Paul comes to the Corinthians as a father. Father loved, he gives to the church. Father loved is indispensable, is it not? Steve Martin writes in the Atlantic journal this summer about his father, his relationship to his father. His father died at 83. People came and eulogized him. It said he was charming. He was affable. He was generous. He was the life of the party. Steve Martin said he sat there and thought, not the dad I know. He said growing up his father never spoke a word to him, other than a word of criticism. He usually couched an anger. It's finally when he got to be a teenager. He just decided not to listen anymore. He said his teenage years virtually not a word between him and his father. When his father walked in the room, he walked out. Even when he became a successful actor and comedian, when his first movie came out and the critics were raving about it, they said they're all a friend's true big party for him to celebrate the success of the movie. And they invited his dad. It was almost a competition to see if they could elicit some kind word from his father about the son. And all his dad was heard to say when they said, the critics said, everybody loves it. Your son's a star. What do you think? All the father could say is, well, he's no Charlie Chaplin, I'll tell you that. But it went on his whole life. So, late in life, he realized his father was going to die at a hard condition. He was getting frail. But he didn't want his father's life to end without some reconciliation. He began to move towards his parents. He began to take them out for brunch every Sunday. And he described that when brunch was over, he'd always affectionately kissed his mother. And he and his father would sort of exchange an awkward wave and they would go on their way. So, one day, he sort of reached out and shook his father's hand as they were departing. And his father pulled him close and in a barely audible voice, his father said, I love you son. See Martin said, he stood there in the street. And then he asked his brother to throw them in. And then a couple days later, he penned a note to his dad that started, like this, Dad, the other day after breakfast, I heard what you said. I heard what you said, Dad. You know, that's what we all crave. Steve Martin craved a little whole life. We crave it. We crave to have a father, a father, to hear his voice. In our case, through our stubbornness, through our willful and neglect of that relationship, still we know we need it, for God to break through and for us to hear His voice and say, I love you son, I love you God. Experience the rubble of a father. We need father. As a matter of fact, there's something called the National Fatherhood Initiative. I think Tony Dungey is actually a leader in that initiative. The National Fatherhood, you know, kind of grew out of the million men marched and all these other things. We need men to stand up and be men, you know, in the National Fatherhood Initiative as three objectives, they said, we need men to be raw models to their kids. We need men to discipline men and correct in teaching to their kids, and thirdly, they said, we need men to sacrifice and serve their families and their kids. Kids need that. Kids need direction. Where they're going to get it from. They need a father. That's what we see in 1 Corinthians chapter 4, because not just kids need direction, churches need direction, culture needs direction, your office needs direction, everywhere you look, father or father is needed, and father or father can only be brought by those who have experienced it. Those who have heard the father say, I love you son, can bring it into their world. Now right away, you need to know that it's not father's day, right? If you want to shower with me, yes, that's the service though, that's the acceptable, but it's not father's day, and this message isn't the father's, and it's not particularly the men either. Everybody here can show father love to others, because everybody here receives it, everybody here can give it, every pastor, every teacher, every coach, every parent, everybody who has influence on anyone else, to be a recipient of father love and then one who is a conduit to others, because our culture and our churches and our children, they need to know the way to go. Let's watch how Paul gives that father love that he'd receive from the father to the church at Corinth, as we study together, take your sermon out lines. The first thing we want to say about father love is that it invites invitations, it invites invitations. Paul's rather bored when he says this he realizes that the Corinthian churches lost his life, they're off track. How they're going to get back on track, they don't even know what the track is, they don't even know what the gospel wife looks like, so what does Paul say? I'll show you what it looks like, imitate me, look at the passage typed in your outline. He says it in 1 Corinthians 4, 16, I exert you, the imitators of me, but then in chapter 11 he says, the imitators of me, as I am of Christ, I'm imitating Christ, so