The Christian Life 101, Part 2

The year 2020 will go down on record as an unparalleled season of cultural confusion in which our world was overcome by fear and uncertainty. So how is the follower of God supposed to respond?

How do we maintain our equilibrium in this dizzying time in history? Well, the answer, the Bible teaches, is to remain focused on the fundamentals. And today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll points to a passage in Ephesians Chapter 5, where Paul walks us through a sequence of guiding principles. He titled his message, The Christian Life 101, and we begin with prayer. Once again, let's tell the Lord how precious He is. Will you join me in prayer?

Often I fill this time with words, and this might be a good occasion for you to do that in your mind and heart. We have sung, Thou, O Lord, art high above all the earth. You are exalted, far above all gods. We exalt Thee. We exalt Thee.

More precious than silver, more costly than gold, more beautiful than diamonds. And nothing we desire compares with our Lord. It's true, Father, just as your word is sweeter than the honeycomb bringing the lovely taste of truth to our hearts. And just as your Spirit teaches us that truth and illumines our minds with it, we pause at this moment to give you our grateful thanks.

Lord, we're in a fast pace to somewhere. We're driving faster, we're walking faster, we're thinking faster, we're moving, and it's easy in a fast paced culture like this one to forget the value of being still and learning that you are God. To forget the prophet's words that fell from his pen in quietness and in confidence is your strength. And in the hurry-up context of our lives, it is easy to begin to worry rather than not fear, knowing that you're with us. You are our God. You will strengthen and stabilize us. These aren't just artistic meanderings of a few dreamers, Lord. These are Spirit-inspired words from your book.

And in a world filled with human opinions and anchor newsmen who shape the thinking of our times, saturated with the media emphasis all about us, use these moments to eclipse all of that. And may the beauty of your presence grasp us afresh and anew. Remind us, Lord, that you never have a need and we never have a day free of need. Remind us, our Father, that you never need a leader, you never look for the way to go, and we spend our years seeking your heart and knowing your mind. Remind us, Lord, that you seek us and you find great joy in our fellowship and obedience.

Thank you for a few basics today. Forgiveness of sins, release from guilt, deliverance from shame, and in the place of all that, your matchless grace, grace for living, grace for giving, grace for responding, grace for reacting, grace for handling life as it's thrown at us. Remind us also, Lord, that your love, your mercy are deep, deep as an ocean. It's knowing that that prompts us to give as we would never give to any other work. We give because you are the incomparable master of our lives. And we give confidently, knowing that these gifts are investments in eternity. We do so joyfully and generously. In the great name of our deep, merciful, loving God, the Lord Jesus, we pray. And everyone said amen.

Let's go to the first test. By the way, everything mentioned in these verses is foundational. Everything. Remove any one of them and you will encounter a significant hindrance in your growth. Any one of them. Follow them carefully and consistently and you'll know what it is to be fulfilled and rewarded in life.

They're really worth it. Number one is the conduct test. That's verse 15. Here's the test. Are you careful and wise in your behavior? Are you careful and wise in your behavior on a scale of one to ten?

How you doing there? Now, how could I ask you that? Well, look at verse 15. Be careful how you walk, not as the unwise, but as wise.

Right out of the text. Are you careful and wise in your behavior? Please observe he's not talking about where you're going. That's about destination. He talks about how you're walking.

That's conduct. How you walk. Test number two. The time test.

Verse 16. Making the most of your time. Because the days are evil. Here's the test. Question. Are you disciplined and discerning in the way you spend your time? The question has to do with your opportunities. Are you making the most of them?

Are you applying the discipline and the discernment to invest those opportunities well? Because the days are evil. Let the day run its own course. You'll wind up in sin. Let the day run its own course. You'll wind up in sin.

You'll wind up gravitating toward that which pleases you rather than pleases the Lord. Horace Mann once wrote, lost. Yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with 60 diamond minutes. No reward offered.

They are gone forever. Jonathan Edwards, one of the great leaders, a philosopher-theologian back in the 18th century, early part of the century, he turned 20. Jonathan Edwards, this brilliant pace-setter for so many of that era, determined before he turned to his 20th birthday several resolutions.

Listen to one of them. Resolved. Never to lose one moment of time but to improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can. Wow. To the sloth, that sounds wildly extreme. Extreme. To the neurotic that could sound rather passive, not nearly disciplined enough.

I see both discipline and discernment in that. You improve time occasionally by laying down for a good nap, by going out for a great ball game or a run or a walk, by spending an hour or two or more with the family, by taking a day off. Taking your day off or taking a vacation. Never brag about never taking vacations. It's not to be bragged about. You're not making the most of your time.

