Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: Levi, disciple, evangelist, tax collector, the 12, the twelve, apostle, sermon on the mount, jewish audience, beatitudes, lord's prayer, great commission, parables, olivet discourse, mount of olives, olivet, synoptic

Showing 3926 to 3950 of 4942 results

3926. The Secret Man

Mark 8:27-38

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

In 1972 two relatively unknown reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post, began to cover what was described by one person as “a third rate burglary.” On June 17, 1972, five men were arrested for breaking into the Watergate Hotel, where the Democratic National Committee had its headquarters. They were attempting to place a wiretap in the party offices. Even though it was an election year, the story didn’t seem to have much traction, because President Richard Nixon had such a large ...

3927. Why the Greatest?

Mark 12:28-34

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

The late film critic Roger Ebert once said there was a great reason many critics considered “Citizen Kane” the best movie of all time. For one thing, it really is a fantastic film. Director Orson Welles combined a compelling story with a great script and creative use of pioneering techniques for filming and editing. But he also pointed out that once you pick the greatest of anything you can stop arguing about whether something new is the greatest and focus on a new film’s merits on its own terms. He had a ...

3928. Devour And Conquer

Mark 12:38-44

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

In recent decades, archaeologists have turned their attention to ancient cooking pits and trash heaps because these reveal what ordinary people were doing a long, long time ago. Instead of assuming history is what the rich and powerful rulers were doing in ancient empires, the trash heaps and cooking pits of so-called ordinary people tell us what real life was like. They tell us about what matters to people. They give us insight into value, which may have very little with price. Trash heaps often include ...

3929. Listen!

Luke 9:28-36, (37-43a)

Sermon

King Duncan

Where are you most likely to get important news and information that you rely on each day? From a print newspaper? From an app on your phone? From social media? From a cable channel? What about from a man or woman standing in the middle of your neighborhood and shouting out the latest headlines? Not likely. If you’d lived about 1,000 years ago in England, you would have gotten the latest news and headlines from a town crier. The job of town crier began officially in the year 1066. What happened in 1066? ...

3930. Jesus Walked This Lonesome Valley

Luke 19:28-40 · Philippians 2:5-11

Sermon

King Duncan

It’s been a while since I started off a sermon with a really bad joke. I know what some of you are thinking: The only kind of joke you’ve ever heard me tell is a really bad joke. Well, here goes again. A dog walked into a Dodge City saloon and ordered a root beer. The barkeep snickered, “We don’t serve dogs and we don’t sell root beer in this saloon.” The dog said, “I’ve got money and my money is as good as any man’s. Give me a root beer!” The bartender was tired of talking so he reached under the bar, ...

3931. Nose Hairs And Disney

1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

Sermon

Mary Austin

We continue listening to Paul’s letter to the early Christians in the city of Corinth. In this reading, he continues with his vision of the church as a body with many, equally important members. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but ...

3932. Rock Stars at the Top

Luke 9:28-36 (37-43a)

Sermon

Derl G. Keefer

If I were a Hollywood writer, the Transfiguration story would be a great setting. I could see it ranking right up there with “The Ten Commandments,” “Samson and Delilah,” “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” or any of the others. I would title it, “Rock Stars At The Top.” The stars would include Jesus, Moses, Elijah, Peter, James, John, and the Voice and I’m still contemplating who I would cast in the roles. It would be a great media-hype type movie with spectacular special effects…a hard to climb mountain, ...

3933. Selling the Cross

Luke 9:51-62

Sermon

King Duncan

Have you ever noticed that people love to make jokes about certain professions? Lawyers—there are a million jokes about them. Doctors. Pastors—for some reason, the clergy are popular targets for jokes. Don’t ask me why. I think we’re nice people. And salespeople. I think the reason these professions inspire so many jokes is that a small minority of people in these jobs are lazy or unprofessional or even downright unethical. Any job that offers the potential for gaining a lot of authority or a lot of money ...

