A Famine Not of Bread

Click here to listen to this sermon. “We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own free will, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints—and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us” (2 Corinthians 8:1-5). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! There are two subjects that many pastors hesitate to deal with in a sermon—sex and money. Not so with the Apostle Paul. In his first letter, Paul warned the Corinthians: “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulter...

Photo credit Suzanne Jaton Click here to listen to this sermon. “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity… [But] e veryone to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God. For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart” (Ecclesiastes 5:10, 19-20). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! The day of my Dad’s farm auction, his landlady also sold the land he had been renting from her family for over 35 years. When my Dad asked her if she was happy with price the land brought, she said it had brought more money than she would have ever hoped for. She only had one regret about selling the farm that had been in her family for three generations: “I just wish you could’ve gotten some of the benefit,” she told my Dad. “That’s okay,” he ...

Copyright © 2015 HarperCollins Christian Publishing. Click here to listen to this sermon. “And Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, ‘How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!’” (Mark 10:23). Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! One of the advantages of being a liturgical church is that we follow a lectionary, a three-year series of Scripture readings arranged according to the Church’s calendar and used by churches all over the world. This encourages pastors to not just ride their own hobbyhorse or avoid uncomfortable subjects but to preach the full counsel of God. And it’s not easy to faithfully preach on at least two of today’s readings without speaking about money. Dare I say it? It’s almost as difficult as a camel going through the eye of a needle. But let’s face it: Though there are some exceptions, most pastors don’t like to preach about money. It feels a bit self-serving. After all, yo...

An audio version of this sermon is availabe at http://www.christsiouxfalls.org/media/sermons/2012-10-21.mp3 The Worship of Mammon by Evelyn De Morgan Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To their credit, Pastor Nix and lay leaders of this congregation have rightly made the point that Christian stewardship is not just about money or only about what happens in the Church, but that it is about the management of all of God’s resources in our whole lives.  So it’s somewhat unfortunate that today our message will be about money.   It could give the mistaken impression that regardless of what has been said, this stewardship emphasis is really about increasing offerings.      That’s one of the advantages of being a liturgical church.   None of us picked our readings.   They are part of a three-year lectionary, a collection of Scripture readings arranged according to the Church’s calendar and use...