Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 4526 to 4550 of 4681 results

4526. Easter Power

Acts 14:8-18

Sermon

Will Willimon

... hate you, blame you, when you fail to deliver. Paul and Barnabas, having worked a powerful miracle for the poor crippled man, are not flattered by the idolatrous accolades of these Lycaonians. These are not gods come down to earth; they are disciples bearing good news. Gentiles, it seems, are incredible, virtually incurable, polytheists. A Gentile will bow down to anything if given half a chance to do so, says (Jewish?) Luke. When Peter healed another lame man (Acts 3:1-26), the grateful fellow clung to ...

4527. When We Are Weak

2 Corinthians 12:7-10

Sermon

King Duncan

... our life’s course. Sometimes what seems a weakness is only a signal that we are pursuing the wrong trail. One of the most revealing lines in literature appears in the opening paragraph of A. A. Milne’s WINNIE-THE-POOH. Milne writes: “Here is Edward Bear coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way . . . if only he could stop bumping for a ...

4528. Hungering for Some Time Off

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

Sermon

King Duncan

... was missing, the shepherd would diligently search until it was found. Shepherds in Jesus’ day didn’t work in gated communities. They tended sheep out on the hillsides, in the wilderness. The sheep and the shepherd were in constant danger of attack from lions or bears, or human thieves. So that idea that the shepherd would leave the flock and go searching for one lost sheep would provide a vivid picture of Jesus’ love for the people. Every single one of them was important to Jesus. Every single one of ...

4529. How to Beat a Stress Test

Ephesians 6:10-20

Sermon

King Duncan

... , Living Above the Level of Mediocrity, p. 124-125. 4. Jay Strack, Above and Beyond (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1994), p. 4. 5. “The one-word response to adversity” by Ramit Sethi, “I Will Teach You to be Rich newsletter,” November 21, 2020. 6. From Bearing Witness: Stories of Martyrdom and Costly Discipleship. Based on Ahn Ei Sook’s personal account of her resistance to the Japanese regime: If I Perish (Chicago: Moody Press, 1977), https://www.plough.com/en/topics/faith/witness/ahn-ei-sook.

4530. Living Bread

John 6:51-58

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... , and, pretty much, meaningless. It’s just for fun. Through Facebook I’m able to keep track of my nephews, nieces, cousins, their kids, and old friends from high school, college, seminary, and former churches. These aren’t real friendships. We don’t bear each other’s burdens. We just stay in touch. And there are Christians who want that kind of Christianity. They don’t want a real relationship with God or Jesus Christ or a Christian community and all that that entails, the responsibilities, the ...

4531. Abiding by the Word

John 6:51-58

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... idioms literally when they are meant figuratively, we can also, and frequently, take other phrases, stories, and examples literally when they were meant to be symbolic or metaphorical. Some of these are idioms or similar to idioms, such as, “My workload today is a bear. “You’re a chicken!” “When it comes to computers, I’m a dinosaur.” “The classroom was a zoo.” “He’s a total night owl.” We have others that we use many times in poetry, such as “Her long hair was a flowing, golden ...

4532. No Turning Back

John 6:56-69

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... because surely God would protect him from all harm. And that Jesus, who would be identified in the Revelation of John as the King of kings and Lord of lords, could become king now, and the ruler of all the earthly kingdoms, without having to bear his cross and suffer a humiliating death. By that time Jesus had already rejected such a temptation, and was taking the much harder path of the suffering servant prophesied in Isaiah. But those who took part in the miraculous feeding of the multitudes weren’t ...

4533. Don't Worry--Give Thanks

Matthew 6:25-33

Sermon

King Duncan

... that we spend 5.2 years of life captured by worry.” (2) That’s a lot of time feeling tied up in knots fretting about something that’s probably not going to happen anyway. Do you know why many people worry? We’ve talked about this before, but bear with me. Worry is a substitute for faith. Worry does for some people what faith does for others. Have you heard anybody say, “Don’t tell me it doesn’t help to worry. Most of the things I worry about never happen!” They really mean that. Some people ...

4534. The Days Are Coming

Jeremiah 33:14-16

Sermon

King Duncan

... garden. The curious prince agreed. After the judge had filled the sack to the brim with dirt, he asked the prince to lift it. The prince said, “The sack is too heavy even for our combined strength.” The judge replied, “This sack which you think too heavy to bear, contains only a small portion of the land that you took from the rightful owner. How then, at the day of judgment, will you be able to support the weight of the whole?” (3) We have an innate need for justice, don’t we? We want to see ...

4535. The Song of Servanthood

Luke 1:39-45 (46-54)

Sermon

Derl G. Keefer

... all that was happening. According to scripture it wasn’t just a good feeling, but a confirmation as she was filled with the Holy Spirit. She exclaimed in a loud voice of excitement, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear...Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”(Luke 1:40-45 NIV). The word, “blessed,” describes happiness to those whom God favors or smiles upon. At that moment Elizabeth encouraged Mary’s faith, and after this ...

4536. One Life-Changing Word

Isaiah 9:2-7 · Luke 2:1-14, (15-20)

Sermon

King Duncan

... events changes. The third spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, shows Scrooge a Christmas Day in the future. Bob Cratchit and his family are mourning the death of Tiny Tim. The ghost then allows Scrooge to see a neglected grave, with a tombstone bearing Scrooge’s own name on it. Sobbing, Scrooge pledges to change his ways. And he does. Scrooge awakens on Christmas morning a changed man. He makes a large donation to the charity he rejected the previous day, anonymously he sends a large turkey to the ...

