Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: Levi, disciple, evangelist, tax collector, the 12, the twelve, apostle, sermon on the mount, jewish audience, beatitudes, lord's prayer, great commission, parables, olivet discourse, mount of olives, olivet, synoptic

Showing 4151 to 4175 of 4968 results

4151. Get Out of Your Big Pickup Truck!

John 12:20-36

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... of risk sometimes succeeds. As our text makes clear--a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, thereby producing much grain (John 12:24)--Jesus' teaching sanctions and elevates human risk-taking. (See also Jesus' parable of the talents [Matthew 25:14\-30].) Early disciples of Jesus left the security of home, temple, and tradition and risked it all on Jesus (Mark 7:5). We worship a risk-taking God. When God created the universe, he took risks by creating a world endowed with freedom. God didn't make us ...

4152. The World's Greatest Cover Up

Romans 4:1-25

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... never wavered, and indeed continued to give glory to God (verse 20) despite his great age, despite the long passage of years between God's promise and fulfillment of the divine words. The interior necessarily affects the exterior of a faithful, righteous disciple. This is especially true, Paul declares, since we have received the ultimate gift of grace from God, the resurrection of Jesus, who died and was raised for our justification (verse 25). How could such a miraculous event, such a transforming moment ...

4153. Be Kind

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sermon

James McCormick

... parable of the Good Samaritan, is about one person helping another person in need. It’s about human kindness. It was so important to Jesus, in fact, that he made it the essential mark of authentic discipleship. He said, “This is how people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Not if you believe all the right things. Not if you pray a lot. Not if you give a tithe of your income. Not if you worship in the right way. Those are all good things, but they are not the most ...

4154. Lord, Teach Us How to Pray

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

James McCormick

... God’s Spirit. He prayed daily as a matter of custom. But especially when He had a decision to make, a difficult task to do, or a cross to face, He would first spend time with God in prayer, and then go to do what He had to do. The disciples knew that prayer was the source of Jesus’ power. That’s why they asked Him, “Lord, teach us how to pray.” Today, that’s our request as well. I. To begin with, if we are to learn about prayer from Jesus, we must see that, for Him, prayer was not ...

4155. Jesus' Forty Days, and Ours

Matthew 4:1-11

Sermon

James McCormick

... have been sufficient in the past, remember all of that and then God will come and do it again, right here, right now. Where did Jesus go from his wilderness experience? Instead of being weakened by it, he was strengthened by it. He immediately left the wilderness, called his disciples, and got at the task to which God had called him. He was very clear now about who he was and what he was to do. He was God’s son, and he was to be about his Father’s business. I love the way Matthew closes the wilderness ...

4156. In Life Nothing Works but the Impossible

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... you think are uncrossable? Got any mountains you can't tunnel through?” It’s the “madness of the impossible.” You tell me---- a new kind of human is "impossible" in an old kind of world. I say: Impossible is nothing. In Paradise Lost, the disciples of Jesus settle for nothing less than Paradise Regained. Politics may be called the “art of the possible.” But religion is the art of the impossible. Jesus’ true kind of humans are people who refuse to conform to the limits of the possible: they ...

4157. Mark 1:21-28

Mark 1:21-28

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

Although Jesus is identified as being from Nazareth, he begins his public ministry in Capernaum, which is thought to be the hometown of his first four "fish" disciples: Peter, Andrew, John, and James. As Mark notes at the outset of today's gospel text, they i.e. Jesus and his four new disciples journey to Capernaum to observe the Sabbath (verse 21). Although the NRSV translation doesn't highlight it, the force of the Greek is to suggest that there's a repetitive pattern to Jesus' behavior: that going to ...

4158. 1 Corinthians 7:29-31

1 Corinthians 7:1-40

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... celibate lifestyle, Paul offers his personal opinion (verse 25) that "if you marry you do not sin" (verse 28). But the choice to marry or not to marry isn't the most important issue for Paul. Rather it's the radical change in the disciple's relationship to the world. Whether married or celibate, Paul contends that for those who accept Christ the entire cosmos becomes a different place. Their experience of the world and everything in it is changed forever. The underlying reason for Paul's message to these ...

4159. 2 Peter 3: 8-15a

2 Peter 3:1-18

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... to come to repentance before calling an end to time. This repentance for New Testament writers means following Christ and living the gospel (in 1 Timothy 2:4 this is called the knowledge of the truth). These extra years God has granted enable the testimony of the disciples and the preaching of the gospel to be heard and accepted by even more, enlarging the community to be saved on that day. All this delay isn't meant as some kind of divine down time a fallow time where the actions and attitudes of believers ...

4160. The Origins of Passover

Exodus 12:1-30

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... we are redeemed from our sin. In our Old Testament lesson, Moses explains aforetime what will happen on the night of Israel’s redemption. The liturgy precedes the event. So too in the Gospel according to John, Jesus is the host at the supper, explaining to his disciples ahead of time what is going to happen when he is crucified and raised from the dead. But here, now, for us, the event has taken place, hasn’t it? The cross has been raised. Explanation and event are joined. As we read of the Supper and ...

4161. Epiphany 4

Psalm 15:1-5, Micah 6:1-8, 1 Corinthians 1:18--2:5, Matthew 5:1-12

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