Sermon Resources on Religion And Public Life

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Defining the Secular

Author

Keywords

Scripture

Ecclesiastes 1:2, 14 , Judges 21:25 , Genesis 11:4 , Romans 1:21-22, Psalm 14:1 , Acts 17:22-23

In this short (and humorous) excerpt, author David Zahl shares a definition of the secular: Perhaps secular warrants its own explanation, though. My most immediate association comes from the belov...

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Are People in the West Abandoning Faith or Just the Church?

Author

David Zahl

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 32:1-4 , 1 Kings 18:21, Jeremiah 2:13, Romans 1:25, Psalm 115:4-8, Acts 17:22-23

In this excerpt, author David Zahl challenges the common belief that religion is “in decline.” He argues that while Westerners, particularly younger generations, may be distancing themselves from the ...

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An Improbable Election Win

Author

Hillaire Belloc

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 1:16, Daniel 6:, Acts 4:

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953), an author, critic, and devout Roman Catholic, lived in a Britain where strong anti-Catholic sentiment prevailed. Known for his passion and unwavering conviction, Belloc dec...

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Author

James K. A. Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Colossians 3:17, Ephesians 2:10, Matthew 5:16, Galatians 2:20, Romans 1:17, James 2:26, Hebrews 111:1

Faith is a how and, more specifically, a way of living in light of an event.

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What You Think About God Determines Your Life

Author

John Mark Comer

Keywords

Scripture

Deuteronomy 4:15-16, John 14:9, Colossians 1:15-16, Psalm 50:21, Isaiah 40:18, Exodus 20:3-5, Romans 1:25

Put another way, what you think about God will shape your destiny in life. If you think of God as homophobic, racist, and mad at the world, this distorted vision of reality will shape you into a relig...

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When Faith Grew but Evangelism Failed

Author

Don Everts and Doug Schaupp

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 1:16, Colossians 4:5-6, Matthew 5:14-16, 1 Corinthians 4:10

I can remember that afternoon as if it were yesterday. I (Doug) was standing out in the middle of the green grass of the quad on campus, singing as loudly as I could. Twenty of my Christian friends an...

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Author

Craig Blomberg

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 28:18-20, Acts 1:8, Acts 10:34-35, Galatians 3:28, Romans 1:16, John 4:21-24, Psalm 22:27-28

[Speaking of the early church] A cosmopolitan spirit grew, particularly in the cities, that transcended national barriers. Old tribal distinctions and identities were breaking down, leaving people rip...

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Dawkins View of Faith (For Contrast)

Author

Richard Dawkins

Keywords

Scripture

James 2:18, Romans 10:17, John 20:29, 1 Peter 3:15, Romans 1:20

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence…. Faith, being belief that isn...

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Why We are Reluctant to Share the Gospel

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 29:25, Acts 4:13, John 15:18-19, 2 Timothy 1:7-8, Colossians 4:5-6, Matthew 5:14-16, Romans 1:16

Why is it so intimidating to talk about Jesus in contemporary western culture? One obvious reason might lie in the ubiquitous negative portrayals of Christians in mainstream media. Sam Chan makes this...

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Two Wrong-Headed Views of the Body

Author

Tish Harrison Warren

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:31, 1 Timothy 4:4-5, Colossians 1:16, Romans 1:20, 1 Corinthians 15:42-44, 2 Corinthians 5:1

Christians are often accused of two wrong-headed views of the body. One is that we ignore the body in favor of a disembodied, spirits-floating-on-clouds spirituality. The other is that we are obsessed...

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The Power of Scripture

Author

Mahatma Gandhi

Keywords

Scripture

Hebrews 4:12, Jeremiah 23:29, Isaiah 55:10-11, Romans 1:16

Mahatma Gandhi speaking to Christians, “You Christians have in your keeping a document with enough dynamite in it to blow the whole of civilization to bits; to turn society upside down; to bring peace...

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Author

Eugene Peterson

Keywords

Scripture

Ephesians 3:16-17, James 1:2-3, 2 Corinthians 5:7, Galatians 2:20, Romans 1:17

I want to provide fresh documentation that the only way that any one of us can live at our best is in a life of radical faith in God.

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Remembering We Have Bodies

Author

Ruth Haley Barton

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:31, 1 Timothy 4:4-5, Colossians 1:16, Romans 1:20, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, 1 Corinthians 15:42-44, 2 Corinthians 5:1

Surprisingly enough, it was in the process of staying faithful to the spiritual journey that I first began to face my profound ambivalence about life in a body. At the ripe old age of thirty, I could ...

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The Goodness of the Physical World

Author

Christopher West

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:31, 1 Timothy 4:4-5, Colossians 1:16, Romans 1:20, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

God is the author of the physical world, and in his wisdom, he designed physical realities to convey spiritual mysteries. “There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God,” as C. S. Lewis insist...

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Companies and Worship

Author

James Bryan Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Colossians 3:5, Psalm 115:4-8, 1 John 5:21, Acts 17:22-23, Matthew 6:24, Romans 1:25, Isaiah 44:13-17

Martin Lindstrom observes: When people viewed images associated with the strong brands-the iPods, the Harley-Davidson, the Ferrari, and others-their -their brains registered the exact same patterns of...

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The Charm of Beauty is to Win Hearts

Author

James Bryan Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 6:28-29, 1 Peter 3:3-4, Proverbs 31:30, Romans 1:25

Recently, when I was in London, I went to the National Gallery. It was a weekday, but it was still crowded with people wearing headsets, staring at famous paintings, listening to a narrator explain th...

