Bittersweet Farm

It’s a crisp fall morning. It’s been a warm fall, but the temps dropped into the 40’s last night and this morning it was cool enough for me to wear a nice, thick flannel shirt -jacket that I have been looking forward to wearing on the first cool, autumn morning. This morning I put on my new, warm shirt and drove Grenfel over to speak/preach/tell at Jackson Christian School. I taught them how to pray:

–Help me prayers
–Please help others prayers
–Thank you prayers
–I’m sorry prayers, and
–I love you prayers

I told them what my mother taught me when I was a little boy crying at night because I lost my baseball.

She called me downstairs and we sat on the bottom step and she said; “Have you told the Lord about it? Have you prayed.”

“No, it seemed like such a small thing…”

She said; “Listen to me. If it is big enough to make you cry, if it is big enough to keep you awake at night, it’s big enough to pray about.”

I have taken that advice thousands of times in my life. I hope to teach the little ones in my life the lesson my mother taught me at the bottom of the stairs that night years ago in Logansville, Ohio.*

Bittersweet Farm
October 4, 2019

P.S. I prayed that night and in the morning I found my baseball and I learned a powerful lesson about prayer.

I do much of my writing on the second floor at a wooden desk flooded with soft light up in the corner of our little house. I have a window beside me where I can keep track of the night and day, the changing weather, and the coming and going of the seasons.

According to my faithful little weather app the temperature is going to drop into the 40’s overnight. I should have more sense, but I’m glad to hear it. It’s been warm and beautiful, but in these parts this time of year it’s supposed to be crisp and cool. The wind is picking up outside tonight. You can hear it in the trees. It sounds like an October night in Michigan is supposed to sound.

When people ask me what I love to do, my answer sounds kinda’ boring, I think, but I have always been a word guy, so I love to read, I love to write, and I do a fair amount of speaking. When I’m reading I always feel like I should stop and write. When I’m writing, things always come to mind to read. I wonder sometimes if I’m a writer who speaks, but I’m pretty sure I’m a speaker who writes. At night I am always reading until the very last minute I need to close my eyes to sleep.

Outside the room is a landing and a staircase. The landing is wide enough to accommodate a nice personal library where I have shelved some of my most treasured books to keep them near at hand.

Tonight I have a copy of Hannah Coulter, a novel by Wendell Berry on the desk beside me gently calling my name. Today I spent some time re-reading a couple books in preparation for my message Sunday; The Sacred Romance, by Brent Curtis and John Eldridge, and Life With a Capital “L” by Matt Heard, which is a pretty good book with a not-so-poetic name. I’m enjoying a collection of sermons by the late Eugene Peterson called When Kingfishers Catch Fire. (Matt Heard should have consulted with Eugene for help with a more poetic title for his wonderful book).

Anyway that is what is running though my brain among the flotsam and jetsam of a busy day this evening. I will do some storytelling at Jackson Christian School in the morning. Saturday I will have breakfast with the Bethel men and I will speak later in the day to the Bethel women. Sunday, of course I will teach my class and preach and in the evening we my little brother will come to Bethel to lead us in a hymn-sing followed by a variety of home-made pies and ice cream.

I hope my ramblings have been of some interest to you. I’d love to know all about your life if you have the time to tell it soon. Eugene Peterson wrote some wonderful books on being a pastor. He wrote that a pastor is not just a talker, a preacher, but he is a contemplative. He is a listener. He is a man of prayer.

These are among my ambitions, too.

The world we live in is beautiful because it is created and sustained by God. It is broken because it is cursed by God because of sin. Even though we like to say the every day is a beautiful day out on Bittersweet Farm, some days are more beautiful than others, because even on our peaceful acres in our quaint farmhouse we cannot escape the effects of sin and the fall and the curse.

Paul wrote about this with poetic beauty in the eighth chapter of the epistle to the Romans. He wrote that because we live in a sin-cursed world we groan and all of creation around us groans.

Yesterday I worked hard which involved hours of moving things and carrying boxes, some of them up and down stairs. When I got into bed I indulged in a little groaning.

I groaned a little last week, too. Last Friday on my day off I was looking forward to some reading and writing and watching the first blush of autumn from one of our porches on Bittersweet, but early in the morning I discovered a plumbing disaster and spent the entire day figuring out how to keep it from destroying our hickory hardwood floors. After hours of work, multiple trips to Home Depot, calls to our plumber son Wes and prayers (no I’m dead serious) genuine crying-out-to-God prayers, Lois turned on the faucet and everything worked like is supposed to. She quietly said; “Thank you.”

But that took a lot of groaning and grunting and grumbling first, because all is not well in this world, even out on Bittersweet.

It’s true with Lois and I and our whole family. We are sinners saved by grace and seated in the heavenliness in Christ. We are, each of us, heirs of eternal life and sealed with the indwelling Spirit of God. We are chosen and cherished by God. We are holy and blameless before Him in Christ. We are a part of the family, but we all still have very real struggles with sin.

