Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 501 to 525 of 655 results

501. Gifts of Lent V: A Soldier Gives His Wine

Matthew 27:45-56

Drama

Donald Neidigk

Dramatic Monologue My name is Saint Longinus. The ancient traditions of the church say I was martyred in the service of Jesus. I was just Longinus then. You'll remember me for a number of things I did on that Friday of Holy Week: commanding the execution squad, giving Jesus a drink of cheap wine as he hung on the cross dying, confessing that he was the Son of God, and finally piercing him with my lance to ensure that he was dead. And you wonder why I'm called Saint Longinus? I understand your confusion. I ...

502. Bad Timing

Matthew 20:20-28

Sermon

Thomas Long

Some people are masters of bad timing. These are the people who burst into a party wearing a lamp shade and a hula skirt just as the conversation has taken a serious turn, a turn, say, toward a discussion of human rights or world hunger. Masters of bad timing buy high and sell low. They are the folks who try to rouse the hayriding young people to one more chorus of "She'll Be Coming 'Round The Mountain" just as the mood has shifted to the romantic. They telephone with questions about corrections to the ...

503. Advent 2

Matthew 3:1-12, Isaiah 11:1-16, Romans 14:1--15:13

Sermon Aid

Russell F. Anderson

COMMENTARY Old Testament: Isaiah 11:1-10 This text is related to Isaiah 9:1-6. "The people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light" (Isaiah 9:3a). In their original context, both passages are believed to be coronation Psalms for God's Anointed One, the king. It is possible that Isaiah composed today's lesson for the coronation of King Hezekiah. Though a king was held to be a direct link between the people and their God, the prophet realized that the righteous rule envisioned in this passage was ...

504. Have You Heard The Good News?

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

John A. Stroman

Have you heard the good news? Mark starts off his gospel with the announcement of the coming of the good news. He reveals to us the content and the nature of that good news. It is "the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." That is what the Advent is all about -- the preparation for the coming of Jesus Christ. This good news is centered in Jesus Christ. This is the mood and feeling that is captured by the African-American spiritual: Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere; Go tell it ...

505. Light

John 12:35

Children's Sermon

B. Kathleen Fannin

Object: A camera with fairly fast film. Lesson: Decisions; light; discernment. To explore this text with the children I have brought a camera with fairly high-speed film in it. Once the children have gathered for this portion of worship, I ask as I hold the camera aloft, "What did I bring to share with you today?" "A CAMERA!" comes their immediate response. "And what does one do with a camera?" I question. "You take pictures!" the children reply with assurance. "Oh!" I say as if surprised or puzzled. "Well ...

506. God’s Flowing and Our Ebbing

Isaiah 6:1-13

Sermon

Robert Noblett

My family and I have spent several enjoyable vacations on the Atlantic Ocean, both at Cape Cod and along the rockbound coast of Maine. Always we have enjoyed the beaches and the pastimes attendant to them. One perennial pastime is the building of sand castles, and I well remember our children building them close to the sea’s edge and how, with tidal changes, the parameters of the ebbing and flowing would be altered, often allowing the ocean to become increasingly bold in assailing what the children had so ...

507. God As Wisdom

Proverbs 1:20-33

Sermon

Sue Anne Steffey Morrow

If someone like me were to ask someone like you, "How do you imagine God?" what would you answer? What is the first word that comes to your mind when I say God? Creator? Love? Mother? Friend? Jesus? Help? Shepherd? Defender? How do you imagine God? When you are praying, how do you experience God? As strength? As light? As comfort? All-encompassing? How do you imagine God? Is God someone with a large protective shoulder to lean on, when you are more than a little scared? Is God a strong warrior who will ...

508. The Disciples' Tenebrae

Mark 12:13-17

Sermon

Jerry Eckert

Comment: Emmanuel Church in Horicon had accepted the Christmas Eve "Pageant" very well (see page 25) but had showed no signs of interest in such drama for sermons. However, when we began planning the Maundy Thursday service, there was a fond remembrance of a tenebrae service, a service of candles, that had been done six years before. I wrote to the former pastor, Rev. Owen Miller, who generously sent what he had done. The concept was to say something about each disciple and extinguish a candle to bring ...

