Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 3151 to 3175 of 5000 results

3151. Some Assembly Required

Luke 2:21-40

Sermon

Johnny Dean

Some of you - especially those of you who have now, or have had in years passed, small children - may know from first-had experience that there are three words which strike fear into the heart of a parent on Christmas Eve, three words which inspire nightmares on the night before Christmas. They sound innocent enough, these three simple words. But if you’ve had prior experience with them, you know what it means to encounter the words: SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED. How well I remember one close encounter with ...

3152. Humility

Luke 3:1-20, Isaiah 40:1-31

Drama

Martha L. Leach

Characters: Moses John the Baptist Narrator Theme: Humility Narrator: At one point in their career, the disciples asked Jesus, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" We suppose they were hoping Jesus' answer would be, "Why, you, of course. You who gave up everything to follow me." Instead Jesus called to him a child and told the disciples, "Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the ...

3153. The Seven Last Words of the Church

Luke 20:27-40

Sermon

Johnny Dean

Tradition – what a concept! What do you think of when you hear the word tradition? Exactly what is tradition? Mr. Webster’s dictionary defines the word tradition as "the transmission of knowledge, opinions, customs, doctrines, and practices from generation to generation, originally by word of mouth and personal example." We have all inherited traditions from our ancestors, which we will in turn pass on to future generations. And traditions are important. Even now we’re looking forward to Thanksgiving and ...

3154. What You See Is What You Get

John 14:5-14, John 14:1-4

Sermon

Johnny Dean

This past week I began doing something I’ve been putting off for a long time now. In an attempt to lose some of the extra pounds I’ve been carrying around, and at my doctor’s urging, I enrolled in a water aerobics class at the YMCA in Rocky Mount. Three days a week, from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m., you will find me there, exercising with my new friends in the heated swimming pool. The major reason for doing this is to improve my overall general health. I suffer from high blood pressure and a couple of other minor ...

3155. In the Beginning, God

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

Johnny Dean

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters." "The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep…" This is a description of the utter chaos that existed before God began the work of creation. I wonder – in our neat, little, orderly world today, can we truly understand the meaning of "chaos"? When our schedule becomes overly ...

3156. Back to the Basics

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Johnny Dean

Every month we receive a newsletter from our home church back in Memphis. In one recent edition of the newsletter, the minister told how his car had been stolen from the parking lot of one of the local hospitals. He went on to state his belief that morality in America today is on the decline, especially in the large cities, and he further stated that the cause for this decline, in his opinion, has been the intentional, systematic removal of all discussion of religion for the educational institutions of ...

3157. A Visit With An Old Friend

Psalm 23:1-6

Sermon

Johnny Dean

This sermon written after the Columbine Shooting incident. In the first semester of seminary, I remember one of my professors saying something like this: "During your ministry, there will be weeks when your cup overflows with joy and you feel a keen awareness of the presence of God. The sermon will not be quite as difficult to prepare then. In fact, there may even be times when it just seems to write itself, and you are finished with it by midweek and you cannot wait for Sunday to arrive so you can stand ...

3158. Christ is Our Perfection

Matthew 3:13-17

Bulletin Aid

James Wilson

Call To Worship Leader: Let us gather together all who celebrate the gift of God's Love. People: For the Lord walked among us and found favor in the eyes of God. Leader: And in Christ we are also each one granted favor before God Almighty. People: Then let us proclaim God's love to all the nations of the world! Leader: And let our hearts sing out with praise for God's mercy and love! All: Blessed be the name of the Lord! Collect O God, in Christ You walked among us showing us true perfection and paying the ...

3159. The Inaugural Address

Luke 4:14-30

Sermon

Brett Blair

Yesterday our great country swore in the 43rd president of these United States and George Walker Bush delivered the 54th Inaugural Address to the nation. You may not know this but every single Inaugural Address from George Washington to George Bush has been preserved. In these speeches presidents have laid out for the country their dreams, goals, and aspirations. I would like you to listen to some excerpts from a few and as I read them I would like you to guess the president that delivered it [When you ...

3160. Is He Really Coming?

Sermon

Rolf E. Aaseng

In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also (John 14:2-3). In the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts and saying, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!" (2 Peter ...

3161. I Came Back -The Risen Young Man

Sermon

Ron Lavin

My name is unimportant. What happened to me a long time ago just outside the gate of the little town of Nain is important, and I'd like to tell you about it. My home was in the dusty little town in Galilee about five miles southeast of Nazareth, the town where Jesus was raised. We were east of the Jordan River where Jesus was baptized. To our north was Lebanon where timbers were cut for the ancient temple of Solomon. Jerusalem, our famous capital city and the city of infamous crucifixions, was south of ...

3162. You Can't Start a Car With a Cross

Sermon

Ron Lavin

"We beseech you in behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." (2 Corinthians 5:20) Recently, I reached into my pants' pocket for a loose car key I had put there earlier. "Quarters. Dimes. Pennies. Ah, there it is." I was in a hurry. I tried to put the key into the ignition lock of the car. Then I saw that it wasn't a key at all. It was the tiny aluminum cross that we distributed recently at church. "You can't start a car with a cross," I said out loud. As I dug back into my pocket for the car key, found it, ...

