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Great Expectations
In his book, “A Resilient Life”, Gordon MacDonald recounts his desire to run track for the Stony Brook School. The demanding coach, Marvin Goldberg, was not impressed with Gordon’s great natural talent as it was undisciplined and untested. Gordon waited for weeks for his name to be posted on the bulletin board as one selected for the team and then one day he heard his name called. Not Gordon but Gordie. “Upon hearing my new name, I headed in Goldberg’s direction. He was standing next to the white bulletin board. When I reached him, Goldberg put his hand on my shoulder and began to speak. As best as I can…
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1 Thessalonians 2:13-20
I want to focus this morning on verses 17-20 of Chapter 2. But, brothers and sisters, when we were orphaned by being separated from you for a short time (in person, not in thought), out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you. For we wanted to come to you—certainly I, Paul, did, again and again—but Satan blocked our way. For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy. As most of you know, I worked with pastors of churches…
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1 Thessalonians 2:1-12
Last week we looked at the four phrases Paul used to describe the believers in Thessalonica: Work produced by faith that believes there is a larger purpose to our work. Work produced by faith produces a different kind of work. It is work that is motivated by more than ambition or necessity. Labor prompted by love is work that binds people together. It is work that builds great teams because it values people and not just productivity and accomplishment. Endurance inspired by hope is not just optimism. It is the ability to endure when everything else has been removed, eroded or burned away. It is the rare ability of a leader to…
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1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Paul and Silas spent only three weeks in Thessalonica but he later wrote them at least these two letters. They must have been quite a group of people. The pattern is familiar. Look at Acts 17 for the context. Paul enters a city and heads for the local synagogue to present the Gospel to the Jews. Some Jews believe as do a large number of Greeks – including prominent women. But the Jews who have been hounding Paul along his journey round up some bad characters, form a mob and start a riot accusing Paul of causing trouble all over the world by defying Caesar. It is one of the…
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The Fool Will Stay
There are two kinds of fools in the world. One is the Biblical fool who is best described as a person with no self-control. He is “a larger child” governed by the impulse of the passing moment and with no ability to rule his tongue, emotions, pleasures or thoughts. He is stupid and self-conceited, and with no ability to see himself as he is, rushes to his own destruction hardly thinking at all about what awaits him. Many of the kings were fools and I’ve written before about Samson as a fool but a consecrated fool. God can use even the most tragic of fools. On the other hand, there…
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We Happy Few
While it may be true that history is written by the victors, it is often the tragic last stands that capture our imaginations with the victors being forgotten. This is something of a sacred week in Texas for it was this month in 1836 that a group of 200 volunteer soldiers including Davy Crockett from Tennessee (“You can go to hell. I am going to Texas.”), Jim Bowie, and William Travis held out for thirteen days against a Mexican army of thousands. On the morning of March 6, the Mexican forces broke through a breach in the outer wall of the Alamo and overpowered them. Ordered to take no prisoners…
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Daniel’s Prayer
With all that is happening in Ukraine this week it is difficult for me to focus on the assignment this morning. I would much rather go into a rant about Putin and the lunatics in this country who are supporting his invasion of a sovereign country in the vain hopes of recapturing a lost dream of domination and empire. That is what I would like to do but that is not what we are going to do. This morning as our final lesson in Daniel we are going to look at Chapter 9 and the prayer of Daniel. But before we do that we should take time to look back…
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The Moment Between
The mix in the air sustaining us is 20% oxygen and 80% nitrogen. Oxygen is food for fire and nitrogen builds structure. We know too much oxygen is fatal and needs nitrogen’s stability but nitrogen needs oxygen’s ability to ignite. Every social and religious movement needs both and that is where the Apostle Paul and those who wanted to keep the new faith as part of the old conflicted. Paul was not just a breath of fresh air to Judaism. He was pure oxygen. The Swiss psychologist, Erik Erikson, studied men and women who start movements and wrote. “Virtually every leader of a movement for change has a San Andreas…
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Daniel 7: The Four Beasts
For thousands of years we have been curious about the end of the world. Some of the earliest literature in the we have is focused on how the everything will end. For the past 100 years in this country, Bible studies on the end times and Christian fiction have been best sellers. The more dangerous and filled with conflict our lives have become the more these books have increased in sales. The world seems like it is constantly on the eve of destruction. Wars and rumors of wars are good news for book sales about the doom awaiting us. Likely, everyone here read Hal Lindsay’s “The Late Great Planet Earth”…
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A String Around The Tree
I was born in 1946 – one year after Torrey Johnson Billy Graham and Chuck Templeton met and formed Youth For Christ. For years I heard the stories of how Chuck was in fact the better preacher and everyone expected him to “turn the world around.” Known as the “gold-dust twins” Billy and Chuck travelled and preached together to large crowds of teenagers until 1948. It was then that Chuck decided he wanted more theological training and tried unsuccessfully to recruit Billy to go with him to Princeton Theological Seminary. While Billy Graham wrestled through his own spiritual crisis at Forest Home Retreat Center in California and concluded that even…