509. Life As An Investment

Matthew 25:14-30

Sermon

Donald Dotterer

Let us pray: Gracious and eternal Father, we come before you this day seeking to make the most of the gifts which you have given us in life. Lord, as we now hear your word, may we learn how it is that we may serve you with all that we are. Lord, in these moments, grant us wisdom, understanding and peace. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. During the 1992 presidential campaign, one of the slogans which we heard frequently was ''invest and grow.'' The meaning of this phrase of course is that the government will ...

510. Receive The Holy Spirit

John 20:19-23

Sermon

Larry Powell

"It is my heart-warming and world-embracing hope," said Mark Twain, "that all of us - the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the admired, the despised, the loved, the hated, the civilized, and the savage - may eventually be gathered in a heaven of everlasting rest and peace and bliss, except the inventor of the telephone." Mark Twain obviously held a great dislike for the telephone, probably because, among other things, it renders a person to be easily accessible, even when they prefer to be inaccessible. ...

511. Hope Against Hope

Genesis 17:1-27

Sermon

Erskine White

In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told. (Romans 4:18) Sometimes, as we get to this point in the year, it seems that winter will go on forever. It’s been cold for so long that you can hardly remember the last time you put on a pair of shorts and basked in the warmth of the sun. You are so sick of shoveling the driveway that you would almost rather go to the dentist with an impacted wisdom tooth than go through another snowstorm. The trees have ...

512. Refuse To Be A Victim

Luke 6:27-36

Sermon

James Garrett

When a person enters into any society or any fellowship, he takes upon himself the obligations to live a certain way, by certain standards. If the person fails to live the kind of life necessary, he hinders the purpose of the society. Once we make the claim that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true then a claim is put on our lives. In today’s Scripture lesson, Jesus sets down behavior patterns for kingdom people. No one needs to go to a Bible commentary to understand this text. It is a Word that challenges ...

513. The Pitfalls Of Practicing Piety

Matthew 6:19-24, Matthew 6:16-18, Matthew 6:5-15, Matthew 6:1-4

Sermon

John M. Braaten

I have never liked the word "beware." It always seems to be written in intimidating block letters which suggest life-threatening consequences. The word brings to mind an experience I had as a 12-year-old paperboy. Entering a customer's yard I encountered a collie which, without provocation, charged me with fangs bared, knocking off my glasses and hurling me to the ground. I still remember its moist, rancid breath in my face. Hearing my screams, neighbors came and rescued me. That event not only changed my ...

514. The Crown Of Thorns

Matthew 27:26b-30

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

Object: A crown of thorns Good morning, boys and girls. Perhaps you will remember where we left off last week with our story, but let me tell you a little bit about what has happened to Jesus since we left Him being taken out of Annas' house and over to the house of Caiaphas, another Jewish leader. Jesus had been shoved and pushed around from one place to another. He even spent a little time in the palace of Herod, a kind of Jewish king who worked for the Romans. All of these people were afraid to do ...

515. It Dawned on Me

Sermon

Ron Lavin

"What good does faith do me now?" I remember thinking that when Jesus was arrested and tried that first Maundy Thursday. "If a good man like Jesus has to go through all this, what kind of a just God is there? Maybe the unbelievers are right." My name is Matthew. I have come back to tell you about the week you have come to call holy. I was a tax collector before I became an apostle. Everything was going so well until that Thursday of the longest weekend in the world. When it dawned that Thursday in holy ...

516. Christ the King A King Worth Having

John 12:12-19

Sermon

Henry VIII was on the throne of England when Luther was reforming the church in Germany. Henry had six wives. His first one was Catherine, who gave him four children in a row who were either born dead or died shortly after birth. Her fifth child did survive but it was frail - and it was a girl. Her sixth was stillborn. Henry wanted a son to succeed him on the throne. It was obvious to him he needed a new wife, but the Pope wouldn’t grant him a divorce, so King Henry VIII simply said, "From now on I’m the ...