On the other side is the individual who sort of gets up late, goes to bed early, and in between it's sort of a slimy ooze of indefiniteness. This, that, maybe, I'm not sure, whatever. Okay, hold it. Napoleon once wrote, there is in the midst of every great battle a 10 to 15 minute period that is the crucial point. Take that period and you win the battle. Lose it and you will be defeated.

Making the most of your time. Before I move ahead in this subject, I have to tell you another thought that the Lord gave me in preparing all of this. I was talking with Cynthia about it day before yesterday and I got on the subject of discipline and it occurred to me in the conversation we were having that discipline has a twin whose name is Sacrifice. Neither is admired in a day of sloth. I have never met a person who accomplished great things, who wasn't familiar with Sacrifice.

Never. Sacrifice plays a role in it and that led me to a wonderful quote that I found and I then printed her a copy and I gave myself a copy and I put it on the wall right behind where I study. It reads this, for every achievement there is a price, for every good there is a price, for every goal there is an opponent, for every victory there is a problem, for every triumph there is sacrifice. People you admire are people who face the price, live with opponents, encounter problems, and deal with them and know the meaning of Sacrifice.

There isn't an exception. In the Christian life the question about time is not a moot point. Could be that this is the avenue toward a new journey you could be taking in your walk.

Are you disciplined and discerning in the investment, the use of your time? Test number three, the decision-making test is verse 17. So then, sort of a summary statement, so then do not be foolish but understand what the will of the Lord is. That's a great verse of scripture, isn't it?

Starts with a negative, ends on a positive. Do not be foolish. In Paul's day foolishness was not mischievousness as it is today. We see things getting a little bit out of control and we walk in and say with a little bit of humor, what's all this foolishness?

And it's a light-hearted term we use. In Paul's day the fool was one who conducted his or her life as if there were no God. There's a psalm that says, the fool has said in his heart there is no God. The whole book of Ecclesiastes is written by a man who lived the life of a fool attempting to find happiness without God and until you get to the last chapter you realize the real consequences. But the key word all the way through the book is vanity, emptiness. A life lived without God is a life of emptiness.

It has a hollow ring to it. So don't be foolish. Don't think you can live your life without concern for God. He made you. He has a plan for you. He is on your side, if you will. He is in your corner.

He loves you with the kind of love we heard just sung for us, as deep as the ocean, as wide as the green, his mercy and love are on our behalf. So don't be foolish. But the positive now is understand what the will of the Lord is. Understand what the will of the Lord is.

Question for this test. Are you actively and correctly pursuing the will of your Heavenly Father? Actively and correctly pursuing the Father's will. Now I gave you a contrast earlier. Let me give you another one. In the pursuit of the Lord's will, it is easy to forget he wants us to know it even He wants us to know it even more than we want to know it. God is not hiding. He's not hidden somewhere saying, I'll bet you can't find me. You may look, but I'm not going to be found. I've got my will here, but I'm not going to release it to you. You've got to look a long time. I may show you a little of it.

It's not a game like that. The Father seeks our worship. He loves our presence. He longs for us to be right in the nucleus of where he would have us walk.

His relationship with us is, on the contrary, one of pursuing, not hiding. Now my observation in my own life and the lives of others has been that there are again two extremes. And that is the one who runs ahead of the will of God, makes decisions in a hurry, righteously comes to terms, and pursues without understanding. And the other is resisting, stubbornly resisting. While thinking about those extremes, I thought of a psalm, Psalm 32.

Turn back there, will you? Go back to Psalm number 32, which is the psalm David wrote, one of them following his release from the guilt of his sin with Bathsheba. Caught in the backwash of adultery, lost in the emotion of his own shame and self-disappointment, he writes a psalm to God. Composers write songs at emotional times quite often, and this is David's emotional moment. And he writes Psalm 32, which is called, notice at the base of the title of the psalm, Maskeel, M-A-S-K-I-L, that means it's a teaching psalm. It's a psalm the Lord led David to write for the purpose of teaching the reader about the subject at hand. This Maskeel psalm.

Now let's jump in the middle of it. Verse 7, David is emoting in his overflowing gratitude for God's forgiveness, and he says to the Lord, you are my hiding place. That's where we get the song title, the hiding place.

That's where Corey Ten Boom's dad found the the basis of where they would, uh, what they would name the place that would hide the Jews from the Nazis. You are my hiding place. You preserve me from trouble.

I love this. You surround me with songs of deliverance. Don't you wonder what those songs were? Don't you wonder if David maybe wrote some songs and called them deliverance songs? I do.

I wonder about that. You surround me with songs of deliverance. My mind is full of the melodies and the lyrics you give me as I compose songs to you.

Artists understand those wonderful moments of inspiration. Then God answers David in the next verse. The pronouns don't tell you that, but look at the meaning. I will instruct you. This is God answering David's response. I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go. I will counsel you with my eye upon you. My eye upon you. Ever had somebody lead you with their eyes? Now try to look real closely here, okay? I'm going to lead you with my eyes. Didn't make any noise.

