What to Do When Life 'Flattens Out?'

ROSEMONT, IL (February 1, 2005) - In his sermon before more than a 1,000 worshippers Monday night, preacher Haddon Robinson enthralled, enchanted and left silent the audience with his masterful narrative telling of David's life and its powerful implications.

The worship service formally launched the week-long Midwinter Pastors Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church that includes more than 1,100 participants meeting at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare hotel complex in Rosemont.

Robinson has written numerous books on preaching and Newsweek has named him one of the 12 most important preachers in America. He is currently the Harold Ockenga Professor of Preaching at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

David, Robinson said, was not a chieftain who had seized his kingship, but a person who had struggled in his early years with a family that did not believe in him, with Saul who was envious of him, and with the Philistines with whom he battled for years, beginning with his one-one-one fight with Goliath.

After David became king, the country enjoyed years of prosperity. David had earned strong loyalty from those around him. People admired David, not only because he was a champion but a man of spiritual character. "David was a man who had it all while "sitting on the throne in the city of Jerusalem," he observed.

But not everything was right in David's life at an age when he was facing his own mortality and the changes in the flesh that age brings. "Life had flattened out for him," Robinson suggested. "That was true for his relationship with God."

Robinson artfully told the story of David's encounter with Bathsheba, saying what people often think in one way or another: "Sometimes the Bible can be maddening. Sometimes it only gives us the cold, hard facts. Sometimes I'd like to have the warm, soft facts." In other words, the "tabloid news."

The preacher transitioned by telling the story of a friend, whom he had spoken of as one of the most effective pastors he had known. The friend was being considered for a seminary presidency when it was discovered that he had engaged in affairs with three women in his congregation. "He left his home in the morning respected and admired. He came home that night and his ministry was in shambles."

When Robinson visited the pastor, he asked him what he should tell his students back at the seminary where Robinson was teaching. The friend said to Robinson to tell the students, "When a man fails to walk with God, he walks on the edge of an abyss." Robinson said, "I told it to them, and I have told it to myself a hundred times."

He also recounted the words of John Knox, whose life at one point had flattened out: "I will keep the ground that God has given me and perhaps in his grace, he will ignite me again. But ignite me or not , in his grace, in his power, I will hold the ground."

Robinson left the audience in a reflective silence when he concluded by observing, "When you have achieved some measure of success, when you have reached the place you have dreamed of getting, life has a way of flattening out for you. When you fail to walk with God, you walk on the edge of an abyss."

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