Just doing my job…while I still can.

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“Use it or lose it.”  –If that’s not a Scripture, it should be.  (Which means it’s probably in there, but stated otherwise.  Anyone?)

(Several suggested the text should be the Parable of the Talents from Matthew 25.  It begins: “Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and another one talent, each according to his ability.”)

When a pastor with whom I’d just connected on Facebook thanked me “for your unique ministry,” I replied:

I’m only doing the same thing you are–using what God has given me to do what He has told me in the place where He has sent me.

That’s what basic Christian ministry is all about, and it’s available to every child of God, whether we serve in the pulpit or from the pew.

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Show us your faith!

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(second article on the incident of Mark 2:1-12)

“When He entered Capernaum again after some days, it was reported that He was at home.  So many people gathered together that there was no more room, not even in the doorway, and He was speaking the word to them.  Then, they came to Him bringing a paralytic, carried by four men.  Since they were not able to bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above where He was.  And when they had broken through, they lowered the stretcher on which the paralytic was lying.  Seeing their faith, Jesus told the paralytic….” (Mark 2:1ff.)

The Lord can see our faith.

Faith at its simplest and most basic is confidence in Jesus.  “You believe in God,” He said. “Believe also in me” (John 14:1).

Confidence in Jesus Christ affects everything we do. Take the story in Mark 2, for instance….

In a house crowded by listeners, curiosity-seekers, and heresy-hunters, people with actual faith in Jesus stood out prominently.

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Everything begins with listening: Plant yourself at the feet of Jesus.

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(The first of several articles on the incident of Mark 2:1-12)

“When He entered Capernaum again after some days, it was reported that He was at home. So many people gathered together that there was no more room, not even in the door way, and He was speaking the Word to them” (Mark 2:1-2).

Everything starts with listening.

Everywhere the Lord Jesus went, people flocked to hear Him.  They covered hillsides and blanketed lakeshores.  They packed out synagogues and homes, so intent were they on every word coming from those divine lips.  “Never man spake like this man,” they said (John 7:46).

People of our generation prefer to speak than listen, to argue rather than to hear and believe. They want their wisdom reduced to sound bites, to bumper sticker phrases.

“Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God,” says Paul in Romans 10:17. Faith in God is given to those who will hear His Word.

Really hear it. Not just register it or record it, and not just scan it. Take it inwardly and digest it.  Think about it, treasure it in our hearts, and meditate upon it.

You want faith? Want to know if God is real and Jesus is everything He claimed?  Interested in checking out the Christian faith? Perhaps you are tired of seeing people slam Christianity while others glorify it and have decided to see for yourself?  Good.

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False guilt: How to inflict it; How to safeguard against it

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“When He entered Capernaum again after some days, it was reported that He was at home.  So many people gathered together that there was no more room, not even in the door way, and He was speaking the Word to them” (Mark 2:1-2).

The pastor walks to the pulpit, opens the Word, and reads that text. Closing the Bible, he peers over his spectacles at his congregation–filling perhaps half the pews in the auditorium–and begins.

“Did you see what happened here?  The word got out that Jesus was in town and people rushed to hear Him.  You don’t read anywhere about them being told to come. There are no commands given here for those people to assemble together.  And yet, they came. They overflowed the house, so eager were they to meet Jesus and hear His Word for them.”

“Now, contrast that with people today.  They just don’t come to church like that.  If they did, we would not have room in this building to hold all the people.”

From there, this man of God who holds a black belt in guilt, slams the people who did get up and come to church today because some did not.

This is the cheapest kind of preaching.  And the easiest.

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Those who travel first class on the path of righteousness

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“The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).

As a college student, I worked weekends for the Pullman Company, the people who operated the sleeper cars on passenger trains.  It used to fascinate me how people who wished to travel by Pullman had to pay through the nose.

First, their standard ticket had to be upgraded to first class.  This means they were paying extra for the privilege of renting space in the sleeper car.  Then, they paid for the suite or roomette.

I wondered if they did not know the company was sticking it to them. (I believe this three-tiered system is still the custom on Amtrak.)

When I began traveling by plane, I was amazed to see people paying astronomical fares for first class.  Same plane, a little more legroom, coffee in a china cup instead of Styrofoam, and get to deplane first. That was about it.  A status thing? I imagine so.

