Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 251 to 275 of 3852 results

Romans 3:21-31

Sermon Aid

T. A. Kantonen

... Adamic nature. Those who echo the New England Primer’s "In Adam’s fall we sinned all" are on the wrong track. Of his own will, without external compulsion, each of us falls into sin. Paul’s ultimate answer to the question of the origin of sin is to affirm "the mystery of iniquity," which is philosophically expressed by Kierkegaard, "Sin posits itself" and "Guilt is the most concrete expression of existence." Flesh The tool which sin uses is the flesh, sarx, a word which is found ninety times in ...

252. The First Murder - 1940

Matthew 7:1-6

Sermon

Kent Moorehead

... t much color in his character. On the other hand, Cain was a colorful man. He was a multitude of many selves. In the second place, he was a tiller of the soil and that is a major value. The Bible gives us the suggestion that he was the original tiller of the soil. We do not need to take this too literally to get the spiritual importance. This impulsive creature, because of his inventive genius, was the same one who started the business of farming. The major turning point in the history of the world and in ...

253. Marriage is Forever

Matthew 5:31-32, Matthew 19:1-12

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... than those from intact families. When we consider Jesus' words about marriage and divorce, here are several truths we can trust and live by: First, God's Plan for Marriage Is A Life-Long, Indissoluble Union. Divorce was never in God's original plans. It was a later invention of sinful humanity. In Matthew's gospel, Jesus condemns all divorce, except for unchastity. Unchastity referred to a woman's having been sexually active before marriage or unfaithful afterward. Note the double standard of the First ...

254. The Ten Commandments

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Brett Blair

... this sermon with these thoughts. The Law was a gift from God just as the Messiah was a gift from God. Jesus himself said that he did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill the law. Jesus affirmed the Ten Commandments time and again by defining their original intent. He spoke in the Sermon on the Mount: You have heard that it was said to the people long ago “Do not murder,” but I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.” Sin begins not with the outer action ...

255. The Marvelous Style Of Jesus: Truth And Love

Matthew 22:1-14

Sermon

Joseph M. Freeman

... God's grace cancels out God's judgment. Not according to the teachings of Jesus. Many of them are quite demanding and the consequences of disobedience are quite severe.4 In verses 8-10, we see how committed God is to community and to salvation. If the original guest list has no takers, people found in the mainstream of life on one level, to their own utter surprise, are invited to an event they never sought after. Somehow, in their persevering service to their master, the slaves were able to gather into the ...

256. The Need for A Community of Healing

Mark 1:29-34

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... in this situation. We only are saying that it was one solution that made a dramatic change in the health of the wife. Further, we are not saying that all disease is psychosomatic. We only are saying that some diseases have psychological origins. Consequently, when the psychological distress is relieved, the physical problems fade away. Or to say it theologically, when the sins are forgiven, the bodily ailment is cured. Doctors know that a large percentage of their patients have problems of the soul more ...

257. A Messenger of Promise

Malachi 2:17--3:5

Sermon

Harry N. Huxhold

... My Messenger.” The Hebrew name was assigned the prophet on the basis of the lesson before us. This prophet carried on his ministry in the period of the Return of the people from the Exile in Babylon. He carried on this work before Ezra and Nehemiah. The original intent of this word of promise was that God wanted to use his messenger to announce the return of the Presence of God in the Temple at the conclusion of the Exile. With that, the people could also be assured of the restoration of the Covenant that ...

258. Why Do You Seek The Living Among The Dead?

John 20:10-18

Sermon

Brett Blair

... that if I were to ask you the final verse in the Psalm many of you would be able to tell me: And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. That certainly sounds as though it is a reference to eternal life. But not so. For the original Hebrew actually reads: And I will dwell in the hose of the Lord, for length of days” or to make it a little smoother “for as long as I live.” Now that says something quite different. I specifically mention this because in the Methodist hymnal on page 734, where the ...

259. A New Look at an Old Treasure

Psalm 23:1-6

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... do not find, "He leadeth me in paths of righteousness," but instead, "He leads me in right paths." Instead of "the valley of the shadow of death," we find "the darkest valley." The modern translators chose these English words because they are truer to the original Hebrew. And as we pay attention to the difference these changes make, some of this confused logic begins to straighten out, and a whole new picture of this psalm emerges. Imagine, if you will, that the narrator is not picturing himself as a sheep ...

