Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 4176 to 4200 of 4999 results

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... to be. They are literally on the doorsteps of buildings in the downtown parts of all the cities of this nation. We ignore that. We wish nobody would remind us of it, because it doesn't fit our image of the way the world is. We expect to see those kinds of scenes on television news, coming from other countries, being helped by missionaries that we send over there to help out the "Lazaruses" of the world. But soon there will be as many scenes of misery and poverty in our land, as in the so-called third world ...

4177. How to See the Future

Matthew 26:17-30

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... sacrament of Holy Communion. For instance, back in the Middle Ages, many pious Christians saw what happened here as a kind of magic. The faithful were sitting out in the nave, where you are sitting, and up here, what was called ... can put it behind you. You can forgive others, and put that behind you. You can be forgiven, and put that behind you, so that you can live the kind of life that God has planned for you in the future. As Christians we shape our lives not on what has happened to us, but on what is ...

4178. Something to Sing About

Philippians 1:12-30

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is better. But to remain in the flesh is better for you. I don't know about you, but it is very hard for me to relate to that kind of discourse. I can imagine the minister of the First United Methodist Church of Philippi, addressing the congregation on Sunday morning. "Well, we got a thank you letter from Paul this morning. He said that he would rather die than come and visit us." I mean, that is the way ...

4179. Only One Thing Is Needed

Luke 10:38-42

Sermon

King Duncan

... that, at one point in history, God did become a human being; that is, the One who is eternal entered time; the One who had always inhabited the heavens chose to come and live as a human being upon this earth. As they talked about this event, she asked all kinds of questions as to what it meant. They talked late into the night, the woman excitedly coming to grips with the awesome idea that God had become human for her sake. (4) Have you ever come to grips with that truth in your own life? I know many of you ...

4180. Pigs Get Slaughtered

Luke 12:13-21

Sermon

King Duncan

... you must have a big house and a big car.” And he responds, “No, I have the same house, same car, same friends, same wife.” Fulghum admits to being on guard against all kinds of greed, and is committed to serving God, not money. Of course, fame is a challenge, Fulghum admits, “and the challenge is to be a good steward with this kind of authority and power‑-especially with the economics.” So one year he did a book tour, and used it to raise $670,000 for a number of good causes. “I don’t think ...

4181. By Faith

Hebrews 11:1-40

Sermon

King Duncan

... s Spirit will come into your heart and then begin living each day trusting God, until the day comes when faith permeates every part of your life. Peter Haynes tells a story about a woman named Judy. Like the unlucky man at the beginning of our message, Judy was the kind of person for whom everything always seemed to go wrong. If Judy went skiing, she would fall and fracture a leg or an arm. If she were walking down a country lane on a bright summer day and paused to lean on the end of a long picketed fence ...

4182. Honest Abe

Genesis 12:1-4a

Sermon

Bill Mosley

... San Andreas Fault, there was an earthquake. The wife rushed into the main room of their shack and shouted, "John, John, the Lord's destroyin' the world!" John slowly looked up from the paper he was reading and said, "Wal, it's his'n, ain't it?" Now that kind of faith, being that honest, is hard to do. We could call today "Abraham" Sunday. The real question is, "Who is faithful?" The answers given today are: The one who goes when God says, "Go"; the one to whom God gives grace and faith; the one who worships ...

4183. The Seeing Eye

1 Samuel 16:1-13

Sermon

Bill Mosley

... to cover Samuel's journey to Bethlehem. Samuel gives Jesse no explanation of why he wants to examine the boys. And how did they feel? Did they fear to be chosen, or not be chosen? Did they know what they were being chosen for? Well, only two kinds of people are anointed with oil: prophets and kings. And Samuel is carrying a horn of oil. This is about choices. The people chose Saul, against the wishes of Samuel (the prophet) but God chooses David, while Samuel just obeys God. We can tell from the reading ...

