Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 4301 to 4325 of 5000 results

4301. Preparing for Christmas

Luke 3:1-20

Sermon

King Duncan

Pastor John Ortberg was giving a bath to his three children. Johnny was still in the tub. Laura was out and safely in her pajamas. He was trying to get Mallory dried off. Mallory was out of the water, but was doing what has come to be known in their family as the Dee Dah Day dance. This dance consists of running around and around in circles, singing over and over again, "Dee dah day, dee dah day." It was a relatively simple dance expressing great joy. When Mallory is too happy to hold it in any longer, ...

4302. The Hinge of History

Luke 3:1-20

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

Henry Ford said that history is bunk; but history has gotten its revenge on the pioneer auto maker. It has made Ford himself a benchmark of history, at least in its industrial and economic phases. Ford effectively disproved his own statement when he established Greenfield Village, which is probably one of the half-dozen favorite historical sites in our country. Some of us love history, but even those who don't had better be ready to admit its significance. We want to know where we've come from and how ...

4303. Songs of the Season

Luke 1:46-56, Luke 1:39-45

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

No season of the year sings as well as Christmas. This seems to be true whether one is a saint or a sinner. The world about us has occasional songfests for patriotic days or school homecoming celebrations, but those songs are sung by selected groups in isolated places. Only at the Christmas season does the majority of the population choose to sing or to listen to the singing of others. Some of the songs which now mark the Christmas and Advent season are poor secularizations of the original Christmas theme ...

4304. God's Sneak Attack

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

David J. Kalas

I think I was eight years old the first time I got to be in a Christmas pageant. I played the part of a shepherd at our church during the Christmas Eve service that year. I didn't have any lines, but I remember that I had to kneel on one knee for a very long time. The whole chancel area of our sanctuary had been transformed into a living nativity scene. There in the center was the manger, with Mary and Joseph on either side. Then we, the shepherds, came up along on one side. Next, the three gift-bearing ...

4305. God Communicates in Humanly Understandable Terms

Luke 2:41-52

Sermon

Richard D. Campbell

One Christmas morning, a young widow was doing her best to make Christmas happy for her two little boys. This was their first Christmas without their father. Unexpectedly, someone knocked at the door. "Who could that be?" she wondered. When she opened the door, she found her pastor standing with his arms full of toys and candy. This man, who was one of the most renowned preachers of his era, said quite simply: "I thought your boys might miss their father on Christmas morning." He spent the next two hours ...

4306. A Celebration of Love

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

King Duncan

Mark Mail was waiting in line at his local post office. Only one clerk was working the window. The line was moving quite slowly. As Mark waited, he began to fill out a check. He was hoping to speed things up when he reached the counter. Unsure of the date, he turned and asked the woman behind him. ‘It’s the fifth,’ she replied. Before he could write in the date on the check, he heard a voice. A man from the back of the line cautioned, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t write the date in just yet.’" (1) Now that was a slow- ...

4307. Costly Extravagance

John 12:1-11

Sermon

Frank G. Honeycutt

"Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?" Well, it's not a bad question. Judas may have been a thief and informant, he may have embezzled money from the common purse occasionally, he may have had other motives besides the high moral road he seems to project, and he probably really didn't give a fig for the poor. But isn't he basically right? Couldn't the pound of expensive perfume dumped on Jesus' feet have been used for a better purpose? I must admit that I ...

4308. Baptized with Christ

Luke 3:21-38

Sermon

King Duncan

Before performing a baptism, the priest approached the young father and said solemnly, “Baptism is a serious step. Are you prepared for it?” “I think so,” the man replied. “My wife has made appetizers and we have a caterer coming to provide plenty of cookies and cakes for all of our guests.” “I don’t mean that,” the priest responded. “I mean, are you prepared spiritually?” “Oh, sure,” came the reply. “I’ve got a keg of beer and a case of whiskey." This is not exactly what the priest had in mind. Was this ...

