I could see each of them as clearly as I could see the traffic jams on Highway 183, as clearly as I could see the dirt caked on my truck after a long cross-country deployment, as clearly as I could see the stunned faces of the overflow crowd in the sanctuary on the day I resigned my last pastorate. I saw those visions as clearly as I could see the pizza box in my trunk as I retrieved it to deliver it with a forced smile and the hope of a generous tip. They were as real to me as the snoring drunk in the backseat of the Yellow taxi cab I was driving well after midnight on a Friday.

I saw them before they existed.

I did, however, forget to see the check. Jim Carrey did not.

As Oprah said, “Who would have thought, in all of the years of the Oprah Show, that Jim Carrey would be one of our greatest teachers?”

Carrey told Oprah and her audience that when he was jobless, he drove up to Mulholland Drive to imagine himself living there and his phone ringing off the hook with offers for movies. He stayed there and imagined it until it felt real.

“I wrote myself a 10 million dollar check,” he said, “and carried it in my wallet.”

He had post-dated the check for a certain date. The check became worn and was deteriorating over time, but just before the date on the check, he landed a movie that paid him exactly $10 million.

You probably know that Walt Disney’s most famous quote is, “If we can dream it, we can do it.”

It is such an inspiring thought, and Disney is an inspiring dreamer. The trouble is, he apparently never said it at all. It was an unknown Copywriter for General Electric named Cherylyn Silverstein who wrote it as part of a recruitment campaign to attract new employees to share their vision and shoulder the work of their dreams.

Silverstein also wrote Olive Garden’s famous slogan, “When you’re here, you’re family.”

When I opened Adjust U in Grand Prairie, I made use of a privacy wall in the facility. It hid the restrooms from the lobby. The wall is the first thing you see when you walk in. I decided to design a logo that had a collegiate look and feel (hence, Adjust U). Underneath the logo was the tag line, Dream Up!

As a boy, I had what my mother described as an overactive imagination. I had imaginary friends. She had to interact with them, set a place at the table for them, be careful not to shut them out when I was coming in from playing outside. I dreamed up worlds and lived in them.

I still do in the short stories, poetry, and novels I write.

I’ve always been a dreamer.

I thought about that phrase, “Dream up,” and I thought, “If you are going to dream, then dream UP.”

Imagine yourself better. Imagine doing more. Imagine living on a higher plane. Imagine raising the stakes. Imagine hitting the jackpot. Imagine closing the deal. Imagine yourself in that house and neighborhood you love. Imagine your relationships fulfilling. Imagine. Dream. Up.

I am not saying that we can all cash Jim Carrey’s check. You may be Carrey, or you may be Cherylyn. You may land the big parts and cash the massive checks. Or, you may write the slogans everyone quotes but no one knows it is you they quote.

Either way, you made your mark. You made the world a better place. You dreamed it. You did it.

Cash that check, even if it isn’t money in the bank. It may be the satisfaction of relentlessly pursuing your dream well past the “good enough” stage. It may shine in the eyes of someone you inspired, or beat in the heart of your children. It may be your name on the business card or your foot in the door. It may be the cigar you smoke on the back porch at the end of a hard day of giving it all you have.

Dream. Up.

So far, we have done…

• The Devil Wears Prada

• Catch Me If You Can

• There Will Be Blood

We have titled today’s sermon, The Sting!

Let’s reference our text, which is found in Proverbs 6:16–19:

There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to Him:
haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that run swiftly to evil,
a false witness who gives false testimony,
and one who stirs up discord among brothers.

“A heart that devises wicked schemes.”

Redford, Newman, and Me Coming of Age in ‘78

On Christmas Day, 1973, Universal Pictures released The Sting, starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman. The film is set in the 1930s and follows two grifters, played by Redford and Newman, as they pull off a big con against a ruthless Chicago crime boss. It was nominated for 10 Academy Awards and won seven of them. It became the fourth-highest grossing film at that time.

I did not get to go to the theatre in those days. My parents wouldn’t allow it. If I went, I had to be sneaky about it. So, I missed it. But in November of 1978, when I was 17 years old, the movie came to television for the first time. ABC featured it on their series called Sunday Night Movie. They won the night, claiming 60% of the television audience during that time slot.

I watched it with my Dad. He was a huge Newman and Redford fan, and so was I, because of their western movie Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. He and I loved westerns. I think Mom just loved Newman and Redford. She watched The Sting with us.

I felt so sophisticated, watching and understanding the elaborate scheme Newman and Redford pulled off. And Newman’s character had those slick hands that could manipulate cards like a magician. Add that ragtime vibe, the colorful attire, the slick, smooth personas of the best-looking men in Hollywood, and it made a young man like me want to pull off a con.

I got to root for bad guys because they were doing the bad things to a worse guy, so they were, by comparison, the good guys.

Ah, the wonder of relativism! The beauty of honor among thieves.

The world—and Hollywood, in particular—has done a great job glorifying criminality, as long as it is…

a) “justified”—meaning the mark deserves what he gets,
b) “reactionary”—meaning the mark did something bad first,
c) “lucrative”—meaning you got away with it and the big bag of cash,
d) “entertaining.”

The Original Stinger

When we think of Bible characters, we tend to put them into some special category, separate from the ordinary humans whose lives and deeds didn’t make the cut and were never included in the Book of God. What we forget is their humanity. Even the giants, the heroes, the Robert Redfords and the Paul Newmans of the Bible were men and women battling the same demons you and I face in our ordinary lives. They were making decisions, scheming, and plotting their way through life, too.

Jacob was Newman and Redford rolled up into one. I don’t know if he was better looking than either of them, but he was more consequential than both of them put together, and probably smarter, too, truth be told. And he was a great actor!

But he was a grifter.

He pulled off, not one, but two stings that made the biblical script.

Mark #1: Esau, the Justified Scam

You know the story, right? If not, you can read all about it in Genesis, chapters 25–27.

First, you have Esau, that rugged woodman, that hunter extraordinaire, the one who always has a deer lease somewhere and, during hunting season, disappears for days at a time to hunt and maybe throw back a few with the boys, or tell stories into the night over a deck of cards.

The difference between Esau and today’s hunter maybe is that if he doesn’t kill, he doesn’t eat. There is no Walmart, Kroger, or Costco to run to. No pizza joint up the road.

Esau comes back from a failed hunting expedition. He is famished and exhausted, and Jacob, the homebody, the momma’s boy, the one who would rather watch Iron Chef than rough it in a hunting lodge, has a delicious bowl of stew. The aroma is like heaven to the hungry Esau, so he asks for a bowl. But Jacob, the schemer that he is, does not give away food to his older brother. Instead, he trades it for the birthright.

Esau, the shortsighted, devil-may-care, live-in-the-moment man thinks what the heck. What does he need with a birthright? He is his own man. So, he agrees.

Fast-forward. Isaac, Abraham’s son of promise is old and blind. He is near the end of the road and ready for the ceremonial passing of the torch, to give his inheritance and his blessing to his firstborn, who happens to be Esau. He instructs Esau to go on a hunt and bring him back some of that good venison. Then, he will sit down with Esau and bestow his blessing on him.

Rebekah, Isaac’s wife and the boys’ mom, thinks it a mistake to give the family farm to Esau. She doesn’t trust him. Jacob is her favorite. So, she and Jacob devise a plan for Jacob to pretend to be Esau. He makes his arms hairy with animal hair, because Esau is a hairy dude. And Rebekah makes Isaac’s favorite meal. She also gets some of Esau’s clothes for Jacob to wear. They have Esau’s manly smell in them. They do not smell of Axe body spray.

Here’s the record of the sting operation:

So Jacob took the food to his father. “My father?” he said.

“Yes, my son,” Isaac answered. “Who are you—Esau or Jacob?”

Jacob replied, “It’s Esau, your firstborn son. I’ve done as you told me. Here is the wild game. Now sit up and eat it so you can give me your blessing.”

Isaac asked, “How did you find it so quickly, my son?”

“The LORD your God put it in my path!” Jacob replied.

Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Come closer so I can touch you and make sure that you really are Esau.” So Jacob went closer to his father, and Isaac touched him. “The voice is Jacob’s, but the hands are Esau’s,” Isaac said. But he did not recognize Jacob, because Jacob’s hands felt hairy just like Esau’s. So Isaac prepared to bless Jacob. “But are you really my son Esau?” he asked.

“Yes, I am,” Jacob replied.

Then Isaac said, “Now, my son, bring me the wild game. Let me eat it, and then I will give you my blessing.” So Jacob took the food to his father, and Isaac ate it. He also drank the wine that Jacob served him. Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come a little closer and kiss me, my son.”

So Jacob went over and kissed him. And when Isaac caught the smell of his clothes, he was finally convinced, and he blessed his son. He said, “Ah! The smell of my son is like the smell of the outdoors, which the LORD has blessed!

“From the dew of heaven
and the richness of the earth,
may God always give you abundant harvests of grain
and bountiful new wine.
May many nations become your servants,
and may they bow down to you.
May you be the master over your brothers,
and may your mother’s sons bow down to you.
All who curse you will be cursed,
and all who bless you will be blessed.”

So, Jacob pulled off the ultimate con on his own father and punked his brother. Never mind God had chosen Jacob for the blessing. He did not endorse or sign off on deceit as a means to accomplish His purpose. Jacob may have felt justified in the scheme, but the consequences would hit home soon enough, when he fell in love.

Scamming the Scammer

Jacob fell in love with Rachel. She was gorgeous and he was smitten. So, he asked her father for her hand in marriage and Laban, her old man, agreed. But at the wedding, he stuck his ugly daughter, Leah, behind the veil, and tricked Jacob into marrying her. That was no bargain!

Jacob goes to bed with Catharine Zeta-Jones and wakes up to Kathy Bates.

Laban explains it is customary around there for the older sister to marry first, so there. But in exchange for serving in Laban’s employ for seven years, he can have both sisters. Jacob agrees.

The Sting

Laban did not know who he was messing with. He thought Jacob was an easy mark. Jacob struck the famous “speckled and spotted” deal with Laban, saying he would take the goats and sheep that were black or speckled or spotted, and Laban could keep the rest. But Jacob had a sophisticated breeding program in place and his wealth grew while Laban’s shrank. When the two men parted ways, Jacob was rich and Laban was humiliated and poor.

This was Jacob’s life. He was always running a con. It cost him time, effort, and a tumultuous home life. The ugly sister was popping out kids left and right and the pretty one was having trouble getting pregnant. There was infighting and I am sure Jacob was always happy to find any reason to get out of the house.

But then, God intervened in Jacob’s life and changed forever the trajectory of his family and the nation of Israel…and human history, really.

Taking the Sting out of the Stinger

Jacob was always looking over his shoulder. His cons had made powerful enemies, not the least of which was his brother Esau, who had grown in wealth and power, and had a score to settle.

So, here is how it all changed for Jacob…

Then Jacob prayed, “O God of my grandfather Abraham, and God of my father, Isaac—O LORD, you told me, ‘Return to your own land and to your relatives.’ And you promised me, ‘I will treat you kindly.’ I am not worthy of all the unfailing love and faithfulness you have shown to me, your servant. When I left home and crossed the Jordan River, I owned nothing except a walking stick. Now my household fills two large camps! O LORD, please rescue me from the hand of my brother, Esau. I am afraid that he is coming to attack me, along with my wives and children. But you promised me, ‘I will surely treat you kindly, and I will multiply your descendants until they become as numerous as the sands along the seashore—too many to count.’”

Jacob stayed where he was for the night. Then he selected these gifts from his possessions to present to his brother, Esau: 100 female goats, 20 male goats, 200 ewes, 20 rams, 30 female camels with their young, 40 cows, 10 bulls, 20 female donkeys, and 10 male donkeys. He divided these animals into herds and assigned each to different servants. Then he told his servants, “Go ahead of me with the animals, but keep some distance between the herds.”

He gave these instructions to the men leading the first group: “When my brother, Esau, meets you, he will ask, ‘Whose servants are you? Where are you going? Who owns these animals?’ You must reply, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob, but they are a gift for his master Esau. Look, he is coming right behind us.’”

Jacob gave the same instructions to the second and third herdsmen and to all who followed behind the herds: “You must say the same thing to Esau when you meet him. And be sure to say, ‘Look, your servant Jacob is right behind us.’”

Jacob thought, “I will try to appease him by sending gifts ahead of me. When I see him in person, perhaps he will be friendly to me.” So the gifts were sent on ahead, while Jacob himself spent that night in the camp.

During the night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two servant wives, and his eleven sons and crossed the Jabbok River with them. After taking them to the other side, he sent over all his possessions.

This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until the dawn began to break. When the man saw that he would not win the match, he touched Jacob’s hip and wrenched it out of its socket. Then the man said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking!”

But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

“What is your name?” the man asked.

He replied, “Jacob.”

“Your name will no longer be Jacob,” the man told him. “From now on you will be called Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have won.”

“Please tell me your name,” Jacob said.

“Why do you want to know my name?” the man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there.

Jacob named the place Peniel (which means “face of God”), for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared.” The sun was rising as Jacob left Peniel, and he was limping because of the injury to his hip. (Even today the people of Israel don’t eat the tendon near the hip socket because of what happened that night when the man strained the tendon of Jacob’s hip.)
—Genesis32:9–32

Esau was headed straight for Jacob with 400 men. Jacob was rich but Esau was powerful. Jacob knew it was time to pay the fiddler and he was all out of schemes. All he had left to him for hope was mercy. He limped up to Esau to face the music, but God had already been working on Esau, too. All was forgiven, not by hook or crook, but by the power and grace of the One with whom Jacob wrestled, the One with whom so many of us wrestle today.

Here is how things ended between the brothers.

So Esau turned around and started back to Seir that same day. Jacob, on the other hand, traveled on to Succoth. There he built himself a house and made shelters for his livestock. That is why the place was named Succoth (which means “shelters”).

Later, having traveled all the way from Paddan-aram, Jacob arrived safely at the town of Shechem, in the land of Canaan. There he set up camp outside the town. Jacob bought the plot of land where he camped from the family of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for 100 pieces of silver. And there he built an altar and named it El-Elohe-Israel.
—Genesis 33:16–18

El-Elohe-Israel means, “God! The God of Israel.”

And now you know the rest of the beginning of the story.

The message here is this: God doesn’t need your schemes to work His will, but even our stupidity and poor judgement cannot thwart His plan. He is sovereign. Our plots may cause us unnecessary pain, suffering, and stress. But God is God. He is the God of the faithful, even the sometimes unfaithful faithful.

His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Amen.

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There are six things the LORD hates—
no, seven things he detests:
haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that kill the innocent,
a heart that plots evil,
feet that race to do wrong,
a false witness who pours out lies,
a person who sows discord in a family.

The heaviness of this series is not lost on me. This is not a series Norman Vincent Peale or Robert Schuler would have tackled, and if either of them ever did, they somehow managed to put a positive spin on it. That cannot have been easy, since Solomon is clearly listing things God hates.

