Sermon and Worship Resources

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4201. God's Design and Our Destiny (New)

Isaiah 64:8

Children's Sermon

King Duncan

Object: For this demonstration you will need play dough. Option: a small can of play dough for each child. You will also need your Bible with Isaiah 64:8 marked so you can find it easily. Lesson: (Take your play dough out of the can and begin to roll it into a shape. Talk to the children about what you are making--a person, an animal, snake etc. Ask them what they like to make out of play dough.) Say: ...

4202. Preparing the Way

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

King Duncan

... Glory. Last week we said that the best way to prepare was to acknowledge the awesomeness of God. This week we focus on one of God’s primary characteristics. In today’s world it is also God’s most overlooked characteristic. That is God’s righteousness. Mark begins his gospel like this: “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is written in Isaiah the prophet: ‘I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way a voice of one calling in the desert, Prepare ...

4203. Witness to the Light

John 1:1-18

Sermon

King Duncan

... greeted them. It was Christmastime and he said to them “Merry Christmas to you!” And they said “We’re Jews.” “Well, I know,” said Dr. Golter, “but Merry Christmas anyway.” “I tell you,” they responded, “we’re Jews. We don’t mark Christmas.” “I know” he said, “but if you did, what would you want for Christmas?” “Well if we did,” they replied, “then we probably would want some fine German pastries.” So Dr. Golter found a shop that sold fine German pastries, cashed ...

4204. Son of Man; Son of God

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

King Duncan

... , http://www.neileskelin.com. 2. Second to None by Charles Garfield, Business One Irwin, Homewood, IL, 1992, p. 202. 3. “The Crown,” Today in the Word, November 16, 1995, p. 23. 4. Clare Nullis (The Associated Press) in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Monday, June 13, 2005, p. 9B. 5. Mark Berg in Donald L. Deffner, Seasonal Illustrations, Resource, 1992, p. 21.

4205. Grace: Amazing or Mystifying?

Romans 3:21-31

Sermon

King Duncan

... in Christ, God sees me “just as if I’d never sinned.” Timothy D. Keller, a pastor in Carlisle, Pennsylvania gave an illustration of grace and justification sometime back in Leadership magazine. He notes that on September 8, 1998, St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Mark McGwire made history by hitting his 62nd home run of the baseball season. It was an emotional moment for four people sitting in the VIP section of the stadium. They were the grown children of Roger Maris, the man who hit 61 home runs in ...

4206. After Katrina

Song of Songs 8:1-14

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... minds want to know." Meanwhile, even if Washington's response has been less than it should be, lots of others have jumped into the breach. Hundreds of millions in private donations have been pouring in to relief agencies, and more is on the way. Good. St Mark's Episcopal Church is in Johnstown. It was there in 1889. The church's rector and his family were among those killed in the disaster. When the flood waters receded and the church was cleaned up and reopened, the survivors decided to engrave upon the ...

4207. To Care for the Earth

Leviticus 25:1-7

Sermon

Edward Inabinet

... differently until they see things differently. We are God''s creatures. He made us all and loves us with an infinite love. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." We can teach that truth and live it out. Jesus says that God marks the fall of a single sparrow. How much more does He note the destruction of a whole species? We''re connected to our world and to every other person. In a sense the world is our neighbor. Farmers in Nebraska may be more influenced by crop production in ...

4208. Maturity in Stewardship

2 Corinthians 9:6-15, 2 Corinthians 8:1-15

Sermon

Edward Inabinet

... morning, we want to talk about maturity and stewardship. Whenever the word steward or stewardship is mentioned we usually think of money and giving, but giving is only a part of stewardship and the tithe is only a part of giving. Let’s look as some marks of a mature Christian steward this morning. This is a Christian who has the qualities Paul mentioned in II Corinthians 9 and which Jesus mentions in Matthew’s Gospel. FIRST OF ALL THE MATURE CHRISTIAN STEWARD MAKES CHRIST LORD OF HIS OR HER LIFE. This ...

