Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 551 to 575 of 1285 results

Mark 2:18-22

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... , as it turned out, the choir got the old juice, and they seem to have survived. On the way up the aisle, the pastor whispered, “Where did you get the juice? “I’ll tell you later,” I said. After the service, when I told him what happened, he doubled up with laughter. I said, a Scripture verse occurs to me. “What is it?” “You have saved the best wine until the last!” (John 2:10) And so it goes. Let us be serious at Communion time. But not TOO serious. Wining and dining with Jesus is supposed ...

552. God’s Strange Arithmetic

Mark 10:1-12

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... it reduces your individuality. Too often one party or the other seems to be saying: “Alright - we two shall become one...and I AM the one!” Obviously, such a marriage is headed for trouble. Ideally, when “two become one” it means that each one is doubled, but not duplicated. You still retain your individual identity, but you add to yourself the identity of the other, and the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to ...

553. The Lord's Prayer: Deliver us from Evil

Matthew 6:5-13

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... writes on page 114, "I met a man who kept two heads, And thus he really kept two minds. His heads fell into quarreling And bit each other very blind. He died a month thereafter Where teeth and bloody faces fought. So all duplicity brings death In quarreling, doubled thought." Simply put, you cannot serve God and Mammon. You cannot cooperate with evil in any possible way. You must focus on God to defeat evil. This is where the power is. A man saved his money for a long time to buy a Rolls Royce, one of ...

554. The First Commandment: Who's on First?

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... did he have? For one thing, he taught them how to put on their socks. No kidding. Each season Coach Wooden showed his players how to prevent sock-wrinkles around the little toe and the heel, and how to lace up their shoes with a double-knot. This helped his players avoid blisters. In the closing minutes of a close game, the player without blisters on his feet will perform better. This simple, basic detail contributed to a series of national championships. Attention to detail, Wooden says, creates success in ...

555. The Fourth Commandment: The Rhythm of Rest or the Rat Race

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... and worked them long days and nights to get to their desired location. Everybody was tired and weary. Finally, one of the natives was selected to tell the safari leader they needed a rest--a day off. The safari leader, being a good New Yorker, offered to double their salary (overtime as we would call it). However, the native said to the leader: "You press too hard. Our souls need time to catch up with our bodies. Money is not the issue: malnourishment of the soul is." Those of you who work with computers ...

556. Joy: The Echo of God's Presence In Us! (Part I - Introduction)

Philippians 1:1-11

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... kids kicked in. Call it black humor. Call it anything you want, but it got my family and me through 20 miles of bad road. "Recently, when I finally made my dental appointment, I said to Kay (a hygienist who recently had a double mastectomy), "Notice anything different about me?" She scrutinized me carefully and said, "New roots?"--when you just had a root canal. "Now, that''s depressing." (4) The Apostle Paul, like Erma Bombeck, never got so comfortable complaining and griping--whether about a cancer ...

557. The Power of Encouragement (Part VIII)

Philippians 2:1-11

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... each other rather than exchange verbal warfare. A certain wife said to her husband, "You make me wish I had a lower IQ so I could enjoy your company better." He responded, "Before we were married your chin was your best feature. Now it''s a double feature." She said, "Your parent''s biggest mistake was not to seek information on birth control." He said, "I am still using the piece of my birthday cake as the new walkway in the back yard." I think you can assume from the following exchanges in conversation ...

558. Titles, Credentials, or Resurrection Power

Philippians 3:1-11

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... hurt and put down even more. They don''t have dates. So many kids are left home the night of the senior prom. There is so much sadness the night of the senior prom. Those kids who have always been on ego trips and have always been glorified get a double boost. "I don''t like that night, neither did my friend, Guy Doud. He suggested something. He said, `Let''s try this. Let''s run a dance for people over the age of 65. If you would rather have a prom, I''ll go along with it. But, let''s ...

