Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 351 to 375 of 928 results

351. A Fool’s Tools

Matthew 25:14-30

Sermon

... will have arrived in full bloom - the former five-talent individuals shuffling alongside the one-talent individuals, all engaged in a kind of rhythmic breathing to a four/four cadence, no one any longer able to use his tools. Recently Eddie and I were enjoying a sunny vacation day when we spotted a small plane pulling an ad streamer for a specific product. His immediate comment was, "Dad, they can’t make me buy that." At that moment I knew I had just heard a young boy being his own boy. I hoped I could ...

352. "I appeal to Caesar!"

Acts 24:1-27, Acts 25:1-12

Sermon Aid

CSS

Two years at Caesarea! Today people might regard that as an ideal vacation - warm Mediterranean breezes, a rocky shoreline with some sandy beaches, daily pageantry with the drills of the Roman legions, plenty of sunshine and swimming. Today, only a few miles to the south, the shore is lined with the high-rise resort hotels of Tel-Aviv. Caesarea itself has become a ...

353. Touring Greece

Illustration

A woman tourist who took her car on a European vacation posed for a picture in front of some fallen pillars in Greece. "Don’t get the car in the picture," she warned, "or my husband will think I ran into the place."

354. Status Quo

Illustration

Staff

A traveling salesman on vacation had been duck shooting in the marshes all day. When darkness overtook him he found he was miles from his motel and hopelessly lost. After walking for many miles he finally came upon a farmhouse and banged on the door. A window was opened at last and a man stuck his head out demanding to know what he wanted. "I want to stay here all night," the salesman pleaded. "It’s okay with me; stay there all night!" yelled the farmer, slamming down the window.

355. "A" Lamb to "the" Lamb

Exodus 12:1-30

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

... fall in the Garden of Eden and has been crippled by his sins ever since. But God’s Lamb offers to give us forgiveness and salvation by his death. He died for us. He died in our place. The true story is told of children in Vacation Church School who were studying Hebrew worship. They were five- and six-year-olds, and the teacher had them engaged in a project that would help them to visualize the lesson. She had been trying to help them to understand "sacrifice." The children had constructed a little ...

356. A King Worth Having

Zechariah 9:9-13

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... now says in today’s Gospel lesson, "Come to me all ..." Now it is our turn to come to him. He is waiting for you to come. In Berkeley, California, near the campus of the University of California, there is a ramp that goes up to an expressway. At vacation time, students crowd the ramp, hitching rides home. They have signs saying the town where they want to go. One young man had a sign saying, "Mom is waiting." How could anyone resist picking him up? Who would have the heart to keep a mother waiting for her ...

357. Your Money and Your Life

Matthew 6:19-24

Sermon

Robert Bachelder

... to bend the knee to some current incarnation of Baal, to some Gucci or Halston, say. While we Protestants are familiar with the great teaching of justification by grace through faith, we nevertheless attempt to justify our existence by building fancy houses and taking expensive vacations. Malcom Muggeridge was right to call ours the "Age of Credulity"! Such a course is a dead end in every way. If we are looking to the things of this world to make us happy, we are looking in the wrong place, for as Yeats ...

358. A Tale of Two Cemeteries

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

George Bass

... City, Ollie Jelinet; it was titled " ‘Poorest of poor’ make her life richer." There was a time when Ollie Jelinek, according to the story, "thought her life was her two fur coats and a summer home in the mountains. But now she spends her vacations in Haiti or India, living ‘with the poorest of the poor.’ " She had a conversion experience, during an illness, at an evangelical prayer meeting in a Catholic high school; three weeks after she had been "prayed over," she found that God had healed her ...

359. A Glimpse of God

John 14:5-14

Sermon

George Bass

... assurance" was a precious gift of grace for them. Death was changed from an enemy into a friend. William S. Coffin, Jr., writes about what he calls "A Close Brush with Death" in his autobiography, Once to Every Man. He developed pleurisy during one summer vacation, paid no attention to it until it flared up again in September and was complicated by pneumonia and a high fever. He was taken to the hospital by ambulance, desperately ill. "I had always felt awkward calling on the dying. Now I realized how ...

