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Sermon
Donald Macleod
Second Series Questions Jesus Provokes Now when the Pharisees gathered together to him, with some of the scribes, who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands defiled, that is, unwashed. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they wash their hands, observing the tradition of the elders; and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unl...
Sermon
Robert Salzgeber
When I was a camp director the rules of long established and understood games were constantly being changed in order to incorporate a larger sphere of players. For the same reason Jesus said, "You have a clever way of rejecting God's law in order to uphold your own teaching." Jesus had a knack for constantly changing the rules of the game of life in order to incorporate a larger sphere of people i...
Sermon
Robert Salzgeber
When I was a camp director the rules of long established and understood games were constantly being changed in order to incorporate a larger sphere of players. For the same reason Jesus said, "You have a clever way of rejecting God's law in order to uphold your own teaching." Jesus had a knack for constantly changing the rules of the game of life in order to incorporate a larger sphere of people i...
Sermon
Stephen M. Crotts
Jeff Foxworthy has made a career of telling "redneck" jokes. For instance, "You might be a redneck if someone asks you for some identification and you show them your belt buckle." The South doesn't have a lock on rednecks. The North has them also. For instance, "You might be a northern redneck if you've ever burned a tire on the hood of your car in winter to help get it started." Here in the chur...
Sermon
King Duncan
A young coed being interviewed on television about her religious beliefs said, "Oh yes, I believe in God, but I'm not nuts about Him." According to the Gallup Poll that is a good description of how most Americans feel about God. Ninety-four percent of us believe in God. When it comes to translating that belief into action, however, most of us are clearly not nuts about Him. We have something in c...
Sermon
King Duncan
A teacher observed a boy entering her classroom with dirty hands. She stopped him and said, “Johnny, please wash your hands. My goodness, what would you say if I came into the room with hands like that?” With a smile the boy replied, “I think I’d be too polite to mention it.” A pastor says his son’s Sunday School teacher approached him after church and said, “Let me tell you what your son said i...
Sermon
King Duncan
Success has always been measured in inches. A few short inches can be the difference between a home run and a putout in a baseball game. In the Olympics, the difference between winning the gold medal and finishing in the back of the pack is often measured in fractions. If you hold your thumb and forefinger about 2-1/2 inches apart, you get an idea of what one-hundredth of a second translates to ...
Sermon
King Duncan
It would make a great idea for a Country-Western song: "When your lips are one place, but your heart is somewhere else." If someone has a steel guitar or a fiddle, maybe we can work on the lyrics after the service. "When your lips are one place, but your heart is somewhere else." Jesus doesn't claim the title as his own; he attributes it to the prophet Isaiah. "Isaiah was right when he prophesied ...
Sermon
Robert Leslie Holmes
Traditionalism is the living religion of the dead or the dead religion of the living. Tradition imagines that nothing worthwhile will ever again be done for the first time because everything worth doing has already been done. Therefore, traditionalism repeats what it imagined always was and what it imagines always will be. The problem with tradition for tradition's sake is a terminal case of spiri...
Sermon
King Duncan
You may remember reading several years ago about a pair of polite gunmen with British or Australian accents who were robbing homeowners in moneyed neighborhoods of suburban Montgomery County, Md. The masked duo struck several times, usually entering the homes through the garage or unlocked doors. The intruders were unfailingly polite and as far as we know, no one was hurt. One homeowner in Potomac...
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
One day a man by the name of Kirk was having a particularly difficult time. Everything was going wrong for him and nothing was going right. And when he went to bed that night, he laid there in the dark. And he thought about all of the horrible things that had happened to him. And you know, the more he thought about it the more upset he became. He blurted out into the darkness, “Why me God? Why ha...
Sermon
King Duncan
It's a phrase we still use today: he has dirty hands. We could be referring to hands that are soiled from doing good honest labor. The mechanic who works on our car may have dirty hands but it is no discredit to him. It comes with the territory. The farmer may have dirt all over his body from working all day in the fields. And we honor him because he or she helps feed our world. There is no disgra...
13. Clean Hands
Mark 7:1-23
Sermon
King Duncan
A father opens the door to greet his daughter's date. There stands a young man, cap on backwards, jeans that sag practically to his knees, a diamond stud in his lower lip, and wearing a set of earphones. The young man grunts hello and comes in. The father is more than a little taken back. He goes upstairs where his daughter is putting the finishing touches to her make-up.  "I don't think you shou...
