Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 351 to 375 of 4964 results

351. Christmas 1

Isaiah 61:10–62:3, Luke 2:21-40, Galatians 3:23–4:7, Colossians 3:12-21

Sermon Aid

Russell F. Anderson

... up to God in worship and to the world in witness, as did Anna. To be a Christian involves the same steps. Embracing Jesus in faith; then lifting him in thanksgiving to God for the gift of salvation and lifting him in witness to others as the fulfillment of our hopes. Outline: 1. To be a Christian means to lift up Jesus Christ in faith, as did Simeon. 2. Then lift up Christ in worship (v. 28) and 3. Lift him up in witness (vv. 29-32). The last point in the above outline is borne out by this story. Joy ...

352. Remembering The Saints

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Larry R. Kalajainen

... we do this kind of significant remembering of the persons in the past who have had important influences on us, we begin to get a sense of our place in the world, and a hint or a glimpse of where we might be headed. In short, memory leads to hope. And that's what's happening in this passage from the Revelation. The seer is writing to seven congregations in Asia Minor somewhere near the end of the first century and the beginning of the second. In the 50 or 60 years since Jesus was crucified, the new movement ...

353. "Crown Him Lord of all!"

Sermon

William Luoma

... love him because he cares for us. You have a king and I have a king. His name is Jesus. We call him Lord. I hope you will be his always. Hymn - "Crown Him with Many Crowns" Reader:(To be read while one stanza of the hymn is played softly)The ... about us. Jesus challenges us who are often of little faith, "believe in God, believe also in me." 4. This is a king who offers hope.In a tract that came across my desk some time ago, there was in bold print, a provocative question, intended to make the reader stop ...

354. The Day You Were Healed

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon

... an agonized humanity is on our hearts, and we respond with prayers and gifts, with dollars for research, with bread for hungry children, and with our presence in compassion at the side of someone close to us in trial. We can never give up hope. But sometimes there is one last hope - hope discovered not in looking forward to a wonder cure, but in turning backward to the one who heals. When an anxious family has to hear what seems to be the final word, "I’m sorry. There is nothing we can do," the final word ...

355. Second Sunday in Advent

Romans 15:4-13

Bulletin Aid

... recorded in the Scriptures: Instill in our hearts a greater desire to read and study your Word; that by the power of the Holy Spirit, hope may strengthen our faith. We pray through Christ, the hope of the world. Amen. Prayer of Confession Your Word is precious to us, Father. But we confess we are not as familiar with your promises as we ought to be. Forgive us for limiting our hope by not being better students of Scripture. May our study of your Word lead us to a knowledge and acceptance of your Son as Lord ...

356. I Knew You’d Come

John 6:16-24

Sermon

Richard Hoefler

... the point. He doesn’t do it to present a problem for us to solve. He does it to save us - and that is our only hope. A Pool in My Savior’s Hand Of the three accounts of this story in our Gospels, John has the shortest - only four verses (6: ... said before he died was, ‘I knew you’d come.’ " This is the overwhelming message of this miracle. This is the gospel. This is our hope. This is the positive promise of almighty God. In every hour of trouble and need God comes to us. No obstacle is too great, no ...

357. Feeling Down And Looking Up

Isaiah 40:1-31

Sermon

Frederick C. Edwards

... unable to feel the forgiveness of God, or any release from the guilt that oppressed her. I told her about the God of love I believe in, ready to forgive us if we will but accept it, and that we must also forgive ourselves. We talked of the things she hoped and dreamed of in her future, and the person she wanted to be. I reminded her of all the people who loved her. We talked and worked together most of the day. At one point, she said, "You’re really a very happy person aren’t you?" I acknowledged that ...

358. When Something is About to Happen

Mark 13:32-37

Sermon

Thomas Long

... with this caution against wanting to know too much, we are still left with too little. We still have the question of how to hope in the meantime, when nothing ever happens. And that is why the writer of Mark remembered the other word which Jesus said. This word ... world. Every time Christians recite the old phrase in the creed, "He will come to judge the quick and the dead," we disclose our hope that frail human justice, the kind one can get with a good lawyer and a full checkbook, is not all the justice life ...

