Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 2501 to 2525 of 3160 results

2501. Show Me Your Baptismal Certificate

Mark 1:9-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... their own life we give them away for love. Martin Luther had mood swings that went from euphoria to utter despair. While he holed himself up in his castle and translated the Greek Bible into German for the first time, he was beset by all sorts of wild beasts, of doubts and discouragement, of betrayals and theological fist-fights. You probably have an image of Luther throwing ink-pots at the devil, because we all remember that image. But what Luther was famous for saying while he careened through the castle ...

2502. Everything Must Go: “Abandon Ship!”

1 Chronicles 29:1-9

Sermon

James Merritt

... able, the gold for the things of gold, the silver for the things of silver, and the bronze for the things of bronze, the iron for the things of iron, and wood for the things of wood, besides great quantities of onyx and stones for setting, antimony, colored stones, all sorts of precious stones and marble. Moreover, in addition to all that I have provided for the holy house, I have a treasure of my own of gold and silver, and because of my devotion to the house of my God I give it to the house of my God: 3 ...

2503. Everything Must Go: Striking It Rich

1 Timothy 6:3-10

Sermon

James Merritt

... week’s vacation to Florida. Then, we would eat doughnuts for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch and the real treat was to get to go out and eat in a restaurant every night which we hardly ever did at home. Mind you, I am not complaining, just making a confession of sorts. Early in childhood I dreamed of striking it rich and being able to buy all the things my dad couldn’t. One of the reasons why I wanted to go to law school was to achieve one of my life goals which was to be independently wealthy by the ...

2504. When You Reach the Rejection Hotline

Acts 4:1-22

Sermon

King Duncan

... you. “What’s wrong with me?” is the question we inevitably ask. Charles R. Boatman tells about a strange, new twist on this ancient ritual. He notes that traditionally, the male of our species makes the first approach in the dating game. Men have developed all sorts of pick-up lines to interest the women they are attracted to. An important step in the process is a request for the woman’s phone number. What if the woman is totally uninterested, however, but doesn’t want to crush the poor fellow’s ...

2505. Tarzan He Was Not

John 15:1-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... light hanging from the ceiling of his living room. They watched wide-eyed as he turned the little switch and the light went on. One of the visitors asked if he could have a bulb like the one in the light fixture. The missionary, thinking he wanted it for a sort of trinket, gave the man one of his extra bulbs. Sometime later the missionary stopped at the hut of the man who had asked for the bulb. Imagine his surprise when he saw the bulb hanging in the center of the man’s hut from an ordinary string. Of ...

2506. Have You Had Your Caffeine Today?

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... of energy the rising demand in our land for coffee. The U.S. seems to run on caffeine 90 percent of adults consume it every day. But not just in coffee. The demand for an energy boost is so strong that caffeine can now be found in all sorts of unusual products, far beyond coffee and energy drinks. For example, it can now be found in marshmallows. That’s right marshmallows. You can now obtain mail-order marshmallows loaded with caffeine. A box of 24 costs $20, but it’s worth it each piece contains as ...

2507. Poem: In Memoriam

Eulogy

Alfred Lord Tennyson

... no ascetic gloom; And passion pure in snowy bloom Thro’ all the years of April blood; A love of freedom rarely felt, Of freedom in her regal seat Of England; not the schoolboy heat, The blind hysterics of the Celt; And manhood fused with female grace In such a sort, the child would twine A trustful hand, unask’d, in thine, And find his comfort in thy face; All these have been, and thee mine eyes Have look’d on: if they look’d in vain, My shame is greater who remain, Nor let thy wisdom make me wise ...

2508. Michael Corleone and the Widow

Mark 12:38-44

Sermon

King Duncan

... with the others. He says he would get one or two headed the in right direction and then they would run and circle back. When he chased after them they would dodge to the side and stand looking at him as though they were engaged in some sort of game. This young man got madder and more frustrated as he tried to herd these cows and became exhausted from running and shouting. Finally, with tears running down his cheeks and his face red with anger, he stopped, looked straight up into the sky and shouted, “It ...

