Next Sunday morning, I'll be speaking at the Colonies Church of Christ here in Amarillo. Their preacher, Dick Marcear, had knee-replacement surgery last week. He called me a day or two before to ask if I'd handle the preaching responsibilities on the 27th.
It's funny how things turn out sometimes. More than a quarter century ago, when I was a Bible student at Freed-Hardeman College, I started getting a few invitations to preach at some of the small congregations of the Church of Christ there in West Tennessee. I was getting preaching appointments! That was the good news. The bad news was, I didn't have a very good idea of what I was going to say when I got there.
About that time, I discovered in the college library a publication called Truth for Today. It was a magazine written by and for preachers. Every issue was filled with manuscript sermons. So, being in my situation at the time, I began going through back issues of Truth for Today looking for the very best lessons. I discovered a preacher out in Amarillo, Texas named Dick Marcear. As I read his sermons, I thought to myself, "This guy is really good. He preaches the Bible. His sermons are clear and imaginative, with lots of good quotes and illustrations." And at that point, I began to make some of those sermons my own.
So I guess it's only fitting that I would be preaching next Sunday instead of Dick Marcear. He's already done something similar for me. I take it as just another reminder that whenever we do something good, we don't always know who we might be helping along the way.
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