4184. A Voice from Beyond

Genesis 12:1-9

Sermon

James L. Killen

... to remember that.) As we have said, the ontological argument is not likely to serve as a conclusive proof of anything. And yet, it can focus our attention on an important aspect of our experience of God. Are you aware that you do, in fact, live in some kind of a relationship with a greater reality that is out there and that comes to meet you in each new day of life? In fact, coming to an awareness that we live in relationship with a greater reality that is beyond us is the starting place of all religions ...

4185. Ten Friends Drive Us to the Promise

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20

Sermon

Arley K. Fadness

... if ... then': If you want the reward, then you have to fulfill the condition; if you want to avoid punishment, then you have to meet the expectation. Either way, you are on the spot -- the law's requirement is directed at you. But there is another kind of word in scripture as well, a promising one. In such words, declarations are made, gifts are given, promises bestowed ... thus none of the most important differences between the law and the gospel is who is responsible to fulfill them."5 With the law, you ...

4186. The Model of Success

Luke 16:1-15

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... to make any difference. I mean, the enormous suffering in this world, just wave after wave. It's not going to make any difference. I talked to one of those Rotarians in Tehuacan who spent two years setting up this project. It's a complex business establishing this kind of a clinic in Mexico. I said, "Why did you do it?" He said, "We believe that we can change the world, and we are going to start right here." It sounds naive. It is naive, when you compare it with the problems that exist, even the problems ...

4187. Grace Has Appeared

Titus 2:11-14

Sermon

James L. Killen

... question will do more than anything else to determine the shape of our lives. And the answer is not always easy to guess. The world around us gives mixed signals. People come up with lots of different answers. As a result, people live lots of different kinds of lives. But Christians believe that, in the coming of Jesus, that greater reality which is present in all of the little realities that bump up against us, did something special to make us able to know that God loves us, and that God loves everybody ...

4188. Remembering Jesus

2 Peter 1:16-21

Sermon

James L. Killen

... a secular approach to life that virtually forbids any public discussion of religion and that indirectly suggests that there is something wrong with religion as a whole. In that kind of a situation, many people have become very confused about what to believe. Some have been led to give up on religious faith all together. When we find ourselves in that kind of a situation, we need to remember Jesus again. The story of Jesus puts us in touch with the most profound aspects of the truth about God and puts ...

4189. A Christian's Resumé

2 Corinthians 6:3-13

Sermon

Richard W. Ferris

... . Even more disappointing, those are not the things most congregations want to see in the history of their minister or even their members. What good church folk want to see is that next part of Paul's resume. That part that includes purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God. That's what churches want - not only in their pastors, but also in the members of their congregations. That's what we want to see in everyone else, of course, but we ...

4190. Abraham Believed God

Romans 4:1-5, 13-17

Sermon

Richard W. Ferris

... " becomes the basis for their concept of salvation. With this type of thinking which is prevalent in our world, it doesn't really matter what you believe about God, as long as you believe in some kind of god. But Abraham believed God, and through his belief he was given righteousness. The kind of righteousness God demands of his creation. Imagine, if you will, a tightrope stretched across the street between two tall buildings (you might insert the names of two well-known buildings in your town or city, or ...

4191. Temptation of the Palms

Philippians 2:5-11

Sermon

Richard W. Ferris

... t work. Jesus didn’t give in to the temptation of the palms. He didn’t budge an inch off the course his Father had set for him. Yes, he could have. He could have done a lot of things, and in our imaginations we can conjure up all kinds of different endings to Jesus’ mission and ministry. He could have taken the throne that the Palm Sunday crowd wanted to put him on. He could have led Israel to worldly dominance by crushing the Roman Empire with the mighty hand of God. He could have healed the nation ...

4192. The Eyes of Your Heart

Ephesians 1:15-23

Sermon

Richard W. Ferris

... up in a cloud while angels inform the disciples that one day he will return in the same manner. Jesus crossed over. After his death and resurrection, the disciples viewed Jesus with the eyes of their hearts. They saw him in a new way, with a new kind of body and a new spirituality. He represented what they would become. And he was telling them that it was the way of God, and that it was good. To borrow a word from John Edward, Jesus "validated" what the disciples believed, and what we would believe these ...

