Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 3051 to 3075 of 4933 results

3051. Counting the Cost

Luke 14:25-35

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

The Lenten season, to which Ash Wednesday opens the door, is a time for heart-searching. "The Son of God goes forth to war a kingly crown to gain," and we are asked, "Who follows in his train?" Our Lord’s path to his kingly glory passes through Gethsemane and Calvary, and if we are to be his followers, we too must "climb the steep ascent of heaven through peril, toil and pain." We must count the cost and be willing to pay the price of true discipleship. The portion of scripture before us is a direct ...

3052. Bridges Over The River Kwai

John 20:19-23

Sermon

King Duncan

The movie, The Bridge on the River Kwai, chronicles the work of a group of soldiers, imprisoned by the Japanese during the Second World War. These soldiers were forced to build a railway across a very difficult section of mountains between Burma and Siam. Eric Lomax, a British soldier, is a reallife survivor of that group of prisoners. Throughout his imprisonment, Eric and thousands of other British soldiers were starved and tortured, and many died. When the Japanese officers suspected Eric of having a ...

3053. Held Hostage

John 18:28-40

Sermon

King Duncan

Have you ever thought how you would handle it if you were held captive? There have been endless television shows and movies about hostage situations. Have you ever thought how you would handle it if you were taken captive? Would you be the tough guy resisting your captors each step of the way? Would you be the hero looking for the opportunity to sneak up behind one of the bad guys and take his gun? Would you look for a forgotten passageway where you could escape? History is full of exciting stories of ...

3054. Radical Surgery

Mark 9:42-50

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

I wish that Ted Koppel would run for president. Sometimes he seems to make more sense than all of the politicians put together. You know him as the popular moderator of ABC’s “Nightline” program. In a speech at Duke University a year ago he said this: “We have actually convinced ourselves that slogans will save us. Shoot up if you must, but use a clean needle. Enjoy sex whenever and with whomever you wish, but wear a condom. No! The answer is no. Not because it isn’t cool or smart or because you might end ...

3055. Making Compassion a Verb

Mark 6:30-44

Sermon

David G. Rogne

The Superintendent of Schools was having a bad year. Some contentious issues were being dealt with by the school board. One Sunday, during the coffee hour after church, I heard the Superintendent say in a particularly loud voice, "For crying out loud, it's my day of rest, too!" Someone had approached him about a concern in the school district, and he felt that there was no place he could go to get away from it. I learned right then not to approach people about business matters when they are not on duty. ...

3056. The Cross: God's Answer To Our Deepest Needs

Colossians 2:8-15

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

A popular monk in the Middle Ages announced that in the cathedral that evening he would preach a sermon on the love of God. The people gathered and stood in silence waiting for the service while the sunlight streamed through the beautiful windows. When the last glint of color had faded from the windows, the old monk took a candle from the altar. Walking to the life-size figure of Christ on the cross, he held the light beneath the wounds of the feet, then His hands, then His side. Still without a word, he ...

3057. What If It Is True?

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Mark Trotter

Well here we are already, the fourth Sunday in Advent. Christmas is just a few days away now. If you have noticed the sequence of lessons read here in church during these four weeks, they begin the first Sunday with longing, and expectation, and the hope that God will send a savior, a Messiah. Each week we move closer to that event that we as Christians believe is the event in which God kept that promise to send a savior, the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem. It was here at Bethlehem, we believe, that God ...

3058. Did You Know...That You Can Know God?

1 John 2:3-5

Sermon

James Merritt

Why were you put on this earth? What should be your greatest goal in life? What is the single greatest achievement you could obtain on this earth? What is the secret to eternal life? The answer to all of these questions is the same. It is found in two words - Knowing God. That is what God wants from you and for you more than anything else in your life. God said in Hosea 6:6, "I'd rather for you to be faithful and to know Me than to offer sacrifices." (Hosea 6:6, CEV) More than your time, more than your ...

