Beware the Lure of Secondary Success

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Topical Scripture: Acts 9:1-6

Delivered: April 19, 2020

On the first Good Friday, Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. Two days later, he rose from the grave and the rest is history. History we continue today. But so much has changed since then.

One expected result of the coronavirus pandemic is that more people than ever will be working from home after the pandemic is gone. This could mean a resurgence in small towns where people can work online with lower housing costs and costs of living while commuting occasionally into the city for meetings (probably in autonomous cars).

In cities, sidewalks may be widened and more streets made pedestrian-only to ensure greater distancing between people. Temperature checks and other health screenings may remain common at airports. Online shopping will probably continue to grow in popularity, as will streaming video and video games.

And some are predicting that stay-at-home regulations will spur a baby boom.

Much has changed since that first Easter Sunday. But much has not.

The pandemic reminds us that we are all still mortal and that many fear death. It reminds us that we are still fallen creatures living in a fallen world.

And all we have lost during these days of crisis reminds us of what we long for: lives of meaning, significance and purpose. But where do we look for them?

Refuse the seduction of secondary success

Let’s consider the wrong answer first. Woodrow Wilson said, “Many men are seduced by secondary success.” These are words worth pondering.

You may know of the classic business bestseller, Good to Great. The author reminds us that “good is the enemy of great.” Good schools prevent great schools; good government prevents great government; good lives prevent great lives. This is the seduction of secondary success.

I fear that God feels the same way about our society today. There was a time when we felt we needed religion to give life meaning and significance. But in the last century, Darwinism taught Americans that we don’t need religion to explain our natural lives and world. Freud taught us that we don’t need religion to explain our emotional and psychological lives. Science and medicine have all the answers, or soon will. So what’s left for church?

Today we use religion to serve us. We use the spiritual to make us feel better about our secular lives, to give us peace, to help us get ahead. To meet our needs, to serve our agenda, to help us find success.

We’re not the first.

Our text begins: “But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (v. 1). “Breathing” shows that “threats and murder” were the air he was breathing, the atmosphere in which he was living. Why?

Because of “the disciples of the Lord,” to his mind a malignant tumor which must be removed from the soul of Judaism. He would be the surgeon who would save his people and their faith from this malice.

So he “went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus” (vv. 1–2a). Damascus was 150 miles north of Jerusalem. Paul would be walking the distance from Dallas to Waco. He sought “letters” giving him legal authority “so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem” (v. 2b) where they would face trial and likely execution.

This man desperately wanted a life of significance. He could see the high priest personally. Can you get an appointment with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? He was a Pharisee, the elite corps of Judaism; a scholar trained by Gamaliel, their finest theologian.

But it wasn’t enough. Now he would be known as the man who saved Israel from these malicious Christians. He would do this for God. He would achieve greatness in the eyes of his fellow Pharisees. He was seduced by secondary success but didn’t know it.

He’s not the last.

Harvard psychiatrist Robert Coles wrote a fascinating exploration titled The Secular Mind. In it he quotes the poet William Carlos Williams, who knew a woman born in Italy who raised her family in America. She “told me a few weeks ago that it’s become different going to church here than it was when she was in Italy and when she first came here. She used to sit there and talk to God, and try to figure out what he wanted, and try to please him. Now, she says, she mostly thinks about what’s going on in her life, in her kids’ lives, and she asks God to make it better.

“She said to me, ‘It used to be I prayed to God, that I would learn what he wanted from me, and how he wanted me to behave . . . but now I pray to God that he help us with this problem, and the next one—to be a Big Pal of ours! It used to be, when I prayed to God, I was talking to him; now . . . I’m only asking him to help out with things.'”

And so, our society observes Easter and does religious things to get God’s blessing, to ask him to “help out with things.”

Why are you listening to this sermon? Why am I preaching it?

Experience the Easter encounter

Now comes the most famous conversion in Christian history.

