Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 3201 to 3225 of 4933 results

3201. A Streak of Common Sense

Deuteronomy 18:14-22

Sermon

Thomas D. Peterson

When I was growing up my mother often pleaded with me to use common sense. She was evidently convinced I did not have it or else, for some obstinate reason, refused to use it. Perhaps she was right. I was a wool-gatherer, a day-dreamer, off someplace that she did not know or understand. On the other hand, my older brother was evidently a paragon of common sense. I figured this out because she never urged him to use it. He must have been endowed with a suitable supply, for he was an operator and got things ...

3202. People Who Would Destroy God’s Temple

1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23

Sermon

King Duncan

Peter Hanson once gave a speech in which he told what a moving experience it was even for him, a Canadian, to visit the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. This was not long after that memorial was constructed. Hanson described watching crowds of people of all ages reach up to touch the cold wall of granite rising out of the ground, containing the names of every American soldier known to have died in that tragic conflict--approximately 50,000 of them. Some people who came to visit that memorial just stood ...

3203. How Many Times Should We Forgive?

Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon

King Duncan

There's an old, old story about a little guy who was sitting in a restaurant when a big bully came in. The bully walked over to the little guy, grabbed him forcefully and threw him over his shoulder. "That's Judo," he said, "Picked it up in Japan." Next he hit him square on the back of the neck. "That's karate. Picked it up in Korea." The little guy squirmed away from the bully and went out to his truck. When he came back in, he went right up to the bully and cracked him over the head. "That's crowbar," he ...

3204. You Are Somebody!

Galatians 3:26--4:7

Sermon

King Duncan

There is a time-honored story which you may remember that comes from the French Revolution. King Louis XVI and his queen were condemned to death. They were escorted to the guillotine in a public square in Paris where they were beheaded. The mob was not satisfied. "Bring out the Prince," they cried. "He is next!!" The young boy was terrified. He was only six years old, but he was next in line to be King. In the mind of the crowd, he had to be eliminated. According to the story, the young prince stood on the ...

3205. Come and See

John 1:29-42

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

While growing up there's something my folks used to say that's always puzzled me. I've even said it to my kids. And you've probably said it to yours. It usually happened when we were very young and hadn't learned all the etiquette of life. But I can clearly remember seeing someone dressed or acting strange, pointing at them and my mother slapping my hand and saying: "Billy, it's not polite to point." I've never understood why. So I did a little research. SwissAir Gazette says: "Pointing at objects is not ...

3206. Redemption: A Wide Angle Picture

Exodus 3:1-22

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Some time ago I was in Maryland for a retreat, and we were near Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. I had never been to Gettysburg, that sight of the pivotal battle that turned the tides of the Civil War, so we rode out there one day. It was altogether too cold, and there was too much snow and ice for us to tour the battle field. But we had the opportunity of visiting the Cyclorama - the giant painting on canvas the high water mark of that awful war. Paul Philippoteaux was the artist. He came to America in 1881 ...

3207. Would A Loving God Really Let Anyone Go To Hell?

Luke 16:19-31

Sermon

David E. Leininger

This is a question to which almost all of those reading this book already have an answer. Whether that answer is truly reflective of the biblical witness is what we will deal with. Would a loving God really let anyone go to hell? Our text seems to indicate the answer is "Yes." The righteous will be rewarded with an eternity of comfort and peace and the sinners are going to burn. Some of you, I am sure, would be content to leave it at that. After all, that is what you learned years ago. Others of you will ...

3208. How Do You Get Rid of Evil without Destroying Good?

Matthew 13:24-30

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

How do we deal with evil? More precisely, how do we get rid of evil without destroying good? Today’s parable addresses this question. Like all parables of our Lord, this one comes straight from the life of his own day and people. We find it a bit hard to understand because this incident could not have occurred in the wheat-growing sections of America. We know about farms stretching over hundreds and hundreds of acres. The sowing and the reaping is done by sophisticated farm machinery. Land is sprayed ...

