Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 3526 to 3550 of 4957 results

3526. Faith's Curious Dynamic

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Stephen M. Crotts

... optimism, for example, it was not that Christianity occupied the compromise position between them, but that it embraced both optimism and pessimism "at the top of their energy, love and wrath both burning." The supreme example of this, Chesterton said, was Christianity's claim about Christ, that he was both fully and completely human and fully and completely God.3 That's a contradiction if there ever was one, but Christianity's life comes from the tension between those positions, and that's also where faith ...

3527. The Spirit of...Winter?

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... the favored one and assured by the angel Gabriel that "The lord is with you" (verse 28). To this humble woman the angel promises that the Lord will bring the birth of a baby with the bluest of blood. The child Mary will bear will be great. He will claim the throne of his ancestor David and will reign over the house of Jacob forever (verse 33). To Mary who's the least is promised the birth of the one who will be the greatest. God's giving knows no boundaries. God's love is limitless. The blue collar ...

3528. You've Already Won a Valuable Prize

Ephesians 1:15-23

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... morning: In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, you've already won a valuable prize. And that prize is YOU. You are now part of God's inheritance. And as part of that inheritance, you can live a life of impossible possibilities, and of possible impossibilities. Will you claim your prize this morning? All you need to do to be part of God's glorious inheritance is to say "Yes, Lord, Yes, Lord, Yes, Lord, Yes."

3529. The Ladder or the Wheel

Matthew 23:1-39

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... titles: rabbi, father, teacher or master--none of these should apply to those who would call themselves Jesus' disciples. In short, while the Pharisees had carefully constructed a ladder of ritual purity and legal precision that enabled them to climb to and claim the top rung, Jesus turns their whole system upside down: "the greatest among you will be your servant;" and "those who exalt themselves will be humbled" while those "who humble themselves will be exalted" (verse 12). Instead of trying to claw our ...

3530. So You Want to Be in the Lead?

Exodus 17:1-7

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... It doesn't make sense. In those pre-gender conscious days, "man" and "mankind" meant the same thing. The First Sentence Armstrong had rehearsed was the more logically progressive, "One small step for A MAN, one giant leap for MANKIND." Armstrong at one point claimed he actually got it right, but was misquoted, that some static interference must have shorted out the "a." But you can listen to the recording yourself at [1]www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a11/a11.step.html And eventually Armstrong, when ...

3531. Gross Personality Disorder

Romans 12:9-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... repay anyone evil for evil but will strive to outdo each other in showing honor. Here's a form of competition that's missing in this culture: let's vie for the honor of outdoing each other in love and forgiveness. Finally, Christians will never "claim to be wiser than [they] are." One of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, Karl Rahner, liked to say that Christianity is the most radical form of agnosticism out there. You say, "How is that? Come again?" And he would say, "Christians stand before ...

3532. The Purple Church

Acts 2:42-47

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... determine. The colors red and blue illustrate much more than just political preferences. Increasingly they are the pigmentation highlighting deep cultural differences. Red and blue fissures are isolating communities, neighborhoods, schools, and churches. Both blues and reds like to claim the moral high ground. Each color point to the other color as the source of all social ills. The culture wars are getting more intense, more disruptive. And if the Terri Schiavo tragedy revealed anything, it showed how both ...

3533. The Insight of Eyesight

John 9:1-12

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... panels); and 165,000 matching bolts and self-locking nuts to hold them all together. So, all that work, all these materials, all the labor hours . . . what did all that create for those sixteen short winter days? Gordon Davis, the NYC parks commissioner claimed the Gates project "Will make us stare, laugh, gasp, prance, gawk, and say to no one in particular 'Isn't the park wonderful?'" (Smithsonian, page 87). As overblown and outrageous as Christo's huge projects may seem, they do succeed in calling our ...

