Sermon and Worship Resources

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John 20:1-9, John 20:10-18

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... :9-10, 16) and Luke (24:13-53). (Also see the longer ending of Mark [16:9-20].) At any rate, my purpose in providing you with this information about the two traditions of resurrection stories is to explain to you more clearly why Jesus' followers originally reacted to the empty tomb with misunderstanding, confusion, sadness (in the case of Mary), or apathy. This will also shed some light on why we do not always believe and act on the testimony of scripture's witness to the resurrection as we should. We need ...

477. When God’s “No” Means “Yes”

Habakkuk 1:1-4, Habakkuk 2:2-20

Sermon

Richard Hasler

... that 89 courageous men walked with the women that day in support of their cause. Some time later, after women’s suffrage had been made law, another parade was held to mark the triumph. The original small group of men supporters were invited back to share in the celebration. On the day of the parade all 520 of the original 89 men appeared to march in one section.4 Anyone can make a pretense of faithfulness when everyone has joined the crusade, but it is quite another thing to step out and be counted when ...

478. A Plan For Difficult Times

Luke 21:5-38

Sermon

Theodore F. Schneider

... Western Wall, often called the Wailing Wall, there remain 25 courses of Herodian ashlars, 14 of which are visible and above ground. In Jesus' time, all were visible. The pinnacle of the temple overlooking the Kidron Valley stands at 141 feet, about half of its original height. With the exception of these retaining walls, there was not one stone left upon another that was not thrown down. It was just as Jesus had said. The late first-century readers of Luke's gospel knew that it was so! Jesus' prediction had ...

479. The Message Of The Morning Light

2 Corinthians 5:11--6:2

Sermon

Erskine White

... behold, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:17) Just as a handful of women and disciples came early in the day to the garden tomb, so do Christians come out early on this Easter Sunday to find the empty grave. Let us try to recapture the original wonder, the original excitement they felt on that special day so long ago. Let us imagine that God is speaking directly to us this morning, down through the heavens and deep into our hearts, giving us the message of the morning light. "You see how the stone has been ...

480. Walking the Valley of the Lost

2 Samuel 1:17-27

Sermon

Donald Zelle

... govern on behalf of God. The people of Judah were asked to join in David's lament. He wanted the very words to be learned and recited. He wanted the people to be reminded that they were lost, too, without a leader. And, in what was probably an original triple refrain, David wants the people to mourn the destructiveness and useless killing of war. We need, also, to walk through the national valleys of the lost. We need to learn and recite some of the accounts of our past. We need to walk silently through the ...

481. How Much Does It Cost?

Luke 14:28-30

Children's Sermon

Brett Blair

Exegetical Aim: Understanding the cost of something before the commitment is made. Key verse: 28. Props: A toy in its original box, if possible, with a ten-dollar price tag and nine one-dollar bills. Obviously, you can change the original price tag with a sticker to suit this Children's Sermon. The toy could be a football or a Barbie. It does not matter. The prop could also be a candy bar for ten cents and nine pennies. The more desirable the item, the more effective the illustration. Lesson: [With ...

482. Nothing Difficult Is Ever Easy

Matthew 22:34-40

Sermon

Johnny Dean

... church, and it’s great if you volunteer to work in various ministries of the church. But above all else, we are to love God and love our neighbor. There is a legend handed down from the early church about John, the beloved disciple of Jesus. Of the twelve original apostles, only John is said to have lived to be a ripe old age. In his later years not only his body but also his eyesight and his mind began to fail him. Eventually, according to the legend, John’s mind had deteriorated to the point that he ...

483. He Who Has Ears to Hear, Let Him Hear

Luke 8:1-15

Sermon

Larry Powell

... a culture that we have created ourselves. In the midst of it all are a Christian people. Remnants - who more and more are unable to tell you anything about their book, know less and less about the backgrounds of the great hymns, and whose origins have become so obscured that we cannot even agree among ourselves. The Sunday School, the primary teaching form, continues to decline at an alarming rate. Like the Cherokee, we have the "shops," the buildings, and the relics, but they are poor substitutes for the ...

