Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 4701 to 4725 of 4940 results

4701. Why Christmas?

Isaiah 8:11-22

Sermon

Theodore L. Yewey

"... I live in a world of fools ... Merry Christmas after merry Christmas. What is Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money, a time for finding yourself a year older and now an hour richer? If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with Merry Christmas on his lips should be boiled with his own Christmas pudding and burned with a stake of holly through his heart! ... There is only one thing in the world more ridiculous than Merry Christmas and that is the thought of a home ...

4702. An Unusual Legacy

2 Samuel 23:1-7

Sermon

Roger Prescott

Introduction There are all kinds of documents that tell about a person’s life. Resumes, autobiographies and biographies, obituaries. Generally, they are quite flattering and they skim the cream from a person’s experiences. Failures, broken promises, crushed dreams, and major faults are not stirred to the surface for the public to see. Our real lives, on the other hand, are a blend of good and evil, strength and weakness, hope and despair. But there is another important document that makes up a part of our ...

4703. While He May Be Found

Isaiah 55:1-13

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

Isaiah issues a four-part injunction to the people of Judah to return to God, to renounce their iniquities, and to reaffirm the promises of the Davidic Covenant: come (55:1), listen (55:2), seek, and call on God while he is near and can be found (55:6). This plea is pertinent to Christians during this season of Lent, a season of exile and return, renewal and restoration, affliction and comfort, and death and resurrection. The prophet exhorts us to come unto the Lord. The prophet urges them to “come” and ...

4704. Keeping the Glow On

Exodus 34:29-35

Sermon

Harry N. Huxhold

Frank Peretti created a stir with the publication of two books, This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness. He claims that his books are a creative fictional treatment about the spiritual warfare that is going on in the world. He believes that Christian people have the authority to exercise spiritual control over the things and forces which detract from the promise of what the Christian faith can be. In an interview about the nature of his books, he remarked how Christians have lost the ability to ...

4705. God's Plan For Empowerment

John 1:1-18

Sermon

King Duncan

Did you know that there was once a sit-down strike in space? It's true. This strike occurred on the Skylab 4 flight in December 1973. Ground control in Houston was trying to make this final space mission as profitable as possible. They scheduled the astronauts' days so tightly that they were even forbidden to participate in their favorite pastime ” watching the sun and the earth. Houston daily "sent up about six feet of instructions to the astronauts' teleprinter." The civilian physicist on board begged ...

4706. The Death of a Child

2 Samuel 12:1-31

Sermon

Edward Inabinet

The death of a child. Nothing can prepare us for such a task. We can imagine in our minds what it must be like, but we cannot know until we have been there the emptiness and the pain. Joe Bayly wrote about the death of the young from firsthand experience. He and his wife lost three children: one at eighteen days, after surgery; another at five years, with leukemia; the third at eighteen years, after a sledding accident complicated by mild hemophilia. Joe said, "Of all deaths, that of a child is most ...

4707. God’s Greatest Gamble

Mark 12:1-12

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

Have you ever seen a naked chicken? I haven’t, but I read about one recently. Two poultry researchers, Ralph Somes, Jr. in Connecticut and Max Rubin in Maryland, have produced a new breed of naked chicken. Actually this strange breed was first discovered in 1953 by Ursula Abbott, a researcher at the University of California. Since then, according to the Wall Street Journal, naked chickens have been bred and studied on a wide scale. The advantage of having a naked chicken is this: none of the food intake of ...

4708. The Little Madness Of Hope

1 Peter 1:1-12

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Zorba the Greek is one of my favorite stories. It was a memorable theatre experience when Anthony Quinn played Zorba. The climax of the drama is two men -- Zorba and his boss -- dancing. The story was that the boss's money is invested in an untried invention to bring timber down a mountain. The wood, badly needed by the community, is to be used to reinforce the walls of an old mine which, it is hoped, will restore economic life. Everyone turned out to watch the great occasion. Anticipation turned quickly ...

