Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 26 to 50 of 80 results

Luke 18:9-14

Bulletin Aid

H. Burnham Kirkland

Call To Worship Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Humble yourself before the Lord, and he will lift you up. Come, let us worship together. Collect Almighty God, you are the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. We live in an era of changing customs and lifestyles. We are bombarded on every side by advice to nurture our self-esteem, to put our own welfare first, and to pursue our own ...

27. Proper 25

Luke 18:9-14, Joel 2:18-27, Joel 2:28-32, 2 Timothy 3:10--4:8, 2 Timothy 4:9-18

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

COMMENTARY Old Testament: Joel 2:23-32 After the plague of locusts Yahweh will bless the land with plenty and with his spirit. Today's Lesson 1 is taken from the latest of the prophetic books written in the post-exilic period around 400-350 B.C. Judah experienced a plague of locusts accompanied by drought and famine. Joel calls upon the people to gather in Jerusalem to repent and pray for relief....

28. Proper 25

Luke 18:9-14

Bulletin Aid

Dennis Koch

Gospel Note The parable of the pridefully pious Pharisee and the sinful but suppliant tax collector is an object-lesson in God's grace. Apparently, trying to achieve divine acceptance with one's own righteousness is a fruitless exercise in self-confidence and pride, while acknowledging one's own unworthiness in humility and relying on God's mercy yields justification and even exaltation. Liturgic...

29. Proper 25

Joel 2:28-32, Joel 2:18-27, Psalm 65:1-13, 2 Timothy 4:9-18, Luke 18:9-14

Bulletin Aid

B. David Hostetter

Call to Worship Happy are you to choose to be here, having been chosen by God to be brought near to worship in God's sanctuary. Be satisfied with the goodness of this house of prayer. Prayer of Confession Great God, mighty and awesome, you are above all pettiness and unmoved by cheap bargaining. Forgive our stubborn narrowness. Our preference for people just like us, our suspicions about those al...

30. Proper 25

Psalm 65:1-13, Luke 18:9-14, Joel 2:28-32, 2 Timothy 4:9-18, 2 Timothy 3:10--4:8

Sermon Aid

William E. Keeney

TWO MEN PRAYING The parable about two men praying would have shocked the people to whom Jesus told it. He drew upon two well-known and widely accepted stereotypes. First is the Pharisee, who was generally regarded as the epitome of the religious person. Most Jewish families would have been proud to have their son grow up to be a Pharisee. The second was a publican. He was the epitome of the sinne...

31. An Adaption of Luke 18:9-14

Luke 18:9-14

Drama

Note: This is a choral reading. The six people can either stand or sit, separated from the congregation, or remain scattered through the church and rise to read their individual parts. 1: Jesus told this parable for the benefit of anyone who is caught up in the importance of his own goodness and despises everyone else. Jesus told this parable for the benefit of anyone who is willing to hear it. ...

32. Why Jesus Likes Sinners

Luke 18:9-14

Children's Sermon

King Duncan

Object: A dandelion (Or some other weed) Good morning, boys and girls. Anybody who tries to keep a beautiful lawn or a lovely flower bed is familiar with the problem of weeds. Weeds are those plants that don't seem to have any particular value or beauty but they grow right there with your grass or flowers. Like this dandelion. And yet, did you know that in many places in the world dandelions are ...

33. The Problem With Keeping All The Rules

Luke 18:9-14

Children's Sermon

King Duncan

Object: Picture of a camel Good morning, boys and girls. What is this picture I have in my hand? That's right, it's a picture of a camel. Today, I'm going to tell you a story by Rudyard Kipling about the problem of pride and how the camel got its hump. When God first created the earth and all the animals, He gave each of the animals a different job. All of the animals did their work, except the ...

34. Is It Wrong for Us to Brag?

Luke 18:14

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

Object: Two paper bags. Good morning, boys and girls, and how are you today? Isn’t it good to have the world so nice and warm? I love warm weather, because there are so many nice things that I can do when it’s warm. I like picnics and swimming and playing ball and riding bikes and going on hikes and camping out and just so many things. Anyway, it’s good to have the warm weather. Say, I brought so...

35. Who Is Worth More?

Luke 18:9-14

Children's Sermon

Object: A fifty-cent piece and a dime. Good morning, boys and girls. I want to tell you a story about two friends of mine, Harley Half-Dollar and Dimmy the Dime. Now I call them both my friends, but let me show you why one of them means a little more to me than the other. One day I picked up Harley Half-Dollar and Dimmy Dime and put them in my pocket. On the way to where I was going I could hear...

36. God’s Great Chalkboard

Luke 18:9-14

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

Object: A chalkboard, chalk, and eraser. Good morning, boys and girls. Today we are going to learn something by using a very familiar friend in a different way. [Bring out the chalkboard.] How many of you have used a chalkboard before? What do you do with a chalkboard? [Let them answer.] That’s right, you write on it with chalk. I have a piece of chalk and I will write down some things like 2+2=4...

