Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 226 to 250 of 4999 results

226. Whatever Happened To Sanctification?

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Durwood L. Buchheim

... have not been repealed - they are still in force. But it is even more important to know and believe that God’s commandments are not a burden. There used to be a television show where Maude says to Walter, "God will get you for that, Walter!" We laugh, but that kind of popular religion goes deeper than many of us want to admit. We seem to be born with the attitude or feeling that our God is against us and somehow needs to be bought off. This means that if we don’t obey God’s commandments, God will get ...

227. Come Home!

Isaiah 60:1-22

Sermon

Richard L. Eslinger

... , too, should be carved into that new monument in Washington - that black granite gash in the earth that memorializes the Vietnam war dead. For there are many who won’t be coming home and, living or dead, we mourn them all. Without them, we live in a special kind of darkness: Israel’s darkness of waiting. Now in the midst of this darkness, the word of the Lord comes to Israel. A prophecy so divorced from the signs of the times that it sounds crazy. The Lord will rise upon you ... His glory will he seen ...

228. It's O.K. To Be Extravagant

John 12:1-11

Sermon

James W. Moore

... ? I have the money here to pay for it. It’s all that I have saved. If it isn’t enough, I will get the rest. Just tell me how much a miracle costs.” The pharmacist’s brother was a well-dressed man. He stooped down and asked Tess, “What kind of miracle does your brother need?” “I don’t know,” Tess replied, with her eyes welling up. “I just know he’s really sick and Mommy says he needs an operation. But my parents can’t pay for it, so I want to use my money.” “How much do you ...

229. The Ten Commandments #2: No Idols!

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... be used for the job. Over the Ark of Covenant God told them to sculpt two magnificent images of angels.(3) On the hem of the robe of the High Priest, God instructed that tailors include likenesses of pomegranates and bells.(4) If no images of any kind were allowed, God would never have had theses things done - God is not self-contradictory. So the implication is clear: God does not object to images, but when they are made as objects of worship, God calls a halt. One would think that such a commandment would ...

230. Humility You Can Be Proud Of

Micah 6:1-8

Sermon

King Duncan

... TO BE TOTALLY OUT OF TOUCH WITH THE VALUES OF OUR MODERN CULTURE. Consider this great verse from Micah that many of us memorized in our youth: "He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?" We would be in trouble if we put this verse up for a vote today. Who wants to walk humbly? Or take this verse from the Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." If you try ...

231. Worthy Is The Lamb

Revelation 5:1-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... just as we can measure how many jelly beans there are in a jar? For those of us who follow Jesus, there is an absolute standard for religious faith, and that standard is Jesus. "Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered . . ." Without Jesus we are free to believe all kinds of idiotic things about God. I have to be careful here. You know that I respect all the great religions of the world-I'm not one of these people who wave the flag and yell, "Hooray for our team. We're right, you're wrong." Bruce Melver in ...

232. Excited, Motivated, Changed!

Acts 2:14-41

Sermon

King Duncan

... the theater where she would be performing. All afternoon, she stood in front of the Broadway theater and grabbed people off the sidewalk to tell them that she would soon be working there. Wouldn't it be great to leave church this morning with that kind of excitement, that kind of enthusiasm--so that no matter how calm and sophisticated we look while we are inside these walls, we couldn't wait to get outside to share Christ's love with somebody else? That happened to the church on the day of Pentecost. Let's ...

233. Going Hard against the Grain

Matthew 5:33-37

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... and for coming up with outrageously creative and non-violent ways to respond to the meanness of this world. Just one of these kind of kingdom citizens in a family or church or town makes all the difference in the world. Someone has to start for one ... do to me. The four examples Jesus gives in verses 39 through 42 are all small in scale and face to face, the kinds of confrontations that took place in villages like Nazareth. Jesus had seen such things take place; they were not hypothetical but actual. If ...

