A word for you who are overly familiar with the story of Jesus

Posted on by
Reply

As good as it is to have been almost literally raised in the church, it does have its downside. A positive is our familiarity with the Holy Scriptures. It’s great to be able to say with Paul of Timothy, “From a child you have known the Holy Scriptures” (II Tim. 3:15).

But that’s not all good.

Familiarity breeds contempt, the saying goes. In our case, it’s not so much contempt which we long-term church members contend with so much as–how to put this now–boredom. We have heard it so many times, it has lost its edge.

One of the greatest achievements of the Holy Spirit in our lives is to continually sharpen our commitment to Christ and our enjoyment of Him. He alone keeps putting the edge on our faith.

When we drift from faithfulness to the Lord–and by that I mean nothing in the world so much as we quit praying and reading the Word–the Holy Spirit, who can take a hint and know when He is not wanted, turns to others who want His help. You and I are hardly aware that He has moved away. Sometimes we are the last to see that something vital has changed….

We have lost our edge. We have become bored with our faith and boring in our proclamation of it.

Continue reading →

Words have power to knock you down. Or to pick you up.

Posted on by
Reply

Everyone needs a verse of Scripture to call his own. Here is mine.

Old Job was having a time of it. After the death of his children and the loss of his wealth, disease racked his body, leaving him covered with sores. Then, three friends showed up to comfort him–with accusations and blame. He needed a defense attorney and got instead three prosecutors!

The first speaker begins to set Job up for a fall. He’s going to accuse him of having sin in his life which has brought the judgment of God. But first, he reminds him of the way God has used him in the past.

Your words have stood men on their feet; you have helped the tottering to stand. (Job 4:4)

Tell me if that is not one of the finest attributes one man could ever pay another. It has become something of a goal for my preaching, that my sermons would be so filled with life and faith that the falling and the fallen would hear and stand up again and get back into life.

What power words have…

–When Eric Plumb entered the fourth grade, he missed the first two weeks due to a case of the mumps. As a result, he never caught on to the math they were studying that year. The teacher was a crabby, negative, cruel woman who was retiring at the end of that school term, the worst possible representative of her profession. She pounced on Eric and held him up to ridicule at every opportunity. When he missed an answer in arithmetic, which was often, she would say, “Eric is dumb. Eric Plumb is dumb. Eric Plumb is plumb dumb.” The students laughed at her put-down, no doubt glad someone else was her target for a while. To no one’s surprise, Eric grew to hate school.

Continue reading →

Preaching on finances. Pastor, you need to do that.

Posted on by
1

This is an untouched reprint of an article from this website some years back.  

Barry is the treasurer of his church. A few days ago, he sat in my office and told me of the financial trouble his church had found itself in. They are running some thirty thousand dollars behind their million dollar budget. I said, “Do you have unpaid bills?” “No,” he said. I said, “And your church is without a pastor?” “Right.” I said, “Friend, you don’t have a financial crisis. Your church is doing just fine. Besides, you’re going to get a new leader. The offerings will go up once he arrives and begins his ministry. Stop worrying.”

On the other hand, a new pastor told how his church is not responding to his sermons on stewardship. “In fact,” he said, “the Sunday after I preached on giving, the offerings actually went down. I’ve been in the pastorate a long time, but never had that happen.”

I said, “I think I know what happened.” He was all ears. I said, “Not all churches are alike. Some have members with deep pockets. When the church gets behind financially, the pastor brings it to their attention, and they bring in the money, and the crisis ends. However, I’ve known your church for many years. You don’t have wealthy people. So, they’re not going to be able to respond immediately to your stewardship lessons. But just stay the course. Keep telling them. They’ll come through.”

A few weeks later, I was in his church and picked up the Sunday bulletin, and noticed that the offering for that day was 50% above the weekly budget requirements. His people are giving.

“I don’t like to preach on money,” a pastor told me. As the Director of Missions for the Baptist churches in the New Orleans area, I sometimes serve as a sounding board for our pastors. I listened as he continued. “My people resent sermons on giving, like I’m trying to invade their bank account or steal out of their wallet. So I just don’t do it. If the money comes in and the bills are paid, then everyone is happy and I’m spared having to preach on it. After all, that’s the point. Right?”

Continue reading →

Hospitality to strangers: I love receiving it, love giving it.

Posted on by
Reply

(This is a repost from this website in 2004.  Rather than update it, I’ve decided to reprint it as is.  We were living in metro New Orleans where I’d been pastoring since 1990.  Sometime in the Spring of 2004, I left the pastorate and became Director of Missions for all the Southern Baptist churches of metro New Orleans, a five parish area that reached west to LaPlace and south to the end of the Mississippi River.) 

It was Monday and I was headed for Alexandria, three hours away, for our annual Louisiana Baptist Convention due to get underway at 5:30 that evening. I’ve made the drive from our New Orleans home so many times–Interstate 10 west through Baton Rouge to LaFayette, then north on Interstate 49 to Alexandria–that I needed a change of scenery. That’s why I took highway 190 out of Baton Rouge, through the sugar cane country toward Opelousas, then north on US 71 to Alexandria.