3534. Night Vision

2 Peter 1:12-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... of all human instincts is that of self-preservation. It's only natural that we look out for number one, that we do our utmost to insure our own survival. There are, of course, countless examples of those with bleeding heart myopia to counter such a claim. What is it that forces our hearts and minds and bodies to discount the risk that's right before our eyes, and instead choose to act with reckless compassion. (I got this story from Wendy Owen; [1]wendyowen@news.oregonian.com.) Flames Force Decision To Act ...

3535. The Curse of the Cross

1 Corinthians 1:10-17

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... Sam cartoons? Now there was the master of the non-cursing curse. When Bugs Bunny had won the contest, Yosemite Sam would explode with expletives like "Dirty Rotten Rack-a-Frack!" or the blue-faced "Beezy Wobble Pegaloomer!" My wife and I both claim family homesteads in paper mill towns: Springfield, Oregon (Weyerhaeuser) and Covington, Virginia (WESTVACO). We grew up in towns with a strict social hierarchy: truck drivers, mill workers, and the guys who rose at 4 AM to ride the crummies up into the woods ...

3536. What Names Are You Naming?

Isaiah 49:1-7

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... to the Lord? It won't be easy to find them. The news reports don't often name these names. They only give us numbers. But because God so loved the world, he gave us a name, one name, the name above all names. Christians are people who have been claimed and named by God, and who in turn name names.

3537. Humans, Inc.

Luke 19:1-10

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... history since history has been recorded. Remember Cain and Abel? And yet we continue to describe those kinds of actions as "in-human." The truth is they're completely human, essentially human, disgustingly all-too-human. I don't think it's a false claim to innocence, or a dismissing of human culpability, that causes us to declare such violence as inhuman or inhumane. Rather it seems that at some deep, soulful level we recognize that there is a truly human response required of us as we interact with each ...

3538. Low Carb Christianity

Luke 14:25-35

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... a kind of spiritual Atkins diet, a Low-Carb Christianity, to keep us fit for the rigors of such a road. There's no room for a soft, squishy, comfort food Christianity. In a disciple's diet, only high protein, meaty fare will see us through. Do you claim to be a disciple of Jesus this morning? If you are, have you counted the cost? Have you considered your cross as you travel the discipleship path? Is your primary identity shaped by this culture and by the significant others in your life? Or is your primary ...

3539. Deep Faith

Acts 17:16-34

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... to the arrival of its newest member. In that straightforward conceptual framework, "to live, and move, and have being" were bound inextricably together. Once outside the womb, however, things get more complicated. As long as hearts beat and brain-waves pulse, we can all claim to be alive. Even those of us with injured or ailing bodies can still move with our mind's eye, be rowdy and aroused by our emotions. But there are millions of seemingly sentient human beings walking around who fail miserably at having ...

3540. The Problem with Busybodies

2 Thessalonians 3:6-15

Sermon

King Duncan

... in the French salons of those days. They may have been the prototype of all tabloid journalism today. (1) Pulitzer Prize-winning author Clifton L. Taulbert recalls his childhood days growing up in a predominantly black community in the Mississippi Delta. Taulbert claims that the best news in the community always came from a woman everyone called Miss Honey Pie. If anything happened in their small town, Miss Honey Pie knew about it. Everyone looked forward to a meeting with Miss Honey Pie because she ...

3541. Move Life from Duty to Destiny

Luke 21:5-38

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... .” It may just be my favorite name for a church: Destiny Church (www.destinychurch.com). All of us arrive on the planet with a destiny ahead of us. Jesus does not call us to live a life of duty, but to live a life of destiny. We can claim our destiny because we can count on two things: 1) it will be a destiny filled with Christ’s presences, and 2) it will be a destiny fulfilled with Christ’s promises. In fact, Jesus pointed his disciples then, and now, less to our participation in the eschaton of ...

3542. Thanks for Nothing!

Luke 21:5-38

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... his shoes, unpack his luggage, and have a body scan when he boards a plane? In this week's gospel text Jesus is standing before the beautiful rebuilt temple, the center of Jewish faith and piety, with his weary band of disciples. But instead of claiming a place for himself in the hierarchy of temple life, or using this location to unveil his true identity and mission, Jesus chooses this moment to pronounce the destruction of all these holy places. The temple will be completely destroyed. Not one stone will ...

