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Sermon
Bill Bouknight
After Dr. Wilbur Chapman had preached his first sermon at the great Wannamaker Church in Philadelphia, an old gentleman waited to speak to him alone. The old man said, "You are pretty young to be pastor of this great church. I am afraid you won't succeed. But you do preach the gospel, and I am going to help you all I can." Dr. Chapman thought to himself, "Now this old man is a crank." But the old...
2. The View from the Mountaintop
Mark 9:14-32, Mark 9:2-13
Sermon
David E. Leininger
Some important birthdays this week. Our Sunday School Superintendent, Jane Bonavita has a big one today (Lordy, Lordy, Jane is...). Our Director of Music, Debbie Hunter has an even bigger one Thursday (Isn't it nifty, Deb's turning ...). Am I in trouble? Here is one that is safe: on Tuesday, it is Abraham Lincoln's. Had he lived, Mr. Lincoln would be 193 (and, no, I don't have a jingle for that on...
Sermon
Stephen M. Crotts
Russian novelist Fydor Dostoevsky wrote, "God and the devil are at war in the universe and their battlefield is the human heart." Just after Christ's transfiguration one of these skirmishes is to be seen. When Jesus was transfigured, the entire mountain shone with the radiance of heaven. Moses was there. So was Elijah. And when Peter found his voice, he said, "Master, it's good that we are here! ...
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
A couple of weeks ago I preached on the theme, “Being Open to the Impossible.” There is a sense in which this continuation of that theme. I couldn’t resist returning to this theme because we simply cannot ignore this chapter in the life of the disciples and Jesus. Let me state the truth as crisply as possible that it may be etched in your mind: “Most of us are cursed with a sense of the impossible...
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
David Heller is a young Boston psychologist who, as part of a continuing research interest, collects letters children have written to God.  “Dear God: Children’s Letters to God” (New York: Doubleday, 1987) is Heller’s second publication on this subject.  In it he reports the following letter: “Dear God, I have doubts about you sometimes.  Sometimes I really believe.  Like when I was four and I hur...
Sermon
David E. Leininger
That fellow [the father in the lesson] has always been one of my heros. I can identify with him as much as anyone in all of scripture. He is a man who loves his son - I know how that feels. His boy is sick - an epileptic, subject to violent seizures. I know how it feels to have a sick child. Dad has heard the neighborhood scuttlebutt about a certain Nazarene rabbi who had been touring the countrys...
Sermon
King Duncan
Would you consider yourself a competitive person? Or maybe I should ask, in what area are you most competitive? Maybe you’re competitive in getting the best grades in your class or the best parking spot at work. Maybe you compete to make the best pancakes in your family or tell the funniest knock-knock joke or to get up the earliest on Christmas morning. Humans are naturally competitive. We like t...
Sermon
Frank Ramirez
I know we’re talking about a text from the gospel of Mark, but forgive me if I begin by quoting from the Acts of the Apostles because it makes a point about childhood in that era. In Acts 22:3, the apostle Paul begins to make his defense before a hostile crowd of his countrymen. He had been falsely accused of bringing a Gentile into the inner court of the temple in Jerusalem, and it was his intent...
9. Hope Rises
Mark 9:30-37, 42
Sermon
Lori Wagner
Have you ever been in a dilemma and had difficulty making a decision about something or someone? The best advice I’ve gotten is to take out a sheet of paper and create two columns. Make a list on the right side of your paper of all of the positive qualities or perspectives about the decision or the person in question, and then on the left side, make a list of all the negatives. The list helps you ...
Sermon
Richard F. Bansemer
The sermon text is from the Gospel of Mark, the ninth chapter, verses 33-35: "... when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you discussing on the way?’ But they were silent; for on the way they had discussed with one another who was the greatest. And he sat down and called the twelve; and he said to them, ‘If any one would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.’ " What does ...
Sermon
Stephen M. Crotts
When I was in college my post office box was right next to a pretty little blonde's. She was a tanned Florida Freshman, if you know what I mean. And her name was Sally.  Now John, a fellow on my hall, was secretly in love with Sally. And he kept trying to get me to switch post office boxes with him. That way he could be close to Sally.  You see, John was painfully shy. Though he longed to know Sal...
Sermon
Robert Leslie Holmes
There once was a palace servant who longed more than anything else in life to be a knight. He yearned to represent his king and vowed within himself that if he ever had a chance to be a knight he would serve his king as the noblest knight who ever lived. His dream came true. His great day came. At his knighthood ceremony, the former servant, now a knight, made a special oath within himself. He vow...
