This is my sermon

Originally posted by rwingett
If there's no one else, could we do the judging on Friday? I'll be out of town for several days after that.

How many days? Not that I need to know exactly , but for the sake of a fair competition maybe we need a bit longer.
How many entries so far?

Originally posted by rwingett
Brothers and sisters, our sermon today is going to be about knowledge versus wisdom. For I tell you that our quest for knowledge has too often been like a ship – a great ship plunging ahead through the icy waves on a dark, moonless night without the rudder of wisdom to steer its path. Its great, churning engines drive us forever forward, but whether we are ...[text shortened]... e level of our knowledge and bring the two into a sustainable harmony.

Believe there's a passage in Matthew depicting the futility of vain repetition and the use of many meaningless

words which concludes with the sanctified sarcasm, "they already have their reward". Not much has changed.


.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Believe there's a passage in Matthew depicting the futility of vain repetition and the use of many meaningless

words which concludes with the sanctified sarcasm, "they already have their reward". Not much has changed.


.

I believe there's also a passage in Matthew that says, "Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you."

Originally posted by rwingett
I believe there's also a passage in Matthew that says, "Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you."

I thought you were asking to be judged.

Originally posted by RJHinds
I thought you were asking to be judged.

By someone who has been assigned the task of being a judge.

Originally posted by rwingett
If there's no one else, could we do the judging on Friday? I'll be out of town for several days after that.

I would like to, but as I have said, I will be away and back on Monday. It will take some time to review and write blurbs.

Originally posted by rwingett
I believe there's also a passage in Matthew that says, "Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you."

this is my sermon.

as Rwingett has noted, one of the things Jesus called for his followers to do was to "judge not, that you be not judged".

Obviously, Jesus was not calling for his followers to stop differentiating between actions that are good and those that are evil. He was not calling for everyone to become a "moral relativist" who would consider the fruitfulness of the lives of Adolf Hitler and Mother Theresa to be exactly the same.

No. Jesus is telling us the wise way to live one's life. This begins when we recognize that all of us will fall far short of what God wants us to be and even what we ourselves want to be. There's no way for any of us to earn an inside track by merely "doing good things" or accumulating a lot of stuff or even amassing a lot of knowledge. In fact, when we try to do this, those of us that are the most successful are actually the LEAST likely to "enter the kingdom of God". This was the big problem for the pharisees. Precisely because they lived such holy lives, they had became monsters. They were always looking down on everyone else while they carefully catalogued their many "good acts and proper observances". Their lives were a continual exercise of judgment, both of themselves and everyone else. Which left no room for compassion.

Most are well aware of Jesus' teaching that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. In all likelihood, the same thing could be said for the difficulty for a "good man" or a "knowledgeable man" to enter the kingdom of heaven.

The parable of the pharisee and the tax collector illustrates this. Unlike the pharisee (or many others who are seemingly rich), the very sinful tax collector understood that his case was hopeless and he just offered himself up to God just as he was. And then he discovered that that was all that God really wanted. He realized that in this sense, everyone really is the same. Both Adolf Hitler and Mother Theresa are hopelessly broken and are thus equally in need of God's mercy, but the irony is that the more you screw up in life, the more likely you become aware of this.

And it is this realization that allows you to get off the "judgment treadmill" where you're always trying to accumulate more possessions (and yes, even "good works" and "knowledge" can become a "possession" ) and comparing yourself to others -- constantly looking down at those below you and constantly cutting down those who are above -- in a futile attempt to justify yourself. Because no matter how much you get, you always need more. Someone is always in front of you and you're always in fear of losing what you currently possess.

Instead, when you simply accept (and REALLY accept) that God has always loved you (and everyone else) no matter how many "possessions" anyone has - indeed that God IS Love - you are now free to love everyone else as they are and you can now give freely to others without fear of "losing ground". That was the whole point of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.

So instead of making your Self the center of your life, you can now make this Love, which is always willing the Good of the Other, the center of your life. And if you do, you gradually learn that the more you focus on giving up your "possessions" in the service of others, the happier you will find yourself becoming. The judgment treadmill is the wide path, the way of the fool, and it leads to so much destruction. It's Scrooge on Chistmas Eve all caved in on himself and miserable. The life centered on Love is the narrow path, the way of wisdom, and it leads to life. It's Scrooge on Christmas Day full of joy as he focuses on others.

But all of this sounds so easy. It's actually very difficult. We are all continually going back to the "comparison game" which puts us back on that ugly treadmill. That narrow path sometimes appears to be an impossibly treacherous route - so even for the greatest of saints, life is an ongoing struggle to learn to trust that the narrow path really is the better one.

Originally posted by karoly aczel
How many days? Not that I need to know exactly , but for the sake of a fair competition maybe we need a bit longer.
How many entries so far?

I count 5: Melanerpes, Whodey, Jaywill, RWingett, Taoman. Someone submitted a cut and pasted copy of the Sermon on the Mount that I am not counting. That submitter attributed it to Jesus who I don't think I will be judging. 😉 If anyone knows of others, please let me know.

Originally posted by rwingett

By someone who has been assigned the task of being a judge.

