Keep the Main Thing

A message is from July 1st, 1990, titled “High Visibility.” Pastor Lee uses his days on the farm, explaining that when the crop was ready, getting the harvest completed was paramount. Jesus used harvest imagery repeatedly in his parables and teachings as well. Pastor Lee exhorts us not to lose our visibility—not so we can be seen, but so we can truly see. To see those around us who are in need. 

It’s June 17th, 1990—Father’s Day. The title of Pastor Lee’s sermon carries a question we’ve all heard, and probably all said: “What am I going to do with you?” As Pastor Lee points out, this familiar line usually comes from a place of frustration, exhausted patience, or even anger. But he asks us to hear it differently—to consider it as something deeper, more hopeful, and genuinely thought-provoking. This is an emotional message. Pastor Lee draws from his own experience with his father, his role model for laying the right foundation. And he asks all of us a penetrating question: Are we living out the kind of faith our children could bank their lives on? The kind of faith they could build upon, trust in, and pass down?

Pastor Lee delivers his sermon for Pentecost Sunday 1990. Titled “Fire Alert.” Pastor Lee suggests we need fire alarms in our lives that detect not when we have a fire, but when our fire is going out. He, of course, is talking about our spiritual fire. Pastor Lee reminds us of something vital: while God is always moving toward us, we can’t simply wait passively. We need to actively move toward Him. It’s in that mutual movement, that partnership between our effort and God’s grace, where the fire truly ignites. 

It’s Mother’s Day 1990. Pastor Lee preaches a message called “Heading for Home.” But this isn’t just a Mother’s Day sermon. It’s a challenge to every adult who cares about the generation growing up behind them. He calls us to help young people understand their true destiny—that this world isn’t their final home, heaven is. To give them direction for living well now. And to instill in them a desire for heaven that produces real joy, peace, and purpose.

Today’s message from Pastor Lee, titled “Living on the Bright Side,” was first given on Easter Sunday in 1990. He dives into this message by reminding us that living for Jesus is not a once-a-week “fix,” but a pillar of our home, which we should live by day in and day out. Pastor Lee explores this idea with three main points to remember each day: “Life is not futile, failure is not fatal, and death is not final.”

Pastor Lee exhorts us to not let the world determine how we act or react, based on the temperature in the room. That we are to be thermostats, not thermometers. Pastor Lee uses a number of metaphors as examples as to how we should live in this world. Urging us to enjoy the Christian life by leaning into the hard things that we encounter. To love the difficult people that walk into our lives.