Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 3151 to 3175 of 4884 results

Mark 1:4-11

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... ., Devotional Writings, Vol 43 of Luther's Works (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969, 172). Reaching the crest of the wave and riding with the wind is an ecstatic experience. Remember the poster of the "Peanuts" beagle Snoopy, surfing at the tip of a perfectly curled wave, shouting his victory cry, "Cowabunga!" God gives us such moments for pure joy, for unabashed rejoicing. But they are only moments. It is how we follow up those sporadic successes that determines our ability to grow spiritually so that we ...

3152. Heresies of the Heart

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... we refuse to acknowledge God's love and acceptance of us in our own hearts, why should we make allowances for others? The vindictive spirit that couches no forgiveness shuts the church's doors tightly to all who are deemed inappropriate or less-than-perfect. Perhaps the most anti-Christian heresy held tightly by so many hearts today is the spirit of indiffererence. United Church of Canada pastor Ray Ashford tells of talking with a friend who was recovering from a heart attack. He was feeling much better, he ...

3153. Used Tombstones

John 20:1-18

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... miraculous grave robbing activity in all human history. Conversely, Mary Magdalene, when confronted with the same evidence, could only perceive a lost opportunity to mourn at the feet of a corpse. Her spirit was entombed. Easter Sunday gives your congregation the perfect time to reflect on its own tombstone investments. Does the church count more dead people on Sunday morning - like the stone-shocked Mary Magdalene - than live? Of how many can it be said spiritually that they died at forty but were buried ...

3154. Revitalizing the Lo-cal Church

Acts 1:12-26

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... had a hotline to heaven, Jesus surely did. Do everything you can in this sermon to remind your people of the importance of prayer-time and a strong prayer-life in their day-to-day existence. In his wonderful study called Crucified Love: The Practice of Christian Perfection (Nashville: Abingdon, 1989), Robin Maas points out how, "Just as it makes no sense to tell someone, 'I love you more than anything in the world, but I just can't manage to find the time to be with you,' it makes no sense to claim that ...

3155. Stand Together or Fall Apart

Acts 2:42-47

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... avoid intracommunity rivalries. In the earliest Christian communities the scapegoat release valve for hostilities and promoting unity is discarded. By refusing to base community ties on a foundation of violent, exclusory action, a radically new kind of community is proposed. The most perfect example of this change is found in the story of Jesus and the woman who was being prosecuted for adultery (John 8:1-11). Here is a typical scapegoat scenario: The woman is isolated, the community's rejection of her is ...

3156. The Job Description of a Leader

2 Samuel 23:1-7

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... ." God uses even the likes of you and me to show God's glory and to proclaim God's truth, beauty and goodness. The second item in this job description might be best encapsulated by the text from 1 John 4:18 which claims that "Perfect love casts out fear." Without this love, the fear which chased away those potential disciples traveling along with Jesus in Capernaum was a fear of being associated with the scandalous message Jesus was proclaiming. Without confidence in God's love, King David could not assert ...

3157. Yellow Wind

Mark 13:1-31

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... with an attitude like that teenager who found good grades completely superfluous when he focused on the end of the world. On the other hand if we sit on our hands, confidently presuming that we have all the time in the universe to gradually perfect our scarred and sin-stained society, we will find ourselves destroyed by new plagues such as a thinning ozone layer, a polluted ocean and the curse of the accumulated waste products that attend our postmodern world. The Christian church is called to be the town ...

3158. Tweed Jackets, Sweat Pants and Wet Suits

Luke 3:21-38

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... lives involves the courage to put on a wet suit of faithfulness. Wet Suits: Wet suits allow one to become immersed completely in a new and strange, even potentially hostile, environment. Unlike other clumsier attire, the wet suit fits our distinctive form perfectly, nearly becoming one with our own skin. A wet-suited faith allows for extensive creativity and bold exploration in new situations. Bits of tweed and fleece from the previous two stages of faith development make up the insulation of the wet suit ...

