Christmas Cookie Sermon #2

Today I took thumbprint cookies to church. I showed the plate of cookies to the kids and asked them if they knew what they were called. No one did. I told them they were thumbprint cookies and asked if they knew why they were so named. One of the girls offered that I had probably stuck my thumb in the middle of each one.
I described how I had rolled the dough into balls, rolled each ball in egg white and then in chopped nuts, placed the balls on a cookie sheet, and pressed my thumb into each one. After the cookies were baked I filled my thumb imprint with frosting.
God is not exactly described as a cookie baker in the Bible, but He is described as a potter. He takes the clay, shapes it as he desires and when He is finished, He puts his stamp on the vessel created.
I suggested that if we allow God to shape us and put His imprint on us, He fills that imprint with something good, just the way I filled the thumbprint with frosting. The themes for our Advent candles are hope, peace, joy and love....all things God wants to fill us with.
So let's allow God to put His imprint on our lives.
Everyone, including the adults, enjoyed the cookies.

Christmas Cookie Sermon #1

I baked gingerbread men today and frosted them this evening. Tomorrow I will take them to church for my children's sermon. I will tell the story of the old woman who baked a gingerbread man only to have him hop off the baking sheet and run away taunting her with, "Run, run as fast as you can...you can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man." The Gingerbread Man encounters other people and animals, and each time he runs away while calling out the same line.

Finally he comes to a river and doesn't know how he will cross it. Along comes a fox who speaks to him kindly and offers to take him to the other side. All the Gingerbread Man has to do is sit on the fox's tail. Once he is in the middle of the river and the water gets higher, the fox suggests that the Gingerbread Man move to his back. A little further on and he suggests that the Gingerbread Man move to his head. With a toss of his head, he flips the Gingerbread Man up into the air and snaps him up in his mouth.

I will use the story to make the point that there is real evil in the world, and sometimes we don't recognize it. Just because a person offers to help us in some way, doesn't mean that they have our best interests in mind. It is easy to get into a really bad situation through a series of small moves that we don't realize are putting us on the brink of disaster. The wise thing to do is not to take the first wrong step.

The Bible says we are to avoid all appearance of evil. (I Thessalonians 5:22) If we enjoy dancing around on the edge of wrong, we will eventually find ourselves on the fox's head.