Let me repeat myself. Please read this carefully. We still have very real struggles with sin and they can be ugly sometimes. Lois is a gifted photographer and so we have some beautiful pictures of the children and grandchildren. By the grace of God her genes usually overshadow mine and our offspring tend to look more like her than I, so that doesn’t hurt, so we have some nice pictures of the family, but you need to know they are staged, even the ones that look like they are not.

I like to say, the Pierpont Family is like a mediocre roofing job. We look good from the road but up close you are going to notice a few crooked shingles in each of us.

The only thing that all of us are consistently good at in sin. We each wrestle hard with what Paul called “indwelling sin.” But we wrestle by the grace of God. We know that sin wars against our souls every day. Peter said it like this: “Abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul.”

Sometimes people will say to me, “Well, you’re an optimist. I’m more of a realist.”

I reply, “As a Christian, given how we know this will end for us, I like to think it’s only realistic to be optimistic.”

My son, Chuck told me the other day; “Dad, you need to be careful. Someday you might fall out of the the Pollyanna Tree and hurt yourself.”

I think when I opened up the crawl-space under the kitchen and had to pump 70 gallons of steamy water from under our house I may have fallen out of the Pollyanna Tree and landed in water under the house, but I bounced when I landed because I have spent my lifetime trying to see life from God’s point-of-view and I am not surprised by evidence of fallenness in and around me even out on Bittersweet Farm where every day is a beautiful day and the little light in the kitchen is always on.

Bittersweet Farm
September 24, 2019

(This is Wes, our plumber son. I so thank God for him every day, but especially on days when I am trying to fix the plumbing. I continually thank God for Wes and whoever came up with Sharkbite connectors).

Take a couple minutes to read this. (It is Romans 8 in The Living Bible Paraphrase)

8 So there is now no condemnation awaiting those who belong to Christ Jesus. 2 For the power of the life-giving Spirit—and this power is mine through Christ Jesus—has freed me from the vicious circle of sin and death. 3 We aren’t saved from sin’s grasp by knowing the commandments of God because we can’t and don’t keep them, but God put into effect a different plan to save us. He sent his own Son in a human body like ours—except that ours are sinful—and destroyed sin’s control over us by giving himself as a sacrifice for our sins. 4 So now we can obey God’s laws if we follow after the Holy Spirit and no longer obey the old evil nature within us.

5 Those who let themselves be controlled by their lower natures live only to please themselves, but those who follow after the Holy Spirit find themselves doing those things that please God. 6 Following after the Holy Spirit leads to life and peace, but following after the old nature leads to death 7 because the old sinful nature within us is against God. It never did obey God’s laws and it never will. 8 That’s why those who are still under the control of their old sinful selves, bent on following their old evil desires, can never please God.

9 But you are not like that. You are controlled by your new nature if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that if anyone doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ living in him, he is not a Christian at all.) 10 Yet, even though Christ lives within you, your body will die because of sin; but your spirit will live, for Christ has pardoned it. 11 And if the Spirit of God, who raised up Jesus from the dead, lives in you, he will make your dying bodies live again after you die, by means of this same Holy Spirit living within you.

12 So, dear brothers, you have no obligations whatever to your old sinful nature to do what it begs you to do. 13 For if you keep on following it you are lost and will perish, but if through the power of the Holy Spirit you crush it and its evil deeds, you shall live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

15 And so we should not be like cringing, fearful slaves, but we should behave like God’s very own children, adopted into the bosom of his family, and calling to him, “Father, Father.” 16 For his Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts and tells us that we really are God’s children. 17 And since we are his children, we will share his treasures—for all God gives to his Son Jesus is now ours too. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.

18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will give us later. 19 For all creation is waiting patiently and hopefully for that future day when God will resurrect his children. 20-21 For on that day thorns and thistles, sin, death, and decay—the things that overcame the world against its will at God’s command—will all disappear, and the world around us will share in the glorious freedom from sin which God’s children enjoy.

22 For we know that even the things of nature, like animals and plants, suffer in sickness and death as they await this great event. 23 And even we Christians, although we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, also groan to be released from pain and suffering. We, too, wait anxiously for that day when God will give us our full rights as his children, including the new bodies he has promised us—bodies that will never be sick again and will never die.

24 We are saved by trusting. And trusting means looking forward to getting something we don’t yet have—for a man who already has something doesn’t need to hope and trust that he will get it. 25 But if we must keep trusting God for something that hasn’t happened yet, it teaches us to wait patiently and confidently.

26 And in the same way—by our faith—the Holy Spirit helps us with our daily problems and in our praying. For we don’t even know what we should pray for nor how to pray as we should, but the Holy Spirit prays for us with such feeling that it cannot be expressed in words. 27 And the Father who knows all hearts knows, of course, what the Spirit is saying as he pleads for us in harmony with God’s own will. 28 And we know that all that happens to us is working for our good if we love God and are fitting into his plans.

29 For from the very beginning God decided that those who came to him—and all along he knew who would—should become like his Son, so that his Son would be the First, with many brothers. 30 And having chosen us, he called us to come to him; and when we came, he declared us “not guilty,” filled us with Christ’s goodness, gave us right standing with himself, and promised us his glory.

