MTP Sermon Resources

Mark 16:1-8 March 27, 2016 (Easter) • Mount Pleasant UMC Well, we made it! I arrived here at Mount Pleasant almost nine months ago…and now we have finally given birth. Congratulations, it’s a worship center! Almost three years of exile, lots of wondering and questioning, some who said it would never happen, and changing pastors in the midst of it all—and yet, by God’s grace, here we are, in our renewed worship center. After almost six months of hard work by our contractors, even longer months of work by our Trustees and countless hours spent by Chris and Jenny Kocher as they spearheaded the rebuild, we are grateful and we are here. We made it! I had one of the local pastors this week tell me he moved to town just shortly after this worship center had been condemned, and as we stood in here this week, he said it was the first time since he’d moved to town that we now have full use of the building. Thanks be to God! Now, we can finally settle back in these pews, take a rest a...

John 18:1-9 March 25, 2016 (Good Friday) • Mount Pleasant UMC Evening was garden time; it always had been. He would come, in the cool of the day, and they would talk, walk, play, spend time together in the garden. Evening was garden time. That’s where they always met, and it had always been a time they had both looked forward to. And so, when evening came, he came to the garden and called out the other’s name. “Adam! Adam! Where are you?” But Adam was hiding behind some of the trees because earlier in the day, he and his wife, Eve, had broken the one “don’t” rule God had given them. They had foolishly listened to this walking serpent and eaten from the fruit of the forbidden tree. As soon as they had done it, they knew it was wrong. They knew they had broken not only God’s law but God’s heart. And so somehow Adam got it in his head that he could hide from God, that if he stood behind a tree God wouldn’t be able to see him. He should have known better. “Adam! Where are you? ...

John 13:31-35; Exodus 12:11-14 March 24, 2016 (Maundy Thursday) • Mount Pleasant UMC It doesn’t take much work to notice that, over the last few years, faith and people of faith have been marginalized in our culture. Or, at least, we’ve become those who are selectively ignored. Now, I’m not an alarmist or one to “cry wolf,” but it does seem to force us to have to choose: either speak up for our faith and be shunned or ignored, or keep quiet about our faith and be accepted. Maybe there are choices in between those two extremes, but those seem to be the main options for us. Our culture has forgotten that we began as a people of faith, and we seem to have forgotten what one of our founding fathers said: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other” (John Adams, 1798). When we ignore faith, we lose a big part of who we are as a people. When we assume we can get along without God, we face huge challenges...

Mark 15:24-39 March 20, 2016 (Palm Sunday) • Mount Pleasant UMC Just five days ago, everything had been different. Five days ago, Jesus had ridden into town on a donkey, and it seemed like the whole world was celebrating his arrival. Well, maybe not the whole world, but a lot of folks who were in Jerusalem for the Passover were really excited to see him ride down the Mount of Olives and into town. “Hosanna!” they had sung. “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” (Mark 11:9-10). Now, those were words from the psalms that were sung every year as pilgrims entered Jerusalem, but this year, they were were directed specifically at Jesus. He was their savior, their coming king, or so they hoped, and this was his time. They waved palm branches in anticipation of a coming kingdom, a kingdom of peace and life. They were sure the moment was coming when he would overthrow the Romans and give th...