Max Lucado at Southeast

Max has preached four other times at Southeast-- and the times I've heard him, it's been good/solid. The best-selling Christian author of all time, he's a great story-teller, but his preaching didn't match that level of excellence. (The books I've read of his are light devotions/reflections with a heavy emphasis on stories-- good stuff for the moment, but little that seems to stick with me.)

Last Sunday's sermon was easily the best I've heard from him. Interestingly, he seemed to speak as if he was writing. Since he is gifted/skilled with words-- and even though the effect is obviously different when delivered verbally-- it was still a pleasure to listen to and quite insightful.

The topic? Fear...

Highlights:
-the opening reference to 173 people dying of fear during a single event in WW II
-the tension between fear as helpful vs. paralyzing, between its presence vs. its potential pervasiveness within our lives, fear vs. a "spirit of fear/timidity"
-the three-fold reference to "seismos" in Matthew (8:24, 27:51, 28:2)-- the defeat of fear, sin and death
-the idea that "what frightened them was an occasion for sleep for Christ"-- and it resulted in assumptions and accusations about God's character, His love, knowledge and power (vs. questions/requests to God)
-I knew that "fear not" is the most frequent command in the Bible, but did not know that it was Christ's most frequent command as well.
-the closing anecdote/analogy to the Wolfman and how his father handled it