Sermon and Worship Resources

Antonyms: keep, claim, continue, stick by, self-control, power through, achieve, defend, bear, hope, acquire, quick visit, adopt, continue along, adhere, remain, pursue, support, take up, keep up, reuse, advocate, stay, persevere, cherish, keep going, carry on

Showing 4351 to 4375 of 4939 results

4351. Vengeance: Human and Divine

Matthew 13:1-9 · Isaiah 44:6-8 · Psalm 1-12, 17-18, 23-24

Sermon

Will Willimon

We began this service of worship by reciting Psalm 139. Well, not really. For we only recited part of Psalm 139, the nice part. Our hymnal leaves out the last part of this psalm, the part that isn't so nice. After speaking of the Spirit of God, the wings of the morning, the precious thoughts of God, there is a jolt: O that thou wouldst slay the wicked....Do I not hate them that hate thee,... do I not loathe them that rise up against thee? I hate them with a perfect hatred! As John Wesley said, perhaps ...

4352. When In Our Music God Is Glorified

Isaiah 58:1-9a

Sermon

Will Willimon

“Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly;...” (Isaiah 58:1-9a) In the beginning of Romans, Chapter I, Paul makes a rather remarkable statement after his notorious inventory of the world's moral chaos,-envy, murder, strife, deceit, gossip, idolatry, sexual perversion. Why this bad behavior? Because people don't follow the law? Because we don't lead our lives in accordance with the Bible? Because affluence and immorality go hand-in-hand? Although any of these ...

4353. A Double Dose

2 Kings 2:1-18

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

Anyone coming into contact with Elijah could see the full power of God's anointing on his life. Elisha would be next in line to continue Elijah's prophetic ministry and he knew the requirements of this awesome task. Elisha could not do it alone. The full anointing of God's spirit had to be in his life in order for him to succeed in his ministry, so Elisha asked that he receive a double portion of Elijah's spirit. Elisha felt the need for a second touch of Elijah's power and spirit because he knew what ...

4354. Week One Of Lent

Sermon

Richard Gribble

Monday Week OneLeviticus 19:1-2, 11-18Matthew 25:31-46 Be Holy As Is God We all know that God is divine. This is how we define God. But how does one define divinity? One might say that divinity means omniscience and omnipotence. These are both proper descriptions, possibly even definitions of divinity, but how can a human relate to these things? We know so many things that are more powerful than we and so many people who are more intelligent than ourselves. Maybe we can imagine the divinity of God as all ...

4355. Country Songs and Easter Hymns

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

Thomas Long

As the van rolled down the interstate, Kitty Wells' hillbilly alto rattled the radio speakers; "When you're lookin' at me," she belted out, "you're lookin' at country." In the van were ten of us, all seminary seniors, heading away from our rural South Carolina campus toward the big city of Atlanta, and Kitty Wells had it right: If you were looking at us, you were looking at country. It was not that we urbanly-challenged folk actually wanted to go to the city; the faculty was forcing us to do so. Terrified ...

4356. Yet I Will Rejoice

Habakkuk 3:1-19

Eulogy

Barbara G. Schmitz

A couple of years ago on a cold, bleak day, I got a phone call from a woman who asked if I was the pastor. "Yes," I said, "what can I do for you?" "Well," she said, "there has been a death." She went on to tell me that her dog, Pepper, had accidentally gotten out of the fenced-in back yard and had been killed by a car. Her children were very upset. She was upset for them, because they were foster care children, and losing a dog brought up all those feelings of abandonment that these children had already ...

4357. Lent 4

Luke 13:18-22 · Joel 2:12-19

Bulletin Aid

Jack Brownlee

ORDER OF SERVICE Opening Words L: Let us worship our Creator, the God of Love. P: God continually preserves and sustains us. L: We have been loved with an everlasting love. P: Through Jesus Christ we have been given complete knowledge of God's glory. Hymn "Are Ye Able" Prayer Of Confession (Unison) Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness. According unto thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. I acknowledge my ...

4358. Living The Alternatives

Luke 17:1-10

Sermon

W. Robert McClelland

"Christ" is the Greek word for Messiah or King. To believe in Jesus Christ, therefore, is to affirm more than certain doctrinal statements about his divinity or the assurance of eternal life. To believe in Christ is to refuse to acknowledge anyone else in this life as King. It is to insist that the powers and principalities of this world do not have authority over us, even when they appear to be in charge. The New Testament writers boldly portray Jesus meeting the powers of this world head on in a showdown ...

