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Make Up Your Mind!

Sermon
Proper 4 | Ordinary Time 9 - C
1 Kings 18:20-39
Robert Leslie Holmes
Two Kings And Three Prophets For Less Than A Quarter
First Lesson Sermons For Sundays After Pentecost (First Third) Cycle C
Why hasn't Hollywood made this into a major motion picture epic? 1 Kings 18 is surely one of the most dramatic accounts in all literature and one of the most significant historical records in the Bible. Its message and natural application are timeless.

William Penn said, "Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants." In our Scripture reading for today the people of Israel came together to decide no less a question than who would govern their personal and national lives, who would be their God and the God of their nation.
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Epiphany 7 (OT 7)
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New & Featured This Week

StoryShare

John E. Sumwalt
And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Sometimes we experience God’s presence in ordinary, everyday events like the laughter of a child or an awe-inspiring sunset. And sometimes God is experienced in unexpected life-altering events. Richard (Rick) Allison of rural Baraboo, Wisconsin, experienced God’s active presence in two powerful life-changing events.

Emphasis Preaching Journal

Mark Ellingsen

Exodus 34:29-35
Mark Ellingsen
Bill Thomas
Frank Ramirez
Exodus 34:29-35
In August of 2017, much of the North American continent experienced a total solar eclipse when the moon came directly between earth and the sun. Writing before the eclipse, NASA  explained, “This path, where the moon will completely cover the sun and the sun’s tenuous atmosphere—the corona—can be seen, will stretch from Salem, Oregon to Charleston, South Carolina.”

The Village Shepherd

Janice B. Scott
Call to worship:

With Peter, let us also say to Jesus, "Master, it is good for us to be here", and ask that we too might see the transfigured Christ.

Invitation to confession:

 Jesus, may we see your glory and the glory of all who stand with you.

Lord, have mercy.

Jesus, deepen our prayer life so that we are ready to receive your radiance.

Christ, have mercy.

Jesus, take away the scales from our eyes so that we may truly gaze upon you.

SermonStudio

James Evans
(See The Transfiguration Of Our Lord/Last Sunday After The Epiphany, Cycle A, for an alternative approach.)

One of the greatest of all Christian hymns is Reginald Heber's powerful and beautiful "Holy, Holy, Holy." The hymn is based on Revelation 4:8-11, which depicts heavenly creatures singing praises day and night, celebrating God's holiness and glory.

Psalm 99 also offers a triple "holy, holy, holy." "Holy is he" (vv. 3-5) and "Holy is the Lord our God" (v. 9). The key to this psalm, obviously, is understanding the meaning of the word, "holy."

Elizabeth Achtemeier
Perhaps some of you have seen Michelangelo's great marble statue of Moses. Or if you have just seen a picture of that statue, you know that it depicts Moses sitting, holding the tablets of the law. And strangely enough, on Moses' head are two tiny horns. That depiction furnishes us with a good lesson in the history of Old Testament manuscripts. The verb "shone" in verse 29 of our text can also be translated as "horned," and that apparently was the rendering that the Exodus manuscript available to Michelangelo used.
Harold C. Warlick, Jr.
Today is the end of the season of Epiphany, which began the first Sunday in January. Throughout the Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany seasons we have been celebrating ways in which God's glory has been manifested in the life of Jesus. If these ways were easy to understand by early Christians, Paul would not have had to write all those letters.

This is Transfiguration Sunday and, once again, we are presented with another experience in the life of Jesus that appears to be outside our frame of reference.
William G. Carter
I wonder what they were thinking as they started up the mountain.

Peter, James, and John were tagging along. I'm sure Jesus was a few steps ahead. After all, he was the only one who knew where they were going. Those three disciples had put in a lot of miles. Every one of those miles was spent following wherever he went.

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