Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 4651 to 4675 of 4946 results

4651. The Vanities Of Work

Ecc 2:1-26

Sermon

Erskine White

What do we gain from our labors under the sun? (Ecciesiastes 2:22) I want to introduce you to someone you may not know very well: the Preacher who. wrote Ecclesiastes. We ought to find him quite interesting; he is one of the most modern personalities in all the Bible. In fact, here is someone very much like you or me. He is a successful man by any measure of worldly achievement and he knows how to enjoy the pleasures of this world. But like many people today, he is also restless. He is looking for deeper ...

4652. God's Gift Of Life

Psalm 139:1-24

Sermon

Erskine White

For Thou didst form my inward parts; Thou didst knit me together in my mother's womb. (Psalm 139:13) Fathers in earlier generations usually weren't allowed to do this, but I have had the splendid privilege of watching and helping as two of my children were born. The first time, the experience was new and overwhelming. I felt I had witnessed God's hands at work in the world and when our baby was safely delivered, I was left groping for inadequate words to describe what I had seen. The word "awesome" came to ...

4653. When Christians Disappoint

Acts 5:1-11

Sermon

Erskine White

How is it you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to us but to God. (Acts 1:4) We would like to think that we Christians are always theChristians we are supposed to be, but of course, it isn't true.We would like to think that the church is always the faithfulChristian community it is meant to be, but of course, that isn'ttrue either. Sometimes it's awfully easy to be disappointed inChristians and in the church as well. It's awfully easy to findChristians and churches which give ...

4654. Changes

1 Corinthians 7:31

Children's Sermon

Object: a kaleidoscope Good morning, boys and girls. I brought something to look through this morning. You may have seen one before. It's a kaleidoscope. When you look through it into the light, and then turn the bottom of it just the tiniest bit, the design changes. How many of you have seen one before? (Wait for show of hands.) Some of you might even have one at home. What makes the design? (Let them respond.) Sometimes different shapes and bits of colored glass are inside and there are mirrors at ...

4655. His Spirit Is With Us

John 19:30

Children's Sermon

Object: a baby picture Good evening, boys and girls. Today is called Good Friday. We usually think of Good Friday as a sad day. But today I want to think of why it's called Good Friday. What happened on Good Friday? (Let them respond.) That's right, that was the day Jesus died. Our verse for today says, "Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." That's another way of saying Jesus died. Dying isn't a very happy thing to think about. (Hold up the baby picture.) What kind of a picture is this? (Let them ...

4656. Love that Grows

1 Thessalonians 3:12

Children's Sermon

Object: a large paper heart you can wear. Boys and girls, we are beginning a brand new church year today. This is the first Sunday in Advent. Today we have a chance to make a brand new start. Sometimes we need a chance to do that, don't we. Sometimes we forget to do the good things we had decided we would do, and then we wish we had a chance to just start all over again. (Put on the heart.) I decided to wear a big red heart today to show you what I mean. A big red heart reminds us of something we love. We ...

4657. Advent 1

Luke 21:5-38, Jeremiah 33:1-26, Zechariah 14:1-21, 1 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Sermon Aid

George Bass

THEOLOGICAL CLUE The powerful impetus toward eschatological awareness and preparedness, which comes from the theological framework of the Christian year, as well as the particular lections as-signed to this day, makes the preacher conscious of how the future affects the present age. The result is a "get your house, and the world, in order" kind of theology emanating from a reading of the propers for this day. Advent makes Christians realize that "the best is yet to come, "in the promised return of Jesus ...

4658. A Pause That Refreshes

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Thomas Slavens

In the Christian year are kept the major events surrounding the life of the Christ. For the four weeks preceding Christmas, Advent is kept to celebrate that the Word of God has become flesh. In the spring, Palm Sunday is kept to celebrate the entry of the Christ into Jerusalem. On the Thursday before Easter, Maundy Thursday is kept to celebrate the Last Supper of Jesus with his disciples. The following day, Good Friday is kept to celebrate the Crucifixion. On the following Sunday, Easter is kept to ...

