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 4751 to 4775 of 4943 results

4751. Tell It Again, Daddy

Mark 13:24-37

Sermon

David E. Leininger

In my office in the manse is a framed needlework which says one word - Camelot. It was a gift from a dear friend many years ago who knew how much I loved that Broadway play (and eventually movie) - wonderful story, marvelous characters, tremendous music. In short there's simply not A more congenial spot For happ'ly ever aftering Than here in Camelot.(1) The story comes from a book by T. H. White called The Once and Future King(2) and is based on the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table ...

4752. The Apostles' Creed: "Suffered, Dead, and Buried..."

Mark 15:1-15

Sermon

David E. Leininger

"I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried..." They killed him. They taunted him...tortured him. They killed him. Why? What had he done? The answer of our faith over the centuries has been NOTHING. He was the only perfect one who ever lived. Sinless. Yet the record remains and our affirmation is repeated: "...suffered ...

4753. The News from Nazareth

Luke 1:46-56, Luke 1:39-45

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Interesting item in the paper the other day. "According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, while both male and female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year...Male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to mid-December. Female reindeer, however, retain their antlers until after they give birth in the spring. Therefore, according to every historical rendition depicting Santa's reindeer, every single one of them, from Rudolph to Blitzen...had to be a ...

4754. The Trouble with Stables

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Are you ready for Christmas? Foolish question. We still have 2½ weeks to go. I was visiting with Mary Knapp in the hospital yesterday and we got on the subject of Christmas - she said, "Why are you thinking about this now. You're a MAN. You've got LOTS of time." Good point. For what it's worth, if you ARE thinking about it, and you are wondering what you might get for that special someone who is difficult to buy for, I may be able to help. This week on the internet was news you can use.(1) Now available: ...

4755. A Christmas Envelope

Luke 2:8-20, Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Christmas Eve. Are you ready? The stockings all hung by the chimney with care? Was shopping fun this year? A fellow was brought before a judge and was asked what his offense was. He responded, "I was doing some early Christmas shopping." The judge was puzzled. "Why are you in this court because of early Christmas shopping? Early shopping is not a problem. Just how early were you doing your shopping?" The reply: "Before the store opened." Another one. An older woman was cruising a busy parking lot just ...

4756. A Meal with Friends

Luke 9:10-17

Sermon

David E. Leininger

"...looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke..." Familiar sounding words. Reminiscent of the Last Supper. A foreshadowing of what we ourselves will do today. Our lesson is a well-known one, the feeding of the 5,000. Of all Jesus' miracles, this is the only one repeated in all four gospels.(1) Five loaves, two small fish...and by the time it is all over, 5,000 men PLUS their women and children had been fed and were satisfied, with twelve baskets of left-overs collected. How did Jesus do that? I have ...

4757. Hard to Believe

Luke 24:1-12

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Every Saturday in my e-mail appears a fascinating column called "This is True." This is what came last week: "According to the officers on the scene, she told them she was attempting to reenact a scene from the movie," said New Britain, Conn. police spokesman Sgt. Darren Pearson. The movie: "The Passion of the Christ." The unnamed woman, married and in her 40's, purposefully drove her Chevrolet Lumina into a pond at a city park in order to baptize herself, officers said. She was taken to a hospital for a ...

4758. The "E" Word

John 1:35-42

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Today is EVANGELISM SUNDAY on our Presbyterian calendar. That is a relatively new emphasis for our denomination. To be sure, Presbyterians have always SAID evangelism is important, but our action (or lack of action) spoke even louder. One stuffy Presbyterian once called Dwight L. Moody to task for relying so much on emotion to win converts during his revivals. Moody's response? He admitted that his methods were not perfect, but he concluded, "I like my way of doing it better than your way of NOT doing it ...

4759. "Weird People" Everywhere

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

A member of the British Parliament appeared one day at the Gates of Heaven and demanded entry. "Sorry, sir," said the Admitting Angel, "but sexism is a sin, and our records show you to be a Male Chauvinist Pig. There is no room for you here." "Humph," said the MP, "I suppose you got that nonsense from Maggie Thatcher! I see her over there, gloating at me." "More bad news, I'm afraid," said the Angel. "That's not Mrs. Thatcher. That's God." (1) Susan B. Anthony called on editor Horace Greeley one day in ...

