Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 251 to 275 of 1182 results

Matthew 15:21-28

Sermon

... might just fall through the floor. It's quite clear that most of us could stand some additional encouragement and teaching about prayer. If this is the case, the Gospel lesson we have before us this morning is made to order. This is one of the classic true-life stories about prayer in the Bible. It begins with the refreshing implication that Christianity and the Gospel of Christ are for the whole world. It spells the beginning of the end of all human barriers to religion and prayer. From this woman in the ...

252. Fixing The Fox!

Luke 13:31-35

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... done all, to stand." We have a good example of it in the Apostles who said, "We must obey God rather than men." The midwives in Pharoah's time resisted the king of Egypt by refusing his order to kill every male Jewish child at the time of birth. The classic example of standing up to an enemy was in the 16th century when Luther took his stand against Church and State at the Diet of Worms. His words still ring across the centuries to inspire us today: "My conscience is bound to the Word of God. Here I stand ...

253. Christ's Passion Portraits

Isaiah 50:1-11

Sermon

Paul Hegele

... Goodbye," which was short for "God bless." Now the blessing we need is zeal. The passion portrait of Christ can be the flint-faced man of integrity or the scowling man of righteous anger. It can also be the haunting portrait of the lonely man. The classic painting by Hoffman of Christ kneeling in the Garden of Gethsemane shows him small and huddled, engulfed by the night's blackness. That fits his mood. It was agony waiting for Judas and his arrestors, agony wondering if he had missed God's plan for victory ...

254. Repent!

Acts 2:14-41

Sermon

... when we painfully acknowledge our sins to God and to our loved ones will we take reforming seriously. More importantly, only as a broken, confessing people will we recognize the love of God we had blocked out before. In Victor Hugo's classic Les Miserables, the escaped criminal, Jean Valjean, after living prosperously for many years under an assumed name, learns another man has been identified as him and charged with his crimes. After struggling with his conscience, the real criminal confesses his identity ...

255. Why Look To Heaven?

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

"A touch of Paradise" was her favorite expression and, in many ways, that romance with her was. It was a classic case of first love - for me, at least. She was an older woman - eighteen, I think, to my seventeen - and her emotions were sturdier since she had endured several romances before me. Maybe my rockie heart was why the touch of heaven I felt with her, so often felt like ...

256. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Jeremiah 20:7-18

Sermon

... committed. 1. Compelled (Verses 7-9) The prophet says, "God has deceived me ... I have become a laughing-stock and a joke." People are making fun of him because he proclaims God’s message, shouting "Violence and destruction!" One of Norman Rockwell’s classic Saturday Evening Post covers shows a boy all dressed up in a suit, pushing a baby buggy. He is obviously unhappy, especially since two other boys are passing by, wearing their baseball uniforms, mocking him. No one likes to be laughed at. Garrison ...

257. The Cracked Crystal Ball

Jeremiah 28:1-17

Sermon

... Word. Seeing that, I have to admit that it makes sense. The best of the false prophets are those who appear most authentic. Some wolves have learned how to tailor and to wear sheep’s clothing so well that few can tell the difference. Jesus gave his classic advice in the Sermon on the Mount. "Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits." (Matthew 7:15-16) The problem in our instantoriented and mobile society, is that we ...

258. Why I Can’t Sleep in Church

Ezekiel 33:1-20

Sermon

... to be done. e. The pews are too uncomfortable. f. It’s colder than they thought it would be. All of these are good reasons for, and against, sleeping in church. But let me tell you one from the preacher’s viewpoint. Every pastor has heard the classic description of a preacher’s job. The pastor’s job is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. Even though that description has become somewhat hackneyed over the years, it still has a kernel of truth in it. In a broader sense, the same ...

259. A Moment of Brightness

Matthew 17:1-13

Sermon

Dean Lueking

... smugness. Against Spiritual Egoism The second point of the Transfiguration speaks to an opposite problem. There is such a thing as being so enchanted by the mystery and glory of Christ that all we want is that enchantment. This was Peter’s problem. In one of the classic "foot-in-mouth disease" lines in the New Testament, Peter has to say something about how nice it is to be present at such a splendid moment and would it not be fine to set up three booths to preserve the whole glorious thing for the rest ...

