75 Sermon Illustrations on Rejection

A wealthy man and his son loved to collect rare works of art. They had everything in their collection, from Picasso to Raphael. They would often sit together and admire the great works of art. When the Viet Nam conflict broke out, the son went to war. He was very courageous and died in battle while rescuing another soldier. The father was notified and grieved deeply for his only son.

About a month later, just before Christmas, there was a knock at the door. A young man stood at the door with a large package in his hands. He said, “Sir, you don’t know me, but I am the soldier for whom your son gave his life. He saved many lives that day, and he was carrying me to safety when a bullet struck him in the heart and he died instantly. He often talked about you, and your love for art. The young man held out his package. “I know this isn’t much. I’m not really a great artist, but I think your son would have wanted you to have this.”

The father opened the package. It was a portrait of his son, painted by the young man. He stared in awe at the way the soldier had captured the personality of his son in the painting. The father was so drawn to the eyes that his own eyes welled up with tears. He thanked the young man and offered to pay him for the picture.

“Oh, no sir, I could never repay what your son did for me. It’s a gift.”

The father hung the portrait over his mantle. Every time visitors came to his home he took them to see the portrait of his son before he showed them any of the other great works he had collected.

The man died a few months later. There was to be a great auction of his paintings. Many influential people gathered, excited over seeing the great paintings and having an opportunity to purchase one for their collection. On the platform sat the painting of the son. The auctioneer pounded his gavel.

“We will start the bidding with this picture of the son. Who will bid for this picture?” There was silence. Then a voice in the back of the room shouted. “We want to see the famous paintings. Skip this one.” But the auctioneer persisted. “Will someone bid for this painting? Who will start the bidding? $100, $200?” Another voice shouted angrily. “We didn’t come to see this painting.. We came to see the Van Goghs, the Rembrandts. Get on with the real bids!” But still the auctioneer continued. “The son! The son! Who’ll take the son?” Finally, a voice came from the very back of the room. It was the long-time gardener of the man and his son. “I’ll give $10 for the painting.”

Being a poor man, it was all he could afford. “We have $10, who will bid $20?” “Give it to him for $10. Let’s see the masters.” “$10 is the bid, won’t someone bid $20?” The crowd was becoming angry. They didn’t want the picture of the son. They wanted the more worthy investments for their collections. The auctioneer pounded the gavel. “Going once, twice, SOLD for $10!”

A man sitting on the second row shouted. “Now let’s get on with the collection!”

The auctioneer laid down his gavel. “I’m sorry, the auction is over.” “What about the paintings?” “I am sorry. When I was called to conduct this auction, I was told of a secret stipulation in the will. I was not allowed to reveal that stipulation until this time. Only the painting of the son would be auctioned. Whoever bought that painting would inherit the entire estate, including the paintings. The man who took the son gets every thing!”

- – -

God gave His son 2,000 years ago to die on a cruel cross. Much like the auctioneer, His message today is, “The son, the son, who’ll take the son?” Because, you see, whoever takes the Son gets everything.

For God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son, … whosoever believeth, shall have eternal life … That’s love

Do whatever you like, but remember that maybe “one” of the people you might have taken the time to send this to, may be just the person who needs to hear this message. You have a choice to make.”

Even if people reject the gospel, we still must love them. A good example of this was reported by Ralph Neighbour, pastor of Houston's West Memorial Baptist Church (in "Death and the Caring Community," by Larry Richards and Paul Johnson):

Jack had been president of a large corporation, and when he got cancer, they ruthlessly dumped him. He went through his insurance, used his life savings, and had practically nothing left.

I visited him with one of my deacons, who said, "Jack, you speak so openly about the brief life you have left. I wonder if you've prepared for your life after death?"

Jack stood up, livid with rage. "You ---- ----- Christians! All you ever think about is what's going to happen to me after I die. If your God is so great, why doesn't he do something about the real problems of life?" He went on to tell us he was leaving his wife penniless and his daughter without money for college. Then he ordered us out.

Later my deacon insisted we go back. We did.

"Jack, I know I offended you," he said. "I humbly apologize. But I want you to know I've been working since then. Your first problem is where your family will live after you die. A realtor in our church has agreed to sell your house and give your wife his commission.

"I guarantee you that, if you'll permit us, some other men and I will make the house payments until it's sold.

"Then, I've contacted the owner of an apartment house down the street. He's offered your wife a three bedroom apartment plus free utilities and an $850 a month salary in return for her collecting rents and supervising plumbing and electrical repairs. The income from your house should pay for your daughter's college. I just want you to know your family will be cared for."

Jack cried like a baby.

He died shortly thereafter, so wrapped in pain he never accepted Christ. But he experienced God's love even while rejecting Him. And his widow, touched by the caring Christians, responded to the gospel message.

