Recently, my dad, who is a pastor has been looking and preaching at different churches. This past Sunday, though, instead of preaching at a church, he went to the nearby YMCA to give a sermon on Sunday morning. His sermon was on the wise men that went to see baby Jesus. He started out by making the point that they were supernaturally led, they searched for Jesus thoroughly. After that he spent a few minutes talking about how the rich wise men humbly bowed down to Jesus and gave him treasures. They didn’t give him baby toys or something for him to play with, but they gave him things with a lot of value that they would normally give to a king.
The next few points that he made were about what we can learn from the magi (wise men). The first point went over the fact that the wise men left their home. My dad then asked the question “What do we need to leave?” The answer is that we need to leave anything that might damage our relationships with Christ.
The next point was about how the magi looked for Jesus. They looked tirelessly for him. This brought up the question “What is blocking my view of his presence at Christmas time?” the answer is simple. The thing that distracts us is all of the presents, the music, the decorations, and even the manger scene can block my view of the true meaning of Christmas, the salvation God sent to earth.
A third point that my dad made was how the wise men lowered themselves to worship Jesus. They bowed to him. The question that came from this is “How does my pride hinder my worship?” this is a personal question that can be answered differently between people. But there is another question; “Do I seek to surrender my life to God daily?” This is also a personal question that each individual person must answer for themselves.
While browsing on Google I found an old advertisement. The ad was for Lustre-Crème Shampoo. It featured Marilyn Monroe, known for her beauteous looks and her parts in different movies. One of her movies was Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Lustre-Crème was attempting to sell their shampoo through the use of fallacies. By saying that Marilyn Monroe that tells you nothing about the actual product: it simply attracts you to the pretty face in the picture. Using this as an argument of why someone should buy your product is quite illogical. Just because Marilyn Monroe uses it doesn’t provide assurance of its abilities. They attempt using snob appeal by trying to make the audience believe that they could be like Marilyn Monroe if they use the same product as her. They use appeal to illegitimate authority by using Marilyn Monroe to promote their product. Although she herself is a customer, this is still rather irrelevant. She herself has no type of expertise in hair products and knows nothing that
Those are some very deep questions. I like how your dad gave the story and then made relatable questions for the listeners to think about. Good job!
ReplyDeleteI liked your illustration you mentioned that Jesus was not given toys once he was born but kingly gifts, well because he was one.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the idea that we need to leave things affecting our relationship with christ, and i struggle with that sometimes.
ReplyDeleteMason