3543. Eleven Plus One

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... about a person by what they drive. Anyone want to disagree with him? With the aid of cosmetics, Tommy Hilfiger, plastic surgery, and Ronald McDonald, we're looking more and more alike. In contrast, more people are asserting their identity and claiming their uniqueness by the kinds of cars they drive. Psychologist James Hillman writes that, "As humans become faceless under their blown-dry hair and cosmetics, cars pick up more distinctive names and fronts, those personalized expressions by which even small ...

3544. For All the Saints

Luke 19:1-10

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... Lazarus from death to life was obedience, as he rose up and went from darkness to light. Today we recall and remember, reflect and respect those who have joined the church eternal. But it's ALL Saints Day. This is also a day for all of us to claim our calling as saints and to reclaim and maybe even rename the Great Commission. When Jesus gave us our mission statement, he declared "Go and make disciples." In other words, "Go and make saints." ALL Saints Day means this is our day too. WE are the saints of ...

3545. Generations

John 4:1-26

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... forty-four percent answered "my religion." When boomers (ages 30 to 39) and boosters (ages 50 and over) were asked the same question, 54 percent of boomers and 73 percent of boosters answered accordingly. Gallup also found that fifty-nine percent of busters claim allegiance to a church, compared to 68 percent of boomers, and 77 percent of boosters. Millennial Generation Also known as the after-busters, or the baby boomlets, the 2000 kids were born between 1981 and 2000 (notice, both boomers and echo-boomers ...

3546. Get a Peace of the Rock

Luke 10:1-24

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... also shows also the destructive power of Hamitic ideology), in 1994 about 100,000 Hutus rose up to slay their Tutsi neighbors - at least one million of them. By the early 1990s Rwanda had become the most Christian nation in Africa. 85% of the population claimed to be Christian. It was one of the greatest missionary success stories in the history of Christianity. What happened? What made someone get up from their couch, take a machete, go next door and slice the limbs off their neighbor's bodies, behead the ...

3547. Hands On

Luke 7:36-50

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... any course of action that might change the circumstances. Their energy and insight is completely wrapped up in being wrung-out. Second, we can fold them. Hand-folders do nothing. Immovable, immutable, impassive, hand-folders are unconcerned and uncommitted. By claiming that problems are "out of our hands" hand-folders insulate themselves from any involvement and injury. Third, we can wash them. Like Pilate, hand-washers think that with enough water they can dilute any responsibility they might have for ...

3548. Jedi Christians

Matthew 14:22-36

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... head, shouted in his ears, whipped up froth and foam, slapped waves upright against his chest. But all this raging and rampaging had no effect on Jesus and had no effect on Peter's own watery journey until Peter allowed the wind to draw his attention, to claim his calm, to shift his focus away from Jesus. Jesus continues to call all of us to be his disciples, to follow him, to forge new and unexpected paths with him. Jesus' travels have always been to unusual, unlooked for places up mountain tops, into the ...

3549. Pay It Forward!

Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... it to the people on either side of you. It's not a phrase that commands a lot of respect these days. It might bring some attention, some strange looks and shaking heads. But would anyone really treat such a statement as command performance? The disciples who went to claim that colt were being asked to take a real risk, to act in a strange, unprecedented manner. Why did they do it? Because the Lord asked it of them. As 21st century disciples we will be called upon by the Christ whom we serve to do or act in ...

3550. Set Life Free

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... harvested is ultimately out of the hands of the sower. Our task it to sow. God's task is to reap. We cannot compare our harvests or our results – church size, choir decibels, broadcast bandwidth, budget surplus, uplink/downlink abilities – with others and claim for ourselves more or less success. But there must be fruit to feed a hungry world. And in a marvelous circularity of spirituality, the ultimate in fruit-bearing is seed-sowing. One of my favorite poetic couplets is from the Nobel-Prize winning ...

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