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<P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Sermons for Proper 24:</SPAN> </P>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> Luke 18:1-8 – </SPAN><STRONG><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">“What Can We Count on from God?”</SPAN></STRONG></DIV>
<P> </P>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5 – <STRONG>“Don’t Blow Off What
Is God-Breathed!” </STRONG>by Leonard Sweet</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=4
face="Times New Roman">__________________________________________</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=4
face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Luke 18, the sermon titled "What Can We Count on from
God?" </SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Recently I received an e-mail message that was entitled
“Things I Really Don’t Understand.” It had a list of questions for which there
seems to be no clear-cut answer. Here are a few of them: <BR><BR>· Why do
doctors and lawyers call what they do practice? <BR>· Why is abbreviation such a
long word? <BR>· Why is it that when you’re driving and looking for an address,
you turn down the volume on your radio? <BR>· Why is a boxing ring square? <BR>·
What was the best thing before sliced bread? <BR>· How do they get the deer to
cross the highway at those yellow signs? <BR>· How did a fool and his money get
together in the first place? <BR><BR>These questions represent a lighthearted
humorous reminder that there are indeed a lot of things in this life that we
just really don’t understand.<BR><BR>There are so many things in this life that
we just don’t understand… that we just can’t comprehend. For example, we don’t
really understand disease. Why is a youngster perfectly healthy for 13 years of
his life… and then suddenly just happens to be in a place where he suddenly
encounters some germ or bacteria that invades his body and destroys
it?<BR><BR>And we don’t understand accidents. They are so random and
indiscriminate. You start out a day that is like any other day… and then
something happens in a matter of seconds… and life is forever different. You can
never go back beyond that accident. <BR><BR>On and on we could go with our list…
of things we don’t really understand.<BR><BR>- Why is there so much pain in our
world? <BR>- Why do good people suffer? <BR>- Why do we hurt one another? <BR>-
Why can’t people get along? <BR>- And why do some of the best prayers seem to go
unanswered? <BR><BR>Now, all of these difficult questions prompt us to raise yet
another crucial question: What can we count on from God? When we face the
troubles of the world, the heartaches of life, the tough challenges of this
existence… what can we count on from God? <BR><BR>This parable in Luke 18 points
us toward an answer. At first glance this parable is confusing to a lot of
people. It does sound pretty strange when we first hear it. The parable involves
two people: an unjust arrogant judge and a humble but persistent woman. The
judge ignores her at first, but finally grants her justice because she is so
persistent. She won’t give up and she won’t go away… so eventually he gives in
and comes through for her. <BR><BR>Now, let me hurry to point out that Jesus was
not suggesting that God is like the judge… not that at all! Jesus was pointing
out that God is as different from the judge as day is from night. He is not
likening them; he is contrasting them. This is what I call a “How Much More”
parable. Jesus was saying: If a selfish arrogant, unfeeling, unjust judge can
help you if you ask, then how much more can God who loves you intensely help you
when you ask. <BR><BR>I use this kind of “how much more analogy” all the time.
