Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. We're continuing a series on why Christians need to have standards and convictions. Today's message will be preached by Dr. Les Olala, and Dr. Steve Pettit will introduce him. I don't know anybody that has influenced my life more spiritually and in the idea of leadership than Dr. Les Olala. And when we thought about this particular week of teaching about standards and convictions, I thought no one understands this better than Dr. O. And so I'm thrilled that he's here. God has gifted him with a unique ability to communicate God's truth in very clear and practical ways.
Let's give him a warm welcome. Now I want to move quickly through this because if we don't understand our mission, we'd have no concept of why there should even be policies for adults who come to a Bible college or Christian college. And because there has been such a reaction and any form of rule or regulation or policy is now being perceived as legalism basically, there has been a reaction and almost a casting off of any type of regulations or any type of rules and regulations. And so I put this together so we have a comprehension of why would an institution, whether it's a Christian family, a Christian college, a Bible Institute, an industry, why would there be policies when you have adults at work? And number one, there has to be a clear understanding of your purpose. If there is no understanding of our purpose, there is really no understanding why we'd have policy. And so you have the purpose.
Number one is doxological. We are to glorify God. That is, we are to be reflectors of the nature and the character of God's communicable attributes. That has to be our drive in life.
If you are professing believer, your drive in life has to be. I want to be a reflector of what my God is like in his communicable attributes. I want to be a reflector of 1 Corinthians 13 love, the 15 verbal descriptions of love. I want to be a reflector of the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, and peace, my God relationship, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, my other's relationship, and faithfulness, meekness, and temperance, my self relationship. All of my relationships are controlled by the Holy Spirit of God and that fruit should be evident in the life. And so we understand that we understand our purpose is to glorify God.
Secondly, it's so terriological for the good of others. So I am not only alive to glorify God, I am also alive to be a blessing to others. So you have doxology and soteriology. The Great Commission is involved in this as well. And so here we are as Christians and Paul gives guidelines, 2 Timothy chapter 2, he said, thou therefore my son be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that thou has heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. And so you get a setting like Bob Jones University or a Bible College or a Bible Institute or a Christian institution alive on earth to glorify God and to be there for the good of others. There has to be an understanding of the metaphors that are going to be used in how that works. And Paul says, commit to faithful men who shall in turn teach others also.
Now we get the picture, the metaphors that God used. First of all, he picks the metaphor of soldiering. And he says, thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. That combats being a self seeker. If I am a soldier, I cannot be a self seeker. They go through the toughness of the training. The handbook of the Air Force Academy is completely different than the handbook of University of Michigan.
Why? Because their purpose statement is different. Oh, they have parking regulations would be similar where you pay your fees, that would be similar.
Up north when we had North line, where do you park your snowmobiles and so on. That's all a similar type thing. But we have the, you get in a military setting, there's completely different guidelines. As a freshman, you're told how you're going to function. You're told how you will march to breakfast. You were told how you will be.
And it might be that the commander is instructing these inductees. And while he is instructing this 19 year old pulls his wallet out and say, sir, I want you to look at my driver's license. You're talking to a legal adult. Look at my birth date.
You are going to tell a legal adult what time he's going to wake up and a legal adult what time he's going to be in bed. And the commanding officer doing the interview said, Oh, no, no, son, we would never, never do that. In fact, there's a paper over here. Yeah, well, here it is. You sign here.
It's called a release. You can go back home to mommy. And maybe daddy will let you take the car to McDonald's, get a nice big burger. Son, did somebody not explain to you what we're here for? Obviously not. So he says, well, son, you make up your mind. And, you know, sometimes Christians get in that same mindset. We think everything has to be the same. No, when you have a clear mission statement that is really determining the policy that determines how you live that mission statement.
So during was the first analogy. Secondly, you have the athlete which combats shortcut taking. Those of you who have run track or, and you didn't decide, well, why would I, if I'm running a mile, why would I go around all the time when I can cut across? You break the line and you have your hands up and the judges aren't looking at you. They're looking at law keepers. You have to strive lawfully. And he says, if you strive for the mastery, you're not crowned except you strive lawfully. So you have the rules and regulations as an athlete.
And you have to, there has to be that definition. I used to take, when I was with Calvary Baptist in Roseville, I used to buy a block of 500 tickets to go to University of Michigan game and make that a major youth activity. All the Southeastern Michigan churches, many of whom would cooperate in that. Then I would buy the block of tickets and then we would go.
