Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 4726 to 4750 of 4884 results

Mark 16:1-20

Sermon

Will Willimon

... she cherished, and whose ever corner spoke of her and her love of beauty. In my dream, I'd move from room to room and be surprised that all of her dispersed furniture was back in its original place. Every book was there, on the shelves, all perfectly remembered from childhood. I would awake and wonder why I kept having this dream of my mother's house. She never appeared in the dream, though I could feel her presence there amid the place she created and lavishly loved. I kept thinking that she would appear ...

4727. Bringing Life to a Party

Luke 24:36b-48

Sermon

King Duncan

... there for what he believed was right.” (4) Jesus’ courage was rooted in his love for humanity. He knew we could never be good enough by our own efforts to stand in the presence of a holy God. So he covered our sins with his holy blood and made us perfect in God’s sight. He paid for our sins to set us free from the power of death. It’s like a judge a few years ago in Fairfax County, Virginia who heard a landlord-tenant dispute for a landlord who wanted to evict a deaf couple who couldn’t ...

4728. The Heartbeat of a Christian

1 John 3:16-24

Sermon

King Duncan

... how did God get us to understand that He loves us? By giving His Son to die on the cross and rise again to save us from the penalty of sin and death. John, the disciple of Jesus who wrote these verses, knew that if he didn’t make it perfectly clear what Christian love looks like, we would try to define it for ourselves. He doesn’t give us that option. In verse 16, he writes, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives ...

4729. Happiness Full Stop

John 15:9-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... of love that Jesus gave us. Jesus had one priority in life: to restore our relationship with God. And when we couldn’t achieve that restoration through our own good works, Jesus gave up his life to secure our restoration through the sacrifice of his perfect, sinless life. In 1942, a man named Liu in Gaotan, China, fell in love with a woman named Xu. Some members of their community disapproved of their relationship because there was a 10-year age difference between them, and Xu already had four children ...

4730. The Real "Lord's Prayer"

John 17:6-19

Sermon

King Duncan

... faith in him. Here again, no. Jesus could have done all those things. They were all within his power. But they weren’t God’s will for him or for his followers. They weren’t what God sent him to earth to accomplish. Jesus provides us the perfect example of how to align our choices with God’s will, even if God’s will is frightening and difficult and hard to understand. That’s one of the primary purposes of prayer, to develop such a loving, trusting relationship between us and God that we naturally ...

4731. The Mighty Mustard Seed

Mark 4:26-34

Sermon

King Duncan

... say later in an interview with author Jack Canfield, “I’ve seen it countless times in my life—when God asks you to do something, He also provides the means to achieve it. I used to try to figure out how He was going to make it all come about perfectly, but I quit doing that a long time ago . . . Frances and I have learned to simply trust that everything is exactly the way it should be. The result of this kind of faith is a deep experience of tranquility.” (5) Once you see that this is God’s world ...

4732. Responding to God's Love

1 John 4:7-21

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... respond to God’s love by our words and actions toward others. Saint John is very clear, “Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:11-12). John tells us that if we say we love God but ignore our brother and sister, then we are liars. Our love must be universal; we cannot discriminate. It is through our love for our brothers and sisters that we find the unifying ...

4733. As You Sent Me, Then I Send Them

John 17:6-19

Sermon

Timothy W. Ayers

... my Savior and I am willing to sacrifice myself for you.” The boy scout waited patiently for a second, then, rolling his eyes, he said, “Cool it, Reverend The world’s smartest man just grabbed my backpack and jumped out the door.” That is a perfect illustration of the world we live in. We have thousands and millions of really smart people jumping out airplanes with nothing but backpacks. And we, the ones Jesus has sent, have the parachutes they need. You are being sent to hand out parachutes to those ...

