Jesus Makes All Other Stories Bow

Mike Leake

I’m about to blow your mind.

Awhile back I opened up my mailbox and there wrapped in protective card board sat the most glorious thing ever. It was a disc to put in my computer.

And once I put this disc in my computer and hooked my computer up to a telephone….I would have access to an information super highway. At an astonishing rate of 14.4kbps I can access about any information that I desire.

You might check your mailbox too. Word has it that this company (AOL I think the name is) will be sending out these magical discs to millions of households.

Is your mind blown?

Of course not. Nor would your mind be blown if I told you that I had internet speeds of an astonishing 56Kbps.

But I remember when I had 56K internet and I thought my face was going to be blown away by the lightning speed with which I could access sports scores. At the time that was the story.

But you aren’t even astonished by 56K internet speeds. In fact you’d laugh at me if I told you that’s what I had.

The Exodus

For the Israelites the story of the Exodus was their 56K internet. It was the story that united the nation. The story of Abraham was the AOL disc. It started the whole thing. But the Exodus…that blew peoples minds.

Fast forward the biblical story to the time of the prophet Jeremiah. The people have turned away from God and are foolishly pursuing other lovers. Because of their sin they are going to be carried off into exile.

But this is not the end of the story. Tucked away in the tear-soaked pages of Jeremiah is this bit of good news:

Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when they shall no longer say, “As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of  Egypt,’ but ‘As the LORD lives who brought up and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them. Then they shall dwell in their own land. (Jeremiah 23:7-8)

In other words, God is going to give them a new story that causes the old story to be about as earth-shattering as an AOL disc you get in the mail in 2014. It was an awesome display in its time, but compared to this new story it bows down every time.

And we know from Jeremiah 23:5-6 and Isaiah 40-66 that this righteous Branch isn’t Zedekiah the new king. It’s pointing to King Jesus. He is the One who is big enough to make every story before him pale in comparison. We are amazed by the Exodus. It’s a great show of God’s power. But it’s 56K internet compared to the glories of what God accomplished through Jesus.

Your New Story

I wonder though, does your relationship with the Lord feel like old hat? Does it feel like your on dial-up? Are you looking at the story of the Exodus and asking, “Why doesn’t that stuff happen in my own life”?

If so, I urge you to look to the Christ. There is no better story that God will write in your life. He isn’t going to do something that would cause the light of Jesus dim. He’s not going to do that because such a story doesn’t exist. There is no better story.

You don’t need a new story.  What you and I need is a fresh encounter with the old story.

Today in Blogworld 12.17.14

Mike Leake

7 Hat Legends, Fact Checked

I don’t know why I found this so interesting. I imagine because it kind of blew my mind.

Is it Okay for Me to Church Hop?

I agree with my friend Tom’s answer.

To My Porn-Watching Dad

This is a heart-wrenching letter from a daughter to her dad. Men, there is a ton at stake in our purity.

An Anti-Guide to Writing

This is encouraging and simplifying: “My anti-guide to writing is that if you want to write, just write.”

I’ve always loved Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, this Christmas version is quite phenomenal:

Cultural References I Can’t Use In Sermons Anymore

Mike Leake


I’ve been preaching to teenagers for about twelve years now. When I first started I was barely older than they were. In those good old days I could make a reference to something from my childhood and the kids would track with me. Now I just get blank stares when I try to use some of these:

  1. Michael Jordan and his tongue wagging. It’s sad. I know. But only one student in my current youth group has seen Michael play. Ever.
  2. Zack Morris and his oversized cell phone. That means that none of them know Kelly Kapowski or AC Slater. The glories of Saved by the Bell are lost on them.
  3. In West Philadelphia Born and Raised…These kids know Will Smith as an established actor that bathes with jellyfish, not as a the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
  4. Drinking Surge. They’ve got no frame of reference for this sweet-sugary-death bomb.
  5. The crazy adventure known as the Aggro Crag. Not only do they not remember GUTS but also Double Dare, Legends of the Hidden Temple, and a host of other awesome game shows.
  6. O.J. Simpson. For them OJ is just orange juice. No memories of a Ford Bronco. No recollection of him in a Leslie Nielsen movie or on the sideline of NFL games.
  7. The deadly toy known as Pogo Balls. Trying to stay on a Pogo Ball without breaking your face or tearing your ACL is a discipline foreign to these kids.
  8. ALF. I can’t make any jokes about a lovable little alien that had an affinity for eating cats.
  9. The creepiness that was Pee-Wee Herman. They’ll never know the creep-show that was Pee Wee’s Playhouse.
  10. Pretending to smoke candy cigarettes or chewing tobacco in beef jerky cans or Big League Chew. Not that I want to teach our students how to smoke or chew—but I remember as a kid candy cigs that would actually puff when you blew on them. Now I don’t believe they even exist.
  11. Knowing where in the world Carmen San Diego was. Not to mention dying of dysentery playing Oregon Trail.
  12. Tying fabric around your forehead and practicing your crane kick. These kids have never been trained by Mr. Miyagi.

Thankfully some of these amazing thing are coming back. A few of our students know of Skeletor. This alone helps me sleep at night. I can only hope that eventually these other things make a comeback so I can be culturally relevant again. Because as it is—every year I’m getting less and less in touch with these teenagers.

Of course the Gospel is timeless and always relevant. They don’t need to know Teddy Ruxpin and I don’t need to be able to identify a Justin Bieber song (is he still cool?). But it sure would make my illustrations better if they knew about Trapper Keepers, and Scratch-N-Sniffs, and the Goonies.

Do You Have Confidence in the Gospel?

Mike Leake

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I’ve decided to do a little more to bridge the gap between my writing ministry and my ministry here at First Baptist Jasper. To this end I’ll occasionally post sermons that I’ve preached in the past that I believe may be helpful to others.

I don’t blame Cubs fans for being slightly ashamed. (And I say this as a Royals fan). They don’t have much of a reason to have confidence. But as a Christian I’m shocked by the times when I’m ashamed of the gospel. We have every reason to be confident in the power of the gospel.

I’ve always been challenged by Romans 1:17. It challenges me because while I’d like to believe that I’m not ashamed of the gospel, I’m not totally sure that I am. The context of Romans 1 shows us that Paul is eager to preach the gospel in Rome.

Rome was a culture that is similar to ours. And so I have to ask myself am I eager to preach the gospel in places where it might not be well received?

I know that I should be. And I know that what made Paul eager—his confidence in the gospel—is something that I too should have. In fact there are three reasons that I see in Romans 1:8-17 why we should have confidence:

  1. We can be confident because the gospel is contagious
  2. We can be confident because God blesses obedience
  3. We can be confident because the gospel is powerful

These were the three points that I had on this text when I preached through it. In my opinion the sermon starts out a bit slow (I didn’t feel like the intro worked) but there is an illustration at the end, that I hadn’t planned, that was very powerful for us as a congregation.

Have a listen:

 

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photo credit: antiapathy via photopin cc