MTP Sermon Resources

Matthew 11:28-30 January 7, 2024 • Mount Pleasant UMC We live in unprecedented times, and not just because it’s a new year. We are experiencing what has been called “the largest and fastest religious shift in the history of our country” (Davis & Graham, The Great De-Churching , pg. 3). Today, there are about 40 million adults in our nation who used to be part of a church but who no longer attend any religious services. That’s about 16 percent of the adult population. The polling firm Gallup, which has tracked American religious participation for eighty years, found that now for the first time more American adults stay home on Sunday mornings than attend worship. They also found that only slightly more than a third of people in the United States have confidence in the church. “Americans are most confident in the military and in small businesses” (Hunter, What Jesus Intended , pg. 17). “This is not a gradual shift; it is a jolting one” (Davis & Graham 3). We’ve experience...

  “Looking Like Jesus” Sermon Study Guide for January 7, 2024 Downloadable Version Scripture: Matthew 11:28-30 Unprecedented times… “de-churching” 1. The Aims of Jesus a. ___________________________ b. ___________________________ Matthew 4:17 c. ___________________________ John 1:5 2. “Come to me…” Mark 9:17-29 Isaiah 42:3 Luke 23:43 Luke 22:24 John 13:1-11 Isaiah 53:7 Questions to Discuss or Ponder: How have you experienced the phenomenon of “de-churching” and/or church hurt? How has it impacted you or your family? Have you invited someone to rejoin or join you in worship? Why or why not? Why are we often afraid to do so? What image of the church do most people you encounter have today? In what way(s) does that or doesn’t it look like Jesus? Which of the “aims” of Jesus do you find most compelling or most important for these days? Why? Why is Jesus’ first sermon still so compelling? What does it mean to be “yoked” to Jesus? Why is that a good thing? Wha...

Luke 2:1-20 December 24, 2023 (p.m.) • Mount Pleasant UMC She never expected to be in this story. Until the angel came, her life had pretty much been planned out for her. As a good, faithful Hebrew girl, she was expected to marry a good man, settle down, raise a family and teach the children the ways of their God. That was the life her mother had had, and her mother before her, and her mother before her, and…well, you get the idea. That was the story that was written for Mary even before she was born. It was the story she had anticipated, expected, even hoped for. But that was not the story she found herself in now. The story had begun a ways away. Initially, it didn’t involve Mary. She had gotten word that her relative, Elizabeth, who was well past child-bearing years, had become pregnant. There were rumors of angels and promises, and her husband Zechariah had been mute since Elizabeth became pregnant, which probably was just as well anyway. The whole thing was strange, but so...

2 Samuel 11:1-5 December 24, 2023 (a.m.) • Mount Pleasant UMC Four women. Each unique, each different, each a daughter of their time, each a daughter of promise because they are forever linked in a chain that leads to the savior of the world, and to a stable in Bethlehem. But I’m getting ahead of myself; we’ll get to the stable tonight. This morning, as we wrap up the Advent season, we’re still working through the genealogy of Jesus, and specifically looking at these four women who shouldn’t be listed there but are. Tamar, who tricked her father-in-law into sleeping with her. Rahab, the prostitute who protected the spies in Jericho. Ruth, the outsider who uncovered a man’s feet and became the grandmother of King David. And speaking of King David, his story brings us to our fourth daughter of promise, a woman who does not appear in the genealogy by name, but rather by description. She is the mother of King Solomon, or, as Matthew puts it, she “had been Uriah’s wife” (Matthew 1:6)....