517. Believing is Seeing

Luke 23:26-43

Sermon

Alton F. Wedel

When Jesus came to Galilee, he began his preaching with the message, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." And the expectations of the people soared to heights not known since Solomon. They had been oppressed, depressed, distressed, and had been waiting for the day when from their midst a hero would arise to lay a left hook on the jaw of the hated Roman Empire, restore the glory of the dim and distant yesteryear, and make those good things happen that the prophets had foretold. The land should ...

518. The Message of Christmas

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

Christ was not born in the clean, sterile rooms of a local hospital. He was not born in the southeastern part of the United States. He was not Caucasian. He was not American. His humble family was not known outside the city of Nazareth. We know very little about Joseph except that he was a carpenter, a just and honorable man of the house and lineage of David. We know very little of his mother, Mary. We do know that she probably belonged to the anawiem, the poor ones of Palestine, and we know that she was a ...

519. Gabriel Speaks to Mary

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

George Bass

Some of the Burma Shave-like signs still stand alongside roads that are not main highways any more and, subsequently, they aren’t seen as often as they used to be. The signs separated what had become a familiar act of devotion and piety in Roman Catholicism into a series of spread-out phrases: Hail, Mary, Mother of God, Blessed are you among women, And blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus ... Holy Mary, pray for us sinners Now and at the hour of our death. But I have never seen a road sign that ...

520. Forever His

Romans 14:1--15:13

Sermon

Raymond Gibson

Do you remember the first time you fell in love? I do, and it was a wonderful experience, both exhilarating and painful. I was fourteen years old and a high school freshman when it happened. The young lady’s name was Joyce. She had long brown hair and dark brown eyes, and I was quite certain she was one of God’s own angels. I fell in love with Joyce the first time she let me carry her books home from school. I bought her a Pepsi Cola that day, and when she accepted it, I felt like a knight of the Round ...

521. Holy Handicap?

2 Cor 12:9

Sermon

Robert Noblett

Reserved parking in shopping malls, newly constructed ramps into public buildings, motorized wheelchairs, special hardware in restroom facilities, experts seen translating the spoken word into sign language for those in the television audience with hearing deficiencies, even monkeys trained to meet the everyday needs of paraplegics and quadriplegics - all are signs that we are, as a nation, becoming more sensitive to the special needs of the handicapped. Everywhere we go we are faced with reminders of ...

522. The Witch of Endor

1 Samuel 28:1-25

Sermon

Warren Thomas Smith

We have been thrilled and enchanted by the weird conversation of the three sisters on the gloomy heath in ancient Scotland: When shall we three meet again In thunder, lightening, or in rain? When the hurlyburly’s done, When the battle’s lost and won, That will be ere the set of sun. Where the place? Upon the heath There to meet with Macbeth.1 Later in the play we have the incantation and recipe for the brew which will cast a spell over the Scottish Thane: Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and ...

523. This Adulterous Generation

Matthew 5:27-30, Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

A cartoon in a national magazine showed Moses with two stone tablets under his arm coming down from Mount Sinai. He said to the Israelites, "I have good news and bad news for you. The good news is that I got Him down to ten. The bad news is that adultery is still in there." The seventh commandment is very simple: "You shall not commit adultery." The word adultery means the sexual involvement of a married person with someone other than his or her spouse. In the original Hebrew it meant to add something to a ...

524. It’s About Time!

Drama

Sarah Walton Miller

You will recognize the many scriptures on which this skit is based. Suggestion: if this is done in a study group, get some good concordances. Let the students search out the scriptures used. They all relate to time. At stage back, on risers or other levels, are three characters: TIME PAST, TIME PRESENT, TIME FUTURE. Perhaps they are similarly dressed. Downstage left are two high stools. On one is CHRISTIAN-WITH-EXCUSES, on the other NON-CHRISTIAN. At downstage right is a small lectern for the READER. ...

525. The Suffering Servant

Drama

Curt M. Joseph

Characters: Caiaphas - High Priest in Jerusalem; an able person, perhaps a bit weak; not always sure that everything he is doing is correct. Annas - the ex-High Priest in Jerusalem; father-in-law of Caiaphas; seen as the real power "behind the throne." Temple Guard - very formal in his approach. Judas - he waivers between very sure of what he is doing and rather unsure. The play opens with Caiaphas, working alone at his desk in his office. After several moments he is joined by his father-in-law. Guard: ( ...

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