4193. No Shame

Romans 1:16-17; 3:22b-28 (29-31)

Sermon

William G. Carter

... just like the rest of us. You never know what he's going to say. Sometimes he is able to be quite tender. He could be kind and gracious. He wrote to the Philippians, to a church he loved, and he said, "I have great affection for you from all the way ... come. We want to keep it manageable. If anybody shows up, it could get out of hand." I don't know why he was worried. In my kind of church, hardly anything ever gets out of hand. It sounded to me as if he was ashamed of what we were doing. Here is something I ...

4194. Uncle Abraham

Romans 4:13-25

Sermon

William G. Carter

... am I doing so far? I thought so. It is difficult to preach Paul's letter to the Romans. This document is heavy in all kinds of ways. It is a dense and demanding piece of correspondence. Paul writes this letter to a congregation he did not start, to people whom ... with me a seventy-pound commentary on Romans. I think he did it out of self-defense. This is a heavy piece of scripture, in all kinds of ways. When we hear Paul speak, this is the context for all that he has to say. If I did not know better, I would ...

4195. At War with Myself

Romans 7:15-25a

Sermon

William G. Carter

... it existed until you told them to stay out of it. Paul says this is the dark power of sin. Sin takes something good, like the Law of God, and twists it all around. The Law says don't covet. Paul says, "Sin, seizing an opportunity, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. I was deceived, and it killed me." Now pay attention here: He was trying to do the right thing, and he got all messed up. Do you think it's possible for people to comb their hair, go to church, sing the hymns, pray the prayers, make the ...

4196. Always?

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Sermon

Rick Brand

... thirsty person. There is the winter jacket for a school-age child. There are scholarships to camp from individuals. There are deeds of kindness from one person to another. Forgiveness of others is one of the most difficult labors of love we are called to do. Out ... labors? What do we expect and what gives us the reason to believe that what we expect will happen? We can endure almost any kind of how and what when life is sustained by a why. The hope of the Christian faith is grounded in the victory of Christ ...

4197. The Cloak

1 Thessalonians 2:1-8

Sermon

Rick Brand

... advances. He was going to ask for a big offering for the church at Jerusalem and keep the purse for himself. He was being kind to the widows so that he could ask them for big gifts. Certainly there have been preachers who have done it that way. Jim ... . We put the catalogue down, but a day or two later we come back to the catalogue. We look at the tool. We can imagine all kinds of projects and pieces of furniture we could make with that tool. We would be so much more efficient. We would be so much better as ...

4198. A More Perfect Union

Habakkuk 2:1-5

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... . The churches preached texts, such as our epistle lesson for this morning from Galatians, "You are called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another." That is the kind of ethic that makes freedom possible. We think not only of our own welfare, but we are concerned about the welfare of other people. To achieve this more perfect union two things had to happen. The states had to surrender some of their sovereignty ...

4199. A Tale of Two Dancers

Mark 6:14-29

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... the Old Testament is the king, David; the one in the New Testament is the step-daughter of the king, Herod. Both stories have to do with political intrigue. They are not commonly read as lessons in the Sunday worship, but during these dog days of summer, this is the kind of stuff they give us to read. So we will faithfully look for the word of God speaking to us in these two stories. Let us begin with the Old Testament story of David, the new king, dancing in the streets before the ark of the covenant. The ...

4200. Beware of Crowds

Mark 1:29-39

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... was. He's the Messiah. He's the only one who can defeat the demons in this world. And he won't let them speak. What kind of a Messiah is it who travels incognito? Then the third anecdote in this passage. It's in the wee hours of the morning the next ... back on the crowd, and he walked away. When everybody is looking for him, he leaves. When he is recognized, he says, "Keep it quiet." What kind of a Messiah is this, anyway? What's he up to? What are we to make of this? Well the first and most obvious thing to ...

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