Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: Levi, disciple, evangelist, tax collector, the 12, the twelve, apostle, sermon on the mount, jewish audience, beatitudes, lord's prayer, great commission, parables, olivet discourse, mount of olives, olivet, synoptic

Showing 526 to 550 of 715 results

526. The Adventure Begins

Ephesians 1:15-23, Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... he feeds 5,000 from a few loaves and fish. We tremble in awe and amazement as Lazarus comes forth from the tomb he has laid in for 4 days. We witness Jesus' power as He calms the storm, heals the woman with the issue and has lunch with a Tax Collector named Zaccheus whose life is so changed by that one meal that he repays fourfold any who he has cheated. We listen with curiosity as the Sadducees and Pharisees try to trick Jesus on fine points of the law and laugh when He entangles them in their own snare ...

527. Harmony and Humor: The Ties That Bind Christianity’s Many Christianities

Luke 4:14-30

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... of the state, as a heretic of faith, and was executed in the most public, excruciating, and humiliating way, he was advocating scandal. Jesus recruited apostles from smelly fishermen. That was scandalous. Jesus dined with despised Roman tax collectors. That was scandalous. He walked among the wicked, pressed the flesh with lepers, socialized with social outcasts, offered advice to adulterers. That was scandalous. Jesus engaged with the outcasts — the Gentiles, the blind, the sick, women with questionable ...

528. Discover The Joy Of Christmas

Luke 2:8-20

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... being. Of course we have to do our part, too. We can't just lay back and say, "Well, lay it on me Lord." No, a lot of times it takes lots of hard work to be perfected by God. God takes us, the outcast, the imperfect, the unfaithful, the tax collectors and sinners as the New Testament calls us and through God's divine love and grace, God perfects us. God transforms us and gives new meaning, purpose and direction to our lives. God helps us clean up our acts and become more like Christ every day. And the more ...

529. Could We Start Again, Please? (Series: Real Faith for Real People)

John 3:1-21

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

It’s been said of Jesus that whenever he met a person it was as if that person were an island around which Jesus sailed until he found the real problem. And there he landed. He did that with the wealthy tax collector Zacchaeus and landed on the question of integrity. “All that I have stolen, I will repay four-fold.” He did that with the woman at the well and landed on the subject of marriage. “Go call your husband.” And here in John 3, Jesus does that with the powerful, prestigious, ...

530. Radical Love at Home (Series: Radical Love in a Risky World)

Luke 15:11-32

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... and I have never taken time to rejoice.” Whether or not we want to admit it, there is a lot of the elder brother in all of us. The parable is first spoken to scribes and Pharisees who were complaining that Jesus was spending too much time with tax collectors and sinners. Grace never seems fair. It doesn’t seem fair in families, in church, and certainly not in society. You go about loving people who don’t deserve to be loved and a lot of people are going to hate you. Isn’t that why families fall out ...

531. Radical Love is Forgiving (Series: Radical Love in a Risky World)

Luke 7:36-50

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee. Both go to the temple. Both say their prayers. The Pharisee says, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people — not a robber, not an evil doer, not an adulterer, not even like this tax collector beside me.” Jesus concludes — there is no forgiveness with attitudes like that. People who see no need are not about to be freed. Self-righteousness blocks us from the grace of God. Brennan Manning in that powerful book Ruthless Trust says “The great weakness ...

532. Go

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... "E" word thingy. You're sort of like secret agents. Most folks don't expect you to talk about your faith or be involved in this whole Evangelism deal. But you know what, you are exactly who Jesus would have chosen. Jesus called fishermen, tax collectors, and the every day ordinary kinds of people. He didn't have a single Pharisee, Sadduccee, Priest or Levite on his staff. It was all run by the laity. And after Pentecost their ministry exploded. William Willimon said: "In baptism we are initiated, crowned ...

533. Fingerprints and Lovemarks

John 17:20-26

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... that one . . . and for all future generations . . . until the end of time. When the risen Christ appeared to Saul and started him on his journey to the Gentiles, Jesus wasn’t thinking homogeneity. Gentiles, Samaritans, women of “questionable morals,” tax collectors, Roman soldiers — these were the focus of Jesus’ earthly ministry and the mission field for each new post-resurrection, Pentecost generation. Outcasts and off-the-radar rejects were the first to hear and heed the gospel, the good news ...

