Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 3726 to 3750 of 4914 results

3726. Deciding To Excel In Everything

II Corinthians 8:1-7, 11-12

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

James Russell Lowell wrote: “Life is a leaf of paper white Whereon each of us may write A line or two, and then comes night. Greatly Begin! Though you have time but for a line, be that sublime - Not failure, but low aim is crime.” When the apostle Paul asks the Corinthians to help the mother Church of Jerusalem he makes his appeal on the foundation of excellence. “Just as you excel in everything, in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for one another — see that you also ...

3727. How to Make Heaven Our Home

Philippians 3:17-4:1

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

The year was 1846. Abraham Lincoln was running for a seat in the U.S. Congress. His opponent was a Methodist Circuit Rider by the name of Peter Cartwright. One night, Lincoln went to hear Cartwright preach. As the fiery Cartwright came to the conclusion of his sermon he said to the congregation, “Everybody here who wants to go to heaven, stand up.” The whole crowd stood up except Lincoln. Cartwright, who considered Lincoln an infidel said, “I observe that all present want to go to heaven except for Mr. ...

3728. We Believe in Jesus Christ

John 20:19-31

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

“We believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; the third day he arose from the dead, he ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead." We believe; may God help our unbelief and our struggles to believe. Christ, Himself, is Christianity. I. HE IS THE SON OF GOD. John says in today's ...

3729. Finding Our Reason For Being

Luke 4:14-21

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

One of the most helpful organizations I belonged to as a teenager was the Future Farmers of America. What little I know about public speaking, organizational leadership and parliamentary procedure I learned from this association. The FFA opened its meetings with a distinctive ritual. The president called the meeting to order and immediately asked “Future Farmers of America, why are we here?” Jesus wanted people to know why he was here, so he went back to his hometown synagogue, read from the prophet Isaiah ...

3730. Aprons or Bibs

Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Sermon

Tony Everett

Potluck dinners are wonderful! We enjoy marvelous fellowship, contagious laughter, and the comfort of being in a place where everybody knows your name. And, oh yes, the food! Tempting aromas fill us with anticipation of the glorious feast to come. Gazing and grazing at the buffet table is one of the true joys of parish life. The major challenge at a parish potluck is that the vast array of tasty choices always exceeds our ability to sample each selection! There is always more than enough to pile our plates ...

3731. A Vision of Hope

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24

Sermon

Timothy J. Smith

Difficult times not only try a person's soul but frequently force a person to step up to a new challenge. Perhaps this has been your experience: You are at a crossroad unsure of which direction to head, so you venture out blazing a new path. Later, when you look back you realize that particular experience was a turning point in your life. There may even be times when something unexpected happens that thrusts you in some new uncharted course. The people living in Ezekiel's day were living in exile, taken ...

3732. How, Then, Shall We Live?

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Sermon

Mary S. Lautensleger

I saw on America's Funniest Videos recently a little girl, about five or six years old, in a soft, sweet voice telling her mother how pretty she is. With childlike innocence, she follows the compliment in the same soothing voice by adding, "but you're fat." The mother looks a little surprised and hurt at that remark. The little girl reads her mother's body language and quickly qualifies the remark by saying, "But you're not too fat." Our children in their honesty do have a way of setting us straight, don't ...

3733. One of the Family

Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-18

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

I read about a preacher whose daughter keeps a daily notebook. On one page she had drawn a picture of her father and written carefully his name and address. When asked why, she explained. She had been watching a movie about amnesia. And then she said, "If I ever forget who I am, I want everybody to know who I belong to." Belonging is very important. And knowing who we belong is even more important. This morning the author of the letter to the Hebrews talks about Belonging and our relationship with God. Let ...

3734. Proper 9, Pentecost 7, Ordinary Time 14

Psalm 145:8-14, Zechariah 9:9-13, Matthew 11:1-19, Romans 7:15-25a

Bulletin Aid

Amy C. Schifrin

Confession And Forgiveness Leader: We gather in the name of the Father, and of the Son, + and of the Holy Spirit. All: Blessed redeemer, we do not understand our own actions and at times we do the very things we hate. We confess to you our disobedience and our rebellion. We confess to you our self-centeredness and scapegoating of others. We confess to you our slavery to sin and our falling to temptation. Cleanse our hearts, cleanse our minds, cleanse our bodies, so that what we name before you will no ...

