Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: Levi, disciple, evangelist, tax collector, the 12, the twelve, apostle, sermon on the mount, jewish audience, beatitudes, lord's prayer, great commission, parables, olivet discourse, mount of olives, olivet, synoptic

Showing 2901 to 2925 of 4942 results

2901. That Carpenter Is God

Mark 6:1-6

Sermon

Ron Lavin

"... A thorn was given me in the flesh ..." 2 Corinthians 12:7, RSV Paul had a problem. We don’t know what the problem was. We only know that Paul called it his "thorn in the flesh." A thorn. Paul spoke of his limited humanity, his suffering, his weakness, his problem in terms of a thorn. How about your problems? A thorn. Perhaps it was a sickness which Paul experienced. Some say it was epilepsy. Do you have a physical adversity which can help you turn in a deeper way to God and find grace to sustain you? ...

2902. Where’s the Power?

Mark 1:40-45

Sermon

Daniel G. Mueller

The purveyors of "positive thinking" like to tell us that if we want something badly enough we can get it, no matter what it is. All we need is the desire, the hunger, the commitment, and if we have these three things, we can accomplish whatever we want. If we fail to achieve our goal, it is only because we didn’t want it badly enough. Positive thinking has much to recommend it, but it has its limitations. One such limitation is this: we cannot always have what we want "just because we want it." All the ...

2903. Who Does He Think He Is?

Mark 2:1-12

Sermon

Daniel G. Mueller

"Who in the world does he think he is?" was the question buzzing around in the threatened little minds of the scribes in our Gospel lesson. Jesus had just spoken forgiveness of sins to a man and he had said it as if he really meant it! The scribes immediately took offense. "Only God can do that!" they said to themselves. "Who does he think he is, anyway?" As our Lord carried out his ministry of healing, teaching, forgiving, and loving, that came more and more to be the question about him. The people were ...

2904. Not Far From the Kingdom

Mark 12:28-34

Sermon

Warren Thomas Smith

"You are not far from the kingdom of God." (v. 34) It was a discussion on the Great Commandment. We call it the "controversy source." An unnamed scribe, one of the straightforward individuals in the gospel narrative, came to Jesus asking a question. It was a candid inquiry, asked by a guileless person. Let us recall, first, that the man was a scribe. His business was recording the scripture. Long before the invention of printing by the Chinese, all documents were executed by hand. What a tiresome, ...

2905. And It Came To Pass

Mark 13:1-31

Sermon

Warren Thomas Smith

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away." (v. 31) Here is the existential consummation of history. This is the frame of reference within which the early church lived and breathed. In the end it was the parousia, the event of Christ coming in glory. Things of earth would pass away. This would be the final reckoning, the ultimate judgment. I always thought, as have most Anglo-Saxons, that the powerful Spiritual ran, "My Lord, what a morning, when the stars begin to fall." It was not ...

2906. Called to Be Saints

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Warren Thomas Smith

"Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you." (v. 12) Who is a saint? The historic definition is one whose life is worthy of imitation by all of Christendom. Some add that a sense of humor is a prerequisite, along with having performed miracles. "She is a saint," we say. What do we mean? We usually have in mind a person whose goodness, unselfishness, love, is unmistakable. Ah, but ask that one, "Are you a saint?" The answer: "Of course ...

2907. Christian Thanksgiving

Philippians 1:1-7

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

"I thank my God," says the Apostle. That is what we are asked to do, and our national tradition designates one day each year for this purpose. For Christians, however, giving thanks to God is not confined to a single day or to a special Thanksgiving service of worship. It is the keynote of all our worship. This was known already to the worshipers in Old Testament times. They said, "Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving" (Psalm 95:2) and "I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving" (Psalm ...

2908. The Big Snow

Sermon

Gregory J. Johanson

At the time he delivered The Big Snow, BRUCE M. HARTUNG was accepting invitations to preach from various Lutheran churches in the Northern Illinois area while he was Director of the Community Pastoral Counseling and Consultation Center and Senior Pastor of Parkside Human Services Corporation, both in Park Ridge. As of September 1983, he became the new Executive Director of the Onondaga Pastoral Counseling Center, Syracuse, New York. In his sermon The Big Snow, Hartung takes the contemporary event of a ...

