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

[Joe Parrish]

Losing Sight of Life's Goals
 
In Steven Covey's best seller "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People," talks about how we can lose sight of our main goals in life. In no other place are the consequences more destructive than in our families: Covey writes:
 
"I value my children. I love them, I want to help them.  I value my role as their father. But I don't always see those values. I get caught up in the "thick of thin things."  What matters most gets buried under layers of pressing problems, immediate concerns, and outward behaviors. I become reactive.  And the way I interact with my children every day often bears little resemblance to the way I deeply feel about them."
 
For us Fathers...to truly be known by our children would be wonderful. I suspect that this is so much more difficult for men than women. And yet here in Jesus' prayer it is his first thought, that we might know the Father and the Son. This, he says, is salvation. You want to know what being saved means, what the meaning of life is? It is written here in Jesus prayer: If you will come to know God, the only true God, and the Son whom he has sent, you will be saved.
 
You might say this is difficult for me to do--to know God. Yes it is. It is difficult for you to do. But it is not difficult for God to make himself known to you.
 
Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com
 
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 A Weapon Terrible to Behold
 
In one of my favorite Peanuts cartoons, Lucy comes into the living room to find Linus in control of the TV. She demands he change the channel. "What makes you think you can walk right in here and take over?" asks Linus.
 
"These five fingers," says Lucy. "Individually they're nothing but when I curl them together like this into a single unit, they form a weapon that is terrible to behold."
 
"Which channel do you want?" asks Linus.
 
Turning away, he looks at his fingers and says, "Why can't you guys get organized like that?"
 
Brett Blair, www.Sermons.com
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Prayer for Work
 
Peter Marshall once began a Senate session with this prayer, "O Lord, forgive us for thinking that prayer is a waste of time, and help us to see that without prayer our work is a waste of time."
 
Robert J. Bryan, All Constantly Devoted to Prayer.
 
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To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.
 
Karl Barth
 
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Shoving It All Back
 
The moment you wake up each morning, all your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists in shoving it all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other, larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.
 
C.S. Lewis
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Keep Climbing

A Canadian by the name of Ashleigh Brilliant draws cartoons to go with pithy sayings called "Pot Shots." There is one I really like. Two people with walking sticks in hand are climbing a mountain in knee-deep snow. The caption reads: "Keep Climbing Upwards! You may never reach the top, but it's definitely in that direction."

We have to continue to work toward unity and understanding - between each other, between the races, between cultures and between denominations. We may never reach it, but by working toward it, at least we'll be going in the right direction.

Billy D. Strayhorn, So That We May Be One In Christ 
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Individual Skills
 
We still have to live in the world and each of our individual skills can be used to enhance the kingdom. Some are more visible than others. Some are very subtle. For example; Idlers of a seacoast town watched the village smith day after day as he painstakingly wrought every link of a great chain he was forging. Behind his back they scoffed at such care being taken on such an ordinary thing as a chain. But the old craftsman worked on, ignoring them as if he had not heard them at all.
 
Eventually the chain was attached to a great anchor on the deck of an ocean vessel. For months it was never put to use. But one day the vessel was disabled by a breakdown in its steering apparatus while nearing the coast in a storm. Only a secure anchorage cold prevent the vessel from being driven onto the rocky coast. Thus the fate of the ship and hundreds of passengers depended on the strength of that chain. No one knew of the care and skill that had been lavished on each link of that chain by an obscure smith who was only doing his best. The chain held, both the ship and its passengers and crew were saved. The blacksmith had saved the day.
 
Keith Wagner, In a Different World
 
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Grabbing up the Truths

Forty-three years ago, I read something by Sherwood Anderson in an upper-level literature class at Albion College. Which took me a while to find, given that I wanted to see if it was as I remembered it. But I did. And it was.

Anderson shared a legend, suggesting that in the beginning there was a valley filled with truths. And the truths were all beautiful. There were truths about every subject under the sun. There were truths about virginity and truths about passion....truths about wealth and truths about poverty....truths about thrift and truths about profligacy....truths about carefulness and truths about abandon. There were hundreds and hundreds of truths, all of them beautiful.

And then the people came along, pouring into the valley. Each snatched up one of the truths. And the strong, several…
 
Additional illustrations, sermons, and commentary for each week of the year can be accessed at www.Sermons.com.
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