4709. Faith Working In Love

James 2:14-26

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

I want to begin the sermon today by reading the first part of an article that appeared in Reader's Digest sometime ago. The title of the article is "Mama Hale and Her Little Angels". This is the bold introduction to the article: "The baby will not stop screaming. On the third floor of a brownstone in New York City's Harlem, a woman holds the two-week-old infant in her arms. The little body trembles and twitches with pain, but Clara Hale has no medicine to offer against that agony, unless you count love. In ...

4710. Reflections On A Calling (ten-year Anniversary Sermon)

2 Corinthians 4:1-18

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

One of my heroes is Bishop Gerald Kennedy. He was the Bishop in Southern California who extended me the invitation to join his conference when we were under such great pressure in Mississippi back in 1964. I spent ten wonderful years under his leadership there in Southern California. He's one of the greatest preachers, I believe, on this century. He was fond of telling about the Anglican Bishop who defined a sermon in this fashion: "A sermon is what a preacher will travel across the continent to deliver, ...

4711. If Only... Next Time

Isaiah 43:1-13

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

A young man who had made it big had been away from home a long time traveling to exotic places all over the world. He had not been very attentive to his widowed mother. His conscience began to bother him and he decided to do something about it. He sent her a unique gift, a rare South American parrot for which he'd paid $1200. Well, time went by. Two weeks, three weeks, and he heard nothing. And the fourth week he called. When he got his mom on the phone he said, "Did you get the bird I sent you?" "Oh yes ...

4712. The Prize of the High Calling of God

Hebrews 11:1-40, Philippians 2:12-18

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

I am intrigued by bumper stickers. Someone was smart. Since modern Americans spend so much of their time in cars, why not turn the bumper into a kind of chrome or, alas with modern cars, plastic bulletin boards. Thousands would get the messages as they come near the car in front of them. It was a brilliant idea. Religious folks have not missed this communication opportunity. So you have the traditional bumper sticker message: “Honk if you love Jesus”. And the more avant-garde, “In case of the rapture, this ...

4713. The Subject Is Salvation

Genesis 6:9-22; 7:24; 8:14-19

Sermon

James L. Killen

A pastor was talking one day with some men whom he knew were not actively involved in any religion. He was surprised to learn that all of the men believed in God. But when they gave their reasons for believing, they all told stories of some narrow escape in which they assumed that God had miraculously interceded to save them or someone they knew from disaster. One told about a narrow escape in a traffic accident, another told of a day when, if he had not been late leaving for work, he might have been ...

4714. Advent 4

Isaiah 7:1-25, Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

COMMENTARY Lesson 1: Isaiah 7:10-16 (C); Isaiah 7:10-14 (RC); Isaiah 7:10-17 (E) Yahweh gave King Ahaz the sign of a child as deliverance. The historical situation behind this Lesson needs to be known for an understanding of the passage. It was the time of the Syro-Ephramite war (736-734 B.C.). Israel and Syria joined in an attack on Judah and King Ahaz. He planned to get help from Assyria, but Yahweh through Isaiah urged him not to do it, but to rely on Yahweh for deliverance. With a practical and ...

4715. Christ the King

Psalm 100:1-5, 1 Corinthians 15:12-34, Matthew 25:31-46, Ezekiel 34:1-31

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

COMMENTARY Old Testament: Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24 As the shepherd for his people, Yahweh will seek the lost, gather, and feed his sheep with David as the prince among them. A popular metaphor for a religious-political leader in Judah was "shepherd." False shepherds, says Ezekiel, led Judah to ruin and captivity. So, Yahweh will be her shepherd who will bring his sheep out of captivity in Babylon, feed them with justice, and restore them to their former homeland. The nation will be restored under a davidic ...

4716. Why Not a Christian Live 8 for the Environment?

Romans 8:18-27

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

If I say "LIVE 8," how many of you know what I'm talking about? I thought so . . . It was the biggest, hippest rock concert in the history of the world. How many of you have already signed The One Declaration? You're more than one in a million. And a million was the number that attended the Philadelphia Live 8. That doesn't include the millions more that were showed up in Moscow (20,000), Tokyo (10,000), Johannesburg (10,000, where Nelson Mandela stole the show), London (200,000, where Pink Floyd returned ...

