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 651 to 675 of 715 results

651. Jesus Heals a Paralytic

Luke 5:17-26

Understanding Series

Craig A. Evans

... things in common (such as belief in resurrection and angels) and not all Pharisees opposed him. Their main problem with Jesus was that they viewed Jesus’ attitude toward the law as too liberal, too permissive. Jesus associated with prostitutes, tax collectors, and other “sinners” too freely; moreover, he did not enjoin his disciples to observe those oral traditions so cherished by the Pharisees. Of course, to the extent that Jesus assumed divine prerogatives (such as forgiving sin) he aroused their ...

652. Jesus Questioned About Fasting

Luke 5:33-39

Understanding Series

Craig A. Evans

Jesus’ Fellowship with Tax Collectors: The unifying theme that runs throughout the story of Levi’s call (vv. 27–31) and the discussion about eating and fasting (vv. 32–39) concerns fellowship and lifestyle. In the minds of the Pharisees, Jesus’ chief critics thus far in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus has chosen to have fellowship ...

653. The Parable of the Lost Son

Luke 15:11-32

Understanding Series

Craig A. Evans

... what was lost (as in the preceding parables). The older son must understand this. He too should share in the father’s joy. In its original context the two sons very likely would have been understood as referring to irreligious Jews (the “sinners,” tax collectors, harlots), symbolized by the younger son, and religiously strict Jews (priests, Pharisees, teachers of the law), symbolized by the older son. The attitude of the Pharisees in 15:2 is quite similar to the attitude of the older son. Rather than ...

654. The Disciples Rejoin Jesus

John 4:27-38, John 4:1-26, 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 ...

655. The Bethsaida Boys

Mark 8:31-38

Sermon

John Jamison

... statement had to have had Jesus shaking his head as well. It’s not that the disciples were ignorant, selfish, or bad guys. But keep in mind who they really were. We know that at least four of them were former business leaders. Another of them was a tax collector who had to have the same business savvy as the CEO of a fishing company. Another member of the group was a political hothead, a Zealot. These were all guys who were used to making decisions, were used to leading things, and had all been at least ...

656. Have You Ever Screwed Up?

John 20:1-18

Sermon

John Jamison

... the answer to this second question: What do I do now? Matthew tried to answer that question. He closed his eyes and clearly pictured the day when he had pushed himself back from his desk, stood up, and walked out the office door, never to return. Being a tax collector had made him a powerful man, well-connected and wealthy as well. He had learned to live with the way the “normal people” hated him, but he didn’t need to spend much time with the normal people anyway. He also still saw the looks on the ...

657. Such a Little Thing

Mark 4:26-34

Sermon

King Duncan

... gospel itself is a rather unique celebration of the seemingly small and insignificant. Bethlehem was a small town. Nazareth was too. Calvary was a tiny spot on the globe. There was nothing particularly significant about the profession of carpenter or fisherman or tax-collector. None of the disciples or even Jesus himself held positions of power and significance. The tiny mustard seed called the church that they planted 2,000 years ago showed little promise at the time, but today, of the 7½ billion people ...

658. Family Ties and Good-byes

Mark 3:31-35

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... be saved from destroying himself. The family must have felt that Jesus had thrown away his former friendships in Nazareth. They must have felt that Jesus was respected in that community and now he had made other friends of suspicious fishermen, a reformed tax-collector, and a fanatical political zealot, among other shady characters. That worried the family. That conflicted them. The family must have felt that Jesus had thrown away security. He had had a job and an income. He had had some material goods and ...

659. Jesus' No-Nonsense Guide to Discipleship

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

April Yamasaki

... his daughter. Like the woman with internal bleeding that crept up behind Jesus to touch his cloak and be healed. Others with perhaps less obvious physical ailments seemed blind to their own needs. Like the religious leaders who criticized Jesus for eating with tax collectors and prostitutes. "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick," said Jesus. "I have come to call not the righteous but sinners" (Mark 2:17). In their own eyes, the religious leaders were already right with ...

660. Hard and Soft Hearts

Mark 10:2-16

Sermon

Steven E. Albertin

... defining under what conditions divorce was right and wrong. They came to test Jesus. They came to check him out on divorce. Jesus had created quite a controversy by hanging around with people of suspect moral character. He had even chosen a tax collector to be one of his disciples. He seemed a little too liberal, a little too permissive, when it came to the moral issues of right and wrong. Jesus' response must have shocked them. Jesus absolutely prohibits divorce. Under no circumstances can divorce ...

661. The Three Bs

Luke 3:1-22, Psalm 29

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

... it, this one who was to be baptized by fire never baptized anyone else. Instead, Jesus submitted to the waters of baptism kneeling in the mud and the muck and the mire. Why? For the same reason he was born in a manger, that he ate with prostitutes and tax collectors, that he cried and prayed and slept in a garden, that he died a painful, very human death. Quite simply Jesus came to be like us, so we could grow to be like him. Jesus was baptized into our humanity, so that we can be baptized into his divinity ...

662. What Gets Into Us?

John 18:1--19:42

Sermon

King Duncan

... non-Galilean among us. What happened? Was he simply impatient? Did he want to force Jesus’ hand? Did he come to resent Jesus’ indifference toward some points of the law? Perhaps he questioned Jesus’ association with the wrong kinds of people--sinners and tax-collectors? Was he disappointed in Jesus’ humble entrance into the Holy City to begin that fateful last week? Can’t you imagine those early disciples asking themselves, why? What got into Judas? Did the devil make him do it? You and I ask that ...

