Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: Levi, disciple, evangelist, tax collector, the 12, the twelve, apostle, sermon on the mount, jewish audience, beatitudes, lord's prayer, great commission, parables, olivet discourse, mount of olives, olivet, synoptic

Showing 601 to 625 of 715 results

601. Lost Baggage: Empty Your Suitcase

Matthew 18:10-14

Sermon

James Merritt

... done everything you can to reconcile the situation. What if that doesn’t work? He continues. “If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” (Matthew 18:17, ESV) Keep in mind when Jesus spoke about the church here there was no church. The church had not even been formed yet. What He meant was you take this to a group of people that are trusted authorities, that maybe also have a relationship ...

602. Humvee Holiness and Humble Holiness

Matthew 23:1-39

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... did they think he came from, what were others saying of him. Jesus ate at the homes of the outcasts and the illegals. He washed the feet of his students. He hung out with the pariahs of his day lepers and prostitutes and tax collectors. Jesus had no interest in the appearance of righteousness, only the application of righteousness. Whereas other teachers were masters of abstraction, Jesus was a master of personalization. He knew people not by appearances or pretenses or by what they did. He knew individuals ...

603. The Full Advent: Whoa! No Way? Wow!

Mark 13:1-31

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... tools in the shed. By the first century the status of being a “shepherd” had definitely sunk low. Not only was a nomadic lifestyle no longer on the “A” list. Being a shepherd had become categorized as in the same class as being a tax collector, or an unclean outcast. Shepherds were considered to be borderline “unclean,” defined as unlawful and untrustworthy. Buying a lamb from a shepherd in the first century was considered to be like “buying” a computer out of the back of an unmarked van in ...

604. The Messed Up

John 4:1-26

Sermon

James Merritt

... A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.’” (John 4:7, ESV) Jesus is asking a Samaritan for a drink out of her unclean, filthy, sin-contaminated Samaritan jug. Remember, Jewish men would have considered this woman lower than a tax collector, because she was a Samaritan and the lowest form of a Samaritan was a woman. Yet, here is a Jewish man speaking to her with respect and letting her know he would be honored to drink after her. For the first time in her life a man ...

605. The Good Samaritan (Revised Edition)

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... of a ditch on the Sabbath, but not all right to release a woman from her physical bondage on the Sabbath. It was the strangely negative, withdrawing, fearful, legalistic religious person Jesus so much criticized. When he was castigated for associating with the hated tax collectors and prostitutes, he replied they who are well do not need the physician, but those who are ill, do need the physician. Religion should help those in need and not withdraw from them. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the ...

606. Pet Rocks and the Big Reveal

Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

King Duncan

... motel that he would bring them some palm branches and he was delivering on that promise. There they were--mothers and their children, addicts, prostitutes, the mentally ill. As they surrounded the car, Bouman thought of Jesus’ words, “Truly, I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the Kingdom of God ahead of you for they believed in Him.” “Get out of the car,” said Edgar as he thrust the palms into his pastor’s hand. “Give them the palms!” And Bouman distributed the ...

607. Don't Just Stand There!

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

... . Let’s consider for a few moments some of the things they were clueless about as they stood there looking into the sky. First of all, they were clueless about the impact they could have on the world. After all, they were fishermen and tax collectors from a rural area of a land occupied by the mighty Roman army. They were uneducated, unsophisticated nobodies with no way for their message to go viral. St. Paul described them like this in I Corinthians, “Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when ...

608. Jesus Talks with a Samaritan Woman

John 4:1-26, John 4:27-38, John 4:39-42

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... will not even touch the same utensils (v. 9). In reaching out to her, Jesus in this narrative is recognizably the Jesus of the Synoptics (cf., e.g., Mark 7:24–30; Luke 7:36–50; 10:25–37), the one who came to show mercy to tax collectors, prostitutes, and all such outcasts of Jewish society. The encounter begins surprisingly, not with Jesus granting mercy to the woman, but with him asking mercy from her. He is placed in the curious position of needing help (a drink of water, cf. Mark 9:41) from someone ...

