Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 551 to 575 of 2157 results

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of someone else.

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Sermon

King Duncan

... love of God when they see us walk in the way of love consistently. There’s an old story of four religious scholars who were debating about their favorite translation of the Bible. One of them liked the King James Version. One of them liked the Good News Version. One of them liked a translation by a prominent German theologian. The last scholar spoke up and said, “I personally prefer my mother’s translation.” The other scholars were amused by this statement until the man said, “She translated each ...

553. Why the Greatest?

Mark 12:28-34

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... dish that mixes meat and dairy products? The real question is — what is the purpose behind a law, or the Law? The Jewish scholar Hillel (110 BC - 10 AD) was once asked if he could recite the entire Jewish law while standing on one leg. He replied with a version of the Golden Rule: “Do not do to others what you don’t want them to do to you.” He used this saying as an example of a commandment that could be considered not only the greatest, but which also encapsulated all the others. That’s what the ...

554. In the Wilderness of Temptation

Mark 1:9-15

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... heavenly Father was with Him. And Christ promises to be with us, no matter what. Even when it seems like we're alone, Christ is there. In John 14:18, Jesus says, "I will not leave you orphaned." The King James Version translates it, "I will not leave you comfortless." I like both versions. Abba God, our heavenly Father will not leave us alone, cut off, abandoned and orphaned. That's great news for anyone who has ever felt like everyone has abandoned them, whether it's because a parent or a spouse left or ...

555. The Most Important Question

Acts 10:34-43

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... . In 2013, the editors of Time decided to go for the doozie and name the most significant person in history. They did an exhaustive study and a complex analysis of historical figures. Guess who won? Jesus (Rick Lawrence, The Jesus-Centered Life, Group Publishing, 2016, Kindle version). Yet, do we really know who Jesus was? Do we really know? I remember the first time I saw a picture of Jesus. I was just a little boy in Sunday school drinking grape Kool Aid® and eating graham crackers. On the wall of the ...

556. What About Me?

John 1:29-42

Sermon

John Jamison

... of the story about Jesus being baptized. The other gospel writers tell the story in fairly clear ways, describing what Jesus and John said and did. After reading their stories, we can close our eyes and see what it must have been like. And then John writes his version and instead of telling us about the river, he says things like, “This is the man I told you about who comes after me and would end up going past me because he had already been here before me the entire time.” And suddenly, the image of the ...

557. The Well

John 4:5-42

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... in which you had to lower a bucket into a deep cavernous opening and then raise it up again to retrieve the water. The kind of well that Jesus encountered that day that he met the Samaritan woman in our scripture for today was yet another version of well. This was no ordinary well. This was “Jacob’s Well,” the very well dug and blessed by Jesus’ ancestor. It held special meaning not only as a historic well but as an “altar” to God. Additionally, wells were “covenant markers,” places in which ...

558. Text Message From Jesus

Mark 11:1-11

Sermon

Mary Austin

... he’s telling us. The story is so intriguing that each of the four gospel writers remembered it and wrote it down. Our mental image of the day is a combination of all four but each one remembered different details. Mark’s version doesn’t have a single palm branch in sight, but we mentally add them in from other versions of the story. Mark’s story, the one we hear today, is much simpler, but we also add in the crowds to our image of the day. So what does Jesus want us to know? Should we see Jesus as a ...

559. Going Where Jesus Goes

Mark 16:1-8

Sermon

Mary Austin

... to honor Jesus in death, and to grieve for him. We heard them fret about huge the stone in front of the grave and wonder if they can find someone to help them roll it away. The mysterious figure was there to give the news. Then before this version — in Mark’s version of the story — there’s no Jesus. In fact, the messenger says: “He is not here.” Um, this is Easter — if he’s not here, where is he? The women didn’t wait around to ask too many questions. They rushed off, as the story says ...

