Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 426 to 450 of 655 results

Luke 4:14-30

Drama

Robert F. Crowley

Theme: Why do we come to church? Summary: Frank's taking Ollie to church and Jill is upset because Ollie is a bit slow and always embarrasses her. Ollie asks, "Where is Jesus?" and Frank can't give a sufficient answer. Playing Time: 3 minutes Setting: Church Props: None Costumes: Clothes appropriate for church. Time: The present Cast: Ollie -- a bit slow, Frank -- his friend Jill -- Frank's friend (ALL THREE ARE ENTERING THE SANCTUARY) JILL: I really feel the Lord's presence today. FRANK: Me, too. JILL: It ...

427. A Parade That Gets Ugly

Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

Glenn E. Ludwig

The city was in the mood for a celebration. Streets jammed with people from all corners of the world. The Holy City was a frenzy of activity; voices pitched a little higher than normal; children scampering about with greater abandon; people talking and greeting and gathering. The crowd had formed, larger than a normal Passover crowd; large enough to worry the Roman soldiers; large enough to worry good old Pilate. Listen to the crowd: "Can you see him?" "Look, here he comes!" "Hail, Son of David!" "Finally ...

428. Our Defense In A Stone-littered World

Acts 7:54--8:1a

Sermon

Gerald Whetstone

"Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong. They are weak, but he is strong." The children will sing their hearts out, joining in this beloved song. But stand in the midst of a bunch of young children and ask, "Who here is weak?" You'll be barraged with denials, protests, and muscle flexings. The bravado of children is difficult to exaggerate. An image endures for me. Once a group of young boys from an inner city congregation was spending the weekend in my rural ...

429. The Witness Of Caiaphas The High Priest

Drama

Dann J. Ettner

(Appropriate for an Ash Wednesday Communion Service) Invocation Hymn Of Repentance Psalm Verse Of Repentance P: The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. C: A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will notdespise. Marking Of The Forehead With Ashes Reading Psalm 99 Prayer Of The Day P: Let us pray: Almighty God, Lord of heaven and earth, inYour divine goodness You sent Your Son to be our Savior. C: Without Jesus we are a people who are perishing in oursins. P: With Christ we have been saved from our ...

430. The Witness Of A Member Of The Crowd Who Shouted, "Crucify"

Drama

Dann J. Ettner

Invocation Hymn Responsive Dialogue 1 Corinthians 2 P: When I came to you, brothers, I did not come witheloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimonyof God. C: We have not received the spirit of the world but thespirit who is from God, that we may understand what God hasfreely given us. P: For I resolved to know nothing while I was with youexcept Jesus Christ and Him crucified. C: This is what we speak, not in words taught us by humanwisdom but in words taught by the Holy Spirit, ...

431. God Forsaken

Mark 15:21-32

Sermon

Erskine White

And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, la'ma sabach-tha'ni?" which means, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Mark 15:34) Many churches today read from the Revised Standard Version or the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, but it wasn't always that way. In fact, the first RSV translation was printed in 1952. There were great arguments within many congregations between those who wanted to accept the new Bible and those who wanted to keep the old King James ...

432. Why Did Jesus Do That?

Matthew 3:13-17

Sermon

Johnny Dean

If there’s one thing we Americans value above everything else, it’s freedom. We cherish, guard and exercise our freedom, and woe be unto those who threaten it in any way. We’re even willing to go to war to defend freedom, whether it’s ours or someone else’s. We are the world’s self-appointed watchdogs of freedom. But Jesus says there’s a higher value than freedom. The first words the writer of the Gospel of Matthew has Jesus speak are not about freedom, but about obedience to the will of God. That’s what ...

433. The Youth

Drama

William Grimbol

SETTING: Three scenes, in a courtyard garden, where two young people are engaged in conversation TIME: Christ's ministry Scene One MEGHAN: You don't care about anything. You never take a stand. You never have an opinion. You are always Mr. Charm, Mr. Warmth ... everybody likes you ... DEAN: Is there something wrong with that? MEGHAN: Yes. If nobody really knows anything about you. If nobody cares about anything you are, except being very, very nice. DEAN: What do you want? I don't even know where this ...