4359. A Faith That Burns

Luke 12:49-53

Sermon

W. Robert McClelland

"Conflict" is a dirty word in most churches. As Christians, we seek to avoid it at all costs and do so in the name of Christian love. We call it, "seeking the peace, unity and purity" of the church. And then Jesus comes along and says, "I have not come to bring peace, but a sword (Matthew 10:34)," or as Luke has it, "I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!" The words send us scurrying for explanations to reduce their caustic effect. But who is this whose words intrude ...

4360. Reformation Sunday

Revelation 21:1-27

Sermon

George Paul Mocko

A Book Misunderstood; Jerusalem the Great and Jerusalem the Golden; Away With the Sea and Tears and In With Love; and Faith in a God Who Can Do Anything. One of the best comedy routines I've ever seen on TV took place in the waiting room of a veterinarian. Among those gathered was a man with a huge box which shuddered and lurched about from the struggles of the creature inside. Strange growls, fur, feathers, and dust all came belching out. At one point the top flew open. The owner grabbed an umbrella, ...

4361. Proper 12

Luke 11:1-13, Psalm 138:1-8, Genesis 18:16-33, 2 Kings 5:1-27, Colossians 2:6-23

Sermon Aid

George Bass

THEOLOGICAL CLUE At one time, the Pentecost season of the church year was divided into four parts, which were marked by saints' days. The first section ran from Trinity Sunday to June 29th, the day of Sts. Peter and Paul, and Sundays were numbered consecutively; the second went from the end of June to August 10th, St. Lawrence Day, and were numbered "after the Aposties;" the third extended from August 10th to September 29th, the feast of St. Michael and All Angels, and were called Sundays "after St. ...

4362. First Things First

Mark 13:1-31

Sermon

Thomas Peterson

In our text Jesus makes a comparison between two different things: buildings and a person. The buildings he spoke of were of great importance, representing many resources. No doubt the excess wealth of the city or nation was required to build them. Many workers were conscripted to work on them. And, no matter big or small, they were always much larger, more solid, and of greater economic value than any of the persons who helped in their construction. In fact, they gave a feeling of permanence which those ...

4363. The Most Beautiful Word

2 Corinthians 5:11--6:2

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

What is a sinner? We might have many definitions. For instance, Pascal put it, "There are only two kinds of men, the righteous who believe themselves a sinner and the sinners who believe themselves righteous." Or Mary Wilson Little put it, "Men who make no pretensions of being good one day out of the week are known as sinners." Or, as Oscar Wilde has said, "Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner." It would be so simple, wouldn’t it, if the fact of sin could be brushed off as easily as ...

4364. If You Had Been Here

John 11:17-37

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

Have you ever felt as if God had let you down, had withdrawn His protecting arm from you? Even the question seems foolish, because we know the answer before we ask it. We pastors who have walked hospital corridors with loved ones have seen the prayers of so many people seemingly go unanswered. We have seen parents pray earnestly for a sick baby, and then have gone to the cemetery to bury the much-prayed-for child. We have sought to comfort men whose wives have slipped from them just when their families ...

4365. The Jamie Farr Connection

Joshua 24:1-27

Sermon

A vivid introduction marks this sermon, using a popular TV personality, local color, and the hint of grace that is in it all. The introductory material keeps surfacing throughout the sermon, giving it a unifying force. Biblical examples do their work economically, not permitting the listeners to go their own way because the instances have been needlessly stretched out in the telling. The vision and the memory and the presence of the crucified and risen Christ enkindle the desire to choose a better way. Go ...

4366. Gospel Through The Person

Philippians 1:12-30

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Carl Joseph is a young black athlete who comes from a little one-horse town down in Florida. It’s a very poor town. There’s one road in and one road out, one old hotel, one fairly decent restaurant, one high school, one dilapidated theatre that shows ten year old movies, one grocery store, just one of everything. From that town, Carl Joseph entered the University of Pittsburgh on a four-year football scholarship. Strangely enough, he will never play in a single game for the Panthers. But then Jackie ...