360. How’s Your Appetite?

Matthew 5:6 · Luke 14:1-14

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... path like careless fools. Our misguided appetites lead us along the wrong paths. Here is a person who says, with all honesty, that his primary goal is to be successful in business. How does he go about it? He works early and late and allows himself few vacations. When the hard day is ended, he gives himself to a self-study on the psychology of salesmanshIp. Barriers do not defeat him. They are erected to be overcome. His quest is all-absorbing. No customer is too hard to crack. What an appetite he brings to ...

361. A MIRACLE AWAITS YOU EVERY DAY

Illustration

John H. Krahn

... pictures, God’s miracles, are there every day of our lives, but our eyes are not open to see them. Why don’t we see these miracles that are happening all the time in the most common places? Remember the last time you went on vacation? Coming home, the same old house looks different when you first walk in the door. Why? Because a blanket of daily anxieties, fears, depressions, problems, and difficulties were temporarily lifted while you were away. During his annual physical, a friend of mine was shocked ...

362. THE SCANDALOUS GOSPEL

Illustration

John H. Krahn

... particular difficulty keeping. I am uncomfortable with those stories in which God harshly disciplines his wayward people, especially when I am feeling wayward. I am not particularly pleased with God’s demands that I worship him every Sunday, especially when I am on vacation in a strange community not knowing the location of the nearest church. I would not like to think that tithing is the generosity encouraged by Scripture and would rather only throw a five dollar or a ten dollar bill in the collection ...

363. NOT GUILTY!

Illustration

John H. Krahn

... he began to speak out against sin, and before long he was in trouble. At age thirty-three his enemies brought a case against him, and they crucified him on a trumped-up charge. Three days later, several women visited his grave only to discover it vacated. He had returned to life! God’s power overcame death’s power, and Jesus lived again. Jesus’ resurrection gave birth to a new judicial system. Now those who believe in Christ can offer their faith in him as payment for their mistakes. And when they do ...

364. Winners, Losers and the Gospel

Mt 16:25

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... and eventually begin to demand that others follow her example. The same fate can befall the minister as he wins new members, or the salesman as he wins new accounts, or the politician as he wins another election. Years ago an extended family was vacationing in a resort area, and one morning several family members decided to go miniature golfing. Included in the number was a young lad. No one expects a child to play miniature golf as an adult would, and inevitably this young lad’s score was considerably ...

365. The Little Miracle Before The Big One

Luke 22:47-53

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

... death! Have you ever noticed that the needs of others come to us also at odd and inconvenient times? We would really like to help, to show our concern, but those problems always come when we are "too busy," "too tired," "it’s our day off," "we are on vacation," "we just got to bed," or "we don’t feel very well ourselves today" - people’s needs never match the convenient times in our lives. The wonder of this miracle is that Jesus, with so much at stake, takes time for a small matter for a man no one ...

366. An Invitation to a Feast

Matthew 22:1-14

Sermon

Jerry L. Schmalemberger

... which are supreme. Probably the biggest competition for our loyalty to church and our Savior and living the Christian life is good causes in the community and in our lives, but not the best. Our involvement in social groups, in lodges, our elaborate vacations, recreation, television programs, and even our job, are certainly good reasons for arranging our priorities. We can be so busy making our living that we forget to make the most fulfilling life possible. It’s an easy temptation to give our energy and ...

367. Embalmed Alive

John 14:5-14

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... insulted and hurt, and we chastised them verbally, because no one must question this. This is the good life! Everybody says it is! Some others do the things a little differently. They slave away monotonously for fifty weeks for that two weeks they receive as vacation. This is their reward. For two weeks, they will live! Or they slave away for years so that they can be happy and secure when they retire in old age. Watch them. See how happy they are. Go through those retirement homes. Visit those retirement ...

