Spiritual Practices for a Sanctified Life II

John Fuller: This is John Fuller and please remember to let us know how you're listening to these programs on a podcast, app, or website.
Gary Thomas: The Bible keeps pushing us toward these pursuits that are toward service, that have eternal impact, not toward our self-centeredness and not toward just making an impression in this world which is like a vapor.
John Fuller: That's Pastor Gary Thomas sharing biblical wisdom for living a fulfilled life, and he's back with us today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Thanks for joining us. I'm John Fuller.
Jim Daly: And I've been so challenged by what Gary has shared so far because these lies that he's talking about are things all of us have struggled with. Yesterday we talked about several of the lies in Gary's book, including the lie that you need to be comfortable. So get the Focus on the Family app to listen to that full episode and we're here to help you not just survive but to thrive in Christ. I love that tagline. It's on purpose. We are going to be covering some of the barriers that might be in your way to the abundant life that Christ provides. So stick with us, this is going to be good content.
John Fuller: Yeah, Gary is an excellent writer and communicator. He's got a number of books on topics related to marriage and spiritual growth. He's currently on the pastoral teaching team up the road a bit in Highlands Ranch, Colorado at Cherry Hills Community Church. Today we're going to be discussing his book, *The Life You Were Reborn to Live*, and we've got details on our website.
Jim Daly: Gary, welcome back. It's so good to have you and we covered some things yesterday that were really tender. And we're all kind of shackled by things in this life. I'm so grateful that Paul said, "I see through the glass dimly," right? But especially in this area of adversity, and I think in the West, particularly here in the US, we see ourselves as blessed when we're on top of it all. Yet the scripture, that great scripture that says He's close to the brokenhearted and saves those crushed in spirit, almost like a prerequisite that the Holy Spirit is seeking because it's humility. That's what that is. When you're crushed in spirit, you're humble. You're not thinking you're the best. But as a competitor, as a guy that enjoyed winning when I played football and just being on top of it, I struggle with this one. This is one where I'm asking myself, that self-centered salvation, that's not the spirit of God, is it?
Gary Thomas: It's, I don't know who said it because I've heard many people say it, but it's true. Before God can use you, He must break you. I've heard major pastors say that, and it gets back to my mentor, J.I. Packer had this line I love because he challenges self-centered salvation and our addiction to comfort with this. He says, "It's a mistake to imagine that the good for which God works is our unbroken ease and comfort." I thought that. "God's goal is rather our sanctification and Christlikeness, the true holiness that is the highway to happiness." And so before God can use us, He often has to break us. I tell in the book the story of I came down with keratoconus, it's a degenerative eye disease where you have a misshapen cornea. And when I was first diagnosed, there really wasn't any way that they could treat it except for replacing the cornea. It didn't freak me out so much because when he saw how bad my eyesight is, it's like 20/400, which 20/500 is the worst. So you're right there on the edge for an award. But he said, well, it could be a brain tumor, it could be this or that. And then they came back it's keratoconus and they gave me pamphlets, "Well here's a support group for it." I said, I don't need a support group. I thought you told me I might have a brain tumor. I can live with one eye. And I kind of do. My brain doesn't use my other eye. But because I've lived with this, and it's just the main problem, John, you're active, when I'm riding a bike, it's a real pain because it's my left eye. I can't see well. You shoot but you shoot with one eye, right? You can get those animals down with one eye.
John Fuller: I have a balance issue, so I'm totally tracking with you. I'm teasing.
Gary Thomas: And so it's hard for me on the bike, it scares my wife, but I still love to ride. But when my daughter in her early thirties came down with that, immediately we were on it. You gotta get checked out. And yeah, she was diagnosed with it and they were able to treat it.
Jim Daly: So she was ahead of the curve because of you.
Gary Thomas: Because I had keratoconus, she's never going to have to live with it. And if you were to ask me as a dad, do you want to live with this so that your daughter doesn't, I mean what dad would say no? Absolutely, that's it. That's exactly how Paul says ministry works. Addicts that now help other addicts, people with broken marriages that now help other people with broken marriages. We were talking about Bo Mitchell who's been on here before, they've had issues. You think of Chuck Colson, what he went through, how God used what people thought was either something done to them or their greatest failure, it can be both, became a platform for incredible ministry for the rest of their lives.
