Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 401 to 425 of 1249 results

401. What Does It Mean To Love?

Matthew 22:34-40

Sermon

George Johnson

... to the Lord's work to the poor. It is for others (Malachi 3:8-10). The tithe is not an amount, but a percentage, a step toward equality, toward redistribution. It may be a sacrifice to do that, but to love is a sacrifice. Some of us have adopted a lifestyle that makes tithing very difficult. That is, we have homes, cars, clothes, sports and long range goals that make it difficult to live on the 90 percent. So we may take from the 10 percent that belongs to God for our lifestyle, to meet our obligations and ...

402. The Proof Is In The Fruit

Luke 6:39-49

Sermon

James Garrett

... , mercy, mercy. And his prayer was heard, and answered! Jesus Christ makes the heart pump faster and louder than anyone else. Open your heart to him, invite him to come into your life. It’s a wonderful day when it dawns upon you that you are a child of God, adopted into his family by the love and grace of Jesus Christ. And you begin to live and speak as his child. “Take my life, and let it be consecrated Lord, to Thee.”

403. Beyond Togetherness

John 17:20-26

Sermon

John M. Braaten

... which we come to understand that we have been brought into close relationship with God and the world. The point is, more than merely sharing a common humanity, God in Christ has brought us together into the intimate unity of the family of God. Our adoption as children of God, and therefore as members of the royal household, was accomplished when "God sent forth his Son, born of woman (Galatians 4:5)." Baptism becomes the unifying act which places us all into the same family, makes us all blood relatives who ...

404. Standing Up To Death

Romans 6:1-14, Psalm 90:1-17

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... .Those whose relational ways are the ways of manipulation.Those who place economic gain over human welfare.Those who think far too little of themselves and carry an imaginary sign over their heads that reads, "Unworthy, unworthy."Those who think too much of themselves and adopt patterns of condescension. You can probably call to mind individuals you know who are dead on this basis. The Bible, too, is full of people like this. But it is also the story of God rescuing people from the jaws of this death. As we ...

405. Selling One’s Soul

1 Kings 21:1-29

Sermon

Robert Allen

... that he wanted and desired. All that is required was to ignore the laws of the land and sell his soul in order to gain what he wanted. One of the most dangerous things that can happen to us is to believe we are above the law. When we begin adopting his philosophy, the ideas of right and wrong lose their sense of importance. In their place, we substitute the idea that the end justifies the means and we become willing to sell our souls just to get what we want. For me, one of the most frightening things about ...

406. Black Preaching: A Four-Cornered Universe

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

... creative imagination of black preachers has done much to bring texts to life in ways reminiscent of no other preaching. Imaginative insight can be seen in everything from the cultivation of catchy sermon titles to the peculiar narrative styles adopted to illuminate the central ideas of a text. Drama, allegory, metaphor, simile, and other idioms are not incongruous to black sermonizing. Historically speaking, the use of imaginative insight was particularly useful for slave preachers who were unable to read ...

407. Keeping In Touch… With The Lord

Exodus 33:12-23

Sermon

Walter Kimbrough

... to whom God pledged a theophany experience in the task of providing leadership for Israel. God said, “My face you cannot see, but when I pass by you will see my back.” H. L. Ellison contends that, “Passing by need not be understood to mean that God adopted a human form. In seeing the back of God, Moses was to understand God in retrospect, in the light of what God had done.” God is always out front, up front and moving forward. Consequently, the only view we could ever possibly have is a rear view ...

408. Wash Up First For The Meal Before You Eat!

John 13:1-17

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... that the host in Old Testament times undertook. You did it yourself, just like we today wash ourselves as we prepare for a meal or some other social event. Even in the New Testament church, when Jesus' practice of washing the feet of Christian guests came to be adopted by his followers, it does not seem to have been much of a status job. The only reference we can find to the practice in the New Testament suggests that women did it (1 Timothy 5:10). Of course, in the largely sexist setting of New Testament ...

409. A Second-place Finish

John 1:29-34

Sermon

John Jamison

... were religious fanatics, who spent the days and nights copying scripture and writing scrolls about how one day God was going to send his Messiah and flush that filth right out of Jerusalem. Since many of them were unmarried, it was common for them to "adopt" homeless children, and raise and teach them to continue the Essene lifestyle. One of those homeless children may well have been the young boy John. Years later, when he appears just a few miles north of Qumran, he preaches, "Repent, for the kingdom of ...