I didn't hear a thing inside my own head. I'm leading you to go there in that direction. Sometime with your, when you're with a friend and you don't want the other person to know what's being said, they'll go. In some cultures they do it with their lips. They go. Like they're going to kiss somebody.

Go over there. The Lord's leading is very delicate. Very sensitive. Doesn't scream and shout. Doesn't jerk you by the arm. Doesn't slap you on the cheek. It's a silent moving of the eyes.

And look at the next word picture. Do not be as the horse. What does the horse do? I mean a horse that is not tamed, a horse that is not broken. If you can hang on to one of them, it's bucking and kicking and racing and moving wherever it wishes to go. Don't be as the horse.

Look at the other analogy. Don't be like the mule who have no understanding, whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check. Otherwise they will not come near to you. David, David, David, listen. I'm going to guide you with my eye on you. Go with me. Go where I show you. Follow me very carefully. We'll walk together through this. Back in Ephesians chapter 5, do not be foolish. Don't run ahead.

Don't resist. But understand what the will of the Lord is. Understand. The word means to grasp. Understand. The word means to grasp, to comprehend.

How do I do that? Listen carefully. Listen carefully. You don't look for cloud formations that spell out words.

You don't look for faces of Jesus in an enchilada. Don't do that. It's not there. You don't wait for sounds in the night three clicks and a bump.

It's gone. You don't look for four green lights. That means go. That's superstition. That's hocus pocus. That's voodoo theology. Listen to me. You pray with an open heart. You go to his word because he never leads contrary to his word. You seek the counsel of people you admire in the Christian life who are objective, have nothing to gain or lose in your decision.

They're hard to find by the way. And then having done so, you wait. You wait. You listen to his voice as he speaks to you in messages just like this or in messages from his word or maybe a hymn or a song that's being sung or the counsel of that individual that you maybe hadn't sought out but seeks you out. And then forgetting what you want, you obey. And you understand what the will of the Lord is. We're midway through a message Chuck Swindoll has titled The Christian Life 101. And please stay with us because we've reserved the closing moments of today's Insight for Living to hear a personal comment from Chuck. To learn more about this ministry, visit us online at insightworld.org. Now let me remind you that Insight for Living Ministries has produced a number of resources to help you grow in God's grace. For instance, Chuck wrote a devotional that includes 365 daily reflections for the new year. It's called Good Morning Lord, Can We Talk? And additionally, we've created a flip calendar designed to hold a prominent spot in your home or office. It's called Quotable Chuck, Daily Insights from the Pulpit. Both resources will become a welcome addition to the new year.

And either one would make a thoughtful Christmas gift as well. To purchase the daily devotional and the flip calendar, go to insight.org slash store or call one of our friendly staff members. If you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888. You know, 2020 has motivated us to make the most of our time because, as Paul said, the days are evil. Well, all of us at Insight for Living are praying that this study in Ephesians inspires you to become an agent of God's grace. In that spirit, we're inviting you to join us in taking God's message of grace all across our country and even around the world through Vision 195.

The majority of your gift is applied right here in North America, where you hear Chuck's teaching, and then a small amount is all that's needed to carry Insight for Living beyond our borders. Everybody I know is waiting for something, including you, waiting for relief, waiting for an answer to prayer, waiting for a dream to be fulfilled. We're all waiting for something. And few biblical characters teach us more about waiting and having patience while waiting than Abraham.

He and Sarah waited long beyond their childbearing years to fulfill the dream of starting a family. And even with occasional missteps, they become a model for those of us who feel like we're in a holding pattern. Individuals who have grown deep in their relationship with God have learned this, just as Abraham did, to wait with anticipation instead of worrying. They know that God keeps His promises so they don't fret over whether the fulfillment will come. They know it will take place.

They just don't know when or how. Let me admit that as we finish another year of ministry, we too are waiting on God to do what only He can do. Our financial reserves are drawn down, and we're completely dependent on our God and on His people to restore and replenish what we need.

We're not fretting, and let me assure you, we're not worrying, for we know that God is faithful. He always works through His people, and in this case, He will work through people, people just like you. So let me ask you, would you be among those who respond with a year-end donation? You see, we need you because our world needs God's truth. So let's do this together, okay? Let's do this now, while there's still time. While there's still time, Jesus said this, we must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the One who sent us. The night is coming, and then no one can work.

You'll find that in John 9 in verse 4. Thanks for hearing my heart. I look forward to hearing from you soon. And here's how to respond to Chuck Swindoll right now. To give a donation, call us if you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888. That's 1-800-772-8888. Or go online to Insight.org. Join us again when Chuck Swindoll's series called Becoming a People of Grace continues, Monday on Insight for Living. you