Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 551 to 575 of 1858 results

551. Names, Not Numbers

Deuteronomy 26:1-15

Sermon

Carl Hoefler

... begin to take over, and soon it is our possessions that own us. We become locked into a rat-race to keep inflating our material life style. Luxuries become necessities. Gadgets become our gods. We spend more than we make, and we buy more than we need. As Oscar Wilde said of us, "Americans know the price of everything and the value of nothing." The effort to achieve and to maintain status is ultimately self-defeating. It leads only to a lack of identity. We do not know who we are. All we know is what we earn ...

552. A Covenant Sealed By a Sacrifice

Genesis 15:1-18

Sermon

Carl Hoefler

... , and a young pigeon. Abraham obeyed. He brought the animals before the Lord and slaughtered them. He cut each animal in half and laid the pieces in two neat rows. Vultures hovered and circled over the slain beasts. Abraham flung his arms in a wild frenzy driving the birds of prey away. Exhausted from his vigil, Abraham fell into a deep sleep. The sun slowly settled beneath the horizon and a dreadfully dense darkness covered the land. Then, out of nowhere, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch floated ...

553. Praise God For Adversity

Isaiah 43:14-28

Sermon

Carl Hoefler

... in the process of fulfilling his promise to the people he has created and chosen. A new rescue, a new act of liberation, a new demonstration of God's continuing care for his people is about to surprise and to startle the whole of creation. Even the wild beasts and jackals and ostriches will bow down and give praise to the Lord. This message from Isaiah is appropriate as we observe the last Sunday in Lent, and as we prepare to enter, through Palm Sunday, into the solemnities of Holy Week. Get ready to cut ...

554. The Other Prodigal Son

Luke 15:11-32

Sermon

Brett Blair

... turning point. She had stayed at home in the Father’s house. She had done the right thing. But she needed to know that the Christ who was whipped was whipped for Teresa. And there was joy in heaven that day—not over a soul returning from wild living but for a soul returning from the fields after a hard days work. United Methodists certainly know about the elder brother, because their own John Wesley was the best of them. He was so earnest, so methodical about his devotional life that people called him a ...

555. After A Lost Election, Field Of Dreams

Jeremiah 8:4--9:26

Sermon

James Angell

... like the New Frontier, though controversy over involvement in Viet Nam kept the city in a mild uproar much of the time. By now one of the Angell daughters was married and living in Georgia. But the rest of us yielded to this strange call of the western wild, forsaking the gentle ways of Kentucky for a new position where the pastor's study was only about 100 yards from the gravesite of Marilyn Monroe. The first year was a time of adjustment, but we stayed with it. The Golden State has been, now, the anchor ...

556. Preaching Because We Have Something To Say

Sermon

James Angell

... faith. Sometimes we are too tired to listen to the Voice beyond our own. Sometimes we try too hard to parade our scholarship when a crust of bread is what is needed. Or we may fall in love with our own plans that prevent our hearing the wild winds of humanity or the soft breezes of peace. But when we stand there and look into those wonderful, waiting faces, and trust the knowledge that we have something to say that must be heard, something that is longing to be heard, something that transcends yesterday's ...

557. Welcoming The New Millennium

Sermon

James Angell

... more than usual upon the Meaning of Time. But whatever that is, it hasn't changed. A trillion seconds equals 33,750 years. Light still travels at 186,000 miles per second. Only what we do with time transforms a blank canvas into wild streaks of color and meaning, and maybe those meanings are the only things that really endure. Looking back, 1000 A.D. produced these accomplishments: Leif Ericson reached Nova Scotia; an Indian mathematician, Sridhara, recognized the importance of the zero; there were several ...

558. The Bridge

John 1:1-18, Matthew 2:1-12, Luke 2:8-20, Luke 2:1-7, Luke 1:26-38, Genesis 3:1-24

Drama

H. J. Hizer

... tree, and I ate." Then the Lord God said to the woman. "What is this that you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent beguiled me and I ate." The Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all cattle, and above all wild animals, upon your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life, I will put enmity between you and the woman - and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel." Narrator: Before Scene 3 ...

