Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: Levi, disciple, evangelist, tax collector, the 12, the twelve, apostle, sermon on the mount, jewish audience, beatitudes, lord's prayer, great commission, parables, olivet discourse, mount of olives, olivet, synoptic

Showing 451 to 475 of 715 results

451. God’s Body Language

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... experienced the loving presence of God. They felt His touch. They saw His tears, saw His hands bless loaves and fishes and little children. They heard His righteous anger when he drove the money-changers out of the Temple, they saw the scandalous company He kept: tax collectors, prostitutes, and fishermen. They saw Him on His knees praying, saw His hands give sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. They saw those hands break bread and pass a cup around a table, saw those same hands nailed to a cross. In ...

452. The Glorious Interpolation

John 7:45--8:11

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... which we tend to ignore) that Jesus put at the head of the list: lack of compassion, unloving attitudes, unkindness, stinginess, etc. Indeed, He once said some very shocking things to the pious religious leaders of His day. He said, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you!” (Matthew 21:31) How’s that for a shocker! To those who were beaten down by life, Jesus was tender and compassionate. To those who were doing the beating down, he was ...

453. The Autobiography of God

John 14:5-14

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... of Galilee! To expect a Nazarene to be the Saviour of the world was something like expecting an illiterate day laborer to become President of the United States! And those people that Jesus chose to be His disciples: hand laborers, fishermen, tax collectors, most of them unwashed and illiterate. He didn’t consult Who’s Who in Jerusalem, but went about collecting His handful of political subversives, publicans, and prostitutes. And then there was that strange business about a cross. Everyone knew that a ...

454. The Jesus Connection

John 15:1-17

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... through, and loves us still and all.” That’s the message that Jesus came to bring and died to prove. I find it significant that, in the New Testament, Jesus had His most difficult time, not with the blatant “sinners”...the tax collectors, prostitutes, drunkards, and outcasts of society. He had His most difficult time with the good, pious, decent people who thought that just because they were good, they were good enough. As the seventeenth century philosopher Blaise Pascal once put it, “There are ...

455. Family Reunion

Mark 3:31-35

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... the Word of God and do it!” So: the true Church is nothing less than the family of God on earth into which every human being is invited. The same Jesus who called into His family all sorts of people: little children, women, rulers, servants, tax-collectors, the outgoing, the lonely, the extroverts and the introverts. Jesus says: God wants you all - prodigals all, who have wandered far away. As Paul put it: “Once you were no people; now you are God’s people.” Jesus stretches out His arms to the least ...

456. On Claiming One’s Inheritance

Mark 10:17-31

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... do it. We see the goal, but we can’t quite reach it - not all by ourselves. Then, when we feel most hopeless, God can come and offer us hope. Indeed, that’s what the Commandments are for...to drive us to God, to where we say with the tax collector in Jesus’ parable: “God be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:13) And then comes the good news: “But God showed His love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) There is a cartoon which has appeared in several ...

457. Holy Thursday

Mark 14:12-26

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... Wesley saw that Holy Communion was not a self-congratulatory meal for saints, but a life-changing meal for sinners.” (Willimon, op. cit., p. 52) Wesley reasoned: Who ate with Jesus? Sinners. Some were harlots, some were church leaders. Some were Pharisees, some were tax collectors. Some knew they were sinners, some did not. But all were sinners, and Jesus invited them all to dinner, invited them to be His friends, invited them to sit down and eat with Him. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” The ...

458. On the Threshold: From Law to Gospel

Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon

David Busic

... ? Who? Jews! This is a radical method, which would have highly offended the Jewish leaders. This explains their unusual visit to the desert. John the Baptist calls Jews to repentance, not just the common folk–those we all know to be sinful–the tax collectors, the sinners, the prostitutes. But he cries repent! To the Jewish leaders themselves. Repent from your sin. Repent from your own self-righteousness. Repent of your hypocrisy. John did not roll out the red carpet for the leaders, to say the least; he ...

