Would you like to be wealthy or would you like to be poor? Would you like to be happy or would you like to be sad?
Would you like everybody to like you or would you like to be hated? I mean, anybody's going to sign up for a give me the good part. And Jesus is saying, no, I'm going to have to explain to you that many of the things that are held out as the key to your existence, they need to get turned upside down. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at familylifetoday.com.
This is Family Life Today. Well, I got to say, I'm sort of excited. We've got a Buckeye. When is the last time we had somebody from Ohio?
Where we're from. This Buckeye, though, has a unique accent. He's got an Ohio accent. Some of our listeners will recognize this voice.
Go ahead, Alistair. Say hello in Ohio. In Ohio? Well, if I go for Ohio, I have to say I'm going to have a bath. A bath. I'm going to have a laugh in the bath.
But for me, it's a laugh in the bath. And I'm not sure how much Ohio dialect I've picked up. I'm sure it's probably some.
I'm not hearing it. When I go home to Scotland, people say, oh, you're becoming a Yankee. Do they say that?
Yeah, they do. The facts are that if I were to speak the way I probably spoke 40 years ago, I would have to work at it. Because so many words just change. In order to be heard, you've got to speak the way people understand. I used to ask in a restaurant, excuse me, do you have any butter?
And they'd just stare at me. And then I realized, I'm going to have to say it your way. Do you have any butter? There's no word there at all. Why don't you look in the mirror? And they're like, what? And I said, what is that called? They said it's a mirror. How could that be a mirror? A mirror would be M-E-E-R.
It's a mirror. M-I-R-R-O-R. Okay, that's enough on that stuff. So many of our listeners probably recognize your voice.
Alistair Begg, tell our audience what you've been doing. Parkside in Cleveland? Yeah, I'm a pastor by calling. I was ordained as a 26-year-old in Edinburgh in second Sunday of October, whatever year that was. 75, I was married, so 76, so I was 24. I was 24.
And then I was in a church on my own for six years. And it was from there that I was invited to come to Cleveland, Ohio. When the guy said he was from Cleveland, I had to get an atlas. Did you? I did, yeah.
I had no idea where it was. And you still came? And I still came. When I found out, because they were able to pitch it, you know, they had managed to set the Cuyahoga River on fire the year before.
The mayor had bankrupted the city. I mean, it had huge appeal. Huge appeal. They needed the gospel.
There's no doubt about that. How did you meet Susan? You said she's from Michigan. Her father worked for Chrysler International.
He came to work in the UK in the 60s. And I went on a holiday in Switzerland with a bunch of young people from a Christian organization. And on that holiday in Switzerland, there were two American girls. A girl called Christine and another girl called Kimberly Anne. Kimberly Anne, France. And she said it like that.
I've never forgotten her name, just for no other reason than the way she said it. But anyway, all the people came basically from suburban London. And myself and my buddy, we came from Yorkshire up in the north. And we were invited to go to a reunion in the suburban London area. And we were invited then to the home of one of these American girls, Christine's home in suburban London.
She's one of four daughters. And when I got to the home for Sunday lunch, I met two of the other daughters, one of whom was Susan. I was 16. Sue was 13. And we sat at lunch like this. I sat opposite her. It was like amazing. And she's 13.
It sounds ridiculous. No, she had beautiful eyes. She has lovely eyes. And so we went out walking in the afternoon. We went to church in the evening. I asked her to ask her mother if I could write letters to her.
And she came by and said, dear, my mother says, okay. So the next day we went to Carnaby Street, myself and my buddy. We got a postcard from Carnaby Street. I wrote, Dear Susan, you know, it was lovely to meet you yesterday.
You know, please write back to me. It was like, I mean, childhood stuff that then started a letter writing thing that lasted for seven years. Four of them across the Atlantic Ocean because her father was transferred back to the States and he never checked with me. And quite literally, she went home for summer leave and never came back.
No, no faxes, no phones, no nothing. But for seven years. For four years.
For four years. So she was 16. Then we met up with each other and managed a way to figure this out. We met up with each other at Xflow 72 because it was her folks that had introduced me to Campus Crusade.
