Pastor's Outlines

    Sermon on the Mount- 14   TITLE: Living the Higher Law TEXT: Matthew 5:38-48 TONE: Encouragement TARGET: Believers TASK: To encourage believers to live the higher law, which is love and beyond. TEACH: A few years ago, a group of Swiss researchers scanned the brains of people who had been wronged during an economic exchange game. These people had trusted their partners to split a pot of money with them, only to find that the partners had chosen to keep the loot for themselves. The researchers then gave the people a chance to punish their greedy partners, and for a full minute, as the victims contemplated revenge, the activity in their brains was recorded. The decision caused a rush of neural activity in the caudate nucleus, an area of the brain known to process rewards (in previous work, the caudate has delighted in cocaine and nicotine use). The findings, published in a 2004 issue of  Science , gave physiological confirmation ...

    Sermon on the Mount- 13   TITLE: Embracing Integrity in our Speech TEXT: Matthew 5:33-37 TONE: Exhortation TARGET: Those prone to exaggeration in speech. TASK: To exhort my hearers toward integrity in all manner of speech and conduct. TEACH: Let’s take a poll. How many of you know where the phrase “say what you mean and mean what you say” come from? It is commonly attributed to Lewis Carroll’s book “Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland,” where the Mad Hatter and March Hare discuss the importance of clear communication and aligning one’s words with their true intentions; essentially, saying exactly what you mean and meaning exactly what you say. A clear call for integrity in speech. Well, long before these words were written by Lewis Carroll they were spoken by Jesus.   The opposite of that is identified in the child’s phrase, “Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye”; this is a phrase we all have likely heard and...

  Sermon On The Mount- 12   TITLE: Sacred Bond TEXT: Matthew 5:31-32 TONE: Warning TARGET: Both TASK: To help my hearers understand the sacred bond of marriage and to warn them against divorce. TEACH: It is not true that 50 percent of marriages end in divorce today. After extensive statistical research and analysis, social researcher Shaunti Feldhahn reported, “According to one of the most recent census bureau surveys, 72 percent of people   who have ever been married are still married to their first spouse -and the remaining 28 percent are not all divorced persons, because the total includes those who have been widowed through the death of a spouse, a category that accounts for perhaps as many as 8 percent. That suggests that somewhere around 20 to 25 percent of first marriages end in divorce. So, the truth is, most marriages last a lifetime, rather than that half of marriages end in divorce. The divorce rate is even lower for those th...