Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 3076 to 3100 of 4963 results

3076. How May We Come to God?

Psalm 24:1-10

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... ?” The answer comes, “He who has clean hands and a pure heart.” Well, how can it be? If our hands are not clean and our hearts are not pure, will the gate open? We are driven back to will and willingness. What is our deepest desire? The emphasis remains: clean hands -- our actions; pure hearts -- our attitudes. We are not freed from the commitment to holiness. To act rightly as God would have us act, and feeling with love as God would have us feel, but we don’t do it for merit. And we don’t do ...

3077. A Prophet Among Them

Ezekiel 2:1-3:15

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... one – full of imagery, easy to get lost in. Yet, deliberate reading and reflection yields the essence of the story. Ezekiel sees the “glory of Yahweh” coming down from heaven. It is so overwhelming that he falls on his face. But the Lord will not let him remain there: “Son of man, stand upon on your feet, and I will speak with you.” And the Lord does speak. The message, which Ezekiel is to preach, is given to him in a kind of scroll. So, Ezekiel receives his appointment. It is not a promising ...

3078. Awake to Glory

Luke 9:28-36

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

... , James, and John said nothing about it to their fellow disciples. This is a key story in the life of our Lord. Luke points out that it was set between two special events. It came, he says, about eight days after Jesus had charged his disciples to remain true to him even in the face of persecution, promising that some of them would not taste death before they had seen the kingdom of God. Apparently Luke looked upon this event as a sampling of the kingdom of God; it was the unique moment when Jesus' glory ...

3079. Partners In the Gospel

Philippians 1:1-11

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... you remember? In a kind of dream-sleep, Paul heard a man from Macedonia pleading, “Come over and help us.” As the pattern of Paul’s life had been established by his obedience to the heavenly vision he had had on the Damascus Road, he remained obedient, responded to this vision and, along with Silas and Timothy, and probably Luke, he set out for Macedonia, concluding that “God had called us to preach the gospel to them.” (verse 10) They made their way to Philippi, a Roman colony, the leading city ...

3080. Power For Christian Living: Am I On My Own?

Romans 3:3-5

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... a new humanity, created and empowered for their mission.” As Jesus breathes on these men, He says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This is a gift to be accepted now, and a foretaste of the Person of the Holy Spirit who is yet to come and remain in them permanently after Jesus has returned to the Father. We Christians need to see ourselves as post-resurrection, post-ascension followers of Jesus. We need to continually rehearse the gospel story. This Jesus whom we have accepted as Savior and are seeking to ...

3081. The Proof Is In the Pudding

Luke 7:18-35

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... place of the wonder of the Gospel—the church is the treasure house of the faith “once and for all delivered to the saints.” Inspired by that marvelous movie “Titanic,” a few years ago, a lot of media attention was given to the discovery of the remains of the sunken Titanic. During that period we learned a great deal about that tragedy. For example, when the great ship knew it was in difficulty, it sent out an SOS radio signal. The ship, California, was only 10 miles away from the Titanic, but she ...

3082. The Authority of Scripture: God's Breathed Word

2 Timothy 3:10--4:8

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... world of truth in a few words. His pithy sayings are often quoted and are a source of truth and inspiration. Listen to him: “Earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can.” The best way to resist the devil is to destroy whatever of the world remains in us. Every new victory a soul gains comes as a result of prayer. The essential part of Christian holiness lies in giving your heart wholly to God. “If your heart is as my heart, you are my brother. Give me your hand.” One of my favorites is the ...

3083. Staying Alive All Your Ministry Life: Will You Finish Well?

Exodus 32:1-33:6

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... is sharing his personal story of God coming to him in a vision and calling him to be a prophet/priest. He sees the “glory of Yahweh” coming down from heaven and it is so overwhelming that he falls on his face. But the Lord will not let him remain there: “Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you.” And the Lord does speak. The message which Ezekiel is to preach is given to him in a kind of scroll. So, Ezekiel receives his appointment. It is not a promising situation. Not the planting ...

