A Good Word 11.9.21

A Quiet Life - 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12

Jeff Kerr is the Pastor of Crestwood Presbyterian Church in Edmonton, Alberta. Originally preached on May 23, 2021.

If you are anything like me, you probably couldn’t point to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada on a map. But it is the home to Crestwood Presbyterian Church and it’s senior pastor Jeff Kerr. Crestwood has both morning an evening services, earlier this year, their Sunday morning series covered the book of 1st Thessalonians.
This sermon is interesting because it is in many ways a sermon preached in reverse. The sermon begins with a beautiful picture of the love of Jesus. Instead of getting the gospel at the end of the sermon, Jeff jumps in and begins with it. This allows the entire sermon to be an extended meditation and application of this passage in Thessalonians. In addition to the structure of the sermon I was struck by how simple it was. Even a covenant child could have followed every part of this sermon. While Jeff brought out deep truths, he did so in a way that was accessible to anyone. The passage contains a tricky turn of phrase that Jeff handled well. He brought both Stott’s and Calvin’s interpretations to bear on the text and applied them both. This sermon is immanently listenable and well worth your time!

Justin Woodall

A Good Word is a weekly feature of Semper Ref. We believe what we all need more than good articles is the word of God preached to our hearts. Those of us in ministry particularly need to be regularly hear the word preached by people other than ourselves. Beyond sharing good, Christ-centered messages that embody the ethos of Semper Ref a particular goal of this feature is to give exposure to the ministry of ordinary pastors pursuing faithful Ministry of the Word. For that reason, while we will occasionally share sermons from more well-known individuals, most of the messages in this series will be a good word from a pastor you’ve likely never heard of.