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Showing 3501 to 3525 of 4944 results

3501. Paul Today

Acts 17:16-34

Sermon Aid

T. A. Kantonen

The task that remains is to summarize our study of Paul’s theology and to make a specific application of it to the present day. Our point of view has been to regard Paul as the foremost theologian of the early church, the supreme interpreter of Jesus and his gospel to the world of his day. He was not, as liberals at the beginning of the present century thought, the second founder of Christianity who introduced dogma and mysticism to transform Jesus’ simple message of the fatherhood of God and the ...

3502. Worthy Is The Lamb

1 Timothy 2:1-15

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

I am especially excited today! While preaching is almost always a joy, sometimes it is an absolute delight, especially when I am declaring the heart of the Gospel, the good news of the cross. Why, I could hardly sleep last night. I feel like a bird-dog on Thanksgiving morning or a racehorse in the starting blocks at Churchill Downs. I love to talk about the cross! The Gospel is so simple that even a child can grasp it. It's so profound that no Ph.D. can fully plumb its depths. Here is the heart of it: ...

3503. "Hands Off!"

Exodus 20:1-21, Luke 19:11-27

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

No one ever painted Americana with more accuracy and charm than did Norman Rockwell. Some of us who are older than most of us can remember his classic paintings which adorned the covers of The Saturday Evening Post. One of them focused on the buying of the Thanksgiving turkey. The turkey is lying on the scales and the butcher is standing back of the counter, apron pulled tight over his fat stomach, a pencil tucked behind his ear. The customer, a lovely lady of about sixty, is watching the weighing-in. Each ...

3504. How God Guides

Exodus 13:17--14:31

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

On a hunting trip a few years ago, I went into a remote area I did not know very well. I was alone and stayed longer than I should have. Darkness was falling quickly as I tried to find my way out. Before long I knew I was walking in circles and was utterly lost. A shiver of anxiety ran through me because it was a cold night and I was not suitably dressed to spend the night in those woods. I stopped and prayed. In the silence, off in the distance, I heard an automobile. Therefore, I knew the direction of ...

3505. Broken and Beautiful

Luke 18:9-14, Psalm 51:1-19

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

If I were to call you a "broken" person, you would probably resent it. But the Bible says that a certain kind of brokenness is essential if we are to be close to God. That late Southern humorist Lewis Grizzard could tickle the funny bone of almost anybody. But when he wrote about his father, he could make you cry. His father was a soldier, a veteran of World War II who returned to military duty in Korea. There in brutal warfare against the Chinese, Mr. Grizzard, Sr. saw more suffering and horror than he ...

3506. That Horse Called Style

2 Corinthians 8:1-15

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

Once a man attended a fair and saw another man leading a fine, well-groomed horse. He asked, "Is that a saddle horse?" "No," the owner replied. "This horse will buck off a saddle. Nothing can stay on its back." "Well," the man asked, "Is he a driving horse?" "Nope," said the owner. "He was hitched up once to a cart, but he tore it all to pieces." "Well, what is he good for?" the man asked. The owner replied, "Style, man, style. Just look at the picture he makes." That same man attended a church the ...

3507. How Could A Love So Right Go Wrong?

Genesis 24:1-67, Genesis 27:41--28:9

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

My sermon topic for today sounds like a question: “How could a love so right go so wrong?” It sounds like a country song, like this one, “I’m miserable without you, it’s almost like having you here.” Then there is my favorite, “If the juke box took tear drops, I could dance all night long.” That one makes me cry every time. How could a love so right go so wrong? The Old Testament story of Isaac and Rebekah starts out so beautifully, but it has a tragic ending. Isaac was a 40-year-old bachelor who implored ...

3508. The Scandal Of Redeeming Love

Hosea 2:2-23

Sermon

Frederick C. Edwards

It seems that we have developed a tabloid mentality. That is to say, we seem to have developed an overzealous fascination for information about the private lives of public people. The real or supposed exploits of actors and actresses, politicians, entertainers, athletes or business moguls appear in lurid headlines on papers and magazines that are more interested in sensation than news. Photographers stalk the rich or famous to catch an image of an unguarded moment. Fact blended with fiction becomes the ...

