Series: Finishing Faithful–1 Peter
Sermon: Elect Exiles (1 Peter 1:1-2)
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1. [1 Peter] Elect Exiles (1 Peter 1:1-2) Audio
Making Friends
Years ago when our first-born, Kyle, was just a little fella with fat cheeks and chubby hands we had a Friend Day at the little village church I pastored at the time. I challenged everyone to bring a friend. I actually asked them to get their friend to sign a card promising that they would be there.
Driving home one day with little Kyle he said with worry in his voice: “I don’t have a friend.”
“That’s OK.” I said.
He said, “No, I want to bring my own friend to Friend Day.”
I had an idea. “Kyle we are going to visit a family. I’m going to talk to them for a while then I am going to tell them about Friend Day. Then I’m going to tell them you have a question. I want you to look your lady right in the eyes and say, ‘I don’t have a friend for Friend Day. Will you be my friend.’ Then I want you to keep looking right at her and just be very quiet.”
We drove to Russell and Pauline Litt’s tidy white home right on State Route 661 in the village of Brandon and went in for a nice visit. Russell was a quiet man. Pauline was more verbal. We made small talk for a while and then I told them about our Friend Day. Then I said, “Kyle has a question for you.”
I looked at Kyle. Kyle looked at Pauline. He said, “Yea, we’re having a Friend Day at church and everybody in supposed to bring a friend, but I don’t have a friend. I really want to have a friend for Friend Day. Will you be my friend.”
In his little hands he was holding his Friend Day promise card. She immediately said, “Why of course we will be your friends. Bring that card over here.”
She took the card and signed her name. On Friend Day they were true to their promise. She wore a flowered dress and he wore a gray suit with a neat tie. The next Sunday and every Sunday thereafter, as long as I pastored the village church in Brandon, Russell and Pauline were regulars.
When I went to the churc
h there were about 60 in attendance. On Friend Day we filled the sanctuary and the fellowship hall and there were 321 souls in attendance. After that our average attendance jumped to over 150 in that little village church.
That is a sweet memory. Russell and Pauline are gone. Kyle is a pastor in Grand Rapids still making friends and inviting people to church. There are other Russells and Paulines out there, though who would be open t
o a friendly invitation to church or lunch or a gospel concert or a cook-out. It’s not that hard. You just have to
lookem’ in the eye and be quiet.
Bittersweet Farm
September 2021
Bittersweet Farm Journal | September 20, 2021 | Men and Boys Following Jesus
Barakel Father-Son Retreat | September 17-19, 2021
This weekend I travelled north again (In Spurgeon the GMC) with my good friend Allen Miracle and his son Jacob to preach to dads and sons at Barakel. (Have I ever mentioned that it is one of the sweetest places on earth?)
Kyle preached to men from Hope college on Friday night and then he and Kyle Kenneth, Oliver, and Leland (grandsons) jumped in the Big Red Ford Truck and headed north in the night to join me. It was a perfect weekend, the kind you hope for when you want to make a memory with people you love. Jon Ford lead chapel. Chris Knobloch played the piano and taught the little guys (and there were about 50 of them). Luke Benninger did an amazing job on programming and Dave and Rita made sure we were really well fed.
The boys “blobbed” and swam, played kickball and ping-pong, rode the zip-line over and over again, and they even won a canoe race and rode the Thunder Express. We ate well, as always and enjoyed many stimulating conversations. Some if them were early in the cool morning by the fire. It’s hard to imagine a more delightful way to spend a weekend.
On Saturday night Kyle spoke to the men and sons. It was the highlight of my week to team up in ministry that way. I do really think we helped the men. The ride up and back were times of delightful fellowship. If you ever get a chance to attend a retreat at Barakel, take it. You will be glad you did. (There are Men’s and Women’s retreats coming up this fall and winter retreats as well). You can see them here.
Saved and Baptized!
Sunday our nephew Bobby Gandolfo was baptized. I invited him to Barakel this summer and he was unable to go. He lived in Kentucky. That same week a local church in Berea, Kentucky reached out to him and sent him to camp. He was saved. They have been good to him and it was thrilling to watch his baptism via FaceBook Live. Thank God for good people who are living in obedience to the Great Commission.
Champion Canoe Racers
Father-Son 2021
And Now, A Story
Maybe you have heard me say this, “If I am asked come and tell stories I will gladly come and tell stories–but I will always preach. If I am asked to come and preach, I will come and preach, but I will always tell stories, too.” Either way, when I speak, I speak truth from scripture and I tell stories. That is just how I roll. That is me. This I know about myself and I report it without a hint of apology. If you don’t like preaching with stories in it you will want to surf the web for a different preacher. If you like stories without meaningful truth you will have to look elsewhere. I don’t tell tall tales. I tell true stories with truth within them and truth behind them. I think stories are entertaining, but I don’t tell stories to entertain.
