Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 26 to 50 of 67 results

26. All Saints

Psalm 34:1-22, Revelation 7:9-17, 1 John 2:28--3:10, Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon Aid

Marion L. Soards, Thomas B. Dozeman, Kendall McCabe

... of the eschatological age is being taken during a time of persecution. Thus the present experience of the Church at the time of John's writing does not support in any way his future vision of it. The power of this text lies precisely in this discontinuity, for it states that our experience in this world cannot be a reliable indicator of the character of God or even of the quality of our salvation. John makes this point through the central image of the text in v. 14, when the elder, who is interpreting ...

27. Turning Jesus Down

John 4:5-42

Illustration

John N. Brittain

... they are asked to participate or sing hymns; and they do not want sermons dealing with topics like sin, personal ethics, world hunger, or self-sacrifice. In response to such trends, a few years ago one of the larger churches in Evansville discontinued serving communion or baptizing people during regular worship services. They discovered that people didn't want religious rituals that talk about the new birth or the body and blood of Christ; they wanted a fellowship that will basically affirm who they are ...

28. Missing the Point

John 10:1-21

Illustration

Steve Jackson

... a church in Iowa announced: The Low Self-Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday from 7 to 8:30p.m. Please use the back door. Another church's bulletin carried this announcement: Due to the Pastor's illness, Wednesday's healing services will be discontinued until further notice. During a service one preacher made this announcement: "This being Easter Sunday, we will now ask Mr. Vassilas to come forward and lay an egg on the altar. Another church newsletter had this: At the evening service tonight, the topic ...

29. 1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50

1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... point with a series of four antitheses. Within this series, the reader would do well to keep in mind Paul's conversion experience. The focus Paul brings to this issue of resurrection highlights the contrast between the old and the new, the discontinuity between the two, and the totally miraculous nature of this transformation. What is sown, Paul says, is perishable. What is raised is imperishable. If what dies is physical, therefore, what is raised must be spiritual. Verse 44b is presented as an inescapable ...

30. 1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50

1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

31. Leaping from Recognition Point

2 Samuel 11:26—12:13a

Sermon

Stan Purdum

... human nature. In a previous church appointment, I had the idea one time to put a small box in the back of the church and invite parishioners to drop in suggestions for sermon topics. I received a few helpful suggestions from the box, but I eventually discontinued it because every so often someone would drop in a suggestion that started something like, "Preach a sermon about how people shouldn't do thus and so." The tone of those notes convinced me that somebody was ticked off at somebody else and wanted to ...

32. New Covenant, New Testament

Jeremiah 31:27-34

Sermon

John Wayne Clarke

... of the old covenant that resulted in the destruction of the nation, created a very important question. "How can a holy God maintain a relationship with a sinful people?" The answer is in this new covenant. The new covenant involves both continuity and discontinuity. There will be continuity. Like the old, the new covenant will be rooted in, and rest upon, the divine initiative. In other words, God will act in sovereign grace. Also, it will have as its intent the full realization of a dynamic relationship ...

33. We Believe in Jesus Christ

John 20:19-31

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... I know of no statement more hotly debated today in Christendom than this question: Is Christ the way to salvation? After all, isn't everyone trying to get to the same place? No, not really. Buddhists are trying to get to Nirvana which is total discontinuance of personal existence. Muslims are seeking the joys of paradise where they can enjoy the full delights of the flesh that are denied in this life. Christians hope for a personal resurrection into the presence of the Lord. After all, aren't all religions ...

34. The Kingdom for Which We Long

Matthew 13:31-35, Matthew 13:44-46, Matthew 13:47-52

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... s all right, everything is going to be all right.” The lady smiled. The hope of people of faith is that it’s going to be all right even when it seems to be all wrong. The kingdom of God is both now and not yet. Someday Kleenexes will be discontinued and funeral homes will go out of business. Caskets will be converted into toy chests. Someday the darkness will turn to dawning and night will be no more. Someday God will reign as King of kings and Lord of lords. Happy are those who by faith know that it is ...