663. First the Bad News...

Luke 21:5-19

Sermon

King Duncan

... took their identity and security from a magnificent Temple. Jesus took his teachings outside the Temple, into the streets and into the fields where the average Joes were just scraping by. He took his message to the lepers and the women, to the Samaritans and the tax collectors. In the Book of John, chapter 4, he shared a secret with a despised Samaritan woman. He told her that worship is no longer confined to the Temple. He told her “a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship ...

664. Worse Than It Sounds

Luke 16:19-31

Sermon

George Reed

... on the good and the bad, who sends the rain on the just and unjust. It is that kind of unconditional love that we are often not able to grasp. When Jesus went about his ministry he reached out to all. He went in to eat in the houses of tax collectors and sinners and he went in to eat in the houses of the religious leaders. Their reactions to him differed in many ways but Jesus was open to share God’s love with them all. The only words of rebuke we ever hear from the lips of Jesus are directed ...

665. The Law of Unintended Consequences

Matthew 5:13-20

Sermon

King Duncan

... tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” What’s going on here? On some occasions Jesus seems like a wild-eyed radical welcoming prostitutes and tax-collectors and all kind of riff-raff into the kingdom and saying things like, “You have heard it said . . . but I say to you . . .” But on this occasion he sounds like the most dyed-in-the-wool traditionalist ever . . . saying that you can’t ...

666. The Sign of Jonah

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... He recycled his passion and became the greatest of the kings. Peter was a boastful, swearing fisherman. He recycled his pride and became the rock upon which Christ built his church. Mary Magdalene recycled her love and became a saint. Zaccheus, a tax collector recycled his miserliness and became a disciple of Jesus. Saul of Tarsus, a persecutor, a hater of Christians, recycled his hatred and became the greatest of the missionary theologians. Esther, a harem girl, recycled her sex appeal and saved the Jewish ...

667. The Surrogate

Matthew 1:1-17

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... love God and neighbor,” Shammai and his disciples emphasized rituals and laws of purity and keeping them meticulously. And many of those rules meant excluding anyone who was not of the Jewish bloodline. If someone was sick, blemished, a foreigner, a tax collector, a sinner, or married to someone of foreign descent, they were deemed unclean and they could not enter the Temple. They could not be absolved with sin offerings. The “rules” increased and multiplied in number and in emphasis for the Jewish ...

668. The House on The Rock

Lk 6:12-49 · Mt 5:1-12

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the non-Jews (‘atheists’) do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Beware of practicing your piety before others in order ...

669. Moving On

Luke 6:12-16, Luke 9:1-9, Luke 10:1-24

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... and Jesus’ cousin Simon’s brother Andrew, also a fisherman, and Jesus’ cousin James the son of Zebedee, a fisherman John the son of Zebedee, James’ brother. Jesus called the two brothers “the sons of Thunder” Philip Bartholomew Thomas Matthew (Levi the tax collector) James the son of Alphaeus Thaddeus, also known as Lebbaeus, and also most likely known as Judas son of James, to distinguish him from the other Judas Simon the Cananaean, a Zealot Judas Iscariot (son of Simon the Leper) Those chosen ...

670. Lazarus

Luke 16:19-31

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... is unusual, especially in its imagery of the unbreakable chasm between hades and Abraham’s bosom. Here, the references come either from Jewish folk mythology or from Greek descriptions of the afterworld. Did Jesus’ audience include many gentiles? Perhaps. We know that “tax collectors and sinners” had gathered round him to listen. This is what provoked the Pharisees to begin with. Was Jesus telling a folk tale with which they would be familiar, with his own twist? We can’t be sure, but it’s clear ...

671. The Prophet of Locusts and Honey

Luke 3:1-20, Luke 3:21-38

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” “What should we do then?” the crowd asked. John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?” “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them. Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse ...

672. The Plank

Matthew 5:38-48; 7:1-6

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge ...

673. Reveille

Mark 6:7-13, Matthew 10:1-42, Luke 9:1-9, Luke 10:1-24

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost ...

674. Are You a Lemming or a Lassie?

Luke 12:13-21, Luke 12:22-34, Luke 12:35-48, Luke 12:49-53, Luke 12:54-59

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... yet, he is doing so with great trust, great expectation that they will be everything he believed they could be. Jesus believed in this unusual group of men more than anyone else would have. He entrusted them with God’s mission. Fishermen, a tax collector, a contract killer, a couple of others from odd and unusual backgrounds –not your usual rabbi’s disciples. Jesus entrusted these with the keys to God’s kingdom. He knew that their hearts were loyal, true, devoted, and trustworthy to carry out the ...

675. Don't Stop Praying!

Luke 18:1-8, Luke 18:35-43

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... best and the brightest,” does he? In fact, if you look at his inner band of disciples, they look like pretty unlikely applicants. Peter, James, and John are fishermen with some feisty tempers. Judas is a sicarii and a petty thief. Matthew is a tax collector. The gospel writer Luke is a doctor and a gentile. No, Jesus is interested in something very different than the “best and the brightest.” Jesus is interested in the devoted and the faithful. Let’s hear that again. Jesus is interested in those who ...

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