It was “midday,” Paul would say later (Acts 26:13). “As he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him” (v. 3). Later he would describe it as “a light form heaven, brighter than the sun” (Acts 26:13). In other words, this was a miracle, not a natural phenomenon.

The text says the light “shone around him” (v. 3). The Greek is clear: this happened specifically to Paul. God had his spotlight on him, as he has it on each of us today.

Then Paul “heard a voice” (v. 4)—the Greek means that he heard with understanding. Verse 7 adds that “the men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one.” The text makes it clear that they heard it but could not understand its words.

But Paul could: “And he said, ‘Who are you, Lord?'” (v. 5a). “Lord,” kurios, God and King. Then came the shock that would change his life forever: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”

“I am Jesus”—he is alive. His church is his body “whom you are persecuting.” And this “Lord” had a purpose for him: “But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do” (v. 6).

Here is the moment of decision, the crisis of life and soul.

Commentator William Barclay noted: “There is all of Christianity in what the Risen Christ said to Paul. . . . Up to this moment Paul had been doing what he liked, what he thought best, what his will dictated. From this time forward he would be told what to do. The Christian is a man who has ceased to do what he wants to do and who has begun to do what Christ wants him to do” (his italics).

Remember what the Italian grandmother said: “‘It used to be I prayed to God, that I would learn what he wanted from me, and how he wanted me to behave . . . but now I pray to God that he help us with this problem, and the next one—to be a Big Pal of ours!'”

Paul would do what God wanted him to do. God would no longer be a means to his end, but his life a means to God’s. And you know the results.

Today, you and I face the same decision. What will you do with the risen Christ?

Will you choose religion as a means to your end? Worship on the Sunday after Easter to make you feel good or spiritual? Christianity to help you with your problems, to help your life succeed?

Or will you “enter the city” and do as you are told? Will you make the risen Lord the Lord of your every day? Will you meet him every morning in Bible study and prayer, to get your directions for the day? Will you serve him in witness and ministry? Will you worship him each Sunday and each day?

Will it be God for you, or you for God?

Make the risen Christ the Lord of your life

We know what we should do, that the risen Lord should be our Lord every day. But someone is saying this morning, I have plenty of time. I can do this later.

A Dallas friend of mine named Robert Riggs was a reporter in Iraq during the Gulf War. He was embedded with a Patriot missile battery.

One day, two fighter pilots on a bombing run to Baghdad mistakenly picked up the Patriots as Iraqi surface-to-air missiles and launched two missiles at them. But a technician inadvertently pushed a switch which caused the Patriot battery to project its radar signature seventy-five yards to the north, so that’s where the missiles landed. That’s why Robert survived.

The Bible says, “Now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2). No one is promised another day.

Someone else says, It’s too late. I’ve done too much wrong—God can’t use my life.

Robert told me the story of James Kiehl, one of the soldiers baptized in the desert of Kuwait before the war began. James told Robert his life had been anything but spiritual; he had made many wrong choices. Before he left, his stepmother told him he was facing a crossroads, and he needed to make the right decision. There in the desert, a fellow soldier led him to Christ.

Robert told me the change in James’ life was immediate and joyous. His baptism in that hole dug in the desert and filled with bottled water was a true celebration. James was a member of the 507th Maintenance Company when his unit was ambushed and he was killed. He’s in heaven today. And God is using his life and story this morning.

If God could use Paul, the murderer of Christians, it’s not too late for you.

And someone else says, “I don’t need God’s help. I’m doing just fine.” You have all the Jesus you want. Christianity is a part of your life, like a Rotary Club. Are you saying that even though the Almighty Lord of the universe has a plan for your life, you don’t need to follow it? That you can do better with your life than your Creator, the God whose Son died to pay for your sins and rose on Easter to give you eternity in paradise?

Paul aspired to be the man who helped first-century Judaism remain pure. God aspired to make him the man who would change the world. Whose plan was better?

Whose plan will you follow today?

