Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 4876 to 4900 of 5000 results

4876. Taking Our Penalty

John 14:1-14

Illustration

Adrian Dieleman

Friday night my wife and I went to a hockey game. It was between the Colorado Avalanche and the Mighty Ducks. Colorado's goalie got a penalty for "delay of game." A penalty in hockey means your team plays short-handed while you sit in the penalty box. Yet, during this penalty Colorado's goalie was still in the net. Do you know why? Because another player on his team was allowed to take the penalty for him. That other player was in the penalty box, suffering the consequences of what the goalie did, as if he ...

4877. You Know Your Master Is There

John 14:1-14

Illustration

Alan Carr

There is a story told of a dying man who asked his Christian doctor to tell him something about the place to which he was going. As the doctor fumbled for a reply, he heard a scratching at the door, and he had his answer. "Do you hear that?" he asked his patient. "It's my dog. I left him downstairs, but he has grown impatient, and has come up and hears my voice. He has no notion what is inside this door, but he knows that I am here. Isn't it the same with you? You don't know what lies beyond the Door, but ...

4878. What’s With the Fork?

John 14:1-4

Illustration

Alan Carr

A woman was diagnosed with a terminal illness and had been given three months to live. As she was getting her things in order, she contacted her pastor and asked him to come to her house to discuss some of her final wishes. She told him which songs she wanted sung at her funeral service, what Scriptures she would like read, and what outfit she wanted to be buried in. She requested to be buried with her favorite Bible. As the pastor prepared to leave, the woman suddenly remembered something else. "There's ...

4879. Scrape the Barnacles Off

Job 42:1-6

Illustration

Alan Carr

Along the shoreline in California it is a common sight to see - whales stopping alongside rocks as they migrate from Alaska to Mexico to scrape off barnacles. In our lifetime we also will pick up a collection of personal barnacles that will attach themselves like parasites sapping the life out of us. They must be scraped off. How did Job do it? The same way we can do it through faith. Faith is the only thing that can heal the hurts. Job scraped the barnacles off. It was painful! The scars would remain but ...

4880. One Way Out

John 14:1-14

Illustration

Edward F. Markquart

The year was 1275 BC, before Christ. The land was Egypt. The ruler was Pharaoh. The leader of the Jews was Moses. The Jews had been in slavery for four hundred years to the Egyptians, building their cities and pyramids. But God had sent the plagues, and now the Jewish nation was beginning their exodus from slavery. And at this particular moment, they were stopped by a body of water, the Red Sea, and the Egyptian chariots and horses were rapidly coming to attack and bring death and extinction. It seemed ...

4881. The Perfect Church

1 Cor. 3 & 13

Illustration

Barbara Lundblad

Those of us who are part of the Church know we are not what Jesus called us to be. We spend too much and share too little; we judge too many and love too few; we wait too long and act too late. Perhaps you are saying, "Show me a church where ministers aren't self-serving; where hypocrisy has been purged away; where church members don't waste time and energy squabbling over petty details; where love is genuine, and I'll become a member." You'll wait a long time, my friend, for such a church takes up no ...

4882. More than a Casual Follower

John 14:1-14

Illustration

Eric Ritz

The author Bill Bryson, tells of going to Hannibal, Missouri, to visit the boyhood home of Mark Twain. Mark Twain was one of his heroes. As he visited the home, he was disappointed. The home was supposed to be a faithful reproduction of the original, but it was easy to see that it was not. Far too many items from the 20th century were included in the home. In a sense it was false advertising. Mr. Bryson was further disappointed that he was not able to actually go inside the house. "You look through the ...

4883. I Am Counting with You

John 14:1-14

Illustration

Mark Trotter

Robert Drake is a Tennessean who writes stories about growing up in that part of the country a generation ago. He told a story about Miss Caroline Walker, who was a music teacher. She had been doing it for as long as anybody could remember. She was something of a legend in her county in Tennessee. She had two goals in teaching. One was to teach her girls to be ladies. So she taught them manners as much as she taught them music. She also taught them to play one piece perfectly for the May recital. She ...

4884. We Are Home Alone

John 14:15-21

Illustration

Billy D. Strayhorn

A cartoon in the Saturday Evening Post showed a young boy about five or six years old talking on the telephone, he says, "Mom is in the hospital, the twins and Roxie and Billie and Sally and the dog and me and Dad are all home alone."

4885. Sharing the Love

John 14:15-21

Illustration

Billy D. Strayhorn

I ran across a story this week about a seven-year-old granddaughter who said to her grandfather, "In this family we are kind of serious about God, aren't we?" Grandpa said, "Yes, we sure are." And the little girl asked, "Why?" Grandpa wrapped the little girl in his arms, hugged her real close and said, "So that I can hug you and tickle you and try to tell you how much I love you and how glad I am that God gave you to us." The little girl grinned and said, "That's cool." I'm not sure that hugging and ...

