Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 4201 to 4225 of 4972 results

4201. The Forgiving Father (Father's Day)

Luke 15:11-32

Sermon

Brett Blair

... the father sees him from a long distance. That’s because he was watching and hoping. His love was a patient love. The point is clear. A person cannot stay away so long that God’s love is no longer offered. In the same way God waits patiently when you leave for a season of sin. He does not sit and scheme about what he is going to do if you ever come back. His desire is not revenge but relationship and restoration. He wants you to return. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul gives us his renowned definition of love ...

4202. The Burden Bearing Christ

Matthew 11:25-30

Sermon

Brett Blair

... life of righteousness and it almost brought them to their knees in despair. We give up. In our own way we say “Lord, we have been going to church for so long and we have been praying so hard, and there seems so little answer, just let us rest and leave us alone.” This Christian life can be a burden. Let me tell you a story. During World War II there was a man in a small town who had volunteered to be a salesman for war bonds. It was a thankless job. He had to go around to his friends ...

4203. The Hardest Thing That God Could Ask

Genesis 22:1-19

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... with the surgeon before the operation and all during it. Allen survived! Gradually he grew stronger. The I was moved away from that community and lost touch with the Rudick family. Imagine the joy I experienced when, just a month ago, twenty years after leaving Hartsville, I received a letter from Allen’s mother, Judy. She informed me that Allen had been named Student of the Year at his high school. He received his Eagle Scout award this month and will graduate from high school in June. Several months ...

4204. Making a Name for Ourselves

Genesis 11:1-9

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... to the present. Each of us is building some kind of structure with our lives. Your epitaph is being written now. Is your life like a tower of Babel, glorifying self? Or is it like a church spire, pointing directly to God? Are you just living a life or leaving a legacy? I think the Holy Spirit wants to help us ponder those questions today. Turn now to chapter 11 of the book of Genesis. We look in on the history of mankind following Noah and the great flood. Verse 1 declares, “Now the whole earth has one ...

4205. Someone At the Door

Revelation 3:14-22

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... beeper." It's not a real beeper but it looks like one. If you push a little button on the bottom of it, then twenty seconds later it will sound off. People around you will think you have a call but in reality all you have is an excuse to leave. What really hurts is that the inventor thought of the idea while sitting in church. I have both good news and bad news to declare today. The good news from today's scripture is that even in this world of 5.3 billion persons, the living Christ is gently knocking ...

4206. Friction Points

John 17:6-19

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... our culture. Note our two scriptural passages for today. The passage from John 17 is part of Jesus' high priestly prayer. Jesus is on the eve of his crucifixion. He has nurtured this little band of disciples for about three years. Now he is going to leave them. He prays to God for them. "They're going to be hated by the world, " says Jesus, "just as I was hated." Jesus asks two specific requests for the infant church. "Protect them from the evil one" and "sanctify and consecrate them in the truth." Then ...

4207. All You Need To Know About Heaven

John 14:5-14, John 14:1-4

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... That thief was mighty fortunate. It's terribly risky to wait until the last minute to make important reservations. If you planned to vacation in Paris (I mean the one in France, not the one in Tennessee), you wouldn't wait until a day or so before leaving to make reservations. Neither does it make sense to postpone one’s eternal reservations, especially since you don't know the date your departure. THE THIRD THING WE LEARN ABOUT HEAVEN IS THE ROUTE OR PATH TAKE IN ORDER TO GET THERE. Jesus said, "I am the ...

4208. How to Fix the Past

1 John 1:5--2:14

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... World.” He tells about a father and son in Spain who did not get along. Finally, the tension became so intense that the son exploded and called his father all kinds of derogatory names. Then the boy left home. The father was heartbroken over his son’s leaving. For several days he searched everywhere for his son, but with no success. Finally, the Father took out an ad in the main newspaper of Madrid. The boy’s name was Paco, a very common Spanish name, sort of like Paul in English. The ad said, “Dear ...

