Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 3026 to 3050 of 3160 results

Mark 1:14-20

Sermon

King Duncan

... God into action here and now. For the past three years, the country of Finland has ranked #1 in the United Nations’ World Happiness Report. And guess what they did? Finland’s leaders took advantage of this prestigious title by creating an ambassador program of sorts to share the secrets to happiness with the rest of the world. That’s what you do when you’re on to something good. The ambassador program, called Rent A Finn, encourages people to visit Finland under the guidance of a local Finnish tour ...

3027. Driven to Their Knees

Mark 9:2-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... totally different. In his autobiography, To Rule the Night, James Irwin wrote, “As we flew into space, we had a new sense of ourselves, of the earth and of the nearness to God. We were outside ordinary reality; I sensed the beginning of some sort of deep change taking place inside of me.” Irwin continued, “The ultimate effect has been to deepen and strengthen all the religious insight I ever had . . . On the moon the total picture of the power of God and his Son Jesus Christ became abundantly ...

3028. Celebrating the Virtue of Humanity

Ephesians 2:1-10

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... President Jefferson, when he picked up the old man and gave him a ride, was imitating the humility of Jesus. We are called to do likewise in our lives. Humility has many facets, but three of the most important ideas, which form a sort of trinity, are compassion, forgiveness and reconciliation. Rather than exhibiting these three virtues, too often revenge and pride cloud our vision, not allowing us to humble ourselves sufficiently to find the reconciliation we need, within our own person, with others and, of ...

3029. Gratitude

Ephesians 5:15-20

Sermon

Will Willimon

"…be filled with the Spirit,...always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father." I didn't care for him when we first met. He's not the sort of person that you warm up to at first. It takes time, and life, before he becomes part of you. Don't ever think that he comes naturally. You have to work at getting along with him. When we first met, I was young, very young, maybe two or three. ...

3030. We Need Some Good News

Mark 1:14-20

Sermon

Michael L. Sherer

... least two problems with this ‘hostage taking’ of an excellent New Testament word. In the first place, it suggests that only certain kinds of Christians are truly evangelical. In the second place, it overlooks the fact that Christians of this sort are more often than not the opposite of real “evangelical” believers. A more accurate understanding of “evangelical” would be the treatment it received at the beginning of the Protestant Reformation in Germany. The movement enabled by Martin Luther and ...

3031. Sin

Romans 7:15--8:13

Sermon

Will Willimon

... is solid evidence for the Bible's insistence that pride is our number one flaw. (1) You and I display what psychologists call a "self serving bias". We tend to take more responsibility for our success than our failure. Researchers asked people to perform some sort of test. After the test, they told some that they did well; others that they flunked. "I've always been good in math", said those who succeeded. "Rotten luck," said those who failed. I succeed because of my ability and effort. I fail because of ...

3032. Advice

Romans 12:2, 9-20; 13:8-9

Sermon

Will Willimon

... advice of St. Paul. Here is today's lesson. (Read Romans 12:2, 9-20; 13:8-9) It all sounds like something your mother might tell you, doesn't it? Here is St. Paul giving advice, a list of do's and dent's. And I suppose that this sort of thing is what most people think religion is all about. Don't do this. Don't do that. Polonius giving advice to Laertes; Paul advising the Church at Rome. Sure, for the first eleven chapters of Paul's Letter to the Romans, he speaks of the unmerited, utterly free ...

3033. Justice

Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon

Will Willimon

... is no difference between the vengeful little servant and the vengeful big king. Perhaps we thought the king was some kind of Mr. Nice Guy, an unbelievably generous chap who goes around writing off massive debts. But no, by the end of the story, the king is the sort of person who repays injustice with punishment. The servant he wanted to put in jail at the beginning of the story has been given over to torturers by the end. The king does to the ungrateful servant what the ungrateful servant tried to do to his ...

3034. R.S.V.P.

Matthew 22:1-14

Sermon

Will Willimon

... I ask you to ponder the identity of these country club corpses. They were the people who were first invited to the party. They were the beautiful people who had been to all the right schools, the jet set, Palm Beach, Newport crowd. They were the right sort of people who drove upscale cars and whose very presence at the wedding would make the whole affair look better. They had style, knew how to look good in a Dior. But they lacked one thing in all their beauty and goodness -- trust. They preferred their own ...