Jim Daly: They both went to prison for those that don't know.
Gary Thomas: Yeah, both Bo and Chuck. And if you're addicted to comfort, prison isn't in your plans. Right, but how much God has used that to bless others.
Jim Daly: Gary, I want to take a small break in our discussion because some people listening and watching might be going, "Man, they're just laying on the guilt right now." I mean who can live that way? Does God really dislike us if we want to have an air conditioner and a washer and dryer and a refrigerator that keeps our food cold? So just clarify that for the critic who's going, yeah, we're not going back to the caveman days.
Gary Thomas: We don't have to look for crosses, life in this fallen world will bring them to us. The whole idea though is the attitude because my whole passion for this book is, will you love Jesus more when you go through this because you're going to go through it? And I don't want the lie that somehow God is unhappy with you because you're facing it or that you should be angry with God. I share in the book a story for me, I've run distance running my entire life from the time I was a teenager in high school. And yet I've had these knee issues that now have become more serious where I don't know if I'll ever be able to run another one. My orthopedic surgeon who worked on my knee said, "You probably shouldn't, you're going to cause more problems." But going through this, realizing I needed adversity, I came out of it with this: Instead of being bitter, "God, I can't believe you'd take this away, I need it for my health, for my emotional health, for my relational health, my mental health, my spiritual health," I realized what I need most is to be close to God, not to run. And if I let the inability to run become a point of contention between me and God, I'm still not going to be able to run but I lose what I value most and what I need most, what I depend upon most. And so adversity's going to come, discomfort's going to come, don't seek it out. I we're not talking about being a masochist. I think that's a mental illness, that's not spiritual health. But if you accept that we're all an unfinished product.
Jim Daly: And don't make an idol of it.
Gary Thomas: Yeah, we're an unfinished product. There's a lot that God has to refine and maybe there's a lot that God wants to do in your life. Maybe God wants to use you in ways you can't even imagine but he's got to burn off a few things before he can put you in the game.
Jim Daly: Gary, when you said that about your knees, the one thing, I'm recovering from my second rotator cuff, that's why I'm not really moving my right arm very well here. But when you said that, that God somehow took that ability from you, I want to just for a second let's explore that because people, you know, God could also say to you, "Well, you put 50 years of running on those knees that weren't meant to do that." And I just have a little fun with that, but there are people with serious illnesses and they some will have anger toward God because if God loved me He wouldn't do this. Is God really the puppeteer or is it partially the fact that we wear our bodies out? We may not eat right, we may not exercise right, we may not eat too much processed food, all those things. So I want to be a little careful there that everything's attached to God's puppeteering and, "You're running a little too much, Gary, you're not spending enough time with me, so I'm going to boom, I'm going to give you knee arthritis so you can sit and talk with me." I don't think it's that way, but I don't know, these are you're the pastor.
Gary Thomas: Well, there are many causes, that's why I hate to answer that question with a direct yes or no. There are consequences. If you drink your liver into failure, that's a consequence. But we've all known people who get lung cancer who have never smoked. So I think some of those are unanswerable questions. I don't present myself as the Bible answer man as a pastor. I'm trying to help people process it that we have to surrender. Because even if God didn't cause it, and I'm not saying he does, you're saying, well God could heal it, he's healed this person and that person, he hasn't healed me. And when I look historically at how awful life was for the saints that preceded us, giants of the faith, Charles Spurgeon who lived with depression for his entire career. The Apostle Paul who lived with a thorn in his flesh. Now some people would say that wasn't physical, but he lived with something in his life that was at least uncomfortable. He said, "God please take it away," and God said, "No, I'm not going to do that." God used Paul literally to perform miracles for others but he didn't give Paul the miracle to release that discomfort.
Jim Daly: Great reminder.
Gary Thomas: I just come to the point that my attitude is to surrender. If people want to get into a great classic on this, Thomas Brooks, *Mute Christian Under the Smarting Rod*, is one of the great Christian classics on how we will learn most when we're quiet in our suffering and try to learn the lessons instead of just chitter-chattering, "God you gotta do this."
Jim Daly: What a title.
