June 01, 2009

On Wisconsin

After having dug to a depth of 10 feet last year, New York scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 100 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 100 years ago.

Not to be outdone by the New Yorkers, in the weeks that followed, a California archaeologist dug to a depth of 20 feet, and shortly after, a story in the LA Times read: “California archaeologists, finding traces of 200 year old copper wire, have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network a hundred years earlier than the New Yorkers.”

One week later, The Coon Valley Journal, a local newspaper in Wisconsin, reported the following: After digging as deep as 30 feet in his pasture near Coon Valley, Wis., Ole Olson, a self-taught archaeologist, reported that he found absolutely nothing. Ole has therefore concluded that 300 years ago, Wisconsin had already gone wireless.

May 31, 2009

Two Sets of Jones’

Check out this video that will be played during the sermon today.  It shows how one family is anchored to the rock, while the other one is on shifting sand.

Is your life built on the rock of Christ Jesus?

May 30, 2009

Deep Thoughts

This will stretch your thinking.  It did mine.  Make sure you follow the link at the bottom to look at how one cartoonist illustrated the difference between Huxley and Orwell as it relates to information.

Here’s a synopsis: Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

May 29, 2009

You Are Prayed For Today

Robert Murray McCheyne (1813-1843), pioneer missionary to America, testified, “If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me!”

May 28, 2009

Is This the Future?

This story should cause us to shiver.

May 28, 2009

Em Bill’s Blog is Back

Our daughter Emily will be ministering in the Philippines this summer and will be posting about her experiences on her blog.  She updated it a few days ago.

May 27, 2009

Feeling Bruised Today?

When we go through tough times, it’s helpful to remember the Gentleness of Jesus.

May 26, 2009

Cost of Discipleship

During Sunday’s sermon I quoted from Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  For the sake of time, I didn’t read the entire quote.  Here it is…

One of the first books I read as a new believer was Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s classic “Cost of Discipleship,” which is essentially an exposition of the Sermon on the Mount.  Imprisoned for his faith, Bonhoeffer dared to criticize the politicized cultural “Christianity” of Hitler’s Germany.  The cost of his own discipleship led to his death at the age of 39.

“Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner…Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession…Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate…Costly grace is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.  It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner…Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ…If we would follow Jesus we must take certain definite steps.  The first step, which follows the call, cuts the disciple off from his previous existence… [It] places the disciple in the situation where faith is possible.  If he refuses to follow and stays behind, he does not learn how to believe…To endure the cross is not a tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ.  When it comes, it is not an accident, but a necessity…the suffering which is an essential part of the specifically Christian life…The call to discipleship…means both death and life…[It] sets the Christian in the middle of the daily arena against sin and the devil.  Every day he encounters new temptations, and every day he must suffer anew for Jesus Christ’s sake.  The wounds and scars he receives in the fray are living tokens of this participation in the cross of his Lord.”

May 24, 2009

Memorial Day Tribute

We began our services this morning with this simple, yet moving tribute to those who gave their lives for our country.

We then asked family members to stand if they have someone in the service now or have in the past.

We then asked those who have served our country to stand and asked each one to tell us what branch of the service they were in, the dates the served and where they served. 

It was a moving way to begin.  Our congregation responded in applause several times.

If you’re a vet, thank you!  If you have lost a family member, we hurt for you.  If you have a family member serving in the armed forces, we’re with you.  If you’re in the service right now, may God be with you.

May 23, 2009

The Straight and Narrow

This video by Jars of Clay touches on our theme for tomorrow’s service.  Are you on the straight and narrow?

May 22, 2009

Gold Star Mother

This is a great reminder for all of us as the Memorial Day Weekend begins…

GOLD STAR MOTHER
By Keo R. Gathman

As she stands beside his grave
On yet another Memorial Day,
She remembers the boy she sent away
And how he became the man resting here today.
His heroes didn’t become famous playing ball.
In fact most of their names were never well known at all.
They went to work wearing camouflage green and desert brown,
Earning their reputation as the toughest warriors around.
When he first saw them in dress blues
The heart within her little boy knew,
That nothing short of becoming one of them would do.
Time all too quickly passed by
As childhood things were put aside,
And his heart’s desire would not be denied.
“I love you, Mom” he said one day
“But the time has come for me to go away,”
And she knew his decision she couldn’t sway.
Through tears she tried so hard to keep inside
She told her baby boy goodbye.
Writing him letters nearly every day
She often took the time to pray,
“Lord be with my boy today.”
“Help him clearly see the man I know that he can be,
Grant him his most cherished dream,
Let him come home, a United States Marine.”
When the time came for him to go to war
She feared as she had never feared before,
Prayed there would be no knock on her front door.
They came that day dressed in their blues
And though in her heart she already knew,
She cried out “No, it can’t be true.”
The man child she had sent away
Was at last coming home to stay.
He never doubted what they did was right,
And he never wavered in the fight.
Forever and always as in his childhood dreams,
Her boy remains a United States Marine.

