Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 626 to 650 of 4972 results

626. A Call to Action

Matthew 9:9-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... of every blessing, tune our lives to sing Thy praise.” We’ve been singing the praises of those red and green lights for far too long. It’s time to start singing the praises of the Light of the World, the First and Last Light. It’s time to stop caring about appearance and start caring about substance, reality and truth. It’s time to learn how to play our own song, even when the notes are fragile and faltering and sometimes fall flat. It’s time to learn how to play our own instrument that God gave ...

627. Just the Right Touch

Mark 5:25-34

Sermon

James Merritt

... encounters a woman with a terrible disease that is sapping the very life out of her. She has a continuous flow of blood that is slowly but surely killing her. By faith, she reaches out and touches the hem of his garment and instantaneously the bleeding is stopped. In the third miracle a little girl has died, the beat has left her heart, the breath has left her lungs; but Jesus goes to the home and puts breath back into the lungs, recharges that heart, and raises the girl from the dead. The first miracle ...

628. www.Salvation.com

Ephesians 2:8-10

Sermon

James Merritt

... robbed an all-night grocery store. On the seat beside the driver was the paper bag with the money and the gun he had used. As the officer pulled up beside him, this man put his hand on the gun. The truck pulled to the side of the roadway and stopped. The officer parked his motorcycle and approached the driver's side of the pickup. He was relaxed. He said, "Good morning sir, may I see your license." Those were the last words he said. The driver stuck his arm out of the truck and fired his weapon. The barrel ...

629. Turn Right with the Right Turn

Luke 13:1-8

Sermon

James Merritt

... !" The little boy looked at her and said, "No." The mother looked at the little boy and said, "What do you mean, ‘no?'" He said, "Mom, I don't want to be clean, I just want to be forgiven." I am convinced that is where a lot of church members stopped with Jesus Christ. You think about it. Why is it that most of the members on a church roll never come to church? I'll tell you why—they have never truly repented. Why is it that 50% of church members not only rob God, but give absolutely nothing to ...

630. Power in the Pulpit

Philippians 3:1-11

Sermon

James Merritt

... been bowling with his brother, and as they parted ways, he said, "Tell Mom I'll be home by midnight, I don't want her to worry. It was 11:55 PM when Farr and two teenage buddies, driving in his Camero into a country crossroads, ran past a stop sign that lay unseen on the ground. A semi-trailer truck hauling phosphate slammed into the car killing Farr and his two companions both also 18 years of age. The impact of the collision shook residents from their beds more than a mile away. What caused this accident ...

631. Living By Faith In A Time of War

Judges 6:1-40

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... invited to test God, to see if his promises are true. We are not supposed to try to manipulate God. I heard about a certain overweight executive who tried. He had to ride by a bakery shop on his way to work. He said, “Lord, if you want me to stop at that bakery shop, cause a parking place to be available right in front of the shop.” Later he told a fellow employee about it. He said, “On my eighth time around the block, there was the parking place, right in front of the shop.” It’s fine to present ...

632. Stumbling in Darkness, Looking for Light

Isaiah 9:1-7, John 1:5

Sermon

John E. Harnish

... of 3-D effect; different perspectives give you different ways of seeing and of understanding the message. Janet Smylie's internet web search produced an article about lenticular images which ended with this intriguing sentence: If the sight of a lenticular picture isn't enough to make you stop in wonder, the fact that it's made up of so many different images surely should be. [1] I would say, if the sight of the crèches and the candles, the carols and the choirs of this night are not enough to make you ...

633. Are You Ready for the Journey?

Mark 8:27-9:1

Sermon

John E. Harnish

... , if you choose to follow, it might even mean denying yourself, taking up a cross, following Christ. But the good news is we don't make the journey alone. We join company with one another. If we lose our way, if life seems to baffle us, we won't stay stopped for long. Someone is sure to pick up the trail and the journey will continue. We travel in the spirit of the Christ. We journey under the sign of the cross. The question is: "Are you ready for the journey?" Ready for the journey of Lent. Ready to walk ...

