Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 2801 to 2825 of 4884 results

John 15:1-17

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... doctor's office receiving a physical examination. The doctor came out of his private office with a series of papers and a chart to give the patient the results of all the tests. These were the doctor's words: "Well, I see no reason why you can't live a perfectly normal life as long as you don't try to enjoy it." Then there's the story of a teenager who was overheard to say to a donkey out in the country, "Why, you must be a Christian. You have a long face like Grandpa." All of that is to ...

2802. Saying Yes To Forgiveness

2 Corinthians 5:11--6:2

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... . Rodney Dangerfield, that zany comedian, commented once, "My wife and I sleep in separate rooms, we never eat dinner together, we take individual vacations, and we are doing all we can to keep our marriage together." Well, some people think that the perfect marriage is one that is unmarred by conflict -- one in which there are no arguments, no expression of differences -- no sign of confrontation and estrangement. In fact there are some who believe that you are truly Christian when you always have your ...

2803. Don't Mess With Mr. In-between

James 1:1-18

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... three, that in any given Sunday family dinner, either the old folks or the young folks were afraid that a no would seem unloving. "No is one of the hardest words in the language to say, not only to acquaintances, friends, family and lovers, but also to perfect strangers." (quoted by Clarence Forsberg, "A Guide to Spiritual Fitness", September 23, 1984). If we are not going to be wishy-washy, we must learn to say no. IV. But, there's more. We must learn to say yes. The Greek word James uses (dipsuchos) which ...

2804. Swift To Hear -- Slow To Speak

James 1:19-27

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... count five stones down in the inside of the wall of the well. That stone will be loose. If he will remove it, he will find all of the money behind the stone. Tell him quickly before he kills me!" The translator turned to the Texas Ranger, and said in perfect English, "George Rodriguez is a very brave man. He said he is not afraid to die." Communication is so important -- and to really communicate, we must say what we mean and mean what we say. Only our actions prove we mean what we say. That's why I am ...

2805. Repentance: The No That Is A Yes

Luke 3:1-20

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... William Schulz, "that each individual is the ultimate source of authority." Never very large, the UUA now has 200,000 members and is enjoying its largest growth spurt in 20 years. Currently the Unitarians are running a three-city advertising campaign that captures perfectly the consumer ethos: "Instead of me fitting a religion I found a religion to fit me" (page 56). One Unitarian pastor said, "We are guiltless children before God, not a guilty child of the ego." What a fallacious claim! What a lie! None ...

2806. On The Road Again (emmaus)

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... give him the bath he had not had in who knows how long. "I live like an animal in the streets," the man told her. "Now I will die like an angel." "How wonderful to see a person die in love," Mother Theresa exclaims, "with the joy of love, the perfect peace of Christ on his face." Then she added, "The dying man in the gutter is Jesus in distressing disguise. That's the way Jesus often comes -- incognito. He joins us on the way and many times we don't even recognize Him. But, not alone in such a dramatic ...

2807. When You Pray

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... the novitiate declared “Well, then those who know what I’m going to preach about turn to the ones who don’t know what I’m going to preach about, and you tell what it is. Let’s go to the benediction!” (Reverend William G. Stell, “Perfect Love” Preached at St. Luke’s U.M.C. in Houston, Texas.) You may have noted that Luke’s account is a far more succinct and compressed version than Matthew’s. Matthew’s version is the one we commonly use. Interestingly, Matthew puts the prayer in the ...

2808. Blessed Are Those Who Are Awake

Luke 12:32-40

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... Prize winning scientist, sing like (Pavarotti), dance like (Fred Astaire), write like Camus, paint like Wyeth, and play golf like Jack Nicklaus. Every young couple who comes here for their wedding assure me that theirs is going to be the ideal marriage, the perfect union. I do not dispute such dreaming, nor do I disparage ambition and idealism. In fact, give me an idealist any day over a cynic — especially a 21-year-old cynic. “Yet, those who have weathered turnings of the seasons know that between ...

2809. Dealing With Guilt And Shame

Romans 7:7-25

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... be patient with God. And the only way that patience can be kept alive and grow is to continue to believe that God is faithful. Paul put it this way "I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to perfection." (Philippians 1:6). God has promised. God is faithful. And God will complete His work in you and in others. But you'll have to be patient: patient with yourself, patient with others, and patient with God. We do identify with Paul don't we "for the good I want ...

2810. The Grace Question: Are You A Teacher...and Yet Do Not Understand?

John 3:1-21

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... would spend all of their lives observing every detail of the scribal law. What exactly did that mean? The Law was the first five books of the Old Testament. To the Jews, the Law was the most sacred thing in the world. They believed the Law to be the perfect word of God. To add one word to it, or to take one word away from it, was a deadly sin.... "The name Pharisee means the separated one; and the Pharisees were those who had separated themselves from all ordinary life in order to keep every detail of the ...

2811. The Danger Of Straying From Home (Father's Day)

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... drama, The Skin of Our Teeth, a man named George comes back from the war to his wife, Maggie, only to tell her that he wants to leave her for another woman. Maggie replies that she has a few words for him: "I did not marry you because you were perfect. I did not marry you because I loved you. I married you because you gave me a promise...That promise made up for your faults. And the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect people got married, and it was the promise that made our marriage...And ...

2812. Fair Weather Friends

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... going to do to that child? When Harold Ross was editor of The New Yorker, he would frequently examine an article that needed just a bit more work. In such cases he would write at the top over his initials, "This piece is so good that it ought to be perfect." Our problem is that we don't separate the person from his or her performance. When people don't act the way we wish them to, we criticize. We need to learn to check up on performance in a way that the person will never be put down. We need ...

