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Showing 3076 to 3100 of 4935 results

3076. Moses Returns to Egypt

Exodus 4:18-31

Understanding Series

James K. Bruckner

The first half of Exodus 4 continues with Moses’ last three protests. Having responded to Moses’ first two excuses by Exodus 3:15, God pressed on with instructions for Moses’ leadership without giving him a chance to speak. As soon as another opportunity arose, Moses voiced his third objection: “What if they don’t believe me?”; his fourth, “I am slow of speech;” and, lastly, his simple plea: “Send someone else.” In the second half of Exodus 4 Moses has five short encounters: with Jethro; with the Lord for ...

3077. Faces of Failure: Pontius Pilate

Matthew 27:1-2, 11-26

Sermon

Don Tuttle

We all make choices. Sometimes they are binary. The optometrist asks: “Which is better, A or B?” Other times we choose from a plethora of options. Think Starbucks. Will that be a Mocha, Latte, Cappuccino, Macchiato? Tall, grande, venti? Decaf, half-caf, regular? Skinny or regular? Straight or flavor shots? Such is life. Our text today is about choices. The most obvious one is the one made by the chief priests, elders, and people. They choose between Jesus, the King of the Jews, or Barabbas, a notorious ...

3078. Why Am I Afraid?

Romans 8:14-17

Sermon

King Duncan

It’s not long until some of you will be heading out for a summer vacation. I hope you won’t take a vacation from God. Some of you undoubtedly will be camping. You may appreciate the story of a couple who were vacationing in Yosemite National Park. The wife expressed her concern about going camping because of bears and said she would feel more comfortable in a motel. The husband said that he’d like to camp. To calm her concerns he said they’d talk to the park ranger to see what the likelihood was of an ...

3079. A Hall of Fame Dad

John 16:12-15

Sermon

King Duncan

Robert Lewis in his book Real Family Values tells a fascinating story about a remarkable, heartwarming discovery workers at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, Ohio, made in the winter of 1993. While renovating a section of the museum, they found a photograph that had been hidden in a crevice underneath a display case. The man in the picture had a bat resting on his shoulder; he was wearing a uniform with the words “Sinclair Oil” printed across his chest; his demeanor was gentle and friendly. Stapled ...

3080. You Have a Story to Tell

John 9:1-41

Sermon

King Duncan

Here’s a story from the headlines that all of you will remember. In March 2019, the FBI announced the completion of “Operation Varsity Blues,” a nationwide scam in which wealthy parents paid outrageous bribes to get their children into prestigious colleges like Yale and Stanford. Fifty people were charged in the scandal, including parents, test administrators for the ACT and SAT, and college coaches who all collaborated in getting unqualified students admitted to big-name schools. In addition to the bribes ...

3081. Don't Forget the Best!

Luke 2:21-40

Sermon

King Duncan

There is an ancient Scottish legend that tells the story of a shepherd boy tending a few straggling sheep on the side of the mountain. One day as he cared for his sheep, he saw at his feet a beautiful flower—one that was more beautiful than any he had ever seen in his life. He knelt down upon his knees and scooped up the flower in his hands and held it close to his eyes, drinking in its beauty. As he held the flower close to his face, suddenly he heard a noise and looked up before him. There he saw the ...

3082. Enduring the Trials of Faith

Romans 4:13-25

Sermon

Richard Gribble

“In the seventh year of his reign, two days before his 65th birthday, in the presence of a full consistory of cardinals, Jean Marie Barette, Pope Gregory XVII signed an instrument of abdication, took off the fisherman’s ring, handed his seal to the Cardinal Camerlengo and made a curt speech of farewell.” So begins the power novel The Clowns of God, the second volume of a trilogy of tales about popes and faith written by Morris West, the Australian-born author. In the story the pope has seen a vision of the ...

3083. What Do You Expect?

John 6:24-35

Sermon

King Duncan

We are heading into the second half of 2021, and I think it’s a good time to check in with our expectations for this year and see if anything needs to be re-adjusted. Some of us have had a better year than we expected; some of us have had it worse. All of us have certain plans and expectations for how the rest of the year will go. Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the next five months? Pastor Daniel D. Chambers learned an expression from a college professor: “Expectation is the mother of regret.” ...