Following God into an Uncertain Future

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Topical Scripture: Joshua 1:1–9

The coronavirus pandemic presents us with challenges unprecedented in a century. Not since the 1918 flu pandemic have we faced a disease with such a global impact on every dimension of our lives.

As we move into these uncharted days, it is vital that we follow the One who knows where we need to go. He sees the future better than we can see the present. If we will follow him, we will discover that his will never leads where his grace cannot sustain.

To help us, I’d like us to spend the next several weeks with the book of Joshua. Here the Lord met his people on the edge of the Promised Land and led them where they needed to go. These principles are in God’s word because they will do the same for us.

We’ll begin today with two steps that will enable us to hear our Lord’s voice and follow his will. As we study them, let me ask you to identify your greatest concern about the future.

Faith does not mean that we do not face fears. It means that we know where to face with our fears.

Let’s learn how to face our Father together.

Listen for the call of God (vv. 1–5)

Alexander the Great led his armies by the strength of his single focus and indomitable will. After his death, his generals met to plan their future. To their dismay, they discovered that they had marched off their maps. They were in an unknown location, facing an unknown future. They were not the first, or the last.

Listen in the hard places

So it was for Israel as the book of Joshua opened. Moses had died. This was easily the most traumatic event in the young life of the nation of Israel. He had been the “servant of the Lord” (v. 1), an exalted title given only to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Caleb to this point in Jewish history (Joshua would be added to the list at the end of his life and work; cf. 24:29). Now their mentor, guide, and hero was gone and the future was uncertain at best.

The book of Joshua connects its narrative directly to this crisis. Its first word, translated “after” in the ESV, is “and” in the Hebrew. The narrative continues directly from the end of Deuteronomy and the death of Moses. Perhaps the thirty days of mourning for Moses after his death had now ended (Deuteronomy 34:8). But the crisis facing the nation had not.

It has been calculated that the typical adult faces six crises in their life. Not just the routine problems of daily living, but major issues such as death, divorce, and serious disease. If a person graduates from adolescence without trusting personally in Christ, they are typically open to the gospel only during such times of crises. It is then that Christians who have built relationship with the person can show God’s love in theirs.

It is also in such periods of crisis that we can hear the Lord most clearly. He speaks far more than we are willing to stop and listen. But when we know that we need his word and help, that we have come to the end of our own wisdom, we will listen for his voice with desperation and faith. And we will always hear him speak.

So, whatever your circumstances may be, ask God to use them to bring his word to your heart. And he will.

Expect God to speak to you

In the immediate context of Moses’ death, “the Lord said to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant . . .” (v. 1b). Joyce Huggett wrote a marvelous book titled The Joy of Listening to God. She’s right—whenever we are still enough to hear God’s Spirit speak to us, the result is joy. Whenever we are yielded to the truth of Scripture, to the words of a sermon or Bible study, to the truth contained in a worship song, to the truth of God revealed through human agents and means, there is joy.

So it was for Joshua, even in the crisis of the moment. So it will be for you. But you must expect God to speak to you, if only you will listen. You must tune the frequency of your spirit to his voice.

Seek his will for the now

God does not reveal himself in five-year strategies. You and I have inherited the Western worldview, with its linear philosophy of history. We like to think of history as a line on a page, progressing logically toward some conclusion. But God knows that this day is the only day which exists. His will is first and foremost for the here and now. He speaks to us in the present, about the present.

Joshua needed to know the next step to take. He didn’t need a long-range plan, but a present-tense guide. Not a map, but a flashlight. God gave him exactly what he needed to know, for the moment he needed to know it.

God gave him the who: “Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people” (v. 2a). Not just the leaders of the tribes. Not just the army. Not just the priests. Not just some part of the population. The entire nation intended by God to live west of the Jordan River was now involved in the call and purpose of God.

He gave Joshua the where: “into the land that I am giving” (v. 2b). The Jordan is typically only eighty to one hundred feet wide, and not deep. I have baptized several groups there over the years and had no difficulty wading out into the middle of the slow-moving current. But when the spring rains come, the river can flood its larger bed. Where Joshua and his people would be crossing, the river would be more than a mile wide and a raging torrent.

