Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 476 to 500 of 4946 results

476. Proper 14

Mt 14:22-33 · Rom 9:1-5 · Ex 14:19-31 · Ps 106:4-12

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

The Miracle Of Walking On Water When it comes to a body of water (river, lake, gulf or sea), there is one thing humans cannot do. We can drink water, float on it, swim in it and under it, and drown in it. We can sail on it, fly over it and in submarines we can travel and explore under it. But, there is one thing we cannot do: walk on it. Yes, we can ski on it, even without skis when we barefoot ski behind a speeding boat. To walk on water like walking on the ground would be a miracle. Since it is ...

477. Moving Day

John 14:23-29

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

Maybe you've heard about the absent minded professor. One day he and his wife were leaving church. The professor confronted his wife: "Ah-ha! So who is absent-minded now? You forgot your umbrella and left it in church, but I remembered mine and I picked up yours, too." His wife set him straight: "That's fine, dear, but the trouble is, neither you nor I brought an umbrella to church today!" The next morning his wife reminded her absent minded husband: "Now, don't forget we're moving today. If you come to ...

478. The Needle’s Eye

Mark 9:42-50

Sermon

Thomas Peterson

No mistake. This is a hard text. Jesus was often given to double-edged sayings, paradoxes and extreme comparisons. He spoke ironically and often with biting humor. Here he uses the images of cutting off a hand, a foot, or plucking out an eye. The text begins with the disciples concerned with protecting their turf. All people have vested interests and will go to great lengths to defend themselves against encroaching threats. The disciples tell Jesus that they have found someone else working in his name; but ...

479. Our Ultimate Destination

Revelation 21:1-6a

Sermon

Lee Ann Dunlap

On U.S. Route 40 just west of New Concord, Ohio, stands an S-shaped bridge spanning a creek on the old National Road. Standing uphill from that bridge a traveler can simultaneously observe five historic transportation links that helped to build a nation: •The original trail blazed by Ebenezer Zane, also known as "Zane's Trace." •The brick roadbed of the old "National Road" that followed. •The train tracks of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, which nearly made that early highway obsolete. •U.S. Route 40, built ...

480. Worship is Your Rest Stop

Genesis 1:1-2:3, Psalm 92:1-15, Luke 5:33-39, Luke 6:1-11, Galatians 3:1-14

Sermon

Lori Wagner

Today, we’re going to delve a bit into our imaginations. I want you to imagine for a moment that you are in your favorite place –that place where you feel relaxed and calm and refreshed and happy. Can everyone think of a place like that? Is it by the sea? In a garden? In the mountains? Maybe for you it’s a real place, or maybe it’s an imaginary place. But I want you to take time and imagine that place right now. What are some of those places for you? [Give people time to answer.] Okay, now close your eyes ...

481. A Sourdough Sprirituality

Matthew 13:31-35

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

[To do this sermon in the best fashion, you'll need a couple things. First, find someone in your congregation or a local baker who will share with you their sourdough starter. A bowl you can use for this sermon will greatly enhance your presentation. Also, to the extent that you can, integrate their sourdough story into your sermon, replacing as much of the story below with their story as you can. Secondly, you'll need one or two bags (per service) of different kinds of bread. The easiest way of doing this ...

482. Through The Eye Of The Needle

Mark 10:17-31

Sermon

Steven E. Albertin

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." It is sayings like this that shatter any notions we have of Jesus being simply another Mr. Nice Guy. These are tough words. They have been a flashpoint for controversy in the church for centuries. They have ignited heated debates about the role of money in the Christian life. These tough words of Jesus have usually provoked two kinds of reactions. One interprets Jesus' words to mean that you ...

483. Redrawing The Landscape

Multiple Scriptures

Sermon

Harold Warlick

One summer's day my wife and I journeyed to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to attend a conference. We packed early in the morning and joined a colleague and his wife for breakfast. The other couple was also attending the Pittsburgh conference. After saying "goodbye" to our friends, we indicated that we would see them at the hotel in Pittsburgh. We were leaving directly from the breakfast while they were not leaving for another two or three hours, after they went home, packed, and took their children to the ...

