Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 3676 to 3700 of 4963 results

3676. Can't We All Just Get Along?

Mark 9:38-41

Sermon

King Duncan

... After approximately eight miles, officers cornered King’s car. A Highway Patrolman ordered King and his two passengers to exit the vehicle and lie face down on the ground. The two passengers complied and were taken into custody without incident. King initially remained in the car. When he finally did emerge, however, he acted bizarrely: giggling, patting the ground, and waving to the police helicopter overhead. King then grabbed the back of his pants. One of the officers thought he was reaching for a gun ...

3677. First Things First

Luke 21:25-36

Sermon

Gary L. Carver

... his own commission for the present, yet here he was wondering what was going to happen to this other man out in the future. I imagine there was a real note of harshness in the voice of Jesus when he said: "Simon, if it be my will that this one remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow thou me." In other words, he was saying, "Simon, mind your own business. First things first. I have given you a task to do, and the important thing is for you to be faithful at that point, not to spend your ...

3678. Our Task: Acceptance and Challenge

Luke 2:41-52

Sermon

Gary L. Carver

... builds up immunities of any kind is through some kind of exposure. If a child is hermetically sealed off from any kind of suffering or challenge, he or she never develops the strength to cope with those realities and because a parent is unable to remain with the child always, there eventually are encounters which the child cannot handle, and what is worse, what strengths that child possesses are never put to work in the task of finishing creation. We do not do our children, or the whole of creation, a ...

3679. What Gift Do You Bring?

Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

Gary L. Carver

... are stars in the "East" — in signs, in experiences, in history, in the news, that point to the mystery and awesomeness of God. They point to the existence of God. But without the Bible to define and clarify the meaning of those experiences, the picture of God remains unclear. We see them every day: the unfolding of a rose, the birth of a baby, the falling of the Berlin wall. What does it mean? The grandeur of the Grand Canyons. Signs are all around us that point to the mystery and awesomeness of God. We ...

3680. More Time

Luke 13:1-9

Sermon

Donald Charles Lacy

... to it. In worship, study, and prayer we sense these are ways not only to come to his kingdom but to stay in it all our days. It is a magnificent scene that never ever loses its magnetism. The lure of its lovely gardens and luscious fruit remains intact. Only the subtle temptations of the devil and sometimes horrific onslaughts he sends cloud our days and give nearly overwhelming darkness to our nights. The best of all is that the completion of our journey will find us safe and sound in his kingdom, never to ...

3681. History Hangs in the Balance

Luke 23:1-49

Sermon

Donald Charles Lacy

... and the angels watch in troubled awe. You and I observe from afar, indeed, a great distance. Unless we figuratively or literally read the passage on our knees, we are not apt to catch this sublime, serious moment. Yes, and our appreciation may very well remain at surface level, more or less. It is not a moment of timidity but one of pure gratitude. Historians and theologians record these events today. It is nearly impossible to do so without commentary that shows biases and that is not all bad! Our faith ...

3682. A Frightening Friday

John 18:1-19:42

Sermon

Donald Charles Lacy

... for her was John. Our Lord would look after his mother, like any good Jewish son, and so he gave her to one he must have trusted the most. It all happened just before he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. Exactly what occurs after that remains questionable, except for mention in the Acts of the Apostles. In reverential retrospect we view a son who refused to die before his mother received some security for the future. For an instant, motherhood is lifted to a new level because she bore the Son of the ...

3683. Those Who Doubt

John 20:19-31

Sermon

Donald Charles Lacy

... all doubts? Perchance we know them because we are the guilty parties! A cardinal theological principle is that we are saved or converted by faith. We are given the gift and receive it in faith like children. The first Easter has long passed and Thomas remains a topic of discussion. The heart of the lesson is there for all seekers to accept: We are to believe without physically touching his hands and side. His ongoing spiritual presence is the pearl of great price that gives us hope and direction for times ...