559. Epilogue: Some Early Witnesses to Christ

Luke 8:26-39

Sermon

Robert V. Dodd

... ." And then, there was the demon-possessed man on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus and the disciples had just landed their boat at the shore after enduring a storm at sea. And here came this naked, screaming, raving, bleeding, bruised and scarred, wild-eyed, possessed man, running down a hill toward them. Sometimes he would run into town like that and terrorize the citizens. They didn't have mental hospitals back then, so they arrested hint and chained him. But he was able to break his bonds with ...

560. Why I Believe In The Resurrection

John 20:1-9

Sermon

Brett Blair

... immediately and painfully into the shocked numbness of deep grief. Strangely, one of his very first feelings were those of guilt. He had remembered how some months before at a family picnic he was showing off with a baseball. At one point he got careless and threw wildly; it hit his dad in the hand and broke his thumb. The young boy felt horrible. He said to himself, “What a terrible son I am! I have caused my dad great pain.” It seemed that was all he could remember after his fathers death—the pain ...

561. Sermon Opener - Connected to God

Luke 24:50-53

Illustration

Lee Griess

In his book On a Wild and Windy Mountain, Dean of the Chapel at Duke University William Willimon tells of being in New Haven, Connecticut, as a student in 1970, during the famous Black Panther trial. Perhaps you remember those days -- the 1970s? It was a turbulent time for our country -- a time of strife, discord, ...

562. Finding Life!

Matthew 16:21-28

Sermon

... one. He who breaks out from the narrow, restrictive prison walls of self-concern will enter into a bigness and a brightness he had never seen before. Always, he who would find must venture - Columbus embarking from the shores of Europe to sail the wild Atlantic, Livingston leaving the comforts of England to touch the heart of Africa, American pioneers in covered wagons giving up their New England homes and plodding west to find new lands and new hope, and, AND anyone, any human person, who moves out beyond ...

563. The Sign in the Subway

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

Carveth Mitchell

... as Jesus once said to the mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, we do not know what we ask. (Matthew 20:22) No matter how convinced and insistent we are that we know best, God’s answer must be "No." Saint Augustine was a wild and profligate youth. His mother prayed for him constantly. The early chapters of the Confessions of Saint Augustine are filled with references to his mother’s earnest prayers that he might become a Christian. One day he told her he was going to Italy with some companions ...

564. Killing A King

Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

... the restraint of a king but also the power of a king. Throughout his ministry, his power was manifest. He raised the dead, he healed the sick, he walked on the water, he changed water into wine. Here in his final hours, his power as a king was shown. Peter wildly threw his sword around and accidentally cut off Maichus' ear. Jesus might have been too busy at this time when he was just arrested and on the way for a trial. See Jesus pick up the ear from the ground and tenderly put it back on Maichus' head. He ...

565. Prayer

Matthew 14:13-21

Bulletin Aid

... can't find my way out I don't know where I'm going. There are no roads No landmarks No tracks. I succumb to despair I have nowhere to turn Nobody understands Nobody can help. I'm out of control Everything goes wrong I'm surrounded by hostile darkness Wild beasts Demons! I thought I knew my way I thought I was safe Strong Self-sufficient But tragedy Loss Fear Have taken me And I don't know how to escape. Lord, forgive me for losing sight of you For being so proud of my ability to cope That I ...

566. Proper 7

Genesis 28:10-22

Sermon

... roaming the wilderness. For him, the solitude of the night held no comfort. Besides, there was also the fear Esau might learn of his abrupt departure and proceed to track him down, in order to take his revenge. How would he defend himself against that wild man? His strength was certainly not equal to that of his hunter brother. The place later called "Bethel was nothing more than a bleak moorland that lay in the heat of Palestine. There was nothing remarkable about it. It was just a "certain place." The ...

567. Proper 10

Exodus 2:11-25

Sermon

... , and false. God is a denouncer of mere religiosity, the scourge of hypocritical morality, the One who destroys the acceptable in order that he might bring forth the best. God is the life-giver - life as it is lived in creativity, beauty, even wildness. Therefore, God is unpredictable. The Bible shows that there is a total lack of prudence about God. The Almighty seems to glory in plunging ahead, picking the least likely candidates to be his instruments of salvation. As a result, some of his finest ...