234. The God Who Must Be Pursued

Matthew 7:7-12

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... he treats us all the time is the way we wish we treated each other even part of the time.”19 Love and mercy and kindness and service are always in style. They come from God. Know anyone like that here at Duncan? I know several. I may preach, but they ... enough asking for the right stuff and seeking the right person and knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door. We are changed into the kind of people who live out the Golden Rule and want the good things of God for everyone we meet. What is a saint? Just an ...

235. When Is Being Right Wrong?

Romans 3:19-28

Sermon

Rick Brand

... can have the joy of knowing that we have fulfilled our duty, done our share, proved our worth, contributed our portion, and been good. Paul talks a lot about the law and about a relationship with God created by obedience. These twelve rules of living do exactly the kind of things that Paul discovered in trying to keep the Jewish Law. First, the law has a way of inspiring us at the beginning to amend our ways, to try to do better, to dedicate ourselves to doing that which the law says. Number 3 urges us to ...

236. Matthew 7: 21-29

Matthew 7:24-29

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... of heaven.” The litmus test is a relational one: an intimate, heart-felt, spirit-linked communion with Jesus is the only way to be “known” by the One who will render final judgment “on that day.” Jesus now finishes with his fourth “two-kinds-of” analogies. The opposing types of houses contrasted here represent those who “hear” and “act” versus those who “hear” yet “do not act.” The warning from v.23 continues to be in force, however. Hearing and acting will not be enough. Jesus ...

237. Let's Get Ready to Rumble

Ephesians 6:10-20

Sermon

James Merritt

... man said, "We don't want him either do we coach?" The coach said, "No, we don't want him either." He said, "But there's the kind of guy that when you knock him down he gets up; you knock him down and he gets up; you knock him down again and he ... toward the one called Satan. On the one hand, many people ignore the devil; some even make fun of him. They think of the devil as some kind of a mythical figure like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Well, I want to say right up front, and I'm not ashamed to tell you ...

238. Parades and Crosses — The Challenge of Ministry

2 Corinthians 4:5-12

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... said the son as he shifted his weight and leaned forward in his chair. "But I had a similar feeling when our minister let me preach those two Youth Sundays. I felt good, almost natural up there. I felt as if people were really listening, really listening for a special kind of word they don't hear anywhere else. Besides, I got a lot of compliments!" "I understand, I think," said the father. "You did do a fine job up there, and I was mighty proud of you, as always. But let me play the devil's advocate for a ...

239. We Are At War

Ephesians 6:10-20

Sermon

James Merritt

... devil either. The Bible says in 2 Cor. 11:14 that "Satan transforms himself into an angel of light." (2 Cor. 11: 14 NKJV) If you could see the devil in bodily form, it would shock you how attractive he would look. It would even shock you how gracious and kind he could seem to be. You would never know that he is the most wicked force in the universe. I want you to understand this devil is interested in darkness and wickedness. We're so fond of saying that "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life ...

240. You Can't Fool God: Ananias and Sapphira

Acts 4:33 - 5:11

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... at the Motive behind what Ananias and Sapphira did. How did they get themselves into such a mess? And how can we avoid that kind of mess? First, a little background. The early church, in order to care for the hundreds of widows and orphans and the displaced who ... "was making a point, not setting a pattern." II. The Mess A. If truth be told, most of us have gotten caught up in that kind of thing as well. We've all told fish stories. We've all been like the one armed fisherman who caught one this big. We' ...

241. The Harvest of the Spirit, Part 1

Galatians 5:16-26

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... hear a call, to know what we are to do and how we are to be, and yet are helpless to respond? “There’s nothing more demeaning for most people than being apprehended from the pulpit and charged with the crime of not loving enough, not being gentle or kind enough, not suffering long enough, without having our rights read to us God only requires from us what he is wiling to do through us. “Every time we say, ‘I believe in the Holy Spirit, J.B. Phillips said, “we mean that we believe that there is a ...

242. Facing Our Fears with Faith

Matthew 10: 27-31

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... other hand fear can empower us. On the one hand fear can kill the soul; it can just take the spirit out of you. On the other hand, fear can thrill the soul. There is something about humanity that likes to live on the edge. Fear can create a kind of energy and excitement. How boring life would be if nothing ever scared us or got our attention in any way. We like living on the edge. How else can you explain our fascination with reality television? The worst example has to be NBC's “Fear Factor". People are ...

