Perfect

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Thursday, November 8, 2018

It happened again for the umpteenth time in recent memory of those conversations where you’re giving information to somebody who is recording that information.  The young lady on the other end of the phone used that dreaded filler word:  PERFECT!  You are no doubt familiar with the filler-words:  um, uh, so, you know … you know? 

I gave her my information, a series of numbers to back it up, my mother’s maiden name, an answer to a challenge question about my elementary school, and she ended it all with PERFECT!  How did she know it was PERFECT?

Too many of those called by God to be preachers of the Gospel are plagued with the tendency to say more, rather than less.  We want to explain better, go deeper, say it stronger; we want to be precise and perfect, and wind up doing nothing more than keeping people longer!  Lord have mercy!

Paul was certainly like that; just ask Eutychus, the young man who listened to Paul’s all-nighter of a sermon sitting in an upper room window sill.  He dozed off, fell through the window and died from the fall![2]  The apostle rushed to the scene below, took the young man in his arms, and he came back to life.  I bet from that moment on Eutychus was a sermon illustration in a lot of Paul’s preaching about the resurrection (as well as warning not to go to sleep during sermons!).

The verboseness of preaching and preachers is legendary.  But, that aside, there were times when Paul just hit the nail on the head squarely, forcefully, and finally…sufficiently to bring the conversation to a life-changing apex. 

Here is one of those sentences:

 When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.  Romans 5:6(NLT)

When it comes to helping us appreciate the first Christmas gift ever, this sentence does it for me.  It describes the helpless, sinful condition of all humanity.  It describes the impeccable timing of Christ’s arrival, and the whole purpose for his sacrifice on the cross, planned from before the beginning of time.  In 17 words the preacher proclaimed our condition and God’s solution … it was … perfect!

And added to Paul’s perfect preacher sentence, and eternally more important than Paul’s words, is what those words mean:  God’s salvation is PERFECT!

For You Today

You can’t get better than perfect; so why would you try?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com

[2] Luke 20:9

Noah's Sermon

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Thursday, June 15, 2018

It was by faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood.  He obeyed God, who warned him about things that had never happened before.  By his faith Noah condemned the rest of the world, and he received the righteousness that comes by faith.  Hebrews 11:7^(NLT)

In the past 40 years I’ve had a constant battle to keep my sermons short enough to prevent a lynching.  Someone once said there is a close comparison of a long sermon with a hostage situation.  But, truth be told, I’ve got nothing on Noah!

By most accounts it took Noah around 100 years to preach his sermon.  He built the boat God ordered; that ark was Noah’s sermon, the witness of what God would do to judge the sins of humankind.  I recall studying the 100 Years War in World History, but it’s hard to even imagine a sermon that long.  Once the Apostle Paul preached through a whole night[2] – so long a youth in the crowd named Eutychus fell asleep, and then fell out of his window seat to the pavement below.  He died from the fall (which could start another sermon, talk about being slain in the spirit!), but Paul prayed him back to life.

Getting back to Noah’s sermon – the boat would eventually house the entire world’s population of eight humans, and a zoo of animal pairs, the new beginning point of life on planet earth.  In reviewing the construction planning part of the conversation between God and Noah there is a detail that seems conspicuously absent:  God never mentioned giving the ark a rudder to steer the ship ^{(See Genesis 6)}. 

In the normal course of things, a ship without a rudder is a disaster looking for a place to happen.  But in this case a rudder was entirely unnecessary; God would do the steering (besides, Noah and crew had no clue as to the destination – and there was no dry land or port left on earth to which they could go.  You don’t need a steering wheel when you don’t know where you’re going, and there’s nowhere to go.).

Which brings me to the point of Noah’s sermon…three points, really (every sermon’s got three of ‘em):

a.      God does hold us accountable, and there is judgment for our behavior, either now with a flood of God’s attempts to bring us back into the fold of fellowship, or later with a much more serious consequence.

b.      What God did with the human population then, providing an ark of safety and a preacher/message calling them into that boat…God always does for His creation; there once was a manger and a cross!

c.      What God spoke to the people was a message of loving concern to join Him where there is a new beginning, and a profoundly joyful sense of security; He still offers that.

For You Today

If you’re already in that ark of Heavenly safety, safe and secure from all alarm, enjoying that fellowship and joy divine, there’s a good chance you want that for your friends, neighbors, and family. 

Let Noah’s message of accountability and a paid-for boarding pass on Salvation’s Ship be your message to everyone…. just don’t take 100 years to preach it.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day. 

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[1] Title Image:  By Chris Light [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

[2] See Acts 20:9

Sound Asleep in the Pew

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Thursday, June 16, 2016

But don’t just listen to God’s word.  You must do what it says.  Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.    James 1:22^(NLT)

James knew what he was talking about.  As the brother of Jesus he was well-acquainted with hearing the Lord speak, and then ignoring what he’d heard.  Indeed, when Jesus’ teaching got a little too intense, Jesus’ whole family thought he’d had a nervous breakdown.  They tried to get him to dial-back his extreme views and calm down.

Can you imagine telling God to calm down?

But that’s exactly what it is when we read a Scripture, hear it resonate in our hearts, feel the fear of being too religious or zealous, and then choose a better way. 

If you recall, Scripture tells us ^{(Acts 20)} that while Paul was preaching to a group late at night, a young man named Eutychus was sitting in a window seat on the third floor.  He became drowsy during the sermon and fell three stories to his death.  That, certainly, is one kind of peril of ignoring God’s Word!  Fortunate for that young man, Paul prayed and God revived him.

I’ve had my own Eutychus moments over the years.  Our church had theatre seating; the individual seats had soft bottoms and solid oak back-rests.  One middle-aged man had a habit of getting a little too comfortable once the up-and-down of the service stopped.  Once the choir had finished singing and dispersed into the congregation, he was already in dreamland.  Usually by the time I’d read the Scripture for the sermon he and I were in strong competition for who would preach the louder sermon that day.  Our congregation got so used to him that we just about tuned-out his rumblings completely. 

One time after service he was still sleeping when the custodian shut down the building; he awoke suddenly (probably disturbed by his own snoring) and got frightened by the quiet.  The doors to the sanctuary had dead-bolt locks, and could only be unlocked with a key.  In his panic, the man actually broke a window pane in one of the doors trying to get out.  Someone heard the shattered glass, and the need for a raising from the dead prayer, like Eutychus, was averted!

If you read the letters to the churches in Revelation ^{(Chapters 2-3)} you will find that the Jesus handed out strong warnings to 6 of the 7 churches; most of their problem was being asleep while evil was claiming their strength of holy living.

Some of those churches are still asleep in the window.

For You Today

Whether your preacher is the next Billy Graham, or as dry as the Arabian Desert, the Word of God is going to show up in some aspect of your worship this week.  It would be a good thing to listen closely for God’s heart – as James urged all of us – not just listening, but doing what you hear.

Don’t fool yourself; don’t be a Eutychus!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: By Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons