Living in the Kingdom: The Freedom of an Ordinary Life

REFLECTION QUOTES

“Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.”

~Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) French mathematician and thinker

“The ordinary is divine.”

~Cynthia Ozick, American short story writer, novelist and essayists

“Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.”

~John W. Gardner (1912-2002), Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under President Lyndon Johnson

“There are no ordinary moments.”

~Dan Millman, American author and lecturer

“We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images we have put in their place.”

~Daniel Boorstin (1914-2004), historian at the University of Chicago

“You can destroy freedom as much by abusing it as you can be taking it away.”

~Attributed to Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

“Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time.”

~Albert Camus (1913-1960), French philosopher and writer

“The world will ask you who you are, and if you don’t know, the world will tell you.”

~Carl Jung (1875-1961), Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst

“You are my Lord, because You have no need of my goodness.”

~Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Christian theologian and philosophe

SERMON PASSAGE

Mark 1:9-20 (ESV)

9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

12 The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.

14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

16 Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. 17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” 18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19 And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20 And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him.