Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: Levi, disciple, evangelist, tax collector, the 12, the twelve, apostle, sermon on the mount, jewish audience, beatitudes, lord's prayer, great commission, parables, olivet discourse, mount of olives, olivet, synoptic

Showing 4401 to 4425 of 4968 results

4401. The Power to Rise Again

Mark 16:1-8

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... . The devil has no hold on me. I repent of my sins. I claim the power of Jesus. I am free. Amen. II. RESURRECTION POWER WILL HELP US RESTORE RELATIONSHIPS “The angel said to the women, ‘He has risen. He is not here. Go tell his disciples and Peter.'" Go tell Peter – Peter, so brash, so confident, so cocky. Yet, at crunch time, he blows it. He denies his Lord. Disappointed, devastated, destroyed, he heads toward Lake Galilee to shed his tears and lick his wounds. The angel says to the women… “tell ...

4402. Luke 10:1-11; 16-20

Luke 11:1-13

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... . As he is just starting out on the journey portion of his ministry, the harvest is central to Jesus’ thoughts. In this week’s gospel text Luke describes a second great missionary enterprise Jesus initiates. In Luke 9:1-2 Jesus sent out his twelve disciples, giving them the power to heal illnesses, the authority to cast out demons, and the message of the kingdom of God. Now a second wave of messengers is sent out into the world. The number of these emissaries is disputed, with early manuscripts almost ...

4403. This Little Light of Mine

Matthew 5:14-26

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... much to go around." We know about burnout. So, how can we get the most years out of life and the most life out of our years? Let Christ increase while we decrease. That is what John the Baptist did. When competition broke out between the disciples of John and the disciples of Jesus, John stepped in and said, “He must increase and I must decrease." He is the bridegroom, I am just an attendant." My mother used to put it this way, “Only one life, ‘twill soon be passed. Only what is done for Christ will ...

4404. Loving Our Enemies, Christian or Crazy?

Matthew 5:43-47

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... tells me how little we understand the nature of Christian love making; it's something as sentimental as Valentine candy, or the smell of Mother's Day flowers, or apple pie, or the 4th of July. Jesus resisted evil with all his might and taught his disciples to do likewise. On the day evil nailed Him to a cross, He prayed, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." M.L. King, in Loving Your Enemies, said, “We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering ...

4405. Honoring God in a Pluralistic Society

Matthew 22:37-40

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... story of His life, death and resurrection, of His grace, forgiveness and love. It is the calling of every Christian to bear witness to Christ and when necessary to use words. So I challenge you today to accept Christ as Lord and Savior and become a faithful disciple. As to the breadth and depth and scope of Jesus' saving act, only God knows. Jesus said, “I have other sheep which are not of this fold." “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the ...

4406. Conversion or Credentialing?

Acts 9:1-5, 10-12, 17-19

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... of being “Alive in Christ," “Saved by grace" and “Justified by faith." Let's see what we can learn from this first century apostle of Jesus Christ and see if we can find some insight into how we may live our faithful lives ourselves as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. PAUL WAS A CREDENTIALED MAN. He was gifted by birth, by education, and by personality. PAUL WAS GIFTED BY BIRTH. He was born in Tarsus, one of the three great intellectual centers of his time. It was a cosmopolitan city offering Paul ...

4407. By Belonging

1 Peter 2:2-10

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... took up the cross, that emblem of suffering and shame and transformed it into something to which we can cling until we exchange it someday for a crown. Christ redeemed our suffering. There's one more thing about this Christ; He shares our suffering. Remember His last words to the disciples in Matthew's gospel before His ascension? "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." You can take that promise and live by it. Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Now I ask you today, in our ...

4408. A Thousand Points of Light

Isaiah 60:1-3; 18-22

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... , soul, and deepest devotion to ministry in the local church. It has not been mine to climb ecclesiastical ladders, nor interpret the great theologies of the faith. It has been mine to baptize the babies, confirm the youth and challenge a single congregation to be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. I can't tell you how many weddings I've celebrated, how many funerals I've conducted, how many sermons I've preached, or how many times I've visited somebody in the hospital. But, I can tell you I wouldn't trade ...

