Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 4051 to 4075 of 4944 results

4051. But God...

Genesis 50:15-21

Sermon

David E. Leininger

There is an ancient Chinese story of an old farmer who had an old horse for tilling his fields. One day the horse escaped into the hills and when all the farmer's neighbors sympathized with the old man over his bad luck, the farmer replied, "Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?" A week later the horse returned with a herd of wild horses from the hills and this time the neighbors congratulated the farmer on his good luck. His reply was, "Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?" Then, when the farmer's son was attempting ...

4052. David and Bathsheba

2 Samuel 11:1-27, 12:1-31

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Sexy story, eh? We get lots of them these days. Parental Discretion Advised. In the comics Blondie and Dagwood are watching television. Dagwood remarks, "Boy, there sure is a lot of nudity on TV lately!" "I'll say," Blondie replies. They continue to stare at the TV, eyes wide open. Says Dagwood, "Darnedest tire commercial I've ever seen."(1) Uh-huh. If it is any consolation, as our lessons this morning indicate, a preoccupation with sex is nothing new, especially in high places. And if you were either ...

4053. Good Medicine

Proverbs 10:1-32

Sermon

David E. Leininger

"A cheerful heart is a good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones." Amen? Amen! A really stupid old joke. Three fellows have just died and are at the pearly gates. St. Peter tells them that they can enter if they can answer one simple question: "What is Easter?" The first man replies, "Oh, that's easy, it's the holiday in November when everyone gets together, eats turkey, and is thankful..." "WRONG," replies St. Peter, and proceeds to ask the second man the same question, "What is Easter?" The ...

4054. Sonny Moneybags

Luke 15:11-32

Sermon

David E. Leininger

As most of you know, I am a golfer. I use the term loosely because I do not play very well and I do not get to play very often any more, but I still consider myself a golfer. There is an old expression in the game that says, "Every shot makes somebody happy," which means if you hit a good one, you are happy. If you hit a lousy one, your opponent is happy. Whoever came up with that line was not quite as charitable to the gentle folk who play the game as he or she might have been, but the point is well taken ...

4055. True Excellence

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

One day at a particularly quiet moment in the normally noisy newsroom where he worked, young H. L. Mencken shouted at the top of his lungs, "It's coming in the doors!" Needless to say, everyone stopped and looked in his direction. "It's up to the bottom of the desks!" said Mencken as he rose to his feet. "It's up to the seats of our chairs!" he shouted as he jumped onto his chair. "What are you talking about?" asked one of his incredulous colleagues. "It's up to the tops of our desks!" shouted Mencken as ...

4056. God Is Greater

John 10:22-42

Sermon

King Duncan

A new kind of modern airplane was on an experimental flight. It was full of reporters and journalists. A few minutes after the takeoff the captain's voice was heard from the loudspeakers: "I'm delighted to be your pilot, and the captain of this airplane on its first historical flight. I can tell you that the flight is going well. Nevertheless, I still have to tell you about a minor inconvenience that has occurred. The passengers that are sitting on the right side can, if they look through the window, see ...

4057. Hope Wins!

Revelation 21:1-27

Sermon

King Duncan

The scene is a church camp in Illinois with about 100 kids and various counselors. Jim, the camp director, and Frank, the maintenance director, are away from the camp on business. The next day they return to camp to find everyone gone. Everyone. Gone. There are no campers or counselors anywhere. Empty kayaks float out on the camp lake. An electric typewriter is left on. In it is a sheet of paper. It looks like someone has stopped typing in mid-sentence. But the strangest thing is the clothes. Everywhere ...

4058. Overcoming "Work-avoidance Syndrome"

2 Thessalonians 3:1-5

Sermon

King Duncan

Have you ever noticed how some people are lazy? Oops ” how many people have work-avoidance syndrome? I heard about two men who were talking about going to Australia. One of them said, "Did you hear? The news says there's a diamond mine in the Outback where diamonds lay all over the ground. All you have to do is bend down and pick them up." The other guy looked offended and said, "You have to BEND DOWN?" There was a PEANUTS cartoon several years ago. Linus is addressing Snoopy who is asleep on the roof of ...