534. To Live in Joy

Revelation 1:1-3

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... find her when I came back up the beach, and I walked away - pondering life. What does it look like? What does it feel like? How does It come to us? This life that Jesus came to bring. It comes to us as acceptance; experienced by a despised tax collector. It feels like forgiveness, experienced by a women who sold her body and was about to be stoned by those who didn’t understand forgiveness. It looks like new meaning for a person who is estranged from her entire community and comes to a well in the middle ...

535. Who Are We Waiting For?

Isaiah 40:1-31

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... today. I don’t know the point of your deepest need, but I know this: Christmas is the witness that that very point is the intersection where God is going to meet you at that very point of your deepest need. Let’s trace the witness in scripture. A despised tax-collector was up a tree, escaping the crowd that could never accept him. He wanted to see Jesus, but he had no hope of Jesus seeing him. God is like a Ford, He has a better idea. Jesus saw him and called him down to new life. A woman estranged from ...

536. Fish or Cut Bait

Mark 1:14-20

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... to fish or just sit there?” Our scripture lesson today is about some fishermen. It is the familiar story of Jesus’ call of four of his disciples – all fishermen. Mark gives the specific setting for the call of one other disciple – Matthew the tax collector. Then in Chapter 3 he names the original 12 whom Jesus calls, but gives no details about their calling. We focus today on the call of the first four disciples because there are challenging lessons for us here. I’ve titled the sermon, “Fish ...

537. When It's Time To Unite

I Corinthians 1:10-17

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... to hold communion, I recognize that at many, many tables you and I would not be welcomed at all. Sometimes I begin to wonder down in my own soul if Paul was not enunciating the anguish of the present life, “Is Christ divided?" Was our Lord, who ate with tax collectors and sinners and talked about sheep of other folds, a separatist? Will we let the table of grace keep us from grace? Come to the table…we need to talk. One bread, one body, one Lord of all. Rise from the table. Go from the table. Leave this ...

538. The Power to Resist Temptation

I Corinthians 10:13-17

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... about all of life. Lust—love distorted by turning people into things and using them for selfish gain. Pride—superiority. Considering ourselves better than others or praying as the Pharisee did, “God, I thank you I am not like other people particularly the tax collector that sits next to me in the synagogue." Paul says, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to all humankind" (I Corinthians 10:13). When it comes to temptation, we are not special. There are no exceptions to the rule. Lust ...

539. The One in Whom We Glory

John 12:12-19

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... . This is our Father's world. The reign of God seems small and weak. Who is this itinerant preacher riding into Jerusalem on a dumb donkey? Had He no friend who owned a white stallion? Who are these people that line the streets? Tax collectors, prostitutes, smelly fishermen, thieves, a few drunkards and some happy housewives—not a prominent person in the crowd as they scatter palm branches in the street. But, things are not always what they seem to be. An airline pilot, who made regular flights overseas ...

540. Making the Most of Small Beginnings

Matthew 13:31-35

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... thing about Christianity is that nobody could have guessed it." We have our Messiah born in a stable. We have our King ride into town on a donkey. We crucify our Lord on a cross. We convert the world with a handful of fishermen and a couple of tax collectors. How odd of God not to use our methods of promoting the Gospel. Never let us underestimate the infinitude of the little. In a drop of water there is a city with tides of traffic flowing through its streets. In a drop of blood there is a battleground ...

541. The Names by Which He Is Known

Exodus 3:1-15

Sermon

David J. Kalas

... reminds us, of course, of the marvelous versatility of our God. He appears to and calls Isaiah in the temple, but he is not limited to working in such a designated sacred space. He calls Gideon in his hiding place, the fishermen and the tax collector at their work, young Samuel in his bed, and Saul/Paul right on the path of his well-meaning and zealous opposition to God. So, here, Moses is walking along, literally minding his own business, when the Lord gets his attention with this strange phenomenon ...

