How Do You Make a Difference?

The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

Crawford Loritts

Don, thank you very much. Don, it’s a joy to be here with you. I want to get something out of the way real quickly. They say the worst times a speaker at the meals and we have eaten, it’s been a long day. So let me just say this, if you feel like sleeping, go ahead and sleep. I won’t take it personally. I have slept on the best of them, and what goes around comes around. So in fact, there’s plenty of room you can lay down in the aisle, and few empty chairs there. But just some of you may always say there’s two rules. If you feel like sleeping, just go ahead and sleep. Help yourself, but don’t, don’t do like this, that’s distracting. And don’t do like this pretending as if you’re praying or writing that’s lying. And so just go ahead and help yourself. I just might, might join you. That would be interesting, wouldn’t it? I have to tell you, I really did wrestle in prayer about this message tonight, just because of the broad implications. What do you not say about passing the torch? It can be argued, from Genesis to Revelation. That is the practical transferable theme of everything is passing the torch. The Bible is amazing how it speaks against the urgency of our times, but warns us of the arrogance of our moment, that there’s something greater than we are and that we’ll ever be. And so you can’t look at yourself in the mirror and seeing how great Thou art. You’re not the end all and the be all of everything that God is doing something tremendous in our times. I want you to turn with me in your Bibles to Psalm 78 Psalm 78 some years ago, I was traveling during the time that they were celebrating the memorial service of Sammy Davis Jr. As many of you know, he was a legendary entertainer that broke all kinds of barriers and stereotypes and that kind of thing. As I was, as I recall, I was in Dallas, Texas, getting ready to speed a conference. I checked in the hotel, got in a room united as I turned on the TV, looking at CNN while I was getting unpacked, and there was a tape delayed showing of the memorial service, and I was listening in the background to these various tributes of them. And then all of a sudden, Gregory Hines stepped to the microphone, and Hines told this story that just kind of grabbed me by the heart. Heinz told how, when he was a young fella growing up in New York, how he he and his brother would sneak into the Apollo Theater when they were little guys, just to watch Sammy Davis Jr perform with his uncles. And he just admired him well as time went on, somehow another Hines’ career began to grow and Bud and this kind of thing, and Sammy Davis Jr ran into Gregory Hines and leveraged his career. You may not know this, Sammy Davis Jr was notoriously generous. In fact, he died just about broke. He spent a lot on partying, but he also spent a lot on helping other people. So Heinz told this story. He said, a few weeks before Sammy Davis Jr died, he went to go see him, just to say thank you. It knew it was just a matter of time this entertainer, hey, he was he was already a slight man, but he had somebody totally initiated through the throat cancer. At this point he can no longer speak, so Heinz says, he walks into the house, and there is Sammy Davis Junior sitting on the couch, and Heinz goes over and sits next to him, puts his arm around him and gives him a tribute. Thanks him for all that he had done for him. Thanks him for being such a great mentor in his life and really saying goodbye, Hines said. He leaned over and kissed him on the cheek and got up to walk away. And as he was walking toward the door, he heard this shuffling, and he turned around, and there was Sammy Davis, Jr, and he went,

What’s in Your hands?