609. Jesus’ Authority to Perform Miracles

Matthew 8:18-22, Matthew 8:23-27, Matthew 8:28-34, Matthew 9:1-8

Teach the Text

Jeannine K. Brown

... as the appropriate discipleship response to Jesus (9:21–22; cf. 8:26). The call to follow Jesus wholeheartedly is issued in 8:18–22, picking up the call stories of the first four disciples (4:18–22) and anticipating that of Matthew, a tax collector, in 9:9. The story of Jesus’ calming the storm shares a plot connection with 14:22–33, where Jesus (with Peter momentarily) walks on the sea. Jesus’ (messianic) identity and the disciples’ little faith are emphasized in both accounts. The story of ...

610. Jesus Sends Out the Twelve

Matthew 9:35-38, Matthew 10:1-42

Teach the Text

Jeannine K. Brown

... being identified by two names (e.g., “Judas Iscariot”). This was a common practice that provided a way of specifying a particular person who had a popular name. Two disciples are described by an activity: “Matthew the tax collector” and “Simon the Zealot [Kananaios]” (Kananaios reflects the Aramaic for “zealot”; cf. NRSV: “Simon the Cananaean”). The latter category indicated someone who was committed to freedom for Israel from its Roman oppressors. Several zealot movements occurred at ...

611. Sabbath Controversies with the Pharisees

Matthew 12:1-14

Teach the Text

Jeannine K. Brown

... ; cf. 11:19). Here Matthew begins to narrate the heightened conflict between the Galilean Jewish leaders, specifically the Pharisees, and Jesus. This conflict will be the focus of chapter 12. Jesus’ earlier altercations with Galilean Pharisees resulted from his eating with tax collectors and sinners (9:9–13) and his healing activity (9:34). In chapter 12 the conflict arises from his interpretation of Sabbath regulations (12:1–14) as well as the origins of his healing power (12:22–29). In subsequent ...

612. The Jewish Leaders as Negative Foil for Jesus’ Followers

Matthew 23:1-39

Teach the Text

Jeannine K. Brown

... a lament over Jerusalem and the temple (see the sidebar “The ‘Woes’ of Matthew 23”). You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. This picture of closing off the kingdom to others coheres with Jesus’ earlier portrait of tax collectors and prostitutes entering the kingdom ahead of the Jerusalem leaders. By rejecting Jesus’ message and speaking against him to the crowds, the Pharisees “shut the door of the kingdom” to others (e.g., 12:22–24; cf. 16:12). 23:14 You devour ...

613. Luke the Historian

Luke 1:1-4

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... in many different ways, and Luke’s story is famous for its broad sympathy with the marginalized and the disadvantaged—the poor and the sick, the harassed and the demon-possessed, widows and bereaved parents, women and children, the social underworld of tax collectors and sinners, the Gentiles and even the Samaritans. To all, in their different needs, salvation and wholeness came through the ministry of Jesus, who came to proclaim “good news to the poor” (4:18), and Luke took delight in using their ...

614. John the Baptist

Luke 3:1-20

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... of salvation. It will be for Jesus to bring the fullness of that salvation, though judgment will remain a key element in his mission as well (cf. 3:16–17). 3:10–14 What should we do then? The “fruit” that John specifies is ethical. The tax collectors and soldiers are simply told to play by the rules and not to exploit their position of power over ordinary people. That in itself would be proof enough of a serious change of life in a society where corruption and exploitation were normal. But the ...

615. Power over Illness and Death

Luke 7:11-17, Luke 7:1-10

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... focus both on Jesus’s authority to heal and (especially) the surprising faith of a non-Jew, which foreshadows the gospel going to the Gentiles in the book of Acts. A central theme of Luke-Acts is God’s love for all the lost, whether sinner, tax-collector, Samaritan, or Gentile. In your message you might focus on the social and religious dynamics of this encounter between a junior officer of the occupying forces (a pagan) and a respected Jewish rabbi. Why did the centurion think it necessary (or at least ...

616. Jesus’s Fallible Followers

Luke 9:51-56, Luke 9:46-50, Luke 9:37-45

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... “the man for others,” in Bonhoeffer’s fine phrase. He kept himself free—free for the other person. He would accept almost anyone’s invitation to dinner, and as a result no public figure had a more diverse list of friends, ranging from rich people, Roman centurions, and Pharisees to tax collectors, prostitutes, and leprosy victims.4

617. Lessons on Devotion and Prayer

Luke 11:1-13, Luke 10:38-42

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... sermon, Jesus’s countercultural approach to women is also worth discussing. As throughout the Gospel of Luke, Jesus lifts up and treats as equals those who occupy the lower (“outsider”) positions of society (the poor, the sick, lepers, tax-collectors, sinners, prostitutes, Samaritans, women, children, etc.). 2. Prayer. Every clause of the Lord’s Prayer is a potential basis for teaching. The teacher may use it that way, encouraging listeners to consider what aspects of prayer each clause illustrates ...

