Tag: 2 Peter

Redeeming Your Time

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What are we supposed to do with all the time we have on our hands now? Perhaps you don’t feel that tension during the day if your household is like ours and you’re trying to both work full-time and do school for your kids, but as the busyness of the day ends and the weekends arrive, it may make itself known. In a day when many people are wondering what we’re supposed to be doing, here are some answers to that tough question.

Reverend Jonathan Waits
Sermon: Redeeming Your Time (2 Peter 3:14-17)
Date: April 5, 2020

So, are you bored yet? As I occasionally scroll through my Facebook feed, I see post after post of people asking to be entertained. We are living in an interesting time. For a society that is as digitally fed as ours is, we are collectively learning that you can only stream so much content before you’ve had enough. The other day my boys watched a show in the morning, and then entirely of their own accord turned the TV off and went outside to play for pretty much the rest of the morning. All by themselves. I didn’t have to tell them to go at all. I wondered for just a bit if someone had replaced all my children with doppelgangers. Our culture is collectively rediscovering that there is a whole world outdoors that reflects God’s beauty and is worth exploring to its fullest. We are reconnecting on walks in ways we haven’t done in some time. I wonder sometimes if our reaction once things get back to whatever normal is going to be on the other side of this will be to overload on busyness to make up for the lack we have enjoyed, or to realize just how busy we were in comparison with how we have been and opt for a slower pace all on our own. Then again, perhaps not, but maybe. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that these are interesting times and not necessarily in a good way.

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Digging in Deeper: Mark 13:29, 32

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“In the same way, when you see these things happening, recognize that he is near–at the door. . .Now concerning that day or hour no one knows–neither the angels in heaven nor the Son–but only the Father.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Something a little different for you this morning and we’ll get back to Habakkuk early next week. With all the chaos of the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world there is a growing question on the minds of many folks with even the slightest amount of spiritual sensitivity: Are we in the end times? Personally I’ve been asked this twice this week. So then, are we? Let’s talk about it.

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Staying on Track

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So, we know that being useful in our relationship with Jesus requires faith, virtue, and knowledge. But how do we consistently do anything positive with those? We need something else. In this fifth part of our series, Being Useful, we talked about what this next thing is. Thanks for reading.

Staying on Track

When I was growing up, I had the great fortune of going to a church with a whole bunch of godly men to watch as examples of how to do the Christian life well.  It was a gift that has kept on paying dividends in the years since.  There’s a call to our great men in there, but that’s for another sermon.  One of these men was named Martin Coleman.  Martin was an engineer and was one of those guys who could do or build pretty much anything.  My parents and his kids are about the same age and his grandkids are just a little bit younger than me.  We all grew up together as pieces and parts of one big church family.  That’s part of the reason I so love what we have here at First Baptist—which, incidentally, was the name of that church too. 

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What Do You Know?

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This week as we continued in our series, Being Useful, we talked about the next quality on Peter’s list that will make us more useful to Jesus. Having faith and pursuing virtue are good, but they require something else of us to get them right. In this part we talk about with this other thing is.

What Do You Know?

Do you know where the annual U.S. sailboat show takes place?  Any takers?  Do you know who else didn’t know the answer to that question?  James Holzhauer.  Name ring a bell?  He was the most recent super candidate on the long-running game show Jeopardy.  He dazzled the country for just over a month as he went on a 32-game winning streak.  Now, a streak like that would be impressive enough by itself, but that’s not what so captured the nation’s attention.  Back in 2004, Ken Jennings went on a winning streak of 74 games and sits in second place for all-time Jeopardy earnings with just over $3.5 million.  Yes, that’s only second place.  No, what made Holzhauer such a fascinating contestant was his gutsy wagering.  I’ve seen winning contestants on Jeopardy walk away with a few hundred dollars as their prize.  Holzhauer’s biggest prize was a shade over $131,000.  All for…knowing stuff. 

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Making God Happy

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This past Sunday, we continued our new series, Being Useful, by looking at the first character trait on Peter’s list that will make us more useful to Jesus. Item number one: Faith. What is faith? What does it look like to have faith? And how does growing in faith make us more useful to Jesus? Read on to find out.

Making God Happy

We were sitting in a restaurant the other day and over my shoulder a family had been seated at a pretty large table.  They needed the space.  The waitress came over like she would for any customer and took drink orders.  Not long after, they called her back.  They wanted to make some special requests.  Then they called her back again.  Then she came to take their food orders…and they made some special requests.  Then the drinks came out.  And those weren’t right.  The appetizers were wrong too.  So was their dinner.  The manager came to the table at least once, maybe twice.  It took a couple of trips by the waitress to get dessert ordered and right too.  Now, this was a busy restaurant and certainly mistakes are occasionally made in the industry.  But as we looked around the room, we didn’t notice anybody else getting the amount of specialized attention they were getting.  Now, they were never ugly that we could tell, but the fact that just about all of their stuff wasn’t quite right began to suggest a pattern.  The pattern wasn’t a restaurant that couldn’t get its stuff together.  The problem was a family that was hard to please. 

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