Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 251 to 275 of 972 results

Acts 10:23b-48

Bulletin Aid

James Wilson

... all nations and peoples to accept Your mercy and grace. Help us to grow in Your love that we also might accept all peoples. In Christ we pray. Amen. Prayer Of Confession Lord, so often, even in some of our better moments, we have thought of Your love as being exclusive, only for those who are like us. Forgive us, Lord, and help us to celebrate that in Christ, Your love is accepting and would reach out to all people, be they great or small, rich or poor, sick or well, even to those not like us. In Christ we ...

252. Colorizing Jesus

John 20:24-31

Sermon

Carl Jech

... real Jesus Christ is the reinterpreted, risen Christ who, paradoxically, both affirms and transcends the physical world. "Grace which like the Lord, the Giver, never fails from age to age." (John Newton) Why is it important for us not to think of Jesus too exclusively in physical or historical terms? One reason, again, is that the Bible continually reminds us that the object of our faith goes beyond what can be seen, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe," because they realize that faith has ...

253. Counterfeit Faith

Acts 14:8-20

Sermon

Carl Hoefler

... is the Gospel - the good news in all of this? Is it not more discouraging and condemning than it is helpful and healing to hear about the counterfeit faith, which Paul and Barnabas encountered as they preached the Word about Christ Jesus? Perhaps, if we confine ourselves exclusively to this single text, there is no good news. However, the truth is that we do not have to limit ourselves to any one text, and the Book of Acts certainly does not limit its story to one event. The Book of Acts goes on to report ...

254. Solomon Asks God to Hear and Answer Prayer

1 Kings 8:22-61

Bulletin Aid

Carl Hoefler

... to worship you in spirit and in truth. But we restrict you in so many ways. We have made you our God, and feel you are under more obligation to us than to some of the other people of our world. Forgive us for our possessiveness and our exclusiveness. Give us the desire to share with all people, our faith in prayer and in your mercy, that our world will be convinced that you are their God, too, and they are your people. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Hymns “All People That on Earth Do Dwell” “From ...

255. Joy over One Penitent Sinner

Luke 15:1-10

Bulletin Aid

Carl Hoefler

... . Prayer of Confession We believe the church must minister in a sinful world, Father; but at the same time we feel Christians should separate themselves from sinners to resist their influence. Forgive us for knowing our mission, but aborting it by making your church an exclusive fellowship of self-righteous followers. Teach us the value of each life, and the joy waiting to be expressed over each person who is saved, that we may share in your ministry of finding the lost. In our Savior's name we pray. Amen ...

256. Welcoming The New Millennium

Sermon

James Angell

... God is knowable; that faith risks being wrong.• That Life has a transcendent dimension and is transformed by encounters, both human and divine. The church will continue because it has an Eternal agenda. Its institutional decay may continue, but an exclusively materialistic existence will self-destruct on Empty, and we will press the search beyond Lexus automobiles, second homes with jaccuzis, and the idolatry of leisure and exemptions from responsibility. We will never be able to shake off the call of ...

257. What Makes Us Human?

Isaiah 6:1-13

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... to communicate with God. We are on the same wavelength, as it were, with him. The Greeks, who always had a word for it, named man anthropos. The root meaning of that Greek word is "the up-looker." In other words, the distinguishing and only exclusive characteristic of man is that he worships. Wherever anthopologists or archaeologists have found the remains of ancient man, they have found evidence that he worshiped. The thing that makes us human, then, is the fact that we are possessed of an inborn sense of ...

258. Denominational Unity

John 17:20-26

Illustration

John M. Braaten

... (name a denomination here) in there; they think they're the only ones up here." It isn't just (name a denomination here) who think they are the only ones who have got this God business right. There are other denominations who also give the impression of exclusiveness and project the feeling that it is only natural that the blessings of God should fall upon them. They are probably just as amazed as we are to see that it "rains on the just and the unjust alike (Matthew 5:45)." I suppose that is not strange ...

