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This Week's Sermons
It Doesn't Have To Be This Way
Luke 8:26-39
The noted author, John Killinger, tells a powerful story about a man who is all-alone in a hotel room in Canada. The man is in a state of deep depression. He is so depressed that he can't even bring himself to go downstairs to the restaurant to eat.
He is a powerful man usually the chairman of a large shipping company but at this moment, he is absolutely overwhelmed by the pressures and demands of life… and he lies there on a lonely hotel bed far from home wallowing in self-pity.
All of his life, he has been fastidious, worrying about everything, anxious and fretful, always fussing and stewing over every detail. And now, at mid-life, his anxiety has gotten the best of him, even to the extent that it is difficult for him to sleep and to eat.
He worries and broods and agonizes about everything, his business, his investments, his decisions, his family, his health, even, his dogs. Then, on this day in this Canadian hotel, he craters. He hits bottom. Filled with anxiety, completely immobilized, paralyzed by his emotional despair, unable to leave his room, lying on his bed, he moans out loud: "Life isn't worth living this way, I wish I were dead!"
And then, he wonders, what God would think if he heard him talking this way. Speaking aloud again he says, "God, it's a joke, isn't it? Life is nothing but a joke." Suddenly, it occurs to the man that this is the first time he's talked to God since he was a little boy. He is silent for a moment and then he begins to pray. He describes it like this: "I just talked out loud about what a mess my life was in and how tired I was and how much I wanted things to be different in my life. And you know what happened next? A voice!! I heard a voice say, ‘It doesn't have to be that way!' That's all."
He went home and talked to his wife about what happened. He talked to his brother who is a minister and asked him: "Do you think it was God speaking to me?" The brother said: "Of course, because that is the message of God to you and everyone of us...
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This Week's Sermons
It Doesn't Have To Be This Way
Luke 8:26-39
The noted author, John Killinger, tells a powerful story about a man who is all-alone in a hotel room in Canada. The man is in a state of deep depression. He is so depressed that he can't even bring himself to go downstairs to the restaurant to eat.
He is a powerful man usually the chairman of a large shipping company but at this moment, he is absolutely overwhelmed by the pressures and demands of life… and he lies there on a lonely hotel bed far from home wallowing in self-pity.
All of his life, he has been fastidious, worrying about everything, anxious and fretful, always fussing and stewing over every detail. And now, at mid-life, his anxiety has gotten the best of him, even to the extent that it is difficult for him to sleep and to eat.
He worries and broods and agonizes about everything, his business, his investments, his decisions, his family, his health, even, his dogs. Then, on this day in this Canadian hotel, he craters. He hits bottom. Filled with anxiety, completely immobilized, paralyzed by his emotional despair, unable to leave his room, lying on his bed, he moans out loud: "Life isn't worth living this way, I wish I were dead!"
And then, he wonders, what God would think if he heard him talking this way. Speaking aloud again he says, "God, it's a joke, isn't it? Life is nothing but a joke." Suddenly, it occurs to the man that this is the first time he's talked to God since he was a little boy. He is silent for a moment and then he begins to pray. He describes it like this: "I just talked out loud about what a mess my life was in and how tired I was and how much I wanted things to be different in my life. And you know what happened next? A voice!! I heard a voice say, ‘It doesn't have to be that way!' That's all."
He went home and talked to his wife about what happened. He talked to his brother who is a minister and asked him: "Do you think it was God speaking to me?" The brother said: "Of course, because that is the message of God to you and everyone of us...
The rest of this sermon can be obtained by joining Sermons.com. You will get immediate access to this sermon, as well as the rest of our library of sermons and illustrations.
CLICK HERE to join Sermons.com today.
Or, sign up by calling toll free anytime (including weekends) 1-800-777-7731.
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Leonard Sweet's Sermon
Jesus' Ten Commandments
Luke 8:26-39
From Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein" to The Nightmare on Elm Street's "Freddy;" from Friday the Thirteenth's "Jason" to Stephanie Meier's vampire "Voltaire", we are always creating new monsters. Why are we constantly on the lookout for bigger, scarier "bumps in the night?" Why do we keep making up monsters that are so elaborate and extraordinary, so super-powered and immortal?