410. Checking The Vital Signs

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

Jerry L. Schmalemberger

... who know us. Just like we have vital signs that tell whether our body is alive, we also have vital signs that we can check to see if the Body of Christ, this congregation and we, as individual Christians, are alive. A woman devoted to Christ once adopted a peculiar method of shaming her Christian friends. She was found testifying to her faith before a wooden Indian in front of a cigar store. She was chided for the scene she created and then defended herself by saying: “I would rather be a real Christian ...

411. One Flock, One Shepherd

John 10:1-21

Sermon

Jerry L. Schmalemberger

... way possible to extend our hand in fellowship to all God’s families. If there is any suspicion, let it not be from our side. We can make a grand witness of the way God would have his family join hands. When we are baptized, we are adopted by God into a great fellowship. It’s called the Communion or Fellowship of Saints. I always tell my people not to say that they have been baptized Lutherans, or Methodists, or Baptists, or Roman Catholics. I instruct them to say that they were baptized Christian and ...

412. Three Days To See

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

Helen Keller

... of life. We should live each day with a gentleness, a vigor, and a keenness of appreciation which are often lost when time stretches before us in the constant panorama of more days and months and years to come. There are those, of course, who would adopt the epicurean motto of 'Eat, drink, and be merry,' but most people would be chastened by the certainty of impending death. In stories, the doomed hero is usually saved at the last minute by some stroke of fortune, but almost always his sense of values is ...

413. Wine from Water: The Wedding

John 2:1-11

Sermon

Steve Swanson

... to Mary, "Woman, behold your son," and when he said to young John, "Behold your mother." As he hung there on the cross, minutes before his death, he took time to heal that three-year ache, that painful separation. Just minutes before his death he arranged an adoption. Jesus hadn't forgotten his mother. There,from the cross, he arranged for John to look after mother Mary - and from that day John took her to his own home. It is interesting to notice that when Jesus was hanging there, dying on the cross, no ...

414. The Easy Yoke

Matthew 11:25-30

Eulogy

Richard F. Bansemer

... act of faith, that God, in his goodness, did not lie when he promised rest: rest for- , rest for you, rest for us all, as we ~t God do God's job. God in his goodness did not lie when at__________'s baptism, He declared: "This is my daughter, my adopted daughter, now and throughout eternity." Wait patiently, therefore, for the Lord's time, the Lord's hour, when you are reunited with her who gave you such magnificent little treasures. Those God-given memories make the yoke easier, and the burden lighter.

415. When the Tie That Binds is a Slipknot

1 Corinthians 11:17-34

Sermon

Johnny Dean

... openly homosexual. The hair-pulling match continues in the Southern Baptist Conference, as the right wing leadership continues their attempt to root out all traces of liberalism, firing editors of the denominational news service and seminary staff who refuse to adopt an ultra-conservative view of scriptural interpretation. The Presbyterians are in an uproar over the latest report on human sexuality issued by the commission they appointed to study it. And we Disciples of Christ are certainly no strangers to ...

416. One Plus One Equals One

Matthew 19:1-12

Sermon

R. E. Lybrand

... the altar and renew your wedding vows to one another. This is a time for recommitment! It is a time for repromising! It is a time for remembering that in Christian marriage: "One Plus One Equals One." 1. The three ktnds of marriages described in the next three paragraphs were adopted from a sermon by the Rev. J. Cantey Nye. Used by permission. Note: I am grateful to the Rev. J. Cantey Nye for granting permission to use some of his technology and ideas in this sermon.

417. Monologue: A Slave, A Jailer, A Child Of God

Acts 16:16-40

Drama

Robert F. Scott

... with their property. Luke told me the girl's owners seized Paul and Silas, dragged them before the magistrates in the marketplace, and said, “These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe." It was a pack of lies, of course, but the mob was on their side: they saw Paul and Silas as vagabond Jews, spreading some kind of perverse superstition -and there's a lot of anti-Jewish feeling among Romans - always has been. The ...

