Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 376 to 400 of 990 results

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

In the "Better-Half" cartoon series, Bob Barnes pictured a husband and wife in their bedroom. The wife is combing her hair and "fixing" her face across the room from the husband who is struggling to get out of bed. He sits wearily on the side of the bed, bedraggled, and moans, "I hope in my next reincarnation I come back as something easier to be than a human being." When I read that I remembered...

377. Deadly Sins - A Matter Of Sutton's Law

Sermon

R. Curtis Fussell

You have said it before and I have, too, to a friend, your husband or wife: "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that. I'm just not myself today." And then maybe you have heard it said: "He's not really a bad boy; he's just trying to find himself." Or perhaps you have used this expression: "He's not human, he's an animal." Perhaps also you have said this about your boss: "He thinks he's God Almighty."...

378. Proper 9, Pentecost 7, Ordinary Time 14

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 temp...

379. Proper 9

Bulletin Aid

B. David Hostetter

READINGS Psalter - Psalms 45:10-17 First Lesson - The arrangement of the marriage of Isaac to Rebekah is made by Abraham through an emissary. Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58- 67 Second Lesson - Paul describes the conflict within us as between the old and the new nature. Romans 7:15-25 Gospel - Jesus describes the contradictions in the behavior of his critics and his happiness at the response of the si...

380. Do You Recognize Satan?

Illustration

Max Lucado

Author Max Lucado offers two very simple strategies for protecting ourselves from sin and temptation. The first is to recognize Satan. So often, we are lured into a sin because it looks so attractive, so fulfilling, so right at the time. So we find ways to rationalize our actions and make excuses for our attitudes. Instead, we must be like Jesus in the desert and call Satan by name. No more s...

381. I Am No Longer My Own

Illustration

Philip W. McLarty

In his covenant prayer, which he offered every year at midnight on New Year's Eve, John Wesley prayed, "I am no longer my own but Thine, put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt, put me to doing, put me to suffering, let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee, exalted for thee or brought low for thee; let me be full, let me be empty; let me have all things, let me have nothing...

382. Servants of the Most High

Illustration

Brett Blair

In Letters to Scattered Pilgrims, by Elizabeth O'Conner, envisions that Christians can transform the world. Listen to her vision: "If we are each obedient to our visions the cities would have green spaces, birds in their trees, and architecture to quicken the awareness of the divine life throbbing in the whole of the world. And the towns? the towns would have galleries to hold the works of their a...

383. The Law of Chocolate

Illustration

Michael P. Green

Many people are physiologically sensitive to chocolate. Certain of the larger benzene compounds present in chocolate are resisted by their bodies through an allergic reaction. Depending on the individual, this reaction may range from very mild, producing a minor skin rash, to very severe, producing medical shock and death. Chocolate is fatal for some persons not because chocolate is poisonous in a...

384. Sin

Sermon

Will Willimon

Isn't this typical? You get up and come to church -- and on your vacation, too -- on a pleasant summer day and what is the theme? Sin. "What did the preacher talk on today, Calvin?" asked Mrs. Cooledge. "Sin," said this taciturn president. "Well what did he say about sin," she persisted. "Said he was against it." Of course, that was another time when preachers still knew the word. Have you not...

385. DNA and SIN

Illustration

George Murphy

Augustine thought that original sin was transmitted to the child through the sexual act, but the idea that it has such a genetic character is difficult for us to make sense of today. (It also lacks scriptural basis, unless one forces Psalm 51:6.) It may be more helpful to use an ecological metaphor. We cannot fully understand living organisms without their environment, and we cannot fully understa...

386. Proper 9

Sermon Aid

Marion L. Soards, Thomas B. Dozeman, Kendall McCabe

OLD TESTAMENT TEXTS Genesis 24 is the story of how the servant of Abraham searches for a wife for Isaac in Mesopotamia and finds Rebekah. Psalm 45:10-17 is the second half of a Marriage Song that focuses on the bride. Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67 - "A Story with Many Heroes" Setting. In many ways the testing of Abraham in Genesis 22 (the lectionary lesson for last week) concludes the Abrah...

387. Changed From Glory Into Glory

Eulogy

Barbara G. Schmitz

Music: Love Divine, All Loves Excelling There is an old story about a fellow who was not very handsome at all. He fell in love with a young woman, but he was sure that she would not be interested in him. So with the help of a surgeon he had a special mask designed, a handsome mask that was then placed over his face. With this handsome new look, he easily won over the woman he loved and they were m...

388. Doing Battle With Death

Eulogy

Laurence A. Wagley

Death of an Infant The voice on the phone was __________ brother. He seemed able to say only a few words. ________ and ___________ had found the baby in the crib suffocating. ____________ held her while the life drained away. Then they had rushed out to the hospital. It took a long time to get across the city and out to the far edge where ___________ and ___________ had moved, and I was too late. ...