But let's suppose that Bo Schembechler, who was coaching at that time, came on the field said, okay, every head bowed and every eye closed. Now, how many of you were up past midnight last night? Let me see. Yes. Yes. Oh, a sea of hands. Yes.
How many of you drank before you came? Yes. Yes.
A sea of hands. And he said, okay, all of you now who have done that, would you please exit the stadium? You've broken our policies. You think, wait a minute, I paid for a ticket to get in here. No, you're a spectator.
And if you don't make a differentiation between a spectator and a participator, you will get into that kind of crazy thinking. Now, let's suppose you are there as a senior and you have been already drafted to go into U of M on a full ride scholarship to play football. Now you get into the university property.
You get into the locker room and on the locker room walls are the instructions. If you're going to be a Wolverine, bang, bang, bang, bang, suddenly it's not like you were a spectator. Now suddenly you have become a participator and we said as a participator, you come under these particular guidelines and then you have the farmer. How many of you were raised on a farm or you had worked on a farm? What is not tolerated on a farm? Laziness. If your dad doesn't kill you, your brothers will.
And you can't be here and be lazy. I was raised in an unsafe dome, but my dad was a character builder and he would pound his fist on the table. He said, there will be no lazy bums in this house.
And I was the last of nine born in the living room of our house. And he guaranteed and he did make this statement often, which was his nuthetic counseling tool. He said, I have big boots and I'll use them.
And we knew where he was going to plant that boot and he wasn't kidding either. And I'm not saying that we should lead our ministries that way, but it was a good lesson. I can tell you that. But as a farmer, avoid sluggardliness. And so you come under guidelines with these metaphors. The soldier, I can't be self-serving. And absolutely, I cannot make my own rules.
A farmer, I cannot live a sluggardly life and be involved in this. So as we go from there, we on that basis, if I'm going to follow these metaphors and if I'm going to follow my purpose, there are policies that you come under. And when you look at policies, number one, there are institutional policies that are absolutes. They're always right. An absolute stands alone.
It needs nothing else to give it meaning. For example, in all of the years, my wife and I have been in ministry 57 years and we have been in a variety from colleges to high schools to youth groups to many other kinds of things. And in all of my leadership roles, I have never had a student come in and say, what is this in the handbook? I can't kill my roommate. I don't know where you were raised, but that's how we handle it, where we live. Never, never. Why? Because I can't steal. I see that's in here too.
How do you think I'm going to get through college? Never came up. You know why? That's an absolute. And so you don't discuss absolutes. I say, okay, all right, I can't kill my roommate. I can't steal.
I can't. Here's where we get in trouble. The institutional relatives. And I don't mean grandma and grandpa. A relative depends on something else to give it meaning. An absolute stands alone, but a relative needs something else to give it meaning. In other words, this is true in relationship to something else. Okay, what I might be able to do when I'm home may not be what I'm able to do all the time when I'm here in an institution that has a policy manual, that has a handbook. And so you look at that and it's relative. And I used to ask our freshmen coming into North and I used to say, okay, let's list all the stupid rules that you had when you were being raised and you went to Christian school.
Well, we couldn't chew gum. Yeah, I know that's Proverbs 36, I think it's in there. And hair can't touch the ears or the collar. And I said, yeah, I think that is in there. Our hair shall not touch its collar. And I said, I think that's a pretty close to an absolute right there. And then they think, where is this?
Where are we going? And they'd tell all of these different things, denim. Couldn't wear denim back then. I mean, that was really a big thing, couldn't wear denim. And here are these teenagers thinking, that farmer in denim all week long in that tractor, and he come to church acting so pious, living in sin all week long. So here I said, now your minds are going like this.
And here he is, the hypocrite, come to church smiling, I know what you were in all week. And then you thought, ah, I'm going to the mall on Saturday, but guess what I'm going to put on? And oh, here comes a teacher. Oh no, I have denim on. So I asked the student, I said, you think denim is an absolute or you think that's a relative?
Well, they'd say relative. I said, oh no, no, do an etymology. Denim, D-E-N-I-M. And then I would spell devil, D-E-V-I-L. And then I would spell demon, D-E. I said, look at the similar words, that's not coincidence. I said, in Greek, that's all one word.
