Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 3426 to 3450 of 4997 results

Matthew 7:24-29, Matthew 7:15-23, Romans 3:21-31, Genesis 12:1-8

Bulletin Aid

... venture in faith with you. Lead us in a life of blessing that will help us reveal your love to our world. In the name of Christ we pray. Amen. Hymns "Be Thou My Vision" "Guide Me, Oh Thou Great Jehovah" "He Leadeth Me: O Blessed Thought" "Lead Kindly Light" Chorus: "Where He Leads Me I Will Follow" Second Lesson: Romans 3:21-28 Theme: Justified by faith in Christ Call to Worship Pastor: We have all sinned against God, and have separated ourselves from his salvation. People: God's laws make it clear that our ...

3427. Harnessed Power

John 20:19-23

Sermon

Richard L. Thulin

... them. This single motion, this single breath, is significant. Power is promised but it is promised only for the assigned task. The Spirit's energy is not given away as a private possession. It is not some kind of electrical charge that will animate the disciples awake or asleep. Nor is it some kind of power source that the disciples can call upon for whatever purpose they desire. It is energy given for, and connected to, the assigned task. It empowers the act that has been commanded. It guarantees the ...

3428. R.S.V.P.

Matthew 22:1-14

Sermon

... parents have suggested to members of Church Council that your phone calls and postcards to their teenaged children constitute a kind of "harassment". "Fear not, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." At least the parents admit you’ ... We don’t suffer from a "famine of hearing the Word of the Lord" like the Prophet Amos announced. We suffer from a kind of spiritual anorexia, a self-imposed starvation diet. All this while others, like the youngsters you’re now reaching, have nowhere to ...

3429. Talents and Trust

Matthew 25:14-30

Sermon

... to do with building trust and taking risks. In a newly formed small group, people are generally reluctant to risk sharing anything significant about themselves until they know there’s a reasonable level of trust. But you don’t build that kind of trust until people start taking those kinds of risks. Nobody risks until there’s trust, but there is very little trust until somebody risks. Catch-22. Our gospel text for this day contains a Catch-22 that Jesus taught: "To everyone who has will more be given ...

3430. The Gift That Claims Our Response

Matthew 22:1-14

Sermon

... gracious offer of Jesus to seek and enjoy that condition of life wherein faith and hope and love are celebrated and practiced. Jesus said that the offer to participate in this Kingdom is like being invited to a marriage feast. Some people make all kinds of excuses for not accepting the invitation, but the truth is they aren’t interested. They don’t want to be bothered. Perhaps they know that if they accept the invitation they will be obligated to respond appropriately, and they have other priorities. So ...

3431. The Things That Are God’s

Matthew 22:15-22

Sermon

... conclusion to draw from this commandment is to give ourselves to God first, before anything else. Then all other loyalties must be given or withheld subject to the direction and correction of that first loyalty. Only then can commitment to God become a kind of gravitational force which gives us some stability and balance when all the strings on our lives are being pulled this way and that. Mind you, commitment to God is no guarantee of comfort - material or emotional. It produces its own tension, because ...

3432. In Defense of the One-Talent Servant

Matthew 25:14-30

Sermon

... had I reported the loss of even the one talent I had been given? I’m only human, your Honor. I don’t mind saying here today that I was scared - that’s right, afraid of failing and coming up empty-handed. I couldn’t live with that kind of disgrace. So I guess you could say, I tried to play it safe. Defense: (speaking to the Judge) You see, your Honor, what pressure the defendant was under. In this topsy-turvy world, the defendant experienced the same fear that so many in this courtroom are feeling ...

3433. Promise or Threat?

Matthew 24:1-35

Sermon

... political upheaval. Try to imagine that because the very survival of the human race is severely threatened, it becomes necessary for the people of this country to submit themselves to radical changes in our government. We soon find ourselves living under a kind of dictatorship, with the government making all the decisions about allocation of resources, decisions about who shall have what food and how much, decisions about who shall live and who shall not. Most of our personal freedoms are taken away or at ...

