Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 3676 to 3700 of 4933 results

3676. The Children of Promise

Jeremiah 30:1--31:40

Sermon

Harry N. Huxhold

A serial killer is the object of a serious psychological study in the novel The Alienist by Caleb Carr. The alienist in the nineteenth century was an expert in mental pathology. In this story, set in 1896, the alienist is Llazo Kreizler, hired by Theodore Roosevelt, then Commissioner of the New York City Police Department. Mr. Roosevelt was intent upon apprehending the serial killer of the young boys caught in the web of an unsavory lifestyle. As Kreizler tries to develop a characterization of the nature ...

3677. Year-Round Christmas

1 Kings 17:1-24

Sermon

David E. Leininger

"When elephants fight, the grass suffers." So goes an old African proverb.(1) The elephants in question here, Yahweh and Baal - gods competing for a nation's allegiance with the original weapons of mass destruction: drought and disaster; the grass, this widow and her son, caught in this cosmic struggle between fertility and famine. We meet one of faith's greatest heroes as this story begins. Elijah - no question whose side he is on; his name means YAHWEH IS MY GOD. He gets no introduction other than the ...

3678. A Fool and his Money

Luke 12:13-21

Sermon

David E. Leininger

A fool and his money. Are soon parted, right? Someone has rewritten it to suggest that "A fool and his money are some party!" OK. Some of us are old enough to remember Adlai Stevenson, Governor of Illinois, UN Ambassador, two-time Democratic candidate for President, and rare wit. Stevenson once said, "There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody."(1) Amen? Amen! Of course, this link between a fool and money (or possessions) goes back along way, all the way to ...

3679. God Help the Fish

Mark 1:9-13

Sermon

King Duncan

Sam Houston was the first president of the Republic of Texas. It’s said he was a rather nasty fellow with a checkered past. Later in life Houston made a commitment to Christ and was baptized in a river. The preacher said to him, “Sam, your sins are washed away.” Houston replied, “God help the fish.” It’s fortunate that you and I were not baptized as adults in a river. Somebody would probably be saying, “God help the fish.” A man named Ray says that at one point in his life he considered joining the Baptist ...

3680. A Scream And A Laugh

Colossians 1:1-14

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

"My name is Asher Lev, the Asher Lev, about whom you have read in newspapers and magazines, about whom you talk so much at your dinner affairs and cocktail parties. The notorious and legendary Lev of the Brooklyn crucifixion." With those words, Chaim Potack begins his novel entitled My Name is Asher Lev. It's about a young boy whose extraordinary talent leads him away from his family and his faith into a painful maturity and a perilous success. Asher Lev longs to be a painter, and he pursues this longing ...

3681. Keeping Our Souls

John 13:18-30

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

A seminary student (not one of you) preached his senior sermon in a homiletics class. When he got through, the professor gave him his critique. “John, I’ll give you an A- on the sermon. It was a good one. But I must give you an F on the title.” “An F?” said John. “I don’t understand. What’s wrong with my title?” “Well,” said the professor, “the title is one of the most important parts of the sermon. It should be so compelling and captivating that if a busload of people pass by your sign on Sunday morning, ...

3682. Uncle Abraham

Romans 4:13-25

Sermon

William G. Carter

I have good news for you this morning. None of you are good enough to be here. Sorry about that. I thought I saw a few of you flinch. Maybe I need to be a bit more sensitive in how I begin. Let me try again. I have good news for you this morning: God is not impressed with a person in this room. By the look on some of your faces, I'm not sure that was any better way to start a sermon. Give me one more opportunity to get this sermon started. Here it goes. I have good news for you this morning: Every single ...

3683. Who Are We, Really?

1 Peter 2:4-12

Sermon

King Duncan

There’s an old story about a small church out in a rural area that needed a pastor to fill in for a time. So they contacted a nearby seminary. The seminary sent a student who had never been outside of the city. When he arrived at the church, the student preacher was shocked to see a hound dog seated on the second row next to the church’s lay leader, a crotchety older man who was known to run off young student pastors. In a heat of righteous indignation the young preacher headed straight toward the dog. He ...