3735. Carbon Pure and Perfect

1 Corinthians 1:10-17

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Jesus is our diamond. Jesus is the carbon based incarnation of the divine transformed by the steady pressure of God’s endless love into the brightest Morning Star Diamond ever created. Jesus is our diamond. Jesus is Carbon Pure and Perfect, the pure and perfect way to the Father, our only eternal security. But there are many ways to look at Jesus, just as there are many ways to look at a diamond. This is what Paul was getting at in our epistle reading for this morning. Paul is urging the Corinthian ...

3736. The Rewards Program for Christians

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

We’ve all seen the big, hairy Viking oaf who is the spokesman for the CapitalOne Visa card: ”What’s in your wallet?” He demands to know, because if it’s not the credit card he is hawking, you are missing out on all the rewards you could be getting. Every credit card company out there is trying to convince us that running up even more debt is a “rewarding” thing to do. We will be the recipients of all these wonderful “rewards” if we just use their card for all our purchases. Discounted merchandise, frequent ...

3737. The Little Golf Club

Sermon

John Smylie

Our Lord's new commandment, to love one another as he has loved us, is easier said than done. Love is such an overused word in our society, and even in sermons, that it's sometimes difficult to get a grip on what it is that love really means. Perhaps our Lord's love is particularly difficult to get a handle on because of the preconceived notions we may have about him. Sunday school images of the mild and gentle Jesus may come to mind: Never a harsh word spoken, a smile on his face, a sweetness in his ...

3738. The Great Inescapable Question of Eternity

Mark 8:27-38

Sermon

Robert Leslie Holmes

Jeremy Bowen could not be more wrong and Bono could not be more right! Bowen, the presenter of a British Broadcasting Corporation documentary on Jesus Christ, said, "The important thing is not what Jesus was or what he wasn't — the important thing is what people believe him to have been. A massive world wide religion, numbering more than two billion people follows his memory — that's pretty remarkable, 2,000 years on."1 On the opposite end of the spectrum, Bono, lead singer of the rock group U2, asked if ...

3739. “Love Your Enemies” Doesn’t Mean Don’t Make Any

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Mike Rowe has made a career out of doing disgusting stuff. As the host of the Discovery Channel series “Dirty Jobs,” Rowe has mucked-out, dug under, flushed, slogged, and slid through some of the most filthy and foul places on the planet. But whether he has been hanging from rafters or slipping through sewers, Rowe has consistently shown his viewers how even the most grungy, grimy, gross job still has its own dirty dignity. Rowe always offers respect to those who are “showing him the ropes,” whether they ...

3740. Love Your Enemies Doesn’t Mean Don’t Make Any

Matthew 21:23-27

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Mike Rowe has made a career out of doing disgusting stuff. As the host of the Discovery Channel series “Dirty Jobs,” Rowe would muck-out, dig under, flush, slog, and slide through some of the most filthy and foul places on the planet. But whether he has been hanging from rafters or slipping through sewers, Rowe consistently showed his viewers how even the most grungy, grimy, gross job still has its own dirty dignity. Rowe always offered respect to those who were “showing him the ropes,” whether they were ...

3741. What a Way to Start a Church!

Acts 2:1-21

Sermon

William J. Carl, III

What a way to start a church! It's certainly not the typical format for new church development. Where is the planning committee, the fund-raising, the arm twisting, the real estate deal acquiring the land, the faithful few who volunteer from other churches to give the whole thing its initial push? Not everyone has the personality to start a church from scratch, but Paul did. "I planted, Apollos watered," says Paul (1 Corinthians 3:6). Some preachers are just good at planting churches and getting them ...

3742. It’s a New Year: Take 7 Steps Forward

John 1:43-51

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

How many parents have blessed the invention of the “Swing’N’Sway?” Can I get a witness?! There are actually two versions of this battery operated baby care gizmo. For newborns there is a Swing’N’Sway bassinet that gently rocks from side-to-side and back-to-front to simulate the infant being held and walked and rocked. This enables new Moms and Dads to catch some desperately needed shut-eye. For babies old enough to sit up there is a Swing’N’Sway rocker — an infant seat secured in a kind of swing-set stand ...