31 What can we ever say to such wonderful things as these? If God is on our side, who can ever be against us? 32 Since he did not spare even his own Son for us but gave him up for us all, won’t he also surely give us everything else?

33 Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? Will God? No! He is the one who has forgiven us and given us right standing with himself.

34 Who then will condemn us? Will Christ? No! For he is the one who died for us and came back to life again for us and is sitting at the place of highest honor next to God, pleading for us there in heaven.

35 Who then can ever keep Christ’s love from us? When we have trouble or calamity, when we are hunted down or destroyed, is it because he doesn’t love us anymore? And if we are hungry or penniless or in danger or threatened with death, has God deserted us?

36 No, for the Scriptures tell us that for his sake we must be ready to face death at every moment of the day—we are like sheep awaiting slaughter; 37 but despite all this, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loved us enough to die for us. 38 For I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels won’t, and all the powers of hell itself cannot keep God’s love away. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, 39 or where we are—high above the sky, or in the deepest ocean—nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ when he died for us.

Nashville Again!

Thanks to the kindness of the people I serve at Bethel Church in Jackson, Michigan I am in Nashville with one of my ministry associates, Patrick Kelly. Pat has been the Pastor of Worship Arts and lots of other things at Bethel Church almost seven years now and he is delightful company. We hit a couple coffee shops and a BBQ place on the way down the the hours of travel passed swiftly as we talked about our families and planned things for Bethel.

We are here to attend the SING Conference. It’s an amazing event held in an amazing venue. We’ve been running into people we know from all over the country. It’s encouraging to see people who know and love and serve our Lord Jesus and His church.

I miss our quiet Bittersweet Farm and Lois and Hope. I miss my nice study and the people of Bethel, but I feel that what we are doing here is going to be something we can bring home to bring great joy and worship to the people we love and serve in Jackson.

There are thousands upon thousands of people here. Yesterday we heard from D. A. Carson and Dr. John Lennox. The well-known and gifted musicians here are too many to mention. Today we will hear from John MacArthur and this evening from John Piper in a meeting held in a local Arena. It is worship for the purpose of encouraging and helping others to worship and it’s hard to imagine a more worthy and noble thing to do. Joni Tada and Fernando Ortega sang and spoke as well.

I’m working on a few books. One of them is a book of fifty camp lessons I call: “Between the Fires: How to Keep the Campfire Burning All Your Life.” Today I am going to share one chapter from the book with you:

Knowing the Way Home

You don’t have to know the way home,
if you stay with the One who knows the way home.

Jeremiah 9:23 says; “Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”

I loved visiting my grandpa’s farm when I was a boy, that is probably why this story appealed to me so much when I heard it. I loved the story so much that I began to tell it when I preached at camps or youth retreats. It’s not my story, but that’s the whole thing about stories, you can give them away and keep them too.

Once there was a little four-year-old boy who was visiting his grandpa’s farm. Late in the afternoon his grandpa said; “Let’s go for a walk.”

Eager to explore the little lad agreed. They walked out over the hill and back beyond to the woods. They followed a path through the woods and the little lad spent some time getting crawdads from the creek. I was in no hurry. He walked across the creek on rocks and claimed bank on the far side and lay down in the fresh mint with his grandpa. It was a great day.

The grandfather wanted his sweet little boy to hold his hand but he would have none of that. He was too busy exploring.

They explored a rocky fence row and a meadow with flowers. The sun sank beneath the trees and suddenly the little fellow said; “We need to go home, grandpa.”

“Why, son. We are having such a good time.”

“Because it’s getting dark. We have to get home before dark.”

“Son, when it’s dark the stars come out. It’s beautiful. Are you sure you don’t want to stay and watch the stars come out?”

“No,” the little lad said, “We have to go home before dark. I don’t know my way home in the dark.”

The wise grandfather got down on his knee and he held the little boys face in his hands and looked deeply into his eyes. “Listen, my son and never forget this. As long as you are with me, you don’t need to know the way home.”

The Importance of Knowing God

If you really know God you don’t have to know the future. If you really know God you really don’t have to have your career figured out or who you are going to marry or your major in college. These things are important, but not nearly as important as knowing God, because if you don’t know God you won’t know the way home in the dark. But if you know God you will know all that you need to now when you need to know it and you will never be alone.

A Camp Song

Some of the songs you sing this week you will remember for the rest of your life. Over five decades ago I attended a camp and we sang a song in chapel that I have never gotten out of my heart. It goes like this:

I know who holds the future,
And I know He holds my hand.
With God things don’t just happen,
Everything by Him is planned.
So as I face tomorrow,
With its problems large and small.
I’ll trust the God of miracles,
Give to him my all.

Even as a small child at camp I understood the powerful security, provision, direction, encouragement, protection, and wisdom that would come from me when I know God and cling to his hand all the days of my life.

You don’t have to know the way home,
if you stay with the One who knows the way home.