Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 4251 to 4275 of 4884 results

Matthew 14:13-21

Sermon

Tom Garrison

... crowds in this condition can often grow hostile and get out of hand. So they pulled Jesus aside and pointed out to him the crisis that was in the making and strongly suggested that he disperse the people before things went from bad to worse. It was a perfectly natural suggestion to make in the face of the situation. Here was a problem the disciples wanted to get away from, and it seemed to them that the best strategy was to disengage and let someone else worry about the hunger and the tempers of the crowd ...

4252. Playing One Hand

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Sermon

Tom Garrison

... mark, that is regarded as legendary. But have you ever considered how much failure is involved even in such a legendary achievement? Ted Williams still made more outs than hits even during that record-setting season, which underlines how far from total perfection even the most extraordinary human efforts fall. We do ourselves a great disservice by applying perfectionistic criterion to any form of human activity. Our species was simply not built to function at such a level, and we either come to terms with ...

4253. What Do You Bring to the Table?

Matthew 11:25-30

Sermon

Tom Garrison

... . Unless I am badly mistaken, guilt of all shapes and forms goes through sanctuary doors every minute of every day. It seems that we have "done those things that we should not have done, and we have left undone the things we should have done." In relation to sinless perfection, "there is no health in us." Maybe guilt is the burden most of us bring with us into a place of worship. Then again, I am sure there is a good bit of seething rage also. It is evident on all sides and in relation to many situations ...

4254. Smother Love

Matthew 16:21-28

Sermon

Kristin Borsgard Wee

I loved my father very much. He was my security, my hero, my knight in shining armor. But he wasn't perfect. My dad had "a plan" for each of us three kids. We were supposed to go off to college, and then come back home to teach school, preferably in the same school where my dad taught. My older brother functioned pretty much according to plan. I didn't. After college ...

4255. A Love Triangle

Matthew 22:34-46

Sermon

David G. Rogne

... born an eagle! He had been trying to live like a goose. We were born to soar. We are children of God. When we know that, we learn to love ourselves because we love the God who made us. Loving God, neighbor, and ourselves is not something that we perfect all at once. A friend tells of receiving a valentine card that said on the cover: "I love you terribly." Inside were the words "But I'll improve with practice." It is not an easy task to be loving persons. We are busy, we are frustrated, impatient, or too ...

4256. Mary: The Handmaiden of the Lord

Luke 1:38-45

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... is impossible to please God.” When we begin believing in God and taking God at his word, life begins to open up for us. When we stop trying to control our lives and say, “God, you take it from here,” real life begins. This doesn’t mean life is perfect, but it does mean God will show up in your life when you need him and will empower you with blessings that give your life joy, purpose and meaning. Mary showed us what belief and faith look like. We talk a big game about having faith and believing in ...

4257. Before the Sanhedrin

Mark 14:53-65

Understanding Series

Larry W. Hurtado

... ,” alluding to Exod. 20:16, the commandment against bearing false witness. Here the witnesses are themselves shown to be breaking the OT law. Jewish practice required that any charge be supported by at least two witnesses, and that their testimony had to agree perfectly. This is what is alluded to in the comment that their statements did not agree. 14:58 This man-made temple … another, not made by man: The phrase man-made (lit., “made by hands”) translates a word used in the Greek translation of ...

4258. The Resurrection

Mark 16:1-20

Understanding Series

Larry W. Hurtado

... even deliberate scribal changes did happen. But how else could it have been? The Christian who regards the Bible as the Word of God at the same time recognizes that this Word was transmitted through time by human agents who, though they were not always perfect in their work, have placed all subsequent students of the Bible in their debt. We are in no position to complain about their work, for we are wholly dependent upon them for any direct contact with the biblical documents, and we owe them gratitude for ...

4259. God's Righteous Judgment

Romans 2:1-16

Understanding Series

James R. Edwards

... by the law, judgment will be rendered through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares. This verse states explicitly that there is no judgment apart from the gospel. In his inscrutable wisdom (11:33) God will judge men’s secrets only through Christ, whose perfect love satisfied God’s exact justice. Thus, in the midst of humanity’s dire condition and inescapable guilt, Paul introduces a harbinger of grace. The Judge, it is true, brings lethal charges against the accused, both Jews and Gentiles, but the same ...

