Sermon 181118

Here is the outline from the sermon preached at Providence Baptist Church in Adair Co., Kentucky on November 18, 2018.

Can We Be Too Thankful?

Joshua 24:14-28 (Nov. 18, 2018)

Joshua reviewed the history of the Israelites from the time they left Egypt until their inheritance of the Promised Land?  How thankful do you think the people were to get there?

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When the Israelites were challenged by Joshua to decide which God they would serve, how many of the Israelites do you think really chose God in their hearts?

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When you sit down at the table every Thanksgiving, how do you offer up thanks to the Lord?  Is it sincere?  Is it like the Israelites, without much meat on the bone?

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If you were challenged to justify your last year’s Thanksgiving Day prayer with your actions of 2018, how would you describe your success?

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Is it possible to get so “thankful” for what we have that we just sit back to see what God is going to do for us next instead of embracing the purpose He has for us?

Fruit of the Spirit

Galatians 5:22–23 (NASB95)

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

No other verses of Scripture have shaped my teaching and preaching more than these two from the fifth chapter of Galatians.  Much has been written about how to bear the fruit in this list of nine abstract nouns. 

Over the course of several posts I am going to explore some of the previously written works on Fruit of the Spirit (FoS) and also make a case for why FoS is one of the fundamental, underlying concepts in all of Scripture.  Just as many have written books about the presence of Jesus and His redemptive purpose in every book of the Bible, I am going to contend that the FoS makes a similarly prominent showing. 

This journey will be an expansive study for me with the end result being that I hope to demonstrate the importance of displaying and teaching the Fruit of the Spirit when fulfilling the Great Commission to go and make disciples.

Thanks to everyone who has read so far.  Have a blessed Saturday and Lord’s Day and I will be back on Monday.  You can also follow my Facebook page, Byron VanArsdale, or the Facebook page of the church at where I preach, Providence Baptist Church.  Blessings to all!!

Red Is My Favorite Color, But…

In my opinion, it’s just too dark for an office environment.  So when the youth at the previous church where I was pastor asked me one day to choose a color for my office…I chose orange.  A few weeks later at one of the Wednesday evening services, one of the kids came up to me and took me by the hand.  She said she wanted to show me what the youth had done for me. She led me up the stairs to my office, and from that point, the rest is history.  I had an orange office!

I loved my orange office.  It wasn’t an optic orange, nor was it a deep, warm orange like one would imagine in autumn.  The color was straight-up, out-of-the-box-of-Crayons orange.  One of the church members was gracious to make a set of curtains that matched.  I even ended up with an orange “Pastor” plate on the door.  I had many good experiences in that office, including the recording of several sermon examples for preaching classes in seminary.

It has been my vision for some time to start a ministry blog.  Since finishing my seminary work in 2016, I have needed an outlet for sharing the gospel and other practical and theological matters.  It fell upon me one day that “Orange Office Ministry” would be a good beginning, however, my interest in writing wasn’t piqued until my retirement from public education in June ’18.  Now that I have time for more reading and sermon preparation, I find that I also have more time to write for people I may never physically meet.

Soon after retirement from teaching, I also found myself moving to the pastorate of a new congregation, Providence Baptist Church in Adair County, Kentucky.  With the move, I suspected that my residence in an orange office would come to an end.  Thankfully, soon after I arrived at Providence, the pastor’s office was repainted…kinda orange!  It’s a deeper orange than the office before.  But it’s close enough that “Orange Office Ministry” is going to commence from the walls of my new church abode.  Thank you for joining me.

Titus 2:11–14 (NASB95)

11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,

12 instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age,

13 looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus,

14 who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.

My Story

In the current office

Teaching and Preaching

Teaching for 28 years in the public school system taught me about dealing compassionately with people.  When I first started teaching high school math and physics, I was worried more about teaching content than about the students’ lives.  As the years passed and I observed the challenges many young people face today, my heart turned more toward their welfare instead of how much content they could learn.

I spent sixteen and a half years in college, attaining a B. S. Degree from Western Kentucky University with majors in math and physics, an M. A. from the University of Louisville in Secondary School Counseling, a Master of Arts in Christian Studies and Master of Divinity in Apologetics from Luther Rice Seminary and finally a Doctor of Ministry, also from Luther Rice.  

The purpose of this blog is to share encouraging Scripture, discuss ideas about being a follower of Christ, share some of my apologetic views and discuss interactive preaching, the subject of my doctoral project.

If you want to follow or join in, please do so.  You can follow at orange-office-ministry.com.  Hey, if nothing else, come back to find out how the ministry got its name!

The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me! My name is Byron.  I am the pastor of a small Baptist church in south-central Kentucky.  I recently retired from public school teaching so I am going to dedicate more time to ministry and encouraging others.  Starting tomorrow, I will be updating this blog with Scripture, comments, encouragement and discussion related to all of us drawing closer to God.  Feel free to interact with any of the content, but please be mindful that this is a family-oriented website.

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

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