: You said "identity" before. What's the second one?

1:11:37 Paul: Oh, I mean "eternity". Destiny. ¹⁴For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. ¹⁵If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.

1:12:00 Faith is living with destiny in view. Faith is understanding that this "right here, right now" won't satisfy my heart and that means I have to live with destiny in view. Now, here's the problem. This is why this becomes a struggle of faith for us.

1:12:34 Ecclesiastes tells us that eternity is hardwired in our hearts. That means that everybody has a longing for paradise. That's not a choice. That's not an option. All of us do and so, again, you only have two choices.

1:12:59 You try your hardest to turn this into paradise and you want to be surrounded by paradise people. You want to have a paradise marriage. You want to eat paradise food and you want a paradise job and you want paradise children and paradise neighbors and friends, and you know whatever. Or you understand this will never be paradise. Paradise is coming. This is a preparation for a final destination, so it never works to live with a destination mentality like "this is it".

1:13:44 Shelby: In the "here and now", yes.

1:13:45 Paul: I have to live with a "preparation mentality", hungering for what will only come on the other side. Now, we have just described so much of the disappointment, frustration, discouragement, conflict that's even in the Christian community because I get married thinking my marriage is going to be a bit of a paradise.

1:14:19 I go to a new church thinking it's going to be more of a paradise than my last church. I watch other people with their children, I think, "It's not going to happen with my kids." I think my kids are going to be a paradise. I go into a new job thinking that this job is going to be a paradise that my former job has never been. Nothing in this broken groaning world is going to deliver the paradise your heart longs for.

1:14:49 Shelby: Yes, and you could even go back to that illustration you used with the guy buying the cars. Like, "One more car, this will be it, this will be it." It's just never enough, too. We look for that in finances or just consumerism or putting our hope in other people, like you said, or this marriage or my kids or this job or this meal or whatever. It's never going to happen.

1:15:13 Paul: So again, I don't realize that I'm angry at you because you're not a paradise-person. My problem is not you. My problem is not your sin, weakness, and failure. It's not my problem. I can list all of that and tell myself that's not my problem at all.

1:15:37 My problem is I'm seeking something that can't be found and so, you have to live desiring a better country, a heavenly one, and realize that desire will someday be fulfilled; but it's not now. Now, let me give you an illustration.

1:16:06 It demonstrates the divine wisdom of planning that desire in us, but making us wait. Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 5. We're dwelling in tents. Tent is a temporary dwelling and it makes me think of camping.

1:16:35 So you go out camping with your family. Everybody's bright and enthusiastic; and you set up the tent and you gather all the down wood that's close. And you've got food in a couple coolers and you make your first fire, and it is just wonderful. You say to your wife and your kids, "This is a bit of paradise."

1:17:09 No, it's not. You're out there for four or five days. Well, on the third day, the tent begins to take on smells that are not very pleasing and your back is hurting because you've been sleeping on the ground.

1:17:31 And you burned all the wood that's close and so, it's a lot harder to find wood. And you wanted your kids to taste a roast that's cooked over a wood fire because it tastes different. That's ash. And you open your cooler and that roast is now floating in water.

1:18:03 Shelby: What used to be ice.

1:18:05 Paul: It's a bit gray.

1:18:07 Shelby: Gross.

1:18:08 Paul: And what happens to you? You begin thinking of home and you think of that refrigerator and that stove, that mattress. That's what God's doing.

1:18:21 Shelby: Yes, yes, yes. That's really helpful, mostly because I hate camping.

1:18:28 Paul: It's that hardship is meant to make you see "this is not it" and cry out for home.

1:18:41 Shelby: Yes, yes, points you in a specific direction.

1:18:44 Paul: Is that not beautiful?

1:18:45 Shelby: Yes, really, really good.

1:18:47 Paul: It's not God forgetting me. It's not that His plan is bad. You know what, He knows how low my standards of satisfaction are, that I would be satisfied for something that is infinitely less than what He's provided for me and planned for me.

