Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 551 to 575 of 1185 results

551. A Scream And A Laugh

Colossians 1:1-14

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... words, Chaim Potack begins his novel entitled My Name is Asher Lev. It's about a young boy whose extraordinary talent leads him away from his family and his faith into a painful maturity and a perilous success. Asher Lev longs to be a painter, and he pursues this longing in the face of his father's disapproval. He even paints what he calls the Brooklyn crucifixion -- a painting of the crucifixion of Christ. An explanation of that, on the very first page of the novel, Asher Lev says, "I am an observant Jew ...

552. The Cross: God's Answer To Our Deepest Needs

Colossians 2:8-15

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... he realized his true self and the more he experienced fulfillment. The more he knew Christ, the more he realized his needs and limitations and the more he had to press on to the high calling in Christ Jesus. The more he centered himself in Christ and pursued this high calling, the more he became sensitive to the needs of people around him and the more he realized that Calvary-motivated love had to be the motive dynamic of his life. So it is with us: cross-centered purpose gives us meaning. Viktor Frankl was ...

553. Singing The Lord's Song In A Strange Land (i)

Psalm 137:1-9

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... and over again in the Bible and it happened over and over again in our life. We come to a crossroads -- a new situation -- a situation we have never engaged before and we have to rethink our relationship to God. Let that be the impetus for the first thought we pursue in the sermon today. I. Put it down in your mind and in your notes if you are taking notes. Put it down in this way: A static faith is not an adequate faith. Let me say that again: A static faith is not a faith that will sustain us ...

554. Loving Close-up

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... empty is the possibility of reformation of a society which has lost all sense of value and purpose and meaning apart from a reformation of manners where we live and love close up. Listen to Paul in verses four through five. "Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage. It is not touchy. It does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails." A lot of that has to do with good old-fashioned manners. In ...

555. Loving The Jesus Way

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... for the salvation of others. The story may be dramatic -- maybe too much so -- but how it challenges our selfish living, our self-centered preoccupation with our own thing, our own pleasures, our own pursuit. J.B. Phillips translates the verse this way: Love does not pursue selfish advantage." Jesus' love can never be self-centered, nor can we if we love His way. III. Now a final word: Loving Jesus' way is loving enough to believe the best. That's where we began in our introduction. Verse 6 says: Love "does ...

556. Noah: The Bearer Of An Alternative Possibility

Genesis 6:1-8:22

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart." God wanted to pop humankind upside the head -- Had you or I been God, that's precisely what we would have done -- given humankind a cosmic backhand. I. Let's pursue the thought for a moment. How would you have felt had you been God? What would you have done? You gave life for all creation, shaped and fashioned it after your best design, sustained it with your life-given presence and entrusted that creation into the hands of ...

557. Declaration Of Freedom

Galatians 5:1-15

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... firm -- don't let it be taken away -- plant your feet firmly. But that doesn't mean non- movement, nothing status-quo about it. Nothing is more dynamic than freedom. We must stand in the freedom Christ has won for us in order to walk in freedom. So let's pursue the notion of thinking about the nature of this freedom in which we are to stand in order to walk as Christians. I. First, it is a freedom from our past. It is a freedom of release. Some of you remember Jimmy Hendricks, the late Rock star, a victim ...

558. Singing In The Rain

John 15:1-17

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... heart which is confident of its relationship with Christ." Joy is the gift of the Spirit that becomes a condition of the heart which is confident of its relationship with Christ. We'll come back to that, but let's try to appropriate the truth of it by pursuing it from different perspectives. I. First, let's look at the source of or the reason for our Christian joy. I'll mention just two. The number one reason for joy is our Salvation. C.S. Lewis entitled his autobiography, Surprised By Joy!. To be saved, to ...

