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Sermon & Worship Packages: Time to Remember
In a chapter about rethinking discipleship James Emery White states:
Some of you may remember comedian Yakov Smirnoff. He said when he first came to the United States from Russia; he wasn’t prepared for the incredible variety of instant products available in American grocery stores. He says, "On my first shopping trip, I saw powdered milk--you just add water, and you get milk. Then I saw powdered orange juice--you just add water, and you get orange juice. And then I saw baby powder, and I thought to my self, what a country!"
James Emery White, Rethinking the Church, Baker, 1997, p. 55-57
Rare Copy of Declaration of Independence Discovered at Garage Sale
As Stan Caffy and his fiancé prepared to get married, they cleaned out their respective garages and sold everything to Goodwill. Between the two of them, they sold an assortment of clothes, bicycles, tools, computer parts, and a tattered copy of the Declaration of Independence that had been hanging in Stan’s garage for 10 years.
Well, Stan’s trash turned out to be another man’s treasure.
That particular version of the Declaration of Independence was a rare copy made in 1823. A man named Michael Sparks spotted it, purchased the document for $2.48, and then later auctioned it off for $477,650. Not a bad profit.
Later, Caffy, the previous owner, commented, "I’m happy for the Sparks guy. If I still had it, it would still be hanging here in the garage, and I still wouldn’t know it was worth all that." (Associated Press, Sold! One Declaration of Independence Copy, MSNBC.com, 3-23-07; www.PreachingToday.com)
That describes some Christians. They like to have Jesus hanging around, but they don’t know what He’s worth. They don’t realize what they have in Jesus Christ. My dear friends, let’s not forget the supreme treasure we have that is Christ.
(From a sermon by C. Philip Green, The Blind See, 10/28/2009)
GEORGE MUELLER ON PERSISTENCE IN PRAYER
George Mueller: "It is not enough to begin to pray, nor to pray alright; nor is it enough to continue for a time to pray; but we must patiently, believing, continue in prayer until we obtain an answer."
(From a sermon by Philip Harrelson, Avenge Me of My Adversary, 8/6/2010)
Unused Spiritual Resources
During Superbowl XXXVII, FedEx ran a commercial that spoofed the movie Castaway, in which Tom Hanks played a FedEx worker whose company plane went down, stranding him on a desert island for years. Looking like the bedraggled Hanks in the movie, the FedEx employee in the commercial goes up to the door of a suburban home, package in hand.
When the lady comes to the door, he explains that he survived five years on a deserted island, and during that whole time he kept this package in order to deliver it to her. She gives a simple, "Thank you."
But he is curious about what is in the package that he has been protecting for years. He says, "If I may ask, what was in that package after all?"
She opens it and shows him the contents, saying, "Oh, n...
ROOTED FOR LIFE
There was once a farmer who went to town to purchase seeds for his farm. As he was returning home, one of the squash seeds he had purchased fell from his pocket onto the ground. It happened that within a few feet was another seed of a different type. The place where the two seeds lay was rather fertile, and miraculously they took root.
After about a week the squash seed showed signs of growth. The second seed showed none. After two weeks the squash began to sprout leaves. The second seed showed none. After seven weeks the squash began to show fruit. The second seed still showed no progress.
Four more weeks came and gone. The squash plant reached the end of its life bearing much fruit in that time, but the other seed finally began to slowly grow. Many years later the squash was all but forgotten, but the other tiny seed, an acorn, had grown into a mighty oak tree.
Many people want their faith to be like the squash. They want to experience it all right now...rather than be rooted for life.
(From a sermon by Ajai Prakash, Rooted in Jesus, 4/29/2011)
TYING OFF THE TAP ROOT
The Japanese introduced a tree to the world that is called a Bonsai tree. It is measured in inches instead of feet as other trees are measured. It is not allowed to reach anywhere near its full growth potential but instead grows in a stunted miniature form.
The reason for it growing in stunted form is that when it first stuck its head out of the ground as a sapling, the owner pulled it out of the soil and tied off its main tap root and some of its branch feeder roots and then replanted it. By doing this, its grower deliberately stunted its growth by limiting the roots ability to spread out and grow deep and take in enough of the soils nutrients for a normal growth.
What was done to the Bonsai tree by its owner is what Satan has purposed to do to the believer, if he can. He is going to try to tie off our tap root of prayer. He wants to limit our receiving in prayer what God supplies for our spiritual growth.
(From a sermon by Ajai Prakash, Rooted in Jesus, 4/29/2011)
When I was growing up in L.A. (Lower Alabama) we usually had four or five dogs and cats to claim as our pets. By virtue of being the oldest child, my older sister, Judy, demanded the right to name all our pets. (First-born siblings can be control-freaks as the rest of us know). We had a dog that was part German Shepherd which Judy named Rex. While, Rex was a ferocious looking dog, he was a big chicken at heart. He was scared of everything. None of our pets ever came inside; they were “yard pets.” But once when it thundered, Rex was so frightened he broke through the screen door and came in and hid under the table!
His bark wasn’t worst than his bite, because he seldom barked...and he never bit. However, there was on thing that could make Rex bark. Sometimes when a bird or a flock of birds flew over on a sunny day, Rex often chased their shadows on the ground. I can recall watching as one bird flew around in a circle with Rex chasing the circling shadow on the ground, barking the whole time. Poor, dumb, bird-brained Rex–he never figured out the shadow wasn’t real.
Sadly, there are many well-meaning Christians who are doing the same thing. They are chasing shadows: They are still trying to please God by keeping religious rules and observing religious rituals. In this message, I want to examine some of the substitutes for grace, and then talk about the differences between legalism-based churches and grace-based churches.
DEEPLY ROOTED
Parnell Bailey visited an orange grove where an irrigation pump had broken down. The season was unusually dry and some of the trees were beginning to die for lack of water. The man giving the tour then took Bailey to his own orchard where irrigation was used sparingly.
"These trees could go without rain for another 2 weeks," he said. "You see, when they were young, I frequently kept water from them. This hardship caused them to send their roots deeper into the soil in search of moisture. Now m...
Satan is a terrible taskmaster. Here’s a helpful quotation which summarizes his deceit: ‘He promises the best, but pays with the worst; he promises honour and pays with disgrace; he promises pleasure and pays with pain; he promises profit and pays with loss; he promises life and pays with death’ (Thomas Brooks).
‘Temptations are certain to ring your doorbell; but it’s your own fault if you ask them to stay for dinner!’
John 14:6 – “Jesus told him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.’”
This is so hard for prideful people to accept.
Elaine Pagels (author of The Templar Revelation: Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ) says she had an epiphany while reading the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas during graduate school, particularly this passage: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.” According to Pagels, “The strength of this saying is that it does not tell us what to believe but challenges us to discover what lies hidden within ourselves….” This Gnostic perspective essentially says that salvation is within ourselves, and that it is in a process of self-discovery that we find redemption.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer had a different perspective: “The fact that Jesus Christ died is more important than the fact that I shall die, and the fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead is the sole ground of my hope that I, too, shall be raised on the Last Day. Our salvation is “external to us.” I find no salvation in my life history, but only in the history of Jesus Ch...
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