3035. Imagination

Luke 1:39-45, 46-55

Sermon

Will Willimon

... richer fare than is normally offered by the prose of The Morning Herald. Come in here in Advent and we will load you down with metaphors, enrich your thought, considerably broaden your settled notion of what can and can't be. Imagination means having the sort of mind which is hospitable to facts which are usually ignored. Imagination is a willingness to take risks that the world may not be as it seems. In imagination thought takes wings and rises above mere storing of facts and becomes adventure. We shouldn ...

3036. Go!

Acts 9:10-19

Sermon

Will Willimon

... our evening around it. Though "Friends" is one of the silliest shows I've ever seen, still, it had to be a good break. We watched for his entrance, but the first scene passed, then the second without him. Then, toward the end, the friends are attending some sort of TV show themselves and, just as the camera whizzed past the studio audience, there he was. If we had blinked, we would have missed him. But there he was. Andy Warhol was being generous when he spoke of everyone's three minutes of fame. That was ...

3037. Our Light

Genesis 1:1-5 · Mark 1:9-11

Sermon

Will Willimon

... ." What I mean is, I can't get a hold on God, I can't lock the holy, hidden God in some little conceptual box. Every time I get enough courage to say, "God is…," I lie. And it is threatening to me - a thoroughly rational, academic, university sort of person not to be able to lock all reality in some conceptual box. "You can look at my back (side)," the eternal, unknowable God tells Moshe on Sinai, "but my face, you shall not see." Yet how shall we live, and hope -disappointed Sophomore or old man dying ...

3038. Holy Extravagance

Mark 14:3-9

Sermon

Will Willimon

... Matthew. It's a story about a parade, a ticker-tape entry into the capital city, the most festive season of Israel's year made all the more festive by the wild, exuberant entry of this one who comes in the name of the Lord. You get this sort of excessive, exuberc1nt behavior when people are doing their religion. You may have noted that people in worship are prone to excess. They shout, "Thank you Jesus!" Clap hands, fall over in a faint, weep, put on a flowered hat or a starched shirt. They get so happy ...

3039. Good Sex

Genesis 2:4-25

Sermon

Will Willimon

... It is not good that the creature should be alone.” (Possibly, the creature was quite happy to be left alone, but this is not God’s way of doing things.) “I will make a fit companion,” says God. So God takes the dust and makes all sorts of interesting creatures—beasts, birds, every living thing. But alas, “there was not found a companion fit for him.” What God wants for this creature is not simply an assistant, a servant, a “helper” (as our Bible unfortunately translates the Hebrew) but a ...

3040. Bringing Life to a Party

Luke 24:36b-48

Sermon

King Duncan

... is that it wasn’t a party until Jesus showed up there. Before he got there, in fact, things were kind of gloomy. Jesus wasn’t exactly an uninvited guest in this story, but he certainly was unexpected. After his crucifixion, his disciples were trying to sort out the meaning of the reports they had been receiving about appearances of the risen Christ. It was most confusing to them. Was it a hoax? Perhaps it was some kind of ghost. Last week we talked about Doubting Thomas. But it’s important for us ...

3041. I Doubt It!

John 20:19-31

Sermon

Timothy W. Ayers

... who his twin brother was. We also know he was brave and loyal to Jesus. In John 11:16, “So Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” A person does not commit themselves to that sort of future unless they are loyal and truly brave. He obviously believed in his master and also believed that Jesus was the Messiah. What caused this brave and loyal follower to doubt the statements by his fellow apostles that Jesus was risen from the dead and that ...

3042. The Transformative Power of God

1 John 1:1--2:2

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... following story. It seems that years ago there was a young man who would daily stand outside the cathedral and shout terrible words and derogatory slogans against God, the church, and anyone who entered the cathedral. He would call these people fools and all sorts of other names. People tried to ignore the man, but it was rather difficult. One day the rector of the cathedral went outside to confront the man. The young man ranted and raved against everything the priest told him. Finally the priest addressed ...

