Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 4201 to 4225 of 5000 results

4201. Thanks for the Memories

Deuteronomy 26:1-15

Sermon

Eric Ritz

In the delightfully funny off-Broadway play "Nunsense", one of the main characters is Sister Mary Amnesia who arrives at the Convent in her "habit" without a clue to her identity, remembering only that a large Crucifix had fallen on her head. The Reverend Mother in the play once states about Sister Mary that "she is a good building but, unfortunately, nobody is at home." Toward the end of the play, Sister Mary, while singing, remembers her name and her identity and further discovers that she has won the ...

4202. Thanksgiving - The Biblical Version

1 Chronicles 16:7-43

Sermon

Eric Ritz

For most of us, Thanksgiving Day will be a short-lived experience. It will almost be an interruption in the fast paced preparation being made for the Great Christmas Rush of 1992. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is the busiest travel day for trains, planes, and our nation''s roadways. Housewives will be busy preparing for a great feast. Football games will fill the airwaves and generate much excitement in local communities such as ours. In the midst of this busyness, preparation, travel, action, will ...

4203. The Marvelous Meaning of the Cross

Galatians 6:11-18

Sermon

Eric Ritz

Toward the end of that marvelous classic, Pilgrim''s Progress, the character, Christian, is moving with tremendous difficulty on the highway between the walls of salvation. His heavy burden makes it almost impossible to move, though he slowly inches along. Finally, he reaches an elevated place upon which there stands a cross and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulcher. As Bunyan describes it: Just as Christian came up to the cross, his burden was loosened from his shoulders and fell from his back and ...

4204. The Marvelous Message of Easter

Mark 16:1-20, Matthew 28:1-10

Sermon

Eric Ritz

Some events in life are bigger than we are able to fully comprehend. We understand, but our understanding of the event continues to enlarge. No matter what we do, some of life''s events escape an adequate celebration. When I finished at Drew Theological Seminary, I thought that I should be able to find some way to celebrate that moment. Fifteen long years have now passed and I never could find a way to adequately celebrate how I felt graduating Magna Cum Laude with a Master''s of Divinity Degree. That''s ...

4205. A Memorial Forever - Memorial Day

Proverbs 1:1-7

Sermon

Eric Ritz

I have always had an intense dislike for digital watches--especially those that beep. Perhaps it is my undergraduate training as a historian. A digital watch only tells us what time it is now. While it describes the present moment in exact numbers, it leaves out the past and the future. Some of you know that my favorite clock is in my church office. It has the face of Jesus on it. While it does help me to be on time, it reminds me of another sense of time which is eternal. Today, many Americans live only ...

4206. Are We on Speaking Terms with the Almighty?

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

Eric Ritz

As we open our splendid scripture lesson today, we see the story of two men who go to the same synagogue. They go to the synagogue for the same reason--to pray--yet they experience such different results. One goes to pray to God, and the other goes and hopes God overhears his litany of how good he is. I believe these two characters represent in a very real way our approach to prayer. We, too, shift gears from talking to God to the posture of talking at God. Despite the fact that the secular media of ...

4207. Holy Vexation

John 2:12-25

Sermon

Robert Noblett

We have all probably had the experience of being in the presence of someone who is normally composed and tranquil, and having that person suddenly erupt. A topic is introduced and immediately goes to the quick. It all seems so out of character. I can imagine Christian folks having a similar reaction to this story (found, incidentally, in all of the Gospels) of Jesus cleansing the temple. If you are fifty years or older and remember singing the old gospel song that talks about Jesus calling us "softly and ...

4208. Placard Faith, Complex World

John 3:1-21

Sermon

Robert Noblett

As you have sat in your easy chair munching on snack food during any NFL game, you have seen this sight innumerable times. The camera zeroes in on one of the end zones and just beyond the uprights, you see a person carrying a huge placard sporting the name John, followed by the numbers, 3:16. This text is one of the most famous in the Bible and it is the darling of those Christians given to cutesy evangelism. I suspect that in their view it is not cutesy -- but gutsy -- evangelism they are about. Be all ...