They didn’t know what the Lord already knew—that they would face an insurmountable obstacle which he would lead them across miraculously. We are called to follow God today and leave tomorrow in his hands. He already knows every step he intends us to take.

Next the Lord gave Joshua the what: they would go “into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel” (v. 2c). God had earlier promised this land to Abraham for his descendants (Genesis 15:18–19) and had renewed his promise to and through Moses (Deuteronomy 11:24–25). Now he would bring it to fulfillment.

Our text continues: “Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory” (vv. 3–4). The Hebrew tense indicates that the land was already theirs, though it remained to be taken. It already belonged to God, and thus to his heirs. They just had to go and claim it.

God did not give Joshua the long-term plan, but only the immediate next step to take. This is always how we will hear his call. We must be close enough to hear his voice when he calls to us. We are to be faithful to the last word we heard from the Lord. Only then can we hear the next.

Trust his provision for his purpose

God promised them: “No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you” (v. 5). To “forsake” meant to abandon, to turn loose of. Imagine a mountain climbing guide, holding the lifeline for a climber who has lost his grip on the mountain. This is precisely our condition spiritually. But our Father will never turn loose of our rope. He will always hold us up until we have climbed to his full purpose and will.

Have you heard the call of God for your life and work? Expect God to speak to you, if only you will listen for his voice. Seek his will for the now, the next step you are to take into his purpose. Trust him to provide for every step of that pilgrimage. Sign a blank check to him. Give him your unconditional commitment to his purpose, whatever it might be.

And you will know what you are to do next in the plan of God for your life.

Choose courageous obedience (vv. 6–9)

The next words Joshua heard from God were a direct command: “Be strong and courageous” (v. 6a). “Be strong” translates a Hebrew word which means to be bound strongly together, to be put together well. To be “courageous” meant to be firm-footed, to take a strong stand, the opposite of shaking or quaking knees.

Why would Joshua need such courage? Because “you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them” (v. 6b). Even Moses did not fulfill this purpose. Their greatest leaders had not brought them to this place of victory. Now Joshua would lead a nation numbering in the millions into hostile territory inhabited by some of the most wicked cultures known to human history. Indeed, he would attempt something so great it was doomed to fail unless God was in it.

What is the secret to such courage? Faithful obedience: “Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go” (v. 7).

Obedience was and is the prerequisite for divine power and protection. Such obedience would position them to receive the power and provision God intended to give.

So what is the secret to such obedience? Constant communion: “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it” (v. 8a).

“Meditate” in the Hebrew describes a low murmuring sound made by a person contemplating something. We will not simply read the words and leave them on the page, but we will bring them into our hearts and lives.

When you read the word of God, first read its words aloud. Then use all your senses. Imagine yourself in this setting—how it feels to your skin and how it smells, tastes, sounds, and looks. Experience these words fully and sensually. Then ask the Lord for one thing you should do differently because you have spent this time with him in his word. Write down that idea or fact; read it over through the day; ask the Lord to apply it to your unconscious thoughts as well as your intentional decisions.

When you “meditate” on the word of God “day and night,” the result will be “so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success” (v. 8b). As we commune with God in his truth, we find his help in practicing the faithful obedience which creates courageous strength.

Last, what is the secret to such constant communion? Trusting the presence of God: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go” (v. 9).

He is “the Lord your God.” Martin Luther believed that the most important single word in the 23rd Psalm is found in its first clause: “The Lord is my shepherd.” Not just the shepherd or even our shepherd, but my shepherd.

Likewise, the Lord is your God. You can go no place that is exempt from his providence and presence. If you will trust him to be present in your life in this and every moment, you can then practice his presence through communion in his word. When you commune with him in his word, you have his guidance to practice faithful obedience. And as you are obedient to his word and will, you will have his strong courage to fulfill that purpose.

