“….our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel….” (II Timothy 1:10)

Slam-dunk, this is as good as it gets.

Why do we owe so much to Jesus? Why has eternity changed for us? Why do we go forward with our heads held high, undaunted by the unknown?  Because Jesus Christ abolished death and brought to light life and immortality.

It makes a world of difference.

This is part of a larger sentence, one that starts with 1:8 and continues through verse 11. The larger thought–the full context–is much broader than that, even.

The entire thing is a mother lode of insight, inspiration, and instruction.

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“But the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me…” (II Timothy 4:17)

The present spate of books about how “I died for a few minutes and went to Heaven and here is what I saw” is not a new thing. A generation ago, there were similar books, all variations of “my four minutes in heaven.”

I read some of those books, but none of the recent ones.

Here’s why.

The Apostle Paul had just such an experience and refused to write about it. In II Corinthians 12, he tells us: “I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago–whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows–anyway, this man was caught up to the third heaven. He heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak. I’m going to refrain from speaking of this, lest it sound like I’m boasting.” (My paraphrase.)

The best guess is Paul is referring to the time when he was stoned “to death” on his first missionary journey (recorded in Acts 14:19-20). The attackers considered him dead, and perhaps he was, at least momentarily. But God was not ready for him yet; his great lifework was still ahead, so the Lord sent him back. (For which we are eternally grateful.)

But Paul refused to write a best-seller and tell us what he saw.

That caution which Paul felt has not kept many today from telling their stories, publishing their best-sellers, getting on all the talk-shows, and raking in huge sums from royalties and speaking fees.

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“The just shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:17)

“Without faith, it is impossible to please Him.” (Hebrews 11:6)

Here is how the process works….

IN SALVATION.

I do not know all the answers to my questions, do not know how the Lord will save me or what happens to my sins or how He can help me overcome my bad habits and weaknesses. I do not know what kind of life will open before me as a believer, nor how my friends and family will take my newfound faith. There is so much I do not know.

But I come to Jesus anyway. By faith.

IN CONFESSING CHRIST.

I do not know where I will find the courage to stand up before even this church crowd, how much more the world outside the church, and confess that I am now following Jesus. I do not know what this will involve, what the Lord will expect of me, how people will react or what I am to say and do.

Yet, I will confess Jesus anyway. I will do so by faith.

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“The just shall live by faith” (Habakkuk 2:4; Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11)

“Without faith, it is impossible to please Him” (Hebrews 11:6).

Whoever would follow Jesus Christ in this world must plan to do a great many things by faith.

Believers will not have all the evidence they would like, cannot see the obstructions and blessings awaiting them, and will not learn until Heaven what their obedience accomplished.

We will live by incomplete evidence, partial information, and spotty results, or we will not make it.

The person who walks and lives by faith may be asked to do things that make no sense to outsiders, take stands that are understood and valued only by the Almighty (and later by history), and become a spectacle to people who do not know the Lord and see everything through the prism of today’s culture.

We will be considered foolish by some, naive by others, and misguided by many, or we will not accomplish His purposes for us. We will be labeled and libeled, persecuted and prosecuted, for nothing more than telling the world of the love of God and attempting to live out that love’s demands.

It’s all about faith. However, living by faith–thinking, acting, reacting, speaking, working, fighting, and loving by confidence in the living God–is the hardest part of the Christian life.

It’s so hard, in fact, that many who start out following Jesus cannot handle it and eventually drop out.

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“Now, I urge you brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them.”  (Romans 16:17)

Not everyone is qualified to serve and lead in the Lord’s church.

Don’t miss that– “to serve and to lead.”  In the Lord’s work, serving and leading often consist of the same activities, performed by the same people. The Lord’s best servants are the congregation’s best leaders. Those who lead best are humble servants willing to stoop and wash the feet or rise and lead the charge, whatever the situation requires.

The one unwilling to serve is unqualified to lead.

Recently, a pastor told me about a staff member his church had been considering bringing on board. When she balked at a background check, refusing to let the leadership look into her history, all the red flags went up and they called a halt to the proceedings. Something in her background apparently worked against her usefulness to that church. Finding this out before she came on board may have helped the church avoid a major problem.