260. I Am Doing A New Thing

Isaiah 43:14-28

Sermon

King Duncan

... be said for the morning. MAYBE IT'S TIME FOR US TO DO A NEW THING AS WELL. For, you see, sin is what the cross is all about. Somewhere I read about the origin of the word "firemen." Today's firemen, or firefighters as we now call them, put out fires. Originally, though, firemen were men who started fires. The original firemen worked in coal mines, and it was their hazardous job to be the first to enter a mine each morning. They would wrap themselves in wet rags to make themselves as `fireproof' as possible ...

261. The Appearance of Love

Matthew 22:34-40

Sermon

King Duncan

... I need to search out our hearts and see if there is more that we might do to introduce people to the love of Jesus Christ for truly, to know Jesus is to know love. Sometimes things are not what they seem. Let me return to my original question: If people were to look at our lives, would they understand that the two great commandments of our faith are to love God and to love our neighbor? 1. David Wendel, United Methodist Church, Esterville, IA. 2. May/June 1996, p. 15. 3. (Ventura, California: Regal Books ...

262. Building a Nation

Matthew 11:25-30

Sermon

King Duncan

... Methodists have to the aliens of Roswell, New Mexico! In the end Julia Ward Howe won out over Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians." Perhaps that is for the best. I say that, even though living for a good cause is often more difficult than dying for it. But the original words cause us to ask, Is There Anything in My Life Which I Value So Much That I Would Die For It?"" As we reflect on our life as a people, we see the parallel between first century Palestine and our time. The Hebrews could look back to years ...

263. How Free Are We?

John 8:31-41

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... and death. No amount of spiritual band-aids applied to the surface of things will help. There is something drastically wrong with human nature at its very core: what theologians have called “Original Sin.” My definition of “original sin” cannot be found in any catechism, and it goes like this: “Original sin is theological shorthand for our infinite capacity for lousing things up.” Theologians and philosophers have debated for centuries the age-old question as to whether we are bound or free ...

264. Childish or Child-like?

Mark 10:13-16

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... “innocence” of childhood. Every parent (and grandparent) knows that “the innocence of childhood” is a myth. Children are not all that innocent! Someone once said that children exhibit the “most original form of Original Sin.” Two theologians were walking across a seminary campus when one asked the other, “Do you believe in Original Sin?” The other said, “Yes, I do. We have a child.” “Do you believe in Total Depravity?” asked the first man. “No, I don’t. That is an excess of ...

265. God’s Greatest Gamble

Mark 12:1-12

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... Knox Press, 1983, pp.216-217) Do you know the derivation of the word “steward?” We use it all the time in church. We talk about stewardship of time, talent, and treasure. We talk about trying to be good stewards of God’s good earth. But originally the word “steward” meant “ward of the sty,” a keeper of pigs. It was someone who kept property, pigs in this instance, for another. In this sense we are all keepers of property for someone else, for God. Sometimes an offertory prayer is said: “We ...

266. Sine Qua Non

Mark 12:28-34

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... religious about the position. Then, during the Exile, when the Temple and the Land were gone, and the people had nothing to lean upon except their Scriptures, the scribes became a professional class, “doctors of the law,” interpreters of Scripture. Originally, they belonged to the “Hasidim, the pious ones,” but later on they broadened out in other directions. One branch of them became a political party, known as the Pharisees. The main business of the scribes was the teaching and interpretation ...

267. Dealing With Guilt And Shame

Romans 7:7-25

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... , any of these was more serious than stealing pears. Augustine saw in the "pear incident" his true nature and the nature of all human kind: "foul was the evil, and I loved it." In each of us there is sin. Now whether we talk about this in terms of original sin, or the universality of sin doesn't matter. The fact is that since Adam and Eve, sin has been a part of every human life. This is what Paul was struggling with in our Scripture lesson as he gave expression to the anguishing conflict, the constant war ...

