Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 551 to 575 of 975 results

551. Radical Surgery

Mark 9:42-50

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

I wish that Ted Koppel would run for president. Sometimes he seems to make more sense than all of the politicians put together. You know him as the popular moderator of ABC’s “Nightline” program. In a speech at Duke University a year ago he said this: “We have actually convinced ourselves that slogans will save us. Shoot up if you must, but use a clean needle. Enjoy sex whenever and with whomever you wish, but wear a condom. No! The answer is no. Not because it isn’t cool or smart or because you might end ...

552. God’s Greatest Gamble

Mark 12:1-12

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

Have you ever seen a naked chicken? I haven’t, but I read about one recently. Two poultry researchers, Ralph Somes, Jr. in Connecticut and Max Rubin in Maryland, have produced a new breed of naked chicken. Actually this strange breed was first discovered in 1953 by Ursula Abbott, a researcher at the University of California. Since then, according to the Wall Street Journal, naked chickens have been bred and studied on a wide scale. The advantage of having a naked chicken is this: none of the food intake of ...

553. Blank Walls or Filled Lives (Part V)

Philippians 1:1-11

Sermon

Eric Ritz

G. W. Target wrote a short story titled "The Window," which tells of two men, both seriously ill, who occupied the same small hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the only window in the room. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back. The men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, and where they ...

554. Entrustment

John 17:6-19

Sermon

Robert Noblett

Over thirty years ago, the late David H. C. Read preached and published a sermon series on the National Radio Pulpit that he titled Overheard. In that creative volume, he addressed a series of faith issues one might conceivably have overheard at that time. We overhear comments regularly. We might be riding on public transportation and overhear an amusing or telling conversation between two people, perhaps a parent and child; or we might be standing in a church lounge after worship and hear some people ...

555. Only Sex? (New)

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Sermon

King Duncan

The young girl was asked in Sunday school, “would you rather be good or would you rather be beautiful?” “I’d rather be beautiful,” she declared, “and repent!” You probably know someone with that philosophy. A teenage boy and his grandfather were out fishing. The grandfather began talking about how times have changed. The teenager, who had a close relationship with his grandfather, asked, “Grandad, they didn’t have much trouble with sexually transmitted diseases when you were young, did they?” The ...

556. The Story behind the Glory

Galatians 3:26--4:7

Sermon

Fredrick R. Harm

Welcome to the Sunday after Christmas! Tell me, has the glory begun to fade? A pastor recently described his shopping experience at one of the busy malls. He watched a small boy put his hand hopefully on an inexpensive Christ-child on a counter. "What is this?" he asked his mother, who had him by the hand. "C'mon," the hurried woman answered, "you don't want that." She dragged him grimly away, her mind dark with gift thoughts, following a star of her own devising. Strange, isn't it, the way the story ...

557. Don't Fence Me In!

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Sermon

Fredrick R. Harm

Goodspeed translates our text: "I may do anything I please but not everything I do is good for me. I may do anything I please but I am not going to let anything master me." So Saint Paul is saying, "I am free and yet I am not free; I rejoice in my freedom, and yet I recognize that there are limits to my freedom." With these inspired insights we come face to face with one of the most critical issues in our world -- and in your life and mine. How do we interpret and how do we exercise our freedom? This is an ...

558. Grace in the Midst of Limited Resources

2 Corinthians 8:1-15

Sermon

Glenn McDonald

Year after year Stumpy and Martha attended the fair in their home state, and every summer it was the same story: Stumpy was tantalized by the old-fashioned bi-plane in which anybody could take a ride for ten dollars, and Martha was disgusted by such an obvious waste of money. "Ten dollars is ten dollars," she would always say. And Stumpy would go home without his airplane ride. One year Stumpy said, "Martha, there's that bi-plane again. I am 81 years old and this year I want to go for a ride." Martha ...