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Writing an article on something so obvious as “it’s good to outline a sermon” is akin to announcing “life is good, trees are tall, flowers are pretty.”

But, for the right-brainers (like me) out there who struggle with this, things are not quite so obvious or simple.  Anyone who ever heard the Granddaddy of all Right-Brain Preachers, the inimitable Calvin Miller, has seen upclose and personal the two great sides of “out of the overflow preaching” which occupied this space last time: a) It’s a delight to hear; b) it’s impossible to follow. That is to say, you love the experience but could not reproduce it in a thousand years.

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(For this article, we enlisted the aid of our Facebook friends. We’re quoting them here, but not verbatim. They will recognize themselves. Thanks, guys.)

“The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul… They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb…. In keeping them there is great reward.” (Psalm 19:7-11)

The Bible loves the Bible.

From one end to the other, God’s word tells us how wonderful is God’s word. Better than gold and sweeter than honey it is. Job said, “I have esteemed the words of Thy mouth more than my necessary food” (Job 23:12).

We preachers believe this. And we say those words to our people. We like our people to bring their Bibles to church, open them as we read and preach, and use them when they return home.

There is nothing wrong with our aspirations in this regard.

When it comes to connecting our people with God’s word personally to the point that they will become ardent readers and diligent students of Scripture, we should give ourselves a C-minus, however. And sometimes, an F.

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(Don’t miss the post script at the end.)

“Thanks, pastor. I plan to arrive Saturday in time to meet you for dinner. My travel arrangements? Oh, I’ll be driving.”

Now, I don’t mind flying to preach in your church. Next month in fact, I’ll be taking a plane to Orlando for a revival meeting, and the following month to Denver for a Sunday morning service in Aurora.

Last March, I flew to Italy for a week. I don’t mind flying.

But I’d rather drive if that’s doable.

Later this week, for instance, I’ll be driving to a weekend of ministry for a church in the Fort Worth, Texas area.  Since hopping a plane between New Orleans (the airport is 1 mile from my house as the Cessna flies) and D-FW is so simple and efficient, that seemed the most practical alternative. But when I went online to arrange a ticket, I was too late or something. The direct flights were full and closed and expensive, and the others had me flying around the world and getting home in the wee hours of Monday morning.  So, I opted out of that and thought of a plan (see below).

I love to drive and drive I will this week.  And, in doing so, I will try to make the most of it.

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“O Jerusalem, O Jerusalem….” (Matthew 23:37)

I was 13 years old and riding the schoolbus home. During the nearly hour-long drive, I kept noticing a thin trail of white smoke in the distance. At one point, someone stopped the bus and asked for my older brothers to go with them. Since older brothers seem always to have their own agenda, there was nothing unusual about that, I thought.

Finally, the bus reached our little county highway. The last stop before our place was the home of a cousin. As he stepped off the bus, his mother came out of the house and called, “Joe, y’all’s house burned down.”

That’s how my two sisters and younger brother and I found it out. They started crying. The bus let us off at our stop, but we still had a quarter-mile walk down the unpaved road, up the hill, and around the curve. As we entered the clearing, no one and nothing could have prepared us for the sight. Where our house had stood that morning was now a blackened cemetery, the ebony gravestones poking up, the white trail of smoke still rising. Family members stood around the perimeter, no one doing much of anything, just crying, hugging, and talking in low tones for some reason.

It felt like a wake.

Even though in the aftermath of that fire, our family reaped a hundred wonderful blessings, the day still looms in our collective memory as the death of a loved one.

How to give someone bad news is what this is about.

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This is a good place for a text that speaks to the issue.

There isn’t one.

I’m sorry. (Sorrier than I can tell you. Every preacher would love to have it spelled out in scriptural black and white that the minister can marry certain couples and should decline invitations to join in holy matrimony certain others.)

One of the first eye-openers to hit most beginning pastors is discovering that the Bible does not authorize the minister to marry anyone, much less whom and under what conditions.

I recall my surprise on finding that the Bible contains no wedding ceremonies. None, nada. It is not silent about marriage, but completely mute on weddings (well, other than the fact that Jesus catered the wine for one in Cana of Galilee, but as a card-totin’ Southern Baptist, I am not going there!).

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