Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 4201 to 4225 of 4936 results

4201. Joy to the World

Luke 2:8-12

Sermon

James Merritt

If you were to ask anyone on the street what is the most joyful time of the year? Without any question, it would be practically unanimous that Christmas is the most joyful time of the year. One of the carols you will hear everywhere you go is one entitled, "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year." In 1719 Isaac Watts wrote a hymn that came to be entitled, "Joy to the World." Now the interesting thing about this song is, the only stanza that is related to Christmas and the birth of Jesus, is the first one ...

4202. The Client

Zechariah 3:1-7

Sermon

James Merritt

One of the greatest apologists of the Twentieth Century was C. S. Lewis. In a great book he wrote entitled, The Weight of Glory, he makes this salient observation: In the end that Face which is the delight or the terror of the universe, must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible, or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised. I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God ...

4203. When the Pressure Is On

John 6:1-14

Sermon

James Merritt

Is there anybody here under pressure? Do you ever feel like you live in a pressure cooker? Did you know that it takes longer to cook food at high altitudes, because at high altitudes the air pressure is much lower than in the lower plains? Because of that the boiling point of water is lower, and therefore it takes much longer to cook food. But in a pressure cooker high pressures are built up within the vessel, which raises the boiling point of water, and food can be cooked within minutes. In fact, the ...

4204. Abraham and Sarah: Backing Into the Future

Hebrews 11:1-3; 8-11

Sermon

John E. Harnish

New York Times Dateline: New Orleans, September 2: They waited, and they waited, and then they waited some more in the 90-degree heat. As many as 5000 people huddled at a highway underpass on Interstate 10, waiting for buses that never arrived to take them away from a storm they could not escape. Babies cried. The sick huddled in the shade in wheelchairs or rested on cots. A few others, less patient, simply started walking west with nowhere to go. [1] Thousands…going out, not knowing where they are to go, ...

4205. Why Not Now?

Acts 8:26-40

Sermon

John E. Harnish

So Philip went down the road from Jerusalem to Gaza. Wow, if that doesn't carry powerful imagery. I don't know what all it could have meant for Luke or Philip, but I know what it means for us. The road from Jerusalem to Gaza is probably the most critical road in the world—the road which symbolizes all the tensions and conflict of our world; the road most needed and hardest to travel; the road on which the future of the world seems to hang; the road which symbolizes the difficult path to peace in our world ...

4206. From the Tomb

John 20:1-18

Sermon

John E. Harnish

None other than my good friend David Crumm reported on the front page of Friday's Free Press: "Christians Reach Beyond Easter Uproar to Find Hope." He writes: "Easter, Christianity's cornerstone, is at hand and nearly 200 million Americans say they plan to go to church. But the central meaning of the holiday is more hotly debated than at any other time in American history." David refers to The Da Vinci Code (and by the way, he will be with us the night of our Da Vinci Code theater party), the buzz about ...

4207. No More Camping Out

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16

Sermon

Schuyler Rhodes

I wanted to see if we could get a show of hands today. Are there any folks here who went through a "nomadic period" in their lives? Did any of you ever enter a time in your life when you sort of camped out? A time when you were unsettled or on the move? Maybe you stole some nights on a friend's couch. Perhaps you were on the road for a while, or maybe you just wandered about for a time, trying out different places and new experiences. I know that it happened to me. For a number of years I lived a nomadic ...

4208. Mother Church

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

Mike Ripski

To the church we say, “Happy Birthday!” And to Mothers we say, “Happy Mother’s Day.” Usually Pentecost Sunday falls in early June. Because Easter was so early this year, so does Pentecost Sunday, observed as the birthday of the church, 50 days after Easter. Sometimes when two special days coincide, they shed light on each other to help us see what we may not have seen before. I’ve found this to be true for this Sunday. In the calendar of Jewish feast days was a day very similar to our American Thanksgiving ...

