Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 2501 to 2525 of 3852 results

2501. Saved Twelve Times

Matthew 3:13-17

Illustration

William B. Kincaid, III

... Church there is no altar call, no organist playing "Just As I Am," and no minister with shiny hair manipulating the congregation. These are Lutherans, and they repent the same way that they sin discreetly and tastefully. Keillor writes, "Granted, we're born in original sin and are worthless and vile, but twelve conversions is too many. God didn't mean us to feel guilty all our lives. There comes a point when you should dry your tears and join the building committee and start grappling with the problems ...

2502. Was There No Other Way?

Isaiah 52:13--53:12

Sermon

King Duncan

Are you familiar with the legend of the robin? According to this tale the robin was originally a little brown bird. That is, until Good Friday the FIRST Good Friday. On that dark day this little brown bird saw a man nailed to a cross, slowly dying. He was all by himself . . . and there was no one to help him. The little brown bird began trying to ...

2503. What Kind of Pillar Are You?

Matthew 5:13-16

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... titles. The Pillars supposedly marked the farthest reaches of Hercules’ journeys during his “twelve labors.” They were symbols of the end of the world and were believed to be inscribed with the warning “nec plus ultra” — “nothing further beyond.” The original understanding of the Pillars of Hercules was as a huge “do not enter” sign before the waters of the unknown and the worlds that lay beyond the Mediterranean. Too many “pillars of the church” are like these “Pillars of Hercules ...

2504. A Mended Relationship

Mt 5:21-26

Illustration

King Duncan

... next to each other all through the party," Marsha recalls. "They were talking about their days in school back when they were boys. It was as if no time had passed at all." Their friendship seemed to grow immediately. Both had forgotten what that original argument had been about. It was a business argument, but neither one of them remembered the details. Marsha and Michael were married; Hy and Louie were restored to being the best of friends. Marsha kept thinking that she and her new husband had changed ...

2505. Forty Days for Recommitment

Matthew 4:1-11

Illustration

Mark Trotter

Lent was originally established for new Christians, those who experienced a call. They were to spend forty days and forty nights preparing for their baptism. If at the end they still wanted to follow Jesus, then on Easter Eve they would be baptized as the sun was rising in the east, signaling the ...

2506. Living a Well-Storied Life

John 4:1-26

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... thing a missionary does? Learn the language of the culture. Maybe it’s about time the church learned to speak in the language of image and story. This is already how the culture is speaking. Take the tv series “Secret Millionaire,” which originated in England, then premiered in December 2008 on Fox, and finally got jump-started again this year on ABC. Each week wealthy philanthropists go undercover in the worst neighborhoods in the US. For one week, these “secret millionaires” mingle within the ...

2507. Keeping Perspective

Illustration

Staff

The following illustration, which appears to have it's origins in the mid 90's, is an urban legend and though this purports to be an "actual" event, it is not. In fact the legend is so ubiquitous that even Wikipedia covered it's veracity. No version of this story has ever been corroborated. The best use of this legend ...

2508. A Tickle in Our Ear

John 20:1-18

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

A number of years ago there appeared in The Los Angeles Times a poignant story of a four and one-half year old girl named Katie Sleeman, a patient at Children's Hospital, who was dying of cancer. "She had originally been diagnosed as a seven-week-old baby with retinoblastoma a cancerous tumor in the eye. She lost both eyes, and despite the best that medical science could do for her, a tumor appeared near her brain and it could not be removed. So Katie suffered more hardship in her ...

2509. Do You Know the Way to Emmaus?

Luke 24:13-35

Illustration

David E. Leininger

... other towns have stronger claims to be the historical town. Ironically, the seemingly superficial mystery regarding the actual location of Emmaus fits in nicely with the deepest meaning of this passage. Do you know the way to Emmaus? Emmaus may be here, or there, or anywhere. The site of the original episode is irrelevant. Christ will travel wherever his followers are going. Christ will appear wherever they break bread. Even here. Even now.

2510. More than a Casual Follower

John 14:1-14

Illustration

Eric Ritz

The author Bill Bryson, tells of going to Hannibal, Missouri, to visit the boyhood home of Mark Twain. Mark Twain was one of his heroes. As he visited the home, he was disappointed. The home was supposed to be a faithful reproduction of the original, but it was easy to see that it was not. Far too many items from the 20th century were included in the home. In a sense it was false advertising. Mr. Bryson was further disappointed that he was not able to actually go inside the house. "You look through the ...

2511. Because I Live (Memorial Day)

John 14:15-31

Sermon

King Duncan

... , faceless, nameless, unnoticed by the universe at large. No wonder we feel powerless. Sometime back there was a speech by Tom Kalinske, Chairman of LeapFrog, the maker of creative educational games for children. Kalinske began with a story, a true story which originates from a friend of his who was hired to shoot a documentary film about computers and education. The film was about an experiment in a Southern California junior high school, a test of a new computer system which was programmed with learning ...

2512. Acts 2:1-13

Acts 2:1-13

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... . The spiritual rebirth of Jesus’ disciples into apostles of Christ is accompanied by the miraculous sounds and sights associated with theophanies throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. “Pentecost” was a Jewish festival celebrated on the fiftieth day (“pentekostos”) from Passover. Originally it was a harvest festival, with offerings of the first gathering of the year’s grain crops. It was one of the three mandated times when such offerings were demanded of all observant Jews (see Exodus 23:16; 34 ...

2513. A Style in Mistakes

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Illustration

Kent Moorehead

... a controversy some time ago when somebody gave two wonderful Rembrandts to the art museum in Detroit. So we all went and ooohed and ah-h-d and thought they were wonderful. Then a couple of Philistines came in and said, "Fakes." What do you mean fakes? "They are not originals." How do you know. So the press had a great time and we all took sides. Then they sent for a couple of experts. Now, an expert is just somebody from way off, you know. They got two fellows from New York, and they came and studied it and ...

