Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: simon, simeon, caphas, disciple, evangelist, the 12, the twelve, apostle, fisherman, petros, rock, stone

Showing 2026 to 2050 of 2105 results

2026. A Voice Out Of The Cloud

Luke 9:28-36

Sermon

James Garrett

Today we celebrate the Transfiguration Of Our Lord. We will soon begin the Lenten Journey. Often Lent is abused. It has in certain times and places become a period of empty abstinence from tidbits of affluence, and the enjoyment of gloom of self-denial. This is not the purpose of Lent. These 40 days should be a period of engagement with God, of repentance and prayer and a renewal of our baptismal vows. Lent looks towards God’s act in the cross and the resurrection. Lent is the opportunity to move within ...

2027. Chosen as Witnesses

Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. By his great power we have been born anew to a living hope through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead ..." "Thanks be to God who gives us the victory ..." "The Lord God omnipotent reigns and he shall reign for ever and ever. Hallelujah!" It is a glorious day. It is a day which celebrates the pivotal experience in the Christian faith. It is the day on which we celebrate the power of the Living God, not only to give life, but to sustain it ...

2028. Forgiveness Forever

Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon

Peter's question touches life where we live it, too: "How much forgiving can we be expected to do?" Peter wondered if there was not some cap, which could be imposed in advance, a limit beyond which no reasonable person could be expected to go. In his liberal human generosity, he suggested seven times. Now, if you have been hurt once and again and yet again by another, I think you will understand that forgiving that person seven times is genuinely generous. Even impossibly generous, you might add under your ...

2029. Don't Give Up Too Soon!

Acts 15:36-41

Sermon

Harold Warlick

These are very exciting times in which to live. Eastern Europeans in communist countries are enjoying freedoms they have waited for, for 30 years. Nelson Mandela is free after 27 years of being in prison in South Africa. Perhaps it's hard for us to comprehend the faith and the hope which sustained these people for so long. Why didn't they give up sooner? Why not just accept failure, quit, drop out, transfer somewhere else, hang it up? One of my joys in life was visiting the famous Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam ...

2030. Fog-Clearing Moments

Matthew 17:1-13

Sermon

Remember that fog we had last November? I had to venture into it early that Sunday morning. I left home about 6:00 a.m., long before most people even thought about getting up. The fog was dense. My automobile headlights would not cut it. Visibility was reduced to about ten feet. I turned on my dimmer lights and hoped that on-coming traffic would do the same. As I drove, I felt like my car was pushing through a tunnel of smoke. I was able to drive from my house to the church because I had driven along that ...

2031. Can We Love Too Much?

Deuteronomy 6:1-25

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

Can we love each other too much? How much is too much? In a southern city newspaper there was an ad inviting people to a seminar entitled, “Women who love too much.” Some time ago a young widow told her pastor how deeply she had loved her husband and that she sometimes felt guilty because maybe she loved him too much. She added, “Sometimes I wonder if I loved my husband too much. Could that be the reason God took him away from me?” Can we love God too much? In a recent church magazine a retired pastor ...

2032. Send Me

Isaiah 6:1-13

Sermon

Charles Curley

It was the year of the dying of the king, when Isaiah saw the Lord, high and lifted up in the incense-shrouded heights of the sanctuary. When he heard God say, "Whom shall I send?" he replied simply, "Here am I, send me!" It was the year when the priests robbed the people in the name of God, when Samuel heard the Lord, as he was waking from sleep by the ark in the temple at Shiloh. When he heard God say, "Samuel," he replied simply, "Here I am ... speak, Lord, for your servant is listening." It was the ...

2033. The Problem With Miracles In Our Time

Matthew 14:22-36

Sermon

William J. Carl

If the truth be known, most of us would have to admit that we walk a very fine line between believing and not believing. There are times in our lives when, yes, we do seem to believe all these things we say about God when we read the Bible and sing the hymns in our own churches. There are even times when we’d say, yes, we feel close to God, whatever that means. But there are also those desert times in our lives when we wonder whether or not we believe any of it at all anymore: God, Jesus, the church, ...