Copyright 2006 Keo R. Gathman (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)). Permission is granted to send this to others, with attribution, but not for commercial purposes.

May 21, 2009

10 Things That Please God in Worship

This post was a good reminder for me this morning.  If you put your mouse over the Scripture references, they will appear on your screen.

May 20, 2009

The Truth About Angels and Demons

Check out this website from Westminster Theological Seminary.

May 20, 2009

The Gospel According to Dan Brown

In a particularly insightful op-ed in the New York times yesterday, Ross Douthat points out the worldview behind “The DaVinci Code” and “Angels and Demons.”

In the Brownian worldview, all religions — even Roman Catholicism — have the potential to be wonderful, so long as we can get over the idea that any one of them might be particularly true. It’s a message perfectly tailored for 21st-century America, where the most important religious trend is neither swelling unbelief nor rising fundamentalism, but the emergence of a generalized “religiousness” detached from the claims of any specific faith tradition.

His conclusion is spot on: For millions of readers, Brown’s novels have helped smooth over the tension between ancient Christianity and modern American faith. But the tension endures. You can have Jesus or Dan Brown. But you can’t have both.

If you want to do some study related to the DaVinci Code, see this sermon series called “The DaVinci Code: Separating Fact From Fiction.”

May 19, 2009

When God’s People Give

I love watching how people give to God, especially in times of economic distress.  Check out this cool report.

May 19, 2009

Baptistery Update

The baptistery has now been placed into position.  The next step is for the plumbing and electrical to be run.  I really appreciate the guys who have been working on this.

May 18, 2009

Sad Instead of Mad

Often parents have a inadequate repertoire of discipline techniques so they do what comes naturally—they use anger as a consequence. Anger becomes the punishment that children learn to fear and the result is distance in relationships. Parents want to express disapproval for misbehavior and anger becomes the vehicle for showing it.

Imagine this scenario: You’re making dinner and your six-year-old daughter, Amy, comes into the room complaining that she’s hungry. You tell her that you’re making dinner and that she needs to wait. She persists and complains that she hasn’t eaten all day. You remind her that she had a snack a few hours ago and then encourage her to leave the room.

Instead of leaving, she begins to whine, “I’m starving.” Finally you sigh and offer her a banana or an apple. “I don’t like bananas! I don’t want an apple!” Okay, you give in. You offer her some milk and a cookie. Amy is so excited she jumps up…and knocks over the milk! You’ve had it! That was the last straw. Now you’re really angry and yell, “What’s the matter with you? Now look what you’ve done!!”

Think a minute. What caused you to lose control? Was it the spilled milk, or was it the fifteen minutes of whining and complaining? If we wait until we become angry to discipline, then we end up responding like a time bomb. Our children can never be sure when we’ll explode.

In this situation, Mom needed to take action earlier. “Amy, it makes me sad that you keep asking after I said ‘No.’ You need to go to your room until I call you for dinner.”

In honor-based parenting, anger and its accompanying distance are not appropriate consequences. Instead, parents learn to reflect sorrow. Some parents may feel like hypocrites because they don’t feel sad, they feel mad. But it doesn’t take long for a parent to recognize that the sorrow is there. It’s just masked by the anger. If you peel away the anger you will genuinely feel sad that your child is acting out or choosing to disobey. You see that their misbehavior will lead to an unhappy and unsuccessful life. Reflecting sadness is much more beneficial to the child and to the relationship.

Try it; you may be surprised. Children often open up in response to sadness and you may end up with a productive conversation. Sadness opens relationships; anger shuts them down. It may take some practice, and self control, but your relationships with your kids will benefit in the end.

This tip comes from the book, Say Goodbye to Whining, Complaining, and Bad Attitudes, In You and Your Kids by Dr Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN.

