Dana, please forgive this woefully inadequate synopsis of your most recent sermon. It falls far short of doing your message justice. I only hope to make a point.

God is gracious, loving, merciful, and patient. He desires a relationship with his creation. He calls out to us, no less than to Israel so long ago. And we, no less than Israel, all too often reject his entreaties. We imagine, as so many have always imagined, that we are in no need of God, that we can “do it ourselves”. God, though rebuffed, continues to plead. He is patient, and in that patience is our hope, for he gives us not merely a second chance, but a third, and a fourth, and… In love he pleads, but in defiance we say “no”. It’s an ancient story, and one of infinite sadness. He waits with open arms, today, tomorrow, and beyond. He pleads, but he will not force us to embrace him. He offers his love, but we must say “yes”. In our folly we imagine that this is something that we can tend to later, something that we can defer to a more convenient hour, to a time when we’ve dealt with those priorities that beset us. School now. Career now. Family now. Success now. Money now. Recognition now. God later! A dismissive attitude toward God, man’s ultimate arrogance. But no one lives forever. And when death comes, and who knows when that will be, God’s offer lapses. Or perhaps long before death claims us, our hearts become so hardened that a “yes” is no longer possible, having said “no” to God so many times before. God’s ultimate plea, the very best he has to offer, is Jesus, of course, God in the flesh and the redeemer of mankind. If we say “no” to him, as millions have, and do, and will, what else, who else, is there? There is nothing else, no one else.

Well, there you have it, my feeble effort to summarize the most recent in a long line of meaningful sermons with which God has favored his people at Park Avenue. But let me ask you this: What was the sermon topic on Sunday morning three weeks ago? What points were made? What scriptures were cited in support thereof? What encouragement offered? And how did you respond at work or at school the following week to what you heard from the pulpit on Sunday morning? Yeah, I thought so! We have short memories, don’t we.

Students often ask me, “Do we need to buy the book?” I reply that I’ve been instructed by the powers that be to not tell students that they don’t need to buy the book. But, I continue, no one has told me that I cannot tell you this: “If you come to class and pay attention, you’ll hear everything that you’ll need to know to answer the test questions, every single one. Now, if you conclude that that’s the substantial equivalent of saying that you don’t need to buy the book, I cannot fault that logic”. They get it. The word is out. They know that they can do well in my class if they show up and listen.

Dana and Dwight might be, quite literally, the last two people in the world who would tell us that we “don’t need the book”, the emphasis being upon the “the” here. God’s book is that upon which their preaching is based, and they know that their preaching would come to naught, or worse, were it otherwise. No, they are constant in sending us to the book and in proclaiming its truths to us.

Even so, listening has its advantages, and I confess that I do not always listen as I ought. What about you?

When I lecture, the classroom is full of students taking notes. They are wise to do so. But when preachers preach, is the auditorium full of note-takers? It is not. I sometimes observe a few people “taking notes”, and they are almost always ladies. Why do you suppose that is? Are the ladies more eager than men to grasp spiritual truths and reduce them to writing for subsequent reflection, or are they simply less trusting of their memories. My experience disinclines me to suggest the latter.

Well, I’m not suggesting that we all break out our notepads next Sunday morning, but neither am I suggesting that we not. I am suggesting, nay, asserting, that the proclamation of the word of God is a serious undertaking and deserving of our full attention, far more so than the proclamation of Business Law principles or some other equally trivial subject matter. Let’s try really listening.

– Tank Tankersley

Almost forty years ago, right out of law school and pre-epiphany, I’d oft have occasion to talk to smarter, more experienced, more successful lawyers on the phone, and I was often struck by their abruptness. “Yeah”, “no”, and the like were typical responses to my inquiries. I recall concluding: “Wow, it’s obvious that these guys have no interest in exchanging the traditional pleasantries.” I might even have imagined them rude. But they weren’t rude, at least no more nor less than anyone else forty years ago, which is to say that they were more polite than almost everyone today. No, they weren’t rude, but they were disinclined to part with any more of their time than was absolutely necessary.

We are the least inclined to part with that we have the least of, and for some folks that’s time. But if all we give is that we’ve got a lot of, is that really the kind of giving that pleases God? God gave his “only begotten son,” not one of several. The poor widow of Mark 12 has been immortalized in the word of God because she “cast in all that she had, even all her living.”

