Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 501 to 525 of 1679 results

501. Addiction Free

Psalm 30:1-12

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

"No! No! No! No! No!" Our three year old has no doubts about his opinion. Trouble is, he doesn't really know what he is holding this opinion about. But Egil is in de-tox. We are weaning him off two tough habits at once. First, although Egil is unaware of it, we have been gradually decreasing the Phenobarbital he has been on since he was seven months old and seizures began to rack his tiny body after a bout with encephalitis. After two heavily sedated years with a high-powered drug, it is time to see if he ...

502. Follow Me!

Matthew 16:21-28

Sermon

James McCormick

It was the beginning of new life for Peter and Andrew on that day, by the Sea of Galilee, when Jesus tapped them on the shoulder and said, “Come, follow me.” And, what an opportunity he gave to Matthew, the tax collector, when he issued the invitation to him, “Matthew, come, follow me.” Those three, and the other nine disciples all answered, “Yes.” But there were others who heard the call and said, “No.” There were those balking inquirers who responded with excuses, “I’ve just gotten married,” or “Let me ...

503. Turning Jesus Down

John 4:5-42

Illustration

John N. Brittain

Many churches have been designed in response to consumer surveys. In several Midwestern suburban areas the surveys have had similar results. People want the church to provide a good community center with an excellent gym and Nautilus-caliber training equipment; they want quality affordable day care and after school care for children; they want a variety of self-help and support groups; and they want sermons dealing with timely issues like money management and enhancing self-esteem. What they do not want ...

504. Prison Break

Matthew 28:1-10

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Christ is alive! Can I get a witness? Hallelujah! Or as some of us learned in Sunday School, “Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelujah . . . Praise Ye The Lord.” If Christ is alive, why aren’t we more alive? Why don’t we feel more alive this morning? One word: agoraphobia. Ever heard of it? Every know of anyone who had it? Of all the dozens of phobias people can suffer from, one of the most debilitating is the fear of open spaces. Agoraphobia. A friend born and raised in the Midwest described how she felt ...

505. Healing Aerobics

2 Kings 5:1-15ab

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

There's healing for you today. Getting sick is so easy. Consider the dreaded winter "flu season," when all you have to do is encounter one school-age child or shake hands with someone in order to suddenly be the new home base for some exotically named virus that has dismally familiar symptoms. Summertime colds are similarly transmitted, but are much sneakier - they prefer to wait until you are on your long-anticipated fun'n'sun vacation to remind you that sinusitis flourishes in tropical as well as in ...

506. Close the Loopholes

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

It is through life's cracks and loopholes that evil dynamics gain entrance. The church must close these loopholes. Today's epistle reading warns the Ephesian Christians against allowing "room for the devil." A more accessible translation of this text warns against allowing a "loophole for the Devil" (NEB). After all: To worm his way into our lives and minds, the Devil doesn't need much "room" at all a little slit of a loophole will work just fine. Washingtonstate's Puget Sound is a wet, rain-drenched area ...

507. Mark 9:38-50

Mark 9:38-50

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

The week's gospel text is part of a series of seminars in discipleship Jesus holds for his twelve apostles during their final expedition to Galilee. Jesus' teachings surprise in several ways. Earlier during their travels in this region the disciples had twice failed to comprehend Jesus. When Jesus foretells his impending death and resurrection (vs.30), the disciples are so confused that they are too embarrassed to even ask him to clarify his words. Adding insult to injury, these men then begin arguing over ...

508. Mark 9:38-50

Mark 9:38-50

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

509. God's Eminent Domain

Jeremiah 18:1-11

Sermon

Lee Ann Dunlap

What would you do if you opened your mailbox one day to find a letter from the city or county announcing that you have to move? That land your grandparents worked so hard to till, or for which you struggled so long to purchase is deemed the best land available for a new shopping mall. The appraisers will soon be checking out your home to determine its fair market value and you are expected to vacate. For a group of homeowners in New London, Connecticut, this nightmare became reality when the city attempted ...