2509. When the Dragon Wins

Luke 21:5-38

Sermon

R. Robert Cueni

... that crash to the earth in flames. Surely, this means the day of judgment draws near. The end of the world must be coming." Of course, you are free to use the Bible to predict anything you want. However, if you try to turn scripture into a sort of celestial farmer's almanac for interpreting and predicting national and world events you will head down a road of frustration. Not only is this faith language not intended for this purpose, but human beings are just not very good at seeing the future in present ...

2510. Demons, Pigs, and the Economy

Luke 8:26-39

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... take control. More than that, demons, and especially the prince of the demons, the devil, were thought actually to have the world under their control. Thus, not only could physical and mental illness be attributed to them; catastrophes, disasters, and evil events of all sorts could be attributed to their power. Therefore, if one was to gain control of human life and history, one had to contend with demons and devils and to wrestle with "the powers of darkness of this present world," as Paul put it. It is ...

2511. God's Adopted Children

Ephesians 1:1-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... at all these books.” Just a bunch of books, all very much alike--that’s what he sees. But what about the librarian? What does she see? Probably not a blob of books. She has seen these books come in from the publishers. She has helped sort and catalog them. She has checked them out to people, re-shelved them, hunted some of them for clients, and has probably read several of them. She thinks in terms of individual books, individual authors, individual subject matters. The more people know about books, the ...

2512. What Are You Seeking?

Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

King Duncan

... story is told about a new graduate from a seminary who went out to his first congregation, a country church which had a long history. As he was conducting his first worship service, he noticed right away that everyone sat on one side of the church. That seemed sort of strange. Then, when it came time to sing the hymn just before the sermon, the new pastor was amazed to see the entire congregation stand up, walk over to the other side of the church and sit down to sing. The pastor couldn’t figure it out ...

2513. An Extraordinary Wedding Gift

John 2:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

... do as he says? We would probably run in the opposite direction. Or imagine that one of you had skin cancer and came to me and asked me to pray for you and I were to tell you to go show yourself to another pastor down the road? That’s sort of what Jesus did. Would that makes sense to you? Or imagine there is a crowd with more than ten thousand people to feed; five thousand of that number were men alone (and we know about men and their appetites), and he says to you, “Go feed them with these ...

2514. Eyes Fixed Upon the Goal

Philippians 3:8-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... schedule reflect your priorities? Will your priorities help make you the kind of person you mean to be? A student at Amherst College, soon after entering school, put over the door of his dormitory room the letter V. Because of that V he endured all sorts of ridicule. But he paid no attention to the ridicule nor would he disclose the secret of the letter. When his four years were over, and graduation day came, that student was appointed to deliver the valedictory address for his class. Then the mystery of ...

2515. The GI MRE

Illustration

Michael P. Green

The story has been told of a South Sea Islander who proudly displayed his Bible to a G.I. during World War II. “We’ve outgrown that sort of thing,” the soldier said. The native smiled back, “It’s a good thing we haven’t. If it weren’t for this book, you’d have been a meal by now!”

2516. Jonah Proof

Jonah 1:17

Illustration

Michael P. Green

... , for he lost his senses through fright and not from lack of air. He remembers the sensation of being thrown out of the boat into the sea.… He was then encompassed by a great darkness and he felt he was slipping along a smooth passage of some sort that seemed to move and carry him forward. The sensation lasted but a short time and then he realized he had more room. He felt about him and his hands came in contact with a yielding, slimy substance that seemed to shrink from his touch. It finally dawned ...

2517. The Buddha's Last Words

Illustration

Staff

These words are traditionally said to be the last that the Buddha uttered, “And now, O priests, I take my leave of you; all the constituents of being are transitory; work out your salvation with diligence.” The Buddha showed each disciple "how to rely for salvation upon himself, on his own powers, focused upon redemption by spiritual self-discipline. Here was the strictest sort of humanism in religion.” (Cited in John Noss, Man’s Religions [New York: Macmillan, 1984], pp. 127, 129.)

