Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 4301 to 4325 of 4999 results

Luke 23:34

Sermon

James Merritt

... forgive."[3] If you're going to be like Jesus you're going to have to forgive like Jesus. Eph. 4:32 says: "And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also forgave you." If you are holding a grudge, if your body contains ... this note without the knowledge of his wife! He told the banker that there was no way he could come up with that kind of money. But the banker again reiterated he expected to hear back in two days. Joe went home, sat down and told his wife ...

4302. The Lord of the Harvest

Matthew 9:35-38

Sermon

James Merritt

... . The problem is not with the size of the harvest, the problem is with the lack of the harvesters. A little boy was asked to go somewhere by his dad. His little boy looked at him and said, "I ain't going." Well, his dad did not like that kind of language, and he said, "Son, you're not supposed to use the word ‘ain't', that is not proper English." He then proceeded to give his son an English lesson. He said, "Now listen carefully, first person singular—I am not going; second person singular—You are not ...

4303. Did You Know?

1 Timothy 1:15

Sermon

James Merritt

... is Jesus necessary to be saved, He is all you need to be saved." Jesus Christ came to save, but did you know— III. The People Jesus Came To Serve We are told "Christ Jesus came to save sinners." That is the only kind of people that Jesus will bother to save. In fact, that is the only kind of people who can be saved. Jesus Himself said, "Those who are well do not need a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." (Luke 5: 31-32) I've got some ...

4304. A Deserter in God's Army

1 Timothy 4:9-10

Sermon

James Merritt

... out of the blue and say, "I am through with the ministry. I've had it with the work of God. I am tired of this kind of life. I want to eat, drink, and be merry and grab all the gusto that I can." Backsliding does not occur over night. Backsliding always ... life." I want to make something very plain. If you're away from God, if you're not living for the Lord, I don't care what kind of religious experience you had in your life, if you are happy being away from God, you are lost and need to be saved. Now notice ...

4305. Have You Heard the News?

Ephesians 2:1-7

Sermon

James Merritt

... says: "You have cancer." Your breath is literally taken away until he says, "But, it is completely curable and we have caught it in time." Makes a big difference, doesn't it? Think about this statement: "My husband has lost his mind—but it wasn't a big loss. It kind of eases the pain doesn't it? The bad news is man is lost, but the better news is: "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by ...

4306. Doing Right When You Have Been Done Wrong

Ephesians 4:31-32

Sermon

James Merritt

... God's roadblock to bitterness. Charles Spurgeon said, "Let us go to Calvary to learn how we may be forgiven; and then let us linger there to learn how to forgive."3 II. The Dynamic Power of Forgiveness Paul goes on to say in Eph. 4:32, "And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you." Now this is one of the three rules of forgiveness you will find in the Bible. Let me give them to you: Rule No. One: You should forgive others the way you would want others ...

4307. The Danger of American Express

Exodus 20:17

Sermon

James Merritt

... rich. Then in v.10 he tells us that "the love of money is the root of all evil." Now there's nothing wrong with money, but it is the love of money, which is simply a by-product of covetousness, which will cause you to fall into all kinds of snares and sorrows and temptations. In their groundbreaking work, The Day America Told the Truth, James Patterson and Peter Kim asked this question: "What are you willing to do for $10 million?" For $10 million one out of four of us would abandon all of our friends, or ...

4308. If You're Not Loving You're Not Living (Fruit of the Spirit: Love)

Galatians 5:22

Sermon

James Merritt

... your marriage would be like, what your kids would be like, what your spouse would be like, what you would be like, if the tree of your home and your heart bore the fruit of love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self -control. Now quite frankly, if a lot of us started bearing that kind of fruit in our lives, it would make us a stranger in our own home! The Bible compares every Christian to a tree. It is a tree that is to bear fruit. We have been given two fruit ...

4309. How to Live the Good Life (Fruit of the Spirit: Goodness)

Galatians 5:22

Sermon

James Merritt

... translate it. Sometimes it is called mercy. Sometimes is called grace. Sometimes it is called love. Sometimes it is called loving kindness. But it is really all of those things and more simply tied into one. Now you notice he says we are not ... , then you will live mercy. There is something liberating about mercy, and about goodness; about treating the lowest, the littlest, and the least with kindness and with grace. Saint Augustine once said, "He that is good is free though he be a slave; he that is evil is a ...

