Coasting Or Roasting

I was sitting in the study of my homiletical mentor, Dr. Stephen F. Oldford, and we were discussing a recent institute for biblical preaching where the guest speaker was a prominent and well-known pastor, and it was one of the highest attended institutes because of this pastor's fame and popularity. As the preaching institute ended and I was back in Stephen F. Oldford's study with him, he shocked me with the following comment. He said, All the while that man was here, he never once opened his Bible, but only told funny stories to the pastors that were attending this institute.

And then Stephen F. Oldford fixed his gaze on me and asked the following question, referring to this famous preacher. He said, Oh, what do you think is going on with that man? And he waited for my answer. I paused before carefully answering that piercing question.

Finally, I said to Dr. Oldford, Dr. Oldford, it's obvious to me, the difference is he is coasting and you are roasting. Well, Dr. Oldford slapped his leg as he grinned in agreement. It's easy to get to a place of complacency in ministry where we're just resting on our reputation and success.

But the price is a noticeable loss of spiritual vitality and power. One preacher was content to drag out sermons to his congregation. He'd preached a hundred times before and the other preacher was continually going to God for a fresh word.

One man was coasting. The other man was roasting. At the last meeting I had with Stephen Oldford, he was 86 years old and it was the day before he entered the hospital for the last time.

And although he expressed to me that he felt unwell, I saw a man who was always reaching for higher ground with his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Dr. Oldford demonstrated to me that Christ wants each of us to live on the full stretch for him, where we're continually red hot for him in a roasting relationship that burns with intensity. How about you, brother pastor? Are you coasting or are you roasting in your service to God? Are you red hot and on fire for God or is it something else? Have you settled for a comfortable ministry and now you're content to coast? In 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, as the apostle Paul speaks of Christ's return, he admonishes each of us with the following words, For yourselves know perfectly that the day the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night, for when they shall say peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman would child, and they shall not escape.

But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light and the children of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness.

Therefore let us not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be sober. I will stop there, friends. Where Paul says, let us watch, that word watch in the Greek means to be vigilant, to stand guard as atop a watchtower, as a watchman watches over a city, always on the lookout for one coming.

Now should we not live like that, or rise off this world and our gaze fastened on the Lord Christ Jesus as we serve him, knowing that this world is soon to be burned up, and our business here is single-minded, as John Wesley said, you have one business on earth, to save souls. Look around me, friends, at these last days in which we live, where people are being gunned down all around us, in a land of sudden death, and I ask myself, am I coasting, or am I roasting? Am I a red-hot coal for Christ and the gospel? O great God, light a fire under me, so I can live more on fire for thee, and make the fragrance of my life an acceptable offering to thee. Listen, friends, I believe that God's eyes are continually searching the earth for those rare individuals of whom the world was not worthy, men like Moses and John the Baptist, Luther and Calvin, Whitefield and Wesley, Finney and Moody, men who live in a different atmosphere than other mortals, men who have annihilated self with the cross, and whose lives are broken, alabaster boxes from which fragrances arise to the heavens, from the broken pieces of selflessness, self-sacrifice, and self-crucifixion.

God is always on the lookout for such men. I believe that, friends. Let us be men like that.

Let us pray.