What statement are we making? For a time we cannot see? I want to speak from my heart just before I get into the text, what are the things that causes me to weep these days? I. Is the strategic arrogance that has gripped much of evangelicalism. We are so obsessed with reading and looking at the culture and examining it and understanding it and how it responds. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying go to the other extreme, that we feel as if our moment in history is the totality of what God will ever do, and we forget about the divine paradox in which we live, that we’re making an impact now and we’re making one later, that my life and my faith is part of a grand continuum, and I got to be careful that I don’t prostitute what is really valuable and what the culture really needs. For the sake of being affirmed by those during my pilgrimage, I cannot develop a ministry strategy that is so mired in the audience that I’m trying to reach that it makes assumptions about the truth that they need. Yet, at the same time, in all fairness, I cannot be so far removed from the culture that I need to impact that they cannot understand the truth that I need to give them. So the question is, what lasts forever? What gives substance to what we do, what really is important ASAP, picks up his pen, and he pens this psalm. This is a psalm by and through which he he outlines and recounts, in summary fashion, the marvelous history of God in the nation of Israel. It is a Psalm of perspective. It’s almost as if he’s reaching out and grabbing the readers by the lapels, and he’s saying to them, Hey, wait a minute. Don’t get cute. Don’t forget from whence you’ve come and don’t forget what has been passed into your hands. Now I want to rivet our attention, if you will. Would please to verses five through seven, just three verses this evening for Asaph is talking about, how do you shape a time you cannot see? How do you make a difference? How do you make an imprint on the next generation. What is it that is constant? What is it that God always smiles on? What is it that’s a part of the core of everything that you’re about and everything that you need to be and basically ASAP gives us this process. He he number one, talks about the passion or the perspective that we need to maintain, and he identifies the What’s in your hand. Then he specifically talks about the process. Then he ends up with the finished product, he says, in Verse five, speaking of God, he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel. He says, look, look, look, your whole history is about the character of God and the content of Scripture. This is the stuff that he has placed in your hands. The implication is, I don’t care where you are in history, and yet time will change, and people will change, and how you do things will change, and the close of the culture will change. But what is constant are these two things, the character of God and the content of Scripture. Notice he says he established a testimony. You know very well the track record of God in your own personal history, how he met you, how he dealt with you, how he answered your prayers, how he interacted with your life. You know the character of God. He lived out his resume in your history. You know about him, it’s almost as if he’s saying, He’s not saying this, but it’s almost as if he’s saying, Look, don’t be embarrassed about God’s track record in your life. He established a testimony. Then secondly, he says he appointed a law that there’s a standard that is objective by and through which. You must live your life. He’s talking about transcendent truth,

that you don’t do whatever it is you want to do, that this is not a la carte. You don’t, you don’t, you don’t have a menu approach

to Christianity or ministry. There is something outside of ourselves by and through which everything that we do must be judged and must be evaluated.

Don’t ever adopt any strategy that is so cute that it can edit what God says. And it pains me that even our style and approach to preaching, we have lost transcendence.

There’s a lot of confusion in our pulpit today because we don’t know who we want to be. We don’t know we don’t know who sets the agenda.

We feel as if affirmation is the same thing as uttering the prophetic word. You cannot nurture your audience into repentance. I don’t mean that jokingly, please and and I don’t mean to say that you’re not creative. And we do all kinds of things at our church, I and we, you need to be a creative communicator. But at the end of the day, God has appointed a law. Classic illustration of this text is, is Joshua. Chapter one. When God comes to Joshua, Moses has died and and God says He gets up close and personal with Joshua. He says, Look, Moses, my servant is dead. When a man of God dies, nothing of God dies. And then he reiterates the assignment to Joshua, and then he reminds him of the character of God. He says, By the way, Joshua, just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. You know how I worked in Moses’ life. Don’t be afraid. I’m there and I’ll be there with you. What you do bears the signature the supernatural. It is the hand of God. Brothers. We do not primarily Minister out of competency, but out of surrender your life and my life and my ministry is all about the activity of God. It’s the arena for his activity. It’s his testimony. Just as I was with Moses, I will be with you.

And then he tells them in verse eight, before you leave here, buddy, let me get a key to success. Your success is not going to come by your ability to plan, lead, organize and control.