634. From Father Failure to Divine Father

Romans 8:12-17

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... attitude is contrition, confession, and change. III Therefore, in our worship, in our religious activity, it is our desire to be, as Paul says, led by God's Spirit to become his children, rather than children of the flesh. This is to say we will stop blaming our parents for our failures, even though they may be worthy of blame. We come to worship to be released from the childishness of being forever locked into the regret and despair of hereditary and environmental deficiency. We come to worship, to be ...

635. Let God Do the Rest

Ephesians 3:14-21

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... day as he left her house to see if the man was in the area, she gave him a few loaves of bread she had just taken out of the oven. She thought he would need them for his journey home. As he went in search for the man he stopped by the local lake and caught a couple of fish. He then continued on his way with the loaves and two fish he had caught. Finally, he caught sight of the people who were listening to the man. The man had much to say that day and the people listened ...

636. Getting All the Facts

Matthew 21:28-32

Illustration

Billy D. Strayhorn

... . He was obviously waiting for something. An older man approached him and asked for what he was waiting. The little boy confidently told the older man that he was waiting for the bus. The man laughed and said the bus stop was in the next block. The boy acknowledged that fact but insisted the bus would stop for him right here. The older man became annoyed at what he thought was insolence. He raised his voice and told the little boy that he'd better start walking if he hoped to ride that bus. The boy politely ...

637. Great Expectations

2 Kings 5:1-14

Sermon

Schuyler Rhodes

... expect? What are the expectations that govern our lives? Can you name a few? We expect the sun to come up tomorrow. We expect the car to start each morning, though occasionally that one is dashed by a dead battery or a bad starter. We expect people to stop for stop signs and we expect that night will fall each evening. As we think about this, expectations don't seem altogether too bad, do they? In a real way, our expectations can be building blocks for us. We expect one thing to happen, so we plan or do ...

638. Chocolate Cake, Flooded Waters, and Baptism

Genesis 9:8-17

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... given him a key to get in. Why not? Rod was the former president of the congregation, a man to be trusted, a man of integrity. At eleven o'clock, as he worked on the cabinet, Rod noticed that his stomach was growling. He was hungry — no, really hungry. He stopped working for a moment and looked around. Then he saw it. A chocolate cake, with one piece cut, as if to say, "I'm yours; take me." Rod's great weakness was chocolate. A voice in his head said, "You can take it. The pastor and his wife wouldn't ...

639. A Funeral for “I Can’ts”

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... asked, "Where is the sacrificial lamb?" Abraham answered, "God will provide a lamb for the burnt offering." Then Abraham bound his own son and placed him on the altar. The inner voice must have raged, "I can't do this," yet in faith he raised the knife, only to be stopped by an angel who said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." He said, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him: for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me" (Genesis ...

640. The Complexity of the Situation

Matthew 22:34-46

Illustration

... is God, but God. Yet, he was a man who knew and quoted the Hebrew scripture, who knew the laws and commandments better than any religious leader. The Pharisees had to put a stop to it, the situation was getting out of control, it was becoming too complex to let it go on much longer. This man must be stopped and the only why to stop him was to discredit him. And what better way to discredit Jesus, the Jew, than to ask him such a question, on a complex issue about the greatest commandment, that any answer he ...

641. Service

Matthew 25:14-30

Illustration

Richard Love

... shapes, different notes, different roles to play. But like the piccolo player in Sir Michael's orchestra, we often in our own sovereignty decide that our contribution is not significant. Our contribution couldn't possibly make a difference. And so we quit playing. Stop doing that which we've been given to do. We drop out. But the Conductor immediately notices. From our perspective, our contribution may be small, but from His, it is crucial. I just have to believe I'm talking to some piccolo players ...

642. An Exquisite Attitude of Gratitude

Ephesians 1:15-23

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... leaned against a wall, and listened to the gift that was being poured out into that train station air. Bell played for 43 minutes. He made a grand total of $32.00 off of 27 donations. (“Better than minimum wage,” Bell noted later). Two people stopped to listen. The other 1,070 people who passed in front of him simply skittered by, oblivious, obsessed by their own agendas. (You can find this story, along with some video clips you can use, by Googling the Washington Post article “Pearls Before Breakfast ...