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
Do you remember the opening soliloquy which begins the musical “Fiddler on the Roof?” Tevye, the dairyman who is always carrying on lengthy conversations with God, says to the audience: “A fiddler on the roof.  Sounds crazy, no?  But in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof, trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck.  I...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
On Christmas day of 2002, Andrew "Jack" Whittaker, Jr. of Scott Depot, West Virginia, won $113 million in the Powerball lottery. He announced two goals for the money: he would give ten percent to his church, and he would put people to work. Whittaker has started making good on both his promises, but in ways perhaps he didn't initially imagine. On Tuesday, 05 August 2003, someone bashed in the wi...
Sermon
Mark Trotter
This is my first Sunday back from our vacation, during which I spent some days in Canada fishing for salmon with some members of this church. In previous trips no one from the church had been with me, so I was not inhibited in reporting my success when I got back. This year the truth squad is sitting out there, the Richeys are over here, the Coutts are back there, so I have to be honest with you a...
Sermon
King Duncan
Someone once asked the profound question, “How many [Presbyterians] does it take to change a light bulb?” * The correct answer is, of course, “Change the light bulb? Why, my grandfather donated that light bulb!” (1) Well, [Presbyterians] are not the only ones who have trouble with change. Anytime change takes place in any institution, particularly the church, there is resistance. Pastor Pete Ko...
Sermon
Charles R. Leary
My subject is, “What is Inside You Has to Come Out!” Human behavior is very much like the natural order. We sow seeds, set plants, fertilize and attend our gardens. We enroll our children in school to educate their minds. Every day we learn morality, form habits, build character. At our tables we train our tastes for the foods we prefer. The Good News Bible version of the Gospel says: “what comes...
Sermon
King Duncan
Our Roman Catholic friends celebrate a feast day known as Corpus Christi (the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ). In some countries such as Ireland which is heavily Catholic, this is an important celebration. In many rural communities there is a Corpus Christi procession through the streets of the parish. Altar boys go ahead of the procession ringing bells to alert the faithful that the proces...
20. You Are What You Eat
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Sermon
Rick McCracken-Bennett
The Pharisees were grumbling -- doesn't it seem like they were always grumbling? Of all the things they could be concerned about, they were upset that Jesus' disciples weren't washing their hands before they ate. As I read this passage over earlier in the week I could hear my mom asking me and my brother and sisters before a meal, "Did you wash your hands?" This was an appropriate question for par...
Sermon
Richard Patt
"Why is it that your disciples do not follow the teaching handed down by our ancestors, but instead eat with ritually unclean hands?" (v. 5, TEV) There’s a grand old hymn I haven’t seen in many hymn hooks, but we used to sing it in my boyhood church. The opening words are these: My church, my church, my dear old church, my fathers’ and my own. On prophets and apostles built, and Christ the corne...
Sermon
King Duncan
One of the truisms of life is that you can’t judge a book by its cover. Things are not always what they seem. I read a delightful story, allegedly true, about a zoo in Spain that decided to conduct an emergency drill. The drill simulated how to handle it if a gorilla escaped from its enclosure. To make the drill more realistic, a zookeeper dressed up as a gorilla and took off loping through the zo...
Sermon
Brett Blair
Rev. David Chadwell posed a rather interesting question: Which would you prefer for a next-door neighbor: a person of excellent habits or a person with a good heart? Which would you prefer for a good friend: a person of excellent habits, or a person with a good heart? Which would you prefer for a husband or a wife: a person of excellent habits, or a person with a good heart? Which would you prefer...
Sermon
One of the truisms of life is that you can’t judge a book by its cover. Things are not always what they seem. I read a delightful story, allegedly true, about a zoo in Spain that decided to conduct an emergency drill. The drill simulated how to handle it if a gorilla escaped from its enclosure. To make the drill more realistic, a zookeeper dressed up as a gorilla and took off loping through the zo...
25. Apples, Onions, and Cheese
Mark 7:1-23, Mark 7:24-30
Sermon
Lori Wagner
The word of the Lord Almighty came to me. This is what the Lord Almighty says: “The fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth months will become joyful and glad occasions and happy festivals for Judah. Therefore, love truth and peace.” This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Many peoples and the inhabitants of many cities will yet come, and the inhabitants of one city will go to another and say,...
Showing 1 to 25 of 30 results