4886. Obedience

John 14:23-24

Illustration

Johnny Dean

Obedience … now that's pretty much a dirty word these days isn't it? I remember the very first wedding I had the honor to officiate. The young couple had requested pre-marital counseling and I agreed to provide it for them. At our first counseling session, the bride-to-be - a petite, soft-spoken, beautiful young woman who had just turned 18 a month before - said this: "Preacher, let me tell you one thing right up front. If the word 'obey' comes out of your mouth during the marriage vows, I will hike up my ...

4887. The Future Belongs to the Saviors

John 14:15-31

Illustration

King Duncan

A schoolmaster in France was discouraged with one of his students. He wrote in his roll book concerning this student: "He is the smallest, the meekest, the most unpromising boy in my class." Half a century later, an election was held in France to select the greatest Frenchman. By popular vote, that meekest, smallest, most unpromising boy was chosen. His name? Louis Pasteur, the founder of modern medicine. At age seventy-three, a national holiday was declared in his honor. He was too old and weak to attend ...

4888. The Best Relationships

John 14:15-21

Illustration

Billy D. Strayhorn

There was a college student who spent a year living with a group of Navajos as part of his doctoral studies. As he did research on and with the Native Americans, he lived with members of this one Navajo family. He slept in their home, ate their food and worked side by side with them every day. As much as was possible, he tried to live as one of them. The old grandmother of the family spoke no English and the student spoke no Navajo and yet a close relationship developed between the two. They spent a great ...

4889. Check Yourself

John 17:1-11

Illustration

Billy D. Strayhorn

Max Lucado said that one day his wife brought home a monkey. His daughters were thrilled but he wasn't; he had all kinds of questions. Where was the monkey going to eat? His wife said that it was going to sit at the table and eat with them, just like the rest of the family. Then he asked her where it was going to sleep? And she told him it was going to sleep in their bed. Then he asked, "But what about the smell?" And she said, "Oh, he'll get used to you. I did." Then Dr. Lucado went on to say, "Before you ...

4890. Pulling as a Team

John 17:1-11

Illustration

Billy D. Strayhorn

At a Midwestern fair many spectators gathered for an old-fashioned horse-pull (An event where various weights are put on a sled hitched to a horse and pulled along the ground). The grand-champion horse pulled a sled with 4,500 pounds on it. The runner up was close, with a 4,400 pound pull. Some of the folks wondered what they could pull if they were hitched together. Separately, they had totaled nearly 9,000 pounds, but when hitched and working together as a team, the winning horses were able to pull more ...

4891. Unity Isn’t Easy

John 17:1-11

Illustration

Billy D. Strayhorn

Unity isn't easy. Most of us have never learned how to disagree in love, or how to love those with whom we disagree. We're like the poet who wrote: To dwell above with saints we love, That will be grace and glory. To live below with saints we know; Well, that's another story! Unity isn't easy. But Jesus not only prayed for it, He modeled it for us. Remember when the disciples came to Him complaining about the people who were preaching and doing signs and wonders in Jesus' name but weren't part of the crowd ...

4892. Keep Climbing

John 17:1-11

Illustration

Billy D. Strayhorn

A Canadian by the name of Ashleigh Brilliant draws cartoons to go with pithy sayings called "Pot Shots." There is one I really like. Two people with walking sticks in hand are climbing a mountain in knee-deep snow. The caption reads: "Keep Climbing Upwards! You may never reach the top, but it's definitely in that direction." We have to continue to work toward unity and understanding - between each other, between the races, between cultures and between denominations. We may never reach it, but by working ...

4893. Keepers of the Aquarium

John 17:1-11

Illustration

Richard J. Fairchild

Paul Harvey, the well known radio broadcaster, once said, "Too many Christians are no longer fishers of men but keepers of the aquarium." I take that to mean that we Christians are more concerned about preserving the Church than we are about touching the lives of other people, more concerned about preserving our "religion" than we are about helping people discover the source of wholeness, the fountain of living water that wells up to eternal life.

4894. A Picture of Evangelism

John 17:1-11

Illustration

Richard J. Fairchild

An artist, seeking to depict on canvas the meaning of evangelism, painted a storm at sea. Black clouds filled the sky. Illuminated by a flash of lightning, a little boat could be seen disintegrating under the pounding of the ocean. People were struggling in the swirling waters, their anguished faces crying out for help. The only glimmer of hope appeared in the foreground of the painting, where a large rock protruded out of the water. There, clutching desperately with both hands, was one lone seaman. It was ...