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An Atheist Pines for Eternity

Author

Theodore Dalrymple

Keywords

Scripture

Ecclesiastes 3:11, Isaiah 55:1-3, Job 14:13-14, John 4:13-14, Romans 1:20-21, Psalm 42:1-2

In an article entitled, What the New Atheists Don’t See , the British author Theodore Dalrymple shares his honest struggles with atheism. The subtitle of his article is fascinating, “To regret re...

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Author

Francis Chan

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 40:31, Matthew 17:20, Galatians 2:20, Philippians 4:13, Romans 1:17

What are you doing right now that requires faith?

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Is Faith Blind?

Author

John Piper

Keywords

Faith

Scripture

Psalm 19:1-2, 2 Timothy 1:12, John 14:11, Proverbs 3:5-6, James 2:18, Romans 1:20, 1 Peter 3:15

In his book, A Peculiar Glory , John Piper provides an illustration of the kind of faith we are called to. This is no “blind faith,” in which we are supposed to simply believe without using our minds...

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Losing Sight of our Spiritual Longing in the Modern World

Author

Annie Dillard

Keywords

Scripture

1 Kings 19:11-12, Job 38:1-7, Isaiah 6:1-5 , Romans 1:20, Luke 19:39-40 , Psalm 19:1-4

In our modern materialistic world, it is easy to lose sight of that sense of longing. In her wonderful collection of essays Teaching a Stone to Talk , Annie Dillard speaks about that growing void...

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Prayer in Difficult Times in the U.S.S.R.

Author

Philip Yancey

Keywords

Scripture

Acts 17:22-28, Romans 1:19-20. 25, Psalm 34:4-5, Exodus 20:3-5

Even atheists find ways to pray. During the heady days of Communism in Russia, party stalwarts kept a “ red corner,” placing a portrait of Lenin where Christians used to keep their icons. Caught up in...

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An Attempted Refutation of the Gospel

Author

N. T. Wright

Keywords

Scripture

Mark 16:15-16, Philippians 1:6, Acts 16:31, John 1:12-13, Ephesians 2:8-9, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Romans 1:16

[In the middle of the twentieth century a] young Russian communist went to a meeting one night where he heard a Christian expounding his faith. The communist was angry. How could anyone still believe ...

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When Ideas have Consequences

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 4:1-16 , Exodus 32:1-35 , 1 Kings 12:1-20 , Matthew 7:24-27, Psalm 1:1-6, Romans 1:18-32

In 1889, the French novelist Paul Bourget penned The Disciple , where he depicted the life of a renowned philosopher and psychologist, whose existence was marked by a seemingly monotonous routine...

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The Gospel is Not Right Wing or Left Wing

Author

John Piper

Keywords

Gospel

Scripture

2 Corinthians 5:17, Romans 1:16-17, Acts 4:12, Matthew 28:18-20, Colossians 1:16-17

Because the gospel of Jesus is not an ideology or a philosophy or a methodology or a therapy but a supernatural in-breaking of God into our lives, I am concerned at how many Christians do not bring it...

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A Fabulous Tale to Proclaim

Author

Frederick Buechner

Keywords

Gospel

Scripture

Matthew 28:19-20, 1 Corinthians 2:4-5, Ephesians 6:19-20, 2 Corinthians 4:2-4, Romans 1:16, Mark 16:15

With his fabulous tale to proclaim, the preacher is called in his turn to stand up in his pulpit as fabulist extraordinary, to tell the truth of the Gospel in its in its highest and wildest and holies...

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Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Scripture

John 4:13-14, 1 Timothy 6:9-10, Psalm 62:5-6, Jeremiah 2:13, Colossians 3:5, Romans 1:25, Matthew 6:33

I take a page from Kierkegaard’s The Sickness Unto Death and I define sin as building your identity—your self-worth and happiness—on anything other than God. Instead of telling them they are sinning b...

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Are You Afraid You'll Get Caught?

Author

Bradley Long

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 1:16, John 15:19-20, Matthew 5:10-12, Mark 10:29-30, Revelation 2:10-11, Matthew 10:16-18, 1 Peter 4:12-14, Romans 8:35, 2 Corinthians 12:10

An American pastor once asked an Indonesian missionary who works among Indonesians but with a different people group from his own, “Are you afraid you’ll get caught?” Christian mission work in Indones...

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Author

Paul E. Little

Keywords

Scripture

James 1:5, 1 Corinthians 13:12, Hebrews 11:1, Romans 1:20, Isaiah 55:8-9, 1 Corinthians 2:14, John 8:32

Belief doesn’t create truth. Unbelief doesn’t destroy truth. Christian faith goes beyond reason but not against reason.

liturgy

Father God, we live in a world

Author

Trinity Lutheran Church, Lisle, Illinois

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 61:1-3 , Ezekiel 37:1-14 , Habakkuk 2:2-4 , Romans 1:16-17, Philippians 2:1-4, Psalm 34:17-19

Pastor: Father God, we live in a world where good news is rare. Help us always to remember the Good News of Your Son, who by His life, death, and resurrection brought into the world the hope of a ne...

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The Origin of the word "Gospel"

Author

Patrick Schreiner

Keywords

Scripture

Mark 1:14-15, Romans 1:16, 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, Luke 2:10-11, Colossians 1:23

It would be an understatement to say the term gospel is an important term in the Scriptures. Not only is it central in Scripture, but churches have adopted the term as their most beloved adjective. Yo...

Sermon Resources on religion and public life

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