359. When Nothing Can Be Done

Mark 1:40-45

Sermon

Thomas Long

... iron.3 Emily is a modern day leper, one about whom her culture has sadly shaken its head and said, "I’m sorry. The die has been cast. The scars are too deep. Nothing can be done." And yet, in her mother’s desperate cry there is a hope beyond all hoping, an appeal to the last resort of grace. "Help her to know," she prays, "that she is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless ..." "If you will," said the leper to Jesus, "you can heal me." And Jesus was moved with strong compassion. The One who ...

360. Who Needs a Shepherd These Days?

John 10:1-21

Sermon

Charles L. Koester

... very depths and recesses of my being in spite of my faults, failings and hang-ups, because God has planted it there. Further, I believe without Christ’s voice in my life and in the life of this, God’s world, the whole thing makes no sense. Give me hope, you cry? You shall have it, says Christ. Heed my voice. Follow me. You shall have life richly, fully abundantly, eternally. God does not call most of us to greatness, but he does call each and all of us to faithfulness. We heed his voice when we get our ...

361. Coping When It Seems Impossible

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... destroys the world but rather One who comes into it to reach out and try to make us healthy, to save us, to give us hope to keep going, who helps calm the storms and floods of our lives" (Dr. Henry Sawatzky). There is infinite comfort in a verse by Ernesto ... illness." Larson goes on to share the secret of his ability to cope with life: "We Christians, of all people, have a good reason to hope. Hope is a gift of God based on the belief that God created us and is our friend and helper. If I believe in a God ...

362. What Was That About?

Daniel 7:1-14

Sermon

Alton F. Wedel

... cheek opinionated columnists who map the future. If you are young and see the future as a threat, you can stand on this great hope and see an altogether different life ahead for you. If you are older and the sunset years are rushing in, you can know that ... given us the promise, and we look forward to that day of victory when God is everything, when nothing stands between us. Now In the hope of God’s fulfillment, the victory of the Son of Man, the certainty of the kingdom and the power and the glory, we can ...

363. Advent 3: Won't You Let Him Into Your Gift-Giving?

Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

James W. Moore

... and I used to ridicule these same people who were out there with us. Yet they are the only persons who would, or perhaps could, do what we had to do today. It must have been their Christian spirit hat could help them see beyond the horror… to the hope.” That tragic day turned around the life of that young lieutenant. As he had admitted, he had never been religious, had seldom gone to church except for weddings and funerals, but from that time on he was a new man. Christ was born in his heart. From that ...

364. Good News for Bad Times

Isaiah 40:1-31

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... for a better world because Christ is the answer to these problems. This applies to any problem you can mention. There is no problem that cannot be solved when the problem is approached in the spirit of Christ -- a spirit of justice, love, and goodwill. And there is hope for you as an individual. One thing is sure: you need not stay as you are. You can change by the power of God's Spirit. God in Christ can overrule in God's providence and bring the best out of the worst in you. Surrender your heart to Christ ...

365. Are You the One?

Matthew 11:1-19

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... listening (and probably laughing at the palace soap opera). So John is in jail. He has time to think. He remembers the high hopes he had about Jesus being the Messiah. He had been prepared for the revolution, and would have been the first to volunteer to ... I wonder if Jesus' response is a way of saying don't get tripped up on all this Messiah stuff. You might be pinning your hopes on someone dropping on to the scene like some deus ex machina in a Greek play here to magically fix things and make everything ...

366. The Salvation Army Parade

Mark 11:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

... participants recalls. The people present experienced the active presence of the living God. (3) God is at work even when we are not aware of it. The people that first Palm Sunday were looking for a conquering king. Jesus appreciated the peoples' high hopes, but he knew that those hopes were shortsighted. God had a different plan ” a plan that would change the world forever. This brings us to the final thing to be said for the morning. IT IS EASY TO SHOUT - IT IS MUCH HARDER TO SERVE. You have seen those ...

