Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 4151 to 4175 of 5000 results

4151. How Free Are We?

John 8:31-41

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

Mark Twain once remarked that Americans of the nineteenth century were fortunate to have “freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, and the prudence never to practice either of them!” I have a hunch that his wry comment is not limited to folks of the nineteenth century. Freedom is not really freedom unless it is exercised. Still, most of us believe ourselves to be free beings, freely able to make choices and to decide our own destinies. There is an old story of a Methodist preacher and a Calvinist preacher ...

4152. One Commandment, Slightly Used

John 13:31-38

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

We might consider Jesus’ words to His students (disciples) in the Upper Room as sort of a “Last Will and Testament,” a final summing up of all that He had taught them during His brief ministry among them. He begins to speak of His coming death not as a probability but as a certainty, and He begins to talk with new urgency as though the passing moments are infinitely precious and as though he wants to etch every word indelibly on the minds of each of them. And what does He say to them? “I give you a new ...

4153. It’s Hard to Eat While Lying

John 13:18-30

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

Judas Iscariot has always been an enigma to us. One preacher, writing many years ago said, “No minister, at the time of his ordination, ever entertained more pleasing prospects for a brilliant career than had Judas Iscariot.” For one thing, Judas was given a good name. The names Judas means “praise of God.” One of the eleven sons of Jacob bore that name. So did one of the brothers of Jesus; the one who, by tradition, wrote the book of Jude in the New Testament. He was probably named after one of the most ...

4154. No Longer Orphans

John 14:15-31

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

Have you ever wondered where sermons come from? I have. Especially when I first entered the ministry. I had an idea what I was going to preach about next Sunday, and a pretty good idea of what I would like to say a week from next Sunday; but I wondered: what on earth I would find to preach about five, ten, fifteen or twenty years down the road? Fortunately, thanks to the limitless resources available in the Holy Scripture, I never ran out of sermon topics in forty years of parish ministry, but the whole ...

4155. Does God Give Out Blank Checks?

John 15:1-17

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

One of my favorite authors is Father Andrew Greeley, who, when he is not writing newspaper columns, popular (and somewhat racy) novels, and technical sociological treatises, somehow finds time to write passable books on theology. Greeley is so prolific that some have suggested that he is a committee rather than one individual man. Some critics say that he has never had an unpublished thought; but perhaps some of the criticism leveled against him might come under the heading of jealousy...from folks who ...

4156. If Christ Had Not Come

John 15:18--16:4

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

“If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.” (John 15:22) What strange words are these! Especially the part where Jesus says, “If I had not come...” What would it be like, I wonder, if Christ had not come? Would it really make that much difference? Are we right in dating all human history from the birth of Christ, so that everything that has happened before He came is called “B.C.” (before Christ) and everything that has happened since then is ...

4157. Who Counted the Fish?

John 21:1-14, John 21:15-25

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

The 20th chapter of the Fourth Gospel ends with the words, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:30-31) That sounds like the end of the story, doesn’t it? But then, chapter 21 comes along, and it is almost as if the whole thing starts all over again. Scholars have long been puzzled ...

4158. Life Begins at Thirty-Eight

John 5:1-15

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

“When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, Do you want to be made well?’” (John 5:6) It sounds like a stupid question, doesn’t it? Jesus meets this fellow at the crowded pool, this poor crippled chap who had been coming there for perhaps thirty-eight years waiting to be healed, and asks him point blank, “Do you want to be made well?” We can imagine the look the crippled man must have given Jesus. We can imagine him saying something like, “Do I want to be ...

4159. Son of Thunder, Son of God

Mark 10:35-45

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

I just love the story of Jordan Gollub. It came out of Religious News Service in June of 1989. It seems that Jordan Gollub was leader of the Mississippi Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. (Now there’s a contradiction in terms for you!) At least he was until they discovered that he was born of Jewish parents. Then they kicked him out. Thus, this bigot found himself ousted by his own bigoted group! The article says that he now plans to start his own organization, so he can kick everybody else out, I ...