2518. Self-pity: The Devil's Comfort

Illustration

Michael P. Green

... devil’s shoulder, turning to Satan for comfort. His invitation is: “Come unto me all you that are grieved, peeved, misused, and disgruntled, and I will spread on the sympathy. You will find me a never-failing source of the meanest attitudes and the most selfish sort of misery. At my altar you may feel free to fail and fall, and there to sigh and fret. There I will feed your soul on fears, and indulge your ego with envy and jealousy, bitterness and spite. There I will excuse you from every cross, duty ...

2519. Jehoshaphat King of Judah

2 Chronicles 17:1-19

Understanding Series

Louis C. Jonker

... the nations before them and gave the land forever to the descendants of Abraham his friend (20:7). This last expression clearly links the events of Jehoshaphat’s reign with Israel’s ancestral history. In 20:10 the king’s prayer turns into an argument of sorts against Yahweh, who did not allow the people to drive out Judah’s attackers (men from Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir). On this account the king calls upon God to judge them. Although this very king in an earlier episode of his reign had the biggest ...

2520. The Fall of Jerusalem

2 Chronicles 36:15-23

Understanding Series

Louis C. Jonker

... in Ezra 1:1–3). Scholars debate intensely which one of these versions is the original, but a consensus has emerged that the Chronicler probably copied these verses from the earlier book of Ezra in order to establish a unity of some sort with the historiography contained in Ezra-Nehemiah (which describes the history after the exile). However, the inclusion of these verses, and particularly the figure of Cyrus, at the conclusion of Chronicles not only served a literary function but also concluded the whole ...

2521. The Fellowship of the Believers

Acts 2:42-47

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... is nothing here that seems incompatible with the very earliest days of the Christian Church in Jerusalem” (p. 16); Dunn remarks of the miracles in particular, “We need not doubt that it is a sound historical fact that many healings of a miraculous sort did occur in the early days of the first Christian communities and of the early Christian mission.… Periods of religious excitement have always produced healers and a crop of healings hailed as miraculous by those present at the time” (Jesus, pp. 163f ...

2522. Peter and John Before the Sanhedrin

Acts 4:1-22

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... the reference can hardly be to the miracle, news of which had already spread throughout the city, but to the teaching about Jesus and the resurrection. Since they had condemned Jesus, their credibility was at stake. But though they had been able to make some sort of case against Jesus, it was difficult to formulate a charge on which to condemn his disciples—the more so since the miracle had obviously caught the public imagination. The form in which their question is asked in the Greek, What are we going ...

2523. Stephen’s Speech to the Sanhedrin

Acts 7:1-53

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... . Or Stephen may have interpreted the second in the light of Abraham’s having earlier set up an altar at Shechem. Putting it another way, it was Abraham’s earlier hallowing of the spot that led ultimately to its purchase by Jacob, and so in a shorthand sort of way it could be said that Abraham had bought the field (cf. disc. on 1:18f.). But perhaps the simplest explanation is that of Bruce, who suggests that Stephen has telescoped the two accounts, as he did in the story of Abraham’s call in verse ...

2524. Simon the Sorcerer

Acts 8:9-25

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... kinds. Philo refers to these as “charlatan mendicants and parasites” (Special Laws 3.101; cf. also Juvenal Satires 6.562; 14.248; Horace Satires 1.2.1). Simon seems to have belonged to this second category. Ramsay describes the magi (esp. the lower sort who appealed to the widespread superstition of the ancient world) as the strongest influence that existed in that world and one that must either destroy or be destroyed by Christianity (Paul, p. 79). 8:10 The divine power (lit., “the power of God ...

2525. Cornelius Calls for Peter

Acts 10:1-8

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... It is surely no coincidence that the only two people who have this type of name in Acts are both soldiers (cf. 27:1) at precisely the period when only soldiers were likely to be using it (see Sherwin-White, p. 161). Hanson asks, “Is this the sort of detail which somebody writing in the second century, or at the very end of the first, when the custom must have for some considerable time lapsed, is likely to have invented, imagined, or guessed?” (p. 11). The Italian Regiment: or as the Greek runs, “the ...

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