In the Texas of the 1800s, the stagecoach lines had three levels of tickets: first, second, and third class.  This had nothing to do with where you sat, the food you ate, or when you disembarked.  It involved what you did when the coach got into trouble.

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A cup of cold water to a disciple (a Billy Graham memory)

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“And whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward” (Matthew 10:42).

My friend Barbara was waxing nostalgic about the Coke commercials through the years.  “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing” was the best song at the time (find it on youtube).  And the “Mean Joe Greene” commercial was the absolute best TV ad.

In that commercial, a kid comes up to this an all-pro Pittsburgh Steeler named “Mean Joe Greene” for his toughness and also because Joe Greene is his name and the prefix “Mean” gives it a certain something–and hands him a Coke. Greene has just played his heart out on the field and is clearly exhausted. He swigs down the soft drink. Then, as they are departing, the giant athlete calls out, “Hey kid.” The boy turns around and Greene pitches him the jersey in which he has just played the game.  Ask any fan. It was a great swap and a magic moment.

I thought about the business of giving a cup of cold water–or a Coke–to a great champion and remembered a time when I did something remotely akin to that.

It was November of 1986.

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Love and the law: Best friends?

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I sat in a hospital waiting room and heard the strangest thing.

Two women were arguing religion.  They were strangers to each other and soft-spoken and incredibly gracious.

It was like watching a slow-motion pillow fight.

The first must have been reading something, for she spoke out into the air a comment about the Ten Commandments. The second, on the other side of the room, looked up from her magazine and said, “Christ is the end of the law for those who believe.”

The first said, “Excuse me?”

The second woman repeated what she had said, and added, “It’s what the New Testament says now that Jesus has died for our sins.”

The first politely responded that, “Well, this list of commandments is so important, the classrooms of our schools ought to post them on their walls and every courtroom should display them.”

She said, “I try to keep them every day.”

The second woman said, “The just shall live by faith.”

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Be patient; you never know what that one has been through

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Not long ago, while attending a conference on the campus of a Christian college, I sat in the auditorium with several hundred other ministers and their families.  The pre-session music was provided by a man playing a violin, and doing it rather poorly, I felt.

I am not a musician nor the son of a musician, but I can usually tell when a violin is being played well, and particularly when it isn’t.

As the music ended, our host stepped to the microphone. “We want to thank Mr. Hoskins for playing the violin for us tonight. One month ago, he was in an automobile accident in which his car was totaled. In fact, for a while it appeared that he had lost the use of his hands. So, the music tonight was special for a lot of reasons.”

As the congregation applauded, I slumped down in my seat and felt a sense of shame.

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The church’s dirty little secret

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“Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there…” (Ephesians 4:14).

“Church is the only place on earth where people can throw hissy fits and get away with it.”  –a friend serving his first church after seminary.

I told my minister friend I was sorry he had to learn this dirty little secret about church life.

I asked for his story.  He had two.

A church member attending his class complained because she could not find her workbook. The pastor told her he had borrowed it for another class, and she was welcome to use his.  She said, “Okay. I’ll go home then.”

And she stalked out.

The minister said, “Would she have done that at work?  At the doctor’s office? I think not.”

But she had no problem with putting her immaturity on full display at church.

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How I preach….most of the time.

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A woman came up to me last Saturday night after I’d spoken for 25 minutes at a leadership banquet.  “I love the way you speak out of the overflow.”

Any preacher would love hearing that.

What exactly does that mean, I wondered.

I’ll tell you what I hope it means.  When I preach, my subject is so important to me, I could have gone on another hour without repeating the material or boring the listeners.

I hope that’s true.

I think it is.

A few weeks earlier, Mike McGuffee, a leader with the California Baptist Convention, after hearing me address his pastors several times over three days, had said on the drive to the airport, “Let’s see if I’ve figured out your preaching technique.”

“You build your sermon on one main point.  You back it up by various scriptures, each one with a story to illustrate it.”

I was complimented. Until that moment, I guess I’d never thought of having an actual “technique” to my preaching.  Mostly, it feels like they are slap-dash, a little of this and a lot of that, a good story here and a scriptural illustration there, whatever is necessary to drive home the point the Lord has burdened me with.

The sermon I preached last Sunday morning was made up of 5 points, not one.

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