[Propertalk] Fw: Sermon Resources for June 27 - Part 1

[Joe Parrish]

Sermons for Proper 8: 
     Luke 9:51-62– “Journey to Jerusalem”  
     Luke 9:51-62– “How to Handle Criticism? Keep Moving” by Leonard Sweet

Luke 9 - the sermon titled "Journey to Jerusalem"

In 1536 Reformer William Farel recruited John Calvin to come to Geneva, Switzerland to pastor St. Peter's Church. Calvin, a sickly man all his life, was on his way to Strasbourg to be a quiet scholar, but he relented under this need, this request, to become a pastor.

Two years later, the city fathers publicly banished Calvin from Geneva. Actually, Calvin felt relieved. The moral chaos of the city was terrible. He went to Strasbourg. Three years later in 1541, the same city fathers who had tried to humiliate him begged Calvin to return and help restore order.

He didn't want to go this second time, either, "yet," he wrote, "because I know that I am not my own master, I offer my heart as a true sacrifice to the Lord."

This became the motto of Calvin's life. His emblem would include a hand holding out a heart to God with the inscription, prompte et sincere ("promptly and sincerely"). Promptly and sincerely Calvin answered a call to very difficult task.

Jesus had moved from obscurity to prominence in a matter of months. News of his miraculous healing had spread throughout the region. Crowds flocked to benefit from his powerful presence. His disciples followed him with enthusiasm. The long-awaited kingdom was at hand.

But his fortunes soon began to change. Opposition developed. The crowds got smaller. The zeal of the disciples began to wane. Caesar’s reign became more self-evident than God’s dawning reign. It was to this background, Luke tells us, that Jesus resolutely “set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Why should he spoil success by going to the capital? His strength was in the countryside. But there was no changing his mind. To announce God’s reign, he would have to go to the center of earthly power. What caused Jesus to journey to Jerusalem?

1. First, He Knew Who He Was.
2. Second, He Knew Where He Was Going.
3. Third, Jesus Knew Who Walked with Him.
 
The rest of this sermon following the outline above can be obtained by joining www.eSermons.com.


_______________________

Luke 9 - the sermon titled “How to Handle Criticism? Keep Moving” by Leonard Sweet 

How do you like it when people criticize you?
The person who first said “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me” either lived as a hermit or was an out-and-out liar. Words can hurt. Words do hurt. Words can hurt a lot. Words can hurt a lot more and do a lot more long-term damage than any puny stick or stone.
Studies have shown how lasting an impression, how lifetime an impact, words can have on children. Children who receive constant criticisms about their looks, or their brains, or their abilities, grow up believing the words thrown at them. Some of you here this morning are spending your adulthood with the sound of “dummy,” “fatso,” “geek,” “airhead,” “loser,” echoing in your ears.
Words can stunt spirits. Words can break hearts. We cut each other’s throats with our tongues.
So what can we say to those who use words to wound us? How should we handle our critics? How should we respond to criticism? When someone throws an arm around our shoulder which is really a hand at our throat, what do we do? Should we take the criticism to heart? Weigh its content? Let it roll off our back? Fire back a critical volley of our own in return?
I personally like that last option. An eye-for-an-eye, a tooth-for-a tooth is the most tempting when criticism lashes out at you red in tooth and claw. You want red? Let’s keep it red. Right?
After all we live in a red-in-tooth-and-claw culture of criticism.
No matter what news broadcast you listen to, you won’t hear a “news report.” You’ll get an acid-etched critique of others.
Real bombs and bullets are being fired off in Iraq and Afghanistan. But in the war for political power and influence, it is the constant lobbing of critical grenades that keep our own back yards blasted and barren of hope.
The website complaints.com boasts on its home page: “Often a single complaint posted to Complaints.com about a business appears higher in the search-result rankings than the home page of the business that is the subject of the complaint.”
If you look at the tv programs we’re watching, and the magazines we’re reading, it seems we all want our first course to be dishing dirt.
Biblically, the “culture of critique” often hasn’t worked too well for the critics. There are certain Bible stories we tuck our kids into bed with. But there are others that give parents pause, and could very well give children nightmares.
There is a Christian radio station that promises listeners it is “Safe for the whole family.” Really? So the Bible is “safe?” Jesus is “safe?” That was his message? “Come follow me, and I’ll lead you into a safe life?” You really think all portions of the Bible are “safe for the whole family?”…

The rest of Leonard Sweet's sermon can be obtained by joining www.Sermons.com

___________________________


A New Kingdom Coming

John Wycliffe had a vision of a Bible in the common English tongue. But dogmatists anchored to the past killed him for it. John Huss dreamed a dream of a responsible Christian life guided by the scriptures. Traditionalists burned him at the stake. Martin Luther was awakened to a new reality of God's grace -- an awakening not shared by contemporaries profiting from the status quo. Consequently, he was hunted for years for revealing an exciting and preferable future. A kingdom was coming and the powers of the past could not prevail against it.

Maurice A. Fetty, The Divine Advocacy, CSS Publishing, Lima, Ohio.

___________________

A Whole New Set of Values

Barbara Brown Taylor once said that if a man in the church loses his job, the pastor may well call this person to offer sympathy and prayer. But suppose that a pastor one day got wind of the fact that a certain member of his congregation had gotten a big promotion at work along with significantly more pay. And suppose the pastor then called this person and said, "Charlie, I've heard your news and so was wondering if it would be OK if I came by sometime to pray with you about this. I'm concerned about the temptations this new venture may throw your way as well as what it may do to your ability to serve here at church. So I'd like to pray for God's strength for you in the face of this new success."
 
Probably we'd be taken aback. But as Brown Taylor notes, that is only because we do cordon off parts of our lives from the total claims Jesus makes on us. We act as though we are our own after all and so why would the church have anything to say to us so long as life is chugging along smoothly? If we ask that, however, we reveal that we, too, quietly resist the same self-denying sacrifice that seems so offensive to some outside the church. It looks as though the only way you will ever see this self-denial as a source of comfort is if you die and are reborn. You need to kill off ordinary ways of defining value and bring to life a whole new set of values. The place to start is by admitting that without God, you are lost in sin's wilderness and unable to find your own way out. Once you know that, you are wide open to the call of the one who hopefully says, “Follow me.”
 
Scott Hoezee, Comments and Observations
___________________________________________________
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://stsams.org/pipermail/propertalk_stsams.org/attachments/20100622/d9dcb58e/attachment.htm>