1:19:11 Shelby: It's that C.S. Lewis making mud puddles. We're satisfied with that, as opposed to...

1:19:16 Paul: Daddy wants us take us on a holiday.

1:19:17 Shelby: A vacation, yes, yes, yes. We're far too easily pleased, he says and that's definitely true. We look for satisfaction in a number of different places, whether it be, you know, like I said, the car or the new clothes or a new house or whatever.

1:19:33 And those things — while good gifts from God, they are good gifts from God — they're never meant to be the thing that we put our hope in because sometimes, the disappointment points us in a direction that helps us long for the true hope that we have, make sure our hope is in the right place.

1:19:54 Paul: Yes, the hardship of this temporary dwelling is meant to get us to desire home and I think the practical question that comes out of the second thing is, how am I trying to make this a paradise it'll never be?

1:20:17 And that could result in anxiety. It could result in fear, it could result in discouragement, maybe even get to the point of depression, doubt of God and His goodness, anger toward people around me, horrible forms of selfishness because it doesn't work.

1:20:48 I think it's a spiritual explanation of addiction because I keep going back because the hit doesn't last long until I'm just addicted and it's what the Bible calls a slavery of sin. Sin addicts us all and how am I living now with compulsion and obsession because I'm trying to get something from something that won't supply it for me.

1:21:28 I counselled once a crack addict and I said, "Why would you do this drug? I mean, look at what this drug's done your life." He said, "Paul, the hit is an experience you can't describe. It's just so amazing."

1:21:53 And I said, "Well, how long does that hit last?" He says, "About ten seconds." And I said, "Then what happens?" He said, "All you can think about is the next hit and you're doing everything to get enough money to get that next hit."

1:22:18 That's seeking your paradise where it can't be found. Nothing has the ability to satisfy that because this is not a destination. It's not intended to be a destination. It's intended to be a preparation for a final destination.

1:22:37 I want to make one more thing. That's practice. If you're in a sport, practice is hard. You practice way longer than you'll ever play the game. If you put all the games together, they are just a minor period of time in comparison to the length of the hardship of practice.

1:23:02 I can remember playing football in high school and the two-hour summer practices in the morning and two hours in the afternoon, and vomiting in the heat and for what? The short game that was to come sometime in the future. Well, we're in preparation now. It's hard. It takes sacrifice, but the glory that's coming is so huge and so expansive and so continuous. This little moment of suffering can't compare to that glory.

1:23:42 Shelby: Yes, and the suffering — like you and I have talked about this at length — with our physical issues that have happened, I simultaneously hate the suffering because it's obviously painful and disruptive and, yes, there's just a lot of horrible things about it, but it also gives me hope in ways that maybe I wouldn't have if I hadn't gone through the suffering.

1:24:10 So I'm able to go, "This is going to be redeemed and the contrast between what I feel right now and what I feel in the future will be so great that I'll be able to appreciate when it happens in ways that I wouldn't be able to appreciate if I were not going through the sufferings."

1:24:29 Paul: So just know when we're finally in the new heavens and new earth, we will not look back and say, "I went through all of that for this?"

1:24:42 Shelby: Yes, yes, we won't be disappointed.

1:24:44 Paul: That thought will never be in our head.

1:24:46 Shelby: That's good, that's really good.

1:24:47 Paul: We will say, "I had to pay so little to get this?"

1:24:55 Shelby: Yes, so much better, yes.

1:24:58 Paul: Yes, so that's identity and destiny. There are inescapable implications of a life of faith and that's why they're in this passage. The next thing is also inescapable and I love, love, love, love, love the illustration here.

1:25:20 What the writer of Hebrews is going to address now is faith in those moments when life doesn't make any sense at all. If you're not in that moment now, you will be someday. And look around. If you're not in that moment now, you're near somebody who is.

1:25:41 I want to say this. If you're on Sunday morning and someone doesn't respond like they normally do or they seem distant or sad, approach that person. They may be in one of those moments where they're holding on to their faith with weakened fingers because it just doesn't make any sense to them. So why don't you read 17-19?