May 17, 2009

No, Mr. President

In light of our President speaking at Notre Dame today, I was reminded of what John Piper said a couple months ago about life matters.

May 15, 2009

Signs of Life

A new Gallup Poll, conducted May 7-10, finds 51% of Americans calling themselves “pro-life” on the issue of abortion and 42% “pro-choice.” This is the first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995.

Read more here.

May 15, 2009

How A Real Man is Made

I’m looking forward to the Father/Son Banquet tomorrow from 6:00-9:00 p.m. at PBC.  Kevin and Marsha Murphy will be providing a catered meal (it’s worth coming just for that!) and then Jeff Schwarzentraub from One Heartbeat Ministries will be speaking. 

Tickets are available by contacting the church office or you can purchase them at the door.

May 14, 2009

The Value of Money

Pastor Jeff has an amazing ability to find dramas and videos that help personalize sermon applications.  Check out this clip from Schindler’s List that ties in well for this Sunday’s message on Matthew 6:19-24.

May 14, 2009

A Prayer Saturated Church

I really appreciate the ministry of Christian Book Summaries.  Check out their recent summary of The Prayer Saturated Church.

May 14, 2009

A Prayer For Today

Vera Wahls sends out a weekly prayer email.  Here’s part of what we can all pray today.

Lord, may our service to You be in secret and with pure and godly motives.  Lord, forgive us when we have been such hypocrites, seeking and desiring attention and the applause of men.  We ask that you help us to overcome any self-seeking glory that we’ve desired.  In Isaiah 42:8 You declare that “You will not share Your glory with another: I am the Lord; that is my name!  I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.”  In all situations, may we deflect glory from ourselves to You.

Lord, helps us to be “open-handed toward our brothers and toward the poor and needy in the land” from Deuteronomy 15:11.  Lord, show us who could benefit from a shopping bag of groceries and help us to quietly and humbly give.  We pray that the Baby Bottle project will be a blessing to the Caring Pregnancy Center as filled bottles are returned on Father’s Day.  Help us to put our faith into action with pure motives. 

Please pray for our parents and children.  Please pray that God’s living Word will be beautifully etched on our families’ hearts and minds.  Your Word says, “Your statutes are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart.”  Help parents to understand what our culture is peddling, “Practically everything that goes on in the world – wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important – has nothing to do with the Father.  It just isolates you from him.” 1 John 2:16 Msg.  The world is determined to turn our children away from You, but help each family in their fight to protect them from conforming to the ungodliness of the world.

May 11, 2009

Alistair Begg—Free Sermons

I love it when pastors and ministries offer their materials for free!  I’ve heard Alistair a couple times before and have also listened to some of his podcasts.  He’s a gifted communicator and a bold proclaimer of truth.  Plus, he has a cool accent.

On May 11, 2009, Truth For Life is excited to make an archive of over 1,000 of Alistair Begg’s sermons available for free download here on our website. By removing any barrier to these messages, we hope that the gospel will spread more widely. We encourage you to download these messages and share them widely.

Here are some other free resources…

Ray Pritchard
John Piper
John MacArthur

May 11, 2009

Truth Matters

Keven Vanhoozer, one of my professors from seminary (Trinity) is interviewed here.

Here’s part of what he has to say.

“I’m concerned that the attitude that “no one can really know the truth” has seeped into the evangelical mind. From the (correct, in my opinion) premise that no tradition gives us exclusive access to absolute truth, some infer (incorrectly, in my opinion) that it really doesn’t matter which, if any, tradition we inhabit. For my own part, I’d rather reside in a house with a leaky roof or basement than rough it on the street…”

May 11, 2009

Game Over?

A young boy enters a barber shop and the barber whispers to his customer, “This kid is not so bright. Watch while I prove it to you.”

The barber puts a dollar bill in one hand and two quarters in the other, then calls the boy over and asks, “Which do you want, son?”

The boy takes the quarters and leaves the dollar.

“What did I tell you?” said the barber. “That kid never learns!”

Later, when the customer leaves, he sees the same young boy coming out of the ice cream store and says, “Hey, son! May I ask you a question? Why did you take the quarters instead of the dollar bill?”

The boy licked his cone and replied, “Because the day I take the dollar, the game’s over!”

May 09, 2009

Why She Gets a Day

Pastor Jeff passed along this great video. We’ll be showing it on Sunday but thought I’d post it here in case you haven’t bought a card yet.