Sometimes I drive to the school in my neighborhood to tell stories. Sometimes I take a long trip cross the state. There have been times it has been my privilege to fly to other side of the country to tell stories to thousand of people. Can you imagine? Other times I just step out on the porch for a telling. I always tell stories in the Bethel pulpit. Sometimes I’m paid handsomely, sometimes I tell over a good cup of coffee, usually I go to tell where you would never go if it was for the money alone. Some of the best places to tell stories are camps, because people have come hungry for story and the best camps creative a powerful setting for story by the fire or by the water or in a quaint rustic chapel or even under stars.
The Bible is over seventy percent narration and Jesus, the Master was a masterful storyteller. Stories stick to the ribs, they tend to lodge themselves in the memory. They can also kind of slip up on you and help you consider a truth you might otherwise resist.
I love what I call the “storytelling moment,” that time when the room grows silent, when ambient noise stops, when every eye is fixed on the teller and every hear is tuned to the story. The storytelling moment is a rare and wonderful human experience. It’s as old as time and it will never go out of style. There will always be stories to tell. Stories can be powerfully arresting, inordinately influential, even if it is told without adornment or props. A story can stand on its own two feet.
This weekend in four sessions I watched the eyes of the men and their sons as we taught the truths of scripture and illustrated them with stories. At times there was laughter, sometimes even a tear or two. But there were times when the “Storytelling Moment” fell over the whole group and we were all together in the story. I like to think some good was done. We won’t know until the final score is in, but truth was told, powerful truth. That’s my story and now its yours.
Bittersweet Farm
September 20, 2021
Packing Up to Leave
We were packing to leave. I made the two-hour drive to load the unsold candles. There were only a few boxes. I loaded them as quickly as I could, keeping my head down, working hard. I stashed all the implements and accoutrements required to display the candles in a fetching way on top of the boxes.
Whatever she did must’ve worked. The Preacher’s Wife Candle Company achieved record sales last weekend. She was in a happy mood as I wrestled her gear into the cars. We were almost done save the Herculean task of disassembling the canopy tent and packing it away when a man walked directly up to me looked me square in the face and said, “I’m gonna help you take your tent down.”
I said, “oh, that’s kind. You don’t have to do that.”
He goes, “No I need to turn my truck around right where your tent is so I’m going to help you take it down.”
In his voice I could hear the hills of Kentucky. I asked him where he was from.
“Kentucky,” he said, and I saw a hint of a smile on his face. Kentucky people are humble people except that they’re proud of being from Kentucky.
“Louisville,” he said, and he said it right, the way a native would.
I’m glad he came along when he did. I had driven the stakes down deep in the hard soil and couldn’t get them up. He was stronger than I and motivated to get my tent out of his way. He pulled them up
When your wife’s company name is The Preacher’s Wife Candle Company people always treat you with a special curiosity or deference. They realize if you’re with her you’re probably the preacher and they kind of look you up and down. Christians are kind. Everyone else is curious or they are openly skeptical.
In a few brief moments we worked together there was something I liked about him. You can do it but you really have to be a rogue for me not to like you if you’re from Kentucky. He had handsome lines in his face a good smile and bright eyes which he aimed directly at you as he spoke.
When we finished our task I helped guide his truck back into place. He shook my hand firmly and smiled and said, “I will see you in the rapture.”
My heart was filled with warmth for my new Kentucky brother.
Lois said, “I should know who they are but I don’t I think they’re on Instagram.”
Almost everyone in these shows has an Instagram presence. I think the whole thing is built on the notoriety that you get on Instagram. The next morning, lying in bed, she announced that she had discovered them.
When the lady walked up to me and offered her husband‘s help she said, “We have a 6 hour drive home.”
I could tell she was tired and wanted to get her big truck on the road. Watching her Instagram story, I realized they had trouble with a tire because they overloaded their truck and it took them over 24 hours to finally arrive safely at home.
I sent them a note of condolence as I’m sure many others did, I found myself secretly hoping that we do meet them sometime before the rapture.
Bittersweet Farm
September 13, 2021
42 Years Ago Today…
At 13 years old Lois walked down the aisle of the Southside Baptist Tabernacle in the West Willow subdivision in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and became a follower of Jesus.
42 years ago today on a grey autumn day she walked down the same aisle and vowed to spend the rest of her life as my wife.
We drove away in our little green Plymouth Duster. She changed from her wedding gown to a pretty mint green dress in the car. My heart raced at the intimacy of it. We sat close on the bench seat. She smelled like “Windsong.” The song “We’ve Only Just Begun” by the Carpenters played on the radio as we drove south along Interstate 75.
