Sermons

What Have We Learned? Serving Should Be A Priority (Mark 9:35) Serving Should Be Practiced (I Peter 4:8-11) Today’s Lesson: Maximum Service Requires P artners ! Opening Illustration: The Ice Cream Cone Is Born During the summer of 1904 an unlikely partnership was formed at the World’s Fair in St. Louis.  The summer was unusually hot and people were searching the fair for something to help cool them off…  A vendor named Arnold had just what they were looking for… ice cream. People lined up for what seemed like miles to get some of his cool and satisfying ice cream but there was one problem.  Arnold was not prepared for the demand and ran out of paper bowls.  Next to Arnold’s ice cream booth was a man named Ernest… a pastry chef … who was making a Persian wafer desert.  Ernest also had a problem, his pastry was not selling.  He noticed the problem Arnold was having and took some warm pastry and rolled i...

Opening Illustration: Denzel Washington, famed actor and son to a preacher, was speaking at a large banquet at his home church in Los Angeles. The theme of his speech was success.  Specifically, how did this black kid from nowhere America find his way into the Hollywood spotlight.  Washington spoke on the power of prayer, the power of service and the power of a good attitude.   “Faith and optimism can add years to your life,” he told those at the banquet. “A bad attitude is like a flat tire. Until you change it, you’re not going anywhere,” he said, urging the audience to “use the power of prayer in everything we do.” A bad attitude can certainly stifle one’s ability to move forward in life.  What happens to the believer who knows he has been commanded to serve but serves with a bad spirit?  Well, I think that Denzel has a point.  A bad attitude is like a flat tire to our faith.  We know our purpose.  Just like a tire has purpose...

Sanctified Servers: The Priority of Serving Illustration: Muhammad Ali, the colorful 1960 light-heavyweight Olympic boxing champion who went on to hold the world heavyweight title three times, is known to have uttered many a memorable remark during his time in the spotlight. His personal catch phrase “I am the greatest” came to serve as an identifier of the man, in that whoever voiced it, one knew that person was alluding to Ali.  It is another story of his to which we turn our focus, one that appears in Bartlett’s Book of Anecdotes as well as in Karl Evanzz’s 2002 compilation I Am the Greatest: The Best Quotations from Muhammad Ali.  Ali was flying to a prize fight.  He boarded the plane surrounded by fans and followers.  He was the greatest, most popular athlete on the planet.  Everyone knew who he was and admired him for his talent.  He went straight to first class where he sat in the seat with his sunglasses on and a smile on his ...