Paul Tripp Ministries, Inc

PAUL TRIPP MINISTRIES, INC.

Survival Skill 1 November 9, 2006

Paul David Tripp: Life is bigger than your marriage. Life is bigger than your job. Life is bigger than your garden, or your car, or your vacations. Life is bigger than you.

Kate Crowley: From Paul Tripp Ministries, this is Right Here, Right Now, connecting the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life. Here now is Paul Tripp.

PDT: A little toddler just learning to talk runs to her mommy and says, “Mommy, mommy, I ‘thinked’ about what you just said. And mommy says, “No, no, dear it's not, ‘I thinked’, it's, ‘I thought.’”

Now think about this for a moment. This little encounter is amazingly human. It's all about what human beings are actually like. Here's this little girl who, just with a desire to know, and understand, and her God-given ability to learn, has learned the distinct rules of human language. She has learned that if you want to form a verb in the past tense, you generally add an ‘ed’ to the present tense.

Now what parent ever has that conversation with their child? You know, at about 18 months, you say, “Now dear, you’re going to want to conjugate the language in the past tense.” You don’t have to do that because you've given birth to a child who never, ever, ever stops thinking.

Human beings think. They're always trying to figure out life. They’re always trying to understand whatever it is that surrounds them, whatever it is that’s on their plate. That's why a child growing up will ask thousands, and thousands, and thousands of questions, because inside him is this deep desire for life to make sense, this drive to understand, this desire to know, this craving for somehow, some way for it all to make sense.

Music: “All Because of You”, Songwriters: Paul Allen Crosby, Christopher Jon Dabaldo, David A. Novotny, Joseph Scott Sappington, Wayne A. Swinny

I was born a child of grace Nothing else about the place Everything was ugly but your beautiful face And it left me no illusion I saw you in the curve of the moon In the shadow cast across my room You heard me in my tune When I just heard confusion All because of you All because of you All because of you I am KC: This is Right Here, Right Now with Paul Tripp. Paul will be right back with more intriguing thoughts on, “Survival Skills for a Fallen World,” but first, we want to thank you for joining us for the inaugural week of this radio program from Paul Tripp Ministries. You can now hear Paul each weekday at 11 A.M., on WFIL. Paul's goal is to remind you every day that there really is help in Jesus Christ, right here, right now. So be sure to let your friends know about this outreach. For more information and encouragement, Paul has some great resources available on his website, including an exciting new book that he's written called, Lost In The Middle. Just visit paultrippministries.org, that’s all one word, paultripp, spelled T-R-I-P-P, paultrippministries.org. “You Have to Know Where You Came From,” Right Here, Right Now continues with Paul Tripp. PDT: You can go onto the Internet, and you could pick any topic, and you will find endless pages of endless articles about understanding what ever: Understanding marriage, understanding the family, understanding parenting, understanding adolescence, understanding…you fill-in the blank.

I looked up, just recently, ‘marriage’ websites. There's the marriage first aid kit, there's examination of stages of marriage, the study of couples and the dynamics of their interactions, or a study of the dynamics of a quarrel between a married couple, or an article called, “Windows on the Intimacy Process.”

You see, we just, we have that drive to know, to understand. There's a way in which you and I never leave our lives alone. We’re always searching; we’re always examining; we’re always investigating; we’re always analyzing. Think about it for a moment, where, right now in your life, are you struggling to understand something?

I want to give you this concept: “You will only ever understand what you're dealing with now if you look at it from the vantage point of what it was meant to be in the beginning.” You will only ever properly understand what you're dealing with now when you're able to examine it from the vantage point of what it was meant to be in the beginning. It's only in understanding origins that you actually can understand the here and the now.

You know, we’re always looking at things in our lives that need to be fixed. We’re always looking at things that are operating a bit dysfunctionally, and the only way you can actually fix something, the only way you can actually make it function the way it was meant to function is to understand what it was designed to be in the beginning. You have to be able to conceive and evaluate the thing in its original form in order to restore it to what it was meant to be. Think about this question, “Where, right now in your life, do you need to go back to the beginning? Where in your life do you need to understand things from the vantage point of origins?” God has done an awesome and loving thing for us in His Word. He invites us to go back to the beginning, and we get to go back to the very first moments of the world. We get to go back to the beginning of the very first moments of human life. He welcomes us to walk with Him in that moment where the world is being put together, and He does that so that we would understand now, in a deeper, fuller way because we are looking at it from the vantage point of the beginning.

Music: “Lord of the Star Fields” by Bruce Cockburn

Lord of the star fields Ancient of days Universe maker Here's a song in your praise.