3934. Christianity: A Worldly Religion That Makes Sure That Even Animals Matter

Revelation 5:11-14

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

Christianity is all about salvation — the salvation of our souls, right? That’s why the church needs to keep its nose out of politics and all this stuff about polluting the environment. A 2016 Pew Research Center poll found that nearly 1 in 2 of us (47%) feels this way about the church keeping out of politics. And a 2017 poll by Pew found that just over 1 in 2 of us (55%) rank ecological destruction as a major problem. We have had a president who does not want Americans to do much about it (such as Trump’s ...

3935. A New Heaven And A New Earth: Our Problems Are Fading Away!

Revelation 21:1-6

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

There is not much more that should or could be said about this song in our second lesson. These are compelling images. A God who wants to wipe away every tear from our eyes is a God who you’ll want to love. He’s a God who makes life a lot easier to live. If we read these words in light of our whole text for the second lesson, in light of the whole book of Revelation, then the idea of God wiping away tears from our eyes becomes even more comforting. For this is a word of comfort about the whole universe. ...

3936. Wake Up! Get Ready!

Luke 12:32-40

Sermon

King Duncan

Do you ever feel like you spend your life waiting on other people to get ready? Or are you on the other side of this equation? Maybe you’re the one who can never be on time, and other people are constantly nagging you to hurry up. Parents often feel like their life is one long cycle of “hurry up and wait.” A dad named Rodney LaCroix posted the following thoughts on Twitter: What I say: Be ready, we are leaving in five minutes. What the child hears: Get undressed. Start finger painting. Lose at least one ...

3937. All Dressed Up

Luke 12:32-40

Sermon

Lori Wagner

Fashion is a trillion dollar industry. It makes up 2% of the entire world’s GDP.[1] Why does apparel, the clothing we wear, play such a large part in our lives? For this we can look to art and literature, and even to scripture and the church. Unlike other animals, for as long as humans have roamed the earth, we have been concerned with clothing ourselves. From the moment of the “fall” in Genesis 1, we began a journey of finding ways to conceal our original “nakedness” and to express ourselves instead ...

3938. Much Love. Hope Sent.

Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon

King Duncan

I would like to ask you a question this morning: what brings you hope this Advent season? I pray that you have a reason to hope today. And I pray that you will find this place to be a community of hope that celebrates the presence and the love of God in every season of the year. But this is the Sunday each year when we light the Hope candle on the Advent wreath. And our Bible story for today is usually read as a message of judgement, but I think it is overwhelmingly a message of hope. I read this week an ...

3939. Have Your ID Ready

Matthew 11:2-11

Sermon

King Duncan

Think of the last time you had to show some proof of your identity. Maybe you used your library card to check out books, or you used your student ID to get discounted tickets, or you showed your driver’s license to gain admission to a concert. Most adults have some form of proof that we are who we say we are. But if you don’t have any physical proof, how can you convince people of your identity? I read a story this week that made me think about this question. Johnny Weissmuller was a 5-time Olympic gold ...

3940. What We Learn from Love

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

King Duncan

Do you ever have trouble falling asleep? Drew Ackerman is the host of the podcast Sleep With Me, and his goal is to tell stories that help people fall asleep. He refers to his show as “the podcast the sheep listen to when they get tired of counting themselves.” According to Ackerman, the key to the perfect bedtime story is to make it slow and boring. Ackerman, who is from New York, slows his speaking tempo and speaks in a really low voice. His plots are hard to follow, and he goes on long tangents where he ...

3941. Christ's Grand Entrance Song

Luke 2:1-14, (15-20)

Sermon

King Duncan

Do you have a favorite song you listen to when you want to pump yourself up, get yourself motivated, intimidate an opponent perhaps? Some of you might be familiar with the world of mixed martial arts. As if traditional sports like boxing and wrestling weren’t violent enough, there is a somewhat recent amalgamation of some of the most violent of these known as mixed martial arts, sometimes known as cage fighting. Since 2005 fighter Rory MacDonald has been a top-ranked competitor in mixed martial arts. ...

