shawnethomas

“How Should We Then Live?” (I Peter 1:13 sermon)

Posted on 2019/05/28 by Shawn Thomas

Years ago when I was in seminary, we watched a video series based on a book by Francis Schaefer, a legendary Christian philosopher, called, “How Should We Then Live?” The point of the series was, that becoming a Christian isn’t just “making a decision,” but it should impact the way you think, and the way you live, in every area of your life: arts, philosophy, science, everything. It’s a great book, and series. But we also find how we should live as Christians in another book: The Bible, in passages like the one we are looking at this morning in I Peter 1:13:

“Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

This verse begins with the word “therefore”, which points us back to the salvation we have talked about the past couple of weeks. BECAUSE of the salvation we get through faith in Jesus, how are you to live? How should you think? What should you do? This verse verse gives us a good start on “How Should We Then Live” once we give our lives to Jesus. (By the way, this is appropriate for our graduating seniors today — but it is also fitting for each one of us: “How Should We Then Live”? Continue reading →

Posted in I Peter sermons, Sermon Illustrations, Sermons, Uncategorized | Tagged action, applying scripture, attitude, Bible, Bible Reading, C.S. Lewis, Cary Grant, Cary Grant LSD, cat, Christian life, Christian living, Elijah Mt. Carmel, enemy, entertainment, eternal life, flooding, forgiveness, Francis Shaefer, fulfillment, gird the loins of your mind, gird up the loins, gird up your loins, hope, hope in Jesus, How Should We Then Live?, I Peter 1:13, I Peter 4:7, I Peter 5:8, I Peter sermon, I Thessalonians 5:6, II Timothy 4:4, illustrations, Indians, life, life is not a game, life is not fun, materialism, Memorial Day, mind, mindset, morning devotions, Puritans, quiet time, real life, rest, roaring lion, salvation, Satan, satisfaction, scripture, serious, sermon, settlers, sober, squirrel, take life seriously, take people seriously, Tales of Old Time Texas J. Frank Dobie, temptation, time with God, vacation, war, Weight of Glory | 3 Comments

“The Prophets and Your Salvation” (I Peter 1:10-12 sermon)

Posted on 2019/05/19 by Shawn Thomas

Back when I was a young preacher at my first church in Oklahoma City, I got a little book in the mail one day, from Edgar Whisenant: “88 Reasons Why The Rapture Will Be In 1988.” Whisenant was a NASA engineer, and Bible student, and many people took him seriously. His book sold over 4.5 million copies! Of course, when the rapture didn’t happen in 1988, he wrote another book in 1989 …” (you can make this stuff up!)

More recently it has been the “blood moons” that sold thousands of books, and prophesied some “earth-changing event” to take place after Fall, 2015 — but again, nothing happened. Which is a good reminder to us as God’s people, not to get caught up in these “fads.”

However, there were legitimate prophets, through whom God spoke, and to whom we do well to still pay close attention to, today. These are the Old Testament prophets who prophesied about the coming of Christ. We see them referred to in our passage this morning, I Peter 1:10-12: Continue reading →

Posted in I Peter sermons, Music, Sermon Illustrations, Sermons, Uncategorized, worship | Tagged "me" generation, Acts 2:39, Bethlehem, blood moons, building, church, contemporary music, contemporary service, Daniel, Edgar Whisenant 88 Reasons Why, end times, eschatology, family, generations, God's plan, hymns, I Peter 1:10-12, I Peter message, imitate, invitation, Isaiah 53, Isaiah 7:14, It's not about you, Jesus, knowing vs. doing, love, marriage, Martin Luther, Message, Messiah, Micah 5:2, Old Testament prophecies, Old Testament prophets, personal application, prophecies, prophets, Psalm 16, Psalm 22:1, rapture, respond, response, sacrifice, salvation, saving faith, second coming, self-centered, self-centeredness, selfishness, selflessness, Suffering Servant, traditional service, witness, witness of the prophets, worship, Zechariah 9:9 | Leave a comment

“The Faith That Saves” (I Peter 1:8-9 sermon)

Posted on 2019/05/13 by Shawn Thomas

II Timothy 1:5 has one of the great Mothers Day verses. It says: “For I am mindful of the sincere FAITH within you, which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am sure that it is in you as well.” That verse talks about how these faithful moms passed down their faith to their children and grandchildren. And there is nothing more important than that. If you would ask any Christian mother, I am sure they would say that THE single most important thing to them, would be to know for sure that every one of their children and grandchildren had that true faith.

But just what IS saving faith? How can you know if you have a faith that really saves? The good news is, the Bible teaches us here in I Peter 1:8-9 about the kind of faith that saves. Verses 8-9 here tell us:

“… and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.”

