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 2626 to 2650 of 2815 results

2626. The Power to Forgive

Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon

King Duncan

... and forgive? That is the question. Let me suggest three ways. We let go, first of all, by recognizing that forgiveness is a gift from God. We have been forgiven, and so we are able to forgive others. Jesus followed his answer to Simon Peter with a delightful parable of a man who owed his king ten thousand bags of gold. Gold today sells for about $1,000 an ounce. Think how much 10,000 bags of gold would be worth today . . . maybe trillions. Amazingly, the king forgave the man this enormous debt. And here is ...

2627. Deathbed Confessions

Matthew 20:1-16

Sermon

King Duncan

... of faith in Christ and still be received into the Kingdom of God as if you had been the greatest saint who ever lived?” From a reading of our lesson from the Gospel for today we would have to say that the answer is “yes.” Jesus told a parable about a landowner who went into the marketplace early in the morning to hire laborers--a common practice in rural communities even into recent times. Those he hired he agreed to pay the standard wage for a day’s work. Three hours later he saw that he was going ...

2628. Perceiving Truth

John 17:1-19

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

... woman and discovered electricity." Now all of that is probably true, but there's a lot more truth to Franklin's life than we find in those words. So with Jesus. "Name Jesus anything you like. Remember Him in any way you want. Recall any of the parables He told. Quote word for word any statement He ever said. Put all these things together into some kind of historical record, and still you have nothing if you do not include this one truth" (Boulware, Ibid.): When Jesus becomes the way of being and doing for ...

2629. When You're Rejected

Matthew 21:33-46

Sermon

King Duncan

... in which he was nurtured--he knew what it was to be on the outside looking in. Our lesson for the day from the Gospel of Matthew deals with that very thing. Jesus was speaking to the chief priests and the Pharisees and he told them a parable: “There was a landowner,” he said, “who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants ...

2630. His Final Words

John 18:1-19:42

Sermon

King Duncan

... as a medical doctor and it is reported that he healed many patients. Until the time of his death, he was sharing the Good News by healing the sick, touching the lonely, feeding the hungry, and helping the poor. Jesus was most noted for recounting parables about his Father’s Kingdom, performing miracles, such as feeding more than five thousand people with only five loaves of bread and two fish, and healing a man born blind. The day before his death, he held a last supper celebrating the Passover feast at ...

2631. Faces of Failure: The Disciples

Mark 4:35-41

Sermon

Don Tuttle

... of Galilee when the crowd grew so large he commandeered a fish boat—a vessel about 26 feet long and eight feet wide—in which he could sit. From there he spent the day teaching those on the shore about the kingdom of God. He did so through parables, those stories that compare very common items or situations to God’s realm. One might figure that when evening came Jesus would dismiss the crowd, have the disciples row ashore, and go home. But instead, he decides they will cross to the east side of the Sea ...

2632. Tangled Up in the Vines

John 15:1-8

Sermon

John Jamison

... it was “plucked up in fury, cast down to the ground; the east wind dried it up, its fruit was cut off.” Ezekiel painted the picture that everyone understood. Unfortunately, they didn’t listen to it. Matthew told how Jesus used the vine and vineyard in a parable of how the vineyard owner’s son was killed by those who were supposed to be taking care of the vineyard. So as Jesus talked about the vine, the disciples would have put it in context with the long history of stories about vines and vineyards ...

2633. Making Sense

John 17:6-19

Sermon

John Jamison

... to help the disciples understand what he was saying, and at one point they actually said to him, “Yes, now you are speaking plainly, not in figures of speech! Now we know that you know all things.” The disciples had always struggled with the many parables they had heard him tell and seemed to do much better with this “tell it like it is” approach. We can almost see them all smiling and looking at each other, excited about the fact that they were finally understanding what he was saying. But then ...

2634. Such a Little Thing

Mark 4:26-34

Sermon

King Duncan

... the tiniest seed on earth. But when the mustard see grows up, he added, it is taller than any of the other plants in the garden, with branches so large that the birds of the air can make their nests in its shade. If Jesus were telling that parable today in our culture he might point to a giant Sequoia in California’s Sequoia National Park. One such tree, the General Sherman, has been called the most massive living thing on planet Earth. The General Sherman stands nearly 275 feet tall with a girth of more ...

2635. When I AM Speaks, You'd Better Listen

John 6:24-35

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... more. He was, he is, the great I AM who is the bread of life. Since Jesus is the great I AM, that means he is in control. I am not in control, but my sinful tendency is to try to be in control. As a servant says in the parable of the master who went away to be crowned king, "We don't want this man to rule over us" (Luke 19:14). We don't want anyone to rule over us, not even God who created us. That's the biggest conflict that characterizes our days. The entire Bible ...

2636. Jesus: The Original Superhero?

John 18:33-37

Sermon

April Yamasaki

... of the kingdom of God. It was a kingdom from above (John 3:3), a kingdom of the spirit (John 3:5), a kingdom marked by repentance (Matthew 3:2), a kingdom that included blessing for the poor (Matthew 5:3), and a kingdom best described in parables (Mark 4:2ff). No wonder Pilate and Jesus seemed to talk past one another. Pilate was focused on the kingdom of this world, and Jesus was focused on the kingdom of God. In the five verses of our text, Pilate asked Jesus three questions, and while Jesus responded ...

2637. Sheep Without a Shepherd

Mark 6:30-34

Sermon

King Duncan

... follow me.” (8) So often in our modern world the noise of life muffles the Shepherd’s voice. But still the shepherd calls. He knows each of us by name and he cares for us as if there was no one else on earth to care for. Jesus told a parable in Luke 15 about a shepherd who has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. What does he do? He leaves the ninety-nine in the open country and goes after the lost sheep until he finds it. And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his ...