3159. Has He Appeared to You?

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... love enters all these broken pieces of our lives. Isaiah, Paul, and Simon Peter all confess to living in a wrong, wretched state when they are confronted by the appearance of the divine. It is as if the encounter with such wholeness and perfection magnifies every ugly, stunted, soured facet of their souls. We are extremely good at dissecting our existence into smaller and smaller pieces - as if by separating all the shattered edges, we will no longer be so painfully aware of their inability to form ...

3160. Grits, Grats and Gruts...Not Grunts

1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... and driven, he was made the chief pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital by the time he was 33. He is most famous for performing the first completely successful separation of Siamese twins joined at the head, and for his perfection of the pediatric hemispherectomy -a surgical procedure designed to control severe, life-threatening seizures. But Dr. Carson's skill and success did not come without a struggle. As recounted in the pages of Christianity Today, his physical world once threatened ...

3161. Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda

Luke 4:1-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... ? We've all done it: enraged or insulted, frightened or confused at someone or some situation, we have stood there sputtering and fuming or have fled in tears and tatters. Then, anywhere from five minutes to five days later, the positively perfect response, the slickest sarcasm or the healing message, floats effortlessly into our heads. There, in the privacy of our cars or offices or homes, we conduct a flawlessly executed, logically organized, stunningly articulate conversation with no one but ourselves to ...

3162. Home Alone

Revelation 21:10, 22-27

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... Lindholm, Charisma [Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell, 1990], 182). Little wonder that our families feel like pressure cookers. The demands on the home are getting greater as the ability of the home to meet these demands is becoming less. The quest to create such a perfect, untroubled, spirit-filled bubble in the boiling soup of everyday existence can only cause us to burst at the seams. The home is NOT a "holy refuge," and it is certainly not "far from the maddening throng." To be a Christian family, a ...

3163. Who Is the Good Samaritan?

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... was centered about bringing this kind of self-less, self-expending love into the world, into our lives. Jesus is our Good Samaritan, who picks us up, heals our wounds and provides for all our needs. Yet Jesus does even more. He incarnated love so perfectly that he not only healed us. He died for us. While McGill's "bronze people" are busy stockpiling and safeguarding their sense of self with possessions and the illusion of control, Jesus engenders true life, true love, true identity - by giving up all that ...

3164. Get a Life!

2 Timothy 1:1-14

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... Yet we continue to try and plot our existence around a series of transitory, inconsequential points. We long to "get a life" like that enjoyed by the fabulously rich, the glamorously beautiful or the politically powerful. On the surface their lives appear so carefree, so perfectly fulfilled that we assume they must have some secret keys to success. With all these people possess, we envy the "peace of mind" that knowing your needs will always be met, or that you look great, or that you can get your own way ...

3165. The Inside Results

John 1:1-28

Illustration

King Duncan

... cheek, a constant reminder of an automobile accident she'd been in. She looked unhappy, with herself and her life." "'Who wouldn't be, in her situation,' I asked myself. As a kid, looking in the mirror when she brushed her teeth or combed her hair, she saw a perfectly normal face and began to take it for granted. Now, when she looks in the mirror, she must think, `Gosh, I look awful! I used to have a normal face, now I have two entirely different cheeks.'" "I told her that I'd remove the scar and, after ...

3166. Prophets or Professionals?

Deuteronomy 18:14-22

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... caller on the other end is someone trying to sell you life insurance on your credit card, solicit a donation for some charity fund, or poll your opinion on some topic you really don't care to discuss with a stranger. These telephone solicitors have so perfected their techniques into an art form over the last few years, however, that once you answer the phone it is virtually impossible to escape their clutches. The good ones begin by asking for you by your first name only "Is this you?" Quickly they ask some ...

3167. Chutes or Ladders

Mark 9:2-9

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... " instruction. Instead of playing up his miraculous strengths, the wonder and power of his true identity, Jesus chose to appear before the world almost anonymously, as a simple, dusty craftsman, rabbi-of-sorts and out-of-sorts leader. Today's gospel text offers a perfect example of Jesus' failure to capitalize on a scenario ripe for success. But not Peter. Although stunned and scared, Peter at least recognizes a golden moment when he sees one. If no one else will, he will carpe the diem. Even if this vision ...

