Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 4101 to 4125 of 4977 results

4101. Survivor

Luke 16:1-13

Sermon

James Merritt

... , ‘What shall I do? For my master is taking the stewardship away from me. I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg.’” (v.3) I find it interesting that the steward was too lazy to dig, too proud to beg, but he was not above stealing. But he’s not quite ready to slit his wrist just yet. He comes up with a plan and a strategy that is unbelievably clever. “I have resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. So he called every one of his master ...

4102. What’s the Big Deal about Baptism?

Mark 1:9-11

Sermon

James Merritt

... service was over, he walked to where the pastor was standing and he forgot the words they told him to say. When he got up to the pastor, he looked up into his face and said, "Pastor I've been saved and I want to be advertised." Well, quite frankly that is exactly what baptism is. It is your advertisement to the world that you have become a believer in Jesus Christ accepting His death, burial and resurrection as payment for your sins. c. Transformation Now get this picture in your mind because a picture is ...

4103. Hotline to Heaven

Matthew 6:5-15

Sermon

James Merritt

... , I didn't." She said, "Why not?" She said, "I got down on my knees to pray, but I got to thinking that God's probably tired of hearing the same old prayer every night, so I just crawled into bed and told Him about Little Red Riding Hood." Now quite frankly, the way some people pray, they may as well be talking to God about Little Red Riding Hood, because all they do is say the same thing over and over and over. You could pretty much sum up most praying in a Baptist church like this: "Father, thank you ...

4104. Don’t Sweat the Big Stuff

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

James Merritt

... that "Worry is the interest we pay in advance today for trouble that may never come tomorrow." Well, I want you to listen to what Jesus had to say about this matter of worry. I'm going to give you three surefire steps on how to deal with it, and quite frankly whether you need it or not, I do. I. Admit The Sinfulness Of Worry Now you may not think of worry as a sin, but it most definitely is. Sin is disobeying any commandment of the Lord. Three times in this passage Jesus gives a command. He says in ...

4105. Milli Vanilli Religion

Matthew 7:15-23

Sermon

James Merritt

... ." Now before you can beware of false prophets, you must be aware of false prophets. You see a false prophet will speak just enough truth to camouflage his lies. Henry Ward Beecher, a great preacher of yesteryear, once said, "Whatever is only almost true, is quite false, and among the most dangerous of errors because being so near truth, it is the more likely to lead astray." You see these false prophets will use our vocabulary but not our dictionary. What they mean by Jesus and what we mean by Jesus are ...

4106. Life on the Rock

Matthew 7:24-29

Sermon

James Merritt

... home like Jesus Christ. We are concluding our teaching on the Sermon on the Mount that we have entitled "The Only Way to Live." The Sermon on the Mount is the largest body of the teachings of Jesus recorded consecutively in all of the Bible. Quite frankly, this sermon is probably the reason why Jesus is called the world's greatest teacher. He closes this unbelievable sermon with a parable; a story of two homebuilders. Now in actuality Jesus is not talking about building a home; He's talking about building ...

4107. Smooth Out Your Day

Matthew 11:25-30

Sermon

James Merritt

... me, help me, and teach me, but He never lost His peace and He never lost his patience. He was always cool, calm and collected. That is why He can say, "If you come to Me, I will give you rest." That word rest doesn't mean to just quit working. Do you know what the word literally means? It means to "be refreshed." That same word is used in this passage. "I am glad about the coming of Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus, for what was lacking on your part they supplied. For they refreshed my spirit and yours ...

4108. Minority Report

Matthew 13:1-9; 18-23

Sermon

James Merritt

... hardens the clay. I know that the number one physical killer in America is heart disease. It is caused by arteriosclerosis which is a hardening of the arteries. But the number one spiritual killer in the world is what I call spiritual sclerosis, a hardening of the heart. Quite frankly, I know there are people who come to church every Sunday and they think that I'm wasting their time, and I know that they're wasting mine because they are not going to listen to one thing I have to say. They're not going to ...

