Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 326 to 350 of 1522 results

Acts 11:1-18

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... woe be unto us whenever we reek of such arrogance! For when we try to restrict God’s grace to ourselves, we cut ourselves off from that very grace. Why? Pierre Teilhard de Chardin may have said it best, “It is impossible to love Christ without loving others, and it is impossible to love others without moving nearer to Christ.”[3] I first learned about God’s limitless love through a man named Walter. I met Walter while serving as a hospital chaplain during seminary days. Walter was a patient on the ...

327. Despair, Hope, Easter, and Pentecost

John 20:10-18

Sermon

Tom Garrison

... how they were going to move it. It presented a challenge far beyond their resources. But when they got there — what did they find? It had been rolled away! Why? Because there is also God in the drama of history! He too plays a part in what is possible and impossible out there ahead of us, and what kind of God is he? The Easter-event speaks directly to this. Saint Paul sums it up by describing him as "the one who can make the things that are out of the things that are not, and the one who can make ...

328. What a Friend

John 15:9-17

Sermon

John Jamison

... sense, life would just not be the same without them. This friend was a buddy, a pal, an equal with you who shared their lives with you as you shared yours with them. This was a friend who kept promises they made with you, unless it was physically impossible to do. Even then, they did something — they came as close to fulfilling the promise as they could. Picturing Jesus as this type of friend leads to the problem we find in John’s writing. A true friend would never make a promise that was so vague and ...

329. No Reason to Worry

Matthew 6:25-33

Sermon

April Yamasaki

... were hardly getting by. A minority might be middle class or even wealthy like the rich young man described in Mark 10, but the rest were understandably worried about how to feed and clothe their families. Today, Jesus' words might sound just as strange and impossible to us. Our standard of living is considerably higher, but many of us are still worried. The poor still worry about basic food, shelter, and security -- those who are homeless need a safe place to sleep tonight, and too many children will go to ...

330. What Does It Mean to Be Blessed?

Ephesians 1:3-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... in Sunday school, and she asked two brothers their ages and birthday. One of the two boys said, “We’re both seven. My birthday is April 8, 1976, and my brother’s is April 20, 1976.” The teacher was a little confused and said, “But that’s impossible!” The other brother said, “No, it’s not, one of us is adopted.” Before she was even aware that she had asked, the words came out, “Which one?” The boys looked at each other and smiled. Then one of them said, “We asked Dad that a while ...

331. It's Not About Me

Luke 6:39-49

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

... for their families. And yet the death toll just continues to grow. The vast majority of them are innocent civilians and a horrifying number of them children. The conflict is so bitter and the hatred is so deep that any chance of resolution seems impossible. And it is impossible as long as each side fixates on the speck in the other side’s eyes instead of taking the enormous logs out of their own. What the Middle East needs and what our contentious congregations need is a good dose of Jesus. It is what ...

332. A GPS for Your Life

Luke 6:27-38

Sermon

King Duncan

... , and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you . . .” What an amazing passage of scripture. In this passage Jesus gives us a beautiful picture of what a life based on love looks like. Now I know what many of you are thinking. That’s impossible! We can’t live like that. It demands too much of us. Who can love their enemies, do good to those who hate them, pray for those who mistreat them? I mean, besides Jesus. He certainly did each of those things. But can we? Can we love like Jesus ...

333. Blago and Radnan, Two Lost Sons

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Sermon

R. Robert Cueni

... to him as house flies to honey. In eighteen months, Randy’s entire inheritance was gone. The bank repossessed his sports car. The apartment manager evicted him. When he stopped paying for the parties, his groupies abandoned him. An economic downturn renders it impossible to find a decent job. He is reduced to sleeping under a bridge and eating from the trash barrels behind fast food restaurants. One morning while looking for breakfast at the bottom of the dumpster behind Bob’s Beefy Burgers, Randy had ...

334. What Gets Into Us?

John 18:1--19:42

Sermon

King Duncan

... water you get, but you won’t make Catalina. All come short of Catalina although some jump farther than others.” We can infer from Dr. McGee’s description of the distance to Catalina Island that it is impossible for any human being to make that leap. We would need a boat or a bridge. It is equally as impossible for a human being to make the leap from rebellion to redemption. We need a boat--a bridge. And, of course, that boat or bridge is Christ. We don’t know what caused Judas to betray Christ, but ...

335. Can We Really Love Our Enemies

Luke 6:27-36

Sermon

Charles H. Bayer

... end of the day, it defines the core of Christian ethics. "Love your enemies," Jesus says. "Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you." Can we really love our enemies? If not, why did Jesus lay on us this impossible demand? If the teaching troubles you, fear not, you are not the first to back away from this bit of divine fire. Christians have always had a rough time figuring out, or crawling out from under, the Lord's categorical demand that we love our enemies. A ...

336. A Vision of Beauty and Hope

Isaiah 2:1-5

Sermon

King Duncan

... of people who are so motivated to be in God’s presence that they look like an upward flowing stream of humanity, climbing up the mountain to reach God. Imagine for a moment a stream of water flowing up a mountain. Impossible, you say. The laws of gravity make it nearly impossible for water to flow uphill. There are just a few instances where this is somewhat possible. Waves of the ocean can move uphill, either because they are pushed by strong winds or drawn by the moon’s gravitational pull. A few ...

337. Beyond a Friendly, Cuddly Christmas

Matthew 2:13-23

Sermon

King Duncan

... tells about a man who tried to return a ham that was, in the customer’s words, “unreasonably salty.” The store manager offered the customer a full refund on the return of the remaining ham. The customer said this “would be impossible.” When asked why that was impossible, he said he’d eaten all of it. I guess it wasn’t unreasonably salty after all. Neil Davey also tells about a pet shop that refunded a customer after they complained that the hamster they had recently purchased was “neither ...

