Don't Be Fooled

Take it from me, driving through Chicago can be dangerous to your health.

I am not talking about the road construction that will never end, or even the plague of a traffic jam that ALWAYS clogs up the Dan Ryan Expressway (I believe if the Egyptians had driven cars instead of chariots, then one of God's plagues during the time of Moses would have been a traffic jam of Chicago proportion!).

Actually, when I saw someone in a car ahead of me stick a gun out of his rolled-down window, aimed at the car beside him in the next lane, I would gladly have faced road construction or a traffic jam instead (or even a plague!).

This is a true story.

It happened during a recent trip to Chicago. At first, I did not want to believe what I thought I saw. A gun. Held by a hand that was sticking out of one car window and pointed at another car window. And it was all happening only a very short distance ahead of me.

What was happening? Was it road rage? Gang violence? Would I be an eyewitness to a murder? Would I testify in court? And how safe was I, after all?

These and a hundred other thoughts all raced through my mind in a matter of seconds.

Before I could arrive at any answers, the car being threatened suddenly pulled over to the shoulder and stopped. Immediately, the guy with the gun stopped his car in the middle of the interstate, not bothering with the shoulder...and everyone behind him stopped too, including me.

At that point, I could hear a siren, but I could not tell where it was coming from. Someone must have called 911. I looked in my rearview mirror. No sign of a police car. No flashing lights anywhere.

As I glanced back at the scene in front of me, a man was getting out of the car in the center lane and was running towards the other car on the shoulder, gun in hand. At this, the car on the shoulder took off, 60-miles an hour, backwards.

The man with the gun ran to his car and hopped in. He made a u-turn in the middle of the three-lane freeway and started driving the wrong way, and headed straight towards me.

The thought crossed my mind then that maybe I would get shot. Or, maybe my rental car would get rammed by either the "good guy" who was driving way too fast to be going backwards...or by the "bad guy" with the gun chasing him.

But as the "bad guy" got closer, I saw something that made me feel much better.

His car was not a normal "bad guy" car. I could see flashing red and blue lights tucked away behind the grill on the front of his car and, as he passed me, I heard the sound of the siren pass too.

It was an unmarked police car. The guy with the gun was not a "bad guy" after all. He was an undercover policeman. He was really a "good guy."

The problem was that I could not tell the "good guy" from the "bad guy" by looking at them. What I saw with my own two eyes deceived me.

As I thought about it later, I was reminded of Samuel in the Old Testament. He had the same problem. His eyes had deceived him when he judged by outer appearances only.

God had called Samuel to anoint the next king of Israel from among the sons of Jesse. As soon as Samuel laid eyes on Eliab, he was sure that this was God's man. There must have been something very royal about Eliab's physical appearance.

God, however, had other ideas. Here is the passage from 1 Samuel 16...

"But the Lord said to Samuel, 'Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.'"

Have you ever made that same mistake yourself?

It is easy to do. It is sort of hard-wired into our human nature.

Sometimes, I wonder if some people see Walnut Hills Baptist Church like that.

They look at our outward appearance and they are not impressed. Ours is an old building. We have no parking lot to call our own. No air conditioning. We have a small congregation. We are classified as an "urban" church rather than as a "suburban" church.

But I would like to think that God would say to them, "Do not look at the outward appearance, but look at their heart."

Because, at heart, we are a wonderful fellowship of believers. We love the Lord and we love each other. We treat each other as brothers and sisters regardless of race or age. When we come to church on Sunday, we hear a remarkable choir, lots of prayer, and a "Word from God's Word."

Some might call it "old-fashioned." Some might call it "traditional." I call it "beautiful."

I also call it ministry.

It is easy to do ministry where ministry is easy.

As a member of this church, you choose to do ministry in a more difficult place...all the while giving and receiving so many blessings in the process.

Just like Jesus did. And Paul. And Peter. And John. And so many others who looked not only at what was on the outside, but at what was on the inside.


Pastor Greg