Who Is The Hero?

TAKE 2 minutes FOR TRAINING

Our apologies for the choppiness of this T2. We have tried to stay as true to the context of the original talk as possible given the constraint of a 2-minute clip. We encourage you to watch the full version of Bill Hogg’s story about his Uncle George by hovering over the box below labelled “full-length video” and moving the video navigation marker to 3:17.46.

TAKE2 TRANSCRIPT

So back when I was living in Scotland, I got a phone call from my mother and she said “William, your uncle George wants to get right with God. Go and lead him to Jesus.” Part of the problem was, I was scared of Uncle George. He was a wild man. He’d been a violent, drunken Irishman who worked on the roads and he just had a nasty streak through him. And then I get to his flat….

So, I said “Uncle George, Mom says you wanna get right with God.” And he says “Aye, that’s right. I wanna get right with the man upstairs. Get in here. Tell me how.” So, we’re sitting there and going through the scriptures, explaining the gospel, and eventually as I’m leafing through scripture a part on the story of the two thieves either side of Jesus…

So, I said “George, here you are, there’s a criminal on a cross. A broken shell of a man. Now, today, Uncle George you’re a broken shell of a man, but you put your life in Jesus’ nail-scarred hands. George says, “That’s what I asked you here for!”. I said “OK George. Why don’t you speak to Jesus and tell Him you want Him to forgive you; to change you, to transform you; to put His spirit within you and that you wanna put your trust and confidence in Him?

But George just stared at me, dumbfounded. And then I said “Hey Uncle George, here’s an idea. Why don’t I say something to Jesus; then you say the same thing?” He goes “That’s a fantastic idea!” Then he looks up and he sees Auntie Kathleen he say’s “Hey Katie Doll – so you need to say this prayer too.” So, I pray, George prays, Katie prays. I pray, George prays, Katie prays. And round and round we go. Nothing happens to Auntie Kathleen. Why? Because she got bullied into praying a prayer and didn’t make a heartfelt response to God. But he’s gloriously transformed! He developed a hunger and an appetite for the Word of God.

But who’s the hero of that story? Well, the right answer is Jesus is always the hero of the story. But I haven’t told you who the hero was. Certainly wasn’t me. I was the reluctant missionary. My Grandfather motioned to me ‘come here’. I said, “What Grandad?” He said, “I have been praying for him for 50 years.”