Full length Sermon Manuscripts complete with illustrations.
The name Charles Bradley Templeton (1915-2001) might not ring a bell to some of us but all of us are familiar with the International Christian Movement known as “Youth for Christ.” Templeton was its co-founder. According to The Christian Post–in the year 1957, after a struggle with doubts, Templeton rejected Christianity and became an atheist.
I am fully aware that I have preached to you from the Parable of the Sower before but wanted to share the same today for a very good reason. As your Pastor, I am responsible for your personal spiritual growth. You know, sometimes we get complacent in our Christian walk which hinders our spiritual growth. When that happens I have to stir your nest and remind you to start moving forward again. So, I am going to stir your nest tonight. Now, as I told you the last time I preached from this passage, Jesus spoke about four different groups of people that are in the Church.
There is a story in the Gospel of John 5:1-15 that proved problematic for Liberals who don’t believe in the Bible. They maintained the Pool of Bethesda did not exist, discrediting St. John’s writings. However, in the 19th Century, the archeologists discovered this controversial structure exactly where John said it was. This actually silenced the liberal critics.
Now that discovery doesn’t prove the miracle associated with the place actually happened but it proves the historical credibility of John’s account. It makes this passage worth our attention. So tonight I want to highlight four truths I learned myself.
Today I want to consider another woman we meet in the Bible. She doesn’t have a name but we know she was a widow from Nain (A village located 14 kilometers south of Nazareth) whose only son had died. Death had taken away her only source of hope, strength as well as protection. There was nothing she could do about it but weep bitterly. But then something unexpected happened. A stranger she met told her not to weep. The rest is history.
Someone said, “I bet the Funeral Parlors in Jesus’ day just about went broke. Anywhere Jesus went, the dead were being raised.” Jesus probably raised many people from the dead during his earthly ministry, although the Bible records only three of them.
In the U.S, the Assemblies of God has traditionally adopted a position of
total abstinence or “teetotalism” when it comes to the use of alcoholic beverages. Our church is no exception to that rule. But, in this age of moral permissiveness, how have we come to that position and how can we defend it?
Last month I had the joy of walking you through Jesus’ teaching on the Beatitudes and together we were able to discover some amazing truths to help ourselves in our walk with God. If you missed those sermons, don’t worry. You can get to them by going here.
Tonight I want us to consider another important portion of scripture recorded in the same passage as the Beatitudes. Once again please turn your Bibles to the Gospel of Matthew chapter 5. We will read verses 13 through 16, (Matthew 5:13-16). Some of you might question the necessity for this sermon because many other sermons have been preached from these verses before. This sermon, however, is going to be a much simple and an easy to understand version.
Jesus used the beatitudes to explain to His followers the true path to happiness. However this teaching has not always been accepted well because it’s the great contrast to the worldly notion of blessedness and happiness. Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher once called them a “malignant disease.” Jesus’ point is we need to change our focus from the world’s perspective of happiness to God’s perspective of it, in order to find any happiness at all in this life and the beatitudes are the way to do it. In my previous sermon we looked at the first four of these. Let’s consider the rest today.
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