484. The Bethsaida Boys

Mark 8:31-38

Sermon

John Jamison

After Jesus was baptized by John, he went to spend time in the desert lands east of the Jordan River, to begin preparing for the work he was going to do. While he was there in the wilderness, he got word that John had been arrested and killed. It was then that he decided it was time to come back to Galilee and get to work. He traveled around Galilee, which is not a big place, and began preaching and teaching, picking up where John the Baptist had stopped. We could spend a lot of time talking about John’s ...

485. This Is Our Song

Psalm 121:1-8

Sermon

Michael J. Anton

You are pilgrims. I am a pilgrim. This is our song: "I lift up my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from?" Like all pilgrims, I’m on a journey. It’s a very important trip. It’s not just a quickie weekend jaunt, in and out of a motel. It’s more than an overnight camp out. It’s even longer than a sweepstakes winning tour of the world. I’m on a journey every day of my life; life is that kind of trip. The trip is sometimes a fearful and anxious one. I lift my eyes to find help somewhere in those hills ...

486. The Play's Playbook for the Game of Life

1 Peter 4:12-19

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

It is known simply as “The Play.” “The Play” is the name of the greatest game of football ever played--anywhere, anytime. Can anyone here this morning tell me who played in “The Play?” Right: California vs. Stanford. Can anyone tell me the year of “The Play.?” Right: 1982. Can anyone tell me what was so special about “The Play?” Right: With 53 seconds left in the game, Stanford was down 17-19, stuck in their own backfield. It was fourth down, 17 yards to go. But miraculously the Stanford QB (anyone? . . . ...

487. The Devil's Sermon

Philippians 3:17-4:1

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

When all about us is change, there are still some things that remain the same. In Indiana, a frustrated taxpayer recently noticed the following sign on a bureaucrat's desk in the county office building: "We Don't Make Change." We sure don't. We resist change or making changes, and the more set our routines of life become, the more we don't make change. I am finding in my own life, as I get older, that it is easier to get in the habit of defending positions rather than making discoveries. Sigmund Freud ...

488. The Power to Look Up

Luke 24:44-53

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

He lived in a shack on the edge of town. He wore overalls to church before casual dress was cool. He didn't own a car; he didn't have job. As a sixteen-year-old kid, fresh from the courthouse with my driver's license, it became my privilege to drive Porter home from church on Sunday. I would pull into Porter's driveway. He would get out of the car and then as if it were an afterthought, although he never failed to do it, Porter would peek back into the car and say, “Keep looking up, Bubby, keep looking up ...

489. Prayers for Epiphany

Bulletin Aid

Rolland R. Reece

Epiphany We wonder, our heavenly Ruler, about the three wise men who brought gifts of frankincense and myrrh to the Christ child, some months or years after his birth. What a presence they must have made in Bethlehem. Did the commonplace appearance of the Holy Family's home cause them to think they might have come to the wrong place? Did they wonder about the plainness of the friends of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus? Perhaps they stepped outside their abode to recheck the position of the guiding star. Did these ...

490. Reflections On A Calling (ten-year Anniversary Sermon)

2 Corinthians 4:1-18

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

One of my heroes is Bishop Gerald Kennedy. He was the Bishop in Southern California who extended me the invitation to join his conference when we were under such great pressure in Mississippi back in 1964. I spent ten wonderful years under his leadership there in Southern California. He's one of the greatest preachers, I believe, on this century. He was fond of telling about the Anglican Bishop who defined a sermon in this fashion: "A sermon is what a preacher will travel across the continent to deliver, ...

491. Paul's Charge to Timothy

2 Timothy 3:10--4:8

Understanding Series

Gordon D. Fee

Another Appeal to Loyalty and Endurance With this paragraph, which focuses on its single imperative in verse 14 (continue in what you have learned), Paul renews the appeal with which the letter began. (Note how many themes from 1:3–2:13 are touched on: Timothy’s long relationship to Paul [vv. 10–11, 14; cf. 1:4, 6, 13]; Paul himself as the model of loyalty [vv. 10–11; cf. 1:8, 11–12, 13; 2:9–10]; the call to suffering [vv. 11–12; cf. 1:8, 16; 2:3–6, 11–12]; the appeal itself [v. 14; cf. 1:6, 13–14]; the ...

