Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 4926 to 4950 of 4972 results

4926. Christmas and the Condensed Bible

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... would not go forward because they interpreted that to mean that God wanted them to remain where they were. God met them in their special Tent of Meeting. God in very fact pitched a tent among them. The astonishing good news which caused the angels of heaven to leave their choir practice and put on a special performance that first Christmas is that God has now pitched His tent among us. He did so in the Man Jesus of Nazareth, whom we call the Christ. No longer do we have to look at clouds or fire as symbols ...

4927. How Do You Explain the Resurrection?

John 11:17-37

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... for others. That is what gives us the courage to stand beside the grave of a loved one and solemnly but joyfully intone the words of our Lord, “I am the resurrection and the life, the one who believes in me shall never die!” He also said, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you ...

4928. Lazarus Laughed

John 11:17-37

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... is that Lazarus, having discovered that there really is no death, finds no place in his heart for sorrow and weeping anymore. In the first act of the play a band of Roman soldiers swoops down on a group of Lazarus’ friends and relatives and leaves them mortally wounded and Lazarus looks upon the scene triumphantly and says confidently, “there is no death.” A man bending over one body says, “Here is your father, Lazarus. He is dead.” A woman beside another body says, “This is your mother, Lazarus ...

4929. Some Said It Thundered

John 12:20-36

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... on the mountain-top, where the word of divine affirmation from His heavenly Father claims Him as His own: “Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’ “ (Mark 9:7) We will leave it to the Biblical scholars to sort out just how these two stories relate to one another, and how they came to be conflated in the Fourth gospel, but in John Jesus’ agony is changed into confidence and faith. What happened? What happened is that in ...

4930. One Commandment, Slightly Used

John 13:31-38

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” That’s the Fourth Gospel’s way of saying it. When Jesus commanded His disciples to love one another, He did not leave them without any guidance or guidelines concerning that love. He said, “Love..as I have loved you.” Others may have taught like Jesus, but nobody ever loved like Jesus. St. Paul could never get over the wonder of it. In Galatians 2:20 he exclaimed, “... it is ...

4931. The Autobiography of God

John 14:5-14

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... the Bible is both hidden and revealed. One reason for this is our limited understanding. How could we handle such a revelation? I have a hunch that it would overwhelm us. Another reason that we can never see God “as He really is” is that God always leaves room for doubt. We are not forced into faith. If we could see God “as He really is,” then our freedom of choice would be gone. We would be overwhelmed by the experience, and would become mere puppets dancing on a string instead of persons who have ...

4932. Whatever Happened to those Mansions?

John 14:1-4

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... great big goose egg at the end. The language of poetry often expresses it better than prose. And so we have a Whittier singing: I know what the future has Of marvel or surprise Assured along that life and death God’s mercy underlies. Or, a Tennyson: Thou wilt not leave us in the dust, Thou madest man, he knows not why, He thinks he was not made to die; And Thou has made him: Thou art just. Our faith is based not on wishful thinking, but rather on what we have come to know of the nature of God as ...

4933. The Jesus Connection

John 15:1-17

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... in us takes a bit of getting used to. In a delightful little fantasy called The Visited Planet, J.B. Phillips wrote a little play in which a junior angel expresses amazement to a senior angel that the young Prince of Glory (Jesus) would want to leave heaven and come down to visit those “creeping, crawling creatures” on that dirty little tennis ball called earth. It is a shocking idea...and the fact that it may not shock us anymore shows us just how much we have missed the message of the Gospel. But ...

4934. On Panicking Close to Shore

John 6:16-24

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... would-be leaders of the people in revolt against Rome, they would be expected to put forth their claims at Passover time. If there were going to be any sort of political revolt, it would take place at Passover. This possibility is what led Pontius Pilate to leave his beautiful summer palace in Caesarea by the sea and journey down to Jerusalem, to take up residence in the Antonia Fortress so that he could keep his eye on what was going on in and around the Temple in Jerusalem. (The very next Passover there ...

4935. Only the Neighbors’ Kid

John 6:25-59

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... have caught a vision of that intimacy from the love and intimacy of Joseph, the silent but steady partner of His mother, Mary. After that incident in the Temple, Joseph is never mentioned again. It is generally assumed that he must have died soon afterwards, leaving Jesus as the eldest son of a large family (for the record says that he had four brothers and at least two sisters). Perhaps that is why He did not begin His earthly ministry until He was “about thirty years of age.” He had responsibilities ...

4936. The Saint Who Played Second Fiddle

John 1:35-42

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... fisherman. A very ordinary sort of fellow, if truth be told. When we think of the great personages who have flashed across the pages of human history, when we think of the great men and women of the Bible and of the Church, somehow we tend to leave Andrew out. He was not one of the outstanding characters of the New Testament. But Andrew had a Friend. And wherever we meet him on the pages of the New Testament, we find him introducing people to that Friend. I. IT ALL STARTED IN A LITTLE FISHING VILLAGE ...

4937. One Bad Apple

Matthew 26:47-56

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... the five thousand, there was a movement to make Jesus king by force. (John 26:15) When it became clear that Jesus would have nothing to do with that, many of His supporters ceased to follow Him any longer. Jesus asked the Twelve whether they, too, would leave Him. Peter protested his loyalty. It was then that Jesus said, “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?” John explains that Jesus was referring to Judas Iscariot who would one day betray Him. (John 6:66-71) Remember the story ...

4938. The Saint without a Name

Luke 6:12-16

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... . When they do, I tell them that I am a minister and each Sunday I get to wear a “robie.” I usually tell folks that it is to be pronounced like the “strobe light” and that I, too, have “intermittent flashes of brilliance.” Just how intermittent I leave for them to decide. Also, just how brilliant. Over the years I have made a hobby of collecting odd and euphonious names. I have known at least two delightful women named “Ima Card.” A few years ago a dear saint who was a member of my church ...

