Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 4876 to 4900 of 5000 results

Ephesians 4:15

Sermon

James Merritt

... to do. The Bible says he left the house so fast, he left his cloak literally in her hands to get away from that temptation. Because of his faithfulness, God eventually honored him by making him the Prime Minister of Egypt. That is the real mark of spiritual maturity. When you choose a possibility that may be very charming, but is also very sinful, you choose faithfulness over compromise. III. When People Cheat Me - I Will Choose Forgiveness over Bitterness God uses trouble to teach us to trust Him. God uses ...

4877. It’s Time to Grow Up

Ephesians 4:14-15

Sermon

James Merritt

... matter if you do not behave like you believe or what you say you believe. James, the Lord's half-brother said, "Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show it by his good behavior." (James 3:13, NASB) That is why the real mark of spiritual maturity is simply obeying God. James said once again, "Do not deceive yourselves by just listening to His word; instead put it into practice." (James 1:21, TEV) Real maturity is not just learning what the Bible says, but practically applying it in the different ...

4878. Member Means Minister

Ephesians 4:11-12

Sermon

James Merritt

... is far different than what it is on planet earth. If you want to climb to the top of the ladder in God's eyes, you've got to take the rungs of service. Jesus said also, "For even I didn't come to be served, but to serve others…" (Mark 10:45, NLT) The secret to greatness in the Kingdom of God is not how many servants you have, but what kind of a servant you are. I want to ask you the key question for this day. Are you more interested in being served in the church or are ...

4879. Parenting 101

Ephesians 6:1-4

Sermon

James Merritt

... That's why Paul goes on to say "bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord" (v.4b) Now what does this mean? Well, first of all, we are to discipline our children when they are wrong. The word training literally means "discipline." Discipline is a mark of love. If you don't exercise discipline in the lives of your children; make them obey you and honor you, and treat other people with respect, you don't love your children. Prov. 13:24 says, "He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves ...

4880. We Are At War

Ephesians 6:10-20

Sermon

James Merritt

... understand this devil is interested in darkness and wickedness. We're so fond of saying that "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life." Well, I think we ought to add to that this reminder: "Satan hates you and has a wicked plan for your life." You mark this down. The devil is doing everything he can right now to either take you to hell or, if you're going to heaven, to make your trip miserable. God wants you to be happy and holy. Satan wants you to be depressed and dirty. If you're not saved ...

4881. What Do I Do When The Load Is Too Heavy?

Exodus 18:13-27

Sermon

James Merritt

... around the outside of the hull on all British ships. When the ships were loaded with freight and reached the level where the line hit the water, the ships were not allowed to load anymore freight, because they knew any load heavier than that would sink the ship. That marking on a ship's hull became known as the Plimsoll Line and we all have one. We all have limits. Have you ever noticed when you get behind a huge tractor trailer that is carrying a lot of cargo or freight, there is a sign that tells the load ...

4882. The Clone Zone: The Bible and Cloning

Genesis 1:26-28

Sermon

James Merritt

... the divine method of procreating children into the human method of manufacturing children, enabling the advance selection of a total genetic blueprint. The end result is, people are treated like things because things are manufactured, but people are begotten. Cloning would mark the first time in the history of the world of humans reproducing through asexual replication, eliminating the need for parents, and, in fact, would bring more children in the world who lacked the benefit of two parents. But let's ...

4883. Focus on the Finish

Hebrews 12:1-2

Sermon

James Merritt

... run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it." Now the Lord is not just looking for runners in this race, He is looking for winners. Everyday He wants you to strap on your running shoes; put on your running clothes; toe the mark and run your race to win. We learn in this passage of Scripture exactly how to do it. I. Lay Beside Whatever Weighs You Down "Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight…" (Heb. 12:1a) Now ...

4884. God’s Guidance System

John 16:12-15

Sermon

James Merritt

... of thousands of volts of power into households everywhere. If you were to go to the plant which is the source of this power, and follow the lines that come into the city, you would come to various transmission plants along the way that would be marked "Danger, High Voltage—No Trespassing." There are hundreds of thousands of volts of energy available to your home and mine. But the only problem is, those volts sent in their own power would burn up our home. So knowing that, the engineers have built what is ...

