It's natural for us to long for happy and fulfilling lives for ourselves and for our children. and yet no one is exempt from hardship in this world. There's good news, though, and today on Truth for Life will learn why spiritual growth is often greater through tears and disappointment. than in times of laughter and success. Alistair Begg is Teaching from Second Timothy, chapter three.
In The American Paradox, a book by David Myers. Where he says the American paradox is But Never in the history of America have people had so much and yet never had so little. And then he goes on to identify the fact that this sense of angst has permeated the millennials, young people in your kind of generation, and slightly ahead of you. And he says it's striking that it is not in the lives of individuals who grew up, as it were, on the wrong side of the tracks, but rather in the lives of individuals who had a lovely home and a nice mom and dad and made it through school and got into college and university and graduated and found a job for themselves. And yet he says the amazing thing is that they testify to the fact that they're empty.
They're baffled by their emptiness. Because their self-esteem is high. But their self is empty.
Now, the Christian world, the Christian testimony, the Christian youngster growing up, coming out of college and education in that environment, has something to say. What do we have to say? We have to say that united to Christ, our adequacy is ultimately found in Him. 2 Timothy 3 heading the list, men will be what? Feel out us.
Lovers of themselves rather than lovers of God. You see how countercultural the message of the Bible, the gospel is, that needs to seep into the heart of our lives so that as we seek to make sense of the environment in which we live, we've got to be in it. We don't have to be of it in every case. we have an opportunity to make a difference. Arrogance And selfiness Abounds.
The reason that you're even surprised that I would point it out is because it is so endemic. that you don't even, many of you notice it. For me, it's an observation from the outside. For you, you've grown up with it. You largely created it.
So it takes somebody from the outside to say, Do you really think this is a good idea? Do you really think that everybody in the world wants to hear about what you're doing every fifteen seconds? I got news for you. They don't. I just read a piece about Dakota fanning.
Um in in uh Lucky magazine. In September, what were you doing reading Lucky Magazine? I don't know. I'd find things lying around when I go to the doctor's. And this is what she says.
She is described as a millennial with a baby boomer suspicion of social media. She doesn't tweet or Facebook or Penn or Instagram. Quotes It's a hole I just don't want to dive into. I don't want to know all these things about people. It's like the mystery of life.
has been removed. Totally self- Preoccupied.
Now, if you get a child that's grown up like that, I don't care what college they go to. By the time they come out to serve on your pastoral team, unless something has happened to hammer them and to break them, then you don't want to deal with them. Trust me. Because The one to whom God looks is the one who is humble. Contrite And Trembles are the word.
Go back to John the Baptist. John the Baptist, the people come to say. You've been really preaching up a storm, John, and we wanted to, we're going to include you in our magazine. We wanted to put a few things in about you. Uh who are you?
He says, I'm not. They said, now let's ask the question again. Who are you? He says, I am not. They said, Well, are you?
He said, No. They said, this is not going well. We're trying to put something in the magazine. What shall we put in? He said, well, you could say that I'm a voice.
Crying. You could say that I'm a finger. Four and three. You can see that I'm a small light shining. But I'm the best man, I'm not the groom.
Have you ever been to a wedding where the best man thinks it's his wedding when it's not his wedding? I mean, it's one of the worst things you could ever experience. He talks all the time. He takes a microphone. He says, I'm so pleased to be here at this wedding.
Get off, man. You're done. You're done. You held the ring, now split. We're finished.
We're finished with you. It's nothing to do with you. It's the bride, a little bit of the groom, the bride's mother, but nothing to do with you. Trace pastoral collapse in America in the last 15 years since I've been gone. and trace it to one root in every single instance.
whether the guy has gone down socially, morally, Politically Economically, whatever way he's gone, it's gone as a result of one thing because he never paid attention to Isaiah 66:2. And pride will kill you.
Now humility is not Uriah heap. Remember from Master Copperfield? Remember? Um David Copperfield and Uriah Heap, who he was always telling David Copperfield how humble he was. Remember, he dropped his H's.
You do.
Some of you have read proper books, have you? For goodness sake, yeah.
So, um.
