Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 3551 to 3575 of 4972 results

3551. Prissy Plant

John 9:39

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

... the window that she smelled, and of course Prissy is right about that. Prissy doesn't smell at all. The other night when I was eating dinner I heard Prissy criticizing a plant that sits on the piano about his odd shape. She said that all of her leaves are perfect, each one is the right size and none of them are brown or nicked in any way. That was disgusting. Of course Prissy is perfectly made, but that is the problem. Prissy is artificial. She should be perfect. I finally took Prissy aside this morning and ...

3552. A Special Room

John 14:2

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

... sometimes belongs to Dad. But each room has some special meaning to someone who lives in your house. The reason that I share this with you today is that Jesus talked about rooms in a very special way. He told his friends that one of the reasons that he was leaving them and going back to live with his father in heaven was that he had to get some rooms ready for us. That sounds as if Jesus is expecting us to live with him some day, doesn't it? (Let them answer.) When Jesus was resurrected, when he came back ...

3553. An Overwhelming Promise

Eulogy

Joe Barone

... the field shall clap their hands.” Let Us Pray Almighty Savior, we thank you for the way you keep your promises, and now we rest our love for ** in you. You and you alone are God, and you and you alone can bring true peace and true salvation. As we leave this place, help us to walk with you. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. *Person’s first name**Person’s full name

3554. The Heart Of The Gospel

Eulogy

Joe Barone

... . Walk with them, as we know you do, and call us to walk beside them, too. We thank you, Lord, for the heart of the gospel, for the message that Christ died for us that we might be saved and forever live in love and joy with you. As we leave this place, help us live each day as * did, in the promise of Christ’s love and resurrection. Amen. *Person’s first name**Person’s full name

3555. Why Did Jesus Have To Die?

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... .1 Yet the suffering was real and barbaric. Why? Why did he have to die? If God is all-powerful, and if Jesus truly remained in control of the situation as John seems to portray it, why did the Father not merely decree the forgiveness of our sins and leave it at that? Why did Jesus have to suffer and die for them? In addition, even if Jesus did die for our sins, why is that so significant for Christians in the late 20th century? Is it not sufficient simply to proclaim God's love and his forgiveness? What ...

3556. Focus Your Faith

John 14:5-14

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... remember the situation. This week's gospel lesson is taken from Jesus' farewell discourse. It was the night of the last supper, and Jesus' disciples knew that something was up; they knew that Jesus was going to be betrayed by someone (John 13:21) and that he had plans to leave them (John 13:33; 14:3). They may not yet have grasped that he was preparing to die, but they were anxious (John 13:22, 36; 14:1). They did not know what to think. How could God possibly take Jesus away from them? It did not make any ...

3557. Competition In The Kingdom?

Matthew 20:17-19

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... . They want to be envied rather than respected ...the successful bureaucrat survives not by appealing to the authority of his office but by establishing a pattern of upward movement, cultivating upwardly mobile superiors, and administering 'homeopathetic doses of humiliation' to those he leaves behind in his ascent to the top."2 Is this not the dynamic that lies behind the interactions that the disciples had with each other on the day that the mother of James and John tried to get them a special place ...

3558. Dispelling Ministry Illusions

Jeremiah 1:1-19

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. - Jeremiah 2:12-13, RSV The people of God went through the rituals of religion, but in their hearts, the temples within, they worshiped false gods. They were faithless! Surely, as a faithless wife leaves her husband, so have you been faithless to me, 0 house of Israel, says the Lord. - Jeremiah 3:20, RSV The threat of punishment looms large in this prophet of God who is called to "uproot and pull down, to destroy and to overthrow ...

3559. Believing The Living Word

Isaiah 55:1-13

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... Word, are given new life, eternal life, receiving "grace upon grace." In Jesus, the Word is seen, heard and believed. In Jesus, the Word, we are blessed. The Word also goes forth in the written form of the Bible. The early Christians were told not to leave the Word of God (Acts 6:2), which means that they were urged to read the Scriptures regularly. They were also urged to handle the written Word without deceit (2 Corinthians 4:2). The written Word is like a helmet of salvation (Ephesians 6:17). The ...

