If I asked you this morning to name the most significant doctrines of Protestant Christianity, the two that would come to your mind immediately and would probably be named most frequently are: Justification by Grace through Faith, and the Priesthood of All Believers. This year we are celebrating the 500th birthday of Martin Luther, the fellow started the conflagration of religious revival and reformation that swept throughout the world and there has hardly been a time since that reformation started when ...
Big Idea: When Job considers God’s greatness, he realizes how little he himself knows. Understanding the Text When Bildad says in Job 25:6 that humans are mere maggots and worms before the transcendent God, Job apparently interrupts him. Although Job agrees with much of Bildad’s lofty view of God, he draws different implications from their shared theology. Bildad claims that God’s greatness means nothing can thwart his justice, so life in God’s world is thoroughly predictable, but Job declares that God’s ...
Psalm 14:1-7, 1 Timothy 1:12-20, Jeremiah 4:5-31, Luke 15:8-10, Luke 15:1-7
Sermon Aid
William E. Keeney
Recovering The Lost Most of us have experienced loss. It may be money or something else of value. It may be a pet or an animal we were raising. It may be a person who rebelled against the family or cut all ties with church and community. Loss always results in sadness. If the loss is due to our carelessness or our actions, we probably have a sinking feeling in the pit of our stomach. It is a combination of guilt and sadness at the same time. Even if the loss may not be of great value, we may spend hours ...
The final Episode of the Seinfeld show which aired at the end of the 1998 TV season received a lot of flack for being disappointing. Perhaps the reason so many were disappointed in the show is because it moralized. It wasn’t very funny; in fact, it was self deprecating. All of the characters receive a one year sentence for failing to help someone who was robbed. What happens is this: Jerry plays a comedian on the show and he has just received a contract from NBC to do a sitcom and the network is flying ...
Yesterday our great country swore in the 43rd president of these United States and George Walker Bush delivered the 54th Inaugural Address to the nation. You may not know this but every single Inaugural Address from George Washington to George Bush has been preserved. In these speeches presidents have laid out for the country their dreams, goals, and aspirations. I would like you to listen to some excerpts from a few and as I read them I would like you to guess the president that delivered it [When you ...
As our Lord took leave of his disciples, promising them the coming of the Holy Spirit and the power that would be thereby transmitted to them and through them, he repeated a promise which he had made before. He was attempting to reiterate the power that we have at our fingertips, if we only believe it. Actually, it concerns the subject of prayer, because any petition addressed to Christ is a prayer. So when he says: "Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it," we have the whole key to the power of prayer. ...
"Among those who are born of women ..." If you are thinking of the human race, this is a rather inclusive statement; I can’t think of very many people it leaves out! And this is a statement of Jesus as he offers a summa cum laude of highest praise to one of his associates in the dissemination of truth and light. He says, "Among those who are born of women, there has not arisen a greater prophet than John the Baptizer" (Matthew 11:11; Luke 7:28). What was it that was so great about John - this son of ...
A little boy was once asked by his Sunday school teacher if he knew the Ten Commandments. "No ma'am," came the reply, "my dad said that I don't have to know them since they are doing away with them anyway." It is one thing to be ignorant of the Ten Commandments; it quite another to mock them with impunity. Millions dismiss them as mere platitudes fit for nothing more than a dusty old bookshelf. They disdain them because they are "religious." There are still others who want to do away with the Ten ...
This sermon uses reversal, surprise, the unexpected as it takes a well-worn term "scandal," launders it, hands it back to us in a way we never anticipated. Scandal, a respectable, redoubtable term for the Christian? Well, says this sermon, "It had better be!" Perhaps the pugency of the Christic enterprise could be recovered if scandal, as this sermon sees it (not to mention the Good Book’s point of view), were more genuinely at the center of things. The halls of the United States Senate were cheerless this ...
A fellow was on an airplane flight home one afternoon. He sat in the non-smoking section, as he always did. This day he was seated on the aisle of the plane. After the plane had taken off the man across from him took out one of those little short cigars that look like compressed leather. He lit up and started puffing noxious black smoke into the air. The first man leaned across the aisle and said, “I’m sorry, sir, but this is the non-smoking section. You can’t smoke here.” The smoker just ignored him, and ...
When you hear the word of the Lord, as we find in the tenth chapter of the Gospel of John, reading only the 7th through the 10th verses of that gospel. ‘So Jesus said again to them, truly, truly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not heed them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. I am come that you may have life, and ...
Clarence Forsberg tells a story about what it means to be a part of a team. It is a story of Al McGuire and Butch Lee. McGuire was a great basketball coach, who retired from Marquette after winning the NCAA tournament in 1976. Butch Lee was a kind of prima donna player on that team. The story is about McGuire trying to teach Butch Lee about team basketball. This was the coach's word. "Now, Butch, the game is forty minutes long, and if you divide that between the two teams that means there is twenty minutes ...
