Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 2651 to 2675 of 3852 results

Jeremiah 18:1-11

Sermon

Chrysanne Timm

... committed to serving God in their generation and preparing the way for future generations to acknowledge God, as well. Through the experience of exile, the clay that is God's people Judah, is reshaped by God's promises into a people more closely resembling God's original intent for them. Even the experience of exile and return could not fully form God's people for life with God. So in the fullness of time, a child is born who is God's perfect plan in every way. This child, born in Bethlehem of Judah and ...

2652. The ABC's of Grief

Lamentations 1:1-6

Sermon

Chrysanne Timm

... Testament history leading up to the Babylonian exile. The prophet Jeremiah has been our guide for the last six weeks. If it seems that we have been hopping and skipping through Jeremiah, you are right. It would appear that somewhere between the original scribing of Jeremiah and the rendering of those texts into a book of the Bible, some juggling took place. Those who designed the lectionary, the schedule of weekly readings that millions of Christians join in reading in worship, explored Jeremiah carefully ...

2653. Not Another Rerun!

Jeremiah 31:27-34

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

... functions and makes decisions. The new covenant, similarly, is no longer something external to us, but functions within us. God gives us "the capacity to be faithful and obedient."[2]As a result, the covenant relationship to God can become all that it was originally intended to be: "a warm delight to the people, not a cold prescription."[3] The foundation for the newness of the covenant is introduced by the preposition "for" in verse 34: "for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more ...

2654. Earth, Wind, and Fire

Joel 2:23-32

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

... the later rains, the first, to soften the cracked and parched earth and make it ready for planting; the later rains to nourish and grow the crop. Those rains, borne on the wind, will mark the land as renewed in the immediate time of the original hearers of Joel's message. But those wind-borne rains also bring to mind for the prophet a future spiritual wind of change. That change will be brought about by the outpouring of the Spirit of God. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Hebrew word for wind and spirit ...

2655. Put Within Us

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

... . Significantly, because the code or language and the base structure are the same, individual or collections of genes on one molecule can be moved between and within species. Genetic information can be spliced in and combined with the original material, creating new effects. That is how some very important medical advances have occurred, including, for example, the treatment of diabetes through the creation of human insulin and growth hormones. The genetic changes produced through gene splicing and ...

2656. Oh, By the Way…

Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

... saints through death in the past year. But oh, by the way, the day is called all Saints, so we, the living saints, are also included. In fact, this day is meant for our encouragement and comfort in much the same way that Daniel's message and story was originally meant to inspire the people who were alive in the second century BC when it was first written down in its final form. So the focus of All Saints is on our situation. Back to the text, such as it is: Daniel sees a terrifying vision of four ...

2657. Making Something Out Of Nothing

Haggai 1:15b—2:9

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

... Babylonians, those who wished to had been allowed to return to their homeland. However, what may have begun in great excitement with high expectations quickly settled into a hard struggle for existence. The return had turned into a huge disappointment; what originally looked like small molehills in the first blush of effort, soon began to look like insurmountable mountains as the returnees struggled to survive under difficult conditions. What made the situation worse was the memory of how things used to ...

2658. Thanksgiving Is Nine-Tenths Of Possession

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

... spiritual transaction between God and me witnessed by a religious professional, but thanksgiving to God is not complete until it has been shared with others. We are used to thinking of Thanksgiving Day as primarily family time. However, the original Thanksgiving celebration at Plymouth and Deuteronomy 26 encourage us to enlarge our vision. The Pilgrims' feast significantly included not just all social strata of the colonists but also the local Native-American tribe. I seriously doubt that we would still ...

2659. Live the Lullaby

Luke 1:46-56

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... ” this time of year. No matter how hard we try to make Christmas about Jesus, that big fat guy in the red suit keeps showing up. Instead of getting sucked into a consumer-culture’s Santa Claus, maybe we should be telling the “lullaby” of the original Santa Claus, the actual Saint Nicholas, the Magnificat Nicholas. Nicholas lived in the third century in what we now calls Asia Minor, or the Middle East. He rose in the ranks of the church and even attended the Council of Nicea in 325 AD. But instead ...

2660. When We're Estranged from God

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Sermon

King Duncan

... ’s resolutions for Lent. Comedian Stephen Colbert who, I understand, is a Sunday School teacher at his local Catholic church joked that he was giving up being Catholic for Lent. People laugh at the idea of giving up things for Lent, but the idea, originally, was to share experientially in the sufferings of Christ. Christ gave his life for us. We ought to give up something to show our devotion to him. However, even under the best of circumstances, this practice has never worked very well. Dean Snyder, the ...

2661. When We Feel Lost

Luke 15:11-32

Sermon

King Duncan

... minister, who had just delivered a dry sermon on stewardship, and who now had to put his arm around this limp, saggy individual and pray with him and see if he had a ride home. Twelve times. Granted,” says Garrison Keillor, “we’re born in original sin and are worthless and vile, but twelve conversions is too many. There comes a point where you should dry your tears, and join the building committee and start grappling with the problems of the church furnace and the church roof and make church coffee ...