3163. Praying With Tears in Your Eyes

Hebrews 1:1-14

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard for his godly fear. (Hebrews 5:7) When you finish your prayers, are there tears in your eyes? Usually we "say" our prayers, not "cry" them. We associate prayer with peace, calm, and strength. We may feel weepy when we begin our prayers, but we expect to be comforted by the end of them. Because there are very seldom tears in our eyes when we pray, our ...

3164. How To Bring Tears To Jesus' Eyes

Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not." And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, "Would that even today, you knew the things that make for peace." (Luke 13:34; 19:41-42) Bill and Judy were traveling across the country with their six children, ages three to thirteen. They made a rest stop, and everyone jumped back into the car, ...

3165. No Tears for Me, Please

Luke 23:26-43

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

And there followed him a great multitude of the people, and of women who bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turning to them said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never gave suck!' Then they will begin to say to the mountains, 'Fall on us'; and to the hills 'Cover us.' For if they do this when the wood is green, what will ...

3166. Tears on Easter?

John 20:10-18

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb, and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." Saying this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek ...

3167. Maundy Thursday Service

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Bulletin Aid

Howard Eshbaugh

Call to Worship Leader: Praise the Lord, all nations. People: Christ died for our sins. Leader: Extol him, all peoples. People: Christ was buried but was raised from the dead. Leader: For great is his steadfast love toward us. People: In love God gave his Son. Leader: The faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. People: God's faithfulness has been shown to us In Christ. All: Praise the Lord. Prayer (unison) Father God, we come together on this night to remember Jesus' celebration of the passover with his ...

3168. When a Member of the Family Dies

John 11:17-37

Sermon

R. E. Lybrand

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had been buried four days before. Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Judeans had come to see Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother's death. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed in the house. Martha said to Jesus, "If you had been here, Lord, my brother would not have died! But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask him for." "Your brother will rise to life," Jesus ...

3169. One Plus One Equals One

Matthew 19:1-12

Sermon

R. E. Lybrand

When Jesus finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went to the territory of Judea on the other side of the Jordan River. Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. Some Pharisees came to him and tried to trap him by asking, "Does our Law allow a man to divorce his wife for whatever reason he wishes?" Jesus answered, "Haven't you read the scripture that says that in the beginning the Creator made people male and female? And God said, "For this reason a man will leave his father and ...

3170. What Children Owe Their Parents

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

R. E. Lybrand

Then some Pharisees and teachers of the Law came from Jerusalem to Jesus and asked him, "Why is it that your disciples disobey the teaching handed down by our ancestors? They don't wash their hands in the proper way before they eat!" Jesus answered, "And why do you disobey God's command and follow your own teaching? For God said, 'Respect your father and your mother.' and 'Whoever curses his father or his mother is to be put to death.' But you teach that if a person has something he could use to help his ...

3171. The Gift of Peace

Sermon

Alan Bacon Bond

Scripture: Psalm 37:1-4; 37-40Ephesians 2:11-222 Chronicles 14:1-7John 14 (selections) Text: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you." John 14:27 At the drive-in window of the bank there is a pneumatic tube. The transaction slips, checks, and money are put in a capsule, which is dropped into the tube. As air is sucked out from in front of the capsule and pressured behind it, the container is pushed through the tube. I used the tube one day. It came as no ...

3172. Peace Through Sacrifice

Sermon

Alan Bacon Bond

Scripture: Psalm 85:8-13 Zechariah 9:9-12Luke 19:29-44 Text: "Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace." I have held in my hand the only known existing acheological evidence in the world, that crucifixion was actually practiced, as the Bible and other literature asserts. At the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem, Joe Zias, a nephew to one of our group and custodian of the Dead Sea Scrolls, handed to us a hand-wrought iron spike about six inches long and with the tip bent over at right ...

3173. Proclaim Peace

Sermon

Alan Bacon Bond

Scripture:Isaiah 57:14-19John 20:19-23Colossians 1:1-2, 15-20 Text: "Peace be with you." The run-of-the-mill soldier belonged to a surly lot in the Tenth Roman Legion which occupied Israel in the days of Jesus. The soldier probably had been pressed into duty involuntarily. His assignment to this back-water outpost of the empire was nearly an insult. With the exception of the occasional threat of a riot, the duty was terribly boring. Amusement was hard to come by. Life had little value; so this scurrilous ...

3174. Ash Wednesday

Sermon

William Luoma

The use of contemporary news stories and ashes focuses on our need for a Savior. The Day: Ash WednesdayIt was Ash Wednesday, and a woman sifting in a crowded Catholic church, leaned over to the young man next to her and asked: "What is it that brings so many people out on a cold night, to get a little dirt smeared on their foreheads, and to be reminded that they are sinners and that they are going to die?" He looked at her somewhat oddly and said, "It's habit, I guess." It must be more than habit. Ash ...

3175. Faith, Hope, and Love

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon

Brett Blair

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul gives us his amazing analysis of love. He suggests that it is a progression. It is preceded by faith and hope. Without these two essential ingredients, you cannot have the zenith expression of love. There is no place that we cannot go and escape the love of God. No matter how deep our shortcomings, frustrating our defeats, or difficult our failures, love is capable of carrying us through. With that in mind, I would like for us to examine what Paul saw as the three pillars of the ...

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