268. Night Moves

Genesis 32:22-32

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... of the richest stories in the treasury of human literature. For Jews, Jacob is the father of the race. His new name, "Israel," is their name. His sons, he has twelve sons, will be the progenitors of the twelve tribes of Israel, so this is the story of the origin of the Jewish people. All Jews are sons and daughters of Jacob. This is Israel's story. But it is also our story. This is every man's and every woman's story. You can see yourself in this story. These stories are called "archetypes," where you can ...

269. Called to Freedom

Matthew 11:25-30

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... sense of the word," which suggests that there are some people who are good, but not very nice. And the reason, Luther would say, is that they are in bondage to the self. Doing good things does not free you from sin. Luther's definition of sin, original sin, the sin that affects all of us, is so wonderfully descriptive in Latin, incurvatus se, "turned in upon the self." Bondage to the self. We recognize that as a characteristic of the egoist, who talks about me, me, me all the time. But Luther's profound ...

270. The Spirit of...Winter?

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... child to understand that this is another name for an anonymous gift given to someone whom we don't know, but whom we love anyway because God does. (Presents within the family can be "From Santa" or "From Santa and . . .") This was the original ritual of Christmas: giving to the poor, the hungry, the needy and the insignificant, the seemingly unimportant members of the community. This is the spirit of St. Nicholas. (For more see Jeremy Seal, Nicholas: The Epic Journey from Saint to Santa Claus [Bloomsbury ...

271. An Uncomfortable Comforter

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... Durer's classic etching of St. Jerome in his Study (1514). How comfortable does he look? Ask St. Jerome how comfortable he felt in that chair. He couldn't understand the concept. He wouldn't know how to answer you. The word comfortable did not originally refer to enjoyment or contentment. Its Latin root was ‘confortare’--to strengthen or console--and this remained its meaning for centuries. We use it this way when we say "He was a comfort to his mother in her old age." (Witold Rybczynski, Home: A Short ...

272. Set Life Free

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... to sustain the new shoot of life. It will wither away from neglect. Only those seeds that find their way into deep fertile soil, only those seeds whose roots spread out and stalks grow tall towards the sun, will enjoy a harvest, a yield beyond the original amount of seed first sown. On a spring day, a weekend gardener showed an out-of-town visitor the packets of seed he had received through the mail. The rainbow colored packages promised huge, juicy, tasty vegetables of every kind. "This will be my best ...

273. Cha-cha-cha Christians: The Dance that Advances

2 Peter 1:12-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... Isaac Newton wasn’t the first guy to get hit on the head with an apple. But he was the first to connect falling fruit with rules for the gravitational pull of the earth. The “cha-cha-cha” of “Charge” is the devising of an original solution to an everyday problem. Koshland’s second “cha” is a “Challenge” discovery. In finding a new theory, a new paradigm emerges that can hold this new store of accumulated facts. What may have seemed to be random bits of data, even anomalies, come together ...

274. Lent 1

Mt 4:1-11, Rom 5:12-21

Sermon Aid

Marion L. Soards, Thomas B. Dozeman, Kendall McCabe

... but the new order (manifested in Christ) operates by the power of grace, or compliance and connection with God's will. Paul takes for granted the existence of evil or sin. Like other first-century Jews, he shows no interest in accounting for the origin of evil, even in saying that Adam sinned. The theodicy issue is not resolved. Paul's concern is to decry the dastardly nature of sin with its deplorable consequence: death. Against the horrible reality of sin and death, Paul declares the extravagant goodness ...

275. Proper 24

Exodus 33:12-23, Matthew 22:15-22, 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10, Psalm 99:1-9

Sermon Aid

Marion L. Soards, Thomas B. Dozeman, Kendall McCabe

... Psalms 93:3, 97) and then proceed to praise the power of God as king. Frequently we observe significant cultic imagery (imagery of the Temple) in these so-called enthronement psalms, which is meant to underscore the power of God. Scholars debate the original liturgical setting of these psalms. Some argue that the psalms were part of a new-year festival, borrowed from the Babylonian akitu, in which the creative power of God was celebrated, while others favor a covenant-renewal festival. This debate cannot be ...

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