[beginning of this section is missing] they do these things, something in us lifts and straightens. The reason is that love is vitalizing. Love brings life back into us. Love does not raise the dead, but it raises us so that we can deal with death better. All these themes and directions for ministry come together, as so much of the New Testament does, in the three parables of Luke 15, and especially in the last. What we often overlook is the preface to these parables, namely, that some Pharisees have been grumbling about Jesus’ choice of company. He eats with the shamed, and these Pharisees -- good men in the worst sense of the word -- find the sight distasteful. So Jesus tells of a certain father and of his prodigal son. The son who wastes his father’s money on bibulous meals and foreign whores is guilty all right; no question there. But he is also a shamed son. He is a failure. His declaration of independence and his search for his own essential self have landed him in the gutter. There, homeless, derelict, and defiled, he thinks back to the family home, pictures the servants, and sees to what appalling depths he has sunk. His practiced confession therefore includes a lowliness clause: “I am not worthy to be called your son. Let me be as one of your hired servants.” What is remarkable, of course, and what all the generations of Bible readers have noticed with a chill down the spine, is that at the homecoming, the father does not wait to hear his son’s confession. He wasn’t waiting for that, first of all. Guilt does not interest him. No, he wants his boy. Hence, all the running and embracing and rejoicing. Hence, all the new clothing to help cover this youngster’s shame. The idea is to get a son dressed up for dinner. The idea is to put him back where he belongs, among safe people who love and accept him. The climax of this parable, a climax of Christian worship, and for that matter a climax of human history, is God’s table fellowship with the shamed. These are people worth feeding. We are not talking here about a proper little Sunday night gathering over ham sandwiches and coffee. No, as Robert Farrar Capon writes, this is “a neighborhood blowout,” full of music and dancing and refillings of the punchbowl. What’s the point? The point is that the shamed one had not only been lost. He had been mortified. And the dancing and the eating and drinking and embracing that go on into the night - all these are ways to raise the dead.

A QUARTER CENTURY OF SIGNIFICANT SHAME

Robert H. Albers, "Shame: A Faith Perspective" (Haworth, 1995).

John Bradshaw, "Healing the Shame That Binds You" (Health, 1988).

Donald Capps, "The Depleted Self: Sin in a Narcissistic Age" (Fortress, 1993).

Merle A. Fossum and Marilyn J. Mason, "Shame: Families in Recovery" (Norton, 1986).

Tom Goodhue, "Shame," "Quarterly Review 4" (1984), pp. 57-65.

Robert Karen, "Shame," "The Atlantic Monthly," February 1992, pp. 40-70.

Gershen Kaufman, "Shame: The Power of Caring" (Schenkman, 1980).

Gershen Kaufman, "The Psychology of Shame: Theory and Treatment of Shame- Based Syndromes" (Springer, 1989).

Christopher Lasch, "Shame," in "A Companion to American Thought," edited by Richard Wrightman Fox and James T. Kloppenberg (Blackwell, 1995).

Helen Block Lewis, "Shame and Guilt in Neurosis" (International Universities, 1971).

Michael Lewis, "Shame: The Exposed Self" (Free Press, 1992).

Susan Miller, "The Shame Experience" (Analytic, 1985).

Andrew P. Morrison, "Shame: The Underside of Narcissism" (Analytic, 1989).

Donald L. Nathanson, "Shame and Pride: Affect, Sex, and the Birth of the Self" (Norton, 1992).

Donald L. Nathanson, ed., "The Many Faces of Shame" (Guilford, 1987).

Carl D. Schneider, "Shame, Exposure, and Privacy" (Beacon, 1977).

Lewis B. Smedes, "Shame and Grace: Healing the Shame We Don't Deserve" (HarperSanFrancisco/Zondervan, 1993).

Leon Wurmser, "The Mask of Shame" (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981).

________

Copyright (c) 1996 Christianity Today, Inc./BOOKS AND CULTURE Review Volume 2, No. 2, Page 3.

How could this Vincent van Gogh's untold history actually have something to do with Jesus Christ? We were always taught in school that van Gogh was a crazed, drunken, painter who eventually committed suicide. But there is a beautiful story interwoven in van Gogh’s life, that we were never told about...so read on and be surprised (by the way, his name is pronounced “van Goth”, not “van Go”...yeah, they even taught us how to pronounce his name wrong in school...)

Vincent Willem van Gogh was born March 30, 1853 in the Netherlands (he was Dutch) to a Dutch Reformed Pastor by the name of Theodorus van Gogh. To understand the story of van Gogh, and his struggles, the basis must be set that he grew up in a predominately Catholic area, and that though his father was a Dutch Reformed minister (good right?), wrong, the Dutch Reformed Church was mainly a government church, controlled by many laws, with an approach to God through legalism, and not Grace. On a side note, the Dutch Reformed Church ceased to exist in the year 2004, when it merged with the Lutheran churches. Again, one must keep in mind the Catholic influence in the area, and a legalistic pastor for a father, while reading the rest of van Gogh’s history, to truly understand his struggles.