Your success is not going to come by your ability to just read your audience. Here’s the key to your success. This book of the law shall not be part out of your mouth,

but you shall meditate therein day and night that you may observe to do all that is written therein. And here’s the pronoun, and then you will make your way prosperous and you will have good success. Joshua, these people cannot hear some disingenuous leader. You must lead with truth. You must lead with the word, and you will make your way prosperous, and you’ll have good success. Every time I read that text, I get a tad bit emotional, because it’s the first words that my kids heard me speak when I held them when Brian was born on my birthday, February 11, 1973 and I held my firstborn in my arms, I whispered in his ear, this book of the law should not be part of your mouth. The same with Heather and Brendan and Holly. See these boys standing up, opening the word and proclaiming the Word of God and preaching it and living it. My grandsons, the same thing, all you have is truth. At the end of the day, what is it that we pass on a passion for the character of God and the content of truth. Then he talks about a process here in the text, back to chapter 78 Psalm 78 the latter part of verse, verse five. He says he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers. To teach their children that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn and arise and tell them to their children. The process is simply this. I minister both with a split vision for right now and for a time that I cannot see. It’s an eye on the future generation, in a very real sense, the impact of my life and ministry, the full story will never be realized while I’m alive right now. He says to the nation of Israel that he established a testimony and appointed a law and placed it in our hands so that we might be passionate about making it known in this generation. Someone once said to me that if you want to leave footprints in the sands of time, then you have to wear work boots, the heavy imprint of your life. What is important about what you’re doing? What statement are you making by your ministry? What difference are we really making? He says, we look at the next generation and we answer the question, how do we want them to turn out? What do we want them to look like? I stand before you, somebody asked me earlier today, what motivates me? What motivates me in ministry? And I gave a number of answers, and I said, you know, there’s one that I don’t talk about an awful lot, but what’s that one of the strongest driving forces in my life is my background. Explain my great grandfather’s name was Peter. He was a slave. You say your great grandfather? Yeah. See, my dad was born in 1914 and he was the youngest boy of 14 kids, and so it was his grandfather. My dad remembered Peter. Peter lived to be an old man, and the stories about Peter are just absolutely incredible. Peter couldn’t read a lick, couldn’t read, couldn’t write, but Peter loved God. Now, check this out. He had memorized now, I couldn’t read it right, but he had memorized huge portions of Scripture. My dad said what he would do is that he would make his children and grandchildren read to him over and over and over and over and over and over again, familiar passages of Scripture. Peter. Peter. Peter never traveled much from Catawba County, North Carolina, but he had a son named Milton. Milton was my grandfather, and he took the character of God and the content of Scripture, and he poured it into his heart and poured it into his life. My grandfather was a Sunday school superintendent. When the little church didn’t have a place to meet, he gave them part of the land there in Conover, North Carolina, to Bill Thomas wrote AME Zion Church on he loved Jesus. He took the character of God and the content of scripture from a slave who couldn’t read a lit but believed the book, poured it into my father. My father played baseball in the old Negro Leagues and worked in the coal mines and lost his eye in a coal mining accident. Moved to Newark, New Jersey, where we were born, and my mother and my father loved Jesus, and they took the character of God and the content of Scripture and poured it into our lives. And yes, my dad used to tell me, in Peter’s last days, he would just sit on the front porch of the old homestead and rock back and forth and sing and pray most of the day.

And I don’t know what he prayed for, but maybe it was for a time he couldn’t see.

Maybe it’s for an unborn generation, and he just understood that there was something powerful about this book. So when people say, well, Crawford, what motivates you? A lot of people believe in me,

but I got too many people in my heritage that paid too much of a price because they believe this book. I. To ever get cute, to wander away from it and have a sneaking suspicion, that’s why ASAP reminded them of their history. You take this and you pour it in their souls, so they’ll leave a mark for God, no matter what,

there’s a passion and the character of God, content of Scripture, there is this process you’re looking to future generations and you understand it ain’t all about you.