559. The Ministry Of Making Many Rich

1 Timothy 6:11-21

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... today. The Christian Walk is a walk of generosity — generosity of self, and of one’s resources. I. Our Christian walk is one of generosity because we know that all of life is gift. Now that’s the first fact I would want you to register as we pursue our theme of generosity — the Christian walk is one of generosity because we know that all of life is gift. That’s what Paul was saying in our first scripture lesson today. Listen to it, verse 7 of I Corinthians 4: “For who sees anything different in ...

560. God's Hello People

1 John 1:5--2:14

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... that's what I want to talk about today -- God's Hello People. I'm talking about hospitality, which is one of the marks of the Christian walk...relating to strangers who may be angels unawares, walking in fellowship. As Christians we are God's Hello People. So, let's pursue the notion. I. Let's begin by saying that the sign of God's people is always a welcome. The sign of God's people is always a welcome. The portion of our scripture lesson from I John speaks a telling word. Chapter One, verses 6 - 7: "If we ...

561. Faith Working In Love

James 2:14-26

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... . "Lorraine manages all that," Mama Hale says of the financing,..."my job is just to love the children." The ones who worry her most are the toddlers who arrive scruffy and neglected. One little girl and her younger brother, left alone while their parents pursued drugs, were used to searching for scraps in a near-empty refrigerator. In their first lunch at Hale House, they stared wide-eyed at the food. When told to clasp their hands and say the blessing, they began to cry. "They were worried that ...

562. How To Be Rich And Poor

James 1:1-18

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... we have the Kingdom determines the value of what we have; andThree, we must realize and acknowledge our utter dependence on God. I believe the second thing that James is teaching us here, though he is not so explicit in it, is a lesson in contentment. Rather than pursuing things we do not have, as those who have little are apt to do, and rather than trusting in things, as those who are rich are apt to do, we are invited as Hebrews 13, verse 5, puts it to "Be without covetousness, and be content with such ...

563. On Level Ground

Luke 5:1-11

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... and wife, when I stand at a graveside and would comfort the bereaved, when I listen in a telephone call confessional or that which occurs around a kitchen table in the early hours of the morning, when I pronounce absolution and offer peace to those who are pursued by demons into the depths of hell itself. At such moments I ask myself, as Karl Barth did, "What are you doing there with the Word of God upon your lips?" How can you presume to minister when you yourself need ministry? How dare you speak God ...

564. How Is It With Your Soul?

Luke 6:37-42

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... challenging confrontation: "You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye." (verse 42). How is it with your soul? There are a lot of avenues of thought we could pursue in answering this question. But I'll narrow our focus to hypocrisy. How is it with your soul? Maybe pondering the word hypocrite will help us answer. I One kind of hypocrisy is expecting other persons to have higher standards than those we set for ourselves ...

565. The Discipleship Question: Do You Wish To Go Away?

John 6:60-71

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... -- and call them to consider their own commitment. He asked them the question "Do you also wish to go away?" It's the discipleship question -- a question that Jesus not only asked of His twelve disciples, but a question He asks of us today. I. Let's pursue that question by considering first, the temptation to go away. Some of us may be tempted even now. Some of us have been discipleship dropouts. Some of us may be tempted even now. Certainly all of us see around us those who have dropped out. They once ...

566. You Can't Tell A Book By Its Cover

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... title of our sermon, "You Can't Tell a Book by Its Cover." In connecting these two, I find a dynamic for self assessment which I believe will be helpful. "You can't tell a book by its cover...there is a way that seems to be right." Let's pursue the self assessment suggested by this Proverb. I. It seems right for us to feel that we have not been given a fair shake. Do you sometimes feel that way? That life has been unfair to you -- that you have not been given a fair shake? I run into people ...

567. A Rod For The Back Of Fools

Proverbs 25:1-28

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... the most moving and informing sections, he gives his account of two teaching experiences in the eighties. First, he taught preaching one semester at Harvard Divinity School. Harvard, he writes, was proud of its pluralism - "feminists, humanists, theists, liberation theologians all pursuing truth together." But the cost of that pluralism was illustrated for him in class one day: "There I was, making a fool of myself spilling out to them the secrets of my heart, and there they were, not telling me what they ...