2662. Kintsugi Vessels

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... . The resin-repair line is boldly outlined with a lacquer that contains real gold. The result is a golden river tracing the length and breadth of the break. The final product is a repaired piece that is far more exquisite and beautiful than the original that was whole and unmarked. Bold lines and gold streaks jig and jag, branch and squiggle, across the ceramic surface of the repaired item. The gold glows and gleams, illuminating not the flaw of breakage, but the giftedness of the artisan who worked the ...

2663. The 5 Worst Things Christians Say After A Tragedy

Luke 13:1-9

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... that people engage him in conversation about the hottest news and most current events. To be sure, a “current event” in Jesus’ day could have been a month old. Unlike today, when a “current event” is real time “breaking news.” Modern marathons originated from the legend of one messenger’s massive run. Pheidippides, a Greek soldier around 490 BCE, was dispatched from the field of the battle of Marathon to Athens in order to announce the Greek victory over the Persians. The legend holds that ...

2664. Blessed Are Those Who Believe

John 20:19-31

Sermon

King Duncan

... universities, the social service agencies? Behind every one you will find persons who hold in their hearts not cynicism but hope, not doubt but faith, not hostility but love. Would you be offended if I said that most cynics are idiots? I mean that in the original sense of the word. I understand that the Greek word IDIOS meant “to look after one’s own private affairs.” The Greeks considered anyone who turned his or her back on the public good--who ignored the health and security of the whole society in ...

2665. P.S. I Love You

John 21:1-14

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... number demonstrated that all the peoples of the world (all the “fish in the sea”) were to be “caught” by the gospel. There are also all sorts of mathematical machinations, Gematria gymanastics, done with this unique number. The author’s original reason for citing this specific number is, textually, impossible to discern with certainty. What is clear about this number is that it is huge — larger than any fisherman would ever expect. Furthermore, this huge catch was made possible because the ...

2666. John 21:1-19

John 21:1-14

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

2667. John 5:1-9

John 5:1-15

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... five porticos as they awaited healing. Ironically, one of the most remembered details of this pool’s healing powers is based upon details supplied by vss. 3b-4. These two verses most modern translations consider a later gloss, or addition, to John’s original text. In fact, they are now often excised from the narrative and relegated to a footnote. The stirring up of the water by an “angel of the Lord” and the short-lived healing power derived from that miraculous mixing (“whoever stepped in first ...

2668. Can you Hear “The Voice?”

John 5:1-15

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

2669. Luke 7:1-10

Luke 7:1-10

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... Jesus intends to enter his home. To “head him off at the pass” the centurion sends out another group to dissuade Jesus from coming any nearer. The message carried by this new entourage is remarkable. First, they reveal that the centurion originally sent out the Jewish elders to Jesus because he wanted to protect Jesus from his own unworthy, unclean Gentile presence. But as the centurion’s message continues, it reveals an astonishing faith in Jesus’ prophetic power. Just as the centurion knows ...

2670. Just-Say-The-Word Disciples

Luke 7:1-10

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

2671. It’s Complicated

Galatians 2:11-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... and complicated life changes. It is the nature of humans to complicate the simple, and simplify the complicated. People never seem to tire of making situations more complicated. Adam and Eve, living in the Garden of Eden, had the greatest life, the original “simple life.” They had food, peace, companionship, shelter, and the ongoing presence of God. But then they made it complicated. They did what they were not supposed to do. They made some bad choices. And the ultimate bad choice? They hid from ...

2672. Anything to Declare?

Luke 10:1-24

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... these emissaries are sent out before Jesus as he makes his way towards Jerusalem. But this group is doing more than finding venues or villages that would host Jesus as he was on his way. This third group of messengers, like the original Twelve, have a mission of their own to fulfill. There is disagreement among the earliest existing manuscripts over the number of emissaries Jesus actually sent out this third time. Some count “seventy” while others record “seventy-two.” Those who favor the seventy ...

2673. Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Luke 10:1-24

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

2674. The Dirt on Jesus

Luke 12:13-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... after Thanksgiving, “Black Friday,” as everyone hits the early bird, before-Christmas sales. Funny stuff. But not funny are the TV “reality” shows that feature what happens to all that “stuff.” First, there is “Storage Wars,” where confiscated storage lockers (the original owners are either dead or unable to pay storage fees any longer) go on the auction block. After the locks have been cut, there is a bidding war among the “stuff scavengers” hoping to make a profit off of left behind ...

2675. Re-thinking Our Mission

Luke 14:1-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... poor, the blind, those who were oppressed and captives and yet these are the last people on earth that the average church is geared up to reach? As one author has put it: “Church culture in North America is a [mere] vestige of the original Christian movement, an institutional expression of religion that is in part a civil religion and in part a club where religious people can hang out with other people whose politics, world-view, and lifestyle match theirs.” (2) That description of the church hits the ...

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