Ken Pierpont's Blog, page 28
July 12, 2020
The Things That Have Happened to You (Sermon) Video
Series: Turning the Bethel Wheel (Philippians)
Title: Things That Have Happened to You
Philippians 1:12-18
Bethel Church
July 12, 2020 AM
Ken Pierpont-Lead Pastor
https://kenpierpont.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/The-Things-That-Have-Happened-To-You.mp3
Things That Have Happened to You (Sermon) Video
Series: Turning the Bethel Wheel (Philippians)
Title: Things That Have Happened to You
Philippians 1:12-18
Bethel Church
July 12, 2020 AM
Ken Pierpont-Lead Pastor
July 9, 2020
Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 87) Without Hope
Sunday at Bethel I preached on Gospel Ventures. After church I packed my bag and headed north for a gospel venture of my own.
This week I’m speaking at The Springs Camp to Sr. High campers. It’s peaceful up north and I’m getting some writing and reading done. The Springs is located right about where ‘Up-North” in Michigan starts. Two young ladies from Bethel Church, Lexi and Trinity Good, are campers this week. Dan Kohns, the Director is an old friend who grew up in a church I used to pastor. It’s good to catch up and share in the fellowship of the gospel. He knows the story of almost every camper here.
Last night I walked out after dark to discover that a yellow moon just past full had climbed into the night sky just over the tops of the pines and birches that grew along the banks of the Sugar River. The river itself is dry for a while while they figure out if the old dams will hold or give way. The Sugar runs into the Tittabawassee which becomes Wixom Lake which drained when the Edenville Dam failed in May. Here folk have been walking the dry river bottom and finding some interesting things like fishing lures and gear–even a wedding band.
I’ve been walking in the cool of the morning just after sunrise and indulging in the luxury of a nap most afternoons. I have a nice, private air-conditioned room in the lodge for the week, so “camp” isn’t exactly primitive and I like it that way.
It is always enriching to meet young people who love God and want to serve him. This morning in chapel I took questions and it was good to spend time pouring truth into eager, young hearts. Last night one of the campers, a young man, trusted in Christ for salvation. Every year I meet campers who lost one of their parents during the year. My heart breaks for them. I can’t imagine the sorrow of that.
At lunch a young lady, who is helping in the kitchen, shared her testimony. She does not have believing parents or any Christian support in her family but a neighbor got her to camp where she came to know the Lord. She has returned every year as a camper and a worker. She sits in on chapels every night and eagerly takes notes.
I go back to the quietness of my room and pray, “God, rescue young people unto yourself out of this sad, broken, sin-cursed world. Help them flourish even in a time when so much is twisted and toxic, I pray. Use me. Use our family to be a help to others. We need you so desperately. Help us help others who need you, too. Send us to those whose hearts you are opening to the gospel. Through Christ our Lord, Amen.”
The Pierpont family always appreciates prayers for our family and we need them especially right now. We are passing through a very hard thing. If you stop and lift us up to the Lord, we thank you. Please tell me how I can pray for you. God helping me, I will be faithful to do so. We have Him so we have hope–a strong confidence in ultimate good. Without Him, life would be hopeless.
The Springs
July 8, 2020
June 29, 2020
38,000 Days of Goodness and Mercy (Sermon) Video
38,000 Day of Goodness and Mercy (Psalm 78)
Bethel Church–Jackson, Michigan
June 28, 2020 AM
Pastor Ken Pierpont
June 27, 2020
Tell the Hard Stories Too (Sermon) Audio
Tell the Hard Stories Too
Psalm 78
June 21, 2020 AM
Bethel Church | Jackson, Michigan
Ken Pierpont, Lead Pastor
https://kenpierpont.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/6-21-20.mp3
Tell the Hard Stories Too (Sermon) Video
Tell the Hard Stories Too
Psalm 78
June 21, 2020 AM
Bethel Church | Jackson, Michigan
Ken Pierpont, Lead Pastor
Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 86) Word for the Day
It’s officially summer in Michigan. Next week the Peach Truck comes to the little town of Brooklyn, Michigan not far from here. That will be sweet.
Lois noticed that a bluebird has been sitting on her window sill and perching on the side-view mirror of her car for the last few days. In many cultures around the world and across time, and throughout popular culture, the appearance of a bluebird is taken as a sign of happiness. Believers in Jesus don’t need bluebirds to appear to rejoice in the Lord, but we welcome them with gladness. I was reading J. D. Vance’s book Hillbilly Elegy out on the porch on my day off when she came out and asked me with the excitement of a little girl to come and see the antics of her bluebird. Since our Jesus said, “Consider the birds of the air”, we gladly noted the visit of our bluebird out on Bittersweet. Last year a friend gave me a bluebird house. It was occupied by a persistent sparrow family last year but this summer I think our Bluebird of Happiness lives there.
Photo by Benoit Gauzere on Unsplash
Camp Speaking. I’m also happy to report that even though some Christian Camps had to close this summer a few a still able to welcome overnight guests. I have been invited to speak at two different camps this summer. I spend most of my time tending the flock at Bethel, but they have allowed me to travel and speak some, for which I am happy and grateful. It is refreshing for me and I hope I am a help to the campers and others who hear me speak and spend time with me on these ventures.
New Book Soon. It was sunny and cool on my walk this morning. Today I will not work in the study but I will write and read and putter and do a couple jobs for Lois. I sometimes want to work outdoors or just not inside so I will swing open the great door on the carriage house and work at a little table there on my laptop. I did that yesterday, finishing up some work on my new book of camp lessons: Between the Fires: How to Keep the Campfire Burning All Your Life.