From an early age, van Gogh wanted to be a pastor, not like his father, but one that preached the true Gospel of Grace of Jesus Christ. Van Gogh truly had a burning within his soul to share the Word of the Lord. Don’t believe me? Read the letters to his brother (link below). Van Gogh was largely influenced by the preachings of the famous pastor, Charles Spurgeon.

First, van Gogh was forced to attended a Catholic school for his education...it is to be noted that van Gogh stayed true to his beliefs even after this, but it must have started a struggle within his soul, over what he was taught was true, and what he believed to be true, especially at such a young age. He was later pressured by his father to go to Theological College and become a pastor as his father, but van Gogh rejected this based on his Biblical beliefs and the conflicting teachings of Theology.

At age 20, van Gogh worked as an art dealer, quite successful, and making an above average living for the time. He fell in love with his land lady’s daughter, and proposed to her...which she promptly rejected, telling van Gogh she had a secret lover she had never told him about. Quite possibly the first notch in van Gogh’s soul that would come back to haunt him. For the time, van Gogh would have been considered a “good catch”...both historians and family alike recount that this was possibly the happiest, most successful time for van Gogh.

Although van Gogh was a successful art dealer, he soon gave that up (and his lucrative paycheck), to go and teach at a boys school for Rev. William Stokes. Van Gogh still felt his calling to be a pastor. Being able to share the gospel with the young boys, van Gogh then joined with another pastor, Rev. T. Slade Jones at another boys school. Van Gogh spent his time between the two boys schools, teaching and sharing the gospel. Once again it was said that this was the happiest time in van Gogh’s life.

Historians note that van Gogh would spend hours and hours a day, reading and rereading the Bible. Van Gogh could not get enough of the Word. Again, we are never taught this in school, but van Gogh is noted with translating the Bible into other languages of the time, so the Gospel could be read by others (most people are not aware of this).

Van Gogh approached Rev. Jones one day and requested to be able to preach. Jones agreed to let van Gogh preach before their prayer meetings, of which his teachings must have been blessed, because Jones soon let van Gogh have the pulpit and begin preaching Sunday sermons in his church. Van Gogh would go on to preach at up to four churches a day, regardless of the denomination - van Gogh was one of the first “non-denominational pastors”, but he never watered down his words, regardless of where he was preaching.

(Here is van Gogh’s very first sermon, delivered in his early 20s: http://www.vggallery.com/misc/archives/sermon.htm)

Yeah, too bad there aren’t pastors like van Gogh today - he was noted to truly care for the people and to meet their needs as a pastor. His sermons were Christ-centered, and he quote much Scripture.

Van Gogh’s passion for the people, as Christ had compassion upon the multitudes, grew to where he felt a calling to be a missionary. He twice applied for missionary school and failed. One must understand missionaries of the time - for support, you had to pass the “missionary exam” of a Theological college. Although it is never noted why van Gogh failed, it could possibly have been because he answered the questions according to the Gospels, and not according to man’s teachings.

Undeterred, and with the burning of the Gospel in his heart, van Gogh voluntarily went (with no support), as a self-proclaimed missionary to the coal mining town of Borinage, Belguim. This was stated by historians to be “the most inhospitable, improvised” location in all of Western Europe. Van Gogh preached to the miners, and saw to every need they had as he possible could. He felt so desperate their plight that he gave away his own money, food and clothes to them, and slept in straw behind a Baker’s hut, because he did find himself above them, and as Christ shared in our sufferings, van Gogh felt the same calling. The Baker’s wife stated that every night she would hear van Gogh sobbing behind their house, calling out to God, interceding for the plight of the miners.

This raised the ire of the formal, government church...van Gogh was making them look bad. The formal church did little (if anything) to help the miners (let’s face it, they were considered trash by the organized church), and a pastor was to live in a home (not in straw) and receive a salary (not give it away). Jealous of van Gogh, the Church, yes “the church”, forbade him to return to the miners. The church leaders of the time are actually quoted as saying “[he] is undermining the dignity of the Priesthood.” It was also during this time that van Gogh’s own father (“the Dutch Reformed Pastor”) sought to have his own son committed to a lunatic asylum because of his beliefs in Jesus.

Now, I have to pause here for a moment and ask...does van Gogh’s story in any way resemble Jesus’ walk here on earth? Didn’t they call him “mad”, and the church of the time seek to shut him up?

Van Gogh was forced by the church to move away, and from a distance began sketching the miners, trying to raise concern to others for their plight and horrid living conditions. Rejected by the church, unable to continue in the mining villages as a missionary, van Gogh stated...”...if I cannot preach, I will paint, and every painting that I do will be for the glory to God.” Van Gogh’s aspiration, facing such rejection, was to be an “artist in the service of God.”

I will not dwell so deeply on van Gogh’s years as an artist, as there is much more history surrounding this, than is time as a pastor. However, I do need to use it to bring a conclusion to van Gogh’s story.

While studying to be an artist, he once again fell in love, and proposed marriage, but again refused (this time because he was now a pauper himself, having given all he had to the miners). This was of course the third notch on his soul.