459. The Holiness of the Sacred

1 Corinthians 1:18--2:5

Sermon

Paul E. Robinson

... people from people and people from God. Clean and unclean became clean people and unclean people. For example, those with leprosy were unclean, and with the undergirding of the religious establishment lepers were ostracized from the community. The poor and the tax collectors and the adulterers also began to be separated out of community, with the support of, if not by the very initiation of the religious community. It all seemed so right; after all, God is holy and clean and righteous, and hates sin ...

460. A Forgiving Presence

John 7:45--8:11

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... t miss what is happening here. Unlike all the rest of the people at the dinner party, Jesus separates sin and sinner, unlike the rest of them. This story is told in the setting of the accusation that Jesus was a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Now that’s the reputation Jesus had. In fact, it was the primary reputation he had. So you must know the kind of people that he associated with and the idea that we should not have any fellowship with those who are unlike our kind is ...

461. Who Are You Waiting For?

Isaiah 40:1-31

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... in those blanks in your mind a few moments ago. I don’t know the point of your desperate need, but I know this, Christmas is the witness at that very point of your deepest need. It is the intersection where God is going to come to you. A despised tax collector was up a tree escaping from the crowd, a crowd that could never accept him. He wanted to see Jesus, but he had no hope of Jesus seeing him. But God is like a Ford, he has a better idea – Jesus saw him and called him down to new life ...

462. The Primacy Of Love

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... the sons of your Father in Heaven. For He makes the son to rise on bad and good people alike, and gives rain to those who do good and to those who do evil. Why should God reward you if you love only the people who love you? Even the tax collectors do that! And if you speak only to your friends, have you done anything out of the ordinary? Even the pagans do that! You must be perfect -- just as your Father in Heaven is perfect." Get the message now. We are commanded to love our enemies. Why? In order that ...

463. Come To The Party!

Luke 14:15-24

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... one of the most powerful images for the Kingdom of God in the New Testament is that of a great feast, a banquet. Jesus used and lived the image often. "Jesus ate and drank with a wide mix of people. He ate with the disciples, with tax collectors and sinners, with pharisees and publicans, with outcasts, and with a notorious cheat named Zacheous. His enemies often called Him a drunk and a glutton. Sometimes they asked Him why He did not fast like the disciples of John the Baptist. He answered, "There may come ...

464. The Commitment Question: Will You Lay Down Your Life For Me?

John 13:31-38

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... us that we live in an upside down world. Jesus slashed at the Pharisees, the very best of the Jewish community. He said, "Blessed are the meek, the hungry, the poor." In Jericho, He turned His back on the leading citizens and stayed with the social outcast, a tax collector. He held as valued by God those whom the world despises. He showed us, that along side the truth of God, the values of the world are inverted. This is what Jesus was telling us as He knelt to wash the disciples' feet. He was saying, "This ...

465. The Best Advice He Could Give

Luke 3:1-20

Sermon

King Duncan

... John was a persuasive preacher. After he told the people to repent and be baptized, they asked, “What should we do?” John answered, “The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same.” Tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?” “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them. Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t ...

466. Tasks For The Living God

Acts 16:11-15

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... -emphasized in our time. But just as the gospel is meant for both Jew and Gentile, so it is meant for both poor and rich. In the Old Testament, Amos was a wealthy landowner, Isaiah was welcomed in the court of kings. In the New Testament, the rich tax collector Zacchaeus becomes the object of Christ's salvation (Luke 19:1-10), and Luke tells us that wealthy women supported the mission of Jesus and his disciples out of their own pockets (Luke 8:3). To be sure, wealth is given to be used wisely in the service ...

467. Constantly Abiding

John 15:1-17

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... circle in the sand around my butterfly friend so that I could find him when I came back up the beach. I walked away, pondering life. What does it look like, this life God gives us in Jesus Christ? It looks like acceptance experienced by a despised tax collector. It looks like forgiveness experienced by a woman who had sold her body, and was about to be stoned by those who didn’t understand such forgiveness. It looks like new meaning for a person estranged from her community, who comes to the well at mid ...

