The Blue Collar Scholar

The final episode in the Life of Christ series is also the last extant recording of any of the sermons I gave at First Baptist Church of Goodman, at least any recordings I am aware of. In this sermon, I explore the resurrection of Christ and why it is such an important event.

The death of Jesus Christ is perhaps the most important moment in all history, according to a Christian theological interpretation of history. The death gives the resurrection obvious meaning, it represented (once again) prophecy fulfilled by Jesus, and mostly it was the moment of atonement, went Christ's blood served as the penal substitutionary atonement that makes salvation possible.

One week before Easter each year, most churches celebrate what is called "Palm Sunday." This commemorates the moment when Jesus enters into Jerusalem to begin his final week of ministry before His death, burial, and Resurrection. As Jesus is entering the city, his followers wave palm branches and lay down their cloaks on the ground to hail His arrival. That is why we call it Palm Sunday; but that is not a term that the Bible uses. Scripture refers to it as a triumphal entry. This event teaches us a lot about who Jesus is. Join us as we dig into the Scriptures surrounding this event.

Jesus chose His closest disciples from amongst the working class, the poor, the outcasts, & the unwanted. And Jesus took those men - men that society saw as losers - and the Lord changed the world with these men. Each person who belongs to the family of God with the name Christian applied to our name is a disciple, and it is our duty to worship the Lord and to love the least of these, a.k.a. those that society discards.

At the risk of stating the obvious, Jesus Christ is the most important person in Christian teaching and theology. The Old Testament points to Him, the New Testament documents His ministry and the birth of the Church that exists to worship Him, and of all human history since the First Century has been affected by His life. This sermon is the first in an 8 part series on the Life of Christ. Unfortunately, only 5 of those messages were recorded. This sermon is based off of Matthew chapters 1-4.

This was not the conclusion to the End Times Series, but the last couple of messages were not recorded. So this sermon about the Tribulation is the last teaching about the End Times that we will have on this podcast for a very long time, since I have already covered this topic thoroughly in Sunday School format and in lectures from a Revelation class for senior citizen learners. In this message, I do not attempt to go into every detail about the Tribulation, but rather to hit a few highlights and talk about what the Tribulation is in terms of broad characteristics instead of minute details.

I am always careful when dealing with the topic of the rapture, acknowledging that many (perhaps most) Biblical scholars scoff at this piece of dispensational theology, and I remain extremely non-dogmatic about it. Nevertheless, this episode of the pod makes a Scriptural case for the rapture, but also gives a more expansive set of lessons that we can learn from this bit of doctrine.

This episode explores the differences between premillennial dispensationalism, historic premillennialism, and amillennialism. (Unfortunately, the recording got cut off before discussing postmillennialism or preterism.) In short, there are many different interpretations of eschatology. Scripture is not as crystal clear about eschatology as we would like, and therefore, Christians should be very tolerant of other Christians with different interpretations about End Times verses.

If your exposure to my teaching is mostly limited to the content of this podcast feed, then you might have concluded by now that I am one of the those End Times preachers. After all, I have already done a Bite-Sized Theology series on the End Times, a pandemic-era Sunday School series on the End Times, and a Lifetime Learning college class on eschatology. I ask you to believe that I actually do not fixate on these teachings; I just happen to have recordings of most of my End Times teaching opportunities, including this episode. In fact, this October 2012 sermon series was the first time I had the courage to tackle eschatology (the study of the end times) in the pulpit. This is the introductory message in that series.

In this conclusion to The Hurt & the Healer series, we talk about what it looks like to heal, and how God can use the tragedies in your life to bring glory to Him, to enrich your life, and to love and serve others in their times of trouble.

The Hurt & the Healer series continues by showing that the ultimate struggle between God and Satan is already a foregone conclusion. Satan and evil and death and pain are marked for defeat. Ultimate victory and healing belong to God, and Christ's victory is our victory. For in New Heavens & New Earth, He will wipe every tear and there will be no more pain or death, and God will make His dwelling with humans, and we will be His people and He will be our God. Hallelujah!