God has blessed me financially. I had nothing to do with it. And I’ll admit that writing a check is sometimes a very easy thing to do. But how meaningful? It is often far more useful and rewarding to meet needs that are not, or are not entirely, financial. Friends can be a greater blessing than bankers. But this may require more of us, something that we are less inclined to part with than money. That something is ourselves.

Perhaps we have the time but not the inclination to “take on other people’s troubles.” God’s word rebukes us: “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). Emotional burdens can sometimes prove far more dispiriting than financial burdens. Money is sometimes useless. Then, perhaps love will help.

Dana reminded us this past Lord’s Day that we are what, and who, we are because someone took the time to tell us of Jesus. All manner of good things happen, and Heaven rejoices, when someone takes the time.

– Tank Tankersley

In Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”, Ebenezer Scrooge replies to his clerk Bob Cratchit’s wishing Scrooge a merry Christmas with, “I’ll retire to Bedlam”. Scrooge cannot fathom what a poorly-paid clerk with a large family to support can possibly find to be merry about. Scrooge proclaims that he might as well live in an insane asylum, given that all around him appear to have taken leave of their senses.

I am no fan of Scrooge, pre-epiphany, but I can understand his frustration. I sometimes wonder if I do not live in a world gone foaming-at-the-mouth and baying-at-the-moon insane. Do you think that some lawmakers, when the legislature is in session, arise every morning and e-mail the devil (princeofdarkness@satan’sdigs.gov.com.org.edu.he’severywhere?) to request their marching orders for the day? It is tempting to so conclude.

Do you think that some judges assiduously search the scriptures for God’s precepts, so that they can immediately and dramatically set them at naught? Surely one can be forgiven for so imagining. Do you think that there are some juries that think… well, not all? Do you think that some of those “entertainment types” whose malefactions stain our newspapers have taken an oath to live their lives as if making an obscene gesture in the very face of God? It sometimes seems so.

Is everyone rude, uncivil, impolite, and discourteous, or merely almost everyone?

Why is purity ridiculed and perversion exalted? Why is the sickening embraced and the sublime rejected? Why is the disgusting applauded and the divine scoffed at? In art, in music, in literature, the market for the base, the vile, the sordid soars, but the beautiful, the edifying, the transcendent claim few adherents.

The simplest truths are explained away and the oddest philosophies embraced. Is there nothing real, nothing true, nothing that can be relied upon? For many, apparently not. It has come to this: We live in a”whatever, dude” world.

Does this sound like a sane world to you? When we read the morning newspaper or watch the nightly news, it is easy to conclude that the lunatics have seized control.

So one is inclined to observe, “Ebenezer, save me a room in the wacko ward”. It is so easy to become discouraged. But we mustn’t, you know.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?… For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”. (Romans 8: 35; 38-39).

Yes, it is easy to conclude that we live in a world gone mad. But even in such a world, Jesus hangs on to his own. Knowing that, we can, in our little corner of the insanity, believe God’s word, glory in his grace, and live out, day by day, the love of Jesus that so much of the world holds in contempt. This evil world cannot separate us from the love of Jesus. In that regard Satan and his minions, and they are legion, are powerless. God’s love, most compellingly displayed in the incarnation and the atoning sacrifice of God in the flesh, is the one thing that a world gone mad cannot take away.

– Tank Tankersely

I don’t imagine for a moment that I can write anything about the holiday that we call Thanksgiving that hasn’t already been said, and better, by someone else.  What more can be said?  There’s nothing special about the fourth Thursday in November, of course.  Christians ought always to give thanks.  “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).  As in all that is worthwhile, Jesus is our example.  “And he took the seven loaves and fishes and gave thanks, and brake them, and gave to this disciples, and the disciples to the multitude” (Matthew 15:36).

Our songbooks contain scores of hymns of thanksgiving.  We are often, and rightly, admonished from the pulpit to count our many blessing.  Not a Lord’s Day passes but that someone prays a public prayer recounting some (not all, for all public prayers must end) of those things for which we should be thankful.  The list is familiar to us all by now.  The words fall from our lips as readily as our ABC’s: food, clothing, shelter, our health, our jobs, a free country in which to worship, preachers, elders, deacons, teachers, song leaders, missionaries, friends, and on and on.  And then there is Jesus.  God’s perfect gift.  I list Him separately because He is a list of one.  There is nothing that compares.  “Thank you, God, for Jesus?”  That doesn’t quiet suffice, does it?  But what would?  What can?  Here words fail.  They are, after all, well…just words.  And the love that sent Jesus to reconcile us to God transcends all language, all thought, all… well, you understand.  It isn’t in us to describe that love.  But it is in us to embrace it, even if most imperfectly.  And to act upon it by loving others.  No, we cannot love as Jesus did, but we can love in ways we never could have had we not yielded our lives to Him.