So he said, I'm an I'm an I'm a I'm an ever so humble man. Master Copperfield, I am an humble man. And he explained how humble he was by dropping his H's. If he had been a proud man, he would have said, I am a humble man. But he said, I'm an humble man.
He wasn't a humble man, he was a creep. That's not what we're talking about when we talk humility. This is what humility is. Be yourself and forget yourself. Just be yourself and forget yourself.
You don't have to be the other guy in the group. You don't have to be the other girl on the team. You have been made purposefully by God. He put you together exactly the way He wants you. You come in this morning, you don't feel that good or that strong, or whatever it may be.
It doesn't matter. God has put you together exactly as He wants you. And the one to whom He looks is the one. Who isn't necessarily championing every cause or is the leader in every pact? But rather is a swan.
Number three. God disciplines us for our good. That we may share in His holiness. God disciplines us for our good that we may share in His holiness. That's Hebrews chapter 12.
And verse 11. Earlier in the chapter, the writer says, endure hardship. as discipline God is treating you as sons. One of the things that we have to get really clear in our mind. Is that Not only is God the creator and the sustainer of everyone and everything.
But he is actually providentially involved in every detail of our lives. that nothing happens except through him and by his will. And when we have lived any length of time at all, upon reflection, we'll be aware of the fact that not everything has been. Plain sailing. And everything may not be plain sailing for some of us this morning.
And we're tempted to assume that somehow or another, things must be out of kilter. And one of the sort of recalibrating factors of Biblical instruction is the fact that the experience of suffering, the experience of difficulty, Is often In the economy of God, Exercised in order to prove us and to reprove us. I mean, Calvin in his Institutes talks about this when he talks about heaven. And he talks about the appeal of heaven. And he talks about how, although we might say a lot about wanting to go to heaven and to be with Jesus, deep down so many of our treasures hold us here.
Which is understandable. And he says, and so in light of that, God, because he loves us so much and wants to prepare us so properly, brings into our experience all kinds of things. Because he loves us. Because he loves us. Now in my experience And you may be able to concur with this.
The providences of God are seldom self-interpreting. I'm not a fan of somebody explaining to me, you know, the reason this has happened is because, you know, in the immediacy. Because most of the time we don't know the reason anything has happened to us. mainly looking back over the vantage point of time and some only from the ramparts of eternity will make clear to us all these dark threads in the midst of the tapestry of God's purposes. are cancers.
and our failures. and our loss of loved ones. The taking away of a loved one is like-is like an amputation. We live through it, how we experience it, a loss of a member of the student body. a well-loved faculty member, all these things.
We're tempted to say, Lord, what is going on here?
Well, the disciplining and the chastening of God is because he loves. And I think that over time you may come to agree with me. That when you reflect upon the progress of your life in Christ, you will actually come to the conclusion. that you have made more progress. Through tears and disappointment, then you actually have made Through laughter and success.
That doesn't mean that we're going to embrace some kind of morose half empty perspective on life. But it does introduce a sense of realism, doesn't it? One of the things that it seems to me and I've observed this and I live through it, I'm part of it, so I don't speak in judgment, but one of the things that I think we've struggled with within the framework of evangelicalism is any kind of meaningful theology of suffering. That we have done a poor job of, first of all, acknowledging that we in Christ also suffer. that we live under the chastening hand of God.
That we're not triumphalists. We know that there is a land that is fairer than day and by faith we shall see it afar, but it is often a very far way off, it would seem in our minds, and far distant from where we are. And until we then begin to reckon with that, it becomes precious difficult for us to embrace a culture that is aware of the fact that there is so much sadness and so much suffering. And the message that we bring It's not simply, oh, cheer up, you're going to be fine. But rather God is a gracious God, even when we cannot understand His hand.
that we're able to trust his heart. John Bright, in his work on the kingdom, has one little purple passage where he says: The trouble that we face is that we want a Christ who suffers. in order that we may not have to. A Christ who lays himself down. that our comfort Maybe undisturbed.