And as a result of that, these American fellows that were in the London area said, why don't you come to this big thing in Dallas? And so then I tried to inveigle a way where she would go to Dallas and I hadn't seen her for like 14 months. And yeah, we met in the Adolphus Hotel.
I remember she came down the stairs in the Adolphus Hotel. And I thought, man, I got to keep this thing going. Then I had to go in right for another whole year.
And then another. It was it gives me chills thinking about it even now. I mean, we've been married for 48 years. I tell people we got married because we ran out of postage. You still have those letters?
Yeah, we do. They're hidden away. I don't know. Every so often, like on a special anniversary, I might go find one and give it to her again.
Have your kids or grandkids read any of those? I don't believe so. But you never know.
Because when we are gone, they do all kinds of things. I want to see those published. Oh, yeah. No, that would be that would be.
Well, we know somebody that could maybe get those published. His name is Arson Austin. But she's from Michigan and you're from Ohio. No, I'm from Scotland. But at this point, when did you get married? If you're in Ohio, she's in Michigan. Well, it gets more complicated because her father at that point when we got married, they were in Philadelphia, suburban Philadelphia. So we were married in the Baptist Church of the Great Valley in Valley Forge, PA. And the connection with the church, it was called. Yeah, because he'd been there for like 200 years. The church that they went to was the church that DeMoss was was doing at that point.
And with Bill Hogan as the pastor, they were meeting in a school. And so we had to go find a building to get married in. And that's why we that's why we ended up there. So all those connections, it's why it's quite wonderful to be in this building and to think about the way in which, you know, God has woven bits and pieces of our lives together in ways that we couldn't contrive. And it's very humbling, really. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to talk about something you've written recently about the Sermon on the Plane.
But, you know, I just saw this question before we get there. You've been married 48 years. How many of those years have you been in ministry the whole time? Yes, because we married in 75. I was assistant. We went big style back to London on a Russian ship, which finally sank off the coast of New Zealand. The miracle wasn't ever sank in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
We were traveling fourth class because there wasn't a fifth class. You know, I wanted her to know, you know, don't get your expectations. And I bet she thought it was wonderful. You're married to a pastor.
This is about as good as it gets. So two years as an assistant, 46 years in the seat. So, yeah, the whole time.
Yeah. So I was thinking, you know, talk about marriage and ministry. We've been married 44 years and we've been in ministry the whole time. From the very beginning. And there's been some highs and some real lows. And I don't think ministry is that much different than like a businessman or other, but there's some uniqueness to it. So has that been a struggle?
Well, you know, I wouldn't write struggle over it, maybe challenge, various challenges, various times. I mean, looking back on it, I could keep myself awake at night thinking of the things that I assumed would be true for Sue when she comes from America to Scotland, to Edinburgh as a 20 year old girl. And I'm 23.
I'm not exactly ancient. And slotting into the role that was given me there as the assistant to the pastor. I mean, Sue is shy by nature. And so she would beg me for the car keys when the service was over so that she wouldn't have to stand and engage in conversation with all these people. And to my shame, I told her, no, no, you're not getting the car keys.
You know, this is part of the deal. That wasn't real smart on my part. And she hasn't held it over my head. But, you know, as you grow and mature and look back, you realize, golly, if I could get a second try at this, I'm not sure I would have. I wouldn't have gone out like that.
We just completed 40 years. They had a special event for us and they interviewed us and she was lovely in the interview. But we got home that night and we're lying in bed and she goes, you know, that was no good. There's so many things that I need to say to this congregation that I never had a chance to say tonight.
I said, well, I said, OK, what do you want to do? She said, I'm going to write a letter. So she writes this letter and sends it out over the system, you know, in an email. It's an interesting letter to read, actually, because it's very, very endearing.
And it's as good an insight into her psyche as there is anywhere about ministry together. Because in the role that you and I have played, our wives subjugate themselves to so much for our benefit, not in relationship to our ego, but just in terms of the way the thing works, just like in any other area of life. That relationship, unless it works at home, it doesn't work. You know, the basic things of I'm sorry, please forgive me.
Can we try that again? You know, those kind of lines have marked, you know, 40 years of marriage. Yeah, right. Yeah. I know that I don't know if it's true in your marriage. I know in our marriage, Ann has felt at times that the congregation got the best of me.