Gary Thomas: Yeah. Well, a friend of mine who I'm sure I've mentioned on these podcasts before, he so inspires me, he was a weightlifter, he got MS. When he was first diagnosed, I mean athleticism was his identity. And he kept saying, "God heal me, heal me, heal me, heal me, heal me." He said, "I prayed all day, heal me, heal me, heal me, heal me," until God finally stopped him and said, "Daryl, I'm going to heal you, but I'm going to use MS to heal something you're not aware of and that's your pride." Thirty years later I'm talking to his wife. She didn't connect these. She just said, "Gary, Daryl is the most humble man I've ever known." And God uses him in so many powerful ways. When he was athletic and charismatic, he commanded the room and he thought he needed to be healed of this and God said, "I'm going to use this that you don't like to cure this that you're not even aware of." God loves us. He wants to use us. And look, if we could see what He's preparing for us as Paul did, Paul got to see the third heaven. And I think that's why he was willing to endure every discomfort on the earth. He's telling them, "Hey guys, just hang on for a little bit, here's what's coming." If we could see that, we wouldn't complain about a hot or cold shower or and look, I'm not diminishing the pain of going through real physical travail. I've got some of my closest friends in real physical travail right now. But I still think what Paul says, it pales in comparison if we could see the glory that's ahead of us, our complaints would cease and we would serve and surrender.
Jim Daly: So good. You write also in the book about, and these are your words, but rejecting earthly splendor. And we're in that orbit right here so we'll talk about that, but it's in the context of something else you said, which is to, you reject earthly splendor to live a rich-toward-God life. Put those together for us.
Gary Thomas: The world is telling us what will make you happy and God says there's something entirely different that will make you happy. And we have to completely reject being conformed to this world that I will be happier if I look younger than I am, if I'm wealthier than I am, if I'm well-known more than I am. When scripture would say, actually, you'll be happier if you become a wiser person, if you become a selfless servant, if you focus on eternity over acclaim. What matters for us in eternity is what one person thinks of us, not what a crowd thinks of us. If you're trying to please the crowd, you're always going to be susceptible to compromising your faith. But if you live a rich-toward-God life, there is an audience of one that you want to please. I think the best example of that is in the book of Acts, months before the Apostle Paul died. He's brought in front of Agrippa II and Bernice.
Jim Daly: I love this scene.
Gary Thomas: And I mean Agrippa II was on the cusp of decades of influence and opulence and wealth and success. He cozied up to the Roman powers and was just so well... living a very immoral life. Bernice was not his wife, she was his sister, but they lived like husband and wife. There were lots of rumors, but people were afraid to say anything because you could lose your head if you said anything. And so Paul's brought in months before he dies, pulled out of a prison, scrawny, his back looks like a monstrosity of scars. I'm sure he's smelly. The Pharisees are saying of Paul, "He's not fit to live." And you look at that and you'd say Agrippa wins and Paul loses. He's got all the power, all the comfort, all the wealth, all the acclaim. Paul has nothing and he's soon going to die. Two thousand years later, I don't think there's a day in the world where Paul isn't studied, quoted, preached on. Not a day, I think you could say an hour. Everywhere, somebody's studying, reading his words. If I say in a church, "Paul said," everybody knows who I'm talking about. If I go to anybody and say, "Well Agrippa II said," they're like, "Who? What?" You look at that scene and it looked like Agrippa won, he didn't. Paul won. So it's the rich-toward-God life is looking at who wins not by the world's current definition. When Jesus said, "Such it will be of everyone who does not live a life that is rich toward God," and he was talking about a person who said, "I'm going to build bigger barns and eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die," and then he loses it the next night.
John Fuller: Wow, what a reminder, Gary. And Gary Thomas is our guest today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. He's sharing some pretty convicting thoughts about the lies that hurt our relationship with God. And to discover even more of his insights about spiritual living, look for his book called *The Life You Were Reborn to Live: Dismantling 12 Lies That Rob Your Intimacy with God*. We've got that here on our website and that's focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.
Jim Daly: Gary, let me pick up on the idea of pursuing wisdom and we'll probably end here with the next couple of questions. But pursuing wisdom, oh, the scripture, and I know you'll quote it for us, it's one of the main things we're supposed to do is pursue wisdom and to cherish it, to treat it better than gold or silver. And if you want to live a rich, full life, you will pursue wisdom. Okay, with that baseline, so many things are distracting us. We've got AI coming on. Well, if I need wisdom, I'll just go to AI. Ask her what to do, or him, whatever you want to call it. But the point is there's something about the human heart pursuing wisdom that makes your spirit, your soul better. Speak to that.
