Grace Baptist Church, Nokomis, IL.

We’re going to be talking about wisdom this morning: what is wisdom, who is wise, and how can we be wise? Like most married couples, Abby and I sometimes disagree about things. And, like in most married couples, Abby is usually right, and I’m usually wrong. So it would be wise of me to know when to keep my mouth shut, right? Especially when there’s even the slightest amount of doubt whatsoever about whether I’m in the right. But I prove over and over again that I’m not so wise in that area.…continue reading →

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I’m going to begin the sermon today with a joke, and even if you don’t understand the joke, I want you to laugh really loud as if you got the joke. Okay? Here we go. Why did the professor cancel his lecture on epistemology? Because he didn’t know if he really knew what he was going to say! Now, how many of you knew what the joke meant? How many of you had no idea what I was talking about? That’s perfect! Many of you didn’t know what the joke about epistemology meant,…continue reading →

This isn’t a funny story, but it does remind me about how all of us act when it comes to justifying our actions. Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Billy who was a bit of a troublemaker. Whenever he got in trouble, he would always claim, “Well, this is just the way God made me!” One day, Billy was playing in the backyard when he saw a neighbor's cat sitting on the fence. Billy knew that he wasn't supposed to throw rocks at cats, but he couldn't resist. He…continue reading →

On January 15, 1919, a storage tank containing 2.3 million gallons of molasses broke in Boston, Massachusetts, causing the molasses to flood the streets of Boston, covering a portion of the city waist-deep in thick, sticky sugar. It was named the Great Molasses Flood. [Picture of the Great Molasses Flood] One witness described the scene as "like a river of chocolate." Many people and animals got stuck in the molasses and had to be rescued by firefighters. The molasses was so thick that it took days for it to completely dry up. Some…continue reading →

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So we’ve been reading and studying the book of Ecclesiastes on Sunday mornings since the beginning of the year, and now that we’re about halfway through, I wanted to do a quick recap of what we’ve been talking about so far. So as I was thinking about how to do that, I found the perfect video clip that summarizes pretty much everything we’ve seen so far in Ecclesiastes. [Jim Carrey’s Golden Globe speech] As he was about to present an award for the Golden Globes in 2016, Jim Carrey humorously said the same…continue reading →

Today, I’m going to be talking about a topic that's often a little touchy in church, and that’s the topic of money. Now, I know some of you might be thinking, "Oh great, here comes the guilt trip about tithing." But don't worry, we already passed the collection plate earlier in the service, and I promise we won't be passing it again during this morning. And in fact, we’re not going to be talking so much about giving our money here, but rather about how we think about money, and how we use…continue reading →

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the pace that we often try to maintain in life today. The world we live in today seems to value keeping ourselves constantly busy and making great accomplishments. Sometimes I can get sucked into that, and I find myself getting so incredibly busy in order to feel like I’m being productive, but then after a while I find that my life is spinning chaotically out of control, with no clear direction, chasing far too many things. And of course, idle hands are the devil’s playground, and…continue reading →