Dr. Leonard Sweet at Ocean City Tabernacle

Please God — No Comma

You Missed Something Extraordinary

Some sermons are information. Some are inspiration. And then there are the ones that hand you a small card, point to a comma, and say: this little mark is why you’re not free.

Dr. Leonard Sweet — theologian, church historian, author of more than 60 books, and one of the most original minds in American Christianity — preached on Legacy Sunday at the Ocean City Tabernacle’s 8:30 AM Traditional Service. He opened with a housekeeper who hung up on the President of the United States. He preached from Nehemiah’s refusal to come down from the wall. And he pulled a card from his wallet that reframed the entire Christian life in two words.

The full service is on the Ocean City Tabernacle YouTube channel. Watch it, then pick up your own card from the back table and put it in your wallet.

Who Is Dr. Leonard Sweet?

Dr. Leonard Sweet is one of the most distinctive voices in American Christianity — a theologian, church historian, cultural critic, and author of more than 60 books. He is deeply rooted in the Wesleyan tradition and has spent decades thinking carefully about how the church engages a changing world without losing its soul. His most recent book explores a theology of sound.

He is no stranger to the Ocean City Tabernacle. He embodies, in Tom Sherf’s words, “the camp meeting tradition” — the Wesleyan revival heritage that gave birth to this very gathering in 1879. And on Legacy Sunday, August 2nd, he brought a message that felt less like a prepared sermon and more like a word that had been waiting for this exact morning.

Legacy Sunday — A Morning Built for This Message

August 2nd was already one of the most significant mornings in the Ocean City Tabernacle’s recent history. It was Legacy Sunday — the first-ever gathering specifically set apart to honor trustees, past and present, who have governed this ministry across nearly 147 years. The night before, the Collingsworth Family had packed the house. The morning began with Lee Martin leading the congregation through How Firm a Foundation, My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less, and In Christ Alone — a hymn set that felt almost prophetically calibrated for what was coming.

Tom Sherf honored the trustees by name and story, asking them to stand, calling the room to see them, and naming their work for what it is: governance as an act of worship.

And then Dr. Leonard Sweet stood up. And the room understood why he had been the right choice for this particular morning.

“When you look at Ocean City Tabernacle, you aren’t just looking at brick and mortar and wooden things that are gorgeous and beautiful. You’re looking at generations of wall building.”

A Housekeeper, a President, and the Only Question That Matters

Dr. Sweet opened with a story from the autobiography of John Kenneth Galbraith — economist, diplomat, Harvard professor, and advisor to multiple presidents. One exhausting day in Washington, Galbraith collapsed at home and told his housekeeper, Emily Gloria Wilson, to hold all his calls. He was taking a nap.

The phone rang. It was Lyndon Baines Johnson. The President of the United States.

“This is the president,” he said. “Get me Galbraith.”

Emily Gloria Wilson said: “I’m sorry, Mr. President. He’s napping.”

Johnson insisted. She held firm: “No, Mr. President. I don’t work for you. I work for him.”

She hung up on the most powerful man on earth. When Galbraith woke up and heard what happened, he was horrified. LBJ’s response? “I want to hire her.”

“How could she do it?” Dr. Sweet asked. “Because Emily had settled the great question of her life long before the telephone ever rang. She didn’t have to figure out in the moment what to do. Without hesitation, she answered the ultimate question that every one of you has to face every morning you get up.”

The question is: Who do you work for?

“The Christian life — the life of faith — begins when you find the nerve to look at the highest bidder calling your attention and say: I don’t work for you. I work for him.”

The Presidents Are Always Calling

Most of us, Dr. Sweet acknowledged, don’t have the White House on speed dial. But make no mistake — the presidents are calling.

The president of public opinion is on line one. The president of success is holding on line two. The president of approval is buzzing in your pocket. Right behind him: the president of fear, the president of expectations, the president of insecurity. Each one says the same thing: “Wake up. I’m on the line. Bow to my supremacy. Bow to my urgency.”

Dr. Sweet was disarmingly honest about his own vulnerability to approval. “I have a lot of spaniel in me,” he said. “I like to be petted. I like approval. I like to please people. That’s why we stand at the back of the church afterwards and shake hands.” The president of approval, he said, was buzzing in his own pocket even as he spoke.

Freedom from every one of those presidents begins with one settled answer: I don’t work for you.

“The life of faith begins when you find the nerve to look at the highest bidder calling your attention and say — I don’t work for you. I work for him.”

Nehemiah on the Scaffolding — “I Cannot Come Down”

Thousands of years before Emily Gloria Wilson, Dr. Sweet said, there was a cup bearer turned construction foreman who stood on a pile of rubble in Jerusalem and did the exact same thing. His name was Nehemiah.

He read from Nehemiah 6:1-4. Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem — regional adversaries determined to stop the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s wall — sent a message: “Come down. Let us meet together in the plain of Ono.” Four times they sent the message. Four times Nehemiah gave the same answer.

“I am carrying on a great work and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?”

“You cannot build a holy wall,” Dr. Sweet said, “while you keep climbing down to take meetings with the people who want that wall to fail.” He let the parallel settle over the room. The trustees of the Ocean City Tabernacle — for 147 years — have been exactly this: people who refused to come down.

“I am doing a great work and cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?”