If Peale and Schuler are not in your memory bank, then update it to Joel Osteen.

This series is not Jell-O or pudding. It is not a feel-good series. it is a “look out!” series. I need to make that clear. There are some things bad enough to be called bad, dangerous enough to be called dangerous, and common enough to need a warning label. This is a warning label series. This is an encouragement to “look both ways” before you cross these streets. They lead away from God. They lead to danger.

The Battle for the Words

Before the phrase “controlling the narrative” was something people said or wrote, people were working hard to control the narrative. Very hard.

The first time I became acutely aware of this was in my introduction to the abortion-on-demand debate that resulted from Roe vs Wade.

Those who opposed abortion and labeled it the murder of the innocent called themselves “Pro-Life.” Those who favored abortion rights with few or no restrictions labeled the “pro-lifers” as “Anti-Abortion,” instead.

The connector was easy to find. Connect those who support the rights of the unborn to an “anti-” vibe. Say they are not for something as fundamental a right as life, but instead are “anti.” They are against something, and mostly what they are against is women. Never mind there are as many or more female pro-lifers as male. The point is the narrative.

Abortion and Innocent Blood

At a recent hearing before Congress, Jessica Waters, a pro-abortionist (see what I did there?) was giving testimony when the hearing became a sensation for social media.

The context was a subcommittee hearing over the FACE Act (Freedom of Access to Clinical Entrances) and the fear of Republicans that it was being used to target pro-life activists.

The conversation became theatre when Representative Brandon Gill of Texas asked Waters, “What’s your favorite type of abortion?” He says, “The first type is called the suction abortion. Do you prefer that method?”

He went on to say to her, “I wouldn’t want to talk about this, either, if I were you, because it is barbaric and evil.”

It is hard to defend the various brutal methods contrived to preserve a woman’s right to terminate a life. It is impossible, in this age of advanced medicine and technology, to pretend the baby feels no distress, no pain, no anything while being ripped apart.”

“Hands that shed innocent blood.”

Is there more innocent blood than that, the blood of the unborn child? Not in humanity, no there is not.

Euthanasia and Innocent Blood

Then, we get into Krevorkian territory, questions of a person’s right to die, or the rights of the State to assist in their dying. They are getting old and costly, more of a deficit than an asset to society. Like an unwanted child, the value of their life is diminished by the inconvenience it causes. So, in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Canada, Colombia, Spain, New Zealand, and all six states of Australia, euthanasia is legal.

The argument in favor is based on the extreme cases of human suffering and the wish to die rather than suffer, a thing we can all at least understand, if not appreciate. But then we put the right to kill, not for criminal purposes, but at the request of a person, a family, or an institution into the hands of politicians. Hard to see a positive outcome there.

At both extremes, we find bloody hands. And why?

Key Cases of Alleged Euthanasia Abuse

• Aurelia Brouwers (Netherlands, 2018): At 29, she was granted euthanasia based on psychiatric conditions, including depression and borderline personality disorder, rather than a terminal physical disease.

• Sexually Abused Woman (Netherlands, 2016): A woman in her twenties was allowed to die by assisted suicide due to severe PTSD resulting from childhood sexual abuse, raising questions about treating psychological trauma with death.

• Nathalie Huygens (Belgium, 2023): A woman in her fifties suffering from PTSD following a violent assault and rape was granted euthanasia. Critics argued her suffering stemmed from failed social services and lack of financial coverage for psychiatric care.

• Deaf Twins (Belgium): Twins born deaf who were losing their sight were euthanized, raising ethical concerns about euthanizing individuals based on disability rather than pain.

• Woman with Anorexia (Belgium): A woman with anorexia was granted euthanasia, causing debate over whether such patients can truly make a voluntary, informed, life-ending decision.

Why This Offends God

First, it is an offence to God because He is the author of life…

…every life, even the one you found inconvenient to your own plans.

Second, as the author of life, it is His prerogative to give and to take and none of our own.

When we decide it is our right to take INNOCENT life (this is the difference in this debate versus the death penalty debate), we say that we know better than God who should have the right to live and which people we should have the right to terminate, if it suits us to do so.

God does not fancy us playing His role. We are not suited to it. We are not omniscient, omnipresent, or omnipotent. We judge from a seat with a limited view.

Death Culture is Alive and Well

Is it just me, or is it telling that the same voices raised to support abortion on demand applaud the murder of people they disagree with? They cheer the death of ideological enemies.

Charlie Kirk

A United States Marine lost his post because he posted on his Social Media, “Another racist man popped.”

An Oregon teacher said his day was “brightened” by Kirk’s death.

He wrote, “Nobody deserves it, but some are asking for it.”

Those were the tamer comments, really. You know that already.

“Death to Everyone I Hate! Especially that Bastard, Donald Trump!”

Then, there are those who cheer every time someone takes a shot at the president. They cheer the effort and mourn the lack of success.

The only death these people are sure to protest is the one whose life is taken under the penalty of death, which is typically only invoked in the case of murder; which is, of course, the taking of innocent life.

Innocence is beside the point when you have blood on your hands and in your eye, and hatred in your heart.

We live in a death culture. We cheer not life, not the affirmation of life, but the death of those we detest, or simply disagree with…or the ones we figure had no business being born in the first place.

We are a kingdom of gods, but we don’t know good from evil.

Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life

I was shocked and dismayed a number of years ago when I was first hit with Christianity as a “culture of death,” or a “death cult.”

Nietzsche

This argument goes back at least 19th Century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. He argued that Christian morality is a "life-negating" force that causes individuals to become weak and unthinking, essentially fostering a "death-cult" mentality by discouraging the embrace of earthly life.

Kyle Smith (PhD)

In a guest post for Bart Ehrman's blog, Smith referred to Christianity as a "cult of the dead" (or "death cult") in a non-sinister way, focusing on the veneration of martyrs, relics, and saints in historical Christian practice. We are told itSmith wrote this in a non-sinister way. We are also expected to believe that, because we can be philosophical about every attack on Christ or Christ-followers. Other religions? No. Just Christianity. Turn the other cheek. Accept ever criticism in stride. Reflect on your beliefs. That is always the right way to be. So, that is how it is done.

My Own Evaluation

I started thinking.

Songs I have sung since childhood:

“What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

“There is power, power, wonder-working power in the blood of the Lamb.”

“There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins.”

I thought wow.

Scriptures I have believed and taught:

• Matthew 26:28 (NIV): “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

• Ephesians 1:7 (ESV): “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.”

• 1 John 1:7 (ESV): “...the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”

• Revelation 12:11 (ESV): “And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony...”

• Hebrews 9:12 (ESV): “...he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.”

• Romans 5:9 (NIV): “Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!”

Wow! Is it really a death culture? I asked myself this. Are we so focused on the hereafter that we downplay the life we now live? Do we celebrate and glorify death, embrace it, long for it?

Jesus is about Life!

If you are obsessed with death in the name of Jesus, you are missing the point of the gospel —and of his sacrifice.

• John 10:10: “I have come that they may have life, and have it more abundantly.”

• John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

• John 11:25: “I am the resurrection and the life.”

Jesus is not about death. He is about life. Those who took His life were only able to do so because He is the author of life, and as such, was authorized to give His life for ours. Don’t confuse what Jesus did with what an abortion clinic doctor does, or someone administering a lethal injection to a euthanasia “patient.”

Jesus was not sacrificing your life for His. He was sacrificing His life for yours.

That is a culture of life. That is the hope of humanity. That is the answer to the death culture Satan disguises as “free will.” Everything that disgusting being has told you is a lie, and especially everything he told you about Jesus.

The shortest verse in the bible is John 11:35.

Jesus is witnessing firsthand the pain of death, the agony and confusion of those in its wake. A sister mourns her brother.

John simply writes, “Jesus wept.”

Jesus died for sinners. His Cross is the crossroads between life and death.

He mourned the plight of those who would choose death. The citizens of Jerusalem would shortly chant, sing, and scream for his execution, but this is what He said about them:

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling! Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you that you will not see Me again until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.’” —Matthew 23:37–39

It is our custom by now to end each sermon with a word from a Bible author. This time, I have chosen the Apostle Peter to step to the podium and dismiss us in grace.

"The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” —2 Peter 3:9

My name is Gene. Some call me “Preacher.” God bless you and yours. Choose life.

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The first time I heard John Madden as a football commentator was also the first time anyone else did.

It was September 23, 1979. I know the date because I looked it up. I remember the day because I thought I had just heard a buffoon like a buffalo bellow.

I was five days shy of eighteen and steeped in Oakland Raiders hatred, thanks to my Dallas Cowboys roots.

The Cowboys were the good guys, and besides the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Cowboys’ primary combatant for 1970s NFL supremacy, the Raiders, were the easiest team to hate. They wore what looked like a Satanic symbol on their helmets, their primary color was black, and so were their souls.

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Just Win, Baby!

The Raiders’ quarterback was nicknamed “The Snake.”

Kenny “The Snake” Stabler.

He looked like a Country singer who downed a fifth of whiskey between snaps. He was this devil-may-care free spirit who just happened to keep his Raiders in Super Bowl contention. He got his nickname innocently enough from his high school coach who started calling him that after he scrambled for a long, slithering touchdown.

Stabler’s primary targets were a fine lot, too. Fred Biletnikoff, a skinny white guy who looked like the inspiration for the bum in the song King of the Road. Freddy seemed as likely to bum a cigarette off you as to burn you for a long touchdown, and he was known for wearing tons of Stickum® on his hands. He didn’t have to catch the ball; he just had to touch it anywhere and it stuck to him like fly paper.

Dave “The Ghost” Casper was one of the first great tight ends to become a household name. Casper was the primary actor in two plays that became legendary enough to get nicknames:

• "Ghost to the Post" (1977 Playoffs) – An over-the-shoulder catch from Ken Stabler that set up a game-tying field goal, leading to a Raiders overtime win.

• "The Holy Roller" (1978) – A bizarre, controversial play where Casper recovered a fumbled ball in the end zone for a game-winning touchdown against the Chargers.

Everything the Raiders did was controversial.

Safety Jack Tatum was known as a headhunter. His devastating tackles put doubt and the fear of God into the souls of receivers daring to test the middle of the Raiders’ defense. On August 12, 1978, Tatum delivered a (then) legal hit to New England Patriots’ wide receiver, Darryl Stingley. Stingley was immediately paralyzed by the blow.

The Raiders were labeled the NFL’s bad boys. They embraced it.

The Oakland Raiders owner, Al Davis, looked like a used-car salesman or a seedy pimp. He was ornery, a thorn in the league’s side for years, and one of the first owners Jerry Jones consulted when he bought the Cowboys, which explains a lot, come to think of it.

“Just win, baby!”

This was Al Davis’s mantra and is much celebrated and imitated today. Davis often took in players that other teams stayed away from due to temperament or off-the-field issues.

I figured you had to be a gang member or a Satan worshiper to be a Raiders fan. Everybody knows God Himself was a Cowboys fan, and God’s Coach was Tom Landry.

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Maddening!

John Madden was the Oakland Raiders coach.

Madden was the cartoonish, oversized, ill-kempt, animated sheriff patrolling the sidelines and getting the most out of his band of misfits, miscreants, and malefactors.

He was also destined to become one of the NFL’s greatest legends, and arguably, the greatest of the greats, given his accomplishments as a coach, a broadcaster, and a video game brand.

Madden changed the game—how it is played and perceived—as much as any person in history. He was a driving force in lifting the popularity of the NFL to unequaled success as a television sport. Through Madden, the video game, he has been introducing football to new generations of fans for over a quarter century, and still does, even posthumously.

Madden only coached 10 years, but he guided his team to achieve great heights together, culminating in a Super Bowl XI win over the Minnesota Vikings, another dominant 1970s franchise, at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, on January 9, 1977. His Raiders set a then-Super Bowl record, amassing 429 total yards of offense. Fred Biletnikoff was named MVP for his clutch receptions. Willie Brown scored on a pick-six. The Raiders dominated the famous Purple People-Eaters, the Vikings’ defense.

Madden reached the pinnacle and retired soon after. He burned too hot, too fast, this passionate, lumpy vessel of volcanic fuel. He would soon find himself in a CBS booth alongside the inimitable and consummate professional (though an alcoholic), Pat Summerall. They were singular, Summerall and Madden. They would become legendary.

Later, Madden paired with another emerging icon, Al Michaels, at ABC to fuel a comeback for Monday Night Football, which was once the signature broadcast of an NFL week. He and Michaels then launched what became the next signature game, Sunday Night Football.

If football needed a superhero to lift a fledgling entity like Fox Sports to prominence, to resurrect a once-proud weekly staple like Monday Night Football, or to launch a video game that would capture a new breed of fan, Madden was their guy. He delivered in every instance.

When ESPN talks about “A Football Life,” it is hard to imagine a life more football than that of the late, great John Madden.

Maddenisms

Madden was not into bragging. He believed in humility. It was written all over him. He oozed humanity and humility. He said…

"Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class, and be humble.”

Madden was beside himself with the joy of being elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

"I believe that the busts talk to each other... we'll be there forever and ever and ever.”

May we each reach the last bend of the road feeling as lucky as that. Or as blessed.

John Madden summed up his life and work like this:

I’m the luckiest guy in the world. I never really had a job. I was a football player, then a football coach, then a football broadcaster. It’s been my life. Pro football has been my life since 1967. I’ve enjoyed every part of it. Never once did it ever feel like work.

I saw John Madden at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter had come to greet him and maybe get an autograph.

Madden clapped ol’ Pete on the back and said, “Boom! I’m here forever and ever and ever!”

May we each reach the end, like John Madden, Turducken in hand, celebrating a life well lived and a job well done.

Amen.

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You can't hide your lyin' eyes
And your smile is a thin disguise
I thought by now you'd realize
There ain't no way to hide your lyin' eyes
—Lyin’ Eyes, The Eagles

The Eagles’ heavy song about how a pretty girl marries for money and finds misery. She has her diamonds, her fine linens, and lace…but her eyes tell a different story.

“You can’t hide your lyin’ eyes,” they sing, and sing it so beautifully.

That’s a good thing, though. The real trouble waits for those who can. The double-dealers, the sharks, the slick salesman selling sugar pills, the politician wrapping lies in an American flag, the evil-doers masquerading as do-gooders…

You probably think I am going to say, “Those are the ones we should loathe.” Or, “Those are the ones we have to look out for.”

Maybe they are. I am not saying they’re not. But they are also the ones I feel for because they lie in wait but what waits is their own misery, trouble, and demise. The only thing they were ever true to was their own nature. They are bound by it and consumed by it. Consumed. Victimized by their own devices.

This is sermon number two in our series, Pride & Prejudice: Don’t Get on God’s Bad Side. I have titled it, Catch Me If You Can.