1:26:15 Shelby: Okay. ¹⁷By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, ¹⁸of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” ¹⁹He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. You want me to keep going?

1:26:46 Paul: No, that's good. So this is the ultimate "life doesn't make sense" story or "God is playing games with me" story. So Abraham, because of the covenant promise of God, had staked his entire hope on one promise — that out of him would come a son and out of that son would come a great nation, and out of that nation the whole earth would be blessed.

1:27:25 It's obviously a promise of Jesus. So Abraham waited and waited and waited, had one moment of panic and had sex with his servant girl because the son didn't come. Finally, after 75 years, his wife is way too old to have a child, gives birth to Isaac.

1:27:58 Can you imagine the celebration? Can you imagine the joy? Can you imagine the worship of God that "You've done this miraculous thing to fulfill your promise"? Story's not done. God comes to him and says, "I want you to sacrifice your son."

1:28:16 Now, it seems like a cruel game and I've got to be honest about this, there are times in your life where you're tempted to think God as being cruel, as mocking you like you're just a chess piece on His board; but something is different inside of Abraham. It's just so incredible to think about.

1:29:02 So Abraham says to Isaac, "We're going to go out and make sacrifice to God," and I love the particular words that are used here. When he's building the altar, the words in the Hebrew are words that are used for something that's placed carefully and neatly in order.

1:29:29 It's not Abraham in anger saying, "I'm going to build this altar. You asked me to do this. How dare You take this son from me?" Shockingly, this man is at rest and when Isaac, who gets what sacrifice is about, looks around and says, "Dad, there's no animal for sacrifice," Abraham says, "The Lord will provide," thinking that he'd probably have to kill Isaac and Isaac would resurrect him, although that's not what God had in mind.

1:30:11 So there's a comfort here that tells you Abraham didn't have a clue. In terms of "I can respond lightly by reading the circumstances", you don't start with the circumstances. You better start with your God because even Abraham didn't really understand what God was going to do in that moment.

1:30:37 His reasoning was not crazy because God does have the power to resurrect Isaac, but that's not what God was intending to do. Abraham gets to a point of placing his son on the altar and then, there's an animal for sacrifice.

1:30:55 Now, it's so easy to look at that kind of situation and say, "Abraham's got nothing." All of a sudden, the world's turned upside down. All of a sudden, the world makes no sense and it's easy to think of that in this moment in your life.

1:31:22 I've had so many people that I've counseled that were in discouraging, depressing moments say, "I've got nothing." I want to propose to you that there are four things that Abraham did have that are very clear in scripture that allowed him to not abandon God when life doesn't make sense. If faith can't serve me when life doesn't make sense, faith can't serve me because I live in a fallen world. I'm going to hit those moments.

1:32:00 One of those moments for me as a father, when Nicole, my daughter, is just making her rise as an adult. She's 24 years old. She looks like she's going to do very well in the restaurant world, moving into management, and a drunk and unlicensed driver careens off the street and crushes her against a wall.

1:32:34 Eleven breaks in her pelvis alone, bleeding internally leg injuries. If that hadn't happened here in Center City, Philadelphia, she wouldn't have made it to the hospital. As a father, you weep, say, "God, why? Why?" And she took an emotional spiritual header, horribly hard to watch.

1:33:11 From the standpoint of a dad, it doesn't make any sense. I can remember going into the highest level of ICU. I couldn't do anything, but I climbed up into her bed and put my cheek against her cheek, and said, "Nicole, I'm here. I love you. I'm not leaving," weeping.

1:33:39 If you live long enough, you'll have one of those stories where it's hard to put this loving God into this scene and have it make sense. If faith can't serve you in those moments, it can't serve you and this is why this passage confronts us.

1:34:07 What is it that Abraham had? Well, the answer is faith. That's what he had, but faith in four things. First, God's command. He believed that God's commands are always right and good, that I'm guided by His commands.