568. From Hurting to Helping

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

King Duncan

... is George Matheson’s "0 Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go." It was many years ago, in January 1882, that this hymn first appeared in Life and Work, the official paper of the Church of Scotland. You may recall that the third stanza of the hymn pursues the theme of the rainbow. It is interesting that in the original version Matheson wrote: "I climb the rainbow in the rain." Somewhere along the way this was improved with the line we know: "I trace the rainbow through the rain." But, as Dr. Daniel Lioy points ...

569. And the Word Is...Love

Mark 12:28-34

Sermon

King Duncan

... public library where it was warm and hospitable. Unlike many of his kind, however, he began to take advantage of the library for more than a place to hang out. Knowing things had become the goal of his life, and knowing that he knows gave him a direction to pursue. Since he was a child he had wanted to write. It was a passion with him. He found books about freelance journalism. "I didn’t even know where to put the address on a cover letter. I had to start with that," he said. Brennan learned all he could ...

570. From Empty Nets to Full Lives

Luke 5:1-11

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

... reach in the here and now. Nor do we take seriously enough our potential for the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, and kindness are such beautiful qualities -- and ones we are so glad to find in others; so why don't we pursue them more hopefully and expectantly for ourselves? It is partly because we have boundaries as confining as the Sea of Galilee. Jesus wanted Peter to fish for human souls. Until the moment of that revelation, Simon Peter apparently would have been content to spend his ...

571. Commandments of Conduct

Nehemiah 7:73b--8:18

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... complaint. "I know what is right for me, and you have no business trying to meddle in my life!" The result is that there is no common standard of conduct that governs our lives. The country is split into a multiplicity of little groups, each pursuing its own values and setting its own ethical agendas. Frequently there is conflict, each little group trying to gain power for its point of view and scorning the standards and lifestyles of other groups. Vainly, government and media and schools try to return to a ...

572. A Longer Stride and a Larger Embrace

Galatians 2:11-21

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... Eckhart warned that “there are many who are willing to follow our Lord halfway—but not the other half.” Our community—as academy and abbey—must cultivate in us a thirst for holiness. That is, in part, an academic enterprise. We can’t pursue a serious study of Scripture without being consistently and constantly confronted by God who demands, “Be holy as I am holy.” And we can’t study our Wesleyan perspective without concluding that this was one of Wesley’s paramount contributions to an ...

573. Imitators of God

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... may not call holiness without love God’s kind of holiness, so also what we call love without holiness is not God’s kind of love.” Christ is our pattern of God for holy living and holiness is not an option for Christian people. So let’s pursue the notion. I am preoccupied in my mind and heart these days with the nature of the church and the nature of Christian discipleship. My preoccupation flows from my commitment to the rich heritage of ATS – in terms of theology, ethos, mission and our spiritual ...

574. A Church for the 21st Century: Holy, Charismatic, Apostolic - An Enclave of Resistance

Luke 4:14-30

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... s own people.” Jesus was clear about ti. His church would be built on the faith commitment that he was the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. So, the church is not our idea, it’s God’s idea. With that clearly in mind, let’s pursue this image of the church as “an enclave of resistance.” I Let’s begin by thinking about the nature of resistance. In one of my favorite Peanuts cartoons – you expected that, didn’t you? – Lucy demands that Linus change TV channels and then threatens him with ...

575. Standing In the Gap: The Work of Intercession

2 Chronicles 7:11-22

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... have read my books or heard me speak much about prayer know that I sometimes ask this question, what if—just what if—what if there are some things that God either cannot or will not do until and unless people pray? Now we could pursue that question for a long time—in fact, for an entire sermon. But listen to me now. It’s commonplace to think and affirm that God acts through persons. Acts of mercy, acts of reconciliation, expressions of loving kindness, deliberate righteous activity, justice deeds ...

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