4537. Seeking Jesus

Luke 2:41-52

Sermon

King Duncan

... ,” the boy’s dad, Glenn Payne, an electrical engineer for General Dynamics Corp., said a few hours later. “We’ve all had a scare this evening.” Sobs turned to smiles when Tyler saw his family. He showed his brothers and sister the teddy bears, coloring books and candy given to him by detectives in Nashville’s Metro Youth Guidance Center while he waited for his parents. “I told you your parents would come back,” said Mary Brown, who was working at the service station and who comforted Tyler ...

4538. Winner And Still Champion

Mark 9:30-37

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... food chain, was raised to the status of the Son of Man, who sits in glory on a cloud. The disciples were worried about their place in the kingdom and they were asking the wrong question. In order to stand with the Son of Man, the suffering servant who would bear the sins of all for the glory of God’s kingdom, it was necessary to lose status, not gain it. In Paul’s letter to the Philippians he told them — and us — that Jesus was obedient to God by taking on the form of a slave and dying on the ...

4539. For Us Or Against Us?

Mark 9:38-50

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... rivalry for inclusion and acceptance? When the disciples told Jesus they had stopped an outsider from healing others in the name of Jesus, Jesus responded, “Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward (9:40-41).” A cup of cold water in the name of Jesus? It sounds a lot like Matthew 25, where Jesus at the last judgment told those who fed, clothed, visited or gave a drink to the ...

4540. Empowering the Powerless

Mark 10:2-16

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... a woman if she had no living parents or brothers, or if her husband divorced her. Women could not ask for a divorce. Only a man could divorce a woman. The usual reason a man might divorce a woman was due to infertility. Because of the emphasis on bearing children in order to carry on a family name, and a family business, this quality was all-important. People in those days understood nothing about male and female fertility, and so if a woman could not get pregnant, the fault was set at the woman’s feet ...

4541. Pulling Our Punches

Mark 10:17-31

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... required we have no graven images or no God before our God. This helps explain the response of Jesus: You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’” The commandments he mentioned were the “horizontal” commandments. The “vertical” commandments concern the relationship between God above and we humans below. The “horizontal” commandments concern the ...

4542. Are Ye Able?

Mark 10:35-45

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... think so. We can all do this. That’s because we’re not worried about whether we’re seated on the right hand or the left hand of Jesus when he returns in glory. If we follow Jesus we do it, not for the reward, but for the regard we bear toward Jesus, and the joy we find in serving him. We can all do this. Amen.

4543. Deliverance through adversity

Sermon

Willie Soler

... made conformable unto his death” (Philippians 3:8–10) Suffering brings pain, but it is not an end in itself. “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. . . So, then death worketh in us, but life in you. . . For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish ...

4544. Not Guessing

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... be the greatest in the kingdom, and Jesus rebuked them, and taught them that the one who was the servant of all was the greatest of all. A rich man came to Jesus, described as righteous, who recognized Jesus for who he was, yet could not bear to leave behind his possessions, and walked away sad because he was not willing to leave everything behind to follow Jesus. And now the blind man Bartimaeus sitting beside the roadside outside of Jericho recognizes not only that Jesus is the Son of David, but that ...

4545. Seeing Is Believing

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... . Psychologists have many ways of approaching this kind of therapy. But one thing is clear. In order for a psychologist to guide you toward any kind of change, you need to first trust them. You need to enter into a trusting relationship with him in which you bear your soul, voice your fears, and lay out your grief. In return, we expect someone who is non-judgmental, compassionate, and who will kindly guide us into a better place in which we are released from our pain. The more you trust your therapist to do ...

4546. Righteous Woman

Genesis 38:1-27

Sermon

Will Willimon

... 's not the end. The story moves on to (in Bruggemann's words) a ''fresh definition of righteousness'' (p. 310). Who is guilty now? Show him the ring, the staff, the belt, it'll teach him a lesson. In this story, Tamar is (surprise!) vindicated. She bears twins, Perez and Serach. The family will be continued, but not in the respectable, middle-class way Judah intended. It will be preserved through the crafty, chutzpah of a gutsy woman named Tamar. If there's a moral here, a point of edification for all us ...

4547. To Love

Mark 12:28-34

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... your neighbor as yourself” (19:18). The whole of the quote from Leviticus 19:17-18 goes like this: You shall not hate your brother in your heart; you shall reprove your kinsman, and not incur guilt because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor like yourself; I am YHWH. The Jewish prayer created from the shema is recited both morning and evening, as it stands at the central most important precept in Judaism. At first, one could ...

4548. Devour And Conquer

Mark 12:38-44

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... time was 25-35 years, but that did not signify how long a person lived. Many died much younger. Disease took many at a very young age. Women could be especially vulnerable — childbirth could be fatal. However, women who survived their child-bearing years might well, like today, live to an advanced age. They would outlive their husbands, their adult children, and other relatives, and require additional support. Jesus suggested that this made her a target for unscrupulous scribes and others in position of ...

4549. New Creations

2 Corinthians 5:6-10; 14-17

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... chair." That's when the missionary realized how to describe faith. Faith is resting our whole weight on God. It is resting the weight of our cares and worries; the burdens of grief and sorrow, anguish and heartache and even our anger upon God. It is letting God bear the whole weight of our lives. That's what it means to walk by faith and not by sight. B. And we've seen how that is translated into everyday life. We all know the Palm Sunday tragedy that struck the United Methodist Church in Piedmont, Alabama ...

4550. Shared Promises

Luke 1:39-45

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... pregnancies. And Elizabeth confirmed Mary’s blessing from God and her role in carrying the future messiah. In faith they bonded. And in faith, Mary would go forward to talk to Joseph, find protection in her future husband, travel to Bethlehem, and under cover there, bear her firstborn son. Elizabeth was a mentor to Mary, a sister, a sojourner, an uplifter, a friend.Without Elizabeth, Mary may not have had the courage to do what she knew she needed to do next: face Joseph. It’s no mistake that the gospel ...

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