3043. Good Show

Revelation 5:11-14

Sermon

Will Willimon

... be bigger, grander, than our usual prosaic exhortations for self-help. It will have to be a word that's cosmic, poetic, outside, beyond the bounds of the expected, the conventional. It will be sung by a choir rather than argued by a preacher--that sort of word. The Lamb, which a few weeks ago was stripped, beaten, humiliated, and nailed on a cross to die, this one now sits enthroned in glory next to the Creator of the universe. Everything that God has--all wisdom, power, blessing and honor- now belongs ...

3044. Clean Hands

Psalm 26:1-12

Sermon

Will Willimon

... and not to press God too much about things. God's job is to respond when we push the right obedience button. Our job is to study hard, take careful notes, play by the rules and life will reward us accordingly. My hands are clean. Yet, if you push this sort of thing too far, you are on your way to an autonomous believer who really doesn't engage a transcendent partner. God isn't needed in this religion of clean hands. Look at Jesus' story of the Pharisee and the Publican. Listen to how often "I" is used: God ...

3045. How Does Your Garden Grow?

John 15:1-8

Sermon

Timothy W. Ayers

... , drive slowly and carefully home so nothing spills and no leaf is broken . We want to show the world that we are capable of growing world-class tomatoes. Next we prepare the soil by digging it up and mixing in fertilizer, and maybe even manure of some sort because we are growing award winning tomatoes. We can almost hear the announcement at the county fair for the largest, sweetest tomato in the county as they call your name. We plant the plants next to tomato stakes because we are going to train them to ...

3046. What Do You Expect?

John 6:24-35

Sermon

King Duncan

... can meet the deepest needs in your life because I am life itself.” There seems to be a universal feeling in our society. “Is this all there is? Somehow, I expected more. Something seems to be missing.” Something’s missing, and in its place, we substitute all sorts of things. In our society, we are fed a constant stream of “If only’s.” For example, “if only I had a little more money . . .” How many of us have thought that at some time in our lives? Steve Bing was 18 when he inherited $600 ...

3047. Giving Our Best

Mark 7:24-37

Sermon

King Duncan

... all know that the eulogy virtues are more important than the résumé ones,” writes David Brooks, but our culture and our educational systems spend more time teaching the skills and strategies you need for career success than the qualities you need to radiate that sort of inner light. Many of us are clearer on how to build an external career than on how to build inner character.” (7) David Brooks is correct. Our culture rewards résumé virtues, not eulogy virtues. We want to be successful. We want to ...

3048. Can You Deny Yourself?

Mark 8:27-38

Sermon

King Duncan

... says to imagine that you are sitting home in your recliner eating Twinkies when your doorbell rings. On your porch stand the members of the U.S. Olympics Committee. They tell you that they have a special computer algorithm that was designed to sort through the records of every person in America in order to find the next great competitor in the Olympic marathon. And after analyzing hundreds of data points, this computer algorithm has picked you! You are the most uniquely-qualified person in America to ...

3049. Meet the Rose Family

Mark 3:20-35

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... doll while her mother read a paperback book and waited for her wash to get done. This little girl was bored and lonely and she struck up a conversation with my mother, a conversation that went on and on, according to mom, and covered all sorts of topics, some of which were marginally inappropriate about the machinations of the little girl’s household and family life. Eventually, as the blankets and rugs were moved to the dryers and the conversation ebbed, they both became quiet, just staring at the dryers ...

3050. Harmless Hospitality

Luke 10:38-42 · 2 Kings 4:8-17

Sermon

Will Willimon

... All we wanted to do was to be nice to some homeless men." "So what happened?" I asked. "So what happened was--we actually became a church. We had two choices. Either throw them out or else do what was necessary to be the sort of place that could show hospitality to fifty-five homeless people. By the grace of God, we chose the latter. Medical care, food, counseling, support, hand holding, and listening were developed. Our congregation was converted from a friendly, ordinary, religious club, protecting its ...

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