It’s always struck me as odd that there’s one blessing for which we so seldom give thanks, perhaps because all other blessings are part and parcel of it.  Thank you, God, for sharing your world with us.  He didn’t have to, you know.  He could have kept it all to Himself.  But He wanted someone made in His image to love.  All the rest of His handiwork, as wonderful as it is, does not suffice for that purpose.  All the rest of His creation is a product of His power. Mankind is a product of His love.  His creation is too good not to share.  God is love, and love must have its object.  How blessed we are that He chose us!

But there is more.  When it all went wrong, not because of any failure on God’s part, but by virtue of our rebellion, He made it right in Jesus.

God made it all for us, asking only that we yield to Him.  But we wouldn’t have it.  We insisted on our way, not His, ruining it all.  Irreparable, had God been any less than what He was and is.  But being who and what He is, He entered time and space and took all the ingratitude, and hate, and sin and shame, and filth upon Himself.  That, and that alone, would bring us back to Him.

So, we say what?  Thank you?  Well, to say it and mean it is a start but not nearly enough.  But then nothing that we can ever say, or feel, or think, or do will be enough.  But we can turn it all over to Him, yielding as completely as we know how to Him.  That’s all we can do, and how, in response to a love that is God’s alone, can we do any less?  That much we can do, not merely on the fourth Thursday in November, but on the day before and the day after, and on every day until that day He calls us to where from the very inception of time He has always desired us to be – with Him!

“There is nothing so ridiculous but some philosopher has said it” (Cicero, De Devinatione, II, 1191).  But compared to the politicians, the philosophers are the wisest of men.  It is no surprise, of course, to hear the politicians, Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, spout nonsense.  It’s what they do.  It’s who they are.  It’s in their DNA.

In signing hate-crime legislation recently, the President envisioned a country in which “we’re all free to live and love as we see fit.”  Take a moment to let that sink in.  The adulterer who destroys marriages, families, and lives is no doubt “loving” as he sees fit.  So, too, the pedophile.

Whether hate-crime legislation is wise can be debated by reasonable people, I suppose, but surely the irony is apparent to anyone who has his wits about him.  One who murders someone motivated by the victim’s race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or any such commits an act that is … what?  Reprehensible?  Vile?  Loathsome?  Despicable?  Depraved?  Words fail, and Roget’s offers little assistance.  But the murderer is living as he sees fit.  That’s precisely why he does what he does.  If there is anything we need less, not more of, it is people living as they see fit.  Hitler and Stalin were living as they saw fit when they murdered millions.  Terrorists murder men, women, and children because they live as they see fit.  Millions of innocents have been slaughtered in the womb by those living as they saw fit.  Pimps, pornographers, panderers, and the like ruin the lives of countless young women because they live as they see fit.  Drug traffickers destroy the bodies and the futures of innumerable children because they live as they see fit.  Corporate hoodlums throw the economy into chaos because they live as they see fit.  Despoilers of the environment plunder God’s creation because they live as they see fit.  The haves ignore the miser of the have-nots because they live as they see fit.  Most merciful Father, protect us from those who live their lives as they see fit.

So what’s the alternative?  How about living as God would have us live?  He has not left us clueless, you know.  His word instructs:  “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (II Timothy 3:16).

But now I’ve done it.  I’ve introduced the “G” word, and in the corridors of power that word is not well received.  That should hardly prove surprising, of course, for many who walk the corridors of power in business, and in the arts, and in academia, and most dramatically of all in politics have no room for God, for they recognize only themselves as deity.  They are, you see, living their lives as they see fit.

Will any of this change?  Most assuredly not, not until God in the flesh returns.  For living as he see fit has always been the way of man, ever since Eden.  And all that is wrong with the world is derived therefrom.

God withheld many abilities from me, but some He granted.  All of us can say that, can’t we?  Oh, I’ll concede that there are those irritating few who seen to be able to do everything, but they’re so few and far between that they need not now divert us.  Most of us are good at some things but not so good at others.  To ignore this reality is to court frustration.  If  you’re short, slow, and uncoordinated, it is unlikely  that a career in the N.B.A. beckons.  But you might well be a super star at some other undertaking.  This doesn’t mean that one shouldn’t pursue his dreams with all his energy, but simply that one should make every effort to discern what his strengths are.  This is especially important for the Christian, isn’t it?  If God gave us some abilities but not others, isn’t it prudent to conclude that He desires us to serve Him by doing those things that He’s equipped us to do and not those that He hasn’t?  If we ignore the distinction, isn’t that tantamount to telling God that He got it wrong?