Please— Comma — God: The Punctuation That Changes Everything

Dr. Sweet reached into his wallet and pulled out a small card. He has carried it for years. He had hundreds of them available at the back of the Tabernacle that morning for anyone who wanted one.

On the card are two words with a comma between them — and the comma has a thick red line drawn straight through it.

Please God.

Most of our lives, he said, are grammatically trapped by that comma. We live and pray in the mode of “Please, comma, God” — a constant stream of requests, demands, needs. “Please, comma, God, I need this. Please, comma, God, fix that person. Please, comma, God, balance this budget.”

“The comma,” he said, “turns the Almighty into a celestial vending machine. The comma turns the Holy Spirit into a room service concierge — your own personal DoorDash. The comma makes God the assistant and you the director.”

But take out the comma and everything changes. “Please God” becomes a posture, not a petition. It becomes the question Emily asked, the answer Nehemiah gave, the motto Jesus lived by.

He pointed to the Westminster Shorter Catechism — its very first question: “What is the chief end of man?” Answer: “To glorify God and enjoy him forever.” To glorify God. To please God. No comma. And to experience God’s pleasure. To enjoy him. To pleasure in pleasing God.

“That little curve — the comma — is a hook, and everything that wants a piece of you lives inside it. The fear, the flattery, the demands, the crowd.”

“The comma turns the Almighty into a celestial vending machine. Take out the comma and it’s a whole different word, a whole different life. Not please-comma-God. Please God.”

Fear Is the Ink That Writes the Comma Back In

Why do we keep penciling the comma back into our lives? Dr. Sweet gave a single-word answer: fear.

“Fear is the ink that writes the comma back into our lives. Fear is what takes calls from lesser authorities like presidents. Fear is the subtle gravity that coaxed Nehemiah to come down and be diverted from the mission God had given him.”

He then ran a breathtaking list through the biblical canon — every giant moment of redemptive history hinging on someone refusing to let fear write their comma back in.

If Abraham had feared the unknown, there would have been no journey of faith. If Moses had feared his stammering tongue, there would have been no Exodus. If Ruth had feared a stranger’s land, there would have been no kingly lineage to David. If Esther had feared failure, there would have been no “for such a time as this.” If Mary had feared the impossible, there would have been no manger in Bethlehem. If Peter had feared the deep waters, there would have been no walking on water. If Paul had feared his fierce critics, there would have been no epistles to build the church.

And then, quietly: “What about your life? The phone call you keep avoiding. The apology you keep rehearsing. The calling you keep filing under ‘someday’ because you’re terrified you’ll fail in front of everybody. Every comma you leave on the page of your life is fear signing its name.”

“Every comma you leave on the page of your life is fear signing its name. You have exactly one decision to make every morning you get up: Who do I work for?”

Jesus — The Life With No Comma

Dr. Sweet closed with the only human life in history from which the comma was entirely, perfectly erased. John 8:29 — Jesus speaking: “He who sent me is with me. The Father has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.”

“This is Jesus’s motto for his ministry,” Dr. Sweet said. “Please God. No comma.”

He noted that before Jesus ever performed a miracle, preached a sermon, or healed anyone, he heard these words at his baptism: “This is my beloved Son, who gives me great pleasure.” Jesus lived out of God’s pleasure. And out of that pleasure, he lived to please God — all the way to the cross.

“Take the red pen. Draw the line through your own comma. Turn ‘please, comma, God’ into ‘please God.’ Settle in your own life the question once and for all. And when you finally do — the world quietly loses every ounce of leverage over you. Every patch of dirt you walk turns to holy ground. Every ordinary task becomes a cosmic calling. Every annoying interruption becomes a divine appointment.”

He closed on John Wesley, whose tradition gave birth to the camp meeting from which this Tabernacle grew: “My favorite Wesley sermon is ‘Redeem the Time.’ You don’t kill time. You redeem it. It’s precious. When you kill time, you wound eternity.”

“When you finally take the red pen and draw the line through your own comma — the world quietly loses every ounce of leverage over you. Every patch of dirt you walk turns to holy ground. Every ordinary task becomes a cosmic calling.”

A Closing Word — and a Legacy That Keeps Building

Jane French, longtime trustee and Tabernacle treasurer, followed Dr. Sweet with a matching gift announcement — every gift of $100 or more given that day would be matched in honor of her parents’ wedding anniversary on August 3rd. It was a perfectly timed act of generosity on a morning built around faithful stewardship.

Tom Sherf closed the service with the doxology and sent the congregation out with the benediction that has defined the Tabernacle’s summer: “Go proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. Nurture the faith in the next generation. Serve your church, your families, and your community.”

But the words that followed the congregation out the door were simpler than that. Two words. No comma.

Please God.

The full service is available now on the Ocean City Tabernacle YouTube channel. Dr. Sweet’s cards are still available at the back. Watch the message and share it with someone who needs to settle the great question.

Watch the Full Service — Ocean City Tabernacle on YouTube

If you missed Dr. Sweet’s Legacy Sunday message in person, the full service is available now on the Ocean City Tabernacle’s official YouTube channel. Watch it, share it, and come back next Sunday.

Watch Dr. Leonard Sweet: “Please God — No Comma” — youtube.com/live/sMCQixxcf6c

Subscribe — new messages all summer long: youtube.com/@OceanCityTabernacle

Ocean City Tabernacle • 550 Wesley Ave, Ocean City, NJ 08226 • octabernacle.org

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