484. Time and Stewardship

Sermon

Larry Powell

... point of continuing the contest. At the end of thirty seconds, the fighters had eight seconds to advance, unassisted, to a mark or a scratch on the ground and place their toe against it, indicating their intention to go on with the fight - hence, the origin of the terms, "toe the mark," or "come to scratch." if one man failed to "toe the mark," his opponent was declared the winner. To "toe the mark" meant, and still means, to persevere, keep coming back, and present onself for the encounter with an intent ...

485. The Cross And Our Shadows

Joel 2:1-11

Sermon

Carl Jech

... St. Paul uses this story of how Abraham "believed God and he reckoned it to him as righteousness" to show how the covenant made with Abraham is linked to the covenant made through Jesus Christ, a covenant intended to reach far beyond the limits of the original "children of Israel." Two major problems stand out in relation to this covenant. First of all, it seems impossible. Abram and Sara are childless. The answer comes quickly and it is part of a pattern which we meet over and over again in the Bible: from ...

486. Christmas Eve Candlelight Service

Bulletin Aid

Robert G. McCreight

... , the first day. Narrator: Time began as God brought light into a vast sea of darkness. In measured increments of time God marked the day and the night by an alteration of light and darkness. The coming of light into the darkness was the original manifestation of the activity of God, and represents for all time thereafter the divine operation of God. The alternation of light and darkness reveals the nature of God's work - to bring order where formerly there was chaos. God went on to create other parts ...

487. A Shepherd Returns

Luke 2:8-20

Drama

Edward G. Hunter

A Dramatic Monologue An elderly shepherd, one of the original group who heard the angelic announcement that first Christmas Eve, speaks to his son, also a shepherd, outside the ... price to pay for allegiance to him. There is no meaning to life apart from him. "But, I promised to tell you of the events of that night. There are not many of the original group left. One by one they pass from this life. But, I can see it yet! It makes my heart pound to think again of that night! "I ask myself time and again, why ...

488. The Impossibility of Neutrality

Mark 11:1-11

Sermon

Robert Allen

... friends and helpers, Jesus is the revealer of eternal truth and this finds confirmation in the fact that others have said some of the same things Jesus said. The Golden Rule of Jesus, "Do unto others what you would have them do unto you," is not original with Jesus. Hundreds of years before Jesus, the Jewish law said, "What is hurtful to yourself do not do to your fellow man." Buddha said, "Hurt not others with what pains yourself." Hinduism says, "Do naught to others which if done to thee, would cause thee ...

489. Giving Away the Store

Luke 22:7-38, John 13:1-17

Sermon

Carl Jech

... for God's grace and mercy is demeaning to our dignity and self-esteem. In his famous classic, The Golden Bough, Sir James G. Frazer suggests that religion itself originated from some primitive notion that the gods must be appeased. Frazer's idea is that religion in most of its forms represents a failure of nerve on humankind's part. Originally, primitive peoples tried to manipulate the gods, "the powers that be," to do their bidding through magical rituals that were designed to force the gods to give them ...

490. Rejoice! It's Lent

Joel 2:1-11

Sermon

Carl Hoefler

... and to acts of fasting. This Lenten emphasis on the death and suffering of our Lord is not only a distortion of the biblical witness and the practice of the primitive church, it is also a destructive division of the theology of redemption. Originally the intent of Lent was to provide a period of meditation and contemplation in preparation for the Christian Pascha [Passover] which celebrated the crucifixion and the resurrection as one single redemptive event. Today, however, we have torn asunder what God had ...

491. A New Plan for Lent

Joel 1:1-12

Sermon

... , with little rituals of pancake dinners on this day, and forsaking sweets in Lent, and psyching ourselves up for sunrise on Easter, are little more than a patch job. What's needed is a determination to reweave our season of Lent with the knowledge of how it originally looked. In the early life of the church, of course, Easter was the Alpha and the Omega of the church year, the season when a Christian's faith and spirit were reborn. The season of Lent existed solely in the shadow of the cross and the empty ...

492. More Real Than Food

John 6:25-59

Sermon

Carl Jech

... if one uses the whole nine yards to make a garment the person wearing such an outfit would be dressed to perfection. Similarly, the origin of the expression "mind your P’s and Q’s" is also cloudy. Some say it is a shortened form of "mind your please ... theory simply follows the stereotype that maligns the turkey as one of God’s dumbest creatures. We may never know the exact origins of these three expressions, but we do clearly know what they mean to us now. The Sacrament of Holy Communion does likewise ...

