Ken Pierpont's Blog, page 146

Regular Maintenance

I’ve spent the week in Kentucky. Came back with a message and some stories on the side. In this message the Spirit is sure to step on your toes a bit. Hope it helps.

Date: August 19, 2012 AM

Title: Regular Maintenance

Speaker: Ken Pierpont

Series: Matthew’s Gospel

Text: Matthew 18:15-20

Truth on the Bathroom Wall

We spent a significant amount of our vacation last week in Wolfe County Kentucky sitting on the porch, talking and drinking cold, sweet ginger ale. (They call it Ale-8 in Eastern Kentucky). We enjoyed the hot tub a little. We hiked in the mountains some. We visited Hoedown Island a few times. Lois and I had a date night at the Hemlock Lodge, halfway up the mountain to the Natural Bridge. They were serving a dish called “Kentucky Brown” and they were featuring Blackberry Cobbler. Oh, my. We visited Emmanuel Baptist Church, a fine church in Stanton pastored by an equally fine man, Pastor Gregg Webb. Holly and Chuk sang. Holly and her sisters sang in the park in Campton on Thursday night. Mostly, though we just sat on the porch and talked.

One night we were out on the porch listening to the frogs and crickets and silence and looking out into the unusual darkness.

Chuk broke the silence and said; “Down at Natural Bridge I noticed some writing on the bathroom wall.”

“It said; ‘Susan Johnson is a whore.’” (name changed)

“Someone had crossed out ‘whore’ and written ‘daughter of God.’”

Then it read “Susan Johnson is a daughter of God.”

Sitting on the porch in the dark looking out on the stars and hearing Chuk’s simple story touched a deep place in my soul.

Satan could write some very damning and embarrassing things about me for all the world to read. That is true for all of us–no exceptions. He would even accuse me before the Father’s Throne, but Jesus Christ took all the evidence against me and nailed it to the cross. He cancelled my debt. He destroyed the evidence. He is changing me inside-out. I have a dark past, but I have a bright future.

John wrote: “And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!” (Revelation 12:10-12 ESV)

Over all my guilt and shame and the accusations against me he has written: “Ken Pierpont is a child of God”

If you would like to listen to a message on this theme here is a link to my Good Friday message: Cosmic Blackmail. http://kenpierpont.com/2012/04/cosmic...

Ken Pierpont

Granville Cottage

Riverview, Michigan 

August 20, 2012

Do You Ever Do This?

Hope you and yours are well. God has been especially kind to the Pierponts lately. We are all well and working and enjoying life and trying to nudge people Godward. We have many loyal friends. We have enough hardship to keep us on our knees. The street in front of Granville Cottage is lined with cars every day like it is most other places only on Holidays. It’s a lively place full of love–lot’s of laughter and plenty of pizza and one small, spoiled Yorkie. God has been especially good to the Pierponts lately.

Here’s a little something for you to think about:

—————————————–

Do You Ever Do This?

by Ken Pierpont

It’s may day off. I’m writing this little piece at the counter at our local Starbucks. I like to write here sometimes to be where I can write without much distraction and be near Chuk. Chuck is our third-born, our second-born son. He is a making coffee and conversation. He’s good at it.  

He has the “never-met-a-strager, never-at-a-loss-for-what-to-say” gift. He has a ready wit and a quick mind. He knows when to talk and he knows when to listen. He has his mother’s gift of understanding people. This makes for interesting conversion. He leaves most people with a smile on their face.

He told me once of a brief conversation he had on an airplane. He settled into his seat and started to make small-talk with his seat-mate–a young businessman going places. The young man was a veteran traveller. He wasn’t on an adventure or a journey or a vacation. This was not a social event for him. This was just a part of is workday. He was just earning a living and doing business. 

Chuk offered a line of conversation. He responded; “Look I’m tired. I’d really rather not talk, OK?” He plugged earbuds in and went to sleep. When Chuk told me this story a felt a sharp pang in my heart. At first I felt sorry for my son but after I thought about it for a while my pity shifted to the young traveller–he squandered a perfect opportunity to connect with a delightful young man. 

I wonder how often I do that. 

Ken Pierpont

Granville Cottage

Riverview, Michigan 

August 6, 2012

What Can I Do For Him?

Date: August 5, 2012 AM

Title: What Can I Do For Him?

Speaker: Ken Pierpont

Text: Romans 8

Place: Evangel Baptist Church–Taylor, Michigan

Turf Wars or Childcare?

Date: July 29, 2012 AM

Title: Turf Wars or Childcare?

Speaker: Ken Pierpont

Series: Matthew’s Gospel

Text: Matthew 18:1-9

Place: Evangel Baptist Church

Time and Church

In a few short weeks the leaves will begin to turn and fall. In our part of the world It is a continual reminder of the swift-passing of life, a reminder to number our days and apply ourselves to what really matters. (Read Psalm 90).

Church is a weekly reminder of eternal things. Church is a way to keep our souls in tune with heaven. Church is a way to keep from being overcome with the “tyranny of the urgent.”

The Psalms and songs and scriptures and sermons and stained glass and lessons are ways of reminding our hearts that there is much more happening around us than what we can see with our eyes. Church is a way of giving us a glimpse into where we fit in the Epic Drama of Life that arches from the Garden of Eden to the New Heavens and the New Earth.

We used to live in a quiet valley in an old white farmhouse. North of the house was a steep hill. I liked to start my day by climbing the hill to watch the sunrise and the deer and wild turkey and listen to the birds greet the morning. From where I sat I could see the road snaking over the river to the West and laying like a ribbon in the valley off to the east as far a the eye could see.