And if we say it in English, it becomes one word if you say it fast. So we had our last incident, but I said, okay, so why do we have some of these things? And I said, here's where we get in trouble.
If we as an institution implied to you that our institutional relative is equal to a biblical absolute, that would be called legalism. And you have to do that same thing. Back where we were up in the woods, in fact, the lady asked me one time, we're thinking of sending our daughter to Northland, do you allow the girls to walk into town by themselves, alone? And I said, ma'am, it would take three days and they would have to call in progress report.
The nearest Walmart was 25 miles, and if the bear and the hoodles didn't get them by then, they would be able to call in. And so we would have a policy that when you go off campus, you sign off campus, and you had to be with somebody else for the safety factor of it and all that. But let's suppose now a girl absolutized that relative standard, you need to be with someone, and you can't go off campus by yourself.
And that was a policy in the handbook based on our setting. Then she goes home for Christmas, not even thinking. She takes that car and goes to McDonald's. Halfway through the burger, she gets under deep conviction, calls the Dean of Women sobbing.
Who is this? Judy, Judy, Judy, Judy. What's wrong, honey? I'm alone. What do you mean you're alone? I'm at McDonald's by myself. Well, and I drove dad's car alone.
So? That's against the handbook. Well, honey, you're home. You didn't steal the hamburger, did you? Check on the absolute.
Make sure you check the absolute. Really enjoy yourself at home, because when you come back here, now the iron fist will come, but enjoy your freedom while you're home. I remember I used to say our students would sing free from the law, oh happy condition.
And that was their theme song, exiting campus. So you see, you have to distinguish between institutional absolute and an institutional relative, because you put that in perspective. Now, there is individual, and if you were to go to, just for your personal study, go to 1 Corinthians chapter 8, and you will see powerful truth in that chapter about Christian liberties. And there were intellectual differences in that chapter, there were cultural differences in that chapter, and personal differences in that chapter. And that absolute is always true, but then you get to individual relative. And that's where as roommates, you might have someone from out in the West, you might have someone from an island, you might have someone, and their individual relatives were different.
In other words, they had different applications, and yet you have a roommate who is not under that same individual relative that you were under. And then you instantly judge that person as being carnal or out of God's perfect will, and you look at that, and that's why 1 Corinthians chapter 8 would be such a potent study for you to do on that. Now the question is, how do you justify an institutional relative when you don't have a chapter and a verse? That's when you go to principle, and you take, for example, the principle of authority. If I come in and I sign the handbook, I come under authority of that institution, or maybe mom and dad have guidelines that are not absolutes, but they're relative for the functioning of that home. And so you look at the authority structure, and am I under authority?
And that is what I did this morning for part of what I did with the seminary lecture series was Genesis chapter 3. The first thing under attack was authority. Satan came because he despised authority, wanted to be the authority himself.
He refused to get under authority, and that's a very simple principle. Hey, that's the way it is here. That's not my particular cup of tea, or it's not my particular belief, but while I'm here, I've signed, and what's the big deal? I'm here to learn. I'm here to get a training. I'm here to get prepared for missions, or here to get prepared for medicine, or whatever. So what's the big deal that I'm here for this little period of time and get that?
Yeah, that's no biggie. I can submit to authority, but if I choose not to, then I become rebellious in my heart. Then we see principle of control.
There's just something about control, where you come under guidelines, you come under control. My son taught at a large charter school in North Carolina for about seven years, and it was a big public school, but they wore uniforms. And why did they wear uniforms?
Public school. They found there's a big factor in control, because dress is a portable environment, and so if they had people coming in dressed the way they used to, I don't know if you've seen some of them. I remember my wife and I were up in Brevard when I was speaking at the Wiles. We drove into town, and there was a guy that, I don't know what the idea is, having your pants halfway down your legs, but he was standing wide legged, and I said, honey, he's not going to make it when that light changes. He was waddling, how do you keep them up? I said, watch.
I said, there he goes. Boy, he was wide legging it, and I thought, that looks so comfortable. But you know what, if you didn't all have to wear the same thing in those kind of settings, you would be dealing with something all the time, and I don't know, I haven't seen anybody waddling here yet, but the point of the matter, the factor of control that would be there.
