Coming to the Still Waters

We have another Sunday morning and another Down To The River radio episode on 103.9 WLPO broadcasting from Oglesby, Illinois.  We are getting close to 100 episodes with 4 more to go! This morning we look at the relationship between the older Paul and the younger Timothy.  The Apostle Paul is just mirroring what Jesus did with His disciples.  He is making disciples as it says in the Great Commission.  We are to be very attentive in the life of the local church to do this. Our morning will include the opportunity for our youth to guide our time of worship and for us to flex this muscle of the church of discipleship.  Discipleship requires that we make space for others to use the spiritual gifts that the Holy Spirit has given for the common good of the body of Christ.  Discipleship means we teach, we serve side by side, we provide opportunities to lead, and we become an active support of what they are now doing for the Lord.  So my heart will be che...

Below is the video I will be referring to in this blog post.  The speaker is Darrick Patrick, teaching pastor at Seacoast Church in Charleston, SC, who is speaking at a chapel service at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.  It is about 35 minutes long but so worth the time to listen to and especially if you are in ministry .   I just want to give you some one liners that hit me so hard that I wrote them down and then started sharing them with others in confession mode.  The passage to turn to in your Bible is Numbers chapter 20 and verses 1 through 13 .  I thank the Lord often for the ability to listen through the means of the internet of chapel services from great Christian universities and seminaries around the nation. Numbers 20:7, 8 -  The LORD spoke to Moses, "Take the staff and assemble the community. You and your brother Aaron are to speak to the rock while they watch, and it will yield its water. You will bring o...

Today's Wednesday in the Word covers John chapter 7 and verses 14 through 18, which read, v.14 - But when it was now the midst of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and began to teach.  A reminder that Jesus' half brothers wanted Jesus to make a grand entrance to the festival in Jerusalem.  They wanted Him to show what He could do and gather even greater crowds and popularity.  The motive here could be for their benefit also.  Jesus sends them on without Him. There would be a time in the future when Jesus would make a grand entrance, the Palm Sunday scene at the festival of the Passover, but now was not the time for this kind of attention.  Jesus comes into this festival secretly, so secretly, that the crowd and His half brothers didn't know He had arrived.  Jesus makes His way into the temple and proceeds to teach rather than perform some miracles.  Jesus is often called  "Rabbi"  so He takes the position of a rabbi an...

As someone who pastors a local body of believers of the God's family, His church, I am faced with these two words weekly, if not daily.  The words are "evangelism" and "discipleship." Evangelism seems to be larger while discipleship appears to be smaller.  Evangelism can be an appeal to the larger crowd to hear the gospel message of God sending His one and only Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross in our place so that we might obtain His righteousness to stand before a holy God.  Evangelism can be one on one but it seems to make itself known every Sunday for me as I stand behind a pulpit on a platform. When I think of evangelism, I think of Billy Graham standing in New York City's Times Square behind a microphone and sharing the message of salvation to the thousands upon thousands who are crowded into the streets.  I also think of the many summer evening camp meetings in an old barn with sawdust on the floor.  Benches have been brought in to sit up...

This was a great passage to think about together at our monthly Coffee and Conversation of the LaSalle/Peru pastors.  What insights were coming from the hearts of these men on Wednesday morning around a good cup of coffee.  Our hearts are breaking for our congregations to grasp what Christ is demanding of us, His disciples, if we are truly His disciples.  Passages like these, humble us to be and to proclaim not just in giving the invitation of Christ for salvation but also the involvement of growing in Christ through sanctification.  May we all count the cost of following the One who paid the total cost for us. Adam

This Sunday I am reading a long quote in my sermon from John Stott found in his book "Basic Christianity." His full name is John Robert Walmsley Stott.  He was born on April 27, 1921 and died on July 27, 2011.  He was a single man who served the Church of England as an anglican pastor.  He pastored the church he also grew up in, the All Souls Church. John Stott wrote over 50 books and one of them was "Basic Christianity" in 1958 which was put into my hands while at college in 1983.  It was required reading for one of my Bible classes along with "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis.  Now I am returning to it in 2019, some 61 years later and seeing its relevance.   The quote from Mr. Stott lines up with the passage I am handling this Sunday from Luke chapter 14.  So here is the quote in italic and I will put some thoughts embedded in the parentheses. "Jesus never concealed the fact that his religion included a demand as well as an offer....