imitate me, and Philippians 3 and 4, he says, brethren, join in following my example, observe those who walk according to the pattern that you have enough. The things you have learned and received and heard and have seen in me practice these things. Paul says now like that, I want you to imitate me, if you want a picture of what the gospel wife looks like, look at me, but since I'm not physically present with you, I'm sending Timothy, imitate Timothy because Timothy's imitating me as I am a taker, it's the responsibility of the leader, isn't it? It was in a picture that others can follow, and it is also the burden of the leader because people are watching you, and they will mimic you whether you like it or not, whether your example is worthy of being imitated or not, they will imitate it, it will be imprinted on others, because the father who, a terrible argument with his wife, and these words came out of his mouth as he pounded on the kitchen table, he said, no, no, no, no, I won't take it anymore, I don't love you, I hate you, the other harsh words in this argument, a couple weeks later when he was walking through his home, a rouse actually laid at night, he heard the noise in his young son, two, three-year-old son's bedroom, and when he went to the door and pushed the door open, his son was tossing and turning in bed, having some sort of nightmare, and out of his mouth his dad sat and listened, came these words from his two and a half year old. No, no, no, I don't love you, I hate you, the father realized his bitterness, his anger, his unforgiveness had already been decreased to the next generation, somewhere subconsciously those words had found a niche, a terrible thing to be a leader, a terrible thing to know that others are watching you, and they're being imprinted upon you, and so of the essence is not that we behave outwardly right, so that others who see us behave like that too, what's really at the essence is that we be authentic, is that who we really are on the inside is worthy of imitation, that, that, you know, it sounds like when we say call says imitate me, it sounds vain, doesn't it, but it's not vain, it's what every teacher, coach, parent, leader has to do, it's not fair to say to people, it's not fair for the coach to say to his charges, make your free throws, I'm tired of missing free throws, they're called free throws, nobody's guarding you, you should make them every time, my player's making those is give this kind of lecturing and hectoring and advice if he can't stand up there and show them how to do it, right, just to exert them, but not to be able to say here, watch me, I'll show you how it's done, imitate me, that's what any leader has to do, the teacher teaching algebra, you know, can't say why don't you get it try harder though, they have to go to the board and they have to say watch, I'm gonna solve this equation, I'm gonna solve this problem, I'm gonna do it in front of you, what do they say, imitate me, learn from me, I can show you how it's done, it's not vain to say that, it's our responsibility, it's the responsibility of the leader and we know that those who are watching aren't gonna learn so much from what we say as from what we do and what we are, it's gonna come through, so the parent who says in this household we have respect for authority, right, so that, and then, and then he stands at the fence, it's a little like baseball game yelling at the umplest and the kids are learning what, dad talks a good game, dad wants people to cow-towell to him but dad doesn't submit to the authority in his world, dad doesn't really believe in respecting authority, he's teaching us to, but he's really teaching us not to, well, that not the burden of leadership, you know, that's the deal, you know, you can go to a mechanic and they could be a creep and still fix your race, right, they can be internally a rotten person and still produce a product that's worthy of paying for, you could go to a physician, a surgeon who's immoral cheating on their wife or rousing persons and they might still fix your knee better than any other surgeon but, but just one, that doesn't work when it comes to raising kids and that doesn't work when it comes to pastoring and leading and running an office and being a boss or being a supervisor or being a teacher or being a coach because through you are is really what you're communicating and there's no escape from it. We have to be a scientist, the gospel has to be happening in this process, we can't just talk about it, we can't just have the truth, we can just put on a facade, you know, if we're going to lead worship, it isn't a matter of having smooth legways between songs and prayers and knowing when to get up and and throwing little scriptures in there to tie it all together, if you're really going to lead worship, you have to be a wife, a worshiper, you have to be in front of people and you're worshiping genuinely, not because people are watching but because you're a worshiper. You know, if you want to communicate to your kids the vapid, the emptiness of