3684. Fish and Sheep

John 21:15-25, John 21:1-14

Sermon

Donald Charles Lacy

... was to love his Lord, tend his sheep, and feed his sheep. The recipient of the inquiries seemed to grow weary and, in impatience or hurt feelings, attempted to remind the Lord that he knew everything. It was a classic scene for all our spiritual ancestors and will remain so for all future generations, provided the Lord tarries. We may want to suggest to Jesus that he take it a little easier on the poor fellow. As a matter of fact, we may even begin to feel sorry for him. Peter, the Lord really isn't angry ...

3685. So, Are You The Messiah?

John 10:22-30

Sermon

Donald Charles Lacy

... those who have missed the signs of messiahship. It was the Feast of the Dedication — Hanukkah, and Jesus was walking in the temple. To be more specific, he was in the portico of Solomon. There were those who thought it contained some of the remains of Solomon's temple. It is most likely he was being quizzed by an upper echelon of people, who included a generous number of Sadducees. They were prominent politicians. We might best delineate them as those who straddled the fence between their own countrymen ...

3686. What Outsiders Can Teach Us

Luke 7:1-10

Sermon

David R. Cartwright

... when they had their religious conversation, each taking turns. Afterward, Aunt Bessie told me about it. She said, "You know, the more she talked about her God, the more her God seemed to be a lot like my Jesus." Aunt Bessie never tried that again. She and her neighbor remained good friends for as long as Aunt Bessie lived. That was the day she found that an outsider had a lot to teach her. For us, here at the church, I think there's another small lesson that we can learn. Maybe it's not so little after all ...

3687. Ministering When You Are Not Welcome

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Sermon

David R. Cartwright

... are to do as he did. We are to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. "Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!' And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid" (Luke 10:5-6). Likewise, don't go from house to house trying to find better accommodations. Eat what is set before you. Don't go off trying to see if you ...

3688. A Samaritan Took Care of Him

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

David R. Cartwright

... A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho" (Luke 10:30). At this point, we aren't told anything about the man. Not his nationality or even his name is revealed to us. He was simply a man traveling down the road. The road the man was traveling on remains, to this day, as one of the most dangerous roads in the world, the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. In a little less than eighteen miles, the road drops from 2,500 feet above sea level at Jerusalem to 770 feet below sea level at Jericho. For as long as ...

3689. Only the Lonely

Luke 14:1, 7-14

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... it. Only the lonely realize that their spiritual emptiness can only be filled by the one who made us. The fantasies and illusions about happiness which are nurtured by the world's standards are only discovered for what they are by those who find their loneliness remains when they attain what they have sought. Those who hunger for the things of this world and then get what they want, no longer want what they get. They want more. That's why greed rules today. Only the lonely make their own wounds a source ...

3690. Lean on Me

Luke 18:1-8

Sermon

John Wayne Clarke

... importance of persevering in prayer. The argument is this: If an unrighteous judge will give a fair judgment in the case of a helpless widow in whom he has no interest, how much more will our God answer the unwearied cry for justice from those people who remain true to the faith? It is important to remember here that the person in our parable is identified as a widow. Remember the "then and there" of our parable. A widow in this time in history was a defenseless human being. They were as a class of people ...

3691. A Tax Collector Becomes Rich

Luke 19:1-10

Sermon

John Wayne Clarke

... other weightlifters, construction workers, even professional wrestlers, but nobody could do it. One day, a short and skinny guy came in and signed up for the contest. After the laughter died down, the owner grabbed a lemon and squeezed away. Then he handed the wrinkled remains to the little man. The crowd's laughter turned to silence as the man clenched his fist around the lemon and six drops fell into the glass. As the crowd cheered, the manager paid out the winning prize and asked the short guy what he ...

3692. Putting Eternity to the Test

Luke 20:27-38

Sermon

John Wayne Clarke

... as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love." One way to look at these verses is to understand that with God, every generation is present tense and once God is your God, that fact remains for eternity. When Jesus comes, he connects himself to the great "I AM," by proclaiming for all to hear, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die ...

