Sermon and Worship Resources

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John 3:1-21

Sermon

Robert Allen

... think of God as looking at us and waiting for us to make a mistake. It is easy for us to believe that God is some kind of vengeful God who is going to punish us when we step out of line. But the tremendous thing about this Gospel in miniature is that it affirms that God loves us simply because we are his children. More years ago than I like to remember, I volunteered to deliver the morning paper for a friend of mine. He was going to be gone during the Christmas recess from school and he needed someone ...

2. The Gospel in Miniature

John 3:16

Sermon

King Duncan

... of redemption.” John 3:16 has had that effect on many people. That is why, even though our lesson from the Gospels for the day is John 3:1-17, we’re going to focus our attention on this one verse. Martin Luther called John 3:16, “the Gospel in Miniature.” If all you had of the New Testament was this one verse, it would be enough to save your soul. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” We’ve heard ...

3. Winners, Losers and the Gospel

Mt 16:25

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... can befall the minister as he wins new members, or the salesman as he wins new accounts, or the politician as he wins another election. Years ago an extended family was vacationing in a resort area, and one morning several family members decided to go miniature golfing. Included in the number was a young lad. No one expects a child to play miniature golf as an adult would, and inevitably this young lad’s score was considerably higher than the adult scores. Walking up the road back to their cottage, the ...

4. Weather Signs

Luke 12:49-53

Sermon Aid

William E. Keeney

... Kingdom. In the Philippines in a certain area daily labor rates are only two dollars or less. A Christian organization helped a local group make baskets and provided a market for them in North American. These basket-weavers then could earn five dollars a day Near Calcutta, India, women making miniature dolls thought fifty cents for a six- to eight-hour day was a great wage. Other women in the area carried bricks and gravel on their heads for 25 cents a day for local construction. The ...

5. Lite - Or Light?

Matthew 5:13-16

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

... , off the earth. If it weren't for this dispersion of light, there would only be the sun and darkness. But because of the miracle of how light works, each particle of matter becomes a miniature sun. Likewise, in the Christian faith, the light of God's love is dispersed and reflected off each one of us, so that we become miniature gods in the world. When our two new windows were being designed, the artist made it clear that the beauty of the windows would be dependent upon the whim of the light - the sun ...

6. Our Ultimate Destination

Revelation 21:1-6a

Sermon

Lee Ann Dunlap

... route to accommodate the expanding automobile traffic of the early twentieth century. •I-70 — the first Interstate Highway commissioned to transect the nation. A bit further west of that bridge on U.S. 40 is the Zane Grey National Road Museum, where panoramic scenes with miniature people and animals tell the story of how this first federally funded highway in the Northwest Territory united the cities of the east with the wilderness territory beyond the Appalachian Mountains and helped to forge a nation ...

7. Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Matthew 21:28-32

Children's Sermon

Marti Kramer Suddarth

Materials Needed: Miniature candy bars, one per child; Full-sized candy bar; Card stock printed with scripture reference and verses; Assistant (Speaker approaches children and calls to Assistant.) Speaker: Hey, Assistant, stand right here. I’m going to give you a present. ( ... also help us, Lord, to be careful what we say and to be careful that what we do matches our words. Thank you for all of the help and protection you give. In Jesus’ name. Amen. Give each child a miniature candy bar after the prayer.

8. An Announcement from the Wilderness

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

King Duncan

... different kind of analogy. He told of a village with a huge statue. This statue was so immense you couldn’t see exactly what it was supposed to represent. Finally, someone miniaturized the statue so one could see the person it honored. Origen said, “That is what God did in his Son.” In Colossians 1 Paul tells us Christ is the self-miniaturization of God, the visible icon or image of the invisible God. In Christ we have God in a comprehensible way. In Christ we have God’s own personal and definitive ...