2638. A Word to the Wealthy

Mark 10:17-30

Sermon

King Duncan

... eight years. Then you know what he did?” asks John Ortberg. “He died.” (5) He died. You know how much William Randolph Hearst left behind? That’s right . . . all of it. “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest,” said Jesus in one of his parables. “He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to ...

2639. A Justice Jesus

Luke 4:14-21

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

... being pitted against the needs of the poor. There are other places in scripture where this same tension exists. There are places where Jesus does or says things that reflect God’s love, and which then lay before us issues of justice. Think about that unnerving parable about the workers in the vineyard where those who labored for eight hours are paid the same as the cripples and drunkards who work for one hour. It is a story that underlines compassion as the heart of God’s justice based on what people ...

2640. It's Not About Me

Luke 6:39-49

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

... a pretty good indication that I have been avoiding it. I have discovered over the years that the texts I ignore are the very ones that most describe me. And when it comes to specks and logs, I am an expert. But then most of us are. These three parables at the end of Luke 6 are the very end of Jesus’ sermon on the plain — Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount. As you may remember in Matthew, Jesus’ most famous sermon takes place on a mountain far away from the crowd — hard and demanding words ...

2641. In Awe of Christ

Luke 9:28-36

Sermon

King Duncan

... possibility of transformation is ours. We need to see Christ as he really is. We need to see ourselves as God intends for us to be. But one thing more. We need to see the world for which Christ gave his life. Rabbi Abraham Heschel tells a parable about a kingdom in which the grain crop was poisoned. Everyone who ate the grain went crazy. But because there were few other food supplies, the people were faced with eating the grain or starving. Surveying the situation, the king said, “Very well, then, let us ...

2642. What to Do With Human Failing

Luke 13:1-9

Sermon

R. Robert Cueni

... , since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:22b-23). The inquiring mind should want to know how God deals with our having sinned and have fallen short of God’s glory. Jesus anticipated that turn in the conversation so he told the parable of the barren fig tree: A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still ...

2643. Known By Our Love

John 13:31-35

Sermon

R. Robert Cueni

... in Christ. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus was quizzed about what one must do to inherit eternal life. He cited the command to love your neighbor as yourself. The questioner followed up with “And who is my neighbor?” In response, Jesus told a parable about how an outsider, a Samaritan acted in loving ways toward the beaten man and thus qualified as a loving neighbor. By the standards of today’s lectionary gospel reading, the Samaritan outsider would also be identified as a follower of Jesus Christ because ...

2644. Didn't You Know I Would Come

Illustration

Editor James S. Hewett

Rufus Jones lost a son of eleven years who was all the world to him. He wrote many years later about the experience, concluding with this luminous parable of how his own heart was opened to God's love: "When my sorrow was at its most acute I was walking along a great city highway, when suddenly I saw a little child come out of a great gate, which swung to and fastened behind her. She wanted to ...

2645. The Son and the Drawbridge

Illustration

Editor James S. Hewett

... work and the bridge clamped down just in time to save the train. The passengers, not knowing what the father had done, were laughing and making merry; yet the bridgekeeper had chosen to save their lives at the cost of his son's. In all of this there is a parable: the heavenly Father, too, saw the blessed Savior being nailed to a cross while people laughed and mocked and spit upon Him and yet, "He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all."

2646. Only a Pebble?

Illustration

Editor James S. Hewett

... up pebbles one at a time and dropping them into the jug. And as more and more pebbles accumulated in the bottom of the jug the water rose in the bottle until finally the old crow was able to drink all that he desired. That's a parable of the way God has chosen to work out his plan in our world. Each of us dropping in our own little pebble—teaching that Sunday school class, serving on a committee, providing transportation for the youth, visiting our lonely neighbor. Utilizing the gifts that are ours ...

2647. Searching for the Right Way

Illustration

Editor James S. Hewett

Once a Hasidic teacher told this parable: A man had been wandering about in a forest for several days, unable to find the way out. Finally, he saw a man approaching him in the distance. His heart was filled with joy. Now I shall surely find out which is the right way out of this forest, he ...

2648. Sending It on Ahead

Matthew 6:19-20

Illustration

Editor James S. Hewett

... his carpenters to work making boats, his farmers to work transplanting fruit trees to the island, farmers growing crops, masons building houses. So when his kingship was over, he was banished, not to a barren island, but to an island of abundance. It is a good parable of life: We're all kings here, kings for a little while, able to choose what we shall do with the stuff of life. "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But ...

2649. Commercial Communication

Illustration

Neill Postman

... . The essential message is that the problems that beset people—whether it is lack of self-confidence or boredom or even money problems—are entirely solvable if only we will allow ourselves to be ministered to by a technology…Commercials teach these important themes through parables. In eight to ten seconds, the middle part comes, which is Hawaii or a new car. Then there's a moral. The moral is nailed down at the end, where we are shown what happens if a person follows this advice. And the actor, of ...

2650. Look for the Music

Illustration

Editor James S. Hewett

... piece expressive of every human activity and feeling with pauses, counterpoints, blends and climaxes of sound that would be beautiful…But it is not that…It is all discordant, terrible and exhausting—as we hear it now. The pattern is always being shattered." It is a parable of our time. So many confusing sounds and noises, so much unrest, so much rapid change. But somewhere, in the midst of it, there could be a pattern emerging, a meaning coming out of it, and our job is to look for the music in the ...

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