3434. The Sounds at the Summit

Exodus 19:1-25

Sermon

... not to go around talking about their "memories of the mountain," and thereby turn the preaching of the gospel into some kind of mystical experience. They were allowed to witness the meeting of Jesus with Moses and Elijah - and to hear God speak ... from pain by taking one’s own life. It was indicated that ways to accomplish this could be suggested, if one were interested in that kind of death. Fortunately, my friend did not believe he was going to die, and he did not act on the chaplain’s subtle offer and ...

3435. Round Trip to Bethlehem

Ruth 1:1-22

Sermon

... over and over again in our time, not simply through death but as the result of divorce. But it is equally bad when a woman is left with children today and has to care for them on her own. An increasingly large percentage of the poor comes from this kind of death, doesn’t it? Death and divorce create poverty in our country, today, and we have done no better to relieve that type of situation than they did in Naomi’s day. Naomi knew that she would be better off if she returned to Bethlehem, and that is ...

3436. Judgment and Justice

Amos 5:18-27

Sermon

... Till in glory, parted never, From the precious Savior’s side, Graven in our hearts forever, Dwell the Cross, the Crucified. That kind of faith, built on the foundation laid by Christ, becomes a vehicle that builds right relationships with God and others, and, ... then to go out of our churches and our homes to tell the story and give credence to it by the deeds of love, mercy, and kindness, concrete acts of justice, that we do in the name of the Lord. Then, instead of judging us for our failure to live up to ...

3437. The City Unshakeable

Psalm 46:1-11, Hebrews 12:25-29

Sermon

... be limited and isolated has been demolished. "Airport security" has become an oxymoron. Confidence in our intelligence services and national defenses has fallen. And any lingering notion that being on the side of fairness and freedom and justice for all was any kind of insulation against massive tragedy is now banished forever, gone are the days when all we had to fear was fear itself. Michael Elliot, writing for Times, was not exaggerating when he wrote, "For Americans, September 11, 2001, will go down in ...

3438. Our Attentive Lord

Psalm 116:1-19

Illustration

... ear is inclined toward me." Putting it another way, God is leaned forward listening. Ordinarily, we should not think of God as having human or physical form. But if, for just a moment, we may picture him in this way, we can visualize the great, kind King on his throne, his body bent forward, an elbow on a knee, a hand cupped to an ear, intently looking in our direction. This is the kind of God to whom we come when we worship, when we pray. It isn't difficult at all to get his attention; we have it already.

3439. The Trading Post

Illustration

... frontier town. To the trading post came the hunters' trappers, miners, and homesteaders with such things as furs and gold, and these they traded for things they needed more - food, tools, weapons, clothing. In a very real way, you and I have come this morning to a kind of trading post. Here before this altar some things may be put down and left, and others may be picked up and taken. We may bring our cares and fears, our sins and guilt, and we may take forgiveness, joy, and peace. As you come to church ...

3440. Unscrambling The Voices

Illustration

Staff

... the altar of God. We are a varied people, of many ages and stations, with widely divergent backgrounds, interests, and pursuits. But here this morning there is one thing all of us are doing: listening. In I Corinthians 14:10 the Apostle Paul writes: "There are so many kinds of voices in the world." and we know the truth of this, don't we? We hear these voices all the time, all through the week - loud ones and soft, bright ones and dark, saying this and saying that, and sometimes saying nothing. And it's all ...

3441. Our Gunsback Awakening

Illustration

... I awoke, the thought that I must not accept this happiness as a matter of course, but must give something in return for it." And so he did. His surging gratitude of spirit overflowed in kind acts of compassion touching the lives of more than 200,000 persons. You know, somewhere along the way most of us need some kind of "Gunsback awakening." We need to become aware of how blessed we are and resolve to do something about it. May a Gunsback awareness of God's great goodness come with overflowing power upon us ...

