Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 4001 to 4025 of 4490 results

4001. Two Lives to Live

Luke 6:17-26

Sermon

John B. Jamison

The crowds had found him again. Ever since Jesus had moved to Capernaum, more and more people heard about the things he was doing and had come to hear him, to be healed by him, or simply to be near him. Capernaum was not a large town, but was on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, just south of busy roads following the fertile crescent stretching all the way from Egypt in the south to Mesopotamia in the east. It was the interstate highway system of its day and it carried traffic from every land, with ...

4002. God Soaked

Luke 13:1-9

Sermon

Lori Wagner

I have here a ruler. It’s the way we measure nearly everything in life. If you are old enough, you remember having one of these in your desk at school, so that you could use it during math class. These wooden rulers now are nearly obsolete. At least in the form we see here. But they haven’t been vanquished from our minds and the way we think about measurement, behavior, and life. Our word ruler comes from the Latin word "regula,” derived from the verb "rego," meaning "to keep straight, direct, govern, or ...

4003. For Someone Remembered by Many

Luke 24:13-35 · Acts 20:31-35 · Matthew 16:13-20

Eulogy

Richard E. Zajac

Memories [Provide a review of the good memories the deceased had generated.] A good number of you are old enough to remember how you had to wait at least two minutes for the television to warm-up, how you got your windshield cleaned and oil checked, and your gas pumped without having to leave your car, how when you bought a box of laundry detergent, it wouldn’t be unusual to find a free glass or a dish or a towel inside the box. A good number of you are old enough to remember when a quarter was a decent ...

4004. God Is Like...

Isaiah 40:18-31 · John 1:1-14

Sermon

Kenneth L. Gibble

With some things, once you get started, it’s hard to stop. Things like eating salted peanuts and reading a good murder mystery and doing a challenging crossword puzzle. Or, in my own case, preaching sermons in a series entitled “God is like…” In that first sermon of the series I said: My purpose is simply to help all of us appreciate and understand more about God and to discover appropriate responses to this Holy One. I hope our exploration will provide both comfort and challenge. And I expect some ...

4005. The God Of Abraham, Isaac And Jacob

Luke 20:27-38

Sermon

Jill J. Duffield

“Lickety Split ice cream cones sell for $1.75 each. The Yummy Tummy sells ice cream cones for $2.15, each but will give you a free cone after you buy five. One store is offering the better deal. How much will you save if you buy six ice cream cones at that store?” Do you remember these sort of problems in your math class? Problems about various trains leaving different stations at various times, and then having to answer which one arrived where, when? Problems about oranges and bananas and buying twice as ...

4006. A New Thing

Isaiah 43:14-28

Sermon

Richard A. Jensen

I'm telling you it's just not possible that he is the Messiah. If anything he's an imposter. No one should be saying and doing the kinds of things he says and does. It's blasphemy. The man should be killed." Those were Eliezer's heartfelt convictions. Eliezer and his friend, Amos, were teachers of the law in the days that Jesus walked this earth. They were terribly puzzled by the appearance of this Jesus. Eliezer would have none of Jesus' ministry or of his teaching. He was convinced that whatever else ...

4007. Hear No Evil

Luke 1:46-55 (53); 4:18-16; 19:1ff; 16:14-15 et al

Illustration

Richard A. Jensen

Remains Of The Day is a powerful movie starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. Hopkins plays the role of the chief butler at a large estate in England. Emma Thompson plays his chief assistant. The movie is set in the years immediately preceding and succeeding World War II. The butler is the central figure in the film. He has come by his trade naturally. His father was a butler before him. The estate, therefore, is the only home he has ever known. He knows no other life. In this world he is a man of ...

4008. New Name, New Status

Isaiah 62:1-12

Sermon

Tony Everett

Have you ever listened to young children at play and noticed that they often give themselves new names? The names may be those of a superhero, an athlete, a movie star, or a television character. Sometimes a child may simply choose a name that is not her own. A new name brings a new status in the peer group. A new name brings a new perception of self. Children easily assume the roles that accompany the name. Three-year-old Sally was playing with a group of kindergarten and first grade children in her ...