Let’s get a refresher on our series text:

There are six things the LORD hates—
no, seven things he detests:
haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that kill the innocent,
a heart that plots evil,
feet that race to do wrong,
a false witness who pours out lies,
a person who sows discord in a family.
—Proverbs 6:16–19 (New Living Translation)

The focus today is from the middle of verse 17, where Solomon lists “a lying tongue” among the seven things God hates.

I have heard all my life people say, “God hates a liar!”

That is totally wrong. Totally. Wrong. You may hate a liar, but God hates a lying tongue. You may hate a proud person, but God hates “a proud look.”

You see, God does not hate people. If He does, then let’s go ahead and rip John 3:16 from the Bible, let’s call the Crucifixion a tragedy or a farce, let’s put Zacchaeus back in the tree, put the repentant thief back on the bloody cross, and put the Apostle Paul and King David in Hell for murder.

God hates the sin because of what it does to the sinner, the people hurt by the sin, and the environment itself. God hates sin. God loves sinners. That is a simple and overused assertion, but I will only quit repeating it when it quits being true.

That settled, let’s move on and catch me…if you can.

Time to pass the offering plate. Thank you for buying the preacher a cup of coffee. Click the button.

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The Incredible, Unbelievable Life and Achievements of Frank Abagnale Jr.

If you have not seen the movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank Abagnale, Jr and Tom Hanks as FBI fraud agent Carl Hanratty, pause this sermon, go watch it, and come back. (I bet you never had a preacher suggest that before! Well, I have never suggested it before, either, and I won’t again.)

The story depicted in the movie is about a teen who is devastated by his parents’ divorce, his mother’s unfaithfulness and unhappiness with everything, and his father’s financial ruin. Oh, how he loved his father. And we can pause to remind you the casualties of failure in a marriage are not just the couple who couldn’t get along or wanted something better for themselves. It is the children. The kids who needed a safe place to grow up in and something solid to believe in, something good.

I blame the failure of our society on the failure of the home. We bite at one another, we spew vile venom. We have kids confused by something as fundamental as their own sex, refusing to accept themselves and determined to create something new. We killed “him” and “her” and made them all an angry mob of “thems.” We did that. Nobody else.

Back to the sermon.

So, this kid, genius that he is, wants more for himself. He wants to make his father proud but he wants to cut corners. So, he becomes a master liar. He foists himself off on an industry, pretending to be a Pan Am pilot, flying in the jump seat from place to place, and forging checks. He lives large.

When the heat is turned up, he becomes a fake Georgia doctor, and then a Louisiana prosecutor, famously passing the bar.

Abagnale is relentlessly pursued by Carl Hanratty, a humorless, hard-nosed, never-say-die FBI fraud investigator. He is finally caught while making fake money in France. He is thrown in prison, into horrible conditions, but is rescued. He gets a release based on an agreement to work with the FBI to identify, expose, and find counterfeiters.

The Truth is That Even the Life Was a Lie

Abagnale made a name for himself and a lucrative living as a security consultant and public speaker, trading on this unbelievable story of his life.

Then, investigative journalists got involved. Turns out, the truth is even the lie was a lie. Most notably, journalist Alan C. Logan exposed Abagnale’s unbelievable tales as a bunch of lies in his book, The Greatest Hoax on Earth, released in 2020. The con man’s greatest con was the story itself.

Public records show that during the years Abagnale claimed to be flying the world as a fake pilot and working as a doctor, he was actually sitting in various prisons for petty crimes. He didn’t steal millions from massive corporations; his actual crimes mostly involved stealing from his own family, local small businesses, and a few vulnerable individuals.

Abagnale’s Conversion was a Lie

Frank Abagnale, Jr built an entire life on the story of his conversion from a master forger and thief to a government good guy. He would say to audiences, “A lie is a liability, and eventually, the truth will come out.”

Even as he said that, he was lying.

Part of his confession included patting himself on the back and building his legend. This is a direct quote from Abagnale:

"I consider my past immoral, unethical, and illegal. It is something I am not proud of. I am proud that I have been able to turn my life around and in the past 25 years, helped my government, my clients, thousands of corporations and consumers deal with the problems of white collar crime and fraud."

Just another lie from a master of deceit.

And What Did It Cost?

You might say he got away with it. Look at the name he made for himself, the money, the adventures. If you are strictly outcome-oriented, you will support him because you believe the end always justifies the means.

The problem is this: fools who think that way also think they know where “the end” is. They don’t. What we call the finish line is really just the beginning. A lie is a legacy that lives long after you are gone. You leave it, not just on your resume, but the residue on the lives of those you touched.

More than that, you face a spiritual balancing of the books. You stand before God, stripped of the lie, and what else have you to offer? I mean, the liar will even lie about his relationship with God, right? So, that was a lie. Your life was a lie. Your legacy is a joke. And your eternity is what?

John the Apostle had a vision and wrote about it:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
—Revelation 21:1–8

Now, wait a minute, John. Doesn’t that pretty much describe the whole of humanity? We are all sinners and we have either done these things or imagined doing them. Are we all going to Hell for that?

John would say, “No. I know you lied. I know you are a liar. Just don’t let your last lie be what you did with Christ. The only difference between the liars in Heaven and the ones in Hell is grace. That’s it. Grace and forgiveness. So, repent. Not like Abagnale, for show, but like King David or Peter. Repent with a broken heart. Then, abandon the lie. Embrace the truth.”

You think I am putting words in John’s mouth here? Not according to him. I will give him the last word, and this is for your own good…and mine:

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
1 John 1:1–10

My name is Gene. Some call me “Preacher.” Let’s do this again next Sunday.

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Happy May Day! Which sounds silly, when you think about it. Mayday is the international distress call. If someone is crying, “Mayday! Mayday!” you can bet the plane is going down or the ship is sinking past the whiskey.

Why do we call May 1 May Day?

It has its roots in a mix of ancient celebration and modern protests. Originally, it marked the start of summer and agricultural festivals, such as the Celtic Beltane, which celebrated fertility and the return of life to the land. Spring rains yield to summer sunshine, and the earth pulsates with life.

In 1889, an international federation of socialist groups and trade unions designated May 1 as International Workers’ Day (or “May Day”) to commemorate the Haymarket Affair of 1886 in Chicago, where police and workers clashed during a strike for an eight-hour workday.

May Day is a celebration of life and a commemoration of the struggle to survive.

Mayday, on the other hand, is a distress call. Which of us has not cried it in our hearts, if not aloud? Which of us has not been stressed to the point of distress, pushed to the brink of hopelessness?

In the early days of aviation, the two nations leading the charge into the wild blue yonder were the United States and France. When the United States dragged its feet on underwriting flying projects, one of the Wright Brothers, Wilbur, went to France to work on and demonstrate the capabilities of his “flying machine.”

The term “Mayday” was coined in 1923 by Frederick Stanley Mockford, a senior radio officer at Croydon Airport in London. He made up the word because he was tasked with finding a universal distress word that both English and French pilots could easily understand. He chose mayday as the phonetic equivalent of the French m’aider (help me), which is a shortened version of venez m’aider (come help me).

Who can forget the famous Mayday call of Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger right before he masterfully landed his distressed plane full of passengers on the Hudson River?

“Mayday, mayday, mayday, uh, Cactus fifteen forty-nine hit birds. We’ve lost thrust on both engines. We’re turning back towards LaGuardia.” —Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger

Aviators repeat the term three times to ensure there is no mistaking through any static that something has gone sideways.

Types of Stress

Stress at home. Stress on the job. Online stress. Offline stress (or the stress of never actually being offline, unplugged). Stress because you are doing what you would rather not. Stress over not doing what you would rather. Stress stemming from what you have done, or have not done.

I did a little digging into stress. Here is what I turned up.

• The Good Stuff (Eustress): Not all stress is bad. Good stress (eustress) is what keeps us alive and helps us get things done. It’s the adrenaline hit that makes you swerve to avoid a crash, or the sharp focus that helps you hit a deadline—or a baseball. It is a biological response designed to be temporary. The threat appears, you handle it, and the nervous system resets to its normal setting. All is well.

• The Accumulation (Allostatic Load): When stressors pile up—work, home, digital noise, internal regrets—without an adequate reset period, the body’s alarm system stays locked into the “on” position. The physiological toll of this chronic wear-and-tear is what psychologists call the allostatic load. It potentially leads to mental and physical health problems.

• The Crash and Burn (Loss of Agency): Stress crosses the line and becomes distress when we feel we have lost control. It’s the realization that the demands being placed upon you have completely exceeded your available resources (time, energy, emotional bandwidth) to cope with them. The narrative shifts from “I have a lot of heavy lifting to do” (stress) to “I am being crushed and cannot escape” (distress).

Think of a bridge, like the Brooklyn Bridge or the Golden Gate. Each is designed to carry massive weight. But if you were to park 18-wheelers bumper-to-bumper each way across the span of the bridge and leave them there, over time, stress fractures occur. Enough time, and the bridge will collapse.

We are remarkably designed as human beings. We can carry immense amounts of stress for short or even extended periods. But not forever. Something has to give. And it will.

My wife hires pilots and if she shares this with any of them, I may get a correction or two. Be that as it may, I want to explore Mayday, Mayday, Mayday: three steps to prevent distress.

1. Check the Gauges (Awareness)

You can’t course-correct if you are ignoring the instrument panel. Stress becomes distress when we ignore the early warning signs and keep pushing the engines into the red.

• The Idea: Eustress (good stress) turns into chronic allostatic load when we stop paying attention. The first preventative step is self-awareness. But let me run a red flag up this pole, too, because I think many are disposed to too much self-awareness, or rather, self-absorption. Focusing on your feelings all the time and forgetting others is the surest way to become distressed. Check the gauges but don’t obsess over them. Don’t jack with them just to jack them up. Don’t feel sorry for yourself, pilot. You have some unfriendly skies to navigate, cupcake. Check the gauges and hit the runway.

• The Action: Recognizing your personal “check engine” lights. Are you losing sleep? Snapping at loved ones? Refreshing screens without actually reading anything? Doomscrolling? Feeding your worst self and greatest fears on the algorithmic slop they feed you because they know your weak spots? Identifying these physical and mental cues before the system fails gives you the opportunity to pull back the throttle.

2. Jettison the Cargo (Boundaries)

When a vessel is taking on water or a plane is losing altitude, the immediate protocol is to drop excess weight.

• The Idea: Distress is defined by a loss of capacity. The word is derived from the Latin distringere, meaning “to draw apart, hinder, or pull asunder”. It originally meant “to constrain or constrict.” I watched a disturbing video not long ago of a lioness caught in the coils of a giant python. The snake constricted every time she exhaled. The pride came to save her but they were too late. She died, literally, of distress. If you cannot expand your capacity (there are still only 24 hours in a day), you have to reduce the demands. Prioritize and proceed.

• The Action: The power of “No.” Put down the phone. Don’t take the clickbait. Don’t be drawn into a senseless online argument where minds are never changed but the temperature is always raised. Jettisoning cargo means setting hard boundaries. It means silencing notifications at a certain hour. My phone gives me a goodnight ding at 10:15 PM. After that, only texts from prioritized people and phone calls can make a peep. Carry your weight but you are not an aircraft carrier. Some of these people will have to do like my dad used to say and “lean on their own dinner.”

3. Contact the Tower (Connection and Recalibration)

“Sully” didn’t arbitrarily decide in the vacuum of his cockpit to land on the river; his first instinct was to communicate his troubles to air traffic control.

• The Idea: Isolation accelerates the shift from stress to distress. When you are alone in your own head, the storm always looks bigger. Don’t put on the village what you can and should do yourself, but some things do take a village, a family, a team, an army.

• The Action: Reaching out before the crisis hits. This could be a sounding board at work, a spouse, a trusted friend, or a mentor. I have two Keiths—a work Keith and a four-decade-long friend Keith. I talk to each at least twice weekly. I lean on them. They lean on me. In a crisis, I can mash their faces on my phone, and they pick up, and then pick me up. I do the same for them. First, though, is my life partner, my wife of 45 years. We bear one another’s burdens and we each carry our load. You can also ground yourself in the things that recalibrate your nervous system—whether that is taking the dog for a walk, spending an afternoon with a fine cigar on the patio, or getting lost in a good piece of classic fiction (or one of my books, like Moonshine Love, or a Western-themed love story in short story form, like Or the Magnolias Bloom).

Recognize the problem. Reduce the burden. Seek solid ground.

Stress doesn’t have to become distress. Don’t let it, when you have the power and resources to prevent it.

You probably have some ideas on the subject. I love ideas. Share them.

Here are some prompts to help you think of what to share:

• “What is your first ‘check engine’ light?”

• “What’s the heaviest cargo you’ve had to jettison lately?”

• “Who is your ‘Keith’ when the engines fail?”

There are six things that the Lord hates,
seven that are an abomination to him:
haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that make haste to run to evil,
a false witness who breathes out lies,
and one who sows discord among brothers.

So, let’s get this ball rolling!

I may be in danger of forfeiting my man card here, but I confess to enjoying some Rom Com movies and other movies that don’t include blood and guts. Now, I like my Dirty Harry and Gladiator shows. Don’t get me wrong. But I raised three girls. I have watched Pollyanna, for crying out loud, at least a dozen times. I have also been married my whole adult life, so I have seen my share of romantic comedies and “girl” movies.

One movie I enjoyed was The Devil Wears Prada. I wasn’t the only one, clearly. It was a hit, and Hollywood being Hollywood and running out of ideas, as I deliver this sermon, we anticipate The Devil Wears Prada 2. The first one was a peel-back of the high-stakes game of high fashion. It had the usual “feel bad and then feel good” Hollywood arc. And that is all I have to say about that.

I am not speaking on the movie or its storyline. I am just ripping off the title and saying, “Yes. Yes, he does. The Devil wears Prada.”

The Original Sin was not in the Garden of Eden

We like to pin sin on Eve. The original sinner was in the Garden, but the original sin was well before that encounter between the serpent and the woman in Eden.

The Prophet Isaiah saw in his heavenly vision the original sinner caught in his sin and cast from his place of honor:

“How you are fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning!
How you are cut down to the ground,
You who weakened the nations!
For you have said in your heart:
‘I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
I will also sit on the mount of the congregation
On the farthest sides of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
I will be like the Most High.’
Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol,
To the lowest depths of the Pit.
—Isaiah 14:12–15

Satan was a shining star. He was a glorious being, given a lofty position of honor, and it went to his head. When Solomon says the Lord hates a proud look, it has history behind it.

Satan is The Original Sinner and PRIDE is the Original Sin

When Satan approached Eve, he did not appeal to lust or lasciviousness. He appealed to pride, or…he made pride appealing.

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”

And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”

Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
—Genesis 3:1–4

Here is the Devil in snakeskin, slippery, slithering, sneaky, saying, “Don’t you see what is happening here? Can’t you see how God is not giving you your just deserts? He is keeping you down. Don’t you have any pride? Don’t you want to know what he knows? You deserve better!”