3084. Harmless Hospitality

Luke 10:38-42 · 2 Kings 4:8-17

Sermon

Will Willimon

A few weeks ago I was to speak at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. I took the last flight out of Durham. We landed late. A hair-raising, fifty-dollar, one hour cab ride later, I was deposited at a now utterly dark, locked up tight, Lutheran Seminary. Had no idea where I was supposed to sleep. Wandered about, Willy Loman-like, bag in hand, trying this door and that, everything locked and dark. Midnight. Finally, I saw one last light in a house on campus. In desperation I knocked on the ...

3085. Jesus' Vacation

Matthew 11:25-30

Sermon

Will Willimon

I know that many of you are here on vacation. I admire you for your faithfulness. Even though you are on vacation, you have come to church. Vacations are wonderful opportunities to, as we say, "get away from it all." A period of time, set aside from life's daily difficulties, when we unburden. Where there are usually alarm clocks, there is sleeping in until ten. Where there were bran flakes at breakfast, now jelly filled doughnuts. The daily office grind is replaced with the arduous task of unfolding the ...

3086. Sheep and Shepherds

John 10:11-16 · Psalm 23

Sermon

Will Willimon

Someone was telling me about a college, somewhere in the Midwest, that had a large contingent of Iranian students. Back when the former Shah was deposed, the students demonstrated at the college administration building. The president went out to speak to them and, during the course of their negotiations, the president casually remarked something to the effect that, “You look like a bunch of sheep out here.” With that, the students went on a campus-wide rampage, breaking windows, threatening other students ...

3087. The Well

John 4:5-42

Sermon

Lori Wagner

Have you ever seen a well? A real well? On my grandmother’s farm stood a real well. When I was young, we loved to go to the “old house” (as they had since built a new one down the road but kept the other one to rent out) for fall apple picking. While the adults stood on ladders gathering apples from the trees, I ran for the well with its black iron pump firmly planted into a covered base. In order to draw water from the well, you had to pump the handle. After a few pumps, the water would start to flow. Now ...

3088. Defining Justice with Jesus

Matthew 20:1-16

Sermon

Will Willimon

My colleague, Alasdair MacIntyre got it right. When you talk about “justice,” the real question is whose justice? All accounts of justice are subservient to some social order, some vision of the world, of what ought to be, where we're all headed, of who’s in charge. Christians get our accounts of justice from Jesus. Just after telling us that the "first will be last and the last will be first" (an odd sense of justice, that one!) in this morning's gospel Jesus says, a far1c1er has a job to do. His ...

3089. What Child Is This?

Isaiah 9:6-7

Sermon

James Merritt

A little girl came home from Sunday School as excited as her mother had ever seen her. She said, "Mommy! My teacher says I drew the most unusual Christmas picture she had ever seen!" Well, the mother took the picture from her daughter and looked at it for a moment, and was, to say the least, a bit puzzled. She said, "Honey, this is a beautiful picture, but all you have here are people riding in an airplane." She said, "What does it mean?" "Well," the little girl said, "It's the flight into Egypt." ...

3090. The Joyful Provider

John 2:1-11

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

The season of Lent has arrived. It's time to repent and believe the Gospel. We are encouraged to remember that we are mortal, as if our bodies would ever let us forget. Lent is a 40-day period of self-examination and self-denial — except for Sundays. Tucked into these forty days are six “little Easters" — days to remember that God in Jesus Christ gives us the victory over sin, over death, over all that destroys our relationship with Him. So this First Sunday of Lent, I invite you not to the wilderness of ...

3091. It's Just A Little Thing

Mark 12:38-44

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

One Sunday morning in a little church, the sermon just seemed to go on and on. Unlike me, the preacher kept circling the point but never quite getting there. One of the little boys in the service that day was getting more and more restless. Mom was having a hard time getting him to sit still. Finally, in a whisper loud enough for the whole congregation to hear, he said: "Mommy, if we give him the money now, will he let us go?" (1) That story is a good reminder that preachers need to follow the old KISS ...

3092. "No Contest"

1 Kings 18:16-46

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

When my husband and I play tennis it is a "no-contest" contest. He is a far better player than I. In fact, we have a deal that anytime I can beat him a whole set, he will take me out for a lobster dinner. He is perfectly safe from having to pay. This contest has been running for as long as we've been married, and in 21 years I've had lobster once! The match is a "no-contest" contest. He always wins! In this text we have another kind of competition. The contest takes place on Mount Carmel. There is a sharp ...

