Author Archives: Joe

Preacher: Let’s say you’re on a big program; Find out whom you follow

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After the death of comic genius Robin Williams, someone was reminiscing about the time he preceded Bob Hope on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson.

For some reason, Bob Hope was late arriving at the studio that night. So, instead of Robin Williams following him, which had been the plan, Williams went on stage first and did his hilarious knock-em-dead routine.  People were beside themselves with laughter.

The great Bob Hope arrived and had to follow that.

Robin Williams said, “I don’t think he was angry, but he was not pleased.”

As Bob Hope walked out onto the stage and settled into the chair, Johnny Carson said, “Robin Williams. Isn’t he funny?”  Hope said, “Yeah. He’s wild. But you know, Johnny, it’s great to be back here with you.”

Let’s talk about me. I smile. Even the great Bob Hope could not handle that.

No right-thinking person would voluntarily follow Robin Williams on the program.

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My candidate for hypocrite of the year

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“Evil people and imposters will become worse (in the last days), deceiving and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:13).

Can we talk about imposters?

There are so many to choose from, but today I’m thinking of church-dropouts who say they love the Lord.

Nothing of what follows is intended to be mean-spirited. But I would like to speak plainly.

I’m not angry, just perturbed. I don’t want to banish anyone from heaven, from church, from “the island,” or even from this room.

I just want to say to certain ones, “C’mon, people. Get real.  You don’t mean that, so why do you keep saying it?”

Recently, we were having a lively Facebook discussion about church and whether divorced people–specifically those with a whole string of divorces–should be considered for the honored church office of deacon.

Most comments were sweet-spirited, godly, well-informed scripturally and solid doctrinally.  But some were angry for reasons I doubt if even they know.  They want to banish all divorced people from anything.  But these are not the hypocrites I had in mind, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they qualify. It’s another group.

“People like you are the reason I no longer go to church.”

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What I wish for the Lord’s church

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“That He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:27).

The Lord wants the best for His Bride. And so does every right-thinking child of His.

Here is my wish list for the church of the 21st century….

One. I wish the church were less of a business and more like a family.

Our Lord looked around at His disciples and followers and said, “Behold, my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brothers and sisters and my mother” (Mark 3:33-35).  The obedient are His family.

I’m so glad I’m a part of the family of God.  The local church should be a smaller expression of that larger, forever family.  I wish more of them were.

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I encourage you to write in your Bible

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“This shall be written for the generation to come; and the people who shall be created shall praise the Lord” (Psalm 102:18).

Please go to the front of your Bible and write in it.

Start by putting your own name.

Often, when I pick up the Bibles of friends to see what they have written in them, I’m chagrined to see they don’t even have their names.

Write in your Bible, friend. Please.

At Christmas 1973, my aunt Eren gave to her mother, my wonderful grandmother Bessie Lowery McKeever, a Bible.  Grandma died in 1982, but not before marking up that Bible.

I now own it.  It is a treasure beyond price.

This morning, I read something I had never seen before, that made the tears flow.  (I was looking up the text above, and Grandma’s Bible was handy.)

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The worst possible advice to young preachers

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Okay, I’m not sure what is the “worst possible advice” to young preachers–there is so much to choose from! But what follows has to be among the sorriest counsel ever administered to young proclaimers of the Word…

I was looking up “preach Jesus” and came upon a website which proposes to teach people to “preach sermons and live in the power of the Holy Spirit.”  I read a short way into the first article.  My mind was frozen by a bullet point which read: “Throw away the concordance.”

I thought, “What?”  (For those unacquainted with a concordance, it’s a staple in the preacher’s arsenal. A concordance is a book of subjects with every (or selected) scripture verses listed where you may find that word used.  The back of most Bibles will have a brief concordance.  And yes, these days, the internet has almost made it obsolete.  I type a line from a verse into the search blank and hit “go,” and instantly, I’m told where to find the verse I was looking for. It’s a wonderful help.)