This episode digs into the age-old Problem of Evil, or as it is usually expressed: "Why do bad things happen to good people?" The question can be answered, but we need to be careful. Telling a hurting person that God may have sufficient reasons to allow a certain instance of suffering, or that there are not really any purely good people, is probably not helpful. Such explanations are not going to provide any healing for a hurting person. But having a proper theological understanding of suffering is quite helpful for a person to learn and internalize when times aren't bad. For when the bad times inevitably come, we can better calm our stormy minds and see God not as failing to protect us, but rather we see Him as our strong tower in times of turmoil.

This is the first sermon in a series called "The Hurt & the Healer." This series was inspired by the Mercy Me song of the same title. This series seeks to provide hope to those who are hurting. The theme of this message is "strong tower," as in: "The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe." (Proverbs 18:10) Each of us has a crossroads moment when hard times and suffering happen. (1) We can run to Him. (2) We can abandon God. Which shall you choose?

This is one of my favorite sermons from the archives. By mining the rich mines of Jesus' parables and teachings, this sermon seeks to show that loving people is how you love God. Now, of course, love for God is more complex, as it involves worship, something that you should never offer to any person short of Jesus Christ. But Christ makes it clear. Whatever you do for the least of these ... you do for Him!

This episode clears up some confusion I had in my lecture notes for the previous episode regarding the Church of Satan, and I go into much greater detail on the New Age Movement(s).

This episode is less of a sermon and more like a lecture. At First Baptist Church of Cherokee (KS) we called it the Winter Workshop 2010. I had taken a class at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary about the dangers of the occult. Part of the class was to prepare a lecture or sermon to be delivered at a church or other community organization. This was my presentation. I talk about the origins of wicca, Mormonism, Islam, Scientology, and the New Age. This ends with a series of recommendations for Christians on how to prepare for and to resist, but not to fixate upon or to freak out about, the occult. Note: There is a part 2 that will be released soon.

This is an evangelistic Gospel message presented at a youth conference in November 2010. The theme of the conference and of the message is "The Price Is Right."

This is a presentation of the Gospel in the form of a short story. Note: I shared the same story on Facebook Live during the pandemic, and the audio of that recording in available on this podcast feed, Episode #166.

This sermon uses several themes that have been in other messages that were given to different churches; themes that have been prevalent in recent episodes of this podcast. In this episode, Satan's temptation of Christ in Matthew 4 serves as the central text for the sermon, which leads into a discussion about the four key characteristics of Scripture: Authority, Clarity, Necessity, and Sufficiency.

This sermon was the introductory sermon to an entire series on the Apostle Paul and his writings. I only preached the introductory message, not the entire series. In this sermon, I draw six lessons from the life of the Apostle Paul: (1) The health & wealth Gospel is false. (2) Exercise reckless boldness for Christ. (3) Make decisions, but be open to God changing the plan. (4) Check all spiritual teachings against Scripture. (5) Deflect unearned praise. (6) Even spiritual giants can make mistakes.

I was a guest speaker at my church (CornerStone Community Church in Haslett, Michigan) on August 2, 2009, during my three year sojourn in the great state in the north where people point to the palm of their hand to show where they're from. This is a rather lengthy teaching on the importance of Scripture. I laid out 6 characteristics of Scripture: purity, authority, clarity, necessity, sufficiency, and inerrancy.

This is the first message in a Spring Break conference we had at the Michigan State University/Lansing Community College Christian Challenge campus ministry in March 2008. The theme of this message is evangelism, and as such, you will recognize much of this teaching. I used most of this content in other sermons in other churches, some of which were recorded and are available on this podcast. Please forgive the audio quality, as it is ripped off of a cassette tape.

This is the final sermon that I preached in my Expository Preaching course for Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in the Spring of 2007. In this episode, I dissect the doxology at the end of Psalm 16 to determine that a balance, complete life devoted to God results in Joy & in Life.

Psalm 16 is not about maintaining healthy relationships. However, in order for the teaching of Psalm 16 to be true, it is assumed that a person has maintained a healthy relationship to God, to fellow saints, to the lost, and to one's self. So this episode digs into those 4 relationships.

Psalm 15 preaches itself. It is basically a list of things that a righteousness man does to be righteous. This sermon was prepared for and preached in my Expository Preaching class at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Spring 2007.