the materialism of our world, then you got to get it yourself and they're going to watch you and they're going to watch the what kind of programs you watch and what kind of magazines you read and what kind of shopping you do and what kind of attention you give to outward appearance. It's got to be authentic, it's got to come from you and it can't be peritonical, I never use credit cards, you know, in another rule, you know, and we don't spend on this and we don't, you know, we go out to eat, we always get water, you know, it's whether or not you really have joy in Christ, not artificial, you know, the artificial joy and so there's something to be authentic, it has to be in us. The leader, one who can say, I want you to have what I have. I think I'm sharing the gospel, is sharing the gospel and matter of sitting down with people and saying, you are a sinner, let me show you that mathematical, you cannot escape. Here are the verses that you must follow, pray the prayer, you will receive Jesus or is it a matter of saying, I know what it's like to live a life apart from God and to be pursued by God and to be captured by Him and to be strengthened by love, his love as a part of his family, and you know what? And then I want you to experience that too. How much of our evangelism is argumentative, polemic, trying to prove people wrong, the power struggle of knowledge? And how would that be transformed if the people who are talking to their friends and neighbors and co-workers and families could just say, something rich has happened in my life. Gosh, I want it for you to hear. I want to sweeten this as Father love that I've experienced for you to experience it to you. I know what it's like to be hungry. I found the bread. I want it for you. Listen, I know what I'm talking about this morning. You know why? Because I can look back in my ministry and I can say for probably half of the 20 years I've been in ministry for the first 10 years, I knew the experience of telling people, telling this congregation that there was power in God and that God would change their lives and the love of God would transform you. And all that was true and so it blessed people that I did that. But you know what an awful thing it is to be telling people that and then you go home every week and say, but how come it's not transforming me? I don't really think I love people very well. I don't even know my neighbors. People I encounter in my life, I don't sense that my being in their lives really blesses their nurses or encourages them. I don't sense that I am blown away by the grace of the gospel in such a way that my wife is reflecting. I don't really repent of sin other than very generically. I don't, you know, I can say I'm selfish, but I don't know how I was selfish today. You know a rotten it is to stand up and preach and proclaim something and be able to say, I know it's true,
but I'm not really experiencing it. It's an awful place to be. Many Sundays I would go home and say, I don't think I'm going to do this very much longer because there's a disconnect here between what I'm saying and what I'm experiencing. So I'm going to tell you, it feels awfully good to be up here this day. It feels awfully good to be able to stand in front of you and to say the gospel is really true. It's got to be happening in your life for you to communicate with other people very well. Parents are often, how am I going to get my kids to follow Jesus? I mean, that's a real, something some of you, like Brian, Brian could say, most of his raising of his of his at least his older boys, he wasn't a Christian, he didn't go to church, he didn't know God. Some of you know the same thing, some of you can say I raise my kids in certain way, I might have taken them to church, but I'm starting to see now our churches messed up. We didn't get it, we didn't get it as a family, and now your kids are in their 30s and their 40s and they're not walking with Jesus and you said, what in the world could I do about that? You know, I'm not, it's not parenting like parenting and eight year old anymore. It isn't your kid that needs to get it. Don't make that the object of your attention is you. If the gospel is authentically taking root in your life and your heart, then you are being set free because you know that you have a rubbing affection of a father because the righteous and the Jesus which covers you, let me tell you something, your life will begin to make sense that you're grown adult children. I promise you they will notice. I'm really credentant I hear, but some of you may may appear to your kids that have been a little like Steve Martin's dad. When you become a little more expressive and a little more affectionate and a little more encouraging, I promise you they're going to start saying, where in the world does that come from? The old man's a different guy. As the gospel takes resonance in your heart, it'll impact your kids like crazy. Let's have these approaches of your life. This week I started my own home. My wife had an opportunity to get angry. She was disappointed