493. Epiphany

Isaiah 60:1-22, Psalm 72:1-20, Ephesians 3:1-13, Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon Aid

... Son the poor may receive justice, the destitute relief, and the people of the earth peace in the name of him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. THE READINGS Isaiah 60:1-6 The church has taken this pericope, which originally referred to Israel's return from the exile in Babylon, and put it into a Christian context. Jesus, to the church, is the "light (that) has come," and in him God's "glory is rising on you (and the whole world." Christ is the light that shines in ...

494. Lent 1

Romans 5:12-21

Bulletin Aid

Theme: The "excessiveness" of God's grace Exegetical note This linguistically difficult passage has been interpreted through the eyes of Augustine so long that it is hard to extricate its original meaning from the layers of "Original Sin" theory that enshroud it. Taken on its own merits, however, Paul's statement seems to be affirming both the universality of sin and everyone's active participation in it and (therefore) responsibility for it. Likewise, as vv. 15-17 show, Paul's Adam-Christ parallel is ...

495. Proper 23

Mt 22:1-14 · Php 4:1-9 · Ex 32:1-14 · Ps 106

Bulletin Aid

... peace and joy that await us in the Christ. In his name we pray. Amen Gospel Lesson: Matthew 22:1-14 Theme: The "many called" of God Exegetical Note Matthew has spliced together two originally independent parables (vv. 1-10 and 11-14) and allegorized them to speak to his contemporary situation. The original point of the first of these is that the coming Reign of God is to be populated by a motley assortment of outsiders - in this parable, "street people" - rather than the respectable, invited, but finally ...

496. Poured Out for Many

Exodus 24:1-18, Mark 14:12-26

Sermon

... consequence was a ritual one. Blood is not to be consumed. Blood, like life, belongs only to God and is not to be eaten. Kosher food laws, in which a rabbi verifies that food has been properly bled before it is blessed and consumed, have their origin here. c. The third consequence was liturgical. Because blood is linked to life and therefore to God, it may appropriately be used in acts of worship, such as the covenant-making at Mount Sinai. To the Hebrew people gathered there, Moses reads God’s Word ...

497. Respect: Lesson for Victorious Living

Ruth 4:1-12

Sermon

... may have lived in the eighteenth century and before. Christian unity views all of humanity related. In "Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions," emerging from Vatican II, we read: "For all peoples comprise a single community, and have a single origin, since God made the whole race of men dwell over the entire face of the earth. One also is their final goal: God." Only God has the opportunity to observe and be a part of all this entails. Christian unity loves to trace its ...

498. Welcome to the Training Table!

Matthew 22:1-14

Sermon

... a lot of meat on him, or for a recruiter for a future U.S. Olympic hockey team to look for players from the section of the country where the winters are severe. But, like the other parables in Scripture, this one is not limited to its first, original historical context. This is a modern parable as well. Today the "chosenness" God looks for dwells in people who have had a history and a heritage of life within the faith community. The Lord can "whip somebody into shape" as a member of his elite corps through ...

499. Father Damien

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon

Carroll Gunkel

... - from leprosy. Father Damien met the Master ... and neither he nor the lepers of Molokai were ever the same. And for that we can say, "Thanks be to God." Addendum During the course of working on the study of Father Damien I began thinking about the origin of the word "lazar," and its use as a synonym for a leper. Further investigation led to the conclusion that the word "lazar" became a synonym for "leper," because it was assumed that the sores which covered the beggar Lazarus (See Luke 16:19-31) were ...

500. The New Covenant

1 Corinthians 11:17-34

Sermon

Dennis Kastens

... in Genesis 17 and Genesis 22. There he saw the striking parallel. And when he read further of various covenant renewal ceremonies in the Old Testament, he was able to link the Lord’s Supper in an awesome manner all the way back to the earlier practices, originating quite possibly already with Adam and Eve. And when he read Luke 22:15ff., these words of Jesus impressed him profoundly: "I long to break this bread with you and drink this cup"; and after he had blessed the bread and brake it, he said, "This ...

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