And even time wise, a lot of me and I would come home sort of fried and not give the best at home to her or to our boys and now our grandkids. Yeah. Right. I think that women can feel that.
I think men can feel it too, that the outer world gets the best of us. Yeah. But I'm still enthralled with her email. Oh yeah. You know, with Suze, that she would take the time to express what she really felt.
Yeah. And I bet that was incredibly endearing. Well, I think the congregate, I think, yeah, she got more press out of that than I got out. Standing in the pulpit for 40 years, you know. I should have written a letter. Exactly. How come you wrote a letter?
I didn't get no letter. I think you guys should write a book and include, I bet she's a good writer. I bet she is too. She reads carefully. I read quickly. Yeah. Yeah, I do too. But to hear a love story that's endured and that has trusted Jesus over the years and has probably struggled with the challenges of life and yet still want people to know that Jesus is Lord and King.
Oof, that's inspiring. I want to see some of those letters. I want to see all of that. You're just telling him what his next book is. I totally am. There you go.
It'll be fun. This is a one-two punch, mother and son. It is.
It is. She sets it up and he comes behind. Austin told us to do this. I get in the car and he's on the phone. By the way, we're mentioning that because our son, Austin, is a literary agent. And he's our agent, but we didn't even know this sitting at lunch today. It's like, oh, you know Austin. Oh, I talked to him yesterday. Yeah. So let's talk about, you've been preaching for years and you're on Truth For Life as they take your sermons and put them on there.
So a lot of people know you. The book we're going to talk about today is your study. I'm guessing this was maybe a series that you did? It was. Well, at least comes from that.
Yeah. Hopefully it's a little clearer than the sermons. So Alistair, why the sermon on the plane instead of sermon on the mount? Well, because... That sort of bugged her, you know? Why was it on the plane? Why didn't you do the mount? Well, because I did it from Luke. I didn't Luke. It's on the plane. And why did you decide to do, because most people say sermon on the mount.
They're going to exegete that. Well, partly because the sermon on the plane is slightly shorter. No, the answer to that is actually I did the entire book of Luke.
Okay. And so this was just one, this was one piece. That makes sense. That when it went on the broadcast, the folks at Truth For Life were surprised at how much interest there was in that particular series of sermons. And that then led to somebody saying, well, you know, perhaps that ought to be written down.
So that's how, that's how it came about. Yeah. So as you, as you think about the sermon on the mount, the sermon on the plane, talk to us about it. Cause it's a pivotal moment in Jesus' ministry.
Yeah. Well, a couple of things. One is that is so wonderful in as much as Jesus is saying, if you want to know what life is really supposed to be about, if you want to know what the adventure is about, if you want to understand being my disciple, then listen carefully to what I'm about to say. That's, if you like, the wonderfully uplifting side of it. The other side of it is that it is, I found it phenomenally daunting to preach it.
Because we must first preach the sermons to ourselves before we preach them to anyone else. And people say to me, well, that was pretty hard to listen to. I said, well, you only listen to it once. I preached it three times. And plus it took me a long time to get there.
So don't imagine that I'm sitting up on a box somewhere talking about stuff that doesn't impact me. And I found both in preaching it and then after we finally did this book, I said to everybody, I feel when I read this material now, I feel as though I stood on a rake and the handle came up and smacked me right on the nose. Is that what you meant before we started? You said this is a tough little book.
Yes. Because what Jesus has to say about, well, I mean, the whole idea, would you like to be wealthy or would you like to be poor? Would you like to be happy or would you like to be sad?
Would you like everybody to like you or would you like to be hated? I mean, anybody's going to sign up for a give me the good part. And Jesus is saying, no, I'm going to have to explain to you that many of the things that are held out as the key to your existence, they need to get turned upside down. And you need to realize the challenges involved in this and not because it's diminishing in any way the experience, but because it's an opportunity in a very straightforward way. When people say, what does it mean that Jesus is the king of a kingdom? And if you're going to tell me that he's your king and he's not my king, then apart from you just telling me that, what is it about your life that is going to explain to me that having a king makes a difference or about your congregation? A church that has decided, for example, we're a kind of political animal, that's dangerous because actually we have a king called Jesus. And our program is about a kingdom that is very different and challenges many of the foundations of so much that's going on. So all of that stuff, all of that and more maybe besides.