542. The Vastness of Relationships

Ephesians 1:3-14

Sermon

John N. Brittain

... lived on earth, no longer feel welcome among his followers. We really do need to expand that Christmas scene. Maybe we should include not just Jeannette Isabella and the little drummer boy, but a prostitute or two, a few lepers, a blind man, and a hated tax collector. The unfathomable graciousness of God's act in Jesus Christ cannot be limited by time or space, or by our doctrines or hard-heartedness. It cannot be limited by the walls of the church, or the fences of social custom. That's hard to accept, let ...

543. Showing Up

Ephesians 3:1-12

Sermon

John N. Brittain

... of the kind of diversity Paul envisioned? Again, we don't know how much of the "Jesus story" Paul knew, but we cannot help but think of our Lord's time with the marginalized, the poor, the diseased, the outcast, sinners, and the despised tax collectors. Jesus challenged those "rulers and authorities in the heavenly places" who sought to diminish the abundance and exuberance of human life, and so should we, the church, Paul says. Paul concludes with what I find to be one of the most amazing, challenging, and ...

544. Boast in Our Suffering

Romans 5:1-8

Sermon

Steven E. Albertin

... into this world through his life. Watch him, see what he does and we will see what God is like — and what we see is amazing. Jesus is "the friend of sinners." Jesus goes out of his way to love the unlovable. He dines with sinners and tax collectors. He tells a story about a lost and profligate son who is still loved by his father, even though he has told his father to "drop dead." Jesus welcomes the outcast and touches the untouchable. But Jesus had to die for loving like that. He paid the ultimate ...

545. Righting Wrong

Romans 9:1-5

Sermon

Larry Lange

... is it possible, some of the religious leaders of the people of Israel argued, to achieve righteousness apart from doing the works prescribed by the law? How is it possible to associate with people who fall so far short of the law: lepers, prostitutes, tax collectors, Gentiles? How is it possible, Jim argued, to associate with people who seemed to have no interest at all in striving for righteousness in their living and giving? It is possible. It is possible, because Christ did not come for those who think ...

546. Compound Interest Your Life

Luke 15:1-7

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... is not important to the world, or is not important to God. “Just one” is . . . just everything. That’s compound interest. The power of one good act can reveal the self-centered smallness of a thousand lives. Jesus dared to eat with and talk to “tax collectors and sinners” — an act that enraged the religious authorities who cared more for the standards of ritual purity than they did for the souls of the people. None of us need to be reminded that yesterday was September 11. It has been nine years ...

547. Specializing in Misdemeanors

Lk 15:1-32

Illustration

King Duncan

... !" That sounds like many of us. We know in our minds that we are sinners, but we specialize in misdemeanors not in felonies "in small sins not in large ones. In our minds, ours are excusable sins. We are like the Pharisee who thanked God he wasn't like the tax collector. His sins fell within a range of acceptability.

548. Finder's Keepers

Luke 15:1-10

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... which had been lost. Today in our Scripture, Jesus not only illustrates the frantic nature of those doing the searching; He also shows how much rejoicing there is for the one who is found. Let's look at Luke 15:1-10 (NRSV) : [1] Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. [2] And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." [3] So he told them this parable: [4] "Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing ...

549. Broken Lives and Broken Chains

Luke 8:26-39

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... the difference between heifers and cows. I was the young buck. It was a curious place. Here we were, two preachers, sitting in a room full of old reprobates, carrying on and drinking coffee like one of the boys. I pictured Jesus sitting and eating with the tax collector's and sinners. And that's where we were. But there was curious thing about our relationship as it developed. We all sat at the tables in the middle of the cafe but along the walls there were those typical cafe booths. And there was one, that ...

550. Out Into The Deep Water

Luke 5:1-11

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... the least likely of people and uses them for the Glory of God's Kingdom. God took a convicted murderer and made Moses the leader of the Israelites. God took a trickster and liar, Jacob, and made him the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. Jesus took a tax collector and a bunch of smelly fisherman and made them the leaders of the earliest Church. You may have no more talent than that little donkey. You might be a Moses, a Jacob, a Matthew or a fisherman but God can use you. God can take who and what you ...

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