David Steinbach (my father) preached his first sermon last night at Heritage Baptist Church. He has a lot of experience with public speaking and with teaching Sunday School to various age groups, so his first sermon was a whole lot better than my first sermon was!

He preached Phil. 2.12-16, speaking about the Christian’s responsibility to live as lights to reflect the light of Jesus against the dark backdrop of the world.  It’s a careful sermon with many cross-references and clear application.  Listen here.

I recently completed a brief outline of an OT theology of prayer.  It also provided my outline for a recent Sunday School message I was able to teach at KMBC last Sunday.  It was a conviction and encouragement to me as I taught it and I hope it will be to you as well.

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Job faced some trials in his life (to put it quite mildly) and those afflictions raised some very difficult questions for him.  Using legal terminology repeatedly, Job demands a “court date” with God – he wants to be put on the divine docket.  And in the end (Job 38-42), Job hears from the Lord.  But he doesn’t hear the answers to his questions like we would expect…

This sermon explains the Lord’s reply to Job and its significance for us today.

This final lesson in the Ecclesiastes series follows the flow of thought through the last six chapters of the book.

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The last eight lessons have pulled out major themes of Ecclesiastes and examined them individually. This lesson goes through the first six chapters of the book, putting pieces together and unfolding the flow of thought.  The next lesson (in two weeks) will do the same for the rest of the book.

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I’m afraid so…  We didn’t have a lesson last week because of Missions Conference.  Next week, we will have Dr. Tim Berrey as a special guest, so I won’t be teaching on Ecclesiastes then either, and then the week after that, Baptist World Missions will be hosting their new missionary orientation at Camp Joy and we’ll have a missions focus that week as well (and since it’s Mother’s Day, I’m planning to be back in Illinois with my mother).  Then Sunday, May 18 will be my last Sunday in Ecclesiastes.  I was really hoping to spend 2 lessons going through the entire book putting all the individual motifs back together and going through the book as a unit.  But since I’ll be moving on May 22, I’ll have to compress that into one week.  I’ll need either to do some severe editing or else to talk exceedingly quickly and then slow the audio file down before I post it. :)

We’re currently having our yearly Missions Conference at Kettle Moraine Baptist Church this week – including a special Sunday School time with a missionary speaker.  From Sunday School to Wednesday night, we’re hearing from four of our different missionaries:

• Vic Labelle and family (Mexico)
• Mike McGowan (Japan)
• Mark Sheppard and family (Liberia)
• Terry Rushing and family (Wings as Eagles)

So far, the conference has gone well – the Lord has lined up much in the preaching for the week and a common theme is prominent: missions is all about God’s glory.  Our church theme is “Ambassadors for the Glory of God in Christ” and nearly every missionary has emphasized God’s glory during presentation and preaching.  And they’re not talking about God’s glory in missions in an aside to match the print materials – they’re talking about glorifying God as the heart of their ministries and as something that they preach & present at every church they go to.

I was reading last night about God’s passion for the spread of His fame as the grounds for the gospel.  He is zealous to see His name (reputation) spread across the globe.  That’s why we “do missions” – because we want to delight in the same things He delights in – namely, spreading His fame worldwide.

Solomon closes Ecclesiastes with a two-fold exhortation: fear God and keep His commandments. This lesson looks into the relationship between the New Testament Christian and the Old Testament Law.

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Solomon closes Ecclesiastes with a two-fold exhortation: fear God and keep His commandments.  This lesson explores the Old Testament background to the phrase fear God.

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This lesson finishes the notes and subject from last week.

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