434. Angry Hands

Psalm 26:1-12

Sermon

When we review the images of Lent, our theme of "Angry Hands" is not hard to visualize. One can well imagine that fists were clenched and raised as on Good Friday the crowd shouted "Crucify him, crucify him!" The angry hands of Roman soldiers struck Jesus' face, mocking and ridiculing him. Their anger was directed against the one who came to show them all God's love. What a mistake! Too frequently such misdirected anger is still evident in the way we deal with one another and in the manner in which we deal ...

435. Christ the King

Lk 23:35-43 · Jn 12:9-19 · Col 1:11-20 · Jer 23:2-6 · 2 Sam 5:1-5

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

COMMENTARY 2 Samuel 5:1-5 David is crowned king of Israel at Hebron at age thirty. Among the Hebrews David was always regarded as the ideal king. The promised Messiah was to be a son of David and be a king like David. In the Old Testament the king was an expression of Yahweh's kingship. Christians see David as a type of Christ the King. Like David Jesus was our "bone and flesh" through the Incarnation. Like David as a military leader and conqueror, Jesus had the power over sin, sickness, and death so that ...

436. He Bore Our Sins

2 Corinthians 5:11--6:2

Sermon

Dennis Kastens

Every year during Lent, the role of Christ bearing his cross to Calvary is re-enacted in the village of Sartene, Corsica. This has been going on ever since the Middle Ages, and it always draws a big crowd of villagers and thousands of tourists who come for the occasion. Time magazine, when reporting on one of the more recent episodes, called it "one of the world’s most brutally powerful Holy Week processions." And the report was a graphic description of what happened: A grotesque lump of a man ... barefoot ...

437. Sowing to the Flesh

Romans 8:1-17

Sermon

Dennis Kastens

Some years ago a well-to-do man, caught in a scandal, was serving a prison term when a friend paid him a visit. The well-to-do man was sitting cross-legged, and with an enormous needle and a ball of twine was sewing burlap bags. "Hello," said the friend, "Sewing, eh?" "No," replied the prisoner with a sober-looking smile, "I’m reaping." With the arrival of spring upon us, and soon to be followed by growing plants and a subsequent harvest, we who live in North America are reminded of the rhythmical pattern ...

438. What On Earth Is God Doing? - 1940

Psalm 76:1-12

Sermon

Kent Moorehead

Confronted with such a catastrophe as the contemporary world situation presents, with evil so wildly rampant, destruction and death so widespread and violent, and the threat of the triumph of ruthlessness so imminent, one question keeps coming up to pester and plague religious faith with an incorrigible persistency: With everything seeming to go to pieces, what on earth is God doing? Where is he? Doesn’t he care? Is he unaware, or unseeing, or impotent to do anything about such a ghastly calamity? Of ...

439. Reviving Our Moral Responsibility

2 Chronicles 36:15-23

Sermon

Donald Macleod

Some years ago I spent several weeks during the summer indexing and classifying the Scripture texts in all the volumes of published sermons on my study shelves. Many interesting trends and preferences emerged from this tabulation; for example, among some 4,000 printed sermons only two preachers had ever done a sermon from the Book of Chronicles. And little wonder, someone might very well say. Here is an Old Testament book which in 65 chapters attempts an accounting of a confused and confusing mishmash of ...

440. The Ten Commandments

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Brett Blair

A little boy was once asked by his Sunday school teacher if he knew the Ten Commandments. "No ma'am," came the reply, "my dad said that I don't have to know them since they are doing away with them anyway." It is one thing to be ignorant of the Ten Commandments; it quite another to mock them with impunity. Millions dismiss them as mere platitudes fit for nothing more than a dusty old bookshelf. They disdain them because they are "religious." There are still others who want to do away with the Ten ...

441. The Crucified Ruler

John 19:17-27

Sermon

Richard A. Jensen

I must confess that my knees trembled just a bit. I had never met a king before. I would probably never meet another monarch as long as I lived. It took place many years ago when I was a missionary in Ethiopia. The King of Ethiopia at that time, Haile Selassie, invited the YMCA chorus to sing Christmas carols for him and his family at his palace. We were all excited about the opportunity. As we entered the palace, we were awestruck. It was a fabulous place. High ceilings. Marvelous light fixtures. Plush ...

