Sermons from December 2021

Sermons from December 2021

Genesis 1-3

Secular Work Is Full-time Service Introduction:  For a long time I have bristled at the notion that ministry is business.  There seems to be a strong movement in the church to borrow business practices from Madison Avenue–from public relations to marketing to management styles.  You would be amazed today at the books most widely read by pastors of mega-churches.  Many of them are written by secular business tycoons and leadership gurus.  Please don’t misunderstand me.  I believe there is something that can be learned from experts…

Colossians 3:22 4:1; Ephesians 6:5-9

Work Is Not a Four-Letter Word Introduction: Last Lord’s Day we began a new series on The Ministry of the Market Place.  We noted that work is a divinely established institution–one of four God set up to make our lives meaningful, purposeful, and happy–the others being marriage/family, government, and the church. We also learned that work should not be viewed as the “secular” part of our lives which must be endured so that the “sacred” might be enjoyed.  Work actually preceded the Fall of…

Genesis 39-41

Joseph: There’s No Substitute for Integrity at Work In our new series on The Ministry of the Market Place we have spent the past two Sundays laying the foundation for a biblical theology of Work.  Today we are going to turn from the general to the specific.  We are going to begin to examine some biblical biographies of individuals who understood the theology of work, and we hope to learn what it was in their lives that enabled them to live out that theology.  None…

Exodus 18

How to Turn the Rat Race Into a Relay Introduction:  Work is sacred.  It is God’s gift so that we might enjoy meaning, purpose, and significance in our daily lives.  But enjoyment in work isn’t automatic.  Like every other aspect of our lives, work has been affected by sin–corrupted, distorted, and twisted.  Some people work too much, others work too little or not at all.  Some love it; some hate it; some are indifferent to it.  We desperately need to recover a biblical theology of work, and…

Proverbs 31

The Proverbs 31 Woman: Is She for Real? Our Scripture text today is most often taught to women–at retreats, in Bible studies, and so forth.  But it has valuable lessons for men as well.  In fact, it was written down by a man who learned important truths about women from his own mother.  The first verse of Proverbs 31 says, “The sayings of King Lemuel–an oracle his mother taught him.”  We don’t know who this King was nor when he lived.  But we know that…

Daniel 1, 2, 3, 6

Daniel and the Three Hebrew Young Men: Courage and Character Come Before Career In our series on The Ministry of the Market Place, we come today to perhaps the most familiar of all the biblical characters we will examine–Belteshazzar, better known by his Hebrew name, Daniel, along with his three friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah–better known, strangely, by their Babylonian names –Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  If you know any Bible stories at all, you probably know about these men, but familiarity must…

Acts 10, Matt 8

The Centurions: Does God Approve of Military Careers? Introduction: Today we come to the last message in our three-month series on The Ministry of the Market Place.  I want to thank George Fooshee and Phil Thengvall for their excellent messages while I was in Israel.  Next Sunday, Lord willing, we will begin a new series on the life of Christ.  We will start, as is appropriate for Advent, with the nativity of Jesus, and then we will continue after the Christmas season by studying…

Luke 19:1-10

Zacchaeus: Can You Change Your Reputation at Work?  Introduction: The question posed in my sermon title today is one that may not seem relevant to everyone here, because some of you don’t have a problem with your reputation at work.  But some of you may.  And all of you know people who do.  It is my hope that this message will give you hope that people can change.  Of course, it works both ways.  We need to be aware also that one bad decision, one careless act…

Luke 7:36-50

Have You Miscalculated Your Indebtedness? Every one of us likes stories, and Jesus was a storyteller par excellence.  It just so happens that the first parable I am going to tackle is a parable about two debtors, but that is where the connection with last Sunday stops.   Missionary aviation is a field of service that for the past fifty years has enabled the gospel to penetrate the most remote areas of the third world.  About six years ago I left the southernmost…

Luke 12:13-21

The Rich Fool Last Fall we examined a very strange parable from the mouth of Jesus as found in Luke 16:1-9–the story of a man who used his money to buy friends.  While the man himself was a scoundrel, Jesus presents him as a positive example of what Christians should do in one area of their lives–invest their money in friends.  The particular kind of friends Jesus is concerned about are those who will welcome us into Heaven, i.e., people who have become…

Luke 14:25-35

Come at All Cost, But Count the Cost I love odd-numbered years–because there are no national elections.  I never cease to be amazed at the fact that so many politicians in our country, of both major parties, are so willing to tell people whatever they want to hear: lower taxes, inflation, and crime rates; higher Social Security checks, farm prices, and employment.  Anyone teetering on the brink of indecision is wooed by grandiose promises of less work, more money, and a happier…

Luke 16:19-31

Rich Man, Poor Man:  Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus Our Scripture text for today comes from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 16, verses 19-31.  This whole chapter is about money.  It opens with the parable about the Shrewd Manager–a parable we studied together last October and which is one of the chapters in the free book we offered you at the Debt Elimination table in June.  If you didn’t receive one, it is still available at the Welcome Center.   Jesus’ point in…
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