*Title:* Slow Down, Watch, and Listen — Ron Krueger, March 7, 2026

There used to be a railroad crossing in Gentry with no arms, no red lights, and no bells — just a white sign that said stop, look, and listen. Ron Krueger remembers drivers racing the SWEPCO train past it without ever looking either way, and he borrows the sign for the closing message of Ozark Adventist Academy's week of prayer on renewal: we don't necessarily need to stop, he says — but we do need to slow down, watch what Jesus did with people, and listen to His words of comfort. The sermon begins where the week of prayer began, with the hearts of students: asked anonymously why they are Christians, the most-repeated answers were “because of God's love for me” and “because Jesus is my best friend.” That is the joy of teaching, and the heart a week of prayer is meant to renew.

The sermon proper opens with John the Baptist in prison (Luke 7). John had done everything right — walked the straight and narrow, told others to do the same, heard God's own voice declare Jesus His beloved Son at the baptism — and now sat in a dark cell, disappointed and doubting, his world fallen apart. He sent disciples to ask Jesus directly, “Are you the Messiah?” Jesus answered in silence, walked away to the sick, the hungry, the weary, the blind and deaf, and at day's end sent the disciples back with only this: go tell John what you have seen and heard. Krueger presses the application with his own biography: as a student he thought college would bring time to watch and listen; as a teacher he thought being a dean would; then principal, law school, practice, a return to education, retirement — every stage promised time, and none delivered it. Days and weeks and years slip by while we insist our hearts are fine and don't need renewing today. “Don't let it happen,” he warns. “It's like trying to race that train with no signals.”

The heart of the message is watching Jesus with the overlooked. Krueger asks us to imagine His hand taking the widow's son's hand, life returning up the arm — then sets beside it our own record: a fallen businessman helped every time in a filmed experiment, a fallen homeless man helped only twice in ten; a lost child in a mall helped by 20 of 4,000 passersby; a shivering boy at a bus stop asked “Are you cold?” and left cold. Jesus never asked the paralytic, the bleeding woman, or the adulterous woman, “Why did you choose this?” — He touched and healed first, while the Pharisees asked who's to blame. If Jesus walked into our sanctuary, Krueger asks, who would He go to first? He would see the needs we can't see or choose not to see — and He has asked us, not someone else, to represent Him: “Take my heart into you, and touch somebody.” The closing appeal is deliberately small: don't wait for a grand moment. Daily slow down, watch for one person down the pew or at the next desk who needs hope, and carry your new heart to them this week — just one person — and you will be doing just as Jesus did.

*Key texts:* Luke 7:18–23; Psalm 51:10 · *Also referenced:* the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37); the widow of Nain's son (Luke 7:11–17); the paralytic (Mark 2:1–12); the woman with the issue of blood (Mark 5:25–34)

*Watch:* https://youtu.be/vI3YIPlKhW0 · *Listen:* https://cloud-1de12d.becdn.net/media/original/4b70906d1c8c86e2fe4db21d3215c0ec.mp3