Yeah, so as you think about it, I mean, we can start with where you start in the book. Explain blessed, you know, blessed by the poor. Happy. You know, for yours is the kingdom of God. What in the world is Jesus trying to get at? Well, I mean, I start off the book by saying, you know, advertisers, that's how they work. You want to have a happy life come to us.
Politicians do the same thing. You know, if you vote for me, then it's all going to be terrific. And Jesus says, if you follow me, it's going to get real tough.
Yeah. And so the idea of being fortunate, being privileged, being happy, being blessed is what Jesus is talking about. You take, for example, the notion of being hated. Nobody wants to be hated. But you remember Jesus in when he says in his high priestly prayer in John 17, he says, Father, I have given them your word.
And the world has hated them. So if somebody wants to take that and say, oh, I suppose all we have to be is obnoxious and then nobody will like us, that Jesus is not talking about that at all. He's talking about the fact that in the present climate, for example, if you say that there's only a man and there's only a woman, and the only place for human sexual relationships is in a monogamous heterosexual relationship between a man and a woman, get ready to be hated.
That's what he's talking about. If you're going to bow under my kingship, then you're going to have to live with the ramifications of that. Now, that's not an invitation for us to go out and be argumentative or unkind. But it is a reminder to us that there is a radical difference between following Jesus. And I think part of the challenge in sort of cultural Christianity, no matter where it shows up, whether it's in Scotland in that form or in America, we get really comfortable with baptizing some of the things that Jesus is turning on their head. And we say, no, that's all part of the deal.
Especially if you're healthy, wealthy and wise. So you're saying too that as we looked at the scripture and says blessed are you, you're saying happy? Happy.
You're happy. Usually as believers, we're like, we're not talking about happiness. We're talking about joy. And there's a difference.
Well, yeah, so that's right. We think of happiness as depending on what happens. But in actual fact, blessed means how happy are we? And that happiness is joy. It's not a happiness that comes to us because of our social status or because of the well-being or because of our circumstances, because we're not dealing with any challenges.
No, it's a happiness that is found even in the midst of those things, which is what makes it so distinctive and at the same time so challenging. I mean, I don't know how many congregations you go to and you say this is a happy place here. I think there's some place you go and say this is a smug place.
These people are kind of smug. What do you mean by that? They exude a notion of, you know, we know.
We've got it together. Okay, well, you might want to watch that. And you might want to consider what that feels like for somebody who has just walked in, who has made a royal wreck of their lives and they're not remotely close to the idea of self-sufficiency.
Are they going to feel able to tell you the truth about themselves? Only if there's a vulnerability about the congregation that says we are a gathering of people who are sinners that have been brought under the lordship and kingship of Jesus. And this is like one gigantic O.R. Not O.R., what do you call it here?
E.R. Yeah, it is like a gigantic E.R. People want to say, no, the church is like a gymnasium. Well, maybe there's a gymnasium section over there. There's also a section over here that's another section like a geriatric hospital.
And then there's the emergency room. But all God's sheep are diseased sheep. And so, somehow or another, that has to be part of the ethos of the things that people realize.
Okay, I get this. You guys are not saying you've got it buttoned down. You're saying that Jesus has got it buttoned down.
That's a big difference. Yeah, and I think, you know, when you use the word smug, I think a lot of unchurched people would say that's what they feel in the community of believers. Sort of a smugness, sort of a judgment. You wonder if they feel that even in a Christian home, they walk in your family room. Do they feel that you're happy, blessed, even as you're poor in spirit? Or do they feel like, eh, they're better than me.
They think they're better than me. I mean, Jesus' sermon here is such a picture of this is what it could and should look like. Well, it's really, we're always keeping in mind the grace of the gospel.
Because when we're there, we're all broken. And yet, because of the grace of the gospel, we are just like everybody, but we're saved by grace. I remember, I've shared this story before, but I had just given my life to Jesus as a 16-year-old. And it was, I had never read the Bible. I'd never gone to church. And I'm reading it like, this is the most amazing news. I had never known how to get to heaven. And so my mind was blown. I didn't know any other Christians, but I was reading and reading and reading.
