John Naisbitt in his book Megatrends said that we are living in the “information society.” There was a time when most people were involved in industry—in the manufacturing and the selling of goods. Today most people added to the laboring force are involved in either collecting, assimilatin...
Dr. Bill Hinson, the chaplain at Baylor University, told of a salesman friend of his who was driving through the back roads of Missouri some time ago when he came upon a little country gas station/grocery store. It had a gravel driveway and just one gas pump in the front. While the attendant filled his car, he turned and walk...
George Bernard Shaw said, “If you destroyed all of the churches tomorrow, people would the very day afterwards begin to build them up again.” Jesus spoke of the church when he said, “Upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). The Greek wo...
Buckner Fanning, pastor of the Trinity Baptist Church, San Antonio, said that early in his ministry that he was preaching a revival meeting at one of the churches in Bogalusa, Louisiana. In the last service of that revival they asked a young man who had not been a Christian for a long time to give his testimony. As he stepped...
This sermon grew out of several convictions. One is that stewardship is a deeply spiritual matter. We do not tithe or we are not stewards to raise money for a financial institution but rather to make a deep spiritual surrender of our lives to the Lord. Stewardship is not a matter of dollars and cents; it’s a matter of d...
I always use this occasion to restate the objective, the purpose, and the mission of our church. George Webber said, “Any church that does not recognize the basic purpose of its existence is in jeopardy of its life. The predicament of the church in America is precisely that it does not recognize that it’s a missio...
One of the most important statements in all the Bible, and certainly a key to understanding the gospels, was made by Jesus when he said, “This is my blood, which is shed for many.”
The occasion for that statement was the institution of the Lord’s Supper. He had met with his disciples in the Upper Roo...
Shortly after I became a Christian as a teenage boy, my home church had a special week of study of the book Every Christian’s Job by C. E. Matthews. The thesis of the study was that every Christian should be a witness, an evangelist, and a missionary for Jesus Christ. Being a new Christian, I believed...
Knute Rockne was one of the greatest football coaches ever. In his 13 years at Notre Dame, his teams won 105 games, lost 12, and tied 5. He never had a secret practice. In fact, he sometimes put up a sign for visitors that said, “Secret practice. Come and bring your notebooks.”
On one occasion when an Army scout missed a train connection and didn’t get to the Notre Dame game he was to cover, Rockne obligingly sent him the plays he planned to use against the West Point men. He explained his actions by saying, “It isn’t the play that wins; it’s the execution.”
All great coaches agree: champions are made by majoring on the fundamentals – blocking and tackling. They execute well. Teams seldom win by trick plays or gimmicks.
The same is true of life. Tricks and gimmicks will seldom get you to the top in any endeavor and can never keep you there. Major on the basics in all of life – work hard, honor God, be honest, kind and helpful to others, and go to church regularly.