Coming to the Still Waters

  Wow!  Found this great chart of Jesus' genealogy and the split to show the difference between Matthew's record and Luke's record.  A vacation post as we are in Colorado with Child #2 and his family.  What a great week it is turning out to be for a late Thanksgiving and early Christmas with them.  Thanksmas or Thristmas or Christgiving or Chranksgiving! I am excited about diving deeper into Matthew 1 & 2 for the Advent season.  Last year we went through Luke & 2.  We start with Jesus' genealogy in Matthew 1:1-17.  Matthew makes a very bold claim in the very first verse.  My rendition is, "I am going to set the record straight of the genesis of the One who saves, named Jesus, and Him as the Anointed One of God, the Messiah, the Son of God who fulfills the Davidic Covenant and the Abrahamic Covenant!"   A tall order to fill. Matthew gets his audience's attention by adding in 5 women, 4 named directly and 1 referred to.  What ...

  I realized that I posted Part 3 before I had made a post about Part 2!  It happens when I sometimes preach more than once in a week.  I do miss those days when I was preaching/teaching a Sunday School class, a Sunday sermon, a Sunday night message, and a Wednesday Prayer Meeting devotional.  I would sometimes put on top of that a midweek home group, daily email devotionals and a weekly 5 minute radio spot.  I was thankful because it was a time for me to be immersed in God's word on many fronts.   Last Sunday we ventured into Part 2 of our mini-series " Am I A Church Member, Biblically. "    We wandered from looking at the global, universal family of God to the local gatherings of His body.  I want to stress again that these Biblical principles are for us to grasp and display no matter the formalness or in-formalness of a local church's membership procedures.  So let's review. 1).  I am a Christian.  I own the statement t...

  A little fun from someone in the last row!  I made a joke about being the one on the whiteboard with the halo and therefore he supplied me this picture after the service.  It was a great Thanksgiving Eve service and the message of " us " came together at just the right time.  It is amazing to see God's hand working before your very eyes.  I speak so much to lead others in hopefully the right godly direction and then God steps in and I don't have to speak anymore.  His children fill in the words and actions.  That is what started to happen on Wednesday night. I concluded the " Am I A Church Member, Biblically? " mini-series with a whiteboard session of the final 6 points.  We who are redeemed are saved into God's family.  The family of God is so intertwined and so much on purpose for God's glory and our benefit. 1) The provided spiritual leadership to the flock restores any wandering sheep.  Galatians 6:1 2) The sheep share with ...

  It has started.  Do you see the icicle from the eave?  Stephanie said it is not ripe enough to pick yet!  The seasons of central Wisconsin are changing and adjustments are being made to operate in colder climates.  Stephanie is also counting down the days to her trip to Florida in January!  This ministry puts me in places to experience things I haven't done in a while so I have been fishing with a man named George pulling in some gills and crappies and Saturday I will be hunting with a man named Scott to see if I can process some more meat for the freezer.  I am realizing how important it is for me to sit and converse as much as I sit and study. We finished 1 Peter 4 and there will be a break until the 1st of the year to go into 1 Peter 5.  I am going back to some sermons about 7 years ago and re-tooling them for a mini-series I have titled "Am I A Church Member, Biblically" patterned after a Thom Rainer book titled I Am A Church Member . ...

  This handsome fellow is Matthew Henry.  He is described as a non-conformist minister who was born in Wales on October 18, 1662.  He is most known today for his commentaries.  As a traveling minister all over England he had a mugging incident that made it into his daily diary.  I make mention of this in the sermon this week as an example of suffering for doing good rather than doing evil.  Rev. Henry seeking to be thankful in all situations prayed this prayer as he proceeded onto his next preaching engagement. “I thank Thee. First, because I was never robbed before Second, because altho’ they took my belongings, they did not take my life. Third, altho’ they took everything I had, it was not much. And fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed.” Peter tells the beloved not to be surprised but to rejoice and be glad.   Peter tells the beloved that while insulted to be blessed (happy).   Peter tells the beloved to suffe...

  I used a couple of illustrations this Sunday to explain what Peter was saying to the 1st century Gentile Christians who were being heavily persecuted.  The first was the  "red zone" of football.  There is a whole different mindset on either side of the football when you get in either "red zone" of the field.  You could be on defense and defending your goal and therefore determined to stop forward progress.  You could be on offense and implementing special plays to get into the end zone for a touchdown.  You could be on offense in the wrong "red zone" and trying to get out of it and down the field.  You could be on defense in the "red zone" where you want the offense to maybe get a "safety."   Either way, your mindset and intensity rises when you are in the "red zone." Remember this guy and his famous word "engage?"  Peter gives us 4 things to engage in this passage of scripture realizing we are in the "red...