There are a lot of things in life you can buy that will help you get ahead in life. They are for sale and if you’ve got the money to buy them they will return a dividend and many times a big one. For example, you can buy education and no one denies the value of having a degree. Even in this day and age it helps to have education to get ahead. You can buy knowledge. In many fields including ministry, sometimes hiring an outside consultant can bring a fresh set of eyes to an old set of problems and get a new ...
Have you ever considered the power of Jesus’ simple statement, "You are the salt of the earth"? (Matthew 5:13) No matter how you say it, that statement shakes you to your boots. Try it on for size. "You are the salt of the earth." Me? Isn’t it astounding to hear Jesus say that you and I are the salt of the earth? Surely he must have meant a special group of people. He couldn’t have been talking to us, could he? The words are from the Sermon on the Mount, spoken in some ways peculiarly to his disciples ...
Have you done your last will and testament yet? It’s not meant to be a morbid question as we begin today. We all need to plan for the future. One of the things we must plan is how we are going to distribute our estate—our stuff—after we die. When you do your last will and testament, one of the things you will think about is what you will do with your most valuable possessions. What are those to you? Your home and investments, sure. But when you think about what is most valuable to you, maybe you also think ...
I have a very close, long-time friend by the name of Jim. The problem is that his son is also named Jim. When his son and our son were growing up together, it was simple to identify Jim the son from Jim the father by calling him “Little Jimmy.” But now, “Little Jimmy” is bigger than “Big Jim,” and has a son of his own named Little Jimmy, and so the whole thing gets rather confusing. I have no idea what they do at family reunions. Their family is sort of like that group of Twelve apostles. I. THERE ARE AT ...
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” We can do startling new things because God has drawn near enough to enable them." Matthew 4:17b It was an awful time in London. In December of 1952 a toxic mix of dense fog and thick black smoke killed four thousand in four days. Coffins ran out, as did funeral flowers. It was one of the deadliest environmental disasters in English history. Here is what happened: “As smoke pouring out of London's chimneys mixed with fog, the air turned colder. In response, ...
Nobel Prize Laureate for Literature Robert Allan Zimmerman — more popularly known as Bob Dylan — has written many memorable lyrics. He has a good ear for the rhythms of speech, poetry, and the Bible. In his song “The Times They Are A-Changin’” Dylan listed a number of factors that should prove to those who stand in the way of truth that “Your order is rapidly fadin’.” He concluded with words that echo Jesus — “For the first one now will later be last, for the times, they are a-changin’.” In the gospels it ...
From the time you get up in the morning until you go to sleep at night you see many things. You see computer graphics, sunrises and sunsets, a blue sky with white clouds, sparkling stars, maybe even a rainbow or two. You look into the mirror to make sure you are presentable. You see a beautiful diamond ring on the finger of some lady. But did you ever stop to think that when you look at any of those things what you are really seeing is light. Light that somehow has left those objects and reached your eye. ...
He was elected on his first try as a United States Congressman. He was elected on his first try as a United States Senator. At 39, he became one of the youngest men elected as Vice President of the United States. He went on to be elected as President of the United States, and then re-elected in the third largest landslide in U. S. history. But that is not how you remember him. I can say just one word, and everyone now, and probably for centuries, will know instantly who is being spoken of. The word is ...
I read somewhere that a new Guinness World Record has been set for the world’s shortest sermon. An Episcopal priest stood up one Sunday morning, walked to his pulpit, stood there for a moment, and said one word: “LOVE.” Then he sat down. I know, some of you would like me to attempt a sermon like that one day. But it is not that easy. The word “love” is capable of many different meanings. Love is what a mother gives to her children. Love is what a thrice-divorced Hollywood actress is supposed to have for a ...
Our Extreme Home Makeover is going according to plan, but there is one little matter we have not yet discussed. How are we going to finance the project? When the bills come due, can we finance this project without going into bankruptcy? The answer to that question is very easy. It all depends on whether or not we have managed our money properly. That is exactly what we are going to be talking about today - managing money. How many of you feel like the former pro golfer from Georgia, Doug Sanders, who said ...
“I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.” (John 10:9) That’s the way the New Revised Version translates the more familiar words of Jesus, “I am the door.” Let us consider these words in the light of the customs and pastoral imagery of Jesus’ day to see if new light can be shed upon them. We might begin by considering a Palestinian shepherd. In the East, the shepherd goes before the sheep, leading them, not driving them from behind. The shepherd leads ...
The late George Gallup, Sr. did a nationwide poll and discovered one of the most bewildering paradoxes of his career. He discovered that religious interest is growing at an unprecedented rate, but so is immoral behavior. Gallup's poll revealed: "Little difference between those who go to church and those who don't."[1] Now what Gallup discovered is what many people, both inside and outside of the church, deep down know in their hearts. There really is little difference between most people who go to church ...
