Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 3801 to 3825 of 4972 results

3801. They Crucified Our Lord

Isaiah 52:13--53:12

Sermon

... -eastern sun? As the flies swarm about the open flesh and into the unprotected eyes, mouth, and nose? As the cross is stained and the ground, at its foot, puddled by vomit and body wastes? A medical analysis of death on the cross leaves little to the imagination. Crucifixion resulted in severe pain because the body was hanging on nails through the wrists. The muscles extending from chest to arm were stretched and nearly stopped the ability to breathe, as they held the chest expanded. Little oxygen reached ...

3802. Preaching Your Life

Acts 2:14-41

Sermon

... is what all preaching, indeed all speaking of faith needs to be - not an argument to persuade you to believe, but an invitation to join the story of Christ. Our own stories are imperfect, laced as they are with fears, and defeats, and only those successes which leave us empty inside. Yet, each of us is only the sum of our experiences, our story - Mom and Dad's divorce when you were five taught you to be suspicious of love; making straight A's one High School semester gave you confidence and self-respect ...

3803. Practicing and Preaching

Acts 7:54--8:1a

Sermon

... more than the rest how to run a restaurant. Finally comes the explosion. "My widowed mother didn't get dinner!" explains someone in Greek. "We're not charging enough to make ends meet!" says another. "The food's burnt," comes another Greek voice. Leave it to the sophisticates who speak Greek to complain. "Enough!" says Peter, throwing up his hands. "Find someone else to do the cooking and serving. That's not the job of disciples." Then comes the watershed event. Stephen and six other levelheaded laypeople ...

3804. Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

2 Kings 13:10-25

Sermon

... . Elisha said, "You should have struck with the arrows five or six times, and then you would have had complete victory over the Syrians. As it is, you will only defeat them three times." The king who came looking for reassurance, received only a rebuke. Instead of leaving with support, he left with a scolding. How was he to know how many times to strike the ground? The most glaring weakness of King Joash may have been that he did not share the same zealous animosity as the prophet for the enemies of God’s ...

3805. Honest to Goodness Religion

Hosea 4:1-19

Sermon

... to heart any more. We have become used to it and hardly think about it. We have learned not to take it too seriously, for people might think us queer. The Lord is not pleased with people who simply go through the motions of worship, who leave their faith and their Christianity in the pew with the hymnbook. Hosea encourages us, if we are to discover what "Honest to goodness" religion is all about, to: • Face the Problem, • Find the Answer, • Follow the Real Thing. 1. Face the Problem (Hosea 4:1-3 ...

3806. The God Who Doesn’t Give Up

Hosea 11:1-11

Sermon

... advice given them? What is a parent to do when their children associate with a group of friends of whom the parents don’t approve? One can imagine the heartache and the chagrin of the parents of the prodigal son when they heard of his plans to leave home. Being a parent, then, is also risky business. The risk is always there that they might just reject your love and everything you’ve given them. A man in the hospital was deeply disappointed because his children, mostly grown up and married, did not come ...

3807. Parable of Two Cakes

Illustration

... . Among them are appreciation, which is registered in worship and adoration of God. Respect which is included through worship of God. Love which is expressed in worship. The love and worship of God are the ingredients which put all things under the light of His truth and beauty. Do not leave out the ingredients!

3808. A Moment of Brightness

Matthew 17:1-13

Sermon

Dean Lueking

... How This Moment Fits In Some biblical scholars have written that the Transfiguration of Jesus may be a misplaced part of the Easter narrative, that it happened after and not before his Resurrection. There is no warrant for such speculation, however. We do well to leave it where it is in Matthew’s Gospel. It occurred before Christ’s passion. The Glory Given the Son What happened to him is more, certainly, than the evangelist can express and we can comprehend. It was a profound and glorious moment for our ...

3809. Parable of the Cafeteria

John 3:1-21

Illustration

... 't think they see any of the beauty or skill in our work. In a few moments the artistic salad is torn to pieces by their teeth." Said the second girl, "I look at it in a different way. It pleases me to think that these hungry people will shortly leave our place feeling stronger and better able to do whatever their work may be. I like to think of our supplying the power, that they use to serve, as a result of eating our food. Each time they take one of my salads I accept it as another person who ...