1:34:35 God's commands will never turn against me. God's commands are not evil manipulations. All the ways of the Lord are right and true. He was propelled by God's command. Sometimes, you have nothing else than what God tells you to do. You don't know where it's going to go, but you're on firm ground because you're doing what God said.

1:35:03 Shelby: And that could be very, very difficult to do, especially, when everything inside of you screams the opposite of that. And, yes, I think about the issue of sexuality today in our culture. Everything on the outside says this is right and good, follow what your feelings are; and everything on the inside, for a lot of people, says this is right and good, follow what your feelings are.

1:35:28 Yet the scripture is very clear. Do we believe that the scripture is good? If we don't believe the scripture is good and His commands are good for us, we're going to follow after what our hearts and what other people tell us to do. We're just going to. We have to start with God first. We have to start in that right posture, right position.

1:35:48 Paul: God's commands are not shaky ground. God's commands are firm ground for you to walk on and if nothing else in your life seems firm, you have something firm to stand on. And Abraham had to say to himself, "I'm going to follow God's commands. I don't understand what's going on right now. I'm going to follow God's command."

1:36:21 Second thing he had, it's clear from this passage and the one the history, that he believed in God's presence. How would you say "the Lord will provide" if He wasn't there? So Abraham didn't think that he was in this nonsensical moment because he'd been abandoned by God. That's often where we go.

1:36:50 "Life doesn't make sense because God has turned His back on me and walked away. He's not hearing me, He's not seeing me, He's not caring about me." Abraham was able to rest because he believed, "This almighty God is with me. I'm not in this crazy, no-sense moment by myself." That, to me, is just beautiful.

1:37:12 Shelby: Yes, very, very beautiful, comforting.

1:37:15 Paul: The fact that you can't make sense of a moment does not mean that God has forsaken you. Faith believes in His presence. Third thing, His promises. You either believe that His promises are sure and secure or you don't.

1:37:44 And we give up on God's promises. We do. That's part of our panic. And when Abraham says He'll resurrect him, what is he saying to himself? God's promise is sure and He'll find a way to deliver this promise even if I don't understand how that's going to happen. I love that. So in his faulty human logic, he was figuring it out; but he hadn't abandoned his belief in God's promise.

1:38:12 Shelby: Yes, that's good, yes. He promised that He would provide, you know, many as the stars in the sky, it was going to happen. So I'm just going to trust it, even if it doesn't make any sense right now.

1:38:23 Paul: So he did run to where we often run. "God's promises have failed. That's why I'm in this mess. His promises fail." He just said, "I don't know how this is going to happen, but I know what's going to happen," and so, it's pretty confident to say to your son who you're going to put on that altar, "The Lord will provide," and believing that that would be a resurrection; but it's very clear that he still had a strong faith in God's promises. He didn't feel that God's promises have been abandoned.

1:39:05 So God's clear command (firm footing), God's presence ("I'm not in this alone"), the absolute surety of God's promise ("I don't know how this promise is going to be fulfilled because this seems like the end of this promise, but I believe") and then, God's power. When he says the Lord will provide, God has the power to change this thing completely.

1:39:32 Shelby: Yes, He's capable, yes. That's another aspect of something that when life is crazy and we don't understand. It's that panic moment you were talking about. When we panic, we throw everything out the window and one of them is not believing that God is powerful enough to actually get things done.

1:39:53 I've certainly thought that before in my prayers of, "Lord, would You heal me? Would you heal me? Can You do this because You're not doing this, but can You," and I've had those little eye-roll moments where people go, "God can heal you of this."

1:40:10 "Yes, well, He's not going to. I don't know if He can even," and that's when the pain is talking or the doubt is talking or the lack of faith is talking because you don't believe that God has the power to do it.

1:40:23 Paul: And that power goes two ways. God has the power to deliver me from this moment, but He may not choose to do that, but He has the power to get me through. It's His keeping power. So here's what I want to say.

1:40:42 Abraham had a lot going into this. It wasn't "I have nothing". He had God's command, God's presence, God's promises, and God's power. And so, faith keeps me moving forward even when life doesn't make sense because I have things to hold on. Abraham wasn't sliding down a tube of mud. He had hand-holds — God's power, God's presence, God's command, God's promises — to keep him from falling further.