3059. Finish the Drill

Nehemiah 4:1-23

Sermon

James Merritt

I want you to complete this sentence: ". It's not how you start, it's how you finish that counts." I am convinced that is true because of an article someone sent to me that said the best way to achieve inner peace is to always finish things that you start.ed. This person that sent me the article said "it is definitely working for me. I now make a point of always finishing what I start and I am well on my way toward finding inner peace. Here are the things I have finished today:" Two bags of potato chips A ...

3060. Deliverance through Thanksgiving

Psalm 50:1-23

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

One our big failures as Christian is our continual refusal to discipline ourselves in living with the word of God. We need to study the Bible. It is the source of our life, it is the food for our souls. But not only do we need to study the Bible, we need to read the Bible devotionally, and there is a difference between studying the Bible and reading the Bible devotionally. The sermon today comes out of my devotional reading of the Bible a few weeks ago. But before I get into the sermon, let me share with ...

3061. Jesus’ Love and the World’s Hatred

John 15:1-17

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

Jesus’ Love and the World’s Hatred: Just as it is possible to imagine a stage of the tradition when the only farewell discourse was 13:31–35, so it is possible to imagine a stage when the discourse extended to 14:31 but no further. There is a smooth transition from that verse’s summons to “leave” to the statement in 18:1 that Jesus “left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley.” At the end of chapter 14, the reader expects the group to leave and the discourse to end. Instead, the discourse ...

3062. The Fifth Trumpet (First Woe)

Revelation 8:6--9:21

Teach the Text

J. Scott Duvall

Big Idea: God sometimes allows evil powers to serve his purposes of judging wicked human beings. Understanding the Text The fourth trumpet ends with a plague of darkness, a regular symbol of judgment and destruction in the Bible (e.g., Isa. 13:10–11; Joel 2:1–2; Amos 5:18; Mark 13:24). Now we see how dense and thick that spiritual darkness can be with the final trumpet judgments. After the first four trumpets, where God’s judgments are poured out primarily on creation (8:7–12), now an eagle warns of three ...

3063. Victory and Serpents

Num 21:1-9

Teach the Text

Joe M. Sprinkle

Big Idea: God helps his people overcome enemies and their own mistakes. Understanding the Text Most of the narratives up until now in Numbers are of a negative tone, filled with rebellion and sin and death. These events include the rebellion and sin of the leaders Moses and Aaron (Num. 20:2–13) and the deaths of Miriam and Aaron (Num. 21:1, 22–29). But as the old generation disappears, the tone of the narratives becomes increasingly positive. Numbers 21:1–9 shows progress, regress, and progress. The people ...

3064. “May the Net They Hid Entangle Them”

Psalm 35:1-28

Teach the Text

C. Hassell Bullock

Big Idea: Rather than taking vengeance for injustice into our own hands, we can pray that its perpetrators will become victims of their own contrivances. Understanding the Text Psalm 35, the first of the imprecatory psalms, deals with the issue of divine justice in a bare-bones way. In one sense, it is an individual lament (Craigie), but in its total effect, it is more a prayer for deliverance (Wilson). The form critics, seeking the cultural context for such prayers, are inclined to view the psalm as a ...

3065. Come and See

John 1:29-42

Sermon

James L. Killen

"Come and see." Jesus spoke those words to two of the disciples of John the Baptist (John 1:39). Scholars have learned that the author of the fourth gospel often loads words with meanings that go far beyond what they might mean on the surface. That must certainly be true of this statement. John tells the story of the calling of the disciples a little differently from the way the other gospel writers tell it. John tells us that soon after Jesus was baptized, John was talking with some of his own followers ...

3066. The World Hates the Disciples

John 15:18--16:4

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

3067. Like Fighting a Giant Tuna

Romans 7:14-25a

Sermon

King Duncan

Pastor Spencer Homan tells an exciting true story about the Great Tuna run of 1998. The story begins with tuna running only 30 miles off Cape Cod. What made that exciting was that such a run hadn’t happened in 47 years. The tuna were not only running, but they were also biting! It was a fisherman’s dream. All you needed was a sharp hook and some bait and you could haul in a bountiful catch. You could even make some money. Rumor had it that Japanese buyers would pay up to $50,000 for a nice blue fin tuna. ...