559. Security Concerns

Ephesians 6:10-20

Sermon

Harold Warlick

Security has become big business in our world. Burglar and smoke alarms are wired directly from private homes to police and fire stations. Automobiles give forth major noises in the parking lots of shopping malls because some owner has inadvertently pushed the wrong button on a key pad. High school students walk through metal detectors to enter their school buildings. Even business phones and credit cards are "protected" by a user's password or "PIN" number. So pervasive is the concern for security that a ...

560. Don't Forget What You Look Like

James 1:19-27

Sermon

Harold Warlick

A young college graduate embarked on what he hoped would be a promising career in sales. He was outgoing, witty, and enthusiastic. His company assigned him his territory. It was a rural area in the Midwest. His responsibility was to sell the latest in farm equipment to the farmers in the area. With great fervor he memorized the strategy sales pitch and left his office to spread his message of "better farming through better equipment." His first two visits had not resulted in a sale. But he could sense that ...

561. An Affirming Presence

Ephesians 3:14-21

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Sometimes a biblical passage catches us off guard. We simply aren’t ready for it. If we listen, it takes our breath away, and leaves us limp. But if we continue to listen, really give it our attention, the weakness that has come from being taken aback by surprise becomes strength flowing from an overwhelming joy at what the word is saying to us and what we’re receiving from the word. Ephesians 3:14-19 was such a passage for me not long ago. Paul is praying for the people to whom he writes, and if you ...

562. Servants Without Portfolio

Matthew 20:20-28

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Our second scripture lesson and the text for our message this morning is from Paul’s letter to the Philippian church. I’m going to be reading from the Revised Standard Version. I’m reading the 5th-11th verses of the 2nd chapter of Paul’s letter to the Philippian church. This is the word of the Lord. Hear it. “How this mind among yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a ...

563. Confession And Supplication

Philippians 1:1-11

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

The text for our message this morning comes from the 4th chapter of Paul’s letter to the Church at Philippi, the 4th chapter, the 4th through the 7th verses. Hear the word of the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord always. "Again I say, rejoice. Let all men know your forbearance, the Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. And the piece of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and your ...

564. What Really Matters

Philippians 3:1-11

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

The big issue in life is to settle what really matters. If we can decide that, what really matters. If we can be clear about that, then the rest of life will either fall into place or we will be able to cope with it with grace and overcoming strength. My father and mother-in-law have been with us for a few days, they left early this morning. It’s been a good time, and my father-in-law shared with me a funny story the other day that has some relevance to the truth I’m going to try to communicate today. Now ...

565. Soul Drain

Psalm 63:1-11

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Some time ago, I was reading Newsweek magazine and came across an article by Herbert Gold. Now I don’t know who Herbert Gold is, but he wrote a marvelous article about his visit to the Soviet Union and his sharing with the dissenters that Soltzeneitzen after __ defection. Gold was disturbed, as I was when I was in the Soviet Union a few months ago, about the abandonment of hope he found among the people of Russia. There was a tremendously morbid sense of despair. He closed his article by sharing a personal ...

566. In The Beginning And The End...God

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

"A fire mist and a planet –a crystal and a cell a jellyfish and a saurian,and caves where the cave men dwell; Then a sense of law and beauty and a face turned from the clod Some call it Evolution,And others call it God. A haze on the far horizon,The infinite tender sky.The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields, and the wild geese sailing high;. And all over upland and lowland, the charm of the goldenrod,Some call it Autumn,And others call it God. Like tides on a crescent sea beach When the moon is new and thin ...

567. Prepare The Way Of The Lord

Isaiah 40:1-31

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

No shout in Scripture is more familiar than the shout of the prophet Isaiah. "Get ready!", he is saying, "The Messiah is coming. Prepare the Way of the Lord." Isaiah 40 is one of the most familiar passages in the Old Testament, made so in large part by Handel's MESSIAH. It's the call of Advent: "Prepare the way of the Lord." Now I know that the coming of Christ is always gift, always grace. So we need to think a little about how the spontaneous working of God's grace, unearned, unexpected, undeserved how ...

