[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermon Resources for August 28 - Part 2

[Joe Parrish]

It Is Not I
 
It is said that St. Augustine was accosted one day on the street by a former mistress some time after he had become a Christian. When he saw her he turned and walked the other way. Surprised, the woman called out, "Augustine, it is I". Augustine as he kept going the other way, answered her, "Yes, but it is not I."
 
It is an amusing story - one that comes close to making the same point the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer made when he wrote "When Christ calls a man to follow him, he calls him to die."
 
Richard J. Fairchild, In the Way or on the Way
 
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Taking Risks for Faith
 
It doesn't seem to me that many of us are risking very much for our faith. I once heard someone describe the average Christian today in terms of a person dressed in a deep-sea diving suit, oxygen mask firmly in place, marching resolutely into the bathroom to pull the plug out of the bathtub. An old slogan says: "Expect great things from God; Attempt great things for God." We're pretty good at the first; not so hot with the second.
 
Remember the words of Shakespeare: "Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win, By fearing to attempt." (Measure for Measure, I, iv.) Peter at least dared to attempt. 
 
Donald B. Strobe, Collected Words, www.Sermons.com 
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Costly Grace 
 
Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ living and incarnate. Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all he his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him. Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it cal ls usto follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.
 
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
 
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He’s Going to Make It Hard on You
 
Bob Hodges, a Presbyterian minister in Rogersville, Tennessee, tells about duck hunting with a friend of his on Cherokee Lake in East Tennessee. His friend, Riley, who had just recently given his life to Christ, began to ask some serious questions about his Christian pilgrimage. Riley's old friends were making it very difficult for him to remain consistent in his obedience and commitment to Christ. They seemed to delight in trying to get him to fall back into the old patterns of life. They ridiculed him for spending so much time with "the preacher." Riley asked, "Why is it that I'm having more trouble since I became a Christian than I ever did when I was lost? Everything seems to go wrong. I'm having such a struggle!"

Bob Hodges spoke up, "I'll tell you why, Riley. A couple of ducks fly over and you shoot. You kill one and injure the other. They both fall into the lake. What do you do? You have to get out of the boat and go pick up the ducks, but which one do you go after first?"

"Well," Riley drawled, "that's easy. I go after the injured one first. The dead one ain't goin' nowhere!"

Hodges said, "And that's the way it is with the devil. He goes after injured Christians. He's not going to bother with the man dead in his sin. But the minute you give your life to Christ, you'd better get ready; the devil is going to come after you. He is going to chase you; he's going to make it hard on you."
 
King Duncan, www.Sermons.com, adapted from Don Emmitte
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A clay pot sitting in the sun will always be a clay pot. It has to go through the white heat of the furnace to become porcelain. 
 
Mildred Witte Struven
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Scandelon
 
Some years ago Michael Card, a contemporary Christian artist, wrote a song called Scandelon. It is about the scandalous nature of the cross. The chorus goes:
 
He will be the Truth
that will offend them one and all.
A stone that makes men stumble
and a rock that makes them fall.
And many will be broken so that He can make them whole.
And many will be crushed and lose their very soul.
 
Peter understood the scandalous nature of the cross. It repulsed him. There was no way Jesus was going to go to Jerusalem and be killed. Peter could see Jesus being king and killing others but being king and being killed was not, in his mind, the Messiah's fate.
 
Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com. ;
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Our Logo
 
Marketing experts are always quick to tell start-up businesses how important it is to develop a corporate logo. "Brand identity" they call it, pointing out that symbols serve to generate not only product familiarity but also identification with the overall philosophy of an organization. As the authors of one book on logo design state, "The success of any business or organization lies in its ability to persuade its audience to do what it wants. The ultimate goal of any designer when creating a logo is, of course, to develop a rhetorical and informative mark - one that not only identifies the company and its business, but also helps persuade viewers to respond in a specified manner."
 
For Christians and other religious groups we might agree that the same holds true. The old adage, "a picture's worth a thousand words" reminds us that even around the spiritual dimensions of our lives we can be consistently and powerfully moved by a single sign or symbol. For the Jewish people it is often the Star of David, for Buddhists, the figure of their enlightened teacher, and for us as Christians the central "logo" of our life together is the cross, that sacred sign of God's sacrifice offered through Christ. Through this marking we're continually reminded of God's undying love for the world and of our call to love and serve one another throughout the course of our earthly existence.
 
Lael P. Murphy, Come Survey the Wondrous Cross as a Symbol of Our History
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The Sacrifice Play
 
Sacrifice is not a word we use much these days, is it? When was the last time you used it or thought about it in terms of your own life? When was the last time you sacrificed anything for anybody? Come to think about it, there’s only one sport as far as I know where the term is actually used. Do you know which sport that is? You can almost hear Harry Cary announcing it over the radio, “And there it goes, a long fly ball to left; easy out, but the man on third tags up and trots home. Sacrifice fly.”
 
What a great idea -- you’re out, but you helped someone else score a run. Baseball is one of the few sports where you lose but the team still gains. Do you remember the way comedian George Carlin spells it out in his routine about the contrast between the hardness of football and the softness of baseball? He says: In football you Tackle! In baseball, you “catch flies…” In football you Punt! In baseball you “bunt…” Football is played on a Gridiron! Baseball is played on a “field…” In football you Score! In baseball you “go home…” In football you Kill! In baseball you “sacrifice…”
 
Baseball may be the only sport where you actually can hear this word…
 
The conclusion to this list and for many additional illustrations and sermons for Proper 17 can be accessed at www.Sermons.com.
 
 


 
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