4885. No Doubt about It

John 20:24-29

Sermon

James Merritt

... which leads to the last step where you can come to a point in your life and say about your relationship with God and your trust in His goodness and love that there is "No Doubt About It." IV. Evaluate The Evidence When you take a question mark and you totally straighten it out - what do you have? An exclamation point. After Thomas had investigated the facts, he evaluated the evidence and here is the result. "Then He said to Thomas, "Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand ...

4886. Mary: The Promise Conceived

Luke 1:26-55

Sermon

James Merritt

... she will call His name Immanuel." (Isaiah 7:14, NASB) We learned last week from Joseph - For every problem there is a promise. Now we learn this from Mary - For every promise there is a provision. When God makes a promise that a baby will be born of a virgin, mark it down. God will provide the virgin and God will provide the birth, because for every problem there is a promise and for every promise there is a provision. The reason why God was able to use Mary in such a great and a mighty way is because she ...

4887. Broken Pieces

Matthew 1:3, 5, 6

Sermon

James Merritt

... concocted and unbelievably evil scheme. She disguised herself as a prostitute, put a veil over her face and waited for Judah by the side of the road. Judah falls for her deception, himself being willing to sleep with a prostitute, and their story is now marked with despicable sexual sin because neither one is walking with God or cares at the moment what He thinks. Out of this relationship, twin sons were conceived. Their names were Perez and Zerah. Perez, who was born first, became one of the ancestors of ...

4888. Standard Building Codes

Matthew 5:27-30

Sermon

James Merritt

... and family. It is the danger of sexual immorality. An English teacher was giving a grammar lesson one day and she said to one of her students, "Sam, what is it when I say, one quote, ‘I love you, comma, you love me, comma, he loves me, question mark?'" Sam said, "That is one of those triangles where somebody gets shot!" Some people do get shot in those kinds of situations, but the danger is even greater. Jesus had some tough words to say on this subject, far tougher than you will hear from most preachers ...

4889. The “Gratitude Salute”

James 1:19-27

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... fingers into holy water — all are up-and-down body movements that step outside the ordinary and step up our souls to the extraordinary presence of God. In the synagogue the Torah is read through in its entirely every year. On the day that marks the final reading for that year, Simchat Torah, the whole congregation rejoices, celebrating the gift of the word of God, the Torah. The usually sedate synagogue is filled with music and dancing. The ark that houses the congregation’s Torah scrolls is opened up ...

4890. A Little Dirt Is Good for You

Mark 7:1-23

Sermon

King Duncan

... However, the case seems fairly well made: a little dirt is good for you. The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem saw some of Jesus’ disciples eating food with unwashed hands. The Pharisees and all the Jews, says Mark, do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. They are very careful. When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing ...

4891. I Didn't Know How to Teach Until I Met You

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

Illustration

Keith Wagner

... Mrs. Thompson had watched Teddy the year before and noticed that he didn't play well with the other children, that his clothes were messy and he constantly needed a bath. And Teddy could be unpleasant. It got to the point where Mrs. Thompson would actually take delight in marking his papers with a broad red pen, making bold X's and then putting a big "F" at the top of his papers. At the school where Mrs. Thompson taught, she was required to review each child's past records and she put Teddy's off until last ...

4892. Who Wants To Be a Millionaire

Matthew 6:19-24

Sermon

James Merritt

... 1997) p. 82. 4 Cited by James C. Dobson, Home with a Heart (Wheaton Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1996), pp. 18-19. 5 "The Junk Mail Deluge," U.S.News & World Report, December 8, 1997, p. 40. 6 The Executive Speechwriter Newsletter, Vol. 16, No. 1. 7 Mark McCutcheon, The Compass in Your Nose and Other Astonishing Facts in Humans, p. 101. 8 Patrick M. Morley, The Man in the Mirror, p. 130. 9 Bob Dillon, Gotta Serve Somebody: (New York: Special Writer of Music) [If I ever put this chapter in a book, I ...

