Perfection is the Goal (Matthew 5:17-48)

This week's sermon covered Matthew 5:17-48 and was entitled "Perfection is the Goal." This is the section of the "Sermon on the Mount" in which Jesus makes the bold statement that our righteousness must exceed the religious elite if we are to spend eternity in heaven and then proceeds with six case studies of the kind of righteousness required by God. The section concludes with Jesus commanding His disciples to pursue perfection in light of God's perfection. What does this passage teach about salvation? How is it related to Jesus' mission of fulfilling the Law and the Prophets (v. 17)? To find out, click here and listen to the sermon.

New Testaments Burned

Israeli police are investigating the burning of hundreds of copies of the New Testament (Click here for the whole story from CNN). Interestingly enough, there's an editorial in this month's Christianity Today magazine (which I received in the mail yesterday) regarding the impoving conditions for Messianic Jews (those who believe Jesus is the Messiah) living in Israel. Apparently there is still some work to be done.

How should Christians respond to this? Recently when a US soldier shot up a copy of the Quran, there was outrage within the Muslim community. Should Christians respond similarly to the New Testament being treated with disrespect? Why or why not?

Must Reads Before Becoming a Pastor

Here are 5 books everyone seeking to become a pastor should read (w/ links to Amazon.com):

• Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor by D.A. Carson
• Lectures to My Students by Charles Spurgeon
• The Reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter
• Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome by Kent Hughes
• The Deliberate Church by Mark Dever

Let me know what you think about this list and if there are any others that should be added.

By God's Grace, Jeff

If Chicago is the "Windy City," then...

...North Dakota is the "Windy State"! We were told before coming that North Dakota tended to be on the windy side. In fact one of the sayings people like to use around here is "If you don't like the weather just wait a few minutes and it will change." And it was pretty windy this winter...but then again I wasn't too interested in being outside for very long in February for the wind to really bother me all that much. That situation has changed now that we're well into spring and I have signed up for a membership at the local golf course. The wind has now become my arch-nemesis (move over Sergio Garcia)! My plan was to golf just about every Monday (my day off) and some Saturdays but three times in the last two weeks it has been way too windy to golf (unless you live in Scotland). We've had wind gusts of 40-50 mph and regular winds of 15-25 mph on those days (as well as a few others recently). I finally got in a round this past Tuesday (apparently eveyone else wanted to also as the course was packed!) and today (the wind was only blowing at 10-20 mph!). I'm sure I'll still get plenty of golf in this summer but I am starting to understand why we were warned about the wind...there's just nothing to stop the wind blowing over the northern plains (no trees, mountains, hills, tall buildings...)

On Sunday afternoon we experienced our first small town high school graduation. It was nice to be able to attend a graduation that you didn't have to have tickets for. Since there were only a dozen kids graduating, the ceremony was very personal (slide show of each student, announcement of parents) as well as short. Then after the ceremony itself, the students lined up outside the school gym in a reception line. I was able to congratulate the kids that I had the opportunity to get to know while coaching the basketball team this winter. It was quite different from what we experienced at our "city" high school and college graduations!

On Saturday we had hoped to visit the Bismarck zoo (even though there are no Giant Pandas) but a storm blew across western North Dakota and so we had to settle for going out to lunch and then going to see the new Indiana Jones movie (I still can't by the kid from "Even Stevens" as a Greaser). The storm followed us home and in fact there was a tornado warning for our county that night, which gave us the excuse to watch some tv downstairs in our basement. The tornado didn't materialize in our area though there were three elsewhere in ND. I guess that goes with the territory.

By God's Grace, Jeff

Kingdom Character Counts

This Sunday I preached on Matthew 5:1-16 with the sermon title being "Kingdom Character Counts." This section of Matthew's Gospel contains the beatitudes and the illustrations of being like salt and light in demonstaring what kind of character is acceptable to Jesus. It isn't that we are expected to earn a certain level of character quality but rather live up to these character traits as a result of receiving God's grace in our lives - they're blessings not commands. If you'd like to hear more you can listen to the sermon by clicking here.