May 08, 2009

Parenting Without Fear

Pastor Dick passed along this great article on Parenting Without Fear.

May 08, 2009

He Did It For You

This is a very moving story of sacrifice and reminds us of what Christ did for us.

May 07, 2009

More on Worry

When I was a student at MBI, one of my RAs married a girl named Betsy.  They now run a camp in Michigan.  I wanted to pass along something she sent me because its quite helpful.

I saw that last week you posted something about your sermon on worry…one of the BEST THINGS I’ve ever read on worry came from “My Utmost for His Highest.” 

“Fussing always end in sin. We imagine that a little anxiety and worry are an indication of how really wise we are; it is much more an indication of how really wicked we are. Fretting springs from a determination to get our own way….”

May 07, 2009

A Mom Worth Modeling

In a Calvin and Hobbes comic, Calvin is standing by his mother’s bed when he says, “Hey, Mom! Wake up. I made you a Mother’s Day card.” His mother was very pleased and started to read it out loud.

“I was going to buy a card with hearts of pink and red.
But then I thought I’d rather spend the money instead.
It’s awfully hard to buy things when one’s allowance is so small.
So I guess you’re plenty lucky I got you anything at all.
Happy Mother’s Day. There, I’ve said it. Now I’m done.
So how about getting out of bed and fixing breakfast for your son.”

I must confess that I was that kind of son when I was younger. 

Over 90 years ago, by an act of Congress, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day. He established the day as a time for “public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country.” It’s certainly true that no nation is ever greater than its mothers, for they are the makers of the next generation.

On this Mother’s Day weekend I’m aware that Mother’s Day is anything but happy for some.  Maybe you want to be a mother but you can’t be for some reason.  Perhaps some of you have not had the best mother in the world and a number of you have mothers who have died.
Others have lost a child to death, while a number feel the pain of a wayward child.  And many moms are flying solo as they work hard to train and nurture their child’s faith.

Let me introduce you to a young mom named Eunice. She was raised in a religious home and was greatly impacted by her mother Lois. She loved to learn the stories from the Bible when she was young and enjoyed going to services where she could learn about God. As she approached her teenage years, she was still focused on spiritual matters but she became attracted to a young man who was not into religion at all. Against the best wishes of her godly mother, the teaching of her faith, and the tug of her conscience, she married the man. Don’t get me wrong – he was a nice guy but thought spiritual matters were for weak people.

After a couple years of marriage, Eunice and her husband had a baby boy named Timothy. In the meantime, Eunice’s dad had died so they asked her mother Lois to come and live with them. Little Timmy was a delight to everyone. Both his mother and grandmother spent hours with him, teaching him the Bible, praying with him and for him, and training him in the things of God, creating a spiritual environment where tiny Tim could flourish.

Grandma Lois passed her faith on to her daughter Eunice. These new believers in turn focused on teaching Timothy about Jesus.  The Book of Acts tells us that the Apostle Paul himself took a personal interest in Tim the teenager and, in tandem with his mother and grandmother, led him to saving faith in Jesus Christ.

Later, Paul and Timothy partner together in ministry as the gospel continues to spread throughout the area. Many years later he writes two letters to young Timothy.  In 2 Timothy 1:5 he reflects on the mothers who made an impact in Tim’s life: “I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.”

Three principles emerge from this passage.

1.  Sincere Christ-followers stand out. At the end of his life Paul feels feeble and many of his friends have deserted him but his mind goes back to Timothy’s sincere faith, which was first modeled by his grandmother and mother.

2.  Focus on your family first. Grandma pointed her daughter to faith in Jesus and then mom modeled the faith and mentored her own son.  Deuteronomy 6:4-8 challenges parents with the responsibility of teaching their children to love God by impressing on them what is alive in their own hearts.  C. Everett Koop, the former Surgeon General said this: “Life affords no greater responsibility and no greater privilege, than the raising of the next generation.”

3.  Faith is both taught and caught. Grandma Lois and mother Eunice taught Tim and he caught their faith by seeing their sincerity. People listen to our words but they watch the way we live to see if we’re genuine. 

We’re called to congratulate and celebrate the worth of mothers in Proverbs 31:28-29: “Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: ‘Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.’” 

Thanks, mom for all you’ve done…and this year you don’t have to make breakfast for this son.

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