3560. Good News!

Isaiah 51:17--52:12

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... new Christian. She was aglow with her new-found faith in Christ. She witnessed to Nicolas, but apparently to no avail. We shared our faith with him as well, but his heart was burdened. He wanted no part of God. When we returned to England on sabbatical leave in the summer of 1988, we went to Lewes and stayed with Jean and and Nicolas again. As Jean greeted us, she burst forth with the good news, "Nicolas has become a Christian. It happened last week." We all rejoiced. Two weeks later we heard some bad news ...

3561. Anointed Ministry

Isaiah 61:1-11

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... ministry by ministering generously. Jubilee means ministry. The baptism of Jesus and the inaugural address which follows it are models for ministry. It is simply not enough to be admirers in the grandstand. God anoints us in baptism and invites us to leave the grandstand and get into the action of real ministry. Will there be a jubilee for you and me? That depends on whether we recognize that we have been anointed in baptism for ministry. Ministry means genuine and generous servanthood (ministry). Jubilee ...

3562. Everything Except God

Amos 5:1-17

Sermon

Richard Hasler

... John Wesley’s two-year stay in America was not a happy period in his life, in fact it was for him a time of dashed hopes. If he had died at age 34, he would have been remembered as a good, conscientious man, nonetheless a failure. After leaving Georgia on Christmas Eve, 1737, John recorded in his journal while at sea: “I came to America to convert the Indians, but, lo who will convert me?” Shortly after his return to England, on May 24, 1738, to be exact, John Wesley experienced conversion. In his own ...

3563. How To Hear A Sermon

Micah 1:1-7

Sermon

Richard Hasler

... love more after worship than before we have not heard the Word. If we have not left the sanctuary determined to forgive the one who has wronged us, we have not heard the Word. We approach the hearing of the Word with great anticipation, and leave after receiving the Word resolving to put the Word into some form of concrete action as we become little Christs to our neighbors. Tony Campolo tells the story of being invited to speak at a large, affluent church in the Washington, D.C. area. Everything proceeded ...

3564. When God’s “No” Means “Yes”

Habakkuk 1:1-4, Habakkuk 2:2-20

Sermon

Richard Hasler

Augustine in his autobiographical work Confessions tells the story of his mother Monica’s constant prayers for him. She wished that one day her vagabond son would become a committed Christian. When Augustine decided to leave North Africa and sail for Rome she was horrified. She believed that in Rome’s cosmopolitan environment he would go further astray. She pleaded with him not to sail and prayed with tears that God would intervene, but to no avail. Later, Augustine inscribed these words in the ...

3565. Are You Asking The Right Questions?

Zechariah 7:1-14

Sermon

Richard Hasler

... one day by a Canadian reporter. The man rather cynically asked Herriot if he would be skipping off one day to a tax haven to avoid the crushing British taxes on his book royalties. The author assured the reporter he had no desire to leave the Yorkshire dales. He had all he ever wanted -- wonderful people, soccer, cricket, tennis, rugby -- what else would he ever need? At the conclusion of the article the reporter made this statement: “The man and the writer seem nicely consonant one with the other ...

3566. The Road To Nazareth

Luke 4:14-30

Sermon

Thomas A. Pilgrim

... . Jesus left Nazareth and went on the road. No one from Nazareth went with him. He called no disciples from Nazareth and no one volunteered. But he does call us to go with him - and out on other roads. For whoever we are and whatever we are, he does not leave us as we are. He calls us to become more than we are and to move on further than we are. He says to us as he said to those fishermen by the lake in the long ago, "Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men." A ...

3567. The Road To Capernaum

Mark 1:21-28

Sermon

Thomas A. Pilgrim

... him. She said, "You are the best preacher I have ever heard. I've read some of your books, and you are a great author. You are the sweetest, kindest person in the world. You are a very handsome man." Just then her nurse came in and he started to leave. She walked over to the door and said, "Dr. Ozment, I don't know what she might have told you, but she is losing her mind, so don't believe any~ thing she said." And, Bob Ozment replied, "She carried on a perfectly grand conversation, and I believe every word ...

