Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 2776 to 2800 of 4508 results

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Anybody here this morning old enough to remember wearing your "Sunday Best?" [You may or may not want to make the following autobiographical.] Kids got their weekly scrubbing down. Little boys were jammed into button-down shirts, too-small or too-large dress jackets (pricey "good clothes" had to be worn as long as possible). And those humiliating clip-on ties! Little girls endured scratchy dres...

2777. Proper 17

Bulletin Aid

James Wilson

Call To Worship Leader: Let us come together and worship all who seek to serve the Lord! People: But we have all fallen short of what the Lord created us to be. Leader: Yet even the chosen disciples fell away in the hours before the Cross. People: But Jesus moved steadily forward, never turning even from death. Leader: Such is God's love for us sinners that Christ would die so we might live. All: ...

2778. Proper 17

Sermon Aid

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

OLD TESTAMENT TEXTS Exodus 3:1-15 is the call of Moses, which ends with the revelation of the divine name, while Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45b adds an alternative section (vv. 23-26) to the historical hymn of praise that was also the psalm for Proper Fourteen. The replacement section recounts Israel's oppression in Egypt and the calling of Moses and Aaron to save them. Exodus 3:1-15 - "Deciphering ...

2779. Good News/Bad News

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

A doctor says to her patient, “I have some good news and some bad news. Which would you prefer to hear first? The patient says, “Tell me the good news first.” The doctor says, “All right, the good news is that YOU ARE NOT A HYPOCHONDRIAC.” Of course, the bad news is that you REALLY ARE SICK. A doctor takes his patient into the examination room and says, “George, I have some good news and some b...

2780. Revising The Agenda

Sermon

William G. Carter

Whenever I hear this Bible passage, I smell potato soup. One day when I was about fourteen years old, my mother announced we were going to church for something called a “sacrificial” supper. She said it had something to do with the season of Lent. That was curious, too. We were a low-church Presbyterian family. Liturgical seasons didn’t mean much to us. Any talk of Lent didn’t make much sense. At...

2781. Human Things

Sermon

Lori Wagner

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” ~Abraham Lincoln We have a mantra in our society: power corrupts. Lord Acton, 19th-century British historian noted that “absolute power corrupts absolutely.”[1] He recognizes this in examining the travesties of the Inquisition, in which religiously zealous people of faith took it upon themselves to di...

2782. The Lure Of The Easy Way

Sermon

King Duncan

I like the story of the young man, eager to make it to the top, who went to a well-known millionaire businessman and asked him the first reason for his success. The businessman answered without hesitation, "Hard work." After a lengthy pause the young man asked, "What is the SECOND reason?" We want to deal this morning with the lure of the easy way. Jesus and His disciples were at Caesarea Philipp...

2783. Priorities

Children's Sermon

Brett Blair

Exegetical Aim: Life is more valuable than material things. Priorities. Props-Suggested: A marble, a toy, a twenty dollar bill, a cell phone, and your spouse or child to participate. Lesson: How is everyone this morning? (response) I’m going to show you a few things this morning and I want you to tell me how much they are worth. Place the following objects one by one in the middle of the childre...

2784. The Chain of Command

Illustration

Juliana LaBianca

There was an amusing story on the Reader’s Digest website from a woman named Patricia Nihill who said that she was raised in an Irish Catholic family with a strict father, charming mother, and eight siblings. She said that during Lent, it was common practice for their parish priest to visit their grade school classrooms to help them understand this religious observance. Father Lynch visited her y...

2785. In Case of Emergency

Illustration

Juliana LaBianca

Laura Albrecht wrote to Reader’s Digest about her three-year-old daughter. She said that, after moving to the country, she and her daughter were often alone in their house. Because they lived in a rural area with no close neighbors, Laura wanted to make sure her daughter would be able to call 911 in the event that something happened to her mother. After instructing her daughter on what to do, she ...

2786. Give Me the Good News

Illustration

Angela Akers

A doctor takes his patient into the examination room and says, “George, I have some good news and some bad news.” George says, “Give me the good news.” The doctor says, “They’re going to name a disease after you.”

2787. You've Got to Go Lower

Illustration

Angela Akers

Pastor David Moore tells about a man who was walking through an art gallery when he came upon a picture of the Lord Jesus dying upon the cross. As he stared into the face of Christ, so full of agony, the gallery guard tapped him on the shoulder. “Lower,” the guard said. “The artist painted this picture to be appreciated from a lower position.” So the man bent down. And from this lower position he...

2788. Second Sight

Sermon

David Belgum

What was the experience high up on Mount Hermon, which we have come to call the Transfiguration of Jesus? When we modern, technologically-oriented westerners read, we expect to receive objective information that will benefit us and answer questions. We become uncomfortable when what we read raises questions or throws us for a loop. All the symbolism of inspiration is packed into this short story....