2909. Having to Stay When You Want Out

Titus 2:1-15

Sermon

Harold Warlick

One of the difficult aspects for many people during the Christmas season is travel. Christmas is certainly no longer “over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother’s house we go.” Over fifty percent of all Americans now live over 500 miles from the place of their childhood roots. Going “home” for Christmas now means arriving at the airport an hour early, lugging presents to the UPS pick-up, renting a car, hoping you can get through the two-and-a-half hour layover in some big city airport, avoiding ...

2910. When Life Gets Hard, Christian, Rebel!

Lamentations 1:1-22

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

Jerusalem, the great capital, was in ruins. The Babylonians were in control. It was the beginning of the famed Babylonian Captivity. All the symbols of power, wealth, prestige, and influence were gone. No wonder so many Hebrews were in despair and that songs of lamentation like the one we just read as today’s First Lesson were composed and long remembered. Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt that life’s moorings had been cut loose? Maybe it was the loss of a dear loved one, a child gone bad, a ...

2911. The Second Touch for the Out of Touch

1 Kings 19:1-18

Sermon

Robert Leslie Holmes

There’s an old legend that tells how God sent one of his angels to Satan with the message that all the methods the devil uses to defeat Christians would be taken from him. The devil pleaded to be allowed to keep only one. The angel, thinking it an unusual, modest request from the greedy devil, agreed Satan could keep that one. “Which one would you want to keep?” the angel inquired. “Let me keep discouragement,” was Lucifer’s reply. The angel agreed. Satan could keep discouragement. And the devil rejoiced ...

2912. Plumb Line Prophecy

Amos 7:1-9, Amos 7:10-17

Sermon

Robert Leslie Holmes

Not many tourists to Washington, D.C., look for the Federal Bureau of Standards offices. It’s the Capitol and the White House, the Supreme Court Building or the Smithsonian most of us want to see when we go there. Yet, at the Bureau of Standards offices something very important is stored, something that impacts your life and mine every single day. Have you ever bought the materials for a new project? When you did, most likely you purchased so many inches or feet or yards. Or, you stopped to buy gasoline ...

2913. Reason for the Season

Luke 1:39-45, Luke 1:46-56, Luke 2:1-7, Luke 2:8-20

Drama

Dave Marsh

Director's Notes: This drama is really aimed at the kids. It reminds them of the true meaning of Christmas. It's also good for the adults since it shows us how we can easily stress out and forget about God. The drama is divided into 3 parts. The first part is where everything is going wrong and the Christmas spirit is lost. The second part is where Teri asks the kids questions about what they heard and saw. The third part is where they 'turn back time' and do it all over again - same circumstances, ...

2914. Christian Liberty

Luke 6:17-26

Sermon

Brett Blair

Jesus died penniless. Roman soldiers cast lots to divide among themselves Jesus' only possessions--the clothes on his back. And he looked at his disciples and said, blessed are you who are poor. Jesus died hungry. There is no record that Jesus had anything to eat the day of his death. What we call The Last Supper on Thursday evening may very well have been Jesus' last meal. He died on the cross Friday at sunset with an empty stomach. Looking at his disciples he said, blessed are you who hunger now. Jesus ...

2915. The Bedrock of Faith

Mark 13:1-8 · Luke 21:5-19

Sermon

Brett Blair

Have you ever tried to make a prediction? Here are some predictions from the past. All from people who were trusted individuals: Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, in 1943 said, "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." Popular Mechanics magazine in 1949 made this prediction: "Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons." There was an inventor by the name of Lee ...

2916. God's Not Done With Us Yet!

Genesis 17:1-27

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Abraham. Everybody knows old Abe. I doubt that any individual in history is more widely recognized and revered. Abraham is patriarch to history's three great monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In the Bible, of all the incredible people of faith we find there, the only one called the "friend of God" is Abraham. You learned great stories about Abraham from your earliest days in Sunday School. You met him as ABRAM - the name would be changed to Abraham later. You heard about God calling ...

