Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 4526 to 4550 of 4986 results

4526. On the Ropes: Round 3 - Defending God

Habakkuk 3:1-19

Sermon

James Merritt

... life. If your number one desire in life is to be successful, to be wealthy, to be healthy, to be prosperous, or to have everything go your way, then when those things don’t happen you won’t be able to praise God. If your goal in life is to stay close to God, be in the center of His will and to glorify Him no matter what then you can praise God in every circumstance knowing that every circumstance will and can bring you closer to Him. Listen to those last words in verse 18, “I will be joyful in ...

4527. Flip the Switch

Psalm 119:105

Sermon

James Merritt

... good men and keep to the paths of the righteous.” (Proverbs 2:20, NIV) How do you find the way of goodness? How do you know where the path of righteousness leads? The answer? The Bible. It is in the Bible where God guides our steps, to make sure we stay in the way of goodness, and we keep to the path of righteousness. When you not only read your Bible, but you obey it, it will always give you the right steps and take you on the right path. Let me get personal for just a moment and ask you ...

4528. Ignite: Set On Fire!

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

James Merritt

... and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.’” (Acts 2:1-11, ESV) Something happened this day that had never happened before since the Garden of Eden. The Holy Spirit had come to everyone to stay. It is not that the Holy Spirit came into existence now for the first time. Heretofore, the Holy Spirit would come upon someone for a specific task or a specific purpose. Up until now, the Holy Spirit would occasionally come upon someone, but now He is ...

4529. Ignite: Fight Fire with Fire

Acts 4:1-22

Sermon

James Merritt

... do your little rituals, give people a feel-good message, but don’t talk about Jesus. This official sentence shows us just how much the enemy fears the witness of the church. The one thing the world wants to do with every one of us is to intimidate us into staying silent about Jesus Christ. It is sad to say, he has succeeded with far too many followers. Let’s be honest. Instead of looking for reason why we ought to talk about Jesus we try to find all the excuses why we can’t. I heard about a little boy ...

4530. Ignite: Burning Love

Acts 5:17-42

Sermon

James Merritt

... ? He was seen as the number one hero of the Greeks. He was strong enough to defeat any foe and powerful enough to take down any enemy. There are a couple of differences. Hercules is a myth and Jesus is real. Even Hercules died and stayed dead. Jesus came back from the dead and is alive evermore. Furthermore, He is the Savior. That was a very familiar word to Jewish people. It was a word that was used for physicians – people who could save people’s lives; philosophers – people could solve people ...

4531. Ignite: Fire and Water

Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

James Merritt

... was set on fire for the first time by the Holy Spirit, guess what they did? They jumped in the water. Specifically, they jumped into the water of baptism, but there is one difference. Normally, water extinguishes fire, but in this case baptismal water enhances fire. Stay with me! We are going to deal today with one of the most emotionally charged issues any pastor ever deals with. If you grew up in a church where baptism in any form or fashion was practiced then you know there are two things that can ...

4532. Look and Live

Isaiah 44:24--45:25

Sermon

James Merritt

... pastored one. For many years he was pastor of the Metropolitan Baptist Tabernacle in London, England. People had to get tickets two to three weeks early in order to get into the building to hear him preach. On Sunday nights, he would ask his church members to stay at home so visitors could find room in the church services. He has more sermons in print than any other preacher who has ever lived. At the height of his fame, newspapers all over the world carried his sermons every week. But I want to share with ...

4533. Envision: The Great Commission

Mark 1:14-20

Sermon

James Merritt

... Christ changed our life so Christ can change theirs? I. See The People Who Need God Most of us at some point in time have been to a hospital. We’ve visited someone or been there ourselves. A hospital is a place where people go to get well. Usually we stay a few days, and then we’re home. Now there’s another kind of place where people go when they are sick and it is called a “hospice”. Most of you have been to a hospital, but I doubt if many of you have been to a hospice. If you ...

