Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 3201 to 3225 of 4997 results

Luke 3:1-20

Sermon

James Garrett

... upon Artaban, crushing his head. He lay dying in the arms of the girl he has just redeemed. He says, “Three and thirty years I looked for thee, Lord, but I have never seen thy face nor ministered to thee!” Then a voice comes from heaven, strong and kind, “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of my brethren or sisters, you did it to me.” His face grows calm and peaceful. His long journey is ended. He has found the Christ. Dear friends, don’t overlook the old refrains in that story: a journey ...

3202. The Greatest Wonder Of All!

John 14:5-14

Sermon

John M. Braaten

... , in her typical staccato way, "I want to be baptized. We weren’t even members and you cared for us, and your members gave us a fine funeral. They were so nice even though I didn’t belong. I want to find out what makes people do that kind of thing. I want to join your church." After eight weeks a beaming Agnes became a member of the church. Shortly thereafter I began receiving telephone calls. They all had the same basic pattern, "Pastor, this is Agnes. There’s a family that needs help, could you go ...

3203. Portrait Of A Powerful Servant

John 13:1-17

Sermon

John M. Braaten

... . In our weakest moments a community of equals appeals to us because of our own insecurities and belligerence (we don’t want anyone telling us what to do) and so we are apt to sacrifice the common good for our own ego needs and accompany it with all kinds of pious chatter. Power in itself is not an evil thing, nor is the pursuit of it incompatible with God’s design. The passion to learn, the pursuit of excellence - evidence of our desire for power - have been implanted in us as part of the Divine image ...

3204. God Is Love

Sermon

C. David Godshall

... childlike trust and love which had the very qualities which we need to have in this hour and in the days ahead. God gave up his only Son to die for us on the cross of Calvary. That is the all-the-way kind of love which shows us how very much God loves us. It is that kind of love that calls us to trust God. First, we need to trust God to care for _____________, now gone from us. We shall keep him in our memories, and know that God's love surrounds him still. Second, we need to trust ...

3205. For of Such is the Kingdom of Heaven

Matthew 19:13-15

Sermon

Charles L. Koester

... , but we wake up in the Father's house. In this is our joy as God's people! Yes, joy! Joy because there is a homecoming because there is a home. ____________ so lives in the Father's house, and in worship tonight we acknowledge our Father's love and kindness, And even through humaii grief and tears we would still proclaim in our worship. Thank you, Father. Thank you so very much. But for us, God has called us not to eternal life as yet. He has called us to live in this present. In our frail humanness our ...

3206. Redeeming Grief

1 Corinthians 15:35-58

Eulogy

Charles L. Koester

... the roads were not icy." "If only the rut were not there." "If only the car had not skidded." We each ask those kinds of questions with our "whys" and "if onlys." The answers to those ultimate questions we do not possess, nor can any fellow human ... . Yet we cannot dismiss our questioning, try as we will. Our questions are human, and we are human. Questions, questions, all kinds of questions. Also present are our resentments, and those feelings of being cheated. Even God takes his share of our questioning ...

3207. The Room Named Heaven

John 14:1-4

Eulogy

W. George Easson

... devotion provides, the depths of love are plumbed in him or her. There are many difficulties associated with this kind of relationship. Over a long period of time it is physically very difficult to bear the responsibility of meeting ... appealing and that feels very right. It is the proper place to be. For each of us, the time comes when at the end of the day a kindly, interested and concerned Father comes to us and interrupts the activity of the day with the word that it is time to come home, then he gathers us ...

3208. Into The Whirlwind

2 Kings 2:1-18

Sermon

Robert Allen

... . Our lives can encourage or discourage others. Our lives can be a positive influence or negative influence upon others. We cannot escape the fact that our lives will have an influence upon others. The only choice we have is the kind of influence or impression we leave behind. What kind of influence are you leaving behind? III. Elijah Walked Into The Whirlwind And Was Carried Into The Heavens. As you read the story of Elijah here in 2 Kings, I want to point out a common mistake. Many people have mistakenly ...