For example, imagine that a woman comes to me and tells me of something bad that
she has done. The woman is penitent, remorseful, ashamed, and heartsick over the
wrong she has committed. She confesses it in sordid detail… and then she asks
me, “How can God still love me after this terrible thing I have done?” I can say
to her, “Well, you’ve told me all about it… and my heart is going out to you. I
just want to help you. I don’t want to condemn you or fuss at you or criticize
you. I just want to help you make a new start with your life. And if I feel that
way with all of my sins and frailties, weakness, and foibles and inadequacies…
if I’m capable of that kind of love, how much more is God who is the Lord of
Life, the Lord of Love forgiving?” <BR><BR>That’s what we have here… a “How Much
More Parable” – a Contrast Parable. If that unjust judge can help you when you
ask, how much more can God help you?? <BR><BR>Luke makes sure that we know what
the parable is all about. He introduces it by saying this: He spoke to them in a
parable to show that they should keep on praying and never lose heart. This
parable means be patient, don’t lose heart, don’t give up, keep on trusting,
because you can count on God… and God will come through for you. <BR><BR>Now,
with all this as a backdrop for our thinking, let me list three things we can
count on from God…</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">1. We Can Count on God to Hear Us When We
Pray.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">2. We Can Count on God to Be with Us When We Are
Hurting.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">3. We Can Count on God to Go with Us Wherever We
Go.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">The rest of this sermon following the outline above can
be obtained by joining www.eSermons.com.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">_______________________</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">2 Timothy 3:14-4:5, the sermon titled “Don’t Blow Off
What Is God-Breathed!” by Leonard Sweet] </SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Two “investments” have proven to be recession proof in
the past twenty years: security and storage. </SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Why storage? We’ve bought so much stuff we can’t live
with all we’ve purchased. So we have “storage” units where we have visitation
rights to spend time with our stuff.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Why security? Look around you. Security systems are
everywhere. </SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Our cars blare their horns and blink their lights if
someone dares to open the door without disarming the alarm system. </SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Our houses have security systems that watch-dog our
doors, our windows, even our movements and our voices. </SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Our online lives, our bank accounts, our workplaces have
security codes and security cards that must be deployed to gain
access.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">We are dedicated to protecting ourselves and our “stuff”
more completely, even as the world becomes ever more dangerous and
unpredictable. We are desperate to protect that which is most precious to
us.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">As Europe struggled out of the “dark ages” and into the
“middle ages,” one of the most precious commodities, available only to the elite
and the educated, were books. Books were tucked away and treasured in
monasteries, which housed the only libraries in existence. Later on, if a
community were wealthy enough, there might be one or two “chained books” in the
church for the parish members to gaze at. </SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">The high security system for protecting these treasures?
Bolting the Bible to a heavy stone lectern, chaining up the word of God inside
the church. Among the most popular of the “libri catenati” (“chained books”) in
Protestant circles were the Bible and Fox’s Book of Martyrs (immensely popular
because it contained gruesome illustrations made from woodcuts even the
illiterate could easily comprehend). Martin Luther spent hours pouring over a
Latin Bible chained within the Augustine monastery at Wittenberg, and his
reading of this “chained book” changed the world.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">In most Protestant churches today two books slide snugly
into the rack on the back of each pew — a hymnal and a Bible. It was the radical
audacity of the Protestant reformers, many of whom were martyred for their
revolutionary faith, which made the presence of those books possible. Not only
is there a Bible within easy reach of every person in the pew. It is printed in
the language of the congregation. The Reformers dared to translate the Latin and
Greek and Hebrew into the languages of the common people, the vernacular— making
the word of God available to anyone who could read. What had been available only
to the eyes of the ordained or the university educated for hundreds of years,
suddenly became accessible to everyone. </SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Words that had been unintelligible, stories that had
never been told, prayers that had never been heard, were finally put into the
hands and hearts and heads of all God’s people.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">So how did the Bible go from being the most precious
“chained” book and a safe-guarded gift to being something we let sit in the back
of the pew without ever cracking the cover? </SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">You say: what are you talking about? …</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">The rest of Leonard Sweet's sermon can be obtained by
joining www.Sermons.com </SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Click here: <A
href="http://www.sermons.com/signup"><FONT
color=#0000ff>http://www.sermons.com/</FONT></A></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">________________________</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Until You Beat the Path</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </DIV>
<DIV style="LINE-HEIGHT: normal; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">I believe persistent prayer is very important, even when
such prayers are not answered in the ways we think best. It is important to be
unrelenting in our prayers...not only because of the changes our prayers may
elicit in God's mind, but for the changes such prayers can work in our own
hearts and minds. As Frederick Buechner said years ago, persistence is a key,
"not because you have to beat a path to God's door before open it, but because
until you beat the path, maybe there's no way of getting to your
door."<BR><BR>Buechner's comment set me to thinking that maybe there's more to
this parable than we have sometimes seen. What if Jesus offered this parable not
only as a call to prayerful persistence but also as a reminder to the church of
the importance of securing justice for the poor and the oppressed in their
midst? Alan Culpepper says, "To those who have it in their power to relieve the
distress of the widow, the orphan and the stranger but do not , the call to pray
day and night is a command to let the priorities of God's compassion reorder the
priorities of their lives."<BR><BR>Robert Dunham, Whose
Persistence?<BR>__________________________________<BR><BR></SPAN></DIV></BODY></HTML>