3093. Then There Was One

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon

J. Will Ormond

Does not Jesus say to the ten lepers, "Go and show yourselves to the priests"? He does not say anything about coming back to tell him what the priests said or did; he does not mention that he expects the lepers to return and thank him for their healing. Yet when one does come back to thank him, he asks, "The other nine, where are they?" The one who returns gives no answer to that question. But he could have said, "They are following your instructions. They are on their way to show themselves to the priests ...

3094. Sent From The Mountain

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

William G. Carter

There is nothing like taking part in a worship service with 17,000 people. If you are surrounded by a choir that large, all of the hymns sound in tune. With that many people gathered to pray in the same place at the same time, you have no doubt God will hear somebody in the crowd. And when a super-charged speaker stands up to challenge people to follow the commandments of Christ, the group dynamics of such a huge crowd ensure that someone, somewhere, is ready to answer the challenge. That was the case in ...

3095. Recalling, Remembering, And Rejoicing

Deuteronomy 8:1-20

Sermon

Robert S. Crilley

For all of his charisma as a leader, his skills as a diplomat, his savvy as a politician, Moses was not the sort for whom making speeches ever came easily. Rhetoric simply wasn't included on his resume, public speaking never being one of his fortes. And of course, back at Sinai before this improbable pilgrimage began, he had admitted as much to Yahweh: "O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor now that you have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue" ( ...

3096. U-Turns Permitted

Joel 2:1-11

Sermon

Rodney Thomas Smothe

Let's just see where this road will take us. These words often spoken when we make a wrong turn, give a false sense of comfort. Our hope is that if we drive long enough we will come to a familiar place and once again regain our bearings. Sometimes our confidence in our own abilities and unwillingness to admit that we're lost, causes us to drive several miles out of the way before we stop and ask for directions. Although the signs along our journey confirm that we are headed in the wrong direction, we ...

3097. Loving Jesus, Hating The Church

John 9:35-41

Sermon

Thomas Long

Those who analyze cultural trends have known for a long time that Americans seem to like religion a lot more than they like church. Whenever pollsters, pencils sharpened and questionnaires ready, knock on the doors of private citizens to inquire about their religious attitudes, it is difficult to find anybody out there who does not claim to be a fervent believer. If people are to be taken at their word, virtually everyone in the general population has a passionate and abiding faith in God. Ironically, ...

3098. Proper 12

Mt 13:31-33, 44-52 · Rom 8:26-39 · 1 Ki 3:5-12 · Ps 105

Sermon Aid

Russell F. Anderson

COMMENTARY Old Testament: Genesis 29:15-28 Jacob the trickster gets tricked. He is smitten with Rachel and agrees with her father, Laban, to work seven years to obtain her hand in marriage. On the wedding night, he gets an unexpected wedding present, Rachel's sister, Leah. Jacob agrees to work another seven years for Rachel because she is the true treasure of his heart. Old Testament: 1 Kings 3:5-12 God appears to Solomon in a dream, telling him to ask for his heart's desire. Solomon recounts a litany of ...

3099. Were We Surprised!

Luke 10:1-24

Sermon

Alexander H. Wales

There is nothing like success to make you unsure of yourself. Perhaps the greatest obstacle to making a go of a project is the process of doing something so well that you never do anything else for fear of failure. If a writer makes it to the best-seller list the first time out, every novel to follow will be judged by the first. If a baseball player gets a home run the first time at bat, every time he or she comes up to the plate, the stands will be judging the performance in light of that first hit. If a ...

3100. The Pageant

Luke 2:8-20, Luke 2:1-7

Drama

Jerry Eckert

[Comment: Emmanuel Church in Horicon was nothing like Faith Church, Milwaukee. There was talent galore, except, it appeared, in theatrical skills. Only one person in the church was active in a community theater and no one seemed to think it should be part of church life. There was no stage in the fellowship hall and the sanctuary was not particularly conducive to plays because there was no lighting except the normal room lights, which gave little flexibility for variations. There was a resistance to ...

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