4209. Easter Transportation

John 20:1-9

Sermon

Robert Noblett

The eyes of our nation have, in recent time, twice been riveted on Antarctica and the need to rescue medical personnel from a weather station there. Happily both rescues were successful, but they were conducted in weather conditions that were exceptionally hazardous for flight. Aircrews had to wait for precisely the right time to make each rescue attempt. The rescuers knew they wanted and needed to get to the weather station, but it was all but impossible. I am wondering whether a similar predicament ...

4210. Easter for Thomas, Too

John 20:24-31

Sermon

Robert Noblett

The urge to be a part of what is going on is very powerful. Or to say it differently, to be on the outside looking in can be unsettling at best. Just remember the last time you came into a room and found a group of people talking excitedly about a news event or something that happened to someone else in the office. You probably went right up to those assembled and in some way signaled your interest in their conversation. Or think of it this way. Whenever you have been part of a group of three -- perhaps at ...

4211. Together, But Not Enmeshed

John 15:1-17

Sermon

Robert Noblett

Jesus describes the community gathered in his name -- and that would be all of us -- using the imagery of the vine. We, individually, are the various branches of the vine. Jesus is, as John describes him, "the true vine." And God is the vinegrower. Jesus is shaped and empowered by God, and we -- as branches -- are shaped, empowered, and nourished by the presence of the risen Christ. We are strongly impacted by images; no surprise here. Early in the Bush administration when Vice President Cheney left the ...

4212. A Friend in High Places

Luke 24:50-53

Sermon

Robert Noblett

What we want to talk about is not, I am extremely sure, a theme that dominated your breakfast conversation this morning. It is not, I am equally confident, a theme that came up in any church conversation around here in the last little while. It is not even, I am still confident, something that you have ever thought much about at all. And I am sure it is not something you have heard homiletically addressed more than once, if at all. I am talking about the ascension of Jesus Christ into heaven. If by chance ...

4213. God Help the Fish

Mark 1:9-13

Sermon

King Duncan

Sam Houston was the first president of the Republic of Texas. It’s said he was a rather nasty fellow with a checkered past. Later in life Houston made a commitment to Christ and was baptized in a river. The preacher said to him, “Sam, your sins are washed away.” Houston replied, “God help the fish.” It’s fortunate that you and I were not baptized as adults in a river. Somebody would probably be saying, “God help the fish.” A man named Ray says that at one point in his life he considered joining the Baptist ...

4214. Time Out!

Mark 1:35-39

Sermon

King Duncan

Sue Buchanan shares a good story about her father, a pastor in a small Southern town. This pastor wanted to help his granddaughter, Dana, deal with a particular fear. In this small town, a siren blew at noon every day. It was probably installed generations ago in order to let factory workers know it was time to go home for lunch. When little Dana visited her Grandpa, the siren scared her silly. So Grandpa suggested that, since this was a noontime siren, whenever Dana heard it, she should stand up and yell ...

4215. Listen to Him

Mark 9:2-13

Sermon

King Duncan

There aren’t very many heroes nowadays, are there? Even in sports. Steroids. Drugs. Violence. Many of today’s best-known athletes reflect some of the worst values in our culture. There was a time, however, when sports stars were a steady source of positive inspiration. Take Lou Gehrig, for example. Even today, the name stirs positive emotions among baseball fans in spite of the fact that it has been 68 years since Gehrig last played the game, long before many of us were born. For those who don’t know his ...

4216. Party Time!

Mark 2:18-22

Sermon

King Duncan

In an interview with a London newspaper, actor Christopher Walken revealed that he likes to bring a little fun to a movie set by pretending that it’s his birthday. In the morning, as the makeup crew is preparing him for the shoot, he will act a little sad. Invariably, some kind-hearted makeup lady will ask if he’s feeling all right. Walken will mention off-handedly that today is his birthday, but he swears the makeup lady to secrecy. In a matter of hours, the cast and crew of the movie throw together a big ...

4217. He Came by Night

John 3:1-21

Sermon

David G. Rogne

I came upon Jesus quite by accident. We didn't travel in the same circles, so it was unlikely that we would ever have met socially. I was passing through the marketplace in Jerusalem one day when I heard him speaking to a handful of people who had stopped to listen. "Just another wandering street-preacher," I thought to myself. But as I passed by I heard him talking about the Kingdom of God, and about God himself, in such unsophisticated terms, uncluttered with a lot of theology, that I could see he was ...

