Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: Levi, disciple, evangelist, tax collector, the 12, the twelve, apostle, sermon on the mount, jewish audience, beatitudes, lord's prayer, great commission, parables, olivet discourse, mount of olives, olivet, synoptic

Showing 2501 to 2525 of 3314 results

2501. American Idol

Exodus 20:4-6

Sermon

James Merritt

... a car even if you don't have a windshield. Let me assure you that God's laws are not arbitrary or temporary; they are universal and permanent. They are for all time for all people. In fact, 1800 years after this command was written, the Apostle John said in I John 5:21, "Little children, guard yourselves from idols." (I John 5:21, NASB) The first and second commandments sound similar, but they really are different. The first commandment tells us not to worship the wrong god. The second commandment tells us ...

2502. Honor Graduate

Exodus 20:12

Sermon

James Merritt

... 5:4 says, "They should...put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents for this is pleasing to God." (I Timothy 5:4, LB) When Jesus Christ was dying on the cross, He looked at the Apostle John and said, "Behold your mother" saying in effect, "You take care of mother after I am gone" and that is exactly what this fifth commandment is talking about. You know, most animals instinctively care for their young. Bears will attack you if you even come ...

2503. Choose Life

Exodus 20:13

Sermon

James Merritt

... of the murder of one man that even the sin of murder can be forgiven? If you were to ask any person that knows the Bible to name the three greatest men in the Bible, outside of Jesus Christ himself, the top three would probably be Moses, David and the Apostle Paul. After all, Moses wrote the (first) five books of the Bible. David wrote many of the Psalms and was the greatest king in the history of Israel. Paul wrote one-half of the New Testament. Did you know they all had one thing in common? They were all ...

2504. Sex and the City

Exodus 20:14

Sermon

James Merritt

... in soap, dress it in a tuxedo, bathe it in perfume and hide it in darkness, but God still sees it and God still knows it and God still calls it adultery. There are several reasons why adultery is wrong. First of all, it is a physical sin. The Apostle Paul said in I Corinthians 6:18, "Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body." (I Corinthians 6:18, NASB) When you commit sexual sin, you actually sinned against your own body; you sin ...

2505. Can't Get No Satisfaction

Exodus 20:17

Sermon

James Merritt

... accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant." (Hebrews 13:5, NASB) Think about this. If you have God what else should you want? When you covet what you are really saying is "God you are not enough. You really don't satisfy me." The Apostle Paul made an amazing statement. In Philippians 4:11 he said, "I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am." (Philippians 4:11, NASB) Do you know why he was content in every circumstance? He had God and he knew that God was really all that ...

2506. Live and Let Die

Galatians 2:20

Sermon

James Merritt

... , as I'm sure you well know, is accepting excepting Jesus' death for you. But the first step to being a Christian is experiencing your death to you. You see, the Christian life is a crucified life which then becomes a conquering life. If you study the Apostle Paul you will find that he actually talks about three different kinds of death in the Christian life. First, he talks about the death to sin which happens to all of us the moment we accept Jesus Christ into our heart. The second death is the death ...

2507. The Dark Side Confronted

Hebrews 12:5-11

Sermon

James Merritt

... get so deep into the dark side and so determined to stay in the dark side that God will just take his life? Why do you think verse 9 says this - "Shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?" (Hebrews 12:9, NASB) The Apostle John said in I John 5:16 something very interesting. He said, "If you see any Christian sinning in a way that does not lead to death". (I John 5:16, NLT) The clear implication is that a child of God can sin to a point where God just takes ...

2508. No Need to Worry

John 10:11-18; 27-30

Sermon

James Merritt

... can protect the sheep when they come into contact with those animals. What does this mean? If Jesus is my good shepherd - Nothing can touch me without His permission. However, if He does permit something to touch me, then it must be for my good. The Apostle Paul, who wrote half of the New Testament, made a very interesting statement over in II Timothy. "The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed, and will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom; to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen." (II Timothy ...