3693. The Freedom to Interpret

John 8:31-36

Sermon

John Wayne Clarke

... that we all need to learn. It is the lesson, or better yet the picture, of Jesus handing the truth to his disciples. It is the picture of those same disciples handing that truth onto Paul and to other followers after them. And then those followers who remained true and focused on freedom in Christ handed that same truth onto Wyfliff, Huss, Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, and those that followed them. It was, and is, freedom to be the people that we have been created to be. Not people who will be told how to read ...

3694. What Price Must We Pay?

Luke 6:20-31

Sermon

John Wayne Clarke

... in the world. Sadly, every child of God has gifts to be shared, but not all come to understand how important it is to share those gifts with others. Most of the time we live our lives inclined to believe that the demands of the gospel are that we remain good people and try to be fair in our dealings with the world. Our reading today throws a major curveball at all of our assumptions about living the life Jesus wants for us to live. Let us retrace some of what has already happened to this point in Luke ...

3695. Father, Forgive Them!

Luke 23:33-43

Sermon

John Wayne Clarke

... . His witness to us is that even there, even at the point of torture and death, when he should feel most vulnerable and exposed, he shows us that God's love never takes a vacation. His example is our good fortune in understanding that there is one reality that remains when all seems to be darkness, and that is, in the end, God prevails even over death! H. G. Wells wrote a story titled, "The Country of the Blind." In it, he tells about a hidden valley shut off from the rest of the world by very high cliffs ...

3696. Standing Tall in the Lord

Philippians 3:17-4:1

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... , as he or his disciple wrote in the pastoral epistles: "If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful — for he cannot deny himself" (2 Timothy 2:11b-13). The challenge that Paul presented to the Philippians is still present today, only its manifestations have changed. The forces allied against Christianity today are multiple and significant and they come in various forms of ...

3697. God’s Grammar

Galatians 3:23-29

Sermon

John Jamison

... . As you would expect, there was a split. Some of the disciples had left Jerusalem, and along with Paul, Silas, and many others, preached a gospel of salvation to all. They offered baptism to any and all who would come. The disciples who remained in Jerusalem, those well-healed traditional boys, fought this move tooth and nail, and insisted that all newcomers first be circumcised as Jews before being allowed to join the church. They also insisted that Christians could not eat unclean Gentile food, eat any ...

3698. It All Begins with Prayer

1 Timothy 2:1-7

Sermon

Clayton A. Lord

... he runs into during his day. This goes right along with Paul's encouragement to pray without ceasing. Paul sees every encounter as an opportunity to invite God into the situation. What a wonderful way to live. The truth is that everyone we know is either struggling to remain faithful to Christ or hasn't been introduced to him yet. Everyone we know is facing trials, and tests, looking for a route to happiness and meaning in life. It is so easy to judge other people. We look at someone and make all kinds of ...

3699. The Promise that Won’t Be Broken

2 Timothy 1:1-14

Sermon

Clayton A. Lord

... , we find we are able to do what we could not do before. Jesus now stands with us and we have the power of the Holy Spirit within us. This is what makes it possible for the alcoholic to leave their drinking, for those struggling with infidelity to remain faithful to their spouses, for the gambler to turn away from the games of chance. We cannot do it on our own, but we have been promised power from above so that we might do extraordinary things. A fourth promise is that we will gain new understanding and ...

3700. Falling Short

Romans 3:19-28

Sermon

Donna Schaper

... my desk is littered with contradictory demands? When several different supervisors are asking me for several different things simultaneously? When the pink slips come out in my business, how do I stay cheery if I am a survivor? With whom do I identify, the boss or the remaining custodian? How can I sing after the terrorist bombings and before the sounds of war fill my living room? How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? How can we keep from falling short? There is too much to do and too little ...

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