2789. Main Features And Coming Attractions

Sermon

Mark Radecke

You go into the movie theatre, find a seat that's suitable, clamber over some poor innocent slumbering in the aisle seat, taking pains not to step on toes or lose your balance. You find a place for your coat, sit down, and get ready to watch the movie. The house lights dim; the speakers crackle as the dust and scratches on the soundtrack are translated into static, and an image appears on the sc...

2790. Too Soon, Monsieurs, Too Soon?

Sermon

Thomas Long

In the late 1950s, when "rock and roll' was still shocking and auto tail fins were the rage and television was laugh-tracking its way deep into the American psyche, no one had more fun spoofing popular music and art than Stan Freberg. An eccentric comic genius, Freberg left no cultural stone unmocked. In dozens of song parodies and skits, he poked fun at icons, such as the flint-faced Sergeant Joe...

2791. Where Have All The Visible Miracles Gone?

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

Today we celebrate the miracle of transfiguration. It is a great story - a great way to continue our Lenten discipline of preparing for the Easter season. Jesus takes three of his disciples up on a mountain with him, and before their very eyes he is swallowed up by the glory of God's great might. In the presence of such glory, his clothes turn white as light and his face shines like the sun. Then ...

2792. Coming Back Down

Sermon

John Jamison

I have visited some places I really wish I could have stayed. If it were my choice I would still be there right now. As much as I like it here, I would rather be there. There is a tent, set on a hill at the top of a 1,500-foot cliff overlooking the Jordan Valley in southern Israel. When the sun comes up in the morning it breaks over the mountains a few miles to the east and literally shatters the ...

2793. Reality Check

Sermon

Johnny Dean

Many of us have had them, those times when we felt like we were on top of the world, really happy, confident that we knew all the answers, could solve any problem that came up. Or we felt that we were really close to God, really in tune with God’s plan for us. In those moments we were excited and alive, and everything seemed new. The moment might have come at some exciting event in your life: grad...

2794. The Second Sunday in Lent

Sermon

Kendall McCabe

There are moments magnified in memory and they give meaning to all that comes after them. They didn't seem too important at the time, or else they were important in a way we never understood until later. It must have been like that for Peter and James and John as they thought back on their experience on the Mount of Transfiguration. It was a significant moment, all right, no doubt about that. Jesu...

2795. Matthew 17:1-9

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

The only single event in Jesus' earthly life more shrouded in mystery and enigma than the mountain-top experience of the Transfiguration is the great mystery of the Incarnation itself. While the Transfiguration is described in each of the three synoptic Gospels, it has been only weakly celebrated in the traditions of the church. Like the disciples who first witnessed the Transfiguration, the churc...

2796. Matthew 17:1-9

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

Graduation ceremonies are a big deal. The graduates are lauded for completing their course of work, for meeting all the requirements, for formally finishing what they had started so long ago. On graduation day all attention is focused on the graduates, celebrating their special moment. But the next morning…time to go back to everyday life. Graduation day does mark a new beginning. But for a while,...

2797. Jesus Transfigured as a Foreshadowing of Future Glory

Teach the Text

Jeannine K. Brown

Big Idea: Matthew indicates that Jesus will suffer in the pattern of his predecessor, John the Baptist, but also foreshadows Jesus’ resurrection glory, which will follow his suffering. Understanding the Text Matthew’s account of the transfiguration, following directly on the heels of Jesus’ first passion prediction, highlights Jesus’ (future) resurrection glory. As Peter has been prominent in th...

2798. The Transfiguration

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

Reference to “the Son of Man coming in his kingdom” (16:28) points ahead to the foretaste of Jesus as king at his transfiguration (17:1–9) as well as to his enthronement at his resurrection (chap. 28). The vision of the Son of Man coming in his kingdom derives from Daniel 7:13–14 and is a picture of Jesus’s vindication of his claims and his mission (see 10:23; 24:30–31). When Matthew references Je...

2799. The Cost of Discipleship

Sermon

James L. Killen

Nothing that is really very big or very signiﬁcant is ever accomplished without some cost. Why should we expect that the great and good new possibility that God offers to each of us and to our world, the one that Jesus called "the kingdom of heaven," should come without cost? It is costly to God. Why should we not expect that it will be costly to us? But once we recognize how great and good that p...

2800. The Transfiguration

Understanding Series

Robert H. Mounce

17:1–3 Following Peter’s great messianic confession, Jesus begins to teach his disciples that his messiahship would involve rejection by the religious authorities and lead to death (16:21). To encourage his followers and to provide hope that victory lies beyond defeat, Jesus takes Peter, James and John to a high mountain, where he is transfigured before them. There is no particular reason why this...

Showing 2776 to 2800 of 4508 results