You Made Your Point, Did you Make a Difference?

We live in a unique time where anyone can share their voice online to millions with just a button. Information is everywhere, but while making a point is easy, making a real difference is tough.

 

Making a point can be done in seconds, but meaningful change in someone's life can take a long time. Chris shares examples from the Bible, highlighting how Jesus handled challenges from the scribes and Pharisees. Despite their valid arguments, Jesus focused on making a difference, especially in the life of a woman caught in adultery and a man with a withered hand.

 

While many can express their views, only a few truly make lasting impacts. Today's culture promotes quick fixes and distractions, making it challenging to commit to important issues. Chris encourages listeners to reflect on whether they aim to make points or genuinely make a difference, noting that while it's easy to share opinions, true change requires dedication. For support and more resources, visit hff. church and join them for Saturday Church in OKC.

 

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Chris Franke (00:00:00):
We live in extraordinary times. With the push of a button, anybody with a microphone or a video
camera can be blasted out over the internet to millions of homes. We live in a time where
information abounds, and yet it's never been easier to make a point,

(00:21):
and it's never been harder to make a difference.
Welcome to the HHP Podcast. My name is Chris Franke, and I am the Senior Pastor of HFF
Church in Oklahoma City. Join me and others from around the country as we talk all things Bible,
church, and family. We may be right, we may be heretical, but that's for you to decide.

(00:42):
Drop a like, a share, a comment, subscribe, and let's get to it.
Making a point takes a matter of seconds. A well-placed argument, you've made your point,
and yet making a difference traditionally takes weeks, months, or years to actually

(01:03):
impact a life. Take Jesus's example in John chapter 8. "Then each of them went home,
while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple.
All the people came to him, and he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees
brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and making her stand before all of them. They said

(01:26):
to him, 'Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law
Moses commanded us to stone such a woman. Now what do you say?' They said this to test him,
so that they may have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger in
the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, 'Let anyone among

(01:48):
you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.' And once again he bent down and wrote on
the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders, and Jesus
was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, 'Woman,
where are they? Has no one condemned you?' She said, 'No one, sir.' And Jesus said, 'Neither do I

(02:12):
condemn you. Go your way, and from now on, do not sin again.' The scribes and the Pharisees had come
to challenge Jesus while he was teaching in the temple. They did so to attempt to catch Jesus in
in some sort of blasphemous speech. They came to make a point. Their point was a valid argument,
yet by the time Jesus was done with them, they had left and Jesus had made a difference. The

(02:37):
difference he had made in this woman's life was probably transformative forever. We also read
later on in Matthew, he went on from there and he entered their synagogue and a man was there with
a withered hand and they asked him, 'Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath so that he might accuse them?'
And he said to them, 'Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath,

(03:00):
will not take hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value is a man than a sheep,
so it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath?' Then he said to the man, 'Stretch out your hand.'
And the man stretched out and it was restored, healthy like the other. But the Pharisees went
out and conspired against him to destroy him." Once again, we see the Pharisees were attempting to

(03:22):
make a point. Again, according to the law of Moses, according to the Torah, it was a very valid point
and yet we see in that moment Jesus makes a difference. Can you imagine what that man would
testify to as he would run about, as he would do things that were happening? You can be right,
but you can also be dead right. Like our culture has created a mentality that it's our job to

(03:48):
police our brothers to point out their errors, to expose their foolishness and to be right.
But that isn't the culture of being right, that's the culture of being dead right.
And when that man would go and give the testimony of what had happened,
can you imagine what a difference that would have made to those who had no hope, those who had no
hope of healing or hope that their life could ever be changed? Today we live in a culture,

(04:16):
we live in a time where we have the internet. The internet is available at our hands. Now we have AI,
we have all these things that can give us any bit of information that we want at any point in time.
Yet we struggle to see differences being made in the world. And there's organizations that do that.
You have Samaritans Purse and you have a lot of these other organizations that are hurricane

(04:39):
victims or going into orphanages or going to widows and to a lot of these different places.
And it takes a long time to make a difference. Yet how many of the 3.8 billion Christians in the
world really just deal with life like this? Every month there's another distraction, there's another
reason, there's another fear, there's another something. We're almost programmed by the

(05:02):
hurriness of this life to just move from problem to problem, task to task. It's almost like it's hard
to actually be in for the long haul on almost anything. We get frustrated when our coffee isn't
fast enough or our food isn't fast enough and our ability to make a point when something doesn't go

(05:22):
the way we want, we'd like to do that. Yet everybody can make a point, but only few actually make a
lasting difference. And so I ask you today, do you try to make points or do you have the heart
to make a difference? Because in our world today, it's never been easier to make a point

(05:45):
and it's never been harder to make a difference.
If this podcast has blessed you, please consider supporting by visiting our website and making a
donation. For more resources, blogs, podcasts, please visit us at hff.church. Looking for a
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