4209. Forgiveness: Human and Divine

Matthew 6:12-15

Sermon

Edward Inabinet

... Christ, His supreme salvation, so that by putting our faith and trust in him we can have that forgiveness, that cleansing from guilt and sin and be made whole in him. The New Testament uses five major words for sin. One means to miss the goal or to miss the mark. It simply means that we do not live up to God''s ideal for us; we do not become what God intended for us to be. Why? Because we shut God out of life. We do not allow him to recreate us and help us to become all that he ...

4210. Transforming Tragedy into Triumph

2 Corinthians 5:1-10

Sermon

Edward Inabinet

... was planting a flower on her grave and suddenly he heard her voice speaking so clearly that it turned him around, fully expecting to see her standing behind him. She said, "Honey! What are you doing out here?" That was all, but it was enough. It marked the moment the sun of reality broke through the clouds of his grief to convince him that life still held something worthwhile for him. He straightened up, looked at the trees, the grass around him, and everything was changed. This man experienced the power of ...

4211. Confronting Hypocrisy with Humility

Matthew 23:1-12

Sermon

Brett Blair

... one teacher, and all of you are students. Nor are you to be called instructor, for you have one instructor, the Messiah.” And then he says this: The greatest among you will be your servant. You see! It’s a level playing. In the Kingdom of God leadership is marked by servanthood. If you want to rid your life of hypocrisy, if you want to rid your church of Hypocrisy, find a place to serve. A servant’s word will carry far more weight in the end than the word of a great teacher who does not follow through ...

4212. Christmas and the Condensed Bible

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... just in time to avoid a verse which would seem to negate the “good news” He came to proclaim. Look it up. Every preacher knows that there are moments when God seems to speak to us through a certain passage which is suddenly illuminated for us, and we mark that passage in our Bible, while there are many other passages which just do not seem to speak to our need at the moment. One of the most rewarding experiences of the ministry is being able to conduct a funeral or memorial service for a devout saint of ...

4213. Grace Is Not a Blue-eyed Blond

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... to hide their nakedness. That is an act of pure grace. God didn’t have to do that. And note carefully, when the sinful pair are ejected from the Garden of Eden, God goes with them! When Cain is found guilty of murdering his brother Abel, a mark is placed on his forehead, not to brand him as a murderer, as many people think, but to protect him from being murdered in return! Thus God strikes the first blow against capital punishment! When the great flood comes upon the earth, God gathers a remnant for ...

4214. Jesus: The Life of the Party

John 2:1-11

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... - that is, for religious ceremonial washings. If the family belonged to the Pharasaic school of Rabbi Shammai, they would have had to undergo seven ritual washings before eating. Jesus, however, came from a more "liberal" school, and His disciples washed but once, according to the Gospels. (Cf. Mark 7:5ff) Is John trying to tell us here that Jesus came to do away with the imperfections of the old Law and replace it with the new wine of the Gospel of Grace? I have a hunch that it is so. Then there is the ...

4215. How Free Are We?

John 8:31-41

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

Mark Twain once remarked that Americans of the nineteenth century were fortunate to have “freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, and the prudence never to practice either of them!” I have a hunch that his wry comment is not limited to folks of the nineteenth century. Freedom is not really freedom ...

4216. The Devil Is a Liar

John 8:42-47

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... problem with this is that if we fight fire with fire, then everybody gets burned! If we become a devil in fighting the devil, then the devil has won all the way around! Jesus rejected this point of view by asking pointedly, “How can Satan cast out Satan?” (Mark 3:23) One of the tragedies of the Middle East is that all sides seem to see themselves as being “on the side of the angels” as we say, while the other side consists of “devils.” If your enemy is the devil, then there can be no possibility ...