4059. I, Caiaphas

John 18:12-14

Sermon

King Duncan

Good evening! Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Caiaphas. I was the high priest in the land of Palestine when the man you call Jesus was arrested an put on trial. But I'm getting ahead of myself; how about if I go back to the beginning of my story? My beloved Palestine was living through times which were filled with turmoil. Rome had been ruling over us as a captive people for over 50 years, and opinions were varied as to what should be done to resolve this impossible situation. One group believed ...

4060. Where Is Your Home?

2 Corinthians 5:6-10

Sermon

King Duncan

Children say the most outrageous things. Laurie and her husband, Ralph, have a little ritual they go through with their kids when one of their pet goldfish dies. The whole family gathers in the bathroom and around the commode. Little Anthony, the 3-year-old, holds the "deceased" while his sister says a little prayer. Then Anthony drops the fish in the bowl and Lexy, the 5-year-old, flushes it to heaven. One day, during one of these rituals, Lexy asked her dad if "Wito," her Grandpa who passed away a few ...

4061. Long Range Planning

Ephesians 1:1-14

Sermon

King Duncan

Our text for the day comes from that immortal television series, The A-Team. At the conclusion of each show the leader would light up his cigar and say, "I love it when a plan comes together." He's right! It is great when a plan comes together. In 1943 Great Britain was planning an invasion of Sicily. In order to carry out this invasion successfully British planners had to convince the Germans and Italians that the invasion would occur elsewhere. And so the British came up with a plan that would be worthy ...

4062. The Deal Of A Lifetime

Mark 10:17-31

Sermon

King Duncan

Many of you pride yourself on being good business people. Suppose someone reputable made you the following offer: You go into business with me. It will be expensive, but I guarantee it will be worth it. You dig up whatever cash you can find. Take out an equity loan on your house, cash in the value of your life insurance policy, pay the penalty, and take the money out of your IRA accounthowever you can come up with cash, do it. Then, if you work hard, and follow the company manual, sacrifice and give your ...

4063. How Can I Know The Truth?

John 16:5-16

Sermon

King Duncan

Sometimes fact IS funnier than fiction. According to an article in the New York TIMES, for more than 50 years authorities in the Soviet Union have been deliberately sabotaging their own maps of the Soviet countryside. Rivers, bridges, cities and coastlines have all been shown in wrong locations on maps or deliberately drawn incorrectly. Distance scales have been an absolute joke. Soviet theory, apparently, was that these errors made these maps useless to spies, invading armies, and the navigators of enemy ...

4064. Lord, When You Came Down To The Jordan

Matthew 3:13-17

Sermon

King Duncan

Down South they tell about one old Baptist minister who preached every Sunday on baptism by immersion. His folks agreed with his doctrine, but they were tired of hearing the same subject dealt with every week. The deacons undertook to solve the problem through diplomatic means. They complimented him on his pulpit skills and suggested to him that he was such a natural preacher that they wanted to try an experiment. They wanted to hand him a piece of paper with a scripture lesson on it just before he stepped ...

4065. When Jiggling Wires Is Not Good Enough

John 4:1-26

Sermon

King Duncan

David McCasland tells about a woman whose car was stalled at an intersection. The hood was up, and she flagged McCasland down to help. "I can't get it started," she said. "but if you jiggle the wire on the battery, I think it will work." McCasland grabbed the positive battery cable and it came off in his hand. Definitely the cable was too loose. "The terminal needs to be tightened up," he told her. "I can fix it if you have some tools." "My husband says to just jiggle the wire," she replied. "It always ...

4066. Giants Or Grasshoppers?

Numbers 13:1-25

Sermon

King Duncan

Jim closed his check book with a sigh and sipped on his coffee. It's been a rough year. He thought back to the early days when he first started his business. Such high hopes. But competition's stiffer now. Costs are rising. Still, he's thankful. He's survived. He and his family are doing well. He thought back to when he and Ann first married. They were so young. What did they know about the responsibilities of married life? Oh, nobody could tell them, of course. She was so beautiful. Still is. It all seems ...

