GARBC Annual Conference will be held this week in Dearborn. Great music, preaching, workshops, ministry dialog, discussion, and fellowship. Hashtag #GARBCConf on Twitter.
The End of American Civilization
It’s the time of the year families take vacations. In the mid-seventies Dad and Mom created an enduring memory for us. We would take a loop through the Smokies and Washington D.C. on a camping vacation. We would visit some Christian colleges. We would take in historic sites along the way. We would picnic out of a cooler. We would spend every night in our cabin tent together. The big Chrysler held six. Mom and Dad in front. One child in between. Three across the back. Our family of three sons and one daughter was a car-full.
Toward evening we would begin to watch for camp-site billboards. In the back seat we campaigned for a camp-ground with a swimming pool. It was a beautiful week. Most of the camp grounds had swimming pools. We tired ourselves out swimming until the pool closed and then we would all lie snug in our sleeping bags and listen to crickets and the wind in the trees as we drifted off to sleep. One evening in the mountains our site was along a creek and we fell asleep to the music of water over rocks.
One night we were camping in a small town somewhere in Tennessee. We broke camp early in the morning. Dad said we would have breakfast after we got a few “miles under our belt.” Within an hour we topped a rise in the road and rounded the bend into an idyllic village. We stopped the car and got out to stretch. Mom began to spread out our breakfast on the hood of the car. A grandfatherly man appeared from nowhere.
“Good Morning.”
“Hello, sir,” Dad said.
“Are you on vacation?”
“Yes, sir. We are.”
“Well , welcome to Tennessee.”
“Thank you. It’s a beautiful state.”
“Well, we’re proud of it.”
The gray-haired man pulled a ring of keys from his side and said, “Don’t eat out here. You can use our Town Hall. There are rest-rooms and a nice table. Can I make you some coffee.”
I would have been more comfortable staying there with the car. We lived in a suburb of a major city. People there were human and kind enough, but they kept their distance a bit more and we were not used to such overt hospitality. Dad, I’m sure feeling the same but knowing to that a refusal would be impolite, immediately accepted the offer of the stranger. We enjoyed our breakfast around a table in the town hall making small-talk with the kind old man.
Soon we were on the road again idling through other mountain towns with their halls and churches and schools and hospitable people. We had experienced the gentle touch of civilization. We drove away with the warm feeling you have whenever you are touched by human civility. I’ve learned that it’s a feeling worth seeking.
In the Gospel of Matthew the story is told of the time when Jesus sent out his disciples and gave them special power over sickness and spiritual oppression. He told them to herald that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand and offer their help freely to anyone who showed them hospitality.
“Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.” (Matthew 10:40-42)
You really never know what will happen when you exercise common civility and extend simple hospitality. The Epistle to the Hebrews says sometimes in showing hospitality to strangers people have entertained angels without knowing it.
Who decides how long American civilization will last? We do. Every day.
Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
June 18, 2013
A Trial Thick with Irony
Sermon Title: A Trial Thick with Irony
Text: Matthew 26:57-68
Speaker: Pastor Kenneth L. Pierpont
Place: Evangel Baptist Church–Taylor, Michigan
Date: June 16, 2013 AM
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Penniless Vagrant
Drove to the hospital this morning before I’d had my coffee. Arrived to realize that I was without my wallet. No parking pass, no money for gas, NO COFFEE! Plunged into despair. Feeling like a penniless vagrant I prevailed upon the mercy of a parking attendant for a spot in the valet lot. I made my call and hiked back to the car and scrounged breathlessly for change in the ash-tray. For such a time as this I discovered an unused coffee coupon which entitled me to a free cup of premium roast coffee at the Golden Arches. Outright disaster averted. Equilibrium-restored I’m writing you. It’s dreary, wet and gray today. (I’m always inclined to spell this kind of gray-grey, British way). It is a perfect day for some writing.
Squatters
We used to live in a pretty exclusive neighborhood in the Western Suburbs of Chicago. The people who owned homes there (we did not) were people of considerable means. Across the street was a huge, white, Mediterranean-style home. Each of it’s many garage stalls was embedded with a luxury car sparkling like a gem. The occupants of the home owned the kind of dog wealthy people own. Our home was nice enough but not really ours. Our cars were pretty utilitarian, none of them even remotely gem-like. Our garage was filled with boxes of my books and the residual accoutrements of decades-worth of Lois’s crafts and hobbies and business-endeavors. We didn’t have a dog. No room in the family budget for animals. Most of our money was used to feed and clothe people.