4260. God's Wrath Against Mankind

Romans 1:18-32

Understanding Series

James R. Edwards

... p. 31. 1:19–21 The hallmark of the Enlightenment was free inquiry through unimpeded reason, which included a rejection of all forms of revelation or church authority, belief in the essential goodness of humanity, and an understanding of nature as a perfect machine with God as its manufacturer. Thus, reason and nature became the (only) two avenues of knowledge about God, thus reducing religion generally to a code of ethics. Such ideas are reflected in Benjamin Franklin’s “Articles of Belief and Acts of ...

4261. The Jews and the Law

Romans 2:17-29

Understanding Series

James R. Edwards

... 29. The exacting righteousness of God’s revealed will pronounces judgment on all people, and each person is forced to confess with David, “I was sinful at birth.” The face of unrighteousness first becomes apparent when one “looks intently into the perfect law” (James 1:25). Thus, the reflection of Jewish righteousness and confidence is as distorted by the mirror of the law as is the obvious unrighteousness of Gentiles. Paul eliminates all possibility of a righteousness apart from the grace of God ...

4262. God’s Faithfulness

Romans 3:1-8

Understanding Series

James R. Edwards

... ). God is wholly other, God is God and not human. But that does not absolve us from being human. God’s goodness is never rivaled by human goodness; neither is God’s goodness increased by human badness (although it may be the more apparent). God is perfectly good and just; otherwise, he could not judge the world. Human evil is not worse because it grows, anymore than cancer is more deadly because it infects three vital organs instead of one. Nor is human evil less evil because God chooses to meet it with ...

4263. Abraham Justified by Faith

Romans 4:1-25

Understanding Series

James R. Edwards

... with a rich patina of miracle and legend. Indeed, in the nearly two millennia since his death he had been elevated to a quasi-divine status. His grave (actually a cenotaph) in Hebron was honored as a holy place. He was believed to have obeyed perfectly God’s commandments before they were given, and he was extolled as the embodiment of Psalm 1. Rabbis spoke of God’s having ordained the Torah before the foundation of the world “for Abraham’s sake,” and, along with Isaac and Jacob, he was regarded ...

4264. Death Through Adam, Life Through Christ

Romans 5:12-21

Understanding Series

James R. Edwards

... is overcome by the grace of the other. The one causes death, the other swallows up death in life. In every way Christ surpasses Adam. 5:18–21 The Adam-Christ typology is repeated in verse 18, and for the first time in perfect parallelism. The Greek construction behind Consequently at the beginning of verse 18, ara oun, indicates a conclusive, summary statement. Milton fashioned a key passage in Paradise Lost after the Adam-Christ typology, concluding that “Heav’nly love shal outdoo Hellish hate” (3 ...

4265. An Illustration from Marriage

Romans 7:1-6

Understanding Series

James R. Edwards

... analogy of marriage and returns to that of slavery, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code. Slavery to Christ leads to freedom in Christ, “whose service,” as the Book of Common Prayer says, “is perfect freedom.” The new way of the Spirit and the old way of the written code present a double contrast between newness and oldness, or the Spirit and the letter. It is tempting to see here a contrast between the old and new covenants, or law and grace, but ...

4266. Israel's Unbelief

Romans 9:30--10:21

Understanding Series

James R. Edwards

... through chosen persons. The gospel is always and everywhere “incarnational,” i.e., it is God’s word communicated through persons. Where the gospel is not personal, it is not the gospel. The incarnation of Jesus Christ was, of course, the perfect and consummate example of God’s revelation of himself in history. Apostles, prophets, and witnesses of all sorts are not simply individuals who have had “religious experiences” or who have “studied theology,” but individuals who by God’s gracious ...

4267. Divisions In the Church

1 Corinthians 1:10-17

Understanding Series

Marion L. Soards

... but even the purpose of his appeal. The phrases of the appeal are positive, then negative, and positive again. He urges that they all say the same thing (positive), and that there not be divisions among them (negative), but that they be perfectly united in the same mind and in the same conviction (positive). The word mind, which Paul uses in the last phrase, usually has the sense of disposition or mentality; the word translated here as thought may be rendered “judgment,” “opinion,” “advice,” and ...