510. War and the Prince of Peace

Isaiah 9:2-7

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

The year was 1862. The Civil War was raging. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was grieving the death of his second wife when news came that his son had been gravely wounded in the war. That was when Longfellow sat down and wrote this poem: I heard the bells on Christmas Day, their old familiar carols play And wild and sweet the words repeat, of peace on earth good will to all And in despair I bowed my head, there is no peace on earth I said For hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth good will to all ...

511. Will It Last?

1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23

Sermon

John N. Brittain

A quarter-century ago, the little college at which I worked offered a scholarship for one year of study to a church official from Liberia who needed updating in business and accounting practices. Since this was a mature individual with a wife and children to support, leaving them for a whole year was a big deal, particularly since the scholarship covered his expenses at school but little else. Nonetheless, this was an important opportunity, and he prepared diligently so that when he set off for America it ...

512. Disintegration and Reintegration

Mark 14:1-15:47

Sermon

John Smylie

Today's reading is the longest assigned reading that we have the entire year. Many churches break the reading up into several parts, assigning individuals and groups to particular lines and sections. Perhaps we do this so we can keep the interest of the listener. Perhaps we do this so we can engage the drama of the reading. It seems to me the reason we have such a long reading today is because we have come to the heart and center of our faith. We need to hear the whole story. We need to be reminded not in ...

513. Finding the Right House for God

2 Samuel 7:1-14a

Sermon

William J. Carl, III

Have you ever noticed how some families move a lot? Some are corporate moves, some are military, and some are United Methodist pastors. Whatever the case, every time they move they have to find new lodging. In the military, quarters are often provided. The same may be true for clergy if churches own a manse or a parsonage. But, sometimes you have to look for a new home, which means spending some time with real estate agents traveling here and there to find the perfect house. Of course, no house is ever ...

514. The Ten Commandments

Exodus 20:1-21

Understanding Series

James K. Bruckner

Most people have some awareness of the Ten Commandments as a set of rules or laws but are less familiar with the significance of their relational context. Interpreters have also frequently examined the commands (law) in isolation from the narrative of Exodus 1–19. In the biblical context the commands are not abstractions of ethical principles. They are woven into a specific account in which the Lord had delivered, forgiven, redeemed, and formed the people. In the preceding chapter, the Lord had invited ...

515. Pressing on Toward the Goal

Philippians 3:12-4:1

Understanding Series

F. F. Bruce

Paul's Ambition Whatever others may claim for themselves, Paul knows that he has not attained perfection yet. So long as mortal life lasts, there is further progress to be made. Not until the end of the race is the prize awarded. 3:12 Paul now passes from the language of accountancy to that of athletic endeavor (cf. 2:16). He is running a race; he has not yet breasted the tape or won the prize, and he must keep on running until he does so. Some of his converts elsewhere imagined that they had attained ...

516. Faces of Failure: Peter

Matthew 26 (selections)

Sermon

Don Tuttle

On the counter above our kitchen sink, my wife keeps a little flip calendar. It’s called, “If You Want Breakfast in Bed, Sleep in the Kitchen,” and each day it offers a bit of pithy wisdom. Things like—“We all get heavier as we get older because there’s more information in our head,” or “Confidence is the feeling you have before you really understand the situation.” One saying this week seemed appropriate for our current series on the Faces of Failure. “It may be your purpose in life,” it read, “to simply ...

517. The Weak and the Strong

Romans 14:1--15:13

Understanding Series

James R. Edwards

The general exhortation on agapē in chapters 12–13 proceeds now to a specific discussion of the “strong” and “weak” in 14:1–15:13. Paul divides the entire unit into three subsections. In the present section he argues that self-righteous judgments are divisive in the body of Christ; in 14:13–23 he teaches that responsibility for the other takes priority over individual rights; and he concludes in 15:1–13 with the servant role of Christ as the example for behavior within the Christian fellowship. Although ...

