It is said that every sermon has two parts: What? and So What?

This is the “So What?” to the article below in which we said “The Lord is More Willing to Bless than We are To Be Blessed.”

Last week I sent that article/message to a friend and said, “This sermon is incomplete. Help me out.”

Why send it to her? Seven reasons. One: She is a deep thinker. Two: She is a solid, incredible Christian. Three: She will tell you what she thinks. Four: She sees things that elude most of us. Five: She knows the Word. Six, and critically: She has suffered a great deal in her life. Seven: I trust her.

I’m about to reproduce the entire response she sent.

What I had omitted from my sermon was the “so what” element. Like many preachers, I can take a biblical text and preach an abstract message from it that never touches anyone where they live and then walk away thinking I have been used of God. My impression is that most people in the pews know differently.

The preacher is the last to know.

Years ago, 7-year-old Holly Martin gave me a line that has stood me in good stead ever since. I was preaching about something, laboriously trying to get across some obscure point from the text, and apparently failing. Sometime in the middle of the sermon, this child turned to her mom Lydia and said, “Mother, why does Dr. Joe think we need this information?”

Is that a great question or what? In her own way, this child saw what I was missing, that a sermon has to be relevant to the hearers, otherwise the preacher is just taking a lonely trek through Scripture.

So, I sent the message to my friend and asked, “What am I missing here? I know the sermon needs to come together in some focus point, but am not sure where or how.”

Her name is Lynn and she gave her permission to share the letter:

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(After reading this, read the sequel in the article that precedes it in this blog but followed it time-wise.)

Where did the idea arise that we have to coerce or persuade or coax the Lord into helping us?

Now, a leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling down to Him and saying to Him, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”

However, he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the matter so that Jesus could no longer openly enter the city, but was outside in deserted places; and they came to Him from every direction. (Mark 1:40-45)

A strangeness runs all through that story from beginning to end….

1) It was strange that the leper came TOWARD Jesus. The Law forbade that, and ordered lepers to stay away from citizens and to call out “Unclean.” (Leviticus 13:11)

2) It was strange that the Lord reached out and TOUCHED the man. Lepers were untouchable. What this says about our Lord is precious.

3) It was odd that Jesus did the greatest thing in this fellow’s life, then commanded him to keep the news to himself. He was, of course, trying to do a little advance crowd control. As you see, it didn’t work.

4) The man proceeded to disobey the Lord, yet without the slightest rebellion in his heart. He simply had great news to share and no idea how to keep from telling it.

But the most encouraging aspect of this story comes in the exchange between the Lord and the leper: “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” “I am willing; be clean.”

Jesus is not only able to help, but He is willing. Able and willing. Pretty good combination.

Write that in large letters across your heart and mind, friend: Jesus Christ is willing to bless us. It is His very identity. Nothing sums Him up more than that one word: Willing.

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“Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God” (Isaiah 40:1).

This may be the most unbelievable article we’ve ever posted on this website.

You will not believe what some people say to a bereaved parent or the family member of someone tragically injured.

Recently, while talking to Holly and her mother, I began to pick up on some truly bizarre things people said to them after Holly’s young-adult brother Seth’s tragic automobile accident that left him severely disabled, completely helpless, and almost totally without the ability to communicate. Holly describes his condition as “a low level of consciousness due to a profound brain injury.”

Frankly, I was overwhelmed by some of the things people have said to this family. I had no idea people could be so thoughtless, so clueless, so heartless–all in the name of the Lord and ostensibly, with the best of intentions.

After our visit, I asked if Holly and Mary–the sister and mother of Seth–could write down some of the things people have said to them over the several years Seth has been in this sad condition. (Our discussion centered around the strange comments–that’s where our greatest teaching for this blog focuses–but at the end of this article, Holly shares some of the helpful words that were spoken.)

My single contribution to the discussion was something our family pastor back in Alabama told me. When his teenage son was killed in a motorcycle accident, the family and community were stunned and heartbroken. Everyone was genuinely concerned. Most people said kind and supportive things. However, a few comments shocked even the pastor.

One lady told the bereaved pastor, “I know exactly how you feel. When my son went off to college, I thought my heart would break.” The pastor smiled and thanked her, but the thought that filled his mind was, “Well, did your son come back from college? Because my son is never coming back!”

Holly wanted me to emphasize that all the Christian folks who have said these things to us have good intentions. Everyone genuinely thinks they’re offering something helpful. Holly is probably more charitable than I am. Not everyone who deigns to speak for God has the best interests of others at heart.

Here they are, in the order in which she sent them along….

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Did I not say to you that if you would believe, you would see the glory of God? (John 11:40)

We say with Moses of old, “Lord, show us your glory” (Exodus 33:18).