4109. God and the Minimum Wage

Matthew 20:1-16

Sermon

James Merritt

... died of meningitis shortly after reaching Cairo. He apparently had thrown away his money, his career, and even his life? That is what logic would say, but that is not what God would say. God would say, "The first will be last and the last will be first." When you quit asking the question, "What's in it for me?" and start asking the question, "What's in it for Him?" When you make up your mind that you are going to serve God just because you love Him, and just because of what He can do for you, you will ...

4110. Use It or Lose It

Matthew 25:14-30

Sermon

James Merritt

... 30 days in order to get $300 million. Now can you imagine having to spend $30 million in 30 days? I know most men are sitting there thinking to themselves: For my wife that would be no problem. At first you may think that this is just pure Hollywood. But, quite frankly, that clip is closer to reality than you think. We all have gifts from God that are far more valuable than $30 million or $300 million. Because every one of us are given opportunities to find God's will and to do God's work. We are all given ...

4111. Everyone's Talking about Him

Mark 7:31-37

Sermon

King Duncan

... hearing loss. According to a recent study by the National Institutes of Health, there has been a stunning 26 percent increase in those suffering permanent hearing loss between the ages of 35 and 60, compared to 15 years earlier. (2) Hearing loss is becoming quite widespread and is a nuisance. But there is nothing funny about deafness. The world of non-hearing people can be lonely and difficult. One of the saddest instances of deafness that I know is that of the immortal composer of classical music, Ludwig ...

4112. Quiet Time Is for Listening

Mark 6:31

Illustration

Brett Blair

... the middle of a bunch of chaos, Jesus took his disciples to a quiet place. I think I know why. There's a a fifth grade teacher who decided that she would use a listening process with her children. Every morning for five minutes she required them to be totally quite. That's hard for any of us to do, much less a fifth grader. She discovered that a great deal of good came from the experience of silence. After one of these quiet times she asked the students if they had heard anything. One boy said: Yes, I heard ...

4113. Labor Day

Illustration

King Duncan

... feeling like Sisyphus. I hope that you don't wake up every morning feeling like you have to push a giant boulder up a hill. Some people do. Like the teacher who was complaining about her job. She told about her principal who was lecturing the faculty quite unmercifully. One by one, he presented them with a painful list of all their failures, flaws and shortcomings. He chided them for over an hour for all the mistakes they had made over the year. Then he announced that the science club was sponsoring a blood ...

4114. One Step at a Time

Nehemiah 2:1-10

Sermon

James Merritt

... that He will do His part and when you have done your part, you can step up and ask. III. Step In And Look "So I came to Jerusalem and was there three days." (Nehemiah 2:11, NKJV) Now I find that interesting. Nehemiah gets to Jerusalem and quite frankly where I would have immediately jumped into the project and begun trying to make headway to get those walls rebuilt, Nehemiah did nothing. Now what he was doing, I am not sure. He was probably resting because it was a hard journey of several months. He was ...

4115. A Clear and Present Danger

Nehemiah 5:1-19

Sermon

James Merritt

... for hundreds of years. People had left their farms and their work to come and do something that everyone said could not be done. It caused problems for some of the people. In fact, in any transition, change is going to be harder on some people than others. Quite frankly, anytime an organization goes through change, somebody is going to feel neglected. It is not hard to tell who those people are, because they will tell you, but I want to say again, that is not all bad. I had to learn as a leader that there ...

4116. Keep Your Eye On The Ball

Nehemiah 6:1-14

Sermon

James Merritt

... ." Thursday: Notice - I, R. D. Jones, have no sewing machine for sale. I smashed it. Don't call 948-0707 as the telephone has been disconnected. I have not been carrying on with Mrs. Kelly. Until yesterday she was my housekeeper, but she quit. [[1]] Well this is somewhat akin to what these three guys were doing to Nehemiah. We would call it today - political hardball, negative campaigning, dirty tricks. They were getting down and dirty and pulling out all the stops trying to destroy Nehemiah, his integrity ...

