Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 26 to 50 of 193 results

26. All Stirred Up

Luke 10:38-42

Sermon

Richard Patt

... Martha. Sometimes our priorities, or frustrations, are so far off the beam that they are laughable. And along with this was Martha's own lack of humor, which might have finally saved her. "The Lord's coming to my house? You mean he did accept my reckless invitation?" Martha might have asked. "Well, then, he's going to have to settle for potluck!" Such an attitude could have made Martha a relaxed, delightful hostess. A friend of mine likes to tell stories about how his teenage children would call him at home ...

27. Why Did Pastor Hypnotize Jenny?

Jeremiah 33:1-26

Sermon

Tony Everett

... control them. Our desperate plans for the "ideal holiday season" rarely bring the happiness and satisfaction we had intended. Instead, the results inevitably feel more like emptiness and frustration. Today is the First Sunday of Advent, not the first day of a reckless countdown of shopping days until Christmas. What preparations for the coming Christ child are happening in the depth of your soul? How much time and energy are you giving to the trimmings and frills of Christmas? How does that compare with the ...

28. Acting Bulletproof

Luke 13:1-9

Illustration

John R. Steward

... activity, Tommy became HIV-positive. Tommy Morrison described himself and many others when he tried to explain how this could happen. Yes, he gave the normal reflection that he never thought that this could ever happen to him. No, he was not careful but instead very reckless. Perhaps he stated the situation best when he said, "I thought that I was bulletproof." Wasn't that the problem that Jesus saw in the many arrogant religious leaders of his day? Isn't that our problem when we try to live lives that are ...

29. Thankful Living

Joel 2:18-27

Sermon

John A. Stroman

... to be repaid. All that parents desire from their children is gratitude and appreciation, not so much in words but reflected in thankful living. I think the same is true of God, who provides us with all of the beneficial gifts of creation. To use these gifts recklessly and carelessly is to disrespect not only the gift but the giver. When we take it upon ourselves to obliterate what God has wrought it is like spitting in the face of God. There is a Jewish folk tale regarding two men fighting over a piece of ...

30. Baptism And Self-Esteem

Mark 12:28-34

Sermon

Steven E. Albertin

... . Then it is easy to cut someone else down to size with slander and gossip. When we are insecure about ourselves, that is when we need to grab all the power and success that we can. When we are unsure about ourselves, then is when we recklessly pursue one pleasure after another regardless of the consequences. We think that this is the only way to feel good about ourselves. Often the braggart and egotist is actually acting to overcome his sense of self-doubt. Maybe if he boasts enough, not only will others ...

31. Week Two Of Lent

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... and go straight when they are in the left turn lane. If you are going too slow on a one lane road don't be surprised when the driver behind you all of a sudden streaks by you on the right! When I observe drivers who seem to be rather reckless, I often wonder what it will take to get them to comply with the law. Will another sign such as "Danger" do the trick? Will it take an accident or some other tragedy for people to be more courteous? Today's Gospel speaks about following the signs which God gives ...

32. Too Close To The Edge

Proverbs 4:14-15

Children's Sermon

Teresa L. Major

... .) No. The one who got away from the danger was the one the king chose. The king wanted a husband for his daughter who would take care of her and protect her, not one who would put her at risk by playing with danger. The other two men were too reckless. They took too many chances. The king didn't care how close to the edge they could get; he wanted to see how far they would go to protect his daughter. Many times, we try to see how close to the edge we can get before we fall over. We ...

33. The Christian Journey IV: The Pool

Sermon

John N. Brittain

... she sees the self-righteous slaughter in Bosnia, Northern Ireland, and Israel are directly traceable to the Bible. While the book has gotten a lot of attention and praise, the reviewer for The New Republic (Peter Berkowitz of Harvard University) accused Dr. Schwartz of "a recklessly one-dimensional reading of the Bible." In my opinion he is correct, and points to a whole variety of ways in which the Bible is read in one-dimensional ways, namely ways that justify me, my opinion, and my group. One of the most ...

34. Eighteen Years Is Long Enough

Jeremiah 1:1-19

Sermon

John N. Brittain

... gray head, and so because of his youth, he felt unqualified to speak on behalf of the God of his fathers. This can be a good thing. Knowing the limitations imposed by one's own inexperience, knowing what you don't know, are valid reasons for not recklessly biting off more than you can chew. But there are three things in God's commission that more than canceled out Jeremiah's youth and inexperience. First, God said that God had been working in Jeremiah's life since before his birth in ways of which Jeremiah ...