It is somewhere at this point in his life that van Gogh lost sight of his calling. History does not state what happened, because history does not understand the calling of a pastor, and how if unfulfilled, will eat constantly at your soul.

Van Gogh fell in love a third time, with a prostitute named Sien who had a 5-year-old daughter. It is hypothesized that this began because van Gogh had compassion on them and their plight. Having been rejected twice in marriage proposals, van Gogh did not propose this third time, as he could not face rejection again. Van Gogh had a son with Sien, and they named him Willem after van Gogh.

With van Gogh unable to make a living as a painter, Sien turned back to prostitution to feed the family (unbeknownst to van Gogh). Upon the birth of their son, van Gogh did propose marriage, so that his son would have a father and not be considered illegitimate. Sien refused, probably not because of van Gogh, but because of her secret life of prostitution. Unable to live with herself of this decision, Sien took her life by drowning herself in the River Scheldt.

Sien’s daughter was then given to her mother, and Willem (van Gogh’s son), to Sien’s brother. It is believed that the children were not given to van Gogh because he could neither support himself, and was still considered a lunatic by many, based on his earlier years of preaching. Although I’ve not touched on it here, van Gogh dearly loved children, as Christ said, “...forbid them not to come to him...”.

Childless, rejected by the church, unable to be a missionary, thrice rejected in marriage, and unable to sell a painting, by this time in ill health, van Gogh turned to drinking. Van Gogh’s ill health came shortly after he left the mining town - although never fully known, it is assumed that it came from breathing the coal dust, and later aggravated by the fumes of the oil paints - which combined to cause him to have epileptic like seizures. Due to the ignorance of the time, this furthered the belief that he was “lunatic”.

Three years later, in 1886, van Gogh again fell in love a fourth time with a woman named Margot, and again proposed marriage (for the fourth time). Margot accepted, but neither parents gave approval, so the marriage could not happen. Unable to accept this, Margot attempted suicide by strychnine, but was saved when van Gogh rushed her to the hospital. Upon recovery, with no chance for marriage, the two parted ways. Van Gogh’s father, who had strongly opposed the marriage (actually all of his marriage proposals were never supported by his father), died one year later. This deeply impacted van Gogh, who, because of their difference in religious beliefs, had always been rejected by his father.

In van Gogh’s early years, he painted those in poverty, because he had compassion for them, and wanted to bring awareness to their conditions. Later in life, van Gogh’s favorite paintings were wheat fields and harvests. His final painting, “Wheat Field with Crows”, is often associated with Vincent’s first sermon, and that his sojourning upon earth was almost over, and the field was ready for harvest: The “road” was uphill, and the journey long. (Van Gogh loved to paint wheat fields because it oft reminded him of the Harvest in the Bible: http://bobbyriesterer.com/gogh/themeimages/f_0779.jpg)

No one knows why, but can only assume that his loneliness and rejection (he was ridiculed as a painter), and his rejection by the church, as well as his bouts of seizures, led to this moment - on July 27, 1890, van Gogh took his paints and his easel to the wheat field, and there shot himself in the chest. Van Gogh was only 37 years old.

The story does not end here though - there is hope - the self-inflicted gun shot was not immediately mortal...in fact, van Gogh was able to walk back to his room, where a doctor found him and contacted his brother Theo. The bullet had deflected off a rib and lodged against his spine, but no organs had been touched. Removable however was impossible due to the close proximity to the spine. For the next 29 hours, van Gogh was held in the arms of his brother Theo as they talked - van Gogh, during his life, had tried to win his brother to Christ. It is unknown what was spoken of in these final hours, however, I can only hope that van Gogh recalled his once true passion and relationship with Christ, and as he felt his life waning, came back Jesus. Why else would God have spared his life another 29 hours? It was also noted by Theo and the two physicians on hand, and van Gogh himself, that he was in little to no pain during these 29 hours.

And that my folks is the life story of van Gogh that schools will never teach. In his lifetime, only a few of his paintings made any money, and not much at that. At the time of his death, an art dealer had taken a liking to van Gogh and his paintings, having just sold several of them for quite a substantial sum...however, word of this sale would arrive after his death.

A van Gogh painting today...well, the most anyone has ever paid was $140 million dollars, and the least (that I could find) $35 million. Van Gogh would paint some 2100 paintings in his lifetime. And in his own words, “...if I cannot preach, I will paint, and every painting that I do will be for the glory to God.”

Still persecuted by the church for his Biblical preaching (can the church not forgive?), he was barred from burial in a church cemetery - which prevented him from being buried with his family. However, a smaller, more forgiving church in the adjoining town, permitted his burial. Six months later, grieving over the brother who had tried to win him for Christ, Theo died of a broken heart. Theo and Vincent had wished to be buried together, but because of the church, could not. In 1914, Theo’s still living wife, had Theo moved and buried beside his brother Vincent.