Something within the heart of every believer wants to see evidence that God is among us, that He is with us, blessing and working and using us.

At times we are like the Psalmist who kept hearing the voice of the heathen ringing in his ears as they taunted, “Where is thy God?” (Ps. 42:3,10; 79:10; 115:2)

Where indeed, we wonder.

We long to see God at work, in this place, doing the kind of life-transforming things Jesus excelled at. We tire of reading about them in other places, of hearing reports of revivals in big cities, in huge churches or denominations.

“Do it here, Lord,” we pray. “Use me. Show me. Here am I, my Lord.”

That is the universal cry of the faithful child.

We should never get away from the Lord’s promise to the two distraught sisters of Bethany in John 11.

Martha, the take-charge sister, began to protest when Jesus instructed that the stone was to be removed from the cave where Lazarus’ dead body lay.

“Lord, it’s been four days. By now the body is decomposing and the stench is terrific. Lord, are you sure?”

Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” The Philippians translation reads: “You would see the wonder of what God can do.”

Martha did indeed see God at work that day. She experienced it in a way none of us ever have. Her life changed forever in those few minutes. For the rest of her days, she must have relived these few minutes when she saw the glory of God.

That was a microcosm of the Lord showing Himself among us.

Let’s reflect on the Glory Discoveries we make when we believe Jesus and start living like it.

A. The first thing we notice is that the Lord is pushing us.

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They will still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be full of sap and very green. (Psalm 92:14)

A godly old person is a work of art, something worth beholding.

Define: “Old.”

Not me, buster. Never in a hundred years.

I’m by that the way I am when a woman says, “Guess how old I am.” Laverne did that to me a few weeks ago. I served as her pastor decades ago, and probably had a general idea of her age. But I said, “Do I look to you like I’ve lost my mind? There is no way I’m going to guess your age. Not in a hundred years would I attempt it.”

Then she told me her age. I was stunned. I would have missed–underguessing–by two decades or more.

Old, someone has said, is twenty years older than yourself. As a rule, that’s probably pretty accurate. But no longer for me. I turned 71 this week, and know that I’m edging pretty close to the dividing line. No amount of walking-on-the-levee or doing-pushups-in-front-of-the-television or pumping those small weights slows down the passage of time for one minute. The years come and then they go, leaving their mark, taking their toll.

And that’s just fine. It’s how God set up the world.

But there is good news.

God has made promises to His children who walk with Him faithfully into those senior years. Psalm 92:14 contains three such promises. However, before looking at them, let us remind ourselves of something vital.

What God has not promised is that you and I will get to be among those old people.

Growing old is a privilege. It means we are blessed with long life. Scripture sees this as a blessing from Heaven. However, no one is guaranteed a certain number of years.

Growing old is a privilege denied to a great many. Over these 50 years in the ministry, I have conducted funerals for people of all ages, from infancy up. Some we buried in young adulthood, as they left their little children behind, never to see them grow up and marry and have babies of their own. They would have given everything they owned to have the privilege you and I are being given, to grow old. To be called seniors.

Many of us do something really strange in this regard: We don’t want to die/ however, we do not want to get old.

Think of the contradiction. We want to continue living and not die, but we don’t want to get old in the process. We want it both ways.

I suggest we all embrace our seniorhood. Accept those lines in the face and the grey in the hair and when necessary, the stoop to the shoulders. It’s a small price we pay for being allowed to continue breathing–living and serving, loving and giving.

For those who will serve God through their years and continue into the latter years, God gives three promises:

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The family and I were traveling on U.S. Highway 45 some miles below Meridian, Mississippi, returning home to Columbus from a week at the Alabama beaches.

My wife was driving and I was to her right, reading the newspaper.

I looked up occasionally at the highway in front of us. It occurred to me our car was inching too close to the right edge. The shoulder of the road did not join with the highway, but where the concrete ended, there was a dropoff of at least six inches.

I should have been alarmed and should have alerted Margaret.

You would have thought this was happening to someone else. I sat there watching the highway, thinking, “The car’s wheels are getting uncomfortably close to the edge.”

Our three children were in the back seat. All our lives were at risk. And I did nothing.

Suddenly, the wheels dipped over the edge.

The car went into a spin on that two-lane highway while we were traveling at 60 miles per hour. That right front tire blew out. We spun around several times, and came to a rest in our lane, facing the opposite direction.

I can still hear our youngest son, about 10, calling out, “What’s happening? What’s happening?” as the car went into the whirlwind.

A man ran out of a house across the road to check on us. What he said scared me even worse than the experience.