4734. Hungering for Some Time Off

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

Sermon

King Duncan

... , an alarm sounded throughout the museum, and security guards sprinted through the building toward some unseen threat. That threat turned out to be Lynch’s son, Nick, who chose a “priceless” Louis XIV chair in the one of the exhibits as the perfect place to get some rest. (2) Be careful when giving instructions to your child--especially in a museum of priceless objects. Another woman named Cristina Beitz wrote to Budget Travel magazine to tell about taking their honeymoon with a bunch of unexpected ...

4735. Not Your Lips, but Your Life

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Sermon

King Duncan

I’ve got a pop quiz this morning for all you history buffs. What is something that was declared illegal 100 years ago, but is perfectly legal today? I’ll give you a hint: it inspired the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. In what was termed the Noble Experiment, the United States government made it a crime to manufacture, transport or sell alcoholic beverages. From 1920 to 1933—a period referred to today as the Prohibition ...

4736. The Good

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

Will Willimon

... the short list of this allegedly better tax collector? Or do you at least want God to look in his little tax collector's heart and see that he is at least a little sincerely penitent than this time last week? What do you want? To mess up Jesus' perfectly outrageous story by sending the tax collector back to church with the Pharisee's speech? Yes. Yes, that's what I'd like, wouldn't you? We spend our lives before the mirror of other people's opinions of us, hoping to score enough positive brownie points in ...

4737. A Non-anxious Presence

Mark 4:35-41

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... , the leader will be the person who is able to be calm in the midst of other peoples’ anxiety. Unfortunately people often see this lack of anxiety on the part of the leader as a lack of caring. This week’s scripture lessons give us a perfect test of Friedman’s theories. In the Old Testament lesson the Hebrew army of Saul was afraid of Goliath and their fear paralyzed them. David entered as the non-anxious presence in the midst of their cowering, paralyzing anxiety. In Mark’s gospel lesson, the boat ...

4738. More Than Enough

John 6:1-21

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... or a new shipment has come in to replace what’s already on the shelves. Supermarkets throw out, on average, $2,300 worth of food each day because the products have neared their expiration date. Yet most of it is still edible. In many states, it’s perfectly legal to sell food past its expiration date but most stores would just prefer not to, and many customers won’t buy it. Most stores, in fact, pull items two to three days before the sell-by date. 5) Food service and restaurants: On average, diners ...

4739. Metaphors Be with You

John 6:35, 41-51

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... as it comes to us in Jesus Christ as it is about lining up and fitting in with everyone else in the church – doing the right things, wearing the right clothing, observing the right rules, and believing the right doctrines. If you don’t line up perfectly with this group, go across the street. There’s another group there and maybe you’ll line up with them. This is especially tragic when we realize that this is nothing like what Jesus talked about us doing and being. For Jesus it wasn’t about rules ...

4740. When You Know How It Ends

Mark 13:1-8

Sermon

King Duncan

... I watch it on TV. If my team fumbles the ball or throws an interception, it’s not a big deal. I think, ‘that’s bad, but everything’s under control. I know how it all ends—we win!’” (1) If you’re a big sports fan, his plan makes perfect sense. It’s a great feeling to know that no matter how bad the game may look in the moment, your team is going to turn it around and win. You can rise above the stress and tension of the moment if you know how the game ends. Our lesson ...

4741. The Days Are Coming

Jeremiah 33:14-16

Sermon

King Duncan

... car to a mechanic. The mechanic happened to be an orthodox Jewish man. He listened carefully to the engine, then took apart the fuel injection system, carefully cleaned each individual piece, and put the whole thing back together again. The car worked perfectly now. The mechanic closed the hood and announced with a satisfied smile, “Zaddik!” The fuel injection system and the engine were working precisely as the engineers had created them to work. (5) It is revealing that these two terms are so rarely ...

4742. God Think

Mark 8:27-38

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... in the movement called the Way and help to establish the spread of the early church? He sure did. You see, we realize more than ever in this scripture today that being a disciple is not a simple decision. It’s journey of learning. God chooses no perfect people. God chooses able people…able people with the capacity and willingness to learn how to carry on Jesus’ mission in the world in a powerful but loving way. Being a follower of Jesus is about a tension of opposites. You need to be courageous and ...