And once we’ve determined what we’re capable of and what we’re not, what motivates us to make the most of what we’ve got?  For many it’s a desire for money, of course.  For aspiring tower-builders at Babel it was a desire to “make a name.”  Many have followed that example.  I suggest that a nobler motivation is the satisfaction that comes from a job well done.  For the Christian it gets even better.  We can share with our Lord the pleasure that comes form knowing that with our efforts God himself is pleased.

Using those talents with which God has blessed us, be they spectacular or mundane, may not make us rich.  It may not elicit the praise, or even the acknowledgment, of men.  But what of it?  If with our efforts God is pleased, what else matters?  And if, by chance, money or praise should come our way, let us hasten to give God the credit, for we know full well that every blessing come from Him.

Have you ever observed that, as to any matter of significance, it is almost always easy to know what to do but hardly ever easy to do it?  Thousands of books have been written on losing weight, but all one needs to know is “exercise more and eat less.”  This does not mean that it is easy to lose weight, but it is easy to know how to.  Want to make better grades?  Study harder.  Want more money?  Work harder.  You don’t have to be a genius to figure this stuff out, but you may need a bit of character to carry it out.  “Ay, there’s the rub.”  Character has always been in shorter supply than brains.

Nor must one posses a graduate degree in theology to know how God would have him live.  The Bible tells us what God expects of us.  Knowing is the easy part.  Doing is tougher.  It has always been thus.  The problem that Adam and Eve experienced in the garden did not result from ignorance.  God had told them what to do and what not to.  But Adam and Eve had an attitude problem.  “Who is God to tell us what to do?” they asked.  Well, the answer is that God is the One who created them and gave them the world, and each other.  You would think that they could have seen the wisdom of doing it God’s way.  And wouldn’t they feel obliged, if only out of gratitude, to do it His way?  Well, they didn’t.  And man doesn’t.

There are plenty of problems in the world.  Drugs.  Hunger.  Poverty.  hatred.  War.  And the Tennessee General Assembly is not going to solve them.  Nor will Congress.  Nor the United Nations.  In fact, the problems aren’t going to be solved.  And the reason that they are not is that the sin of Adam and Eve persists, “Who does God think He is?” did not die in Eden.  The created have still not learned that they ought to do it the Creator’s way.

That’s the bad news.  The good news is that the Creator entered history as Jesus of Nazareth.  And that Jesus rescued a world gone wrong.  And what does it mean?  It means that individual men and women can do, if they will, what the world has always refused to do.  They can do it the Creator’s way.  And if they do, all their problems can be dealt with.  Unhappiness.  Disappointment.  Pain.  Suffering.  Betrayal.  Sin.  And even death itself.  All problems.  Every single one.

I’m standing in line to pick up a prescription at the drug store, and a “lady” old enough to know better walks in front of me as if I am not there and verbally abuses the pharmacist, demanding to see the manager.  She then marches off in a huff, loudly proclaiming to all who would hear, as well as to those of us who would just as soon not, how shabbily she’s been treated.  Have you ever noticed that those most eager to assert their rights are those most oblivious to the rights of others?

Pat and I are at the yogurt store, and this guy in front of us is berating the young man behind the counter because he hasn’t assembled the sundae exactly right.  Pat’s giving me one of those “don’t say anything” looks, and I’m chanting, mantra-like, “vengeance is mine (not Tank’s) sayeth the Lord.”

I’m at the laundry, and this “lady” is ranting and raving, eyes bulging, veins popping, frothing at the mouth, because all her dry cleaning hasn’t shown up at the appointed hour.  You’d have thought that someone had kidnapped her children (for whom I utter a brief prayer).

These are not isolated instances.  It seems as if every time I go to a restaurant someone is making a special effort to make life difficult for a waiter or waitress.

Whenever I encounter such unpleasantness, I think, “I hope he, or she, isn’t a Christian.”  Which isn’t what I mean, of course, for I would that all were Christians.  It’s just that I hope that a Christian wouldn’t act like that.  But do we?  I’ve had Christian friends tell me, “I gave them a piece of my mind,” “I told them that I wouldn’t put up with that,” “I demanded to see their supervisor,” and the like.  I don’t say a thing, but I have to bite my tongue, because I’m thinking, “And do you think God would approve of that?”

