Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 2651 to 2675 of 4508 results

2651. People See Things Differently

Illustration

Johnny Dean

People see things differently all the time. For example, three people – a minister, an archaeologist, and a cowboy – were getting their first look at the Grand Canyon one day. The minister exclaimed, "Truly this is one of the glories of God!" The archaeologist commented, "What a wonder of nature this is!" And the cowboy said, "Can you imagine trying to find a lost steer in there?" People see thing...

2652. Personal Understanding

Illustration

Her name was Sarah Dowerday. Born with only one leg, she received national attention several years ago for climbing to the top of Mt. Reiner in Seattle Washington. To document this fascinating human-interest story, a CBS camera crew went along. When she finally reached the snow-capped peak they ask her how she felt: "Once you have experienced the peak, your life is never the same." Friends, once ...

2653. There Is Something about Jesus

Illustration

David E. Leininger

Malcolm Muggeridge, for most of his life a skeptic, following his conversion became wonderfully reflective. In his book, Jesus Rediscovered, he writes, "Beneath the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, a silver star marks the alleged precise spot where Christ was born. A stone slab nearby is supposed to mark the exact site of the manger wherein he lay. The Holy Land is littered with such shrines, ...

2654. Without the Struggle, There Are No Wings

Illustration

David E. Leininger

A family brought in two cocoons that were about to hatch. They watched as the first one began to open and the butterfly inside squeezed very slowly and painfully through a tiny hole that it chewed in one end of the cocoon. After lying exhausted for about ten minutes following its agonizing emergence, the butterfly finally flew out the open window on its beautiful new wings. The family decided to ...

2655. The Triumph of Jesus

Illustration

Sermons For Sundays

In 1896, after fifteen centuries, Athens renewed the Olympic games, thus fulfilling the dream of Baron Pierre de Coubertin of France. You can imagine how proud the Greeks were to host the first modern Olympics. You can also imagine how disappointed they were at their athletes' lack of success in event after event. The last competition was the marathon. Greece's entrant was named Louis, a shepherd...

2656. The Only Way

Illustration

David E. Leininger

A woman was talking to her Presbyterian minister, taking him to task for injecting something into a worship service which, she said, was "not Presbyterian." "Well," the minister replied, "you don't mean to say that you believe that the only way you can get to heaven is by being a Presbyterian, do you!" She thought a minute and said, "No, not really. But no genteel person would think of going any ...

2657. True Greatness

Illustration

Staff

Napoleon knew that great as his military power was, it was eclipsed by a greater albeit different power. Hear his words: "I know man and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Chri...

2658. Others Better Qualified?

Illustration

Frank Lyman

I read that in their 1909 high school yearbook, students in the high school in Abilene, Kansas, where young Dwight D. Eisenhower attended school, voted him most likely to be a history teacher in the future. Strangely enough, they voted his brother, Edgar Eisenhower, as most likely to be elected President of the United States. The other disciples were probably surprised when Jesus named Simon "Roc...

2659. This House for You

Illustration

Johnny Dean

Once there was a rich man who wanted to do something good for someone in his community. He spent a few days just traveling around his neighborhood and the general vicinity. During his travels, he noticed the poor living conditions of a certain carpenter who lived nearby. So the rich man went to the carpenter and hired him to build a house. "Now this isn't just any old house you'll be building," t...

2660. What Do You Believe about Jesus?

Illustration

David E. Leininger

What exactly do you believe about Jesus? Some years ago, in my seminary days, our first course in Systematic Theology dealt with that question. Our professor described Jesus as "the proleptic, salvific, hidden appearance of the eschatological kingdom of God." Did you get that? Take notes; there might be a test at the end of this. "The proleptic, salvific, hidden appearance of the eschatological ki...

2661. Because of Jesus

Illustration

Neal Sadler

Mother Teresa was asked by a young man why she always talked about this Jesus stuff. He said he was going to work among the poor like her, do the good works of charity, but without the Jesus baggage. Mother Teresa responded something like, "Go and work 20 years or a lifetime among the poorest of the poor. Then come back and tell me how you did it. I know that the only way I have been able to do it...

2662. Hearing the Voice of God

Illustration

John R. Brokhoff

How would you react if you really heard the voice of God? Once there was a man who had the habit of going to a barn every evening, taking off his hat, and saying, "Howdy God, I am here." Then he would begin to preach to an empty barn. Some pranksters plotted to pull a trick on him. They hid in the barn, and when he said, "Howdy God, I am here", with a deep voice they answered, "Howdy, Jim, I am he...

2663. A Personal Question Deserves a Personal Answer

Sermon

Roy Howard

One warm August night and only two of us standing on our neighbor’s deck. The others had gone inside to escape the heat and eat the dessert waiting in the cool kitchen. Alone on the deck in the descending darkness of early evening my neighbor asked, “So, how did you find the Lord?” It was not a question I was expecting at a neighborhood dinner party, or any party for that matter, where politics, r...

2664. What's In a Name?

Sermon

Lori Wagner

Names define us. Our entire identity is caught up in the names we bear. Think about it. If a child is raised being called sweet, good, beautiful, and kind, that child will think of him or herself as sweet, good, beautiful, and kind. If a child is raised being called worthless, stupid, ugly, or bad, that child will begin to think of him or herself as worthless, stupid, ugly, or bad. The human cap...

2665. Jesus' Public Opinion Poll

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

Object: A public opinion poll. Good morning, boys and girls. Today we are going to pretend that we are very grown up people and that I am a news reporter who is trying to get some very important information. I will ask you some questions and I will then write down your answers for the newspaper. It is very important that you tell me exactly how you feel. Here is my first question. "Do you think t...