13. Enter God
Mark 9:33-37
Sermon
Thomas Peterson
When Jesus put the child on his knee, he acted out a parable. “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.” At first this incident appears simple, easy to understand. Don’t we all know how to receive a little child? Assuming we know all about it, we slide over “in my name” and “receives me.” We assume we know how to be gentle, caring, attentive and careful. Our voices even change, “Wel...
Sermon
Donald Macleod
In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Malvolio comments: "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." There is a large measure of truth in this observation, but it falls short in any discussion of greatness from the Christian point of view. True greatness is neither born in you, nor achieved by you, nor imposed upon you. It is caught, for it is the byproduct o...
Sermon
Richard Patt
"What were you arguing about on the road?" (v. 33) Today we tackle what is probably one of the most common activities of our daily living: having arguments with one another! According to Webster’s dictionary, the word "argue" has an agreeable as well as a disagreeable side to it. Although it can mean "to accuse, to contend, to dispute" (not very inviting terms), it can also mean "to reason, to ma...
Sermon
Robert Salzgeber
Following the creation of man and woman, it is not surprising in Genesis 1:28 to find guidelines as to how we are to use our time in the caring of creation. We are reminded that our Judeo-Christian tradition and heritage participate in and include time. We are reminded that salvation is bound to a continuous time process which embraces the past, the present and the future, as well as people and ea...
Sermon
King Duncan
There is an interesting story that comes out of the Second World War. England and Germany both had state-of-the-art fighter planes. Germany had the Messerschmitt, which was considered to be the world’s fastest fighter plane. The British had the Supermarine Spitfire. The Spitfire was slower than the Messerschmitt. Nevertheless, German pilots were envious of their British counterparts. You see, the...
Sermon
King Duncan
Charles Kuralt was driving up a mountain road in Peru one morning when a man appeared suddenly out of the trees by the road. He was wearing a black hood over his face, waving something in his hands, and shouting. Kuralt was terrified. He knew that the man must be a gun-wielding bandit. He was trying to decide whether it would be safer to plunge ahead, or drive back down the road, when the man shou...
Sermon
King Duncan
This morning we want to celebrate children. What would life be without them? The parents of one rowdy little fellow were trying to decide what to give him for his birthday. Dad suggested a bike. "Do you think that perhaps that will improve his behavior?" Mom asked hopefully. "I doubt it," Dad said realistically. "But at least it will spread it over a wider area." Children can be a pain, but the...
Sermon
King Duncan
A group of friends went deer hunting. They separated into pairs. That night, one hunter returned alone, staggering under an eight-point buck. The other hunters asked, "Where's Harry?" The lone hunter replied, "Harry fainted a couple miles up the trail." The others couldn't believe it. "You mean you left him lying there and carried the deer back instead?" The man answered, "It was a tough call,...
Sermon
King Duncan
I want to turn to the world of business for some of our inspiration today. Someone has described their company like this: It is a beautiful summer day in corporate America. The sales people aren't back from lunch yet. The programmers are playing computer games. The executives are on the golf links. The secretaries are scheduling their weekends. And the Human Resources people are in another all day...
Sermon
King Duncan
In Psalm 90:12, we are counseled to "number our days." If you were to do that, number your days,  you would come up with a number somewhere around  27,375.  That's assuming you reach 75 years of age--which census statistics tell us is about the average life span now for both men and women--then you will live for 27,375 days. That sounds like a lot, but how quickly they pass. Our basic interest th...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
Party games. Just the phrase gives me the shivers. [You may want to get out some party games here and help people relive their horror. You could get some volunteers to do a quick party-game in front of everyone.] Whether played at a child's birthday or an after-hours office shindig, party games are designed to make us look ridiculous and act silly. The rationale seems to be as follows: now that...
Sermon
Mark Trotter
There's a story about a man whose great ambition was to become a general in the army. He imagined all the attention he would get, everybody saluting him, somebody to drive him around, all the perquisites of that high rank. One day he reached his goal. He was promoted to Brigadier General. The next day he moved into his new office, sat behind his new, big desk. He could just feel the power emanati...
Sermon
David E. Leininger
Kids — munchkins — rug rats — ragamuffins — you have to love them. Jesus obviously did. Youngsters appear regularly in the gospel narratives. There must have been something not only winsome but downright fun about Jesus for children to want to be around him. And Jesus obviously appreciated the perspective of children — he went so far as to make that startling statement that unless we have the kind...
Showing 1 to 25 of 38 results