2509. Get Real

John 15:1-11, 16

Sermon

James Merritt

... and a Christ follower, who by definition is someone joined to Jesus Christ, through a personal relationship to Him is going to produce Christ-likeness. That raises the question, "What does that mean to be Christ-like?" We don't have to wonder. The Apostle Paul talked about the fruit of the Spirit and said this is what it looks like. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law." (Galatians 5:22-23 ...

2510. Why Believe the Bible?

John 17:17

Sermon

James Merritt

... the words of men, but the Word of God. In the Old Testament alone, phrases like, "God said" or "God spoke" or "The Word of the Lord came" occur nearly four thousand times (700 times in the first five books, 40 times in one chapter.) Hundreds of years later, the Apostle Paul said this about the Bible, "All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It straightens us out and teaches us to do what is right." (II Timothy 3:16, NLT) The ...

2511. My Mission from God

John 17:18

Sermon

James Merritt

... us the task of making others His friends also." (II Corinthians 5:18, TEV) Let me tell you how important this mission is. It is so important that if you fail to fulfill this mission, you will have wasted a big part of the life that God gave you. The Apostle Paul put it this way, "My life is worth nothing unless I use it for doing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus - the work of telling others the Good News about God's wonderful kindness and love." (Acts 20:24, NLT) There are primarily two ways that this ...

2512. No Doubt about It

John 20:24-29

Sermon

James Merritt

... the responsibility to check out anything I say and make sure it lines up with the truth of God's word. One of my favorite churches that is ever spoken about in the New Testament is a little church you may never have heard of in Berea. The Apostle Paul went to that church and preached to it and this is what we read about those wonderful people. "And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul's message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to ...

2513. Fault-Finding

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Illustration

J. David Hoke

... along the way. A failure is someone who simply doesn't try. No, names do not determine who you are. You are who you are on the inside. So, the first important lesson is that we must cultivate the inner person. The inner person is the person who counts. The apostle Paul desired that we be strengthened in the inner man. It boils down to relationship. We are only as strong as our personal relationship with Christ.

2514. Will the Real Christian Please Stand Up?

Acts 11:26

Sermon

James Merritt

... made your greatest decision, you made your best decision, but in reality, you really made your last decision. Because the moment you come to Jesus Christ as Lord, He is to make all the decisions from then on. You are just to carry them out. When the Apostle Paul met Jesus on the Damascus Road, he asked him the two greatest questions anybody could ever ask. The first question he asked was before he got saved; the second question he asked was after he got saved. The first question was: "Who are you Lord?" We ...

2515. Life on the Rock

Matthew 7:24-29

Sermon

James Merritt

... foundation, the higher your life can go. But there was something else about this wise man. He not only believed the word of God and lived it, he belonged to the Son of God and loved Him. You know who really belongs to Jesus? Those who become like Jesus. The Apostle John said, "Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, ‘I know Him,' and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected ...

2516. One Step at a Time

Nehemiah 2:1-10

Sermon

James Merritt

... that wants to do a great work for God. I've already told you that one of the things we ought to continuously pray for is opportunity, but I want you to understand this. When you pray for opportunity, you are going to get opposition. The Apostle Paul made an interesting statement in I Corinthians 16:9. He said: , "A huge door of opportunity for good work has opened up here. (There is also mushrooming opposition)." (I Corinthians, 16:9, MSG) There is no opportunity without opposition. People who walk by sight ...

2517. The Dark Side Revealed

Numbers 32:23

Sermon

James Merritt

... you out. Sin may not find you out in your body immediately. Not every homosexual gets AIDS. Not every fornicator gets venereal disease. Not every drinker gets cirrhosis of the liver. Sin may not find you out in your conscience. In I Timothy, the Apostle Paul talked about certain people in this manner. "These teachers are hypocrites and liars. They pretend to be religious, but their consciences are dead." (I Timothy 4:2, NLT) There are people in this world who can do perverse things and go right to sleep ...

