I have gone through several phases in regard to auto repairs. When Dana and I first got married, it was the “how hard can it possibly be/I will do it myself and easily save money” phase. As you might suspect, that did not go very well.
It was the 1979 rusted-out Ford pickup truck that broke me of my early forays into DIY auto repair. After $400 in parts, several busted knuckles, nearly apostatizing a few times due to Hulk-like rage and finally paying someone to haul it off the lawn, I gave up.
The second phase I went through was the “I will pay someone else to do all of my auto repair work, no matter how small.” For a time, that worked reasonably well. And then Dana and I gave birth to three expensive reasons to reconsider that philosophy. We often faced a choice between braces or brakes, tuition or tune-ups, and Waterpik or water pump.
That led us inexorably to phase three of our journey, the “YouTube has all the answers” phase. That is to say that, 23 years ago when we began phase one, my only means of figuring out what was wrong and what to do was to randomly guess which part was the carburetor and, since I had heard of them being “rebuilt,” go to the auto-parts place and say, “I need a carburetor rebuild kit,” with a confidence that I really did not feel.
But now there is YouTube. Now I can type in “Change a water pump on a 2005 Yukon,” and a video pops up that A) shows me what part is actually a water pump, and B) shows me how to remove the old one and install the new one. Yes, I did that, and, yes, I was successful at it.
Mind you, I am old enough not to be a fool; I understand that going to YouTube for “rebuild the engine of a 1997 Ford F250” is not a good option for someone with my limited experience, and for things like that I will trust the excellent mechanics that have been doing my hard work for a few years now. I am, though, on the cusp of typing in “Change the brakes on a 2005 Yukon” and seeing if that looks feasible for me to do.
Being able to actually see the work being done has changed everything. If someone merely told me what to do, there really is very little chance I could ever be successful at it. Watching someone do it, and then doing what they have done, that makes success attainable.
Nearly 2,000 years ago, the Apostle Paul wrote a short letter to the church at Philippi. In our Bible, it is a mere four chapters long. He said many things to them, but there was no way he would be able to cram everything in that he desired to say without writing something akin to the size of a novel.
But there was another way he could get it all in with just a few short words. And so, in Philippians 4:9, he said, “Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.”
The first part of that verse can be summarized and paraphrased this way: “Do what you saw me do. Live like you saw me live.”
There will never be an adequate substitute for the power of a good example.
Kids who see their parents go to church will be more likely to love church themselves than kids who are told by their parents to go to church.
Kids who see their parents being loving and faithful to each other will be more likely to one day be loving and faithful to their own spouses than kids who are lectured on marriage by parents who do not live out the words they are spouting.
Church members will learn from the messages of the pastor, but they will learn more from watching a pastor live out his own messages.
Friends at school might listen to what Christian kids say, maybe. But they will most certainly pay close attention to how those Christian kids live.
Paul, writing to that same Philippian church, was able to say in Philippians 3:17, “Brethren, be followers together of me.”
Follow me. Do what you see me do. There really are not many more powerful words that could ever be spoken.
Bo Wagner is pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church of Mooresboro, N.C., a widely traveled evangelist and author of several books. Email him at 2knowhim@cbc-web.org.