3810. A Sermon for Passion Sunday

Matthew 27:45-56

Sermon

Dean Lueking

... know not what they do." Likewise, for the second and third words he speaks - what else but wondering praise and adoration can we offer to the man who promises paradise to a pentitent thief and who commends his mother to the care of a faithful disciple as he leaves this world? As we realize the infinite power and love of God’s Son that enabled him to pray for his tormentors in his mortal hour we must worship and admire from a distance because we know that nothing in us is capable of that selfless reaction ...

3811. Where Easter Begins

John 20:1-9

Sermon

Dean Lueking

... in her bed at a nursing home. Such tragic and heartless mistreatment of one human against another lowers our hopes and makes the stone seem all the weightier that buries our aspirations for what life can be. It can happen that way, not only when crisis situations leave us numb, but also when the life of our soul is gradually eroded by the day-to-day priorities given over to just staying alive, paying taxes, looking after ourselves, and settling into a way of life that makes a little or nothing out of the ...

3812. A Place for You

John 14:1-4

Sermon

Dean Lueking

... us to the allimportant personal link with Jesus Christ. Who will be there? Who won’t be there? What will we do? All these questions are natural enough, but they are questions that lead us astray from the main truth. No wonder, then, that God does not answer them! Leave all the rest to him; he will do all things well. It’s the person who makes the place, and gives us courage and confidence for entering that place. This is the central truth of this text and all that our Lord reveals to us of eternal life ...

3813. That They May Be One

John 17:6-19

Sermon

Dean Lueking

... to Jesus’ high priestly prayer: a living body with widely differing members, a flock under one shepherd, branches attached to a single vine. The heart of unity lies in our oneness with Christ himself. That intimate, dynamic spiritual union with the risen Savior never leaves us disembodied. We are drawn to each other because he has first drawn us to himself and has given us his redeeming love. Think of the prayer of Christ being answered now and continually, until the end of time. Think of it being ...

3814. The Miracle Of an Opened Mind

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

Dean Lueking

... is saying to us through the Holy Scriptures. I think of all those billions of brain cells responding to the Spirit’s mysterious drawing power. The picture in my mind is that of a gentle wind that blows across a mountain valley with countless aspen leaves responding to that invisible breath which we call wind. Yet it happens. And at a deeper level, it happens that the resurrection gospel is spoken to people now even as the announcement of the great deed was spoken to disciples whom St. Luke describes. And ...

3815. The Promise and the Task

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

Dean Lueking

... " as Jesus told the gathered disciples in Galilee. And this is the task: "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Left with a Promise The Ascension left the disciples, as it also leaves the church of all the ages, with nothing to rely on but the promise of God: the promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit, the promise of our Lord’s being with his own, the promise of his coming again in a way that would be visible and glorious ...

3816. Is the Lord Among Us or Not?

Exodus 17:1-7

Sermon

... forgiveness, the water of life refreshes him and he knows the answer. God is here. Grief is lonely. Depression is heavy. But when someone comes alongside and says, "I will walk with you. You are not alone," we can experience the assurance of God’s promise "I will never leave you," - that love never dies. I ask you then, "Is the Lord among us or not?" Being in worship is evidence of your faith that the Lord is among us, or that you want to believe he is; being among us, God’s presence is always for good ...

3817. God's Word Is a Seed

Luke 8:1-15

Children's Sermon

... start out real well and then in a moment they lose interest in what they are doing. They are the kind who love to come to church on Sunday, and when they are in God's house they look like the best Christians in the world. But then when they leave they forget everything that God told them. Will some of you pretend like you are very rocky soil? That's fine. Let's see how a rock looks. Good. [Hand them the rocks.] Now I need another kind of soil and this is the kind we not only find on ...

3818. Who Is Jesus?

Matthew 11:1-19

Children's Sermon

... fill their ears with words. They should look around and see all the people who had been healed by his healing and the smiles on the faces of people with hope. You see, Perry the Plug is like Jesus. He doesn't go around telling people what he does. He leaves that to someone else. Instead he does the work that makes people glad. Is Jesus really the one God promised? Do you believe that what God did in Jesus is enough to show us how much God loves us, or should we look for another? For me, Jesus is it ...