I started going to church by myself. And I remember taking this big Bible, you know, and I took it to school every day and I'm reading it. And then I remember taking it into a study hall. Remember study halls, do they even have those anymore? I think maybe.
Oh, they're better. But I took it and my friend was right across from me. And so I take my Bible, I open it, I have it underlined. I'm like, read that. And she looks at it and she just pushes it back.
And I'm like, no, read this. And I had already been talking to her, told her like, I have the answer. Like, this is how we get to heaven. It's not how good we are. It's like grace, God died for us.
And so finally I underlined another, read this one. And this is a girl I had known for years. You know, she's far from God.
I was far from God. And then she looks at me with this, like, you're the most annoying person. She takes a handful of the pages of the Bible and she rips them out. She crinkles them up in a ball.
And she goes to the trashcan and throws them out. Oh, wow. I was devastated. And I didn't see anything. I almost cried. One is like, this is my Bible.
It's the Bible. And I went home and I was so devastated. I remember getting on my knees at this little 16-year-old. And I'm like, Lord, I did it wrong. It's good news. I want to tell everybody and I'm so sorry, I must be doing it wrong.
I must be messing up. And so I was reading that day in Luke. And I've never read this before, but when I came to, blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day. Leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven, for so their fathers did to the prophets.
And it was the first time I was like, yes, yes. Like I'm in the same place as the prophets of old. Like, okay, Lord, like they might have reviled me in public, but I didn't do it wrong.
I can be blessed are you who are reviled for my name's sake. And so for some of us, when we're going through those deep, hard things, much deeper than what I've been through, that's a good word. But then sometimes, as you said, there's some stuff that's in here that's hard.
Maybe we can get to those things tomorrow. Well, I mean, you gotta say what happened years later with Carolyn. Years later, I was in college. I think actually we were married. It was several years later and she came to my house. We were home visiting my parents and she came to my house, knocked on the door and she said, hey, remember when you were trying to tell me about Jesus? I'm wondering if you could tell me that again. Oh, is that right? And she ended up praying and gave her life to Jesus. There you go. And so here I thought I had failed.
We never know the seeds that God plants. That's right. That's right. The entrance of God's word brings light.
Yes. I'm Shelby Abbott, and you've been listening to Dave and Anne Wilson with Alistair Begg on Family Life Today. It's been such a great conversation with Alistair today. And if you want to hear more from him, he's written a book called The Christian Manifesto. It's about Jesus's life changing words from the sermon on the plane.
It really helps you to embrace a counterintuitive and countercultural lifestyle guided by kindness, compassion and the Holy Spirit, which is such a refreshing change of pace in our culture today. So you can get a copy of Alistair Begg's book, The Christian Manifesto by going online to familylifetoday.com or you can give us a call and request your copy at 800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. And we are in the middle of the month of May. And the cool thing about this month is that anytime you give and become a monthly partner with Family Life, every donation that you give will be matched dollar for dollar up to $500,000.
That means if you become a monthly partner of $100, it actually becomes $200 a month. It happens all month long, so don't miss your opportunity to go online right now to familylifetoday.com and click on the donate now button at the top of the page. And when you do, we're going to send you a copy of Chris and Elizabeth McKinney's book called Neighborhoods Reimagined. They were with us last week, and it really talks about what it means to be a good neighbor and how you can build a community in your neighborhood.
Again, we're going to send you a copy of that book when you become a monthly partner. And in addition to that, you're going to become a part of our new online community and be a part of the conversation happening here at Family Life, including a live Facebook event with the Wilsons and myself on June the 5th for all monthly partners. So you can go online to familylifetoday.com, click on the donate now button at the top of the page to become a monthly partner. Or you could give us a call with your donation at 800-358-6329. Again, that number is 800, F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. Now coming up tomorrow, Alistair Begg is back with the Wilsons to explore the power of words, judging others, and effective communication.
And I think I could use help in all three of those areas. So that's coming up tomorrow, and we hope you'll join us. On behalf of Dave and Anne Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor-supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.