4009. The Spirit Of Pentecost

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

It was one of the most wonderful and exciting moments in the history of the Christian faith. The Holy Spirit had fallen fresh on the lives of believers. People were filled with the passion and fires of the Holy Ghost. They were shouting joy from all directions. They were gathered from every persuasion and city, every nation and province, all glorifying God, speaking in foreign tongues but understanding each other, expressing different voices but still in one accord. This was the time of Pentecost, when God ...

4010. When Wisdom Cries Out

Proverbs 8:1-36

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

This text of Proverbs, attributed to Solomon but most probably written by sages, teachers, and bureaucrats of the intellectual elite of Israel and Judah, reflects an urgent cry for wisdom throughout the land. The people are in need of wisdom, and wisdom is in search of people who will practice its virtues and extol forever the higher principles of courage, justice, righteousness, and truth. The absence of wisdom is folly. The beginning of wisdom is the fear and respect of God. Where then is wisdom? Where ...

4011. Coffee Room

Luke 10:38-42

Illustration

John R. Steward

When Charles Dickens was a little boy he was unhappy and neglected, for he was working in a factory. During his dinner break he would walk the streets of London looking at everything. Sometimes he would go to the coffee house on St. Martin's Lane. Years later he would tell how on one occasion he was sitting in this coffee house and looked up to see two words written on the glass door. These words created a great fear and panic within him. They were the words "Moor Eeffoc." He did not understand what they ...

4012. The Star - Conversations

Matthew 2:1-12

Drama

Dallas A. Brauninger

Characters Interviewer Wise Person from the East Second Wise Person Bystander Herod Interviewing One Among The Wise Ones From The East Interviewer: If stars could speak, I would ask this star many questions. However, as one among the wise ones from the East, you might have some answers for us. I am curious about the four roles of the star in this story. Wise Person from The East: Tell me about the star. Interviewer: First, you and your companions enter Jerusalem to inquire about the newborn child. You had ...

4013. Uplifted By The Blues

Lamentations 1:1-22

Sermon

Thomas G. Rogers

Raymond looked down at the pages of the open Bible in front of him. What he saw was a rather eerie sight and it sent a slight shudder through his body. All the words on the pages were covered with blue marker. Six months earlier Ryamond himself had carefully highlighted every single word on these pages with a light blue marking pen. At the time that he had marked the pages he had no expectation of ever turning to those pages of his Bible again. Now, to his own amazement, he found that he had once again ...

4014. People With A Mission

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

Gerald Whetstone

"What I have here is really going to turn things around in this country," he said. "Maybe even the world." Actually, he didn't have very much to say. He just kept eating, trying not to seem famished, and all the while never letting a bulging, tattered briefcase off his lap. It wasn't the Sunday noon dinner I had pleasantly anticipated. But there had been a knock on the front door just after noon. Though I'd long before taken down the brass plaque identifying my home as the Lutheran parsonage, I had a ...

4015. Signed, Sealed And Delivered

1 Corinthians 11:17-34

Sermon

Sandra Hefter Herrma

On this night, more than on any other night, we consider the meaning of the sacrament of Holy Communion. Tonight, we gather in the presence of the Lord, and we consider the last meal Jesus shared with his disciples in this life. And at this point in the epistle narratives, we share with Paul a basic link: We are all talking about an event we did not witness with our own eyes, but a tradition that has been handed on to us. Paul, remember, was not one of the original disciples. While those twelve who are ...

4016. A Lesson From A Broken Arm

Isaiah 55:6

Children's Sermon

Kenneth Mortonson

Purpose: To help children understand the need to take time to consider important things. Material: Make a sling that you can put on to hold your arm. Lesson: This is what is known as a sling. Does anyone know what it is used for? ... Right. To hold your arm still after you have injured it. Have any of you ever had a broken arm? ... When that happens, you have to keep your arm still for a long time. Then, when you can finally use your arm again, you find it is rather weak. Because the muscles have not been ...

4017. Risen And Recognized

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

Robert Beringer

We have examined a number of "Turning Points" in the Gospel narrative, but perhaps none is as vivid as what happened to two despairing disciples who met the Living Christ on that first Easter day. Let us imagine that it is evening on that first Easter. Walking northward along the narrow road to the village of Emmaus are two of Jesus' followers. Their shoulders are slumped, their heads are bowed, and even a casual observer can read the dejection and the disillusionment on their faces. Utterly disheartened ...