He sounds like every other commercial on television and half the posts on Social Media. “You deserve…” It is an appeal to pride. Entitlement is not appealing to God. It forgets the true nature of being among the Fallen and eliminates God’s grace.

That Prada Look

You know what God hates? That smug look on your face. A proud look.

You Hate it, too! Admit It!

Haven’t you ever said, “I’d like to wipe that smug look off his face!”

The people who hate Trump universally hate that smugness he exudes. Nobody wants to have someone look down their nose at them. They don’t have to say, “I’m better than you,” they just wear it on their face to become irksome.

We have built a society comfortable with strutting. From the runways to the highways, from the accessories to the accomplishments.

“Flaunt it if you got it.”

Gone are the billionaires in overalls, like Sam Walton. Gone are the mega-stars surprised and thankful to be where they are. Gone are the humble beauties. Everyone is proud, proud, proud.

We even dedicate an entire month to the word. PRIDE month.

Pride is a Touchy Subject

People are proud and they are proud of being proud. And there are some iterations of pride that are more palatable than others. A proud parent is not the same as an arrogant achiever. There is family pride, corporate pride, national pride.

So, where does it cross the line?

Where does pride become something God cannot stomach?

Pride That is Self-Sufficient crosses the line

Pride that says you deserve your good fortune or good looks crosses the line. Essentially, pride does in us today what it did in Lucifer in Heaven in the eons past. It makes us think we don’t need God. We got this all by ourselves.

Pride that is self-congratulatory crosses the line

This kind of pride seeps into the spiritual realm, very subtly, and it is detestable and deadly.

Case in point…

(Jesus) spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
—Luke 18:9–14

Ah, the prayer of pride.

I have heard it in sermons. One preacher pretending to be empathetic to another pastor who fell into sin might say, “But for the grace of God, there go I.”

Listen, jerk. There you go, grace and all. You are every bit the dirty, rotten sinner that fellow is. Every bit. Sin is as deep, dark, and endemic in your heart as in his. Grace is greater than all your sin and reaches you despite yourself, not because of yourself. Tear that haughty, self-serving phrase from your pompous vocabulary and preach something humble and real.

If it seems I am a little testy on this subject, well, I am. My pride has been hurt, and that is the best thing that has happened to me so far. It needed to be hurt, exposed, and dealt with. Still does. Every. Stinking. Day.

Pride that Flaunts Crosses the Line

It is not a sin to have nice things. It IS a sin for nice things to have you. You don’t have to be the Devil to wear Prada, but you can be if you are not careful.

Pride is the original sin and it is part of every other sin on the books. Lust, greed, avarice, selfishness, you name it…

I will leave the last word in the hands of the wise one, King Solomon, the one who gave us these seven things to look out for because God is not having them.

Pride goes before destruction,
And a haughty spirit before a fall.
Better to be of a humble spirit with the lowly,
Than to divide the spoil with the proud.
Proverbs 16:18, 19

Better to eat the bread of peasants with humility in your heart than to drink the wine of kings with arrogance. Rare is the individual who can remain humble and grounded in either place. Rare and precious and loved by God and man.

My favorite sport was football. My best sport was baseball. My third sport was basketball.

For our size, we were stacked with athletes, comparatively speaking. Most of our contests were no contest. We won district in football, basketball, baseball, and volleyball.

Our coach decided we needed to be tested, so he scheduled a non-district basketball game against Krum.

Krum, Texas, today has a population of 6,800. In 1979, it was about 700. They were a Class-B public school. They won the Class-B state basketball title in 1978-79.

They were a small school, unless you compared them to Southside Christian Academy, which I attended. We were a small school. We barely had 100 students in K-12! In fact, I don’t think we had 100.

When we played Krum, we were a powerhouse tiny private school league team facing off against a soon-to-be public school state champion. I was a 5’10”, 140-pound small forward. The guy I was guarding was 6’3” and 200 pounds. He was agile and I was fragile. He was mean and powerful and could shoot the lights out.

It was like this across the floor. We were outmanned at every position. And it showed.

They had more than 50 points by halftime, while we had 20-something.

in the halftime locker room, there wasn’t much for the coach to say, and he wasn’t much for saying much in the first place. We were licking our wounds and he was encouraging us to fight, to give our best. What else was there?

The pastor of the church that housed the school (the coach’s father, and the father of the biggest kid on our team) kept a plaque on the wall in his study. It was a Vince Lombardi quote: Quitters never win, and winners never quit. He did not like losing any more than we did and he insisted we never, ever quit.

And a child shall lead them…

We had this kid on our team, who was sort of a ringer. He was not full-time at our school. He probably should have been graduated already but he took a couple of courses, was never on campus, and only played one game for us—the Krum game, where we really needed reinforcements. He was, you might say, a predecessor to NIL, though he got no money, no name, and no image. He just got pummeled along with the rest of us.

This kid huddled us up and this is what he said:

“Listen, they may be bigger than we are, but we are slower than they are!”

After we finished laughing, he continued.

“They are killing us inside. We can’t go inside on them. They are killing us on the fast break. We can’t run with them. We have to slow the game down, keep the ball on the perimeter, and when you get an open shot, take it.

Ernie, you are our best shot. Shoot, man! Gene, get that big lug away from the basket and take him on the dribble. He can’t move with you.

We are not going to win this game but we are not going to go home sorry we came, either.”

I don’t know how inspiring it was, that speech. But it was inspired. He was spot on.

Sure, we lost the game 90-something to 50-something. We kept apace, however, with their starters, basket-for-basket, in the second half. When they emptied their bench and we were matched with players more on our level, we beat the snot out of them.

I, for one, went home proud.

We did not lose another game that year.

Leaders and Losers

Good leaders never lose on purpose, but they do lose with purpose.

If all your team gets from losing is a loss, then all you did was lose, and all you have is losers.

But if your team…

• learns a lesson

• strengthens a weakness

• gains perspective

• resolves to do and be better

…then you really won.

Good leaders lose with their team

Show me the leader who is quick to take credit for wins and to deflect blame for losses and I will show you a horrible person and a poor leader. I don’t care how many skins you have on the wall if you had to skin your people to get them.

Good leaders are honest with themselves and their team

That kid said, “They may be bigger than we are, but we are slower than they are.”

He had us right there. He had our attention. He was telling us the truth. If we didn’t understand and accept the truth, we could not devise a viable strategy.

Good leaders keep a sense of humor when it is least expected and most needed

We needed that halftime laugh. We were losing individually, looking sideways at each other, sniping, taking pot shots at teammates in that first half. In the second half, we still lost, but as a team.

Our unexpected, self-appointed leader did not take himself too seriously, nor the situation. He found the humor, and he found a pulse. He resurrected hope and united a group of individuals into a team.

Good leaders rise to the occasion when others shrink

We didn’t go into that game thinking this kid most of us hardly knew was going to emerge as our leader. But he sure did.

I don’t remember ever seeing him again, or hearing from him. I can picture him in my mind but I cannot call his name. Sometimes, I wonder if he was an apparition, an angel in a 5’6” frame with mischief on his face and a message in his heart.

But I am glad he was there in that one shining moment, which was anything but shiny.

Be the leader no one saw coming.

Be the leader no one knew they needed. Be the leader, even if you lose.

Lose with purpose. Then, when you win, you will wonder which was more important, the win or the losses it was built on.

I like this song and I think it fits. Enjoy. And then, if you haven’t already, subscribe!

I know my writing is all over the place.

Is it fiction? —Yes

Is it biographical? —Sure

Is it autobiographical? —Isn’t everything?

Is it spiritual? —Absolutely

Is it poetry? —Of course

Is it sermons? —Sometimes

Is it slop? —Bound to be some in there. I’m sorry.

So, here’s the point: A poll. Actually, two of them.

Please take a few seconds and respond. It will help me get—and keep—my bearings as your writer of choice.

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“Outwit. Outplay. Outlast.”
—Survivor slogan

Raise your hand if you have watched all 49 seasons of Survivor and are now watching season 50.

Never mind. Put your hand down. I can’t see it anyway.

Fifty seasons! This is almost beyond belief. Nothing in television history could have prepared us for a series enjoying this level of success. And nothing remotely approaches it in terms of longevity and the loyalty of fans. The show has been on the air since May 2000. Twenty-six consecutive years! We are not talking “I Love Lucy” reruns here. We are talking new season after new season, and two seasons per calendar year.

Survivor is the godfather of reality elimination TV. It paved the way for American Idol, Big Brother, and Top Chef, to name a few of its bigger progeny.

Maybe you are like me and consider reality TV to be television’s version of the Ghetto. It is meant to capture humans at their worst and often glamorizes and glorifies it. It turns horrible humans into household names. Kardashian, for instance. Where early Americans revered the achievements, wisdom, and selfless sacrifice of heroes like George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, we have sunk into the Influencer mire, elevating people for being beautiful, brash, or just plain filthy.

Welcome to the world of Survivor Syndrome, where the goal of outwitting, outplaying, and outlasting everyone else at any and all cost is the golden calf that has replaced the Golden Rule.

At every council meeting, Jeff Probst, the show’s host, producer, and the man behind the mentality, says, "In this game, fire represents your life. When your fire's gone, so are you."

He fails to say that the instincts required to win the game are set ablaze by the fires of Hell. I am going to show you why I believe Survivor is Devil’s Island, where the same aspirations that got Lucifer and his followers kicked out of Heaven fuel the contestants.

Hey, I know it’s a fun watch. So is porn. That is the thing about feeding the flesh. It feels good. It becomes an escape.

But at what cost?

This is what I am here to explore in six parts.

#1—The Awkwardness of Alliances

To this day, Richard Hatch, the winner of Survivor Season 1, remains one of the most iconic and revered figures in the show’s history.

In the very first episode of the very first season, Hatch looked stone-cold into the camera and said, “I've got the million-dollar check written already. I mean, I'm the winner."

He had a plan no one else saw coming and he was confident it would work.

The show did not include the idea of the Alliance in its inception. Richard invented it.

In that first season, most players thought they were on a wilderness survival show. They voted based on who was lazy around camp—the ones not pulling their weight. Hatch realized immediately it was a numbers game. He formed the first-ever voting bloc, systematically picking off the "good, honorable" people who refused to collude.

Hatch didn’t see the lazy players as the threat. He saw the people who had strong personalities, a sense of honor, and good survival skills as the threat to his goal. He picked those people off one by one with his alliance.

Forget scruples. This is bloodlust. This is survival, not necessarily of the fittest, but of the foulest.

Isaiah wrote about forming alliances with the wrong people and on the wrong principles:

“Woe to the rebellious children,”
declares the LORD,
“to those who carry out a plan that is not Mine,
who form an alliance, but against My will,
heaping up sin upon sin.”
—Isaiah 30:1

Be careful with whom you align yourself and for what reason. Nothing makes faster friends than a common enemy. We see it right in front of us in America. Good-hearted, well-meaning people protest the take-down of a regime they would never in a million years want to live under—a hateful, demeaning, strict regime, intolerant of any sort of deviance from their prescribed lifestyle, one that brutalizes and murders its own people in order to protect and promote their twisted moral code. But liberal American women fill the streets and carry signs supporting the people who would brutally murder them in a nanosecond given the chance.

Why? Because they perceive a common enemy in Donald Trump.

This brings me to my second observation:

#2—The Limits of Loyalty

Sure, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” until I do not need them anymore.

Transactional relationships are always bound for heartbreak and disaster.

The breaking point of Survival loyalty is self-preservation.

The opposite of that is the Cross of Jesus Christ. His was not a loyalty or a love of convenience or self-care. His was Agape love—sacrificial love that puts the object of its affection above one’s own welfare.

Marriages built on transactional, self-preserving love are bound to fail. Often, the ones with the most to lose (in terms of wealth or property) will insist on a prenuptial agreement—and thus prove that self-preservation is paramount.

I say this: If you don’t love me through all, in all, despite all, then you don’t love me at all.

But what if I abuse that love? What if I misuse it? What if I fail to appreciate it? What if I don’t deserve it?

All of those things are true of every one of us when it comes to Christ’s love for us.

Solomon wrote in Proverbs 20:6, "Many claim to have unfailing love, but a faithful person who can find?"

Jesus Christ said, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down his life for his friends.” —John 15:13

The Apostle John wrote, “Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” —1 John 4:10

The limits of loyalty are bound in the packaging. If loyalty is packed in love, it is steadfast and permanent. If it is based on self-interest, it is precarious and short-lived.

#3—The Betrayal of the Brotherhood

Every season, people are blindsided by their own tribes. Some see it coming. Most do not. While they feel safe in their numbers, their fellow members plot their destruction.

The most devastating Survivor example of this might be from Season 8, when “Boston” Rob Mariano (another iconic player, and the one sometimes called “Godfather”) betrayed Lex van den Berghe.

Rob and Lex were close friends in real life before the season filmed. During the game, they ended up on opposing tribes. Through a twist in the game, Rob’s island girlfriend (and now real-life wife), Amber, was swapped onto Lex’s tribe and was the absolute dead-to-rights target to be voted out that night.

After a challenge, Boston Rob secretly pulled his friend Lex aside and whispered a plea: “You take care of her; I’ll take care of you. If you can.”

Lex valued his real-life brotherhood with Rob above his own strategic game. He went back to his camp and ruined his standing with his tribe by convincing them to spare Amber and vote out someone else, purely to honor his friendship with Rob.

The Betrayal: The very next day, the tribes merged into one. Lex walked into the new camp expecting Rob to honor the deal and protect him. Instead, Rob pulled Lex aside and coldly delivered the blow: “Lex, I’m sorry. I cannot protect you.” Having used Lex to save his girlfriend, Rob immediately rallied the numbers and voted his “brother” out that very night.

Lex became part of the jury and on the night of the vote to determine the winner, he delivered one of the show’s most famous and heart-rending speeches, a searing rebuke of his former friend, Rob:

“This game is about people... It’s about trust, it’s about friendships, and it’s about relationships. You sold out your values, you sold out your character, you sold out your friends for a stack of greenbacks. I hope it was worth it.”

He also looked directly at Rob and said: “With you, it was not a game. It was a friendship. We had a deal, we had a handshake, and we had an understanding. You broke my heart.”

Ah, the Brotherhood, the legion where we feel safe—until we are not, until the kiss of Judas or the Ides of March.

One of the most frightening aspects of today’s virtue-signaling mob is how quickly they devour their own.

Consider the case of J.K. Rowling, author of Harry Potter.

For decades, J.K. Rowling was a darling of the progressive left. She is a lifelong liberal, a feminist, and a major financial donor to left-leaning causes. She created the most beloved pop-culture franchise of the modern era. But the moment she expressed a biological reality—stating that sex is real and that erasing the concept of biological sex hurts women—the virtue-signaling mob unleashed a relentless, vicious campaign to destroy her.

