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 4451 to 4475 of 4968 results
4451. Send Her Away!
Matthew 15:21-28
Sermon
King Duncan
... Jesus was who he said he was, he could not turn her away. It would be unjust. And, of course, he didn’t. Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment. “Send her away,” the disciples had urged. “She’s not of the right faith. Send her away. She’s a woman. Send her way. She’s a nuisance.” But this woman knew what many people don’t even seem to grasp today even some who bear the name Christian. Thanks to the grace of ...
Sermon
David E. Leininger
... see is the suit in which he was to be buried, lying limp like a glove that has just been removed, with the Bible that was to be placed in his hands sitting on top. The body is gone. What would you think? Simon Peter and the unnamed "Beloved Disciple" (whom tradition has presumed to be John) race to the tomb. There are the grave clothes and, off to the side, the linen head shroud, carefully folded up. What grave robbers would have bothered to do that? They are at a loss to explain anything but, as the text ...
4453. Hope
John 12:20-33
Sermon
David E. Leininger
... had even heard of what he had done in cleaning out their part of the temple precincts from all the commercial traffic, the selling of sacrificial animals, and the money-changing, that was constantly going on. They wanted to meet him. Okay — they came to the disciples and asked for an appointment. We never hear whether or not they get their audience; instead we get this bolt from the blue about, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified" (v. 23). Okay! A certain tingle of excitement must have ...
4454. Others Better Qualified?
Matthew 16:13-20
Illustration
Frank Lyman
... in the high school in Abilene, Kansas, where young Dwight D. Eisenhower attended school, voted him most likely to be a history teacher in the future. Strangely enough, they voted his brother, Edgar Eisenhower, as most likely to be elected President of the United States. The other disciples were probably surprised when Jesus named Simon "Rocky Johnson" and declared that "upon this rock I will build my church." Surely there were others who were better qualified and less likely to embarrass the Lord. The ...
Sermon
Robert J. Elder
... of the New Testament. His name doesn't even rate a mention in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. Only in John's gospel do we hear about the disciple with the parochial ideas about Galilean towns. Picture, if you will, our man Nathaniel. Like Peter, he is a fisherman by trade. He hails from Cana, another in a long line of undistinguished little hamlets in the Galilean region. The region itself is rather undistinguished. It was like what Newark ...
Sermon
Robert J. Elder
... know about our faith, an essential reminder that Jesus not only has the power to forgive, he has the power to surprise us and change us, to make us disciples who are the next generation of stretcher-bearers, carrying those who need forgiveness into the presence of the Lord, on a stretcher through the roof if need be. Persistent disciples are called to be like that. Saint Ignatius, an ancient theologian of the church, once wrote, "In everyday life ... we must hold ourselves in balance before all created ...
Sermon
John Smylie
... by putting spices on the body, giving her something practical to do to minister him and feel useful and now there was no Jesus, no way for her to express the depth of her love for her Lord. She needed to tell someone, so she went to two of the disciples who were likely her friends, and she told Peter and John, who then ran into the tomb, looked in, and went back home. Mary was left alone at the tomb once again. Mary stayed there and began to weep. She was so full of her own confusion and sadness and ...
Sermon
Kristin Borsgard Wee
... huge waves towering over her frail, little boat, threatening at any moment to swamp it and sink it, to swallow her up forever. That young woman was depressed and afraid. Some of us can identify with her. Most of us have been afraid at some time. The disciples, too. They were frightened out of their wits in that boat. They probably wondered if they would die in the storm. Then how can Jesus ask them, "Why are you afraid?" How could anyone not be afraid in that situation? I checked in my concordance to find ...
Sermon
Kristin Borsgard Wee
... . Who in their right mind wants to preach on a text like that? The answer is: no one. The people who put together the lectionary know this and tend to leave them out. We preachers calmly progress through a summer of Mark texts on the calling of the disciples, a handful of parables, a few miracles, and then boom — out of the blue, there it is — Mark's own text of terror. The story of the beheading of John is gruesome. The events leading up to it are hard to believe. Herod, the king, definitely was a ...
4460. The Inconcealable Christ!
Mark 7:31-37, Mark 7:24-30
Sermon
Robert Leslie Holmes
... courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. — Acts 4:13 Jesus could not hide himself. His disciples could not hide his presence in their lives. Nor can we. He has no secret service disciples. Indeed, he commissions us to go and tell the things that he has done. He is the inconcealable Christ! One day everybody will recognize Jesus. For now it is possible to blindly and arrogantly disregard all ...
Sermon
Robert Leslie Holmes
... that he is worth dying for. His standards are severe. There is always a cost to following him. In Mark 9:43-48, Jesus speaks about injuries we may cause ourselves and his words are as radical and urgent as any he ever utters. He expects his disciples to take prompt and decisive action against anything that might lead them from their allegiance to him. Everything about us shrinks from the solutions Jesus presents here. But he wants us to know that only the amputation of an evil part will save our soul at the ...
Sermon
Steven Molin
... Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. It's all about love ... not laws. There is a wonderful legend of John the apostle, the last living disciple of Jesus. There was a gathering of the church, and out of respect, the convener asked if John had anything to bring to the gathering. Slowly, painfully, John made his way to the podium and said, "Love one another" and then he sat down. The leader stood ...