4310. Courage Under Fire

Jude 1:22-23

Sermon

James Merritt

... tell. It was about Peter Apples, a soldier during the Civil War who went into enemy territory. Peter Apples did not know much about being a good soldier. He just knew that when his superior officer said, "Charge!" he was supposed to go. He was the kind of man who never came back until he made contact with the enemy. One day his officer said, "Charge!" Well, Peter Apples charged. But his company came under such severe fire that the superior officer sounded the retreat. But Peter Apples didn't hear that; he ...

4311. The Love of the Harvest

John 4:34-38

Sermon

James Merritt

... meal was. His appetizer was the Word of God. You remember when Jesus fasted for forty days in the wilderness. He had had no food of any kind. He could have turned rocks into fresh hot bread baked in heaven's oven. But he said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by ... Sunday, and he said, "Oh no, I cannot work on Sunday. I have to go down to my church and work on Sunday." The boss was kind of a smart aleck and he said, "Well, what do they pay you down there?" He said, "Oh the pay isn't very good, but the ...

4312. Don't Believe the Lie about the Truth

John 8:32

Sermon

James Merritt

... , the word is not tolerance, the word is truth. Do you know why people are so anxious to deny the reality of truth? If you denied the reality of truth, you really deny the reality of God. Think about. If something is absolute, it is free from any kind of error, imperfection, or flaw. To say there are no absolutes, is to say there is no God, because God is the ultimate absolute. Because God in His character and in His being, has no error, no imperfection, no flaw, and no limit. He is the altogether absolute ...

4313. Once Save - Always Saved

John 10:27-29

Sermon

James Merritt

... , and if you do, they'll tell you they no longer believe in Jesus. We used to have a saying at the seminary for those kind of people: The faith that fizzles at the finish was faulty from the first. In other words, if you have it, you never lose it, ... child of God, our anchor is the hand of our Heavenly Father. That anchor is attached to the rock of ages named Jesus Christ. With that kind of security, nobody can ever fall. That's why Jesus went on to say, "My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than ...

4314. The Right Connection

John 15:1-8

Sermon

James Merritt

... all, lifeless. Then because it is lifeless, it is fruitless; and because it is fruitless it is therefore useless. It was interesting to learn that the dead branch from a grapevine is absolutely useless. It cannot be used to make a piece of furniture or utensil of any kind. As a matter of fact, it won't even serve as a peg to hang something on. A branch from a vine is only good for one of two things: bearing or burning. That is exactly what happens here. These dead branches are cast out, withered, gathered ...

4315. A Man on the Run

Jonah 1:1-4

Sermon

James Merritt

... would get out the tartar sauce! What happened was Jonah got a whale house for a jailhouse, spent three nights on a foam blubber mattress, and then was spit out on dry land. Now, quite frankly, I've called this fish a whale, but we really don't know what kind of fish it was. I heard about a preacher that preached on Jonah and the whale, and after the sermon was over an unbeliever and a critic walked up to him and said, "Preacher, how do you know it was a whale that swallowed Jonah?" The preacher said, "Well ...

4316. Dad: The Head of a Godly Family

Joshua 24:15

Sermon

James Merritt

... murder committed every 22 minutes, a rape every 5 minutes, a robbery every 47 seconds, and a violent crime of some kind committed every 22 seconds. Five million Americans are victims of violent crime every year, while 19 million are targets of property ... except to choose. You must choose. Making decisions is a very funny thing. Not to make a decision is to make a decision. It's kind of like getting up in the morning. Have you ever awakened in the morning and said to yourself: "I just cannot decide whether I ...

4317. Like a Good Neighbor, Jesus Is There

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

James Merritt

... you believe it? That drunk was still there and still no one had helped him." That man's religion had some-thing in common with the priest and the Levites; straight as a gun barrel and just as empty. I'm sure that these religious hypocrites had all kinds of excuses why they didn't help this man. They thought to themselves, "These robbers might still be lurking, and I might get robbed;" "I might be accused of robbing him myself;" "If he dies, I might get sued." But the Lord Jesus is going to illustrate there ...

