Amens—Pastors love them. It shows a pastor or speaker that people are following along and in agreement. It is a sign of engagement with what the speaker is saying. When we say Amen we are showing that we agree with what is being said.
A Lesson from my childhood
When I was a kid I began to se that there were people who would say Amen a lot to what the pastor was saying but then they wouldn’t live out what they had just said Amen about. Many times they never made it to the parking lot before they forgot what they had just said Amen to. I studied people as they gossiped about each other, were harsh and mean to children, complained about the pastor, or complained about everything under the sun andI Was puzzled……Then I went off to Bible College.
Lessons rom Bible College
Bible College is a weird place. There are a bunch of young adults most of whom are on their own for the first time without the watchful eye of their mostly strict parents. There is a small group of kids who have a healthy dose of confidence some of them God but most of them in themselves. They didn’t really know who they were or what they were called to do. There was also this group that really didn’t have confidence in anything . And for some kids their parents had made them attend for at least a year. They didn’t really want to be there, they were just doing their time. We all had new found freedoms and some of us didn’t know what to do with them. Some kids had rocky starts, others just blew their time in college and other soared.
I know it doesn’t sound very different from regular college except one very distinct difference. We were all Christians (or at least we claimed to be when we signed our statement of faith). As college students we struggled to understand the concept of sincerity because we haven’t had the chance to really tease that concept out yet! Everyone was trying to figure out where they fit in. And even though we all claimed to be Christ emulators, there were choices made that left me asking some hard questions. Of myself and others around me.
I had far more friends in college that I did in all of my years combined in school. On a campus of 250 you get to know each other pretty well. The good the bad and the ugly!
Ministry was no different
And even in full time ministry I have run into the same struggles…..and sadly it has hurt many people’s testimony. Remember yesterday we talked about the negative Influence trait if unfaithfulness. Again I found myself sitting in church hearing Amens. But not just Amens anymore…I would hear more and more about how mature people thought themselves, how much they were reading, how much time they spent in Bible study and prayer.
It was their badge of honor. The problem however was that their walk didn’t match their talk. They weren’t letting all that they were doing sink in and change their lives. In every church I have ever been in I could see this and sometimes it was staring back at me in the mirror.
As I said yesterday. This is something we all have and will struggle with. We need to be able to recognize it repent of it and change it.
Well yesterday we talked about……
how unfaithfulness rooted in disloyalty, treachery and insincerity.
And as I stand back and look over my life time I can hear the empty Amens in each of those moments. When we say “Amen” to something and then don’t apply it to our lives we are showing those around us three of those defining attributes. .
When we don’t follow through we are being disloyal to God and the man who God sent to preach his word.
We are betraying God and living a deception to those within our group (Church, life, our homes,, our vehicles..when we give the appearance of agreeing but in our hearts and minds show differently.
And perhaps the biggest, we are being completely insincere. When we say Amen we are saying “I agree”. But when we don’t follow through we are showing that we aren’t sincere- we really don’t mean it!
We don’t take our own words seriously. It’s damaging to say one thing and do another. We use words so flippantly Amen has lost its meaning for some. (For some it has taken on the meaning of
Yes that is exactly how I want to be treated, but don’t expect me to give the same kind of grace to someone who has hurt me.
“YES I completely agree that sin is wrong. BUT I am not going to hold my loved ones accountable for this sin because it works for them.
This means…….
We need to be careful about our Amens…..In the two examples above the yes is the agreement (The Amen) and the BUT is what the real heart response says-it’s an excuse why we don’t agree! That one little word can influence a child of 10 or 11 years old- one you never really know was watching It can negativity influence her (Or him) and it can keep them from following God’s plan for their lives…..it can make a child day “I don’t want to ever be a pastor’s wife” (even God has called her.)
Yes I was that girl and yes when peoples walk didn’t match their talk almost kept me from following God because they would say Amen” to how people should treat each there, love each other and be kind to each other And then rip down berate and mistreat the pastor and his family, whom I was very close with. The pastor’s family never talked about it to me I just stood on. the sidelines taking it all in. Thankfully God is gracious and he opened my eyes and gave me some amazingly sincere friends- friends who didn’t seek to deceive and who were very loyal to serving God with all of their Hearts, souls, minds and strength, And loved others as themselves in a very radical way!
So now it’s your turn
We need to ask ourselves “does our walk match our talk…even our Amens?” Now I am not saying the damaging part is our Amens- it’s the not following what God’s word says and it’s not following through with what we say Amen to. The Amens just confirm the insincerity and deceptiveness of our hearts, because it is glaringly obvious when our walk doesn’t match our talk!
Thank you for joining me today for this simple little example of what unfaithfulness can do to our positive influence
Feel free to check out the links below
Write 31 Days 2018 Influence Posts
Choosing Courage 100 Day Writing Project
Write 31 Days 2021 Link up List. (Scroll to the bottom)