3084. With Jesus In The Wilderness

Luke 4:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... in the wilderness is not easy. It is filled with tests and temptations. People respond to these tests and temptations in different ways. Some give up their faith. Some sell their souls for bread. Some bow to Satan and settle for a life of material comfort while remaining spiritually poor. Each of us has a choice in how we will respond to life. I read a powerful story recently, told by an Australian pastor. It took place in Russia at the end of World War II. The Russians were marching German prisoners of war ...

3085. The Ascension

Acts 1:1-11

Bulletin Aid

H. Burnham Kirkland

... all the world! People: Praise him with songs! Collect O Lord, our God, we worship you as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We give you thanks that after his resurrection Jesus left his disciples to be with God the Father, but through the Holy Spirit he remains with us to give us the power to carry out his mission of taking the gospel to the far corners of the earth. This morning as we remember Jesus' departure, give us a better understanding of the Ascension. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Prayer Of Confession ...

3086. The Wise Men From The East Visit Jesus

Matthew 2:1-12

Bulletin Aid

H. Burnham Kirkland

... . Prayer Of Confession Forgiving Father, there have been times when we have ignored the Light that leads us into your presence, and we have been lured by false gods into ways of selfishness, greed, and deceit. Cleanse us of all impure desires, we pray, and help us to remain faithful to our King. Amen. Offertory Prayer O God, like the Wise Men at the time of Jesus' birth, we bring our gifts to pay homage to our King, and to renew our vows of loyalty to Jesus Christ. Amen. Hymns We Three Kings Sing We Now Of ...

3087. The Temptation Of Jesus

Luke 4:1-13

Bulletin Aid

H. Burnham Kirkland

... his ministry he was tempted for forty days in order to focus his attention on spiritual things. During this Lenten season of forty days we, too, will be tempted by the forces of evil to seek worldly power, wealth, and physical satisfaction. Let us remain faithful to our spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting, and caring for others that we may be better prepared to carry out our ministry to the world. Come, let us worship together! Collect Lord, we pray the prayer you taught your disciples that we will ...

3088. God Has Made You His Friends

Colossians 1:15-23

Bulletin Aid

H. Burnham Kirkland

... . There have been times when the path we travel seems dark, and our faith and trust in you has been shaken. We gather this morning to strengthen the foundation of our hope, and pray that through your Holy Spirit we will find the power we need to remain steadfast in our loyalty to you under all circumstances. Amen. Offertory Prayer Ever-faithful God, accept these gifts, we pray, as a sign of our commitment to your kingdom and our continuing hope that your will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Amen ...

3089. Children Of The Living God

Hosea 1:1-2:1

Bulletin Aid

H. Burnham Kirkland

... merciful to our land. People: You have forgiven our sins and pardoned all our wrongs. Leader: Show us your constant love, O Lord, People: and give us your saving help. Leader: Surely the Lord is ready to save those who honor him, People: and his saving presence will remain in our land. Collect O God, we come before you with joy, for we know that you are ever present with us and your love knows no bounds. We bow in contrition before you because we are keenly aware that we have not always loved and served you ...

3090. Jesus, The Cause Of Division

Luke 12:49-53

Bulletin Aid

H. Burnham Kirkland

... to pay the cost. In this time of worship, help us better to understand the sayings of Jesus, and by the power of your Holy Spirit enable us to be faithful to them. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Prayer Of Confession O God, we know that we should remain faithful to your will, but there are times when it seems this will require a cost we are not prepared to pay. Help us, we pray, to understand what a total commitment means, and why it is so important in our lives and to your kingdom. Amen. Offertory Prayer ...

3091. The Heart of an Intimate Matter

Matthew 5:27-30

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... also has convictions. We have informed teaching on many issues, but the word doctrine is generally reserved for the few issues we defend at all costs because they most clearly define who and whose we are. These are the bare minimum we can hold and remain faithful; to remove a line from the Apostles’ or Nicene Creeds would alter the ecology of the faith and distort the church’s witness. Near the bedrock of Christian faith is the conviction that this mysterious creation in which we are embedded is richly ...