4318. How to Turn the Ballot into a Blessing Box

Proverbs 29:2

Sermon

James Merritt

... and cherished beliefs. Here is what he replied: "My prison shall be my grave before I will budge a jot, for I owe my conscience to no man. Right is right even if everyone is against it; and wrong is wrong even if everyone is for it." That is the kind of man or woman that deserves your vote and mine in any day, and any age. Finally, leaders should be marked by consecration. "The words of King Lemuel, the utterance which his mother taught him: ‘What my son? And what, son of my womb? And what, son of my vows ...

4319. The World's Greatest Body Builder

1 Corinthians 12:13

Sermon

James Merritt

... baptizes saints with the fire of the Spirit. As Judge, He baptizes sinners with the fire of judgment. There are only two kinds of people in the world today. There are those who have been baptized with the Spirit and those who will be baptized ... that is exactly what Jesus did with the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. He moved the fence and included every believer in His Body. What kind of a job has he done? Well, starting with 12 disciples 2000 years ago today, one-third of the world, over two billion people, claim ...

4320. Faithful Fathers Fortify Families

Deuteronomy 6:1-15

Sermon

James Merritt

... here have already raised your children. But you're going to have grandchildren. Dwight L. Moody said, "If you want to know what kind of a parent you were, don't look at your children, look at your grandchildren." So I want you to notice the instructions ... , with all your soul, and with all your might." (v.5) We are to teach our kids to love God, but there is a special kind of love that God desires, God deserves, and God demands. We are to love the Lord fervently—"with all of our heart." Nothing breaks the ...

4321. The Secret of Self-Esteem

Ephesians 1:1-6

Sermon

James Merritt

... we do is because we compare ourselves with other people, and when we don't measure up esteem is gone and only self is left. My wife, Teresa, loves Patrick Swayze. Every time he comes on television she just swoons. Well, I caught her looking at him in that teenybopper kind of way the other night, and I said, "Let me ask you a question. If you took away his money, his face, and that muscular body, what would you have?" She looked at me and smiled and said, "I'd have you." Now you may not have good looks, a ...

4322. Face the Music

Hebrews 9:27-28

Sermon

James Merritt

... of this church is going to die?'" The man said with a big smile, "Because I'm not a member of this church." Well, there are two kinds of people in this building today who are going to die; those who are members of this church and those who are not. But the other thing ... "hot hells" each surrounded by torture chambers that people must cross through before they get to Nirvana, which is a kind of blissful non-existence. Hinduism has twenty-one hells tailor-made to match a person's behavior on earth. Judaism ...

4323. Bitterness: How to Overcome What You Undergo

Hebrews 12:14-15

Sermon

James Merritt

... mean that you will not be living your life according to the grace of God that is within you. You see, grace is not only about God forgiving you; it is about you forgiving others. I just quoted Eph. 4:31, but listen to Eph. 4:32, "And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also forgave you." Did you hear that phrase? You are to forgive others the way God has forgiven you. No one has ever been more unjustly mistreated than the Lord Jesus Christ, but even as He was ...

4324. Star Witness

John 1:35-51

Sermon

James Merritt

... and poised to seize the moment if we can to share the Lord Jesus Christ. Because every unbelieving person that God puts in your path is in danger of dying without Christ at any moment. II. Personally Evangelism Is Relational If you're going to be a witness of any kind, you must be a witness for someone and a witness to someone. Now we are to be witnesses for the Lord. If you are going to be a witness for the Lord you must have a walk with the Lord. "Then Jesus turned, and seeing them following, said to them ...

4325. Come On Baby, Light My Fire

Matthew 3:11-12

Sermon

James Merritt

... ." The word He uses there for "another" is extremely important. There are two Greek words for the English word "another." One Greek word is the word heteros from which we get the word heterosexual. This word means "another of a different kind." But the word Jesus used is the word allos, which means another of the same kind. What Jesus said in effect was, "I'm going to leave you, but I'm going to send you someone just like Me." Just as Jesus is a person, the Spirit is a person. In Rom. 8:27 we are told ...

Showing results