It wasn’t just the mob that turned on her. It was the brotherhood. Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson, who owe their entire careers, their multi-million-dollar fortunes, and celebrity status to Rowling’s imagination, instantly abandoned her and threw her under the bus to appease the online mob.

King David understood this kind of betrayal:

"If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it; if a foe were rising against me, I could hide. But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend, with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship at the house of God..." —Psalm 55:12-14

The safety is not in numbers. The safety is in knowing you are on the right side of a conflict—the side of honor, integrity, and faithfulness, and standing firm no matter the cost. And the cost is always high. Maybe a million bucks. Maybe a reputation. Maybe a friendship.

Death before dishonor, then!

#4—The Dangers of Deception

Survivor is not “survivor of the fittest.” It is survivor of the shameless.

Players lie about their careers. Gary Hogeboom, a former NFL quarterback, kept that fact hidden as long as he could. He wasn’t the first or the last to fabricate a life story for convenience or to appear less of a threat.

Contestants lie about their families—usually to garner sympathy or trust from their compatriots, who are also their opponents.

They hide idols from each other. (Boy, could we go down a rabbit hole here, but refer instead to the sermon just prior to this for a discussion of “idols.”)

All of this deception exists because “it’s just a game.”

I don’t want to go off the deep end here. I understand contests are often won on deception. In football, offenses run misdirection or trick plays, while defenses disguise coverages. In baseball, a pitcher works and works until he perfects the same delivery and release point for a changeup as for a fastball.

But Survivor seems different, because it is a psychological study of human behavior and it rewards the best player, who may also be the worst kind of human.

We have raised a generation that knows nothing of the lessons of Chicken Little, Pinocchio, and The Boy Who Cried Wolf. We have allowed wicked people to feed them the lie that it is ok to lie as long as the outcome is in your favor.

Solomon calls BS on that mentality:

Like a madman shooting firebrands
and deadly arrows,
so is the man who deceives his neighbor
and says, “I was only joking!” —Proverbs 26:18,19

Often the things we think don’t matter—the little white lies, the cruel practical jokes, punking weaker people—matter the most in terms of our character and reputation. Trust is a delicate flower, easily crushed in a careless hand.

#5—The Immunity of Idols

The hidden idol was introduced to the game in Season 11. When you know your head is on the chopping block, or think it might be, you scour the jungle to find the hidden immunity idol. Play it at Council, and it cancels every vote. You are safe from elimination, at least for now.

I know this is an echo of the Golden Calf sermon a week ago, but this is exactly how we are taught to play the game of Life. Scour the concrete jungle for financial stability. DO UNTO OTHERS BEFORE THEY DO UNTO YOU! Relationships and reputation are secondary to financial gain. Everything is secondary to financial gain—except, of course, the relentless pursuit of hedonistic pleasure. Even the wealthy will destroy themselves and their families for that hidden idol. If we could only ask Jeffrey Epstein about that one. How many “honorable” people sold their souls for the forbidden fruits he offered? Only he and God know for sure.

So, here we have…

• The awkwardness of alliances

• The limits of loyalty

• The betrayal of the Brotherhood

• The dangers of deception

• The immunity of idols

Put all of that on one arm of the scale and put this one last thing on the other arm, and watch the scale tilt in your favor…

#6—The Law of Christ

Survivor is the Law of the Jungle. It is survival of the fittest, the foulest, the one most willing to play the game with cunning and calculation, the one who weaponizes relationships, who lies in the weeds like a jungle cat and targets the most vulnerable.

Contrast that with this:

…when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they themselves gathered together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested Him with a question: “Teacher, which commandment is the greatest in the Law?”

Jesus declared, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” —Matthew 16:34–40

Imagine living your life by the Law of Christ! How would it change you? How would it impact your life and those around you?

Yeah, you may become the target of the mob. You might lose an account or a client. You may get voted off the island.

Jesus was! His enemies thought they won. They stripped him in shame, beat him nearly to death, mocked him, took pieces of his clothing home for souvenirs, crucified him like a common criminal, sealed him in a grave and set soldiers there to make sure his followers didn’t try to retrieve his carcass.

Two thousand years later, being called a Pharisee is a terrible insult. It is seen as fake and self-serving, a holier-than-thou attitude, a pathetic person. Or, worse, being called a Judas—a traitor, a turncoat.

They won. They crucified Christ. But His name is still honored above every name in human history. Hospitals are built in his name. Hymns are written and sung to and about him. Millions worship great cathedrals, simple churches, and country cabins. We pray in his name. We praise his name.

You can’t vote him off the island. It is His island to begin with!

Christ made a promise to those willing to sacrifice the world’s idea of the Survivor in order to become a servant mankind…

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? —Matthew 16:25, 26

In this final sermon of the Sunday School series, we will give the Apostle Paul the last word, as we have in every one before. Take us home, sir.

For you, brothers, were called to freedom; but do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. Rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is fulfilled in a single decree: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you keep on biting and devouring one another, watch out, or you will be consumed by one another. —Galatians 5:13–15

My name is Gene. Some call me Preacher. Thank you for listening, and God bless you and yours.

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Afterword

Writing this sermon took me back to the early days of The JourneyMan writings. Way back on November 8, 2009, I wrote a short devotional titled, The Law of the Jungle and the Law of Christ. It is a short read and you can find it here.

Note: There is a poll at the very end of this sermon/article. Please provide your sincere response to help determine the course of these messages. Note that I do what I want anyway, but I sure value your input! The comments are always open, too. And, as always, please share when you feel like sharing.
—Gene, the JourneyMan

I am calling this series “Sunday School,” and this one may feel more like school than any of the others. I do not apologize for that.

“Holy cow!”

Let’s talk about that holy cow business. Where did it come from? Why do people say it? Whoever thought of putting “holy” and “cow” together in the first place?

We are told that “holy cow” is what etymologists call a “minced oath.” That is, two words are minced together that otherwise would not seem to belong. The term emerged in the late 19th century as an alternative to taking God’s name in vain.

If someone stubbed their toe or hit their thumb with a hammer, they may have shouted, “Holy God!” or “Holy Christ!” or they might merge “holy” with a most unholy word.

Such expressions offended the sensibilities of those wary of using the holy name as a cuss. So, substitutes emerged, including “Holy Cow.” In place of “Damn it!,” southern people might say “Dadgum it!” Things like that.

But the holy cow has history behind it.

The Hindu and the Sacred Cow

In America, we give plenty of thought to Eastern religions. Islam, of course, is always in the fore because of their aggressive behavior, treatment of women, and, for the more radical, their pure hatred of Christ and Christians. Even the less radical ones have no warm fuzzies for Israel or the Jews.

Moses and the sacred cow

It may not be beside the point to remember that Israel once literally placed a “holy cow” between themselves and God—and evoked the wrath of Moses, and God. We will get to them in a few minutes.

The Holy Hindu Cow

Hinduism doesn’t get a lot of play because it doesn’t represent a threat. Hindus are more peaceful, by and large.

But, boy, do they love their sacred cows. In Hindu countries, cows may roam free and unmolested. While Christians see Texas Roadhouse on hooves, Hindus see Grandma or Grandpa.

This respect for the peaceful, mostly harmless grass-eating, milk-giving cow rises from the two major tenets of Hinduism:

1. Samsara—or, reincarnation.

2. Ahimsa—a commitment to nonviolence.

These foundational Hindu principles elevate Elsie for three reasons:

1. The Evolution of the Soul—In Hindu theology, a soul (atman) is trapped in a continuous cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. The soul evolves as it moves through millions of different life forms (from plants to insects to animals) before finally achieving human form, which is the only state where one can achieve ultimate spiritual liberation (moksha). Being reincarnated as a cow is considered an incredibly high stage of this evolutionary journey—often seen as the final stepping stone before a soul is reborn as a human. So, if you eat a cow, you might be eating an ancestor who is just one stop short of becoming human again.

2. The Weight of Karma—Because of reincarnation, Hinduism teaches ahimsa, the principle of non-violence toward all living things, since every creature houses a reincarnating soul. Harming any animal brings negative karma. However, because the cow is considered such a spiritually advanced and purely benevolent creature, killing or harming one carries a catastrophic karmic penalty. Ancient texts suggest that the negative karma of killing a cow could result in the perpetrator being reincarnated into the lowest, most agonizing life forms for countless lifetimes.

3. The Universal Mother—The cow is revered as Gau Mata (Mother Cow) because of her selfless nature. She eats simple grass but produces milk that sustains human life, long after a human mother has stopped nursing. In the karmic cycle, harming the cow is equated to the horrific spiritual sin of harming one's own mother.

Since Hinduism goes as far back as 3,000 BC, this thinking has endured a long, long time—and without a famous founder to point to.

Thinking about whether it has impacted Western thought, and particularly American thought, you can be sure it has.

• The Beatles famously traveled to India to learn the practice of Transcendental Meditation. George Harrison released My Sweet Lord in 1970.

• Star Wars and “The Force”—”May The Force be with you”—is just an Americanized rendering of Brahman, the sum total of energy that can be summoned and used for good or evil.

• American authors Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson dipped their prose and poetry respectively into the peaceful waters of Hindu thought—and significantly impacted American thought in the late 19th Century and the 20th Century. They are still influencing us. PBS recently released a documentary series studying and praising Thoreau.

If all that seems too far back and foreign, or if you are, like me, from Texas or some other hotbed of Country music, consider the famous Highwayman—Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson, each an icon in his own right—singing about reincarnation in their most famous song, I Was a Highwayman. They imagine having been a highwayman, a sailor, and a dam builder. The last verse goes like this:

I'll fly a star ship across the universe divide
And when I reach the other side
I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can
Perhaps I may become a highwayman again
Or I may simply be a single drop of rain
But I will remain
And I'll be back again and again and again
And again and again and again

And you are thinking, OK! What the heck does that have to do with me??? And just like that, I caught you Baptist cussing!

The Jewish and Christian Sacred Cows

Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and became the undisputed spiritual and political leader of a people that had not self-governed for 400 years. Establishing laws to govern a people, and a form of government is always a delicate and dicey thing, so Jehovah called Moses into Mt. Sinai to be alone with him and to give the people a simple but comprehensive outline for how they should conduct themselves—in other words, God was laying down The Law.

Moses would return with tablets containing The Ten Commandments, which would become the sacred cornerstone of the laws for the Jews, and for every Christian-influenced government in the world to this day.

But it was not all smooth. In fact, it was not at all smooth.

Now when the people saw that Moses was delayed in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him!”

So Aaron told them, “Take off the gold earrings that are on your wives and sons and daughters, and bring them to me.”

Then all the people took off their gold earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took the gold from their hands, and with an engraving tool he fashioned it into a molten calf. And they said, “These, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before the calf and proclaimed: “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD.”

So the next day they arose, offered burnt offerings, and presented peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. How quickly they have turned aside from the way that I commanded them! They have made for themselves a molten calf and have bowed down to it. They have sacrificed to it and said, ‘These, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’”

The LORD also said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and they are indeed a stiff-necked people. Now leave Me alone, so that My anger may burn against them and consume them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”

But Moses sought the favor of the LORD his God, saying, “O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people, whom You brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians declare, ‘He brought them out with evil intent, to kill them in the mountains and wipe them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce anger and relent from doing harm to Your people. Remember Your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, to whom You swore by Your very self when You declared, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and I will give your descendants all this land that I have promised, and it shall be their inheritance forever.’”

So the LORD relented from the calamity He had threatened to bring on His people.

Then Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.
Exodus 32:1-15

Here was a crossroads for Israel: trust a God you cannot see or a golden calf that represents the work of your own hands. Trust God or a more immediate-feeling, man-made substitute for Him. Trust God or themselves. That is a crossroad every believer from then to now has faced, is facing, or will face—God or your Golden Calf.

What are the modern Golden Calves?

Financial Security:

The most immediate substitute for God’s providence. It is the temptation to trust in a bank balance or a retirement fund to provide the “peace” that only the Prince of Peace can sustain.

Political Ideology:

Turning a party, a platform, or a specific leader into a savior. It is the belief that the “kingdom” will be brought or saved through legislative power rather than through the transformation of the human heart by the Spirit.

Professional Platform:

This is a subtle idol for those in leadership. It is trusting in one’s own influence, credentials, and reputation to maintain a “kingdom” of one’s own making, rather than laboring purely for the glory of God.

Technological Control:

Trusting in “the algorithm,” scientific advancement, or digital systems to eliminate suffering and provide a sense of omniscience and safety. It is the modern “digital panopticon” turned into a source of hope. I believe this may be the vehicle of Antichrist, if not his habitat.

Moral Performance:

Trusting in a “clean” record, correct doctrine, or religious activity as the basis for security. It makes “self-justification” the god and renders the finished work of Christ secondary.

Family & Legacy:

Elevating the success, happiness, or approval of children and grandchildren to an ultimate position. It turns a “good gift” into an “ultimate thing” that dictates the believer’s fundamental identity.

Personal Comfort:

The “immediate-feeling” substitute. It is the idol of the “path of least resistance,” where any demand God makes is weighed against how much it will cost in terms of convenience or ease.

“I’ll do anything for you, Lord, as long as it is nearby, at a good time for me, doesn’t cost too much, and is not too hard. Also, the Cowboys play at 3 this Sunday. But anyway…Anything! I mean it, Jesus. Anything at all!”

Now I know that the LORD saves His anointed;
He answers him from His holy heaven
with the saving power of His right hand.
Some trust in chariots and others in horses,
but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.
They collapse and fall, but we rise up and stand firm.
O LORD, save the king.
Answer us on the day we call.
Psalm 20:6–9

So, if you ever wondered where the Brits got their “God save the King (or Queen)” from, there you have it. Only, this was the king writing the verse. This was the King’s prayer.

Why did he pray that in the third person? Did pride seep into his soul as he wrote? Was he reminding God that he was a king? No! I do not believe that. I believe he was acknowledging that his role was wholly of God’s doing, and therefore, he desired God’s guidance and protection.

Whatever your role is, however much you sacrificed to get into it, it is still all God. Without Him, you are nothing. Literally. Nothing. Nowhere. No one.

So, smash to pieces your Golden Calves. Repent of your self-reliance. Tear down that wall between you and Holy God.

Once more, let’s give the Apostle Paul a final word in this Sunday School sermon:

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.
Colossians 3:1–5

The way he closes that! Greed, which is idolatry. God vs the Golden Calf. God vs Greed.

My name is Gene. Some call me “Preacher.” This is Sunday School.

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Now I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must be clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.

When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come to pass: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

“Where, O Death, is your sting?

Where, O Grave, is your victory?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast and immovable. Always excel in the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
–1 Corinthians 15:50-58

This is, of course, a classic Easter Sunday text. How often have we heard a preacher eloquently bellow while shaking his fist in the face of Evil, “O, Death! Where is thy sting! O Grave, where is thy victory!”

I can still feel the intensity of it all. I was a boy preacher, enamored of the powerful and eloquent men of God who came through our town and filled the pulpit in one revival service or another. They thundered these words and I imagined Satan shivering and shrinking into the shadows. I imagined the earth rumbling and quaking and the mighty stone that sealed Jesus’ tomb splitting in two.

