Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 4026 to 4050 of 4681 results

4026. Widows, Elders, and Slaves

1 Timothy 5:1-6:2

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... himself (Luke 10:7) to underline the importance of the church’s support of a leadership that is independent of secular social, economic, and political clout. Even though the church in Ephesus is in a major Hellenistic city, Paul expects it to take its bearings from the Old Testament and from Jewish community life. Paul has just cited the Old Testament in support of the idea that spiritual leaders should be paid. Now he invokes the Old Testament (Deut. 19:15) to protect elders from false accusations. There ...

4027. A Lifestyle in Accord with Sound Doctrine

Titus 2:1-15

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... of soul Paul just diagnosed in Cretan culture and in the false teachers lies in the gospel’s power to reshape human lives. God’s character is visible where Christ creates people marked by “self-control” (2:2, 5–6, 12), where relationships bear these marks of God’s character (2:2–10), and where the story of Christ’s incarnation and redemptive work forms a people “zealous for good works” (2:11–14 NKJV, ESV). Throughout this section Paul has a missionary perspective, as is evident ...

4028. Thanksgiving and Prayer

Philemon 1:1-7

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... verse 7, by esteeming Philemon’s love and faith for the saints and his “refreshing” of their “hearts” (cf. v. 20), Paul intimates that Philemon should continue to show his love for the saints by extending it toward another saint, Onesimus. It is important to bear in mind that in Paul’s epistles, the prayer of thanksgiving often hints to the issues that will be addressed in the remainder of the letter. In this letter, some key words in the thanksgiving that are taken up in the body of the letter ...

4029. The Son Superior to Angels

Hebrews 1:1-14

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... (Ps. 102:25–27) serves to recapitulate the divine dignity of the incarnate Son of God as the Creator (1:2) and his majesty as the eternal Yahweh. (The divine name is missing in the Hebrew text, but the Septuagint’s “O Lord” may bear witness to an earlier form of the Hebrew text. In any case, Yahweh is unmistakably being addressed, as the entire psalm demonstrates.) The final citation, which occurs in verses 13–14, is from Psalm 110 and climactically reiterates the divine honor bestowed on Christ ...

4030. Faith Defined and Exemplified

Hebrews 11:1-40

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... with his perspective that Christ was at work in the former epoch and already the object of faith (1:2; 3:2–3; 8:8; 12:2, 25; 13:8; cf. 1 Cor. 10:4; John 5:46; 8:56; Jude 5), and the parallel in 13:13 suggests that bearing disgrace for Christ’s sake is something done for Christ himself. Christ was building the house in which Moses was a servant, and Moses gladly bore his master’s reproach in confident expectation of his eternal glory. “He left Egypt” (11:27) probably refers to Moses’s flight to ...

4031. The Dangers of Wealth

James 5:1-6

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... two main reasons: James “has a regard to the faithful, that they, hearing of the miserable end of the rich, might not envy their fortune, and also that knowing that God would be the avenger of the wrongs they suffered, they might with calm and resigned mind bear them” (342). Weeping and wailing are typical ways of describing the reaction of evil people to the judgment of the day of the Lord (Isa. 13:6; 15:3; Amos 8:3). These rich people will suffer condemnation on that day for four specific sins. First ...

4032. Preparation for Action

1 Peter 1:13-2:3

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... , holiness. At its heart holiness means separateness: God calls us to be different, because he is different. Peter’s readers must not worry about their distinctiveness that provokes such hostility from others. It is inevitable! If we are God’s, we will begin to bear his likeness in every aspect of life. The renewed mind knows that life will end with judgment (1:17). We must therefore live each moment under the scrutiny of the judge. We may rejoice to know God as Father, but there must also be reverent ...

4033. Wives and Husbands

1 Peter 3:1-7

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... are still together “heirs . . . of the gracious gift of life” (i.e., ordinary human existence). The husband must show all the respect and care due to a weaker partner; and in so doing his own bond with the Lord will not be weakened. It is vital to bear in mind the first-century cultural setting of 3:1–7. The normal expectation was that, if the male head of a household changed his religion, the whole household would follow (see Acts 16:31–34). It was strongly against this culture for a wife to change ...

