Yesterday I had the privilege of substituting for Bill McKee at Maison du Monde in Abbeville. I always enjoy these opportunities and am always amazed at Bill and Ann’s faithfulness in handling two nursing home teachings every week.
It’s tough to come up with a teaching on short notice so I did what I normally do. I stole from our Pastor’s last sermon. It was a good sermon about being a Friend of the Holy Spirit. I take good notes at church so I had a really good outline which I generally followed. I did personalize the teaching. I used my friend, Joe, from my high school days, and my friend Jack from my older days, as examples of human friendship.
What came out was the essence of the original sermon. God wants to be our friend. We can know God and feel His presence through the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit wants to share with us His power. He wants to act as a reminder and be a Comforter. It was the same sermon, only different. It wasn’t better. It was just different.
My point here is not so much to tell you, as I told the residents of Maison du Monde, that the Holy Spirit is a real person through whom we experience the presence of God. I came away from the experience with the realization that I don’t really absorb a message until I pass it on, or teach it, to someone else. The message may become personalized and changed a bit in the process; but the important thing is that process cements the lesson in the spirit of the re-teller. As you teach, you learn. It’s apparently an old Jewish proverb and who, after all, is wiser than an old Jew?
You know how it came be when you hear a good message. I am often asked on Sunday afternoons or Monday mornings, “how was church?” or “how was the sermon?” and can give only the most bare bones account. What seemed a good and life changing message at 11 a.m. can be faded and vague by the time lunch is over. I suggest you listen with the idea that you are going to be required to repeat. I heard a teaching yesterday on the importance of tests. We don’t like to take tests, but knowing that we will be required to absorb and be able to repeat what we’ve learned, makes us learn better. I suppose performance and learning is enhanced under pressure.
Take notes. Make application to your life. Tell what it meant to you to someone else. If you do so, a good word can become a life-changing word. Not only will it be shared with others, but it will be cemented in you.
I hope Pastor is working on a good sermon for Sunday. I promised to fill in for Bill next week, too.
Be blessed.
Nick
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