But then he says that there is an end product, the last part of verse six, he says, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments. I don’t mean to sound so listed here, but he says that there are three outcomes. There are three outcomes that every succeeding generation needs. Every last one of them needs. Doesn’t make any difference whether you live 2000 years ago or you’ll live live 500 years from now. Every generation needs these three things, the three underpinnings of our ministry, what the character of God and the content of Scripture will produce, what this will do in succeeding generations. Number one, it will give them a sense of confidence so that they will set their hope in God. It’s all about him. It’s all about who he is. It’s all about what he wants to do during your time on this earth. It’s all about what he’s doing in your life and through your ministry, they will have a rock solid confidence in the God of the ages, and not forget the works of God. They’ll have a sense of history. One of the great problems with this disconnected generation that we’re living in today is that we no longer have stories. We don’t have the legacy stories to tap into to give us a frame of reference, the stuff of endurance. And one of the problems we’re having in the church today is that there’s just this absence of strong, godly leadership. People are caving in and not preaching from conviction any longer. I hear somebody suckers preacher said, Man, do you really believe that the lack of passion in ministry, the uncertainty, because the stories are missing of the faithfulness and the power of God in my own pilgrimage, when you reach back and you see that a slave, a slave, could raise a stable family, and there’s no record of his mother or his father, could launch generations of men in my background who have stable marriages. Where did that stuff come from?

Came from here, and there were stories to be told, sense of history. Then thirdly, he says it will produce in the next generation a will to obey.

Not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments. I’ll never forget this our when our oldest son was in undergraduate school, I he was a sophomore, so I was up. They went to Christian College, and so I was up there speaking on campus, and somehow or another, I found out that he had had this need. It was a financial need that he had, and he never called us during the time. And so we’re Alfred. Then I said, Well, Brian man,

how come you didn’t call me? How come you didn’t tell me you had this need. Isn’t what he said to me. He goes, Dad, I remember those times around the dinner table and. Where your mom would share with us about needs that you had, and we raised support with Campus Crusade for Christ,

and we would pray, and you would share promises from God’s word, and God would come through. He said, Dad, I didn’t share it with you. I started to call but I remembered those times it was as if the Holy Spirit said to me, Brian, it’s your turn. It’s your turn.

I What’s at stake at this conference is not it’s not just just some theological framework you get it, although that’s the entry level. These, these kinds of things sometimes make me a little nervous, because we can come in here and you, you know, you listen to the speakers, and you take the notes, and you get the CDs, and you buy this stuff, and you interact with the papers and this kind of thing, and you can really miss The point. It is not just about theological accuracy. It but it’s about biblical transformation. You understand it is about the power of God, the authentic power of God, being released in your life, in your ministry, so that you’re forging future generations who believe God and the reason why we’re accurate in our theology is to get an accurate picture of God, so that we’re sending people forth with a sense of Holy Ghost, confidence, the ability to believe God and to stand on His Word,

to be able to point back to pastors and leaders who took the character of God and the content of Scripture

imported into their souls. So I was working on this message, I thought of that song, secular song from Dan Fogelberg, the leader of the band. The refrain goes, the leader of the band is tired and his eyes are growing cold, but his song is in my His blood is in my song is in my instrument. His blood is in my soul. Words to that effect of my life is just a poor attempt to imitate the man. I’m just the living legacy to the leader of the band. So the question I want to leave with you tonight is this, what signature Are you writing on the souls of future generations? What’s in your hands, is there clear pathway that can be seen through how you approach ministry back to the character of God and the content of Scripture? How are you thinking about what God has entrusted to you. Will you pray with me, Holy Father, we bow before you to thank you for your word. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you have given to us through ASAP, the North Star, so to speak, of what you’re all about. We live in a grand procession of men and women who have laid down their lives because they believed God and they live by His Word, Father, we pray for a holy fire to be igniting and ignited in our hearts and minds.

We ask that you renew passion in us, a sense of your divine presence and a renewed sense of wanting to honor you by everything that we say and everything that we do.

Lord, God, give us a simple approach. May You give us a heart to obey you no matter what there are those who are waiting father waiting to see a picture of what it means to courageously stand for what God says and what he wants done and. Father, we trust you to use us breathe fresh anointing, fresh strength and give us great vision we pray in Jesus. Name Amen.