Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: disciple, evangelist, the 12, the twelve, son of Zebedee, fisherman, incarnation, word became flesh, I Am sayings, apostle, sons of thunder, eternal life, darkness and light, eyewitness

Showing 1301 to 1325 of 1347 results

1301. Out of the Miry Bog (Dealing with Depression)

Psalm 22:1-31

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

I’ve told you this story before, but it’s such a good one, it deserves repeating. And it’s the best story I know to introduce the sermon this morning. A business man’s wife was experiencing depression. She began to mope around and be sad, lifeless - no light in her eyes - no spring in her step - joyless. It became so bad that this “man of the world” did what any sophisticated person would do. He made an appointment with the psychiatrist. On the appointed day, they went to the psychiatrist’s office, sat ...

1302. When Being Christian Has Worn You Down (Compassion Fatigue)

1 John 4:7-21

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

To be honest is a mark of maturity. Dishonesty has within it its own destructive seeds. Most of us know the huge amount of energy deceit requires. And many of us have discovered the awful devastation of living a lie. Our sermon today addresses an issue about which we need to be honest. I’m talking about coping with compassion fatigue - “When being Christian has Worn You Down”. A mild little boy, not known for being ugly or mean, was being chastised and about to be punished for pulling a little girl’s hair ...

1303. He Presented Himself Alive

Matthew 28:1-10

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Robert Lewis Stephenson, on one of his voyages to the South Seas, told about a terrific storm that frightened all the passengers. One man finally went out on deck and watched the captain pace the bridge, calm and undisturbed. He came back to the cabin where the passengers were huddled together and said to them: “I have seen the captain’s face, and all is well.” It was that kind of word that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary carried back to the disciples on that first Easter morning. How remarkable that, in ...

1304. The Harvest of the Spirit, Part 1

Galatians 5:16-26

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Many of you here this morning will remember Edward Sanford Martin’s poem, “My name is Legion.” Some of you may have memorized those poignant lines. Within my earthly temple there’s a crown; There’s one of us that’s humble; one that’s proud, There’s one that’s broken-hearted for his sins, There’s one that unrepentant sits and grins; There’s one that loves his neighbor as himself and one that cares for naught but fame and self From much corroding care I should be free. If I could once determine which is me. ...

1305. Peter, Our Folk Hero

Mark 14:27-31

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Some of you may know the name Roy Riegels. Many who don’t know his name will identify him as I tell his story. The year was 1929. The University of California was playing Georgia Tech in the Rose Bowl. Stumpy Thomason, Georgia Tech’s halfback, had the ball and was hit hard by Bennie Lom, so hard that he “coughed up the ball,” - that’s the way the sportswriters would say it. He fumbled and Roy Riegels picked it up, which you could do in college ball in those days. Riegels began to run. But Stumpy Thomason, ...

1306. Judas, A Person Like Us

Mark 14:43-52

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Would you ever consider naming one of your children Judas? We name our children James and John and Matthew and Peter and Andrew and Thaddeus. You may not have thought of the apostles of Jesus when you gave these names to your sons. You may have been thinking of a father, or grandfather, but the names go beyond that, back to those disciples of Jesus. But Judas! The name is not in our repertoire of treasured names for our sons. Yet, the name was common among the Jews. There are several Judas’ in the Bible. ...

1307. Do You See Lazarus On Your Doorstep?

Luke 16:19-31

Sermon

Richard Hasler

Whenever I think of a rich man I think of Howard Hughes. He was not only extremely wealthy but also extremely eccentric. Hughes once bought a Las Vegas television station for little less than four million dollars simply because he wanted to watch cowboy movies all night, and this station had cowboy movies but not playing all night. Hughes wanted to watch them up until 6 a.m. That is what you do if you are an eccentric millionaire.[1] Hughes has helped me to understand the rich man in Jesus’ parable. The ...