3092. Going Hard against the Grain

Matthew 5:33-37

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... using words as smoke and mirrors. Yes to peacemaking; No to peacebreaking. Jesus would have nothing to do with pious round-abouts. Heaven is God’s throne; earth is his footstool; Jerusalem is his city; you are God’s child, and underneath your current hair color the original remains. Don’t swear at all. “Let what you say be simply Yes, Yes or No, No; anything else comes from evil.” We are to walk in the light, not in the shadows. Tell the truth, which means you have to know what it is, and tell it ...

3093. Playing to the Right Audience

Matthew 6:16-18, Matthew 6:1-4

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... the grace of Christ is sufficient. I often cry when I fast, not because of low blood sugar but because I see my sins with new clarity and fresh grief. Quietness steals over my soul and my true motives are unmasked. I find that I cannot fast and remain hardhearted toward God. As we humble our bodies by kneeling, so we humble our souls with fasting. Fasting has the remarkable property of revealing all the things to which I am overly attached. What a tune up is to a car, fasting is for the Christian. It is ...

3094. A Kingdom Investment Policy

Matthew 6:19-24

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... obey.”9 Sequence matters: first trust, then obey, then happiness in Jesus. Good feelings are the fruit of obedience, not the starting point. Get it backwards, and you will always be frustrated. If you wait for emotions to propel you to right actions, you will remain an immature Christian because that is what children are, captive to their feelings. Maturity is when commitments are greater than moods. You are more likely to act your way into a new way of feeling than of feeling your way into a new way of ...

3095. The God Who Must Be Pursued

Matthew 7:7-12

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... are weeds that grow in my garden, and if I ever quit pulling them up through the grace of repentance, they would take over. Left unattended, human life goes to seed. But, on the other hand, none of us are wholly given to evil, which is why we remain capable of genuine but partial good. Evil has its limits; it can deface but not obliterate the image of God pressed into us all. What Jesus said was not a contradiction. We who are fatally compromised, and even in some sense colonized by evil, are still able ...

3096. Obedience Really Matters

Matthew 7:15-23

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... And if the winter rains come in a rush, a dry creek bed or water quickly becomes a torrent that sweeps all away. Hard rain, strong winds, and flash floods: it blew and beat on both houses. They look alike, but when the storm passes only one remains. Same materials, different foundations. The imagery is not about the troubles of this life, though that might not be a bad secondary application; it is about the final judgment of God pictured as a sudden storm that tests everything all at once. What survives is ...

3097. A Worker Who Need Not Be Ashamed

2 Timothy 2:14-26

Bulletin Aid

H. Burnham Kirkland

... : He has kept us alive and has not allowed us to fall. Leader: Come, let us praise God together. Collect Lord, we would be your faithful disciples, workers for your kingdom who are not ashamed of our work. Fill us anew with your Spirit so that we may remain loyal and correctly teach the message of your truth by our words and deeds. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Prayer Of Confession Forgiving God, it has been so easy for us to look at the world through our own eyes that we have failed to see our rightful ...

3098. Ascension of Our Lord

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... . Now he begins the account of the growth of the early church by the power of the Holy Spirit. To begin his second volume, however, Luke repeats some of the things he has said at the end of the Gospel story. Once again, the command to the disciples to remain in Jerusalem until they receive God's promised "power from on high" in the form of the Holy Spirit is given (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4). Once again the apostles are told that they are to be Christ's witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends ...

3099. The Holy Spirit Came Upon Them

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... Acts is the stated lesson in all three cycles of the lectionary. The preacher may therefore want to consult the expositions in Cycles A and B also. In our first lesson for last Sunday, just before his ascension into heaven, the risen Christ commanded his disciples to remain in Jerusalem and to wait until they were clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49) by the gift of the Holy Spirit to them (Acts 1:8). Only then would the disciples be equipped with the power and ability to be Christ's "witnesses in ...

3100. Resurrection

Acts 10:34-43

Sermon

King Duncan

... excitement. The picture showed a long neck and head rising from the murky waters off Loch Ness. Photographed by a physician, Robert Wilson, it appeared to be an extinct dinosaur. Some claimed the photo depicted “the Loch Ness monster.” But many people remained skeptical. The truth is that Nessie did prove to be a harmless hoax. A man named Christian Spurling confessed his role in the fake photography just before he died in November 1994. The “monster” had been fabricated from a 14-inch toy submarine ...

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