4534. Up Close & Personal: Coming Into Focus

1 John 1:5--2:14

Sermon

James Merritt

... in the mail, handwritten from her. “Dear James, What a pleasant surprise to hear from one of my favorite students! Of course, you are forgiven. Isn't it sweet to know that the presence of Jesus in your heart will not permanently allow unconfessed sin to stay there?” Her words were so true. I ask you today, “Do you need God to come back into focus? Would you be willing to let Him put your heart under His microscope and give you a thorough examination? Whatever you find in your heart that is against ...

4535. Up Close & Personal: Drawing Near

Hebrews 4:14-5:10

Sermon

James Merritt

... the verb “draw near” in the Greek language is present tense which denotes “continuous action.” What He was saying to these Jewish people was that you don’t have to go through a high priest anymore to get to God. You can draw near as often as you want, stay as long as you want, because the door is never locked, it is always open and you can get up close and personal with God anytime you want to. I am not telling you anything you don’t already know if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, but there ...

4536. Up Close & Personal: Open the Doors

Psalm 100:1-5

Sermon

James Merritt

... times and all places and never fails to keep His promises. No wonder we ought to want to be up close and personal with this unbelievable, magnificent God. We connect when we respect. Any time we want to we can not only enter into God’s presence, but we can stay there. We can live there. We can take him with us everywhere we go as long as we go with Him everywhere He wants to take us. I read a story one time about a young navy officer who had made his first trip on a destroyer across the ocean ...

4537. Lost Baggage: Losing Your Baggage

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sermon

James Merritt

... when you thought the story probably couldn’t get any worse, the real tragedy unfolded. When he was 9 years old he witnessed a 13 year old boy murder a 4 year old boy. He froze in terror as he saw this friend of his, with whom he had been staying that day sexually assault this 4 year old boy, do terrible things to him leaving him for dead. The 13 year old boy saw him, ran over to him and threatened to kill him if he told anybody. For three days he lived in terror, afraid by day that this ...

4538. The Knot: Frayed (Part 1)

1 Peter 3:1-7

Sermon

James Merritt

... while she was single and then marry an unbeliever. You have the situation where the wife is by default the spiritual leader in the relationship. The same thing is true today. Think about this. If one parent brings the children to church today and one parent stays home, which parent is more likely to come with the children? The mother. Though it happens occasionally, it is very rare that the man brings the children to church and the wife refuses to come. It is usually the other way around. Paul is dealing ...

4539. Get Off Your

Romans 12:1-8

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... after encountering and embracing Jesus. Face it. After confessing our faith, we no longer "fit into" the world or "conform" to the world. Here’s one way we are called to "transform," not "conform." The world works according to hierarchies. Those on "top" claw and scratch to stay on "top." No one wants to be a "bottom feeder." There are the Kanye West’s and Kim Kardashian’s, who can spend $12 million on a wedding. Then there are the rest of us, those of us who never get beyond last month’s bills. To ...

4540. Five Mission Killers

Matthew 16:21-28

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... . It might even be good to get in a room and whiteboard it all out so we both have a chance to ideate together. If we really want to take it to the next level, we could put our learnings together into a presentation for the CEO so we can stay a bestinbreed company amid our industry's shifting paradigms. Anyway, don't want to boil the ocean here, just want to set us up to move the needle. I'm out of pocket the next two weeks, but feel free to noodle on it while I'm gone ...

4541. That's Not Fair

Matthew 20:1-16

Sermon

King Duncan

... that a denarius was not only the average daily wage for a worker, but it was also the average cost of surviving per day for the masses of poor families in Israel. It didn’t allow any room to maneuver. A denarius would buy your family what they needed to stay alive, no more and no less. So a day’s work and a full day’s wage were essential to survival. During the grape harvest, men who wanted to work would go to the marketplace and stand around; it was like going to an employment center in the morning ...

4542. What's It Take to Be A Saint? (All Saint's Day)

Revelation 7:9-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... of the moving of the Spirit of God, it’s better they be gone. After that, we decided that we were going to build the church on people who were actually serious about following Jesus. And that’s when it started to grow.” That night Clarence Jordan stayed at the home of a member of that church, a graduate of Yale, a college professor, who had a PhD in English Literature. He drove seventy miles each week to go to this church. Clarence asked that brilliant young professor: “Why do you go to that church ...