3568. Wedding: The Mystery of Marriage

Ephesians 5:22-33

Sermon Aid

Jeffrey K. Kimpel

... sky,The way of a serpent on a rock,The way of a ship on the high seas,And the way of a man with a maiden.(Proverbs 30:18-19) The Apostle Paul also speaks of marriage as a mystery when he writes: For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one. This is a great mystery, and I take it to mean Christ and the Church.(Ephesians 5:31-32) And so tonight; the handsome tuxedo, the lovely dress, the beautiful flowers are telling ...

3569. "Something's Coming"

Isaiah 2:1-5

Sermon

Robert Beringer

... beyond our knowledge and control that not even the angels of heaven know when it is coming. You see, Isaiah's vision is based on the faith that this world will never know peace and harmony and goodwill until all human beings acknowledge God as their Sovereign Lord. Leaving God out of our lives gives us the kind of world we know today. But, putting God at the center of our thinking and planning and living, we can even now begin to catch a foretaste of the great and wondrous time when Christ will be Lord of ...

3570. Rejoice In The Lord

Isaiah 9:1-7

Sermon

Robert Beringer

... . In a recent Doonesbury cartoon, an officer is standing by the bedside of a Navy sailor who is in sick bay aboard a cruiser. The officer says, "We've got you scheduled for surgery at four bells tomorrow! Your surgeon will be Commander Torres." As he leaves the officer says, "Well, take care, sport. I'll see you tonight during rounds." The sailor is puzzled and says to the officer, "What exactly do you do here?" The officer replies, "I'm ship's morale officer." And wide-eyed, the sailor says, "You mean ...

3571. Christmas Preparations We Often Forget

Isaiah 35:1-10

Sermon

Robert Beringer

... unit was the irritating fact that they were commanded by a Hollywood actor! As David Niven wrote, "the men were not mutinous - but they were certainly 40 of the least well-disposed characters I ever have been associated with, let alone been in command of." No leave was permitted on Christmas Eve because the unit might well see action the next day. The entire platoon was billeted in the shabby stables of a country farm. Now it so happened that David Niven every night of his life took the moment before going ...

3572. Mission Possible

Sermon

Robert Beringer

... the Sermon on the Mount, our Lord said that "you are the light of the world." Light is essential to life, isn't it? If you have ever tried to pick your way through the woods at night without a flashlight, then you know the value of light. Businesses often leave lights on at night because the FBI says that 75 percent of all crimes are done in the dark. It was Goethe as he was dying who cried out, "Light! More light!" The world has often echoed that same cry, and that is why God sent Jesus Christ to lead ...

3573. Ka-Chang

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

John Jamison

... hillside turned to the Zealots. It was one of those times when everyone believes the preacher has over-stepped the bounds. Sadducees wanted peace with Rome so they could stay in office.The Pharisees were for peace, within the rules of the law, which did not leave room for Rome. The Zealots were ready to kill for peace, and the common folks were thinking about how hard it was to simply be a peacemaker back home in the family. "Blessed are you when you are persecuted for righteousness' sake." They all liked ...

3574. Ooo Boy!

Matthew 5:33-37, Matthew 5:31-32

Sermon

John Jamison

... woman in her man's life. But she was not your wife. Finally, ranking somewhere below the other two, was the wife. The wife was the most highly protected and treasured of the three. She was so highly protected and treasured that she was rarely ever allowed to leave the home and risk contamination by the outside world. She stayed at home in her role of caring for the household. She raised the children. She kept things together. She was the center of it all, but the center of it all is not always a good place ...

3575. Coming Back Down

Matthew 17:1-13

Sermon

John Jamison

... given it all up to go back. And I think I know where he would have gone. It was a mountain. Nobody agrees today which mountain it was, although there are two top contenders for the title. It was Jesus, James, John and Peter who went up. I will leave it to the theologians to explain what happened up there and will just tell you the way Matthew tells it to me. The four of them walked up the mountain. Just days before, Jesus had told his disciples that story about "picking up your cross" and had assured them ...

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