2518. Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow

Proverbs 16:1, 9, Philippians 3:12-15

Sermon

James Merritt

... , once said, "I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." Well that is one of the keys to setting goals—to be specific. When most people do not succeed in life is because they don't really know what they want out of life. The Apostle Paul wrote down in this passage, Phil. 3:13, "one thing I do." Paul knew what he wanted to do and he wrote it down. Psychologists have discovered that commitment to a written goal is three times as high as a commitment to a goal that we only have in ...

2519. The Dark Side Arrives

Sermon

James Merritt

... God's Top Ten" – that is "The Ten Commandments". In Exodus 20:14, the seventh commandment says, "You shall not commit adultery." (Exodus 20:14, NASB) By adultery the Bible means sexual sin. There is a particularly dark side to the dark side of sexual sin. The Apostle Paul put it this way in I Corinthians 6:18, "No other sin so clearly affects the body as sexual sin. For sexual immorality, is a sin against your own body." (I Corinthians 6:18, NLT) When the dark side of sexual temptation arrives, how do you ...

2520. The Power of Purpose

Proverbs 16:4

Sermon

James Merritt

... primary reason for everything is to manifest and magnify the glory of God. The Bible says in Romans 11:36, "Everything comes from God alone. Everything lives by His power and everything is for His glory." (Romans 11:36, LB) All of this helps us to understand why the Apostle Paul said these words in I Corinthians 10, "Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." (I Corinthians 10:31, NASB) Anything you do that is not for the glory of God is a wasted deed. Any thought you ...

2521. Pro-Choice is No-Choice

Proverbs 24:11-12

Sermon

James Merritt

... those stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, ‘Surely we did not know this,' does not He who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, does He not know it? And will He not render to each man according to his deeds?" (Prov. 24:11-12) The Apostle Peter also said: "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear..." (1 Pet.3:15) Let us think about this subject from three vantage ...

2522. Good for the Soul

Proverbs 28:13

Sermon

James Merritt

... 13a, MSG) Whitewash is a good way to put it, because the word cover literally means, "to smooth over" or "to hide from view." There is a procedure that everyone uses to cover up sin. Everybody uses a three step process that is old as creation itself. The Apostle John, who wrote the Gospel, also wrote three other letters known as I, II, and III John. In the first chapter of I John, he describes the three step process everybody uses to cover up sin. Three times in that chapter, we read this phrase, "If we say ...

2523. A Song for Tomorrow

Psalm 1:1-6

Sermon

James Merritt

... , blessing would be synonymous with what we would call "success" today. Now in the right way get into your heart and mind that God wants you to be successful. Psalm 35: 27 says, "The Lord...delights in the prosperity of His servant. (Psalm 35:27, NASB) The Apostle John even said to some of his friends, "I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers." (III John 1:2, NASB) Every parent has the desire that his children be successful. I am no different from ...

2524. The God of War and Peace

1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23) 32-49

Sermon

Stan Purdum

... Bible. By the time we get to the New Testament, references to warfare have been spiritualized. New Testament Christians were clearly comfortable with military metaphors to describe the spiritual battle against evil. For example consider the verses from Ephesians where the Apostle Paul tells his readers to "put on the whole armor of God" (Ephesians 6:11ff). Early Christianity saw itself at war with the forces of wickedness on a spiritual plane, so there is little said about actual war in the New Testament ...

2525. A Hearing Heart

1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14

Sermon

Stan Purdum

... gift given to Solomon back in the dark ages of the Old Testament? Here's why: Just because discernment was given to him in such quantity does not mean that the rest of us haven't been given any. In fact, in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul speaks of the things that Christians can "spiritually discern" because the Holy Spirit gives them — us — that gift (1 Corinthians 2:14-15). Like any gift of the Spirit, it is given in different measures to different people, but most Christians have the gift to ...

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