9. The Perisitent Noise Of Solemn Assemblies

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... , what do they mean -- that they have found the truth about chemistry or physics or atomic energy in Jesus? Hardly that! Do they mean that in Jesus they have discovered all the truth of the world and universe, that Jesus is some sort of highly compressed, miniaturized computer from which answers to all questions issue forth? Surely not that. No, Christians mean, it seems to me, that in Jesus they have seen the truth about the nature of man and the nature of God. It is not that they believe that by looking ...

10. God's Power Over Death

Exodus 1:1-22, 2:1-10

Sermon

Steve Burt

... for three months until she cannot hide him any longer. She's got her back against the wall, knows she's got to do something, and that's when she and her daughter (Moses' sister) cook up this plan. They waterproof a wicker cradle to transform it into a miniature Noah's Ark. Into it goes baby Moses. They place the wicker basket in the reeds at the water's edge, making it appear that it's washed up by an act of providence. The mother and the sister are aware that the Pharaoh's daughter, the princess, regularly ...

11. The Spreading Word

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

Marc Kolden

... as the word of Christ comes to us. Then we not only see God but we see God's world and our fellow creatures. If we focus first on our response, on what kind of soil we are, we remain turned in on ourselves. Then we domesticate Jesus, we "miniaturize" him (as someone has said), to make his word fit into our ways instead of using our ears to hear him and be pulled outside of our preoccupation with ourselves. There is a helpful clue in our gospel reading itself, which we have skipped over until now. It starts ...

12. The Wind Sock

Children's Sermon

Kenneth Mortonson

Purpose: To show that we need God's love and wisdom to give our lives proper direction. Materials: A cloth in the form of a wind sock (miniature size). Lesson: A wind sock, like this, is often used in a small airport to show in a general way, the force and direction of the wind. With this small make-believe wind sock, we can see how it works. Being inside, we can get the same effect of wind ...

13. We Are the Church

Hebrews 3:6

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

Object: Some bricks, wood, a miniature tent. Good morning, boys and girls. I have some very strange things with me today. (Show them the bricks, the wood and the tent.) Why do you suppose I brought these bricks and this wood with me to church? (Let them guess.) Well, today we are going to talk about ...

14. The Dining Room

John 14:1-4

Eulogy

Richard F. Bansemer

... our Lord tells us, "In my Father's house are many ruoms," where do you see ___________? Where do you expect to see her later? Is it not gathered around the heavenlytable, where our God reunites us through the power of Christ? Aren't all our dinner tables miniature altar tables? Isn't the church building nothing but one great big dining room? We sit gathered around a table called an altar and worship.When Jesus began his ministry on this earth he did it in the kitchen of a bride's home in Cana of Galilee ...

15. Children of the Eighth Day

Romans 6:1-14

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... for God’s sake. Share your income to build a better world. Receive a new incentive; have joy! Still another person said, "Sir, I’ve married a wife. We are starting on our honeymoon. I cannot come." Wait a minute. Your home is the kingdom of God in miniature. Take God with you into this marriage. Let him be born in your children. Let him love through your home and bring strength to other homes. Let God be with you in the joys and sorrows of your life together, family activities shot through with the love ...

16. The True Nature of Happiness

Luke 6:17-26

Sermon

Brett Blair

... human faces. The crowd represented a cross section of humanity. There were rich and poor, young and old, doubtless varied races, those who were astute business men and those who were failures. In fact, the crowd that Jesus spoke to that day represented the world in miniature. Yet, as different as they all were, Jesus understood that they were all on the same quest. They were all after the same thing. They all wanted happiness. Well, we are just like them aren’t we? Isn’t that what we want for ourselves ...

17. The Wolf and the Lamb Inside Us

Isaiah 11:1-16

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... the neighborhood cats had panic attacks. I had to shut up my dog in order to quiet him. My dog was terribly misnamed. He was a big, burly, 100- pounds of muscle, but we called him "Precious." I mean, you expect a "Precious" to be a miniature poodle, or a Pekinese, or a toy terrier, but not a massive creature who just a generation or two from a wolf. Precious attacked cats instinctively. I think in his genetic computer, a cat resembled a rabbit, and therefore was perceived as suitable prey. When I imagine ...