2917. The Ten Commandments: One God, Only One

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

David E. Leininger

A few weeks ago, you no doubt saw or heard about a list of the 100 best English-language novels of the past hundred years. It got quite a bit of comment because virtually no one agreed with the list-makers in their selections, and virtually everyone agreed that the number one pick, James Joyce's Ulysses, is a miserable read. Still, no one could agree on a new number one, nor, for that matter, any substitute list either. About all anyone would grant is that Americans do love lists. In fact, the Arizona ...

2918. Look Up and Live

Numbers 21:4-9

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Snakes. Do you like snakes? Not many do. I can think of no other creature on the face of the planet that so universally brings forth a sense of revulsion and disgust. True or not, we think of snakes as icky, slimy, nasty, and as our Old Testament lesson reminds, DANGEROUS. It seems that the children of Israel, in the midst of their wilderness wandering after the escape from slavery in Egypt, had stumbled on to a location south of the Dead Sea that is infamous for its lethal snakes. "Big deal," they no ...

2919. Super Sunday

Deuteronomy 5:1-33

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Super Sunday. Super Bowl this afternoon. Are you going to watch? Most of us will, even those who have little interest in football. The Super Bowl, as an annual spectacle, has transcended its own sport and becomes the focus of national attention beyond reason. Churches recognize the impact. In bulletins across America today are no doubt a zillion sermon titles similar to the one in our own. On PresbyNet last week was the description of one of last year's services on Super Bowl Sunday. The ushers were ...

2920. Do I Matter?

Psalm 8:1-9

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Interesting news this week. According to the population clock at the United Nations, there are now six-billion of us on this whirling planet.(1) Someone decided that a baby boy born to refugee parents in Sarajevo, a region returning to life after a decade of death and destruction and war, would be the perfect symbol for the push toward our next billion or so. According to UN Secretary-General Kofi Anan, the birth of little Adnan Nevic "should light a path of tolerance and understanding for all people." We ...

2921. From Mountain to Mission

Mark 9:2-13

Sermon

David E. Leininger

A "mountaintop experience" if there ever was one. In fact, I suspect that stories like this one helped coin the phrase, "mountaintop experience." In the news last week was word of what will soon become another "mountaintop experience." An announcement from Kathmandu, Nepal says that the grandson of one of the men in the first successful expedition to scale Mount Everest 50 years ago plans to set up the world's highest Internet cafe at the mountain's base camp - 17,400 feet.(1) He hopes to open the cafe ...

2922. Life Between Verses 4 and 5

Psalm 13:1-6

Sermon

David E. Leininger

"How long, O Lord?" How long? Ever ask that question? Most of us have. They say, "Into each life a little rain must fall," but the truth is that there are times when the rain becomes such a downpour that we are about to drown in the deluge. "How long, O Lord." Familiar words from the beginning of the 13th Psalm, one of those marvelous bits of biblical insight we have come to call the "Psalms of Lament."(1) For what it's worth, almost half of the Psalms fall into this category. For that matter, laments are ...

2923. Hungry People

Matthew 14:13-21

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Every time I hear the story of the feeding of the five thousand, I am reminded of reading of a man packing a shipment of food for the poor people of Appalachia. He was separating beans from powdered milk, and canned vegetables from canned meats. Reaching into a box filled with various cans, he pulled out a little brown paper sack. Apparently one of the pupils had brought something different from the items on the suggested list. Out of the paper bag fell a peanut butter sandwich, an apple, and a cookie. ...

2924. Who's The Boss?

Psalm 50:1-23

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Money. Money. Money. Since today is Pledge Sunday, I am going to preach about money. No surprise. But what MAY surprise you is that I am not going to BASH money. No railing about money being the root of all evil (which is an incorrect quote, by the way); not even "the LOVE of money is a root of all kinds of evil" (which is the correct one - I Tim. 6:10). No. I think money is wonderful. I think everyone ought to have as much of it as they can make good use of. Money is a marvelous tool. Money allows us to ...

2925. Now That School's Out...

Proverbs 8:1-36

Sermon

David E. Leininger

School is out. "No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks..." Somewhere I read of the last day of classes being marked by yelling and cheering, bells, whistles, cartwheels in the halls...and that was the TEACHERS! Of course, this is the time for Baccalaureate services and Commencement exercises. It was a delight to watch my own son march with his high school graduating class on Friday night. Just as every other proud pappa, with a tear in my eye and a lump in my throat, I was snapping ...

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