Swagger: To carry oneself–walking, talking, daily activities–with an attitude of confidence, even boldness.
Here is our Scripture for today, class:
“Be strong and of good courage. Do not fear them. The Lord is with you. Since God is for us, who can be against us? I can do all things through Him who strengthens me!”
There! That’ll put the iron in your backbone, Christian.
Three quick little incidents need relating here….
The Huey P. Long Bridge crosses the Mississippi River a few miles downriver from here. It was dedicated in 1935, a time when cars were small and narrow and governments needed to put men to work. That’s why they gave New Orleans its first bridge across the river and named it after this politician of dubious merit. (That’s a pet peeve of mine, but I’ll move right along.)
The problem with that bridge for all the decades since is that its two lanes were too narrow and curving for modern cars and trucks. Each lane was 9 feet wide, with no shoulders alongside. Signs forbade trucks from passing anyone, and motorists caught up on their prayers driving across it. It really could be frightening.
Then, in recent years, the government finally decided it was high time to upgrade that bridge, and shelled out something like a billion dollars to widen it and correct some of its flaws. These days, driving across that huge wide expanse is a pure joy. (The lanes are 11 feet wide, bordered by a 2 feet-wide shoulder to the inside and an 8-foot shoulder to the outside.)
What I wanted to tell you, though, was something an engineer said about the original bridge, something I find fascinating.
“If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask Him and He would give you living water” (John 4:10).
Rhonda Harrington Kelley is a preacher’s wife.
But not like any other preacher’s wife you know.
Now, Rhonda Kelley herself is quite an individual. She has a Doctorate from the University of New Orleans and is a professor in New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. And she is married to the President of that preacher-training institution, Dr. Chuck Kelley. Furthermore, she is the daughter of another preacher, Bob Harrington, known for decades as “the chaplain of Bourbon Street.” (Her mother is the wonderful Joyce Harrington, a fixture in New Orleans’ First Baptist Church and easily one of the most wonderful people I know.) Rhonda Kelley is the author of many books, including serving as co-editor with Dorothy Kelley on “The Study Bible for Women,” among other books.
But don’t let all that fool you. She’s funny, she’s happy, and she’s loving. You would adore her. I promise.
Okay. I’m leading up to something here.
“If I had decided to say these things aloud, I would have betrayed Your people” (Psalm 73:15).
I fear for the souls of those who write and speak of their hostility to the Christian faith, to declare their atheism, and to denounce Scripture.
What if they change their minds?
It has happened.
And yet, that “thing” they wrote is out there, wreaking its havoc, doing its damage, spreading its slander. Meanwhile, the author would give anything to have not written it and to get it back.
What some do, I fear is, rather than going public with their regret and asking for forgiveness, they compound the error.
“I solemnly charge you: preach the gospel; persist in it whether convenient or not….” (2 Timothy 4:1-2).
I’m worn out this Monday morning. In the last 7 days, I have preached in Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Alabama. (That would be New Orleans, Charlotte, Charleston, and Albertville.)
In the process, I logged almost 2,000 miles in my little Honda CR-V. .
I met a thousand new friends, and was able to visit with and encourage many pastors whom I was meeting for the first time.
They paid me, too, in case anyone wonders. Actual money.
Several questions linger on this (very early) Monday morning….
“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2).
“The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 19:34).
I had been reading in our local paper that the New Orleans Museum of Art’s display of artifacts from the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 would be closing its run soon, and I wanted to see this. My wife was out of town, so this would be a good time.
So, that Tuesday afternoon, after finishing my hospital rounds, I drove to the museum in City Park, arriving around 4 pm. I made my way around the barricades that obstructed the newly completed entrance and prepared to buy a ticket. Signs said the museum closed at 5 pm. And yet, something was wrong.
The entrance was closed and the ticket booth was shut down.
I stood there a moment wondering if I’d been mistaken about the time.
Just then, a couple of young adults stepped out of the ticket booth. I said, “Are you closed?”
One of the men said, “The exhibit takes two hours to see, so we stop selling tickets at 4 o’clock since you could not complete it before the museum closes.” I was stunned.
“For if anyone is a hearer of he word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was” (James 1:23-24).
I asked my friend Freddie Arnold what to do about the mildew on my concrete.
Our water heater had busted and water leaked everywhere in the garage. After we mopped it up and replaced the heater, I noticed that the water had soaked into some things stored in the cluttered garage and we had a mildew problem. Freddie would know what to do.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina’s flooding of metro New Orleans, the procedure for restoring many of the damaged homes was to throw away all the furnishings, mud out the floors, then strip out the sheetrock down to the studs. At that point, you treated everything for mildew. Only after you were certain there was no mildew would you start to rebuild. Because Freddie Arnold was knowledgeable about these things, in his role as Disaster Relief foreman and NOBA assistant DOM, he led in the salvaging of hundreds of homes.
I called Freddie at the East Baton Rouge Baptist Association where he’s working these days in semi-retirement. (A joke. Freddie has never done half a job in his life. Pay him for half a day’s work and you will get far more than you expected.) He told me what to buy to treat the mildew and I wrote it down.
And promptly forgot what he had said.
“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed…” (Matthew 13:31)
“He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much….” (Luke 16:10)
When the Heavenly Father gets ready to do something major, He loves to begin in tiny, unseen ways.
When He was ready to deliver Israel from slavery in Egypt, He called an 80-year-old has-been who was keeping sheep on the backside of a mountain. When the Lord got ready to redeem the world, He sent a Baby.
When He decided to do something grand, He called you.
So many scriptures make the point that God specializes in using the tiny and insignificant to accomplish great things. The parable of the mustard seed in Matthew 13:31-32 says it. The question of Jonathan in I Samuel 14:6 says it. The Lord’s approval of the widow who brought her tiny offering says it (Mark 12:41ff). The little boy’s lunch in John 6:9. Old Simeon and Anna in Luke 2. Mustardseed faith in Luke 17:6. Ordinary people in I Corinthians 1:26.
Zechariah’s question–“Who has despised the day of small things?”–lays the matter squarely before us (Zech. 4:10).
Who despises small things? The unthinking and the shallow-minded, that’s who. The carnal-minded who wants glitter and drama, who prizes celebrity and gaudiness.
We have learned about the power of small things. There is the atom. Nuclear energy. The hummingbird. Honey-bees. Bed bugs. Viruses. Babies. Puppies. Words of encouragement. And a hug.
“Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; therefore, be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16).
This is a brief Bible study. (Just so you’ll know. Smiley-face here.)
For Christian workers, one of the most significant Scripture passages is the commission the Lord gave His disciples just before sending them out on a short-term assignment. This is found in Matthew 10 and Luke 10. In Luke’s account, the commissioning takes 16 verses, but in Matthew’s, it’s a full 42 verses–so therefore, my favorite, since it’s far more helpful.
At that point the 12 apostles were something like seminary students, preachers in training with diverse backgrounds and limited experience. (Some of us used to stand on the street corners in the French Quarter preaching. And, we roamed up and down the sidewalks with handfuls of tracts talking to strangers. We were in boot camp, learning how to talk to people about Jesus.) That’s what was happening with these disciples.
Sometime in the 1930s people who were hunting down chimpanzees in Africa contracted the HIV virus that led to the AIDS disease. Later, when those men consorted with prostitutes, the disease was on its way. Then, when airlines developed to the point of providing intercontinental connections, the disease crossed the world.
Worldwide, we’re told that 36 million people have died from AIDS.
“Patient Zero”–the person who transported the HIV virus to America–was a flight attendant for Air Canada.
We owe that man so much.
He was truly a person of great and far-reaching influence.
But all in the wrong way.