Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 4901 to 4925 of 4999 results

Jeremiah 30:1--31:40

Sermon

Argile Smith

... Jesus and confirm that he speaks out of a firsthand relationship with the Father. He assured us that we could have that kind of relationship with God ourselves through him. So it has been for us who have given ourselves to Jesus Christ. We ... doing something new in the hearts of his people. It also promises that God’s ready to help people have a change of heart, the kind of change that can last into eternity. He is willing to do something about the sin in our hearts. Through Jeremiah’s prophecy, God told ...

4902. The Lamb

Revelation 7:9-17

Sermon

Argile Smith

... heard in his conversation with the Lord moved them deeply. According to the record of the event, some of them gave up on persecuting believers and became Christians themselves. Polycarp’s act of kindness turned out to be as extreme as his age. What do you think he must have said in his prayer to render that kind of response from his captors? And think about the confidence and compassion that blended together in his prayer and provision for them. No wonder that some of his captors couldn’t go through ...

4903. Be Shrewd

Luke 16:1-15

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... who kept yelling “Alive! Alive! Here! Here! Did you ever see a two-headed baby? Come in! Come in!” The gaff is that they don’t have a two-headed baby inside the tent. They only asked if you ever saw one. This is the kind of shrewdness being celebrated in today’s Scripture reading. Carlos Fuentes (1928-2012), the Mexican novelist and playwright whom some called “the soul of Mexico,” gave a long interview about his writing shortly after he turned 50 and began to contemplate his mortality. “I ...

4904. Work Like the Who?

Luke 16:1-15

Sermon

King Duncan

... praising the man for doing something about his situation. Notice how Jesus ends this parable. In verse eight we read, “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.” Jesus was not praising his dishonesty, but his ingenuity and his initiative. That’s the plain meaning of this parable. This man took hold of his life and got himself out of a tight situation. He didn ...

4905. The Healing Power of Faith

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon

King Duncan

... word of hope for us in our seasons of desperation. Christ hears our pleas as well as theirs. Christ is available to us as well as to them. And Christ still heals. There was a woman who was in despair in the final stages of a terminal illness. A kind visitor from the church would come to see her from time to time. One day, the ill woman stood in front of her living room window and said, “It feels like God is completely shut out from my life.” And, in symbolic nature, she slammed the curtains closed. Her ...

4906. He Ascended Into Heaven

Luke 24:44-53

Sermon

David O. Bales

... in Jerusalem when Jesus ascends, because he’s gone only from sight. He reaches you now in ways you can understand because he’s ascended not just into heaven, but into your very life. He’s here again to bless you from the inside out with the kind of life he lived. As you follow Jesus you are amazed how often you now say, “Bye-bye” to things you thought you’d never part from without a great deal of suffering. 1. Lori Wiener in Joanna Laufer and Kenneth Lewis, Inspired Lives: Exploring the Role ...

4907. The Right Reason

Matthew 6:1-4

Sermon

David O. Bales

... radio wears us out with them. How many “like” songs have you heard? The sidekick Sancho sings his “like” song about this rather crazy self-proclaimed knight. And as moderate as the song sounds, it explains why Sancho sticks with Quixote and suffers all kind of indignities because of him. Sancho likes him. Because he does, in the novel Don Quixote and Sancho Panza talk all the time. They might frustrate one another, but they talk mile after mile on their strange quest. When you like someone, you want ...

4908. The Story of Christmas

John 1:1-18

Sermon

King Duncan

... see her again. Before long he was strongly infatuated with her. He desperately desired to ask her hand in marriage. But how should he go about it? Of course, as the prince, he could order her to the palace and command her to be his wife. But what kind of marriage would that be? Again, he thought that he might masquerade as a peasant. Then when he had won her interest he would pull off his mask, as it were, and reveal his true identity. Such trickery, however, did not appeal to the prince. Finally he hit ...

4909. Really!

Luke 20:27-40

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... yet appear what we shall be" (1Jn3:2). If we are to approach every person we meet as Jesus did, we will see at least three things in every person: First, original. Jesus treated everyone he encountered as a one-of-a-kind, an original piece of divine art. Jesus never saw Samaritans and sinners, tax collectors and tarnished souls, possessed spirits and the pitiful poor. Jesus only ever saw singular creations, unique children, resurrection saints, heaven-sent, heaven-bound angels. Jesus only ever saw uniquely ...

