Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 3426 to 3450 of 4511 results

Bulletin Aid

Absentee landlords can be a problem! They don't know the situation; They often don't care, - As long as their investment is profitable! Whether it's a tenement house in the slums - Owned by a suburban lawyer; Or a farm in Iowa - Owned by a Saudi Arabian conglomerate; Or a trona mine in Wyoming - Owned by a French company; Or a vineyard in Israel - The situation is frustrating, Especially when you...

3427. Just Whose Farm Is It?

Bulletin Aid

Frank Ramirez

Call To Worship The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord's doing, and it is amazing in our eyes. (Matthew 21:42) Collect Gather together all nations. We will praise God for the strong medicine of his Word which strikes home and heals. Amen. Prayer Of Confession How we delight in your Word when we believe it convicts others. Dare we allow your Word to aff...

3428. Proper 22

Bulletin Aid

B. David Hostetter

READINGS Psalter - Psalms 19:1-14 First Lesson - Here are recorded ten great commandments to govern our relationship with God and our neighbors. Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20 Second Lesson - Paul finds his new life as a Christian to be much more valuable than his previous life and career. Philippians 3:4b-14 Gospel - In this parable Jesus sets his whole mission in death and resurrection as a conundrum...

3429. Proper 22

Bulletin Aid

Call to Worship Pastor God created the human race to love him, and be loved by him. People: God has sent many persons to call his people into committed living. Pastor He even sent his only Son. But many ignore him as though life were a personal possession. People: We have received God's blessings in abundance. May we be faithful in accepting Christ's call to live in obedient discipleship Collect ...

3430. God's Love Calling for Repentance

Bulletin Aid

James Wilson

Call To Worship Leader: Let all who would hear the word of the Lord come together this day! People: For God was in Christ, who came that we might know God's word. Leader: Let us hear the message of Christ: to love God and to love each other. People: And let us lift our hearts to the Lord that all might be forgiven. Leader: And let us lift up our songs and praise before Almighty God! All: Blessed b...

3431. Proper 22

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

COMMENTARY Old Testament: Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20 The Ten Commandments. While assembled at Mount Sinai, the Israelites are given the Decalogue by Yahweh through Moses. These ten absolutes are not independent. They are related to the Mosaic covenant. First came grace in terms of God's deliverance from Egypt and by his promise to take them to a Promised Land. The laws are given for the people's p...

3432. Wicked Tenants

Sermon Aid

William E. Keeney

The parable is found in Mark 12:1-12 and Luke 20:9-19 as well as in Matthew. Question is raised as to whether the parable is given in its original form as told by Jesus or whether it is embellished with additional details from the experience of the church after the death and resurrection of Jesus. The issue is in part concerned with one's belief about predictive prophecy. Did Jesus have prescience...

3433. Proper 22

Sermon Aid

Russell F. Anderson

Theme: God's judgment on those who do not produce the fruits of righteousness. In the Isaiah text, God pronounces Israel an unfit fruit and votes to let it go fallow. In the Gospel parable of the Unfaithful Tenants, the Lord promises to take the kingdom away from Israel and give it to a nation producing the fruits of righteousness. COMMENTARY Old Testament: Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20 God had, in ...

3434. Proper 22

Bulletin Aid

Dennis Koch

Gospel Notes Form-critical analysis of this passage in light of the other versions of the parable in the Synoptics and the Gospel of Thomas reveals that the original point of the story was not Christological; nor was it primarily allegorical. Rather, it was a simple, if shocking, "Kingdom" parable, whose point was the value of the coming Reign of God and the extraordinary, even desperate measures ...

3435. Proper 22

Sermon Aid

Liturgical Color: Green Gospel: Matthew 21:33-43 Theme: Those considered as least in the kingdom may be the greatest. Pastoral Invitation to the Celebration One pastor did this: Worship includes two dimensions. The vertical: God to us, not exclusively to us, but to the whole world. The horizontal: Us to others, not just those we like, but to those whom God loves. You may want to use this lita...

3436. Proper 22 & Pentecost 20

Sermon Aid

THEOLOGICAL CLUE Without the readings assigned to this day - and to this part of the cycle and season - the eschatological clue of the church year would be quite indistinct. The readings, particularly the Gospel for the Day, with its setting as one of Jesus' teachings during Holy Week, point beyond Jesus' suffering and death to the last things, when God shall hold everyone accountable for his/her...

3437. The Wicked Pie Bakers

Drama

Robert F. Crowley

Theme: Is the church a place where the Christian community gathers to celebrate or a place where the law is administered? Are we open or closed to new ideas? A parable. Summary: The choir is having a bake sale and the discussion is whether that is a good or bad thing to have in church. A light-hearted, fast-paced discussion about the Pharisees and the tax gatherers and how we can kill the Spirit ...