4209. Did You Know...That You Can Be Perfect?

1 John 3:1-3

Sermon

James Merritt

Have you ever met a perfect person? I came across this story that I want to read to you about perfection. Once upon a time, a perfect man and a perfect woman met. After a perfect courtship, they had a perfect wedding. Their life together was absolutely perfect. One snowy, stormy Christmas Eve this perfect couple was driving their perfect car along a winding road when they noticed someone at the side of the road in distress. Being the perfect couple, they stopped to help. There stood Santa Claus with a huge ...

4210. Is God Pleased With Me?

Hebrews 11:1-6

Sermon

James Merritt

One of the most exciting events in track and field is the relay races. It takes a combination of speed, timing, precision, and teamwork in order for a relay team to be victorious. Now the suspense is much greater than an individual race because in an individual race the fastest person always wins. In a relay race the fastest team can lose if one thing happens - they fail to pass the baton. Any track coach will tell you that relay races are won or lost not in the sheer speed of the team, but in the transfer ...

4211. Broken Pieces

Matthew 1:3, 5, 6

Sermon

James Merritt

Whether you are rich or poor, black or white, Jew or Gentile, male or female, there is one thing every single person on this earth has - we all have family trees, genealogies, ancestors and if we live long enough descendants, but family trees represent more than babies and bloodlines. They represent a mosaic. Remember the definition of mosaic? mosaic (mo-za'ik) n. 1. A picture or decoration made up of diverse, multi-colored small pieces. In reality, that is what a family tree is - a picture of a family ...

4212. Milli Vanilli Religion

Matthew 7:15-23

Sermon

James Merritt

Several years ago one of the greatest scandals ever to hit the music industry occurred. Two young men had formed a group called Milli Vanilli. They cut an album called "Girl, You Know It's True." For that album they won a Grammy Award. They were invited to give concerts everywhere. They were making money by the boatloads. There was only one problem. They had lip-synced the entire recording, and they had to return the Grammy. When you played their tape, when you listened to their music, it sounded just as ...

4213. A Hearing Heart

1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14

Sermon

Stan Purdum

The fact that Solomon was a king makes it difficult for most modern readers of the Bible to identify personally with him. But there is one reason above all that makes it almost impossible for any of us to picture ourselves in his sandals: God came to Solomon and made him an open-ended offer — "Ask what I should give you." I mean, when is the last time God made such an offer to you or me? Solomon's father, King David, had died, and now Solomon assumed the throne. Solomon started out very well, ruling ...

4214. Enduring the Trials of Faith

Revelation 7:9-17

Sermon

Richard Gribble

"In the seventh year of his reign, two days before his 65th birthday, in the presence of a full consistory of cardinals, Jean Marie Barette, Pope Gregory XVII, signed an instrument of abdication, took off the Fisherman's ring, handed his seal to the Cardinal Camerlengo and made a curt speech of farewell." So begins the power novel, The Clowns of God, the second volume of a trilogy of tales about popes and faith written by Morris West, the Australian-born novelist. In the story, the pope has seen a vision ...

4215. The Good News about the Future

Mark 13:1-31

Sermon

King Duncan

The Rev. Douglas L. Meyer tells of working at a college radio station during his undergraduate day. These were the days before computers and CDs. They were a small operation so the deejays also read the news. The news they read each hour came in on two teletype machines which clattered away constantly. What he remembers most was that these machines had bells attached that the broadcaster could hear faintly even in the broadcast booth. These bells would go off when a particularly important story came over ...

4216. Startled By Jesus

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

Years ago I read the supposedly true account of a judge in Yugoslavia who was electrocuted when he reached up to turn on the light while standing in the bathtub. His wife found his body sprawled on the bathroom floor. He was pronounced dead and was placed in a room under a crypt in the town cemetery for twenty-four hours before burial. However, in the middle of the night, the judge came to, realized where he was, and rushed over to alert the guard. Startled, the guard promptly ran off, terrified. ...

