Sermons worth listening to

This is the first in what I hope to be an ongoing series of posts on “Sermons worth listening to.” As I mentioned in my last post, even a dull sermon can be redeemed by the Holy Spirit, but it is refreshing nonetheless to hear sermons that really “get the job done.” These are sermons that instruct, inspire, uplift and facilitate an encounter with the God of scripture. The following is a collection of sermons that I think are worth listening to. They are not presented in any order. All of them are good; some of them are exceptionally good. They represent vastly different preaching styles and the preachers come from different backgrounds and different church traditions. Some of these sermons are decades old; some were preached very recently. They all were preached in different contexts and address issues that were pertinent to their time and place, and yet, each one still speaks a word to the Church that is in some way timeless. These are not all sermons that I could myself preach, and I may not agree with every word uttered by each preacher, but in some way, when all the “amens” have been said and the sermon has ended, I feel like the disciples on the road to Emmaus must have felt: not only that the scriptures have been opened and explained to me, but that in that opening of scripture I have actually met the Lord again, and walked with him down the road a while.