3438. Make Suggestions to God?

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

Object: A library shelf of great books. Good morning, boys and girls. How does God feel when no one seems to pay any attention to him? That is an important question. Have you ever talked to someone and thought that they weren't listening? (Let them answer.) This is the question that Jesus talked about today in our Bible lesson. I brought along some books to help us see how God might feel about p...

3439. It's A Terrible Thing To Be Rejected

Children's Sermon

King Duncan

Object: a basketball Good morning, boys and girls. How many of you like to play sports? What sports do you like? (Allow them to name 4 or 5) Those are a lot of fun. But do you know what's not fun? Getting picked last for a team. Before we play games like basketball, or soccer, or football, we have to choose people to be on our team. And it hurts our feelings if we are not picked right away to be ...

3440. Divine Tenants

Sermon

Kristin Borsgard Wee

My husband's first call as a pastor was to a small parish in North Carolina. The parsonage was on a large corner lot. The hill in the backyard was badly eroded with wide grooves running down to a little creek. Shortly after we moved in I learned that the US Forestry Service would give away 100 pine seedlings to anyone who would use them for soil conservation. I ordered the seedlings and went out ...

3441. When You're Rejected

Sermon

King Duncan

Have you ever been rejected? It hurts, doesn’t it? There is no pain more familiar to many of us than the pain of rejection. We remember those terrible younger years when we were searching for our identity, and acceptance by our peers was so important. One comedian was talking about his attempts to land a date during his teen years. He says, “I never was very good at this romance thing. It’s true....

3442. Why Do We Ignore Warning Signs?

Sermon

Roger G. Talbott

Recently the New York Times Magazine showed a series of photographs of a rock formation in Yosemite National Park near Bridal Veil Falls. A prominent sign in yellow plastic was attached to the rocks which clearly said: "Danger. Climbing or scrambling on rocks and cliffs is extremely dangerous. They are slippery when dry or wet. Many injuries and even fatalities have occurred." One picture showed a...

3443. Captains or Parties

Sermon

Kristin Borsgard Wee

My father was not a particularly pessimistic person, but I remember one conversation we had that sure sounded like he was. I was a teenager and thinking out loud about what I might like to do with my life. My father was being the realist. I said maybe I would like to be a doctor. He said it took eight years of education after high school and we didn't have the money. I said, well maybe I will be a...

3444. Kingdoms in Conflict

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

When Vince Lombardi was hired as head coach of the Green Bay Packers in 1958, the team was in dismal shape. A single win in season play the year before had socked the club solidly into the basement of the NFL, and sportscasters everywhere used it as the butt of loser jokes. But Lombardi picked and pulled and prodded and trained and discipled the players into become a winning team. They were NFL ch...

3445. Cheering for the Underdog

Sermon

King Duncan

Since this is football season, I want to begin with a couple of football stories. The first is about a place kicker who was so angry with himself after missing a field goal that when he got to the sidelines, he literally kicked himself. Yep, he missed there, too. The second story concerns a game between traditional football powers Michigan State and UCLA. The score was tied at 14 with only seco...

3446. It's A Terrible Thing To Be Rejected

Sermon

King Duncan

One of the characteristics of many Eastern cultures is a deep sensitive people are to other people's feelings. For example, one publication, the Financial Times, carried this rejection notice, written to a writer by the overly polite editor of a Chinese economic journal: "We have read your manuscript with boundless delight. If we were to publish your paper," says the editor, "it would be impossib...

3447. History: His Story

Sermon

Stephen M. Crotts

There have been many who have sought to write a history of the world. Cavemen painted the story of their civilization on the walls of their home. Around 70 A.D., a Hebrew soldier named Josephus surrendered to the Roman army rather than die. Dead men tell no tales, and he said he wanted to live to tell the story of the fall of Jerusalem. Today, his history of the Jewish wars is an invaluable tool t...

3448. Mi Casa, Su Casa

Sermon

Mark Radecke

The relationship between a landlord and a tenant is at best a tenuous one: the landlord is understandably concerned about the use or abuse of his property (after all, it is his house); the tenant understandably concerned about the maintenance and privacy of the place (after all, it is his home). Our friends’ younger daughter begged - no, she positively importuned - her parents for a pastel colore...

3449. Possession is Nine Tenths of the Fall

Sermon

D. Wayne Burkette

Graham Greene writes in one of his novels, "If a man loves a place enough he doesn’t need to possess it; it’s enough for him to know that it is safe and unaltered...." (The Tenth Man, New York, Pocket Books, 1986, p. 89.) The trouble is that we never seem to be able to love quite enough, at least not enough to be delivered from the unhappy desire to own our lives and almost everything that touche...

3450. Rebellion in the Vineyard

Sermon

King Duncan

A friend of journalist David Halberstam was planning a visit to Japan. It would be his first visit, and he was a little anxious because he couldn’t speak Japanese. How would he communicate with the people he came in contact with? Since most taxi drivers do not speak English, someone suggested that it might be a good idea to carry with him something bearing the name of the hotel at which he would ...

Showing 3426 to 3450 of 4511 results