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| Summary: The parable of the sower teaches us that our efforts to preach and teach the Good News will always be marked by a measure of success and failure. |
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| Summary: In the parable of the sower, Jesus tells how the seeds that are sown fall upon different circumstances, and thus have varied outcomes in their ability to produce. But the underlying message is that “the sower went out to sow.” Had he not gone out and sown seeds abundantly, none of the rest of the story would have mattered. He knew that some seeds would not make it, but was counting on the abundant production of the good plants to make up for the ones that didn’t flourish. |
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| Summary: A young man like Peter Bliss, last year’s Star Farmer for Future Farmers of America, knows about the importance of seed. Many factors determine the size of a harvest, but some facts are certain: if the seed has a hard time sprouting or taking root, the harvest will be weak. Jesus understood farming, and one day long ago, he told a story that is still a parable for our times.
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| Summary: Generations coming after us don’t get their faith by osmosis. We need to talk about our faith in our homes with our children, just as the sower puts seed on all his soil. But it isn’t all up to us either, for God is active, and can light new faith fires. |
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| Summary: Jesus told a parable about our ability to receive a seed from God and produce an abundant harvest. If we are good soil, we’ll be amazed by what is created. |
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| Summary: Our everyday experience shows us that words are real and have real effects. Jesus’ parable of the sower is about the ways in which the creative and life-giving word of God affects the lives of different people. Our awareness of the power of God’s words and of the different types of soil into which the seed may fall can help us in communicating our faith to others. It can also alert each one of us to prepare ourselves to hear and nurture the word in our own lives. |
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| Summary: We’re told that “the evil one” snatches away the Word that is proclaimed so that it doesn’t result in anything positive. Evil is always negative and destructive, and it is by hearing God’s creative word that people are brought to faith and enabled to do good things. We are to hear the good news of Jesus Christ, and keep on hearing it, so that we remain faithful and able to be God’s instruments in his creative work in the world. |
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| Summary: Just as the farmer in the parable allows seed to fall in unlikely places, so God offers the seed of grace even where it might be rejected. The church continues the ministry of offering the seed, even when we don’t see immediate results. |
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| Summary: The parable of the wheat and weeds is about the judging work of Christ, not the judging work of any human being. Rather than taking the parable as permission to make personal judgments about who is wheat and who is weed, we are better to hear it as a recommendation about how to live in a world that is a mixture of good and bad. It reminds us that we do not have the ability to pluck out all less-than-godly things from life, and that sometimes we can do more harm than good by being too certain we can always distinguish good from bad, especially in the realm of belief. |
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| Summary: Parable of the weeds among the wheat helps us think about why God seems to delay in the face of our dire need, when his immediate intervention could easily take care of the problems we face. Sometimes suffering makes possible spiritual growth that could occur in no other way. We are not suggesting that God deliberately makes us suffer, but we do benefit from learning to wait on the Lord. |
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| Summary: This parable is about leaving judgments in God’s hands, about waiting until the harvest to pull up the weeds. When evil is rampant and the threat is immediate, we can’t wait that long, but when there is no immanent danger, it’s sometimes a good idea to allow negative people to continue until others see their behavior for what it is. In fact, much of the time, we can wait and let God do the sorting. |
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| Summary: So many of our best intentions and our most earnest efforts in our personal faith and in social and political reform go bad because we fall asleep while evil is being sown. |
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| Summary: Jesus cautions about judging one another too hastily as he encourages his disciples to ask for the help they need. |
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| Summary: The parable of the wheat and the weeds is about creating the right environment for everyone to “shine like the sun.” |
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| Summary: When Jesus told the parable of the wheat and the tares, his disciples told him they didn’t understand it, so they asked Jesus to explain it. He seemed to do just that in a direct way, but what if his explanation was theological “milk” because his followers weren’t ready for theological “meat”?
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| Summary: Jesus’ parable of the weeds seeks to explain the reality of evil in the world so that God’s people may live confidently and courageously for the sake of God’s mission. |
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| Summary: The kingdom of heaven can be small but valuable. Unattractive at times, but important. Old, but still alive and well, and able to guide us and inspire us today.
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| Summary: In a series of parables, Jesus tells those committed to him about the kingdom of heaven. With vivid word pictures, he shows them that the kingdom of heaven is indeed “at hand” or among us. He shows them that the kingdom is there for them to seek. He shows them that the kingdom is seeking them. |
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| Summary: The kingdom of God gives us a new perspective on what’s valuable, and on how it — and our lives themselves — should be used. |
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| Summary: The five parables present in the Scripture lesson highlight a tension between human expectations for God and God’s actual plans and actions. Jesus’ parables about the kingdom of Heaven challenge us to align our priorities and expectations with God’s way of doing things. |
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| Summary: The queasy feeling we may have that a new reality is about to break through is justified. Jesus unabashedly announced that he was the forerunner of a new age. These three parables give us hints as to how this new reality will break through, and how we can prepare ourselves for it. |
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| Summary: This whole life is the age of discovery, and no one ever exhausts all that God has provided for us to find. But the more we seek him and the more we give all that we have to attain the kingdom of heaven, the greater the joy in our lives. |
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| Summary: Chapter 13 of Matthew, made up of Jesus’ parables about the kingdom of heaven, concludes with a statement about scribes “trained for the kingdom of heaven”: They will be able to bring forth both the old and the new. The new is Jesus and the kingdom that he proclaims. This is also old, however, because it has been God’s plan from the beginning. We are challenged to deal with the new situations that history will bring by being well versed in the old, the biblical witness to Christ. |
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| There are 23 sermons in your results. |
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