This is the first sermon in a 4-part series that I did for my Expository Preaching class at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in the Spring of 2007. All 4 sermons will come from the Book of Psalms, and the texts chosen for these messages are in order. Today's text is the 14th Psalm.

This episode examines the promise in James 1:5-8 that God will grant wisdom to those who ask.

It is difficult to find joy in trials and suffering. The Apostle James knew it was difficult when he commanded us to to so in James 1:1-4. Nevertheless, while happiness is dependent on circumstances, joy does not have to be. We can find joy despite hardships. But in this sermon we will ponder 5 reasons why the trials and suffering themselves could be the source of joy.

Herod "the Great" is one of the most memorable villains in the Bible. When we analyze his behavior in Matthew chapter 2, we can draw some lessons on what NOT to do.

Some of the more challenging passages of Scripture to preach or teach are genealogies. It is not easy to draw life lessons from lists of names. However, the way the Apostle Matthew arranges the genealogy of Jesus shows us several things. Firstly, it establishes the identity of Jesus, emphasizing his royal credentials. Secondly, Matthew has an absurdly balanced genealogy, but he abandons his symmetry in order to include a few brothers and mothers into a genealogy that often only includes fathers and sons. These individuals that Matthew includes in the genealogy have been added for a reason, and we explore that in this lesson.

This is the conclusion of the Soldiers of the LORD series preached at Bosworth Baptist Church in 2006. This is all about the importance of Scripture in the life of a Christian.

This, the second message in the Soldiers of the LORD series, digs into the classic "Armor of God" passage in Ephesians 6:10-20.

In my final year of seminary, I got my first professional pastorate. I was the part-time, interim, bi-vocational pastor of Bosworth Baptist Church in Bosworth, Missouri. I did not record all of the sermons from that time, but I did record a 3-part series called "Soldiers of the LORD," which I present to you here. This first episode deals with evangelism, and is very similar to podcast episodes from the past few days, as I used many of the same themes, examples, and illustrations in other sermons that were preached at other churches while providing pulpit supply.

This is an interesting trip down memory lane. I am not a King James Only advocate, but I was invited to preach at a KJV-only church in my hometown. I did this a few times while they were searching for a pastor, but this appears to be the only available recording from those sermons. This was the most conservative audience I ever preached to, and this time in my life (last few years of seminary) were the times of my life where I was the most conservative, both religiously and politically. This sermon about evangelism is sound, & I think I agree with everything I said, but I know for a fact that I would preach this message differently today.

CORRECTION: In this message, 23-year-old me miscalculated the approximate date of writing for 1 Corinthians and the Synoptic Gospels. ... This sermon was from over 20 years ago, and I tried to boil down all of Christian apologetics into a 25 minute sermon. There are certainly some things I would do differently if I gave this sermon today, but this was not a half bad attempt at introducing apologetics (or, the intellectual defense of the faith) by a young man in his first year of seminary.

Here's another throwback sermon from the last semester of college, just before going to seminary. In this message I give some basic advice for how to put a faith life into practice, setting meaningful and achievable goals. This podcast episode begins with a children's time message about how the New Testament does not look down upon someone just because they are young. Since this is audio ripped from a VHS, the audio quality is quite poor.

We are jumping back into the Way-Back Machine again to a sermon from June 2002. In this message, I give a quite direct and undiluted Gospel presentation, loaded with New Testament Bible verses mostly from the Book of Romans (The "Romans Road") designed to lead others to accept Jesus Christ as personal Lord & Savior. This recording begins with a children's time message where I use a tortured analogy, comparing the usefulness of a walking stick with the usefulness of the Bible. Sigh. Oh, and the sound quality is so-so, as it is from a VHS recording.

This is what I believe the be the earliest recording of any sermon that I have given, and I reckon that this was my third sermon. This sermon was preached on the day before my 20th birthday, and if you notice the date of the sermon (5 August 2001), this even pre-dates 9/11. I warn you that the audio quality is extremely poor, as it was ripped off of a VHS tape.

I was asked to join the Big Hill Small Talk podcast to discuss my moderate politics. This is my interview with my friend and former coworker Ike Reitemeier. For more from this Southeast Kansas podcast, look for "Big Hill Small Talk" in your preferred podcast distributor.