about something that happened. What did she do in that anger? She could have let that anger take root and be expressed in a way that was destructive and she saw that happening in her life and not because she was some great Christian but just had a desperation, like a Jesus instead and she got real help from Christ to be able to deal with that. Now we want to be good role models and so it's been a good role model always doing the right thing. We've got to do the right thing in front of our kids and other things in our students and our congregations and our wife's group. We've got to do the right thing. That's impossible. Some people remember my story about the father who who got mad at his wife and his kid, the little kid heard that. Well some would say, well that just shows you that you shouldn't fight in front of the kid. You tell you something. You didn't make much difference for the fight in front of the kid because I promise you if you're alienated from your spouse, your kids will know it and their life will be affected by it and if you don't fight in front of the kid, just what they never get to say. They never get to see a real relationship lived out where people get mad at each other and then they have to say they're sorry and they have to confess and they have to reconcile and so they have a false picture of what relationship is really like. If you think that's thing, a good role model is decision. I don't fight in front of my kids. Well some would say, well you shouldn't fight it all. There's only one way not to fight it all to be scared. Every relationship you have, there will be dissonance, there will be contrast. It is not avoidable. I'm some rebel and so when my wife found herself moving towards anger and she ran to Jesus, it just so happened that my son was there and he observed it and they prayed together. You see she didn't say, or I see, I think this is a teachable moment. Tucker come in here. Let me role model for you. Let me try to do the right thing in front of you. It wasn't like that. It was a desperate grab before Jesus in the midst of every day life that he witnessed. He saw what real Christianity is, authentic Christianity and pretentious. It was something worthy of imitation. That's a call. God's brothers and sisters don't you want to be authentic? Don't you want, don't you want to be a people? Well I know that seven principles of powerful prayer, who gives a rep? Do you pray? I can I can tell you all the Bible stories of the great faith and that you have it. I can argue the five reasons for the existence of Christ. You know I hope you can do that. I'll be good for you to be able to do that. If you know him, Paul could say, imitate me, imitate me. I want the Father of God that I would experience. Who is Paul? He was on his race as a massacred watering Christian when God interrupted his wife and snatched him and said, I'm going to make you sad of you. That's all Paul saying, I'm a person, people, imitate me. I take care of this love of this pursuing, seeking love and Father. I want you to have it too. Second, Father leadership, Father, love that was we get from God that we give to others, we can say, imitate me. Secondly, also, Father of God provides correction, it provides loving correction. Paul tells the Corinthians, I don't want to shame you. We know what that is, right? We know what shaming correction is, belittling correction, guilt, mongering. I think it's a little girl I read. Old teenage girl got a mother gave her a new hair dryer and with this gift of the hair dryer, the mother said, let's see if you could not lose this one. Let's see if you could not leave this one, imagine to not leave this one in the locker room like you have a last one or someone's house like you did the one before that. This is a gift for you. Your father and I sacrificed for you all the time and we just don't think you could appreciate it. We don't think you have any idea of all we do for you. So here here's a gift. I think you wanted to throw it out the window, how much you wanted that gift, so how much you wanted to know that her wife was such a burden to her parents and her failure was such a disappointment. She told her a counselor that what you did instead, that what you just did, their hair off. I can tell you that we don't like to be ashamed, but there's one group that does, interestingly enough. Religious people, we love it. We count every week the church and if the pastor just lays the wood to us, you know what religious people say? Oh so good pastor. I mean the pastor just pre- one of the law, do this, do this, do this, you're not good, you're going to hell, you got to, you know we walk out of there and religious people say oh that's not so good, that's not like my childhood, that's not as good old fashioned reason you know took over in her preacher. You know why religious people love to feel ashamed and guilty? Because they don't want to go to Jesus with their sins, they want to deal with them themselves, they want to be their own Savior. When they think they're feeling bad about their