4309. Promises, Promises

Jeremiah 33:1-26

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

Promises are so important! We know, for example, that when we make a child a promise, we must keep it at all costs, or the child will lose all trust in us and our word. We also know that if we do not keep a promise to a friend, we may lose that friendship. Certainly we make promises through all our life. One of the most important ones is made when we stand before a minister to be married. There we promise to love and comfort, to honor and keep our spouse, in sickness and in health. And we promise that we ...

4310. Salvation Oracle

Isaiah 43:1-13

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

The subject for this Sunday, as set forth in the accompanying New Testament texts, is baptism, the baptism of Jesus in Luke, and the baptism of the Samaritan disciples in Acts. Let us therefore use our Second Isaiah text also in relation to baptism, namely our baptisms. To be sure, the prophet originally directed these words to the Israelite exiles in Babylonian between 550 and 538 B.C., but they are also an excellent description of our relation to God in our baptisms into the church. The words and ...

4311. Evaluating Our Names

Isaiah 62:1-12

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

For those who like to preach from all three lectionary texts, the stated readings for this Sunday could cause a preacher great perplexity. How on earth do they all fit together? The Epistle lesson deals with the variety of gifts given by the Spirit to the church. The Gospel lesson recounts Jesus' first "sign" at the wedding at Cana, when the water turned into wine, became the symbol of his blood poured out for us all. Our Isaiah text concerns the eschatological future of Jerusalem. Other than the reference ...

4312. Servant Song

Isaiah 50:1-11

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

This is the stated text also in Cycles A and B. The preacher may want to consult those expositions, along with this one. This is a poem in the writings of Second Isaiah that scholars have long called a "Servant Song," one of the four that occur in this prophetic book. (The others are found in Isaiah 42:1-4; 49:1-6, and 52:13--53:12.) Although the question has been hotly debated for many years, many scholars have said, and I would agree, that the speaker in the Servant Songs is Israel, but it is Israel as ...

4313. The Conversion of Saul

Acts 9:1-19a

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

We have three different accounts of the conversion of Saul in the Gospel according to Luke (9:1-20; 22:6-16; 26:12-18). They differ in a few minor details, but essentially they are the same. In addition, Paul writes of his conversion in Galatians 1:11-16, and in 1 Corinthians 9:1 and 15:8-9, stating that at the time of his conversion on the road to Damascus, he saw the Lord. For Paul, that made him an apostle, equal to the twelve. An apostle, in Paul's thought, was one who had seen the risen Christ and had ...

4314. The Book that Changes Lives

Nehemiah 7:73b--8:18

Sermon

King Duncan

Every once in a while you will run across something in a secular magazine that feeds your spirit. There was an item in a recent Smithsonian magazine that speaks to our lesson for today. It was a story on the history of that legendary town of the Old West, Tombstone, Arizona. In the late 1870s, miners discovered silver in the DragoonMountains of Arizona. An area that had once been desert wasteland became the bustling mining town of Tombstone---so named because the first miner to explore the site had been ...

4315. The Sufficiency of Christ

Philippians 4:10-20

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Some years ago, I had the marvelous opportunity of visiting Philippi. I was troubled by the fact that not much was left of that once flourishing Roman colony. But out by the river, where Lydia was converted, and perhaps baptized, I gained a helpful perspective. The most winsome church of the apostolic age probably never had a building of her own. It was the church in Lydia’s house, or in the house of some other. If there was a particular building for the church at any time during her history, not one stone ...

4316. Being A Man of God

1 Peter 2:4-12

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Some of you have known me long enough to know that one of my favorite theologian is Charles Schultz, the artist who gave us the wonderful Peanuts cartoons. In one of my favorite cartoons, Lucy comes storming into the room and demands that Linus change TV channels and then threatens him with her fist if he doesn’t. “What makes you think you can walk right in here and take over?” asks Linus. “These five fingers,” says Lucy. “Individually they are nothing, but when I curl them together like this into a single ...

4317. God Outwits Us

Psalm 31:1-24

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Many of you know the name, Brother Lawrence. If you have not read his book The Practice of the Presence of God, you have probably heard a preacher or teacher speak of Brother Lawrence. He served in the kitchen of his monastery and said he experienced the presence of God as clearly in washing pots and pans as in the Blessed Sacrament. Though known as Brother Lawrence, his name was Nicholas Herman. He was born into a peasant family in Lorraine, France, in 1611. At the age of eighteen, he awakened to the ...