260. A Place for You

John 14:1-4

Sermon

Dean Lueking

... Life Is the Motive for Temporal Life It has been a long-standing criticism of Christianity by some of its sharpest critics that eternal life is a giant aspirin tablet which is meant to blunt the person’s awareness of harsh realities here and now. Classic Marxist orthodoxy holds such a view, and so do articulate people who are not Marxist but who deny the existence of God and his gift of eternal life which transcends death. Such criticisms can be understood in the light of church history, when there has ...

261. Corpus Christi

Lk 9:11-17 · 1 Cor 11:23-26 · Gen 14:18-20

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

... Christians, Paul wrote to them about Holy Communion because he was hopping mad. That is, he wrote because there was a problem which provoked the discussion which resulted in the letter. Had he not been so provoked, we might not have received this classic text: Paul's telling of the tradition by which the report and practice of Eucharist was handed on from one believer and believing community to another. The original disciples shared with Paul what he here shared with the Corinthians: something happened in ...

262. Christians Trust in God

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

Joe Pennel

... thinking consciously at last about something I had done unconsciously before - into what I now termed the concealed essay, in which personal anecdote was allowed gently to bring under observation thoughts of a more purely scientific nature?" The result was his classic, The Immense Journey, and other books, which not only gave him a place in American literature but enabled him to deal scientifically with contemporary life and to interpret it in a more popular, more appealing, and more effective manner. And ...

263. Possession is Nine Tenths of the Fall

Matthew 21:33-46

Sermon

D. Wayne Burkette

... seek to possess their spouses; powerful nations which repeatedly impose their visions of the world and its resources upon poorer and less powerful peoples. Unrestrained desire is at the heart of more problems than most of us want to admit. In Joseph Conrad’s classic story Heart of Darkness, the character of Mr. Kurtz stands out as the epitome of unbridled desire to possess life. Kurtz is the manager of a jungle trading post, in the employ of a late nineteenth-century English company. He ships more ivory ...

264. Painting Out the Lace

Illustration

Staff

You are familiar, no doubt, with one of the most famous paintings ever done by any artist. I refer to "The Last Supper" by Leonardo da Vinci, that classic portrayal of Christ and the twelve apostles at the table. Many students of art history believe that the painting, when first created, was somewhat different from the version which we now see. There was initially, it is believed, an exquisite lace border on the tablecloth. When, immediately upon completion, Leonardo ...

265. The Perspective Glass

Illustration

In the quaint and classic allegory of Christian living, The Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan has Christian and Hopeful in the Dark Valley where they have many trying experiences. Then they are taken by shepherds into the Delectable Mountains, and here they are permitted to look through the Perspective Glass. Such an instrument is now ...

266. Compassion

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... reach 13 years of age. The state says you're old enough to drive when you are (depending on your state law) 15 or 16. They say you're old enough to drink alcoholic beverages when you're 21 and to vote when you're 18. Margery Williams gave a classic answer in a book, The Velveteen Rabbit. It is the story of a little boy's nursery. The nursery was full of toy animals. One day a new toy rabbit came to live there. The rabbit wanted to know the secret of becoming real. He asked the skin horse, who ...

267. The World's Best Kept Secret

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... only person who seemed not to be playing a part. She was the only one who gave out of her natural goodness. The others gave out of their concern how they might look to others. You know how that goes. Many people go to symphony concerts not because they like classical music but because they know they ought to like it, and it is the proper thing for a person of their position to be seen at the symphony. In like manner, many of us belong to civic groups not because we like civic clubs but because we ought to ...

268. The Miracle Comes at the Breaking

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

Various Authors

... have the grace and the power to bring healing to others. Surely this table to which we come today is a table for broken people. The broken bread of communion can never be received by those who think themselves to be whole. That’s why the classic invitation to commune begins, "Ye that do truly and earnestly repent of your sins ..." The invitation does not read, "You that are perfect," or "You that have been sanctified." As a matter of fact, it doesn’t even say, "You that are saved." The invitation comes ...