4743. Why Did Jesus Come?

Luke 2:21-52

Sermon

Derl G. Keefer

... beautiful stain glass window into thousands of pieces. The entire village searched the area until all the pieces could be salvaged. After the war was over, skilled artisans put the window back to its original beauty as each separate piece was leaded into the perfect whole. Frank Court commented about that window and its application to life when he said that “religion enables us to pick up life’s fragments and re-dream our dreams, relive our hopes, rethink our faith, until the light of God once again ...

4744. A Commitment to Hope

Luke 3:1-6

Sermon

Derl G. Keefer

... and attempted to hide her misshapen foot behind the good one. As Alice looked at the young couple she thought the woman was beautiful. Her hair was soft and shined. Her face was clean and bright. Her dress was immaculately pressed. Everything about her cried out perfection. The man got up slowly and walked around Alice. At times he would stop, glance toward his wife, and raise an eyebrow. After what seemed an eternity to Alice, he sat down next to his wife. They looked into one another’s eyes for a long ...

4745. An Unbreakable Christmas

Philippians 4:4-7

Sermon

King Duncan

... on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.” One child, the loudest singer in the group, belted out, “Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners dressed in style!” (1) Maybe you are the type of person who wants a picture-perfect Christmas—God and sinners dressed in style. On the other hand, a woman named Cecille Hansen tells of driving her young daughter through their neighborhood to look one Christmas at all the decorated houses. They came to one house where the homeowners had clearly ...

4746. One Life-Changing Word

Isaiah 9:2-7 · Luke 2:1-14, (15-20)

Sermon

King Duncan

... , their inner nature is radically transformed. Petty quarreling comes to an end. Instead of seeking fame, power and wealth the people of the world seek to serve one another. Love, kindness and generosity become more important than greed or success. In short, the perfect society emerges—a society of brotherhood in which the dignity of every human being is honored. (4) The prophet Isaiah looked forward to that kind of day when, in his words, “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie ...

4747. Joy on an Elephant

Philippians 4:4-7

Sermon

Mary Austin

... mystery, our lives hold sorrow and worry, and yet, underneath it all is your promise of joy, ready for us to reach out and grasp it. We thank you for leading us always toward deep joy, no matter the outer appearance of our lives. Teach us to let go of perfection, and stress, and expectation, so we can hold out our hands and receive your gift of joy. In the name of Jesus, our Redeemer, Amen.

4748. Winner And Still Champion

Mark 9:30-37

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... to change the sacred seasons and the law; and they shall be given into his power for a time, two times, and half a time (Daniel 7:25). The phrase about a time, two, times and half a time equates to the number 3 1/2, half of the perfect number seven. This meant that darkness would reign imperfectly for a limited time before God would intervene. Who would suffer? According to Isaiah it was the suffering servant of the Lord. Believers of that time were counting on one like a Son of Man, as described in Daniel ...

4749. Beneath The Shadow Of The Cross

Mark 14:1--15:47

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... dream that you wanted to forget. Who would have thought that their simple Passover celebration in the Upper Room would have lead to this. When they set it all up and began to reminisce, it was fun. Everyone was laughing and having a good time. The meal was perfect. But right in the middle of it all, Jesus did something very strange. He got a basin of water and a towel; then hitching up his robe like a slave, he began to wash the disciples' feet. At first Peter was offended, but when Jesus said, "Unless I ...

4750. Down by the Riverside

Mark 1:4-11 · Genesis 1:1-5

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... Son; with you I am well pleased.'" The whole world was moved. Nothing and no one was ever the same. B. Now we know that Jesus didn't NEED to be baptized. Especially by John's baptism which was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus, the perfect, sinless Son of God didn't need to repent of anything. So why did he submit to baptism? In Matthew's Gospel we're told that John at first refused to baptize Jesus, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, why do you come to me?" But Jesus answered ...

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