568. In the Cross

Zechariah 9:9-13

Sermon

A Poetic Homily The adulation of the crowd - and with shouts of hosannas, greeting Christ as their king. "Hail, Son of David," and, "Blessed is he in the name of the Lord," and waving palms in the air, the crowd goes wild. "The Romans will be crushed; the government overthrown; our country will be free!" Visions of revolution - but not the message that Christ will bring them. And in the days ahead, the message is clear: "The Kingdom that is coming is the Kingdom of God." "The Kingdom that is present, is ...

569. Chickens For World Leaders

Luke 14:1-14

Illustration

Brett Blair

... on the tables, because some Asian cultures associate white flowers with mourning. They could not afford for a dignitary to take religious or cultural offense at an ingredient in an hors d'oeuvre. They couldn't take the chance that one dignitary might be served his wild-rice-and-wheatberry pilaf before another and perceive it as an insult. The caterer had to make sure there were as many as three waiters for each of the 61 tables, so that every head of state could be served at exactly the same time. So ...

570. A Daffy, Magnificent Hope

Ezekiel 37:1-14

Sermon

... setting our sights only on targets we know we can hit. How different were God's people in the Bible! Those children of God who hoped for the most were rewarded the most. Abraham set off across the desert for a Promised Land, sustained only by the wild promise from God that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars. Today one and one-half billion people claim him as their father in faith. Ezekiel asserted that Israel could rise from its living grave as captives and return to its own land. Within a ...

571. They Crucified Our Lord

Isaiah 52:13--53:12

Sermon

... begin once more, each time more feebly than the last. Gasping for air, the victim "poured out his soul to death." Death comes from lack of breath and loss of blood. It comes from exposure to the sun and the wind. It comes from the attacks of the vultures and wild dogs that wait nearby, hungry. Sometimes, death comes from going mad. They crucified our Lord. Could you bear to be a witness?

572. Repent!

Acts 2:14-41

Sermon

... to make things right with God. And repentance is for fundamentalists with their altar calls and fervent promises to start a new, saved life. But who speaks of repentance for congregations such as ours? Repentance was given a bad name by those cartoons of long-haired, wild-eyed old men carrying placards demanding REPENT - THE END IS NEAR. It's embarrassing, this repentance. It's foreign to us. That's why we feel out of our element before the Bible's repetition of the word. Yet it's there in page after page ...

573. Practicing and Preaching

Acts 7:54--8:1a

Sermon

... , and was adored by all. Therein lay the problem. People could not resist the temptation of telling Bob, "Any young man, as dedicated to the church as you, should be a pastor." Finally he couldn't resist the pressure, and entered the seminary. He's not wildly enthused about his preparation for ordination, but he'll make a good pastor. The tragedy is, he was a great teacher. Peter did not ask for the appointment of Stephen and the others to do things the disciples simply did not have time for - unimportant ...

574. Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

2 Kings 13:10-25

Sermon

... matter how wise a man is, eventually he realizes that he was not able to change much in his life, so he does not go gentle into that good night. 2. Good men. Men who have led good lives look at their "goodness" and wonder what it has accomplished. 3. Wild men. Men who wasted their time, perhaps as hedonists, look back and see that they learned too late what life is all about. 4. Grave men. Men who are very serious about life also need to answer for their style of life and see what they might have missed of ...

575. The Two Washings

John 13:1-17

Sermon

Dean Lueking

... water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, "I am innocent of this man ‘s blood, see to it yourselves." (Matthew 27:24) The First Washing It concerns Pontius Pilate, who had declared Jesus innocent on two distinct occasions in the course of that wildly frightful early morning of our Lord’s crucifixion day. But when faced with a frenzied mob, shouting not for justice but for blood, Pilate chose to side with the mob and turned Jesus over to be crucified. Having caved in to the pressure of sinful ...

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