No Patch Jobs

I spent ten years sitting at the feet of Rick Atchley in Abilene, TX.  Rick is the most effective preacher I have ever heard when it comes to telling a story and then applying it. Years ago, I heard him illustrate a sermon with a story about the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

It seemed the tower was tilting an extra centimeter each year. The 18th floor was in danger of collapsing.  A guide was leading some American tourists on a tour and was telling how the engineers were trying to correct the problem. He told how engineers had poured tons and tons of concrete and had just made a general mess. So a tourist asked them, "Well, did it have any effect?"

"Yeah,” the guide answered, “before that it leaned a centimeter every year; now it leans two."

Rick’s application spoke of how that tower was like people. People want patch jobs. They want someone to come in there and just stop the leaning a little bit.

Jesus said that people, at their core, are not good. Jesus wants that old life dead. He wants people to be born again (John 3:1-5).

Most people want patch jobs, but what they don’t want is what they need to hear.