And God again, George Herbert, the poet, the religious poet, in one of his poems that became a hymn. Commenting on the way that God orders things, he says. Or if I stray, He doth convert. And bring my mind in frame. And all this Not for my dessert.
before his holy name. that actually what he's doing Is accomplishing his purposes from all of eternity, some of which we may understand by and by. and many of which we will not understand even now. Therefore, it is important to hold on to this third principle that God chastens and disciplines his children because he is treating us as his sons and daughters and because he loves us. Fourthly, penultimately, The narrow way was never hit upon by chance.
Neither did a heedless man or woman ever live a holy life. The narrow way. Remember? Enter in at the narrow gate. Broad is the road that leads to destruction.
Narrow is the road that leads to life. Jesus. The narrow way was never hit upon by chance. You didn't just all of a sudden wake up one morning and find yourself there. I think that quote is from Thomas Manton, but I couldn't source it.
The emphasis is all the way through the scriptures, isn't it? Paul writes to Timothy in his first letter, and he says, quoting it in a paraphrase, physical fitness is of certain value, but spiritual fitness is essential both for this life and for the life to come. And so he says, take time and trouble to keep yourself spiritually fit.
Now, I don't want to introduce a guilt trip in any way on this, but if I think about my own interest in my physical well-being as opposed to my spiritual well-being, how easy it is for me to buy tennis shoes or running shoes, how easy it is for me to go spend an hour in a gymnasium, even if it doesn't look like it, and how easy it is to be preoccupied with these things. And then I say, and how concerned am I really for my own spiritual fitness? It is a challenge just in terms of the disbursement of funds and the use of time and and so on. How then will a young man or a woman, for that matter, keep themselves pure. by living according To your word, I seek you with all my heart.
Don't let me stray from your commands. I've hidden Your word in my heart. that I might not sin. against you. The Pacific Ocean It's fantastic, isn't it?
I've been here now three weeks running. Uh first in Laguna. Then in Santa Barbara. Then in San Francisco. And now I've hit the high spot in Santa Clarita.
But when I've been on the ocean I'm not that right. But I did notice. Type. sh that sailboats can go in different directions. Right?
You've seen that as well, right?
Okay, yeah. But so How did they do that? Because it's the same wind. It's the same wind. And yet one goes east.
One goes west.
Well, I'm glad you asked. The story is told, I believe it to be true, of a chaplain in the Royal Navy in Portsmouth in England. He's working with some young men, and the young men are pushing back against the chaplain who's calling them to a life of purity and to the exercising of themselves in terms of godliness and holiness. And they say to the chaplain, they say, You know, chaplain, if you were living in the real world, You wouldn't be laying such a heavy trip on us because you don't realize just how hard it is to be out there. I mean, we're just swept along, you know.
I mean, there's nothing we can do about it. They said, well, let's just look at those boats for a moment. And then he said, Did you notice? That one boat goes east. One boat goes west.
By the selfsame winds that blow, And it's the set of the sails. and not the gales that determines Which way did he go? The same wind may blow you to your knees. or inflate your ego. and extend you into a life of uselessness.
He's got We've got to set our sails. And I thought When I was your age, That you know, in a big act of resolution and consecration, I could get this thing sorted out. I certainly thought when I was your age plus ten, that it would be easier. And by the time you get into My age now. I thought I'd be done with all of this.
Mm, no. Every day. You're going to set yourselves? They say your sails in the destination. Of God's purposes and His glory, you're going to set the sails in your own direction, your own desires, and so on.
It's a daily thing. Finally, Don't you love that word in chapel? It's a great word. Um I'm tempted to think that I may be cursed with it with the same the same approach as your own. Dear President, in that finally doesn't really mean very much.
Um But um I learned from the best. Here's my last one. If Jesus Christ be God, and died for me. that no sacrifice that I can ever make for him, could ever be too great. That C T stud uh the missionary of the past.
If Jesus Christ is God, which he is, and died for me. We've been singing about that this morning. then no sacrifice that I could ever make for him could ever be too great. We sang about that as well. where the whole realm of nature might.
If I own the entire universe, and if I could bring the entire universe and give it to you as an offering, that would be an offering far too small. Because your love, which is so amazing and so divine, demands my soul, my life. My awe. You see, when Paul says in Philippians 2 that one day at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, he's not saying there that that will be some great emotional surge of praise, that the statement Jesus Christ is Lord is the overflow of emotion. No.
The statement Jesus Christ is Lord is a statement as to his identity. That everybody will say on that day, He is Lord. He is the Creator. He is sovereign. He is Savior.
He is commander. And he is the king. And so there is an inherent logic in it. Which runs all the way through, particularly the Pauline epistles, and classically when he gets to chapter 12 of Romans, when he says. Therefore, in light of all the things I've just said, Uh I I beseech you.
By the mercies of God. To offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, which is your reasonable service of spiritual worship. What are the mercies of God? Where are the mercies of God revealed? Throughout the whole of history, but finally and savingly in the work of Jesus.
The picture he's using there is an Old Testament picture. There were sacrifices that were propitiatory, and there were sacrifices that were dedicatory. The propitiatory ones offered up for sin, the dedicatory ones offered in thanksgiving for the acceptance of the propitiatory ones. And he says, here it is. That in the mercies of God, at the cross of Christ, the propitiation has been made, that God's wrath has been absorbed and deflected and caught up in Christ, and all of His forgiveness has been granted to us.
Now He says, I want you to offer your lives. as a dedicatory response. One that is living. One that is lasting. And one That is logical.
It was that inherent biblical logic. that uh caused a young student the same age as many of you this morning. when he was at Wheaton College. to go back to his room and to write down in his journal. He is no fool.
Who gives up? what he cannot keep. to gain what he cannot lose. And what I want to say to you is simply this. Don't just read church history.
Let's make some church history. Right? Let's let's you know remember remember the famous story about dwight l moody where he hears somebody preaching And the guy says, and the world has yet to see what God will do with a life wholly dedicated to him. And Moody's sitting up somewhere in the balcony, and he says, inside of himself, he says, I'll be that man if I can. What, Moody?
You're not that bright. He's certainly not that good looking. Frankly, you're fat. And And you've only got about twelve sermons.
So how do you explain Moody? This is the one. To whom I will look, says the Lord. You see, because what you are in the privacy of your own bedroom. It's what you are.
And I know that because that's all that I am. And God knows that too. and he don't share his glory with anybody. Not you. Not me.
Not anyone. How good that he doesn't. How wonderful that he gives us a place. in his purposes. And how kind of you.
To listen.
So carefully. Let us pray. Father, thank you for the Bible. Thank you that we can read our Bibles and see if these things are actually so. We acknowledge that you are the sovereign Lord and King.
We want as we go out into this day and into the balance of the week Two bow before you and to give you the glory that you alone deserve.
So help us as we Close and sing to your praise. to do so. from the fullness of our hearts. Because we ask it in Christ's name. Amen.
You're listening to Alistair Begg on. Truth for Life.
Well, today's message wraps up our series called Lessons for Life. These are messages Alastair shared with college students. about living for God's glory, in spite of the societal pressure that seeks to lure them away. We've been listening to Volume 4 of the program, but you can find the entire series on our website at truthforlife.org.
Now, if you still have children in your home, whether they're college students or high school or middle school. We want to recommend to you today a book called Grounded in Grace: Helping Kids Build Their Identity in Christ. This is a book that explores the challenges kids will face when it comes to self-worth and identity, challenges like profit. Pressure to perform in academics. or sports or other activities, and the increasingly common issues related to values or sexual orientation or gender identity.
Grounded in Grace coaches parents to come alongside a child to help them. Navigate areas of confusion to help guide them to establish their identity in Jesus. You'll learn practical ways you can disciple your kids or your grandchildren as they struggle to shape their identity in today's culture. And you'll learn to talk to your kids about sensitive issues, to help them determine who they are, not based on their feelings or their interests or their performance. but based on God's love and grace.
The book is yours when you donate today to Truth for Life. You can do that online at truthforlife. org slash donate, or you can call us at 888-588-7884. Thanks for joining us this week. On Monday, we'll learn about the greatest invitation any of us can ever receive.
The Bible teaching of Alastair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life. Where the Learning is for Living.