4895. Hold Hands and Stick Together

John 17:1-19

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

Robert Fulghum was a feature writer for The Kansas City Times. I'm not sure he's still there, because he has written a runaway best seller entitled All I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten. That book is an expansion of an article he wrote for The Kansas City Times a few years ago. It was this article that launched his writing career. Listen to a part of it: "Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate ...

4896. Progress?

John 17:1-11

Illustration

Bill Bouknight

James Reston, the columnist, quoted his 94-year-old Presbyterian grandmother as saying, "Lots of what seems to be progress is just wickedness going faster." Three out of four Americans say there is no such thing as absolute truth and they see all truth as relative. But we Christians believe that Jesus Christ is absolute truth, and holy scriptures provide an absolute guide for faith and ethics.

4897. Humor: Hot Potato

John 17:1-11

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

In one of his writings, Thomas Carlyle told of a country boy who went to a fancy dinner. In the midst of the meal, he got a piece of hot potato in his mouth. Much to the embarrassment of all those dignified ladies and gentlemen there at the table, he spit the piece of potato out and put it back on his plate. Then he looked around at the shocked faces of all those sophisticated people and said, "You know, there's many a fool that would have tried to swallow that!"

4898. The Loss of Memory

John 17:1-26

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

One of the most memorable sections in Gabriel Garcia Marquez' prize-winning novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude concerns a strange disease that invaded the old village of Macondo from somewhere in the surrounding swamp. It is a lethal disease of insomnia that attacks the whole town. The initial effect is the inability of people to sleep, although the villagers do not feel any bodily fatigue at all. A more critical effect than that slowly manifests itself: loss of memory. Gradually the victims realize they ...

4899. Grabbing up the Truths

John 17:1-11, Phil 3:12-17

Illustration

Forty-three years ago, I read something by Sherwood Anderson in an upper-level literature class at Albion College. Which took me a while to find, given that I wanted to see if it was as I remembered it. But I did. And it was. Anderson shared a legend, suggesting that in the beginning there was a valley filled with truths. And the truths were all beautiful. There were truths about every subject under the sun. There were truths about virginity and truths about passion....truths about wealth and truths about ...

4900. A Bumper Sticker Witness

John 17:6-19

Illustration

A man was being tailgated by a stressed-out woman on a busy street. Suddenly the light turned yellow. And though he could have run it, he chose not to. The tailgating woman - who was all set to run it with him - missed his rear end by a matter of inches. Screeching to a stop, she jerked forward in her seat. Figuratively, she hit the roof. Literally, she hit the horn. Rolling down the window, she screamed and gestured (loudly and obscenely) until an officer approached her in mid-rant and had the gall to ask ...

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Antonyms: deficient, imperfect

Showing 4876 to 4900 of 5000 results

4876. Taking Our Penalty

John 14:1-14

Illustration

Adrian Dieleman

4877. You Know Your Master Is There

John 14:1-14

Illustration

Alan Carr

4878. What’s With the Fork?

John 14:1-4

Illustration

Alan Carr

4879. Scrape the Barnacles Off

Job 42:1-6

Illustration

Alan Carr

4880. One Way Out

John 14:1-14

Illustration

Edward F. Markquart

4881. The Perfect Church

1 Cor. 3 & 13

Illustration

Barbara Lundblad

4882. More than a Casual Follower

John 14:1-14

Illustration

Eric Ritz

4883. I Am Counting with You

John 14:1-14

Illustration

Mark Trotter

4884. We Are Home Alone

John 14:15-21

Illustration

Billy D. Strayhorn

4885. Sharing the Love

John 14:15-21

Illustration

Billy D. Strayhorn

4886. Obedience

John 14:23-24

Illustration

Johnny Dean

4887. The Future Belongs to the Saviors

John 14:15-31

Illustration

King Duncan

4888. The Best Relationships

John 14:15-21

Illustration

Billy D. Strayhorn

4889. Check Yourself

John 17:1-11

Illustration

Billy D. Strayhorn

4890. Pulling as a Team

John 17:1-11

Illustration

Billy D. Strayhorn

4891. Unity Isn’t Easy

John 17:1-11

Illustration

Billy D. Strayhorn

4892. Keep Climbing

John 17:1-11

Illustration

Billy D. Strayhorn

4893. Keepers of the Aquarium

John 17:1-11

Illustration

Richard J. Fairchild

4894. A Picture of Evangelism

John 17:1-11

Illustration

Richard J. Fairchild

4895. Hold Hands and Stick Together

John 17:1-19

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

4896. Progress?

John 17:1-11

Illustration

Bill Bouknight

4897. Humor: Hot Potato

John 17:1-11

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

4898. The Loss of Memory

John 17:1-26

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

4899. Grabbing up the Truths

John 17:1-11, Phil 3:12-17

Illustration

4900. A Bumper Sticker Witness

John 17:6-19

Illustration

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