The Blue Collar Scholar

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...

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 o...

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 t...

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,...

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. Pleas...

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 symmet...

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 fro...

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) wer...

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 apologet...

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 fr...

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 analog...

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.