4067. When Life Tumbles In

Mark 13:1-31

Sermon

King Duncan

Have you ever noticed how quickly people's lives can be turned upside down? Up until December 4, 2002, Robert Mancillas of San Antonio, Texas thought he was doing all right. When Robert arrived at work that morning, however, his boss fired him. After receiving this news, Robert decided to walk over to his mother's office and tell her what had happened, but he never made it. A five-story historical building under renovation collapsed on him. When rescuers arrived, all they could see were his feet. He was ...

4068. Hey, Gang, We're Moving!

Genesis 12:1-8

Sermon

King Duncan

Over the years, a certain mythic status has been earned by White House telephone operators, who are rumored to be able to find anybody, anywhere, at any time. President John F. Kennedy once challenged a friend to name someone that the operators wouldn't be able to track down. The friend mentioned writer Truman Capote, who kept an unlisted number. Within thirty minutes, the operator had Capote on the line. The amazing thing about this feat is that Capote was not at his own home in New York at the time. He ...

4069. Every Exit an Entrance

Isaiah 20:1-5

Sermon

Edward Inabinet

Reuel Howe had a friend who had terminal cancer. Howe went to visit his friend one day, not knowing what to say. He was amazed to find the friend in control of himself. His friend told Howe: "When I began to work through this experience, I made an amazing discovery. And it is this: `For every exit, there is an entrance.'' All the way through my life I have been having to give up things in order to get things. I''ve had exits in order to get entrances. I had to give up something in order to go to school. I ...

4070. Grace Is Not a Blue-eyed Blond

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

I often wonder what goes through people’s minds when they hear certain words which we use in church. Words like “incarnation,” “redemption,” and “grace.” I have a hunch that a lot of people confuse incarnation with reincarnation, which is something totally different; and redemption is something one used to do with “green stamps.” As for “grace,” well, that is, indeed, a strange word. Some years ago a minister by the name of R. Lofton Hudson wrote of an experience he had during a conversation with a friend ...

4071. Secretary to Saint Peter

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

MARK’S GOSPEL IS THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK IN THE WORLD! So says Prof. William Barclay of Scotland, the dean of New Testament Biblical commentators. Why? Because, says he, It is agreed by nearly everyone that Mark is the earliest of all the gospels, and is therefore the first life of Jesus that has come down to us. (Daily Study Bible, Phila: The Westminster Pres, 1956. P. xiii.) In other words, if there had been no Gospel of St. Mark there would have been no Gospels. Period. It is an intriguing thought. And ...

4072. The Telling Trademarks of Truth

James 3:13-18

Sermon

Eric Ritz

Gordon MacDonald wrote a few years ago, "the federal government decided to sponsor the building of an atomic particle accelerator in Texas. Planners said the enormous and astronomically expensive atom smasher would dwarf any other in the world. It would take us several steps closer, they said, to discovering the secrets of the universe, a claim we frequently hear from the scientific community as it requests its billions of dollars for research. "The particle accelerator was to be built underground, and so ...

4073. Who Are You Waiting For?

Isaiah 40:1-31

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

This is the second Sunday of Advent. The season of anticipation. Waiting, waiting and hoping. The question is, who is this God for whom we wait? Who is this Emmanuel, this God with us, for whom we long? Return to the words of the prophet Isaiah, sang so beautifully by the choir. “Comfort, comfort my people says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for her sin. A voice cries, in the ...

4074. Smart Living

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sermon

King Duncan

A fifty-five-year-old man was arrested in Buffalo, N. Y. sometime back for stealing a $270 case of liquor. He wouldn't have gotten caught except that as he ran away, he dropped his ill-gotten goods and shattered all the bottles. He still wouldn't have gotten caught except that, after leaving the scene, he returned with a straw to suck up the pool of booze. He was still on his knees when a police officer showed up. He tried to escape, but was caught and arrested. (1) Obviously he's not the smartest candle ...

4075. Growing with God

1 Samuel 2:12-26

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

There are times in the life of the world or of a nation when one individual changes the whole course of history. Perhaps we might say that such a change occurred when the Emperor Constantine declared Christianity to be the official religion of the Roman Empire. Certainly we could agree that Martin Luther introduced an entirely new era when his actions initiated the Protestant reformation. And we might say that Mahatma Gandhi began the fall of the British Empire, or that Gorbachev began the dissolution of ...

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