4018. Summer Fruit

Amos 8:1-14

Sermon

Richard L. Sheffield

Charles Swindoll says, "... it's a mad, bad, sad world."1 You knew that already? He quotes Barbara Johnson who writes in her book Splashes of Joy in the Cesspools of Life: "The rain falls on the just and also on the unjust, but chiefly on the just, because the unjust steals the just's umbrella."2 The Prophet Amos, who lived and told it like it was about 750 years before the birth of Jesus, agreed with that assessment of life. There is a lot about this world that's mad or bad or sad or even "all of the ...

4019. Signs Of Christ's Return

Matthew 24:1-35

Sermon

Phyllis Faaborg Wolk

After a long hike from Jerusalem, Jesus and the disciples found a resting place on the Mount of Olives. As they relaxed and enjoyed the peacefulness away from the crowds of the city, the disciples asked Jesus a question about the end of time. "Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" Those questions have been repeated over and over since the first time they left the lips of the disciples. "When will God end this world? What will be the signs of its ...

4020. Wicked Tenants

Matthew 21:33-46

Sermon Aid

William E. Keeney

The parable is found in Mark 12:1-12 and Luke 20:9-19 as well as in Matthew. Question is raised as to whether the parable is given in its original form as told by Jesus or whether it is embellished with additional details from the experience of the church after the death and resurrection of Jesus. The issue is in part concerned with one's belief about predictive prophecy. Did Jesus have prescience about what would happen to the church after his death, or did the writers of the parable adapt it to conform ...

4021. The Promise Of The Spirit

Sermon

John A. Stroman

As a mainline church we have been told to the point of weariness what is wrong with us. Many articles have been written about the demise of the mainline churches with their dwindling membership and attendance. Someone has figured out mathematically that if the United Methodists continue to lose members at the present rate, the last Methodist will leave the face of the earth in the year 2037. This is a very sobering thought. The Dilemma Of Decline To borrow a line from Dickens, these are, for the mainline ...

4022. Words, Words, Words

John 4:1-26

Sermon

Thomas Long

One doesn't have to search very far in our culture to realize that we live in an age that doesn't trust words very much. We use words by the bushel, in fact we are the age that does "word processing." Even so, we don't trust words; we build scaffolding out of them, but we don't put our weight on it. We know that words can be slippery, weasel things, used to conceal, to deceive, to distort. Words are cheap; people can hide behind words. When a politician gives a speech, what do we say? Promises, promises. ...

4023. The Bread Of Life

John 6:25-59

Sermon

Marc Kolden

Nearly the whole sixth chapter of the Gospel of John is about bread. It begins with an account of Jesus feeding a huge crowd of people from five loaves and two fish and doing it so lavishly that there are 12 baskets of crumbs left over. Then, after Jesus and his disciples left by boat, the next day the crowd searched and found him on the other side of the lake, but Jesus criticized them: "You're looking for me for the wrong reasons, just because I gave you lots of food yesterday. But that's really not what ...

4024. Brainstorms

Sermon

John R. Bodo

1. Hosea While only the first three chapters of the Book of Hosea are clearly autobiographical, his prophecies furnish a great deal of additional information about him. The story of Hosea and Gomer, of course, presents a tantalizing and ultimately insoluble puzzle. Did Hosea seek out a prostitute in order to dramatize his message? Did he marry a "good girl" who deceived him and eventually became a prostitute? Did he ... and so on? The Four R's. Hosea, a man of God, acts very much like God toward the ...

4025. I Saw The Risen Christ Last Week -- And It Wasn't Even Easter

John 20:10-31

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

A small boy went to his father one day and asked, "Daddy, who's the smartest, an engineer or a preacher?" The father, unsure of an answer, asked his son, "Well, who do you think is the smartest?" "I think an engineer is because he can build bridges and planes, and go into space to find planets. And a preacher talks about such an impossible thing as someone rising from the dead." He was a smart little boy with an honest answer. And we can understand his answer because we live in a world of facts and science ...

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