[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermon Resources for August 26 - Part 2

[Joe Parrish]

Difficult Sayings
 
That great American writer, Mark Twain, wrote: "Most people are bothered by those passages in Scriptures which they cannot understand; but as for me, I always notice that the passages in Scripture which trouble me most are those which I do understand."
 
I suspect that, at times, we all would like to walk away from the church and never come back. We want a God different from the one we find in Jesus. 
 
Flesh and blood? Yes. But demanding? No.
Resurrected? Yes. But crucified? No.
Salvation? Yes. Repentance? No.
Love? Yes. Commitment? No.
 
Unfortunately you cannot have one without the other. The rose comes with the thorns. The pains come with the birth. Night come with day. The best of times can only be lived because there are those times that are so bad.
 
Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com. 
 
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Cheap Crosses
 
A missionary in Brazil visited a market town on a religious holiday, and saw a sale sign in a store's window advertising "Cheap crosses for sell." We may look for cheap crosses - no sacrifice, no commitment, no cost, no pain - but there is no such thing. Jesus' disciples have to follow the way of the cross.
 
Katherine Fagerburg, Difficult Decisions
 
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Humor: I Quit
 
A guy joins a monastery and takes a vow of silence. He's allowed to say two words every seven years. After the first seven years, the elders bring him in and ask for his two words. "Cold floors," he says. They nod and send him away. Seven more years pass. They bring him back in and ask for his two words. He clears his throat and says, "Bad food." They nod and send him away.
 
Seven more years pass. They bring him in for his two words. "I quit," he says. "That's not surprising," the elders say. "You've done nothing but complain since you got here."
 
This gentleman at the monastery had something in common with the followers of Jesus: it was just too hard. 
 
Traditional
 
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I Am the Path
 
Stanley Jones tells of a missionary who got lost in an African jungle, nothing around him but bush and a few cleared places. He found a native hut and asked the native if he could get him out. The native said he could.
 
"All right," said the missionary, "show me the way."
 
The native said, "Walk," so they walked and hacked their way through unmarked jungle for more than an hour.
 
The missionary got worried. "Are you quite sure this is the way? Where is the path?"
 
The native said, "Bwana, in this place there is no path. I am the path."
 
I think that it is here that Peter has one of his more honest and real moments. His guard was down because so many people were leaving Jesus. They were leaving because, quite frankly, things were getting a little too difficult. So, Jesus asks the twelve, are you going to leave me as well? "Lord, to whom shall we go?" Peter replied, "You have the words of eternal life. You are the Holy One of God." Peter speaks for us all. Because in this wrorld there is not path. Peter, you are right. He is the Path!
 
Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com 
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I Step Out on the Word of God

Poet Maya Angelou recalls the struggles of her grandmother living through the great depression. She remembers a lot of things about her grandmother: her wisdom, her stature. But it was her grandmother's faith that Maya remembers most. Clasping her hands behind her back her grandmother would look up into the distant sky and say, "I will step out on the word of God." 

The great depression was a difficult time for everyone, but "especially so for a single black woman in the South tending her crippled son and two grandchildren." But when faced with mountainous burdens, Maya's grandmother would face the sky and say, "I will step out on the word of God." 

"She would look up as if she could will herself into the heavens," Maya writes. And because of her grandmother, Maya Angelou grew up knowing that the word of God had power. And now, today, whenever she experiences the injustices of this world, Maya remembers the great faith of her grandmother. God gives us spiritual armor to protect us from the evil we face daily: He gives us truth, righteousness, the willingness to speak up for Christ, and, most importantly, faith. 

King Duncan, www.Sermons.com
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A Higher Priority
 
At the Olympic games in Paris in 1924 the sport of canoe racing was added to the list of international competitions. The favorite team in the four-man canoe race was the United States team. One member of that team was a young man by the name of Bill Havens.
 
As the time for the Olympics neared, it became clear that Bill's wife would give birth to her first child about the time that Bill would be competing in the Paris Games. In 1924 there were no jet airliners from Paris to the United States, only slow-moving ocean-going ships. And so Bill found himself in a dilemma. Should he go to Paris and risk not being at his wife's side when their first child was born? Or should he withdraw from the team and remain behind. Bill's wife insisted that he go to Paris. After all, he had been working towards this for all these years. It was the culmination of a life-long dream.
 
Clearly the decision was not easy for Bill to make. Finally, after much soul searching, Bill decided to withdraw from the competition and remain behind with his wife so that he could be with her when their first child arrived. Bill considered being at her side a higher priority than going to Paris to fulfill a life-long dream.
 
To make a long story short, the United States four-man canoe team won the gold medal at the Paris Olympics. And Bill's wife was late in giving birth to her first child. She was so late that Bill could have competed in the event and returned home in time to be with her when she gave birth.
 
People said, "What a shame." But Bill said he had no regrets. After all, his commitment to his wife was more important then, and it still was now.
 
The story of Bill Havens is a story of how one man paid a high price to fulfill a commitment to someone he loved.
 
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NOTE: If the above illustration is used offer this sequel near the end or as the ending of your sermon:
 
There is a sequel to the story of Bill Havens. The child eventually born to Bill and his wife was a boy, whom they named Frank. Twenty-eight years later, in 1952, Bill received a cablegram from Frank. It was sent from Helsinki, Finland, where the 1952 Olympics were being held. The cablegram read, and I quote it exactly: "Dad, I won. I'm bringing home the gold medal you lost while waiting for me to be born."
 
Frank Havens had just won the gold medal for the United States in the canoe-racing event, a medal his father had dreamed of winning but never did....
 
The rest of this illustration, as well as many additional illustrations and sermons for the whole year, can be accessed at www.Sermons.com. 



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