A few days ago Senator Joseph Lieberman came to Chicago to meet with a group of local religious leaders. A day earlier he was in Detroit speaking at an inner city church called Fellowship Chapel. During his remarks in both places he made headline news with his emphasis on the important role religious faith plays in the Amer…
Sermon Series: Ponder This - 2000Last week David Steinhart, pastor of Forest Park Baptist Church, shared some insights on humility from a tape on leadership by Dallas Willard. Humility is a quality that is hard to define and even harder to develop. Very few people would admit to praying for humility even though the Bible instructs us to humble ourselves un…
Sermon Series: Ponder This - 2000Q: Name a good book you’ve read recently. A: Stonewall by John Dwyer. Q: Name two more. A: All the Best by George Bush; The Gold of Exodus by Howard Blum. Q: Do you read lots of books? A: I read parts of lots of books. I don’t read very many books all the way to the end. Q: Why is that? A: It must be a character f…
Sermon Series: Ponder This - 2000In a recent interview, Christopher Matthews asked Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush a thought-provoking question: “Can good people be gay?” The answer came back without hesitation: “Sure, absolutely.” Case closed, at least for a politician seeking the White House who wants to round up as m…
Sermon Series: Ponder This - 2000Mark Twain once said golf was “a good walk spoiled.” I had a chance to put that to the test this week when I played nine holes at Columbus Park with Fred Most, Glen Gale, and Vern Henrikson. I should admit right up front that I won the match handily in the sense that I had a much higher score than anyone else. Fre…
Sermon Series: Ponder This - 2000Hello and congratulations. You are the first graduating class of the new millennium. There won’t be another class like yours for a thousand years. That has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? You might as well celebrate the occasion because what we used to call “real life” is about to hit you in the face. A f…
Sermon Series: Ponder This - 2000A recent article by Philip Yancey contains one of the best illustrations of the free will-predestination problem I have ever read. The “problem” simply stated is this: How can God be in charge of everything that happens and still give humans the power to make free moral choices? It’s easy for us to go to extr…
Sermon Series: Ponder This - 2000I happened to catch a few minutes of an interview Tim Russert did with Hamilton Jordan, Chief of Staff under President Jimmy Carter. He has written a book with the intriguing title, No Such Thing as a Bad Day. It’s his own story about being diagnosed with cancer on three separate occasions before the age of 50. “W…
Sermon Series: Ponder This - 2000A few days ago I received an e-mail from a friend writing to another friend with a carbon copy sent to me. These words from a new Christian contain enormous spiritual insight: “When you said, ‘Let Jesus fill you up with Joy,’ I re-read that line about 100 times. I would love that. I will do it. I say now ‘Jesu…
Sermon Series: Ponder This - 2000Like most pastors I spend a fair amount of time talking with people who are trying to discover God’s will for their lives. It’s been my experience that most people I talk to are sincere and truly want to do God’s will if only they could figure out what it is. And most people realize there is no easy answer to…
Sermon Series: Ponder This - 2000