We stoped for our first meal at Bob Evans in Lima, Ohio. She had ham. I had chicken noodles. We started our life together in a cozy apartment in the up-stairs of a neat farmhouse near Pleasant Hill, Ohio. I think we had 300.00 between us. The summer before she laid away the most inexpensive living room furniture you could buy and paid it off with her earnings. The apartment was fresh and sunny. it smelled of new carpet. To this day the smell of new carpets takes me back to those first months of our marriage. On autumn nights the wind off the fields blew the curtains in our open windows and scented our love-nest with the fragrance of autumn air.
God has given us an amazing life in spite of our very real brokenness and ever-present faults. I’m sure our many failures and indwelling sin have been used by God’s sovereign hand to help us help each other grow in holiness and deepen our dependance on God.
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:11 ESV)
Lois has been a tough, loyal, woman of stubborn conviction and simple faith. She is still following Jesus and she is still my loyal wife. God has given us four sons, four daughters and soon 18 grandchildren. God has allowed us to be in full-time Ministry for over 42 years starting in the corner of a corn field in the parsonage of a little country church in Ohio.
All this is a testimony to the truth of the Bible and the every-morning new mercies of God.
Two simple kids drove off together crunched together on the front seat of a little Plymouth. Looking back over the decades I know we were not alone. We were never alone. The stories of God’s kindness to us, his provision and protection could easily fill a large book.
Today I rise before the sun with a very thankful heart. Thank you, Lord for Lois. Thank you Lois Pierpont for the life you have given us.
Bittersweet Farm Journal | September 7, 2021 | A Remarkable Answer to Prayer
Things are quiet out on Bittersweet. We have candle shows two weekends in a row, Lois spent weeks pouring candles for the show and almost sold out, so she is back at work for this weekend. She would be giddy with joy if she sold out again. I hope she does. When she pours the candles the little farmhouse is fragrant with welcome smells. Apples and Cinnamon. Orange Spice. Apple Butter. Maple Sugar Cookie. Farm Fresh Coffee. Banana Bread. They make your mouth water.
Sunday was a great day at Bethel Church. We had a big Family Fun Festival with bounce houses, games, hot dogs, corn dogs, and laughter all day. The weather was perfect except for the times it got a little chilly after every, single, child in the entire church emptied the cold water bucket on my head in the “splash the elders” game. I love each of them and pray that they will have happy memories of growing up at Bethel and love God with all their hearts all their lives. It was a good, healthy event and enjoyed by all who attended. The good men of the church allowed themselves to be soaked over and over again for the cause. AWANA and full Sunday School launch next week, along with three new adult Sunday School classes.
A Remarkable Answer to Prayer
Lois and I often have conversations over Facebook posts. She will read me something a parishioner wrote or I will read something to her.
The other day we were reading one of Ken Wyatt‘s post. He’s a retired newspaper editor and a member of the Bethel Church for many years.
Ken and his wife Gigi live out on the lake. It’s always interesting to read his take on things. An evening with the Wyatts is always a treat. Last time out they made a shepherds pie it was delightful of course as well as the conversation. We only left out of politeness I could’ve stayed for hours more. Sometimes I meet Ken and we walk and talk and pray.
Looking at here phone Lois says, “Look, GiGi is driving the boat.”
“Oh, they have a pontoon boat? I would love to have a ride with them in their pontoon boat,” I said.
“Don’t you dare invite yourself out there, Ken. We haven’t had them over since they had us out for shepherds pie.”
“Oh, I don’t have to invite myself. The Lord hears my prayers. I’ll just tell him.”
Then I just stopped without further banter and I said, “Dear Lord you can do anything. If it’s your will, put it on Ken and Gigi’s hearts to invite us out for a boat ride. I’ll praise you for it.”
Lois gave me the side-eye and not another word was spoken about it to anyone until the next Sunday after church at Bethel.
Lois came into my study after church and said, “You are not going to believe what happened. Ken and Gigi just offered us a ride on their pontoon boat.”
“The Lord answered my prayer didn’t he,” I exalted.
“He did. Yes he did.”
More and more I am learning what every devout believer learns: Simply open your heart up to God and prayer and trust Him to know what is best for you. This summer over and over again in my travels and preaching I have pointed to the beautiful passage in Matthew 7:7=11 from our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount:
““Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:7–11, ESV)
I’ll write about this again after our tour of Swain’s Lake with Ken and Gigi. I’ll be sure to get some pictures. Maybe they will let Lois drive the boat, but don’t say anything about it. I’ll just tell the Lord.
Bittersweet Farm
September 7, 2021
Yesterday, October 8, 2021 we made our way out to the Wyatt’s Pine Cottage on SwIns Lake for amazing apple pie and conversation. I even got to drive the boat.
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