Bittersweet Farm
Title: A Heart As Big As The Whole World
Speaker: Pastor Kenneth L. Pierpont
Text: Romans 15:8-33
Place: Evangel Baptist Church-Taylor, Michigan
Date: November 9, 2014 AM
Title: I Want It My Way – Part 2
Text: Romans 14:1-15:7
Speaker: Ken Pierpont
Place: Evangel Baptist-Taylor, Michigan
Speaker: Pastor Kenneth L. Pierpont
Text: Romans 14; Galatians 5:16-26
Place: Evangel Baptist Church–Taylor, Michigan
Date: October 26, 2014 AM
Title: “It’s Not Complicated”
Text: Romans 13:8-14
Place: Evangel Baptist Church–Taylor, Michigan
Date: October 19. 2014 AM
In the picture above Leland is in the black watch cap and Oliver is the kid in the bright red sweater with the perpetual smile.
So our oldest son and his wife Elizabeth have three adorable sons, Kyle (K2), Oliver, and Leland.
Our son Kyle calls me Sunday morning and says; “Do you have a minte? I have a story for your back pocket.” I’m all ears. As the story goes–
Leland wakes up in an unconsolable mood on Sunday morning. He’s not at all happy with life. He’s grouchy about the cereal choices. His dad’s sunny banter only drives him deeper into his owly disposition.
Oliver, the next oldest, wakes up most mornings with a half-smile on his face. He enters the room and looks over at Leland as if to say, “What up?”
Leland says; “Don’t look at me.”
Oliver chuckles and settles into the seat in the window where the sun is shining through. He leans back on his chair. Leland knows that one of the house rules is “No Leaning Back On The Chair.” He says; “Don’t lean back.”
Oliver is chill. The smile never leaves his face.
Leland drops his blanket and starts to cry… “…blanket—blanket—BLANKET!…” shouting toward Oliver.
Oliver gets up, walks over, picks up the blanket, hands it to Leland and then he says; “Leland, do you need a hug?”
Without waiting for a reply He hugs his brother for a few seconds.
With his brother’s hug the dark cloud moves from little Leland’s soul and the crabby mood lifts like fog in bright sunlight.
Learn from Oliver. Does someone in your life just need a hug today? You know what to do.
Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
October 14, 2014
BONUS STUFF:
I was looking up Owly and ran across this little exchange on the site of the “Word Detective.” It put a smile on my face so I thought I would pass it on to you NEC (No Extra Charge). Here you are—Thank me later:
“Dear Word Detective: When I was growing up in rural Nova Scotia, my mother often used a word to describe my sister or myself when we were in irritable moods. I have never known how to spell this word, but it sounds like “owly,” as in “Your sister’s in an owly mood” or “Why are you so owly?” Anything you could tell me about this word would be gratefully appreciated! — Lady G.
That’s a good question. Incidentally, of all the possible introductory biographical clauses one could encounter in such a question, “when I was growing up in Nova Scotia” ranks as one of the most evocative and romantic. It’s right up there with “growing up in the Cotswolds” and “as a child on the moors of Cornwall,” and certainly beats my “when I was growing up in suburban Connecticut.” Technically, I suppose I can claim to have grown up in New England, but that’s only sightly better, and whatever faint cachet it confers collapses completely when folks discover that I don’t like seafood.”
—You can read the whole exchange and the witty replies here:
https://www.word-detective.com/2008/09/owly/
Saturday Night Rituals. I have the warmest memories of my parents, who were first-generation followers of Jesus, preparing our family on Saturday night to worship God on the first day of the week. We shinned our shoes, laid out our clothes, washed the car and studied our “Quarterlies.” Mom would always practice her music and Dad would go to a quiet place to study for him message. Clearly they were expressing affection for God from the heart and would not think of missing church. I only remember one Sunday in all the years living in my parent’s home, missing church. It was the week I had the mumps. I still remember how strange it seemed to be home on the couch on the Lord’s Day instead of at Sunday School and church. One of the greatest gifts my parents ever gave me was to instill in my heart a love for the Lord’s Day and a habit of setting aside the first hours of the first day of every week of my life to gather with other followers of Jesus and bring a gift and worship God.
Sports or Church? Many choose sports over worship on the Lord’s Day because they want to lavish love on their children. There is a better way. Eric Liddell was an Olympic athlete. God blessed him with a robust faith that he practiced in England even when his parents lived thousands of miles away in China. When he had an opportunity to qualify for an Olympic event, it required running on the Lord’s Day, but his conscience would not allow him to run. He turned down the opportunity. Instead he ran in an event for which he has not trained. The story is told in the film Chariots of Fire. He was encouraged by a friend with the passage; “Him that honoreth me I will honor.” Liddell won the gold and went on to serve God as a missionary in China, faithful until his heroic death. Few if any of us will raise Olympic athletes, but we should plead with God for sons and daughters with robust faith in God.
Long after the athletic trophies have been hauled away to the dump your children will still be profoundly transformed by the truth they learn as a child in church. Years after they have left your home and even years after you have left this earth the influence of your public worship habits will still be a part of the influence of your life on those you love. Get them to church every single week.
Sunday is not the Sabbath. We are to resist those who judge us and force Old Testament ceremonial law on us. (Colossians 2:16) But the Lord’s Day (Sunday) is the first day of the week and it is the day believers since Christ have set aside to gather for worship. Let me give you six good reasons to have your family in church every single Sunday.
Six Reasons You Should Have Your Family in Church Every Single Sunday
1. Weekly church attendance keeps you from being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. (Hebrews 3:12-13) Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
2. Weekly church attendance is an aid to perseverance. (and a command) (Hebrews 10:25) And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching. Think how much godless input you get during the week and how much you need godly input with God’s people.
3. God has promised to bless those who seek Him early. (Prov. 8:17) I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently (early) will find me. The Lord’s Day is the first day of the week.
Seek Him early in life-when you are young.
Seek Him early in the day.
Seek Him first thing every week.
Trett Cathy, the founder of Chik-fil-a restaurants chose many years ago not to open his restaurants on the Lord’s Day so his employees could worship with their families. God has blessed the company with a powerful testimony in our time. This is a timeless biblical principle of giving God the first-fruits. We give God the first part and He blesses the rest.
4. Faithful church attendance will keep you from slipping. It is in the assembly that we are regularly reminded of eternal things and that is good for us. (Psalm 73:17) “I had almost slipped …until I went to the house of the Lord…then I remembered their end…”
5. Attend church every week because your family needs the continual systematic teaching of the Word. (Deu. 6) “…teach them diligently when you rise up, when you lie down, when you walk in the way…” In our Sunday School hour we follow a scope and sequence which, if you are faithful, will give your children a comprehensive knowledge of the word of the Living God.
6. Attend church every week because it is there that you will experience the Glory of God in a unique way. (1 Cor. 3:16-17; Ephesians 2) God promises to manifest his glory in the assembly, the NT Temple—dwelling of God. The assembled church is the temple of the Holy Spirit. God has promised to manifest his presence in life-transforming power where the church assembles.
I have prepared a video version of this. You can view it and share it here.
May God bless each of you and your families.
Pastor Ken Pierpont
Evangel Baptist Church–Taylor, Michigan
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