Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 3526 to 3550 of 4986 results

3526. The Four Marks of Failure

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... as much as those two words: You're fired. So it should come as no big surprise that the latest unreal reality show on TV now features the grown-up humiliation of being fired, week after week. In The Apprentice, a cut-throat bunch of CEO-wannabes compete furiously to stay-in-the-game or face getting fired by deal-maker tycoon Donald Trump. But each week all of the competitors know that one of them is going to get the axe bounced right out of the game. Nobody wants to lose. Nobody wants to be known as a loser ...

3527. Be Ready!

Matthew 24:36-51

Sermon

King Duncan

... ’s pastor brought in repairmen from all over Switzerland to examine the organ. None of them knew how to restore its wonderful sound. One night, a shabby-looking stranger entered the town. He went to the church and asked the caretaker to be allowed to stay the night. The caretaker was suspicious of the stranger, but the caretaker’s young daughter was moved by the glow of the stranger’s eyes. She convinced her father to let him in. Later, the caretaker awakened to hear the church sanctuary filled with ...

3528. A Personal Testimony

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

Russell N. Gallimore

... Can’t you give her someplace? Please?” Looking closer, I noticed that the young man spoke the truth about his wife, and then I began to really feel sorry for them. I thought for a moment [scratching my head], then I said, “Well, you do need a place to stay. If you’re not too choosy, I believe I can provide something for you. Come with me!” So I led them to a cobweb-covered cattle-cave nearby. It wasn’t the best of surroundings, I must confess, but it did offer some shelter from the cold and some ...

3529. A Personal Testimony

Luke 2:1-7

Drama

Russell N. Gallimore

3530. Are You a Leg-Grabbing Christian?

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... Firmly attached to his left leg was his eighteen month old daughter, while glued to his right leg was his three year old son. Watching him struggling to keep up with his oldest child's soccer movements while making sure that his younger kids stayed safely anchored to his legs was even more interesting than the soccer game. Someone called out encouragingly, "It's a good thing kids come with velcro!" If you've ever established a close relationship with a young child as a parent, babysitter, grandparent, aunt ...

3531. Blue Highway Blessings

Ephesians 1:1-14

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... make your everyday life into REAL LIFE a life that expresses the wonder and glory of Christ's redemptive sacrifice, of God's love and grace. But it's our choice. Just as we have to intentionally choose to turn off on a blue highway instead of staying on the grey freeway, we must train ourselves to live our REAL LIFE NOW as it expresses itself through our everyday life. Tampa, Florida pastor James A. Harnish remembers his first lesson in riding his bike. "We lived 'on the other side of the tracks,'" Harnish ...

3532. Out of Order

Mark 6:30-44

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... . Every person the disciples met offered good reason for sliding into depression. Everywhere the disciples and Jesus disembarked, every new village or town they reached, the same desperate crowds pressed in upon them. No matter how long Jesus stayed, no matter how many astounding miracles he performed, there was always more, more, more: more people in need, more ills to cure, more desperate situations to address. For Jesus compassion checked and checkmated depression. Compassion [or in Greek splangnizesthai ...

3533. Dip into the Well

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... " into a search engine, and you'll get anywhere from a half million to a million links that will take you to extreme networks, extreme weather, extremecoffee.com. Jesus didn't call the disciples to be regular either. Regular disciples would have stayed in Jerusalem, founded a school, studied the words and works of their master, carefully screened and admitted only the most promising students that came to their center and requested admission. But Jesus commanded his disciples to scatter, to go to the ends ...

3534. Transmission

1 John 3:11-24

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... love while at our work. A recent television ad-campaign urges mothers to drink their milk, not only for their own health benefit, but as a way to model nutritious eating habits among their own children. Moms and dads are told to eat their vegetables, and stay away from junk-food goodies so that, as their children see, so shall they do. Any parent who has forced themselves to take a bite first of strained peas or pureed chicken, so that their fussy baby would also swallow a spoonful, knows being the good ...