1308. Are We Living In The Last Days?

Luke 21:5-19

Sermon

Richard Hasler

Many people in northeast Ohio have visited the Amish Country at least once, if not numerous times. One stop they are sure to make is at Lehman’s Hardware Store in Kidron, Ohio. What I have learned from my visits there is that at one time only other Amish people purchased items at the store because they were committed to using non-electrical equipment in their farming. More recently, however, a new set of clients has arrived, not counting the usual tourists. Some religious believers have the convictions ...

1309. Burning the Midnight Oil

Matthew 25:1-13

Sermon

Steve Molin

It has been several decades since Pastor John Lloyd Ogilvie wrote his book about the parables of Jesus titled, The Autobiography of God. As Ogilvie pointed out, this “autobiography” – this self-writing – is exactly what the parables of Jesus are.[1] They are the description of the kingdom of God by God’s own self.” Jesus did not write them down as an author would; he told them to small groups, to angry crowds, to the masses, to individuals, and most often, to his disciples. He painted word-pictures about ...

1310. Going and Doing

Matthew 25:31-46

Sermon

Steve Molin

Today is the end of the church year. The school year ends in June, and the calendar year ends on December 31, but the church year ends always on a Sunday in late November, and the new church year begins with the season of Advent. Next week, I’ll begin a sermon series called START HERE; appropriate for a new year, with a blank canvas standing before us. But as we today focus on the Reign of Christ, it also seemed like a good time to give you a prologue of where it all started. That’s what the START HERE ...

1311. Expanding The Boundaries

Ruth 3:1-18

Sermon

John A. Stroman

The Book of Ruth is a family story. It is an old story, possibly over three thousand years old. It is a story about a family in trouble. Let me briefly summarize the story. Elimelech flees with his wife and two sons from the famine in Israel and heads for Moab because they heard that things were better there. In desperation they move to Moab, an out-of-the-way sort of place. You would have to be desperate, really hungry to move your family to Moab. Soon after their arrival Naomi's husband dies and she is ...

1312. The Backside Of God

Sermon

John N. Brittain

Exodus 33:12-23; Matthew 22:15-22 Without wanting to be either flippant or blasphemous, I don't think it out of line to say that there is something a little odd about the story where Moses gets to see the back side of God. This is Moses, the one who went up the mountain and brought down the tablets of the law; the one at whose uplifted rod the waters of the Red Sea parted and then came back together; Moses, the person who filled more roles than any other in the Torah -- prophet, priest, military leader, ...

1313. The Narrow Gate

Luke 13:22-30

Sermon

John G. Lynch

One long, shadowy afternoon, when the light was more smoke than light, a young American of Russian descent wandered along a canal in Leningrad, searching for the Palace of Prince Yarosof, where the monk Rasputin had been killed. Leningrad in winter is not a cheery place. The sun rises late in the morning and sets about 4 p.m. Daylight, always weak and wintry, never rises above a sinister haze. In that light Alex sought his narrow door. He didn't realize quite what he was seeking. Only when he found it did ...

1314. Desires Bring Hope

Luke 16:19-31

Sermon

John G. Lynch

An old man died in a Manhattan brownstone some years ago. No one in the neighborhood knew much about him. Some neighbors thought he was odd and eccentric. Most ignored him altogther. Just a silly recluse, they said. When he died the newspapers sent a reporter to his brownstone home. Inside they found newspapers and magazines stacked to the ceilings. Narrow corridors wound in a maze throughout the house. When the papers and magazines were removed, furniture of all kinds, including 17 grand pianos were found ...

1315. The Merciful

Sermon

John A. Terry

Matthew 5:1-12Matthew 18:23-35 The quality of mercy is not strain'd,It droppeth as a gentle rain from heavenUpon the place beneath: it is twice blest;It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomesThe throned monarch better than his crown.(The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, scene 1) In our practice of "mercy" there is a kind of "I'll scratch your back -- you scratch my back" philosophy. Be decent to others and they will be decent to you. It is like the story on which ...

1316. A Strange Kind Of Glory

John 13:31-38

Sermon

John M. Braaten

It is often difficult for Christians to get past the idea that those who have given themselves to the Lord should be treated a little better than the average woman or man who does not possess a living faith. In other words, there ought to be some kind of return for what you have done for God, for what you have given in time, energy and money. That doesn't sound outrageous, does it? In this "you get what you deserve" world, you really ought to be rewarded. Harmless as that sounds, it is the first step ...