4760. Now Is The Day Of Salvation

2 Corinthians 5:11--6:2

Sermon

King Duncan

Nobody's at fault any more. Everyone's a victim. Isn't that the way you sometimes feel? The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently rejected the petition of William Jefferson Walker, sentenced in 1983 to serve 10 years in an Arizona prison for aggravated assault and leaving the scene of an accident. Walker had argued, as he has in four other petitions filed with state and federal courts, that he was deprived of a fair trial because no one in his jury pool had a last name that began with W,X,Y, or Z. ...

4761. Messies Anonymous

Philippians 3:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

Mary couldn't get her leaky faucet fixed because she was ashamed to let a plumber see the inside of her cluttered home. Jane was pregnant and didn't know where she would put her new baby because she had so much "stuff" piled in every room of her apartment. Lorene's house was so messy she couldn't bring her terminally ill husband home from the hospital to die. These people (whose names have been changed to protect the sloppy) and thousands more have been aided by a self-help group appropriately named ...

4762. Been There, Done That, No Thanks!

Philippians 3:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

"There have been a lot of changes around here," said the old man proudly, "and I want you to know I've been against every one of them." Have you ever noticed that some people have a difficult time with change? Some people would rather fight than switch. Their motto seems to be "Don't rock the boat even if it's the Titanic!" Of course, some changes are difficult to accept. As someone has said, "It just doesn't seem right to go over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's condo." And not all change ...

4763. Let's Play, Stump The Theologian!

John 16:5-16

Sermon

King Duncan

An aging Jew was crossing the street in front of a Roman Catholic church. He was knocked down by a hit-and-run driver. As he lay there, half conscious, a priest hurried out, and prepared to administer the last rites. "Do you believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost?" the priest asked. "I'm dying," cried the old man, "and he's asking me riddles!" Peppermint Patty steps up to the store counter in a PEANUTS cartoon. She says, "Yes, sir . . . I need some school supplies . . . some pencils ...

4764. Preparing for the Unexpected

Luke 12:35-48

Sermon

King Duncan

Joe Claro tells a great story about the making of one of Cecil B. DeMille's epic films. The film was a biblical extravaganza with a cast of thousands. Normally, movies are filmed in tiny pieces, but this day's scene was going to be shot live, with all six hundred or so actors and extras going into action at once. DeMille had stationed eleven cameras at various points to pick up the action. They had started work at six in the morning and the complete scene had been rehearsed four times. After each rehearsal ...

4765. Drooping Arms And Crooked Feet

Hebrews 12:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

Have you ever felt so tired that you couldn't put one foot in front of the other? Have you ever felt what an anonymous poet felt when he wrote, I wish I was a little rock. . .A sittin' on the hill A doin' nothin' all day long. . .`Cept just a sittin' still I wouldn't eat, I wouldn't sleep. . . I wouldn't even wash I'd sit and sit a thousand years. . . And rest myself, by gosh! Some people are very tired. In fact, one of the great dividing lines in this world seems to be between those who are high energy ...

4766. Come To The Feast

Luke 14:1-14

Sermon

Eric Ritz

The Academy Award winning movie, BABETTE'S FEAST, is based on a book by Isak Dinesen. Dineson wrote the book on which the movie, OUT OF AFRICA, was based. In BABETTE'S FEAST the author very creatively weaves the story of Phillipa and Martina, two daughters of a well-known Lutheran pastor in a village in the north of Denmark in the late 1870s. Their father's very rigid and strict religious discipline has shaped the entire community~s approach to life and to the expression of their Christian faith. The ...

4767. Some Things We Can Do, God Can't

2 Timothy 2:13

Sermon

King Duncan

Is there anything God can't do? It's a question that has been asked for as long as humanity has been searching for the meaning of life. God is omnipotent, we say, and omniscient ” all powerful and all knowing. There is nothing beyond God's power. There is nothing God cannot do. And yet, St. Paul tells us that there IS one thing God can't do. Listen closely to these words that he wrote to Timothy: "If we are faithless, He remains true, for He cannot deny Himself." Did you catch that? "He cannot deny Himself ...

