Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 3026 to 3050 of 4957 results

3026. The Fruit of One's Doing

Jeremiah 16:1--17:18

Sermon

Harry N. Huxhold

... to cope with problems and disasters by virtue of their faith. The belief system of the Christian adherents was vastly superior to anything the pagan religions and cults offered through the multitude of gods they had fashioned in their idolatrous practices. The Prophet Jeremiah claimed the same for the Hebrew faith in his day. He envisioned that the people who did not trust in the God who had been revealed in the covenant of grace were those people who were like the shrub in the desert that has to wither ...

3027. Oh, How The Mighty Have Fallen

Luke 1:39-45, Luke 1:46-56

Sermon

Brett Blair

... tortured them. It would be a mistake for me to stand here today and tell you that God was involved in the United States actions to topple Saddam. We cannot put God’s name on our efforts, even noble ones. But it would also be a mistake for me to claim that God does not bring down the mighty and corrupt rulers from their thrones. The Mother of our Lord has said He does. Jesus said, what is done in secret will be shouted on the rooftops. Wrongs, one day, will be righted. Evil for a day but justice is eternal ...

3028. Eager For The Journey

Luke 5:1-11

Sermon

Brett Blair

... , give as much of your money away to the poor as you reasonable can, while still taking care of your family and when you leave home each day make every effort to tell the world that the reason you are doing all this is because some guy 2000 years ago claimed to be God, died on a cross, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and is coming back one day to judge the living and the dead. Let’s see you do that? My friends, Christianity is a challenge. The world thinks we are naïve. They have gotten the ...

3029. Why Do You Seek The Living Among The Dead?

John 20:10-18

Sermon

Brett Blair

... among the dead? Certainly one possible answer comes from Jewish theology. If you did not know it, there was a very hot theological debate going on during Jesus’ life and it revolved around this issue of the afterlife. The Pharisees, who were the liberals, claimed that there was an afterlife, but the Sadducees, who were conservatives, said: We do not believe that there is an afterlife, for we believe as our fathers did. “As our fathers did,” why did they say that? You can read the Old Testament form ...

3030. It Doesn't Have To Be This Way

Luke 8:26-39

Sermon

James W. Moore

... want to feel good about yourself? Do you want to like yourself more? Do you want to stop bruising and hurting yourself? Do you want to be at peace within? Then remember this: “You are special to God. He loves you! You are extremely valuable to Him! He claims you as His child!” If you ever doubt that or wonder about that, recall the story about the old man who was brought to a hospital emergency room late one evening, an apparent mugging victim. He looked like one of the homeless. He was ill-clothed and ...

3031. Liberty And Civility

Galatians 5:1-15

Sermon

Brett Blair

... believed that Paul went too far and they came in behind Paul and told these new converts that while Paul was right in what he said he was only half right. They would have to observe certain ceremonial practices of the Old Testament which, they claimed, were still binding upon the church, especially the act of circumcision. Paul's response to these men, which we shall call Judaizers, is the book of Galatians that you now hold in your hand. Paul's terse warnings to his followers has resounded throughout the ...

3032. Jesus and Andrew

John 1:35-42

Sermon

James W. Moore

... others. Through trickery, conniving, and scheming, the minister stole a man’s dog. That’s bad enough, but to make matters worse, he included his two little boys in the deception. The two boys helped their dad disguise the dog so the rightful owner could not claim him. The boys enjoyed the trickery and plotting. The boys thought it was great fun to take away the man’s dog. Some years later, the minister realized that in that one deceitful act, he had taught his sons how to steal and turned them away ...

3033. Sight for Blind Eyes

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

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... false prophet. AHA! So they sent you into another chamber and called your parents back in to see what they had to say. Your poor parents! They had heard that the leaders of the temple were out to get Jesus and had threatened anyone who claimed to be his disciple with excommunication. They would be excluded from the congregation; their property might be forfeit; they would be social lepers; they would be cut off from God - excommunication was a powerful weapon. But what could they say? "We are sorry, but ...

