Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 401 to 425 of 1138 results

Matthew 7:13-14

Sermon

Leonard Mann

... time. Then the years pass - and another door opens and we bow out, and our traveling companions wave goodbye to us and we to them. Thinking of this, Emerson wrote a poem containing this line: "Goodbye, proud world, I am going home." A somewhat amusing song of the "country" variety puts it this way: "No matter how I struggle and strive, I’ll never get out of this world alive!" The process of moving from the opening of the first door to the opening of the last one is what we call living. All the way, we are ...

402. Who Is This Jesus?

Colossians 1:15-23

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... among many siblings who shows us how to live in oneness with the divine source." We United Methodists pride ourselves for being a diverse people, and that is a great strength. In matters that do not strike at the root of the faith, we affirm a wide variety of beliefs. We don't kick out our liberals or our conservatives. But there must be certain central affirmations we can all rally around. The most important one is Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior of the world, Lord of all creation. Our dear teacher in the ...

403. Derailed Dreams

Genesis 37:12-36, 50:15-21

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... areas of high sinfulness; they strike blindly. And in the process, dreams get derailed. The late Speaker of the House, Tip O'Neal, used to tell a story about a man named Honest Jake Bloom of Boston. He was a good caring man who ran a variety store. He helped three generations of immigrants get a start in Boston. Finally Jake got ready to retire. His many friends held a retirement party in his honor. Hundreds of people who had been helped by Jake contributed liberally toward a retirement gift. So, for the ...

404. How God Guides

Exodus 13:17--14:31

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... hearts. They knew that the land toward which they were traveling had been promised to Abraham many centuries earlier. The Bible gives much specific guidance. If the world teaches us to be suspicious of people who are different, the Bible reminds us that God loves variety. If the world says that sex is OK in any meaningful relationship, the Bible says that marriage is the only right place for sex. If the world teaches that poor people deserve more blame than compassion, the Bible warns us that God sides with ...

405. Chapter IV

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Frank H. Seilhamer

... this physician was studying the effects of exertion upon various volunteers. One of her goals was to try to establish how much energy a person could store for emergency or stress situations. To help establish that fact, she set the participants to work at a variety of commonplace tasks. Both before and after their eight hour shifts she measured the oxygen levels in their blood. Then after eight hours sleep, she tested them again to find how much of that oxygen had been replaced. Over a period of six months ...

406. ATHLETE

1 Corinthians 9:25; 2 Timothy 2:5

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

... he competes according to the rules." Beginning long before written history, athletics of one kind or another have been found among primitive peoples in all parts of the world. Carvings made in ancient Egypt and other lands show men in a variety of athletic sports and games. But athletics had their real beginnings in ancient Greece. Among the Greeks, the fullest possible development of both body and mind was a cherished ideal. The Greeks’ admiration for beautifully developed bodies set them apart from ...

407. BAKER

Genesis 40:1; 1 Samuel 8:13

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

... were taken out the next morning, and the dough was cooked on the stones at the bottom of the oven. This is the method still in use by Bedouins. In many ways, ancient bakers were similar to ours today. For example, we mentioned the many varieties of baked goods available to us. Well, this was also true among the Hebrews. By the first century of the Christian era, pastry bakers in Caesarea made 100 different kinds of egg pastries! And our bakeries that work through distributors rather than with the consumer ...

408. THE VINEDRESSER

Isaiah 5:4; Matt. 21:28

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

... grape and wine production figured in the mosaics of the 4th (2400 B.C.), 17th and 18th dynasties of Egypt. According to the Bible, Noah planted a vineyard. In Homer’s time wine was a regular commodity among the Greeks. Pliny described 91 varieties of grapes, distinguished fifty kinds of wines, described vine-training methods. Viticulture probably had its beginnings in the area around the Caspian Sea; from there grape growing in the old world spread to Asia Minor. The mountain regions of Judea and Samaria ...