1:41:25 Shelby: Yes, yes, and that we all have that, too. We have those things and they're activated by faith.

1:41:33 Paul: We have, like Abraham, the clear commands of God, we have clear statements of God's unalterable presence with us.

1:41:46 Shelby: Yes, Holy Spirit in our lives.

1:41:47 Paul: We have amazing, rich promises and we have [an] incredible demonstration of His power. In fact, we wake up every morning to a demonstration of His power in the world that's around us. There is never a moment in the life of a person of faith where you're left with nothing, even when you can't make sense out of life.

1:42:28 You don't start with your experience and then, make an evaluation of God's commands, His presence, His promises, and His power. That'll never work. You start with a sure belief in those things and then, interpret your experience.

1:42:44 Shelby: Yes, I once heard Crawford Loritts say you can't pull God through the lens of your own experiences and that's exactly what he's saying there. One of the other thoughts that I had is when you're going through these things and you're not believing, you're not having faith in those four things, it can be lonely because, especially, if you're not believing that God is present.

1:43:07 But sometimes loneliness is a choice. Sometimes. Sometimes, if you choose to believe that God is not present, then you're left with loneliness; but you've actually chosen to have faith in your loneliness as opposed to faith in God. And it's not always like that, but loneliness is not necessarily just a symptom of something that we have no control over. Sometimes, we opt for it.

1:43:33 Paul: Yes, I was counseling a person who was in one of those moments where life didn't make sense and I understood why. That was hard, but she said to me, "I can't read my Bible. I can't pray. I can't go to church. I can't sing those songs," and then, she went on to talk about how alone and depressed she felt.

1:44:04 Well, she had backed away from all the things that would assure her of the firm footing of God's commands and His presence and His promises and His power. I say all the time I have my morning devotions and I go to church every Sunday because I'm afraid not to, because I know where that goes spiritually.

1:44:40 I know I need the shot of the remembrance of those things again and again and again. And walking out of church the other Sunday, I grabbed the hand of a young preacher and I said, "I know I'm way older than you, but I will never stop needing the gospel you preach this morning."

1:45:05 Shelby: Yes, which I'm sure was a huge compliment to him.

1:45:08 Paul: And it's exactly what I feel because if you're not running to these things when life makes sense, you won't run to them when life doesn't make sense. You got to develop the habit of bathing yourself in God's commands, in God's presence, in God's promises, and God's power so your soul is ready for this moment when life doesn't make sense.

1:45:34 Shelby: Yes, and many people are not prepared. They're not in the habit of going after time in the word, time in prayer, time at church, time surrounded by people who are going to teach you the right things, remind you of the right things so inevitably, when the hard things do come, it's no wonder that people get tousled or abandon their faith.

1:45:56 Paul: Romans 4 tells us that Abraham continued to meditate on God's promise and he became more fully committed that He was able to do what He had promised. Now, it tells you Abraham was preparing himself. He had been through this moment of weakness of faith and he began just training himself to hold on to God's promise; and by the time Isaac came, he was strong in faith.

1:46:28 Shelby: Yes, yes, yes. It's that practice thing, too, that you're talking about. You have to go through the hardship of practice in order to be prepared for the actual game. So the game, when it happens... you know athletes have the advantage of knowing when the game is happening.

1:46:43 We often don't know when it's going to happen, when that whistle blows and hardship comes, are you going to be strong for that moment because you were practicing, because you were intentional about building up those muscles of faith so that they can actually hold when the time comes to test them? It's an important question to ask.

1:47:03 Paul: This means that there is never a time in my life when I'm... if I'm a child of God and I truly believe in God in a living way, that I'm left to the small box of my own resources, left alone with nothing else and Abraham is such a beautiful example of that.

1:47:36 You would look at this guy and say, "He has nothing," and then, you examine the passage and all of a sudden, you realize, "No, no, no. He carries a lot into this moment." Now, he has to embrace those things by faith and that's why he's so ready to do what God has commanded. He's restful as he builds the altar.

