Ephesians 3: 14-21 (links validated 6/24/24a)

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  • To Live This Love

    by Dan Clendenin
    In the first few days of May of 1373, an obscure woman who called herself "a simple, uneducated creature" lay on her death bed for "three days and three nights." She says that she was "thirty and a half years old." On the fourth night, she received the last rites of the Catholic Church, "and did not expect to live until morning." On the night of May 8, she asked to be propped up in her bed. By this time her eyes were fixed, her lower body was numb, she could not speak, and a priest had come to preside over her death. He set a crucifix before the woman at the foot of her bed. What happened next, as they say, is history. Beginning at four in the morning, and lasting well past the middle of the day, Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) had a series of fifteen visions, showings, or revelations as she gazed at the crucifix. She then had a sixteenth revelation on the following night that confirmed to her the authenticity of her experiences, which she was otherwise inclined to attribute to delirium. "I never asked for any bodily vision," writes Julian, "or any kind of revelation from God." And yet she had the audacity to believe that God had in fact spoken to her in order to benefit all humanity: "I had a true and powerful perception that it was he himself who showed this to me without any intermediary." Her ultimate act of audacity was not only to believe that God had truly spoken to her in her sixteen visions, and that the visions exceeded the limited wisdom of the male-dominated church, but also that God intended for her to write them down in a book so that ordinary believers could benefit from them...
  • Rooted and Grounded in Love

    by Elizabeth Gellfeld
  • Proper 12B (2024)

    by Serena Kleppinger
  • Proper 12B

    by Bill Loader
    always good insights!
  • Sermon Starters (Proper 12B)(2024)

    by Stan Mast
    When I think of knowing a love that surpasses knowledge, I think of a newborn infant cradled in her mother’s arms. She is loved, but she couldn’t begin to describe that love. Indeed, she doesn’t even have thoughts about that love. All she has is the experience of that love. The fact that love cannot be comprehended or explained does not make that love any less real. Indeed, that infant experience of love becomes the basis of all later understanding and expressions of love. Paul’s words about us being “filled to the measure of the fullness of God” made me think of the hymn, “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.” Finish, then, thy new creation; pure and spotless let us be; Let us see thy great salvation, perfectly restored in thee; Changed from glory into glory, ’til in heaven we take our place, ‘Til we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder, love and praise. And his words about God being glorified “in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever” brought to mind “Amazing Grace.” When we’ve been there ten thousand years Bright shining as the sun, We’ve no less days to sing his praise Than when we’d first begun.
  • Proper 12B (2024)

    by Phil Heinze
  • Proper 12B (2024)

    by Scott Shauf

Resources from 2021 to 2023

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  • Sermon Starters (Proper 12B)(2021)

    by Doug Bratt
    In a book of his collected sermons, Will Willimon writes about his father-in-law, Carl Parker who retired from the ministry for the third time in the fall of 1989. At the time he declared that, at long last, it was time for him to retire for good and “move to the mountains of Hendersonville [S.C.] to live among the Floridians.” At his retirement service Parker wanted some “sweet soprano voices to sing his favorite, ‘The Ninety-and-Nine’.” Parker also preached what Willimon calls “something about the depth and breadth, the height and width of the love of God. . .” “Then,” writes Willimon, Parker “spoke about the man who was to die in the electric chair in South Carolina the next day. . . Somebody had held a service of remembrance for this man’s victims and their families. He had killed a couple of people and maimed others in his rampage of terror. The preacher at that service had declared that he wished they would let him ‘throw the switch on this piece of refuse who destroyed those innocent lives. “Pastor Parker, “ Willimon continues, then “went into lurid detail describing the crimes of this man. ‘And yet,’ Parker added, ‘today’s Scripture, as well as the sweet song we have heard, says that God loves that man on death row, values his soul just as much as God values us.’...
  • God Can Give You a Spiritual Heart Transplant

    by Craig Condon
    A good example of what God can do in our lives can be found in the life of a gentleman named Stuart Hamblen. He had a popular radio show on the West Coast of the United States in the late 1940s. During Billy Graham’s 1949 Los Angeles Crusade, Stuart Hamblen invited Billy Graham on his show as a guest. Stuart Hamblen encouraged his audience to attend the crusade and remarked that he would be there too. The first night Stuart attended, he was convicted of his sins. Because he could not understand what was going on in his soul, he shook his fist in anger and left. He came back several times and each time he had the same reaction. One night, Billy Graham was awakened in his hotel room by the ringing of the telephone. Stuart Hamblen was on the other end on the line, and he was in tears. He asked to see Billy Graham right away. They talked and prayed, and Stuart Hamblen gave his life to Christ that night, and came forward in the next service during the crusade. Not long after, Stuart had a conversation with the actor John Wayne. That conversation inspired Stuart to write one of the most famous Gospel songs. Some of the words are: It is no secret what God can do What he’s done for others he’ll do for you With arms wide open, he’ll pardon you It is no secret what God can do...
  • Proper 12B (2021)

    by Israel Kamudzandu
  • Proper 12B (2021)

    by Julianna Wehrfritz-Hanson
  • Proper 12B (2021)

    by Nathan Williams

Resources from 2018 to 2020

  • New Testament Wisdom Literature

    by Malinda Elizabeth Berry
  • Proper 12B (2018)

    by Phil Heinze
  • Preaching Helps (Proper 12B)(2018)

    by Scott Hoezee
    As we have noted before in other epistles, Paul probably wrote to the Ephesians from a prison cell. Perhaps no more than a single shaft of sunlight pierced a crack in a brick wall and penetrated the gloom of Paul’s cell. All was darkness and, by all human measures, Paul’s condition was likewise bleak and conducive to dark despair. Yet there was perhaps that single beam of light. And through that beam Paul was able to follow its source clear back to the sun. It still shined even while he was in the dark. It always shines as does the source of that star’s power: the love of Christ and of God. It was just the one shaft of light. Not much to it. Not much to go on. You could barely even read a book in so small a light beam. But it pointed to so much more. Paul did not despair over how small his light was but took joy in how large was the ultimate source of that light. Follow along the path of that light beam long enough and you arrive at nothing short of glory.
  • Proper 12B (2018)

    by Scott Shauf

Resources from 2015 to 2017

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Resources from 2009 to 2014

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Resources from the Archives

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Children's Resources