Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 3726 to 3750 of 5000 results

3726. Abraham and the Meaning of Consecration

Genesis 22:1-19

Sermon

Don Yocom

... we are to give that which is good, or holy; that which is acceptable, or without sin; and that which is reasonable to expect in true worship. How do we do this? We certainly do not want it to be taken lightly. Samuel Clemens, better knows as Mark Twin, in some biographical notes tells about a village revival: "Campbellite revival. All converted but me. All sinners again in a week." We are advised in the Scriptures to present our bodies. Not just "give your heart to God," but give ALL of yourself. That is ...

3727. Whose Life Is It Anyway?

Drama

Sarah Walton Miller

... - TEACHER: No, no. My father WAS a teacher. It was my mother. She never was reconciled to being the wife of a school teacher. I don’t think she has entirely forgiven me. She thinks teachers are poorly paid, badly treated and somewhere below the halfway mark in the social scale. SON: Are you glad you are a teacher? Are you happy? TEACHER: [honestly] Well, James, I am, and I’m not. Nobody is always happy. Everybody has doubts. But I made the decision. Knowing all these things and living with them is ...

3728. The Way I See It

Drama

Sarah Walton Miller

... I let him know that, no matter what he’s done or what has happened to him, HE IS MY SON! How can I tell him I love him without embarrassing him? When I opened the door - there he stood after two years of silence. Filthy and ragged. The marks of - something - something - in his face. The most beautiful sight on God’s earth. My son. Elizabeth doesn’t understand, poor girl. She makes her own unhappiness. So needlessly. Doesn’t she know her own worth? Doesn’t she know what a girl she is? I see myself ...

3729. Well, What Did You Expect?

Acts 12:1-19a

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... no other way of explaining it. Hundreds of people I know were praying for him, and their prayers were answered. No one will ever change my mind about that." All right. That is one point of view. Let’s look at another. This week I ran across those words of Mark Twain again, the words that he has Huckleberry Finn say in that delightful book of the same name: "Miz Watson took me into a closet and prayed, but nothing came of it. She told me to pray everyday, and whatever I would ask for, I’d get it. But it ...

3730. How Do You Like Yourself?

1 Peter 3:8-22

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... will be a hint and inspiration to us all. He says: "I don’t count myself as having learned too much in this world, but this one thing I do, forgetting everything that is behind, and stretching out to everything that is ahead, I press toward the mark of the prize of the high calling in Jesus Christ." THIS ONE THING - this integrating factor in my personality, this unifying force in my life, this one thing I do - the calling of Jesus Christ. Making yourself fit to live with demands that you’re necessary ...

3731. Molehills and Mountains

Matthew 6:25-34, Mark 8:31--9:1

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... it. We tear ourselves to pieces when we add to our anxiety the fact that our anxiety becomes another reason for anxiety. The first step in the control of all this anxiety is to place a lot of things in the category of things that can’t be changed. We mark them as a brick wall and stop beating our heads against them. In the words of the old and familiar prayer: "Lord, grant me the courage to change the things that can be changed, and the serenity to accept the things that can’t be changed, and the wisdom ...

3732. Perhaps Next Summer...

Acts 24:1-27

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... neglected, challenges unmet, inspiration stifled, potential allowed to deteriorate, talents undeveloped - all due to this life-sucking parasite of procrastination. What has been said of procrastination? Edgar Howe said: "Most people put off till tomorrow what they should have done yesterday." Mark Twain put it: "Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can put off till the day after tomorrow just as easily." But perhaps Henry George Bohn was more truthful when he said: "One of these days - ‘ONE OF THESE ...

3733. Our Father Who Art on Earth

Proverbs 1:8-19

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... -full pews. The pews which, on Mother’s Day, were filled and over-flowing, with chairs in the aisles. For most everyone, Mother’s Day means church. It’s rather interesting that most church calendars carry the date for Mother’s Day, but few of them mark it for Father’s Day. And then, too, even the Birth and Resurrection fellowship that counts Christmas and Easter as their only religious obligations during the year have now, most of them, added a third - Mother’s day. But they’re a long way from ...

