Click to hear this sermon  sermon061119

Response to an Imperfect Church - I Corinthians 13

An eight year old wrote this letter to God: Dear God, I don't know how you can love every single person all the time. I only have four in my family, and I can't hardly do it. This week there will be many family gatherings, and I trust all of yours will be warm and loving occasions. But the fact is, families don't always get along.

Click to hear this sermon  sermon061112

I Corinthians 1: 18-25

The Bible doesn't concern itself much with atheism. In the days that the Bible was written, there were not many people saying that there is no God. In fact, the problem the Bible addresses is that people believe in too many gods. The great religious teachers of the Old Testament had no trouble getting the people of Israel to sacrifice to the God who had delivered them from slavery in Egypt. The people basically said, “Okay, we'll worship that God, but we'll also worship this one and this one and this one.” The Old Testament spends a great deal of time teaching that there is one true God, worthy of worship. But atheism? Not an issue. It was self-evident to just about everybody in the world that there is a spiritual realm beyond what we know, and Somebody (or somebodies) behind the world we live in.

I Kings 19: 9-18; I Corinthians 12: 12-26

Four young men in Sydney, Australia, believed that they had come up with a way to make a few bucks, but they had no idea that they had ventured into a gold mine. They went on ebay and offered a weekend of no-questions-asked camaraderie. “We'll be your first mates - instantly!" the ad said. "You won't have to try and impress us. We don't even care who you are. .. We won't fly you here. Heck, we won't even pay for your bus fare. What we WILL do is guarantee you some beers, some snags (sausages), some good conversation and a lot of laughs." Within a few days, they had received over a hundred bids, and the high bid was at $79,900.

Exodus 4: 10-17; I Corinthians 12: 1-11

When I was a child in Sunday School, if someone were to ask, “Who is the minister of this church?” everybody knew where to point. The minister is the guy standing up there in the bathrobe. Every once in a while, someone might ask us, "Is there anyone here who wants to be a minister when you grow up?" I had a friend who always raised his hand, and then later would explain, “Hey, if I gotta go to church anyways, I might as well be the one who gets to stand up front and yell.”

Isaiah 43: 1-4; Matthew 25: 14-30

What are you called to do? Who are you called to be?