4463. Maybe Today
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Sermon
Scott Suskovic
... who made such a trip, that parable would still be true. Why? Because the truth of that story is not contingent on the historical fact of a man walking down a road but rather in the truth about helping one's neighbors. See the difference? Another example. Jesus told his disciples that if your right hand causes you to sin, what are you to do? Cut it off. What about your eye? If your eye causes you to sin, what are you to do with it? Pluck it out. Really? If that were literally true, our church would be full ...
Sermon
Scott Suskovic
... goes beyond frightening images of hell and eternal judgment? This is important because sharing our faith is not an option. Over 1,500 times in the Bible, it says, "Go." Go to the lost sheep. Go and tell. In Matthew 28 Jesus says, "Go into all the nations and make disciples." Jesus calls us not only to come to him but also to go for him. If you believe and don't go, you had better have a pretty convincing argument as to why you've decided to disobey a pretty blunt and plain command by Jesus to go and speak ...
Sermon
Gibson “Nibs” Stroupe
... we know through the Spirit of God. On this Day of Pentecost we recall that same mighty power who drove those first men and women disciples out into the streets of Jerusalem to proclaim a new and inclusive vision of what it means to be a child of God. On that ... after the Day of Pentecost, Paul is writing to the church at Rome, and he is able to connect with the struggles of those first disciples because he has known them, too. In Romans 8 he recalls the power of the Spirit who came to the men and women in the ...
4466. Time for the Offering
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Sermon
Gibson “Nibs” Stroupe
... , the kingdom of God is near" (Mark 1:15), needs people who can be inspired by him and who already want to live with him in this dawning kingdom. This is no miracle which rains down on the people from above. Learning, traveling around together, becoming disciples, pupils, are conditions which are important for Jesus.1 Paul stresses a strong sense of duty in these verses. We ought to share and to be generous in our sharing because God has been generous to us. Yet, Paul also stresses a sense of joy in ...
4467. Romans 14:1-12
Romans 14:1--15:13
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... emphasizes that what is important is that behavior arises out of “honor of the Lord” and are accompanied by public expressions of “thanks to God.” Paul likened faithful followers to “servants” in v.4. Now he returns to the subordinate status of all disciples before the reigning power of the Lord. Christians do not live or die “to ourselves” because those who are in Christ “belong to the Lord” (“tou kyriou esmen”). The structure of vv.7-9 has a hymnic quality to it, suggesting that ...
Sermon
Ken Lentz
... hardly seize the imagination of the reader like the account in Acts 2 that led one leading one New Testament scholar to declare that it was an event marked by "a freight-train-sized sound of wind from Heaven, tongues of fire dancing on heads of disciples ... cries of amazement ... and a powerful sermon [resulting] in 3,000 baptisms."1 The Gentiles experienced their own day of Pentecost but, alas, it seems that little notice of it is mentioned by the press! For most of us who are of Gentile lineage, this ...
Sermon
Ken Lentz
... . Peter was also the one instructed to "feed my sheep" and plays the leading role in the postresurrection accounts of John 21. While acknowledging Peter as the "first among the other disciples," not all Christians find in that fact the basis for a documented, orderly, "apostolic succession" confessed by the Roman Catholics, the Anglicans, and some Lutherans. Whether the church really needs this list of successors working through human offices to visibly represent the legacy of witness is debatable. The ...
Sermon
Robert A. Hausman
... us, not as a reward for our piety, not as a "not-guilty verdict" in our legal case, not as an answer to our questions. Whether our goodness be imagined or real, it is beside the point. All is grace. When Peter calls attention to the fact that the disciples have left everything to follow Jesus, Jesus promises that they will get it all back; but in a paradoxical way. We are reminded of the tale of Job, where, as we shall see, he gets it all back in a more simplistic way; an abundance of flocks, children, and ...
4471. God Begins Anew
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Sermon
Robert A. Hausman
... ) as follows, "Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, ‘If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.' " Jesus says, "the truth will make you free." That assumes ... this humanity."2 It is the truth of this cross that sets us free. As Jesus says, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:31b-32). We are set free from sin and death, from the ...
Sermon
Robert A. Hausman
... shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height" (Micah 3:12). It is in the gospel for today (Mark 13:1-8) that Jesus also gets to denounce the empire. According to Mark, this is the only time the disciples make the trip to the big city of Jerusalem. When they see the second temple, which King Herod had constructed as quite a showpiece, they gawk like some Galilean hayseeds: "Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!" (v. 1). Jesus dampens their excitement: "Do ...
Sermon
King Duncan
... for the day from Matthew’s Gospel, though he was not thinking about Halloween. He was thinking about the costumes and masks that people put on in everyday life, especially the Pharisees. Listen carefully to his words: Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put ...
4474. Merciful Anger
Matt 21:18-22; Mark 11:12-19
Illustration
James Packer
... crowd of thoughtless people who were interested only in seeing miracles and not in his teaching. But the leper disobeyed and so made things very hard for Jesus. Jesus showed anger again when the disciples tried to send away the mothers and their children (Mark 10:13-16). He was indignant and distressed at the way the disciples were thwarting his loving purposes and giving the impression that he did not have time for ordinary people. He showed anger once more when he drove "out those who sold and those who ...
4475. A Constant Reminder
Illustration
Thomas Lindberg
... in Norway, when she looked up from the doorway of her home and saw the pigeon circling in the sky above. No doubt she exclaimed, "He's alive! My husband is still alive!" So it was when Jesus ascended. He was gone, but the disciples clung to his promise to send them the Holy Spirit. What joy, then, when the dove-like Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost. The disciples had with them the continual reminder that Jesus was alive and victorious at the right of the Father. This continues to be the Spirit's message.
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