Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 3976 to 4000 of 4943 results

3976. Leaving The City of Regret

Mark 2:1-12

Sermon

King Duncan

It's one of those stories you see circulating on the Internet. The author is unknown, but the sentiments are universal. It's titled THE CITY OF REGRET: "I had not really planned to take a trip this year, yet I found myself packing anyway. And off I went, dreading it. I was on another guilt trip. I booked my reservation on "Wish I Had" airlines. I didn't check my bags--everyone carries their baggage on this airline. I had to drag [my bags] for what seemed like miles in the Regret City airport. And I could ...

3977. Light Shines Into The Darkness

2 Corinthians 4:1-18

Sermon

King Duncan

An Upbeat Word for a Downbeat World, #9 The choir director selected the 6-year-old boy with the sweetest face in the production for the opening scene of the play. "Now, all you have to do is, when I direct the choir to sing "?And the angel lit the candle,' you come onstage and light all the candles." "I can do it! I can do it!" the little boy said, excited to be the one picked. Rehearsals came and went, and finally the big night arrived. The choir was in grand voice, the stage was beautifully decorated ...

3978. Trust Your Upbringing

2 Timothy 3:10--4:8

Sermon

King Duncan

A Christian pastor named Scott has a sweet tooth. His wife was going out to run some errands and she knew that the chocolate chip cookies she'd just baked might disappear before she returned. To discourage her husband from getting into those cookies, she taped a Bible verse on them. It was I Corinthians 6:12, "Everything is permissible for me--but not everything is beneficial." When she returned she found half the cookies gone and another verse, Proverbs 13:25, attached to the plate in which they had ...

3979. Jesus Came Preaching

Mark 1:14-15

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

“Jesus came preaching,” says St. Mark. Now, that may not seem like anything earth-shaking to you, but I suggest this morning that it is nothing less than astounding! Of all the methods that God might have chosen to change the world-the frailty of human words is just about the most surprising! I find it incredible that God should launch God’s movement to save the world in so frail a vessel as preaching. St. Paul found it surprising, too. Our Epistle Lesson was from II Corinthians. But in I Corinthians Paul ...

3980. What a Difference a Day Makes

Matthew 28:1-10

Sermon

Eric Ritz

One of the moving and insightful stories that came out of the Nazi concentration camps in Europe concerned a musician by the name of Gustaf Moeller and his niece. When the young Jewish girl arrived at the camp it was decided she was too valuable to be killed like the others. Instead, she was ordered to gather together an orchestra to play for the Nazi officers and top brass. She was able to gather together many talented Jewish musicians who were ready to be killed. Some of the performers were the most ...

3981. Listen to Him

Mark 9:2-13

Sermon

King Duncan

There aren’t very many heroes nowadays, are there? Even in sports. Steroids. Drugs. Violence. Many of today’s best-known athletes reflect some of the worst values in our culture. There was a time, however, when sports stars were a steady source of positive inspiration. Take Lou Gehrig, for example. Even today, the name stirs positive emotions among baseball fans in spite of the fact that it has been 68 years since Gehrig last played the game, long before many of us were born. For those who don’t know his ...

3982. The Fox

Mark 6:14-29

Sermon

David G. Rogne

I know that I don't have much status up here in Gaul, but will you do me the favor of listening to me? I've had an awful lot of time to think during these years I have been in exile, and I need to share my conclusions about life with someone. My name is Herod. The problem is that our family is so extended, and so many people bear that name, that I should really use my given name, which is Antipas. My circumstances used to be far different than they are now. It's not that Lyons is such a bad place to end up ...

3983. The Road Less Traveled

1 Thessalonians 5:12-28

Sermon

Fredrick R. Harm

A lecturer was talking about what he called "the most dangerous road in the world." Most people in the audience began to think of a journey into the African jungle, or facing shipwreck going through the Straits of Magellan. The lecturer explained: "More and more books are being sold about escaping prison with a toothpick or journeying up the Amazon on stilts. But the most dangerous journey is the journey of our everyday living. It is dangerous because it ends, for all of us, in death!" Not a very pleasant ...