4939. Philip the First

John 1:43-51

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... knows more about it than you do. (Ibid., p. 90) Evidently, Philip knew when to refer. IV. PHILIP MAKES ONE LAST APPEARANCE IN THE GOSPEL RECORD. It is in the Upper Room. Jesus was talking about the Heavenly Father and telling the Twelve that He was about to leave them and go to the Father. Philip was a man for whom faith was difficult. After all he had seen and done, he could still ask, “Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied.” (John 14:8) Jesus’ reply shows a wee bit of impatience, when ...

4940. The Chicken or the Egg

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... And the word gives us trouble. In the minds of many people, the church is very much like those strange geezers one sees wandering through Hyde Park in London, wearing sandwich boards saying Repent! There is a cartoon showing a mother, a father, and a small boy leaving church. The father was wearing a look of annoyance and saying to his son, “I want you to stop referring to the church as the repentagon.” But the little boy was right. The message of repentance must always be part of the church’s message ...

4941. Jesus and the Baptists

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... OF JESUS PRESENTS A PROBLEM.” (William Barclay, DAILY STUDY BIBLE; MARK, Phila.: The Westminster Press, 1956. p. 9) How so? Because John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. It was meant for those who were sorry for their sins and wished to leave them behind. But down through the ages, Christians have always insisted that Jesus was sinless..that is, He is the One who perfectly performed the will of God. Why was Jesus baptized? What did the Baptism of Jesus mean? Barclay suggests four things: For ...

4942. Jesus Came Preaching

Mark 1:14-15

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... with him have changed men and nations.” (PREACHING THE GOOD NEWS, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Co., 1976. p. 3) He goes on: “If what a preacher says can alter even slightly the direction in which people are aimed when they leave the church, the effect can be beyond all calculation.” What people think determines everything. Lincoln said: With the public sentiment nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who moulds public opinion goes deeper than he who enacts statutes ...

4943. Only a Carpenter

Mark 6:1-6

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... scandalized”-that’s what the Greek word means. I have a hunch that there is much about Jesus which scandalizes us, too. Unfortunately, most of us put up a good front, and listen to His words in church. But I wonder how often we think of them after we leave the sanctuary? I am afraid that far too many of us, myself included, live in not only “split-level homes,” but live split-level lives. There is Sunday morning, and then there is the rest of the week. There is what we do in church, and what we do ...

4944. On Getting the Gospel Out

Mark 6:7-13

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... meaning “Good News.” We must, therefore, rescue it from those who have given the good news a bad name. You and I, like Pat Robertson, may be embarrassed to be called evangelists, but that is what we are...or are supposed to be. Our calling as we leave this place this morning is to go out and lead the world to repentance, to cast out demons, and to heal the sick. And, believe me, there are a lot of demons and lot of sicknesses out there. There is war, racism, poverty, chemical dependency, greed, and a ...

4945. A Sign for a Sign

Mark 8:11-13

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... when the Messiah came the most startling things would happen.” False messiahs were cropping up all over the place, and they “lured the people by promising them astonishing signs. The would promise, for instance, to part the waters of the Jordan in two and leave a pathway through it, or they would promise, with a word, to make the city walls fall down. It was a sign like that that the Pharisees were demanding.”(Daily Study Bible, Phila.: Westminster Press, 1956, P.189) I. I FIND IT STRANGE THAT MARK ...

4946. Men Like Trees Walking

Mark 8:22-26

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... the second time. Prof. Williamson, in his excellent commentary on Mark says of this passage: “For once, in Mark, Jesus’ attempt to heal someone seems not to be immediately successful. The need for a second touch may explain why Matthew and Luke leave this story out. Yet this two-stage movement is the very point of the story in Mark, tying it closely to its context and pointing most clearly to its significance for disciples today.” (Lamar Williamson, Interpretation, Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1983, p ...

4947. Radical Surgery

Mark 9:42-50

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... beyond help, we are not loathe to amputate in order to save everything else. When a tumor is malignant and threatens to take our entire life away, we are not hesitant to say to the surgeon, “Cut it out!” It is far better to leave behind the tumor than to threaten one’s whole existence. We understand the principle involved. And what is true in the physical realm, translates over into the spiritual realm. If there is something in our lives: some habit, some action, some attitude, that gets between ...

4948. God’s Strange Arithmetic

Mark 10:1-12

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... two become one” it means that each one is doubled, but not duplicated. You still retain your individual identity, but you add to yourself the identity of the other, and the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” (Mark 10:7) A wise person once said: “A marriage consists of one master, one mistress, and two slaves; making, in total, one.” That may be strange arithmetic ...

4949. Knight of the Woeful Countenance

Mark 10:17-31

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... we have called the “rich, young ruler.” We have the idea that Jesus’ words to him do not apply to us because none of us is “rich,” many of us are not “young,” and few of us get much of a chance to rule anything. But I would leave you with this startling thought: every one of us here today is richer than this “rich young ruler.” The average person in this congregation is richer than this so-called rich young ruler ever hoped to be! And is certainly richer compared to most of the world’s ...

4950. Are We Able?

Mark 10:35-45

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... , and he clambered down the ladder triumphantly to tell the kids to plug in the lights. They did. And the letters blazed forth against the darkening sky -“LEON!” (From an Advent “Calendar of Devotions” by Jo Carr and Donna Cash, Abingdon Press, 1980, p. 29) Leave it to us, like James and John, to get things backwards.“...but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.” (Mark 10:43-44) If the coming of Christ into that world ...

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