4217. Followed By Mercy

Psalm 23:6

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

A couple of months ago, Leadership Magazine had a story about a Christian Grammar School in Wheaton, Illinois. The third and fourth-graders were asked to complete the following sentence: "By faith, I know that God is ..." Amanda answered: "forgiving, because he forgave in the Bible, and he forgave me when I went in the road on my bike without one of my parents" Brandon answered: "providingful, because he dropped manna for Moses and the people, and he gave my dad a job." Paul said: "caring, because he made ...

4218. You Are Invited

Matthew 11:25-30

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

Day by day they appear at our doors. They arrive by mail and e-mail, by telephone and television, by newspapers and even in person. We call them invitations. A friend is getting married. A school is raising funds. A store is having a sale. A special event is about to happen. YOU ARE INVITED. There is a deeply personal and eternally significant invitation that I extend to you today. It comes not from me but from our Lord. Here is what it says: “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give ...

4219. Let Go of the Stone

Mark 16:1-8

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

A friend and colleague of mine was declared dead by the IRS a few years ago, even though he was very much alive. Due to MS, Jim was confined to a wheel chair and depended on disability Social Security for survival. So you can imagine the shock of being informed you are dead and no longer eligible for benefits. Jim called the IRS. They asked him multiple questions, but could not by conversation declare Jim to be alive. He wrote them letters and sent them pictures, but such correspondence did no good. It was ...

4220. What Would Jesus Say About the Marginalized?

Luke 4:14-30

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

When the immensely popular author Stephen Covey wowed the world with his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, he encouraged every person to sit down and write a personal mission statement. “Once you have that sense of mission," said Cover, “you have the essence of your own proactivity. You have the vision and values which will direct your life." Jesus of Nazareth never read Covey's books. But fresh from the wilderness of temptation, Jesus enters the Nazareth Synagogue to announce his reason for being. ...

4221. How Can We Stand on Holy Ground?

Psalm 24:1

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

A Sunday school teacher asked her young elementary class where God lives. After the usual answers of heaven, church, and in our hearts, Bobby spoke up and said, “God lives in the bathroom at our house." The surprised teacher asked Bobby to explain his answer. “Well," said Bobby, “every morning about 7:30 my Dad gets up, walks down the hall, beats on the bathroom door where my sister is locked inside getting ready for school. Then he screams, ‘My God are you still in there?' God lives in the bathroom at our ...

4222. Follow

Mark 1:14-20

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

If my wife puts up with me another five weeks, we will have been married forty-two years. For those of you too young to remember, things have changed. There were no cell phones or text messages forty-two years ago. E-mail and iPods were not even dreamed of. Even land phones were party lines. So, young teenagers in love back then had to find creative ways to communicate. That's where The Cokesbury Hymnal came in. During long sermons in the little church of our childhood, Sandy and I communicated through ...

4223. Ruining the Christmas Spirit

Matthew 24:36-44

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

This morning is the first Sunday of Advent, and therefore the first Sunday of the church year. We begin Year A of the cycle, which is Matthew's year. When I read the scripture lesson, you may have noticed a couple of things. You may have noticed that we read a passage from near the end of Matthew. It may seem strange to read from near the end of the book that will guide us during the next year. Shouldn't we start at the beginning? We don't actually read from near the beginning of the book until the fourth ...

4224. If Your Sense of Purpose Ever Becomes a Burden, Remember Your Value

Matthew 10:40-42

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

Do you ever wish you counted for something, that you had value? All the talk about purpose in church circles these days tries to respond to the natural human desire to count for something, to be somebody. But I worry about that way of thinking. If your value is all about your purpose in life, what if you fail? Are you then without any value? Today's gospel lesson is Jesus' final words of instruction to his disciples, as he commissioned them to undertake their mission and continued instructing them about ...

4225. To Say Elohim

Genesis 1:1-2:4a

Sermon

Stan Purdum

Since we are gathered here in a church, I suspect that there are not many of you present who do not believe in God, at least to some degree. In fact, some of you may not be able to recall a time at all when you didn't believe in God. Others may remember a time — or perhaps several different times — when you questioned or even outright doubted the reality of this whole idea of God (and I'd have to put myself in that group). But now, here we are, gathered in church for another service of worship. That may or ...

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