3942. Lesson from a Prosthetic Toe

Luke 17:5-10

Sermon

King Duncan

I’ve got a pop quiz for you this morning. Prosthetic limbs, artificial body parts, have been around for thousands of years. Would you like to guess what is the oldest prosthetic body part that has ever been found? Do you have a guess? It’s a big toe. Years ago, archeologists in Cairo, Egypt were excavating the tomb of an ancient Egyptian noblewoman who lived about 3,000 years ago. And they discovered that her body was fitted with a tiny, prosthetic toe made of wood with a leather strap that connected it to ...

3943. You Don't Have to Yell

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon

King Duncan

What is the loudest event you’ve been to lately? Was it a ballgame, a concert, a family dinner, a party? I ask because I read an article this week about the incredibly strange way that the employees at Yahoo Inc., the Internet service provider company, chose to celebrate their 20-year business anniversary. They had a group yodel. And not just any group yodel. They gathered 3,432 employees at their California headquarters and had everyone participate in a 1-minute yodel. I don’t know about you, but for ...

3944. Out of the Darkness

Matthew 5:13-20

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

Does anybody else have a tough time with winter darkness at this time of year? We’re still six weeks away from the start of spring, and most of the U.S. is experiencing short days and long nights. Medical studies show that people have less initiative and are more likely to get the blues during the darker winter months. It seems that most of us don’t function well without light. There’s a small town called Rjukan (roo-KAN) in Norway that is located in a valley between two mountains. For six months of the ...

3945. Do You Know the Gift of God?

John 4:5-42

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

Would you say you’re a good conversationalist? If you were plunked down in a room full of strangers, how quickly could you start up a conversation with someone? Would it all be chitchat, or are you better at meaningful conversations? Nicholas Epley, a professor of behavioral science, studies communication and human interaction. In his studies on conversation, he and his colleagues compiled a list of “shallow” vs. “intimate” conversation starters. Some of the shallow conversation starters are: What do you ...

3946. Into the Light

John 1:1-14

Sermon

Lori Wagner

DNA is what we call the “building block” for life. It contains the genetic codes for all of life. And yet scientists know since the Human Genome Project of 2012 that we use only 2% of our DNA to maintain our daily lives. 98% of it operates something like a mass computer system to control that 2%. At given times and in certain circumstances, “switches” go off within that large DNA system that control what parts are “turned on or off.”[1] These millions of “switches” control how our genes are expressed, what ...

3947. Places That Have a Memory

Matthew 21:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

Do you believe places have a memory? I know that seems like a strange question this morning. Don’t worry, I drank my coffee. I’m firing on all cylinders. But are there places in your life that evoke such strong memories that when you go back to them, you can almost see and feel and smell past experiences there? Or have you ever stood in a place and felt the stories emanating from its walls? I feel that way inside this church building sometimes. I think back to all the people who prayed here, who wept here ...

3948. All We Are Left With...

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

Do you ever find yourself reminiscing about someone you love who has died? Maybe at family gatherings or when your friends get together the conversation eventually turns toward someone you loved. And you start sharing stories about this person. Stories about their quirks and silly side. Stories about their habits or hobbies or advice they shared. And with every story, a little more of that person’s character is revealed. I read an interesting article from an Irish journalist who interviewed folks on the ...

3949. When Darkness Covered the Land

Matthew 27:11-54

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

Do you know what was the darkest moment of the year all over the earth for 2022? An organization called EarthSky.org does. Their computers determined that on the night of December 6, 2022 maximum darkness, they called it “global darkness,” cast almost 9 out of 10 people in the world in darkness. At some point during that night Africa, Asia and most of Europe were dark. In fact, there was a precise point on that night in which 85.92% of the people in the world were in total darkness. (1) That’s fascinating ...

3950. When You Are Weary

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

One of the amazing facts about the human race is how alike we all are. We share most of the same hopes and dreams, likes and dislikes. Even in a world of almost 8 billion people, there are certain universal things that most people agree on. To prove this, I’m going to read a series of statements. If you agree that a statement is true in your life, raise your hand. Here’s the first one: I’m a really good singer in the shower or in my car. Here’s the second: My pet understands me when I talk to it. Or: my ...

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