Our long series on personal spiritual disciplines has finally come to a close. In this conclusion, I offer encouragement to busy people to try not to master everything all at once. Rather, you should prioritize prayer and Bible reading, and you should take the time necessary to build these disciplines, giving yourself grace and forgiveness but also pushing yourself to excellence. Good luck, and may your faith grow! Note: This teaching was recorded on 11-28-2021.

Learning is like a muscle; the more you do it, the easier learning becomes, and the stronger/smarter you become. I believe that a strong and nimble mind is better able to love the Lord with all one's mind, and a broad range of knowledge can enrich one's spiritual life. Furthermore, knowledge of things like history, philosophy, and science can strengthen one's ability to interpret Scripture. Note: This teaching was recorded on 11-21-2021.

Too often, Christians treat "learning" as something that scholars do. Average everyday Christians don't need to read, or study, or learn, or grow. That is patently incorrect. Each and every Christian is tasked with loving the Lord with all your soul, heart, strength, and MIND. But, you don't have to outpace scholars and pastors. No, success is when YOU learn more than YOU previously knew. And learning is a broad category: learning more Scripture, theology, hymns, church history, or literally any field of knowledge that makes one grow closer to God. Note: This teaching was recorded on 11-14-2021.

Of all the personal spiritual disciplines mentioned in this series, the discipline of keeping a journal is the least persuasive. The Bible does not command you to journal. However, there are many advantages of journaling, and this episode digs into those arguments in favor of journaling as a personal spiritual discipline. Note: This teaching was recorded on 11-7-2024.

There are many adjectives that can be used to describe what it is like to be an American, or an American Christian. One of those adjectives: loud. Our lives, schedules, workplaces, activities, families, and even worship fellowships can be quite noisy and stressful. But if we are to emulate Christ, then we need to value the occasional silent retreat, to escape the crowds and the noise and the stress. It is in these times that we can strengthen our relationship with God and find peace. Note: This teaching was recorded on 10-31-2021.

When Jesus talks about fasting, He says, "When you fast..." The assumption is that you will fast. But of the spiritual disciplines, this is perhaps the least utilized one in Christian circles. And Scripture does help us to understand fasting. To the best of my knowledge, there is no passage that teaches exactly what fasting does, exactly how it works, and exactly how it affects our spiritual lives. However, it is possible to discern these things (more or less) by extrapolating from stories and teachings in the Bible where fasting is mentioned. Note: This teaching was recorded on 10-24-2021.

This is not the televangelist fundraising seminar. I purposely avoided speaking of the grave need that you fork over your money for this or that ministry fund drive. Instead, this lesson attempts to explain the personal spiritual advantages that the giver receives. Note: This teaching was recorded on 10-17-2021.

Every single one of the personal spiritual disciplines that we have covered in this series require time, and that means that you have to discipline yourself to manage your time well. This means setting good priorities, choosing the best options while letting merely good options go to the wayside, multitasking when possible, and scheduling your life in a way that allows you to be flexible and productive. Note: This teaching was recorded on 10-10-2021.

What are the things in life that waste away your time? These things are like time vampires that destroy the extremely limited resource you have. Often, we can't just cut these things off cold turkey. Our families, jobs, education, and even church can be things that take away your time, and must be managed. Other things, like entertainment and video games, can still be enjoyed, but our relationship with these things must be radically adjusted so they are no longer time vampires. Note: This teaching was recorded on 10-3-2021.

The Holy Spirit grants spiritual gifts, and your Creator has given you certain skills, and you have refined and honed certain talents. You can use those gifts, skills, and talents to the Glory of God, and in direct service of the Kingdom of God. I would encourage you to do so. Note: This teaching was recorded on 9-26-2021.

This episode will be controversial amongst those excellent Christians who have the courage and the time to go out "soul winning" door-to-door or in a marketplace or something. But for most of us Christians, the idea of engaging in such stressful, time-consuming, and very unproductive evangelism turns us off from evangelism all together. But there is a better way. Find a small group of individuals to truly invest in. Love them, teach them, disciple them, and prepare them to go out and do the same thing, effectively multiplying your efforts. And this strategy results in fewer people who say a prayer and then nothing happens, and more people who learn and grow and develop into true disciples of Jesus. Note: This teaching was recorded on September 19, 2021.