3442. Who Is This?

Matthew 21:1-11

Sermon

... themselves Christians must ask this week. Who is this man Jesus, and what does he mean for our lives? We are mistaken if we believe that this Jesus came to free us from all of our earthly cares or suffering. Many people we know seek and want that kind of Jesus. As we have been finding in our consideration of the healing ministry of Jesus, our Lord did do miraculous things as he healed those who were blind, lame, deaf, afflicted with leprosy. Jesus made it very clear to us that God intends that we live our ...

3443. Being Different

Daniel 3:1-30

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... and knowledge, simply to feel like "one of the boys" or "one of the girls." There's something nice about belonging to an easy, comfortable group whose talk reaches no higher than money and the opposite sex or the upcoming party. People will do anything for that kind of security. Many a person has stood on the brink of crisis and uttered those tragic words, "but everybody was doing it, and I was pressured to try it, too." The Bible contains a story of three people who did not mind being different, even in ...

3444. The Necessity Of Forgiveness

Luke 7:36-50

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... a letter to Christians in the northern part of Asia Minor. We know it as the Book of First Peter. Peter began the second chapter with these words: "... strip away all malice and all guile and insincerity and envy and all slander ... for you have tasted the kindness of the Lord (1 Peter 2:1, 3)." What an incredible power forgiveness turns loose. It is an expansive spirit. A person who has done his or her best and seen others walk off with what he wanted, who has planned and missed, aspired and failed, but ...

3445. Wheels Instead Of Walls

Ezekiel 1:1-28

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... a ticket past the five yard line. A few nights later Diane received a telephone call from Furman. I heard her laughing in the kitchen so I went in to eavesdrop on the conversation. The last words I heard her say were, "No, he isn't that kind of a doctor." You see, in Massachusetts Diane worked as a secretary for Pediatric Associates in Walpole. Somehow the Furman computer had scrambled together her job, my work address in High Point, and my name. I retrieved the packet from the shelf in the utility room and ...

3446. The Christian Life Children of Light

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Bulletin Aid

... Worship Leader: You must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God. Having lost all sensitivity they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more. Congregation: We did not come to know Christ that way. We heard of him and were taught in accordance with the truth that is in him. Leader: You were taught to put off your former way of life ...

3447. It Just Grows and Grows

Mark 4:31-32

Children's Sermon

... Today we have a small experiment to try that will teach us something about the Kingdom of God. People like to ask all kinds of questions about the world that God is making for people who believe in him, They want to know where it is and ... and we want all of our friends to know about it, too. It may have started small, with only a couple of people really knowing Jesus and the kind of love that he had for people, but by now the whole world knows about his love and what it can do for people who really need it. ...

3448. Where the Power Is

Mark 5:21-43

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

... power to make regular bread into toast. It doesn't just happen. It takes power from the toaster to make the bread into toast. I don't know if the toaster knows it can give that kind of power, but I know someone who did know whenever he gave away some of his power to another person. That's right. Jesus was the person who was kind of like my toaster. I remember a story about a woman who had been sick for a long time and was getting weaker and weaker. One day, when she heard that Jesus was coming near ...

3449. The Most Important Part

Luke 3:16

Children's Sermon

... ' sandals. John knew that Jesus was very important. Jesus knew that he needed men like John, and he said so many times. John was like the water that you need to make the soup, but it is not as important as the things you put in it to make the kind of soup you want. Maybe the next time you see a can of soup or smell the soup cooking on your stove, you will remember how important we said the ingredients were that made a certain ...

3450. The Church Store

John 2:16

Children's Sermon

... of you went shopping this weekend with either your mom or dad? (Let them answer.) Did you buy a lot of things? (Let them answer.) It's kind of fun to go to the store and buy the things that you need at home, isn't it? Sometimes, I think that maybe our church ... . Jesus does not expect you to go shopping and pray out loud in the store, or to sing a hymn while you are picking out the kind of potatoes that you like for dinner. You don't do that in the store and you are not supposed to do your shopping in church. ...

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