As we will see across these weeks, Joshua experienced precisely such strength and courage. He would lead the people to the great military conquest which would create their nation. He would establish them in their Promised Land and make of their roving tribes a permanent and mighty people.

His God will do no less with us.

Conclusion

When this pivotal chapter opened, we found Joshua and the people still mourning the death of their beloved hero and leader. Their future was uncertain in the extreme. Their leadership was unclear, their direction undetermined.

When the chapter ends, the people are one. Joshua is their strong and courageous leader. The people are unified and resolved to follow him into their future. And they will find that future to be as bright as the promises of God.

In these uncertain times, your culture needs Joshua-type Christians today. As we face medical fears and financial challenges, the people you know want to know if you will follow the Lord with your personal obedience and faithful commitment.

They cannot be expected to go further with God than we are willing to lead them. If the people you influence were as close to the Father as you are this moment, would this be a good thing?

Perhaps this text could be as pivotal to your soul as it was for Joshua. The choice is yours.

Weeping at the Empty Tomb

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Topical Scripture: John 20:11-18

Thomas Jefferson is one of my favorite presidents. Our third president could read seven languages, authored the Declaration of Independence, and negotiated the Louisiana Purchase.

However, his faith was not the part of his life I admire. While he believed in the existence of God, he denied the divinity of Jesus and the divine inspiration of Scripture. Late in his life, he compiled his own version of the Gospels, cutting out every reference to the miraculous.

The so-called Jefferson Bible ends with these words, “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus: and rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.”

By contrast, billions of Christians around the world will proclaim on this Easter Sunday, “He is risen! He is risen indeed!” We believe that it is true. We celebrate it as fact today.

But tomorrow, if Jesus is not as alive in our lives as he was on that first day, it’s as though Easter is an event rather than an experience, a day rather than a way of life.

In these days of pandemic, how does Easter relate to the crises we face and the fears we feel?

An unlikely evangelist

From Christmas to Easter, we’ve watched Jesus change lives. Today we come to the unlikeliest evangelist of Easter: Mary Magdalene.

Let’s begin with what we don’t know about her: she was not the “sinful woman” who wept over the feet of Jesus (Luke 7:36–38). And despite Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code heresy, she was not Jesus’ wife.

Here’s what we do know. Consider three biblical facts.

First, her first name tells us that she was a woman, of course. Women in her day had no social status whatever. They were the possession of their fathers until they became the possession of their husbands. We have a letter written from a Roman soldier on the battlefield back to his pregnant wife instructing her, “If it is a boy, keep it. If it is a girl, throw it out.”

Second, her last name tells us that she was from the town of Magdala on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. A Galilean, country peasant in the eyes of the city sophisticates down in Jerusalem and Judea. Someone from nowhere special.

Third, Luke 8:2 tells us that she is someone “from whom seven demons had gone out.” Like other demoniacs healed by Jesus, she had been delivered from the enemy. But we don’t know anything else about this fact in her past.

Now fast forward to Good Friday, when Mary Magdalene watched Jesus die on the cross and then watched Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus as they buried his body. She was then in the first group to go to his tomb on Easter Sunday morning: “Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early” (John 20:1). She came to finish burying Jesus’ body (Mark 16:1).

However, she “saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.” Now watch her reaction: she ran to find Peter and John and told them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him” (John 20:2).

It did not occur to her or to them that Jesus had been raised from the dead, a fact that contradicts any claim that the disciples stole his body or hallucinated his resurrection.

After Peter and John saw the empty tomb and left, our text picks up: “Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb” (v. 11). I have been more than thirty times to the Garden Tomb north of the Old City of Jerusalem, where one must indeed stoop down to step inside.

The text continues: “And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet” (v. 12). Angels often appear in pairs in Scripture, as they did again when Jesus ascended back to heaven (Acts 1:10). And they often appear in white.

“They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him'” (John 20:13). She still did not understand that Jesus has been raised from the dead.

Then, “having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus” (v. 14). This was not uncommon with the risen Lord: he traveled with two disciples on the road to Emmaus who did not recognize him, either (Luke 24:13–31).

