Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 2951 to 2975 of 4934 results

2951. Planting Your Feet

Psalm 32:1-11

Sermon

James Merritt

Rolling Stone Magazine recently made a list of who they considered to be the greatest, most prolific songwriters of all time. I am going to give you the top nine in their list in reverse order and see if you can guess who was #1. #9 – Elton John #8 – Joni Mitchell #7 – Paul Simon #6 – Mick Jagger #5 - Neil Young #4 - Paul McCarty #3 - Bruce Springsteen #2 - John Lennon Who wants to guess who they said was the #1 songwriter of all time? #1 – Bob Dylan I really have no qualms with that list except for the ...

2952. Hamburgers Don't Grow on Trees

Mark 4:26-29, Mark 4:30-34

Sermon

King Duncan

A father tells of taking his four-year-old son, Josh, out to McDonald’s for dinner one evening for a “guys’ night out.” As they were eating their hamburgers, Josh asked, “Daddy, what are these little things on the hamburger buns?” Dad explained that they were tiny seeds and that they were OK to eat. Josh was quiet for a couple of minutes and his Dad could tell Josh was in deep thought. Finally, Josh looked up and said, “Dad, if we go home and plant these seeds in our backyard, we will have enough ...

2953. Crossing the Sea

Exodus 13:17--14:31

Understanding Series

James K. Bruckner

13:17–22 These verses introduce the next major section (13:17–15:21) that takes the Israelites to the wilderness by way of the sea. We return to the story of the exit from Egypt with three brief notes. First, we look ahead to the geographical route. Next, we look back in history to an oath made about Joseph. Then we are brought up to date on a new manifestation of the Lord’s presence in cloud and fire. The first note (vv. 17–18) concerns the route to the sea. The name God occurs for the first time since ...

2954. Job Considers a Legal Dispute with God

Job 9:1–10:22

Teach the Text

Daniel J. Estes

Big Idea: Job wants God to declare him righteous, but he cannot envision how to bring this about. Understanding the Text In chapters 9 and 10, Job takes up the challenge made by Bildad in 8:5 to plead with the Almighty. As he contemplates this possibility, Job focuses on his legal status before God. In this speech he begins to work out in his mind how he might approach God with his situation, and how God might respond to him. In his soliloquy in chapter 9, Job turns over in his mind whether he should enter ...

2955. Beyond Judgment

Matthew 24:36-44

Sermon

James L. Killen

One day in 1957 Dr. Albert C. Outler, a prominent theologian who was not at all prone to sensationalism, returned from a White House-sponsored conference of theologians and scientists and announced to an assembly of students at his seminary that the industrial civilization as they knew it had only a few more years to live. The subject of the conference had been the nuclear arms race. The participants were informed that the United States and the Soviet Union had both built up huge arsenals of nuclear ...

2956. The Invitation

Isaiah 55:1-9

Sermon

Charley Reeb

I don’t know about you, but I love receiving invitations. They make me feel special because they are deliberate and have me specifically in mind when sent. Now, sometimes invitations can be disappointing, especially when they have a hidden catch like, “Come to the wedding, but don’t forget a gift,” or “Come on vacation with us and maybe you will want to buy a time share.” Invitations quickly lose their appeal when there is an agenda hidden behind them. But generally speaking, receiving an invitation means ...

2957. The Call of Abram

Genesis 12:1-9

Understanding Series

John E. Hartley

This section begins the Abraham narrative (11:27–25:18), which details Abraham’s life from the time he receives God’s call to the time of his death. (See the Introduction for a survey of the Abraham narrative as a unit.) The Abraham narrative opens with a travelog and the family history, or toledoth, of Terah, which begins here, and continues through 25:18. Members of this family set out from their home in Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan (11:31). They stop at Haran, where they decide to settle. Later ...

2958. When I AM Speaks, You'd Better Listen

John 6:24-35

Sermon

Ron Lavin

It appears that somebody got into the front window of life and changed the price tags. The expensive things now have cheap labels. The cheap things have expensive labels. What has happened is that today we have what might be called a transvaluation of values. Everything is turned upside down. Important values have become unimportant for many people. Unimportant values have been turned into seemingly valuable categories. Just look at the ads on television, the movies, or the magazines being produced today. ...

