Journal: Faith and Mission
Volume: FM 19:1 (Fall 2001)
Article: Equipping the Saints: A View from the Other Side of the Pulpit (Eph. 4:11–12)
Author: Kent Humphreys

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FM 19:1 (Fall 2001) p. 50

Equipping the Saints:
A View from the Other Side of the Pulpit (Eph. 4:11–12)

Kent Humphreys

Chief Executive Officer
Jacks Merchandising
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73137
Trustee
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
Wake Forest, North Carolina 27587

A sermon preached in Binkley Chapel
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
Wake Forest, North Carolina
April 11, 2001

Introduction

Good morning. Turn in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4, verses 11 and 12. This morning I want to talk to you on the subject of “Equipping the Saints: A View from the Other Side of the Pulpit.” This will be a little bit different message for you. I appreciate the opportunity that Dr. Patterson has given me. We did start a new business eleven months ago, but we have no sales— I did not say, “No profits”—I said, “No sales.” We have big losses, and we are learning how to deal with that. I am a businessman about 60 percent of the time now, and we try to encourage other businessmen, CEOs, and young men just entering the marketplace on how to integrate their faith and their work. Yesterday I did just that. As I left the trustee meeting at 3:00 yesterday afternoon, I scheduled an appointment with a friend of mine who is in Pennsylvania on some business. He is facing bankruptcy, and his question to me was, “What is the priority of my family and myself, my employees, and my vendors to whom I owe money?” He is facing a tough financial situation, and I spent an hour and a half with him on the phone. You, as pastors and Christian ministers, will have to help people like this in the workplace.

You will also have to help people with health problems. Seven years ago, right before I came on the board of trustees here at Southeastern, I went to a doctor; in fact I went to two doctors over a period of five months. At the end of five months, the second doctor said to me, “Kent, I think that you have a rare

FM 19:1 (Fall 2001) p. 51

disease. There are only a couple of hundred cases of this written up in medical journals across the world. You have a rare disease, and we are going to treat it with massive amounts of steroids. Now, I did not think steroids would be that bad. I slept only three nights a week over a period of five to six years. I slept very little and gained a pound a month for the first forty-eight months that I took steroids. It made me pretty hyper; in fact, someone who knew me well said, “Kent, you were pretty hyper before you took steroids.” Anyway, you also will have health probl...

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