(In honor both of our 33rd wedding anniversary, and our icemaker đ
Last week some workers discovered that there was a leak underneath our house, and they recommended that we call a plumber. Cheryl & I saw where the leak was coming from, and the “game” was on. We decided to try to fix it ourselves. Â It would end up taking a big chunk of our Saturday, and it would also serve to remind us of an important lesson on the nature of marriage: it takes two, working together!
One of the most frequently quoted verses in the Old Testament, is, sadly, often MIS-quoted. Proverbs 29:18 reads: “Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained (or “perish.)”
Typically someone quotes this verse and follows up with an admonition on how “you need to get a vision” or “people need a vision”. Thus they call for you to “dream your dream” of what you want to accomplish, or encourage churches to find a leader who has “a vision” for where they should be going. But the important thing for us to consider is: is this what this text really means? Continue reading
Sometimes after a confrontation with an annoying person we might be tempted to think: “I should have really let them have it”, but Proverbs 29:11 says otherwise: “A fool always loses his temper, but a wise man holds it back.” Â Continue reading
(Preached at Pleasant Ridge Baptist, 5-20-15)
I know that many of you, like me, grew up hearing soloists and others sing what became the “traditional” version of “The Lord’s Prayer.” Â There is one part of the song that seems almost haunting to me: where it comes to the part of the prayer where it says; “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” — and then the soloist stops for a moment and the music echoes those words “as we forgive our debtors” — as if to say, stop and think about the somber nature of this request: we are asking God to forgive us now, in the same way that we forgive others. Â It IS important, and both of these phrases should play an important role in our daily prayer time.
We have seen over the last weeks that Jesus gave us the Model Prayer not as a “script” to be recited, but as a Model to follow. He outlined for us in the prayer at least 6 categories of things that God wants us to talk with Him about when we pray — especially in the longer prayers that we pray to begin our day. Â Tonight we come to the 5th Request, which deals with forgiveness:
“And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”
There are two parts to this 5th request, both of which deal with forgiveness: the first, includes the forgiveness we RECEIVE from God, and the second, deals with the forgiveness which we are to GIVE to others: Â Continue reading
“Where then is boasting? It is excluded.” (Romans 3:27)
A better word could not be said regarding true religion. There is NO room for personal boasting in genuine Christianity. Â Continue reading
Proverbs 23:19-21 warns us against three besetting sins — although in practice, many Christians seem to pay attention to only one of them: “Listen my son, and be wise, and direct your heart in the way. Do not be with heavy drinkers of wine, or with gluttonous eaters of meat; for the heavy drinker and the glutton will come to poverty, and drowsiness will clothe one with rags.”
There is a very interesting, and perhaps convicting, combining of sins in these verses:
How many times have well-meaning people counseled someone by saying, “Just follow your heart”? It is one of those things which just “sounds right” to tell a person who is seeking direction. But it turns out that according to scripture, it is one of the worst pieces of advice one can give! Continue reading
(Preached at Pleasant Ridge Baptist Church, Morganton, NC 5-17-15)
Some of us were eating out a few years ago, and one of our friends was asking the blessing for our food, and he prayed a fairly long prayer. When he was finished, another of our friends said, “Hey, just because you missed your prayer time this morning doesn’t mean you had to make it up while all of our food was getting cold!” There is a time for praying longer prayers, and then there is a time for praying shorter ones, and as good disciples of Jesus we need to recognize, and learn to use both types of prayer.
This morning we are continuing our series, “The Disciplines of Disciples.” Jesus commanded in Luke 9:23 that if anyone would come after Him, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow Him. We saw in I Timothy 4 that God commands us to “discipline (ourselves) for the purpose of godliness”, and we have seen the importance of having a daily time in “the pure milk of the word” of God and in prayer, and last Sunday we examined the Lord’s Prayer as a model to follow for our morning prayer time. We all need a time of “ordered prayer” like that every morning to start our day.
But there is also another discipline which many of us need to cultivate, and that is the discipline of spontaneous, or continual prayer. These are prayers that are not necessarily “planned” like our morning prayer time, but arise out of situations we face during the day. We see in our passage for this morning that Nehemiah prayed just a brief spontaneous prayer:
“And it came about in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, that wine was before him, and I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence. So the king said to me, âWhy is your face sad though you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of heart.â Then I was very much afraid. I said to the king, âLet the king live forever. Why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my fathersâ tombs, lies desolate and its gates have been consumed by fire?â Then the king said to me, âWhat would you request?â So I prayed to the God of heaven.”
Those words, “So I prayed to the God of heaven” form a very brief sentence, but they teach us some important things about spontaneous, or continual prayer: Continue reading
God likes to hear your prayers, right? Well, maybe. Proverbs 28:9 is a verse which reveals some light on that. It reads: “He who turns away his ear from listening to the Law, even his prayer is an abomination.”
We tend to think that our prayers are good, and that God wants to hear them — and if you are a Christian who is praying in Jesus’ name, He does — except in some cases like this verse describes. Â Continue reading
(Preached at Pleasant Ridge Baptist, Morganton, NC Â 5-13-15)
Tim Keller is pastor of a church that is flourishing in a very difficult ministry field: the heart of New York City. He recently published a book on prayer, and in it he wrote: âTo pray is to accept that we are, and always will be, wholly dependent on God for everything.â (Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God)
That idea of depending on God for everything is reinforced in the 4th petition of the Model Prayer which we are studying this evening: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Â This section of the Model teaches us that after we praise God, and pray for His kingdom and will, that we are also to pray for our requests: “our daily bread.” Â We learn several things about praying for our requests as we pay close attention to just what Jesus taught us here in these words: Â Continue reading
I'm a retired Southern Baptist pastor of almost 40 years. My wife Cheryl & I moved to Norman, OK in March of 2025. I share a weekly overview for Sunday School teachers of the weekly Lifeway "Explore the Bible" lesson, as well as texts of my sermons and other articles.
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