“Jesus said to her, ‘Woman why are you weeping. Whom are you seeking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away'” (v. 15). She even then, in the presence of the risen Lord, did not realize that he was risen.

Then “Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’ She turned and said to him in Aramaic, ‘Rabboni!’ (which means Teacher)” (v. 16). He knew her name, just as he could call Zacchaeus by name (Luke 19:5). And just as he knows yours. She now knew him and fell before him in worship.

Verse 17: “Jesus said to her, ‘Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”‘” And “Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’—and that he had said these things to her” (v. 18).

A life-changing encounter

With this, Mary Magdalene became the first evangelist of Easter. Not Peter, his lead apostle, or John, his best friend. Not a chief priest or Pharisee or member of the Sanhedrin. A woman from a nondescript town in Galilee who had been demon-possessed before she met Jesus.

If he could call her and use her, he can call and use anyone.

But here’s the catch: we have to know who he is. We have to know that he is in fact risen from the dead, that he is as alive as when he first walked the earth, that he is real and he is Lord.

Otherwise, we have a message but no Master. We have a symbol but no Savior. We have a nice story to tell but no good news to share.

So here’s the question: are you Mary when our text begins, or Mary when it ends?

According to a recent survey, only 64 percent of Americans believe Jesus was raised from the dead. Adding to our confusion, only 57 percent say Jesus is the only person who never sinned; 57 percent think he was created by God; 59 percent say the Holy Spirit is a force rather than a personal being.

Now let’s get personal: if Jesus is not the living, life-changing Lord of your life today, it’s as though Easter isn’t real for you.

When was the last time praying or reading Scripture changed your life? That you did something you would not have done or did not do something you would have done?

When was the last time you worshiped Jesus in a way that touched you emotionally as well as rationally? When Peter encountered the divinity of Jesus, he said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Luke 5:8). When John met the risen Christ on Patmos, he says in Revelation 1, “I fell at his feet as though dead” (Revelation 1:17).

When last were you awed by God?

If you are, you will want to tell someone. Like Mary Magdalene, you will want to spread the news. You’ll be the Samaritan woman who told her village about Jesus, or Matthew the tax-collector who invited his fellow tax-collectors to meet his Lord, or the Gadarene demoniac who told the Decapolis what Jesus did for him.

In fact, you can measure the depth of your encounter with Jesus on Easter by the degree to which you tell his story on the day after Easter. And the degree to which you serve others as he has served you, the degree to which you pay forward what you have received in gratitude for such grace.

When our first son was born, no one had to prompt me to tell the story or to show his pictures. It was the same with our second son. And don’t get me started on our grandkids. When you love someone, you want everyone to know. And you want everyone else to love the one you love.

That’s just how love works.

Conclusion

So I’ll close by asking you again, which Mary are you? The Mary before she met the risen Christ on the first Easter, or the Mary after she met him? Is he an old story or a risen Savior for you? Is he a religious subject or a personal Lord?

When last did he change your life? Will you make time with him today for him to change your life again today? Will you share his story and his love tomorrow?

Dr. Samuel M. Lockridge was one of the most profound orators of our day. I love his description of our risen Lord: “He is enduringly strong; he is entirely sincere. He is eternally steadfast; he is immortally gracious. He is imperially powerful; he is impartially merciful. He is the greatest phenomenon that has ever crossed the horizons of the globe.

“He is God’s Son; he is the sinner’s Savior. He is the captive’s Ransom; he is the breath of life. He is the centerpiece of civilization; he stands in the solitude of Himself. He is august and he is unique; he is unparalleled and he is unprecedented. He is undisputed and he is undefiled; he is unsurpassed and he is unshakeable.

“He is the loftiest idea in philosophy; he is the highest personality in psychology. He is the supreme subject in literature; he is the fundamental doctrine of theology. He is the Cornerstone and the Capstone. He is the miracle of the ages.”

Now he wants to be the miracle of our lives. The next step is yours.