2034. Finding Our Roots

Luke 9:28-36

Sermon

John M. Braaten

Ever since Alex Haley’s novel, Roots, hit the bookstands in the mid-70s, there has been an increasing number of people interested in their heritage. Many people buy computers and get on the internet primarily to keep track of their family tree. Parish secretaries are often called upon to do research for people investigating their family heritage. It is clear that many persons have been motivated to search through history in an attempt to find their roots. As one newspaper columnist wrote, "The once fabled ...

2035. Doing Our Homework

Matthew 9:9-13

Sermon

Larry Goodpaster

Whenever the “new” bumps up against the “old” there is bound to be friction. It happens within the community where we live. Someone -- an elected leader or would-be community change agent -- comes along with a new idea, seeing new possibilities for the future, and there is a vocal hesitation. “Why should we change?” the long-time residents complain. “Things are just fine the way they always have been!” The inevitable conflict grows between those who advocate change for a different way of living in the ...

2036. Keeping In Touch… With The Lord

Exodus 33:12-23

Sermon

Walter Kimbrough

God created us to be social beings. Life is not intended to be experienced in total isolation though moments of solitude are therapeutic. We live on the planet earth with other people and so it is essential for every person to develop meaningful relationships with significant others. Each person is introduced into society through a family unit, the most fundamental organism in existence today. Human relationships do not automatically survive and certainly do not thrive without constant nurturing. In other ...

2037. Why Aspire to Sainthood?

Daniel 7:1-14

Sermon

Today on the church calendar is designated All Saints’ Sunday. It is a time for remembering persons who through the generations have been so outstanding in faith and ministry that their lives have been a special blessing to all who have known them. As someone has said, they have adorned the Gospel of Jesus Christ, though it might be better to say they received the Gospel so fully that it adorned and glorified them. Who are the saints? How many can you name? Saint Peter? Saint Stephen? Saints Matthew, Mark ...

2038. The Two Washings

John 13:1-17

Sermon

Dean Lueking

On this Maundy Thursday let us ponder again the Cross of Christ our Savior and its consequences for us all. One way to approach such a task as this is to direct our thinking to two washings that take place in connection with the passion of Christ. The first one is described by the Evangelist Matthew: So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, "I am innocent of this man ‘s blood, see to it yourselves." ( ...

2039. The Friday We Call Good

John 18:1-11

Sermon

Dean Lueking

A Strange Title for This Day We call this Friday - good. I recall a comment by a person who challenged this tradition of calling the day of Jesus’ crucifixion a good day. She told me that there was enough betrayal, denial, violence, bloodshed and death in the world. The idea of coming together in a church to hear of all this as it was heaped on Jesus was too much for her. She could not hear of it without coming to tears, or feeling a combination of outrage and depression. From Other Traditions But still we ...

2040. The Cost of Discipleship

Luke 14:25-35

Sermon

Brett Blair

The mark of a great leader is the demands he makes upon his followers. The Italian freedom fighter Garibaldi offered his men only hunger and death to free Italy. Winston Churchill told the British people that he had nothing to offer them but "blood, sweat, toil, and tears" in their fight against their enemies. Jesus spoke of the necessity of total commitment -even to the point of death. He conveyed this in no uncertain terms when he said to his disciples, “You must take up your cross and follow me.” Why ...

2041. The Sounds at the Summit

Exodus 19:1-25

Sermon

Shortly before dawn one morning a couple years ago, a gasoline pipeline erupted and a terrible fire flared up right down the middle of a suburban St. Paul, Minnesota, street. A woman delivering newspapers was caught in the flames; her car ignited and she was severely burned, but survived. People were awakened to discover flames shooting higher than telegraph poles. "The whole neighborhood is on fire," was one person’s description. In one home, a father woke up his wife, told her to get her daughter while ...

2042. Interrupting Worship

Mark 1:21-28

Sermon

Jesus could have told you his own story. It happened early in his ministry. He stood up in the synagogue in Capernaum- He was what we might call a guest preacher that day. It was going very well, because unlike the other teachers who merely quoted from the authorities, Jesus spoke as one having authority. Then it happened! A demon –possessed man stood up and shouted and interrupted the worship service. He screamed and shouted and made insensible sounds. What do we do when the community of faith is ...