3984. No Other Name

Acts 4:1-22

Sermon

King Duncan

What is it that constitutes an emergency when it comes to your health? I ask that question because researchers at Children's Hospital in Boston found that emergency room visits at hospitals in Boston slowed significantly when the Red Sox were in the World Series in 2004. During especially crucial match ups, such as Game 7 of the league championship series and the final game of the World Series, emergency-room traffic fell by up to 20 percent, as fans stayed glued to their TV sets. "It's as if when they ...

3985. Christmas Is On Top Of A Steep Hill

Luke 2:21-40

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Now will you hear the scripture lesson of the morning, from the 2nd chapter of Luke’s gospel, beginning with the 22nd verse and reading through the 35th verses? “And when the time came for their purification, according to the Law of Moses, they brought Jesus up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. As it is written in the law of the Lord, every male that opens the womb shall be called Holy to the Lord, and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord. A pair of turtle doves, or ...

3986. This Is Eternal Life (Easter Message)

John 17:1-5

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

There is an old story about Noah Webster, who wrote the famous dictionary that bears his name. As you can imagine, he was a stickler for the precise use of language. He was also something of a womanizer. One day he was in the pantry kissing the maid when Mrs. Webster walked in on them. Mrs. Webster said, "Why, Noah, I'm surprised." Noah said, "No, my dear. We're surprised. You're amazed." (Mark Trotter, "Do You Amaze Anybody?", May 22, 1988) Noah was trying to divert attention from himself with an esoteric ...

3987. Two Small Coins

Mark 12:41-44

Sermon

King Duncan

A very wealthy man rang his minister at two in the morning. "Pastor," he said, "I lost everything on the stock market yesterday. I can’t believe it. It’s all gone!" The slowly awaking pastor tried to reassure the man. He said, "I’m so sorry. I know this is a difficult time for you." "But what bothers me the most," the man continued, "is the two million dollars I had pledged to the church building fund. It’s gone, too." "Don’t stress yourself over it," replied the pastor. "The Lord will take care of ...

3988. The Book that Changes Lives

Nehemiah 7:73b--8:18

Sermon

King Duncan

Every once in a while you will run across something in a secular magazine that feeds your spirit. There was an item in a recent Smithsonian magazine that speaks to our lesson for today. It was a story on the history of that legendary town of the Old West, Tombstone, Arizona. In the late 1870s, miners discovered silver in the DragoonMountains of Arizona. An area that had once been desert wasteland became the bustling mining town of Tombstone---so named because the first miner to explore the site had been ...

3989. Being A Man of God

1 Peter 2:4-12

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Some of you have known me long enough to know that one of my favorite theologian is Charles Schultz, the artist who gave us the wonderful Peanuts cartoons. In one of my favorite cartoons, Lucy comes storming into the room and demands that Linus change TV channels and then threatens him with her fist if he doesn’t. “What makes you think you can walk right in here and take over?” asks Linus. “These five fingers,” says Lucy. “Individually they are nothing, but when I curl them together like this into a single ...

3990. The “Sad-You-See” Syndrome

Mark 12:18-27

Sermon

Michael Milton

Today we witness an ancient military war tactic at work—attack in waves, leaving no time for the enemy to recover from the first shot. First came the chief priests, scribes, and elders with their religious question to trap Jesus Christ.[1] They were defeated by Jesus, and they knew it. But it wasn’t over. The scheming conspirators then sent the unlikely alliance of the Pharisees and the Herodians to throw a political net over the Savior, but they failed. Now, in an unrelenting attack, comes a rather ...

3991. Guidance for a Time of Chaos

John 16:5-16

Sermon

King Duncan

Author Dennis Rainey tells about an exercise he leads each year with his sixth grade Sunday School class. He divides the class into three groups. These groups then compete in putting together a jigsaw puzzle. As these 12-year-olds scatter into three circles on the floor, he explains that there is only one rule in the competition: to put together the puzzle without talking. The contents of puzzle number one are deposited on the floor and Group One immediately goes to work. The group promptly sets up the box ...