418. Love Is Down to Earth

John 12:1-11

Sermon

Carl Jech

... . Earthly goods are not to be ignored or destroyed. They are to be shared! Pete Seeger, the folk-singer, has said that "share" is a better word than "love." He has a point. We also fall prey to the wrong kind of materialism if we adopt "success" as a model for the New Testament Gospel. Too often the oversimplified message goes out that "spiritual success" will lead to material success, when in fact the Gospel of Jesus promises neither forms of "success." We can agree with the pundit who has dubbed ...

419. Jesus, Mary, Gustav Mahler, Brother Martin, and the Magi

Luke 20:9-19

Sermon

Carl Jech

... to new ideas, open to new visions of ancient traditions, open to the unpredictable ways of God. The philosopher Frederich Nietzsche's vision of the relationship between Christianity and Zoroastrianism embodied a bold criticism of the Christian faith, a critique later adopted by Malcolm X and others. Nietzsche took Zoroaster's name - his famous book is called Thus Spake Zarathustra (same name, different version) - as the symbol of a religion for the strong, as over against Jesus whom he saw as promoting a ...

420. God is About to Strike

Acts 9:1-19a

Sermon

Carl Hoefler

... about us or what they will say about us if we become too enthusiastic about our faith. Nobody wants to be labeled a "do-gooder," or a "fanatic," or a "religious nut." We do not want to be labeled or laughed at. So, we play it cool. We adopt an air of sophistication. We become blase; this causes us never to get excited about anything. Far too often, we go through life anxiously looking in the rear-view mirror to see what others are thinking about us; thus, all the while, we stay in second gear and never ...

421. God Shows His Glory to the Nations

Deuteronomy 31:30--32:47

Bulletin Aid

Carl Hoefler

... allegiance: Draw us out of our complacency to recognize your redeeming presence in Christ who suffered for sins such as ours, to claim us as your children. Hear us for his sake. Amen. Prayer of Confession Father in heaven, we are your children, but we adopt other loyalties that replace your supremacy in our lives. Forgive us for developing life styles that do not reflect our commitment to Christ your Son, who is our deliverer. Have compassion on us, and grant us renewed faith to receive your Son as Savior ...

422. Being Ambassadors for Christ

2 Corinthians 5:11--6:2

Bulletin Aid

James Wilson

... People: Then let our voices be raised to proclaim God's wonder and majesty. Leader: And let our hearts be filled with joyful praise for our loving God. All: Blessed be the name of the Lord! Collect Most loving and merciful God, in Your divine plan You have adopted us and blessed us with Your presence so that the whole world might hear of Your love. Help us share the Good News, Lord. In Christ we pray. Amen. Prayer of Confession Lord, You have been so gracious unto us, yet so often we have expected even more ...

423. Come Worship the Lord!

Revelation 5:1-14

Bulletin Aid

James Wilson

... we pray. Amen. Prayer of Confession Lord, sometimes we have let the concerns of the world around us cause us to worry and fret as if You were not really the Lord of all. Too often we have doubted and even forgotten that we are servants of Christ, adopted children of the Lord God Almighty. Forgive us, Lord, and help us remember Your promise to use all things for good in the lives of those who serve You. In Christ we pray. Amen. Hymns "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee" "Crown Him With Many Crowns" "Spirit Song"

424. Bold and Confident Faith

2 Timothy 1:1-2:13

Bulletin Aid

James Wilson

Call to Worship Leader: Let all who proclaim Jesus Christ as their Lord come now for worship! People: We are children of the living God, adopted through the cross of Christ. Leader: Let us proclaim the mighty power of Christ for all the world to hear. People: The love of Christ has touched our souls and redeemed us before God. Leader: Let us lift our praise to the Lord, whose love gives us life eternal. All: ...

425. People Get Ready!

Luke 12:35-48

Sermon

Brett Blair

... view of the world here. He knows just as well as any of us that plenty is wrong with the world and much of it isn’t ever going to get better. He is not suggesting that Christians will be immune to suffering. Rather, he is asking his followers to adopt a way of life that is not rooted in the securities of this world. Let’s look at the context. Jesus had just finished dealing with a young man who was jealous because his brother was getting 2/3 of their father’s estate and he was only getting 1 ...

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