Dictionary: Rest
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Sermon
Thomas Long
"I’ll tell you what keeps me coming to this church." The man who spoke was punching the air with his finger, pronouncing every word with force, and the dozen or so other people in the room turned to listen. The group called themselves the "Searchers Class," and had done so since the time, more than ten years before, when, as young adults, they had formed an alternative church school class, and "Searchers" had seemed then like a daring and accurate name. Now, as the "Searchers" crept into middle age, the ...

Sermon
Gregory J. Johanson
"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." There is a certain courage to be who we are built into the dynamics of Christian faith and grace. DONALD C. HOUTS (see biographical note preceding Smart, Wise, and Foolish) relates this courage to three common debilitating fears in his sermon The Courage to Be Me: The fears of doubt, self-disclosure, and failure. There is a sense in which vitality in human life is a product of the tension between fear and faith. If all were certain, then our concept ...

Sermon
Brett Blair
Lance Armstrong. Going for his eighth Tour de France. His heart is nearly one-third larger than that of the average man. At resting, it beats an average of 32 times per minute, during peak performance, 200. He burns up about 6,500 calories every day for three weeks while in the race. One of the stages of the race is 120 miles long-that day he will burn 10,000 calories. You and I burn 3,500 and that’s on a good day. His lungs can take in twice the oxygen. His body fat level is 4 percent. Yours is 16. He has ...

Sermon
David E. Leininger
Thanksgiving coming up. One of my friends posted the following on PresbyNet:(1) I am thankful for... • the mess to clean up after a party because it means I have been surrounded by friends. • the taxes I pay because it means that I'm employed. • the clothes that fit a little too snug because it means I have enough to eat. • my shadow who watches me work because it means I am out in the sunshine. • a lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning and gutters that need fixing because it means that I have ...

Sermon
King Duncan
An elderly Scottish woman was making her way through the countryside. Each time she came to a crossroads she would toss a stick into the air. Whichever way the stick came down was the direction she went. At one intersection, however, an old man saw her toss her stick into the air not once, not twice, but three times before resuming her journey. The old man was curious. “Why are you throwing your stick like that?” he asked. She squinted and replied, “I’m letting God direct my journey by using this stick.” “ ...

Matthew 22:15-22
Sermon
King Duncan
This morning I want to talk about God and the IRS. I know that it is a long time until April 15 and I don't want to spread a lot of gloom this morning. Someone has noted,however, that besides being income tax day, April 15 is also the day the Titanic sunk and the day that Lincon was shot. Someone else has said, "You may not agree with every department of the government, but you really have to hand it to the IRS." Another cynic has said, "Death and taxes may always be with us, but at least death doesn't get ...

Sermon
King Duncan
An MG Midget pulled alongside a Rolls-Royce at a traffic light. "Do you have a car phone?" its driver asked the guy in the Rolls. "Of course I do," replied the haughty deluxe-car driver. "Well, do you have a fax machine?" asked the Midget driver. The driver in the Rolls sighed. "I have that too." "Then do you have a double bed in the back?" the Midget driver wanted to know. Ashen-faced, the Rolls driver sped off. That afternoon, he had a double bed installed in his auto. A week later, the Rolls driver ...

1 Corinthians 12:1-11
Sermon
King Duncan
A farmer from Bulgaria, Mihail Janko, is convinced that his goat has a very special talent: it can discern a person's character. Janko claims that he can put pictures of people in front of the goat and the goat will show, by his behavior, whether the person in the picture is of good or bad character. Evidently, the goat head-butts pictures of “unpleasant people," but eats the pictures of pleasant people. Janko has even relied on the goat's special talent to help him choose boyfriends for his four daughters ...

John 15:1-17
Sermon
King Duncan
You can learn things being around children. Here are some truths one father learned: There is no such thing as child-proofing your house. You should not throw baseballs up when the ceiling fan is on. A ceiling fan can hit a baseball a long ways. Glass windows (even double pane) don't stop a baseball hit by a ceiling fan. If you use a waterbed as a home plate while wearing baseball shoes, it does not leak. It explodes. A king-size waterbed holds enough water to fill a 2,000 sq. ft. house almost 4 inches ...

Sermon
Darrick Acre
Nicodemus silently creeps through the dark streets of Jerusalem, keeping to the shadows, vigilant, lest anyone sees him. He is on a mission. The teacher, Jesus, is in Jerusalem. Wonderful things are said of Him. He has amazed the people with miraculous signs; astounded them with the authority of His teaching. He has stirred Nicodemus’ curiosity, pricked his interest, and even enlivened his hope. “Surely,” he thinks to himself, “this man is from God. I’ve got to meet him.” But how? Official opposition to ...

Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
I suppose that if a vote were taken as to which of the Four Gospels is the most popular, among those who know that there are four Gospels, the vote would be overwhelmingly in favor of the Fourth gospel: the Gospel According to St. John. This is somewhat strange, in light of the fact that the Fourth Gospel is by far the most difficult of them all. Indeed, it even had a hard time getting into the canon of the New Testament in the first place. It was considered suspect by the conservatives of the early Church ...

Sermon
King Duncan
Sam Houston was the first president of the Republic of Texas. It’s said he was a rather nasty fellow with a checkered past. Later in life Houston made a commitment to Christ and was baptized in a river. The preacher said to him, “Sam, your sins are washed away.” Houston replied, “God help the fish.” It’s fortunate that you and I were not baptized as adults in a river. Somebody would probably be saying, “God help the fish.” A man named Ray says that at one point in his life he considered joining the Baptist ...