Church is like that. It is a way of getting perspective on where you have been and where you are going. That has a way of settling your soul. When we let church to its work in us we leave with an sense that there is more to life than what we expeience on in our short walk across the stage of life.

Ken Pierpont

Lily Lake, Wisconsin

July 27, 2012

Death, Taxes and Fishing

Date: July 22, 2012 AM

Title: Death, Taxes and Fishing

Speaker: Ken Pierpont

Series: Matthew’s Gospel

Text: Matthew 17:22-27

Place: Evangel Baptist Church–Taylor, Michigan

Soul-Questions

A few weeks ago a ran into the son of a friend in another city not far from here. It was uncanny that I would connect with him in that way and I immediately sensed that God was in it and that I should be especially sensitive to what He might be doing. I quickly re-calibrated my purpose for that time and spent some time listening and being interested in the man God arranged for me to meet. He and his wife were delightful and interesting company. Our meeting has grown into a friendship that has been enjoyable and rewarding for me and I hope fulfilling and helpful for him. All of this grew out of something I believe God has shown me that I want to share with you now.

Here is the profound and life-changing truth: There are questions that lay in the bottom of our souls. These questions form who we are and what we do. In the Bible there is a proverb that says; “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”

Let me give you a couple examples of the kind of questions that are embedded deep in our souls. “Do I have what it takes?” “Will I ever be loved?” “Who will love me?” “Am I beautiful and desirable?”

I’m sure we all have questions like this that lay deep in our souls. When we are tired or lonely or suffering or rejected or afraid these questions come up out of a deep place in us and they tend to color and influence everything we do.

If you want to understand someone you want to get to know them well enough and listen to them carefully enough that you have an idea what these questions are. If you want to be wise you will quiet yourself and do what it takes to discover what those questions are in your own soul.

In other words the question that lies in the deep place in your soul profoundly influences your relationships and your decisions and how you see life.

When I met my new friend I was conscious of a powerful question that I have chosen to embed in my soul.

Now here is the powerful life-changing truth. If you change the question that lies deep in your heart, you will change your life. The best way to change that question is to find out what question God wants lying at the base of your affections as the great life-spring from which your actions and reactions come.

If the gospel is at the heart of God’s plan for this world the Gospel should inform the questions that influence our decisions and our lives. Over the years I have tried to reduce these questions to a couple and this is the result of my meditation. I am convinced that if you begin to regularly ask these questions of yourself you will experience powerful life change because these are gospel-driven questions. They are the questions that, I believe, God want us to continually ask of ourselves. Here they are:

Instead of asking: “Will I be loved?” ask the question; “Will I let God love me.” Hear the voice of Christ inquiring in the deep place in your soul every day; “Ken, will you let me love you.” Think deeply and sweetly on that. It is a powerful soul-question. (Read Romans 8 and Ephesians 3:14-21)

Here is another. Instead of saying; “Who will love me?” ask, “Will I let God love though me?” or “Who does God want me to love today.” (Read Mark 12:30-31)

What would happen if at the core of your soul every day you would ask gospel-driven questions; “Will you let me love you?” and “Will you let me love through you?” I think it would transform your life. You will meet new friends. You will continually be attentive to ways that God is guiding you and loving you and you will continually be open to people that God has placed in your path to love. It will change your life. Don’t waste your life wondering who will love you. Let God love you and let God love through you every day.

Center your soul on those questions:

Will I let God love me today?

Will I let God love through me today?

Get going now and let me know how it goes.

Ken Pierpont

Granville Cottage

Riverview, Michigan

July 21, 2012

Simple, Spontaneous Ministry

A few years ago the whole family had the opportunity to go to Mexico. It was a memorable experience and wonderful in many ways. Every night we would visit the plaza of a town where the people would gather in the evening. Gathering in on the town plaza in the evening is a beautiful Latin-American tradition and it is a wonderful opportunity for the gospel, because it provides a natural audience.

We would sing and tell stories and juggle and do slight-of-hand and start conversations and drink ice-cold sugary Cokes as the cool of the day set in. To attract the attention of a crowd we often used a skit involving a watermelon. In the course of the drama the watermelon was destroyed.

One evening we visited a tiny village with cobblestone streets on the north edge of Lake Chapala, Mexico’s largest freshwater lake. It was a very humble, poor village. As we were setting up to do the skit one of the students with the team suggested; “I don’t think we should destroy the watermelon here, I think we should slice it up and give it away.

I gave them the OK. They sliced up the watermelon and children appeared out of nowhere to get a piece. We had a delightful time in the village until well after dark sharing with the families there.

I am convinced that we often over-organize and over-complicate ministry. Good things will happen when we just take what we have and humbly and simply share it with others.

I will carry in my heart forever the picture of the beautiful little children of the village eating watermelon that night. I will cherish a snapshot of a circle of girls listening to two young ladies in our group sharing the gospel. One giving the gospel, the other interpreting, and the dark eyes of the girls in the village drinking in the truth.

Ken Pierpont

Granville Cottage

Riverview, Michigan

July 5, 2012

Embedded Behind Enemy Lines

Date: July 8, 2012 AM

Title: Embedded Behind Enemy Lines

Speaker: Ken Pierpont

Series: Matthew’s Gospel

Text: Matthew 17:14-21

Place: Evangel Baptist Church–Taylor, Michigan