The Plowman

 

 Our Loving Savior [36:33m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1078)

This message by Pastor Rod Harris was delivered at Trinity Baptist Church on Sunday morning, July 29, 2007, and was taken from Mark 7:24-37.

In these two simple stories Mark as a master story teller, and as an inspired author of God’s word, tells these simple stories of Jesus moving beyond the Jews to demonstrate his love and compassion for all people, meeting all needs. Too often we read over simple stories like this, and fail to see the fact that there are great truths revealed in the actions of Jesus.

1. The First Story: The love of Jesus responds to the heart of persistent faith. Setting: these are difficult days for Jesus. The Jews are dogging him looking for something in his words with which to condemn him. Compare this picture with that in last week’s message in which Mark declares at the end of verse 19 “Thus he declared all foods clean.” Jesus is in effect declaring in this act that all people are clean. Before he does this, though, he calls this Gentile woman a “dog.” In the context of a Jewish world this is the worst insult that anyone could pay to someone. How does this square with the love of God? In the whole context, Jesus knew what was going on all along, and he knew what he was going to do. He was using this opportunity to teach the crowd. How do you interpret the way Jesus spoke these words to this woman? We learn here of the love of God responding to a persistent faith, even those outside of the “family” of God, demonstrating his love for all of humanity. This is the kind of faith described in Hebrews 11:6. What ever your need is today, God’s power and grace is sufficient for you today.
2. The Second Story: The love of God far exceeds our greatest expectations: verse 37 states that “they were astonished beyond measure.” These people were hoping for a blessing, we don’t know exactly in what manner, but Jesus far exceeded their greatest expectations. Why did Jesus sigh as he looked to heaven? Maybe it was because he entered into the suffering of this man. Again, the people said “He has done all things well.” If you are here today with needs, needs of the soul as well as mind and body, Jesus does all things well.

Whatever your need, Jesus has grace and power to meet that need.

 

 Putting out a Fleece or Hedging Your Bet [33:58m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1087)

This is message number three in the “Knowing God’s Will series. This message by Pastor Rod Harris was delivered at Trinity Baptist Church on Wednesday evening, July 25, 2007.

 

 The Cure for Boring Worship [31:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1124)

This message by Pastor Rod Harris was delivered at Trinity Baptist Church on Sunday evening, July 22, 2007, and was taken from Jeremiah 3:19-4:4.

Maybe there are times when worship is boring because we are not paying attention.
Could the solutions include our method of presentation? In our mad rush to be exciting we have forgotten that worship is primarily about God.

The first thing we need to ask is “Is this pleasing to the Lord?”, then we come back and ask “Are we making things difficult for the people?” Maybe it’s the content that really matters, not just the style.

In the passage we have:

• An Amazing Thought: The true content of the gospel is an astonishing and terrifying thing. Here’s an amazing thought; the Creator of the universe  actually desires a loving relationship with stubborn and sinful rebels.
• A Demanding Requirement: God demands genuine repentance, made up of:
  • genuine acknowledgment that God alone is God
  • a sincere confession of the sinfulness of sin
  • authentic return in brokenness and humility
• A Sober Warning: The wrath of God abides on the unrepentant.

If we are faithful to proclaim this gospel, it is anything but boring. It is astonishing and terrifying.

“It has been argued that free enterprise gives out uneven slices of the doughnut while socialism hands out equal portions of the hole”

R. C. Sproul Jr., Biblical Economics, 1985, Draught Horse Press, Bristol, Tennessee, p. 149.

 

 Genuine Spirituality [40:28m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1074)

This message by Pastor Rod Harris was delivered at Trinity Baptist Church on Sunday morning, July 22, 2007, and was taken from Mark 7:1-23.

Spirituality is popular: “I’m not religious, but I am very spiritual.”
How do you define that, and is it a good thing?
Most people define spirituality by giving a list: I go to church, read my bible, don’t go to movies, etc. This reduces spirituality to mere behavior. you can do some spiritual things and not be spiritual at all.

1. vs. 1-13: Genuine spirituality has little use for mere conformity to external rules.
2. vs. 14-23: Genuine spirituality is a matter of character.

Are you a spiritual person? Don’t give me your list. Tell me of your conversion.

• The only reason someone goes to hell is because he rejects Jesus. False.
• The only reason someone goes to hell is because he is a sinner. True.

 

 "It Can't Be That Simple" [37:29m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1060)

This message by Pastor Rod Harris was delivered at Trinity Baptist Church on Wednesday evening, July 18, 2007.

Pastor Rod has been reading the book Discovering God’s Will for My Life, by Ray Pritchard. This series of sermons is drawn from material in that book. This is actually the second message in the series. The first was given several weeks back.

It never fails. Every so often the anti-alcohol issue has to emerge from one of the journalistic organs of the Southern Baptist Convention. This time Oklahoma’s own Baptist Messenger felt the need last week to beat the dead horse one more time. There was nothing really new this time around; not much, really, to comment on. The same tired arguments were drug up on stage: short on scriptural exegesis, well short on scripture, period; long on sophistry. I wouldn’t have bothered with this post on the evils of alcohol except for the on-line comments of a couple of ladies. The fairer sex, on the main, was better represented by sound reasoning and scripture than the men, who, for the most part displayed their more emotional feminine side a bit too much. There were some rational men, but not many. It was pretty impressive, considering one of the ladies was the missus, and the other was one of our three bright offspring. None of them were raised in a Southern Baptist church. That, the grace of God, and home schooling, is why they have a mind and can express themselves without saying “Uh, like, uh, you know.”