3068. Playing It Safe

Luke 8:26-39

Sermon

Robert C. Cochran

I am here today to tell you that a great fraud is being perpetrated in my hometown. Ever since I returned to Findlay, people have been telling me: “Join the Y, and you’ll get in shape.” So, I finally joined the Y (I’m old enough to remember when it was called the YMCA!) a year ago, and I have to tell you, it has done me no good. It would serve them right if I’d actually enter the building for the first time and tell everyone there that they are being duped! Joining the church and refusing to go out and ...

3069. I Need

Luke 10:38-42

Sermon

Dave Zuchelli

My lovely bride and I used to laugh about our youngest daughter’s use of the phrase, “I need…” It seems as though she never simply wanted things — she “needed” things. At one point in her life, these two words became her mantra. “I need this dress. I need a car. I need to go out tonight. I need…” I don’t mean to pick on her, because I’m sure most other parents go through a similar stage with each of their teenagers. They all need something. Interestingly enough, their actual needs are already being met (in ...

3070. I Am Somebody!

Mark 1:4-11

Sermon

David E. Leininger

I suspect that, having made it to mid-January, you would say that you have successfully survived the holidays. True? The celebration of our Savior’s birth — Christmas; then the New Year; finally the Feast of the Three Kings on January 6th — Epiphany (which for many has become the Feast of Taking Down the Decorations!). Today I want to suggest that there is one more holiday we should be observing — this day, the one the liturgical calendar designates to remember the Baptism of the Lord. If the witness of ...

3071. The Meek

Sermon

John A. Terry

Psalm 37:1-11Matthew 5:1-12 This is not the beatitude of anyone claiming "I am the greatest." In fact, like all the other beatitudes, we have to wonder how practical these words are. What business could survive being meek? This is not a slogan you are likely to find above the door to the Stoc_esermonsk Exchange on Wall Street. Meekness will not win the play-off series between the New York Knicks and the Chicago Bulls. We tend to think of the meek as the casualties, not as the winners. "Miserable are the ...

3072. The Meek

Psalm 37:1-40

Sermon

John A. Terry

This is not the beatitude of anyone claiming "I am the greatest." In fact, like all the other beatitudes, we have to wonder how practical these words are. What business could survive being meek? This is not a slogan you are likely to find above the door to the Stock Exchange on Wall Street. Meekness will not win the play-off series between the New York Knicks and the Chicago Bulls. We tend to think of the meek as the casualties, not as the winners. "Miserable are the meek, because they get trampled upon." ...

3073. Pathway To God's Kingdom

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

Sermon

Leonard H. Budd

Jacob knew nothing of the geography that stretched beyond his farmland to the Great Sea. He did not even know that a Great Sea existed out there, westward beyond his land. He had never been further than half a day's journey from the collection of 15 stone houses that formed his village. Nor did he know anyone who had been further away than those eight or 10 miles. Nor did anyone in his village think much about far-off regions. Jacob only knew of the fields and gentle slopes of land that he could see as he ...

3074. A Dog Named Sport

Luke 7:7

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

Object: An invisible dog named Sport. Good morning, boys and girls. I brought along with me this morning a friend who is invisible. Sport just loves to come to church, and being an invisible dog, he comes quite often. But he is kind of shy, and I only use him in children's sermons once in a while. Sport is a beautiful dog. What color would you say he is? (Let them answer, and whatever color they give, he can be. They can also describe him as a dog with short ears, long ears, tall, short, or whatever they ...

3075. Easter 6

Psalm 66:1-20, Acts 17:16-34, 1 Peter 3:8-22, John 14:15-31

Sermon Aid

THEOLOGICAL CLUE This Sunday, as the Fifth Sunday after Easter, was known as Rogate Sunday, or Rogation Sunday, which signaled the approach to the three special days of supplication and prayer that preceded the Ascension of our Lord. In most non-Roman Churches, this Sunday became a day for prayers that had, in the minds of most people, only a limited connection with Easter; Rogation Day was a time given over to particular and pointed prayers for the fields that had been planted in the hope of an abundant ...

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