Tag: Scripture

Greetings my friends. It is Sunday August 21ST 2022, and this is the day that our LORD has made. Let us rejoice. Let us be glad in it. Let us celebrate this great new day of believing, following, trusting, loving, and being more like our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ. Let us love our neighbor as ourself.

This week marks the 16TH anniversary of the start of my salvation. I was rescued and saved by my Lord & Savior Jesus Christ 16 years ago. It’s when my life changed forever. If it weren’t for God’s salvation – I wouldn’t be here today. This blog wouldn’t exist. I probably wouldn’t be physically alive today. God saved my life. I thank Him with each new day of this fantastic journey.

A couple of Sundays ago I preached my sermon – “Honor & Respect” – to my church family. It’s based on 1 Peter 2:10-2:25.

Last #SundayScripture I began presenting it in its original written form. Here’s Part 2 of this multi-part series:

We live in a world that’s hostile to our God and His followers – His church. And we have all experienced persecution over and over again along our journey.

But the Bible says that we are blessed when we are persecuted because of righteousness. Rejoice, and be glad in it. We must love our enemies. We must pray for those who persecute us. We must ask for strength and wisdom from our God so that we can react in a godly way. Don’t persecute those who persecute you.

I last preached from the First Letter Of Peter at the end of February, so picking-up where I left-off in my last message – as the Bible says (1 Peter 2:10):

“Once you had no identity as a people. Now you are God’s people.
Once you received no mercy. Now you have received God’s mercy.”

Before we accepted the LORD into our life we had no identity – other than our name and our address. We were just like everyone else. We were of this world. We belonged to this world. This world owned us. We received no mercy.

But now we are God’s people. We belong to God. We have received God’s mercy. What’s God’s mercy ?  It’s His goodness. It’s His kindness towards us – even though we don’t deserve it. It’s unmerited favor. God gave us grace and mercy with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the sins of the world. His mercy appeared at our salvation. For me – His mercy appeared – 16 years ago – in a couple of weeks. And mercy is always victorious over judgement.

Dear friends – I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls. (2:11)

Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong – they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when He judges the world. (2:12)

You know it’s tough being a Christian. If it were easy – then everyone you know would be a Christian. But you know – that most of the people that you know – don’t know God. And some of those people that you know – know that you know God. So they are watching you. Those people that you know – that know – that you know God – they are watching you like a hawk – especially the ones who are defiant towards God. See some of our neighbors and coworkers and friends and even members of our own immediate and extended family – some of them just don’t care who or what we believe in as Christians. Some of those people just think that we’re crazy or wacky or loony – for believing a God who we can’t see.

“Hey look at that wackadoodle over there – with his arms held high towards the sky – talking to nobody.”

You know – I don’t mind being called a wackadoodle – if it means that when my temporary time here on Earth is done – that I’ll spend eternity with my God in Heaven. I don’t care what you call me.

(End of Part 2)

If you wish to learn more about the God I know then stay tuned to #SundayScripture. The best is yet to come !

Thank you for reading my blog for this day, and may:

The LORD bless you, and keep you.
The LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you.
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

Greetings my friends. It is Sunday August 14TH 2022, and this is the day that our LORD has made. Let us rejoice. Let us be glad in it. Let us celebrate this great new day of believing, following, trusting, loving, and being more like our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ. Let us love our neighbor as ourself.

Last Sunday I preached my sermon – “Honor & Respect” – to my church family. It’s based on 1 Peter 2:10-2:25. I estimated it to be about a 45-minute sermon beforehand. I did quite a bit of ad-libbing within the sermon. It turned out to be closer to a full hour sermon – which – in our church – is the technical definition of being “long-winded”. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I take it as a badge of honor to deliver a long-winded sermon every so often. (I won’t make it a habit.)

So as promised – now that I’ve preached the sermon – I’m presenting it in its original written form (without the ad-libs) starting with this #SundayScripture and continuing for the next 5 weeks after today.

All of my blog posts can be read in less than 5 minutes, so I’ll be breaking at convenient locations within my sermon. I hope that you’ll keep coming back to see what’s next.

Here’s Part 1:

Well Good Morning again. It’s good to be up here – standing here – on a Sunday morning – in the house of our Lord – at the altar – behind the pulpit – preaching God’s Word to you – sharing what I know about our God – Father, Son, and Spirit as One. I don’t know it all – not even close – but I’m learning more about Him and His way – with each new day. Any day that I’m not learning about our God – any day that I’m not being more like Him – that’s a wasted day. I had plenty of wasted days in my teens, 20s, and 30s. I’m not in to wasted days anymore, for tomorrow is never guaranteed. Every day should be the best day of my life.

In a couple of weeks I will observe and celebrate my 16TH anniversary of believing, and following, and trusting, and loving, and being more like our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ. Hallelujah. Amen. Our God – He gets all of the glory.

My last 3 sermons in a row – 3 months ago – were all unrehearsed, and spontaneous. I stood down there – in the – orchestra section – of our theatre. I had no idea what I was going to say until I actually said it. You know that can be dangerous. I’m not that good at being spontaneous whether it’s saying or doing. I’m much better – I’m much more content – I’m much more coherent – I’m much more detailed – when I’ve practiced or rehearsed saying or doing something over and over again. (It’s that O-C-D in me.) I’m more comfortable in that way. But it was a good experience that some of you got to see during those 3 weeks in a row – back in May.