3168. A Go-Ahead God

Mark 16:1-8

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... special, made us feel, just for a moment, like the most important person in the world. But kids also quickly learn that there are some situations where you definitely don't want to be first. These are known as "you-go-ahead" situations. Part of perfecting your response in a "you-go-ahead" scenario depended on a careful delivery of that crucial line. Say it too quickly, too loudly or too enthusiastically and you all but guaranteed that it would become an unwanted "me-first" experience. "You go ahead" had to ...

3169. Written in Red

1 John 5:9-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... the language is changed (verse 3 of "The Old Rugged Cross" gets changed from "stained with blood so divine" to "which bore love so divine"; or verse 2 of "O How I Love Jesus" gets changed from "It tells me of his precious blood, the sinner's perfect plea" to "Whatever problems may befall, we'll live in dignity"). The UCCs shouldn't be singled out completely here. At least they're honest. Most of the other old-line traditions have dealt with blood-soaked songs by simply never singing them. When was the last ...

3170. Soulistic Health

Mark 5:21-43

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... . A love affair with cream cheese and pepperoni pizza clogs our arteries. Curling up with a good book instead of hitting the stair-master has made our muscle tone horribly off-key and our cardiovascular system out of breath. Everything that operates at a less than perfect level is held up to us as evidence of yet another sin we have committed in our lives. When Jesus' healing power brought the miracle of health to the hemorrhaging woman in this week's gospel text, he immediately sought her out to speak with ...

3171. The Gravity of Grace

Ephesians 1:3-14

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... than whining on the sidelines about how awful things are, the church is called by God to jump into the culture and pump up the atmosphere, showing the world that in Christ there is the groundedness and the gravity that souls require for life. The perfect gravitational field for the human spirit is one that is God-breathed, Christ-centered, and Spirit-driven. But there is only one way we can possibly regain entrance into this life of balance and moral certitude. It is only through the grace of God that ...

3172. UpTime

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... be over. It's a bad time of year to schedule important meetings or to make any great future-shaping decisions. Everyone, it seems, is ready for a break, a change, a chance for a little well-deserved "personal time." If we are perfectly honest with ourselves, however, we must admit that we have already segmented our lives into "God's time" vs. the "rest of our lives." So much of our days evaporates into grocery shopping, staff meetings, budget-crunching, commuter traffic snarls, refereeing sibling squabbles ...

3173. Had-To

James 1:17-27

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... should not be such a "shock" to our systems after all. (I want to thank Dr. Paul Jaw of Montclair, New Jersey, for helping me to understand this text over lunch one day.) First, the writer reminds us, that every "generous act" and "every perfect gift" we experience on Earth are in fact heaven-sent from God. Each moment of grace and goodness we experience during our lifetime is a tiny glimpse, a momentary preparation, a "prolepsis," for the heaven that awaits us. In stunning fashion, James' epistle counts ...

3174. How Do You Sell A Vacuum Cleaner?

Mark 7:31-37

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... . Shirley: No. No, I'm not. (she gets a bit crazier) It's, uh, it's step aerobics. (she starts to step on the bottom part, pumping her arms, breathing loudly, counting out) Steve: All right, all right, I don't know what you are doing, but this is perfect 'cause I NEED a vacuum cleaner and you can sell me one. How much? Shirley: No, I'm sorry, this isn't a vacuum cleaner, it's (she kneels, holds the handle like a microphone) It's a karaoke machine for the vertically challenged. (sings in falsetto, "It's ...

3175. Wanted: A Lasting Marriage. Only Good Chemists, Bad mathematicians, Expert Soul-O-Flexors Need Apply

Mark 10:2-16

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... , we also miss out on Jesus' resounding praise of marriage and the uniquely elevated status that a husband and wife hold in God's plan of creation. By constantly skittering past Jesus' tough-sounding words on divorce, we miss a perfect opportunity to look at the reasons why marriages can be such life-affirming, soul-nurturing relationships. Until only recently, social scientists and marriage counselors focused primarily on why marriages fail, and so spent much of their time and energies studying divorced ...

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