3034. The Imperatives of the Resurrection

Matthew 28:1-10

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... had been closed two days before. A huge boulder had been rolled across the entrance to prevent anyone from getting in. The leaders of the temple had even convinced Pilate to post some soldiers there to prevent any of us from stealing the body and then claiming that Jesus had been raised from the dead. Those soldiers were under the strictest orders not to let ANYONE in, particularly those of us who had been his disciples. Pilate had even instructed that the seal of Rome be placed over the ropes that held the ...

3035. The Apostles' Creed: Maker of Heaven and Earth

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... stands were set up. Chimpanzees, said to have been brought to town to testify for the prosecution, performed in a side show on Main Street. Opening statements pictured the trial as a titanic struggle between good and evil or truth and ignorance. Bryan claimed that "If evolution wins, Christianity goes." Darrow argued that "Scopes isn't on trial; civilization is on trial." The prosecution case, began with the court being asked to take judicial notice of the Book of Genesis, as it appears in the King James ...

3036. Thinking about the Unthinkable - Ash Wednesday

Luke 12:13-21

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... you are making other plans." Why does it have to happen? That ancient story from the Garden of Eden makes no bones about it. In almost shockingly straightforward language, it says we have brought it on ourselves. Like Adam and Eve we want to be like God - we claim to know what is good and what is evil, and then act on those short-sighted, self-serving revelations. We make ourselves out to be supermen. We decide that death for our enemies is acceptable in defense of a political agenda, so we go to war. We ...

3037. Beating Babel

Acts 2:1-13, Genesis 11:1-9

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... been done which shows that some of what we hear and do not hear is quite deliberate. One experiment had two groups of subjects, smokers and non-smokers, listen to messages, some of which implied that smoking causes cancer and others which claimed the opposite. The messages were obscured by static, which could be eliminated if the listener pressed a button. Smokers more frequently removed static from the "smoking does NOT cause cancer" messages while NON-smokers more frequently cleared up the "smoking causes ...

3038. God Hears

Genesis 21:8-21

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... to stars in the sky or sands by the sea will begin with a first child. Big problem. Actually not so big. Not for the well-to-do (as Abraham and Sarah were). There was an alternative: surrogate motherhood. Custom of the day permitted a woman to claim as her own any children a servant girl might bear after a liaison with the master of the house. By the time Abraham and Sarah address this possibility, Sarah was well past her child-bearing years. So, according to the Genesis' record, Sarai said to Abram, "You ...

3039. But God...

Genesis 50:15-21

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... there. When they saw the farmer's son with his broken leg they let him off. Now was that good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?(1) Luck. Sometime ago, Christian therapist Wayne Oates wrote a book entitled Luck, A Secular Faith,(2) in which he claimed that modern people no longer believe in a purposeful, intervening, directing God. What we believe in is luck. Luck has become our way of explaining ourselves and what comes our way. Do you remember Harold Kushner's phenomenally popular, When Bad Things Happen to Good ...

3040. God Cares About Justice!

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... . The problem comes from subsequent children this woman might have: whose kid is it? That becomes a major concern when passing on property from one generation to the next: it is harder to keep the property in the family when there are conflicting claims about who fathered the heir. The commandment is DO NOT ADULTERATE THIS FAMILY UNIT by introducing some "foreign" element into it, and creating a mess in determining who is family and who is not. Justice. Number 8: "You shall not steal." Another no-brainer ...

3041. The Ten Commandments #7: No Adultery

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... be trusted to bring forth only children who are unquestionably the offspring of father, property will be passed from generation to generation without problems and it will STAY IN THE FAMILY. Bloodlines. But if mom fools around, who knows whose child might suddenly claim inheritance rights? The word "adultery" itself is instructive - it comes from a Latin root which means to corrupt. When we talk about adulterated milk or soup, we mean that something has been introduced into it that makes it not as pure as ...

3042. The Ten Commandments #10: No Covetousness

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Will Rogers once told of being approached by someone in a great state of excitement claiming that an enemy submarine had invaded one of our harbors; the man was wanting to know how the country could get rid of it. Will thought for a minute and said, "That's easy...boil the water in the harbor." But the questioner persisted. "That's a great idea, but ...