4318. Equipping the Whole People of God: Penultimate Questions

1 Peter 2:4-12

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Some of you have known me long enough to know that one of my favorite theologians is Charles Schultz, the artist who gave us the wonderful Peanuts cartoons. In one of my favorite cartoons, Lucy comes storming into the room and demands that Linus change TV channels and then threatens him with her fist if he doesn’t. “What makes you think you can walk right in here and take over?” asks Linus. “These five fingers,” says Lucy. “Individually they are nothing, but when I curl them together like this into a ...

4319. The Nature of the Church and Christian Discipleship

1 Peter 2:4-12

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

In my convocation address I shared with you the fact that I am preoccupied these days with the nature of the church – and the nature of Christian discipleship. Maybe my preoccupation with the church is triggered by the struggles going on in my own denomination – the United Methodist Church. The truth of the matter is, these struggles are going on in all mainline churches. Schism is a threat – I struggle with questions like when or does a person ever have enough reason to leave the church of which he is a ...

4320. God's Say-So

Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

I don’t know how many times I have used Oswald Chambers’ devotional classic, My Utmost for His Highest. At least every three or four years I go back to it for resourcing my daily spiritual reading and always -- without fail -- I am ministered to, receiving challenge and insight not received before. I remember the experience I had the last time I used it. The meditation began with this sentence from Hebrews 13, verses 5-6: “He hath said . . . so that we may boldly say.” Then came these two sentences: “My ...

4321. The Proof Is In the Pudding

Luke 7:18-35

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Some of you will know the name Norman Cousins. For many years he was the eminent editor of The Saturday Review. During his last years he served as a faculty member at the UCLA Medical School. He had developed what was considered an incurable disease—and he discovered that laughter was a way that helped. In fact, he convinced some medical folks to include laughter as a part of their treatment programs. As a part of this, there was a particular room in a hospital in Houston, Texas, called the “Living Room.” ...

4322. God's People Will Receive Power

Daniel 7:15-28, Hebrews 12:1-13

Bulletin Aid

H. Burnham Kirkland

Call To Worship Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us. Come, let us worship! Collect O Lord God, eternal and everlasting, we give you thanks for all the saints who surround us this day. We have benefited by their faithfulness and their example of a godly life. Give us grace to follow in their footsteps to your honor and glory. Amen. Prayer Of Confession Lord, ...

4323. The Beatitudes

Luke 6:17-26

Bulletin Aid

H. Burnham Kirkland

Call To Worship Leader: Sing a new song to the Lord! People: We will praise him in the assembly of his people! Leader: The Lord takes pleasure in his people; he honors the humble. People: We will shout aloud as we praise God. All: Praise the Lord! Collect God of love, you have taught us through your Son that we are to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us. Through the ages your prophets have kept this challenge before us. With the help of your Holy Spirit, we are committed to keeping this ...

4324. The Ascension

Luke 24:50-53

Bulletin Aid

H. Burnham Kirkland

Call To Worship Leader: Come and listen, all who honor God, and I will tell you what he has done for me. People: I cried to him for help. I praised him with songs. Leader: If I had ignored my sins, the Lord would not have listened to me. People: But God has indeed heard me; he has listened to my prayer. Collect Lord, your last act before your Ascension was to bless your disciples. We, too, come seeking your blessing that your Holy Spirit might rest upon us, and give us the power we need to be useful ...

4325. The Baptism Of Jesus

Luke 3:1-20

Bulletin Aid

H. Burnham Kirkland

Call To Worship Baptism is the rite of passage into the family of God. We are baptized not only with water, but with the Holy Spirit. In this time of worship, let us strive to understand the full meaning of Baptism, as we mark the Baptism of Jesus. Collect Lord, we know that when Jesus began his ministry he was baptized with water by John the Baptist, and with the Holy Spirit as you declared he was your Son. This morning as we reflect on this event, help us to understand more fully the meaning and ...

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