568. Baptized...and Baptized

Luke 3:1-20

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Last Sunday, we talked about John's message of repentance as the "no" that becomes a "yes." We talked about the fact that the call to repentance is a call to repent of our sins, but it's also a call to repent of trying to hide from our sins. We never repent of our sins until we quit hiding from them. Also, repentance is more than a feeling. It is a mind-change -- a mind-change that involves admitting we have been wrong in supposing we can manage our life as if we were God. A second aspect of the mind- ...

569. Don't Worry Be Happy!

Luke 12:22-34

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

If you ask me to name the top ten songs on the popular music chart, I couldn't do it. But I do listen to popular music, and often times it teaches me. The song from which I got the title for the sermon was popular many years ago. But I wasn't preaching through the Gospel of Luke then, or dealing with Matthew's record of the sermon on the Mount. So it's only now that I can use this popular song as a springboard for a sermon. You remember it. Here's a little song I wrote. You might want to sing it note for ...

570. Whether You'll Weather the Weather

Luke 6:46-49

Sermon

David J. Kalas

Every so often, toward the end of a hot, still, muggy day here in the Midwest, we'll have a television show interrupted by an alarming beep and a printed message scrolling across the bottom of the screen. It's tornado season, and so the message usually features one of two words from the National Weather Service. It's either a "watch" or it's a "warning." A tornado watch means that the atmospheric conditions are ripe for the development of a funnel cloud. A tornado warning, on the other hand, means that a ...

571. Get Rid of the Junk

Jeremiah 16:1--17:18

Sermon

King Duncan

Nome, Alaska, on the edge of the Bering Sea, is like many villages of the Arctic. The ground on which the community sits is frozen tundra. Burying the dead is a real challenge. Sanitation landfills are unheard of. Garbage trucks do not haul off the kind of refuse we leave curbside in the “lower 48.” Instead, a typical front yard displays broken washing machines, junked cars, old toilets, scrap wood, and piles of non-degradable refuse. Tourists who visit Nome in the summer are amazed at the debris and shake ...

572. Alive In Christ

Colossians 2:6-23

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

There is an old story about Albert Einstein. He was going around the country from university to university on the lecture circuit, giving lectures on his theory of relativity. He traveled by chauffeur-driver limousine. One day, after they had been on the road for awhile, Einstein’s chauffeur said to him, “Dr. Einstein, I’ve heard you deliver that lecture on relativity so many times, that I’ll bet I could deliver it myself.” “Very well,” the good doctor responded. “I’ll give you that opportunity tonight. ...

573. Constantly Abiding

John 15:1-17

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

For nearly 40 years now, I have practiced a discipline that is one of the sustaining forces in my life. A couple of times a year now, four times a year when I was a pastor, I go on a private retreat. Sometimes just for 24 hours – sometimes for 2 or 3 days. These occasions are essential for me -- I am with people all the time. My life is intertwined with so many lives. Daily “quiet times,” snatches of solitude now and then, are not enough for me. I run down and I run out! So occasionally I have to set aside ...

574. Imitators of God

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

There are some experiences or encounters that are so solidly lodged in our memory that they continue to invade our consciousness – to haunt us – to help or to hinder our Christian walk, to call and challenge us to be more than we are. John Birkbeck is a person around whom for me a whole cluster of memories are gathered – memories that invade my immediate awareness now and then. John was a Scot Presbyterian preacher. During a part of my tenure as the World Editor of The Upper Room, he was the editor of the ...

575. On the Road Again

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Blue eyes crying in the rain! Who knows where that sentence comes from? It’s from Psalm 14 verse…no, you know better. It’s from a haunting country ballad and no one sings it better than Willie Nelson. I’m not a country music buff but I like some of it – especially Willie. Recently I had to spend about three hours driving, and I tuned in to a good country music station. I recommend that experience, even though you may not like country music. It will contribute to your theological education. Now some of the ...

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