4209. Our Lord's Abundant Table

Matthew 14:13-21

Sermon

Brett Blair

... you'd never believe it, Dad." With childlike innocence the little guy put his finger on the pulse of our sophisticated adult world where cool skepticism reigns supreme. It's more popular to operate in the black-and-white world of facts. . .and, of course, to leave no space for the miraculous. And so when we read the story of the feeding of the five thousand, we tend to focus our attention on the question, "Did it really happen?" There have been a number of attempts to "explain" the miracle. One attempt says ...

4210. Saturday Night And Sunday Morning

Drama

Pamela Urfer

... bite my head off! I’m just concerned, that’s all. Peter: If you didn’t want to be here with the rest of us, you should have gotten out while there was still time. Joanna: I tried to, but how could I go alone? I told Magdalena we should leave but she wouldn’t. Magdalena: It’s not my fault! I refuse to listen to this! Peter, Joanna is ... Joseph: (Yelling.) Be quiet! All of you! (There is silence for a few moments.) Maria: Peter, did you see any of my sons while you were in the city? Peter: No ...

4211. Forgiveness

Luke 23:26-43

Sermon

Burton F. Blair

... than any canvas George Romney ever painted." Can you imagine that? After 38 years of absence, she received him back home without a question. She did not ask where he had been or what he had been doing. She said nothing about the hardships his leaving left her to bear alone. No, she simply, with open arms, welcomed him back home. The Bible says this is the meaning of God’s forgiveness. God forgives us just like that. God’s forgiveness is unconditional. There are no questions asked. God does not ...

4212. Reconciliation

Luke 23:26-43

Sermon

Burton F. Blair

... . 40-41). What could have caused Dymas to respond this way? What was it that reached through the pain and touched him? To be truthful, we know nearly nothing about this Dymas. We have no ready answers as to the mystery of why he responded this way. He does not leave us his story. We know nothing of his family, his career, the demons that ate at him, or the ideals that may have once inspired him. All we know is that he was a convicted thief, and, after rebuking Gestas for his words to Jesus, he made a simple ...

4213. The Garden Tomb

Luke 23:50-56

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

... . Inside that doorway was a small room with a long smooth stone used as the place to lay the body. After the friends of Jesus had placed him in the tomb, under the watchful eyes of the Roman guard, they left before the night darkness came. As they were leaving they saw the Roman guard roll a very large and heavy stone across the doorway. That’s the way it stayed until Easter Sunday morning. Some women who were followers of Jesus came back to the tomb to finish what they did not have time to do on Friday ...

4214. A River Of Destiny

Isaiah 61:1-11

Sermon

Susan Hedahl

... even the demons cried out, "The Son of God!" We see in the waters of the Jordan, the reflection of the One who came as a Child to redeem and to calm the trouble waters of our lives. We see the child become adult, taking up life where the cradle leaves off and the road to the Cross begins. John was the last of the line of the prophetic voices. God would speak in John and then the final word in Jesus would be spoken. John is a reminder that Advent has a somber side. That while we rejoice in the ...

4215. Advent IV - Children’s Sermon

Matthew 2:19-23

Children's Sermon

Susan Hedahl

... the shopping mall, go to church. For many people, home sometimes can change. Today people often move around a lot from place to place. Maybe some of your relatives live in a different place than you do or maybe you have moved here from another place. When people we love leave this church to go to another town, we have a service and take the time to say, "We are glad you were here for a while and made this your church home. We want God to bless your new home!" That is called a service of farewell. When new ...

4216. When Towers Fall and People Perish

Luke 13:1-9

Sermon

Brett Blair

... life would never be the same again after watching those terrorist attacks. I felt that way as well. But most of our lives are filled with the same kinds of things today, as they were last summer. That is one of the great things about our Lord. He does not leave us at the cross. He takes us to the open tomb. He makes us to share in the power of his resurrection. The cross may loom large on the hill and the tomb is dark but Sunday’s comin’. Standing at the cross it’s hard to see the dawn ...

4217. Rediscovering Our Spiritual Dimension

Genesis 17:1-27

Sermon

Donald Macleod

... to be faithful to his ancient covenant with the Hebrew people and for this a true son, Isaac, would be born to them. This was a new and startling dimension to Abraham’s destiny, and it is easy for us to imagine his crying out in effect to God: "Leave me alone! I’m content with things as they are. What satisfies me, why doesn’t it satisfy God?" Now some people today think that anything in the Old Testament is far removed from and scarcely relevant to this twentieth century. But none of us needs to look ...