And there is, we do act the way we dress. I remember when we played, I was coming back from one of our hockey games, we had to get ice for our home hockey games late at night, and the only place open was the Mexican Taco Bell, and they would stay open until about two in the morning on those Friday and Saturday nights. And on Friday night and Saturday night, they would get a security guard, and would be there. My grandson was really small at the time, and we were coming in, and my grandson looked up at the security guard in his uniform, and he said, that is so cool. And he said, stay in school kid, you can do this. And I'm thinking, here I'm in high school, I'm going to quit. And then the image of that security guard comes in.
No way am I quitting now, because I too want to be laughed at by teenagers on Friday night and Saturday night. But you know what, when he was in that uniform, you act differently. My first gun and holster set, I remember, every chair was a horse, every person was a villain in the house.
I remember I was 18 years old, no, no, I think I was about five years old. I'll tell you what, when I put that gun and holster set on, this was a different dude at that point. Dressed as a portable environment, I'm not going to park there, but control, and then there is the whole concept of, and I'm going to click through these, because my time is nigh unto gone. There's protection, that's some of the guidelines that we would have by some of the policies, and then there is the concept of how do we live in regard to others, how do we live our lives in that sense, because I want to get down to an ownership. Ye are not your own, you are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirits. And then there is identification, potentially we can identify wrongly with things that can become a real issue of how we choose. And then there is the principle that comes in the control of our lives, and when it comes to the point of how do we make the choices for our life, because I want to get down here to the principle of control and restrictions. What are limitations?
What do we have? Well, there's the limitations, I need to back this up, limitation of society, no problem, 55 miles an hour, that's the biggest pressure they put on us. Peers, they're pretty much a non-issue anymore.
Church, I can go and take it or leave it. When I come to school, a handbook gets involved, that's a little more pressure. Then parents, parents say I don't care what they let you do, you're not doing that here. And then you yourself, when you put on yourself a greater restraint than any man puts on you, you're never pressured by man's restraint.
Paul was never pressured. Why? Because Paul put himself where God was, and when he put himself where God was, he said, I die daily. And if we can learn to live that lesson, I am not alive for me, I am alive for God's purpose, I am alive for God's glory, and when I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I.
But Christ that liveth in me, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. When we learn that I am not alive for myself, when my wife and I pray in the morning, when we're able to have our time, devotional time together, we pray, we admit we're dead people on furlough, and God has furloughed us for another 24 hours. And dead people on furlough, and we say, God, that you would let us live this 24 hours in one hour blocks for your glory and for others good, with Bema accountability in mind.
As we begin our day and begin our prayer, that we would be living this 24 hours, not thinking of us, but dying to self. And a big issue happens when we refuse to die unto ourselves, to be alive unto God and identify with Paul, who said, I die daily. And then the principle of discipline, very strong part in our life.
And understand, being a disciplined person is not being a legalistic person, because we have to live under discipline. And then love, which is the ultimate, 1 Corinthians 13, what powerful, powerful truth is in that chapter. My wife and I, when she was still my fiance, and she said, let's memorize 1 Corinthians 13 before we get married, when we were engaged. And she said, if we ever run into a situation where there's this, we can find the problem in 1 Corinthians 13, something we're violating. And boy, what a powerful thought memorized 1 Corinthians 13, especially focused on those 15 verbal discussions, because you can live your entire life and not be driven by agape love, and you will find yourself under a lot of loss at the bema, because your works will be tried by fire, and whatsoever is not done in love, 1 Corinthians 13 says, it is a zero. You can sacrifice, you can work, give your body to be burned. In other words, God might have you work with junior high kids when you graduate.
I think that's at least a secondary application there. But learn to live by the principle of love, and if we can just even take these simple principles, it helps us to fulfill, to function under those relative standards. The absolutes are always there, but a relative is true in relationship to something else. The handbook guidelines are true in relationship to the operation of this institution, but they're not always true.
When you're home, you're under a different type of a guideline. Father, thank you for loving us and giving us your word, God, may your spirit and power be on these students, that they would live as salt and light in this dark and decaying world. I pray in Jesus' name, Amen. You've been listening to a message preached by Dr. Les Olala, who trains pastors and laypeople through his ministry, Building Great Leaders. Join us again tomorrow as we conclude the series on Standards and Convictions on The Daily Platform.