But how many of us have paused to consider that Paul is quoting something already written somewhere else, some established saying.

He says, “It is written…”

But who wrote it? When? Where?

This might be a good time to pause this sermon and grab your Bible. (Isn’t that awesome? You can pause it, get your Bible, and come back to it. Ah, the wonders of technology!)

Now, turn in your Bible to the Old Testament book of Hosea. It is tucked right in after the book of Daniel. Hosea represents the beginning of a segment of Scripture called the minor prophets. These prophets were not minor in importance; they just wrote shorter books.

Now, read this passage with me…

I will ransom them from the power of the Grave;
I will redeem them from Death.
Where, O Death, are your plagues?
Where, O Grave, is your sting?
Hosea 13:14

So, Paul was quoting Hosea!

For context, understand that Hosea was writing in the 8th century BC; that is, 800 years before Christ.

This raises the issue of “prophecy.”

What is prophecy? Well, strictly speaking it is “the writing of history before it occurs.”

Part One: Hosea’s Ho, or the Broken-Hearted Preacher

So, Hosea is a prophet, a minister of the Most High, the God of Israel. He is also a troubled and tragic figure because he has the misfortune of being in love with and married to a serial cheater, an unfaithful wife. Her name is Gomer. Her name means “to come to an end,” and is interpreted as “fulfillment.” She was meant to be that, to fulfill Hosea’s life, to be his partner, his person.

She failed miserably—and more than once. Gomer was a woman of ill repute when Hosea married her. He was not married under false pretenses. And God was in it, or even behind it, which is hard to get your brain around…

This is the word of the LORD that came to Hosea son of Beeri in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and of Jeroboam son of Jehoash, king of Israel.

When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, He told him, “Go, take a prostitute as your wife and have children of adultery, because this land is flagrantly prostituting itself by departing from the LORD.”
Hosea 1:1,2

Was God instructing Hosea against his will? Or was God saying, “I see you have fallen for this woman, Gomer. She is a rotten apple, but you go ahead and make her your wife. See if you can make an honest woman of her.”

It looks like all is going well. She marries him, gives him a son, then a daughter, then another son. Marital bliss appears to be in the cards for Hosea!

All the while, God is filling Hosea in on what is going to happen with Israel as they grow, rebel, repent, return, rebel, etc.

God likens Israel to an adulteress whore. That is putting it bluntly, but that is also the blunt picture God paints for Hosea.

He sums it up for Hosea in this bit of poetic verse:

I will punish her for the days of the Baals
when she burned incense to them,
when she adorned herself with rings and jewelry,
and went after her lovers.
But Me she forgot…
Hosea 2:13

Part Two: Whoa, Ho! Or, God’s Redemptive Love

God sent Hosea again and again to recover and restore his unfaithful wife over the years. He would not allow Hosea to give up and lick his wounds. He would not allow him to give up on Gomer, that broken woman.

Then the LORD said to me, “Go show love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love to offer raisin cakes to idols.”

So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. Then I said to her, “You must live with me for many days; you must not be promiscuous or belong to another, and I will do the same for you.”
Hosea 3:1,2

You want to talk about tenacious love? Hosea has to pay to get his wife back. He has to buy her freedom from her pimp. Whew! Man. That’s tough.

God wouldn’t let Hosea give up on Gomer and He would never give up on Israel, either.

Hosea records God’s words of restoration like this, again as poetic verse:

Therefore, behold, I will allure her
and lead her to the wilderness,
and speak to her tenderly.

There I will give back her vineyards
and make the Valley of Achor
into a gateway of hope.
There she will respond as she did
in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came up out of Egypt.

In that day,”
declares the LORD,
“you will call Me ‘my Husband,’
and no longer call Me ‘my Master.’

For I will remove from her lips the names of the Baals;
no longer will their names be invoked.

On that day I will make a covenant for them
with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air
and the creatures that crawl on the ground.
And I will abolish bow and sword
and battle in the land,
and will make them lie down in safety.

So I will betroth you to Me forever;
I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,
in loving devotion and compassion.
And I will betroth you in faithfulness,
and you will know the LORD.”

“On that day I will respond—”
declares the LORD—
“I will respond to the heavens,
and they will respond to the earth.

And the earth will respond to the grain,
to the new wine and oil,
and they will respond to Jezreel.

And I will sow her as My own in the land,
and I will have compassion on ‘No Compassion.’
I will say to those called ‘Not My People,’
‘You are My people,’
and they will say,
‘You are my God.’”
Hosea 2:14–23

Wow! Such stunning imagery! Such beautiful language.

The Valley of Achor is a troublesome place to Israel. It was there that Achan, the traitor to Joshua and to God was executed. “Achor” means “deep trouble” or “taboo.” It is the kind of place no one talks about, except in whispers. But God says to get ready because when His mercy flows and His grace restores, even Achor will be a gateway of hope.

This is the transformative power of God’s amazing grace. It is not the power of an Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps human effort and willpower program. It is the power of relentless, divine grace, the kind that does not wilt even in the face of rebellion. It is the hug of the mother who won’t let go of the rebellious son, who embraces him until his stubborn will melts and he, in tears, repents—love that breaks through the iron-barred prisons of hatred and human willfulness, love that crushes spiritual evil to cosmic powder, love that tramples unholy kingdoms to smithereens to rescue the one loved.

Part Three: This is the Power of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ!

We sing in our churches songs like, “Power in the Blood.”

But there is only power in the blood because there is no body in the tomb. There is no redemption in the shed blood of the dead. Redemption requires resurrection! Jesus must defeat the final enemy to fully free us from the chains of sin and the curse of death.

Death had a grip on humanity—a choke-hold that said, “It is appointed unto humans once to die. And after this, the judgment.”

What kind of life is that? Where is the hope? Where is the reason for life beyond the very short time we have on this dust ball? What despair! What a meager little existence, even if you live a life of consequence and accomplishment, you are just a blip on the screen of time, just a vapor. You are here for a moment and gone forever after that. What is that all about?

But God! But Jesus! But Easter! But an empty tomb! But a risen Lord!

Death has lost its grip and Paul and Hosea taunt it, “Hey, Death! Where is your sting? Hey grave, where is your finality, your victory?”

Ha! Jesus pulled the stinger out of Death and snatched the trophy from the grave. Easter is the day that shouts, “Take that, you miserable, evil, Satanic influences. Take that, you premature celebrants. Take that, you enemies of the Most High God. Take that, Enemies of my soul!”

We have let the great apostle close each of these sermons and this one will be no different. We started with Paul’s great declaration of victory over death and the grave, which he borrowed from the embattled prophet of old, the man who redeemed one woman and illustrated God’s sacrifice to redeem his people.

So, Paul, sir, if you would, please, take us home.

What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase? Certainly not! How can we who died to sin live in it any longer? Or aren’t you aware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection. We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. For anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God. So you too must count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires. Do not present the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and present the parts of your body to Him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? Certainly not! Do you not know that when you offer yourselves as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one you obey, whether you are slaves to sin leading to death, or to obedience leading to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you once were slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were committed. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to escalating wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.

For when you were slaves to sin, you were free of obligation to righteousness. What fruit did you reap at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The outcome of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the fruit you reap leads to holiness, and the outcome is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6

Amen! Go to Hell, Satan. Jesus lives.

My name is Gene. Some call me Preacher. And this is Sunday School.

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I came to my journal for the first time in three weeks and realized I had little to say, so I said a little. I found that a little depressing. I wondered how much I really had to say at all, so I thumbed through the journal. I perused and surfed the words of my soul. I found they soared and sank and sometimes stumbled along.

A natural break in the way the binding has given into its manipulations over the course of more than three years caused the journal to fall open to an entry on 11/13/2023. I landed on a spot where I had wrestled with my writing.

There, I shared one of my favorite movie funnies of all time. It is from the epic Dances with Wolves, starring Kevin Costner. A foul-mouthed fellow named Timmons is guiding Costner’s Lieutenant Dunbar to the wilderness fort in Indian territory when they happen on a pilgrim’s wagon. It had been attacked by hostiles and Dunbar found the man’s bleaching bones and an arrow sticking from them.

Timmons found it funny…

I guess I was stuck in November of 2023. I had projects on my mind and I listed a few of them:

• “Whores at Christmas”—which is still in the hopper and will be the coup de grace of my short story collection called The All-American Songbook.

• “Route 66”—this one is a book of sermons/bible lessons and is somewhat underway, but far from finished.

• “Ye Olde Limericks of the Bible”—Yeah, probably not. I did write one on the previous page of my journal and it is included in Moonshine Love.

• “Vapor”—This was to be the title of my memoir, which has at least a dozen pieces completed but is far from done, and the title will likely change. I have some leaders in the clubhouse for it. Like a friend said, “Don’t people do something to become somebody and then write a memoir?” Well, yeah. Mostly. But some became somebody we knew because they wrote a memoir. My favorite Irish-American writer, Frank McCourt, is case in point with Angela’s Ashes. He was 70+, by the way, when he completed the manuscript. Before the book, he was a school teacher in New York. So don’t dismiss the memoir idea. I ain’t done considering it yet.

Those were things on my mind to write on 11/13/2023.

Why Doesn’t the Writer Write?

In my journal, I provided possible answers:

1. Lazy. Sometimes, that is exactly why. Writing is hard work. Good writing is even harder.

2. Fearful. What if I write it and nobody reads it? Well, that is almost a given at this point, right?

3. Discouraged. See number two ⬆️

4. Depressed. See numbers two and three ⬆️⬆️

5. All of the above.

I Wrote a Note of Random Encouragement.

At the bottom of the 11/13/2023 journal page, I wrote something that didn’t seem to fit. But as I revisit it, I think maybe it does.

I had come across the story of Elon Musk’s maternal grandparents, Joshua and Wyn Haldeman. They were successful in business. Joshua was a chiropractor and an avid aviator. He was famous for leading family expeditions in his single-engine plane to find the legendary "Lost City of the Kalahari" in southern Africa. Wyn was as adventurous as he was. They lived politically controversial and undeniably adventurous lives.

I stumbled onto their motto in my reading on Musk’s life and it stuck hard enough for me to append to the discouraged writing of that November day nearly three years ago:

What I took from that is a mantra I want to apply to my adventures in writing, speaking, and business leadership. Below is mine.

Quote it, if you please. Remember it, if you will. Or forget it. Your call.

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Sunday’s coming. Easter Sunday’s coming! And I will slip into my Sunday preaching clothes for it.

Stay tuned.

Love,
Gene

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Like everyone else in the crowd, you wear a glowing LED wristband that syncs to the music. There is electricity in the air, a vibe that vibrates, pulsates on your wrist, in your being, and in the atmosphere. The night and the music are everything you imagined and more. You know you are making the memory of a lifetime.

The band is doing their little break, a bit song called the Jumbotron Song in their “Music of the Spheres” set. Lead singer Chris Martin is playing a light acoustic guitar riff while cameras pan the crowd. He is so witty the way he improvises funny, rhyming lyrics about whoever ends up on the big screen.

Then it happened, and when it did you knew it was a moment that would change lives forever, and not for the better. The camera caught a couple. The man stood behind the woman, his arms around her. But when he saw himself on the Jumbotron, he ducked behind the seats to hide his face. The woman, horrified, buried her face in her hands.

Chris Martin quipped, “Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy.”

Immediately, Internet sleuths went to work to find out who they were, where they lived, where they worked, and whether they were indeed caught red-handed.

You already know the rest of the story! Even in that moment in that stadium, you feel the air sucked from your lungs. You can’t breathe. It’s like a panic attack.

Your name is Andrew Cabot. You are attending the concert to forget your troubles for a few hours, to get lost in the crowd and the music. But the woman caught on camera is Kristin, your estranged wife, and the man with his arms around her is her boss.

What it feels like to be canceled in today’s culture.

Cancel Culture is like that Gillette Stadium fiasco. It is immediate and complete. It is the unforgivable sin of our culture. The rush to judgment is like the stampede of a buffalo herd from a couple hundred years ago. Millions of human hooves—memes, news articles, commentary, comments—trample you until there is nothing left but the mangled remains of a broken life. You were human just moments before. It only took moments for the Internet to crowdsource every single thing about you, and then slice, dice, rip, tear, and leave you tattered and torn.

We live in what has been called a digital panopticon. We live in a sort of circular prison cell, in which the walls are glass so that we are always observable and observed.

Examples include ubiquitous CCTV cameras, social media tracking, workplace monitoring software, smart city surveillance, and digital COVID-19 contact tracing apps. Every time you hit “agree” on an app, you give away your privacy. It feels like they are listening and watching because they are. It is not paranoia if it is provable.

Cancel culture means something different in Heaven.

People have forever attempted to cancel others they feel better than. Last week, we read about the woman caught in adultery. It felt like a trap sprung on her, because how could she have been so careless and they so “lucky?” And where was the man?

She was just the bait, though. When I was a boy and I went to run a trot line with my grandfather, we first caught little perch in a pond. They were not the end game. They would be attached to the trot line. It was the big fish we were after. The big fish for the Pharisees was Jesus.

But Jesus turned the trap on them and they were caught in their own guilt.

Cancel culture is different with God. Yes, there is a price for sin and Jesus paid it with His life. But God never set out to cancel people. His purpose is to cancel sin and its consequences.

God doesn’t cancel sinners; He cancels sin.

When you were dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our trespasses, having canceled the debt ascribed to us in the decrees that stood against us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross! And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
—Colossians 2:13,14

So, this is different, isn’t it? The world wants to cancel the guilty. God wants to redeem the guilty and cancel the evil forces that are really at work against Him in this world. Who are those forces? Well…

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this world’s darkness, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
—Ephesians 6:12

Jesus didn’t come to condemn sinners. He came to make for us a path of no condemnation.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
—Romans 8:1

Those who cancel will be canceled.

Humans cannot handle the power to cancel well. We turn it on the weak, the exposed, the vulnerable, ideological and political adversaries, and anyone but ourselves. By so doing, we cancel ourselves.

Here are some instructions Jesus gave to His disciples and, therefore, to us:

“Do not judge, or you will be judged. For with the same judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye but fail to notice the beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while there is still a beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! First take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
—Matthew 7:1–5

I cannot prove it statistically, but I know the heart of man well enough by now to believe that those quickest to the judgment seat have the most to hide. I doubt too many of the Internet sleuths doxxing others would themselves want their own Internet history to be known. Their own secret thoughts, passions, things they would do if they thought they could get away with it. We know intuitively how untrustworthy human nature really is. This is why we have axioms like “absolute authority corrupts absolutely.”

While we lack absolute authority, we forget our manners and feed our baser urges with the presumed anonymity of the digital world, which, of course, is anything but anonymous.

You can’t cancel what God appoints.