Sometimes these anti-alcohol types remind me of a few lines from that immortal classic The Chicken

And intellectually, they’re plumb light headed.
They’re not confused by the facts.
That’s why there’s no guard chickens,
seeing-eye chickens, or trained chicken acts.

You have a very hard time tying them down to plain scripture. They tend to have a penchant for statistics and less-clear scripture which they then “apply” to alcohol. I am not a member of the clergy club, but I know enough about hermeneutics to know that the principle of the analogy of scripture means that you use the clearer passages to see your way through the more unclear passages. With the anti-drink crowd it always seems to be the other way around. What do you do with passages like Deuteronomy 14:22-27, Psalm 104:14, 15, and Amos 9:13? Well, I guess if you don’t like those passages, just skip over them.

 

 "The God We Worship" [37:51m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1069)

This message by Pastor Rod Harris was delivered at Trinity Baptist Church on Sunday morning, July 15, 2007 and was taken from Mark 6:31-56.

What we discover in this last half of the sixth chapter of Mark is that it reveals a moving portrait of the God we worship and adore. Power and mercy come together in the person and work of Jesus Christ. He is worthy of our worship and adoration.

1. In verses 30-44 we find in the person of Jesus Christ a compassionate shepherd ministering to the needs of the aimless and the wandering. The key verse in this section is 34: “When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” Their real need was spiritual. Verse 34 ends with “And he began to teach them many things.” Later Jesus met the crowd’s physical need for food.
2. In verses 45-52 we find in Jesus Christ a sovereign savior who comes to the struggling and the helpless. Jesus never took his eyes off of his disciples, and in the midst of their struggles on the sea he comes to them and saves them.
3. In verses 53-56 we see that Jesus Christ is a sympathetic healer touching the hurting and the hopeless.

Do you find your life with no meaning or purpose? Your life doesn’t go anywhere? Look to the Shepherd. There is a sovereign savior who will deliver you today if you will turn to him.

Even if you aren’t a country-music fan, and I am not particularly, surely you have heard the popular country song by Craig Morgan, “That’s What I Love About Sunday.” Written by Mark Narmore and Adam Dorsey, this song that connects Sunday with faith, hit the top of the country charts back in early 2005. The big story back in 2005 was that this five-week number-one hit was the product of an independent record label, something virtually unheard of. More recently it turns out there is an interesting Southern Baptist connection to this country song as well. One of the co-authors of the lyrics, Adam Dorsey, is currently a seminary student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in Louisville, Kentucky. Last week Baptist Press published an article on this songwriter turned seminary student. It is an interesting piece. You should read it.

One devilish little detail keeps nagging at me, though. Nope, it’s not the song, per se. Being a secular song and not a church hymn, I can’t really criticize its watered-down theology. It happens to be a fine, warm-fuzzy song about God-fearin’ living; better than most by Nashville standards. It’s a great song if you don’t expect too much out of it.

I can’t really criticize the Baptist Press piece either. BP did a fine job delivering a wonderful human-interest story, full of patient waiting on God, enormous struggles, with eventual resolution and praise to God for His ultimate goodness.

What has kept me up nights is Adam Dorsey himself. I feel like Hercule Poirot in one of those Agatha Christie mysteries, in which the plot hangs on one little, seemingly insignificant detail that won’t cooperate with the other pieces of evidence in the case.

See if you see what I mean. Look at the words in the second half of the first verse of the song to see what I’m driving at:

That’s what I love about Sunday:
Sing along as the choir sways;
Every verse of Amazin’ Grace,
An’ then we shake the Preacher’s hand.

Do you see what I mean? I think this Adam Dorsey character is an impostor, maybe trying to hide something. I think the folks at Southern should investigate him. Dr. Moore is a country-music buff. Maybe he should look into the matter. What I mean by all of this is this Dorsey guy can’t be a Southern Baptist. Why do I say this, you ask? Well by the simple deduction that I’ve never been in a Southern Baptist church that ever sang every verse of anything, at least anything that had more than two verses and was written before 1950.

Well, now that I have had my bit of fun, it’s application time.

1. I am grateful for the Baptist Press article. It’s time we saw more of the same. That kind of article, among other things, informs and makes us acquainted with and better able to pray for those in or preparing to go into the mission field or pastorates. What we don’t need more of from BP are articles on pornography and addiction.
2. Is there any logical reason why we can’t seem to find a way to sing more than the first, third, and last verses of anything in church? I have a theory, and maybe I will share it with you sometime.

 

 The Way Home [34:01m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1131)

This message by Pastor Rod Harris was delivered at Trinity Baptist Church on Sunday evening, July 08, 2007, and was taken from Jeremiah 3:1-18.

There is something in the heart of every man that tells him that something is just not quite right. We never quite feel fully at home. Our only hope of finding that desired fulfillment lies totally outside of ourselves.

In the passage before us we discover the goodness and grace of God, leading the wayward sinner back home.

1. God lovingly confronts the sinner with the depth of his depravity. The strong language in verses 1-12 is the language of love. Because God loved His people, he hit them square in the face with their sin. If He didn’t care, He wouldn’t have even bothered. The first step in going home is to realize you are not home.
2. Once God has confronted his children with the depth of depravity then God gives the divine call for repentance (verses 12-14). The way home starts with God. God places conditions on His mercy:
   1. Acknowledge your guilt.
   2. Turn away from your sins.
   3. Turn to God in obedience.
3. God mercifully restores the repentant sinner and providing us godly leadership, pointing the way home (verses 15-18).

This is the glorious good news of the gospel. God’s grace finds you, calls you, leads you, saves you, and keeps you.