1. It’s scary to share my struggle and to show that I have cracks because once I’ve shown my cards, I open myself up for judgment.
  2. We can’t predict the harvest. We can only sow.
  3. Nothing moves or drives Paul more than preaching about “Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).
  4. We don't make Church "happen." Only Christ can do so. It's his happening.
  5. Even if the numbers are bad, the news about Jesus crucified for sinners and raised to new life hasn’t become any less good.
  6. There is a revival, no less real and even more definitive, taking place in every church, every weekend, where God’s people gather around his gifts.
  7. Reading includes, on some level, striving. Hearing, on the other hand, remains passive.
  8. Zephaniah has given us something more visceral to help us understand the love of God: the sound of salvation.
  9. This sermon was originally given at Luther Seminary chapel on May 20, 1986.
  10. Predestination, Jim knew, is no longer a frightening doctrine of mystery when you understand that God makes his choice about you in the simple word of God, given from one sinner to another.
  11. God gives us the power and authority to proclaim the forgiveness of sins to burdened sinners who entrust us with their pain, guilt, and defeat.
  12. The sign of the cross, according to the earliest centuries of Christians, is “the sign of the Lord,” and every baptized Christian was “marked” with it.