3535. Set in the Dark Places

John 3:1-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

I learned a song in Sunday School that has stayed with me for lo these many years. The song is "This Little Light of Mine, I'm Gonna Let It Shine." Anybody else go to the same Sunday School? (Sing it here, or better yet, have them join in singing it with you.) As we've just heard, the song ...

3536. The World's Greatest Cover Up

Romans 4:1-25

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... lured them to the auction in the first place. They readied their bidding card, and clutched it for dear life, like the steering wheel of a car about ready to enter the German Autobahn. The bidding started at $1000, and within two minutes went up to $20,000. They stayed in there. $21,000. $22,000. $23,000. All the while, I couldn't believe what I was watching. $24,000. $25,000. $26,000. $27,000. $28,000. $29,000. $30,000 dollars. They looked at each other with pain and anguish on their faces, and dropped out ...

3537. Catch the Fever

Mark 1:29-34

Sermon

James Caldwell III

... 's praying, and explain to him the fabulous opportunity for his ministry back in town, with everyone looking for him, Jesus says it's time to hit the road! And the Scripture says he went all over Galilee preaching and healing. Wouldn't it have been easier to stay put, and minister to all those needs in town, where there was a ready-made list of patients and potential followers? Jesus is acting mighty strangely. Maybe he caught that fever Simon's mother in law had when he healed her. And when he told them it ...

3538. By God’s Spirit

Zechariah 4:1-14

Sermon

James McCormick

... alone becomes possible by the power of God’s Spirit. I have seen that. I believe that! We hear that same affirmation in Psalms 127. Listen: “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for He gives to His beloved in sleep.” I particularly like that last thought. As important as human effort is, you don’t have to ...

3539. Follow Me!

Matthew 16:21-28

Sermon

James McCormick

... . A member of that congregation came to Reverend Campbell and suggested that one redemptive thing they might do would be to bring Marina Oswald to Ann Arbor, provide a place for her to live, and help her to improve her English. (She had said that she wanted to stay in the U.S.A. and to improve her English.) So, they brought her to Ann Arbor, quietly and without fanfare. They moved her in with a loving family, and began to be of any help they could. When word of their actions began to get out, the reaction ...

3540. Lord, Teach Us How to Pray

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

James McCormick

... , disciplined prayer. That becomes the fertile soil out of which all other prayer grows. One reason daily discipline is so important is that prayer, like anything worthwhile, takes practice. Early on, you probably won’t be very comfortable with it. But you’ve got to stay with it, trusting that God is there wanting to make contact with you, even if you are not aware of Him at first. In my imagination, like the cellular phone commercial, I hear God saying, “Can you hear me now? Good!” I don’t know ...

3541. Being Christian in the Family

Matthew 7:24-29

Sermon

James McCormick

... insisted that his son go to worship and Sunday School each week. He talked often about the importance of the church and the life of faith. But, one day he was shocked into awareness when he heard his son ask his mother, “Mom, when will I be old enough to stay home from church like daddy does?” Daddy was teaching, wasn’t he? And so are we. We teach not only at those moments when we intend to teach. No, for good or for ill, we teach every moment of every day, especially when we don’t know we are ...

3542. It Is Also Blessed to Receive

John 13:1-17

Sermon

James McCormick

... I will close with this. An American woman, Elizabeth Byrd was vacationing in Scotland one year. While traveling through the countryside, she met a local farm woman, a Mrs. McIntosh. Mrs. McIntosh’ husband was away at market, and the two women hit it off, so she invited Elizabeth to stay with her overnight. As soon as they arrived at the farm house, it began to rain and the wind began to blow. A storm had come from out of nowhere and it looked like it would be a big one. It wasn’t very long before the ...