4893. Don’t Sweat the Big Stuff

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

James Merritt

... % are so petty that they don't make any difference at all. Of the remaining 10% only 4 to 5% are real and justifiable, and of those we can't do anything about half of them. So only 2% of our worries are real. [2] I am reminded of what Mark Twain once said: "I have been through some terrible things in my life; some of which actually happened." That is why worry is wasting today's time to clutter up tomorrow's opportunities with yesterday's troubles. I was reading the other day that the U. S. Bureau of ...

4894. The World’s Favorite Scripture

Matthew 7:1-6

Sermon

James Merritt

... Jesus was saying was this: We ought to judge ourselves before we can judge others; but we are to judge ourselves so we can judge others. Now we come to the crucial truth of this passage. Jesus is not forbidding all judgment. In fact, did you know one of the marks that you are a spiritual person is that you know how to judge at the right time, at the right place, in the right way? Listen to this passage: "But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one." (1 Cor. 2:15 ...

4895. Decisions, Decisions

Matthew 7:13-14

Sermon

James Merritt

... you have. The reason few people enter through this gate is not because the gate is too small, but because most people are too big. Jesus said, "I tell you the truth. Anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." (Mark 10:15, NIV) In other words, you don't enter into God's kingdom with the arrogance of an adult. You enter into God's kingdom with the humility of a child. Don't misunderstand, the reason relatively few people enter through this narrow gate and become a ...

4896. James 2:1-10

James 2:1-13

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... community yet another advantage. Judaism had long established traditions of community organization and social networking structures. In Judaism there was not one “tithe,” there were a number of different tithes owed throughout the year — with the funds ear-marked for specific needs, including care for the poor. The personal history of enslavement under Egypt, the mandates of Torah laws, the ringing proclamations of the prophets: all these ingredients fired up Jewish life to provide care and concern ...

4897. The Man Who Couldn't Hear - Sermon Starter

Mark 7:31-37

Illustration

Brett Blair

... of heart and peace of mind, invaluable assets in life? Deciding what we lack is the first step in securing it. Christ can fulfill our needs needs that are to some extent physical, but, more so, the deepest needs of heart, mind, and soul. The man in Mark 7 lacked the physical ability to hear. But many of us lack the spiritual ability to hear. We suffer a kind of a spiritual deafness. The affliction of not listening to people, or, to put it another way, the affliction of physically listening to people, yet ...

4898. Quiet Time Is for Listening

Mark 6:31

Illustration

Brett Blair

In Mark 6, in the middle of a bunch of chaos, Jesus took his disciples to a quiet place. I think I know why. There's a a fifth grade teacher who decided that she would use a listening process with her children. Every morning for five minutes she required them to ...

4899. She Could Not Speak Because She Could Not Hear

Mark 7:31-37

Illustration

Michael B. Brown

... film's conclusion, she finally verbalized in his presence. Her words were intelligible but not articulate, slowly formed just well enough to be understood, but not clearly. The character could not speak well because she could not hear. Apparently such was the case for the man in Mark's story. Before Jesus unlocked his tongue, first he had to open his ears. Only when he had heard a message did he have anything to say. So it is for most of us. We cannot share with others what we have not found ourselves. We ...

4900. Be Opened!

Mark 7:31-37; Matt 25:31-46

Illustration

David E. Leininger

... of the cartoon was powerful. The most noxious lifestyle of all is when compassionate words come from a care-less heart. Snoopy would no doubt prefer a blanket over a greeting. A compassionate heart is a reflection of the heart of God. ALTERNATE CONCLUSION WITH THE MARK 7 PASSAGE The Good News is that the Kingdom of God is not a pat on the head. EPHPHATHA...Be opened! Jesus exclaims and healing happens. Can the good news be limited? Is it merely a jesture? The story of a certain Gentile who sought healing ...

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