In Light of Eternity - Audio
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This is Mike for the last two to three years. We've been working together on our sermons. So we plan out our sermon series together and then we work on them. He's outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota and he and Erica, his amazing wife have come out to help just with the memorial service my dad and then to fill in for me today. Mike is, I can't speak highly enough of him as a man of God and as a friend. He's a hero to me and I'm just glad that you get to meet him too. Thanks Tom. Well it's a privilege to be with you co-spival church and greetings from Mercy Road Church which really feels like a sister church to your congregation. Tom's right. It's almost three years though that we've been writing sermons together. We plan a year in advance the series and then we get together over Zoom on a weekly basis and we talk. Tom is funny. He doesn't like it when I call him when I'm in my vehicle. He doesn't like the Bluetooth noise on the phone and it's one of his pet peeves. And so I had this urge to call Tom a while back and I thought, well I'm not preaching this Sunday when I associate pastor's preaching so I don't have any shop to talk. I'm in my car and you don't call Tom on the Bluetooth in the car unless you really want to bring out the cranky part of Tom, the cantankerous Dave Bennett part of Tom. And yet nevertheless it felt like an impression I had to call him. I called him and he said, "How did you know my dad just passed away?" Sometimes the spirit will do that with friends. It is a privilege to be your friend Tom. I've known Tom for 16 years. We went to seminary together. My dad grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota and his dad would take him to the race tracks. Greyhounds would race probably not a great parenting tip but that's how he grew up. And back then there was a mechanical metal rabbit, looked like a rabbit that would go around the track and the dogs would chase it and you'd bet on it. And my grandpa, Frank, who I never met said, "Larry, to my dad, life is all about finding a rabbit. People run faster because the rabbit is there to chase." And so he said if you struggle in a subject in school or something, find somebody who runs faster than you, who's a little smarter than you and just cozy up to them and you'll figure it out. When I had to learn Greek and Hebrew, I was not excited. You know, language, that detail worked, just wasn't my favorite. But then I saw Tom because Tom seemed to know more about that language than the professors did from an early age. So I said, "Hey, Tom, come over to my apartment and I'll provide the food and you can be my tutor." And we really did provide some tutoring for each other in different areas. I kind of helped Tom learn how to be an adult, pick up the trash, and this is called Washing the Dishes. And Tom helped me parse Greek and learn Hebrew and I think I got a B plus in both. So thank you, Tom. You really do have a good pastor, a recent Barna study said that there is a prediction
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Do you know you were made to last forever? Consider that living in light of eternity changes our perspective on just about everything.