In the little town of Bunkie, I came upon a gasoline war of sorts, with service stations selling their stuff for $1.75 a gallon. I stopped to fill up and noticing the time, asked the attendant, “Where’s a good place to eat around here? A plate lunch.” He said, “The Bailey Hotel. One block past the light, then left one block.”

The sign in front says the Bailey was built in 1907, although the building has that fresh, springlike appearance like someone has just sunk some money into this place. Inside, I was the only diner in the restaurant, unless you counted the happy chattering of the Lions’ Club on the other side of the partition. As I sat there enjoying the special of the day, a little white-haired lady entered the room and began rearranging flowers. She greeted me and said something, and in a minute she was standing at my table telling me about the Bailey Hotel.

“I told my son not to buy this place three years ago. But he bought it anyway. And we’re glad. We love it. Although we need to get the word out on the rooms. These 30 rooms could use some customers.”

Continue reading →

Serving the Lord emphatically

Posted on by
Reply

“What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the housetops” (Matthew 10:27).

“The disciples went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name” (Acts 5:41).

“Nobody ever enjoyed the presidency as I did…. While president I have been president emphatically.”  –Theodore Roosevelt, quoted by David McCullough in “The American Spirit”

“The Lord does not want your spare time and loose change.”  –Pastor Brent Thompson, Heflin (AL) Baptist Church.

The Lord wants His people to live life emphatically.  “Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might,” says Ecclesiastes 9:10.

We are to seize the day, live each moment, and to delight ourselves in Him.

Listen to Paul as he seeks to motivate and energize young Pastor Timothy:

“You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.  And the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also…”

“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth….”

“I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom, preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction….”

“But you be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”  (all quotations from 2 Timothy)

Timothy was preaching to God’s people at Ephesus (I Timothy 1:3).  So, his father in the ministry, the esteemed Apostle Paul, was telling him to “pastor those people emphatically.”

Continue reading →

The Lord sees you. That could be encouraging, could be threatening.

Posted on by
Reply

“God is Watching.”  –sign over the door of Gwen Williams’ home in Picayune, Mississippi.

Pastor John Ed Mathiston told his congregation in Montgomery, Alabama a story about kindness.

“Not long ago, a man from the Middle East walked into a new car showroom and asked to speak with a particular salesperson.  The receptionist called for him, the fellow walked to the front, and they greeted each other.

The foreigner said, “I’d like to buy some trucks.”

Some trucks. That caught the sales guy’s attention.

“What did you have in mind, sir?”

“I want to buy 750 heavy duty trucks and 250 pickups.”

The salesman is stunned.  Surely someone is pulling a prank.  This cannot be happening.

The Middle Easterner pulls out a letter of credit with a huge American bank.  It is legitimate. This is the real deal.

The salesman says, “Sir, you know you can go to Detroit and buy those trucks at a huge discount.”

The customer said, “Sir, ten years ago I was a college student in your city.  Being from the Middle East made it hard for Americans to befriend me.  I soon discovered you have to have a car in America, so I came to you.  I picked out a car.  You said to me, ‘I can sell you that car and I’ll make a nice commission. But you would not be happy with it.  It’s more car than you need.’ So you sold me a smaller car.  It was the nicest thing anyone in America had ever done for me.  And I decided I would repay you when I got a chance.  So, I want to buy one thousand trucks through you.”

Dr. Mathiston, who told that story, was pastor of Frazer Memorial UMC in Montgomery (until he retired in 2008).  I heard him tell the story, wrote it down, and then used it on the radio in New Orleans.  The story is found in my journal for that year, 1999.  No other details are given.  Nor did the pastor cite his source.  But it’s a great reminder that small acts of kindness may reap great rewards.  But whether they do or don’t, doing right is always the right thing to do.

Historians tell us that Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto studied and traveled in America in the 1920s.  He was once turned away from a San Francisco barber shop because he was Japanese.  And he never forgot the slight.  For the first half of World War II, he oversaw Japan’s attack on the USA.

Continue reading →

Once saved for always? Oh really?

Posted on by
6

Imagine this scenario.

Suppose I bought a car on credit.  Each month, they deducted a certain amount from my checking account. And finally, I get it paid off.  And then…

At the end, I get a certified letter saying something like this:

“Dear Customer: It has been our pleasure to receive your bank draft for $428.51 each month over the past year and a half. We here in the corporate offices of Auto Financial Services have come to a decision and want to inform you that we wish to continue receiving this amount from you after the contract has expired.  We know that you are enjoying your new automobile and therefore will want to do your part to maintain this wonderful relationship.  However, our legal department informs us that we should alert you to the reality that if you discontinue making these monthly payments, we will be forced to repossess the car.  Have a nice day.”

So, even after the car is paid for, I must keep making the payments if I wish to continue owning their car.  Miss a payment and they take it back.

Yikes.