4218. Reviving Our Moral Responsibility

2 Chronicles 36:15-23

Sermon

Donald Macleod

... God has ceased to care for it? Certainly not! The proper question is: Have we been fully responsible to those eternal laws by which God steers his world? 2. This would be a sorry state of affairs were it not for the second lesson the Book of Chronicles leaves with us. God’s judgments do come when we defy his moral and spiritual order, but they are not his final word. He points his finger at us accusingly, but when he has made his point, the finger bends into a beckoning gesture: Follow me in obedience and ...

4219. Service Without Witness

Isaiah 50:1-11

Sermon

Donald Macleod

... whose performance is technically perfect, but someone who is adept at doing may not ever inspire others, especially the weary, to go on. A minister, for example, may visit a sick room in the hospital, read a few verses from Scripture, pray a few stock sentences, and leave, but the result is if he or she had never been there. But perhaps someone else comes by, not even a learned person, and as he or she enters, the whole room lights up. This is an inner gift, not learned from books, but is a rare combination ...

4220. The Vicarious Servant

Isaiah 52:13--53:12

Sermon

Donald Macleod

... not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many," (Mark 10:45 RSV) he said to his disciples. His was sympathy with, and only as we catch his spirit will our indifference be put down. A Roman Catholic cleric agreed to leave an affluent assignment in the South to assume leadership in a popular diocese in the North where social problems of every sort abounded. Someone asked him "Why?" and he replied, "I see Jesus Christ in the face of the poor." 2. This leads us to a second thought: We ...

4221. Christ Plus

Acts 15:1-21

Illustration

Larry Powell

... in his immortal allegory, Pilgrims’ Progress, told of the pilgrim who set out from the City of Destruction for the City of Life. Pilgrim will forever be known as a selfish and unworthy man because he made the pursuit of his own salvation his chief aim in life, leaving his own family behind in the City of Destruction. Devoted though he was, he was yet misled by the "Christ-plus" attitude. Salvation is not so much a matter of what one must do, as a matter of what Christ has already done in our behalf.

4222. A Maverick Son

2 Samuel 15:13-37

Illustration

Larry Powell

... of Ephraim, and the seasoned troops of David, under the leadership of Joab, Abishai, and Ittai the Hittite, utterly routed the forces of Absalom. As Absalom fled the battle upon his mule, his long hair became entangled in the thick branches of an oak tree, leaving him dangling helplessly in midair. Joab discovered him and slew him forthwith. Upon hearing the news, David cried out in one of the most pitiful laments in all the Scriptures: "O my son Absalom, my son Absalom! Would that I had died instead of you ...

4223. Salt and Light

Matthew 5:13-16

Illustration

Larry Powell

... . When Jesus commented, "You are the salt of the earth," he was implying that the Christian witness causes even the unfortunate, tasteless things in life to be more palatable. To remove the salt is to remove a prime ingredient to the whole of life itself, leaving it to the crude, base, and tasteless elements to prevail. Matthew 5:13 continues, "But if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men." Moffett ...

4224. One’s Proper Service

Isaiah 58:1-14

Illustration

Larry Powell

... traveled about 225,000 miles, preached about 50,000 times to crowds small and large, often up to 20,000, occasionally facing hostile mobs and barrages of stone and mud. But he had a plucky, game spirit, going on to the next town, leaving his class and "bands" to multiply. The service of outreach performed by Wesley, even with our precise statistics and access to his faithfully kept journals, is measureless. Isaiah scored the people of Israel for indulging in perfunctory rituals, mistaking them for "service ...

4225. Song of a Stargazer

Psalm 8:1-9

Sermon

Gordon Pratt Baker

... what it takes to build a brave new world (Psalm 8:6). In the divine scheme, the poet senses, salvation comes by way of the flesh as well as the spirit (cf. John 1:1, 14). A Universal Concept As the heavens blanket the earth with their splendor, leaving none bereft of their glory, so, continues our singer, the goodness of God embraces all humanity. Here is no provincial thinker. Here is one who sees that divine glory and human dignity are caught up everywhere in one bundle of life - not that he is alone in ...

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