"Someone" refer to the sovereign being of the universe?

Originally posted by rwingett
I believe there's also a passage in Matthew that says, "Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you."

Of course and we're both quite familiar with the fact that, rightly understood,

scripture never contradicts scripture. There's no wiggle for you or me, Rwing.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Of course and we're both quite familiar with the fact that, rightly understood,

scripture never contradicts scripture. There's no wiggle for you or me, Rwing.

Where is your sermon Bobby?

Originally posted by whodey
Where is your sermon Bobby?

A pastor-teacher's responsibility is to study and teach. Where there's positive interest, God The Holy Spirit will provide the hearers. Christ's final injunction to the disciples, repeated three times at Golgotha, was "Feed my sheep". During His public ministry, Christ Himself refrained teaching Bible Doctrine (or sermons, your wording) to groups or individuals with negative volition.

Maturing believers in Christ have already locked in on a reliable source of daily spiritual food (the accurate teaching of scripture) elsewhere and remote from an argumentative forum on an excellent chess site. I simply happened to wander in here again like a lost church mouse, without portfolio, who presumed to make a few spontaneous though ill advised cyberspace squeaks.


😉

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
[Maturing believers in Christ have already locked in on a reliable source of daily spiritual food (the accurate teaching of scripture) elsewhere and remote from an argumentative forum on an excellent chess site. I simply happened to wander in here again like a lost church mouse, without portfolio, who presumed to make a few spontaneous though ill advised cyberspace squeaks.


😉[/b]

Arguementative? Since when is this site arguementative? 😲

Originally posted by whodey
This thread is dedicated to our sermon competition. The topic at hand is "Knowledge verses Wisdom". The sermon competition starts now and will end on Friday 9/16 at midnight. The judges are:

1. karoly aczel (Hindu persuasion)
2. Yo its me (Christian persuasion)
3. JS357 (non-theist persuasion)

To give a little helpful guidence, here are a few clues ...[text shortened]... mpleted and a new thread created for such debate.

Thanks to all who decide to participate!!

I pay homage to all the sentient beings with Perfected Nature.
All human beings are potentially perfect but incidentally obscured; when this obscuration is cleared, they are in oneness with their Perfected Nature.
Thus I have heard: faith is having a pure mind, without turbidity or filth. So, when you know yourself you know everything. The Pureland is your mind purified.
To learn what is good a day is not enough; but to learn what is bad an hour is too long. So conduct proper cross-check in cause and effect and escape shamelessness.
Break free from constant thought. And always look after the sick.

Small deaths are just various takings of various losses; taking of a loss is to gain an advantage, gaining an advantage by force is equivalent of taking a loss; the pure conduct is cultivated on this ground of awareness. By means of getting your thoughts together you constitute the precepts, and this is where from concentration arises; out of concentration flows wisdom, whilst concentration arises out of precepts and wisdom arises out of concentration.

So, needless to enter either sermons or sophisms –it is enough to clarify pure conduct. Raise yourself above your instincts and see that, when your mind stays calm the Universe appears not; when you understand, the reality depends on you; when you do not understand, you are depending on the reality; when the reality depends on you, the unreal becomes real; when you are depending on the reality, everything is not real; when the reality depends on you, everything is real.

Seeking for transformation apart from your own mind is futile; people appear to think that enlightenment is a quality that exists somewhere out of their own mind, but such a place exists not. Transformation/ enlightenment is a projection of your mind. Who are You? What is the nature of your mind? You have to find it on your own. Do not bow out of fear; do not bow out of seeking benefits; do not bow out of arrogance, do not bow out of seeking fame; do not bow out of imitation; bow to the clear mind; bow when you contemplate the nature of your mind; bow in front of the cultivation of proper contemplation; bow with one mind; bow without attachment. If you see in front of you somebody who claims s/he is talking to you in behalf of the so called “G-d”, or that s/he is a Buddha whilst you are not, and therefore you have to bow to her/ his authority, you are in front of a fraud; for the Buddha is nothing but true principle, and true principle is just the Buddha. Once you understand true principal you understand Buddha.

May ones’ concern for the welfare of all creatures cover every existence by means of conversion of evil to good and of conversion of delusion to understanding. Respect Life. Give away what you love, what you cherish most; challenge your ego, be beautifully out of your mind, control yourself in full, evaluate the causality and the conditions and do your thing. Whenever you have to act either out of love or out of something else, choose the former.

All the gospels and all the sutras of all the religions together cannot hold a candle to the one who has a clear mind. The one who understands one’s nature is not forced to follow nobody. So fear solely your inability to see.

May All Beings Have Unmistaken Knowledge And Full Attainment of the Perfected Nature.
May All Beings Be Happy!
😵

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
A pastor-teacher's responsibility is to study and teach. Where there's positive interest, God The Holy Spirit will provide the hearers. Christ's final injunction to the disciples, repeated three times at Golgotha, was "Feed my sheep". During His public ministry, Christ Himself refrained teaching Bible Doctrine (or sermons, your wording) to groups or ind ...[text shortened]... olio, who presumed to make a few spontaneous though ill advised cyberspace squeaks.


😉

I assume this is not a sermon entry.