35. Connected

John 15:1-8

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... of the prodigal son is all about. Our God is a God of Second Chances. Conclusion Have you ever seen the movie "Galaxy Quest?" It is a send up and spoof of the sci fi series of the 60's. The "crew" of a long-discontinued TV show is kidnapped and called upon to save an alien civilization. This alien civilization thinks the show represents "historical documents." Remember "Captains log 3452." Anyway, the aliens have based all of their technology, customs and lifestyle on scenes from the show. When the "crew ...

36. Not Another Rerun!

Jeremiah 31:27-34

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

... people since then, God comes back again, but not just with a rerun of what didn't work before. God comes back with a new covenant. What is it, though, that makes this covenant in some way new? The newness does not consist in a radical discontinuity with the content and structure of the old covenants. The covenant at Sinai in particular also emphasized the initiative of God and an intimate relationship between God and his people (Exodus 19:1-6). The point is that God's character remains constant and trust ...

37. A New Beginning

Isaiah 65:17-25

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

... verb "create" in verses 17 and 18 is not a pure future tense. It can be translated as "I am beginning to create." Therefore, the new heavens and the earth, though not yet fully manifested, have already begun to appear. There is continuity and discontinuity with present reality; what God does always has an "already but not yet" quality to it from a human perspective locked in time. But the prophet is able to see time and space from God's perspective, which is not chronological and episodic. Past, present ...

38. Israel Rebels Against Rehoboam

2 Chronicles 10:1--11:4

Understanding Series

Louis C. Jonker

... where Israel’s past impinged on the Judahite history. This confirms that the Chronicler’s version is not merely a reduction or abridged version of the Deuteronomistic text—it is surely another history that stands in continuity, but also in discontinuity, with the older historiographical tradition. The concept of All-Israel figures prominently in the genealogical introduction to the book (1 Chron. 1–9) as well as in the David-Solomon narratives. Does the exclusion of the northern kingdom’s history ...

39. Paul Before Agrippa

Acts 25:23--26:32

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... definition. For a long time he had lived as a Pharisee, the strictest sect of the Jewish religion (v. 5). His purpose in stating this was to establish his credentials as a Jew (which were clearly impeccable) and then to suggest that there was no discontinuity between his Jewish upbringing and his present belief. The hope instilled by the one had been fulfilled by the other. It was a strange irony, therefore, that he should now be on trial—the reference was to the whole legal process in which he was ...

40. Paul Opposes Peter

Galatians 2:11-21

Understanding Series

L. Ann Jervis

... —the most eminent Christian—was in the wrong. The Greek participial construction translated “in the wrong” (kategnōsmenos ēn) expresses Paul’s perception that Peter had been “in the wrong” over a period of time but that when Paul opposed him Peter discontinued his actions. Consequently Peter is now not condemned. Paul may be using this story in part to counter any rumors that he and Peter remain at odds after the incident. The record follows naturally from Paul’s record of his triumph at ...

41. The Coming of the Lord

1 Thessalonians 4:13--5:11

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... viewed that life as something altogether new, rather than as the extension of the life that we now have. But in the light of his analogy of the seed in 1 Corinthians 15:37f., that distinction should not be pressed. There will be both continuity and discontinuity between what we are and what we will be. See further Williams, Promise, pp. 119–21. 5:11 As in 4:18, with the prospect of the Parousia as his premise and using the same words as before, Paul demands: Therefore, encourage one another (for parakale ...

42. Rebuilding the Altar

Ezra 3:1-6

Understanding Series

Leslie C. Allen

... was responsible for laying it in the later period. The second tradition, in Ezra 5:16, says that Sheshbazzar laid it during Cyrus’ reign. There is no reason to doubt either tradition. The attribution of the renewed task to Zerubbabel indicates that the earlier, discontinued work was overlooked after such a lapse of time. The narrator evidently merged the two traditions, taking his cue from 2:2, as in 3:2. Perhaps he was influenced by the prediction in Isaiah 44:28 that Cyrus would order the laying of ...

43. Everything Is Meaningless

Ecclesiastes 1:1-11

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Huwiler

... hebel, translated meaningless in the NIV. The vocabulary underscores the sense: Qohelet claims that everything is meaningless, and in this verse, nearly everything is. 1:3–11 The opening poem (which some identify rather as stately prose), has stylistic continuities and discontinuities with the rest of the book. Although it is framed with statements about the human situation (vv. 3–4,10–11), the heart of the poem (vv. 4–7) refers to natural phenomena: earth, sun, wind, water. As these represent the ...