4160. An Unpopular Profession

Matthew 9:9-13

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

Matthew was a tax collector. He was probably stationed in Capernaum, an excellent spot for collecting excise from travelers and merchants, on the trade route between Ptolemais and Damascus. Now, tax collectors are not on the list of anyone’s favorite people at best, but in ancient Israel it was even worse. Tax collectors had little or no social standing. Their word was not accepted in a Jewish court of law. Their money was considered tainted and would not be accepted by the synagogue. In fact, in Jesus’ ...

4161. Little Jimmy

Mark 3:13-19

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

I have a very close, long-time friend by the name of Jim. The problem is that his son is also named Jim. When his son and our son were growing up together, it was simple to identify Jim the son from Jim the father by calling him “Little Jimmy.” But now, “Little Jimmy” is bigger than “Big Jim,” and has a son of his own named Little Jimmy, and so the whole thing gets rather confusing. I have no idea what they do at family reunions. Their family is sort of like that group of Twelve apostles. I. THERE ARE AT ...

4162. Good Old What’s-His-Name

John 14:15-31

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

In the fifth century, St. Jerome called the apostle we are considering in this sermon “Trinomius,” which means “the man with three names.” In Mark he is called Thaddeus (3:18), in Matthew he is called Thaddeus or Lebbaeus (10:3), and in Luke he is called Judas, the son of James (Luke 6:16; Acts 1:13). If the Gospels cannot agree on this man’s name, how can we ever hope to get it straight? Well, I have recently read an advertisement from one of those sheets which fall out of the Sunday newspaper, an ...

4163. Jesus and the Baptists

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

A little girl who normally attended another Sunday School happened to attend a Methodist Sunday School one week-end, while visiting her grandmother. In the course of the morning she heard a number of things she wasn’t quite sure about, but when the teacher said that Jesus was a Jew she responded, “Maybe Jesus was a Jew, but God is a Baptist!” Of course, God isn’t a Baptist; and neither was John the Baptist, for that matter. That is why the Revised Standard Version calls him “John the Baptizer”...to avoid ...

4164. Jesus Out of Character

Mark 7:24-30

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

Rejection can be one of the most painful experiences any of us can have. Ralph Keyes in his book “Is There Life after High School?” writes that Mia Farrow has never forgotten the time every girl but Mia was asked to dance. Nor has Charles Schulz of “Peanuts” cartoon fame ever forgotten that the yearbook staff rejected his every cartoon. Movie actress Ali McGraw confesses she doesn’t forget the fact that she never had one date in all of high school. Henry Kissinger is best remembered by his classmates as ...

4165. Losers Keepers

Mark 8:31--9:1

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

The Texas millionaire stipulated in his will that he be buried in his favorite possession: his $90,000 Rolls-Royce. When the time came, two laborers were shoveling the last bit of dirt onto the now-buried luxury car. One finally turned to the other and said, “Boy! That’s living!” Not really. Not according to Jesus. Death comes to everyone, from the richest to the poorest, and the finest car in the world won’t make a difference on the other side of eternity. “For what shall it profit a man, to gain the ...

4166. God’s Strange Arithmetic

Mark 10:1-12

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

An interesting article appeared awhile back in the Clinton SC Chronicle titled “When The Editor Left Town.” It said: “Mr. Jim Galeway and Miss Georgianne Bentlow were married Monday at the home of the bride’s parents. Mr. and Mrs. Alex Bentlow, the Rev. A.A. Deckett officiating. The groom is a popular young bum who hasn’t done a lick of work since he got expelled his junior year in college. He manages to dress well and keeps a supply of spending money because his dad is a soft-hearted old fool who takes up ...

4167. God’s Greatest Gamble

Mark 12:1-12

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

Have you ever seen a naked chicken? I haven’t, but I read about one recently. Two poultry researchers, Ralph Somes, Jr. in Connecticut and Max Rubin in Maryland, have produced a new breed of naked chicken. Actually this strange breed was first discovered in 1953 by Ursula Abbott, a researcher at the University of California. Since then, according to the Wall Street Journal, naked chickens have been bred and studied on a wide scale. The advantage of having a naked chicken is this: none of the food intake of ...