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.”  Would one, admittedly undramatic, way of doing this be to simply act courteously in a society that has obviously chosen to do it the other way?

But won’t this mean that people will take advantage of us?  Won’t they push us around?  Well, perhaps.  But Jesus permitted that, didn’t he?  And what if He had not?

“Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind” (John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation XVII (1642)).

When I learned that Senator Kennedy had brain cancer that would probably take his life, I prayed for him.  I prayed that God would use the power that is His alone to strike down the dread malady that beset the senator, if that were consistent with God’s will.  I prayed that, barring that, God would grant the senator peace.  Since Senator Kennedy’s demise, I have prayed that God comfort the senator’s family and friends in their bereavement.  I don’t consider those prayers remarkable, but some evidently do.  Some wonder why I have offered them.  I am astonished that they are astonished.

I am a Christian.  I am a capitalist.  I am a conservative, though I confess to more than a little confusion as to what the word now means, for some high-profile politicos who apply it to themselves embrace principles and promote policies diametrically opposed to all that I have ever understood the word to mean.

Given all this, it is hardly surprising that Senator Kennedy and I would have agreed on very little.  Were his principles my principles?  No.  Did I embrace his values?  No.  Did I consider sound those policies he espoused?  No.  Was I a fan, and admirer a supporter?  No.  But what of it?  Does any of all of this matter?  Does any or all of this mean that I cannot sympathize with one who must confront a terminal illness?  Does any or all of it mean that I am unmoved by the sorrow that his family and friends now experience?  God forbid!

I have heard friends rejoice at the news of Senator Kennedy’s death.  I have heard them make jokes about it.  This saddens me beyond words.  Can anything be more unbecoming, more inappropriate, for the Christian?

Sometimes in our zeal to oppose public figures who embrace principles and champion policies that we consider at odds with Christian values, we appear to those who do not know our hearts as “haters.”  For those who acknowledge as Savior and Lord history’s ultimate manifestation of love, there is never any reason for that.

Please pardon my immodesty in observing that I have something in common with the apostle Paul, that “super Christian”.  Like him I am well aware that of sinners “I am chief” (1 Timothy 1:15).  It’s best to stipulate this right off the bat, lest my remarks be deemed unduly harsh.

A high-profile sports figure admits to breaking God’s seventh commandment, but is unlikely to put it quite like that, for high-profile sports figures seldom reckon with God.  Such a revelation hardly shocks anybody, for we’ve grown sadly accustomed to well-known sports figures providing compelling examples of how not to live.

Such conduct is hardly limited to sports figures, of course.  It occurs in business, and in education, and in the arts, and … And then there are the politicians, compared to whom representatives of virtually every other endeavor shine as exemplars of righteousness.  But forgive me, for I but state the obvious.

It is also true that those of us not in the public eye regularly disappoint God.  Sin is not monopolized by celebrities.  But when the common man sins, he does not as a rule call a press conference to explain it away, and it is this “explaining away” that I now consider.

“If we say that 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 that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10).  Sin can be forgiven.  God will forgive, and we sinners ought to forgive other sinners, “for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).  The “all” encompasses you and me.  But before sin can be forgiven, it must be acknowledged, and it seldom is at the press conference.  Every time someone of note is caught in the wrong bed, or with his hand in the cash drawer, or engaging in sundry other types of sinful behavior, I begin to watch for the inevitable explanations and justifications that will follow, and the words “mistake,” “indiscretion,” and “error in judgment” will always figure prominently therein.  These words do not qualify as an acknowledgment of sin.  A mistake is forgetting to set your alarm clock.  An indiscretion is putting all your money in the stock market just before it heads south.  An error in judgment is choosing the wrong club and paying for it with a double bogey.  None of these offends God.  Sin does.

David, when rebuked for his adultery and murder by Nathan, said, “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Samuel 12:13).  I have never heard those words uttered at a press conference called by “someone important” who’s been caught.  I do not expect to.

Enough of this nambpamby, wishy-washy “mistake, indiscretion, and error in judgment” trip.  Those are weasel words, words that no real man acknowledging sin would use.  But real men are seldom to be found amongst our sports heroes, movie stars, business magnates, pliticians, and the like.  We would like to find some, of course.  We search oh so longinglly, yet mostly in vain.