367. It Isn't Easy Getting Ready For Christmas

Luke 3:1-20

Sermon

King Duncan

... warmth to our hearts, kindness to our lips, charity to our purses. Who can deny that the love of Christmas has the power to transform human society? In fact, that is exactly what Christmas was designed to do--transform human society. It does that by the power of hope. Whenever a baby is born in a family--a baby that is planned for and eagerly awaited--it comes with great promise. We stare into his or her beautiful eyes and see coming days of "mama" and "da-da." The days of learning to crawl and then walk ...

368. In the Meantime: Between the First and Second Comings

Isaiah 2:1-5

Sermon

David Busic

... mid-air. It is the one, “not like the others.” What comes before and what comes after have to do with God’s judgment of the rebellious nation. But Isaiah 2:1-5 has a very different tenor and a very different message. It is a message of hope, hope that one day, “in the last days” things will be very different indeed. We can see the author’s vision of a new day through the symbols he uses: envision a high, lofty, breath-taking mountain; and on the mountain the bright, shining, holy house of God is ...

369. Living With The Nitty Gritty

1 Peter 1:13-2:3

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... lamb, without blemish or spot. He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest at the end of the times for your sake. Through him you have confidence in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and your hope are in God alone. Thus endeth the reading of the lesson and may it become a living word for us. Let us pray. Take the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts. Make them acceptable in your sight oh Lord, for you are our strength and our ...

370. Power For Christian Living: Am I On My Own?

Romans 3:3-5

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... are justified by faith and have peace with God through Jesus Christ, (Romans 12:1). Then states a heartening aspect of the gospel: “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” (Romans 5:3-5, NIV) One of the joys of my life is to chair the Evangelism Committee of the World ...

371. Getting Your Politics Right

Matthew 6:5-15

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... of this world apart from God. At our best we are content with the provision of daily bread and the gift of forgiveness received from God and extended to others. At our worst we are indeed worse because we know better. What this means is that the focus of my hope has shifted. There was a time not long ago when I believed that if we elected the right people to office, and if we passed more laws that reflected the Christian moral vision, and that if we could just get our hands on enough of the levers of power ...

372. Stumbling in Darkness, Looking for Light

Isaiah 9:1-7, John 1:5

Sermon

John E. Harnish

... raise our voices as a protest at midnight, singing: Joy to the world, the Lord is come, let earth receive her king; Let every heart prepare him room and heaven and nature sing. Tonight we gather here as sons and daughters of the light. We gather as a community of hope, a people of peace. We witness to the One who is born to be the light of the world, and in our gathering we are bold to say to the darkness of our day, "WE BEG TO DIFFER. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will never overcome ...

373. The Revelation Code V: Cruisin' Toward the Dream

Revelation 21:1-27

Sermon

John E. Harnish

... it in the name of Christ…but wrong to do it without a note of unalloyed triumphant gladness. The world's dark night may still continue pressing in upon us, but if we have seen Christ, then we know that the darkness of history is now shot through with unquenchable hope, and with the final certainty of the glorious outcome of all its struggles. Then he says: Or to make it more personal, I may go down into the dark, but if I do, I am still in the hands of Him who bears the scepter of all the universe and ...

374. Repairing Our Lives

1 Corinthians 15:19-26

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... be considered accursed. — Isaiah 65:17-20 God was ever ready to repair the breach between himself and his people and the Lord stands ready today to do the same. Jesus was sent into the world to repair our broken lives; he was sent to bring the light. When all hope was lost he came to bring life. As humans we are innately damaged, incomplete and need the great physician Jesus to restore us. At times, as well, we are all lost on the path of life. Sometimes we are so far off course that the ship of our life ...

375. Simeon and Anna: The Quiet of the Country

Luke 2:21-40

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... be delayed for awhile, even sometimes for a long while, but in due time it will come. It is as certain as the rising sun. Those who ask will receive; the seeker will find; the worker will reap; those who knock will have the door opened to them. Holy hopes and obedient worship will be honored. Then the second truth: An experience of God should result in praise and witness. This is seen clearly in Anna. Note that one verse that says it all: “And coming up at that very hour, she gave thanks to God, and spoke ...

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