Sermons

  4 Scriptural Goals For Your New Year Opening Illustration: Focus On The Cards I had some friends with a three-year-old son. For family fun, they liked to play the game Memory. It consisted of a bunch of cards arranged on the floor face down. Those playing took turns, trying to turn over matching pairs of cards. If you got a match, you kept them and went again. The person with the most matches was the winner. As the family played, the dad remarked, "My strategy is that I focus on two or three specific pairs that I’m trying to get, and after I get them, I pick out two or three more."  The mother said, "My strategy is that I start on the cards in the corners, and each turn I work my way towards the center, trying to focus and remember all the cards."  Their three-year-old son replied, "My strategy is that when y’all aren’t looking I peak under the cards." Oh friends, what you focus on is really important. If you focus on the wrong thing, you can rea...

  Four Traits of Wise Men! Opening Illustration: A few years ago, a new phrase was added to the church vocabulary. This new phrase was “seeker”. What is a “seeker”? Well at least in the church world, a “seeker” is someone who has yet to invite Christ into their lives. A “seeker” is someone who is looking for Christ, a person who has no commitment to a church or congregation. I think that the term “seeker” came about because calling someone “lost”, or a “sinner” or a “non believer” was seen as offensive. I can remember when I first arrived here at Eastern Shore Baptist Church, our former beloved youth pastor Tim Rhodes called these people “pre Christians”. That is a term that I had never before heard but speaks to Tim’s belief that if someone truly encounters Christ they would give their lives to Him right then and there. Pre Christian spoke to Tim’s positivity and creativity.  Churches have so embraced this term “seeker” that we have designed events targeted just for them...