"You will not lie about your neighbor" Exodus 20:16 The eighth Commandment consists of only five words in the Hebrew. But despite its brevity, don’t be fooled into thinking that it is unimportant. It speaks to the heart of a fundamental human problem. Its intention is to prevent one man from destroying another with his tongue. In all probability, the original purpose of this guide for living was to assure truth in the law courts. Even today before a witness takes his place before the bench he usually must ...
I heard about a young preacher who was going to preach his very first sermon, and he was going to preach from the text that I will be preaching on this morning. As he introduced it he said, "I want to talk to you about how Jesus fed five men with five thousand loaves of bread and two thousand fish." Well, there was a man in the church that loved to intimidate preachers and he jumped up and said, "Great day, that's no miracle, I could do that!" This young preacher was just shattered and couldn't even preach ...
Rudyard Kipling was a best selling English author at the turn of the century. He wrote one of the best books for children of all time, entitled, The Jungle Book as well as the poem "Gunga Den." He made a tremendous amount of money with his writings. A newspaper reporter came up to him one time and said, "Mr. Kipling, I just read that somebody calculated that the money you make from your writings amounts to over $100 a word." Kipling raised his eyebrows and said, "Really, I certainly was not aware of that ...
[While King Duncan is enjoying a well deserved retirement we are going back to his earliest sermons and renewing them. The newly modernized sermon is shown first and below, for reference sake, is the old sermon. We will continue this updating throughout the year bringing fresh takes on King's best sermons.] Original Title: A Pair of Ducks and Abundant Life New Title: Paradox Blocks It’s always interesting to discover a child’s take on things. The Internet recently carried a series of letters from children ...
I am beginning a series of messages today that I am entitling - fear factor. I would say practically all of us today will remember this picture which has been shown thousands of times and is seared into our memory. If it is true that, "A picture is worth a thousand words" you will never see a more graphic picture of fear than this one. Psychologists and sociologists agree that since 9/11, fear has been at an all time high in America. Indeed, the entire world at times is paralyzed by fear. There is a word ...
We are about to begin a journey, a forty-day journey that I believe will change your life more than any other forty days that you have ever lived. In that forty days we are going to ask and answer the single most important and fundamental question anyone can ever ask in this life which is, "What On Earth Am I Here For? What Is My Purpose? Why Am I Alive?" The Bible says God never created anything without a purpose or a reason. Whether it is animal, vegetable, or mineral, everything that God created has a ...
Righteousness: Gift or Reward? So far Paul has considered the case of Israel from God’s side. God made choices from among Abraham’s descendants to create a peculiar people for himself. The election of Jacob over Esau was independent of human merit or responsibility, since the choice was made when both were still in Rebekah’s womb. If in subsequent generations God hardened Pharaoh and blessed Israel, it was “in order that [his] purpose in election might stand” (9:11), a purpose rooted in mercy and directed ...
In a newspaper cartoon recently a woman with folded arms and a superior expression on her face says to her husband, "A good husband needs to be strong, caring and sensitive. You have all but three of those qualities." Then there is that classic story of the woman who hired a medium to bring back the spirit of her dead husband. When he appeared in a ghostly form, she asked, "Honey, is it really better up there?" Without hesitation he answered, "Oh, yes, it is much better. But I'm not up there!" Some of us ...
There is a story of a Vermont farmer who was sitting with his wife one evening on the porch, looking at the beautiful valley laid out before them. Everything about the moment was filled with peace. At last the farmer spoke quietly, as if reluctant to break the spell. “Sarah,” he said, “we’ve had a lot of ups and downs together during these forty years, and when I’ve thought of all you’ve meant to me, sometimes it’s been almost more than I could do to keep from telling you.” Sometimes things just “leak” out ...
One of the first things you do when you move to a new place is establish a checking account with a local bank. We can all tell stories of inexperienced people and their checking account problems. I remember a student who wrote check after check, only to discover he had no money left in his account. In exasperation he explained to the teller, "But I still have some checks left." My sister-in-law, during her first semester in college, receiveda notice from the bank that she was $27.60 overdrawn in heraccount ...
The glorious good news of the gospel is not only are we pardoned by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to live as “new creatures” – “everything old has passed away…everything has become new” (II Cor. 5:17). We are not on our own. After expressing the truth that we are justified by faith and have peace with God through Jesus Christ, (Romans 12:1). Then states a heartening aspect of the gospel: “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that ...
The noted author, John Killinger, tells a powerful story about a man who is all-alone in a hotel room in Canada. The man is in a state of deep depression. He is so depressed that he can’t even bring himself to go downstairs to the restaurant to eat. He is a powerful man usually the chairman of a large shipping company… but at this moment, he is absolutely overwhelmed by the pressures and demands of life… and he lies there on a lonely hotel bed far from home wallowing in self-pity. All of his life, he has ...
The Christian faith is without question the most unique religious faith in history. If there is any religious faith that proves that the thinking that all religions basically teach the same thing and are leading us to the same path is false, it is the Christian faith. The reasons for that are many, but the greatest reason is this. The Christian faith is based on one single man. Not only that, it is based on the belief that this man, named Jesus, not only lived like every other man and died like every other ...