Here the Bible teaches us several things about the faith that saves: Continue reading →

Posted in I Peter sermons, Sermon Illustrations, Sermons, Uncategorized | Tagged Acts 4:12, affections, doubt, Ephesians 1:13, faith, Hebrews 1:11, I Corinthians 15, I John 5:12, I Peter, I Peter 1:8-9, II Timothy 1:5, Jack Tillery, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John 14:6, John 20, John Piper affections, John Piper Think, love, love God, love Jesus, Mothers Day, not seen, object of faith, prosperity gospel, resurrection of Jesus, salvation, saves, saving faith, sight, soul, Thomas, transplant, unseen, unseen love, Your Best Life Now | 1 Comment

“Tried By Fire” (I Peter 1:6-7 sermon)

Posted on 2019/05/06 by Shawn Thomas

Theodore Roosevelt was a man of very unique character: he gloried in facing obstacles and overcoming them. He would take his guests out on a 20-mile hike – and much to their dismay, the tougher the course, the better he liked it. They would come in exhausted, but he would just smile and say: “It was bully!” The higher the mountain he had to climb, the better. The stronger the wind against him when he was rowing, the better. He just loved facing and overcoming difficulties.

Well, not too many of us have that kind of composition, to where we just delight in difficulties. But as God’s children, if we knew more of what the Bible says about our trials, and the difficulties we face — and what is waiting for us on the other side of them — then we would be a lot more able to rejoice in the trials that face us in life, than most of us do now.

“In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Continue reading →

Posted in I Peter sermons, Sermon Illustrations, Sermons, Uncategorized | Tagged Christianity in America, confess Jesus, confession, dark year, difficulties, distress, facing death, faith, faith proof, Garden of Gethsemane, Hawaii, I Peter 1:6-7 sermon, I Peter sermon, illness, John Calvin, John Calvin blocks of wood, joy, joy in trials, maturity, perseverance, professions of faith, real faith, refined by fire, rejoice, reward for trials, rewards, run tee shirts, salvation, saved, saving faith, temptations, Theodore Roosevelt, trials, tried by fire, various trials | Leave a comment

“Great Expectations” (I Peter 1:4-5 sermon)

Posted on 2019/04/29 by Shawn Thomas

One of Charles Dickens’ greatest novels bears the title: Great Expectations. “Great Expectations” didn’t just mean that great things were expected of the young man Pip, whom the story was about. To have “expectations” in old England meant that you had the “prospect of an inheritance” that was coming to you. So if a large inheritance was expected to come to you, then it might be said of you that you had “great expectations.”

Well if anyone has “Great Expectations,” it is the child of God. Our scripture in I Peter 1 this morning says we have been “born again to a living hope … to obtain an inheritance, which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you who are protected by power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”

Last week we saw that because Jesus rose from the dead, those who commit their lives to Him have “a living hope.” And this verse now goes on to tell us that this “living hope” is TO an INHERITANCE that God has waiting for us in heaven, that is the greatest of all “Great Expectations”! Continue reading →

Posted in Doctrine/Theology, I Peter sermons, Sermon Illustrations, Sermons, Uncategorized | Tagged Acts 20:32, Ephesians 1:14, eternal reward, eternal security, false teachers, father, FDIC, giving, glory, government debt, Great Expectations Charles Dickens, health and wealth gospel, heaven, Hebrews 9:15, I Peter, I Peter 1:4-5 sermon, II TImothy 1:12, imperishable, inheritance, John 10:28-29, kingdom of God, kingdom work, materialism, once saved always saved, prosperity preachers, reward, rewards, Romans 8:38, salvation, security, service, Social Security crisis, stephanos, theology, time, tithing, U.S. Government, victor's crown, wasting time, Your Best Life Now | Leave a comment

“A Living Hope” (I Peter 1:3 sermon)

Posted on 2019/04/22 by Shawn Thomas

(Preached at First Baptist Church, Angleton, TX Easter 2019)

One of my privileges as a pastor over the last 35 years of ministry, has been to be able to hear the last words and testimonies of my church members who knew they were facing death. People who went to the grave with confidence and joy, because they had a “living hope” in Jesus that was stronger than the grave. One of the last services I did in North Carolina was for a senior adult man by the name of Jimmy Duckworth. He was a faithful man, who had just spent months tending to his wife Faye in the nursing home rehab, and who thought he was just tired from caring for her — when in fact unbeknownst to him he was developing cancer. When they found it, it was too late to do anything about it. And when I heard, I went to their house again — I’d been there just a few days before, when they had finally gotten home from the rehab, but this time it was to see him in light of this news. I wondered: “How is he going to feel? What is his outlook going to be?” I wondered if he would be crushed and devastated. But the man was a rock. He just sat there and in a very plainspoken manner told me what his condition was, and that he had a short time to live. But he said, “Pastor, I have lived a good life, and I know where I am going. I am ready to go.” He had an amazing peace. He did not fear the grave. Jimmy Duckworth had “a living hope” — and he had that hope because of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