All right.  It’s just a little fantasy. Or perhaps a parable.  Now, imagine this.

What if the Lord in Heaven said to us, “I have given you salvation.  It is eternal. Salvation is a free gift.  You did nothing to deserve it. In fact, quite the opposite. After all, the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. You no doubt have read that in Romans 6:23. Now, that’s all well and good, but there is something in the fine print which you might have missed.”

Continue reading →

Tell the truth, preacher. Or find another profession.

Posted on by
1

I knew Lawrence well and spent a lot of time with him.  He pastored some sizeable churches and was often in demand as a guest speaker.

I must have heard him give his testimony a dozen times or more.

Lawrence did not come from a Christian family.  He was around 10 years old when his family moved into that neighborhood in some east Texas town.  As the family was still unloading the truck and setting things up, a man knocked at the door.

Introducing himself as a deacon in the local Baptist church, the man told Lawrence’s mother that he taught a Sunday School class of boys. “Did I see a tow-headed boy running around here somewhere?”

“That would be Lawrence,” she said as she called for him.  “This man wants you to go to Sunday School with him.”

As the deacon extended his invitation, Lawrence listened and nodded. He would say later, “I had already learned the way to deal with church people was to agree with them.”

He had no intention of going to that or anybody else’s Sunday School class.

The man said, “Now, Lawrence, I’ll be by in the morning around 9 am to get you.  You be ready.”

The next morning at 8 o’clock there was a knock at the door.  The deacon said to a sleepy-headed boy, “Good morning, Lawrence.  Get some clothes on and eat some cereal and I’ll be by in an hour to get you.”  And he left.

“Now, what are you going to do with a fellow like that?” Lawrence would ask his audience.

And that’s how it happened that Lawrence began going to a wonderful church where he heard the Gospel and came to know Christ and eventually received the call to preach.

One Sunday some years later, the pastor asked members of the congregation to go to the individual who had invited them to church or had had the most to do with their coming to Christ.  Lawrence spotted that Sunday School teacher in the choir and started toward him.

That’s when he noticed a long string of men, young and not so young, like stairsteps, lined up to shake that man’s hand and thank him.

It was a good story.

Too bad it wasn’t true.

Continue reading →

Lily, a senior lady in my church who blessed my life

Posted on by
Reply

Lily has been in Heaven for some 15 years or more. She left no children, so there’s no one left of her family to read this and no good reason not to tell it.

Lily was a classy lady, about the age of my father and the widow of an executive who left her fairly well off, although not rich. Before retiring, she had put in a full career as a public school librarian.  Because she had no children she was generous with her two nieces, with her church, her college, and her pastors.

When I announced I was leaving and would no longer be her pastor, she invited me to lunch and handed me a check for $1,000. “I want you to come back and do my funeral.”  I forget my exact promise to her, but it was probably along the lines of “If I possibly can, I will be here.”  Pastors are unable to make long-range open-ended promises because of the nature of their responsibilities. (Complicating the matter was that I had taken a leave of absence from that church with no knowledge of where the Lord would be sending me next. Distance could be an issue on returning for her funeral, as well as unforeseeable circumstances.)

Over the next few years, she would repeat the “agreement” we had, that I was expected to do her funeral.

Lily was one of those members who refuses to let go of the former preacher. She stayed in touch through an occasional letter or phone call. When a relative drove her to Baton Rouge to visit a friend, they detoured down to New Orleans to see us.

One day I received a letter from her with a check for $10,000. She made it out to my church to use any way we pleased.  It allowed us to do something I had long wanted to do, a morning radio program (a live two-minute Phone Call from the Pastor) over the seminary’s Christian station.  Lily’s gift funded it for several years.

Continue reading →

The Lord felt so near

Posted on by
3

I’ve been thinking on the nearness of the Lord.  Those special times when His presence was a living reality.  You felt you could almost reach out and touch Him.

This month’s issue of DECISION magazine, the evangelical publication from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, has the story of Missionary John Paton until the title Alone in the Tanna tree: John Paton’s faith in the darkest hour.  Taken from his memoir, it’s about the time in the New Hebrides islands when a cannibal tribe was after him.  The chief was his friend, but a war chief was leading the search for Paton.

The chief had his son lead Missionary Paton to a large chestnut tree.  He was instructed to remain in the tree until nighttime.  Paton wrote: The hours I spent there live all before me as if it were but of yesterday.  I heard the frequent discharging of muskets, and the yells of the savages.  Yet I sat there among the branches, as safe in the arms of Jesus!

Never in all my sorrows did my Lord draw nearer to me, and speak more soothingly in my soul, than when the moonlight flickered among those chestnut leaves, and the night air played on my throbbing brow, as I told all my heart to Jesus.  Alone, yet not alone! If it be to glorify my God, I will not grudge to spend many nights alone in such a tree, to feel again my Savior’s spiritual presence, to enjoy His consoling fellowship.

As I reflected on Mr. Paton’s experience, I thought of two things.

Continue reading →