3819. Good Fruit...Good People

Matthew 7:15-23

Children's Sermon

... one with rotten spots or worm holes.] Do you think that they came from the same tree? No, they didn't, did they? This apple came from a tree in an orchard where the tree was very well cared for every day of the year. The branches were trimmed, the leaves were sprayed, the fruit was picked at just the right time. But this poor apple just grew wild with no one to care for it. It finally fell to the ground where it started to rot. You can't fool the people about which apple they want to eat. People ...

3820. The Resurrection of Our Lord

Acts 10:23b-48, Exodus 10:1-20, 1 Corinthians 15:12-34, John 20:1-9, John 20:10-18, Colossians 3:1-17

Sermon Aid

... not already said. 2. Understanding the nature of the resurrection. To preach on Easter requires that we understand the nature of the resurrection. Below are some characteristics of Jesus' resurrection: a. Jesus' resurrection was a resurrection of the body - not a soul leaving the body at death. b. Jesus' resurrection was not a physical resurrection like Lazarus', but it was a resurrection of a spiritual body that could not die again because of its immortal nature. (1 Corinthians 15:32-44) c. This risen body ...

3821. Easter 3

Acts 9:1-19a, Revelation 5:1-14, John 21:1-14

Sermon Aid

... Peter put on his clothes and then jumped off the boat to swim to Jesus. Why? Was it only a case of modesty? Or was it a symbol of Peter's guilt for having sinned by his denials? When Adam and Eve sinned, they clothed themselves with fig leaves. When we do wrong, we instinctively want to cover up. 3. Third (v. 17). We can understand, can't we, why Peter was aggravated by Jesus' asking him the same question three times. Since Jesus knew all things, he knew that Peter loved him. Why then repeat the question ...

3822. Easter 4

Acts 13:13-52, Revelation 7:9-17, John 10:22-42

Sermon Aid

... 'never'." It is a broad, all-inclusive word that allows no exceptions. Jesus used the word to assure us that his people will never be taken from him by another person or force. This gives the Christian a sense of permanent security. Indeed, a person may voluntarily leave Christ, but he will not allow anyone nor anything to deprive us of Christ against our wills. Lesson 1: Acts 13:15-16, 26-33 1. Listen (v. 16). In his opening words Paul asks his congregation to "listen" to what he has to say. Preaching is ...

3823. Easter 5

Jn 13:31-35 · Acts 13:44-52; 14:8-18; 21-27 · Rev 21:1-5

Sermon Aid

Russell F. Anderson

... ready for the Ascension and Pentecost. In today's Gospel, we have the beginning of Jesus' final discourse. (John 13-17) He tells his Disciples that he and the Father are about to be glorified by his approaching death, resurrection, and ascension. After Judas Iscariot leaves the Upper Room, Jesus announces that his death is near and his death will show how deep is his love for them. In like manner they are to love each other, and by this love the world will know they belong to him. THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION ...

3824. Proper 17

Lk 14:1, 7-14 · Heb 12:18-19, 22-24; 13:1-8 · Eze 18:1-9, 25-29 · Prov 25:6-22

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

... ? If there is no love, is sexual indulgence OK? Can a husband rape his wife? Upon reflection we can see that we need this admonition to be pure in the marriage relationship. 3. Same (v. 8). Time after time we hear it said, "Things are not the same anymore." Leave the home town for a decade and there are so many changes one can hardly recognize it any more. Customs are not the same - the old courtesies are outmoded. Children are not respectful as they used to be. All is in flux. The only thing that does not ...

3825. Advent 3

Lk 3:7-18 · Php 4:4-13 · Zeph 3:14-20

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

... (v. 7). Suppose you began your sermon, "You congregation of snakes." Would that be your last Sunday as pastor? John the Baptizer said, "You brood of vipers! " Who were the "vipers"? Pharisees, publicans, prostitutes? No, they were true Jews who had enough religion to leave their homes to go to the wilderness to hear a prophet. John is speaking to the respectable church-going people of his day and calls them to be baptized for repentance. Isn't it a fact that many church members, content in their false ...

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