2813. Food That Is Needful

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... the race that is set before us..." That's the first verse, and it doesn't stop there. It would be incomplete and impossible if it stopped there. "Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of God." The food that we need is perseverance -- perseverance that comes from looking ...

2814. To Live Is To Grow

1 Timothy 4:1-16

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... Paul reminded his readers who they were and from where they had come. They were estranged from God, hostile in mind, doing evil deeds. But now they were reconciled to God through the death of Jesus Christ. The purpose of Christ in their life was to perfect them, to bring them to maturity as God's people that He might present them "holy and blameless and irreproachable before (God). This would be possible, he said, if they continued steadfastly in the faith. Paul's letter to Timothy makes the case even more ...

2815. Clean Hands

Mark 7:1-23

Sermon

King Duncan

... of joy coursed down her cheeks. The scripture lesson read earlier in the service was from 1 John 4:"See what love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God . . . If we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us." (2) These folk in this small church understood that the Gospel is not about drawing lines, but about helping people find God. Legalism comes in many forms. According to Jesus, none of it matters to God. What God cares about is people. 1. Charles R ...

2816. The Dividing Line

Mark 8:31--9:1

Sermon

King Duncan

... the Anointed One or Jesus the Messiah. The Jewish idea of Christ was of a superhuman conquering figure who would come to call all the children of Israel from all over the world, bring them back to their nation, destroy the Gentiles, and restore Israel to perfect peace, power, and prosperity. Imagine the shock and pain of the disciples when Jesus teaches them what it really means that the Messiah has come. "He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders ...

2817. Making Your Days Count

Mark 9:33-37

Sermon

King Duncan

... challenge Jesus faced in our Bible passage today. He has used up about 12,037 of his 12,045 days. If he's ever going to teach his disciples about the purpose of their lives, now is the time. How would they be living if their plans and purposes were perfectly aligned with God's will? The answer was surprising then, and it's still a challenge for us today. Verse 33 reads, "When he was in the house, he asked them, 'What were you arguing about on the road?' But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued ...

2818. What God Has Joined Together

Mark 10:1-12

Sermon

King Duncan

... their wives for various reasons, but wives had no such freedom. As one source commented, the only course that a woman had was to become so mean and intolerable that the husband divorced her. That’s the Old Testament. If the Old Testament were a perfect document, we would not have needed the New. "What did Moses command you?" Jesus asked. They said, "Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away." "It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law," Jesus ...

2819. Your Dreams Are Too Small

Mark 10:35-45

Sermon

King Duncan

... he confessed to several things that I never knew he did.” We all have our dreams, don’t we? To play starting guard on the basketball team. To be the top sales person in our company. To have the nicest home in the community. To have the perfect family. To retire while we’re young enough to live out some of our dreams. Nothing is more natural than to dream. In fact, most people dream too small. When Michael Dell was in college, his parents drove up for a surprise visit. They were concerned that Michael ...

2820. Faith for Troubling Times

Luke 21:5-38

Sermon

King Duncan

... Meyers, Morning Sun on a White Piano (New York: Doubleday, 1998), p. 70-72. Adapted from a sermon by Gregory Knox Jones, http://chesterpres.org/osermons/s122400.htm. 2. Brett Blair, eSermons. com, adapted from "First Lady" by Ann Gerhart from The Perfect Wife: The Life and Choices of Laura Bush, condensed in Reader’s Digest, January 2004. 3. John Eliot, Ph.D., Overachievement (New York: Portfolio, 2004), pp. 32-33. 4. 1000 Windows (Cincinnati, Ohio: Standard Publishing Company, 1997). 5. http://www.st ...

2821. Christmas and the New Family

John 1:1-18

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

... A new family is about to come into existence -- a family born of God. We need some background to appreciate and understand what is happening. The Old Testament scriptures tell us that God gave our human race an utterly beautiful start by setting us in a garden of perfect delight. But we human beings rebelled against God, and chose to listen to the voice of the intruder -- sin. As a result, we became a wayward race. By creation we were the children of God, but by our own choice we became the children of this ...

2822. Epiphany: A Faith to Work Miracles

John 2:1-11

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

... sudden unexplainable impulse, sent a card or note to someone, then had them tell you that your greeting card came at just the right time? "How did you know," the person asked, "that I needed something like that at that very time? How could your timing be so perfect?" Yes, how? Is it only a coincidence that you felt the urge at such a special time? Do you suppose such "coincidences" would happen more often if we were more ready to bear water for our Lord? You and I live in a time and place where miracles ...

2823. Headlines and Holiness

Luke 13:1-9

Sermon

Frank G. Honeycutt

... to anything at all. It's rather peculiar that Jesus doesn't really tackle our favorite questions in this story. He doesn't go there, even though he could have, even though we wish he would indulge us at least for a moment. Here's a perfect opportunity to talk about the very thing that troubles us: Where is God? Why doesn't God do something? Endlessly interesting questions for most of us. Instead, Jesus does a rather shocking thing. They are all sitting around watching the evening news, stories of malice ...

2824. Timing

Ecclesiastes 3:1-22

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... Christian faith something that the writer of Ecclesiastes does not know: that in the plan and love of God, death is not the end of all our enjoyment and work. Rather, through faith in Jesus Christ, our lives are taken up in resurrection, our good work is completed and made perfect, and we enter God's eternal kingdom for evermore.

2825. Thorns and Thistles

Jeremiah 1:1-19

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... "I do not know," the Lord replies, "I knew you." To Jeremiah's "I am only a youth," God answers, "I am with you," and then he gives Jeremiah the words he is to speak. As Paul says, God's grace is sufficient for us, and his power is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). The reason for God's call to Jeremiah and to us is very clear. God is working constantly to make his creation good once again. We human beings ruin God's good world with our sin and rebellion against his will, attempting to ...

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