259. An Everyday Theology

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... this sermon is to lift up the vital necessity of both learned and everyday theology. It is wisdom to know that most of the truth of God and man is both/and, not either/or. It is both a learned and an everyday theology. To use one to the exclusion of the other is to simplify the tension at the loss of depth, richness, and truth. We will continue to need a learned theology. It is part of the apologetic task of our day. Let us remember that the sound, intellectual preaching of Ambrose of Milan played a major ...

260. An Encounter With Two Old Friends

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

... has it that his character is highly questionable, and that although we boast of our inclusiveness, inclusiveness can go too far. Furthermore, they feared that he might blister them a little with a word or two about the righteous pose of this exclusive company, like Mama at the Harper Valley PTA. What Were They Really Like? What were they really like, this Pharisee and publican? Would the story ring true in a society today when terms like "righteousness" or "sinner" have been dropped from our vocabulary ...

261. Emancipation Proclamation

John 8:31-41

Sermon

... to the public, it depends on your political affiliation, if you have one, whether you accept the truth that their report affirms. "We may never know the truth," we hear it said. Religious groups make claim to truth, and usually the smaller the religious group, the more exclusive is the claim. We want the truth wrapped up in documents that we can sign our names on as we say, "This I believe." We want the evidence spelled out in terms that cannot be mistaken so that we can say to others in discussion of the ...

262. Believing is Seeing

Luke 23:26-43

Sermon

Alton F. Wedel

... come on our terms, not on Christ’s, by power plays instead of meekness movements. The mission is contemporized to make folks feel good about themselves, to win friends and influence people at the expense of other people. Vaunted claims of inclusiveness result in subtle exclusiveness. Sin is upgraded to the level of "that’s how it is these days," and forgiveness is a word reserved for pious liturgies. In ways like these, and many others, we try to make a mark, increase the numbers by decreasing faith’s ...

263. Let God Be God

Zephaniah 3:1-20

Sermon

... ? Has business, racism, nationalism, class consciousness, sex, or other kinds of social or sensory experience become a religion with us? These are only a few of the forms with which the Holy of Holies of our lives may be desecrated. Regardless of whether we make them exclusive occupants of that sacred place, or merely ask God to share it with them, we put our souls in jeopardy. As many of the Old Testament writers were keenly aware, God is a jealous God. He does not take kindly to the idea of being asked ...

264. Life's Greatest Treasure

Matthew 13:44-46

Sermon

... finding. This farmer "happened" to find it. It might just as well have been some other farmer. What is implied in this by Jesus? This: the treasure is for everyone and anyone. God's saving and loving work toward you and me is always God's work exclusively. It is purely a matter of his grace. The treasure is given, not earned. I maintain that this goes a little bit against our natural grain. The fact knocks a few holes in our religious sails. Salvation is a gift! And so all of our religious pretenses have ...

265. Don't Try So Hard!

Mark 8:31--9:1

Sermon

... are struggling to win God's favor. They have sins and human failures that burden them. They are weighed down by guilt. They do not feel as though they have measured up in a religious, spiritual sense. Often their solution is to try harder. They focus almost exclusively upon what they must do, what they must achieve, to be acceptable in God's sight. Plainly their relationship with God is based upon what they think they are doing for God. It's the old story of trying to save ourselves by our own good works ...

266. How Was Jesus' Death Different?

John 19:28-37, John 19:17-27

Sermon

... Purpose In the second place, Jesus' death is different because it had a purpose. The cross was a place of sacrifice. His death was an offering for sin. No other death had this meaning or purpose. For some years now, we have been emphasizing the love of God to the exclusion of the other side of God, his justice and holiness. When we sin, we deeply offend and grieve God. Sin is an offense and insult to a holy God who cannot stand sin. He is a jealous God who resents our going after gods that are no gods at ...

267. Proper 4

Genesis 12:1-8

Sermon

... Abram bidding him to pull up stakes and leave for a destination as yet undisclosed." (Anchor Bible, Vol. 1, page 87) It is pretty obvious the cause that led to the migration was religious. It also might have been economic. The two things are not mutually exclusive. Ur of the Chaldees and Haran were both famous, in ancient times, for the worship of the Moon-god, Sin. One Jewish tradition states the Hebrews left the area because they would not worship the gods of the country. The economic matter may have come ...

