[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermon Resources for September 9 - Part 2

[Joe Parrish]

Miraculous Healing

I have a friend who is a surgeon and a committed Christian.  He is the physician who took care of me when I had a snow blower accident and needed surgery on two fingers.  During one of the surgeries (all done with local anesthetic), I asked, "Don, do you believe in divine healing?"

"Is there any other kind?" he responded.

Good point, but what I really wanted to know was whether he believed in what we would call miraculous healing, so I asked, "Actually, I wanted to know if you believe in miraculous healing."

"Yes," he answered in a matter of fact way, "Why do you ask?  Do you want me to stop the surgery?"

John Jewell, What About Healing?
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The Buzzard, the Bat, and the Bumblebee

If you put a buzzard in a pen that is 6 feet by 8 feet and is entirely open at the top, the bird, in spite of its ability to fly, will be an absolute prisoner. The reason is that a buzzard always begins a flight from the ground with a run of 10 to 12 feet. Without space to run, as is its habit, it will not even attempt to fly, but will remain a prisoner for life in a small jail with no top. 

The ordinary bat that flies around at night, a remarkable nimble creature in the air, cannot take off from a level place. If it is placed on the floor or flat ground, all it can do is shuffle about helplessly and, no doubt, painfully, until it reaches some slight elevation from which it can throw itself into the air. Then, at once, it takes off like a flash.
 
A bumblebee, if dropped into an open tumbler, will be there until it dies, unless it is taken out. It never sees the means of escape at the top, but persists in trying to find some way out through the sides near the bottom. It will seek a way where none exists, until it completely destroys itself.

 
In many ways, we are like the buzzard, the bat, and the bumblebee. We struggle about with all our problems and frustrations, never realizing that all we have to do is look up! That's the answer, the escape route and the solution to any problem! Just look up.

Source Unknown
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Quiet Time Is for Listening
 
There was a fifth grade teacher who decided that she would use this listening process with her children. Every morning for five minutes she required them to be totally quiet. That's hard for any of us to do, much less a fifth grader. She discovered that a great deal of good came from the experience of silence. After one of these quiet times she asked the students if they had heard anything. One boy said: Yes, I heard something say that I should be more obedient to my parents. Another said: I heard something say that you should always be fair: When you are tagged and nobody sees it you are still out. There is no substitute for listening.
 
Staff, www.eSermons.com
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The Friendship Mirror
 
A psychologist friend of mine once developed a personal growth seminar entitled, The Friendship Mirror.  It began with an exercise in which you were asked to write down the names of ten people you consider to be friends - people you enjoy being with ... people you like ... people you feel most comfortable relating to.  Then he'd ask you to describe them in terms of their age, race, height, weight, education, views, whether they're married or single, with children or not.  When you finished, what you found was a striking similarity between the people you like the best and ... are you ready for this?  Yourself! 
 
Surprise!  We tend to identify most easily with those people who are like us.  "Birds of a feather flock together," they say.  Which is nothing new, of course, but it's something we do well to be reminded of, from time to time, for to grow up is to grow out and to mature in faith is to widen your circle to include those who don't just mirror your image, but challenge you to think and act in new ways.

Philip W. McLarty, The Boundaries of the Kingdom 
 
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Believing in Jesus: Erasing Boundaries
 
If we believe in Jesus, we know the boundaries are erased inside and out, life's for us all. Fred Craddock tells the story of a missionary sent to preach the gospel in India near the end of World War II. After many months the time came for a furlough back home. His church wired him the money to book passage on a steamer but when he got to the port city he discovered a boat load of Jews had just been allowed to land temporarily. These were the days when European Jews were sailing all over the world literally looking for a place to live, and these particular Jews were staying in attics and warehouses and basements all over that port city.
 
It happened to be Christmas, and on Christmas morning, this missionary went to one of the attics where scores of Jews were staying. He walked in and said, "Merry Christmas." The people looked at him like he was crazy and responded, "We're Jews." "I know that," said the missionary, "What would you like for Christmas?" In utter amazement the Jews responded, "Why we'd like pastries, good pastries like the ones we used to have in Germany." So the missionary went out and used the money for his ticket home to buy pastries for all the Jews he could find staying in the port. Of course, then he had to wire home asking for more money to book his passage back to the States.
 
As you might expect, his superiors wired back asking what happened to the money they had already sent. He wired that he had used it to buy Christmas pastries for some Jews. His superiors wired back, "Why did you do that? They don't even believe in Jesus." He wired back: "Yes, but I do." 
 
David Reynolds, Crossing Boundaries 
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The Sermon Title
 
Generations of preachers at Princeton Seminary were schooled in their homiletical skills by Dr. Donald Macleod. Among the points Dr. Macleod would make during the semester was the importance of choosing a compelling sermon title. In fact, he asked students to give their sermon title before beginning each sermon.
 
He used to tell of Mrs. O'Leary who would hop on the Fifth Avenue bus on Sunday morning in Manhattan and pass the great churches along that thoroughfare. As the bus would approach each church, she would eye the sign in front with the sermon title and decided, on the basis of what she read, whether to get off the bus and attend that church. Dr. Macleod's constant refrain was, "Pick a title that will make Mrs. O'Leary get off the bus."
 
Mindful of that instruction, one of his aspiring preachers mounted the pulpit one morning for his first student sermon...
 
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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