sins, we'll make God happy. Religious people think that feeling bad makes God happy. It was home for their sins. They'll bear their guilt on their own. Paul says I'm not bringing you shame in correction. By the way, religious people don't like shaming at all and when you try to correct your religious people, their response is who do you think you are? So which Paul replies to the Corinthians, I am your father. You'll have many teachers, you'll have many tutors, you'll have many speakers, but you only have one founding pastor, Paul, who's I'm your father. I have apostolic authority in this place and I bring correction and anybody who loves another, whether it's a church, whether it's a family, whether it's a business, whatever it is, has to bring corrections. The question is how are we going to do it? Paul brings corrections. I understand that the corrections of God is never shaming. It's about life shaming. It's never punitive. It's never punishment. God does not punish his children. He corrects them. He loves them. There's only one of his children who never gave justice to. That was your older brother, Jesus. I think of the angry man whose son was injured. He's in the hospital who was fighting for his wife when the pastor came by to visit. He began to vent on the pastor and finally he said, let me ask you this pastor, is God punishing my son for my sin? Which the pastor said, I'm not sure what God is doing, but this much I know he is not punishing your son for your sin because he punished his son for your sin. So the correction of God is not punitive. It's not retribution. It's not you are only a pound of flesh and I'm going to get it. God is correcting love. He will correct. He will chase him. He will take his children to the works you had if he had to. But all because he loves. Now in Paul's corrects the church, Jesus, I don't want to shame you. And here to see for those of us, we have to correct employees. We have to correct students. We have to correct children. Whenever you find yourself in the role of having to bring a word of correction, what would the Bible say? Correctors those who have received the grace and mercy of God. God does not shame you. God doesn't rub your nose in it. God doesn't let you have it. Correctors with a tenderness. Correctors with a notion that of all people, you the corrector have needed correction the most. The Bible says, forlessness is found up in the heart of the child. And it is. But guess where forlessness is more efficient in the heart of the parent. And so the parent has to realize we're greater sinners than our children. We're far more sophisticated than our children are. Our hearts are our our our our foul we constantly need the correction of God. And so because of that we don't advocate and say well I can't discipline my kids because I'm not. You have no choice. You'll never be a worthy corrector. But God said you're my agent. Correct your children. Discipline your children. Not because you qualify but because you stand in my place. Correct them. But when you correct them, correct them with the understanding that you are the most in need of correction. What a difference. Remember this week a couple weeks ago Ryan mentioned last week in the summer and the girl who just was beaten her kid and they caught it on video. And what her name was miss. Too good. Too good was too bad that day. So how could somebody beat them kid like that? They're well on their kid. Why don't you say something? What's going to be too proud? Because we all do it. Maybe not with us this. Well you do it with our words. We can do it with our words. We can do it with our withdrawal. We can do it with our coldness. We need people out. Don't we? Because we forget that we've been the object of graciousness that we did not deserve. Number of years ago I remember my oldest son did something really bad. And so it's one of those moments. I'm the dad. I've got a discipline. It's going to be grounding. What role we apply is you can't do this. You can't do that. So I went into his bedroom for the meeting and when he sat down to talk, my son was mortified at what he had done. He was embarrassed at what he had done. I knew what he had done. It was so different. I sat down myself sitting there saying, how do I give the gospel to my son? Not how do I give the law to my son? How do I tell my son? You did this. Therefore you can't do this. You can't go out this weekend. You can't do this and just realizing I don't think any of that's going to reach him. And as he sat there and I sat there and I began to tell him how when I was his age, I did the same thing he had done. In fact, I had done it worse and so that I was going to have to discipline. But when I did understand that we were both going to go with him together before God, because this has come from the father who is better than he was. A bigger screw up than he was. I don't know. Something happened that day. I remember almost walking out of his room and it was like, it was almost like he had to say, Dad, so what is that I'm not allowed to do? I mean, it