2666. The Authority of the Church

Illustration

Douglas R. A. Hare

There is general agreement that the phrase "the gates of Hades" is poetic language for the power of death (see Isa. 38:10). What is meant is that the congregation of the new covenant will persist into the age to come despite all the efforts of the powers of darkness to destroy it. "The gates of Hades" may here represent a defensive posture: death will strive to hold in its prison house all who hav...

2667. What Doors to Unlock

Illustration

Gary Charles (adapted)

In our I.D.-electronic-cryptic-cyber-coded age, keys are not only physical things that plague our pockets and puncture our purses, keys are also digital. We're all janitors of the high school now with hundreds of keys to access hundreds of apps and inboxes. The problem is that these digital keys are mental keys, hauled about in the mainframe of our sometimes feeble minds. "Hey, mind, what's the ke...

2668. Call Him God

Illustration

C. S. Lewis

In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis addressed the inclination to say nice things about Jesus, but to stop short of calling him God. He wrote, "I am here trying to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was mer...

2669. A Lesson from a Zen Master

Illustration

Barry J. Robinson

A Zenmaster was invited to a great Catholic monastery to instruct the monks who resided there in the practice of Zen. The holy man exhorted the monks to meditate constantly and to try to solve their koan or Zen mystery with great energy and zeal. He told them that if they practiced with full-hearted effort, true understanding would come to them. "But, you really must put your hearts into it," he s...

2670. Authority

Illustration

Adrian Rogers

What did Jesus mean by "the keys of the kingdom?" The day in which Jesus spoke there were religious teachers known as scribes. These scribes were the teachers of the bible. The scribe wore around his waist a belt and on that belt hung some keys which were symbolic of the knowledge of that scribe. Jesus said, "I am going to give you keys that will unlock heaven and will lock up the powers of hell ...

2671. The Question

Illustration

Christopher Drew

Even someone as pious as the great hymn-writer Charles Wesley wrestles with Jesus' identity when he writes: I need not tell Thee who I am, My misery and sin declare; Thyself hast called me by my name, Look on Thy hands, and read it there; But who, I ask Thee, who art Thou? Tell me Thy name, and tell me now.

2672. Why Didn't You Tell Us This Before?

Illustration

Russell F. Metcalfe

A couple of years ago Rev. Martin Copenhaver, of Wellesley Congregational Church, preached on this same passage. He had been to a pastor's seminar where Michael Greene from Britain, a scholar of the history of evangelism, had challenged a group of pastors with "When is the last time you told your congregation what Jesus means to YOU?" Later Pastor Copenhaver wrote in his study "As a pastor I talk ...

2673. Who Do People Say You Are?

Illustration

Philip W. McLarty

A principal of an elementary school in North Texas told this story to Pastor Philip McLarty. One day there was a minor altercation on the playground – a second-grader pushed one of his classmates off the slide, and while she wasn't hurt, it could've been dangerous. The teacher sent for the principal. She talked with the children in the hallway outside their classroom. She got their story and th...

2674. Set Free

Illustration

Brett Blair

Everyone knows the story of Helen Keller. I love that moment, let's call it the Helen Keller Moment, when she learned that a sign, a hand movement, could represent letters of the alphabet, learning that W A T E R could be represented by five distinct movements of the hands. Of that moment she said, "The living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free!" There's a word for that: ...

2675. Who Do You Say I Am? - Sermon Starter

Illustration

Brett Blair

Jesus and his disciples ventured into the District of Caesarea Philippi, an area about 25 miles northeast of the Sea of Galilee. The region had tremendous religious implications. The place was littered with the temples of the Syrian gods. Here also was the elaborate marble temple that had been erected by Herod the Great, father of the then ruling Herod Antipas. Here also was the influence of the G...

Showing 2651 to 2675 of 4508 results

2651. People See Things Differently

Illustration

Johnny Dean

2652. Personal Understanding

Illustration

2653. There Is Something about Jesus

Illustration

David E. Leininger

2654. Without the Struggle, There Are No Wings

Illustration

David E. Leininger

2655. The Triumph of Jesus

Illustration

Sermons For Sundays

2656. The Only Way

Illustration

David E. Leininger

2657. True Greatness

Illustration

Staff

2658. Others Better Qualified?

Illustration

Frank Lyman

2659. This House for You

Illustration

Johnny Dean

2660. What Do You Believe about Jesus?

Illustration

David E. Leininger

2661. Because of Jesus

Illustration

Neal Sadler

2662. Hearing the Voice of God

Illustration

John R. Brokhoff

2663. A Personal Question Deserves a Personal Answer

Sermon

Roy Howard

2664. What's In a Name?

Sermon

Lori Wagner

2665. Jesus' Public Opinion Poll

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

2666. The Authority of the Church

Illustration

Douglas R. A. Hare

2667. What Doors to Unlock

Illustration

Gary Charles (adapted)

2668. Call Him God

Illustration

C. S. Lewis

2669. A Lesson from a Zen Master

Illustration

Barry J. Robinson

2670. Authority

Illustration

Adrian Rogers

2671. The Question

Illustration

Christopher Drew

2672. Why Didn't You Tell Us This Before?

Illustration

Russell F. Metcalfe

2673. Who Do People Say You Are?

Illustration

Philip W. McLarty

2674. Set Free

Illustration

Brett Blair

2675. Who Do You Say I Am? - Sermon Starter

Illustration

Brett Blair

Showing 2651 to 2675 of 4508 results