[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermon Resources for February 19 - Part 1

Tue Feb 14 10:18:27 EST 2012

February 19, 2012

Mark 9, the sermon title "Jesus Transfigured"] 
Mark 9:2-9 - "Jesus Transfigured" 
2 Corinthians 4:3-6 - "Let Your Diamond Light Shine" by Leonard Sweet

Dr. Jaroslav Pelikan of Yale University wrote a remarkable study of the significance of the person and work of Jesus Christ titled Jesus Through the Centuries. Dr. Pelikan demonstrates how Jesus has been the dominant figure in the history of Western culture. Each age has made Jesus relevant to its own needs. Jesus has furnished each new age with answers to fundamental questions as every generation has had to address new social problems that tested the more fundamental questions of human existence. The world had to take note of Jesus as a rabbi, as the Cosmic Christ, the Ruler of the World, the King of Kings, the Prince of Peace, the Son of Man, the True Image of Man, the Great Liberator. In many other ways Jesus furnished the answers and the images that affected society in positive ways.

Dr. Pelikan's thesis is that Jesus did not and does not belong to the churches and the theologians alone, but that he belongs to the world. None of this is to say that we can make Jesus what we want Jesus to be. Quite the opposite. It is to say that the Christ is adequate for all our needs and that Jesus transcends culture in such a way that he is able to belong to each age and to address the issues of all time. To understand that, we can do no better than to look to the Holy Gospel for today, which celebrates the transfiguration of our Lord. In that momentous event we learn how and why Jesus belongs to the centuries. Look with me for a moment at all the small elements of this story and you too will see why Jesus belongs to the world and to the ages. Let's look first at...

1. The Event
2. The Happening
3. A Reaction
4. Some Gibberish
5. It Was Not To Be
6. Our View
7. Our Hope

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The full text of the following sermon is available at www.Sermons.com.

2 Corinthians 4 the sermon titled "Let Your Diamond Light Shine" by Leonard Sweet] 

[Begin your sermon by scanning your congregation intently. After saying nothing for a period as you scrutinize your people, offer this explanation for your behavior:]

I am trying to see if you sparkle more this week than last week. 

How many of you [or, "it looks like some of you"] celebrated Valentine's Day with a little bit of "bling!?" The holiday that elevates the warmth of our love and the softness of our hearts also pushes us to do so with something cold and hard - a diamond. 

Diamonds, we are continually reminded, are forever. That's why they are worthy of a significant financial investment. Diamonds are expensive because they are rare, elusive, and found only in tiny bits and pieces. Yet if you could travel 50 light years away from Earth, to star BPM 37093, located in the Centaurus constellation, you would arrive at "Lucy" - a burned out sun, a "white dwarf," whose entire central core is a planet-sized chunk of crystallized carbon - a diamond. 10 billion-trillion-trillion carats worth, to be precise. 

This "space diamond" was named "Lucy" after the Beatle's hit, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." By comparison, the largest earth-diamond, the Golden Jubilee Diamond, is 545 carats - a sandal toe full of diamond "sand" on one of Lucy's dunes. 

Diamonds are a chosen and cherished gem because of their sparkle and glow. They ignite with a kind of inner fire when the light hits them. Unfortunately for "Lucy," that means that the solid diamond core of that dwarf star is as unremarkable and unassuming as any other stone. You could take a drawer full of exquisite diamond gemstones and dump them in a drawer and - without the gift of reflective light--you wouldn't know you had anything different than a box of rocks.

The miracle of reflected light is what Transfiguration Sunday is all about. In both the gospel and the epistle texts, it is the miracle of divine light that "transforms" and "transfigures" the moment and the message. In the gospel text the brilliance, the purity, of the light that illumines Jesus - a brightness "such as no one on earth could bleach them" - is what first attracts the attention of Jesus' disciple-companions to the mountaintop meeting...

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On the Mountain Top, In the Valley

No great mystery. After all, life is lived in the valley, not on the mountain top. Things are different between the two. If you read ahead a bit in Mark's gospel, the contrasts are stark. [Read Mark 9:14-24] 

On the mountain, we encounter almighty God; in the valley, there is an encounter with the demonic. On the mountain we encounter our faith's heritage; in the valley, we encounter those who consider questions of faith as occasions for battle. On the mountain, God's calming voice is heard; in the valley, human argument is heard. On the mountain, disciples are in a mood for worship; in the valley, the disciples are spoiling for a fight. On the mountain, the glory of God is revealed; in the valley, the power of sin and unbelief is revealed.  "O Lord, carry me away to the mountain," might be our prayer. YES, Lord! But then we remember the place of our ministry is with those who need our help down in the valley. 

David Leininger, WOW!
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Changing in Preparation: Forty Days of Love

Have you ever been confronted with a message that changed your perspective? One church chose as its Lenten theme, "Forty Days of Love." Each week members of the congregation were encouraged to show their love and appreciation in different ways. The first week they were encouraged to send notes to people who had made positive contributions to their lives. 

After the first service a man in the congregation wanted to speak to his pastor. The pastor describes the man as "kind of macho, a former football player who loved to hunt and fish, a strong self-made man." The man told his pastor, "I love you and I love this church, but I'm not going to participate in this Forty Days of Love stuff. It's OK for some folks," he said, "but it's a little too sentimental and syrupy for me." 

A week went by. The next Sunday this man waited after church to see his pastor again. "I want to apologize for what I said last Sunday," he told him, "about the Forty Days of Love. I realized on Wednesday that I was wrong." 

"Wednesday?" his pastor repeated. "What happened on Wednesday?" 

"I got one of those letters!" the man said. The letter came as a total surprise. It was from a person the man never expected to hear from. It touched him so deeply he now carries it around in his pocket all the time. "Every time I read it," he said, "I get tears in my eyes." It was a transforming moment in this man's life. Suddenly he realized he was loved by others in the church. This changed his entire outlook. "I was so moved by that letter," he said, "I sat down and wrote ten letters myself."

Receiving that letter was a transforming experience for Mr. Macho. It came from a mailbox rather than a mountaintop, but the effect was the same - his perspective was changed. God breaks into our lives and we are changed. 

King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com 
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Why Do You Go Every Sunday? 

A young woman asked her older co-worker: "Why do you go to church every Sunday? Does something happen there that can't happen somewhere else? And does it happen every Sunday?"

The older woman replied, "What happens is I go to meet the God whom I've come to know in Jesus. God meets me in other settings than at church. However, I must confess that I'm sure I miss most of God's appointments with me. I find that I live most of my days in a daze - as though I'm sleepwalking or on autopilot. I go to church to be reminded that that's true."

The younger woman then asked, "So you go to church every week and God meets you there?" 

The older woman answered, "I go to church every Sunday and for reasons I can't explain, I meet God about 1 in every 8 worship services."

The younger woman asked, "Then why do you go every Sunday?" 

"I go every Sunday," said the older woman, "because I never know when that one Sunday is going to be."

Mike Ripski, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com 

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