The Reformation’s linchpin was Martin Luther but he had a contemporary who was just as subversive. His name was Erasmus. If anyone has heard of Erasmus today, it’s because of one book that’s occasionally force-fed to college students studying the Renaissance: “The Praise of Folly.” It’s not a bad little book, but it hardly begins to indicate just how righteously funny the monk from Rotterdam really was. Erasmus also believed Luther to be insufficiently humorous, and he told him so. He basically agreed with everything Luther wrote and everything Luther did, but he didn’t like violence on either side of the controversy, and he constantly called for calm, for mercy, for forgiveness, for quiet reform. He said things like “I will die for God but I will not die for Luther,” and “I love Luther and hate Lutherans.” He published a Greek New Testament that was the first of its kind and launched the age of scripture that could actually be read and understood by the masses. He constantly told the Pope to stop protecting corrupt priests and to turn the church’s attention to the poor, the widow, the orphan, the prisoner, the criminal, the pimp and the prostitute. (He was especially incensed that priests used prostitutes but didn’t help prostitutes.) He counseled the church to disband its armies, give its lands to the poor, and return to the simplicity of Christ.

For his trouble, Erasmus was hated by everyone. The Lutherans, who originally thought of him as “one of us,” hated him for not supporting their violent takeover of the churches in Switzerland and Germany. The conservatives in the Vatican caused his books to be burned in several places, including his own university at Louvain, because he refused to condemn Luther. (Instead he wrote privately to Luther, and they disputed scripture together.) He was called a wimp, a man of no conviction, a man trying to protect his own life by not getting involved. And through it all, Erasmus continued to preach mercy, kindness, long-suffering, calm, love of brother for brother, because he refused to accept that any man, for any reason, should be separated from the body of Christ.

What does this have to do with us? Throughout his life, Erasmus returned to the scripture about being “in the world but not of the world,” and Paul’s phrase of “having as if not having.” This allowed him to be thought of simultaneously as “the first humanist” — always writing about current events, especially current events in Biblical scholarship — and as the most devout of cloistered “unworldly” scholars. (His devotion, by the way, had no outward form. He wrote brutal satires about his fellow monks, and their love of the cowl, the hairshirt, the rules and regulations of monastic living. He was one of the most famous monks of his time, and yet claimed there were no rules and regulations for a monk, that withdrawal from the world was an inner, not an outer, process.) By seeing the world clearly, but standing apart from it, he was able to describe its enthusiasms and trends as a pageant of vanity (he was a fan of Ecclesiastes) while constantly calling those who would hear back to the example of Christ. And when he should have been enjoying his declining years as one of the most respected and beloved men of letters in Europe, instead he was esteemed as a worthless old man who wouldn’t “get with the times” and turn evangelical.

“Jesus would’ve baked the cake.”

“Christians hate LGBTQ people.”

“You’re on the wrong side of history”

“Why can’t you let them be ‘their true selves’?”

“That’s just your truth, not mine.”

And, perhaps most painful, especially when it comes from a friend or family member: “If you love me, you’d accept me for who I am.”

All of the slogans that leave Christians silent or shamed today are, at root, different ways of saying the same thing — that truth and love are incompatible. For people to tell the truth, especially when it comes to issues of sexuality and gender, is to be unloving and intolerant. And, to love someone is to affirm their choices.

There’s a uniquely “Christian” version of these slogans, too. Taking a moral stand, we are told, especially on questions so culturally controversial, is to distract from the Gospel. Instead, the Church must become more welcoming and avoid anything that makes people feel excluded from the Church. After all, we are told, isn’t the Gospel really about inclusivity?

Today, of all the days of Holy Week, directly confronts this mentality. Maundy Thursday is set aside on the Church calendar to remember the Last Supper. The word maundy comes from the Latin word for “mandate” or “command.” At this first celebration of Communion, Jesus gave His disciples “a new command,” that they should love and serve each other. To demonstrate what He meant, He picked up a basin of water and a towel and washed their feet.

To fully understand His words and actions, recall that at this “Last Supper” and first Communion, Jesus and His disciples were obeying God’s original command, given to all Jews, to remember the Passover. God’s people were to never forget how they were rescued from slavery in Egypt. For Jesus to issue a “new” command was an audacious thing to do, especially given how significantly God’s original command stood in Israel’s history and identity as a people.

Jesus, however, went even further than merely adding instructions to an old celebration. Now, rather than remembering how the angel of death “passed over” those homes with lamb’s blood on their doorposts, they were to remember His broken body and His shed blood. Ultimately, the new command was to remember a new rescue, and how, through Christ’s death, death is not merely avoided but finally defeated.

Since at least the mid-20th century, the American Church has been divided over whether it should be primarily about proclaiming truth or about serving others. More recently, the volume in this debate has significantly increased. The Lord’s Supper and Jesus’ “new” command remind us that this is a false dichotomy, an unnecessary choice to make. Truth and love need never be separated and should never be separated. On the same night when Jesus commanded us to remember how His broken body and shed blood rescues us from sin (that’s the truth), He commanded us to demonstrate our new life by serving others (that’s love).