was like any of that. You can't go out this weekend. You're now but it just didn't even matter. It didn't even matter. That wasn't the point. He wanted to do what was right. And so as we correct, we correct those who have been so gently, tenderly corrected by our father. That's how they were. Our culture means that our businesses are offices needed, our schools needed. Thirdly, father was embraced as the call to sacrifice. The Corinthians saw the good life as being wise, powerful, elite, top not, high status. They were embarrassed by Paul's simple oratory and humble position. Look at how Paul describes his ministry in verse 9. I think God has exhibited us apostles, last of all, as men condemned to death. We have become a spectacle for the world. You know what he's talking about? The Roman victory procession in which when the Romans won a conquest into the city when they returned, we'd come to conquering general and everyone's here and then we'd come to the army and everyone would cheer and then it would come all the booty, all the plunder and all that was brought in and everybody would cheer and be all excited and the women in the slaves and everything else they captured. And at the very end of the whole parade would come the kings or the soldiers that were being disgraced and they would be dragged in and shackled. And the crowd would spit on them and throw garbage and boo and there would be in the legs of their execution. Paul says, that's our life. That's the life of the apostles. That's what life is a follower of Jesus looks like. The Corinthian straw, the good life, the life of God wanted to have the life of status being prestigious. The Corinthian said, the life God has for us is winning the Hyzen Tulsi. God says, no, no, no, really, I have more in mind you being the water boy. The Corinthian saw parade all Americans. God says, no, I don't want you to sweep out the locker room. That's what I want. That's what I want my picture, the character. Paul describes his life. Look at us a Revenue in power. I mean, describes his life we are hungry, thirsty, totally cold, roughly treated, harmless, we toil with our own hands, reviled, persecuted, swandered. Now here's the question, ready? So here's a Bible interpretation when Paul describes his life, is that descriptive, that's all, it's just a description of his life, but it has no application for us, or is it prescriptive. Whenever you read the Bible, yes, it's a term in that. You read some historical accounts of something, you said it was that just their life, God had that for them, but that has no application to our life. Is this descriptive, or is it prescriptive? Is there anything in this passage that would give us the idea that Paul's life is a prescription for our life. Anything in the passage? Perhaps two words, imitate me, imitate me. Paul says, you want a picture of the gospel life? This is what it looks like. I'm imitating Jesus. What is his life look like? He was not a scene, he was not valued, he was not one to look at, he was shamed, he was humiliated, he was a fool, he left everything, he left heaven, he left glory, he left comfort, he left treasure, he left prestige, and he became an absolute nobody, who had no homes, no possessions, nothing, he was scorned, and he hung him on a tree, naked, and they spat on him, and they geared him. When Paul says, I've become a spectacle for the world, he says, I am alive. I am imitating Christ, and so what's the great challenge for us? What's the goal of life? In North America, I can tell you what the goal of life is. In North America, the goal of life is personal convenience and comfort.
All of life is engineering that way. We want a car that has shock absorbers, we don't want a bump, we want a car with climate control and we can have heated tissues, you know, and we want a car with, you know, with deep frost in the window, we don't want to go out and scrape the window, you know, we want CD players and all of that stuff, you start car, that's just when we travel to improve, so that we don't get sweaty, and in our homes, you know, we have air filters and air cleaners, and should anything ever intrude in our life, we have insurance, right? To cover all of that, everything's covered, everything's affected, everything, so it's a living in a world of personal convenience and comfort. It's the highest value in North America. I have to ask you, is it the goal of your life? Is it the goal of your life? Pleasure, comfort, convenience, because Paul says that the very things that ought to define our lives are suffering, the hardship and inconvenience, because our lives are to be conformed to the cross. Paul says the desire of my life is that I might know Jesus, and I might know the power of his resurrection, and I might know the fellowship of his life. The question for us is, you know, Paul says, what considered tools, would anybody consider us a tool? Would anybody look at our life and say, I mean, remember, first Corinthians chapter 15, Paul is going to say, if the resurrection is intrude, Christians are of all