1:48:00 When Isaac says, "Where's the animal for sacrifice," he doesn't tell him to shut up and leave him alone. He says, "The Lord will provide," and why he's reasoning in his mind that here's one way that God can keep this promise.

1:48:13 Shelby: Yes, lifts the knife, yes.

1:48:13 Paul: It's beautiful.

1:48:15 Shelby: Yes, it's, "I'm going to put my money where my mouth is. I am going to actually trust the Lord," and sometimes, that looks like, you know... I've seen in the missionary world, I've seen a lot of people be called to certain places that they initially are, "I don't really want to go there. I don't want to uproot my family, and leave and go overseas," for example.

1:48:39 But then, they know that that's what the Lord's calling them to and I've seen people respond really, really well to that. It's like, "I don't know much, but I do know that the Lord is calling us here and it might be painful in the process, but I'm going to trust the Lord. I'm going to trust that this is what's best for us, even though it hurts."

1:48:59 Paul: Well, I have to end this way. This account of Abraham is a finger pointing us to another Father who looked at His long-promised Son, His beloved Son, none like Him and didn't withhold the knife, and offered Him up for the most cruel public shame form of torture and execution humanity has ever known.

1:49:40 This was a righteous Son who did not deserve to die that way, but the Son was willing and He did that to bear the penalty for our sin, to break our slavery to sin, to break the curse of the shame of sin, to break our separation as a result of sin from God so that we could be justified, reconciled, transformed, and, ultimately, live in eternity with Him. God is the better Abraham. Isaac is the better Jesus.

1:50:33 Shelby: Jesus is the better Isaac, yes.

1:50:34 Paul: Yes, I can't read this passage without thinking of how the faith of Abraham, his willingness with Isaac was part of the march of redemption that was marching toward the ultimate Father who would give up the ultimate Son for the ultimate mercy.

1:51:10 It's just beautiful and I want to believe in Him and He died not just to make grace possible, but to make faith possible because, as we've talked about Abraham, I'm sure other people are thinking as they're listening or watching, "That kind of faith is impossible." Absolutely it is and Jesus died so that we could become people of faith empowered by His presence and His promises and His power.

1:51:54 Shelby: Yes, with God, all things are possible.

1:51:57 Paul: Yes, it's beautiful. Well, Shelby, we're not done.

1:52:05 Shelby: More to talk about...

1:52:06 Paul: With our conversation about faith. I'm really...

1:52:11 Shelby: Thanks a lot for today.

1:52:12 Paul: Yes, and I know for me, it's just produced in me a greater desire to stand in front of the mirror of how the Bible describes faith and be honest about how I'm doing; and not in a way that's self-beating, but in a way that says, "God, just help me. You love me, You are in me, You are with me, You are for me; but I'm not there yet. Yes.

1:52:46 Shelby: Well, thank you for unpacking this in the way that you have, Paul. It's not only helpful and you use tons of illustrations, but you brought it back around to the gospel at the end, which is always the hope that we have. It's not in methods or more knowledge. Our hope is in the gospel and you did such a fabulous job of wrapping this particular conversation up pointing us to Jesus.

1:53:12 Paul: And maybe that's the way we should end with. Every call of faith will lead you to the cross and say that's where the power of sin dies. That's where resurrection victory begins. There's my hope. Not that I'll get my act together, not that I'll become more faithful, but that this One died for me and that means if I am weak in faith forever, my hope is still secure because it's not in my performance. It's in His righteousness.

1:54:00 That's a beautiful thing and so, I can examine myself without shame because there's nothing that could ever be known or exposed about me that hasn't been covered by the person and work of Jesus. Jesus shamed shame on the cross. Hebrews talks about him, the public scorn. He scorned scorn. It's beautiful. Well, we will continue praise God for these truths and, most of all, for Jesus.

1:54:32 Shelby: Yes, thanks, brother. Appreciate you.