3509. The Ten Commandments

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Brett Blair

A little boy was once asked by his Sunday school teacher if he knew the Ten Commandments. "No ma'am," came the reply, "my dad said that I don't have to know them since they are doing away with them anyway." It is one thing to be ignorant of the Ten Commandments; it quite another to mock them with impunity. Millions dismiss them as mere platitudes fit for nothing more than a dusty old bookshelf. They disdain them because they are "religious." There are still others who want to do away with the Ten ...

3510. How Can We Meet Grief?

2 Samuel 18:19--19:8

Sermon

Edward Chinn

Across thirty centuries, comes this cry of grief from David, whom God called from being a shepherd of herds to be the shepherd of His people, Israel. David had a son named Absalom. Absalom had murdered his brother because that brother had raped his sister, Tamar. After being accepted back into the family, Absalom had led a rebellion against his father, the king. That rebel son had won the Israeli army to his side. In a dramatic showdown in the woods of Ephraim, Absalom rode through the forest away from his ...

3511. Greatness

Mark 9:33-37

Drama

Robert F. Crowley

Theme: The kingdom of God is different than any other. To be first in the kingdom you must be servant of all. Summary: Peter, James, and John want to be great and they are arguing about their achievements. Jesus sets them straight. Playing Time: 3 minutes Setting: The Holy Land Props: A small black book Costumes: Peasant, first century Time: The Time of Christ Cast: Peter James John Jesus JAMES: (ENTERS CARRYING A SMALL BLACK BOOK) I've got the list right here. You'll see. PETER: (ENTERS) Throw that list ...

3512. The Lightest Touch

Jeremiah 1:1-19

Sermon

Harry N. Huxhold

Robert Bly has given us a painful and scathing analysis of our present American society. He titled his work The Sibling Society. Bly confesses he began this work in a lighthearted vein. He employed poetry, fairy tales, and legends to highlight the contradictions he noted all around him. However, he soon discovered that he was into some really serious business. Essentially, what he uncovered was that we are all swimming in a tank of half-adults. For Bly, Elvis and Woodstock were watersheds at which time all ...

3513. The Last Laugh

Genesis 18:1-15

Sermon

David E. Leininger

An old, old story has a fellow coming to the most famous and expensive doctor in town. From the very beginning the patient admitted that there was no way he could afford the physician's $500 fee, but he happened to catch the Doc on a generous day and the fee was reduced to $400. "But Doctor," pleaded the man, "I have a wife and six kids to feed." The fee was reduced to $250. "But Doc, that's a month's rent." Eventually, the fellow's begging and poor-mouthing got the fee down to $100 then $50 and finally to ...

3514. Remembering the Good Old Days

Numbers 14:1-10a

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Some of you may remember the name John Gilbert, a famous actor of silent film days, a "sexy" leading man. His career declined with the advent of "talkies" because his high, thin voice was not at all what folks had imagined of this great screen lover. Gilbert was once called on short notice to play the role of the heroine's father in a Chicago production. He learned his lines in record time, but was still struggling to remember the name of his character, Numitorius, when the play opened. A colleague ...

3515. A New Look at an Old Treasure

Psalm 23:1-6

Sermon

David E. Leininger

"The Lord is my shepherd..." Probably as well-known and well-loved as any phrase of scripture: the twenty-third psalm. Generations have memorized it, in Sunday School or at the knee of parents or grandparents. It is one of the first Bible passages we learn, and, as often as we hear it funerals, it is among the last words said over us when we die. A wonderful affirmation of our faith in God's ability to protect. "The Lord is my shepherd..." There is an old story out there of the man who, in the midst of a ...

3516. What Is Truly Important

Matthew 6:25-34, Matthew 6:19-24

Sermon

David E. Leininger

What is truly important? That is a question we all have to deal with at some point or points in our lives. Over these past several weeks, more than a few folks in this part of the country have confronted it. In the face of the oncoming fury of one hurricane after another, evacuations from coastal communities, decisions come. On TV the other night, there was an interview with a husband and wife who moved to their new retirement home on one of the Carolina barrier islands just six weeks ago - in that six ...

3517. Welcoming Jesus

Mark 9:33-37

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Children. Several years ago a couple of books were published entitled Children's Letters to God and More Children's Letters to God(1) which collected some rather clever (and occasionally insightful) letters from youngsters to the Almighty. Listen to a few of them: • Dear GOD, In school they told us what You do. Who does it when You are on vacation? * Jane • Dear GOD, Is it true my father won't get in Heaven if he uses his bowling words in the house? * Anita • Dear GOD, Did you mean for the giraffe to look ...