2514. Why Are You Acting Like Orphans?

Romans 8:18-27

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... everything. Nobody respects a “legal screen.” Nobody has to live with no information about their past. The advent of Facebook has allowed thousands of birth parents and adopted children of all ages to search for and connect with their families of origin. The birth of DNA testing enables uncertainty to be eliminated. In fact, almost all officials in the hierarchies of state and federal adoption laws admit the same thing: “the jig is up.” Adoption information and biological identities are no longer ...

2515. Matthew 14:22-36

Matthew 14:22-36

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... as more than spectral–-in fact, supernatural. Controlling the chaos of the depths, mastering the liquidity of that world, is an act that is truly godlike (Job 9:8; Psalm 77:19; Isaiah 43:16). Jesus’ actions, Jesus’ authority, clearly presents his divine origins and status. The long, wet and windy night gives away to dawn as Jesus approaches the disciple’s boat. They are able to see a figure walking towards them on the water. Not surprisingly the disciple’s first assumption at glimpsing this ...

2516. Giving It Up for Lent

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... we run into Fat Tuesday — Mardi Gras in French — a time of joy and revelry, which stands in stark contrast to the observance that begins the next day. The fun stops. At least that is the popular understanding. Strange — the word "Lent" originally meant "springtime," not misery. Because the church season always fell at this time of year, the name came to apply to the ecclesiastical observance, as well. The Lenten observance has changed over the centuries. The early church celebrated Lent only for a ...

2517. The Family Album

1 John 3:1-7

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... made all Christians look foolish. Nor did we feel any joy seeing the television film of a weeping, half-crazed shell of a man being led off to jail in shackles. He deserved to pay a penalty for what he had done, but the 45-year sentence originally handed down was excessive — he eventually only spent five years behind bars. It was all very sad. Still, there is lingering cynicism about Jim Bakker. I admit some persists in me. Then our text jumps out at me — "children of God." That means Jim Bakker and I ...

2518. He Descended Into Hell

1 Peter 3:18-22

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... run into the statement at all until about 400 years after Christ. The other ancient statement of faith, the Nicene Creed, makes no mention of any descent into hell. Why not? Perhaps two reasons: 1) "Hell" is really a mistranslation of the original statement which only affirmed that Christ descended to the dead — the early church made a distinction between the place where dead people went before judgment ... hades in Greek, sheol in Hebrew ... and this place of eternal punishment. 2) A statement such as ...

2519. Hope

John 12:20-33

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... and become Israel's "Superman" Messiah — yes! — glory! But wait ... what follows in the gospel account is almost a stream-of-consciousness monologue that we who live on this side of the crucifixion and resurrection can understand, but it must have left his original hearers in a fog. Put yourself in their place. There was that statement about the grain of wheat having to "die" in the ground before it can bear fruit. What has that got to do with the conquering Messiah? That was followed immediately with ...

2520. When Words Are Not Enough

Ephesians 5:15-20

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... a child that I learned from a movie on television that Jesus died. Either my Sunday school teachers had been too nice to tell me (this was the 1950s), or, as usual, I wasn't paying attention. I am just now beginning to recognize the truth of my original vision: we go to church in order to sing, and theology is secondary.[2] The singing expresses our theology, pure and simple. I will never forget a record that came out some years ago, an album entirely based upon a recording of an English tramp singing this ...

2521. Sex, Sex, and More Sex

Song of Songs 2:8-13

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... granted he was a lusty fellow with 700 wives and 300 concubines, but that in itself, in my view, would mitigate against his authorship (when would he have had time?). More likely, Solomon's name became attached to the book in some sort of dedication. The original-language title of this book (Song of Solomon) is a Hebrew way of talking about the finest song just as "king of kings" means the greatest king. Somebody, somewhere, way back, thought these love poems were the best of the bunch. Not only the passage ...

2522. Sermons In Stones

Psalm 19:1-14

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... be seen both in the natural world and in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Historians of religion tell us that the Celtic way of perceiving things was pushed aside in the fifth century by orthodox Roman theology, which emphasized original sin and the fallenness of creation. Much of the church's discomfort with the world to this very day - with humanness, with sexuality - comes from that theological conflict. Can we get back to our roots, please? Scottish theologian, George McDonald, writes ...

2523. What the Future Holds

Mark 13:1-8

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... was exquisite in every way. Sadly, that structure had been leveled by Nebuchadnezzar when the nation was carried off into exile in Babylon. Once God's people were allowed to return to their homeland, a second temple was built, but it paled in comparison to the original, and folks were embarrassed by it. Even so, for 500 years, that had been the center of Jewish worship. Along came the Romans and, at the pleasure of Caesar, Herod the Great as king in Israel. Herod knew that the temple was not all the Jews ...

2524. Transitions

2 Kings 2:1-12

Sermon

David E. Leininger

This is one of those passages that has its roots deep in the mythology of ancient Israel. It is at least a little bit familiar to us because this is where the film Chariots of Fire gets its name, and this is where we find the origin of the expression, "passing on the mantle of leadership." The story also gives us one of the earliest uses of the term "Father" as a title for a religious leader (if you have ever wondered where that designation in some churches came from). The story is one of transition. ...

2525. The Living Advent Wreath (Love: Pink Candle of the Stars)

Luke 1:26-38

Drama

Frank Ramirez

... star, which shines more brightly than any other — for it is a herald of something greater. Love: (speaks) “But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judea, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days” (Micah 5:2). Pilgrim: What does that mean? Guide: Come once more, and you will find the answer to your king’s fourth concern — for this star is a beacon that beckons to many far off, who will soon be near ...

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