After we lived there for a while I noticed an interesting pattern. It was clear that the people had at least the thought that, “my pet needs that I walk them once or twice”, I think that’s about were it ends with them though. The little neighbor dog was walked every day. He wasn’t walked very far. Even though he was the dog of people of means who lived in a big fancy house in a pricey neighborhood clearly he still had daily needs which were attended to much in the same way half-breed curs on the bad side of town take care of their daily needs. In the case of middle-class dogs their owners follow them around and gather the product of their necessaries and tote it home in one of those ubiquitous plastic bags. Mutts in bad neighborhoods are not attended to in that way. Rich folk seem to have another plan altogether.
As I mentioned, the neighbors in the impressive Mediterranean-style didn’t walk their dog very far. In fact one of the older girls just walked the dog across the street two or three times and day and watched while he made a deposit on our lawn. She didn’t bother with the plastic bag, I supposed because she knew we were squatters and not landed gentry like her people. Her boldness was remarkable and her dog was remarkably regular.
Lately I’ve been teaching and preaching my way through the book of Ephesians with a group that meets on Wednesday evenings in the Evangel auditorium. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians opens with a soaring paean to the spiritual wealth and privileges that are the inheritance of every single simple believer who is, as Paul loves to put it, in Christ.
A paean is a song of praise. A peon is a debtor held in hard-labor servitude to his creditor. So you could call the first section of Paul’s Ephesians letter a beautiful paean for common peons.
So here is a gentle reminder—something to think about when people are dumping their unmentionables on your life. If you are in Christ you may be a pilgrim on this earth but you are not a squatter. You are destined to inherit the whole thing—the whole thing. When heaven and earth are one we who are in Christ will be neither pilgrims nor squatters.
In Christ we are chosen and we are cherished. In Christ we are the beloved children of the benevolent King of the Universe! In Christ we are already invested with great spiritual wealth in the reality of the spirit-world—in the “heavenlies” and one day heaven and earth will be united in one under the dominion of Christ. In that day we will reign and rule and enjoy that restored creation with Him forever. If you let that sink in it’s enough to make you burst into song.
Paul reveals the truth that God’s eternal plan is to make all spiritual realities spill out onto the earth when the time is right. “…as a plan for the fulness of time to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth…” (Eph. 1:10)
Give that some thought while you are walking your dog today. Oh, and don’t forget your plastic bag.
Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
June 10, 2013
Preaching is Like Having a Baby
In case you haven’t noticed lately–no one’s life is a bowl of cherries. Life only looks easy when you see other people doing it. A friend of mine once said; “Being a pastor is a wonderful gig–if you can get it.” That’s true. It is a wonderful calling and I love it. But it’s not a bowl of cherries.
I have a theory that no one really has an easy job. The only easy job is the one you see someone else doing and you don’t know the labor involved. When you approach a text of Scripture to teach it, it is just hard, hard work. Paul spoke of laboring in the Word. (1 Tim. 5:17) It is labor. It’s hard mental work. It’s hard spiritual work. It’s wonderful work, but hard work that takes a lot of time if you are going to do it right. The time I spend in this work is my expression of love to the Chief Shepherd and to His flock… you. (He told Peter, “If you love me…feed my flock…”).
Sometimes writing a message feels like having a baby. When you conceive of the idea it is delightful. As the message grows, it’s a little uncomfortable at times. A little heart-burn, you kind waddle around with it and you twist and turn as the idea grows in you. Then there is that time of transition… it’s painful and hard and you feel like you are going to die. Like a woman in labor (Paul actually used this simile) you have to pass through the jaws of death to bring forth life.
Every once in a while you hear about a lady who has a baby without considerable pain… say while she’s doing the dishes. Sometimes a message comes easily like that. It’s as if you just tap a passage with the tools of meditation and it bursts into sparkling diamonds! That happened this week as I prepared my message for Sunday morning. I love it when that happens. Sunday morning I will share those gems from the Evangel Pulpit. Join us if you can.
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