243. The Way Things Are

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

Sermon

John N. Brittain

... that the same God who had saved them in the past would do it again. There had been that hope when the Maccabbees led their revolt 160 years before the birth of Jesus, and the two centuries before and after his birth are often thought of as a kind of golden age of messianic pretenders. People were really looking expectantly for something. We read how in 45 AD a man named Theudas promised that if people followed him to the Jordan River at his word the waters would divide and they would walk across on dry land ...

244. Freedom Calling

Galatians 5:1-15

Sermon

April Yamasaki

... ! In the world of advertising, something is free if you don't have to pay for it; if there's no money down, no payments to make; if you get something for nothing — or at least two for the price of one! Galatians 5:1, 13-25 describes a different kind of freedom. It isn't free in the sense of no cost — in fact, this freedom was purchased at the great cost of Jesus' own life. It isn't something for nothing — in fact, it means becoming like slaves ourselves by giving our lives in love and service, just as ...

245. Jailhouse Rock

Acts 16:16-40

Sermon

King Duncan

... . Now how do Paul and Silas respond to this adverse situation? Quite nicely as it turns out. The writer of Acts tells us that about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Can you imagine what kind of attitude, what kind of faith you would have to have to have been beaten and thrown into prison and then break out that evening in song? I don’t know about you, but I suspect that if that had been me, I would have been on my cot in a fetal ...

246. Grace Upon Grace

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... it and shaking up the police officer badly. Instead of letting my friend go, without a ticket, the officer must write out a ticket, and then pay the fine himself. He must not allow my friend to pay for anything — even the coffee. Now that would be grace, the kind of grace the Bible speaks of, the grace of God.3 Victor Hugo makes the same point, that grace is never cheap for the giver in his marvelous novel Les Miserables, which most of us, today, know as a famous musical play and film. In the play and the ...

247. Re-Gifted but not Returned

Matthew 3:13-17

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... talking about the spirit of love. In her hurry to renounce her belief in God, the young lady also renounced any belief she may have in love, a renunciation that, if she’s like most college age girls I have known, she probably had no intention of making. So, what kind of gift is baptism exactly, and what can we do with it once we have received it? Baptism is, basically, three things: It is a symbol, it is a celebration, and it is an initiation. First, it is a symbol. It is a symbol of God’s grace, of God ...

248. The House on The Rock

Lk 6:12-49 · Mt 5:1-12

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... the sand. Make sand castles. Sand castles are not built to last. They are brief, dream-like structures that we build quickly and creatively, but knowing they will be swept away with the next high tide. It’s fun to build in the sand, but it’s not the kind of “house” we want to live in for the duration of our lives. Jesus never intended us to live “sand castle” lives. To be sure, our lives are filled with times when our dreams, our visions, our hopes are swept away by the next tide, or storm, or ...

249. The Sweet Fragrance of Brokenness

Luke 7:36-50

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... don’t have all of the answers, we don’t know how to fix our lives in ways that matter. In our time of communion with Christ, we concede that we are not ok on our own, that we need Christ in our lives to help us to be the kind of people God meant us to be. Our time of anointing is when we admit that only when Christ lives through us can we be empowered to go out and to heal and anoint in Jesus’ name. Just as the fragrance of these spices, these roses, these herbs are brought ...

250. Secret Savior

Matthew 6:5-15, Matthew 6:16-18

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... think of prayer as something WE ask God to do! Think of the way most of us pray. It’s a shopping list of things we want. Now sometimes, our prayers are for others too. We call that intercessory prayer. But most of the time, we are praying David’s kind of prayer –Lord, get me out of trouble!! Right? If we pray at all. Or maybe we pray once a week at worship, when we all gather together to pray the prayers we read out of our liturgy. Our prayers of confession. Our prayers of petition. And the lists that ...

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