My wife and I often cancel plans. The time nears to do a thing we planned and our minds change. People do that. They cancel dental appointments because the toothache subsided. They cancel dinner plans because they had a fight or a better offer came along or whatever. And they cancel other people—just write them off for an offense.

Back in the early 80s, I offended a mentor and he told me, “We will never speak again as friends.”

I guess he meant it. I am 64 and he is in his 80s. So far, so good. Of course, he later canceled his own son for an even greater offense and that cancellation seems to be holding, too. This man was a preacher, but that isn’t the gospel, brother. Not at all.

How about we let the Apostle Paul ride us on into finish line on this sermon, as we have the others?

And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose. For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified.

What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, freely give us all things? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is there to condemn us? For Christ Jesus, who died, and more than that was raised to life, is at the right hand of God—and He is interceding for us.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

As it is written, “For Your sake we face death all day long;

we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
—Romans 8:28-39

My name is Gene. Some call me Preacher. And this is Sunday School.

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Cases in point…

Overrated

I just returned from a national conference where I was chosen to present a course on ethics and AI. I had two co-presenters: a wonderfully-gifted attorney, young but wise beyond her years and well-studied; and a cofounder/president of a company that has built AI agents to supply claims handlers and others with digital coworkers. She, too, is brilliant and hard to overestimate, given her accomplishments. Then, there is me—a preacher out of the pulpit, an adjuster who hasn’t adjusted a claim in years, and the leader of a school devoted to the education of adjusters and other claims professionals.

For a couple of days, I have been on the sweet end of positive feedback and wonderful words of encouragement. More than a few told me that our class was the best of the week. Not everyone said that, but no one said it sucked. Couple that with some industry friends genuinely telling me the things they like about me as a person and speaker and a thinker and whatnot, and my head threatens to swell.

Underrated

Then, I am milling about a room filled with the movers and shakers in our industry and for the most part, I am unknown and, apparently, uninteresting. A few nod. Some smile. None engage, unless they know me. And the same head that threatened to swell begins to shrivel.

All the good things I tell me about myself give way to the bad ones. I may be my biggest supporter (according to some), but I remain my harshest critic, too.

Anyone else feel this? Am I alone here?

Underestimated. Overestimated. Never quite properly estimated!

On one hand, you want to scream, “Hey! Look! I am here. See me?

And on the other, you furrow your brow and think, “What are you looking at?”

You might know that the preacher left in me or the counselor I once purported to be might have some thoughts on this matter of how to find balance in the way you view, judge, assess, and accept yourself.

I do.

Give Yourself a break, but not one you wouldn’t extend to someone else.

In this world of self-love and self-care, we have fostered at least one generation of people always ready to give themselves the benefit of every doubt and every break. Those same people improve how they feel about themselves by withholding such grace from others, so they feel better by comparison. This is not a new problem. Jesus identified it in a parable more than 2,000 years ago.

To some who trusted in their own righteousness and viewed others with contempt, He also told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—swindlers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and pay tithes of all that I acquire.’

But the tax collector stood at a distance, unwilling even to lift up his eyes to heaven. Instead, he beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man, rather than the Pharisee, went home justified. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” —Luke 8:9–14

Ah, the comparison prayer! The “I deserve better” prayer.

I would like to stop right here and say in almost every circumstance and category, we would be better served to just take “deserve” out of our vocabulary. Entitlement + self-love is putrefying, especially to the God Who went to such extremes to show His love despite our unworthiness. Either that, or He made the blunder of history in making the sacrifice He did.

Give yourself a break, but not an excuse.

“I’m sorry but” is the way blame-shifting often begins. What follows “but” is everything but ownership.

Fail but don’t excuse it.

If you fall, get up, and do better.

If you sin, own it, confess it, forsake it.

A sin cannot be excused and forgiven at the same time.

Neither can it be excused and overcome.

Excuses keep us down, hold us back, and let us think it is someone else’s fault.

They lead to dissatisfaction, which ferments into bitterness.

Don’t over-estimate your worth

Too many base their worth on wealth, fame, accolades, “likes,” “followers,” “connections,” and comparisons.

I saw a meme on LinkedIn this morning and it was the catalyst for this line of thought. I shared it on LinkedIn and Facebook. Here it is.

That stopped me dead in my tracks because it reminded me of my faith, my anchor, my belief system. You can find similar sentiments in Scripture.

Then Jesus called the crowd to Him along with His disciples, and He told them, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and for the gospel will save it.

What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in His Father’s glory with the holy angels.” —Mark 8:34–38

Jesus says preparing your life to be measured in time but not eternity is poor planning. Very poor, indeed.

The Apostle Paul agreed and gave these instructions to young Timothy:

Of course, godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, so we cannot carry anything out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.

Those who want to be rich, however, fall into temptation and become ensnared by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. By craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows. —1 Timothy 6:6–10

People overestimate their worth when they focus on the wrong measurements.

I heard a rhetorical or apocryphal story as a boy.

Two people discussing the passing of a very rich man.

“How much did he leave behind?” asks the first man, with a twinge of jealousy.

“He left it all,” answered the second.

We all do.

Don’t Under-Estimate Your Worth

Just as some overestimate themselves on the criteria of temporal and fleeting things, others underestimate their value on the same criteria. They think themselves less because they have less money, power, position, followers, likes, ability, knowledge…

Again, I turn to the big picture to sort out these little ones.

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life. —Ephesians 2:10

Some Bible versions use the word “masterpiece” rather than “Workmanship,” and I can see why. The Greek word Paul used is poeima, from which we get “poem,” and it does imply an important work, a masterpiece.

You are better than Mona Lisa and Whistler’s Mother combined, because you are the masterpiece of God almighty. It is a shame to think there is nothing special about that!

Don’t overestimate yourself or underestimate yourself, and don’t spend too much time or energy on those estimations. Be humble. The best way to do that is to put energy, thought, and care into others.

Remember the words of C.S. Lewis:

So what if others sing my praises or fail to recognize my presence? So what if they overestimate me or underestimate me? They’re not props in The Gene Show. They are people I have the opportunity and the privilege to find a way to serve, to brighten their day, lighten their load, or light their way.

In my estimation, that’s enough.

I was raised in a little white church with a red brick facade.

Of course, lots of people can say they were raised in church, but when I say I was raised in church, I mean I was raised in church. My grandfather was the pastor of the First Bible Baptist Church in Mineral Wells, Texas.

We had the usual four services per week—Sunday School, Sunday morning worship, Sunday evening worship, and Wednesday bible study. Unsatisfied to let the Philistines educate the children of the church, Big Granddad—that’s what the Strother kids called him because our other grandfather was slight of build and Big Granddad was a big, strong man—built an addition onto the sanctuary that would be used both for Sunday School space and to house a Christian school.

I attended that school from fifth grade until we left Mineral Wells the summer before my senior year, with just a brief interval when my dad moved us to Strawn so he could pastor his own church and raise me there.

Like I said, I was raised in church.

The sanctuary seated probably 100 people tops. There were two rows of wooden pews and a center aisle. The floor was vinyl tile, except for the center aisle and the platform, which wore red carpet—red like blood, like nothing but the blood of Jesus. A simple podium was front and center on the stage. On either side were the instruments of worship—an upright piano to the left and a small organ to the right.

Granny Atkins played the organ. She was an ancient woman with a bent back that forced her mostly to look at her feet or the organ keys. When she did bother to look up at you, she had some advice or a “testimony” to share. She was as sweet as pie but that organ was the stuff of haunted dreams.

Years ago, I took Donya to the Music Hall at Fair Park in Dallas to see The Phantom of the Opera. When they played that iconic organ music, all I could see was the ghost of Granny Atkins.

Part Two: The Pianist that Made Me

It was the piano that influenced my life the most in that church—and the pianist, who happened to be Freda Jo Strother, Big Granddad’s oldest daughter and my mom. I do not remember a single sermon Big Granddad preached, but I do remember some I preached there as a wet-nosed preacher boy. That was where I cut my teeth and began to hone my skills as a public speaker, and nothing has served me better in life than that, unless you count the pianist.

My mom was the pianist, the best singer in that or any other church in that Texas hamlet. Consequently, she often sang a “special” right before Big Granddad’s sermon. Her songs are the part of those worship services that have stuck with me like Gorilla Glue through all the decades since. From them, I learned about Jesus, love, life, sacrifice, faith, faithfulness—all the qualities in a faith worth having and a life worth living.

In my home, the home of a bi-vocational preacher who loved souls and cars and a faithful woman who quietly modeled all the good stuff in life, there was a big family Bible. It sat on a shelf or a coffee table and it had photos and newspaper clippings in it. I think Mom even stuck one or two of the first sermons I ever typed out in it. But we didn’t take it out and gather around it to read it the way some remember doing in their childhood.

We never had family devotions. Mom didn’t give a lot of verbal instructions on Christian living. Like Big Granddad, she was pretty quiet. He was the least talkative preacher I ever remember knowing. Mom was that way, too. She could be so quiet that some thought she didn’t like them. It wasn’t true. She just didn’t know them well enough to have something to say, or she left room for them to carry the conversation.

Honestly, I have had deeper and longer talks with my mother-in-law than I ever did my mother.

But what she did was sing from the piano in church. When she did, it was so powerful. She had this alto voice like Adele, but long, long before Adele. She was powerful like Cher. She didn’t need a microphone to fill that sanctuary, which had remarkably good acoustics, with her voice. When she sang, no one shuffled or coughed. No kids cried. We barely breathed.

It was not the family bible or daily devotions around a family altar that molded me; it was the songs my mom sang. Certain ones etched into my soul that I could never hear again and not hear her voice enveloping me in the hand of God.

It was decades before I realized how much of my theology was first expressed in her songs, and how my impression of God and His Son Jesus was formed there.

Part Three: The Songs That Sold Me Jesus

Let me share a few of the songs Mom sang that I still hear in my heart and sometimes sing or whistle as I work or drive.

Number One: Neither Do I Condemn Thee

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. —Romans 8:1

Jesus offers forgiveness of sin and freedom from sin’s powerful grip to those who will believe and follow Him. The worst among us need no more and no less grace than the most upright.

I learned that from the pianist.

Number Two: I See Jesus

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. —Romans 8:18

Whatever it costs, a life of faith and faithfulness is worth living, not just for the benefits to your character, reputation, family, and legacy here but eternally. A life in Christ is never wasted, however long or short, or however troubled.

I learned that from the pianist.

Number Three: I know Whom I Have Believed

Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, to which I was appointed a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles. For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day. —2 Timothy 1:8–12

Paul wrote his young protégé from prison. That is potentially embarrassing. You think culture trying to cancel Christian voices and beliefs is something new? It is as old as Christianity itself. If you are waiting for Christ to be vogue, you are looking for the wrong thing.

You want to hear some really, really unpopular words?

“Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.” —Matthew 10:34–36

What? You thought following Jesus was going to simplify everything and get you lots of “likes” on Social Media? You thought He would be a good mascot for your parade? Try prison. Try Crucifixion. Try being cancelled in ways you never dreamed.

No. But! But! I know Whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep ‘that’ which I’ve committed unto Him against that day.

What is “that which I’ve committed” in that verse?

Everything! Everything I am. Everything I have. Everything I hope and dream. All of it. He is not about half measures or hedging your bet.

I learned that from the pianist.

Number Four: No One Ever Cared for Me Like Jesus

What I learned from the pianist is that the Christian faith is not about a platform. It is not a program. It is not a political agenda or a policy. It is not a performance.

It is all about a person—Jesus Christ.

I have two questions:

1. Where is your faith? It is somewhere, even if you are an atheist. It is in something or someone. You do not know everything, so you must believe something.

2. What are your kids learning from the song of your life that will make them, mold them, and sustain them in the decades to come?

My name is Gene. Some call me Preacher. And this is Sunday School.

“Inspired by,” not based on.

I have enjoyed such liberty in the pursuit of them. I have traveled coast to coast and border to border (and beyond) chasing that uniquely American spirit and elusive American dream. From the storied romance of the Old West to the tangled mess of modern society, the journey has taken me to railroad depots, desolate plains, the frigid North, the Deep South, and Texas, of course.

Along the way, we have met Bobby McGee, Prophet John, a gunfighter named Jesus, Tilly Rae, Mona Lisa, Vincent Van Gogh, and many more.

Their stories are our stories. And now the songs will never sing the same.

I would like to say this new one is the most personal of the stories in The All-American Songbook, but honest self-evaluation demands I own that there are pieces of me, people I have known, met, run into, and heard about in every story. Still, this one is special to me. As you read it, I think you will understand why.

I urge you to read it and let me know what you think—and if you found any part of yourself or your story in it.

For my paying subscribers, there is a code in this message just beyond the pay wall. That code will get you the book free and is good through the end of March.

Free subscribers can snag a copy today for just $2.99. Or, for as little as $8/month, you can step over the paywall and get it for FREE. Upgrading instantly unlocks the promo code hidden just below this paragraph—but don't wait too long, because the code expires at the end of March. Upgrade today, grab your code, and get the warm feeling of supporting your storytelling friend.

Thank you for coming along!
Gene “The JourneyMan”

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Advice has never been more readily available than it is now. With the proliferation of social media, everyone has a platform, and we each use it to tell everybody else what to think, how to feel, how to act, when to act, where to go, and how to get there.

Everybody is telling everybody everything and nobody’s listening.

We might have predicted there would be contradictory messaging as a result.

When it comes to urgency or patience, the conflicting messaging predates the Internet and Social Media—it goes back decades, centuries, even millennia.

The Call to Urgency

We have famous axioms like, “He who hesitates is lost,” a sentiment that dates back at least as far as Joseph Addison’s play, Cato, which was released in 1712, more than 60 years before America was born.

I was never in the United States Marines, but my first position as a professional minister was as the assistant to a Marine-turned-Baptist minister. He loved to say, “Do something, even if it’s wrong.”

He bought into the military adage, “If it moves, salute it. If it doesn’t move, paint it.” This was the mantra meant to keep enlisted men busy at all times, even if it appeared there was nothing to do.

I did a lot of painting that year. A lot.

Of all the quotable presidents in American history (and they were not all quotable), Theodore Roosevelt was perhaps the one most committed to action. He famously said, "In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing".

The Call to Patience

Then we have the other axiom that says, “Good things come to those who wait.” This quote dates back to author Violet Fane in 1892—or at least that far.

“Patience is a virtue,” we are told. This one is traced back to a 5th Century poem. It fueled a popular old school rhyme…

"Patience is a virtue, Possess it if you can, Seldom found in woman, Never found in man.”

Benjamin Franklin, one of history’s most quotable thinkers, said, “He who can have patience can have what he will.”

Aristotle said, “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”

So we have this modern war of Memes and a historic clash of philosophical titans. One side urges urgency. The other demands patience.

Which is right?

Can we go to the Bible and settle it?

What the Bible says about urgency

Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. –Ephesians 5:15,16

The time is short. The days are full of evil influences. Be careful how you go but get on with it.