44. An Invasion of Locusts

Joel 1:1-12

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... morning and evening burnt offerings of lambs (cf. Exod. 29:38–41; Num. 28:3–8). God had prescribed these as the means by which Israel could enter into communion with him. So important were these daily sacrifices to Israel’s life that they were not discontinued even when the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem in the first century (Josephus, War 6.1–8). Unlike many of the earlier prophets, Joel does not criticize Israel’s sacrificial worship (cf. Isa. 1:11, 13; Jer. 7:21–22; Hos. 6:6; 8:11). Indeed ...

45. No Confidence in the Flesh

Philippians 3:1-11

Understanding Series

F. F. Bruce

... desires. Paul’s older contemporary, Philo of Alexandria, agrees that circumcision signifies “the cutting away of pleasure and all passions and the destruction of impious glory,” but disagrees with those who maintain that the external rite may be discontinued if the spiritual lesson is practiced (Migration of Abraham. 92). Here, therefore, Paul applies to those who insist on the external rite a disparaging parody of the sacral word—a parody that links literal circumcision with those pagan cuttings ...

46. Riddles and Metaphors

Ezekiel 15:1-8, Ezekiel 16:1-63, Ezekiel 17:1-24

Understanding Series

Steven Tuell

... is clear that Ezekiel understands none of these covenants as “everlasting” in the sense that they guarantee survival for Israel: indeed, quite to the contrary, Judah and Jerusalem are doomed. As in Jeremiah 31:31–34, the promised covenant is implicitly discontinuous with the former, broken one (see the discussion of Ezek. 11:19–21, above). Ezekiel, Jeremiah and, later, Second Isaiah, understood berit ʿolam in new ways. For these prophets of the exile, the focus of the berit ʿolam became the future ...

47. Egypt

Ezekiel 29:1-21, Ezekiel 30:1-26, Ezekiel 31:1-18, Ezekiel 32:1-32

Understanding Series

Steven Tuell

... the tenth month on the twelfth day (v. 1)—that is, at least two months before the last date Ezekiel gave, in the first Tyre oracle (26:1). However, as we concluded that an editor probably added that date we cannot, nor should we, make much of this discontinuity. Prior to that, the last dated oracle was the parable of the cooking pot (24:1–14), dated to “the ninth year, in the tenth month on the tenth day” (see the discussion of this date as well)—that is, the day that the siege of Jerusalem began ...

48. Getting Ready for the Passover

Luke 22:7-38, Luke 22:1-6

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... is much that points that way (especially in Rom. 9–11; cf. Paul’s provocative phrase “the Israel of God” in Gal. 6:16). Discuss how radical a change resulted from the death and resurrection of Jesus. What are the elements of continuity and of discontinuity between the Israel of the Old Testament and the international people of God now to be constituted through their faith in Jesus? How does the Passover imagery help us in clarifying this issue? The fateful decision of Judas remains a puzzle to many ...

49. The Story of Abraham versus the Story of Israel

Romans 4:1-25

Teach the Text

C. Marvin Pate

... 17; later recognized as the sign of the Mosaic covenant, a connection made in 1–2 Macc.).6 For Paul, circumcision is a sign that Abraham earlier had been justified by faith, not a sign that he kept the Torah (4:11a). Paul thus introduces a discontinuity between faith and circumcision (in the sense that circumcision was not the basis of faith but rather the later sign that faith had already occurred and that before circumcision), the likes of which was known only by the Old Testament prophets (see Jer. 4:4 ...

50. Resurrection and Transformation (Part 1)

1 Corinthians 15:35-58

Teach the Text

Preben Vang

... the whole letter) in a major “so what” statement (15:58). Since what is now perishable will be transformed and made imperishable, there should be plenty of motivation to remain faithful to Christ in the present. There will be no destructive discontinuity between the experience of Christ in the present and in the future. Interpretive Insights 15:50–53 I declare to you, brothers and sisters. Bringing his discourse on resurrection to a crescendo, Paul strikes a personal and relational tone (adelphoi ...

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