One day a guest was checking out of a major hotel in Honolulu. While he was paying his bill at the desk in the lobby, it suddenly dawned upon him that he had left his briefcase in his room upstairs. He called to a bellboy standing nearby, "Son," would you please run up to my room and see if I left my briefcase there? The limo is waiting and I've got to get to the airport as fast as I can." "Sure," said the young man, "I'll be back in just a minute." Well, in no time, the bellboy came running out to the ...
When you hear the word of the Lord, as we find in the tenth chapter of the Gospel of John, reading only the 7th through the 10th verses of that gospel. ‘So Jesus said again to them, truly, truly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not heed them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. I am come that you may have life, and ...
COMMENTARY Old Testament: Genesis 37:1-4, 12-18 Joseph's brothers sell him into slavery. Jacob sent his favorite son, Joseph, to check on his brothers who were tending sheep. Because Jacob loved Joseph more than the other sons and made him a coat of many colors, the brothers hated Joseph. As he approached, they conspired to kill him. Their plan changed when traders on the way to Egypt came by. They sold Joseph to them for twenty pieces of silver. Old Testament: 1 Kings 19:9, 11-13 A discouraged Elijah ...
Exodus 12:1-30, Romans 13:8-14, Matthew 18:15-20, Ezekiel 33:1-20
Sermon Aid
John R. Brokhoff
COMMENTARY Old Testament: Exodus 12:1-14 The Passover feast is inaugurated. In preparation for leaving Egypt, Yahweh instituted the Passover. Each family was to roast a sheep or goat and eat unleavened bread. The blood of the animal was to be placed on the doorposts to keep the angel of death from entering their homes. This is to be an annual feast to remind the people of God's deliverance. Old Testament: Ezekiel 33:(1-6) 7-11 He who warns the wicked shall live. Epistle: Romans 13:8-14 Christians are to ...
There is an old Jewish folk saying which affirms what the Lord does is certainly best, probably. Now there is an ambiguity there, but it’s really a profession faith. What the Lord does is best, probably. Ours is a society that thrives on certainty. The Lord calls us to live with mystery. Ours is a high-tech civilization, so we’re preoccupied with fact. The Lord calls us to live in faith. Last Sunday we began this series of sermons on the book of Exodus, and we’re going to preach through this great book in ...
First Conclusion: Call to Rejoice “With this communication about Epaphroditus now the epistle seems to be at an end” (Ewald, ad loc.). If so, nothing remains but a final word of greeting. The reader is therefore prepared for Finally. 3:1 Finally: the natural inference from this phrase (drawn by most commentators) is that Paul is on the point of finishing his letter. If the letter be regarded as a unity, it must be assumed that something suddenly occurred to him which prompted the warning of verse 2 with ...
Big Idea: Paul, like Jesus, says that the new-covenant ethic is love. The thesis here is simple: love sincerely. Love should be shown toward God, fellow believers, and even nonbelievers who persecute Christians. Thus, Paul’s ethic continues the radical call by Jesus to his disciples to love one another. To love others is to sacrificially accept the new-covenant stipulation to love. Understanding the Text Romans 12:9–21 continues the theme of being a living sacrifice (12:1–2) by loving others. Romans 12:9 ...
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 ...
At a graduation ceremony, the president of a Christian college stood at the podium and looked out over the huge crowd of people. He shook his head and said to himself (right into the microphone, of course!): “All these Christians in one place, and no one’s taking an offering!” We take offerings a lot, don’t we? Every Sunday at worship services, the money plates are passed. In fact, we can hardly think of a meeting of Christians where there is not some suggestion about offerings, donations, or contributions ...
That's the rather impudent query that sprouted on tee-shirts after Duke's back-to back basketball national championships. Talk is cheap, but can you do what it takes to get in the game? Richard Hays, in his commentary on Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, says that sums up today's epistle, First Corinthians 9:24-27. One of you once congratulated me, during one of Duke's winning seasons for “never once mentioning basketball in a sermon. “I can see your point. At this time of year, around here, the ...
I suppose that one of the classic poems on sin is the one titled, "This Side of Calvin" and it goes like this: The Reverend Dr. Harcourt, folk agree, Nodding their heads in solid satisfaction, Is just the man for this community. Tall, young, urbane, but capable of action, He pleases where he serves. He marshals out The younger crowd, lacks trace of clerical unction, Cheers the Kiwanis and the Eagle Scout, Is popular at every public function. And in the pulpit eloquently speaks On diverse matters with both ...
I love movies. I love movies because they make me think. No matter what I am going through, I can walk into the theatre and focus on a story other than mine. I see the images and how they paint a story about situations in life. Real situations. Unreal situations. It doesn't matter. For two hours and seven bucks, I get to experience a situation. Just a combination of circumstances; a state of affairs. In which I become lost, engaged in the flashes and personalities that remind me of my world, a world I want ...
Preface Strong Son of God, immortal Love, Whom we, that have not seen thy face, By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove; Thine are these orbs of light and shade; Thou madest Life in man and brute; Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot Is on the skull which thou hast made. Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: Thou madest man, he knows not why, He thinks he was not made to die; And thou hast made him: thou art just. Thou seemest human and divine, The highest, holiest manhood, thou. ...