Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 3351 to 3375 of 4963 results

3351. The Surprise of Absolute Victory

Romans 8:28-39

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... can be overcome. But if I fight Christ off and refuse to allow him to exist at the center of my conscience, I am without hope. Stanley Jones makes it clear: "You don’t need to know everything about yourself to surrender yourself - all you need to know is that you ... to reach out my hand lest I touch God." Such a realization of Presence, such a sharing of Presence, is our true hope in the midst of world collapse. Jesus’ preaching made the presence of God felt. God was present, now. God was here, now. ...

3352. Binding Up the Fractured World

1 Corinthians 3:1-23

Sermon

Hubert Beck

... It is portrayed by Paul in Romans as itself "standing on tiptoe" (to use the paraphrase of J. B. Phillips) waiting for its own redemption, "for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope." It is spoken of as "groaning in travail together until now," waiting for the new birth of God’s returning and the renewal that shall accompany that glorious event. (Romans 8:18-22) The ravages of nature, held together in awesome unity and yet flying apart ...

3353. The True Nature of Happiness

Luke 6:17-26

Sermon

Brett Blair

... we know him as teacher. Unless we have a relationship with God, the Beatitudes will seem most ludicrous. They fly in the face of everything that the world has taught us. The problem so often is that we put the cart before the horse. We study his teaching and hope that they will change us. The fact is that it is Christ who changes us. And, as we are changed, we adhere to his teachings. Thus, the Sermon on the Mount is the pattern of living for those who have received Christ as Savior. With this thought in ...

3354. NEEDED: A GOOD WORD!

Illustration

John H. Krahn

On November 18, 1861, the Lord began to speak a beautiful word of hope to a fractured American society as a woman by the name of Julia Ward Howe slept fitfully while troops marched in the streets below. As she lay waiting for ... the tears unashamedly rolled down his cheeks, "Sing it again." Julia Ward Howe was a beautiful Christian lady who permitted God to use her to present his gospel of hope to her troubled world. Today God has a good word for our nation’s problems. Permit him to speak it through you.

3355. DISCOVER THE JOAN AROUND YOU

Illustration

John H. Krahn

... hospital, she stopped by my room, and we talked some more. She promised to come and talk with me again and go to church. As she was leaving she said, "You know, I like you; you didn’t give me any B.S. but really helped me." I said, "I hope God will give you physical and spiritual health. See you soon." Our Lord is willing to use us wherever we are to bring hope and healing. We need only be willing to let him. Look around you and discover the Joan who needs help. Help her!

3356. Justification By Faith

Romans 4:1-25

Bulletin Aid

James Wilson

... nation, accept our faith today and use us in a mighty way to lead others to a living faith in You. In Christ we pray. Amen. Prayer Of Confession Lord, so often righteousness has meant to us perfection under the Law and we have all but given up any personal hope as a result. Forgive us, Lord, and help us to hear Your messages of mercy and grace based not on our deeds alone, but on our faith and our willingness to serve You. Touch our hearts, dear Lord, and renew our ...

3357. The New Covenant

John 3:1-21

Bulletin Aid

James Wilson

... You, Lord. In Christ we pray. Amen. Prayer Of Confession Lord, so often we see only our sins and failures and not Your mercy and grace. So often we focus on the destruction and damage in life, feeling hopelessness and despair rather than choosing to accept the healing and hope in life You would give to us. Forgive us, Lord, and help us accept Your new life for us that our lives might praise You. In Christ we pray. Amen. Hymns "How Can We Name A Love" "In Christ There Is No East Or West" "Sing With All The ...

3358. REMEMBER YOUR BAPTISM

Illustration

John H. Krahn

... diamond the Star of Africa, the largest cut diamond in the world, containing seventy-four facets with a weight of 530 carats. Today, the diamond is still set in the British Royal Scepter. Can you imagine the value of such a jewel? Then there is the Hope Diamond: the largest blue diamond in the world. It weighs in at 44.4 carats. Found in India during the seventeenth century, it has been displayed, since 1958, at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. At that time it was worth between $700,000 and ...