men, most of these cities. I mean, if you put all your money on the wrong horse, and I guess what I'm asking is, would anyone look at your life and say, they have so clearly bet everything on Jesus. It's a matter of having passion. Father leadership has experienced the passion that God had, that Jesus Christ would become an absolute fool, and so we can't live life. It's just passionate about Jesus. If you've experienced it, then you're parent with passion, and you spend with passion, and you live with passion because you've tasted of a passion that runs for you. What does it mean to be a fool for God? What does it mean to provide sacrificial leadership that others would look at and follow? You know, our culture, I know what it looks like in the military, sure, dive on the grenade. Charge the enemy first, put yourself out front. I know what that looks like, but I'm not sure. Oh boy, it's hard to know what it looks like in the office, and in the home, isn't it, in the culture, in our neighborhood, what does it look like? I know it has something to do with taking last place. That's why I know that when this service is over, we'll put the weight to the chair of the way faster than we ever do, because at the end of the 1030 service, every week we have that great test. Who will take the lowest place? Who will say, I go to church, you know, it's the test every week. This week's going to be a snap, I just know it. Who will take the lowest place? Who will change the diaper? Who will fold the laundry? Who will make themselves with no account? Who will love the unloveling? Instead of surrounding ourselves with people that we like? Who will make room in their life, for people who are perhaps difficult? Who will offer up their life to God and say whatever, whatever hard to produce to me? It's very often we, it isn't something we offer our life to, we need to take it, right? But when he takes it, who will give it willingly? Think of Hosea in the Bible. You know what God said to Hosea? I want you to marry a horse. I don't want to, he's going to be on faithful. When she's on faithful, I want you to go get her out of another man's bed, out of another man's arms, and bring her back and love her. I'm not available. Matter of fact, when she gets so bad and so wavered and so off that she's naked on the slave block being sold as a prostitute, I want you to go down and outdo it everyone else. God, I don't want my wife to be an object lesson. God says to Hosea, I want your life to be a picture of the way that I love you. You rub this unworthy woman because you've been loved by me and you're flying more unworthy than she or ever has been. Your whole life I want to be an object lesson and so, you've got cancer, you've got an ailment or you have a rotten marriage or you have some plight in your life and you say, why am I bearing this? I want to say to you, bear it with joy. Count yourself worthy to share in the suffering of Christ and say whatever in my life think, thank you Lord, if I bear it, I bear it for your glory. If the world might see that I am a fool, who is passionate for you, I don't rub you because you make my life work. One of the places that's going out often is how we handle our finances, where our money flows freely. That's usually what we think is most valuable in our world. I was thinking this week very often when we go on vacation or we go out to eat or something like that, we get back and we say, I say, you know, I stand too much. I just got into it, get carried away, I simply leave everything and spend. Maybe when people go shopping, that happens. I was wondering, how often do people walk out of church and say, oh man, you spent too much in there. I just gave away more of them.
Is there anybody who ever gives to Jesus that later says that? Have you ever made any sacrifice, any exertion where you later said, gave too much? Somehow or another way I have to say, how do I become a, I want to be counted among the fools for Jesus, William Borden of Yale. Back on about the 1920s, the heir of the Borden family's fortune today would be about 30 million dollars. He was converted into college. He would go to the Bowery Mission in New York City and minister into the men there, changed his whole life. When he graduated from college, he gave away the entire fortune and he went as a missionary to the coffin corner of Africa. The coffin corner was a part of Africa where a missionary went. The average lifespan of a missionary was six months. They died. They got diseases they hadn't body had no resistance for. So when they shipped over there, they shipped their belongings in a coffin so that six months later they could be their body could be shipped back in the same coffin. William Borden made it 17 months before he died. He was an heir to a fortune to everything. The world that is put up is through it all the way for Jesus. They found in his journal these six words shortly before he died, he wrote, no retreat, no reserve, no regrets for the school. Oh, may God allow. This someday you and some day I would be caught cold as well.