560. Bearers of the Seed

Mark 16:1-20

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... ) “Whereas therefore he was a prophet, and knew that God hath sworn to him with an oath, that of the fruit of his loins one should sit upon his throne.” (Acts 2:30 Douay-Rheims Version) The “fruit” of one’s loins of course are one’s children. Likewise, be “fruitful” and multiply meant to procreate copiously and vigorously, so as to fill the earth with God’s children. Now let me say that again –so as to fill the earth with GOD’s children. Our ...

561. Schadenfreude

Mark 2:23-3:6

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... you are most familiar with: He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God? (New King James Version, NKJV) I want you to notice something, because this is the passage that Christians often use to “justify” their Schadenfreude. The prophet tells us that we are to “do justly.” That “we” are to act justly within the world….not to mention to “love mercy” and to “live humbly.” Nowhere ...

562. Strength for The Journey

John 16:12-15

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” The doctrine of the Trinity as we know it was formulated in about 400 CE, under the leadership of Saint Basil of Caesarea, Saint Gregory of Nyssa, and Saint Gregory of Nazianzus. A vague belief or quasi-doctrinal version of God as three-in-one had been floating around since the early church was first formed, but it was under those three that it took, pretty much, the form it has today and that form is accepted in all of the historic confessions of Christianity, even ...

563. God Is Like...a Lamb

Exodus 12:3-8 · Luke 22:7-20

Sermon

Kenneth L. Gibble

... my mother sing it. “… so the teacher turned it out, turned it out, turned it out. … so the teacher turned it out, which made the children cry.” I’m sure my mother’s intention was not to teach me that life is tragic, but in that version I learned as a child, it was clear that deviant behavior by both lambs and owners of lambs would result in tearful consequences. Children laughing and playing might be all well and good on holidays, but school time was work time. Teachers were there to insure that ...

564. Topsy-turvy Christianity

Luke 6:17-26, Luke 6:27-36

Sermon

J. Will Ormond

... We need to remind ourselves that these beatitudes and woes were never meant to be rules for the ordering of political life. They have to do, rather, with the kingdom of God. There is no glorification of poverty, hunger, grief, nor persecution in Luke's version of the beatitudes. One is not exhorted to seek these negative positions in order to obtain a blessing. There is no glossing over the reality of present distress. There is no call for stoic endurance. But hope is held out that wrongs ultimately will be ...

565. The Wretched Of The Earth

Luke 1:46-56, Luke 1:39-45

Illustration

Richard A. Jensen

... Look down and show some mercy if you can. Look down and see the sweepings of the street. Look down, look down upon your fellow man!" Thus reads the text of a song from the most popular work of musical theater in history: Les Miserables. In the musical version of the classic French novel by Victor Hugo this song shifts the scene to the squalid streets of Paris: 1832. It is sung by "the miserable ones," those from whom the novel and the musical takes its name. The beggars, the poor, the dregs of society sing ...

566. The Spice of Death

Sermon

Harry N. Huxhold

... . However, the evangelists mention several times that he was anointed by women on his feet as expressions of their gratitude for forgiveness and as expressions of devotion. It is difficult to separate these several anointings with the possibility of one or two being versions of the same one. However, it is important to note that at Bethany when Mary anointed Jesus, Judas protested the gesture as a waste of money. Jesus, however, replied, "Leave her alone. She bought it that she might keep it for the day ...

567. Easter Power

John 20:19-23, John 20:24-31

Sermon

Harry N. Huxhold

... not have the same convictions. Yet how important it was that he tried. Faith As the Risen Christ bestowed the gift of the Holy Spirit upon the twelve, he also empowered them to believe. John's account of this meeting in the Upper Room is the Johannine version of what happened at Pentecost. The disciples received the gift of the Holy Spirit that they might believe and understand how it was that Jesus was the Messiah. Their fear turns to joy and they are able to witness to the Christ. When Thomas returns to ...

568. Tears At The Tomb

John 11:17-37

Sermon

William G. Carter

... the Bible." At first glance, that brief verse looks like a lightweight compared to other verses. The Gospel of John often reveals the eternal Word in single sentences, but the sentence "Jesus wept" does not sound like one of them. Even when the New Revised Standard Version expands it to four words ("Jesus began to weep"), John 11:35 doesn't seem to carry the full freight of the Gospel. That brief verse occurs in the story of the death of Lazarus, a significant event in the ministry of Jesus. Lazarus was a ...