3209. How To Deal With Frustration

1 Kings 8:22-61

Sermon

Robert Allen

... dreams dashed against the wall and their frustration causes them to give up. They can’t take the heat of failure and their frustration at not being able to see their dreams become reality simply causes them to give up in defeat. And the second kind of people are those who will not accept defeat as the final answer. This second group may be frustrated because some dream did not become a reality. But, because they refuse to accept defeat as the final answer, they discover that the frustration will pass ...

3210. Black Preaching: A Four-Cornered Universe

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

... to call down the Holy Ghost and inspire hearers to envision God's revelation through the spoken Word was a remarkable element of black preaching which is often taken for granted today. The black preacher has been and still is a kind of medicine man who speaks "cures" to the ills of hearers through spiritual pharmacology. The power of medicine men and women in traditional African society lay precisely in their capacity to speak into reality those therapies, conjurations, and personal transformations which ...

3211. Paradoxes Of The Christian Faith

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

... of his amazing death would be Good Friday: Here was a king, born not in a palace but a pigsty, not in the big house but a kind of outhouse, one whose family was so poor they couldn't afford a room in the inn at the time of his birth. A king whose ... wind assaults on the turbulent, tumultuous seas! What about you this morning: From what tree are you cut; what is the grain of your wood; what kind of timber are you? Can you survive the storms? Are you a tree or a post? A tree gives life and grows. A post withers ...

3212. Joy Songs, Trumpet Blasts, And Hallelujah Shouts!

Joshua 5:13--6:27

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

... ." "The fools are walking in circles." "Are they serious?" asks one. "They've got hymn books, prayer books, and scores of sheet music." "Got to be half out of their minds," says another. "Is this some kind of joke?" "We'll blow the whole lot of them to smithereens." "If they think this is some kind of game, they're in for a licking," shouts an infantryman while sharpening his saber. The priests are marching, circling the city, several carrying the Ark of the Covenant, while those with ram's horn trumpets ...

3213. Holy Diet

John 6:24-35

Sermon

Donald Macleod

... longing for home, family, and love; these were elements without which his soul was starved. Lasting satisfaction began to emerge when, as Luke tells us, "He was a great way off, his father saw him ..." Ours is a generation with its own various kinds of hunger. We may deplore, but yet enjoy, what Wordsworth called "this unaimed prattle flying up and down." We may question the American dream, yet acclaim anyone who is "on the make" and aggressively acquiring more and more things. We may take overweening pride ...

3214. On the Art Of Listening To Sermons

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

Larry Goodpaster

... come to perfect an amazing array of communication instruments, there is very little worth saying, and even less worth repeating a second time. In this communication explosion, however, we are faced with a glut of announcements and find ourselves listening to less-than-ultimate kinds of announcements made with great fanfare. As a result we miss, or are too busy, or have no time to listen to the annunciation of good news. It is like seed planted among the thorns and the thorns grow up to choke off the good ...

3215. “Lucky” Is The Saddest Word

Jeremiah 20:7-18

Sermon

Keith Hammer

... how their apostasy was leading them toward a situation where their good life would be destroyed and they would be led away into exile. I believe it’s time that we who claim Jesus as our Lord and Savior take another look at our participation in all kinds of games of chance. It has become a much deeper issue than one of simple morality -- that is, that it’s sinful to gamble. What is happening to our society is that we are stampeding toward a society where wealth and comfortable lifestyles rule for many at ...

3216. Take Care Of Each Other!

Ezekiel 33:1-20

Sermon

Keith Hammer

... of the year, he gathered a beautiful collection of colored leaves. Bobby also brought home gifts for his parents. One time he brought home a mud pie which he had made. Another time he brought home a crude car he had fashioned from the clay. He found all kinds of snakes, bugs and worms and he was always bringing some of them home to show his parents. As time went on, it seemed like the parents always liked Jimmy’s gifts better than Bobby’s gifts. This was really upsetting to Bobby and he began to brood ...

