Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 526 to 550 of 793 results

2 Corinthians 5:11--6:2

Sermon

Eric Ritz

The novelist, Harry Crews, shares an insight into the human condition that he learned as a youngster. "I first became fascinated with the Sears Roebuck catalog, because all the people in its pages were perfect. Nearly everyone I knew, had something missing, a finger cut off, a toe split, an ear half-chewed away, an eye clouded with blindness, from a glancing fence staple. And if they didn''t have something missing, they were carrying scars from barbed wire or knives, or fish hooks. But the people in the ...

527. Grace in the Midst of the Crush of Time

2 Corinthians 6:3-13

Sermon

Glenn McDonald

In the year 2000 Forbes Magazine featured a special edition on a single topic that it called "the biggest issue of our age -- time." The editors wrote, "We've beaten, or at least stymied, most of humanity's monsters: disease, climate, geography, and memory. But time still defeats us. Lately its victories seem more complete than ever. Those timesaving inventions of the last half-century have somehow turned on us. We now hold cell phone meetings in traffic jams, and 24-7 has become the most terrifying phrase ...

528. Going, Going, Gone

2 Kings 2:1-18

Sermon

Curtis Lewis

Recently, a friend of mine went to Wrigley Field in Chicago to watch an afternoon baseball game. For my friend, an afternoon at Wrigley Field is the ultimate in baseball. Those who attend an afternoon game at Wrigley Field still sing enthusiastically during the seventh inning stretch, "Take Me Out To The Ball Game." When a player drives a ball deep into left field towards the bleachers, and it looks as if the ball will make it into the bleachers, you will hear a familiar cry from the faithful at Wrigley, " ...

529. A Pattern For Giving And Living

2 Corinthians 8:1-15

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Some time ago I came across a letter which expressed an idea with which I want to begin today. The letter was from a college student to her parents. She said: Dear Mom and Dad: I'm sorry that it has been such a long time since my last letter, but I didn't want to bother you with the fire in the dormitory and the concussion I received falling out the window trying to escape. I want you to know how nice the young service station attendant around the corner was. He provided me comfort all the time that I ...

530. Christmas and the New Family

John 1:1-18

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

When Wilbur and Orville Wright completed their historic flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903, they sent home a succinct telegram. In minimum words it reported that their venture had succeeded, and concluded, "Home for Christmas." Whether they knew it or not, their achievement had ushered in a new age. Along with that, their "coming home" announcement might seem very mundane. But any of us who have longed to go home for Christmas will understand that the two subjects of the telegram ...

531. Wisdom and the Trinity

Proverbs 8:1-36

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

Perhaps no doctrine of the Christian Church is more obscure in the minds of church-goers than is the doctrine of the Trinity, the fact that God is One in three Persons. The early church councils of the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. debated long and hard before they arrived at a satisfactory statement of the doctrine, and still today, persons misunderstand or distort the teaching. The doctrine of the Trinity took shape out of the testimony of the scriptures, beginning with their witness to Jesus Christ. ...

532. One Degree As God’s Relation

Acts 17:22-31

Bulletin Aid

Frank Ramirez

Call To Worship One: The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, All: nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. Right Side: From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, Left Side: so that they would search for ...

533. What Kind of Name Is That?

Luke 1:26-31

Sermon

Mark Trotter

It is always interesting to discover the origin of names. I suppose most of you were named for a relative. Some are named for saints, or heroes, and some just bear the names that were chosen because they sound distinguished. Some names are unfortunate. I heard about a man who joined the Navy. His name was Tonsillitis Jackson. The Navy couldn't believe it, so they did a check on him, and discovered that indeed his name really was Tonsillitis Jackson. What's more, he had brothers and sisters who were named: ...

534. The FUD Club: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt

2 Thessalonians 2:13-17

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Theme: In a world of doomsayers, where Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt reign supreme, disciples of Jesus are doom-slayers. EXEGESIS of the Text: Part 1: 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5 The 2 Thessalonians Epistle text for this week skips about in chapter two, cherry-picking verses first from the opening lines of the letter (vv.1-5), then landing on the concluding remarks of this first section (vv.13-17). This edited reading of 2:1-17, however, does succeed in focusing on the author’s primary concern throughout this ...

535. Eleven Plus One

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Say "March Madness" and everyone knows what you're talking about. The NCAA Basketball Championship fills the minds of fans and the sports channels on TV. Say "Super Bowl" or "World Series" and a whole host of images come to mind. Whether college or pro ball, every tournament singles out one or two teams that are dubbed a Cinderella team. Some have unexpected, unlooked-for strings of victories; some go beyond their individual abilities to teamwork; and suddenly, a team destined for the dumpster is sitting ...

536. Generations

John 4:1-26

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Boosters: Pre-1946 Will all those born before 1946, please rise and remain standing? Tom Brokaw calls you the greatest generation, and he's right. Sociologists call you the boosters. You comprise both the GI Generation and the Depression Babies. The Trotsky saying that anyone who wants to lead a peaceful life has chosen the wrong century in which to be born applies to you more than any other generation. Born pre-1946, you are the generation that survived the depression, was transfixed by the 1939 New York ...

537. The Whole Shebang in Six Words

John 11:38-44

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

The more complex our world becomes, the more simplicity it needs. This quest for simplicity has become the holy grail of science, whether in the form of physicist Stephen Hawking's TOE and his lifetime pursuit of a Theory of Everything (TOE), or theoretical physicist Stephen Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science" (the title of his 2002 book). Wolfram, a Ph.D. at 20 from Caltech, proposes that instead of looking for more and more complex theories to creation, we should be looking for simpler ones (primitives, he ...

538. Want to Be Happy?

Matthew 3:13-17

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Theme: Pleasing God is what brings true happiness in life. The Word-Became-Flesh . . . Exegesis: Matthew 3:13-17 All four gospels record the events of Jesus’ baptism at the hand of John. And each one of the four gospel writers add their own unique touches to the story. Our text this morning from Matthew contains elements not found in any of the other gospels, suggesting he had either a unique source for this information or was writing out of a community concern that required a special perspective. To begin ...

539. The Counter Intelligence of the Cross

1 Corinthians 1:18--2:5, 1 Corinthians 1:10-17, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

This week’s epistle text is a long one: 19 verses. It faithfully follows the precise, prescribed unfolding of Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church, which in turn faithfully follows the niceities of proper letter composition in the first century Greco-Roman world. The genius of Paul is to work within formulaic frameworks while finding a way to add his own unique touches in order to preach the gospel. In his salutation (vv.1-3) Paul asserts his own apostolic identity, his “call,” and identifies the source ...

540. All Saints

Psalm 34:1-22, Revelation 7:9-17, 1 John 2:28--3:10, Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon Aid