3209. Here I Am

Luke 1:26-38, Luke 1:39-45, Luke 1:46-56

Sermon

Lori Wagner

“Our deepest relationships are not defined by strength but by vulnerability.” --Rabbi Ari Kaiman Prop (Animation): youtube video [Show youtube video “Pass the Salt”] In the past, we laughed or sighed at the sight of a couple eating dinner with one of them reading the newspaper. It could have been a scene in the movies or an actual sighting in a restaurant—there’s always one person with a face in a newspaper, or one of them zoned out somewhere, leaving the other to dine alone in silence. Now, it’s become ...

3210. Wicked

Luke 20:9-19, Matthew 21:33-46

Sermon

Lori Wagner

Prop: plant with fruit (olive tree or fig tree or grape vine) ”Then God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply.” (Genesis 1:22) "Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5) Most of us today are not much familiar with the idea of “tenant farming.” But it was a popular practice in many countries up until the 20th century. The term referred to a landowner who hires tenants to live on and ...

3211. The Curse of the Tongue

James 3:1-12, James 3:13-18, 2 Timothy 2:14-26, Psalm 34:1-22

Sermon

Lori Wagner

“Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them." (Jesus --Mark 7:15) “The soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit.” (Proverbs 15:4) “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen… Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” ...

3212. Measured Salvation

Matthew 20:1-16

Sermon

Lori Wagner

All of us have jobs or have had jobs sometime in our lifetime. I want you to imagine now that you have been working hard for Company G for about 20 or 30 years. You started with a reasonable pay, but now as you’ve done well, you have gained a great salary. You are proud of your accomplishment. With your salary, you’ve been able to buy a nice home, raise a stable family, and accrue funds for your retirement. This is the “way it’s done,” and you mastered it. One day, the company decides, it needs to hire a ...

3213. Recruiting Volunteers

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Sermon

King Duncan

Raise your hand if you have ever volunteered for an organization. I’d bet most of you at one time or another have volunteered for a cause you believed in. Maybe you helped collect canned goods for a community kitchen, or tutored a student, or sold Girl Scout cookies, or ran a 5K race for a good cause. We all have different causes we believe in and motivations for volunteering. But I have trouble grasping the motivation for some people’s volunteer choices. A few years ago, NASA advertised for volunteers for ...

3214. Knowing, and Known

Romans 4:13-25

Sermon

John B. Jamison

He leaned back against the tree and watched the crowds move past. They all looked so young. He smiled a bit as he thought about how young he had been that first time he brought his flocks here to sell. That had been, what, seventy years ago? Maybe eighty? The journey from home to the market hadn’t changed any, but it sure felt like it had. He couldn’t remember ever feeling this tired. He looked down at his campfire and wondered if this would be his last trip; the last time he would make the long journey to ...

3215. What He Said!

Mark 6:30-44

Sermon

George W. Hoyer

In today's gospel we are not told if our Lord actually said it, or whether he simply thought it: "They are like sheep without a shepherd." Modern medicine has an amazing diagnostic tool called Magnetic Resonance Imaging -- MRI. The machine provides the magnetic magic and computers translate it all into pictures sharper than X-ray. Whether Jesus thought it or said it, what we have here is the Messiah's Reaction Imagery: "They are like sheep without a shepherd." The disciples had returned from their teaching ...

3216. The Beginning And The Ending

Luke 1:1-4; 24:44-53

Sermon

J. Will Ormond

Some people, when they pick up a new book, look first at the beginning and read a few lines, then they turn to the end to see how it turns out. This gives them a preliminary feel for the book and helps them decide whether they want to read it or not. We are faced with something of the same situation by the lectionary passages chosen for today. They are the first four verses from the Gospel of Luke and the last ten verses of the last chapter. We are asked to consider the beginning and the ending of Luke's ...

3217. Live Together In Harmony

1 Corinthians 1:10-17

Sermon

Richard Hasler

In Mark Twain's delightful story, The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, the following incident occurs. Huck and his friend are talking. His friend, Buck, wants to kill someone. Huck wonders what this person had ever done to get his friend so agitated. Finally, the reason comes out. "Why, nothing -- only it's on account of the feud." Huck is still puzzled, "What's a feud?" His friend cannot believe that Huck is so stupid not to know what a feud is; hence he goes on to explain. A feud begins with two men who ...

