Date: June 17, 2012 AM
Title: A Shocking Lesson
Speaker: Ken Pierpont
Series: Matthew’s Gospel
Matthew 16:21-27
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A Shocking Lesson
Wesley’s New Recording
This is original music by our son, Wesley. Pretty creative and convicting stuff. Let me know what you think.
Perfect Peaches
On State Route 13 near the little village of St. Louisville, Ohio, just where the North Fork Licking River snakes under the highway south of the village, an old gas station stood between the railroad and the highway. It hadn’t been a working gas station for many years. On the mid-summer afternoon twenty years ago when we were there it was a fruit stand.
Lois and I saw the sign that read “fresh peaches” and we stopped. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. It was. They were large peaches fresh from Georgia. I cut one with my pocketknife and we ate it in the shade of the tree, juice running down our arms. We bought a basket of them. I never ate peaches so soft and so sweet. The children gobbled them like candy. They were gone by sundown the next day but we have kept them in our memory for many years.
A soft, sweet, ripe, Georgia peach is a wonderful thing. Just the other afternoon in my study, while I was allowing myself the luxury of reading a short biography of Charles Simeon, I remembered the afternoon of the peaches when I read this story:
“The most fundamental trial that Simeon had – and that we all have – was himself. He had a harsh and self-assertive air about him. One day, early in Simenon’s ministry, he was visiting Henry Venn, who was pastor twelve miles from Cambridge at Yelling. When he left home, Venn’s daughters complained to their father about his manner. Venn took the girls to the backyard and said, “Pick me one of those peaches.” But it was early summer, and “the time of peaches was not yet.” They asked why he would want the green, unripe fruit. Venn replied, “Well, my dears, it is green now, and we must wait; but a little more sun, and a few more showers, and the peach will be ripe and sweet. So it is with Mr. Simeon.” (The Roots of Endurance, John Piper)
Rain, rain, and shine, sun. Make me ripe and sweet while there is still time.
A Classic re-post from 2008
Things I Love About Being a Pastor
It was beautiful last night. There was a light breeze. The sky was clear and the sun was setting. Hazard took me on a long walk and I got to thinking about being a pastor.
On August 11 I will have been a pastor 34 years. I pastored my first church when I was seventeen. I’ve known I would be a pastor since I was fourteen years old. I’ve never had a day that I regretted being a pastor… not a single day. Here are some things I have loved about being a pastor:
The sound of a church bell ringing through the village
Quiet Country Churches set among tombstones
Christmas pageants and candlelight services
Faithful “salt-of-the-earth” deacons
Funeral dinner ladies doing what they do
Full-volume choirs and organs with their stops pulled out
Happy tears of repentance
Excited kids boarding the bus for summer camp up north
Whole-hearted, hands-lifted, singing
Serious men reverently distributing the elements of communion
A full parking lot and a full balcony
Dinner on the grounds
Scalloped corn in the fellowship hall
Pronouncing a couple “Husband and Wife”
Missionary adventure stories
Dressing up on Easter
Orchestras and praise bands
Sunday morning sun through stained glass from the inside
Sunday night lights through stained glass from the outside
People who weep when you pray with them in the hospital
Shaking hands on the steps a little after noon
Chatting with people before the service starts
The applause when a new believer emerges from the waters of baptism
The rustle of Bible pages when I announce the text
Giving biblical counsel to someone and watching “the lights go on”
Having breakfast with one of the men of the church
Discipling new believers
Standing around talking until the last car leaves the parking lot on a Sunday night
Funerals of people who knew and loved God–They are like a revival service
Telling the Old Old Story of Jesus and His love
The quietness that sweeps across the auditorium when I use a story to make a truth clear
The point in my message every Sunday when we slow down and “climb the hill to Calvary’
That’s all for now. I pray that because of how I am spending my life people come to know the sweetness and beauty and comfort and mystery and God in the local church.
Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
June 13, 2012
I Will Build My Church
Date: June 10, 2012 PM
Title: I Will Build My Church
Speaker: Ken Pierpont
Series: Matthew’s Gospel
Text: Matthew 16:13-20
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Willful Blindness
Date: June 3, 2012 AM
Title: Willful Blindness
Series: Matthew’s Gospel
Text: Matthew 16:1-12
Speaker: Ken Pierpont
Place: Evangel Baptist Church–Taylor, Michigan
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