3734. Chapter I

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Frank H. Seilhamer

... obey him. In a word, they would be as faithful to God as he would be to them. Hence, the style of life that would be lived between God and his people was to be determined by how much each meant to the other. Their relationship was to bear the marks of the love each had for the partner to whom they were bound. If God was loved enough to be central in their lives, his people would act in ways that demonstrated that. If he, indeed, were their Lord then it simply would follow as a matter of course that ...

3735. Chapter II

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Frank H. Seilhamer

... to dominate always leads eventually to broken relationships. That is why the Hebrew terms for sin frequently describe distance between two people or two objects. They are relational in their root meanings. Chatah, for instance, has the basic meaning of "to miss the mark." It can describe an arrow that is shot at a target and flies past its intended goal. The target remains, the arrow zips past, putting distance between itself and its proper meeting-point. The term avar, also translated "to sin" or "to ...

3736. Chapter V

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Frank H. Seilhamer

... !" went the hammer! "Ping" went the main-spring. "Mom!" screamed a little five-year-old boy. I went scurrying out from under that porch, with blood running down my face. A patch fixed the lip, and my mother took care of the tears, but I carried the mark from the spring for years. How lucky I was that the scar from that lesson was so insignificant. Some refusals to learn from others’ experience can destroy a person, or leave the kind of scars that can mar him for life. Parents, generally, try to use their ...

3737. Chapter VII

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Frank H. Seilhamer

... is a natural and important part of life. How we channel and express those desires is crucially important to us and to our whole society. Sexual desire can lead to some of the most beautiful and meaningful experiences a person can have, or it can pock-mark a life and destroy it. Today, as never before, sexual relations are being condoned as experiences all people should have at any time, in any place, with any person. Because that point of view has been picking up adherents, sexual promiscuity has become the ...

3738. Chapter VIII

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Frank H. Seilhamer

... , put down, exploited, and devalued. They are to be handled lovingly rather than made into rungs for our ladders to success. Jesus laid it out so plainly when he said to his friends, "If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all" (Mark 9:35). In other words, the greatest man is the one who uses his life to enrich the ones he touches. Such a lifestyle shows that the one who lives it understands just how valuable people are. That understanding of what life is all about turns a person ...

3739. APOTHECARY

Exodus 30:22-33

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

... , of course, are familiar with it as one of the gifts given to the infant Jesus. Those who seek for symbolism here say that it was to signal his death. And, as he hung on the Cross, he was indeed offered "wine mingled with myrrh" (Mark 15:23). Another of the major roles of the apothecary was as a cosmetician. In general, the Jewish attitude toward cosmetics was favorable, except in excessive use. Perhaps the most common cosmetic in the Bible is ointment, which, again, was often perfumed. This was different ...

3740. BEGGAR

Psalm 37:25

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

... , particularly, and there were a great many of them. The New Testament speaks of several, from Lazarus, who lay covered with sores, wishing that he might be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table, and the blind Bartimaeus whom St. Mark shows sitting by the wayside just outside Jericho, to the lame man found by Peter and John at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple. Although there is no doubt that many of these beggars were professionals, still there were also many who were legitimately sick ...

3741. FARMER

Jer. 14:4; 2 Tim. 2:6; James 5:7

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

... , but not plant, was practiced every seven years to enrich the soil, control weeds, and furnish food for the poor, since whatever grew of itself was given to them. The farm season opened in November after the early October rains, and the Gezer Calendar marks the program of a Palestinian farmer in this way: "his two months are (olive) harvest; his two months are grain-planting; his two months are planting; his month is hoeing up of flax; his month is barley harvest; his month is harvest and festivity; his ...