This is a more traditional sermon of mine. I’ve got my iPad in front of me. It’s got my message on it. It’s based on my own personal study of the Bible. I know what I’m going to say. And I’m ready to preach God’s Good News.

Today I want to continue to share Peter’s first letter – near the end of the New Testament. It’s the 60TH book of the Bible (out of 66). It’s the 21ST book of the New Testament (out of 27).

Peter wrote his letter from Rome near the end of his life. He lived into his late-60s. He was actually about the same age as Jesus when He was walking this Earth with His apostles during His 3-year ministry. (Peter – being 1 of the 12 apostles.)

He wrote his letter to persecuted Christians in the region – particularly Asia Minor – which is modern-day Turkey. He wrote it to persecuted Christians in the First Century Church, and his letter is still very relevant today – almost 2,000 years later – as Christians are still persecuted today. Hello – fellow persecuted Christians.

(End of Part 1)

If you wish to learn more about the God I know then stay tuned to #SundayScripture. The best is yet to come !

Thank you for reading my blog for this day, and may:

The LORD bless you, and keep you.
The LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you.
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

Greetings my friends. It is Sunday August 07TH 2022, and this is the day that our LORD has made. Let us rejoice. Let us be glad in it. Let us celebrate this great new day of believing, following, trusting, loving, and being more like our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ. Let us love our neighbor as ourself.

Last #SundayScripture I wrote about the construction of my sermons.

8 weeks ago on Twitter I revealed this –

Chris M. Day @ChrisMDay · Jun 11
Today was a phenomenal day of Bible-studying and sermon-writing. I finally finished writing my next sermon – “Honor & Respect”. It’s a traditional sermon that serves as the direct follow-up to “Stones & Stumbles” – now featured on my blog.

This past Friday afternoon on an afternoon that was full of pleasant surprises I got the call to preach this morning. So I opened that sermon on my computer in Microsoft Word, and I commenced rehearsal, update, and enhancement mode. (That continued into Saturday.)

“Honor & Respect” is based on 1 Peter 2:10-25, but I also preach on much of Isaiah 53 – which Peter quotes in his letter.

I’m looking forward to preaching this sermon this morning to my church family, and as promised I’m also looking forward to sharing it with you in multiple parts starting next #SundayScripture.

I hope that it encourages you and inspires you to move closer to our God, and to also share your journey with others.

If you wish to learn more about the God I know then stay tuned to #SundayScripture. The best is yet to come !

Thank you for reading my blog for this day, and may:

The LORD bless you, and keep you.
The LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you.
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

Greetings my friends. It is Sunday July 31ST 2022, and this is the day that our LORD has made. Let us rejoice. Let us be glad in it. Let us celebrate this great new day of believing, following, trusting, loving, and being more like our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ. Let us love our neighbor as ourself.

One of my new favorite tweeters is a fellow disciple of Jesus and Preacher of God’s Good News. This past week he tweeted – “Preachers: What kind of notes do you use on Sundays for your sermon ? I use a one-page, bullet-point outline, landscape, two-columns. Rubber band around it into my Bible at the place of the text.”

I caught the tweet the next day, and I was pleasantly surprised by all of the replies (some 130+). At a time in my ministry when I was starting to feel as if I was on my own old-school island of preaching – it seems as if there are still plenty just like me.

Most of my sermons are prepared full-manuscript style via Microsoft Word. They average about 10 to 11 pages in length (single-spaced) with Calibri (Body) font size 16. Words I wish to stress are in bold, and Scripture is in italics (including red letters). PowerPoint slides are sequentially numbered in [brackets] as a cue for me to click the clicker.

I write each sermon over a period of several weeks (sometimes months). Once it’s done I occasionally go back and update and enhance it. When I’m asked to preach on Sunday morning (sometimes with less than 24 hours notice) I do a top-to-bottom rehearsal of the sermon that God has called on me to preach while making final updates and enhancements. Once I determine that it’s final I create a PDF out of the Word document, and I save it to my iCloud Drive. I then take my iPad with me to church on Sunday morning with my sermon on it.

I used to print out my sermons (double-sided) and place each two pages in a document protector, but I stopped that practice a little over a year ago.

As I present my sermon I occasionally look down at it and read it, but if my rehearsal was effective and productive then the looking down part is minimal. I prefer to make direct eye contact with my brothers and sisters – either collectively or individually. As for Scripture I’ll intentionally read directly from my manuscript to ensure that I read it verbatim.

Most of my Scripture is presented on PowerPoint slides, but I’m not a fan of reading from the overhead monitors. I tend to lose my place in my sermon when I do that.

It was good to see that many preachers do it the way that I do it – and for the same reasons. Eventually I’d like to move to more of an outline format for my sermons, but I’m not there yet. I’m currently writing my 50TH sermon over the past 6 years. I’m given the honor and privilege of preaching God’s Good News to my church family about 8 to 10 times per year.

Someone recently asked me if I didn’t get to preach to my church family would I still write sermons. The answer is absolutely yes. I would continue to write sermons just as I do now, and I would present them here on my blog, for you are part of my church family online and worldwide.

If you wish to learn more about the God I know then stay tuned to #SundayScripture. The best is yet to come !

Thank you for reading my blog for this day, and may:

The LORD bless you, and keep you.
The LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you.
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp