I didn’t preach this weekend so I got to listen. Nice change of pace.

Dick Foth preached one of the most paradigm-shifting messages I’ve heard in a long time. He said life is full of things that appear one way but really are another.

The organizing metahpor for the message was a stick. Dick told a story about a recent trip where he saw a little boy who was carrying a stick. His mom told him to be careful with the stick and the boy told her it wasn’t a stick! To a ten year-old kid, a stick isn’t just a stick. A stick is a sword or magic wand or light-saber.

When we look through the eyes of a child ordinary things aren’t ordinary. Here is what happens as we become adults. We develop the disability to see extraordinary things as ordinary. But children see the extraordinary in the ordinary. When we look through the eyes of a child or look through the eyes of God, a stick becomes more than a stick. In the case of Moses, a stick becomes the rod of God.

Dick used Ebenezers as an example. Ebenezers may appear to be a coffeehouse to the untrained eye, but it is so much more than a coffeehouse! A stick isn’t just a stick!

The cross appreared to be an instrument of death–an ancient form of capital punishment. But the cross has become the means of everlasting life. It is more than what it appeared to be the day Christ died on Calvary!

Dick juxtaposed two passages–Luke 4 where someone says about Jesus “Isn’t that Joseph’s son?” and Colossians 1 where it says Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Jesus appeared to be the son of Joseph, but in reality he was the Son of God.

A stick isn’t just a stick!

Two quotes worth quoting:

C.T. Studd said, “Some wish to live within chime of church or chapel bell. I want to run a rescue-shop within a yard of hell.”

Frederick Norwood said, “Whenever the spirit of Christ is strong within me I feel a foreigner to a thousand customs in my country.”