643. Rock Turning

Mark 1:1-8

Illustration

Douglass M. Bailey

... , Sister Margaret, one of the smallest members of their Order, would move to the edge of the group, and then disappear for a while. She'd return sometime later. They didn't know what she was doing. So on one particular occasion when they had stopped to behold a majestic view, they decided they would follow her. She stole away from the group and made her way down into a gully. They watched her as she walked into the gully. She bent down and reached under a sizable rock, and then turned the rock upside down ...

644. A 24-7-365 God

Hebrews 7:23-28

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... , to the cross, when Bartimaeus crosses their path. Despite the new direction Jesus' ministry is beginning to take, he stops and responds without hesitation to Bartimaeus' cries. Forever "on call," Jesus could not leave a believer alone in his ... the moment of our death. God is a 24-7-365 God 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. But God doesn't stop there. Because God is eternal, God's love for us extends beyond the short years of our earthly life span. The divine arms that encircle us throughout ...

645. The Ride of Your Life

1 Peter 1:17-23

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... we ignore it. We don't like routines they are too dull and deadly. Gamblers by nature, we love the fast track we say we like pressure. Do we like the ulcers, migraines and high blood pressure as well? 4. The uncontrollable escalator. Despite success, we can't stop. We keep on upping the ante in our lives. We never feel financially comfortable no matter how much we have. We have no life outside of work. In both our time and our finances, we are leveraged to the hilt. Unlike those on the roller coaster, we ...

646. God Will Be God

Matthew 20:1-16

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... . The guy narrating sighs and states, "So I pay. I'm the Dad. It's my job." More vacation scenes. The family stops at a touristy restaurant. After everybody chows down, the guy again concludes "So I pay. I'm the Dad. It's my ... father/narrator "So I pay. I'm the Dad. It's my job." It's true sometimes. Sometimes we are in charge, it's our responsibility, and the buck stops squarely in front of us. And although we may grump and grouse about those times, most of us kind of like knowing that we are in control of ...

647. About Sex

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Sermon

King Duncan

... sign. She was immediately pulled over by a young police officer. The officer turned out to be a former student of hers who immediately recognized her. He couldn’t resist saying: “Mrs. Smith, a stop sign is meant to be a period, not a comma!” We need to reinstate the stop signs in our society. Our sexuality is a gift from God. It is to be exercised with discipline. Our bodies are the temple of God, and we should honor God with how we use our bodies. Sexual relations are to be exercised joyfully and ...

648. The Heart of the Matter

Psalm 51:1-19

Sermon

King Duncan

... should you find yourself alone and think that you are having a heart attack. Since many of us are vulnerable to just such an attack, I felt it might be helpful to share this advice. I quote: “Without help, the person whose heart stops beating properly and who begins to feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness. However, these victims can help themselves by coughing repeatedly and very vigorously. A deep breath should be taken before each cough, and the cough must be deep ...

649. The Call to Downward Mobility

Isaiah 49:1-7

Sermon

Mike Ripski

... want to forgive myself. - I want a healthy earth. - I want to laugh. - I want to be able to grieve. - I want to speak the truth in love. - I want my painful past to be salvaged for good. - I want the loss I’ve suffered to stop hurting. - I want a simpler life. - I want to stop being angry. - I want to be loved unconditionally and love unconditionally. - I want joy. - I want to thankful. - I want to be generous. - I want to be free from worry. - I want to know I’m living in God’s will. - I want to know ...

650. Thin Spaces

Matthew 17:1-13

Sermon

Mike Ripski

... to set out again, he thought he heard something. He listened. Yes, he did. It was a Voice, or more like a voice than anything else he’d ever heard. It said, “JUST STOP IT.” Again…, “JUST STOP IT.” That was it. He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew without a doubt that this referred to his following his shadow. JUST STOP IT. It sounded like permission. No, it was more than permission. It was a command. But could he…really? He’d never lived any other way but this. And so, the Voice made ...

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