That is what our verse in I Peter 1:3 talks about this morning:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Continue reading →

Posted in I Peter sermons, Sermon Illustrations, Sermons, Uncategorized | Tagged Abraham Lincoln pardon, birth, But God, choice, church, David Koresh, David Koresh burial, Easter sermon, Edward Jenner, Ephesians 2:1, eternal life, faith, Gamaliel, God's mercy, hope, I Peter, I Peter 1:3, I Peter sermon, immunization, James Phipps, Jesus, Jesus Christ resurrection, John 3, just God, living hope, merciful God, mercy, new birth, pastor, Resurrection Day sermon, resurrection life, Romans 3:26, smallpox, smallpox vaccine, vaccine, you must be born again | Leave a comment

“Red Letters”

Posted on 2019/04/15 by Shawn Thomas

I recently watched David Crowder’s testimony about writing the popular song, “Red Letters.” He said when he was a little boy, he was sitting in a church service with his grandmother, and he was fiddling with the envelopes or whatever — but he looked over and saw his grandmother’s Bible open, and it was one of those “red letter” edition Bibles, in which all the words of Jesus are printed in red. And he asked his grandmother: “Why are those words in red?” And she told him the story: that God Himself came down to earth in Jesus Christ, and those were the words that He Himself spoke while He was here. He said it made such an impression on him: these were the words of God! Words that ended up changing his life.

But he said when he was older, he began to research those “red letter Bibles” some more. Continue reading →

Posted in Sermon Illustrations, Sermons, Uncategorized | Tagged blood of Jesus, David Crowder, Jesus, Jesus death, Life on the Mississippi, Louis Klposch, Luke 22:20, Mark Twain, red letter Bible, Red Letters, Red Letters song, Romans 3:23, salvation, steamboat accident, substitutionary atonement, What can wash away my sin? | 1 Comment

“Pilgrim’s Progress” (I Peter 1:1-2 sermon)

Posted on 2019/04/08 by Shawn Thomas

The Bible is the #1 best-selling, most-read book of all time. But right behind it, is The Pilgrim’s Progress, widely considered the second most-read book in history. It was written by Puritan John Bunyan, in the form of an allegory: a man, “Christian”, receives God’s word from a messenger named “Evangelist,” so he leaves “The City of Destruction” and heads towards “The Celestial City.” Of course it is all a parable, representing the story of every “Christian” on our journey through this world to heaven. There are a number of very clever characters in the story: “Mr. Worldly Wise Man,” “The Giant Despair,” and many others Pilgrim encounters which represent people and circumstances we all deal with in life. If you have never read this classic book, you really should. It is very insightful.

But the “big picture” you get out of this book is that for “Pilgrim,” the Christian, this world is not our home. We are just passing through, on a journey to heaven. And this is one of the most important attitudes that we as Christians need to adopt. We are just “pilgrims,” temporary travelers through this world. This world is not our home. If we “get” that; then we will be able to deal successfully with a lot of the things that face us in life. If we don’t “get” that, then we will FAIL in a lot of ways, because we’ll wonder why we have certain difficulties, or why people don’t “accept” us, because we haven’t realized that we are only temporary residents, “pilgrims” in this world.

This morning, we are beginning a journey as a church body through the Book of I Peter, and one of the themes of this book is that as Christians, we are “pilgrims” in this world like Bunyan talked about. We aren’t living for the pleasures and applause of this world, but we are just traveling through it, and we are living for the God who has called us to our ultimate home with Him in heaven. So let’s look together at what the first couple of verses of this insightful and challenging book have to tell us: Continue reading →

Posted in Discipleship, Doctrine/Theology, Sermon Illustrations, Sermons, Uncategorized | Tagged aliens, ambassador, baptism of Jesus, Bible, Chris Boniol, David McCullough Mornings on Horseback, doctrine, evangelism, gardener, George W. Bush Muslims, God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, God the Son, Great Commission, Gregory of Nazianzus, Hebrews 11:13, I Peter 1:1-2, I Peter 2:11, I Peter sermon, II Corinthians 5:20, Islam and the Trinity, John Bunyan, modalism, not of this world, pilgrim, Pilgrim's Progress, pilgrims, place kicker, planted, Puritans, purpose, scripture, sown, The Pilgrim's Progress, Theodore Roosevelt Sr., this world is not your home, Trinity, Triune God, vocation, when I say God I mean Father Son and Holy Spirit, witness | 3 Comments

“The Goodness of God in the Midst of Affliction” (Psalm 119:65-72 sermon)

Posted on 2019/03/31 by Shawn Thomas

In February 2012, I stood to lead prayer meeting at the church in Louisiana I had pastored for 12 years, but the longer I stood the sicker I became. I had to leave during the prayer time and have my associate pastor take over. That was the first evidence that something had started to go wrong with me physically, and it would just grow worse from there. Soon I could no longer preach on Sunday morning without almost passing out during the service, and that May I went on medical leave until my doctor could come up with a diagnosis. After months of testing, they finally determined that I had what was then a rare & little-known diagnosis, but which has become more common over the last couple of years, called dysautonomia, or POTS: “Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome.”