4117. Kill Them with Kindness

Proverbs 3:3, 19:22

Sermon

James Merritt

One of the advantages of growing older and getting a few more years under your belt is the opportunity to learn. In fact, I really believe if you're not learning, you are really not living. The day you quit learning or the day you lose your desire to continue learning, your life basically is over. The longer you live, the more you can learn. One of my goals in life is to try and learn something new every day. I do it either by reading a book or a ...

4118. In God We Trust

Proverbs 3:5-6

Sermon

James Merritt

... court has to say and I am quoting Judge Robert King. "The Fourth Circuit has 'heretofore characterized the phrase 'In God We Trust' when used as the national motto on coins and currency as a 'patriotic and ceremonial motto' with 'no theological or ritualistic impact.'" Quite frankly, if those four words, "In God We Trust" have "no theological or ritualistic impact" then you could just have easily substituted Mickey Mouse for God. It raises for me a big "why?" I don't mind telling you that there are a lot of ...

4119. What Do I Do When I Can't Get Started?

Proverbs 6:6-11

Sermon

James Merritt

... you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done." (Ecclesiastes 11:4, LB) Teresa and I had only been married a couple of years and I had just gotten my master's degree and was about to start my doctorial work, when we finally decided to have children. Quite frankly, we both looked at each other at the time and said, "There is no way we can afford to have a child." There are a lot of people who put off getting married or put off having a child, because they just don't see how they can ...

4120. People Skills

Proverbs 12:26

Sermon

James Merritt

... your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you." (Proverbs 25:21-22, NASB) What does it mean to "heap burning coals on this head"? Quite frankly, it doesn't mean what you think, because I know that is what you would like to do to some of your enemies. Here is the way Charles Swindoll explains it. "In ancient days, homes were heated and meals were fixed on a small portable stove somewhat like ...

4121. Pro-Choice is No-Choice

Proverbs 24:11-12

Sermon

James Merritt

... biological father had raped your mother, would you no longer have a right to live? Two wrongs never make a right. To abort a baby conceived as a result of rape will not undo the rape, nor does it change the fact that it is still a human life. Quite frankly, I could go on with other arguments, but no matter what argument you bring up, you will find the pro-abortion argument falls morally. III. How The Pro-Life Argument Frees Spiritually To be pro-life frees you, first of all, from grief. Did you know that ...

4122. Being What We Are

1 Samuel 8:4-20

Sermon

Stan Purdum

... loosened up some of the stiffness that had dominated worship. We have become more conscious that not everybody responds to one mode of worship, and we have enlarged our view of how God can be worshiped and praised. But in the end, which we have not quite reached yet, we will have to say, "No," to the plea to "make the church like the entertainment world." Those are three examples, but hardly the only pleas the church has heard. Among the others are: Make the church like a political-action coalition. Make ...

4123. A Sense of Place

2 Samuel 5:1-5, 6-10

Sermon

Stan Purdum

... we have lived in. She became very settled in each place and attached to the people. Each time we moved for my assignments, for her it was a painful uprooting, one usually complicated by the fact that while I was going to a ready-made job, she was having to quit hers and go looking for another one. Simply put, this difference between us is that my spouse has a stronger sense of place than I do. She is a settler and I am an itinerant. Well, if you think about it for a few moments, each of you can probably ...

4124. The View from Michal’s Window

2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19

Sermon

Stan Purdum

... front of us all. She scolded him for engaging in our "dangerous game" and for setting a bad example, and told him that he should be ashamed of himself. The man himself seemed to take this in stride, but he did say to us, "Okay, fellas, we better quit this." We all slunk away while he walked off with his wife. That incident always comes back to me when I read this story from the Old Testament about King David dancing his way into Jerusalem. He was heading the procession that was transporting the Ark of the ...

4125. What’s So Amazing about Grace?

2 Samuel 7:1-14a

Sermon

Stan Purdum

... community itself. You can see how verse 1 is John Newton's testimony. "Amazing grace ... that saved a wretch like me." The second verse offers another perspective on grace: "'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear." There is a form of fear that is quite healthy — the fear that arises when we face significant danger, the fear that causes us to take preventive measures. This verse says that God teaches us to fear — that is, he plants within us the healthy alarm that rings inside our head when we are ...

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