3743. Let Your Diamond-Light Shine

2 Corinthians 4:1-18

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

[Begin your sermon by scanning your congregation intently. After saying nothing for a period as you scrutinize your people, offer this explanation for your behavior:] I am trying to see if you sparkle more this week than last week. How many of you [or, “it looks like some of you”] celebrated Valentine’s Day with a little bit of “bling!?” The holiday that elevates the warmth of our love and the softness of our hearts also pushes us to do so with something cold and hard — a diamond. Diamonds, we are ...

3744. How Odd of God

Acts 3:11-26

Sermon

King Duncan

There is a small poem that is often quoted in Christian Bible studies that goes like this: How odd/ Of God/ To choose/ The Jews. Jews often use the word Goyim to refer to non-Jews. And so an unknown Jew with a biting wit responded to “How odd / Of God/ To choose/ The Jews” by writing these words: “Not odd / Of God / Goyim / Annoy 'im.” I cite these little bits of creative poetry strictly in fun. Our Jewish friends are generally delightful people, and they have contributed to the advance of civilization far ...

3745. Holy, Holy, Holy

John 16:12-15

Sermon

Arley K. Fadness

On this festival, The Holy Trinity, we celebrate one of the great treasures and mysteries of the church — the Doctrine of The Holy Trinity. To begin with, one must confess that it is presumptuous on anyone's part to have the audacity, the unmitigated gall, the naiveté, to presume to explain God, the Holy Trinity. No pastor, no doctor of the church, no professor of theology or philosophy, no deacon, no bishop, cardinal, or pope can describe the indescribable, explain the unexplainable, nor comprehend the ...

3746. Open the Window, Aunt Minnie, Here It Comes!

Jeremiah 33:1-26

Sermon

King Duncan

Before the advent of television, baseball broadcasts depended on colorful announcers to captivate a listening audience. One of the best of these announcers was named Rosey Rowswell. Rowswell was the radio voice of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The star slugger with the Pirates at the time was Ralph Kiner. Rowswell got his audience to imagine a little old lady with an apartment window facing Forbes Field. Whenever Ralph Kiner would connect with a potential home run, Rowswell would yell, “Open the window, Aunt ...

3747. For All the Saints

Colossians 1:1-14

Sermon

April Yamasaki

What picture comes into your mind when you think of a saint? Is it a portrait of a medieval saint with a golden halo? Or a cartoon character wearing a white robe and carrying a harp standing on a cloud? Is it a solemn picture of someone dressed all in black with a pinched look of long-suffering on his or her face? Do you automatically think to yourself, "It's hard to be a saint — but it's even harder to live with one"? In the New Testament, the word "saint" is used to describe the early Christians. It ...

3748. Lessons From a Hurricane

Jeremiah 17:5-10

Sermon

Derl G. Keefer

It developed as a tropical wave leaving the coast of Africa on September 9, 1989, and within a few days became a Category 5 hurricane. In its path were Guadeloupe, Montserrat, Puerto Rico, St. Croix, South Carolina, and North Carolina. The aftermath of that violent upheaval of nature was 82 dead and 56,000 people homeless. Mark Lewis and his family were living on the island of St. Croix when Hurricane Hugo struck. He and his wife, Angela, took their two daughters into the shower stall of their bathroom and ...

3749. When We Don't Know God

Philippians 3:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

In one of his books, writer Bruce Wilkinson reminds us of the story of the late Howard Hughes. Wilkinson says that, if there was one word that would describe Hughes’ ambition, it was the word more. “He wanted more money, so he invested his enormous inheritance and increased it in just a few years to a billion dollars. He wanted more fame, so he went to Hollywood and became a filmmaker and a star. He wanted more sensual pleasure, so he used his fabulous wealth to buy women and any form of sensual pleasure ...

3750. Stuck in Park

Acts 17:16-34

Sermon

Tony Everett

Martha had lived alone for several years, except, that is, for her dog, Otto, a three-year-old miniature Shih Tzu. Martha and Otto went everywhere together. Even where dogs were not permitted, Otto was content to wait patiently in the car for Martha to return. One particular sunny afternoon Martha had to make a quick stop at the corner grocery store. As was her custom, Martha rolled down the windows to make sure the inside of the car would be comfortable. Otto curled up on the backseat, and Martha started ...

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