389. The Witness of the Spirit

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

Just south of the town of Bolivar, Tennessee, is the grave of Colonel Ezekiel Polk, grandfather of President James K. Polk. He died around 1815. He composed his own epitaph to appear on his gravestone. It was a kind of poetic commentary on the times. In it he took a pot shot at the Methodists whose enthusiasm he did not appreciate. He wrote: "Methodists with their camp bawling, will be the cause o...

390. Grace in the Midst of Exasperation

Sermon

Glenn McDonald

Spiritual storytelling (a.k.a. "my testimony") is often an inspiring experience for a gathered group of Christians. It is also inherently risky. The risk is that the story will sound wonderful. Whenever the overwhelming number of details of someone's garden-variety life are squeezed down to a significant few, it can seem that that four-minute abridged version of existence is fabulously more exciti...

391. A Talent for Life

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Scientists who study the tropical rainforests have succeeded in drawing attention to an entirely new ecosystem. It's an ecological niche quite separate from that of the high mountains, meadows and valleys, the plains or deserts, the estuaries or open waters. In fact, this ecosystem exists within the rainforest. Yet, because human beings walk on two legs, because we're ground-dwelling creatures, we...

392. Romans 8:14-17

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

Paul never ceased celebrating the exciting, unprecedented good news of salvation, and was ingenious in finding ways for others to join him. His letter to the fledgling Roman church is a case in point. Paul knows his audience is made up mostly of Jewish-Christians, or at least "God-fearers" (Gentiles who worshipped the One God and kept the commandments). Accordingly, Paul used terms and images with...

393. Romans 8:1-11

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

This week's epistle text covers significant topics - the status of the law, the essence of the incarnation, the baseness of humanity (but our aspiration for greater things), the presence of the Spirit, the miracle of the Resurrection, inklings of Trinitarian theology and the gift of everlasting life. In these few short verses Paul manages to pack some of the toughest, touchiest subjects in Christi...

394. Romans 8:12-17

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

Paul knew a lot about being “chosen.” First, he was a Jew. Paul was a member of a nation chosen by God to be in unique relationship with the Creator of the universe. Second, within this Jewish identity Paul was a Pharisee. Paul was chosen to wield special power and influence among his people because of his vast learning and piety. Third, in addition to his special religious status Paul also enjoye...

395. Spiritual Resuscitation

Sermon

David O. Bales

One spring when I was about ten, I was home alone after school. I don't know where the rest of the family was, but I did my chores as quickly as possible so I could join the rest of the neighborhood boys in our field for a baseball game. As I was dashing through the house and yard doing my jobs, I worked up an early appetite and thought I should prepare some nutritious morsel before the ordeal of ...

396. Romans 8:12-25

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

Just as Jesus used familiar images, activities, and relationships in a new way in his unique parables of the kingdom, in today’s epistle text Paul uses the familiar practice of adoption to describe a wholly new possibility that is now available to those who are “in Christ Jesus” (8:1). We focus our exegesis on the first part of this week’s text in order to explore how Paul uses this well-known ter...

397. Romans 8:12-17

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

Pentecost is the season of the Spirit. It is on that miraculous, transforming gift that Paul focuses in today’s epistle text. Paul asserts that the presence of the Holy Spirit is nothing less than the difference between life and death. Choosing between life and death is a daily obligation of those who confess Christ, but that “debt” (“opheiletes”) can only be met because of the presence and action...

398. The Holy Spirit and the Blessings of the New Covenant

Teach the Text

C. Marvin Pate

Big Idea: Second Temple Judaism longed for the return of God’s Spirit, as evidenced in Joel 2:28–29. Paul’s use of the term “Spirit” in chapter 8 signifies that Joel’s prophecy has come true. The chapter is chock-full of covenantal blessings of the Spirit—given to Gentiles, no less, because they have accepted Jesus as the Christ. Understanding the Text Romans 8:1–17 discusses six new-covenant bl...

399. Life through the Spirit

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

After Paul has described the tragic and hopeless situation of human beings who live in opposition to God and his holy law, he now turns to a description of the life of Christian believers who are ruled by the Spirit of life, who helps them live according to the will of God. In 8:1–4 Paul explains his exclamation of thanksgiving in 7:25, elaborating what he has said in 7:6. Believers who have been ...

400. Life Through the Spirit

Understanding Series

James R. Edwards

In sublime contrast to the questions which have beset the argument since chapter 6 (6:1, 15; 7:1, 7, 13ff.), chapter 8 begins with a thunderous proclamation, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Especially in 7:7–25, Paul’s blow-by-blow account of indwelling sin reminded one of a ringside announcer reporting a losing struggle. But the long and doleful report...

Showing 376 to 400 of 990 results