2959. Clearing the Eyes

John 9:1-12, John 9:13-34, John 9:35-41

Sermon

David & Marian Plant

The scripture today is one of honest inquiry but turns quickly to a realization that what the disciples have known, or thought they knew, is no longer applicable. When it comes to encountering a blind person they turn to what they have been taught. If a bad illness or disability befell a person like the one that befell the blind man, it must be because he or his parents had done something wrong. Today, we understand that if a person is born blind it would be because of any number of prenatal conditions ...

2960. Sweet Vine

John 15:1-17

Sermon

Lori Wagner

The season is nearing for planting. Those of you who plant gardens or farms know that it’s vitally important to plant well, tend well, and prune well for the best yield and the best crops. Grapes can be especially finicky to manage. There are many vineyards. But only a selection of grapes yield the best wines. Why? For those of you who aren’t growers…. let’s come at this another way. In today’s world, our young people are killing their peers at an alarming rate. While many are quick to blame parents, ...

2961. Love

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon

Will Willimon

"If I speak in human tongues or even the speech of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal," Strong words to one who makes his living trying hard to speak in the tongues of angels, or at least of Billy Graham. I could pass peacefully if, after one of my sermons, I overheard someone on the third row say to her boyfriend, "Dr. Willimon sounded just like an angel today." I'm in the "tongues of men and of angels" business. And yet, says Paul in this thirteenth chapter of Corinthians, ...

2962. Little Start, Big Finish

Mark 4:26-34

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

The kingdom of God is a pretty big deal in the Bible. In the New Testament alone it is mentioned 72 times. In the gospels, it’s the subject Jesus talks about more than any other. (The second-place winner is money.) And yet, despite the fact that Jesus talks about it a great deal, we Christians tend to be rather unclear about what exactly is meant by this four word phrase: The kingdom of God. There are a number of reasons for our lack of clarity. The most obvious is that we don’t understand the concept of “ ...

2963. Clean and Unclean

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

Some think that the purpose of science fiction is to predict the future, but those tend to be people who don’t read science fiction. In fact, science fiction is sometimes written to prevent the future by holding a mirror to our society to show us truth. Once we get over being startled we realize that we’re looking at ourselves. In 1957, the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov published a short story called Strikebreaker. In the story a human society of around thirty thousand individuals lives inside of a ...

2964. The Wedding Planner's Worst Nightmare

John 2:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

If you were to make a list of jobs that require the ability to think on your feet and handle extreme levels of stress, which jobs would make your list? Fighter pilots, police officers, kindergarten teachers, perhaps? They’d belong on that list, right? What about wedding planners? Surely not, you say, but think about it. Wedding planners juggle hundreds of tiny details while also managing the emotions of the wedding party. Their job is to create the perfect day for the bride and groom. That’s a huge ...

2965. Beware! Angels

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Will Willimon

''Angels are big this Christmas," said the florist as he placed yet another cherub on the tree. An outburst of bestselling books testify to our current infatuation with angels. Why does the whole world seem so interested in angels, and at this time in human history? The word ''angel'' means, in the Greek, ''messenger." Angels are messengers of God. That's why artists portrayed them with wings. Angels, messengers from God. But in one Mercedes Benz TV commercial, angels are depicted as cute, hermaphroditic ...

2966. A Violent Week

Mark 14:1-2 · Luke 22:14-23:56

Sermon

Will Willimon

“And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth, and kill him...” Only a few minutes from where we worship, nuclear warheads are pointed in our direction. All this could be obliterated in a nuclear moment. We don't think about that much. We can't think about it much. Robert J. Lifton named it "nuclear numbness." If you're exposed to violence or the threat of it for very long, eventually a kind of numbness sets in. I suppose it can be explained as a kind of psychic defense ...

2967. The Call Of The Tradition: Remember And Return

Nehemiah 7:73b--8:18

Sermon

Robert A. Hausman

Ezra read from the book of the law "from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law" (v. 3); and "all the people wept when they heard the words of the law (v. 9). This reading of the word of God stands in interesting contrast to the reading done by Jesus in the gospel for today (Luke 4:14-21). After an initially positive response to Jesus' interpretation of Isaiah, with its welcome ...