We need not choose between truth and love. In fact, we must not choose. They always go together, because they are both grounded in the same Source, or specifically, the same Person.

Jesus embodied truth and love, not only in the event we commemorate this day, but every event we remember this Holy Week. He is truth. He is love.

And, He has risen. Indeed.

________

Copyright (c) 2022 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

“Jesus would’ve baked the cake.”

“Christians hate LGBTQ people.”

“You’re on the wrong side of history”

“Why can’t you let them be ‘their true selves’?”

“That’s just your truth, not mine.”

And, perhaps most painful, especially when it comes from a friend or family member: “If you love me, you’d accept me for who I am.”

All of the slogans that leave Christians silent or shamed today are, at root, different ways of saying the same thing — that truth and love are incompatible. For people to tell the truth, especially when it comes to issues of sexuality and gender, is to be unloving and intolerant. And, to love someone is to affirm their choices.

There’s a uniquely “Christian” version of these slogans, too. Taking a moral stand, we are told, especially on questions so culturally controversial, is to distract from the Gospel. Instead, the Church must become more welcoming and avoid anything that makes people feel excluded from the Church. After all, we are told, isn’t the Gospel really about inclusivity?

Today, of all the days of Holy Week, directly confronts this mentality. Maundy Thursday is set aside on the Church calendar to remember the Last Supper. The word maundy comes from the Latin word for “mandate” or “command.” At this first celebration of Communion, Jesus gave His disciples “a new command,” that they should love and serve each other. To demonstrate what He meant, He picked up a basin of water and a towel and washed their feet.

To fully understand His words and actions, recall that at this “Last Supper” and first Communion, Jesus and His disciples were obeying God’s original command, given to all Jews, to remember the Passover. God’s people were to never forget how they were rescued from slavery in Egypt. For Jesus to issue a “new” command was an audacious thing to do, especially given how significantly God’s original command stood in Israel’s history and identity as a people.

Jesus, however, went even further than merely adding instructions to an old celebration. Now, rather than remembering how the angel of death “passed over” those homes with lamb’s blood on their doorposts, they were to remember His broken body and His shed blood. Ultimately, the new command was to remember a new rescue, and how, through Christ’s death, death is not merely avoided but finally defeated.

Since at least the mid-20th century, the American Church has been divided over whether it should be primarily about proclaiming truth or about serving others. More recently, the volume in this debate has significantly increased. The Lord’s Supper and Jesus’ “new” command remind us that this is a false dichotomy, an unnecessary choice to make. Truth and love need never be separated and should never be separated. On the same night when Jesus commanded us to remember how His broken body and shed blood rescues us from sin (that’s the truth), He commanded us to demonstrate our new life by serving others (that’s love).

We need not choose between truth and love. In fact, we must not choose. They always go together, because they are both grounded in the same Source, or specifically, the same Person.

Jesus embodied truth and love, not only in the event we commemorate this day, but every event we remember this Holy Week. He is truth. He is love.

And, He has risen. Indeed.

________

Copyright (c) 2022 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

Seems too simple. Just ask.

In most cases to get the sale -- at some point you must ask for it. "Yes, Jeffrey," you say, "but when do you ask? What's the perfect time to ask?"

How do I know? No one knows that except you. I can only tell you it's a delicate combination of the prospect's buying signals, and your gut feeling.

How and what to ask are easier to define than when. Since the "ask" is a critical part of the sale, you'd better be prepared with a number of options for the how and what part.

Important note: Here's what never to ask. "What will it take for me to get your business?" or "What will it take to earn your business?" That's an insult question. Great salespeople figure out what it takes, and then do it.

More important note: Many salespeople are "ask reluctant." If this is you, just realize the worst that can happen when you ask is that the prospect says "no" -- which to any good salesperson means "not yet!" Big deal.

How do you ask for the sale? Here are 7.5 ways...

1. Ask -- What's the risk? When you ask the prospect what risks are associated in doing business with you, real objections surface -- or -- (and here's the best part) there are usually none that come to mind. You say -- "Well, Mr. Johnson, when would you like to start not risking?" and the sale is yours.

2. Ask -- When is the next job? If you're making a sale where there are lots of opportunities (printer, supplies, temp help, construction, graphic design) you only need to get one job (order) to prove yourself.

3. Ask for an indirect commitment. -- Could you arrange your schedule to be there at delivery? How many people will need to be trained? When can we set up training? (This is the assumptive position, explained in depth in an earlier article.)

4. Ask -- What's preventing it? Is there anything preventing you from doing business with us? What's in the way? What are the obstacles?

5. If there's an obstacle or objection ask -- Is that the only reason? In other words, Mr. Johnson, if it wasn't for (objection) then we could...

6. Ask or communicate creatively -- Go to the "5 & 10 Cent" store (pretty much dates me doesn't it) and buy some plastic fence and a few plastic (rubber) people. Wire one person to the fence that most resembles (or would be non-offensive to) the prospect. Send it in a box to the prospect -- and include a flyer declaring it's "National Get Off the Fence Week." Tell the prospect he's been thinking about it long enough -- and what better time to get off the fence, and place an order than during this special celebration week? Tell him he'll be helping underprivileged salespeople all over the world by getting off the fence and placing an order. Create some laughter. Have some fun. Make some sales.