3217. Born Leader

Drama

Timothy W. Ayers

... , I think I'm getting the drift here. My team needs to decide how we can serve you, and then as their leader I have to be the (choking sound) servant of all. This is going to be hard. I'm not sure that I like that kind of servanthood. Voice: It's the only kind I like. And wouldn't you rather please me and hear me say, "Well done, my good and faithful servant"? Man: Gotcha. Voice: Well, that's it. It wasn't so painful, was it? Man: Well, actually, is it possible for us to get together again ...

3218. Trial-and-Error or Grace

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Thomas Peterson

... a multitude of mistreatments and abuses. In circumstances that otherwise would have destroyed their marriage they were blessed to move ahead as though these did not exist -- because the relationship of love was primary! A father and son were having a hard argument, the kind most fathers and sons encounter sometimes in a growing relationship. They both felt they had reached a point of no return. The son was about to leave and the father almost ready to ask him to. Then the father sat back and reflected: what ...

3219. The Hard-Boiled Egg Story

John 14:20

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

... you and God the Father and Jesus the Son are together like the egg. I think it is a good feeling, don't you? (Let them answer.) The best part of this is that when we are all together we share our happiness and our sorrow. When you are feeling kind of badly because of something that has happened to you, then you know that Jesus and the Father are also sharing your hurt. When you are happy because of something nice that has happened to you, then you know that the Father and the Son Jesus are also filled with ...

3220. The Promised Land

Eulogy

Joe Barone

... , O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify thy name for ever,” the psalmist says, and he says it in his pain before God’s saving act for him has happened. That’s the kind of person * was. She could pray in faith, knowing God would save her, even in the depth of her own suffering. And that’s the kind of faith we all need. We need to face our suffering and not to deny it. “In the day of my trouble I call on thee ...” the psalmist says. He could say it because he knew God ...

3221. Signs Of Glory

Eulogy

Joe Barone

... those same words, too. But Jesus is enough. That’s the message that I have to bring today. Jesus is enough, not because he is some kind of miracle-worker or some magician, but because he is, at one and the same time, both God and the one true revelation of the living ... full of people who claimed to be able to raise others from the dead. It was full of miracle workers of all kinds. And whether or not the miracles were true, people believed them. But Jesus’ raising of Lazarus was different. It wasn’t a ...

3222. The Comfort Of The Scripture

Eulogy

Joe Barone

... ? Some people look to the comfort of the Scripture. I have a friend who was raised on the grounds of a state mental hospital. He was the superintendent’s son, and they lived in a house not far from the main building. One night he and his family attended a kind of circus in the auditorium of the main building, and he still has two memories of that night. One’s a memory of a little white dog that climbed a ladder almost as high as the top of that two-story auditorium and then jumped safely into its owner ...

3223. The Majesty Of God's Love

John 17:1-11

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... crucial aspect in the everyday life of the faithful. Seriously folks, if the Trinity doctrine were discarded next week by an ecumenical council (kind of like the council that drew up the Nicene Creed), would your faith really be affected? Would it make that much of ... do become one in the sense that the marriage becomes more important than the partners as individuals. That is the kind of relationship which Jesus prays that his followers might have with each other. It just comes naturally when you worship a ...

3224. The Majesty Of God's Love

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... as the Father through his union with Christ is tied up with a concern for the spiritual welfare of humanity, so we, the faithful, insofar as we are united with Christ, share the Trinitarian concern to reach all with the gospel. When you are being true to the kind of person God has made you (in Christ's resurrection and in your baptism), then evangelism is no odious task. You do it with enthusiasm. It just comes naturally. This is why Jesus directs us to baptize in the name of the triune God (Matthew 28:19 ...

3225. Competition In The Kingdom?

Matthew 20:17-19

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... may have even seen the Risen Lord on that first Easter (Mark 16:1ff). The woman had, or was to receive so much glory. Yet it was not enough; she wanted more. She asked Jesus to give her two sons the highest place possible in the kingdom. Is not that kind of discontent, that sort of lust for recognition and reputation, the way it is with us? We faithful followers of Jesus are never fully content, are we? Of course, when we are not content with all that has been given us, we are not being faithful. Yet at any ...

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