Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: Levi, disciple, evangelist, tax collector, the 12, the twelve, apostle, sermon on the mount, jewish audience, beatitudes, lord's prayer, great commission, parables, olivet discourse, mount of olives, olivet, synoptic

Showing 3451 to 3475 of 4968 results

3451. Unconditional Commitment

Luke 9:51-62

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... Jesus is presenting to anyone wanting to follow him, especially during this vital time near the end of his ministry. How serious are you about doing this? Jesus might have said. What does it take to come with me? Unconditional commitment. No half-way. No sort of disciples. You’re in or you’re out. Look ahead, not behind. Once you come on the road with me, there’s no turning back. Can you look ahead and not back? Can you leave your friends and family? Can you risk danger, little sleep, rejection, and ...

3452. No Forks Or Napkins

John 13:1-17 · Philippians 2:5-11 · 1 Corinthians 11:17-34

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... , in the great Christ hymn read earlier in this service. Jesus lays aside his godhead as he laid aside his garment. He takes on the form of a slave. After humbling himself on the cross as he had earlier humbled himself washing the feet of his disciples, the scripture tells us he was exalted to the highest place. And we are told that everyone will address him as Lord! The Lord's Supper, the full communion, is an oasis, an isolated moment in our Christian pilgrimage, when we truly come into the presence ...

3453. Find Joy Again!

Romans 15:4-13

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... . I believe one of the reasons Christians and churches burn out is they lose their sense of play. They lose their joy. Jesus tells us so. Remember that scene in the gospels when Jesus was teaching while a bunch of playful kids ran toward him? The sour disciples were appalled. You can imagine their reaction. “Children ought to be seen and not heard. Where are their parents? Can’t they see these kids are interrupting Jesus? Get these kids out of here!” The Bible says that Jesus became very angry at the ...

3454. Have Your ID Ready

Matthew 11:2-11

Sermon

King Duncan

... and agonizing death to save us from our sins. He gave up everything to ensure that we could live in God’s presence forever. Could there be any greater proof of God’s love for us? Sometimes I wish this conversation between Jesus and John’s disciples had turned out differently. When they asked, “Are you the one who is to come . . .?”, Jesus could have said, “Yes, I’m him!” He could have performed some jaw-dropping miracle or sent an angel to bust John out of prison to prove it was true ...

3455. Put On Your Apocalypse Jacket

Luke 21:5-19

Sermon

King Duncan

... close, it seemed like the most impressive building in the Roman Empire. (3) And Jesus had the unenviable task of telling his disciples that one day this beautiful Temple would be destroyed—which it was in 70 A.D. To make matters worse, Jesus ... a dream that I have for the future, and I'm not going to give up on that.’” (4) In this Bible passage, Jesus is teaching his disciples, and us, to hold these same two truths: things can always get worse, but here’s a dream I have for the future, and I am not ...

3456. Stay the Course

Luke 21:5-19

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... , hard-to-identify liars, liars masked as “good people,” liars who come in the very name of Jesus! These are people who say they know something you don’t, who challenge your faith and your focus, who present a “better way.” How does Jesus train his disciples to recognize and avoid liars, even the ones who are hard to discern?His advice is simple. Don’t look away. Focus on the mission. Profess Jesus’ truth. Stay the course. Do not spend your time imagining what is to come. Do not plan. Do not ...

3457. Finding Your Dream Job

Matthew 4:12-23

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings movies because he didn't understand the story line. In an interview he said, “I never understood it. I read the book. I read the script. I saw the movie. I still don't understand it.” (3) I think the disciples said yes because they understood the story line. They understood that following Jesus means living an abundant life. In John 10:10, Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees who have criticized him for healing a blind man on the Sabbath. They don’t understand that he is ...

3458. The Sound of Silence

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... in Matthew 5, Jesus walked away from the huge crowds and retreated to a mountainside. Why interrupt a good thing? Wasn’t this the perfect time to draw the crowd in with a few more miracles? But Jesus knew that before he went any further, he needed his disciples to catch his vision for his ministry God had called them to. So he took them away from all the noise of the crowds. Note that this teaching is only for his followers. He needs to ensure that their purpose is not lost in their newly won popularity ...