4659. Fatal Subtraction

Acts 5:1-11

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

Today I want to revisit a sermon preached some years ago titled "Fatal Subtractibn." Based on the Acts 4 and 5 scriptures of Ananias and Sapphira, it centers on the story of a husband and wife who took away things from their lives and ended up dead. Theirs was a fatal subtraction because they subtracted where they were supposed to add and added where they were supposed to subtract. It is clear they had not mastered the basic principles of Christian arithmetic and died because they held back a vital portion ...

4660. Nothing Is Impossible

Exodus 13:17--14:31

Sermon

Walter Kimbrough

A marvelous story is told by the synoptic gospel writers about a boy who was possessed by an evil spirit. His father was concerned sufficiently enough to seek help for the boy in a time when all help had failed. The boy was brought to the disciples of Jesus with the request for healing, but they were powerless and confused. The father did not give up hope in the quest of healing for his son. So, with an insistent spirit he saw Jesus and reported on the condition of his son with the declaration of the ...

4661. Led By The Shepherd

John 10:1-21

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

Decisions, decisions. Life is full of decisions. In fact, a number of philosophers and psychologists tell us that the decisions we make (or our behavior) largely make us who we are. Life is nothing but decisions. How do we make them in a Christian manner? We Christians believe that by his resurrection on Easter, Christ has given us new life (1 Peter 1:3). You have been given a new life! Now that we have that new life, how does it affect the way in which we make decisions? At least two of our Bible lessons ...

4662. A Mother's Pride And Joy

Sermon

Ron Lavin

The story of Samuel is a drama of great intensity, great love, great change, great conflict and great challenge. This story begins with Hannah, in the 11th century B.C., praying to the Lord for a son. She was barren. In ancient times barrenness was a disgrace for a woman. A Mother's Pride And Joy As Hanna and her husband arrived at Shiloh for a religious pilgrimage to the place of worship, Hannah prayed. We pick up this prayer at verse one of chapter one of the book of 1 Samuel. She (Hannah) was in deep ...

4663. The Recovery Of Reverence

Leviticus 19:1-37

Sermon

Robert Beringer

Once upon a time there was a college professor named A Squared. A Squared lived in Flat Land. Everything in Flat Land had just two dimensions: height and breadth. Nothing in Flat Land had any depth! The people lived in flat houses, ate flat meals, drank flat colas, thought flat thoughts and lived flat lives. Everything was flat. If a person turned sideways, you could not even see that individual! A Squared taught mathematics at the local university. One night he threw a party for some of his colleagues on ...

4664. Ka-Chang

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

John Jamison

It was a strange sound. Some said it was a kind of "clanging" sound, while others said it was more of a "ka-ching," or more accurately, a "ka-chang!" It sounded like the result of metal hitting metal, which is exactly what it was. In the valley off to the west from the hillside is a steep cliff rising up the face of Mount Arbel. The face of the cliff is covered with hundreds of caves, with no good way to get to them without climbing straight up the cliff. That's why the Zealots liked them. They were safe. ...

4665. Captive To The Word Of God

John 8:31-41

Sermon

Theodore F. Schneider

The Zealots had made a courageous stand, holding off General Silva and his elite Roman legion for more than a year. Jerusalem had already fallen months ago, and the mesa named Masada, along the west coast of the Dead Sea, was the site of the last pocket of Jewish resistance. Come morning, that, too, would change. The wooden walls were burning, and within the day's first light the Roman battering ram would begin again and make its final assault upon the weakened walls and gates. The leader of the 960 men, ...

4666. Spirit Full Or Foul?

Deuteronomy 4:32-40

Sermon

Justin Tull

The sermon today asks the questions as to whether we are aware of God’s saving acts and if we acknowledge only him as God. In short, we are asking if God truly helps us. Several years ago, at my sister’s wedding, the officiating minister told a story. It was about an Episcopal minister from Africa. The minister’s eight-year-old son did not understand his father’s actions just before his sermons. He asked his father: “Why do you always kneel when everyone stands to sing the hymn of preparation?” The father ...

4667. The Family of Judas

Drama

William Grimbol

SETTING: Monologues by the father, mother, brother, sister and grandmother of Judas TIME: Christ's ministry FATHER OF JUDAS: I am just so angry with that ... that Jesus ... that self-proclaimed Messiah ... why he knew exactly what he was doing, taking those twelve fine young men down a dead-end path. You can't tell me for a second that Jesus didn't know what he was doing ... he knew he'd be crucified ... he even predicted it, I'm told. No, he knew. He tempted fate every chance he had. He challenged the ...