4168. Jesus and the IRS

Mark 12:13-17

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

The voice on the other end of the line identified its owner as a representative of the Internal Revenue Service. The caller asked, “Did John Jones give $10,000 to your church last year?” The pastor thought for a moment, and then carefully replied, “He will!” If there is anything that strikes terror into the hardiest of hearts it is the dread acronym: IRS. “The Infernal Revenue Service.” Er, I mean, the Internal Revenue Service. Someone has said, “You may not agree with every department in the government, ...

4169. Palm Sunday (Prologue)

Matthew 21:1-11

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

Once upon a time, before television, there was radio. You know what radio is—television without pictures. Well, before television, one of the most popular daytime radio programs was called “Queen for a Day.” If I remember it correct-ly (and it was a long time ago!), each day four or five women from the studio audience would tell the host what they would like to have and do if they could be “Queen for a Day.” And then, on the basis of applause, one woman was chosen, and insofar as they were able, the ...

4170. Please, Don't Let me Jabez Anyone Else (Part 5)

1 Chronicles 4:1-23

Sermon

Eric Ritz

A father was called into school to the principal''s office. Apparently his son had shoved a chalkboard eraser in the mouth of one of his classmates. When the principal told the boy''s father of his infraction, the father was furious. He turned to his son and demanded an answer: "What reason could you have possibly had to put a chalkboard eraser in that girl''s mouth?" The boy meekly answered, "Because her mouth was open." (1) Today we examine the 4th and final petition of the Prayer of Jabez: "and that you ...

4171. The Ultimate Thirst Quencher (Alternate Addition to the "I Am" series: Living water)

John 7:25-44

Sermon

Eric Ritz

Have you ever been extremely hot and extremely thirsty? Go with me in your imagination to South America, to the country of Chile. There is a desert there, the Atacama Desert. In the Atacama Desert it does not rain for centuries at a time. This forsaken, narrow strip of land lies along the western coast of South America. It is protected from clouds by the Andes Mountains, the world''s second highest mountain range. Some parts of the Atacama Desert have not seen rain in 400 years. Although the desert is ...

4172. The Road to Somewhere (I am the way, truth, and life)

John 14:5-14

Sermon

Eric Ritz

Someone has made a list of five things you will never hear a man say: 1. We haven''t been to the mall for ages, let''s go shopping and I can hold your purse for you! 2. Forget "Monday Night Football." Let''s watch Melrose Place. 3. Your mother''s coming to stay with us again? Great! 4. Do these jeans come in lavender? And finally, 5: I think we are lost. We better pull over and ask for directions. Perhaps all of us have had the experience of being lost in a strange town--even those of us who don''t mind ...

4173. The Lord's Prayer: Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done

Matthew 6:5-15

Sermon

Eric Ritz

Father Henri Nouwen shares, "In ten years, we will celebrate the second millennium of the Christian Era." However, he raises a good question, "Will there be anything left to celebrate?" He continues by saying, "Many voices in our land wonder if humanity can survive its own destructive powers." I agree! As we look out over the landscape of the world, we see great warring conflicts among all the people of the world. We have all kinds of wars. We have wars being fought in the Middle East, South Africa, ...

4174. The Lord's Pryaer: Our Daily Bread

Matthew 6:5-13

Sermon

Eric Ritz

Dr. Fred B. Craddock tells of going to hear a well-known speaker talk about world hunger. He was not disappointed in her presentation. Her speech was well-organized and persuasive. However, five years later, he had for all practical purposes forgotten what this speaker had said. However, Dr. Craddock said that the most memorable and life-changing remark came from a little white-haired lady who had much less education and oratory skills than the main speaker--but she did something this conscious nature ...

4175. I THIRST: The Fifth Word

John 19:28-37

Sermon

Eric Ritz

We continue on our journey today as we examine and reflect on--for our spiritual edification--"The Fifth Word" of our Lord Jesus Christ from the cross. So far, we have heard our Lord share these words from the cross: First he said, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." Then he promised the repentant thief, "Today you will be with me in Paradise." He committed the care of His mother, Mary, to his closest friend John. Last week we heard that powerful cry from the cross "My God, My God, why ...

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