4268. Marriage

1 Corinthians 7:1-40

Understanding Series

Marion L. Soards

... husband, and that the children … are holy. God graciously works to bring about the sanctification of the non-Christian spouse and the children through the believer in the family. The Greek verb hagiazō, translated “has been sanctified,” is a perfect (past completed action) passive (the subject is acted on rather than acts). Thus, this mention of sanctification refers to a present reality accomplished in the past without specifying when and how the action took place. The implication of the passive ...

4269. Food Sacrificed to Idols

1 Corinthians 8:1-13

Understanding Series

Marion L. Soards

... ’s position, perhaps with sarcasm, for he writes literally, “If someone supposes to know something”—a position that Paul sets up to knock down. Moreover, in retort to the claim of any Corinthian who might allege spiritual insight, maturity, or perfection (an issue in earlier portions of the letter), Paul makes a pointed rebuttal, “Not yet!” (Gk. oupō). 8:3 In juxtaposition to and as a replacement of the assertion of “knowledge” by “someone,” Paul writes, “But if someone loves God ...

4270. Idol Feasts and the Lord's Supper

1 Corinthians 10:14-22

Understanding Series

Marion L. Soards

... activity. He refers to the sacrifices of pagans to idols as being offered to demons. This comment is not a full-blown exposition on the demonic, nor is it possible to understand exactly what Paul believed a demon to be, although his thought here is in perfect line with OT passages that identify pagan gods as demons and condemn such sacrifices (see Exod. 22:20; 32:8; Deut. 28:64; 32:17; Ps. 106:36–37). Paul’s general perceptions and beliefs about the demonic are not clear from this statement, although ...

4271. Propriety in Worship

1 Corinthians 11:2-16

Understanding Series

Marion L. Soards

... women going without a covering in worship. 11:5 As noted above in relation to v. 3, the third occurrence of head in the English translation of the present verse is a word that is supplied by the translators. In fact, in Gk., the perfect passive participle “having been shaved” (Gk. exyrēmenē), translated here were shaved, is preceded by the definite article “the” (Gk. tē) probably meaning “the woman,” not “her head”; so that the line reads “for it is one and the same thing as her having ...

4272. Spiritual Gifts

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

Understanding Series

Marion L. Soards

... Toward a Pauline Theology of Glossolalia,” Crux 31 [1995], pp. 22–23, 26–31) for an attempt to grasp the theological sense of Paul’s statements about tongues by relating them to Paul’s understanding of God’s own principle of power made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). 12:11 The polished grammatical sequence of Paul’s statement, captured well in the NIV, first recognizes the variety of all these things—the manifestations of vv. 8–10—and then focuses on the oneness and the deliberateness ...

4273. The Resurrection of Christ

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Understanding Series

Marion L. Soards

... The verbs “to die” and “to be buried” are aorist in form, indicating simple past action without expressing an interest in the particularity of the time or its ongoing significance (if any). Yet, the verb “to be raised” occurs in the perfect tense, a way of indicating completed past action that presents ongoing significance in its completion or “which denotes a present state resulting from a past action. The implication is therefore that Christ, having been raised, is now risen Lord” (Watson ...

4274. Final Greetings

1 Corinthians 16:19-24

Understanding Series

Marion L. Soards

... the reading of this particular letter to the assembled congregation. 16:22 Cf. Rev. 22:20, where the same style declaration is made in Gk. The cry is clear in basic intention, but still enigmatic; since the Aramaic could be read as a perfect (“our Lord has come”) or an imperative (“Come, our Lord”). The use of this declaration in the closing of this letter, near the end of Rev., and apparently as an eschatological cry in corporate worship, probably indicates the imperative sense of the statement ...

4275. The Rider on the White Horse

Revelation 19:11-21

Understanding Series

Robert W. Wall

... can not be fully comprehended by the human mind (Revelation, p. 254). 19:16 When the dual name for Jesus, “King of kings, Lord of lords,” is written into Aramaic, and when each consonant is given numerical value, the sum totals “777”—symbolic of perfection. P. Skehan finds here a cryptic contrast to the Antichrist, whose number is “666” and who does not measure up to Christ; “King of kings, Lord of lords,” CBQ 10 (1948), p. 398. Morris further appeals to Ps. 45:3, which links “sword ...

Showing results