4034. Suffering for Doing Good

1 Peter 3:8-22

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... was righteous, and if we will now set apart Christ as Lord in our hearts and follow in his footsteps, we can be delivered from the fear of our persecutors, confident that through suffering we will share his victory. In the meantime we must bear witness to our hope by both word and deed, remembering that our baptism was our pledge to God, to live with good consciences before him.Peter shares with Paul, and early Christians generally, the belief that authority and power in this world are earthly expressions ...

4035. Love One Another

1 John 3:11-24

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... to emulate. If Jesus was willing to lay down his life for his friends, and if the Johannine community is indeed inhabited by friends of Jesus, they ought also to be willing readily to lay down their lives for one another. On one hand, this parallel bears associations with martyrdom. To ingest the flesh and blood of Jesus (John 6:51–58) is to be willing to share in his sufferings on the cross. Only those willing to share in the Lord’s crucifixion are worthy of participating with him in his resurrection ...

4036. The Victory That Overcomes the World

1 John 5:1-12

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... as the Son of God. As the Johannine Jesus emphasizes three witnesses, not just his own (John 5:31–38; 8:13–19; Deut. 17:6; 19:15), so the Johannine elder emphasizes three witnesses—the water, the blood, and the Spirit—which bear final testimony in the hearts of believers (5:10). These are ultimately the testimony of God (5:9), which outweighs human testimony on all accounts. While some ancient manuscripts preface this threefold witness with a trinitarian formula (adding “in heaven: the Father, the ...

4037. The Beast of the Sea

Revelation 13:1b-10

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... :1; 12:3). Its resemblance to and commissioning by the dragon (13:2) suggest that the beast serves Satan. This beast combines the qualities of the four separate monsters of Daniel 7:1–8 into one: the body of a leopard, the feet of a bear, and the mouth of a lion, and ten horns (13:2). In Daniel’s visions, each represents an earthly empire (possibly Babylonians, Medes, Persians, and Greeks) that occupied and persecuted Israel at various points in history. The horn of Daniel’s fourth beast, which boasts ...

4038. The Harvest of the Earth

Revelation 14:14-20

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... one in heaven except the Father, not even the Son, knows the day and hour of final judgment (Matt. 24:36; Mark 13:32). The harvesting of the righteous is an image of final salvation, where seeds of the gospel sown by the church (11:3–13; 14:6) bear fruit over the entire earth (14:16; cf. John 4:36). 14:17–20 · Grape harvest of the wicked: The fate of the wicked evokes Old Testament judgment oracles where the armies of the Lord trample over their enemies like those who tread over grapes (Isa. 18:5–7 ...

4039. Benediction

Revelation 22:1-6

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

John’s attention turns to the surroundings and landscape of the city (22:1–5). He beholds a glorious paradise of overflowing streams and fruit-bearing trees where there is no longer any curse. Like the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:5–6) prior to the fall of Adam, this new Eden is unblemished by sin or the curse of suffering, toil, and death (Gen. 3:4–19). Yet the new Eden is much more than ...

4040. You Shall Be My Witness

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... (Acts 1:8) That’s what Jesus said: “You shall be my witnesses.” And that’s what the 83-year-old grandmother was doing in Southern Illinois. We hang on to the last words of our loved ones and friends, and we should! A mother, still bearing the pain of her daughter’s death, shared her anguish over her grandchildren—her deceased daughter’s two girls. With great feeling, and with the freshness of a recent event, she told what had happened when her daughter was dying. She took her mother’s hand ...

4041. I am the Door

John 10:1-10

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... brought incisive application of the Gospel to the social issues of the day, and helped shape the history of the church in America. It is little wonder that he could write: “O Master, let me what with Thee in lowly paths of service free. Tell me thy secret, help me bear, the strain of toil, the fret of care. Help me the slow of heart to move By some clear winning word of love. Teach me these wayward feet to stay And guide them in the homeward way. [3] He had found the life of loving service to his neighbor ...

