Sermon text: Matthew 6:25-34
Acouple of months ago I told you a joke about a patient in a mental hospital who spent every day with his ear against his hospital room wall, listening intently. One day the patient called for one of the nurses to come into his room to listen too. The nurse came in and pressed his ear against the wall for several minutes and finally said, "I don't hear anything." "I know," replied the patient, "it's been like that every day!" So it is with us at times. We cling to an invisible wall waiting for something drastic to happen and it never does. We spend much of our time worrying ourselves into another world.
I was raised in “the traditional” church, and like a lot of kids at my age at the time; I felt force-fed with religion and stereotyped all denominations to be like the church I was attending. Until one Sunday my pastor at the time had asked me to join him in delivering prayers and communion…I had become the youngest assistant to the pastor at our church (little did I know at the time, that he was trying to set an example to the other misfits that apparently looked-up to me). Being the assistant to the pastor had greatly effected me…so I’m not sure if his plan backfired or not, but I do know that I was seriously considering seminary, and have always toyed with that notion…scary isn’t it? Dan and I could have been roommates!!!
Sermon text: Luke 20:9-19
I want to use this morning to not only take a look at our passage in Luke, but to pull Jesus’ parables together for a common theme. The parables are wildly diverse in their characters and subject matter, but they do have a thread of similarity too. I believe if you had to pick one component that is present in every aspect of the Gospel, including every parable, it is response. There is a lot of information in the Bible and it is all important for us to know, but its point is not simply for us to know it, but to prompt some sort of response to it. It is given to us as revelation, God telling us about himself and ourselves, so that we will do something with it.Sermon text: Luke 19:11-27
When I turned 16, my parents bought me a car. It was a red 1989 Chrysler Lebaron convertible. It was awesome. It was turbo charged and had a black vinyl top. I have so many great stories with that car.
One time a bunch of my friends and I were swimming at my hometown public pool in the evening when it was closed. I should have probably had the sound booth stop the tape during that admission. Well when we were done swimming we were going to jump in my car and drive around town for a while with the top down. My friend Brian jumped into the back seat and someone else jumped into the passenger seat. They pull the door shut and I hear Brian say, “open the door. Open the door. Open the door!!!!!!.” It turns out when my friend pull the door shut from the passenger seat, Brian had his hand on the frame of the car right where the door latches. His hand was shut in the door when it latched. I will never forget his reaction when I think of that car.