In our media-saturated age we are flooded with stories every day everywhere we look, but most of them are not encouraging and you have to wonder how many of them are true and not “spin” of some kind. The stories I tell here are true and I aim to encourage. Here is my true and encouraging story for this week:
The Word for the Day
One of my earliest childhood memories was of memorizing the 23rd Psalm at bedtime. My mother had us repeat after her.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”
I repeated the phrase, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”
Immediately my little mind recoiled. Why would I not want such a wonderful shepherd? I was confused. I asked my mother. She said “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” actually means “Since the Lord is my shepherd, I have everything I need.”
Kenneth Taylor paraphrased it that way in the Living Bible; “The Lord is my shepherd. He meets all my needs.”
Even as a tiny child at bedtime I immediately knew a shepherd like this is one you would absolutely want. Now as a man in his sixth decade of life I’m convinced to the point of deep personal conviction that when the Lord is your Shepherd he meets all your needs.
Friday I visited our oldest Bethel member in the home where she lives. Her name is Edith Ryan and she is a devout believer. She is 104 years old and for being over a century old she is pretty sharp. I talked to her about the things of the Lord. We talked about Bethel. She is always eager to hear a good word about Bethel. I always bring her a good word. Lately she has been talking about the return of Christ. She’s been hearing about what is going on the the world and she is thinking about going the be with the Lord or the Lord coming to get her.
I sing her songs and she sings along. She knows the words to all the oldies but goodies, the warm-hearted hymns and songs like What A Friend We Have in Jesus, Victory in Jesus, Sweet Hour of Prayer and such. She knows the scriptures. If I start them she can often finish them.
Not many years ago I decided that I was going to share less scripture on hospital calls and rest home visits…. Less is more was my thinking. If you are ill it is difficult to concentrate on a long passage. I stopped reading the longer readings and started seeking the direction of the Spirit for a “Word for the day” for whoever I was visiting.
On the way to the hospital one day I prayed for a “Word for the day” and John 14 came to mind. During the visit I said to the man, “I have a word for the day. You believe in God, believe also in me.”
That day the man moved from believing in God to trusting in Jesus. A few weeks later he went to heaven and I did his funeral.
With Edith I said, “The word for the day is ‘surely goodness and mercy shall follow me…’” I waited and she smiled and said with me, “…all the days of my life…”
“Amen,” I said, “The goodness of God and the mercy of God will follow us all the days of our lives…”
So far the goodness and mercy of God have followed Edith Ryan for over 38,000 days.
The Lord is my shepherd. He meets all my needs, including my need for mercy right up until the day the I go to be with Him or He comes to get me.
Bittersweet Farm
June 27, 2020
June 19, 2020
Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 85) Black and White
Monday night I walked out to say goodnight to the day and close up the carriage house. I stood for a while looking out over the north field watching bats flit about over the north meadow and the light fade in the west. Over against the stone fencerow I saw the first firefly of summer in the gathering dark. Bittersweet Farm is a peaceful place especially at dusk on a summer evening, but its not peaceful everywhere in our world. It is not peaceful in most major cities in America. It sadly dark. But out back, watching the fireflies, I remind myself of what I like to call “The Firefly Effect: The darker the night, the brighter the light shines.” I lingered there in the cool evening for a while and remembered a story:
In Sir Thomas Mallory‘s King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table this tale appears:
Riding a black horse with all black livery and black silks, the black knight on the forest road one day met the white knight riding a white horse with all white regalia.
They lowered their visors and leveled their lancets. Time and again they charged each other until finally they both lay bleeding and dying.
Only then did they lift their visors to discover that they were brothers.
—As told by Austin B. Tucker in The Preacher as Storyteller.
Both of the characters in the story were human. Both were knights–noble men. Both were brothers. Neither of them knew they were brothers until it was too late. Would it be less a tragedy if both of them were brothers of some other man, sons of some other mother?
I am a Christian. I believe the Bible is the very Word of the Living God, who created all men and women in his image, and will one day receive worship from a great adoring multitude surrounding his throne. This multitude will include sisters and brothers from every tribe and tongue and nation.
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9-10)
Last Friday evening I spoke at a Christian high school commencement ceremony. I reminded the graduates; “Jesus said that you are the light of the world… and no amount of darkness can ever extinguish even the smallest light. You are graduating into a world that is spiritually and morally ‘twisted and perverse’ but you are called to ‘shine as lights in that world holding forth the word of life.’ ” (Phil. 2:15) I told them, “Never forget the firefly effect, the darker the night, the brighter the light shines.”
The scriptures describe simple ways to do this. Paul told the brothers and sisters in Philippi to let their light shine by not murmuring. In the great Sermon on the Mount, the Lord Jesus taught his disciples to shine their light by doing good works. As I climbed the stairs to the bedroom I reminded myself to treat every other human being on earth with dignity and honor as people created in the image of God, potentially brothers or sisters in the eternal family of faith. I must treat all others with the same dignity and with the same honor I would want others to show to my own brother.
Bittersweet Farm
June 19, 2020
June 16, 2020
The Next Generation (Sermon) Audio
The Next Generation
Bethel Church–Jackson, Michigan
June 14, 2020 AM
Ken Pierpont–Lead Pastor
https://kenpierpont.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/6-14-2020.mp3
The Next Generation (Sermon) Video
The Next Generation
Bethel Church–Jackson, Michigan
June 14, 2020 AM
Ken Pierpont–Lead Pastor