3684. It Was the Birthday of a King

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

James Merritt

Ironically, the time of year called Christmas is a time of both celebration and separation. Because at no other time of the year is the Christian more separated from the world than at Christmastime. The world celebrates a season, but the Christian celebrates a Savior. Whether this world likes it or not, and increasingly the world doesn't like it, Christmas is the celebration of the birthday of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now there are some people who will be so drunk they will not know whose birthday it is. ...

3685. What Excites God

Mark 2:1-12

Sermon

James Merritt

As a pastor I can really relate to the story of a pastor who was candidating at a church, and they told him that they wanted to call him provided he would agree to live by faith. When he asked the six men on the committee what they meant by that, they said, "Well, what we mean by that is, you're not going to have any stated salary, but you're just going to trust God to meet your needs." The man thought about it for a minute, and though it cost him the church, he gave a good response. He said, "I've got a ...

3686. Stop Fuming, Start Forgiving!

Matthew 6:5-15

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

The late Bishop Lance Webb used to tell a story about a little five-year-old boy who misbehaved. His mother decided to give him some quiet time. She had a large closet. So, she pushed back the hangers in the closet so there would be room for his chair. She turned on the light and told him he would have to stay in the closet for 30 minutes. She heard strange sounds inside the closet and then everything got quiet. The mother was curious, so she opened the door. “Jimmy, “she asked, “what on earth are you ...

3687. Learning to Love Ourselves

Matthew 22:34-40

Sermon

James McCormick

She was a beautiful Scandinavian girl. She had come to the hotel room of Dr. and Mrs. Walter Trobisch for counseling, just one day after they had given a lecture at one of the universities of northern Europe. As they talked about her problems, one basic issue kept coming up – one that seemed to be at the root at all her problems. She could not love herself! In fact, she hated herself so much that she was only a step away from ending her own life. She had been raised in a very religious home. Her parents ...

3688. Just When We Think We're Safest, There's a Sunset Touch

Mark 6:30-44

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Today we’re beginning a series of sermons on coping - coping as a Christian. To cope is to “contend or struggle successfully.” Now I had some hesitancy about the use of the word cope in the title of this series. A lot of people are talking about coping. Being who I am, a Christian minister seeking to proclaim the word of God, I was not interested just in a series of self-help, psychological messages. So I thought for awhile that I would talk about conquering as Christians. Paul said we Christians are to be ...

3689. Crying at the Tomb

John 20:10-18

Sermon

King Duncan

Al Smith was once governor of New York. He was doing his first tour of New York’s Sing Sing Prison when the warden asked if he would address the inmates. The governor was taken by surprise, but he agreed. His awkwardness was revealed when he began like this, “My fellow citizens . . .” He stopped himself. He wasn’t sure if inmates actually had the full rights of citizenship. So, he changed courses. “My fellow convicts,” he began again. Everyone laughed. He tried once more. “Well anyhow, I’m glad to see so ...

3690. Ignite: Man on Fire

Acts 9:1-19a

Sermon

James Merritt

You hear a lot of people say a lot of times, “Nothing surprises me anymore!” Just about the time I believe nothing surprises me anymore, something surprises me. In fact, it didn’t just surprise me, but frankly shocked, amazed, and astounded me. There is a website called, “Top-10-list.org” I went to it to see what they said would be the top ten most important events in history. As I put these up on the screen you might want to in your mind jot down as many as you can think of. I want you listen to not only ...

3691. Welcome Home

Luke 15:11-32

Sermon

James Merritt

A picture is worth a thousand words. Sometimes they should be because certain pictures can leave you speechless. I have often thought that if my house were burning down and I could only grab a few things as I ran out the door, I would bypass the jewelry, the clothes, and any furniture. I would take some pictures because pictures matter to me. And they matter to us all. We’ve now entered what might be called “The age of the snapshot.” 82% of Americans say they take pictures with their cell phones, up from a ...

3692. Israel to Reap the Whirlwind

Hosea 8:1-14

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Achtemeier

Israel Shall Reap What She Sows (8:1-7a): As is frequently the case with Hosea, it is very difficult to know how to divide chapter 8 into its separate oracles. From a form-critical standpoint, verses 1–3 could form an independent unit because they include summons, accusation, and judgment. But they are intimately linked to what follows by their subject matter. Verse 4 spells out the two primary ways in which Israel has rejected what is good (v. 3). It is then connected with verse 5 by the repetition of the ...