618. The Cost of Discipleship

Luke 14:25-35, Luke 14:15-24

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... ’s ministry. This is one of Jesus’s more allegorical parables, where the banquet owner represents God, the invited guests represent the religious leaders and other “insiders” in Israel, and the second set of guests represent those “outsiders” (sinners, tax-collectors, Samaritans) who are responding positively to Jesus’s proclamation of the kingdom of God. In the book of Acts, it will be the Gentiles in particular who are the “outsiders” who respond to the gospel. After establishing this ...

619. The Revolutionary Values of the Kingdom of God

Luke 18:31-34, Luke 18:18-30, Luke 18:15-17

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... as these. For the wording, compare 6:20. People like this fall within the sphere of God’s rule and his blessing. “Such as these” points beyond actual babies to others who share their status at the bottom of the pecking order of human society (such as the tax collector of 18:9–14?). The point is more fully spelled out in 9:46–48. 18:17 receive the kingdom of God like a little child. This could mean either “receive it as one receives a child” or “receive it as a child does.” A roughly ...

620. Being Wronged versus Claiming One’s Right

1 Corinthians 6:1-11

Teach the Text

Preben Vang

... , only ejecting the sinning person if he or she rejects the wronged party, a witness, and the admonition of the church itself. Even in the end, there is the hope that the separation will lead to restoration, since treatment as a tax collector or sinner does not preclude the church from reaching out through fresh evangelism and grace—it simply protects the public witness of the church and keeps the sinner from self-deception through unchecked and open hypocrisy. Challenge your listeners to avail themselves ...

621. Our Most Common Sin

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... ? I believe it’s self-righteousness; or, if you want to put it another way, we allow unhealthy pride to smother out any spark of humility that is within us. The parable in today’s scripture points to this very thing. This story of the Pharisee and the tax collector in the temple paint a vivid picture of the sin of self-righteous pride and of the redemptive virtue of humility. We can’t miss the meaning of the parable if we notice how it begins. The reason Jesus told the parable is expressed in verse 9 ...

622. Psalm 26

Psalm 26:1-12

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... the midst of a godless society (26:5–12). But does he believe that he is perfect, without sin? Though sounding much like the Pharisee in Jesus’s parable (cf. Luke 18:9–14) who conceitedly announces his “spiritual greatness,” David speaks truth about his actual godliness and, like the tax collector in that parable, recognizes his need for God’s mercy (26:11). David trusts God fully; he does not waiver in his belief in the true God of Israel (26:1).

623. Love for Enemies not Eye for and Eye

Matthew 5:38-42, Matthew 5:43-48

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... is an expression derived from texts such as Psalm 139:21–22. Jesus broadens the love command to explicitly include love of enemies and prayer for them (5:44). The rationale provided is that love of neighbor fulfills no greater ethic than that of tax collectors and pagans (5:46–47). Of the six cases of torah interpretation that Jesus has specified, only the final case includes a purpose. As Israel was to image God to the nations, Jesus’s followers are called to be like their heavenly Father, morally ...

624. A Brother Who Sins Against You

Matthew 18:15-20

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... (18:16; not to aid the accuser; cf. Deut. 19:15); and (3) if neither action results in restoration, bringing in the church as a whole to advocate for restoration (18:17). As a last resort, the church is to treat the erring member as an outsider (with tax collectors and pagans connoting outsiders in Matthew’s social context; cf. 5:46–47). Though it is not explicit, the reader is right to presume that this final action (as with the rest) is also for the purpose of restoration (cf. 1 Cor. 6:9–12 for a ...

625. Parables of Responsibility

Matthew 21:28-32, Matthew 21:33-46, Matthew 22:1-14

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... disobedient, repents (the Greek term is rendered variously as “changed his mind” and “repent” in 21:29 and 32) and obeys his father with the son who says he will obey but does not. In regard to believing John the Baptist’s message, the tax collectors and prostitutes are like the first son, the chief priests and elders like the second (21:31–32). According to Jesus, the wayward of Israel enter God’s kingdom ahead of its leaders, because the latter “did not repent and believe [John]” (21:32 ...

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