Sermon
David G. Rogne
One of the churches where I served was located next to a Jewish synagogue. That synagogue was served by a rabbi who quite typically walked to the synagogue on the Sabbath, though his house was some distance away. It was not that he didn't have a car, but that for him it was improper to drive on the Sabbath, for that constituted work. Sometimes I would see him riding a bicycle to synagogue. I suggested to him that that was a lot more work than simply turning on the ignition in an automobile. He said that ...

Sermon
King Duncan
Steven was a young man who felt the call of God on his life. He came from a really close family. He finished college and then went off to seminary. After finishing seminary he came back home before going to his first church. He visited with all of his relatives for about a week. He stopped by the church and talked to his hometown pastor. The pastor asked him if he would like to preach that upcoming Sunday. Steven felt honored and took the pastor up on the invitation. Sunday morning came and after hours, ...

Sermon
Richard Gribble
He was a man of mystery and charm; he was a man of brokenness and faith. He was hunted down like a common criminal; his only crime was seeking God's glory. The "Whiskey Priest" lived in Southern Mexico. The time was the 1920s; the Cristero Rebellion was underway. The Whiskey Priest was not perfect - far from it. He drank too much; he had fathered a child. In those days, the Mexican government said that is was illegal to practice the priesthood, but that did not stop the Whiskey Priest. Everything he did; ...

Sermon
Stephen M. Crotts
In the fall of 1971, I visited Leo Tolstoy's home in Moscow. There, tied in bundles and stacked against the wall, were his handwritten manuscripts for all of his great novels - War and Peace, Anna Karenina, and Resurrection. For an hour I leafed through the mountain of paper, observing the man's handwriting, his strikeovers, and even the doodles he made in the margins. An elderly Russian woman, the curator of the museum, noticed my deep interest in Tolstoy and began to talk to me. "He was a friend of the ...

Sermon
Leonard Sweet
When I was growing up in the 60's we practiced drive-by littering. The big game was to see if you could get in front of a pick up, throw out the window a Carrolls hamburger wrapping (they were the competitor to McDonalds that went belly-up), and have it land in the lap of the pickup bed. Today kids don't do drive-by littering. They do drive-by shootings. Or in-school shootings. Do you remember the rash of in school shootings that affected areas around the country? · Jonesboro, Arkansas. · Paducah, Kentucky ...

Sermon
King Duncan
Writer Robert Fulghum in his humorous book, Uh-Oh, tells about a neighbor of his who drives a brand-new Range Rover, a vehicle that Fulghum says “can outrun a lion and take a rhino charge head-on.” One Tuesday morning Fulghum left his house about the same time as his neighbor. The neighbor was carrying a golf bag, a gym bag, a raincoat, an umbrella, a coffee cup, a sack of garbage for the dumpster, and his briefcase. He was in a hurry. Two little pieces of toilet paper stuck to his chin from a hasty ...

Sermon
Bill Bouknight
The most under-utilized power on earth is not ethanol or solar power or even nuclear power. The most under-utilized power on earth is the power of God channeled through prayer. Surveys have revealed that 71 percent of Americans believe that God definitely answers prayer and another 15 percent believe that God probably does. That means that 86 percent of Americans believe that prayer is effective. Nevertheless, just a small percentage of Americans have a specific time set aside each day for prayer. Why is ...

Sermon
James Merritt
We are now entering my absolute favorite time of the year - the Christmas Season. If you think about it, there are three things that are absolutely essential to celebrating Christmas, at least here, in America. First of all, you have to have a Christmas list. You've got to make a list of the people that you want to buy gifts for. Incidentally, since many of you ask me every year, I wear an extra-large in shirts, a 36/32 in pants and a size 10 shoe. The second thing you have to have obviously is a tree. The ...

Sermon
Donald Charles Lacy
Mary Magdalene may very well be the most enigmatic and controversial figure in the resurrection story. In a way the holy scriptures give us just enough information to excite our curiosity in regard to her personal relationship with the man she adored, Jesus of Nazareth. We still wonder what kind of person she was. Fiction writers have had a field day, especially in recent years. Was she really married to Jesus and did they have children? Did they establish a bloodline that is with us today? Such inquiries ...

Sermon
Billy D. Strayhorn
Somebody said there are really only two kinds of people in the world. There are those who wake up in the morning and say, "Good morning, Lord," And then there are those who wake up in the morning and say, "Good Lord, it's morning." (1) Somebody else said: "There are two types of people in the world. Those who come into a room and say, "Here I am!" And then there are those who say, "Ah, there you are!" (2) Everything has two sides doesn't it? A coin has heads or tails. An old 45 record has a Hit side and ...

Sermon
Billy D. Strayhorn
Years ago, in Reader's Digest, I remember reading about a soldier, Corporal Jones, who after his tour of duty overseas was sent to a stateside induction center where he advised new recruits about their government benefits, especially GI insurance. It didn't take long for him to have the best sales record, not just in the area, but in the national, almost 100%. His officers in his chain of command were amazed. Rather than ask him how he did it, one of the officers stood in the back of the room one day and ...

Sermon
Billy D. Strayhorn
Maybe you've heard the story about the High School teacher who injured his back and had to wear a plaster cast around the upper part of his body. It was form fitted, fit under his shirt and wasn't noticeable at all. The first day of school he still had the cast on. He looked at his class roster and realized he'd been assigned to the toughest students in school. He walked into the classroom, which was already rowdy and noisy. All the students were talking and laughing and either acted like he wasn't there ...

Sermon
John N. Brittain
At this time of year, the Christmas and Epiphany seasons, various preachers, teachers, and Sunday school lessons remind us that we sometimes overdo things in our Christmas pageants and Christmas cards by mixing distinct Bible stories together into one great mish-mash. We have the angel choir and shepherds from the Luke 2 Christmas story, which we celebrated last week, along with the kings from the East (not numbered in the scriptures, although we usually settle for three) from Matthew 2, which we will ...