3992. A Voice from Beyond

Genesis 12:1-9

Sermon

James L. Killen

Down through the centuries, philosophers and theologians have come up with a number of classical "proofs for the existence of God." The truth is that these "proofs" are not likely to convince anyone who is determined not to believe in God. But they can be helpful guides to experiencing God for people who want to believe. Most of the proofs for the existence of God focus attention on the things that exist and the things that happen in the world around us and reason that there must be someone who is making ...

3993. Thank God, We're Already Dead

Romans 6:1b-11

Sermon

William G. Carter

If you ever find yourself on the corner of 56th Street and Lexington Avenue in New York City, stop in to see the baptismal font at St. Peter's Lutheran Church. Not long ago, a small group of tourists went for a visit. We were astonished by what we saw. The font is off to the left, by the main entrance into the sanctuary. That in itself is appropriate, for baptism is the entry into the Christian life. We are brought into the church when we are baptized, so the people in St. Peter's put the font right by the ...

3994. Doing Well and Doing Good

Romans 13:8-14

Sermon

Jeff Wedge

There is a cliché thrown around the business world that states that people should do well by doing good. This translates into a rationale for doing works of charity and for being generous to employees, customers, and communities. The reason for these good deeds is to engender good feeling and, in the long run, to make more money, in other words, to do well. By being good to employees, costs for recruitment and training and replacement will be greatly reduced. By being good to customers, there will be ...

3995. Always?

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Sermon

Rick Brand

Now there is a greeting that will knock you back a moment. "We always give thanks to God for all of you." Other translations put it: "We give thanks to God always for all of you." And maybe Paul was pouring it on a little thick, but it is a greeting that will put one on the defensive, because if we are honest, we cannot reply that we have always been praying for Paul. If we are honest, we cannot say that we are always faithful in our prayers at all. Paul tells the church at Thessalonica that he is always ...

3996. A Radical Faith

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

Mark Trotter

Some of you may know that Jean and I have just returned from a two-week trip to Germany, where we rented a car and visited the so-called Luther sites, the towns and cities where Martin Luther lived four hundred years ago, and where the Reformation began. It was a wonderful time and we are very grateful to your generosity in making it possible. We want to show you our slides, so we have decided we are going to have a potluck supper on Wednesday, June 25. You are all invited. You may feel that making you ...

3997. How's the Old Complaint?

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

Sermon

Mark Trotter

I love that George Bernard Shaw story about the time he went into a used bookstore. He browsed around the dusty shelves looking for some treasure, the way you and I like to do, and discovered one of his books there. It saddened him to think that anybody would throw away one of his books. He took it off the shelf and discovered that it was a book he had given to an old friend. The inscription was there inside the cover: "To W.T.B., With compliments, G.B.S." So he bought the book, and mailed it back to his ...

3998. In Our Pastor's Success, So Is Our Own!

Matthew 10:40-42

Sermon

Stephen M. Crotts

Did you hear about the farm boy who always wondered what would happen if he twisted the tail on the mule? One day he tried it. And now they say about him, he's not as pretty as he used to be, but he's a whole lot wiser. When I was a young man, I wondered what my life would be like if I became a pastor in answer to God's call. Now, thirty years later, I'm not as pretty as I used to be, but I am a lot wiser. Ministry is not for cowards, the lazy, the easily discouraged, the thin-skinned, or those without ...

3999. Gross Personality Disorder

Romans 12:9-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

"BTK." Seldom have three initials struck such terror into the hearts of a local population as BTK (which stands for "Bind, Torture, Kill"). When the BTK serial killer was finally captured in the summer of 2005 people in the Wichita, Kansas area first breathed a sigh of relief, then drew in a gasp of surprise. The man who had left a sadistic trail of tortured and murdered women since 1974 turned out to be the most average appearing, normal neighbor anyone could imagine. No one suspected Dennis Rayder of ...

4000. Gone with the Wind

Matthew 14:22-36

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

When the wind picks up here in the San Juan Islands of Washington State, a great changing-of-the-guard takes place. Out with the sea kayakers. In with the sailors. When the wind gets gusty and gutsy, those who love to sit below sea level and solo pilot their long, lean crafts grouse and grumble and haul out onto dry land. With the calm, glassy surface of Puget Sound broken by wind-whipped white caps, the waters are no longer for them. But the sailors rejoice. With the first white curls on the water's ...

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