409. Parents, Tend Those Lambs!

John 21:15-25

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... to find out what we really believe in. They need something steady to bounce their own growing ideas up against. Yakov Smirnoff, in his book called "America on six Rubles a Day," writes, "coming from the Soviet Union I was not prepared for the incredible variety of products available in American grocery stores. I saw powdered milk--you just add water, and you get milk. I saw powdered orange juice--you just add water, and you get orange juice. Then I saw baby powder and I thought to myself, 'What a country ...

410. The Forbidden Anger

Matthew 5:21-26

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... prayer. We call this kind of anger righteous indignation. It is godly anger, anger that motivates us to overcome injustice and extend mercy. That's not the kind of anger Jesus condemns in the Sermon on the Mount. He is attacking a much more common variety that lurks in all our hearts. This is selfish anger. This kind of anger, says James, "worketh not the righteousness of God." Paul was referring to this emotion when he wrote, "Put off all anger, wrath, and malice." (Colossians 3:5). When I was first ...

411. The Passover and the Passion

Drama

Denny C. Wise

... prays. Then as Jesus meditates, the women continue to set the table.) Narrator: Knowing the authorities were about to arrest him, Jesus had made arrangements to celebrate the Passover at an earlier time and at a secret place. There in the upper room a variety of symbolic foods were prepared. There were fresh greens and roasted eggs to symbolize new life, bitter herbs to represent the bitter taste of bondage, an ugly paste of crushed apples, walnuts, cinnamon, and red wine to recall bricks and mortar made in ...

412. A Cosmic Announcement

Isaiah 63:7--64:12

Sermon

Susan Hedahl

... announced in many ways. Blankets and clothing of certain colors, blue or pink, are purchased. A special room is set aside in the house for the baby. Genealogical charts are often consulted, names are carefully mulled over and selections made. Before the birth itself a variety of signals tell the world - this child is ours and soon here. God took elaborate measures to announce the coming of God’s Child, Jesus. The Child’s coming was not a maybe. Instead, it was God’s promise, a covenant which would not ...

413. L’envoi

Psalm 150:1-6

Sermon

Gordon Pratt Baker

The poet who compiled the Book of Psalms concludes it with a paean of praise befitting the moods and aspirations of the sweet singers who preceded him. For he clearly discerns one striking fact underlying the variety of their songs, namely, that the quality of the devotional life determines the character of our years. Moreover, the psalmist further perceives that the God who accepts our veneration welcomes the homage of all. Earth, he declares, is as much the Lord’s sanctuary as heaven. Thus, he sees ...

414. Rules For Living

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Robert Allen

... discuss the problems facing teenagers in our society. The panel included a school counselor, a Juvenile Judge, a drug counselor, a couple of other experts on teenage problems, and, I guess, I was the representative of the religious community. There were a variety of people in the audience, including the parents of several teenagers. During the question and answer period, there was one woman who acknowledged that she was at the symposium because her adolescent daughter had become a handful and she could no ...

415. Wondering How God Does Things

Luke 1:26-38

Children's Sermon

Erskine White

... other questions we might ask about God. How did God get just two of every kind of animal to go on Noah’s ark and why did He include mosquitoes? How does God put the yoke of an egg inside a shell? How did God think of such a wild variety of plants and flowers, with all their different colors, sizes and shapes, and how did God teach the animals what they know about surviving and having young and taking care of themselves? Come to think of it, how could God be big enough to make this universe we live in ...

416. The Ultimate Christmas Gift

Psalm 85:1-13, Ephesians 2:11-22

Sermon

Erskine White

"The Lord will speak ... to His people." (Psalm 85:8) As we consider the wide variety of gifts we might receive this Christmas, we could probably place those gifts in one of several categories. First and least importantly, there are those entirely frivolous items which we do not need and never intend to use. How many of us, for example, have received things like automatic toothpick ...

417. Why Don’t You Send Somebody?

Isaiah 63:7--64:12

Sermon

Frederick C. Edwards

... except to be visited by tourists." But because of the notoriety of what happened there, Coventry Cathedral has become an ecumenical center for peace and mutual understanding of people. Thousands of Christians representing many denominations and people of other faiths speaking a variety of languages come to Coventry to pray and work for world peace, to the end that such wanton destruction of life and beauty will cease and people will learn at last to live together peacefully and unafraid. No, it was not the ...

