Sermon and Worship Resources

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4926. How Do You Like Yourself?

1 Peter 3:8-22

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

Tell me, what do you think of yourself? How do you feel about living with you? You know, the precedents aren’t too encouraging. A man that we call Saint Peter cried out: "O, Lord, keep away from me, for I am a sinful man." A man whom we call Saint Paul had the words wrenched out of him: "O, wretched man that I am." And the great king, David, cried out in the Psalm: "I am a worm" - I am a worm! - "and no man." Or make it more contemporary. A teenage girl in my study stated her problem honestly: "People don’ ...

4927. Advertised Goodness

Matthew 6:1-2, Matthew 6:5-6

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

Children and adults, listen as I tell you the legend of the proud frog. This frog wanted to visit his cousins in a pond several miles away, but that's a long journey for a slow moving frog. But in the pond where he resided, there were some Canadian geese. The observant frog noted how much they liked corn. This enterprising frog found a flat, strong stick about four feet long. He approached the geese with a proposition: "If two of you will take the two ends of this stick in your mouths, I will clamp my ...

4928. Getting on the Active List

John 1:35-42

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

Popular talkshow hostess Oprah Winfrey has lots of influence. She has 15 to 20 million daily viewers. Evidently, she has the power to create a best-seller. Since she has started recommending books on her show, sales of the titles chosen have skyrocketed. For example, the first book she recommended, a novel entitled "The Deep End of the Ocean," had only sold about 100,000 copies. Since being featured on her program, 850,000 copies have been snapped up, propelling it to the top of the New York Times best- ...

4929. Reconciliation

Luke 23:26-43

Sermon

Burton F. Blair

One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, "Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!" But the other rebuked him, saying, "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deseive for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." He replied, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise." Luke 23: ...

4930. Call Waiting

1 Samuel 3:1--4:1

Sermon

Frederick C. Edwards

Samuel was one of those children born rather late in the life of a woman who dearly wanted a child. To have a child was Hannah’s most earnest prayer. Indeed the writers of the scriptures regarded a child born late in life as an indication of God’s special favor. Hannah, Samuel’s mother, must have thought so too, and while he was still an infant, as soon as he was weaned, he was offered into the service of the Lord in thanks to God for his birth. That’s how it happened that this young boy named Samuel came ...

4931. And Now For Something Completely Different

Isaiah 43:14-28

Sermon

Frederick C. Edwards

At the end of a week-long retreat in a mountain camp setting a somewhat different kind of worship service was taking place. It was at the end of a day that had been set aside for introspection and talking about feelings of self-worth. There had been some discussion about how to deal with feelings of guilt and the need to feel forgiven, and how it is often easier to forgive someone else than to forgive oneself. Since this was a retreat of church people there was frequent reference to the forgiving nature of ...

4932. Not of the World

John 17:6-19

Sermon

Richard A. Jensen

The preacher urged his television congregation to tithe. "Give 10¼ of your income to the Lord," he said. "But why should I tithe?" someone asked him. "To get," the preacher replied. "We tithe in order to get. I want to get healed, I want to get well, I want to get money, I want to get prosperous." This popular form of Christianity was recently written up in Time magazine. The "prosperity Gospel." That is what it is called. There are many who peddle its wares. You might have heard some of them on radio or ...

4933. Out of the Wilderness Comes New Life

Mark 1:9-13

Sermon

George Bass

Jesus’ life - and his story - might very well have ended before it really began. The Palestinian wilderness might easily have become his tomb, and those who periodically look for the bones of Jesus, yet never find them, just might have been successful. Do you remember how the controversial Episcopal bishop, James Pike, went out into that same wilderness with his wife less than twenty years ago, and perished after their car broke down and they were left to the scorching rays of the sun? That could have ...

4934. We May Have to Change Our Name

Isaiah 61:1-11

Sermon

Richard L. Eslinger

You can find them in almost every big, old downtown church: the pictures of the pastors of that congregation. They are lined up in a rogues’ gallery of clerics. And they look down at us over their names and dates. As you walk down the hall and move back through the decades, some things are easy to notice. The collars get out of date, and then simply strange-looking. Sideburns march up and down as if matched to the stock market cycles. Above all, the farther back you get, the sterner they look in those ...