3359. Faith Opens the Door

Genesis 12:1-8

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... had prepared for them a City." They never saw it fully until their lives were complete. To some extent men of faith are strangers in the world. St. Augustine suggests, "We are sojourners exiled from our Fatherland." These men never lost their vision nor their hope. They followed, "haunted by the things ahead." Barclay describes John Bunyon in prison for his faith: He was thinking about his little blind daughter and said, "O, I saw in this condition I was a man who was pulling down his house upon the heads ...

3360. The Joy of Being a Caring Person

Mt 25:31-46 · Lk 16:19-31

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... water - the combination of hydrogen and oxygen that supplies body fluid for a short time - this water given with the love of Christ, given in love and compassion, given because the love of God is real to us - this is not just the chemical. Here we are sharing hope, comfort, grace, encouragement, eternity. Like Jesus at the well, we, by the grace of God, are the givers of the waters of life. Chaim Potok, in the book My Name is Asher Lev, has a voice come to Asher in a dream: "Do you hear the pain carried ...

3361. What Are You Going to Do About Death?

Mt 10:28 · Lk 12:4

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... heaven to communicate their delights and blessings to others." In this new state of life we are moving closer and closer to God. To sum it up, "man designs and eventually comes to the world of his own choices" - heaven or hell. My young friend feared that a hope of heaven would take our minds off of the service of mankind. To the contrary, when we begin to glimpse the goodness, the love, the sharing of God, then our whole life is caught up in his spirit of serving others. This is where the power comes from ...

3362. The Forgiven and the Forgiving

Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... justice. No, we don’t! We want mercy. I have done things in my life that I cannot now straighten out. I need mercy. I need forgiveness. I am caught. There is no hope. I have done so much that I cannot un-do. Woe is me. I’ve had it! I can love, and care, and maybe God will love and care for me, so there is hope. But Jesus turned this whole thing around, and he said that God has been caring for you since you were born. God loves you. You are forgiven. Now go and forgive others. Peter ...

3363. On Being a Beautiful Christian

Mark 14:1-11

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... as the blessing had been said at the meal, the members of this family started biting each other’s heads off like cats and dogs. They even seemed to take joy in torturing each other. The girl went back into her empty world in total despair - her last hope destroyed. We need the spirit of Christ to back up the way of Christ. But sometimes we are just ornery and get into the habit of being ornery. We don’t mean it. It just becomes an unconscious lifestyle and destroys our influence. I can never forget the ...

3364. A Daughter of Jacob

Matthew 15:21-28

Sermon

Richard Hoefler

... to all else. Or it may have been that all she had heard about this Jesus convinced her that he would not completely deny her. So far as the story is concerned, the fact that Jesus did not do what the disciples asked - send her away - raised sufficient hope in her and gave her the courage to persist. Scraps for the Puppy Dog Then Jesus looks directly at her. "Is it right to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs?" Ever since Origen, interpreters of this miracle story have pointed out that the ...

3365. A Liturgical Drama For Advent

Drama

Tom Eberle

... place just turned pitch dark. Four: I admit, if they knew why we are trying to sell, they wouldn’t buy. But if they can’t see the light - that’s their problem. Five: We’re going to have a kegger as soon as it gets dark. Six: Hopes of a breakthrough in the Middle East were dimmed today ... Narrator: [interrupting] "How long will you judge unjustly and show favour to the wicked? You ought to give judgment for the weak and the orphan, and see right done to the destitute and downtrodden, you ought to ...

3366. A LITURGICAL DRAMA FOR PENTECOST

Drama

Tom Eberle

... out in me, All the wide-eyed wonder of my youth. God, relight the light that was turned out in me, Give me back some joy and hope and truth. If there is a Holy Spirit, If there is a Heavenly Dove, I would like to see and hear it, Changing this cold world with ... of your Spirit is stronger than the corrosive acids of individual or national short-sightedness. Voice 4: No longer is our hope centered in Bermuda, or the stock market, or our children. Your Spirit has drawn us together as a community called the ...

