[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermon Resources for September 2 - Part 1

[Joe Parrish]

September 2, 2012



        
        
    
        
                

    
    
        
        
        
            

        
        
        


Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 - "Creeds or Deeds"
James 1:17-27 - "Be a Night Light" by Leonard Sweet
 
Mark 7 - the sermon title "Creeds or Deeds"  
 
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 for a child: a child with excellent habits, or a child with a good heart? 
 
It is wonderful to have a neighbor who conscientiously cares for his property while respecting your property. It is wonderful to have a friend who always treats you with consideration. It is wonderful to be married to a husband who always is thoughtful and courteous, or to a wife who always is gracious in her comments and deeds. It is wonderful to have a son or daughter who shows respect and uses good manners. 
 
As wonderful as those situations are, none of them compare to having a neighbor, a friend, a husband, a wife, a son, or a daughter with a good heart. 
 
When you discuss good behavior, you are discussing the quality of a person's self-control. When you discuss a good heart, you are discussing the quality of the person. 
 
This is the focus of today's Scripture...
 
The rest of this sermon can be obtained by joining http://www.sermons.com/signup 


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James 1 - the sermon titled "Be a Night Light" by Leonard Sweet   
 
How many of you had "night lights" as a kid? Can you remember your "night light?" Do any of you still have your "night light?"
 
What is it about the night that cuts us all down to size? Whatever you felt in the day--loneliness, lostness, despair-is magnified in the night. Thank God for "night lights" -those calming, gleaming points of brightness in darkened rooms that helped muzzle monsters and banish the bodysnatchers. 
 
All you kids present-I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Adults still use "night lights." Only we rationalize them as guidance systems to the bathroom, or emergency lighting systems. Basically though, we are all still afraid of the dark. 
 
Fear of the dark isn't just some childish weakness. It is a genetically ingrained reaction, programmed into our earliest ancestors who struggled to stay alive when the nocturnal predators came out to hunt. Children might fear imaginary monsters, but there are enough real life things that go bump in the night to encourage us to keep a dark-defying light on throughout the wee, small hours...
 
The rest of this sermon can be obtained by joining http://www.sermons.com/signup 


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Melting Mountains of Ice
 
William Lloyd Garrison was the greatest abolitionist this country has ever known. He was a publisher of a newspaper called the Liberator, an antislavery publication. Garrison was an angry man, angry with indignation caused by the unbelievably inhumane treatment many of the slaves experienced. He hated slavery with everything that was in him. One day one of his best friends, Samuel May, tried to calm him down. He said to Garrison, "Oh, my friend, try to moderate your indignation and keep more cool. Why, you are all on fire." Garrison replied, "Brother May, I have need to be all on fire, for I have mountains of ice around me to melt." Well, the only way any of us can melt mountains of ice is to be on fire. 

The only way Christ can use any of us is when we are driven by a great passion, when we feel or hear his voice within our heart showing us a great cause that needs to be championed. Nothing is accomplished in this world by people who have no passion. That's one reason we need God in our hearts as well as on our lips. 

King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com

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Lip Service
 
According to the story, Queen Victoria was once at a diplomatic reception in London. The guest of honor was an African chieftain. All went well during the meal until, at the end, finger bowls were served. The guest of honor had never seen a British finger bowl, and no one had thought to brief him beforehand about its purpose. So he took the finger bowl in his two hands, lifted it to his mouth, and drank its contents--down to the very last drop!
 
For an instant there was breathless silence among the British upper crust and then they began to whisper to one another.
 
All that stopped in the next instant as the Queen, Victoria, silently took her finger bowl in her two hands, lifted it, and drank its contents! A moment later 500 surprised British ladies and gentlemen simultaneously drank the contents of their own fingerbowls.
 
It was "against the rules" to drink from a fingerbowl, but on that particular evening Victoria changed the rules---because she was, after all, the Queen. It is "against the rules" not to wash your hands before you eat and on that the Pharisees called the hand of the disciples who follow Jesus. But Jesus recognizes their hypocrisy and he quotes from Isaiah, "These people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me."
 
Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com. Thanks to Winfield Casey Jones for this story.
 
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