4768. Moving Toward Sainthood

Isaiah 26:1-21

Sermon

King Duncan

Don Elder and his 6-year-old granddaughter Sarah Umhauer, both members of Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church, Buffalo, N.Y., were enjoying cider and doughnuts on Reformation Day. Elder said, "Sarah, I wish you didn't have school tomorrow so you could go to church with me and Grandma." Sarah asked, "Why are you going to church tomorrow, Grandpa?" "Because it's All Saints' Day," he replied. "But Grandpa," she said, "we're not saints, we're Lutherans." (1) I'm not going to speculate on how many Lutherans ...

4769. Overcoming "Work-avoidance Syndrome"

2 Thessalonians 3:1-5

Sermon

King Duncan

Have you ever noticed how some people are lazy? Oops ” how many people have work-avoidance syndrome? I heard about two men who were talking about going to Australia. One of them said, "Did you hear? The news says there's a diamond mine in the Outback where diamonds lay all over the ground. All you have to do is bend down and pick them up." The other guy looked offended and said, "You have to BEND DOWN?" There was a PEANUTS cartoon several years ago. Linus is addressing Snoopy who is asleep on the roof of ...

4770. A Time For Miracles

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

King Duncan

A story came across the Internet recently. Whether it is true or not is unknown. It is allegedly a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies on global organized crime. According to this report, FBI agents conducted a raid of a psychiatric hospital in San Diego that was under investigation for medical insurance fraud. After hours of reviewing thousands of medical records, the dozens of agents had worked up quite an appetite. The agent in charge of the investigation called a nearby pizza ...

4771. Resuscitating An Iguana

Ephesians 2:1-10

Sermon

King Duncan

Officer Tori Matthews of the Southern California Humane Society got an emergency call: a boy's pet iguana had been scared up a tree by a neighbor's dog. It then fell from the tree into a swimming pool, where it sank like a brick. Officer Matthews came with her net. She dived into the pool, emerging seconds later with the pet's limp body. "Well, you do CPR on a person and a dog," she thought to herself, "why not an iguana?" So she put her lips to the iguana's. "Now that I look back on it," she says now, "it ...

4772. What Makes A Family?

Mark 3:31-35

Sermon

King Duncan

It was shocking and hard to believe when one of Hollywood's most handsome and athletic stars, Christopher Reeve, suffered an accident that paralyzed him from the neck down. In one tragic moment, a single centimeter in the wrong direction, he was left a quadriplegic. Ironically, during those years when he was living in a wheelchair, most of us still associated him with his most famous role, that of SUPERMAN. In an interview years after the accident, Christopher Reeve and his wife, Dana, talked about the ...

4773. Finding Calm In The Storm

Mark 4:35-41

Sermon

King Duncan

Did you know that the bathtub was invented in 1850? The telephone was invented in 1875. "Just think," someone said, "You could have sat in the bathtub for 25 years without the phone ringing." (1) It never fails, does it? Just when you think you will have some peace and quiet, the telephone rings, or the baby cries, or a water pipe breaks, or the boss calls you into her office. Peace is a precious commodity and it is so, so elusive. Dante, the great poet of the Renaissance, was exiled from his home in ...

4774. Yearning For Rejection; Thriving On Insults

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Sermon

King Duncan

A young single man checked into a Hilton Hotel. A card left on his pillow said, "Turn down service available, 7-10 p.m." The message meant that a housekeeper was available to turn down the covers on the bed during those hours. This young man saw a different message. "Why would you ever want a service like that?" he asked. "A turn down service ” unless you have incredibly low self-esteem." He added, "Usually my turn downs come long before 7 p.m.." Have you ever been turned down? Rejected? Insulted? A group ...

4775. The Get-ready Man

Isaiah 40:1-31

Sermon

King Duncan

James Thurber once told of a thin and lanky prophet who went around his boyhood hometown crying, "Get ready! Get ready! The world is coming to an end!" The community called him the Get-Ready Man. That tag could have been applied to John the Baptist. He was a get-ready man if there ever was one: "A voice crying in the wilderness, ˜Prepare the way of the Lord.’" This is the season of getting ready. That is the purpose of Advent. It is a time to get ready for the celebration of the Lord’s birth. Norm Lawson ...

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