4910. A Faith that Will Bring You Alive

Luke 20:27-40

Sermon

King Duncan

... feel very guilty for all the wrong reasons. The biblical answer to this question would be, by all means re-marry if that is where your heart leads you. Marriage is only for this world. Your beloved former spouse who is now with God lives in a different kind of world that knows no marriage, only pure and unrestricted love. You need feel no guilt, no sense of betrayal if someone else fills the loneliness you now find in your heart. Remember those vows, “till death do us part.” And this brings us to Jesus ...

4911. Dancing for Joy (Thanksgiving)

Philippians 4:2-9

Sermon

King Duncan

... and thrown into jail. Imagine that! They did what they believed God wanted them to do and they were running into all kinds of problems! At this point, Paul and Silas have a choice: will they give in to self-pity? Will they begin complaining? ... been a blessing!” (6) That is the testimony of many people who have been through similar trials. They are grateful for the kind of people they have become. Dr. Michael Collins, an orthopedic surgeon, tells of one of his most memorable patients, an eighteen-year- ...

4912. A New Name for a New Year

Ephesians 1:1-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... . She is a prostitute in a country tavern. She assures him that she is “the most casual bride of the murderous scum of the earth.” Her real name she says is Aldonza. She resents Quixote’s intrusion in her life and screams at him, insisting that she is no kind of lady. But Don Quixote persists, “And still thou art my lady.” He says that he sees heaven when he sees her, to which she replies that all she can see is a dream covered with rusty tin. Don Quixote’s family tries to make him face reality ...

4913. "Before" and "After"

Psalm 31:1-24

Sermon

King Duncan

... hearts overflow with unbelievable joy. That’s what God can do. Hold on. There is always a way out with God. That’s the kind of faith the Psalmist has. After cataloguing the multitude of heartaches he has faced, he writes these words of hope. 14 But I trust ... maturing of her faith. Failure and heartache and loss will do that for a person. The author of our Psalm for today knew about the kind of faith that is “Before” and “After.” And when it was all over here is what he had to say, 14 But I trust ...

4914. What Difference Does it Make?

Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

Tony Everett

... group had burned palm branches all right but they were too dry. He recalled that he learned in seminary that a small amount of olive oil should be mixed with ashes first. Frantically racing to the church kitchen, Carl searched everywhere for olive oil or any kind of oil… but to no avail. Seeing the water fountain, Carl thought, “Oh, what difference does it make anyway… as long as the ashes are wet.” Well, the story of that Ash Wednesday many years ago is still told in Carl’s first parish. You see ...

4915. What Does Jesus Look Like?

Isaiah 52:13--53:12

Sermon

Tony Everett

... . God began to bring into focus an even sharper picture of the depth of God’s own passion for the world. In Jesus Christ, God’s love entered the world and lived in the midst of the people (John 1:14). In Jesus Christ, God’s innocent, kind, and compassionate servant, God chose to defeat the control of sin and suffering. Aha! Now even more detail can be added to Jenny’s multi-colored drawing. In addition to a body tormented with suffering, we can also see a heart filled with love, eyes over flowing ...

4916. In the Mood for Murder

Matthew 5:21-26

Sermon

King Duncan

... would rather not stay in heaven! One of these is a woman whose husband had treated her shabbily on earth. She decides to return to hell. The reason is she would rather burn in hell than forgive her husband. (4) I have seen people with that kind of anger that kind of resentment within them. And the results are often so tragic. Some time ago I heard about two unmarried sisters who inherited the old family homestead when their parents died. They lived together in peace for several years, but one day they had a ...

4917. Honk If Something Falls Off

Matthew 5:43-48

Sermon

King Duncan

... clear, says Doyal: living an “I’m not perfect, so get over it” life is not what he is advocating here. Admitting that your imperfections show up on occasion is another matter. Second, this driver God bless his sweet soul assumes that people will be so kind as to inform him if he drops a chunk of truck on his journeys: a muffler, a bumper, a hubcap, the transmission. With wear and age, the old truck may just accidentally litter the road. This is not something he wants, but knows may happen. Yet, says ...