468. Get off the Throne and Learn Wisdom

Matthew 7:1-6

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... in close community and already seeking the kingdom of God displayed in the person of Jesus. It answers questions like: How are Peter and Andrew to live on the road with their old fishing rivals James and John? How is Matthew, the-sell-out-to-the-Romans-tax-collector, to sleep around the same camp fire with Simon the-freedom-fighter-Jewish-zealot? Should Mary Magdalene be on the road with us? How to deal with the bumps and bruises of living in close community and having no way to get away from one another ...

469. Jesus' Most Perplexing Parable

Luke 16:1-15

Sermon

R. Robert Cueni

... of this outrageous tale. Let me give some context. The fifteenth chapter of Luke opens by telling us that Jesus is preaching to a large crowd. Scribes and Pharisees object that our Lord spends too much time with the "sinners and tax collectors." As the religious authorities of the time, they have responsibility for monitoring the orthodoxy of Jesus' teaching and then reporting back to the Temple authorities. The religion police are upset that the Master is so welcoming of the morally objectionable that ...

470. The Church that Jesus Built

1 Peter 2:2-10

Sermon

Richard W. Ferris

... chose this cornerstone, so that it would become the foundation for his building on earth. Jesus had faith in his construction ability. Though he had the whole world from which to choose, he selected very simple material: a few fishermen, a tax collector, and some others of seemingly simple means and position. There were no kings in his foundation. He didn't use any successful business personalities in his first floor. And he completed the first stage of his structure without the help of aggressive ...

471. Get a Charge

Matthew 21:28-32

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... others. Let me point out another insight about this parable. Jesus was also condemned for associating with sinners and publicans, the irreligious, the people who were outside of the religious establishment of that day. He says in a number of places, including this passage, "The tax collectors and the harlots will go into the kingdom before you." Why would he say such a thing? There is only one reason why he would say it. Because those are the people that he saw responding to the call of God to serve their ...

472. Disappointed in Jesus

Matthew 11:2-11

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

... acting the way the Messiah - according to John - should act. Rather than blazing with the fire of indignation, Jesus seems to be telling stories and playing with children. Rather than railing against the sins of the world, Jesus is eating with tax collectors and prostitutes and poor people. Rather than tossing people into the blistering cauldron of hell, he is listening to them, forgiving them, and changing them from the inside out. Our Bible study group came up with a wonderful image. What John expected ...

473. Rejoicing in Reality

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

... saw the crowds, he made a beeline for the mountain, moving away from all the curious people in order to have conversation with the serious people. Just prior to this passage, we hear about the call to the disciples, those twelve bewildered fishermen and tax collectors who have all of a sudden been claimed, dragged, invited, beguiled into living and learning and leaving with Jesus. As captivated as they are by this call however, these recruits still aren't sure what it means. So this morning Jesus takes them ...

474. Supper's Ready!

Matthew 22:1-14

Sermon

Stephen M. Crotts

... wrong road, you won't get there. It is the same with God. Your salvation is on God's terms and not your own, sincere or not! "I'll Be There!" The Bible is full of invitations to supper with God. Jesus ate with a Pharisee; he dined with fishermen, tax collectors, harlots, and rich men. Once he called to a man up in a tree, "Zacchaeus, come down. I must have supper with you this day!" The Lord got no excuses from Zach that day! Around the table with Jesus, a miracle began to form in the heart of Zacchaeus ...

475. Lost and Found

Luke 15:1-7

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... celebration; there are parties in heaven over the one sinner as there will never be for the ninety-nine righteous. No wonder the Pharisees and scribes took exception to Jesus' actions and audacious attitudes. By dining with these notorious sinners, tax collectors, prostitutes, even just observational slackers, the precociously pious Pharisees feared that they themselves may have been exposed to some form of impurity. Kind of like when you get salmonella from the salad bar at The Sizzler because the kid who ...

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