By God's Grace, Jeff

10 Problems with Athiestic Evolution

Here are ten problems with Athiestic Evolution as identified by Pastor Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill Church - Seattle, WA) in a recent sermon entitled "Creation: God Makes":

1. It assumes that nothing made everything

2. It assumes that chaos created order

3. It assumes that no designer created what is designed

4. It assumes impersonal matter created personal beings

5. It assumes unintelligent made intelligent

6. It assumes a transition between species existed over a long period of time (no evidence)

7. It has been unable to replicate evolution

8. It assumes earth is eternal (contra "Big Bang" theory and second law of thermodynamics)

9. It leads to hopelessness and despair (you came from nothing and are going nowhere)

10. It's biased and based on bad science

By God's Grace, Jeff

Pancakes for supper...again

Another interesting aspect of small town life is that it's actually possible to throw a town-wide meal and include just about everybody (without it costing a fortune or requiring a volunteer staff the size of a small country). I think I've mentioned before about one of the blessings of small town life that we noticed even early on: that people organize benefits to raised money for those in the community who are suffering. However, this past Wednesday there was a benefit of another kind. The Underwood Civic Club (like a Chamber of Commerce) organized an Appeciation Supper on behalf of the companies in town. Basically the residents were treated to a free meal as a thanks for supporting the local businesses. These benefits meals are also fairly predictable (pancakes and sausage)...but free food nontheless. It's really neat to see the whole town come together for events like these...something that you'd almost never see in a larger community. I don't know about others, but I enjoy breakfast for dinner occasionally.

Tonight will be our last regular youth ministry Bible study before the summer. Next week we'll have an event to go out to eat in Bismarck and then to see "Prince Caspian." Please pray for wisdom in how we should proceed with the youth ministry in the future. On another youth note, I will be taking the high school Sunday School class this summer through the book "Do the Hard Things." Please pray for my time with the guys and that God would use this to challenge them to live up to His standards and not down to the world's.

Sunday I preached on Matthew 4:12-25 and the sermon was entitled "The Messiah's Ministry Takes Shape." In this passage Jesus' ministry begins and you see His ministry values: preaching, calling disciples, teaching and healing. If these are Jesus' ministry values, shouldn't they also characterize those who follow Him? Click here to listen to the sermon.

By God's Grace, Jeff

Everybody Should have a good Study Bible

I can't express in words how excited I am about the upcoming ESV Study Bible...and I've only seen bits and pieces! I have been using the English Standard Version for my personal and family devotions for the past few years and appreciate its desire to be literal (although sometime I think they go overboard - see Jonah 1:6). In addition to the ESV being a quality translation, here are some of the highights (as I see them) of the upcoming Study Bible:

1. 19,500+ study notes (an average of nearly 300 per book of the Bible!)
2. 200 full-color maps (most Bibles I own only have about 10!)
3. 100+ articles and introductions (Check out the Intro to Luke...it's like a commentary!)
4. General Editor - Wayne Grudem (you might own his other work - "Systematic Theology")
5. Theological Editor - J.I. Packer (Knowing God, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, etc.)

All this to say that if you don't have a study Bible, the cover is falling off of the one you use or you're simply looking for some good insights during your time in God's Word, you should pick up the ESV study Bible...By the way, you can get 35% off if you pre-order by may 15th!

October 15, 2008 can't come soon enough as far as I'm concerned!

By God's Grace, Jeff

Pheasants...evidence against Darwinism!

We had our second run-in (literally) with a pheasant. Harmony hit her first pheasant while driving back from pilates in Washburn on Tuesday. Besides disjarring our side blinker, it didn't seem to do much damage. You wouldn't think that hitting a bird would do much damage except when you're driving nearly 70 mph! I think if I ever get into a debate with a proponent of Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest, I am going to use the case of the pheasant as my number one contradictory example. My point is that according to Darwinism, over time only the most "fit" of a species survives. However, the pheasant is a prime counter-example. You would think that over time the "unfit" pheasants who think they can make it to the otherside of the road in front of a car doing 70, would die-out leaving only the more "fit" ones to re-produce and thus their offspring would be less likely to make such unwise decisions. But the theory does not hold around here anyway, as you end up hitting just as many pheasants as the year before!

I was able to take advantage of the warmer weather here lately by golfing on my day-off on Monday. The course was pretty dry still but the greenskeepers were out watering the greens. As a result I couldn't make a put to save my life! Nonetheless, it was a lot of fun and a great day to spend a few hours chasing a small white ball around 18 holes.

The nice weather has not been all good. We're suffering through a drought and are in desperate need of rain. The western part of North Dakota did not get very much snow this winter (while the eastern part set records!) and we didn't receive many "April showers" either. The farmers are going to have a really tough year, if we don't get some moisture soon. With prices for food already increasing due to the weak dollar, gas prices and overseas markets, the last thing we need is a down year for crops. At the same time I have no doubt that God will provide.

Sunday I preached on Matthew 4:1-11 (Jesus' temptations) and the sermon title was "Choosing Mission over Temptation." The devil enticed Jesus to be other than what God called and sent Him to be (which would have been a lot easier) but Jesus chose His God-given mission to live a perfect life and die a sacrfiical death for sinners instead of giving into Satan's temptations. Now that you know the main point, if you'd like to hear the rest click here.