2043. The Master Has Come - To Build His Church

Mark 16:1-20

Sermon

I remember being on a trip in Tennessee and coming to a crossroads. One road went to Copperhill; the other went to Norris Dam. There at the crossroads was a little white frame church. The church stands at every crossroad. The Christian Church was no accident. It did not just happen. It was not merely a sociological phenomenon, a quirk of history. It was not founded upon a lie, an idea, a philosophy, hope, a dream, a delusion. It was planned, intended, constructed, trained, sent, commissioned, blessed, ...

2044. Count Me In!

Isaiah 56:1-8

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

"My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples." He drew a circle that shut me out - Heretic, Rebel, a thing to flout! But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in! The world is forever drawing circles that shut people out. In a polite way we say, "By invitation only" or "Reserved." Books are copyrighted so that no one, except by permission, may duplicate any portion of them. Trade names, such as "Coca-Cola" and "Orkin," are registered to prevent others from copying ...

2045. The Easter Event - After The Resurrection

Matthew 28:1-10

Sermon

Robert Allen

A community-wide Easter pageant was planned, and people from all over the county tried out for various parts. The part of Mary Magdalene was given to a Catholic nun, a local doctor became Peter, a high school principle became Judas, and Caiphais, the hypocritical high priest, was played by a local banker. It was relatively easy selecting the people for the various parts in the Easter pageant. However, the part of Jesus was difficult to cast. No one seemed to fit the director’s idea of what Jesus would be ...

2046. Give Us A New Name!

Isaiah 61:1-11

Sermon

Frederick C. Edwards

What’s in a name? Apparently more than we sometimes realize. Our names are important to us. They carry the message of who we are. Parents think carefully of what to name a new child. How is it going to sound when that child grows to adulthood? Will it be dignified? Distinctive? Pleasant? We want names that will not be embarrassing or cause people to make jokes of them. Probably all of us have been amused by someone’s unfortunate name; one probably chosen by a parent who failed to think of the long term ...

2047. Paul - Persecutor, but Participant

1 Corinthians 10:14-22

Sermon

Carl E. Zahrte

Did you notice something different this week? If you have been present for the Lenten services during the past six weeks, you know that this is the first week you did not sing that song, "Were You There, When They Crucified My Lord?" And I cannot say that I was there, either. No, I did not see them nail him to the tree, and I was not with Jesus and the apostles on that night when he was betrayed, that night when he met with them and broke bread with them around a table in the upper room. In fact, in the ...

2048. Two Doors; One Choice

Luke 13:22-30

Sermon

W. Robert McClelland

In The Lady And The Tiger, Frank Stoc_esermonskton sets before the reader the dilemma of a gladiator who faces his fate in the arena standing before two doors. He must choose which of them to open. Behind one door waits a hungry tiger. Behind the other, a lovely maiden. Jesus presents us with a similar dilemma in this parable. Behind one door to the kingdom waits the tiger of divine wrath. Behind the other door stands the fair maiden of grace. The parable is offered in response to the worried question, ...

2049. Dinner Parties With A Difference

Luke 7:36-50

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

Religious leaders have had varying attitudes regarding dinner parties. Take John the Baptist, for instance. It is unlikely you would ever have gotten him inside a fine house around a beautiful table of exquisite crystal and china and gourmet food. That rustic, ascetic outdoorsman probably would have thought it a waste of time and money, an unnecessary frill to the essentials of life. Many men today call themselves "meat and potatoes" men. No fancy foods for them. Just the basics. Forget all the fuss and ...

2050. God On His Knees

John 13:1-17

Sermon

Don M. Aycock

The scene is the upper room. Jesus and his 12 close followers are gathered for this, the last time. Only two of them know that fact. The meal begins. Small talk flows, but then the volume and intensity of feeling rise. John tells us that a dispute has broken out among the disciples. The question surfaces: "Who is the greatest disciple?" All join in, "I am the greatest." You can bet that Peter has his say and Matthew, for he is vocal also, and Bartholomew and John. Each in turn extols his own virtue, ...

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