[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermons for Christ the King and Thanksgiving

[Joe Parrish]

Sermons for Christ the King and Thanksgiving

Matthew 25:31-46 - The Sheep and the Goats
Ephesians 5:20 – In All Things Be Thankful

This week covers both Christ the King Sunday and Thanksgiving.  Sermons.com offers many additional preaching and worship resources for these celebrations as well as Advent, Christmas, and the rest of the year.


Matthew 25, the sermon title “The Sheep and the Goats”

Like it or not, judgment is a fact of life. That is true whether we are talking about the histories of nations or the events of our own personal life. If we break the law, then society will judge us. If we live immorally -- drink too much, engage in sexual promiscuity, live a lifestyle of constant stress -- then our bodies will judge us. We simply cannot escape judgment in life.

Jesus rarely spoke about the final judgment, but on one occasion he did paint a picture for us in one of his stories. The parable that I just read gives a strong jolt to those who are heavy on doctrine but short on ethics.

A shepherd divides the sheep from the goats, said Jesus, so too shall there be a great division on the final day. Those on the right hand will be allowed entrance into the kingdom, while those on the left will be denied it. And the great surprise is that those who thought they were religious turn out to be not as good as they thought, and those who thought they failed were told they did a better job than they supposed.

I would like to suggest three points that this parable is attempting to make this morning…
 
1. We Are to View Each Individual As if They Are Christ.
2. The End Criteria Will Be Simple Acts of Kindness.
3. We Are Judged by the Good We Do Not Do. 

The rest of this sermon can be obtained by joining Sermons.com athttp://www.sermons.com/signup 
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Ephesians 5, the sermon title “In All Things Be Thankful” 

Back during the dark days of 1929, a group of ministers in the Northeast, all graduates of the Boston School of Theology, gathered to discuss how they should conduct their Thanksgiving Sunday services. Things were about as bad as they could get, with no sign of relief. The bread lines were depressingly long, the stock market had plummeted, and the term Great Depression seemed an apt description for the mood of the country. The ministers thought they should only lightly touch upon the subject Thanksgiving in deference to the human misery all about them. After all, there was to be thankful for. But it was Dr. William L. Stiger, pastor of a large congregation in the city that rallied the group. This was not the time, he suggested, to give mere passing mention to Thanksgiving, just the opposite. This was the time for the nation to get matters in perspective and thank God for blessings always present, but perhaps suppressed due to intense hardship.

I suggest to you the ministers struck upon something. The most intense moments of thankfulness are not found in times of plenty, but when difficulties abound. Think of the Pilgrims that first Thanksgiving. Half their number dead, men without a country, but still there was thanksgiving to God. Their gratitude was not for something but in something. It was that same sense of gratitude that lead Abraham Lincoln to formally establish the first Thanksgiving Day in the midst of national civil war, when the butcher’s list of casualties seemed to have no end and the very nation struggled for survival.

Perhaps in your own life, right now, intense hardship. You are experiencing your own personal Great Depression. Why should you be thankful this day? May I suggest three things?

1. We must learn to be thankful or we become bitter.
2. We must learn to be thankful or we will become discouraged.
3. We must learn to be thankful or we will grow arrogant and self-satisfied.

The rest of this sermon and many additional illustrations, sermons, commentary, and worship aids for this Sunday and for each week of the year can be accessed atwww.Sermons.com.
 

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