7. Create an offer so good that you can end by asking "fair enough?" "Mr. Johnson, I don't know if we can help you of not -- but if you bring your most important examples to lunch on Friday -- if I can help you, I'll tell you. And if I can't help you, I'll tell you that, too. Fair enough?" Here's another -- "Mr. Johnson, give me a trial order and let me earn your business. If it's not everything I claim and more, you don't have to pay for it. Fair enough? ("Fair enough" should always be accompanied by a "can't say no deal.")

And when all else fails:

7.5 Ask with humor -- "Mr. Johnson, I finally figured out what it will take to get your business -- all you have to do is say yes!" The more adventurous salesperson will add -- "When would you like to do that?"

Most important note: Ask for the sale when the mood is right. The worst possible place is in the prospect's office. Best place is a business breakfast, lunch or dinner. Next best is your office. Next best is a trade show.

The rule of thumb is: ask early, and ask often. The best way to master the skill is -- practice in front of someone who can say "yes."

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“God assumed from the beginning that the wise of the world would view Christians as fools...and He has not been disappointed. ... If I have brought any message today, it is this: Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world.”

-- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia

A few weeks ago, the college basketball game between Cincinnati and Xavier ended in a bench-clearing brawl. The fight got so bad that the referees decided not to play the last nine seconds. The media and fans were rightly appalled and demanded harsh measures.

This debacle came only a week after the NFL announced that eleven players had failed drug tests. Two of the players, from the Washington Redskins, were suspended for the rest of the season because this was their third offense. The media and Redskins fans were appalled and wondered how anyone could be so foolish and irresponsible.

These stories represent the tiniest tip of a huge iceberg. It seems that no news cycle is complete without a story about some athlete getting into trouble both on and off the field.

Yet, by many accounts, the most controversial athlete in America is a God-fearing man who grew up serving the poor overseas and whose teammates would walk through fire for.

I’m speaking of course of Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow. A recent piece in the Atlantic Monthly named him as one of the “15 Most Divisive Athletes in Recent History.” Others on the list included Michael Vick, Barry Bonds, Dennis Rodman, Pete Rose and O.J. Simpson.

So, let’s see...that’s one man convicted of animal cruelty, another of obstruction of justice, yet another of tax evasion and banned from baseball for betting on games, someone who probably killed his ex-wife, and a guy who appeared at a book signing wearing a dress.

What did Tebow do to make this august list? Essentially, he is upfront about his Christian faith and that he made an ad saying that he was glad that his mother didn’t abort him.

Even with this, the controversy over Tebow is hard to understand. After all, he’s hardly the only Christian football player or even quarterback. Players kneeling on the sidelines in prayer is almost as much of the NFL as cheerleaders.

Neither is he the first player to publicly take a pro-life stand: in 1989, members of the New York Giants and owner Wellington Mara made a pro-life video which was far more direct in its condemnation of abortion than anything that Tebow has done.

When you add the appalling, often-criminal, behavior of many athletes, calling Tebow “divisive” brings to mind the words of Jesus’ denunciation of the Pharisees for their hypocrisy. It also brings to mind the story He told about, “we played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.”

There is nothing that Tebow can do, it seems, that will really please people. And that’s ironic because there’s never been a time when people wanted more good role models for their children.

I guess they want the role models — especially religious ones — to be silent, however, about what motivates them.

Ultimately, what makes Tebow “divisive” and “controversial” has little, if anything, to do with what he does on the field. It’s all about our increasing intolerance of faith in public life. Tebow isn’t trying to “impose” anything on anyone besides himself.

Yet, even that is too much for some people. I can’t help but suspect that our generation is getting the kind of athletes it deserves. So, maybe, Tebow should just wear a wedding dress...

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Copyright (c) 2011 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

The phone rang in a high society Boston home. On the other end of the line was a son who had just returned from Viet Nam and was calling from California. His folks were the cocktail-circuit, party kind -- drinking, wife swapping, gambling, all the other things that go with it. The boy said to his mother, “I just called to tell you that I wanted to bring a buddy home with me.” His mother said, “Sure, bring him along for a few days.” “But, mother, there is something you need to know about this boy. One leg is gone, one arm's gone, one eye's gone, and his face is quite disfigured. Is it all right if I bring him home?”

His mother said, “Bring him home for a few days.” The son said, “You didn't understand me, mother. I want to bring him home to live with us.” The mother began to make all kinds of excuses about embarrassment and what people would think...and the phone clicked.

A few hours later the police called from California to Boston. The mother picked up the phone again. The police sergeant at the other end said, “We just found a boy with one arm, one leg, one eye and a mangled face, who has just killed himself with a shot in the head. The identification papers on the body say he is your son.”