With POTS, the autonomic system malfunctions; things that are supposed to be regulated by that part of the brain misfire: for example one’s heart rate, which should adjust automatically when you stand, doesn’t. My heart rate might rise from 80 when I was sitting, to 140 or more when I stood. Essentially it was like running in place all the time when I stood, which is why I’d get so sick. It also causes severe fatigue, sleeplessness, nausea, and migraine headaches that were so bad I couldn’t read, or listen to anything.

There is no known “cure” for dysautonomia/POTS — still to this day. They just to try treat the symptoms with whatever medication seems to work best on the individual. But after months of trying different medications and treatments — some of which had side effects that were worse than the illness — nothing was helping, and it became increasingly evident that I was not going to get well any time soon. I knew I needed to step down, and let the church call a healthy pastor, who could minister to them like they needed. I was losing my job, my career, and my ministry. We had to sell our home, Cheryl’s dream house, along with about 2/3 of our possessions. I was so sick while we were moving that I couldn’t even stand to pack our belongings, and some our church members stepped over and around me on the floor as they packed my things. After 27 years of pastoring, I would now be out of the ministry. We moved to Norman, OK, where we had a small apartment, began to apply for disability, and try to convalesce without any human hope for a healthy future. As far as I knew then, my career and my life as I had known it, was over. Continue reading →

Posted in Sermon Illustrations, Sermons, Uncategorized | Tagged "Fall Apart" song, affliction, attributes of God, becoming like Christ, Christlikeness, cleansing, cocoon of a butterfly, confession, conformed to His image, dysautonomia, Ephesians 6, faith, faith testing, glory, God attributes, God goodnesss, God is good, God is good all the time, god is good and does good, God's purpose, good, grace, identification, II Corinthians 12:9, it is good for me that I was afflicted, John 17:3, knowing God, lessons, life, life purpose, Matthew 13 parable of the sower, maturity, minister, ministry, My grace is sufficient, pastor, pastor Shawn Thomas, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, POTS, prayers, priorities, Psalm 119 acrostic, Psalm 119:65-72, Psalm 119:67, purification, purpose for suffering, purpose for trials, purposes for affliction, Romans 8:28-29, Ronnie Rogers Trinity Baptist Norman, salvation, Shawn E. Thomas, sin, spiritual maturity, spiritual warfare, suffering, sword of the Spirit, test, teth, theodicy, theology, theology 101, thorn in the flesh, tob good, trials, word of God, You are good, You do good | 2 Comments

“Pursuing Holiness” (Hebrews 12:14 sermon)

Posted on 2019/03/24 by Shawn Thomas

The old Puritans of England in the 1500-1600’s have gotten what J.I. Packer calls “a bad rap.” Usually if someone calls a person a “Puritan”, or says that something is “Puritanical”, they mean it as an insult: that the person is being a “stick in the mud,” or is acting “holier than thou.” But in reality, the English Puritans were some of the best Christians ever to walk the earth, and we can learn much in our own Christian life from reading them.

One book of Puritan writings is called “The Valley of Vision.” It is actually a little book of prayers from the Puritans which a minister (Arthur Bennett) edited in the 1900’s. Many of these prayers are very beautiful, but they are also very convicting. One prayer in particular asks God: “For if I do not walk holily before Thee, how can I be assured of my salvation?” (p. 14)

That’s a good question. If you don’t walk holy before God, how CAN you be assured of your salvation? Our verse for today answers that question in a very firm way:

“Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.” Continue reading →

Posted in Discipleship, Sermon Illustrations, Sermons, Uncategorized | Tagged applying scripture, Arthur Bennett, beatific vision, cathedral of Milan, conviction, daily quiet time, desire for holiness, forgiveness, Hebrews 12:14, holiness, holy, holy holy holy, I John 1:9, I John 2:3, I John 3:2, I John 3:3, If I do not walk holily, II Corinthians 5:17, II Timothy 3:16, Innocents Abroad, Isaiah 6, J.I. Packer, Javert, Les Miserables, Mark Twain, Matthew 5:8, morning devotions, Psalm 16:11, Psalm 17:15, Puritans, pursuit of holiness, repentance, sanctification, Seeing God, sin, sinners prayer, Stars song Les Miserables, U-turn, Valley of Vision book, Victor Hugo | 1 Comment