268. Proper 5

Genesis 22:1-19

Sermon

... or his commitment. We do not like to hear our faith being couched in terms like that anymore. We do not like unreserved commitment. We prefer a more cautious style. Yet, throughout the Scriptures, it is plainly stated the Judeo-Christian faith is an exclusive faith that will not share the worship of the hearts of its followers with anyone or anything. The believer's commitment belongs to God alone. The modern tendency is to rebel against this kind of unconditional surrender - even to God. We do not like ...

269. Beasts, Saints and Chaos

Daniel 7:1-14

Sermon

... would think of us as saints? Some pastors believe their task is to show that they are not saints. I did not think that required a personal campaign. Two weeks scrutiny of any one of us would make that clear. We sometimes associate an exclusiveness with the word "saint." Perfection, we mean. Even the proud are reluctant to associate perfection with their name or reputation, at least to say so themselves. No matter how common is the misunderstanding of saint, the Scriptures do not so misunderstand it. In his ...

270. God Is No Respecter Of Persons

Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

... show us the same respect others do, it may be because he remembers better than we, the source of our beauty and brains, our talent and treasures. Like a child on Christmas night, who hoards from his siblings the toys he was given that morning, as if he had exclusive rights to them, we tend to forget all we have are gifts. The home in which we live, where some family may have lived before us and some may live after us; the food we eat, produced by someone with a greener thumb than ours; the talent behind our ...

271. Let God Be God

John 3:1-21

Sermon

Dean Lueking

... work of the Holy Spirit in gathering Christ's people into congregations of imperfect people with plenty of problems to solve. We need the stretching, safeguarding work of the Triune God to spare us the problem of narrowing God's work in Christ to the exclusion of his creation and its care, his sanctifying and its meaning for the church. Unitarianism of the third person of the blessed Trinity means so concentrating upon the work of the Holy Spirit that we lose sight of the central place of the Cross and ...

272. How Did It Come to This?

Jeremiah 2:1-3:5

Sermon

... a wild vine?”, I would respond, “It never happens over night. It happens in the subtle, slow trickle of everyday life.” II Secondly, they had misplaced priorities. The Hebrews became pre-occupied with maintaining a good economy to the exclusion of caring for the poor. They placed their faith in foreign alliances, specifically Egypt. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, contemptuously referred to Egypt as that “broken reed,” a has-been nation. Somewhere along the line, in the midst of politics ...

273. Trinity Sunday

Jn 16:12-15 · Rom 5:1-5 · Prov 8:22-31

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

... the Spirit, he (usually referred to as "It") is a mystery, a ghost, who is experienced by fanatics, charismatics, pentecostals, and others. The average Christian refers to God. Then there are the lesser deities, Jesus and the Spirit. If God the Father is held exclusively, we become Unitarians. If Christ is supreme, we over-rate him to the down-grading of the Father and Spirit. For some, the Spirit overshadows Father and Son. In referring to God, we need to refer to the particular person of the Trinity; God ...

274. Proper 26

Lk 19:1-10 · 2 Thes 1:5-12 · Ex 34:5-9 · Hag 2:1-9

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

... will have a bonanza. Then Christ will come and destroy Satan. In today's Lesson, Paul encourages his people who are being persecuted for their faith. He assures them that God in Christ will avenge the wicked and will afflict them with eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of God. Then Paul prays for his people that they may be worthy of their calling and, by fulfilling their faith in good works, will be Christ's glory. Luke 19:1-10 Jesus brings salvation to Zacchaeus, a social outcast. Only ...

275. The Epiphany of Our Lord

Mt 2:1-12 · Isa 60:1-6 · Eph 3:1-12

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

... , it is revealed that God wants the Gentiles to share in the Kingdom. Christ is for all men; he died for all. This implies that the church has an obligation to spread the Gospel to all nations that all might come into God's realm. 2. Can the church be exclusive? If it is the will of God, as the Second Lesson claims, to include all people (Jews and Gentiles) in the Kingdom, the church must fulfill that will. Thus, the unity of human-kind should be a reality in the church, for both Jew and Gentile are one in ...

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