[Propertalk] FW: Sermon Resources for October 14 - Part 2

[Joe Parrish]

Do All the Good 

 

Henry Thoreau said, "Be not merely good; be good for something." That was
Jesus' challenge to the man who wanted to know what he could do to inherit
eternal life. He had been good at making money, in being morally upright and
keeping the commandments; but that is not the ultimate good: he must also
give of himself and what he has in behalf of others. He needed to also
realize that, "The gift without the giver is bare." John Wesley proposed an
excellent guide to goodness. He said, and he practiced what he preached: 

Do all the good you can, 

By all the means you can, 

In all the ways you can, 

At all the times you can, 

As long as ever you can. 

Someone else has expressed the ideal of goodness in a wonderful way, saying,
"I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore,
that I can do, or any goodness that I can show to my fellow creatures, let
me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way
again." 

 

Clement E. Lewis, When It's Twilight Time, CSS Publishing Company

____________________________________

Real Wealth - Priorities 

 

God creates us with a variety of needs, desires, interests, talents, and
opportunities. But these things don't define what we'll be. They're like the
bricks, lumber, wallboard, shingles, and tiles we might see piled on the
road near a construction site. It's what we make from the raw elements of
our personalities that defines who we are; and this is where priorities and
choices are crucial.

Jimmy Carter, Sources of Strength, Random House, p. 230.

____________________

The Failure that Looked Like Success 

 

More than forty years ago, I heard a man describe two paintings he said he
had at his home. I have never forgotten them even though I never saw them.
One was of the figure in Jesus' story of the rich man whose crops produced
so abundantly that he decided to pull down his barns and build bigger ones,
and he said to his soul, "Soul, eat, drink, and have a great time, for
tomorrow you die." The caption under this painting said: "The Failure that
Looked Like Success." The other painting, the companion painting, was of
Jesus dying on the cross, the crown of thorns on his head, his chin drooping
against his chest, the crude nails in his hands, and all his friends off
somewhere in hiding. The caption under this picture said: "The Success that
Looked Like Failure."

We would all like to be successful and fulfilled as persons; it is one of
the dreams with which our culture imbues us. But when we listen to Jesus, we
realize that success and fulfillment don't really come the way we often
expect them to. They aren't the direct result of anything we can do to
attain them. Instead, they're a gift from God and they simply happen when we
are doing the right things with our lives. In God's eyes it is a whole lot
better to be a success that looks like failure than a failure that looks
like success. 

 

John Killinger, The Real Way to Personal Fulfillment

________________________________

The Success Syndrome 

 

Harvard Medical School psychologist Steven Berglas has written a book called
The Success Syndrome. He has found that individuals who in his word "suffer"
from success have arrogance and a sense of aloneness. Insider trader Dennis
Levine was asked by his wife why he needed the money from insider trading
and he really had no answer. Levine says that when his income was $100,000,
he hungered for $200,000, and when he was making $1 million, he hungered for
$3 million. Berglas says that oddly enough people who find that $200,000 did
not make them happy never asked themselves why they thought $300,000 would
make them happy. Asked to prescribe a cure for the success syndrome, Berglas
said, "What's missing in these people (Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken, Leona
Helmsley) is deep commitment or religious activity that goes far beyond just
writing a check to a charity." 



King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com

______________________

We Want It Our Way 

 

The story of Faust by Goethe has become part of our heritage. Faust was a
man who longed for romance, academic success, and wealth. Unable to find
these on his own, he made a pact with the devil. If he could be granted his
wishes, have his true worth made public and enjoy its fruits, then he would
give his soul to the devil. Sure enough, he enjoyed marvelous romances,
fabulous successes, and much wealth. Oddly enough, when the time came, he
was unwilling to keep his part of the bargain. I wonder if there is a
parallel here. We put Jesus off, promising, "Just one more of this and one
more of that -- then I will be willing to go with you, Jesus." Are we not
like little Fausts, wanting to have it our way? After all, we say, we
deserve it! And what do we say to Jesus when he comes to claim us?

Thomas Peterson, The Needle's Eye, CSS Publishing Company.

_____________________

Four Questions for Church Membership 

 

A seminary professor named Stanley Hauerwas has a novel idea about how
churches should receive new members. A teacher of Christian ethics at Duke
University, he has written about the church's need for honesty and has
called us to tell the truth as a "community of character."

To this end, he has a modest proposal. Whenever people join the church,
Hauerwas thinks they should stand and answer four questions: * Who is your
Lord and Savior? The response: "Jesus Christ." * Do you trust in him and
seek to be his disciple? "I do." * Will you be a faithful member of this
congregation? The answer: "I will." * Finally, one last question: What is
your annual income?

You heard me correctly. When people join the church, Dr. Hauerwas thinks
they ought to name their Lord and Savior and tell fellow church members how
much money they make. It is obvious Hauerwas does not serve as a pastor of a
congregation. His idea just wouldn't work, especially in the American
church. Most church members believe salary figures are more sacred than
prayer, and would quickly tell an inquisitive minister to snoop around
somewhere else. What's more, parish experience tempers the questions a
minister asks of church members. Most pastors quickly learn how to dance
around the issue of money without ever naming it. 

 

William G. Carter, No Box Seats in the Kingdom, CSS Publishing. 

_______________________

Are We Rich? 

 

The curse of any kind of valuable possession is its capacity to steal our
hearts and souls. The heavier the purse, the tighter the strings. Is it fair
to call most of us rich? According to our Methodist founder John Wesley, it
is. He said that the word "rich" in the Bible means to have the necessities
of life (food, shelter, and clothing) and then something left over. But here
is part of the problem of us rich folks...

The rest of this illustration, as well as many additional illustrations and
sermons for the whole year, can be accessed at
<http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001u15FGYs4lPNogpeoc_WAdfTQL8LZpNGVRDkyh_auG092
UwidIC-kCZXRRp-w9-ck1GIUAm7UO3S2SxqI1s_7dW6pvUgl1aaLvmjqpJ_GwnU=>
www.Sermons.com.  

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://stsams.org/pipermail/propertalk_stsams.org/attachments/20121009/302f29ce/attachment.htm>