3693. Jesus Takes the Initiative

Luke 21:5-38, Luke 21:1-4, Luke 20:41-47

Teach the Text

R.T. France

Big Idea: The pretentious religiousness of scribes and wealthy worshipers and of the magnificent temple buildings contrasts with the simple devotion of a poor widow. Understanding the Text In place of the question-and-answer scenario of the first part of Jesus’s public ministry in the temple (20:1–40), we now have a series of pronouncements by Jesus that bring that phase of the Jerusalem story to an end. They begin with a response to the leaders’ hostile questioning, in which Jesus raises the question of ...

3694. I Wonder if God Exists

Genesis 1:1-5

Sermon

Charley Reeb

Recently, the Barna Research Group conducted an important poll to get the pulse of inquiring hearts about religion. They asked a cross section of American adults: “If you could ask God any question about your life, what is the single most important question you would want to ask him?” In addition, USA Today conducted a similar poll by asking readers, “If you could get in contact with God directly, and get an immediate reply, what would you ask?” Not surprisingly, the results of these polls yielded very ...

3695. What a Friend

John 15:9-17

Sermon

John Jamison

In your mind, I’d like you to picture a good friend. It may be a current friend or one from the past. Just take a moment, think of a good friend, and picture them in your mind’s eye. Can you see them? When did you first meet them? How did they become a friend? Let’s leave your friend hanging around for a few minutes; we’ll come back to them later. They are going to help us make sense of the scripture reading this morning. The passage from John is describing some of the things Jesus said to his disciples as ...

3696. I've Seen the Lord

John 20:1-9, John 20:10-18

Sermon

David & Marian Plant

You and I come here for a variety of different reasons this Easter morning. For some, you come because of a deep abiding expectation that yearns to be reminded that our Lord died, but then out of death, God granted life. And in turn you know, therefore, that nothing is impossible with our Lord. For some you come because it is the thing you do... this Easter morning thing. Perhaps it is the response to an echo of remembrance embedded deep within from your youth that says, if nothing more, you should be here ...

3697. A Portion of Thyself

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

At a graduation ceremony, the president of a Christian college stood at the podium and looked out over the huge crowd of people. He shook his head and said to himself (right into the microphone, of course!): “All these Christians in one place, and no one’s taking an offering!” We take offerings a lot, don’t we? Every Sunday at worship services, the money plates are passed. In fact, we can hardly think of a meeting of Christians where there is not some suggestion about offerings, donations, or contributions ...

3698. The Church

Acts 6:8-15, Acts 6:1-7

Drama

Robert F. Crowley

Theme: The church has had turmoil from the start. It was as difficult then as it is now. The church can only survive if Jesus is the head. Summary: A mysterious visitor from church "headquarters" calls on the Rev. John Baxter, pastor of a modern day church that is having some major problems. The visitor proposes some startling answers for the church's dilemma and firmly implants the solution by a unique object lesson from history. Playing Time: 10 minutes Place: A church meeting room and then thirty years ...

3699. We All Sin So What?

Genesis 3:1-24

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

One day a young skeptic knocked on the door of a rectory. A priest opened the door. The visitor said, “Come out. I want to talk to you about a problem.” “No,” the priest replied, “You come in. I want to talk to you about your sins.” After Adam and Eve sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, God came one evening and called to them, “Where are you?” Because they were afraid of what God might do to them for disobeying him, they hid themselves. At the end of the day God knocks on the garden door and says, “I ...

3700. Epiphany 7

2 Corinthians 1:12--2:4, Isaiah 43:14-28, Mark 2:1-12

Sermon Aid

Russell F. Anderson

Theme: Forgiveness of sins. In the First Lesson God identifies himself as the one who "blots out your transgressions." In the Gospel Jesus heals the paralytic by pronouncing the forgiveness of his sins. COMMENTARY Old Testament: Isaiah 43:18-25 The prophet announces that the Lord is about to accomplish a new thing: he will free Israel from captivity and restore them to a more idyllic existence. The image here is that of a new Exodus, as God provides for his people, as he leads and guides them back home (vv ...

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