The Tale Of The Tardy Oxcart

Charles R. Swindoll, Word, p. 109.

For more than 20 years Robert Frost was a failure. He often said that during this time he was one of the very few persons who knew he was a poet. At his death, the world mourned his passing, and today he towers as one of America's greatest verse writers. His poems have been published in 22 languages, with his American edition alone selling over a record million copies. He was a 4-time winner of the coveted Pulitzer Prize for poetry and had more honorary degrees thrust upon him than probably any other man of letters.

Robert Frost was 39 before he ever sold a volume of poetry. He had been writing for 20 years and received endless rejection slips. However, his perseverance paid off and the world is wiser and richer

for it.

A downpour pelts Tim McClard as he floats down the Suriname River in a dugout canoe. The night is so dark that McClard, a Southern Baptist International Mission Board missionary from Farmington, Mo., can hardly see who's in front of him, let alone the river ahead. But he's not worried. He knows who's steering the canoe.

It's 39-year-old George Eduard, an evangelical Christian who grew up in the bush country of Suriname, a South American nation that's a former Dutch colony. Eduard, like many men from a tribe called the Saramaccans, knows every rock in this river. He knows them so well he often guides the boat at night without alight.

Tonight when Eduard nears Dang (pronounced DAHNG) Village, he stops the outboard motor and drifts toward the bank. He and his passengers -- McClard and some visiting Baptists -- get out and slosh toward the village school. There they join a crowd of Saramaccans for worship.

During the service Eduard tells a story about Satan and stresses Jesus' power to overcome evil. That's an intriguing topic for Saramaccans, descendants of African slaves who escaped from Dutch plantations in the 17th and 18th centuries. Today Saramaccans retain many African traditions, including voodoo and animism. Their religion -- called "Kunu" -- revolves around evil spirits.

"The evil is real -- and you can feel it here, but we're trying to show them that the creator of everything loves them and is much more powerful than evil," says McClard's wife, Judy, from Ironton, Mo.

One Saramaccan who has discovered that truth is a woman who calls herself Maria (Mary) Magdala. Villagers used to pay her to consult a demon they believed spoke through her. But when several of her relatives died, people began rejecting her.

"She felt that even the devil didn't like her," recalls Eduard.

But when she heard Eduard preach about Jesus' love, she accepted Christ. "When I prayed with her, the spiritual battle was so intense," Eduard recalls.

The Lord gave her the power to renounce her Kunu practices. "I just call upon my Jesus, and he gives me the strength to do what I need to do," Magdala says. "Prayer keeps me going."

After tonight's service, she asks McClard and Eduard to pray for her and her 15-year-old daughter, who has accepted Christ, too. The two will soon take the public stand of baptism in front of a village that's long been a Kunu stronghold. Eduard knows well the pressures that decision might bring them.

He became a Christian as a youth and recalls as a teen going with his grandfather to preach in a nearby village. After a witch doctor accepted Christ there, villagers stoned them. They escaped, but that night the persecutors dragged Eduard's grandfather from his hut, beat him with a chain and poured tar on him. Eduard, hiding in the darkness, watched in horror.

After he grew up and left home, Eduard strayed from his faith. But one night Jesus appeared to him in a dream. "I'm getting ready to do a great work on the Suriname River," the Lord told Eduard. "I need you to help."

Meanwhile, the Lord began to call the McClards to that work, too. After they heard about the Saramaccans through some missionary pilots, the McClards began to pray for the tribe. They asked Southern Baptist prayer supporters to pray, too. Soon they met Eduard, who then worked at the school their children attend in Paramaribo, Suriname's capital.

Eduard paved the way for McClard and IMB missionary Chip Collins, from Houston, to visit some Saramaccan villages and meet with the tribal chief. The chief gave them permission to bring in Southern Baptist volunteers to do human needs ministries in the area.

"Many groups have promised to help us, but they haven't kept those promises," the chief said. "We'll be watching you to see if you keep yours."

Since that conversation almost three years ago, volunteers have conducted medical and dental clinics, construction and water well projects and Vacation Bible Schools in several villages. "Their work has opened many doors for us to spread the gospel," says McClard.

The door to Dang Village opened in 1997 when volunteers from First Baptist Church, Palatka, Fla., renovated a school. During the project, about 175 Saramaccans accepted Christ after viewing the "Jesus" film.

Volunteer Steve Nettles witnessed their commitments in amazement. "Other than my own conversion, it was the most spiritually overwhelming moment of my life," he says.

He had a similar response when he saw Magdala's baptism during another volunteer project this summer. "That makes everything worthwhile," said Nettles, just after Magdala was baptized with four believers she helped lead to Christ.

The baptisms were the first ones resulting from work of an evangelical church-planting team that includes Eduard, the McClards and several other missionaries. Saramaccans from five villages gathered to see the event, which village leaders allowed to happen in the river in front of Dang Village.

"We're seeing God moving along this river like we've never seen before," McClard says. "The power of Satan is being broken here."

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