4217. So Who Needs A Shepherd?

John 10:1-21

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... of a thing; then there is the Greek word kalos, which means not only that a thing or a person is good, but that there is in that goodness also a quality of attractiveness, winsomeness, and loveliness. Unfortunately, some goodness is not at all attractive. Mark Twain once said of someone, “he is a good man in the worst sense of the word.” From his Scots background, William Barclay said that in many villages or towns in Scotland people speak of someone as the “good doctor.” When they speak that way ...

4218. Some Said It Thundered

John 12:20-36

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... Garden and His transfiguration on the mountain-top, where the word of divine affirmation from His heavenly Father claims Him as His own: “Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’ “ (Mark 9:7) We will leave it to the Biblical scholars to sort out just how these two stories relate to one another, and how they came to be conflated in the Fourth gospel, but in John Jesus’ agony is changed into confidence and faith. What happened ...

4219. One Commandment, Slightly Used

John 13:31-38

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... a popular song sung by many Christians which said that “They’ll know we are Christians by our love,” but unfortunately, the world hasn’t had very much experience of this kind of Christian love. No less a theologian than Huckleberry Finn in Mark Twain’s famous “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” said that he once found himself staying with a very pious religious family. They went to church every Sunday, and when they did, they stacked their shooting irons out in the narthex so that they could pick ...

4220. The Jesus Connection

John 15:1-17

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... and to drop bombs on one another. That doesn’t seem much like progress to me. Nobody can deny the marvelous progress we have made through the contribution of modern science; but at the same time we have created monster weapons of mass destruction. Mark’s Gospel records that one day Jesus was walking through the Temple, and the disciples were awestruck by the beauty and wonder of it all, the magnificent masonry, the vine sculpture made of gold leaf surrounding the portals, and they said, “Look, teacher ...

4221. Who Counted the Fish?

John 21:1-14, John 21:15-25

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... you become reconciled with your enemies is to share a meal with them. For a while it seemed as though Jesus’ closest friends had become His enemies. Peter had denied Him, and “All of (the rest of) them deserted Him and fled,” according to the Gospels. (Mark 14:50) But Jesus was still their Friend, and he invited them to break bread with Him on the seashore in the epilogue of the Fourth Gospel. This is what is called the “Meal Covenant.” In the Hebrew Bible, when Abraham comes to Salem, the high ...

4222. God Doesn’t Take Vacations

John 5:1-15

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... . Others said yes, the wooden leg is not a burden, but rather an integral part of the man. Such hair-splitting seems to have infuriated Jesus, who insisted that “The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath!” (Mark 2:28) Now, lest we imagine that such picayune rules and regulations have been limited only to our Jewish sisters and brothers, we who call ourselves Christians need to remember that Christian denominations have been rent asunder over important questions like whether ...

4223. Only the Neighbors’ Kid

John 6:25-59

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... are present at the conception of every child: the father, the mother, and the Spirit of God! But John does not deny that Jesus is Joseph’s son. Nor does he say that Joseph was a carpenter. Did you catch that? Two other Gospels call Joseph a carpenter: Mark 6:3 and Matthew 13:55, but Luke and John do not. In fact, the word which we usually translate “carpenter” may better be translated “builder.” And what do you build with in Jesus’ part of the world? Stone, if you are smart. There is a never ...

4224. Slippery Rock

Matthew 16:21-28

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... . IV. TWO CLOSING SCENES IN PETER’S LIFE STAND OUT. At the Last Supper, Jesus told the Twelve that at His coming arrest, everyone would forsake Him and run away. Peter swore up and down that “Even though all should fall away, I will not!” (Mark 14:29) Well, we know how that promise turned out. After Jesus’ arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter pulled himself together enough to follow from a safe distance...about the way most of us choose to follow Christ. Somehow he worked his way into the ...

4225. Believing Thomas

John 20:24-31

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... by God. Russell replied, “I shall say to Him, ‘Why did you make the evidence of your existence so insufficient?’” There is a part of us that says with Thomas, “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe.” We all long for certainty. A giant comet streaking through a dark winter night with its tail sky-writing in our behalf, “I love you, signed, God,” or something like that. Why doesn ...

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