Wings of the storm clouds Beginning and end You make my heart leap Like a banner in the wind.

O Love, that fires the sun, Keep me burning! O Love, that fires the sun, Keep me burning!

PDT: Did you ever have this experience where you go to a garage sale or a flea market, and there’s something on the table that attracts your attention, but you pick it up, and you realize you don't have a clue what it is? You turn it over and over your hand. You examine it, maybe you open it up, or you take it apart, or you press a button, or you pull on it, and for the life of you, you can't figure out what this thing is. Now, I think that's often how it is for us in everyday life. We’re looking at life in sort of its old, flea market form, and we’re trying to figure out life.

And so God has helped us. God is a God of wisdom, doesn't want us to be confused; He wants us to know; He wants us to understand. He is the source of all wisdom, so He takes us back to the beginning. He actually pulls back the curtain; He allows us to look in on those first early moments when this whole thing that we call life was actually being put together; it's an awesome thing.

Now there are two things that I think are important to consider. If you’re ever going to survive life in a fallen world, if you’re going to ever live in a biblically productive way, you’ve got to get a hold of these two things.

The first one is this, you need to know that as human beings, we do not live life based on the facts of our experience, but based on our interpretation of the facts. We’re never just responding to the situations and relationships around us; we’re never just sort of objectively responding to circumstances; you always bring a certain lens; you always bring a certain interpretation; you always have a certain perspective that shapes the way you deal with life.

There’s a second thing that you need to know, and I’ve hinted at this already, but I want to reinforce it a little bit more. And it is that the only way you can ever properly understand anything is to examine what it was designed to be when it was first made. The perspective of origins is a principal explainer of what's wrong in the here and now. In order to get what’s broken, you have to be able to look at the thing as it was before it was broken.

Now, let's go back to Genesis. Let's go back to Genesis 1. Genesis 1 is where we, in the Bible, begin to look at life in its original form. And as we do that, there are four things that immediately sort of jump out of the account, the story of Genesis 1.

Here’s the first thing, this may seem obvious, but it is not always so obvious. God was on site before you were. There's a way in which you could say that the four most important words in all of Scripture are the first four words: “In the beginning God.” You see if God was on site, if God's existence was already there before the creation of the world, if God is, in fact, the preexistent Creator, then that means that this world belongs to Him. This world is not my world.

In fact, to say it even more fully, “Life is not about me.” Life is about something bigger than me. Life is about something bigger than my wants, and my needs, and my purposes, my desires, my goals. In fact, you have to say, “If God was on site first, then I was made for something big, and huge, and transcendent, something that actually has to do with Him. And everything I do, and everything I say, and everything from politics to math, to entertainment, to culture, to history…all of those things are somehow attached to the reality that, long before I was ever on site, God was on site. Life is more about Him than it is about me. That’s the first fact.

Second fact from Genesis 1, that story of origins is this: You were designed to be of revelation receiver. Now think with me for a moment what this means. Those communicative abilities that you have been given, your ability to hear, your ability to speak, your ability to think, those communicative abilities were not first given so that you could have cool relationships with people in your life. Those communicative abilities were first given so that you could know and you could hear God, because you were not designed to figure life out on your own.

Here's an important principle: Human beings need truth outside of themselves in order to make sense out of life. I will never ever, ever, ever properly figure out life on my own; I was created to be dependent on a source of wisdom, a source of wisdom that would have a perspective that goes beyond origins and beyond destiny. I was meant to be dependent on God. Third fact, we already talked about this a bit: You’re an incessant interpreter. You don’t live life based on the facts of your experience; you live life based on your interpretation of the facts. Wherever you are, you are interpreting. Wherever you are, you are making particular sense out of what you're facing.

And then the fourth fact: By your very nature, you are a worshiper. You don't divide human beings up into those who worship and those who don't. The issue is what or who we worship. Think about this with me. Worship is not first an activity. Worship is first an identity--I am a worshiper, so I worship. What does that mean? It means I'm always living my life in pursuit of something. I’m always living my life under the rulership of something. I'm always giving myself to some kind of hope, some kind of dream, some kind of meaning, some kind of purpose. I live for something, and that thing that I live for will control me.

God was on site first. You were made to be a revelation receiver. You never stop interpreting. By your very nature, you are a worshiper. Those are four facts of origin that will make sense out of what you face every day.

Music: “Lord of the Star Fields” by Bruce Cockburn

Lord of the star fields Sower of life Heaven and earth are Full of your light.

Voice of the nova Smile of the dew All of our yearning Only comes home to you.

O Love, that fires the sun, Keep me burning!