368. Hindering Riches

Matthew 19:16-30

Sermon

Herchel H. Sheets

... , "Nothing is sadder than the consequences of having worldly standards without worldly means."5 But the increase of means does not usually mean a lowering of standards of living. It means a raising of standards and a fertilizing of wants. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, on a vacation at the beach once, was stimulated to thought by a shell which she picked up from the sand. It had once housed a whelk, a small snail-like creature. After the whelk’s death, a little hermit crab had temporarily inhabited the shell. The ...

369. The Time of Our Visitation

Sermon

Leonard Mann

... them know for sure that everything was all right. It was their moment of deepest despair and anxiety, but then came Jesus. There were also other times he came. There was Mary Magdalene, sin-stained, whom he had touched and transformed; and she stood beside the vacated tomb, like a lost child, not understanding, and alone - but then came Jesus, not from within the tomb, but from outside it, and he said, "Mary!" and she knew him, and she ran - not weeping, but rejoicing - to tell the others that she had seen ...

370. Blessed Are The Focused - Father's Day

Proverbs 4:1-27

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... though it was free. One day God may ask her, "Why did you care more about your dog's obedience than about your precious daughter's relationship with me?" Often I think about my late father whom we called "papa." I recall some wonderful family vacation experiences. However, we caused Papa considerable stress. When we stopped at a restaurant we kids were like a swarm of locusts. Our appetites ravaged papa's budget. One Sunday morning we were somewhere in Delaware, returning from a trip to New York. When it ...

371. Because He Lives

1 Corinthians 15:12-34

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... is a second truth from the scripture: IF OUR FAITH IS FOCUSED ON THIS WORLD ONLY, IT IS A PITIFUL FRAUD. Paul writes, "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied." If I were to plan a two-week vacation at Destin, Florida, I would be foolish indeed to make a hotel reservation for one night only. How much more foolish it is to make adequate provision for 80 or 90 years on this little planet but to ignore the next hundred million years which I am going to spend ...

372. Decaffeinated Christianity

Mark 10:35-45

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... little sacrifice of us. Most of us live on the affluent side of Memphis. When is the last time you or I really sacrificed for the cause of Christ? Have we been fasting lately in order to spend more time in prayer? Has any of us skipped a vacation lately because we felt that some missional cause needed the money? When was the last time we took a Christian position on some controversial issue that caused us to catch some flak? When did you last boycott a movie because you knew it contained profanity? How many ...

373. Controlling Our Cravings

Luke 12:13-21, Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... materialism so fashionable in Hollywood and elsewhere that is obscene in a world in which 40 percent of the human family lives at some level of poverty. But what about the normal American dream of owning a comfortable home, building a successful business, taking nice vacations, educating the children, and providing a comfortable retirement? Is it wrong to want some of life's luxuries? Is it wrong for me to want a red corvette to help ease me through my mid-life crisis? If I had a red corvette, would it ...

374. Those Bothersome Do’s and Don’ts

Drama

Sarah Walton Miller

... serious? Or just stupid! Or maybe HE’S the one who’s stupid! VOICE: Remember that the Sabbath is a day holy to God. You work for six days. That seventh day is for rest and worship. MALE 1: Well, things are different now. With the short work week and vacations, maybe we don’t need all that rest. But I guess we do need to get together with our Creator occasionally. FEMALE 2: Occasionally? Some say we need to get in touch every day! FEMALE 3: Face God every DAY? I don’t think I could stand that. FEMALE ...

375. MR. CAIN

Drama

Jerome W. Nilssen

... , you can’t miss. CAIN All night long I saw him staring at me. He was looking at my scar. JAREL He was just jealous. He was jealously admiring you. He RESPECTS you. CAIN No, he doesn’t. He knows something. JAREL Forget it. CAIN What I need is a vacation. JAREL So do I. CAIN Everybody does. You got to get away once in a while or things get to be too much for you. You lose control. JAREL You get too serious. CAIN You got to live it up. JAREL You can’t keep your nose to the axe ...

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