4668. The Quality of Mercy

Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon

"... Forgive your brother from your heart ..." - Matthew 18:35 A very long time ago a ruler of many people, a king, decided to settle accounts with all who were in his realm. As they came one by one before him, one of those who came was found to owe the astronomical sum of 10,000 talents. Now that was a lot of money, literally an imponderable amount - something like the "national debt," I suppose. Of course, the man was unable to pay. In those days a citizen who owed more then he was able to pay could be ...

4669. Lord, I Believe - Or Do I?

Luke 18:1-8

Sermon

In his ministry of teaching, Jesus was a master at the art of storytelling. Many of his stories, known as parables, have been our favorites through the years since first we heard them. They can be repeated many times, and we will never tire of them - the story of the Good Samaritan, the prodigal, the two men praying in the temple, the sower in the field. And the lessons that the Master taught in parables are pointed, holding up for our inspection virtues to be practiced, vices to avoid, relationships to be ...

4670. No Snap Courses

Luke 17:1-10

Sermon

Carveth Mitchell

More than a century ago Sydney Smith wrote in his Lady Holland’s Memoir these disturbing words: "Whoever wishes to imply the absence of everything agreeable and inviting, he calls it a sermon." How shall we escape that indictment today? When we read verses seven through ten in today’s Gospel, it is somewhat shocking to read that Jesus said this in describing our relationship with God. We must remember, however, that like most parables, this is only a partial view of God. There is no mention here, for ...

4671. The Reins of Power

2 Samuel 5:1-5

Sermon

In keeping with the directives of our church calendar, we celebrate Christ the King today. As we do so, two great events are in the background of our thinking. One has to do with the occasion when the Israelites came to David at Hebron and petitioned him to take on the additional responsibility of being their king as well as the king of Judah. The other is the remembrance of Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem, and being acclaimed a king by the excited multitude that had gathered, because they had heard ...

4672. There’s Gotta Be a Day

Malachi 4:1-6

Sermon

We’ve heard that song before, haven’t we? We’ve heard it with some variations, but the theme is the same. Perhaps the same problems create the same theme - with some variations. Even the variations do not nuance the repetitions enough to make us pay attention, finally. If it were not for two things, Malachi’s oracle of God could be passed by as "just the same old thing." The oracle is from God. Secondly, it comes because God insists on keeping his covenant. He simply cares. There it is. Do we wish to ...

4673. The Seventh Sunday of Easter

John 17:1-5

Sermon

Kendall McCabe

"Glory" is a major word in John's Gospel. At the very beginning, in what scholars call the prologue, we are told "we beheld his glory," and then the rest of the Gospel shows how it was done. This past Thursday we celebrated the feast of the Ascension, that occasion which emphasizes the glorification of Christ - he has been raised above all things and is Lord of all. Today in the Gospel we stand between events, for we are listening to Jesus pray on the night before his death, and he is already speaking of ...

4674. Proper 11

Lk 10:38-42 · Col 1:21-29 · Gen 18:1-10 · 2 Ki 4:8-17

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

COMMENTARY Old Testament: 2 Kings 4:8-17 Elisha's promise of a child to a barren woman is fulfilled. Similar to Abraham and Sarah, and Hannah and Elkanah, a wealthy woman is given a child for no other reason than Elisha's gratitude for her and her husband's kind hospitality. Elisha often stayed in the home of this nameless couple in Shunem as he went on his travels. The lady suggested to her husband that they add a room to their house for the use of Elisha. They built and furnished it. To express his ...

4675. Invincible Harvest

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

A cartoon I remember from years ago pictures a preacher in a pulpit ready to begin his sermon. The entire front wall of the church is made up of giant audio speakers. The preacher has his hand on the volume control of the amplifier. He has a slightly wicked grin on his face. As he swiftly turns the dial from zero to full volume he says, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." The audience is not visible, but one imagines them sliding down in their pews, shoulders hunched, hands clasped tightly over their ...

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