4543. An Announcement from the Wilderness

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

King Duncan

... us new people. There is the baptism of water, but there is also a baptism of the Holy Spirit. That happens when we consciously invite Christ to take up residence in our lives. We often say at this time of the year that we wish the Christmas spirit could stay with us all year long. This is the secret of maintaining the Christmas Spirit. It is to pray that God will send His Holy Spirit to take up a permanent residence in our lives, and that is the greatest gift that we can receive. Pastor C. Thomas Hilton ...

4544. An Announcement to a Virgin

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

King Duncan

... he writes. “It’s an awkward time. Your body is somewhere between childhood and adulthood. Hormones are doing all sorts of weird things to your body . . . And there is this great race to grow up. Still, at fifteen you are not old enough to drive a car, vote, stay out late, or live on your own. At fifteen, there are a lot of things that you are not allowed to do. Now, close your eyes for a moment. Remember yourself at fifteen years old. You are in Junior High, interested in things fifteen year olds are ...

4545. Faith’s First Impressions

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... and goddesses. Monotheism to worship just one God and to trust and obey one God was really hard and really weird for the first century. Yet these Thessalonian Christians, whose spiritual founder had moved on and was far away, managed to stay faithful. The “conviction” of faith that Paul applauded among the Thessalonians was a praise of their refusal to be “namby-pamby” followers of Jesus. Those who had accepted Christ in Thessolonica offered up no mealy-mouthed faith, but were rousing enthusiasts ...

4546. Night of Light

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

Timothy Cargal

... treat them homiletically, to do so when the Matthean texts are appointed for the First Sunday after Christmas in Year A or at Epiphany. Without suggesting that these problems do not exist (remember, they are well-known even to people without seminary training), simply stay with the details of the Lukan text. Don’t homiletically re-create the crèche in your sermon. The preacher’s task is to preach the gospel lesson, not some hybrid story that exists only in our minds. Most of the historical problems in ...

4547. Odd Ducks in a Rubber-Ducky World

1 Thessalonians 4:13--5:11

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... small towns of Europe, there was one group of people that kept taking care of the sick and the dying and the dead: Christians. When other people ran away and left loved ones to fend for themselves and die by themselves, Christians stayed. Within the Christian community care for plague victims was intense and intentional. While everyone else kept their distance, Christians moved in closer. These “rara avis” followers of Jesus offered care and comfort to those who were in need, subjecting themselves to ...

4548. The Full Advent: Whoa! No Way? Wow!

Mark 13:1-31

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... half a million suspected subversives, including James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Theodore Dreiser and John Steinbeck. In the first century “keeping watch” was much more “low tech” than films and files. “Keeping watch” meant literally keeping your eyes open and staying wide awake in order to respond quickly to sudden changes and threats. In the first century the “poster child” of “keeping watch” was the shepherd — the most rural and remedial of the population. In the social pecking order ...

4549. Waiting in Life's Waiting Rooms

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... having to expend any of its own energy. As we “wait” through the season of Advent, as we wait for the arrival of Jesus, we are like birds in flight. Sometimes we have to flap. It takes lots of energy, and it is hard work just to stay aloft. Waiting for God’s presence does not mean sitting in some plastic chaired room. Sometimes is means “winging it.” We take flight, flap hard, even against the fiercest winds of opposition. Sometimes it is just on faith that we have the lift and thrust to keep ...

4550. Life and Light to All He Brings

Luke 2:21-40

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... round to the other side, I shall see that just because God is such a great artist, no mistakes of mine can utterly spoil the pattern. Nothing can divert God's purpose ultimately, or finally spoil God's plan.” Will you get in the Light in 2015? Will you stay in the Light in 2015? Will you sun-bathe in Jesus light every day? If you trust the Light, you will find that all your pain and hurt, all your failures and foibles, will take on a whole new light. And that the beautifying light of Christ will so infuse ...

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