569. Living By The Calendar Instead Of The Clock (New Year's)

Luke 2:41-52

Sermon

Richard A. Wing

... . Leaders sit down and sign documents that were slugged out by unknowns in the night during ordinary time. Ordinary time reveals solutions right under our noses that demand the calendar instead of the clock. Each morning at 6:00 a.m. I read the abbreviated version of the New York Times. They were running an extensive overview of youth in trouble, their cases, and the solutions that worked. I was intrigued by one woman who has worked with youth in trouble for over twenty years. She said that she is aware ...

570. Proper 13

Luke 11:1-13, Hosea 11:1-11, Colossians 3:1-17, Psalm 107:1-43

Sermon Aid

William E. Keeney

... teacher for resolution of secular problems. Jesus refused to accept that definition of his ministry. If he accepted that role, he could spend all his time making such judgments. 3. "Greed." (v. 15) Greed is sometimes translated as covetousness in other versions. Jesus does not directly attack greed, but instead attacks the foolishness of trusting one's own future to accumulated possessions. 4. "The Land ... Produced Abundantly." (v. 16) The rich man could not take full credit for the abundance of crops. God ...

571. Proper 22

Luke 17:1-10, 2 Timothy 1:1-2:13, Lamentations 1:1-22, Psalm 137:1-9

Sermon Aid

William E. Keeney

... of the account. The word for slave in Greek is doulos. Less frequently the servant language is used, but it appears sometimes. In one passage the word for slave in one gospel is servant in a parallel passage. The Greek word for servant is diakonos. Some versions translate doulos as slave sometimes and as servant at others. The NRSV is consistent in translating doulos as slave and diakonos as servant in the passages cited below.Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13 -- Both the noun and a verb form have "slave" where it ...

572. Love And Resurrection

Mark 16:1-20

Sermon

Don M. Aycock

... the tomb in Palestine in A.D. 30. He is risen. He is our constant contemporary. He stalks the lonely streets and lives at our addresses. He seeks to dwell in Washington and New York, in Moscow and Mexico City. Christ wants to reign everywhere. Luke's version of Easter had two men walking down the road to Emmaus. Two lonely disillusioned men. One said, We had hoped that Jesus would be the one who would redeem Israel. The implication was that Jesus wasn't. Two lonely men, 14 trudging down the road. Two lonely ...

573. Plain Talk

Luke 6:17-26

Sermon

Charles H. Bayer

... How Prayer Saved Me From The Wild Wolf Pack." The stories were about the same incident. The authors were different, and so was the audience for whom each wrote. Matthew and Luke both record in their gospels a collection of Jesus' sayings. We know Matthew's version as, "The Sermon on the Mount." Matthew writes for a Jewish audience, and every good Jew knew that all important events happened on a mountain. The law came from Mount Sinai. Moses views the promised land from Mount Pisgah. "I will lift up my eyes ...

574. Telling The Truth

John 8:31-41

Sermon

Steven E. Albertin

... contribute something, God will match our efforts with his grace and mercy. In the late sixteenth century it was buying a few indulgences. What is it today? I fear that much of what gets passed off as the gospel in the churches today is just another version of this "matching grant gospel." If you really and sincerely commit your life to Christ, then God will "match" your commitment with his grace. If you really believe, then you will be blessed. If you really tithe and give more money to the church, then God ...

575. When God Steps Out Of Shadows

Jeremiah 30:1--31:40

Sermon

William L. Self

... . The Chinese have a proverb, "Victory has a thousand fathers but failure is an orphan." With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent demise of Communism, everyone was taking credit. Politicians, educators, and churchmen were working hard to give their version of the story and their part in the victory. There was an account that came after the fall that we must consider. Although free assembly was not permitted by the Communist government, churches could meet if their activities were confined to ...

Showing results