Last week Alexandra got a nice big whiteboard for her birthday, and with it she also got an easel for it to sit on.  Veronica came into the room the next day as I was trying to get both of them setup.  One of the problems was that this is no ordinary three-legged easel – it’s collapsible and adjustable.  And so it’s got all sorts of clamps on it and legs and arms that extended up and down and out.  I was having trouble making heads or tails out of it all.  My dad had setup a similar one for my niece not long before and sort of told me how it worked, but once I had it in my hands his instructions just didn’t add up.  And then Veronica came into the room as I was fighting with it and trying to figure it all out – and not having much success – and, just like a wife and sounding utterly perplexed, she just asked, “Did you read the instructions?”  Well, in my defence, I didn’t know there were instructions – and at least initially, it seemed like something easy enough not to need instructions anyway!  You know how kids are when they open a present – everything goes everywhere and everything but the actual toy gets shoved aside.  So we managed to locate the instructions and setup the easel without much more ado.  Now there is a point to my story...

[This series of sermons is adapted from Jerry Bridges’ recent book, Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins we Tolerate.]