269. Come and Find Rest

Matthew 11:25-30

Sermon

... prayer, but I imagine that sometimes he simply rested. It could be that he stopped and enjoyed the beauty of the flowers or gazed off from a hilltop into the valley below. Resting does not come only from going to bed and sleeping. As Oswald Chambers writes in his spiritual classic My Utmost for His Highest: ... "And I will give you rest," i.e., I will stay with you. Not - I will put you to bed and hold your hand and sing you to sleep; but - I will get you out of bed, out of the languor and exhaustion, out ...

270. Christmas 1

Psalm 111:1-10, Isaiah 63:7--64:12, Galatians 3:26--4:7, Matthew 2:13-18, Matthew 2:19-23

Sermon Aid

... , the Holy Innocents, Martyrs, and the Epiphany of Our Lord) in order to tell the entire story. Theologically, God is at the center of the entire chapter; he is the protagonist of the story, which raises some questions that are difficult to answer. Arthur Clarke's classic science fiction story, The Star, is a retelling of part of the Matthew 2 story in a futuristic space voyage to the distant star-planet - 3000 light years from earth - that shone in the sky when Jesus was born and led the Magi to the Christ ...

271. Epiphany

Isaiah 60:1-22, Psalm 72:1-20, Ephesians 3:1-13, Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon Aid

... as God's revelation as Messiah and to affirm that he came into the world for the benefit of all people; he comes to do for humanity what persons cannot do for themselves, to win salvation for them. The Prayer of the Day A classic collect that has again been modernized in language ("nations" instead of "Gentiles," "glory" rather than "beauty," etc.), but retains the basic theme and evangelical theology of Epiphany ("revealed your Son by the leading of a star") and its eschatological thrust ("to know your ...

272. Epiphany 6

Deuteronomy 30:11-20

Sermon Aid

... ? How should the preacher deal homiletically with this passage? SERMON SUGGESTIONS Matthew 5:20-37 - "Jesus on Ethics and Morality." Some years ago, Peter Mattheissen wrote a novel, At Play in the Fields of the Lord, which has been called a minor classic; it makes contact with the gospel at several points. A young North Dakota farmer, Martin Quarrier, believes he is called to become a missionary, receives a limited theological education, and sets off for South America, where his assignment takes him into a ...

273. Ash Wednesday

Joel 2:12-17, 2 Corinthians 5:11--6:2, Matthew 6:1-4, Matthew 6:16-18, Matthew 6:19-24

Sermon Aid

... , which has been already conquered by Christ, will be no more. The Second Coming of the Lord will usher in the day of abundant and eternal life for the children of God. The Prayer of the Day (LBW) This is simply a revision of the traditional - and classic - Ash Wednesday collect appointed for use in many of the Western churches. God is addressed as a creator who loves all that he has made and forgives penitent sinners of their wrong-doings. The petition for God's grace looks to the cross and the empty tomb ...

274. Easter 3

Acts 2:14-41, Acts 2:42-47, Isaiah 43:1-13, 1 Peter 1:13-2:3, Luke 24:13-35

Sermon Aid

... , in which Peter writes to the faithful, reminds them of their participation in the new Passover (the use of "ransom" parallels the development of the Passover theology by the time of Christ and the Apostles). The writer of this book apparently knew Jewish theology, classic and contemporary, in the death of Christ, whose blood has delivered them from sin and death. Despite the assurance of salvation which they have, the faithful are to live in fear as they live in the world, just as if they were actually in ...

275. Proper 4

Deuteronomy 11:1-32, Genesis 12:1-8, Matthew 7:15-23, Matthew 7:24-29, Romans 3:21-31, Psalm 31:1-24, Psalm 33:1-22

Sermon Aid

... season: "Lord God of all nations, you have revealed your will to your people and promised your help to us all." The petition seeks help from God to "hear and to do what you command," and it shares this concern for obedience to God with the classic collect for this Sunday. The conclusion of a former prayer says more about God's intention than does the traditional prayer for the Sunday: "that the darkness may be overcome by the power of your light" instead of "that in keeping thy commandments we may please ...

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