338. A Child of the Resurrection

Luke 20:27-38

Sermon

King Duncan

... of the question first.” The emcee nodded approvingly, while the audience was silent with anticipation. “Okay, Bob, here is your question: And in what year did it happen?” (2) Now there’s an impossible question! Our Bible passage today is about a group of religious leaders, the Sadducees, who ask Jesus an impossible question. But the truth of the matter is the Sadducees don’t really want to know the answer. They want to make Jesus look foolish. They’re afraid of his popularity with the people ...

339. Surprised by Joy

Luke 2:8-14

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... on the television news? Let’s be honest, it has seemed unrelentingly dismal this year, hasn’t it? Wars and rumors of wars never end. Tension’s wax and wane but they never go away entirely. The stock market is on a roller coaster that makes it impossible to plan for a future, whether we’re talking about our children’s education or our own retirement. Even when the market goes up, no one actually believes that the good news will last, that it will stay up for more than a few days. People no longer ...

340. Scrubbing Our Social Media Accounts

Romans 5:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

... leave those regrets in the past because there aren’t a lot of photos or posts about it. But these days a person’s whole life, every random thought and emotion and insensitive joke and embarrassing picture, can wind up online. And it’s nearly impossible to take this stuff back, unless you hire a company like BrandYourself to delete most of it. So be careful. But even if you, personally, are careful, your friends and family can post all kinds of embarrassing things about you online, and you have little ...

341. Here I Am

Luke 1:26-38, Luke 1:39-45, Luke 1:46-56

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her. In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the ...

342. As I Am A Witness

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... . Jesus’ resurrection was a mystery. It wasn’t understandable to anyone who experienced it. Yet they knew what they witnessed. Even Peter and John, when first entering the tomb, saw and acknowledged the empty linen cast, and knew what they were seeing was impossible, and yet still went back to the house, confused and not knowing what to think. Only when Jesus himself appeared to them in the flesh did they dare to believe the reality of the resurrection. They needed to see him, understand he was there ...

343. Hold Me When I'm Angry

Joshua 5:1-12

Sermon

Carl Jech

... Row), Smedes explains how letting go of this kind of anger by means of forgiveness is both spiritually and psychologically healthy for us. More often than not, when we have been terribly hurt by someone, our unique pain or loss is such that truly "getting even" is impossible. When Pope John Paul, for example, forgave the man who shot him, he was not able to undo the consequences of the man's actions, but for his own part at least the Pope was able to avoid letting what had happened to him become a permanent ...

344. Heart Shaped Stone

Psalm 118:1-29

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... that we have no real foundation under our feet, that we have built an entire life, or family, or relationship, or social structure, or church merely on our own expectations. Placing our hopes in a self-constructed ideal of perfection, or desiring a construct of (impossible) expectationsis a kind of “magical thinking.” We buy into the idea that our own ideas, thoughts, actions, or words can influence the course of events in our lives and in the world. We believe we have the power to control our world, to ...

345. Stepping into Liminal Space

Matthew 14:13-21

Sermon

Roy Howard

... this mysterious God who calls. For an astonishing moment that must have seemed a lifetime, Peter was suspended in faith with his gaze fixed solely on the one who is calling. Then it happened. His doubts overcame his faith, his gaze shifted toward himself doing the impossible and, of course, left to his own devices, he knew he was sunk; or at least sinking fast, only to be saved by the one who graciously called him into a new orientation. If you do not believe this literally happened, it need not take away ...

346. Beyond Fairness

Matthew 20:1-16

Sermon

Roy Howard

... virtue. They began to view life from the perspective of those who are last, lost, and lonely. They began to imagine what it might be like to be desperate enough to send your children to a better life than your own. From that perspective, which is impossible to gain from a place of privilege, they began acting like Christians who know God is the landowner who is generous beyond all our calculations of fairness and whose justice is always shaped by mercy. The cry it’s not fair was overcome by the glad ...

347. It Helps If You Laugh

John 15:9-17

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... to Tommy. "Tommy, what do you want to be when you grow up?" "Possible!" Tommy replied. The teacher asked, "Possible? What do you mean, possible?" Tommy explained, "Well, my mother's always saying, 'Tommy, you're impossible.' So, when I grow up, I want to become possible." Even though their kids are impossible at times, Christian mothers always believe in their kids. They may not always believe them, but they always believe in them. And that's important for our children's sense of self-worth and for their ...

348. Empowering the Powerless

Mark 10:2-16

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... sports such as swimming or Shark Tank measure our skills and place us before judges who will determine how we fare on a pre-determined scale. Think about how many kinds of “tests” we have in our world. For some people, it would be nearly impossible to go through a single week without going through some kind of testing procedure. Why are we so enamored of tests? While tests encourage us to improve and reach goals, they can also serve as ways to separate people into preconceived groups or to establish ...

349. Exposed and Expunged

Mark 10:17-21 · Hebrews 4:12-16 · Job 23:1-9; 16-17

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... possessions. Is this parable merely about money? No. The parable is about the difference between obtaining and receiving. When Jesus sits down with his disciples, after seeing the list impossibly long and high of things they would need to do to be “perfect,” they are shocked, saying, “Then who can be saved?” Listen to Jesus’ answer: “It’s impossible with human beings. But not with God. All things are possible for God.” What do we need to do in order to be redeemed? We expose ourselves to God ...

350. If It Helps You Laugh

John 15:1-17

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

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