559. The Tenacity of Trouble

James 4:1-12

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... ) I am further reminded of the story of a small lad who was being harassed by the class bully. One day in the class, the conflict came to a boiling point. The small lad took a twig and drew a line in the dirt on the playground and declared, "I double-dare you to cross that line." The bully boldly stepped across the line. "Okay," said the small lad, "now you are on my team." This is the creative spirit that we need to solve the problems of disunity and self-seeking attitudes in the church. We do it by ...

560. The Tender Touch (Part 1)

James 5:13-20

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... was conducted on the power of prayer. Dr. Randolph Byrd, a cardiologist with the San Francisco General Medical Centers Coronary Care Unit, did a scientific study on prayer involving heart patients. Nearly four hundred patients participated in a ten-month, double blind experiment that was scientifically controlled and documented. The patients were divided into two groups with no statistical difference between group A or B. The patients were not told which group they were in. Group B received no prayer ...

561. Easter Transportation

John 20:1-9

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... . It wasn't the gardener! In these and a trillion other circumstances, it was the spirit of God in the risen Christ creating those resurrections. Marilyn Oden put it beautifully: As we stumble though the cobwebs in the midnight mist, filled with loneliness and despair and bent double by our burdens, the whisper of God's love can penetrate the mist -- even from the underside of the soul. We know the outcome of the Story. We do not have to remain entombed in the dark night. We do not have to wrap ourselves in ...

562. Will the Real Blind Beggar Please Stand Up?

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

Cathy A. Ammlung

... their Savior's side. We might never see, hear, ask, or do rightly on our own. Like the crowd that followed Jesus but shushed Bartimaeus, we can be blinder, deafer, and dumber than the most wretched beggar! And yet in infinite mercy, Jesus enacted a double healing on the Jericho road. In the midst of the loud, excited, yet blind-deaf-dumb crowd that tried to silence Bartimaeus, Jesus stopped dead in his tracks. He stood still, and listened to the shrill voice the others wanted to ignore. Even blind beggars ...

563. Security Concerns

Ephesians 6:10-20

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... military metaphors with talk about the Prince of Peace. They sometimes point out that all the armament listed by the author of the text is mainly defensive armor needed for survival rather than attack. Yet we still must admit that for all our theological double-speak, the realities of our world throw us back often to possessing a kindred spirit with this text. While many of us live in "gated" communities and have key pads on our homes, there is much organized evil to be concerned about that we cannot ...

564. Don't Forget What You Look Like

James 1:19-27

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... ; and the incense of the Alexandrians did not send its smoke up in a perfectly straight line like the Abtinos incense. So the Temple heads called in the heads of the two old families, but they refused to come. Finally, after their fee was doubled, they came before the Temple administrators who asked them why they did not instruct others in their skills. The Garmu and Abtinos patriarchs gave the same answer. The two families were concerned that outsiders might use the skills to their financial advantage and ...

565. A Forgiving Presence

John 7:45--8:11

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... disobeying the Jewish law, for the law was that any person caught in the act of adultery had to be stoned. But if he doesn’t intervene, and not condemn her or prevent her condemnation, he is caught in what we down in Mississippi used to call a double whammy. If he doesn’t do that, then he is going against everything that he has been teaching about compassion and forgiveness. The problem is clear, but Jesus never allows himself to be on the horns of a dilemma, he reverses it. The problem is clear, sin ...

566. Who Are You Waiting For?

Isaiah 40:1-31

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... to the words of the prophet Isaiah, sang so beautifully by the choir. “Comfort, comfort my people says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for her sin. A voice cries, in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain and hill made low, the uneven ground shall be made level and the ...

567. Proclaimers Of The Gospel

Philippians 1:12-30

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... but by a layperson who had experienced new life and was willing to share it. John got me to my airline, assured me he had time to check in the car and help Hans find a plane to the right Bloomington. We quickly exchanged address cards, John took a double breath when he saw that I was the editor of the Upper Room, because he was a Methodist, and it was obvious that he knew that publication well. I noted that he was the president of a silo construction company, which I later learned was the second largest of ...