2968. How To Treat Your Enemies

2 Samuel 18:1-18

Sermon

Stephen M. Crotts

Did you hear about the man who went into the preaching ministry, worked for seven years, then resigned to go back to medical school and become a doctor? "People," he explained, "don't want spiritual health. They just want to feel good." But after working as a physician for seven years, he again resigned, this time to go back to school. "I'm going to become a lawyer," he explained, "because, in the end, people don't want spiritual health. They don't even want physical health. They just want to get even." I ...

2969. "But Some Doubted"

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

Sandra Hefter Herrma

It is interesting to note that in Matthew's account of the Ascension, he says, "Now the eleven disciples went up to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted." He gives absolutely no explanation for this either. What did they doubt? Did they doubt that it was Jesus? Did they doubt that he had been dead, or that he was apparently alive before their eyes? Since they were doubting before Jesus apparently rose into the air and ...

2970. Safely Through The Waters

Isaiah 43:1-13

Sermon

Robert A. Hausman

By the rivers of Babylon -- there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!" How could we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? (Psalm 137:1-4). The rivers of Babylon were the bitter waters of exile, the devastating waters of the diaspora. The Israelites were far from home, far from the holy mountain, far from the temple, the ...

2971. Grapes Of Wrath Or Grace?

1 Kings 21:1-29

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

A musician in a camp meeting where I preached wrote a country-gospel song titled, "Sin Will Take You Farther Than You Want To Go and Keep You Longer Than You Want To Stay." Nineteen words is a tad long for a song title, but it does state a succinct and compelling truth: sin will get you in serious trouble. In this lesson, Ahab is king and is married to the wicked, Baal-worshipping Jezebel, and covets the vineyard belonging to a worshipper of God named Naboth. Ahab had plenty of property of his own, but he ...

2972. In The Flesh

John 1:1-18

Sermon

William B. Kincaid, III

"And the Word became flesh." We hear those words so easily that they are lost on us. We quickly associate them with the baby in Bethlehem's manger, and rightly so, but then we dismiss them without being startled or shocked or even mildly surprised. "The Word became flesh," the gospel writer says, and we yawn in agreement. Some of the Greeks didn't yawn. They were appalled at such a thought and quickly acted to correct what they thought of as a ludicrous, even sacrilegious thought. It wasn't that God could ...

2973. Proper 14

Genesis 37:12-36, 1 Kings 19:9-18, Jonah 2:1-10, Matthew 14:22-36, Romans 9:1-5; 10:5-15

Sermon Aid

Russell F. Anderson

Theme: How to overcome a contrary wind. The disciples faced a fiercely opposing wind on the Sea of Galilee. So too did Elijah, after his victory on Mount Carmel. Queen Jezebel was after his life. In both instances, they felt overwhelmed. Then, God came to still the storm. COMMENTARY Old Testament: Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28 Joseph, who was given a long robe with sleeves as a sign of his father's favor, was deeply resented by his brothers. One day, Jacob sent Joseph out in the field to find his brothers and they ...

2974. Celebrating Eucharistic Time

Mark 14:12-26

Sermon

Charles R. Leary

Time is an asset and a liability. Call your attorney, physician, or clergy, and the first thing they do is block out a space on their calendar for you. Go to church or a meeting and you see people looking at their watches or waiting for the hourly chime. You take time off to be with the family or to golf and, before you know it, it’s time to do the next thing. Time keeps rolling like the waters in a stream. Time is an asset and a liability. We have the choice of taking it for granted letting it pass ...

2975. Lent 4

John 3:1-21, Numbers 21:4-9, Ephesians 2:1-10

Sermon Aid

Russell F. Anderson

Theme: We are saved by grace through faith. God provided the bronze serpent for the Israelites bitten by the fiery serpents (Numbers 21), that those who gazed on it might live. So too, the Father lifted up Jesus on the cross, that all who look to Him in faith might have eternal life. COMMENTARY Old Testament: Numbers 21:4-9 The Israelites grow impatient as they wander in the wilderness surrounding the country of Edom and complain about God's provision for their needs. The text states that God sent ...

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