18. What Is Heaven Like?

Matthew 13:44-46, Matthew 13:31-35

Sermon

Brett Blair

... field joint of the Solid Rocket Booster to stop gases from escaping. Whether it was the unusually cold weather, a contaminate introduced into the zinc putty used on them, any number of potential compression problems, or human error during manufacturing, these two miniature o-rings failed to do what they were designed to do, and the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded before the watching world, 73 seconds into her flight, claiming the lives of all seven crew members. It's the little things. Tiny viruses the ...

19. The Vicarious Servant

Isaiah 52:13--53:12

Sermon

Donald Macleod

... want a plain one or one of those with the little man on it?" Some years ago while fulfilling an engagement at St. Olaf’s College in Northfield, Minnesota, I was invited to visit a small room in the library where there was a display of many miniature crosses made by one member of the faculty. Along with the group of visitors was the distinguished Roman Catholic Cardinal Willebrands of the Netherlands who paused before a crucifix, that is, a cross with the model of the body of Jesus on it. He pointed out to ...

20. A Maverick Son

2 Samuel 15:13-37

Illustration

Larry Powell

... the poor person who dares to point out that child’s shortcomings in front of that child’s parents. Love does not always operate within the limits of rationality. The tragic story of David and his maverick son is favorably compared to the Gospel in miniature. In it are shades of Adam’s folly, Israel’s rebellion against God, the Prodigal Son, and many other instances of flagrant misconduct. But in them all, the Bible’s theme of transcending love emerges most clearly. Not even the murder of God’s ...

21. A Man With Lips on Fire

Isaiah 6:1-13

Sermon

R. Blaine Detrick

... Bible divided? Two sections - the Old Testament and the New Testament, with 39 books in the Old and 27 in the New! Just a coincidence? Make up your own mind. I don’t think so. Coincidence or not, the book of Isaiah is the whole Bible in miniature. The book of Isaiah is not an easy book to read. Its language is difficult; to translate it is difficult; to understand it is often difficult. It is disorganized; it has little continuity; it is mixed up, chronologically. But it is certainly worth all the time ...

22. Mary's Song

Micah 5:1-4

Sermon

King Duncan

... his office, he saw a small group of people and two police officers gathered ouside the glass window to the church nursery. Bruce looked into the nursery to see a man sitting there. He was around thirty, extremely skinny, dirty, and ragged. He was sitting at a miniature table looking at a children's book. He didn't seem to notice the small crowd of concerned parishioners outside the nursery window. Everyone turned to Bruce, asking him what he was going to do. Bruce didn't know. No one seemed to know the man ...

23. Surprised By Christmas

Isaiah 9:1-7

Sermon

King Duncan

... the thrift shop to buy the doll house. He gathered paint and fabric and tools and proceeded to "renovate" the beat- up doll house. He even wallpapered the kitchen. Six weeks later, the doll house sparkled. It was now a colorful dream home, complete with miniature furnishings. Something even Santa could not improve upon. In the cold, gray dawn of Christmas Day, Rick loaded his treasure into his car and drove over to the little girl's house. He gently cleared the snow from the front steps and carefully placed ...

24. Learning From A Little Child

Isaiah 35:1-10

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... prosperous and caring parents showered her with expensive gifts in an effort to overcome this unfortunate circumstance. There were great overstuffed animals, including a six-foot tall giraffe, dolls, dollhouses and games of every description. The room was transformed into a miniature "Toys-R-Us." Every time her parents came to the hospital they brought another present. But they were never able to stay very long for they were always running off to some luncheon, dinner party or society function. One day the ...

25. Can A Christian Brag?

Ephesians 2:8

Children's Sermon

King Duncan

Object: a miniature basketball and basketball goal (like the kind some people hang over small garbage cans) Good morning, boys and girls. Do any of you like to play basketball? It's a fun game. Can you tell me how to play it? That's right, every time you throw the ball through ...

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