While it is daytime, we must do the works of Him who sent Me. Night is coming, when no one can work. –John 9:4

This is Jesus saying there is no time to waste.

So teach us to number our days,
that we may present a heart of wisdom. –Psalm 90:12

King David writes that it is good to keep up with your time and use it wisely.

Solomon, David’s boy, renowned for his wisdom, agrees with his old man.

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might,
for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in the grave,
to which you are going. –Ecclesiastes 9:10

The Bible has plenty to say about urgency and powerful voices, to boot, with Jesus, Paul, David, and Solomon weighing in.

What the Bible says about patience

Well, Solomon pops up again…

Better a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes a city. –Proverbs 16:32 (NIV)

So much for the Marines doing something even if it’s wrong!

And if you think Paul wrote the book of Hebrews, and I do, then here he is…

And so Abraham, after waiting patiently, obtained the promise. –Hebrews 6:15

Then, Paul again…

Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. –Romans 5:3,4

These Bible writers are all over the road here! On the one hand, they preach urgency and on the other, they tout patience.

Which is it???

Well, both. But don’t get them mixed up. Nothing spells disaster like urgency when you need patience or patience when you ought to be urgent.

Donya and I have gotten even on this matter. Early in our marriage, when she was well into her first pregnancy, we had a couple of false alarms. So, in the wee morning hours of May 8, 1981, when she woke me and said it was time, I was not in a terrible hurry to get dressed and drive her the 20 minutes or so to the hospital. Turned out, she was having that baby and came dangerously close to doing so in the car. I was too patient in that hour of urgency.

Fast-forward to July 4, 2022. I had been complaining for days of chest pains. Each time, I waited them out and they subsided, so I figured it must be something besides my heart because, you know, I am a doctor and all. But on that morning, while she was getting ready for the day, I was telling her maybe we better go to the emergency room. She kept a steady pace but did not pick it up any. I finally told her, “I’ve got to now!”

Turned out, I was having a heart attack. The time for patience was over. It was hurry up or die.

So, let’s talk about when to be urgent and when to be patient.

Urgency in the Effort

When you are in the doing phase of a thing, plan what you must, prepare as well as possible, but do something! Get the lead out. Don’t suffer paralysis by analysis. Some things are marathons and others are sprints. A marathoner needs patience. A sprinter needs urgency. Learn the difference.

Jesse Owens didn’t upset Hitler by getting out of the gate slowly. Steve Jobs disrupted the business world with his impatient approach. He didn’t wait until everything was perfect to move. While others planned and tested, he produced and implemented.

As a believer, you are urged to urgency by Jesus Christ Himself. He told us to do the work of the Father while it’s daylight. Night is coming. Don’t delay to follow Him. Don’t delay to tell the good news. Don’t delay to lift the fallen, to support the weak, to love the unlovely.

Go that extra mile. Give that extra dollar.

Let me give you a personal illustration. The other day, I was coming home from a conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was after the lunch hour and I was hungry, so I Googled and found a burger place in Okmulgee that everyone raved about in their reviews. I headed there for a burger and onion rings, and they were as advertised.

Seated at a table near mine was a girl who could not be out of her teens. She had a toddler with her. I heard her tell the waitress the little fellow was two. That blew me away because I figured the mom for 18, tops. In came her husband in work clothes, and he looked every bit as youthful as she. They ordered and talked in hushed tones and I remembered being an 18-year-old husband and then a 19-year-old father. I remembered scrounging for every dime, looking under car seats and sofa cushions for change to buy bread or milk. I looked around that beaten-down town where more people than not lived on or near the poverty level, and someone spoke to me. It was not audible. But it was urgent. I couldn’t change their circumstance. But I could buy their lunch. So, when I checked out, I told the waitress to put their meal on my ticket and I paid it and left.

I felt good about meeting that impression, what I felt was a holy nudge, with urgency and determination. I remembered those who did the same for me.

Whatever God puts in your hands, use. Whatever He puts in your spirit, obey. Whatever He lays on your heart, follow.

Do it imperfectly. Do it even if you feel unprepared or underqualified. Just do it. Do it now.

There needs to be urgency in the effort. Losers delay. They are left behind with a fistful of what-if.

So where is patience in the equation?

Patience in the Payoff

Let me share some vital Scriptures to answer that question…

Psalm 37:7 (NIV): “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.”

Proverbs 14:29 (NIV): “Whoever is patient has great understanding, but one who is quick-tempered displays folly.”

James 5:7-8 (NLT): “Dear brothers and sisters, be patient as you wait for the Lord’s return. Consider the farmers who patiently wait for the rains... You, too, must be patient. Take courage, for the coming of the Lord is near.”

Romans 12:12 (NIV): “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”—

May we park here a while? I am too much of a preacher to miss truths that come in threes!

• Joyful in hope! The hope that is in Christ is not the same as hoping you win the lottery or crossing your fingers; it is hope because it will happen, but not just yet.

• Patient in affliction. The hardest time to be patient is when you are afflicted. Affliction is “a state of pain, distress, misery, or grief.” When your health goes south, when your loved one passes, or when others inflict distress or misery on you by their words or actions, it is hard to be patient. It is also essential to good mental and spiritual health. Patience is most needed where it is in short supply.

• Faithful in prayer. This is not a now I lay me down to sleep or a “Good food, good meat, Good Lord, let’s eat” prayer before dinner. This is a commitment to prayer, fervent, earnest, insistent prayer.

Psalm 27:14 (NIV): “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.”—Look at that. Wait for the Lord. So nice he said it twice.

Galatians 6:9 (ESV): “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”

Proverbs 16:32 (NIV): “Better a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes a city.”

Romans 5:3-4 (NIV): “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”—Look at that! Right back to hope.

That is as good a place as any to wrap up this sermon, a place of urgent effort and patient hope.

As with sermon one, I will let the Apostle Paul have the last word here. He speaks for me…

I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. –Romans 15:13

My name is Gene. Some call me Preacher. And this is Sunday School. Tune in next week for the most personal of these seven sermons—one titled, The Pianist.

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So, This is an intermission, a little timeout in the sermon series, which will resume promptly at 10 AM Sunday.

Confession

Depression

I don’t know. I just don’t know anymore. Yes, I have taken up the pulpit again, and yes, I am sure that is the right thing to do. No, I have not improved. I am still marred, flawed, stalled, puttering, sputtering, and feeling my way along. Like a blind man reading Braille, I tackle each doubt, each pout, and every trouble armed with “thus saith the Lord.”

Impression

I don’t want to make the wrong impression.

In fact, I don’t want to impress you at all, other than to impress upon you the utter need of every human occupying this dust ball for a loving, living, breathing, Triune God.

Some might think, “Hey, Gene is preaching again. He must have it all figured out again.”

Yes, I am.

No, I do not.

I will never have “It all figured out” again. That is where pride meets destruction. Been there. Done that. Burned the t-shirt.

When it comes to preachers, if you want one of flesh and bone, where the flesh is foul and the bone brittle, settle in.

See you in Sunday School. I will hold your seat.

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In 2005, I was still making interest payments on past sins that were more than a decade old. I thought a few times about throwing myself off a bridge. Instead, I hurled myself into the deep end of the most notorious American hurricane—a history-maker they named Katrina.

I found a new path but I brought along old habits, and an irreversible, unrepentant calling. Now more than two decades in, the journey has brought me hard-earned experience and a measure of success I didn’t dream plausible.

Along the way, I sat down in a cubicle in Mobile, Alabama, and stayed for a year-and-a-half on what was supposed to be a three-week deployment.

Storms kept coming and I kept staying.

There, I met a man who would become a fast friend—an expressive man with plenty to say and a colorful way of saying it.

“This storm is going to have a long tail on her,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“It will take a good while to put it to bed. Claims will open and reopen and reopen again. We’ll be here a while.”

I don’t recall which storm it was but he was right. Some storms take years, not months to put to bed.

That was the first time but hardly the last I heard about complicated storms having long tails. I call them ‘long-tailed CATs (catastrophes).’

Sin, too, is a long-tailed cat…with teeth and claws. It often comes with consequences that take years, generations even, to wear themselves out.

The Law of Sowing and Reaping

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap –Galatians 6:7

There is plenty to unpack there.

“Don’t fool yourself,” Paul says, “Into thinking you got away with it. God doesn’t rush to judgment and sometimes it isn’t His judgment at all that is in play - It is the law of sowing and reaping.

This famous declaration from the Apostle Paul addresses a scientific and spiritual truth woven into the fabric of God’s creation; that is, you reap what you sow. First, there is the planting, and then there is the harvest.

The Greek word for sow in this passage refers to one's actions, behaviors, investments of time, and attitudes. It is a continuous, habitual sowing.

Current Events

Watching the world roil and reel these past days, with Israel and the United States raining judgment on an unholy, inhuman, ungodly regime, is a stark reminder of the consequences of sin. These evil men who murdered their own people by the tens of thousands, who promised death and destruction to Israel and America, their religious and ideological enemies, seem to have reached payday. It was a long time coming.

Meanwhile, in America, a feeble, elderly former president sits before Congress answering for his sins, telling whatever lies he can remember to cover the tracks of a sordid and debauched life. He no longer has the cover of his wife. She, too, is in damage control, mostly because of his decisions. His political party is content to abandon him and leave him to pay the fiddler alone. He is old news and nobody’s champion.

Sin can be a fun cat to pet, but it has a long, long tail.

How the Law of Sowing and Reaping Works

1. You reap what you sow. If you sow corn, you aren’t looking for okra or potatoes when harvest comes.

2. You reap after you sow. There is a gestation period. Harvest is not immediate.

3. You reap as you sow. While you are sowing today’s seeds, you are reaping from the seeds already sown.

4. You reap more than you sow. From a few kernels comes a corn stalk. On that corn stalk is one or two ears of corn. On each ear (or cob) is 500–1200 kernels of corn.

How the Law of Sin Works

1. Sin takes you further than you intended to go. No one starts off to be a junkie or a prostitute or career thief or murderer. Well, not many do. But sin is a slope and that slope is slippery.

2. Sin keeps you longer than you want to stay. Habits, like iron chains, are hard to break. Passion becomes a pattern and then a prison.

3. Sin costs you more than you want to pay. Oh, how much money is spent on therapy and other solutions to mitigate the consequences of habitual sin? Government-funded programs, medications, private therapists, retreats…and that is just one kind of cost. Other kinds include disease, relational destruction, and waning self-worth.

   Passion becomes a pattern and then a prison.

How can so little a first step become a path of destruction?

In his famous sermon Payday Someday, R. G. Lee, a notable Southern Baptist pastor from a past generation quoted a poem written by Paul Lawrence Dunbar:

THE DEBT
This is the debt I pay
Just for one riotous day,
Years of regret and grief,
Sorrow without relief.

Pay it I will to the end—
Until the grave, my friend,
Gives me a true release—
Gives me the clasp of peace.

Slight was the thing I bought,
Small was the debt I thought,
Poor was the loan at best—
God! but the interest!

King David, a man God approved as king and one who passionately pursued a relationship with God, found himself on that slippery slope of sin. It was a path of adultery, cover-up, denial, and murder-by-proxy. The consequences of that sin included the loss of a child.

David lived the rest of his life with the regret of that sin.

Study David’s prayer, which was put to music and sung, in Psalm 51:

For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. When Nathan the prophet came to him after his adultery with Bathsheba.
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to Your loving devotion;
according to Your great compassion,
blot out my transgressions.

Wash me clean of my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
Against You, You only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in Your sight,
so that You may be proved right when You speak
and blameless when You judge.
Surely I was brought forth in iniquity;
I was sinful when my mother conceived me.
Surely You desire truth in the inmost being;
You teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones You have crushed rejoice.
Hide Your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from Your presence;
take not Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation,
and sustain me with a willing spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors Your ways,
and sinners will return to You.

These are the words I find so haunting and sad: For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.

King David sought forgiveness from God and received it. He also sought the divine strength to overcome sin’s powerful pull. He would be an example for others, a cautionary tale of sin’s awful price. He would use his experience and his failure to warn others and teach them a better way.

Cain, the first recorded murderer, killed his brother in a fit of jealous rage. He became a marked man, a scourge. Unlike King David, he never sought forgiveness. Instead, he lived in bitter defiance and self-pity.

In Genesis 4:13, he is recorded saying, My punishment is greater than I can bear.

Cain was essentially accusing God of unfairness in his judgment.

David was repentant. Cain was defiant. David’s story is one of redemption and the attainment of human greatness. Cain’s is a story of wasted potential and lonely wandering.

Sin has a long tail.

How the Law of Christ Works

What about forgiveness of sin? What about redemption?

Salvation is freedom from the condemnation of sin, but not the consequences

The Adulteress

Jesus Christ was brought a woman caught in the act of adultery. His words caused her accusers and would-be executioners to walk away in shame.

Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”

He was not freeing her from the consequences at home, where a betrayed husband was sorting through the wreckage of her sin or where her children were dealing with the humiliation, or where the community was ostracizing her. He freed her from condemnation, the eternal price of sin.

He was also not burdening her with perfection when he said, “Go and sin no more.”

He was saying, “Do not continue the same path. Change your ways.”

The appropriate response to forgiveness is gratitude and determination to do better.

If you owe a financial debt greater than you can pay and some angel comes along (perhaps a parent or other mentor or friend) and pays off the debt, not as a loan, but a gift, the most inappropriate thing you can do is rack up more debt.

The Thief

Jesus Christ was crucified like a common criminal with common criminals. One of them mocked him. The other worshiped. The one who worshiped asked to be remembered by Jesus in the afterlife. He sought redemption and he got it.

Jesus promised, “Today, you will be with me in Paradise.”

Both men still died, condemned. They suffered the consequences of sin, but the one who sought salvation was freed from sin’s eternal condemnation.

Like the adulteress or the thief, even the “worst” sinners, the ones whose lives are most horribly lived, whose sins cost themselves and others untold srorrows, can be saved from the eternal condemnation of sin, from the judgment of righteous God.

Why?

Because of the One who died between the thieves, the man in the middle, the Mediator between God and man, who died not for the consequences of His sin but for the condemnation of yours, and mine, and adulterers, and thieves, and murderers, and moms, and dads, and kids…

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that One died for all, therefore all died. And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and was raised again. –2 Corinthians 5:14,15

…Christ…suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, so that He might bring you to God, having been put to death indeed in the flesh, but having been made alive in the spirit… –1 Peter 3:18

Sin is a long-tailed cat. Beware its consequences.

I will let no less an authority than the Apostle Paul close this sermon and tell you in no uncertain terms about the forgiveness of sin and the new life available in Jesus Christ

What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase? Certainly not! How can we who died to sin live in it any longer? Or aren’t you aware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection. We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. For anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God. So you too must count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Romans 6:1–8

My name is Gene. Some call me Preacher. And this is sermon one in the seven-sermon series, Sunday School.

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