3367. Old and New

Mk 2:22 · 2 Cor 5:17 · Is 43:19

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... in the heart open to God’s redeeming presence. Therefore if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, all things have become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17) Newness - newness of faith, newness of perspective, newness of attitude, newness of hope. Such newness can be ours and is ours, in both our waking and sleeping hours. Says God anew this day: Behold, I am doing a new thing, Even now it is springing to light. Do you not perceive it? A way will I make in the wilderness And ...

3368. The Circus and My Faith

Ps 139 · Mt 22:37

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... the spirit of the Lord, and with a hand on the rudder and an eye on the compass, set off in hope and in enthusiasm! Leadership is not without its reward, either. Wrote Alvin Lindgren a few years back: The church makes its ... like to think that my reflections on the circus and the faith that I hold are in obedience to that command. And I offer them in the hope that they will encourage you, too, to look for those ways in which your faith can be expressed and deepened by that which grips you - by something ...

3369. The Therapy of Song

1 Samuel 16:14-23, Exodus 15:1-21, Psalm 5:1-12

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... During the conflict in Vietnam over a decade ago, we heard a number of folk singers burst forth with songs of indignation and hope. But the same has happened during other periods. In 1916 Carl Nielsen, the Danish composer whose works are just now coming into ... that he wasn’t sure he would be accepted by the group and found his questioning manner a way of gaining attention and hopefully approval. The quality of our meetings together deepened when we were able to move from a kind of testing ground to a turf ...

3370. God and the Weather

Matthew 5:45; 16:2-3 · Psalm 18:7-11; 46:1-3, 11

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... that we pay for the blessings of human freedom. When a mother sends her youngster outside to play, it is with every hope that the child fares well. She does not will the youngster’s accidents, although they are bound to happen. Should she ... way diminish concern and love for the child, and the loving parent does everything possible through his presence to undergird the child. He hopes all good things for the child, and I find comfort as we wrestle with this thorny problem of God and human calamity that ...

3371. The Un-Parade

Matthew 16:21-28, Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... and of course this served only to worsen my plight. In time, the sciatic nerve in my right leg issued a protest, and for a long time I felt the results of its resounding report! For those of us who are contemptuous of weakness, though, there are some words of hope and correction. They come from St. Paul who indicates that they came to him from God. These are the words he heard: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9) I like the way the Good News Bible ...

3372. What Is Your Holy Week Address?

Matthew 27:45-56

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... such cure. Looking to Washington and Moscow, or to President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher for a cure to tension, it should not surprise us that we will wait so far beyond their terms of leadership as to one day question whether or not we have been duped by the hope of an unreachable utopia. The stuff of which tension is made is always about us. If it is not the neighbor’s barking dog, it will be another neighbor’s sobbing child. If it is not a family member, it will be a boss. If it is not the ...

3373. THE GOOD SAMARITAN

Drama

Marcia Miller

... story that is so familiar. It is not a subtle theological approach; it is direct. But in its directness it is hoped that the discoursive language does not outweigh the entertainment value. CHARACTERS THE GREETER The Greeter can either be male or female. ... some clean bandages, but I guess my handkerchief is better than nothing. [There is no answer, only another moan.] He looks like a Jew. I hope he doesn’t mind the help of a Samaritan. I’ll take him into town with me. [He wipes the man’s face with a ...

3374. Living Water for a Thirsty Soul

John 4:1-26

Sermon

Brett Blair

... lets his true identity be known. Look at what happens here. Does he reveal his identity to the Sanhedrin or the Jerusalem Bar? No! Does he make this pronouncement at the Temple to the priest? No! My friends this is the moment that history has been waiting for—the hopes and fears of all the years and Jesus ushers in this glad news through this gentile, this woman, this outcast among a people of outcasts. Why did he choose her? I don’t know. The only hint is found in a single verse in the 11th chapter of ...

3375. Rejoice!

1 Peter 2:4-12

Bulletin Aid

James Wilson

... 's love with all who will hear and accept it! Leader: And let us lift our voices in joyful praise and song! All: Blessed be the name of the Lord! Collect O God, through Your mercy and grace You have taken our rejection and turned it into a message of hope and love. Give us the strength to carry Your message of love to the world. In Christ we pray. Amen. Prayer Of Confession Lord, so often we get caught up in the world around us and take our eyes away from You. We get so entangled in the happenings of ...

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