4918. Fear of Missing Out

Matthew 5:38-42

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... are winners. With Christ, you are never missing out. God's grace is an automatic "in". Once we’ve Powered Down, and given God’s healing powers time to restore us, then we can Power Up. But Power Up in Safe Mode. Powering up in Safe Mode means choosing Jesus’ kind of FOMO over the world’s kid of FOMO. It means allowing Jesus’ strength and power to be your driving force. When you Power Up with Christ, you Move On from your Fear Of Missing Out on what others are doing and saying, and you Move Up to a ...

4919. The Voice-activated Life

2 Peter 1:12-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... your heart? “Ask Siri" is becoming our answer to everything in life. If we don't know how to do something, don't know how to handle something, don't know where to go? We ask Siri. Siri is our 21st version of a ouija board. We ask Siri all kinds of strange questions. We ask her to predict and presume. Problem is: we treat God that way too. We make God into a soothsayer instead of a Savior, seeking answers to our life questions as though from an astrological chart. For some, there is no need for God. Siri ...

4920. Voice Recognition

John 20:19-23

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... in a “dialogue.” It is a pretend back-and-forth discussion, but it is only one person who is doing the talking. We are all ventriloquists at times . . . speaking in voices different from our own. But disciples of Jesus are called to be a different kind of “ventriloquist.” We have real conversations with real people in the real world, but we are called to speak with a Jesus voice. We are to echo the voice of Christ, the voice that calmed the terrified disciples in the locked upper room, the voice ...

4921. Don't Roll It Back

1 Peter 2:4-12

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... Christ in the world, a people who act in Jesus’ name to heal, bless, and live in the holiness of truth? *Would we prefer NOT to sacrifice our isolation, our sin, our independence to be indwelt by the living Christ and chiseled together with others in this new kind of “body?” *Would we rather God be enclosed in a tomb or temple than to have to fit together and form with other people a living temple? *If God can “move” a stone away from a tomb and uncork the genie of resurrection, are we afraid of ...

4922. A Holy Kiss (Father's Day)

2 Corinthians 13:11-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... up each morning by gently kissing him on the forehead and quietly whispering the boy’s name in his ear. One time, just as this kindly father leaned in to kiss his son on the forehead, his son awoke with a start and reflexively swung his fist and punched his dad ... . With a little quiver, she finally said, “Here, Daddy. It’s for you.” With tears gathering in his own eyes, Jenny’s kind daddy reached out with one hand to take the dime-store necklace, and with the other hand he reached into his pocket and ...

4923. Second Nature through Spirit Nurture

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... deemed anything but annoying and in the way of political progress while they were alive. * The “little ones,” those vulnerable, defenseless children, or those without any kind of social or political power — were never part of anyone’s social equation. Here Jesus is worrying about those no one else worried about. Here Jesus is being kind and considerate to those no one else took seriously. Jesus’ words and witness said something different that the convention. Jesus’ words in Matthew 10:40-42 ...

4924. Pastor, Don't Talk About That!

Romans 6:1-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... Leadership magazine several years ago in which two couples are seated in a living room engaged in a study of this very teaching concerning dying to sin. One of the women is speaking. “Well,” she says, “I haven’t actually died to sin, but I did feel kind of faint once.” (3) That’s where many people are today. We’re not quite dead to sin; we’re merely a little faint. And many of us are hurting. For example, I read recently that twenty million people in this country are dealing with some sort ...

4925. On the Ropes: Round 1 - Doubting God

Habakkuk 1:1-4

Sermon

James Merritt

... is wrestling with his faith in God and he is wrestling with the God of his faith. What makes this particular prophetical book unique from all the other ones is that whereas almost all the other prophetical books are either a long extended sermon, or some kind of a letter, or just a repeated series of warnings against a rebellious Israel, this book is really a dialogue between Habakkuk and God. It is his personal diary of three prayers he prayed to God and two answers from God. We are entitling this series ...

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