Humility comes in many forms and I saw a new expression this week at NTE. Andrew Reid was speaking topically on the Kingdom Of God to a crowd of about 1300 people. I thought the first two talks were pretty top notch, but I realise this is coming from me having a reasonable understanding of the Bible. For those who are a bit newer to the whole Bible reading thing and sermons of that depth, it pretty much went straight over their heads. Andrew's other issue was time. The dark cloud of "the program" hung menacingly over his head. He really needed probably another 1/3 of his time on top, to allow more pausing between sentences to let the great truths being brought to life some air to hang in. It was brilliant content with limited effectiveness.
The talks were faithful but not working. And so Andrew did what I have never before experienced on such a big platform - he scrapped his next talk. Okay, so I did see Mark Driscoll do it at Engage 08, but I think this was because it was about his 30th sermon in a fortnight and he just ran out of energy so decided to take questions instead. But here at NTE, Andrew knew he wanted to mainly use the content of Daniel 7 in his sermon, he knew what he had been saying was going over peoples heads, and recognised the systematic sermon form was a much less comfortable fit for him than exegesis. So rather than deliver his fully scripted third sermon, he spoke to us mostly from an old talk on Daniel 7.
It wasn't bowing to the pressure of the crowds.
It was humility at its absolute best.
Praise God.
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