1317. Mary Christmas

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

John Jamison

So, where are the shepherds? And what about the "multitude of the heavenly host" shining their glory on everyone and breaking into song about God, and salvation, and peace? Sure, there is an angel. One angel, who sounds more like a meditating attorney in a three-piece suit, speaking in one long sentence which tells Joseph he ought to see this thing through and try to work things out with Mary. And that even happens in a dream. But that seems to fit Matthew's purpose. Matthew isn't interested in the ...

1318. Is Your Sin My Business?

Ezekiel 33:1-20

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

"So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them a warning from me. If I say to the wicked, O wicked man, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way; he shall die in his iniquity, but you will have saved your life." Is ...

1319. Forgive To Be Forgiven

Genesis 50:15-21

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, "It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil which we did to him." So they sent a message to Joseph saying, "Your father gave this command before he died, ‘Say to Joseph, Forgive, I pray you, the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.’ And now, we pray you, forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father." Joseph wept when they spoke to him. His brothers also ...

1320. God Notices

Amos 8:1-14

Sermon

John W. Wurster

It was the best of times. A time of prosperity and confidence, a time of relative peace, a time when most everything looked pretty good, a time when most everyone felt pretty good. It was a time maybe not unlike our own time. In such a time, among such a people, naysayers are hardly welcome. Who wants to hear about the bad that could be coming in the future when what’s going on in the present looks so good? Who wants to hear protests when the prevailing winds of prosperity are blowing so strongly? Who ...

1321. True or False?

Isaiah 1:1-31

Sermon

John W. Wurster

“Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom. Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah” (1:10; cf. Genesis 19). Sodom. Gomorrah. Remember? Places of wickedness, of violence, of perversity. Do you know any place like that? Places where sexuality is twisted and relationships are corrupted and social order is breaking down? Places where people seek to gratify personal desires at the expense of others, where individual pursuits take precedence over common well-being, where anything goes as ...

1322. Strong in Faith: A Little Dab'll Do Ya

1 Corinthians 16:13

Sermon

John E. Harnish

Have Faith: Everything changes. Some things never change. I grew up in the nostalgic days, the "Happy Days" of the 1950's. Our fathers, without a doubt the "Greatest Generation," returned from a world torn by war to build a new world out of their hopes and dreams. They began by giving birth to the largest generation in history, the Baby Boomers. Born in 1947, I was one of the first. It was a time of great vitality and optimism, a time of peace after the trauma of two world wars. And it was a time when a ...

1323. Lean on Me

Luke 18:1-8

Sermon

John Wayne Clarke

One of the tangible benefits of reading the Bible is that we discover that God calls people to service in areas they may not have thought possible. People often discover that with God's help they are able to reach deep within themselves and find strength they did not know existed. Back in the '60s, Bill Withers sang, "Lean on me when you're not strong, and I'll be your friend, I'll help you carry on." For most of us, it is not until we find ourselves unable to carry on that we discover that with God we can ...

1324. The End of Time

Luke 21:5-19

Sermon

John Wayne Clarke

No reading of Luke is complete without coming to realize that Luke is concerned that the world understands that Jesus is the hope of the world and that any teaching that leads away from that fact is a false teaching. No matter what, no matter when, Jesus will be there to give us life. In our own time, there have been those who have predicted that the end was near because of some tragedy that has shaken our world. Each time some doomsday people took from that awful event that God was getting ready to shut ...

1325. New Covenant, New Testament

Jeremiah 31:27-34

Sermon

John Wayne Clarke

Our reading today from the prophet Jeremiah is one in which the Hebrew people, not knowing what else to do in terms of addressing their predicament, decide to blame it all on God. They believed their problems to be the result of their sins and the sins of their fathers. Of course, one person's sin does indeed affect other people, but all people are still held personally accountable for the sin in their own lives (Deuteronomy 24:16; Ezekiel 18:2). This theme would later be taken up in the New Testament as ...

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