3043. Wise Leadership

1 Kings 2:1-12, 3:1-15

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... and 300 concubines (or PORcupines, as some Sunday School students will tell you), and his legendary wisdom, the result of the prayer we read in our lesson. If there is any single story commonly remembered of King Solomon it is the account of the two prostitutes who claimed a single surviving child.(1) "He's mine," said the one. "No, he's mine," said the other. "Bring me a sword," said Solomon. "I'll cut the baby in two and each one can have half." "Fine," said the one. "NO," screamed the other. "If that ...

3044. Dealing with Depression

1 Kings 19:9-21

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... says Mr. Brown is right on the button. A blue funk will never be dispelled by sitting off somewhere and feeling sorry for ourselves. Get back to the real world and get busy with your normal tasks. One brief aside in all this. Do you remember Elijah's claim that "I am the only one left," the last faithful person on earth? Well, the Lord lets him know that that is not true. There are thousands more who are on your team. Two things should be noted: first, when you are deep in the pits, you rarely think ...

3045. The Apostles' Creed: "God...Almighty"

Mark 15:33-41, Mark 15:21-32

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... was a lot less interested in people than anybody in Morrisonville was willing to admit. That day I decided that God was not entirely to be trusted.(1) Young Russell is not alone. Some of you may feel that way at this very moment. We hear these wondrous claims of a world in the care and keeping of a loving heavenly Father, then look around and see one catastrophe after another. Still, we stand together and say, "I believe in God, the Father, ALMIGHTY..." Really? Lots of folks do not. Of all the barriers to ...

3046. There's No Such Thing as Too Much Sugar

Psalm 91:1-16

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... is right, shamelessly hits on all the pretty ladies, all the while boasting about his creations. Marriage, for example - that was one of his inventions. Waiting in line - that is a good one ("Before that," he reported, "everybody just milled around."). Michael even claims that he invented pie. His companions are writers, so he says he too is a writer. "Oh really? What did you write?" Michael answers, "Psalm 85. But that was way back before they started numbering them." Uh-huh. During the course of all this ...

3047. Angels

Psalm 91:1-16

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... Thess. 4:16; Jude 9) and a special class of angels which has intimate fellowship with God such as the seraphim of Isaiah 6:2-6, indicate that angels are organized in a rigidly fixed rank system. In the early Middle Ages, a writer who claimed to be Dionysius the Areopagite (Acts 17:34), took that idea and produced a ranking of angels. His schema was later adopted by Thomas Aquinas and was not seriously challenged until the Protestant Reformation. According to Dionysius, the angels are arranged in three ranks ...

3048. Integrity

Song of Songs 2:1-17

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... to end in a modern translation - it will not take you long, only eight brief chapters - there is not a single mention of God. Not once. A wonderful collection love poems, OK...but holy scripture? Some have rushed to its defense. One famous Jewish teacher, Rabbi Akiba, claimed that, "The whole world is not worth the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel; for all the scriptures are holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies."(3) So some interpreters, stuck with this book that could melt a ...

3049. Religion and Politics

Isaiah 1:1-31

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... his father a few weeks ago, and I want to say this to you tonight: I don't wear my own faith on my sleeve. But faith has given me values and hope to live by, from Vietnam to this day, from Sunday to Sunday. I don't want to claim that God is on our side. As Abraham Lincoln told us, I want to pray humbly that we are on God's side. And whatever our faith, one belief should bind us all: The measure of our character is our willingness to give of ourselves for others and for our ...

3050. Tough Love

Zephaniah 3:1-20

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... the warnings are ignored. Our national debates in this political year are inordinately focused on the lengths to which we can go in ignoring the needs of the disadvantaged among us. But the scary fact is this - if God is the fair and just God that we claim, God will have no choice but to judge us by the same standards used for other superpowers through the centuries, those that are now just footnotes in history, yet we continue on without a blink. Zephaniah would say that is nothing short of stupid. But of ...

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