37. Pride Is a Noxious Weed in the Garden of Life

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

R. Robert Cueni

The gospel reading for this week is the parable about two very different men, a Pharisee and a tax collector who went to pray at the Temple in Jerusalem. It is a familiar story. In fact, it is so familiar that some of the surprising edge has worn smooth with the retelling. To grasp its meaning more fully, we need to listen again with fresh ears and open hearts. A little background information migh...

38. Our Most Common Sin

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

What do you think is humanity’s most common sin? What do you think is your most common sin? There’s an old story about three preachers—a Baptist, an Episcopalian and a Methodist—who lived in the same community and became rather close. They played golf together and met for coffee. One day they decided that they’d spend two days together just to share and get acquainted, to study a little, to talk ...

39. Can You Hear the Music?

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Who doesn’t like an “attaboy!” when they do something good? It’s why we have “honor society” in school. It is the reason we have scholarship awards as we head into college. “Attaboy!” stands behind all those accolades high achievers get throughout life — Rhode’s scholarships, purple hearts, Silver stars, gold statues, merit raises for school teachers, making partner in a big firm, getting re-elect...

40. Begging and Bragging

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

Scott Bryte

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give...

41. Thanks, But No Thanks

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

There's an old "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip in which Calvin is talking to his stuffed tiger Hobbes (whom he imagines to be real and his best friend). He says: "People are so self-centered." Then he adds philosophically, "The world would be a better place if people would stop thinking about themselves and focus on others for a change." Hobbes sort of rolls his eyes and thinks aloud, "Gee, I wo...

42. License to Steal

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

So what do you think? Should we manufacture money that doesn’t really exist in order to buy up debts, stimulate banks to lend, and jumpstart our economy? Or do we tighten our belts and hold our breath? For most of us, trying to figure out the monetary wizardry of our economic gurus is about as easy as figuring out how magician David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty “disappear.” Maybe in the...

43. Are We on Speaking Terms with the Almighty?

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

Eric Ritz

As we open our splendid scripture lesson today, we see the story of two men who go to the same synagogue. They go to the synagogue for the same reason--to pray--yet they experience such different results. One goes to pray to God, and the other goes and hopes God overhears his litany of how good he is. I believe these two characters represent in a very real way our approach to prayer. We, too, shif...

44. Are We On Speaking Terms With The Almighty?

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

Eric Ritz

TV evangelists have taken a beating in the media in recent years. You may have heard the story of the Hindu priest, the Jewish rabbi and the TV evangelist who were caught in the same area by a terrific thunderstorm. They sought shelter at a farmhouse. "That storm will be raging for hours," the farmer told them. "You'd better stay here for the night. The problem is, there's only room enough for tw...

45. What Impresses God

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

James Merritt

There was a very lost, wicked, rebellious man who decided it would be good for business if he went down to the church and joined it. He was an adulterer, an alcoholic, and had never been a member of a church in his life. But when he went down to the altar to join the church, he gave public testimony to the church that there was no sin in his life, and that he had grown up in the church, and they ...

46. Why Jesus Likes Sinners

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

King Duncan

Jesus continually shocks us. No wonder the people of his own day crucified him. He wouldn't be too popular in our community. At least not among the better people in town. It is almost as if he preferred to associate with the disreputable, the rejects, the rubble of humanity. "Two men went up to pray," he said on one occasion, "a Pharisee and a tax collector." Now the audience was suppose to hiss a...

47. Worship Wars!

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

Stephen M. Crotts

We pastors call it The Worship Wars. One can see the frowning battlements in the faces seated in pews, hear the rumble of its artillery in negative comments, and feel the white heat of its lethal shrapnel in board meetings. "It's boring!" "Why, those songs are so old, every time I sing them I get a backache!" "Worship is becoming a nightclub act! What will we do next?" "Choruses are 7-11 worsh...

48. Pride: The Deadliest of the Seven Deadly Sins

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

R. Curtis Fussell

Girolamo Savonarola was one of the great preachers of the fifteenth century. He preached in the great cathedral of Florence, Italy, which contained a magnificent marble statue of the blessed virgin Mary. When Savonarola started preaching at this great cathedral, he noticed one day an elderly woman praying before this statue of Mary. He then began to notice that it was her habit to come every day a...

49. A Lesson From Prayers Overheard

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

Theodore F. Schneider

We Watched His Eyes! It was late New Year's Day when the showdown finally came. The number one and two college bowl teams in the nation were set to fight it out in the Fiesta Bowl at Tempe, Arizona, deciding who would lay claim to being the "Beast of the East" and the best in the nation. Among those who predict such things, there was agreement that the nation's number one team would remain numbe...

50. Proper 25

Psalm 65:1-13, Joel 2:23-32, Luke 18:9-14, 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18

Bulletin Aid

B. David Hostetter

READINGS Psalter—Psalm 65 First Lesson—The prophet promises that good times will compensate for hard times. Joel 2:23-32 Second Lesson—The apostle Paul’s second letter to Timothy draws to a close. 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18 Gospel—In a parable Jesus teaches us how and how not to pray. Luke 18:9-14 CALL TO WORSHIP Leader: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. People: And also with you. L...

Showing 26 to 50 of 80 results