4218. When the Boat Begins to Sink

Mark 4:35-41

Sermon

David G. Rogne

In the Gardener Museum in Boston hangs Rembrandt's painting of The Storm on the Sea of Galilee. The artist recreates the scene so powerfully that a viewer can sense the danger the small craft is in and the panic of those who are on board. The small boat is being lifted on the crest of a giant wave; sail and lines are torn loose from the riggings and flailing wildly in the gale. Five disciples are struggling to reef the sail while they hold on desperately to the mast. The rest are in the stern of the boat, ...

4219. The Healing Touch

Mark 5:21-43

Sermon

David G. Rogne

Recently, when I renewed my driver's license, I was presented with the opportunity to renew the accompanying organ donor card. I decided to renew, but I subsequently asked a doctor what organs were likely to be harvested. He mentioned many that I was aware of through stories of successful transplants. Then he pointed out that there is a continuing need for the largest, oldest, most sensitive, most protective organ of the body. When I asked what that was, he replied, "Your skin." I never had thought of it ...

4220. The Hillside and the Basket

John 6:1-15

Sermon

Stephen M. Crotts

There is a certain rock known as a geode. From the outside it is but a dull-looking stone. Yet crack it open and one discovers a breathtaking array of crystals in a hollow core. I feel like I'm holding an uncracked geode in my hands when I look at a Bible text. I know there is a powerful blessing in the passage. It must simply be opened to the light by preaching. So to the text, the story of the feeding of the multitudes, we now turn. There Was a Need! Our text begins with a human need. Jesus had been ...

4221. The Impossible Option

Mark 10:17-31

Sermon

Cathy A. Ammlung

Before there was Harry Potter, there was Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit. In J. R. R. Tolkien's wise fantasy, this short, hairy-footed resident of the Shire in Middle-Earth was a well-to-do bachelor and country squire. Comfortable and conventional, but just a touch bored with life, he nevertheless was shocked when the mysterious wizard, Gandalf, knocked on his door one spring morning and requested his services as (of all things) a thief. The clever, nimble-fingered hobbit was just the person to help a struggling ...

4222. The True Story of the Magi

Matthew 1:1-17

Sermon

John Jamison

There is a beautiful old tradition about the star in the East. The story says that when the star had finished its task of directing the wise men to the baby, it fell from the sky and dropped down into the city well of Bethlehem. According to some legend, that star is there to this day, and can sometimes still be seen by those whose hearts are pure and clean. It's a pretty story. It kind of makes you feel warm inside. There are other legends about this story of the wise men from the east. For instance, how ...

4223. Waiting for Godot?

1 Corinthians 1:1-9

Sermon

Fredrick R. Harm

As we embark on another Advent Adventure we pause to remind ourselves that this sacred season holds a twofold emphasis. Not only do we journey towards Christ's nativity but also we project our thoughts towards his second advent when the final curtain will be lowered on the world as we now know it. This twofold emphasis is underscored in Saint Paul's greeting to his friends in today's text. In Samuel Beckett's tragicomedy, Waiting for Godot, we are introduced to Vladimir and Estragon who are waiting for the ...

4224. With a Bang or a Whimper?

2 Peter 3:1-18

Sermon

Fredrick R. Harm

Back in 1925, T. S. Eliot wrote the poem, "The Hollow Men." It is an indictment of a whole generation of people whose lives are empty because they seem to believe nothing. They have been only a "paralyzed force, gesture without motion." They have accomplished nothing: they are the product of the dry intellectuality of modern life. Eliot describes them this way. We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw They are not "lost violent souls" but only hollow men. ...

4225. The Road Less Traveled

1 Thessalonians 5:12-28

Sermon

Fredrick R. Harm

A lecturer was talking about what he called "the most dangerous road in the world." Most people in the audience began to think of a journey into the African jungle, or facing shipwreck going through the Straits of Magellan. The lecturer explained: "More and more books are being sold about escaping prison with a toothpick or journeying up the Amazon on stilts. But the most dangerous journey is the journey of our everyday living. It is dangerous because it ends, for all of us, in death!" Not a very pleasant ...

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