PDT: Now how can these four facts give you new ways of understanding yourself and what you're dealing with in the here and now? Well, let me give you an illustration.

I was, for four years, a kindergarten teacher. The four longest years of my life--ha!-- actually they were very enjoyable. And, during that period of time, one of the moms of one of the children in my class came and said she wanted to have a birthday party for her daughter. She asked if she could use a school classroom, and I said, “Sure as long as you invite everybody, that's fine.”

Well after school, the day of the birthday party, she turned that classroom into birthday kingdom, and there was one long table going down the middle of the classroom, and at the end of the table was the chair for the birthday girl, and in front of her, on the table, were a bunch of presents, it was an amazing pile of presents. Sitting around the rest of the table were the children who were attending the party, and what they had was a sandwich bag of party favors. Now the purpose of a party favor is to remind you that it’s not your party.

And little Johnny was sitting at the very end, directly across from Susie, the birthday girl, and he was looking at his bag of party favors, and looking at her pile of gifts, and he was getting very angry. He was harrumphing! He couldn't believe it. He was looking at that bag of two tootsie rolls, a lollipop, and a plastic whistle. And he was getting angrier and angrier as he looked down at that big pile of gifts that Susie had. Finally, one of the parents that was helping at the party, had had enough, and she came down to Johnny's end of the table. She turned Johnny's chair toward her; she knelt down, and she said these deeply theological words to Johnny, looked him in the eye, and said, “Johnny, it's not your party!”

You see, that's what origins tell you. When you go back to the beginning, that's what you’re confronted with. Life is not your party! Life is bigger than your marriage; life is bigger than your job; life is bigger than your garden; or your car, or your vacations, or that great steak. Life is bigger than you. And you see, Jesus came, not to make your little kingdom work, but Jesus came to invite you to a bigger kingdom. God created you. God owns you. God has a design for your life. Life is about His plan, His purpose, His will, His wisdom. You’ll never understand life until you understand it's not your party.

(Background Music)

PDT: So God, in His grace and His wisdom, God in His tender love for you and me, has invited us to go back with Him to the beginning. And He's done that, not only so that we could know ourselves, but that we would know Him, and in so doing, with knowing ourselves better and knowing Him better, be much better prepared to deal with what He has put on our plates.

Remember this, the God of the garden, that God of wisdom, that God of power, that God who knows everything from origin to destiny, because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is with you in every moment and every one of your days. And that God who is with you, not only has a better plan than yours, He has promised to be with you in the middle of it. He has promised to help you and to give you just what you need to be what you were designed to be, and to do what you were designed to do.

If you ever are going to understand ‘now’, you have to look at ‘now’ from the vantage point of the beginning. You have to remember God was on site before you were. You are an incessant interpreter always making sense out of life. You were designed to receive His wisdom, not figure out life on your own. And you’re always worshiping something. These facts will makes sense out of what you face every day.

KC: Remember, you don't have to face the struggles of life on your own, a good reminder from Paul Tripp on today's program. We are glad that you could join Paul on his series entitled, “Survival Skills for a Fallen World” on today's edition of Right Here, Right Now. You may be wondering if survival is really possible. Maybe you're in the middle of the struggle right now. Paul wants you to know that you don't have to be paralyzed by regret or discouraged by the passing of your dreams. In his book, Lost In The Middle, Paul Tripp explains how moments of pain can also be moments of God's grace. That’s Lost In The Middle, Paul's new book available at our website, paultrippministries.org. That’s all one word, paultripp, spelled T-R-I-P-P, paultrippministries.org.

Remember, you can also listen to these programs online, or sign up for the daily podcast and have the programs delivered to you so that you can listen anytime. CD copies of today’s broadcasts are also available for just five dollars. You can order any of these resources from the website at paultrippministries.org, or call us at 1-800-551-6595. That's toll-free, 800-551-6595. Right Here, Right Now is reaching people across the world, and if you would like to help support this ministry, you can give online at paultrippministries.org. Just click on ‘Ministry Support', or you can write to us at 7214 Frankford Ave., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19135.

If you would like to hear Paul in person, he will be speaking at the “Hope for Broken Relationships” Conference this weekend, beginning tomorrow, November 10 through Sunday the 12th, at the Valley Forge Convention Center. For more information, call 215- 884-7676. Be sure you call right away. That’s 215-884-7676.

Tomorrow on the program, Paul continues his look at, “Survival Skills for a Fallen World.” That’s all for now. This is Kate Crowley, and for all of us at Paul Tripp Ministries, we want to remind you that, in Jesus Christ, there really is help right here, right now.