Today's Wednesday in the Word is John chapter 7 and verses 10 through 13, which read, v.10 - But when His brothers had gone up to the feast, then He Himself also went up not publicly, but as if, in secret. We left off with Jesus' half brothers urging Him to go to the Feast of the Booths to perform some more miracles and gather a larger crowd.   "Show off what you can do, Jesus."   The thought of the world is that the way to success is to be where the public is and  "wow"  them with your abilities.  Jesus sends them on but we find out that He does attend not publicly but privately, in secret.  This is the opposite of what His half brothers wanted Him to do.  The picture is that Jesus' half brothers doesn't even know He is there. v.11 - So the Jews were seeking Him at the feast and were saying, "Where is He?" The Jews wanted to kill Jesus as described in verse 1.  They see the half brothers of Jesus but not Him.  ...

Remember the 1979 song, "We Are Family"  performed by Sister Sledge? We are family,  I got all my sisters with me We are family,  Get up ev'rybody and sing The Biblical model of the church is the picture of a family.  We are brothers and sisters in Christ.  We are to rejoice with those who are rejoicing and we are to weep with those who are weeping.  There is a love between us because of the love that has been put in us by God for each other.  It is most evident when someone of the family is physically hurting. At the moment, a dear sister of the church is facing a physical battle.  She is a wife and a mother with children still in the home.  She is a professional woman with a career in the area of helping others to find greater independence.  Her life in the church not only includes service with the gifts that God has given her but also the many friendships that have grown over the years, mutually giving and receiving....

A week ago Friday, I wrote a blog post titled "She Was Coughing" and I knew I would probably make a radio broadcast of this event.  So you will be able to hear a shorter version to fit the time slot that I have.  Here is the link to the blog post if you didn't get to read the fuller version:  https://pastorwolfgang.blogspot.com/2019/03/friday-focusshe-was-coughing.html On another note, we are empty nesters again.  We were for a little while a couple of years ago and then they came back.  First Ben returned from college and then Jason and Samantha and we so loved their presence in our home.  Jason and Sam moved on last year to a youth ministry assignment and Ben moved yesterday to an apartment to be closer to work.  It was a necessary move as we continue to prepare for a move into a new ministry that is more mobile throughout the United States.  Some quietness and some sadness last night as we returned to an empty house. Adam

My Friday found me in downtown Chicago at a nationally known medical facility.  After a 3 hour drive through rush hour, I found the parking deck and had to wind up 10 floors to find an open spot.  I was re-thinking my plan and wished I would have caught the train in Aurora and walked from the Union Station to my destination. I had two parishioners there on this day.  Transversing from one side of this humongous hospital to the other offered me some daily exercise.  Speaking to the front desk receptionists; riding various elevators and escalators; reading wall signs for directions; and probably looking lost at times to the medical staff on duty are common activities for me on these excursions to hospitals amongst the skyscrapers of this city. All this is secondary for being there.  It is a time to have some extended time to communicate and provide company with the family after a bedside prayer with the beloved patient before they are wheeled down the ...

Our Wednesday in the Word today deals with John chapter 7 and verses 1 through 9, which read, v.1, 2 After these things Jesus was walking in Galilee,  for He was unwilling to walk in Judea  because the Jews were seeking to kill Him.   Now the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths, was near. Those more learned that I say there is about a 6 month gap between the end of chapter 6 and the start of chapter 7.  In chapter 6 Jesus is celebrating the Passover in the Jerusalem area, roughly the month of April, and now it is the time of the Feast of Booths which is roughly October.  Those in Judea, the south, want Jesus dead but it is not the time for that to happen so we find Jesus in the north, in Galilee, continuing God's perfect plan.  This festival was the most popular celebrating the harvest of grapes and olives and remembering the trek in the wilderness from Egypt to the Promise Land.  Those who were able would be traveling sout...

Maybe what I mean is not an actual headache with pain involved and requiring some medication intervention but that my mind is tired from thinking so much.  Sometimes I have trouble sleeping at night because my mind won't stop thinking and pondering about an issue that has arisen.  Something needs to be solved and although my body is calling for much needed sleep, my mind keeps it up with its exercises of mental gymnastics. I used to joke about solving complex math problems in my sleep.  I would go to bed with arithmetic on my mind and wake up in the morning searching frantically for a pencil and paper to quickly write down the solution before I forgot it.  Again, I probably didn't solve it in my actual sleep but just in a laying down position and coming up with the answer and storing it until the morning.   The mind is a powerful tool that God has given to us.  As other parts of the body, it can be used for evil or good.  Proverbs chap...