Sermon and Worship Resources

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1. When Is It Tolerable to Be Intolerant?

Mark 9:38-50

Sermon

Donald Macleod

... (RSV) "No one who performs a miracle in my name will be able soon afterward to say evil things about me. For whoever is not against us is for us." (vv. 39, 40, TEV) Two words in our vocabulary conjure up opposite types of persons: the tolerant and the intolerant. One seems to wear a white hat; the other, a black one. Two little verses set these types in clear contrast. Jonathan Swift wrote: We are God's chosen few, All others will be damned; There is no place in heaven for you, We can't have heaven crammed ...

2. Why Were the Wise Men Wise?

Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

James Merritt

... Lord Jesus, and the indifferent reject the Lord Jesus, the innocent receive the Lord Jesus. Now I want to ask you a question. Which group are you in? Because you are in one of three groups. You are either intolerant of Jesus, indifferent toward Jesus (which I think is even worse than being intolerant), or you're innocent toward Jesus. Of a King, a priest, and an astronomer, only one knew the truth, believed the truth, received the truth, and obeyed the truth. Which one will you be like today? You may think ...

3. Time to Unpack

Matthew 11:1-19

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... of joy, of love, of belonging, of creativity. The paradox of life is this: a perfect immune system is a disaster. You can’t grow with a perfect immune system. You need to be vulnerable and to be open to viruses to grow and mature. When intolerance for vulnerability reigns supreme, your only joy is a “foreboding joy.” You know that feeling of “foreboding joy,” even if you don’t call it that. You look at your kids snuggled in their bed. Before a sigh of contentment escapes your lungs, the panic of ...

4. A Man Who Wanted to Burn a City

Luke 9:46-50

Sermon

R. Blaine Detrick

... to get a bit more excited about some of the ideas that we believe. And we need to believe them strongly - for if we don’t stand for something, we will fall for anything. But we must be careful not to allow our enthusiasm to overflow into intolerance, prejudice, and bigotry. Ambition Another time, John indicated his "Son of Thunder" tendency by showing his ambition. He and his brother came to Jesus and expressed their desire to sit, one on his right hand and the other on his left, when the kingdom became a ...

5. Leadership Styles For A New Millennium

Matthew 2:13-18

Sermon

King Duncan

... hands are the scars of nails. BUT HERE IS WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT: THE LIFE OF JESUS SAYS SOMETHING ABOUT THE NATURE OF GOD. God is not a God of whom we need to live in fear and loathing, as many people do. God is not an insecure dictator, an intolerant tyrant as many have portrayed God. God is pure, unlimited, unbounded love. We don't need to beat our chest and rend our garments and cry out, "Oh, God have mercy on me, have mercy on me." There is no unmercy in God. We can approach God like a loving ...

6. A Life Well Lived

2 Timothy 3:10--4:8

Sermon

King Duncan

... That’s the way it works sometimes. The person who has been a slave to drugs and alcohol, for example, is the best person to reach out to others who are similarly enslaved and show them a better way. So it was in Paul. He had been so intolerant of the early Christians. Who better to teach the early Christian community to be tolerant of others, especially Gentiles. Now, to be sure, we have used Christianity as a vehicle of hatred of different groups at times in our past, but that was not St. Paul’s fault ...

7. Thou Shalt Not Judge - True or False?

Matthew 7:1-6

Sermon

James Merritt

... a writer for Newsweek magazine, echoes Wolfe's finding. Speaking in March of 1998, he said: This whole episode may eventually teach us more about the public's character than Clinton's. We live in the province of Papa-Don't-Preach, where it is fine to be intolerant of trivial sins like smoking in public, but awkward to openly pass judgment on someone else's sex life. When it comes to the bedroom, it's live and let live. Sexual moral codes are enforced as a form of entertainment on afternoon talk shows, where ...

8. The World’s Favorite Scripture

Matthew 7:1-6

Sermon

James Merritt

... to escape the condemning judgment of God, you had better judge yourself as a sinner in need of a Savior, and accept the Lord Jesus as that Savior; for then you will never have to face Him as your judge. [1] Jonathan Alter, "In the Time of Intolerance," Newsweek, March 30, 1998, p. 29. [2] Cited by Steve Farrar, Point Man, p. 53. [3] William J. Bennett, The Death of Outrage: Bill Clinton and the Assault on American Ideals, p. 121. [4] Illustrations for Biblical Preaching, Edited by Michael Green, p. 207.