Here is the paragraph, verbatim:

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Why your good sermon was so boring

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Pastor, if you are like the rest of us, you’ve had this happen….

You brought a sermon on an important scriptural passage which you knew beyond a doubt was from the Lord.  You had a great time studying and praying for this sermon, and you knew this was cutting edge stuff. So, why was the sermon itself so poorly received?  Halfway through, you could sense the congregation’s collective minds wandering.  How could this happen?

Clearly, the problem could be any of a thousand things. But let me share a strong conviction on a primary reason your excellent sermon may have been so poorly received: You failed to lay the foundation for it.

That is to say, you preached the event without setting the stage and placing the context for it before the congregation.  For instance….

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Through no fault of their own, the preacher’s kids are caught in the crosshairs

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The little boy was 7 years old and loved the church where his dad served as pastor.  So, he was not prepared for the bully who took out his frustrations with the preacher-daddy on him.

Each week during the Sunday School assembly, this man, the director of the children’s department, would ask, “Has anyone had a birthday this week?” Now, he already knew the answer since the church bulletin carried this information. But, they would identify the children with birthdays and sing to them.

The week little David was celebrating his 7th birthday he was eagerly anticipating that tiny bit of recognition from his friends in Sunday School. This day, however, the director chose not to ask if anyone had had a birthday that week.  David came home in tears.

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Something inside us hates the idea of grace

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For by grace are you saved through faith…. (Ephesians 2:8)

Anything that puts us down, we automatically shy away from. For many, grace does that.

Oh, we don’t mind singing about it, but the concept of grace itself is repulsive to our natures and offensive to our pride.

Something in me wants to be self-sufficient, to believe that whatever comes up, I’m able to handle, that as the poem says, “I am the captain of my soul.”

The cry of a four-year-old–“I can do it myself!”–is the insistence of the stubborn will of the adult child.

That’s why, even though we sing about it and say we love it, something inside us resists the idea of grace. That same something insists that I am sufficient for my needs, that my good works will accomplish everything necessary to land me in Heaven, that the rest is just so much religious talk.

The sinful heart of man is an atheist, an egotist, an idolator.

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God has built a redundancy into the Christian life

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“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing….” (Ephesians 1:3)

You want someone to drive you to town and both my brother and I show up at the same time in separate cars. You can ride in only one car; the other is redundant.

The word “redundant” means something unnecessary, maybe just a little too much.

In design and engineering, redundancy means building in safeguards to compensate for the failure of the primary system. The backup system you installed may never be used. But if it’s needed, it’s there in place, just waiting.

Imagine an automated system of some type going out due to a power failure.  However, there’s a hand-crank to work with. It’s slower but gets the job done.  People buy gasoline-powered generators as backups to power failures.

Think about the redundancy the Father in Heaven has built into the Christian life.  He saves us, writes our name down in Heaven’s book, we are adopted, and born again. He promises that He will never leave us, assures us that nothing can ever snatch us from His hand, and says that the life we now possess is everlasting.  He indwells us, overshadows us, goes before us, comes behind us, and undergirds us.  He gives us the Bible to teach us, the church to disciple us, assignments to accomplish in this world, and teachers to show us how.  He tells us we are saved forever, that we have become “Sons of God” even, and that we shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

Do we have a wonderful Lord or what?

The Father fully plans for us to arrive at His home safely.

Engineers build redundancy into bridges.

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Something we know about your church’s troublemakers

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Where your treasure is, your heart will be also.  (Matthew 6:21).

Reading my journal from the 1990s, I am reminded of a lot of things–the grace of God and His sovereignty, the sweetness of many of God’s people, and also the sheer unabashed hypocrisy of a few.

Some months after I left one pastorate, the business manager of the church and I had lunch together one day.  This is from my notes written that night. I’m eliminating the names, because identifying these people would serve no purpose. Many of them have gone on to their (ahem) just rewards and what’s done is done.

What the business administrator said was stunning.

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