Gary Thomas: The Bible goes out of its way to exalt wisdom, that it's really the one race we don't want to neglect to run. Proverbs 16:16 says, "How much better to get wisdom than gold, to get insight rather than silver." And Jim, how many people at the end of this year are thinking, "I'm more concerned about has my retirement number grown or am I wiser this year than I was last year?"
Jim Daly: Ooh, that's a great comparison.
Gary Thomas: And we talk about why the church is in the shape it was, Hosea 4:6 tells us, "My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge." That it's because we don't value wisdom. And so we're on these, I think these vain pursuits. I keep talking about it but the world thinks I'm going to have a more successful life is more important to look younger than I am rather than to focus on becoming wiser than I am. Eventually that's a losing battle. Your knees are going to tell the true story eventually. You can do a lot of things to your face but eventually people are going to realize this person isn't in their twenties anymore. But if women would say, look, what if you could give a wiser mom or grandmother or wife or sister or friend to the church than a woman that looks younger than she really is? And what is a better gift you can give to the world? Because if I'm trying to look young, I'm trying to impress people. If I'm trying to become wise, I want to be a resource to people. What makes more spiritual sense? And the same thing with wealth. Why do I want more wealth? So that I can feel comfortable, so that I can spend it on myself? Or do I want to have wisdom, a spiritual wealth that is there only to give away? And so the Bible keeps pushing us toward these pursuits that are toward service, that have eternal impact, not toward our self-centeredness and not toward just making an impression in this world which is like a vapor.
Jim Daly: You know, one thing Gary, we often will say this very quickly: "You know, I'd like to read the Christian classics, I'd like to be informed, but you know, that's a load. I've got work." But what you encourage people to do is take that inventory. How much time are you on social media? How much time are you watching sports? Ouch. You know, those things that we're replacing the pursuit of wisdom with. And I know, yeah, that's another cold slap of reality to say that's not a good enough reason to say I'm too busy, really.
Gary Thomas: My catchphrase is "try to read more than you watch." And when I say this, let me I know we talk to a lot of moms here too. Moms, if you're raising kids, screen time literally makes us more stupid. There was a 2015 study published in the journal *Cerebral Cortex*, I know you all probably get that at home, you might have missed this issue.
Jim Daly: I get it weekly.
Gary Thomas: It shows that watching too much TV or screen time actually alters the composition of the human brain. It lowers IQ. It frustrates our kids' language acquisition. It increases psychological difficulties. They have a more difficult time facing stress, greater anxiety, more depression. It reduces their attention and it reduces their ability to manage anger. Whereas reading strengthens the neural pathways. And so if you can encourage your kids to read more than they watch, you're building up their brain rather than diminishing it. You're helping them become who God created them to be and who the world doesn't want them to be. I gotta tell you this, the world doesn't want intelligent, thoughtful, logical Christians like Dorothy Sayers and C.S. Lewis, those that could just unlock the wisdom of heaven. They want people who are focused on being entertained and put into a catatonic state so that they just go along and they're good little citizens of the world rather than powerful servants of the kingdom of God.
Jim Daly: That's a great statement. I think we have sufficiently, well let me be personal. You have sufficiently slapped me upside the head and I'm sure people watching and listening feel the same way in a good way. It's kind of like a good football coach that's going to motivate you to play better by riding you a little bit, right? Because he knows that response mechanism, your competitiveness. And as Paul writes about that, run the race to win it. And so in this context, the practical things that we can do, and I'm giving you the moaning and the complaining, so set it up, we're in a counseling session. You're saying this guy needs more wisdom and I say, "Well Gary, I'd like to but I'm just too busy." Give me two or three practical things that you would counsel as a pastor that man or woman in front of you that gives you the excuses and how you would say, "Here's two things I'd like you to try."
Gary Thomas: Okay. It begins with valuing wisdom. You won't make the sacrifices. As the Proverb writer says, "Though it cost all you have, get understanding." So Proverbs says there's a cost. It's going to cost you some entertainment, some screen time, some comfort. But if you value it, you're going to pursue it. If I could tell a story about my son, he got two master's degrees at Harvard, which is significant because they get all of the great titans of industry, the people who write literature, actors, Hollywood moguls, you name it, they all want to give a lecture there at Harvard.