4935. The Kingdom And The Seed

Mark 4:4-20; 30-32

Sermon

Ron Lavin

Most of us have planted a garden or lived on or near a farm. In my case, I grew up in Chicago where they have to put cows in zoos because so many city people are shielded from agricultural life and would never otherwise get to see one. But for eleven years I served as the pastor of a church in the agriculturally-oriented community of Davenport, Iowa. Davenport is located in Scott County which is Mississippi River land. It is reported to be some of the richest soil in the world. I learned a lot about ...

4936. Faith As Healing Energy

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

Most doctors would agree with Norman Cousins, who wrote recently in a national magazine, "The belief system is often activator of the healing system."1 Faith actually affects the chemistry of the body. It can be so specific that it has been called "Spiritual energy injection." Faith makes a difference in health. Through faith (trust), energy channels are opened between the Creator and the created and our bodies begin to function as they are designed to. Even when we feel as though we’re cornered, we are ...

4937. Blind No More

Mark 10:46-52

Drama

Robert F. Crowley

Theme: Faith takes some doing on the part of the person. Summary: Bartimaeus tells his story. He was healed by Jesus and he is anxious to spread the good news about Jesus. A monologue. Playing Time: 5 minutes Setting: Your church Props: None Costumes: First century, beggar Time: The present Cast: Bartimaeus BARTIMAEUS: (ENTERS) So, what do you think? About me, I mean? What do you think? Oh, wait a minute. They told me you would be people from Jericho. You're not from Jericho, are you? Well, that's the ...

4938. The Word of the Cross

1 Corinthians 1:18--2:5

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

In the center of Christianity stands the cross of Christ. The Apostle Paul defines the whole gospel as "the word of the cross." Both the Christian message and the Christian life are cruciform, bearing the shape of the cross. Thus we cannot avoid speaking about the cross, directly or indirectly, throughout the year. But during Lent, and especially on Good Friday, we try to keep silent and let the cross speak its word to us. We are not commissioned to trim and hew the cross to suit our desires, much less to ...

4939. God’s Wounded Healers

Jeremiah 8:4--9:26

Sermon

Gregory J. Johanson

ROBERT A. RAINES is a prolific author, currently Director of Kirkridge Retreat and Study Center in Bangor, Pennsylvania, following twenty years in parish work. His sermon, God’s Wounded Healers, was preached on a return visit to First United Methodist Church of Germantown, Pennsylvania, where he had been co-minister from 1961-1970. In it he lifts up the principle that our preaching has its greatest strength and integrity sometimes when we are speaking from the experiential knowledge of our own wounds such ...

4940. When the Word Comes to the Wilderness

Luke 3:1-20

Sermon

William G. Carter

You can tell Christmas is on the way when the catalogs start arriving in the mail. Long before the first snowflake falls, there is an avalanche of slick paper flyers. They come as gifts from merchants with toll-free phone numbers, all in the hope that we will buy what they have to offer. Last year the first catalog came from a company that specializes in Christian home decorations. Like other catalogs, there were smiling snowman doormats and weatherproof gift-wrap for covering the mailbox. On page three, ...

4941. Twelve O'Clock Rock: When the Jailhouse is Rocked

Acts 16:16-40

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

The prisoners and the jailers had their world rocked one midnight 2,000 years ago. The report includes the following details: 1:00: Paul and Silas while on their way to a place of prayer see a slave girl who was popular for telling the fortunes of others. She made much money from this enterprise and a fortune for her owners. Each day she would go to the town square and as people passed by she would shout out her readings of their future. Some revered the slave girl for the accuracy of her predictions. ...

4942. A Messenger of Promise

Malachi 2:17--3:5

Sermon

Harry N. Huxhold

A journal titled The Religion and Society Report once editorialized that people are tempted to treat religion and society purely in terms of sociology or in terms of the politics of religion. The fact is that church bodies and ecclesiastical institutions are fair game for the sociologists who like to try to measure the churches as being either to the right or to the left. However, most sociologists are not in a favorable position to make judgments in that regard, because they do not understand that they ...

4943. Not So Amazing Grace

John 6:25-59

Drama

Dave Marsh

Director's Notes: Our pastor is starting a series on the popular "Prayer of Jabez" and I wrote this drama to coincide with his first part on 'Blessings.' This particular sketch deals with saying a blessing over our food. I thought about how saying grace might be the only time people actually ask for God's blessing on their life (Bless this food.) And even then, many times, it's either not sincere or simply ritualistic. Cast: Tom: A husband Jennifer: A wife Props: A table 2 chairs A newspaper 2 plates with ...

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