35. Gifts of Lent VII: Joseph Gives His Tomb

John 19:38-42

Drama

Donald Neidigk

... certainly not pleased with myself. How I wished I could be born again. How I wished I could have a new beginning in my life. Is that something you've ever wished? Hostility against Jesus grew within the Sanhedrin. Charges made in ignorance became more and more reckless. The temple guard was ordered to arrest Jesus. But after finding him and hearing him speak, they couldn't do it. "No one ever spoke the way this man does," the commanding officer had said to the council, trying to explain why he hadn't obeyed ...

36. Five Thousand For Lunch In Galilee

Luke 9:10-17

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... goes and sells the clothing to the very poor the church is trying to help. How different the attitude of the poor widow of Jesus' story who gave everything she had, her last two coins, to share in the cause of God. She gave with a reckless generosity, with an openness and trust that has been an example to the world ever since. The lines of the poet describe her: "An incidental greatness charactered her unconsidered ways ...." She is a reminder of how God often uses insignificant people of faith and love to ...

37. How Much Sin Is Too Much?

Matthew 5:13-16, Matthew 5:17-20

Sermon

William B. Kincaid, III

... until we stop to think about it. Inherent in this question is a bold-faced confession that there is no interest at all in pursuing a life shaped wholly by the spirit of God, but at the same time we do not want to be so recklessly sacrilegious that we forfeit completely the rewards of the hereafter. The late Southern humorist Lewis Grizzard said thinking about hell scared the you-know-what out of him. One day he received a questionnaire in the mail titled "Heaven: Are You Eligible?" Grizzard said he took ...

38. Liberating Truth

John 8:31-41

Sermon

William G. Carter

... is "grace and truth" (John 1:14). According to this writer, the single watershed event in the history of the world is the coming of Jesus Christ into the world. On the one hand, it is a disclosure of sheer grace. The incarnation announces that God is recklessly, relentlessly inclined in our favor, that "God so loved the world that he sent his only Son." Yet on the other hand, the coming of Christ is also a disclosure about ourselves. Jesus reveals the truth about who we are and who we are not. In Jesus ...

39. Bread For The Journey (Bread of Life III)

John 6:25-59

Sermon

Charles R. Leary

... life the trips enabled us to nurture in each other. But, there is danger in the journey, and that is Point Two. Highways go over mountains and through valleys, cross over interchanges and crossroads, and danger is added by potholes and detours, not to speak of reckless drivers. When we travel, my wife always reminds me to go slower in the mountains and particularly around those “ess” curves and going down the other side. But you don’t have to be on a long trip to find danger. My wife was driving down ...

40. Teach Fear To Say Its Prayers

Mark 4:35-41

Sermon

Charles R. Leary

... one, including the Christian, is shielded from the storms of life. How often do you find yourself at a loss to explain the troubles life brings? Some make no sense at all. Once we feel the storms beating at us, we tend to blame people or the devil or a reckless life. Sometimes we blame God. Bishop Sheen used to liken life to a deck of cards, saying, once the hand is dealt, it’s a question of how you play, not whom you blame. No one is shielded from the storms. An old Quaker stood up in a meeting and ...

41. Gunda

John 6:60-71

Sermon

Robert Salzgeber

... question: Are we unable to control anything? "What gives life is God's Spirit; man's power is of no use at all." A little while later in the film, while in the middle of a heated argument because Cole has just previously chased a taxi cab, recklessly and violently, around a hotel parking lot, his girlfriend points her index finger at his face and says, "Listen Cole, you better wake up out of your little dream land and learn what everybody else in the world knows, that people are not in control of anything ...

42. Proper 21

Mark 9:38-41, Esther 7:1-10, Esther 9:18-32, James 5:13-20, Mark 9:42-50

Sermon Aid

Russell F. Anderson

... what stumbling blocks are on the land. When James counsels against putting stumbling blocks in the way of one of his little ones (disciples) (v. 42), it is the same as saying, "Don't swamp the lifeboat of one of my disciples." Those whose careless and reckless actions inundate those disciples who do not know how to swim well in the sea of life will be judged severely. Outline: 1. If you've gone fishing, you probably have been adversely affected by some other boat's wake. 2. Wakes are the nautical equivalent ...