4717. Proper 14

Genesis 37:1-11, Matthew 14:22-36, Romans 9:30--10:21, Psalm 105:1-45

Sermon Aid

Marion L. Soards, Thomas B. Dozeman, Kendall McCabe

OLD TESTAMENT TEXTS The Old Testament texts explore the power of God in history. Genesis 37 introduces the story of Joseph and Psalm 105 reviews Israel's entire history of salvation. Genesis 37:1-4, 12-36 - "The Power of Oppression" Setting. The Old Testament lessons for the next two Sundays come from the story of Joseph. The story of Joseph in Genesis 37-50 provides a hinge between the preceding ancestral stories of Abraham and Sarah-Hagar, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Rachel-Leah Genesis 12-36), and ...

4718. The Loss of the Harvest

Jeremiah 8:20

Sermon

James Merritt

At McGill University the engineering and medical faculties had an intramural basketball game. The score was 33 to 34. With about a minute left, the engineers stole the ball, and then froze it with excellent passing and ball handling until the clock ran out. Only when the final whistle had blown did they learn that they were the ones behind. They were so wrapped up in freezing the ball, they had lost track of the score. I am afraid the church looks at buildings, budgets, and baptisms, and has frozen the ...

4719. Friends

Proverbs 27:6, 9, 17

Sermon

James Merritt

I saw a cartoon in a newspaper once, and the first frame showed a thief that was wearing a mask, and his gun was pointed toward a frightened victim. The next scene the robber is holding out a sack and saying, "Give me all of your valuables!" In the next scene the victim begins stuffing into the sack all of his friends. I don't believe there is hardly anything in life, outside of salvation, that is more valuable than a true friend. With few exceptions, people every-where hunger to have friends; I mean real ...

4720. Moses: On the Manna Diet

Exodus 16:1-5

Sermon

John E. Harnish

The story begins with the people grumbling…not only their stomachs, but their souls as well. So they form a "Back to Egypt Committee" whose mantra is "Why'd you bring us out here…everything was so much better back in Egypt." I guess just about every time the people of God begin to journey into an unknown future, they have to deal with the "Back to Egypt Committee," a desire for the good old days. Well, God heard their grumblings and, lo and behold, God provided—quail for protein and a generous serving of " ...

4721. Jesus Is the Recipe for Eternal Life

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Sermon

Richard Gribble

Scientists tell us that if you take six molecules of carbon dioxide and combine it with twelve molecules of water, then add light, the result will be one molecule of glucose sugar, six molecules of oxygen, and six molecules of water. This process, known as photosynthesis, makes the world as we know it possible. Carbon dioxide, which is exhaled by all mammals, is converted into oxygen which allows us to breathe. Plants, which use this photosynthesis process, make our world possible. But, photosynthesis ...

4722. Mission Possible

Acts 1:8

Sermon

James Merritt

Whenever we talk about missions or evangelism, either word is going to automatically raise an eyebrow in the multicultural, pluralistic, inclusivistic society in which we are living today. Let me give you a modern, up-to-date, cultural example of what I am talking about. This is a first hand account of an individual, who recently attended a concert by the group known as U2. Here is what she saw first hand. "If you have never been to a U2 show, let me tell you it was everything you ever expected it to be, ...

4723. The King and His Throne

Acts 1:1-8

Sermon

James Merritt

4724. April Love

Sermon

Stan Purdum

It's a bit odd that the lectionary committee placed this reading from the Song of Solomon in late summer, for it seems like a springtime text. Springtime, according to the poet Tennyson, is that time when "a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love,"1 but I guess summer love is pretty exciting, too. Some recent research, however, suggests that what actually may be going on in the young man may have more to do chemical molecules than with seasonal madness. The researchers recruited a bunch of ...

4725. Don't Settle for Half A Glass

Matthew 4:1-11

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

How many of you watched the Super Bowl religiously like I did last week? Some of you have told me that you watched so you could see the commercials and try and figure out which ones I'd use today. A number of you have told me you figured out which ones I wouldn't use. They were kind of obvious. Today is the first Sunday in Lent. Lent is that season of preparation for the devastation of Good Friday and the joy and celebration of Easter. It remembers and celebrates the preparation of Jesus on His road to the ...

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