3518. One More Angel

Luke 2:8-20, Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

David E. Leininger

One of the most familiar stories in all the Bible, isn't it? Even the most irreligious among us have memories of shepherds in bathrobes with towels on their heads. Animals...sometimes cardboard, sometimes live and uncontrollable to the delight of everyone in attendance. There was a Preschool Christmas program at 1st Presbyterian Church, in Winchester, VA a couple of years ago.(1) After the obligatory waves and "Hi Mommy"s, the production began. The angel's sang when they were supposed to. The donkeys ...

3519. The Forgiveness Business

Luke 7:36-50

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Wonderful story. At least, it is to me. Others might not like it so well. It is certainly astonishing. Put it in the context of a dinner party at your own home or even a supper downstairs in Fellowship Hall. By this time in Jesus' ministry, he had garnered quite a bit of public notice. All sorts of people had been attracted to him - rich, poor, educated, illiterate, from the highly respectable to the lowly riffraff. To have this famous rabbi come to dinner was very special and everyone would have been ...

3520. Rejoice

Philippians 4:2-9

Sermon

King Duncan

William Everett, a Congressman from Massachusetts in the late 1800s, told the story of a congregation in England that needed new hymn books but lacked the money to pay for them. The churchgoers learned that a large company, a maker of patent medicines, would furnish hymn books at a penny each if the books could carry some advertising. The congregation saw no harm in making that concession, and so they ordered the books. The new hymnals arrived at the church on the day before Christmas. On Christmas morning ...

3521. How To Stay Young Forever

Revelation 22:1-6

Sermon

King Duncan

One of the facts of life is that we all are aging. To make matters worse, there is nothing we can do about it except, perhaps, to laugh. The READER'S DIGEST has carried some delightful humor recently about aging. For example, one woman was quoted as saying that her 81-year-old mother is proud of the fact that she doesn't look her age. One summer day, however, her mother went into a drugstore and, talking about the heat, said to the clerk, "Going to be ninety-seven today." The man reached across the counter ...

3522. Jesus Says, 'Just Do It'

Luke 17:1-10

Sermon

Dr. Chane M. Hutton

The sales manager of a large real estate firm was interviewing an applicant for a sales job. "Why have you chosen this career?" he asked. "I dream of making a million dollars in real estate, like my father," the young man replied. "Your father made a million dollars in real estate?" asked the impressed sales manager. "No," replied the young man. "but he always dreamed of it." Have you ever noticed that the Bible never mentions the dreams of the apostles? It doesn't even mention the ideas of the apostles. ...

3523. Moving Toward Sainthood

Isaiah 26:1-21

Sermon

King Duncan

Don Elder and his 6-year-old granddaughter Sarah Umhauer, both members of Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church, Buffalo, N.Y., were enjoying cider and doughnuts on Reformation Day. Elder said, "Sarah, I wish you didn't have school tomorrow so you could go to church with me and Grandma." Sarah asked, "Why are you going to church tomorrow, Grandpa?" "Because it's All Saints' Day," he replied. "But Grandpa," she said, "we're not saints, we're Lutherans." (1) I'm not going to speculate on how many Lutherans ...

3524. Making It Last

Luke 3:1-20

Sermon

Timothy J. Smith

The excitement is mounting on this the third Sunday in Advent. That long awaited day will soon be here. Jesus will soon be reborn into our lives. We have looked forward to Christmas Day for two weeks. Children count down the days, waiting as patiently as they can for Christmas Day. But what do we do the day after Christmas? Are there ways to make Christmas last longer than one day? Once there was a little girl who loved Christmas so much that she wanted it to be Christmas every day of the year. This little ...

3525. Good News For You

Isaiah 7:1-25

Sermon

King Duncan

A little boy in a Christmas program had but one sentence to say, "Behold, I bring you good tidings." After the rehearsal he asked his mother what "tidings" meant. She told him tidings meant "news." When the program was performed, he was so scared before the large congregation that he forgot his line. Finally the idea came back to him and he blurted out, "Hey, I got good news for you!" Each of our lessons from the Scripture this morning is about the good news of Christmas. Isaiah tells us that a virgin will ...

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