4042. You Are a Child of God…Uh-Oh

Matthew 3:13-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... . There he stayed . . .” (John 10: 39‑40). He adds, “Whether at this location on the Jordan, or another, Jesus found refuge from the trials of life, at the place of His baptism. And we can, too. When difficulties seem more than we can bear, going back to our baptismal experience puts it all into perspective.” (5) We remember how Martin Luther faced difficulties in his ministry, he would remind himself that he had been baptized. That gave him that sense of peace Gulledge is describing. There may be ...

4043. Here's Mud In Your Eye

John 9:1-41

Sermon

Robert Leslie Holmes

... came together. God used that young man as his instrument to overcome community divisions. When Charles finally died at the age of 37, the whole community gathered to remember him. The healing touch he brought continues to this day. When he was a youngster bearing all the marks of Down syndrome, some people saw him as a deformed person born into some of the worst imaginable circumstances. God saw him as his peacemaker, having already said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God ...

4044. When Heartbreak Turns to Heartburn

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

Robert Leslie Holmes

... am persuaded that many church people really do not believe in the resurrection of Jesus. If they did, there would never be an empty pew in any church in the land. Some of us, like Zechariah when the angel told him that his barren wife Elizabeth would bear a son who would be John the Baptist, are just happy to bumble our way through life uncertain and unhappy. Moreover, given the choice like these two disciples we meet in today's scripture reading, some church people choose to believe bad news over good news ...

4045. Dead Hearts and New Beginnings

John 3:1-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... the sky at all. He was no hero. He was a coward. This made his royal treatment by the grateful French people that much more difficult to endure. Only he knew his terrible secret. Only he knew that he was a fraud. Finally it was more than he could bear. Imagine the shock to those who knew him as a hero when this young Canadian soldier took his own life. (2) Is there anything sadder than the person who--finding himself in a difficult situation--simply gives up? One young woman who had a great fear of getting ...

4046. Come Clean

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... for the resurrection of Christ, we are encouraged to “give up” something. Unable to give up our sins, we dance around the edges of our weakest areas and lift up some token sacrifice, like chocolate or meat, and feel pretty good about “the cross we bear” until Easter. However, the prophet Joel does not let us get away with our pseudo-sacrifices. Joel ushers in a wake up call, a reality check. Joel calls us to a true, honest, veneer-breaking repentance. And this call to repentance is nothing short of ...

4047. One Heaven of a Party

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... and not giving. And the price is having an unbearable itch that is never scratched. The price is realizing that all our possessions will never bring lasting fulfillment. The price is the disappointing discovery of having gone against our creative destiny as those who bear the image of God. When Jesus told the parable of the rich fool, he was offering this very insight. In the parable Jesus communicates how tragic it is for a person to be void of generosity. Jesus describes a man whose foolish greed caused ...

4048. A Happy Ending

Joshua 5:9-12

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... God’s purpose for life, it demands it. That’s what it’s here to do, to change things, to change the world. And the Christian, because he believes in a living God, faces not toward yesterday but toward tomorrow.”[3] Our Christian history bears witness to this statement because Christian history is filled with stories of remarkable change. And not just change for the sake of change, but change for the sake of God’s Kingdom. Hebrew prophets like Jeremiah and Amos called people to examine their hearts ...

4049. In the Event of Power Failure

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... early Christians is available to us. When we surrender our lives to Jesus Christ, we are given a powerful resource from which to draw. The Holy Spirit, the very Spirit of Christ, will live inside of us and give us power for living. The whole Bible bears witness to this incredible truth. In the New Testament there are numerous references that specifically mention the power of Christ. Just take your pick. Here are some of my favorites: “I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city ...

4050. I Wonder if God Exists

Genesis 1:1-5

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... out on the whole issue of God, and even if they are convinced that God exists, they are not sure what this divine being is up to. Yet, I believe clear reflection on the arguments for God’s existence brings the obvious to bear. There are many compelling and convincing arguments for the existence of God. Scholars, philosophers, and theologians have used them within academia for years. Many of these arguments are known within Christian theology as general revelation, which means that they are based on what ...

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