4409. Mary, Martha, and the Martha Stewart Church

Luke 10:38-42

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... room in your heart than the rooms in your house. Mary sat at Jesus’ feet. She listened to every word he spoke. She attended fully to his words and sat reverently at his feet. While Martha was busy being distracted, Mary was busy being a disciple. Martha admitted and welcomed guests into her home. Mary admitted and welcomed the word of the Lord, the Kingdom of God, into her heart. We have a lot of well-meaning, well-planned, well-organized Martha Stewart churches. Never content with “one thing,” these ...

4410. The Prayer Life of Highly Effective Christians

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... prayer that is at the heart of Christian worship all over the world. We know it simply as the Lord’s Prayer. Luke tells us that one day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” Jesus said to them, “When you pray, say: ‘Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not ...

4411. Center Stage

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

... gospel starts and how it ends. Joseph was going to dismiss Mary quietly, in secret. No one would have known. Mary would have saved face, but it wouldn't have mattered to anyone. Look, though, at how Matthew's gospel ends! Jesus commissions the disciples to go make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19). What almost was snuffed out in secret ends up changing the whole world, all the nations. However things look to us now, God is working. God is healing. God is saving. When God takes initiative, we never ...

4412. One in Faith and One in Service

John 17:1-11

Sermon

Lee Griess

... comfort him still. For in his time of need, Johann had offered him the love of God — and they were one in service. As the candles of the Passover meal are burning short, as the meal draws to a close and his time on earth quickly fading, Jesus gathers the disciples around them and prays for them in the time to come. He prayed that God would protect them and he prayed that they would be one. He prayed for them and he prayed for us. We are one in faith and one in service — sent forth to serve our loving ...

4413. Unwanted Freedom

John 8:31-36

Sermon

Chris Ewing

... much easier to find a good rut and stay there. And in church we often do just that, mistaking our rut for a viable relationship. "If you continue in my word," Jesus said to those who had been nodding agreement to his teaching, "you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (John 8:31-32). Continuing in Jesus' word is like continuing in any other relationship: to do it well requires constant effort, not assuming you already know everything you need to know, or are ...

4414. Are We There Yet?

Acts 1:6-14

Sermon

Schuyler Rhodes

... can spill out of the car for hugs and hoorays as vacation begins. In fact, they focus on this so much that they lose out on the opportunity to sing songs, play games, and engage in storytelling with the rest of the family as the journey continues. The disciples, of course, are not much better than this brood of kids crowded into the backseat of the family sedan on the way to Grandpa's house. They ask pretty much the same question. "Are we there yet?" "Is this the time you're going to restore the kingdom ...

4415. Endless Line of Blunder

Exodus 1:8

Sermon

David J. Kalas

... still stand. For centuries, most of what we knew about the once mighty (and long gone) Assyrians was the record of them preserved in the books of those seemingly feeble people whom they sought to conquer. How puny and vulnerable did those early disciples look when the local potentate, Herod, beheaded John the Baptist, killed James, and imprisoned Peter? Yet now, two millennia later, Herod's only real legacy is at the points where he crossed paths with these seeming nobodies within his jurisdiction. The same ...

4416. No Partiality

Acts 10:34-43

Sermon

John N. Brittain

... would result in the very first council of the Christian church, recorded in Acts 15. But that is getting way ahead of our story. The solution to the tense situation created by the exploding community was to appoint seven deacons to assist the disciples. Acts 6 seems to indicate that the apostles would focus on the ministry of the word while the newly appointed deacons would focus on distributing the food. Not everyone had gotten the job description memo, however, because we immediately find Deacon Stephen ...