9. Family Ties and Good-byes

Luke 12:49-56

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... occasionally showed up at Carol's house, she always let him stay as long as he didn't drink. As soon as he began to drink again, she and Stan told Junior he'd have to go. "We won't tolerate intolerable behavior," Stan said, "because to tolerate intolerable behavior is to encourage intolerable behavior." "You sound like a preacher," Junior said. From that point on, Junior didn't call his stepfather Stan. He'd call him Preacher, and then he'd snicker. The final family good-bye came when Junior got drunk and ...

10. Investing God's Gift

Luke 19:11-27

Sermon

Larry R. Kalajainen

... these two responsibilities in a dynamic tension is not easy. Zealous proclamation of the gospel can easily slip into zealotism -- an exclusivist attitude of superiority. The intolerance of those on the religious right who appear to want to establish a theocracy smacks of such zealotism. But so does the intolerance of the religious left which appears to have elevated "inclusiveness" as the central doctrine of Christian faith and which militantly excludes anyone unenlightened enough to conform. Balance ...

11. Do I Dare Be Different?

Matthew 5:10; 10:1-42

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... people. They were unchurched, except for one daughter who had "got religion" at an evangelical meeting house. Hers was more a religion of the Old Testament than the New, because instead of making her sweeter and more loving toward her family, it made her intolerant and critical. The others minced no words in telling her what they thought of her religion. She didn’t mind. In fact, she welcomed their abuse. And just to make sure that she drove all of them mad, she ended every argument by retreating ...

12. A Colt Is Not A Horse

Mark 11:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

... as the forces which put Jesus to death nearly 2,000 years ago still are the evils of today. I've never seen this more succinctly summarized than by Henry Sloane Coffin who identified these ills as religious intolerance (the Pharisees), commercial privilege (the Sadducees), political expediency (Pontius Pilate), pleasure loving irresponsibility (Herod Antipas), unfaithfulness (Judas), mob spirit (the crowds), militarism (the soldiers) and public apathy. Those are our ills and so we sing, "Were You There ...

13. Born Again? When?

John 3:1-21

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... , and dogmatic in their faith. Church historian Martin Marty has said that one problem we have been having in recent years is that “The tolerant are uncommitted and the committed are intolerant.” It is an ever-present danger. In some parts of our country there has been published what is called “Christian Yellow Pages.” The only people who are allowed to advertise in them are “born again” people, and those receiving the book are urged to patronize their establishments only. This seems ...

14. Aren’t All Religions Basically Alike?

John 14:5-14

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... , we must admit that they seem to be historically true. Here is what I mean. Again I am indebted to D.T. Niles for an exciting insight which opened up these words for me in a fresh way. I, too, thought them to be terribly narrow and intolerant. But D.T. Niles, after spending a lifetime among non-Christian religions gave the words a new twist. He placed the emphasis on the word “Father” in Jesus’ saying. “No one comes to the Father except through me.” We may come to some ideas of God apart ...

15. Son of Thunder, Son of God

Mark 10:35-45

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... a vivid picture of John—the strange thing is that it is not an attractive one.” (THE MASTER’S MEN, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1959, p.29) You see, the only time that John appears by himself, he seems to be acting in a mood of such embarrassing intolerance that Jesus had to rebuke him! He said, “Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he was not following us.” (Mark 9:38) The strange thing is that this event follows close upon the heels of an unsuccessful ...

16. The Road to Somewhere (I am the way, truth, and life)

John 14:5-14

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... is not here today for historical purposes. He is here for transformational purposes. Today in political and academic circles there is a word that seeks to obscure the message of Christ. That word is tolerance. We are cautioned about being religiously intolerant. It is a good thing to respect and understand another person''s religious understanding--it is another to capitulate our convictions to our present culture. Christianity is about truth. It is not a popularity poll. I was recently reminded by Chuck ...