4367. The Way to Happy Endings

Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67

Sermon

James L. Killen

Genesis 24 is like a short novel that is set into the end of the story of Abraham. It is a lot like the kind of stories that many of you like to read -- and it has a happy ending. In the story, Abraham sends his oldest and most trusted servant back to the country from which Abraham and Sarah had come many years before. His mission is to find a wife for their son, Isaac. He wants the servant to find for Isaac "a girl just like the girl that married dear old dad." The servant went, taking gifts, and praying ...

4368. The Model of Success

Luke 16:1-15

Sermon

Mark Trotter

Some of you know that the church is involved inevitably in matters of business. In some churches, particularly smaller churches, the ministers take a very important role in administering the business side of the church. This church decided not to do that with its minister. Its business affairs are managed by the Board of Trustees and the Finance Committee. They have done a wonderful job, and I congratulate them. I am not allowed to manage the business affairs of the church, but I am still interested in ...

4369. If I Were a Rich Man

Mark 10:17-27

Sermon

Mark Trotter

The gospel lesson for this morning is from the Gospel of Mark, the story of the rich, young ruler who came to Jesus, asking, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" This is usually interpreted as a text about money. But it is not really a story about money. It is a story about salvation, and a devastating critique of the popular notion of how you get it. Money is a tool, an instrument, the means to an end. You can do all kinds of things with money. It is often said, "Money is the root of all evil." That ...

4370. A Sourdough Sprirituality

Matthew 13:31-35

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

[To do this sermon in the best fashion, you'll need a couple things. First, find someone in your congregation or a local baker who will share with you their sourdough starter. A bowl you can use for this sermon will greatly enhance your presentation. Also, to the extent that you can, integrate their sourdough story into your sermon, replacing as much of the story below with their story as you can. Secondly, you'll need one or two bags (per service) of different kinds of bread. The easiest way of doing this ...

4371. Eleven Plus One

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Say "March Madness" and everyone knows what you're talking about. The NCAA Basketball Championship fills the minds of fans and the sports channels on TV. Say "Super Bowl" or "World Series" and a whole host of images come to mind. Whether college or pro ball, every tournament singles out one or two teams that are dubbed a Cinderella team. Some have unexpected, unlooked-for strings of victories; some go beyond their individual abilities to teamwork; and suddenly, a team destined for the dumpster is sitting ...

4372. Science and the Bible

John 17:17, 1 Timothy 3:16

Sermon

James Merritt

Many of you saw the blockbuster movie Independence Day.1 If you are a little bit older, you may have felt like you had seen the film before, and essentially you had because it was a remake of the 1953 science fiction classic War of the Worlds, but it had one very great difference. While both versions feature aliens invading Earth, in the 1953 movie scientists came up with a weapon that is eventually destroyed. The population, in great panic, is forced to turn to God, and churches are jammed with people ...

4373. Beware: Hypocrites on Premises

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Sermon

David T. Ball

Whenever I happen to be in a conversation with someone about why they don't go to church, it seems like the reason that they almost always give is that they can't stand all the hypocrites. I don't take this personally -- they aren't saying that all churchgoers are hypocrites -- just that there are usually too many hypocrites for their liking. I guess their reaction is understandable. Who would want to go to a church filled with people who don't practice what they preach? That would, at the very least, be ...

4374. An Unpopular Preacher

Matthew 7:15-23

Sermon

Mike Ripski

I. Rev. Ike’s “gospel” There was a professor at my theology school, who was on the mailing list of “Rev. Ike.” Professor May posted Rev. Ike’s literature on his office door for all to see. Rev. Ike was an early proponent of what has come to be called the “prosperity gospel.” Rev. Ike preached that it is God’s will for you to be wealthy now. God doesn’t want you to wait for the sweet by and by. You can have what God had given Rev. Ike: diamond rings on every finder – see the picture, a mansion – see the ...

4375. Decoding the Da Vinci Code (Part Two - Explaining the Facts)

1 Peter 3:15

Sermon

James Merritt

There is a true, but old story about a pastor who went to see a play one time that featured a very famous British actor and the theater was just packed. He noticed that a lot of the people there were members of his church who hardly ever attended church. He happened to meet with this actor the next day and he asked him this question, "How do you draw such large crowds by presenting fiction while I present facts and hardly anyone comes to here me?" The actor, who had been at this man's church before, said " ...

Showing results