3218. A Law We Can Live With

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Robert S. Crilley

Many of you, I'm sure, have seen those public service announcements on television promoting the use of safety belts which close with the tag line: "A law we can live with." It's intended, of course, to be something of a double entendre -- the phrase "can live with" meaning both able to accept and able to survive. Whether it will actually prove an effective campaign, I suppose only time will tell. However, at the risk of appearing irreverent, it seems to me that the same could be claimed of the Ten ...

3219. Is There Any Seed Left In The Barn?

Haggai 2:19

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

About eight years ago I first considered moving from Los Angeles to northern Indiana, from the city to the country. I'm a city boy, born and bred, and I still love the city, but I thought to be fair to my children they should experience both ways of living. So we loaded up the truck and we moved to a mildly rural place called Dunlap, located halfway between Elkhart and Goshen, Indiana. I say mildly rural because the Concord Mall is only a mile and a half north of us, but we're surrounded by cornfields and ...

3220. A Perfect Prayer

Sermon

Erskine White

Romans 8:26-27 Give thy servant therefore an understanding mind, that I may discern between good and evil. (1 Kings 3:9) Most of us would admit without too much prodding that we are not perfect, that we are a frustrating blend of good and evil. Oh, I've known a few Christians who think they are without sin because they are saved, but these are people who don't understand themselves or the Scriptures. For the rest of us, I think we'd all confess that we are flawed and fallible, imperfect at best. But what ...

3221. Ash Wednesday

Matthew 6:1-4, Matthew 6:16-18, Joel 2:12-17, 2 Corinthians 5:11--6:2

Sermon Aid

George Bass

THEOLOGICAL CLUE The very title of the first day of Lent - Ash Wednesday, with its opening word, "Remember, you are dust, and unto dust you shall return" - has the theological clue for its observation embedded in it; Lent has to do with the human predicament of sin and death and points to the action God takes in the death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ, to resolve this situation. The cross announces forgiveness of sin, reconciles God and his children, and the resurrection completes the ...

3222. Marked In God’s Book

Sermon

George Bass

“Their names are written in the book of life.” (Jerusalem Bible) Philippians 4:1-9 “The cross is still there” upon your forehead, and because it is, it is burned into your heart, mind, and soul by the Holy Spirit assuring you that your “names are written in the Book of Life.” God knows us and our names, and believers may rest assured that there is a place for them in God’s eternal kingdom. God will never forget his people or their names, according to St. Paul. One of the last things my wife and I did at ...

3223. Bartolome’ de Las Casas Protector Of The Indians

Drama

Thomas A. Renquist

Reader 1: In 1992, North, Central and South Americans celebrated the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ “discovery” of America. Of course, we have been reminded that it can’t really be called a “discovery” when there were people already living here who knew this land existed all the time! So what’s a better word? “Exploration?” Perhaps most fitting is the word “conquest.” After 1492, as the Spaniards established their American empire, 20,000,000 native Americans were killed. In some areas, like Cuba, all of ...

3224. Do I Give Up Praying Too Soon?

Luke 18:1-8

Sermon

I’ve heard marvelous stories of people who’ve prayed and found their prayers answered. I’ve heard testimonies like that from some of you. I’ve heard reports from hospital chaplains. One that sticks in my mind is of a young man hopelessly sick. The physicians didn’t think surgery would help but they didn’t know what else to do. So they tried it. The young man was up and around and out of the hospital in a week. The surgeon had seen this happen before and so he asked, "Did he belong to a group and did this ...

3225. The Priesthood of All Believers

1 Peter 2:4-12

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

"We are all priests." These are the words of Martin Luther. But he did not invent this revolutionary idea. He discovered it in the Bible. When the Bible says, "You are a royal priesthood" and "He made us to be priests," it is not speaking about ordination but about every Christian man and woman. In rediscovering the gospel, Luther also rediscovered the principal means by which the gospel operates, the priesthood of all believers. What does it mean to be a priest? It means to be consecrated to serve. That ...

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