4417. With Our Own Eyes

2 Peter 1:16-21

Sermon

John N. Brittain

... . But the conversation stopper would always be the same: "Well, I'll tell you what did it for me." It's hard to beat the story of the personal cure. I begin with this story because it so clearly parallels the remarks we find from Peter (or his disciple writing at a somewhat later time in his name) in today's lesson when he says, "We had been eyewitnesses of his majesty." It also parallels Eugene Peterson's somewhat free translation in The Message, "We saw it with our own eyes." I use this story because I ...

4418. Righting Wrong

Romans 9:1-5

Sermon

Larry Lange

... he began to discover it languished from a festering tumor lodged deep within it. The previous two pastors, over their fifty-plus-year tenure, had never made much headway trying to move people from merely being members of the big fancy downtown church to being disciples, to committing their lives and loyalty fully to mission and ministry. The last pastor had, in fact, resorted to begging for big gifts from wealthy members and even non-members to make it all work out by the year's end. The last pastor retired ...

4419. Leaders Worthy of Imitation

1 Thessalonians 2:1-8

Sermon

Mary S. Lautensleger

... more highly than he thinks of other Christians. He wants to share his faith and also wants other Christians to strengthen him, an attitude of humility. Paul sees himself as a servant/leader by the example Jesus himself set. During his last evening with his disciples, Jesus washed their feet and served a meal. He was their leader, but he also served them. Christ "emptied himself" and "took on the form of a slave" (Philippians 2:5-7). Paul's servanthood takes place within the context of Jesus' question, "Do ...

4420. Legacies of Power

Ephesians 1:15-23

Sermon

Mary S. Lautensleger

... beside Christ in his kingdom (Matthew 20:20-28). Jesus doesn't say that we are to refrain from power but teaches both the disciples and us how to use power. He presents a new model for us all, the model of a servant. A buzzword we hear frequently ... that ultimately God's kingdom will come and God's will, as revealed in Christ, will be done? Where do you find the power to be a disciple of Jesus in this world?3 Much of our power depends on the choices we make in life. As we stand at the threshold of a new ...

4421. When Bullies Take Hold

Luke 19:45-48; Mark 11:15-19

Illustration

Brian Stoffregen

... the attempt. And almost every time a turn-around takes place, such persons are lost along the way because they are no longer allowed to get their way. When they can't get their way, they leave. Not even Jesus got through the journey with all of the Disciples. Why should we expect to? Of course, we should not set out to intimidate the bully or to kick people out of the church. But a strong response means that we care enough about the future of our church not to allow anyone to stifle its ability to liberate ...

4422. Step Into The Vision

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-15

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... our Vision is really just a part of the greater Mission of this Church. Our Mission has never changed. Our Mission has always remained the same. You can sum it up in that passage the Youth closed with last week from Matthew 28:19-20 "Go therefore into and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember I am with you always, even to the end of the age." That's our Mission ...

4423. Living The Faith For Dummies

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... , with the wrecker bouncing to the beat behind him. The wrecker, by the way, had no fish decal and no "Honk if you love Jesus" bumper sticker. But it had something else. Something much more important. That wrecker had a true neighbor and a disciple behind the wheel. A disciple who was listening to loud, booming rap music. (4) I suppose that if it were Jesus telling the story, He would conclude by saying something to the effect: "And that's the basics of Living the Faith Dummies, now go do likewise." I haven ...

4424. The Burning Question

Acts 2:1-21

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... know is that the Holy Spirit is the Breath and Wind of God. But again we ask: "What does this mean?" The wind of God, the breath of God, gives us life. Just as God breathed life into Adam and Eve to give them life, so God breathed into the Disciples and gave them new life. The wind of God blew through their lives and blew away all the debris and garbage that may have been left. And it stirred up the embers that had been rekindled by Jesus. And when that wind blew across those embers. There was Fire II ...

4425. Reversal of Fortune

Luke 6:17-26

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... about Grace and the Reversal of Fortune in the Kingdom of God over and over again. And the passage from Luke 6:17-26 is no different. Let's look at it. [17] Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. [18] They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. [19] And all in the crowd were trying to ...

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