492. On the Ropes: Round 3 - Defending God

Habakkuk 3:1-19

Sermon

James Merritt

It is a man that I have never heard of before until I came across his name preparing this final message in Habakkuk. You would know him very well if you were a devote Anglican or if you knew very much about South Africa. He was the founder of the South African Mission Society. An Englishman, he felt the call of God to go to an unreached tribe in one of the most remote parts of the world to preach the Gospel in the middle of the 19th Century. Alan Gardiner set sail in 1851 with five other missionaries. ...

493. Supernatural: Taken By Storm

Mark 4:35-41

Sermon

James Merritt

One of the most life changing things you can ever do as a believer is to go on a mission trip. Not only do you get to share Jesus with people who are hungry for the gospel, see lives transformed by the power of Christ, you also get to see and experience a lot of things you wouldn’t otherwise. But, there is only one country in the world that I encourage everyone to visit whose very geographical landscape can change your life and that is the land of Israel. To know that you are walking where Jesus walked, to ...

494. Caring for the Vineyard We Did Not Plant

Matthew 20:1-16, Joshua 24:1-27

Sermon

Lori Wagner

How many of you have seen an episode of “This Old House”? How many know what I’m talking about? The show, on television for nearly 40 years (since 1979), now also has a website and a magazine. The innovative show has developed a “buzz” as the “go-to” site for creative hands-on remodeling --for men and women alike! Its premise is simple: how to take an ordinary, drab, old, crumbling, or even condemned house, a “fixer-upper” if you will, and renovate and revision that house into a new, sound, and exquisite ...

495. Any Given Sunday

Acts 2:41-47

Sermon

James Merritt

A little boy was standing on the side of the road when a man drove by who was lost. He stopped and rolled down his window and said, "Son, how do you get to town?" The little boy said, "I don't know." He said, "Where is Route 20?" The little boy said, "I don't know." He said, "Where does this road go?" The little boy said, "I don't know." The man, now exasperated said, "What is the name of this street that I am on?" The little boy said, "I don't know." The man sighed and said, "Boy, you don't know anything ...

496. Discipline and Means of Grace

Romans 12:1-8

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

We move now to talk about discipline and means of grace. In my definition of Spiritual Form I chose words very carefully – Listen again: “and appropriating by commitment, discipline and action.” Our discipline is armed at cultivating an awareness of the indwelling Christ. Paul’s words to the Romans make it clear. Listen to Paul in Rom. 12:1-2: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your ...

497. God's Chosen People: Partners

John 15:1-17

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

A certain society matron took a course in First Aid. A few days after completing the course, she was an on-the-spot witness of a bad auto accident. Occupants of the car were thrown out by the impact and lay seriously wounded on the street. Later, describing the accident to a friend, the matron said, “It was awful, awful — and it happened so fast, right there in front of me. Tires squealed, breaks screeched, and all of a sudden there was the grinding crash. The next thing I knew people were lying in the ...

498. Every Day God Equips

John 14:15-27

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

I grew up in construction. My Dad worked in construction either for someone else or later for his own construction company. I learned about tools and how to use them early on. If Dad was working on something and hollered for a Magillacuddy's double-barreled left-handed wedginator, I'd better know what it was. When I was in the Coast Guard, I was a marine diesel mechanic and while in school we had a week long class on tools. Until that time, I'd never met anybody who didn't know how to use the business end ...

499. Where's the Fire?

Exodus 3:1-22

Sermon

Mark Trotter

Jean and I have just gotten back from a three-week vacation trip up in Northern California. When I returned to the office I discovered that a lot of people thought that we were in Germany. That is because four weeks ago this weekend, there was a wonderful event here at this church celebrating my twenty years as one of the ministers on the staff. That evening it was announced that we would be given a trip to Germany. That was the first we had heard of it. It was a surprise. So we have yet to even start to ...

500. The Door Is Always Open

Luke 15:11-32

Sermon

James Merritt

He was a rebel, a college drop-out, a carouser, and a partier. He smoked, he drank Johnnie-Walker, he was a brawler, and had more run-ins with the law than you would care to count. By his own admission, he was the quintessential prodigal son. But now he stands to succeed the most respected, admired, and perhaps famous American of the Twentieth Century Billy Graham. His name is Franklin Graham. Today Franklin Graham not only has a tremendous benevolent ministry called The Samaritan Purse, and has met needs ...

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