418. The Marvelous Style Of Jesus: Truth And Love

Matthew 22:1-14

Sermon

Joseph M. Freeman

... is inviting me to consider. So, I feel unsettled inside, and a lack of peace of mind about it ensues. I don't make good company for anyone at such times. I don't think constructively, and I will act out my lack of peace in a variety of ways. These invitees went "to town and back" and behaved very destructively. In not liking to be disturbed and interrupted in their own agendas, they revealed a deeper abiding disturbance within themselves: They were out of harmony with the Lord, and they lacked a willingness ...

419. Nazareth: The Hidden Years

Luke 2:41-52

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

... pilgrims built a large basilica there, and soon the town became a place of both pilgrimage and conflict. Arabs took the city later that century. The Crusaders built several churches there, but in 1517 Ottoman Turks drove out all Christians. Today Nazareth has a variety of churches and shrines, and you can still go to Mary’s Well, a place where people drew water even in Jesus’ day. And somehow, even though tourists crowd the streets and signs of modernity distract one from the biblical days - still, even ...

420. The Jericho Road: Where the Action Is

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

... dead state. Jesus told how two religious leaders passed the man by, and how eventually he was cared for by a man from Samaria. This is what the Jericho Road was like in Jesus’ day. It was a place of traffic, where you would find a wide variety of human beings. Rich merchants were on the road, and thieves who hoped to rob them. There were ordinary people there, taking care of the common run of business, and miserable beggars who were out to scrounge for another day’s existence. There was crime there, and ...

421. The Garden: All Things New

John 20:1-9

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

... covey of demons. One day she had met Jesus. Perhaps to her astonishment, he neither condemned her nor sought to exploit her. Then, a miracle happened, perhaps the greatest of all miracles: she became a new person. No matter how many times it happens, in whatever varieties of human lives, when a person is born anew in Christ, it is the greatest of miracles. In this instance, it was a particularly dramatic one. The woman of demons became a woman of peace; the woman who had sold her body for a caricature of ...

422. Stewards of Creation

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

Jerry L. Schmalemberger

... , conception, abortion, life quality, and life sustained by hospital machinery. We’ll also want to consider the possibility of our lives continuing to have an impact on others and this ministry long after our physical death. You can see that there is a wide variety of subjects which are involved in being caretakers of all creation. Right now, the subject is "Stewards of Creation." I must begin by telling you about a Maxwell House coffee can. On the little farm in Darke County, Ohio, where I grew up, we ...

423. Resurrection: From Chaos to Order

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

Leonard H. Budd

... boy on this evening was the story of creation. "How did it all come to be?" That was the question asked in that dim long ago. Those human beings felt the warmth of the sun in day. They knew the cold of the desert night. They saw the variety of life that came and went, that seemed to follow some plan of motion - even as the sun moved silently across the blue sky. These early, early human lives saw the hunted as animal stalked animal. They share in it, stalking prey that provided them with food and clothing ...

424. Hot Tubs and Fishing Trips

Mark 1:14-20

Sermon

Thomas Long

... , Garrison Keillor, the host of public radio’s "A Prairie Home Companion," talked about his son, who was at the time fifteen years old. He said that his son had taken up the electric guitar and that his music tended toward the "heavy-metal blues" variety. When Keillor was working at home, writing at the typewriter downstairs, he could hear his son playing, and what he heard amazed him, because the music was so full of soul and was "so wrenchingly sad." Keillor went on to wonder about the source of ...

425. We Wish To See Jesus

John 12:20-36

Sermon

Richard A. Jensen

"Sir, we wish to see Jesus." That is the request that we heard at the beginning of the biblical reading for this message. The inquiry came from the Greeks. That is a fascinating detail. John’s Gospel is filled with a variety of groups of people. There are the Jews and the Pharisees and the disciples, for example. These groups appear many times in John’s Gospel. Not so the Greeks. This is their one and only appearance in John’s Gospel. Their appearance is surprising in a way. What are Greeks ...

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