3742. FULLER

Mark 9:3

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

Mark 9:3 - "And his garments became glistening, intensely white, as no fuller on earth could bleach them." We are so used to seeing laundry trucks going up and down our streets and taking dirty laundry away and bringing back clean clothing; we are properly impressed with the enterprise of the ...

3743. MASON

2 Sam. 5:11; 1 Chron. 22:14

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

... , and certain villages were famous for their masons. The farmers were usually skillful in building low terrace walls of undressed stone for the fields and vineyards. But buildings required a master mason. When laying stones or bricks, the mason measured distances from reference points and marked guidelines on a working surface to lay out his work. Using a trowel, he next spread a soft layer of mortar as a base and binder for his block. He applied mortar to the block’s end and placed it in the mortar bed ...

3744. PHYSICIAN

Luke 5:31; Colos. 4:14

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

... maladies appear to have been the chief subjects of medical treatment among the Hebrews, although they were not entirely without remedies for internal and even mental disorders. The Bible is generally not complimentary concerning the doctor’s ability to cure his patients. Mark 5:26 says, "he suffered much under many physicians." No post-mortem study of anatomy and the cause of disease, such as we practice today, was possible because of the Mosaic injunction against touching the dead. From the Bible we may ...

3745. PREACHER

Mark 1:14

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

Mark 1:14 - "Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Gospel of God," Preaching, the proclamation of a divine message, and the regular instruction of the converted in the doctrines and duties of the faith, is as old as the human family. Noah is referred to as " ...

3746. TANNER

Acts 9:43

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

... frequently used as churns to make butter. The holes of the legs and the tail were sewn up and the neck opening served as the top of the bottle. You will recall that Jesus spoke of the wine bag in connection with his denunciation of the Pharisees (Mark 2:22). The leather maker of today is perhaps more of an artisan than his ancient brother. The hides that he used are handled in different commercial ways, but the basic process is still the same, and the end product remains. And that’s not all that remains ...

3747. The Forbidden Anger

Matthew 5:21-26

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... 455 times in the Old Testament; 375 of these refer to the anger of God. The Lord does get angry. Nahum the prophet asked, "Who can stand before his indignation? What can endure the heat of his anger?" (Nahum 1:03) Jesus got angry at times. In Mark, chapter 3, we have an example. One Sabbath Day in the synagogue Jesus met a man with a withered hand. Some of the Pharisees were standing around ready to pounce on Jesus if he healed the man, because healing was considered to be work, and that was prohibited ...

3748. Marriage is Forever

Matthew 5:31-32, Matthew 19:1-12

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... condemns all divorce, except for unchastity. Unchastity referred to a woman's having been sexually active before marriage or unfaithful afterward. Note the double standard of the First Century. The man was not held to that same strict standard. In the Mark and Luke versions of Jesus' statement, not even unchastity is given as an exception. All divorce is condemned. That complete condemnation is probably the accurate and original one. The exemption in Matthew was probably an addition by some early church ...

3749. A Terrific Trade

2 Corinthians 5:17-21

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... be made good with the goodness of God." Let's suppose that I am wearing a coat that reveals the state of my soul. Every commandment I ever broke, every needy person I ever ignored, every lustful thought I ever had, every profanity I ever uttered...all have left dirty marks on my coat. What a filthy garment it is! I must wear the coat and no cleaner on earth can remove its stains, stains, and smudges. Let's suppose that Jesus approaches me. I try to hide because I don't want him to see my filthy coat; it ...

3750. Aiming at Perfection

Philippians 3:4b-14

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... Do you mean to tell me that we have goals in all phases of our lives except the most important part---our walk with Christ? Then let's change that, right away. Mr. Wesley and St. Paul call us Christians to set specific goals for Christian growth, bench marks along the way, with the long-term goal of becoming functionally perfect for the cause of Christ before it's time for us to go to heaven. This Christian perfection has three components. FIRST, WE SHOULD AIM TO BE PERFECT IN LOVE. Jesus was asked one time ...

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