17. Can't Help Dreaming

Acts 2:1-21

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... . Unamuno, who was a devout Catholic, compared Don Quixote to the saints of the Church, who held to the dream that comes to us from the prophets. He said what characterized the saints is, "this intolerable disparity between the hugeness of their desire and the smallness of reality." What a phrase, "this intolerable disparity between the hugeness of their desire and the smallness of reality." To live with a huge desire, an impossible dream, in a finite, limited and sinful world, means that you are going to ...

18. Is Jesus The Only Way?

Matthew 22:1-14

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... Southern Baptist belief; that's a biblical truth. The guest on NPR offered this rather hateful comment "The evaporation of four million Baptists who believe that garbage would leave the world a better place." Sounds to me like that guest was mighty intolerant of the Baptists. Don’t the Baptists have a right to their biblical interpretation? Dr. Laura, the popular and controversial radio host, has talked about the large volume of hate mail she receives for believing in moral absolutes. Her enemies ask her ...

19. Death Has Been Conquered

Mark 16:1-20

Sermon

King Duncan

... checked his record and found that he had been arrested on the same charge in 1776, 1812 and 1903! Just kidding, of course. In a hedonistic culture such as ours, many people dread aging more than death. And yet science is rapidly placing upon us the intolerable burden of Tithonus. Do you remember that tale from Greek mythology? Aurora, the goddess of dawn, fell in love with Tithonus who was a mortal youth. In other words, he would die like all other humans. Zeus, the king of gods, offered Aurora any gift she ...

20. Heaven: One Way And One Way Only

John 14:1-6

Sermon

James Merritt

... that only Christians are right?" [[2]] To say that and believe that in today's society with today's predominant non-biblical world view makes you arrogant, bigoted, narrow-minded and worst of all intolerant. The greatest evil in today's culture is not rape, murder, or even child-molestation. It is intolerance. People today are willing to tolerate any viewpoint except the viewpoint that claims to be uniquely true. I want to emphasize that I believe we Christians should be tolerant if you understand tolerance ...

21. Faithquakes

Luke 17:5-10

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... the penitentiary." This murderer distinguished properly between the law and the gospel. The wife of an alcoholic who continually refuses to face the reality of his actions may be doing him more harm than good. When you tolerate intolerable behavior, you encourage intolerable behavior. Confrontation must take place when there are repeated patterns of sinful behavior. In Matthew's Gospel, right before Jesus tells us to be willing to forgive again and again, he prescribes the method for Christians to confront ...

22. Standing Tall in the Lord

Philippians 3:17-4:1

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... is also quite strong today. Business, in fact, every realm of society today, mandates that we perform. We are to do the job well, rapidly, and responsibly; error is almost not acceptable. We forget our humanness and expect others to perform flawlessly. We become intolerant of anything save the best. Certainly we need to strive to do the best we can, but errors of omission and commission are endemic to humanity. We must accept them. Consumerism shadows us in darkness as well. The more things we have the more ...

23. Strength through Diversity

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... ready for you." At that point, the surrounding passengers stood and gave a standing ovation as the black man walked triumphantly into first class. This true event presents us with many lessons. Most obviously we learn of the reality of prejudice and intolerance in our world. The story also shows how one can learn a significant lesson from those with greater wisdom that such prejudicial attitudes do not gain us anything, but rather can shame us into realizing the callous nature of our attitudes. Somewhat ...

24. Dealing with T-A-R-E-ists

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

... . To not practice forgiveness is to run the risk of becoming just like the evil we are trying to uproot and remove. A proverb says, “Choose your enemies carefully, because you become like them.”1 How true! It is very easy to become intolerant with intolerant people, or angry at people who are angry at us, or bigoted toward bigoted people. By seeking to destroy our enemies, we usually condemn ourselves because we have become just like them, as another proverb says, “Be careful, lest in fighting the ...

25. The Mud Room

John 9:1-41

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... beliefs set forth by the Pharisees will be sanctioned, declared clean, and allowed into that community! This is the ultimate in exclusivity! Shunning is about control and order. “Believe as we do or get kicked out!” It’s alienation. And this kind of intolerance and division creates collateral damage. It creates a “fragile” culture. Think for a moment about a piece of pottery. Pottery is made by combining mud (clay) and water and forming it into a jar or bowl. As long as the pottery is messy and ...

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