3459. Fired Up and Fit for the Feast

Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... be those “fit to feed.” This would be the essence of Jesus ministry. John may have watered. But Jesus will harvest, fire up, and feed the world with God’s Word and Spirit. In this advent season, know who you are and your purpose and mission as Jesus’ disciple. You are a feeder of people, bread for the world, as Jesus was bread for the world. You belong to the kingdom as a servant of the king. You are prepared for God’s kingdom to be those who nourish and bless others as you were nourished and ...

3460. The Complete Picture

John 11:1-45

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... have healed Lazarus from afar, as he did for the royal official’s son in John 4. Bethany, the town of Mary, Martha and Lazarus, was just two miles from Jerusalem. Many Jewish friends were at their home mourning for Lazarus when Jesus arrived. Jesus and his disciples walked right back into the area where Jesus’ life was in danger. He didn’t have to face Martha and Mary’s grief and disappointment. He didn’t have to face the mourners’ questions. He didn’t have to put his own life in danger. He ...

3461. The Big Move!

Matthew 4:12-23

Sermon

John Jamison

... story actually took place and see if that might give us any new thoughts about why John wrote this down. John was writing about what happened when John the Baptist was finally arrested and put in prison, and Jesus moved to Galilee where he started collecting his disciples. It sounds so simple and clean as John told it; pretty calm and straightforward. Jesus heard that John was in prison. He took that as the sign that it was time for him to begin his ministry, so he moved to Galilee and started gathering his ...

3462. Don't Be Afraid

Matthew 17:1-9

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... and able to see. We do the same. God is a God of patience and an artist of light and shadow. We need both light and dark. We understand God and our world within shades of meaning and gradual revelations of truth. In our scripture for today, Jesus’ disciples are stunned by a vision of Jesus bathed fully in light. In that moment, they were confused and afraid. Their first impulse was to build Sukkot enclosures for the light to dwell within, so that it wouldn’t overtake them. But God’s light is too big ...

3463. Confidence, Joy, and Hope

Acts 2:14a, 22-32

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... this life, but for dimensions that lie way beyond this life.” (5) “If you have faith, you can live in hope.” That is the vision God granted King David almost 1,000 years before the birth of Jesus. That is the vision God granted Peter and the disciples that changed them from timid men and women hiding away from the Roman authorities to men and women who gave up their own lives to joyfully spread the message of Jesus across the Roman Empire. God had a plan from the beginning of creation to conquer death ...

3464. Seeing Is Believing

Isaiah 9:2 · John 1:14-18

Sermon

Will Willimon

... congregation and its prayers, without that sermon and the eating and drinking, we might be blind to that presence. On the night in which he was betrayed and given up to death, Jesus took bread and blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples. He blessed Bread, one of the most basic of all God's gifts and human creations. Before the bread, there had been seed, scattered across some hillside. The fields were plowed. The rains watered. The soil fertilized and tilled and nurtured until the wheat was ...

3465. Immediately, They Followed

Mark 1:14-20

Sermon

Will Willimon

... is launched is one full of peril. John has been arrested. Soon he will be dead, his head on a platter. John is the forerunner so you know who will be next. And if they do that to John, Jesus, who knows what they will do to their disciples? You had better think this thing over again. "If you want to follow Jesus," remarked the activist priest, Berigan (who preached from this pulpit), "you had better look good on wood." That's what he was calling people to do. Reason provides plenty of reasons to avoid the ...

3466. The Grip

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... techniques. You know to stay calm in a crisis, and you know what to do if stones give way or if your mask slips. Whether you climb high or go deep, you are ready. In a sense, this kind of readiness is what Jesus is describing to his disciples in our scripture for today. In his parable, Jesus depicts a sower (God) sowing seeds of grace over the entire terrain (the world’s people). The seeds are all the same. God isn’t bestowing better seeds here than there or more fruitful ones on some than others ...

