MTP Sermon Resources

  “On God’s Terms” Sermon Study Guide for December 1, 2024 Downloadable Version Scripture: Mark 13:24-37 A new year… 1. Temple & Return “not one stone” When? 2. Watch! the point of Advent… hope Romans 5:4-5 a meal of hope Matthew 26:29 Questions to Discuss or Ponder: What are your most treasured Christmas traditions? What things are “musts” for this season of the year? What has been your experience of predictions of Jesus’ return? Is it an event that has inspired hope or fear or something in between? Why? Why do you think we are so determined to try to figure out something Jesus says he doesn’t know? What does Jesus mean by, “Watch!” What are some practical steps we can take to “watch” our lives? Share about a time God surprised you. What happened? How did it affect you? What will you do in this first week of Advent to live in hope and/or to share hope with someone else? Share that plan with someone. Scripture for the Week: Monday - Matthew 26:26-30 Tuesda...

Lamentations 4:1-6 November 17, 2024 • Mount Pleasant UMC If you ever go with me to Israel (which won’t happen again until they stop shooting at each other), you should be prepared to look at a lot of rocks. That sounds exciting, huh? It’s just that when we visit the Holy Land, there are two choices for the trip. You can visit a lot of beautiful churches that have been built over the centuries to commemorate Biblical events. Or you can go to the actual sites and see where things most likely happened, what has been uncovered and learn a bit about how people lived in those days. You can probably guess which trip I do, and I do it because I love archaeology. I love trying to understand the past and especially envisioning how different life was then than it is now. I have found that walking in the actual places gives a breadth and depth to the Biblical story that you just can’t get any other way. One of the places we go on that journey is the excavation outside the walls of the Templ...

  “Dig It Up” Sermon Study Guide for November 17, 2024 Downloadable Version Scripture: Lamentations 4:1-6 1. Cry for the Temple Jerusalem’s central location Ezekiel 10:18 - the glory departed 2. Idols a. ______________________________ b. ______________________________ Jeremiah 39:1-10 c. ______________________________ d. ______________________________ e. ______________________________ Deuteronomy 21:23 Questions to Discuss or Ponder: Why was Jerusalem and the Temple in particular so important to Judah? What might be the modern equivalent for us? How would you feel to find our church destroyed as the Jews did the Temple? How does the idol of money affect everyday life in your home or family? What struggles do you have with this idol? With what do people try to fill the “God-shaped vacuum” today? How does the desire for comfort affect our daily choices? How do advertisers play on that desire? What does it mean to be “blessed”? In what way(s) does pain topple our...

Lamentations 3:13-24 November 10, 2024 • Mount Pleasant UMC Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night with all sorts of thoughts running through your head? My time is usually about 4:30 a.m. You know, just late enough that if I can get back to sleep, my alarm is going off very soon. But I will wake up and suddenly my brain kicks in, mulling over maybe something from the previous day or something that’s coming up or a conversation I need to have or a conversation I already had. And somehow in the middle of the night, those things seem larger, scarier and more intimidating. C. S. Lewis called such ruminating “the monotonous treadmill march of the mind around one subject” ( A Grief Observed , pg. 3). That sounds about right. At some point I just give up on going back to sleep. That’s sort of the way Lamentations 3 reads, like the poet has woken up in the middle of the night and is facing his own fears in the midst of a ruined city. The first two poems in this book are largely...