Maybe we need our monsters to be as unlike ourselves as possible so that we can ignore the presence of the real monsters that possess us . . . from the inside out.
Demonology isn't something we talk about much less study anymore. But we can't escape talking about demon possession after reading a text like today's gospel lesson.
The "Geresene demoniac" is a classic "monster." He is nothing like the "normal" people in his community. He runs around naked. He is "out of his mind." He is strong enough to break out of any chains and shackles. He can escape from any prison that his neighbors build to contain him. He lives in the graveyard. He spends his life ranting and raving among the tombs, living with the dead.
Yet he is NOT a monster. He is just a man. A man possessed by a "legion" of demons, but a human being nonetheless. Once Jesus calls out the unclean spirits from him, the man is restored physically and spiritually to his full humanity. Having been healed by Jesus the man joyfully proclaims "how much Jesus had done for him" to all his neighbors, even "throughout the city."
This is someone who was never "a monster." But he had been a man possessed.
Think "demon possession" is a relic of a pre-scientific age when mental and physical illnesses were attributed to evil spirits? The fact is we live in a culture that suffers from a "legion" of possessing spirits, as toxic and traumatic as those that came raging forth from the Geresene demoniac.
The spew from one of our most destructive demons is even now washing up in greasy globs all along the coastlines in the Gulf of Mexico.
We are possessed by a life style lubricated by more and more oil. We will do anything to keep the grease coming.
We are possessed by a greed that puts profits before protecting people and the planet.
We are possessed by an insatiable desire for "more stuff" - and the cost of that "stuff" is increasingly deadly.
When Jesus banished the evil spirits from the Gerasene demoniac, he filled the man with a new identity and a new mission...
The rest of Leonard Sweet's Sermon and all his sermon resources can be obtained by joining Sermons.com. When you sign up you will get immediate access.
CLICK HERE to join Sermons.com today.
Or, sign up by calling toll free anytime (including weekends) 1-800-777-7731.
Leonard Sweet's Sermon
Jesus' Ten Commandments
Luke 8:26-39
From Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein" to The Nightmare on Elm Street's "Freddy;" from Friday the Thirteenth's "Jason" to Stephanie Meier's vampire "Voltaire", we are always creating new monsters. Why are we constantly on the lookout for bigger, scarier "bumps in the night?" Why do we keep making up monsters that are so elaborate and extraordinary, so super-powered and immortal?
Maybe we need our monsters to be as unlike ourselves as possible so that we can ignore the presence of the real monsters that possess us . . . from the inside out.
Demonology isn't something we talk about much less study anymore. But we can't escape talking about demon possession after reading a text like today's gospel lesson.
The "Geresene demoniac" is a classic "monster." He is nothing like the "normal" people in his community. He runs around naked. He is "out of his mind." He is strong enough to break out of any chains and shackles. He can escape from any prison that his neighbors build to contain him. He lives in the graveyard. He spends his life ranting and raving among the tombs, living with the dead.
Yet he is NOT a monster. He is just a man. A man possessed by a "legion" of demons, but a human being nonetheless. Once Jesus calls out the unclean spirits from him, the man is restored physically and spiritually to his full humanity. Having been healed by Jesus the man joyfully proclaims "how much Jesus had done for him" to all his neighbors, even "throughout the city."
This is someone who was never "a monster." But he had been a man possessed.
Think "demon possession" is a relic of a pre-scientific age when mental and physical illnesses were attributed to evil spirits? The fact is we live in a culture that suffers from a "legion" of possessing spirits, as toxic and traumatic as those that came raging forth from the Geresene demoniac.
The spew from one of our most destructive demons is even now washing up in greasy globs all along the coastlines in the Gulf of Mexico.
We are possessed by a life style lubricated by more and more oil. We will do anything to keep the grease coming.
We are possessed by a greed that puts profits before protecting people and the planet.
We are possessed by an insatiable desire for "more stuff" - and the cost of that "stuff" is increasingly deadly.
When Jesus banished the evil spirits from the Gerasene demoniac, he filled the man with a new identity and a new mission...
The rest of Leonard Sweet's Sermon and all his sermon resources can be obtained by joining Sermons.com. When you sign up you will get immediate access.
CLICK HERE to join Sermons.com today.
Or, sign up by calling toll free anytime (including weekends) 1-800-777-7731.