3543. Weak Sauce

1 Corinthians 9:1-27

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... out with a timidity towards work itself. As our national waistline grows, Americans are working harder, working longer, working double, sometimes triple jobs, and are the most likely workers in the world to not take all their vacation time. We go to work more, stay at work later, bring more work home with us, and take more work along on brief three-day weekend mini-vacations than any other nation on earth. Being both overweight and overworked lets us "enjoy" a host of other number one rankings. Number one ...

3544. In Life Nothing Works but the Impossible

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... man and woman “betrothed” in the first century. A betrothal ceremony at the home of the bride’s father would have had the husband-to-be offer the marriage contract and bride price to his betrothed wife’s father. After this ceremony the woman would stay in her father’s house until the actual marriage ceremony took place, which could be as long as several years. Only after this second ceremony was the bride transferred from her father’s house to her groom’s (or possibly her groom’s father’s ...

3545. You Shall Name Him Jesus

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

King Duncan

... me names, all the things that hit me right in the gut and one in particular. I wanted to get away from him. But then I looked around at all these other people, including children, and I realized that if I left he’d just go after them. So I stayed and I took his abuse and nobody else had to deal with him.” After a time of silence the priest said, “You know this is Holy Week for Christians. We think of Jesus as taking on all the garbage of the world as he hung on the Cross.” The ferry ...

3546. 1 Corinthians 9:24-27

1 Corinthians 9:1-27

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... to use himself as an example. His own race is not run aimlessly or without hesitation (adelos). He has a fixed goal--to win the prize, the victor's wreath. Paul's purpose is clear and his course unswerving. In the race metaphor this means staying on track, keeping focused on the finish line. But Paul immediately introduces another sporting metaphor, again personalizing the image: "nor do I box as though beating the air." Though it may seem odd to introduce a new sporting image at this point, Paul chooses ...

3547. A Word of Hope for a Hard World

Matthew 2:13-18

Sermon

King Duncan

... motorcycle, spotted the poor dog running--and occasionally rolling--alongside the car. The officer stopped Tattoo’s owner and alerted him to the situation. Tattoo came out all right, but he hasn’t been begging for any walks for a while. He’s kind of content to stay at home. (1) You may feel like Tattoo after the last few weeks. This is always such a busy time of the year. But now Christmas has passed. The presents have been opened. The wrapping paper has been discarded. Now it’s time for us to kick ...

3548. A New Beginning

Matthew 3:13-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... us. Physicists speak of inertia--the tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. Most churches suffer from inertia, as do most of their congregants. What is it that counselors say? Most people change only when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change. Those of you who are nature lovers may have observed a mother bird coaxing her offspring from the nest for the first time. She starts with a simple nudge. If that doesn’t work, she begins to peck ...

3549. Christmas 1

Mt 2:13-23 · Heb 2:10-18 · Isa 63:7-9 · Ps 148

Sermon Aid

Marion L. Soards, Thomas B. Dozeman, Kendall McCabe

... verse underscores two points: (1) It is God who generates praise for the people of God, and not the reverse, namely that the people of God generate praise for God; and (2) one reason why God is able to generate praise in the people of God is because God stays close to Israel. The spatial metaphor of God being close to the people of God is the point of connection between Psalm 148 and Isaiah 63:7-9. One text explores this confession of nearness at times of lament, while the other explores it during a time of ...

3550. Epiphany 6

Mt 5:21-37 · 1 Cor 3:1-9 · Ps 119 · Dt 30:15-20

Sermon Aid

Marion L. Soards, Thomas B. Dozeman, Kendall McCabe

... action in the Exodus, God's leading Israel through the wilderness, and God's giving of the land to Israel constitute salvation. The law is a road map of what to do once we are swept into this journey of God's. The psalmist tells us that those who stay with the map, who walk in God's way will be blessed. In praising the law, however, the psalmist is not advocating "righteousness by works." The second and third sections of Psalm 119:1-8 make this very clear. Verses 4-6 are a conditional statement: God demands ...

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