3467. Hidden Treasure

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... and new treasures –all those who make up the spiritual Temple of Christ throughout time—and will bless all with eternal and abundant life in the here and now and in the future. What a celebration that will be for all of Jesus’ unique and valuable disciples –big and small, tall and short, from all races and all places, all walks of life….those who have bruises, those who have cuts, those who have bumps, those who have knots. All are so valuable to God that he would sacrifice everything in the world ...

3468. Get Ready

Mark 13:24-37

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... day of his return. First of all, Jesus was insistent. Nobody knows when this climatic event will occur. According to Jesus, the angels in heaven don’t know. Even Christ himself did not know. That’s something worth thinking about. Speaking of his return, Jesus told his disciples, “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” He says it again in Matthew 24:36, “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the ...

3469. Gracious

Matthew 25:31-46

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... be in true relationship with God. In the parable of the oil lamps, he emphasized faith in God, in the parable of the talents, he emphasized commitment to God. Now in this third parable, speaking about the way we treat strangers, Jesus speaks of how he knows a true disciple–by the state of the heart, and he notes that the state of the heart is revealed in the acts of the hands. Think about it for a moment. How many people do you know who go to church weekly, who get on committees, and even lead initiatives ...

3470. Ready for Change

Mark 13:24-37

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... was making people angry and that the authorities were nearly at tipping point with what they would endure going forward. Some already plotted his demise by any means they could conjure. Something was about to break, and it wouldn’t be good. Jesus advises his disciples to be on the watch for what would happen after that. To be alert. To not allow themselves to become complacent. They’d have to continue to watch their backs. But even more importantly, they’d have to keep “watch” for what God was ...

3471. I Am Somebody!

Mark 1:4-11

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... or adults), it is no different. There is surely the affirmation of God’s incredible and unconditional love and... and this is a big and... a commissioning to service in the name of Jesus Christ. That is why we take so seriously the promises that new disciples make or their parents make on their behalf — to live the Christian faith, to teach that faith to the children. We even go for extra help: we ask the congregation, “Do you, as members of the church of Jesus Christ, promise to guide and nurture, by ...

3472. Passover Or Passalong?

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

Sermon

John B. Jamison

... . We are here because we were given a seat at this table. We are welcome here, equal here, and we have hope here. When we let ourselves think about it, it still feels kind of magical, and perhaps for just a few, brief minutes, we feel what the disciples felt that night it happened for the first time; what it feels like to be the people of God. I read today’s passage from Corinthians. Paul started this church some time ago, and it has now been around long enough for people to start getting a bit distracted ...

3473. Into The Valley Of Despair

Mark 9:2-9

Sermon

Ronald Love

... central theme in the Bible. In fact, it would be near impossible to find a biblical character who did not pray. Prayer is so important it is the only thing that the disciples asked to be taught. In Luke’s gospel we read where the disciples said to Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” Then the scriptures read, “Jesus said to them, ‘When you pray, say: ‘Father, hallowed be your name…’” Jesus taught them the prayer we say each Sunday in worship. If Jesus prayed ...

3474. Dinner with God

Luke 24:36b-48

Children's Sermon

Various Authors

... , as I’m eating the sandwich, God is inside me, helping my body take that sandwich and turn it into energy, so I can play soccer this afternoon. So really, I’m having lunch with God! Isn’t that amazing? It’s a little like our story today, when the disciples had lunch with Jesus. Remember, Jesus died and came back from the dead. His friends were still a little spooked by everything, so when they saw him, they were frightened. But Jesus told them not to worry. He talked and explained things to the ...

3475. The Practice

Mark 1:9-15

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... is a practice. Forgiveness is a practice. Love is a practice. And all of these take an enormous amount of patience, commitment, reservation of judgment, empathy, and understanding. And yet, this is what relationships are all about. Jesus reminds us, as he did his disciples long ago, that it’s easy to “love” our friends. We already understand them, value them, love them, trust them. It’s a lot harder to work to develop trust relationships with those who are not, with those who appear to oppose us ...

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