568. What Really Matters The Price Of The High Calling

Philippians 3:12-4:1

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... rooms of a very wealthy woman. On a whim, to get ready for a big party, the woman decided to do some redecorating. She was under some time pressure, so she told the carpet layer that if he would finish the job in a day, she would pay him double - but she was a perfectionist and it had to be done right. The craftsman worked diligently, but with great care, dollar marks in his eyes – taking only a cigarette break now and then, working hard. About 3:00 in the afternoon he was moving to the finish, happy with ...

569. Leave Your Stuff Behind

Genesis 45:1-28

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... Isley is one of my favorite writers. He is a distinguished anthropologist and essayist. What makes his writing so gripping to me is that he has the eye of an artist and the soul of a poet. He sees beyond the surface and he has that rare double gift which enables him to enter deeply into an experience and then share that experience with us in the kind of way that enables us to vicariously experience what he himself has experienced. In one of his poignant vignettes from boyhood, he shared a moment of time ...

570. Living Deliberately

John 10:1-21

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... attention. Jesus talked about men seeing but not really seeing, of hearing but not really hearing. This is where many of us are. We’re like the American tourist in Paris who rushed into the Louve and shouted, “Quick, where’s the Mona Lisa, I’m double parked outside.” We flip through the pages of the Bible, we drop in on Church now and then, we offer a quickie prayer as we fall asleep at night, and feel that we have performed our religious duties. We become so conditioned and calloused by science ...

571. Proclaiming The Gospel

Philippians 1:1-11

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... lay person who had experience new life and was willing to share it. John got me to my airline, assured me he had time to check in the car and to help Hans find a plane for the ride to Bloomington. We quickly exchanged cards. John took a kind of double-breath when he saw on my card that I was the World Editor of The Upper Room, for he was a Methodist and obviously knew that publication well. I noted that he was the president of a Silo Construction Company, which I later learned was the second largest such ...

572. The Primacy Of Love

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... parishoner." The newspaper continued, "These are not easy times for Father Toner and his flock. But then preaching Jesus' word and following his example have never been easy -- for Catholics or Protestants -- in a province where politics and religion can be used as a double-edged sword." (Christian Science Monitor, 4-1-88, quoted by Leonard H. Budd, "Charigma", April 9, 1989). II. Perhaps the meaning of Agape is best seen by focusing on its use in scripture. That brings us to the next point of the sermon ...

573. In The Beginning And The End...God

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... her brood, Socrates drinking the hemlock, And Jesus on the rood; And millions who, humble and nameless, the straight, hard path road plod. Some call it Consecration, And others call it God. (William Herbert Carruth, quoted from The Best Loved Poems of America, Double-Day & Co., Garden City, NY, 1936, edited by Helen Filleman, p. 302) In the beginning, God. Few phrases have stimulated the mind and imagination of men as this one: "In the beginning, God." Numerous poets have tried to put in their words that ...

574. I Am Christ's

2 Corinthians 5:17

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... 2,700 miles in 35 days. He broke the world record four times for the bench press, once lifting 507 pounds. He completed the Iron Man Triathlon in Hawaii. Now none of that may appear too unusual. It's unusual when you know that Bob Wieland is a double amputee. He doesn't have legs; a land mine blew his legs away, but it didn't ruin his outlook on life, or stop him from completing marathons and triathlons. For marathons and walks, he propels himself in a sitting position, using his arms like crutches to swing ...

575. Declaration Of Freedom

Galatians 5:1-15

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... replied, "Yes, but thank God, I can choose the color." Jim Moore has a story that speaks powerfully to us at this point. A friend of his -- an outstanding professional, highly-regarded person in Houston, actively involved in work, in church, in community -- he's a double-amputee. Both his legs have been amputated, but if you were not aware of that fact you would never guess it. With artificial legs and a cane, he walks, he works, and he lives life to the full and never complains. Recently, when he and Jim ...

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