518. Boasting

2 Corinthians 11:1-15, 2 Corinthians 11:16-33, 2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Understanding Series

James M. Scott

In the last section of the letter (2 Cor. 10–13) Paul makes a frontal attack on his opponents to prepare the Corinthians for his third visit to Corinth. In chapter 10 he has already dealt with two of the opponents’ accusations against him. Now, in 11:1–12:13, the apostle condescends to boasting about himself at the provocation of the opponents and in the face of a lack of concrete support from the Corinthians. These opponents, who evidently bill themselves as “apostles,” had made a strong impression on the ...

519. Christ the Wisdom and Power of God

1 Corinthians 1:18--2:5

Understanding Series

Marion L. Soards

God’s Peculiar, Powerful Way This paragraph is crucial, both in the context of this particular letter and for the overall understanding of Paul’s theology. Here he delivers the heart and essence of the gospel he believed and proclaimed. Paul’s lines reveal that God works in a most peculiar way—first, God works in defiance of the standards of this world as they are understood or construed by humanity, and second, God’s work is powerful so that it incapacitates, reverses, even turns upside down the values of ...

520. Boasting

2 Corinthians 11:16-33, 2 Corinthians 1:1-11, 2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Understanding Series

James M. Scott

521. Some Things I've Learned Since I Knew It All

Mark 4:26-34

Sermon

Ron Lavin

Have you ever suffered from "sophomoritis"? It's not a physical disease, like arthritis. It's a spiritual disease many college sophomores get when they get filled up with knowledge, come home on a vacation, and act like they know more than the folks around whom they grew up, especially their parents and younger siblings. That happened to a young man named Adam. He was studying to be an engineer at the University of Illinois in Urbana. On Christmas break, he got quite caught up with himself and started ...

522. Faking It or Making It?

Matthew 16:21-28

Sermon

King Duncan

Last winter AT&T unveiled an amusing commercial in their “Just Ok is Not Ok” series. Many of you will remember it. The commercial features a sleazy tax preparer named Phil who is talking with a young woman who has come for help with her taxes. Phil says to the young woman, “Leave it to me. I’ll get your taxes in an O.K. place.” The young woman says, “What?” Then with the back of his hand beside his mouth, he adds, “Just as soon as my ‘audit’ is over, this gets my undivided attention.” The young woman looks ...

523. The Power To Defy Evil

Exodus 3:1-22

Sermon

Carl Hoefler

Every evening the six o'clock news reminds us of the crime, the corruption, and the catastrophies of the world in which we live. It was in such troubled times and in such hopeless circumstances that a young Hebrew mother placed her baby in a basket and set it afloat among the reeds of the river Nile. Even if the baby were to live, she could only see an intolerable existence for him as he would groan under the burden of hard labor and be driven to the point of daily exhaustion by the sting of the ...

524. Yes, But How?

Romans 7:7-25

Sermon

King Duncan

I believe that every one of us can identify with St. Paul when he cries out in anguish that the good that he would do, he does not; and the evil that he would not do, he does. You might even be tempted to say, "He sounds a lot like me!" We all have good intentions. But we also know where the road that's paved with good intentions leads to! One pastor tells about a man who borrowed a book from an acquaintance. When he read it, he was intrigued to find parts of the book underlined, with the letters YBH in ...

525. Declaration Of Freedom

Galatians 5:1-15

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

It was in the newspaper back in the mid-1950's, during the height of the civil rights movement. An unforgettable picture, which captured not only the emotion of one man, but the deep sense of freedom and joy and release and affirmation of a whole race. A black man, who must have been over 100 years old, was being carried on the shoulders of a group of young men. They were taking him up the steps of a courthouse in a Southern town to register to vote. The caption beneath the picture said he was born a slave ...

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