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This morning on my Facebook page, I left a little note concerning a Hollywood celebrity who has been in and out of rehab, in and out of trouble with film studios and production companies, and in and out of favor with the public. He has just taken himself out of rehab and vows he does not need their intervention.

The quote that got me was his saying, “I’m going to quit pretending I’m not special.” I posted that and added, “Can you say delusional?”

The comments from Facebook friends multiplied rapidly. And what got me were the ones accusing me (and friends who indicated their concern for this fellow) of judgmentalism. One even accused us of “hating him.” Of course, that writer was mighty quick to condemn us for hating.

The irony of that is so stark as to not require a comment.

Once again, we hear supposedly right-thinking Christian people warning us against judging. And they all quote the same verse, Matthew 7:1, where our Lord said, “Judge not, lest you be judged.”

One wonders if such people really and truly mean that, that we should not make judgements at all concerning the behavior of other people.

You’re looking for a babysitter? Fine. Just accept the first person who walks in and applies. After all, you do not want to be guilty of judging.

Looking for an auditor for your company? As soon as she gets out of prison for embezzlement, I know a former church secretary who might apply for the job.

Looking for a pastor for your church? Will you take the first handsome dude with a seminary degree who shows up in a three-piece suit? Or will you look into his background and exercise some discretion here?

Oh, no. You don’t want to judge.

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Some people would not be happy in Heaven. Nothing about it appeals to them. They would be forever out of place. So, God is not going to make them go.

The biggest slander I know is that Heaven is going to be one unending church service. Every pastor, every song leader, and every pew sitter groans and thinks, “Lord, I hope not.”

Not to worry. It will not be like that. Or, like anything else you know or have prepared for or imagined in your fondest dreams.

Throw away the categories. Nothing pertains any more. Jesus said in Heaven there’s no marrying or giving in marriage. He said angels are rejoicing each time a new person comes into God’s eternal family. He told us the angels of certain “little ones” do always behold the face of the Father.

The thing to keep in mind is that Jesus Christ is the authority on Heaven. He’s a native. He told Nicodemus, No one has been to Heaven except the One who came from there, referring to Himself (John 3:13).

The old line goes, “Everybody wants to go to Heaven but no one wants to die.” And, according to polls we see published from time to time, most people expect to go to Heaven.

My contention is most people not only are not going to Heaven, they don’t even want to go. They just want not to go to the other place. And since Heaven seems to be the only alternative, it wins by default.

I’d like to interject a question or two into the next poll someone is taking on who expects to go to Heaven. After the interviewee attests that, “yes, I expect to go to Heaven,” I want to ask, “For what reason? What do you expect to happen in Heaven?”

Since the Scripture is the only solid authority we have–anyone on this planet has!–we look to it for hints on what takes place in Heaven. And the news is not good for a lot of people.

In fact, once they find out what goes on in Heaven and who’s going to be there, I have no doubt that some of them would change their minds and opt for the other place. After all, to be eternally out of place is a form of hell in its own way.

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Show and tell. Sounds simple enough.

Every kindergartner knows the process. You bring something to school and then tell the class what it is. What it means to you. How it works.

A few years ago, I sat at the head table when veteran lineman Frank Warren was inducted into the New Orleans Saints Hall of Fame. His agent paid tribute to his star player.

We live in Dallas. I’ll never forget the day my five-year-old son took Frank Warren to his school for show-and-tell. Frank flew to Dallas just to do that for my child.

I sat there not quite believing my ears. This football player went to all the trouble of flying from New Orleans to Dallas for no other purpose than accompanying a preschooler to kindergarten for show-and-tell.

No wonder the agent was still speaking of it, years later. Who would not remember that?

A few years back Henry Blackaby spoke to Louisiana Baptists about post-9/11 life for Christians in America.

After 9-11, business as usual would be an affront to God…. So far, we are not being the salt and light God intended…. We have had very little effect on this society.

It should matter to every Christian that the world around us ignores us, that it does not take us seriously, and even scoffs at our faith.

We have no one to blame but ourselves.

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Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.’ (Matthew 7:23)

Sometimes we read something in the Bible and come away wondering. Matthew 7 is an example.

Jesus told how at the last day–that means at the final judgment–“many” would say to Him, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name?”

His answer (above) is intriguing. It tells us it’s possible for a person to do all kinds of miracle-working ministry in the name of Jesus and still get it wrong. The “lawlessness” in the NKJV is translated as “iniquity” in the KJV. Knox expressed this as “you that traffic in wrongdoing,” J. B. Phillips has it say “you have worked on the side of evil!” and Beck’s translation says “you who are so busy doing wrong.”

This has always puzzled me. But last week something happened to throw light on the issue. And it came from the unlikeliest of sources.

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