442. A Chance Meeting

Sermon

Leonard H. Budd

You would not recognize my name if I were to tell you. I am famous in the recordings of history, but by sheer happenstance, and quite impersonally. It is strange the way human lives intertwine in the stretch of years that we each have. Who could have foretold that my fame would reach 2,000 years to the fore? But you must hear my story, for while my name is unimportant, the event that thrust me into the pages of history is vital. I grew up in the Roman world, and knew the usual oppression that comes when ...

443. Crowned With Victory

John 14:15-31

Sermon

O. Garfield Beckstrand, II

Easter is the greatest of all holidays. It is the greatest because it celebrates the most outstanding event which ever happened in this world. There has been nothing in all history which has been more significant, more meaningful to people than Christ’s victory over death. Today marks the birthday of our eternal hope. Today is the anniversary of the victory of the human soul over death. It was on that first Easter morning, when the angel calmly and briefly announced, "He is not here, he is risen," that ...

444. The Reality Of The Resurrection

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

Brett Blair

Here we are in the year 2003. It still fills me with a bit of awe that I witnessed the turn of the millennium. We are looking back this year and celebrating some amazing things that happened, things that seemed impossible in their day. There are three major celebrations. Perhaps you are aware of them: We are celebrating a centennial: 100 years ago few people thought it possible that man could fly. No one except the two sons of Rev. Milton Wright who at 10:35 on the morning of Dec. 17, 1903 made their first ...

445. The Forgiveness Business

Luke 7:36-50

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Wonderful story. At least, it is to me. Others might not like it so well. It is certainly astonishing. Put it in the context of a dinner party at your own home or even a supper downstairs in Fellowship Hall. By this time in Jesus' ministry, he had garnered quite a bit of public notice. All sorts of people had been attracted to him - rich, poor, educated, illiterate, from the highly respectable to the lowly riffraff. To have this famous rabbi come to dinner was very special and everyone would have been ...

446. Resuscitating An Iguana

Ephesians 2:1-10

Sermon

King Duncan

Officer Tori Matthews of the Southern California Humane Society got an emergency call: a boy's pet iguana had been scared up a tree by a neighbor's dog. It then fell from the tree into a swimming pool, where it sank like a brick. Officer Matthews came with her net. She dived into the pool, emerging seconds later with the pet's limp body. "Well, you do CPR on a person and a dog," she thought to herself, "why not an iguana?" So she put her lips to the iguana's. "Now that I look back on it," she says now, "it ...

447. You Can Face Your Giant

1 Samuel 17:1-58

Sermon

King Duncan

One spring day a tornado touched down in West Texas near Paul's home. He was only three or four years old. At the first hint of trouble his father hustled all the children inside, laid them and their mother on the floor together, and covered them with a mattress. His father explained that they would be safe there. But as they waited out the tornado, Paul realized that his father had not climbed under the mattress with them. Paul peeked out to discover his dad standing at the window, watching the funnel ...

448. Pretenders

Matthew 6:5-15, Matthew 6:1-4

Sermon

King Duncan

A little boy had just returned home from an Ash Wednesday church service. The little girl from next door asked him what the smudge was on his forehead. He replied, "It's Ash Wednesday." "What's Ash Wednesday?" she asked. "Oh," he replied, "It's when Christians begin their diet." Ash Wednesday is about more than giving up chocolate for Lent. It is about examining ourselves in the light of Christ's sacrifice on the cross. And the central question which we ask ourselves this night is, Which is it: Pretense or ...

449. A Healthy Body

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

Sermon

King Duncan

Back in 1985, William R. Greer performed an in-depth chemical analysis of the human body and its mineral properties. His conclusions were published in the International Herald Tribune and The New York Times. Greer claimed that the average human body contained 5 pounds of calcium, 9 ounces of potassium, 1 and 1/2 pounds of phosphorus, 6 ounces of sodium, 6 ounces of sulfur, 1 ounce of magnesium, and trace amounts of iron, iodine, and copper. According to a professor at the Illinois Medical School, the total ...

450. The Idiot's Guide To Christianity

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

King Duncan

A substitute Sunday School teacher couldn't open the combination lock on the supply cabinet. So she went to the pastor for help. The pastor started turning the dial of the combination lock, stopped after the first two numbers, looked up serenely toward heaven, began moving his lips silently, turned to the final number, and opened the lock. The teacher gasped, "I'm in awe of your faith, pastor." "Really," he said, "it's nothing. The number is on a piece of tape on the ceiling." (1) I wish the answers to all ...

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