Pastor Gabe's Old Blog

This is a message shared with our 2014 graduates at our church this past Sunday, May 18. The full video of the sermon can be found here . Links to various videos and scriptures are made throughout the transcript. Since my senior year of high school, I’ve spoken at baccalaureate services. My first baccalaureate was my own, and then I was the keynote speaker at a Christian high school baccalaureate my freshman year of college. However, I’ve come to terms with accepting that I may never be asked to speak at a high school graduation – at least not at a public school. I am a pastor, after all. I use words like propitiation, sanctification, and abomination. I use offensive phrases like “the wrath of God” and “the cross of Christ.” So a public high school graduation speech may not ever be in my future. I’ve always wanted to speak at one. In fact, I’ve had dreams of doing a high school graduation. My youngest sibling, Anna, is 13 years younger than I am. I had fanciful expectations of...

Dear Westboro Baptist Church It has come to my attention that you plan on picketing the graduation of Junction City High School on May 18. The high school is next door to our church, First Southern Baptist. Throughout the school year, we have been feeding, evangelizing, and witnessing to those students every single Tuesday. By feeding, I mean not only spiritually. We provide them lunch as well as giving them the gospel. Most of the students that we meet do not follow Christ. But by the great mercy and patience our loving God has displayed through a murderer like the Apostle Paul (1 Timothy 1:16), and because we know that He does not want anyone to perish but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9), we know that the message we share is working in the lives of these students. It does not return void (Isaiah 55:11). We reach out with a message of love. It is a love that you do not have, and this is what troubles me as a pastor. The message of Christ, the love display...

We had a prayer gathering at a park here in our community for the National Day of Prayer. I don't usually write out my prayers, but I did this year. I was asked to pray for our media, so this is what I prayed. Our merciful Savior, I come before you today as your servant, leading this congregation in prayer. On a day of remembrance, the National Day of Prayer, may we be reminded of our sin. We are told in your word, in 2 Timothy 2:25, that only God grants repentance. I am asking this day for a spirit of conviction that we might know our sin so that we can rightly repent of it.  God, we are so easily distracted, mesmerized by so many trinkets and a variety of screens set before our eyes. We've placed value in useless forms of entertainment. Instead of staying on the straight, narrow path established by your word, we've swerved to the left and to the right. Though many of us might admit that the Bible is the infallible Word of God, we don’t even read it. Instead, we'v...