43. Are You Convinced?

John 16:5-16

Sermon

Larry Powell

... "ending" very well. Judas and a band of soldiers stormed the garden where Jesus and the others had gathered. Judas carried his money bag; the soldiers carried "lanterns, torches, and weapons." Judas botched the ending badly. Simon Peter grabbed up a sword and took a reckless swipe at one of the soldiers, Malchus, cutting off his ear. Jesus then reminded Peter that he had only moments before explained the present distress: "It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor will ...

44. Tears And Ointment

Luke 7:36-50

Sermon

Larry Powell

... in flagrant, wasteful, unnecessary spending. Senator Proximire gets our attention because he illuminates a subject of interest to us all: how money is spent. We do not like to spend more than we have to and have little tolerance for irresponsible, reckless spending wherever it occurs. "Throwing money out in the yard" and "pouring sand down a rat hole" are expressions which we hope to successfully avoid having applied to ourselves. It really doesn't matter whether we speak of it as stewardship, frugality ...

45. Taking Life Seriously

Luke 16:19-31

Sermon

W. Robert McClelland

... safe havens of prudence and custom in order to depart on great voyages to another world. Yet he is unable to respond. He sits there motionless and shivering. He is ashamed. He has felt this shame before whenever he caught himself not daring to do what supreme recklessness the essence of life called him to do. Yet never did he feel more ashamed than in the presence of Zorba. Ashamed and fearful! Two sides of the same coin. In my younger days when I was learning to fly I had to practice takeoffs and landings ...

46. A Faith That Burns

Luke 12:49-53

Sermon

W. Robert McClelland

... no enemies. But he outgrew his cradle. It was an adult Jesus, who taking responsibility for his actions and his words, fell off the popularity charts. His adoring public responded by demanding his execution. He was seen as a dangerous threat to the social order, a reckless blasphemer of God, and a corrupter of public morals. It is this Jesus who says, "I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!" Jesus didn't get into trouble talking about the birds of the air and the lilies ...

47. Proper 24

Luke 18:1-8, Psalm 121:1-8, Exodus 17:8-16, Genesis 32:22-32, Habakkuk 1:1-4, Habakkuk 2:2-20, 2 Timothy 3:10--4:8

Sermon Aid

George Bass

... conviction of four Christian Science families who were convicted of man-slaughter when their children died instead of being healed by their prayers to God. She wrote about one case in particular, that of David and Ginger Twitchell, who were convicted of "reckless and wanton" conduct and involuntary manslaughter, because God did not answer their prayers and heal their son, Robyn; he died "of a simple, curable (by surgery) bowel obstruction." She says, "But at bottom, this case, like the other three, stirs up ...

48. Who’s Keeping Score?

Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon

William J. Carl

... does it make what we do? Surely God is keeping score in some way. Jesus seems to say that as he throws in this surprise at the end of the passage to call us up short, to catch all us Libertarians off guard who think we can sin with reckless acquisitiveness, and not care for the poor, just going through life getting by with murder (which is the way some have misread Paul). Jesus leaves us all hanging. Which is it, free grace -- la de da? Or is there some bite to the gospel? Some accountability to the whole ...

49. Good News From A Graveyard

John 20:1-9

Sermon

John M. Braaten

... ." Do not be afraid. For the one who brings everything back to life again is the One who loves you and gave himself for you. The one who permits no escape, no forgetting, even in death, is the one who remembers and loves you still. Oh yes, he is a reckless lover. Of course no one deserves that love, the first followers didn't and we don't either; that is not the point. The point is God and the Easter exclamation that God loves you. Thank God there is no escape from that love. No escape, even in death! That ...

50. Finding Our Roots

Luke 9:28-36

Sermon

John M. Braaten

... this harried world. We want religion to emphasize God bringing out the best that is in us. We want to hear the message that we are really pretty good, accenting the positive, patting us on the back. The Bible keeps turning the thing around saying that faith means reckless abandonment of one’s self to God, so that God may be all in all. That involves a transfiguration of life, and it’s a little like asking someone to burn down his home. One thing is sure, if it happens, it isn’t going to take place ...

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