Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 651 to 675 of 1858 results

651. Wondering How God Does Things

Luke 1:26-38

Children's Sermon

Erskine White

... are other questions we might ask about God. How did God get just two of every kind of animal to go on Noah’s ark and why did He include mosquitoes? How does God put the yoke of an egg inside a shell? How did God think of such a wild variety of plants and flowers, with all their different colors, sizes and shapes, and how did God teach the animals what they know about surviving and having young and taking care of themselves? Come to think of it, how could God be big enough to make this universe we live ...

652. The Scandal Of Redeeming Love

Hosea 2:2-23

Sermon

Frederick C. Edwards

... the Lord, you will call me, "My husband," and no longer you will call me, "My Baal," for I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be mentioned by name no more. I will make for you a covenant on that day with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land; and I will make you lie down in safety. And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my ...

653. Great Grace Was Upon Them!

Acts 4:32-37

Sermon

Durwood L. Buchheim

... that around most parishes, the summer is far from an electric period of anticipation. The plugs are pulled on many programs, the pace of activities relaxes and life of the congregation adjusts to the languid rhythm of leisure and vacations.... Instead of breathing in the wild wind of the Spirit, the church goes on a respirator until the fall comes to resuscitate it.1 But since you are here and since we have been hearing these past Sundays that "we don’t have to stay the way we are," maybe the unfortunate ...

654. The Jericho Road: Where the Action Is

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

... 1,300 feet below sea level. This means that in the course of twenty miles there is a drop of some 3,600 feet. The countryside is thus very rugged. The ancient road took many sharp turns, the kind where you might find yourself suddenly confronted by a wild animal or a brutal human being. In the fifth century it was still called "The Bloody Way," and even in the nineteenth century it was necessary to pay safety money to the sheikhs in the area. But people had to get from Jericho to Jerusalem, because they ...

655. What God Requires of Us

Drama

Curt M. Joseph

... we going to do about him? Caiaphas: (He thinks for awhile.) I think he is just another one of those mentally incompetent fools who comes down out of the hills every two or three years and stirs up trouble. What was the name of that wild man, about three years ago? Nicodemus: John! John the Baptizer. Caiaphas: Yes, that’s him. Herod took care of him. Crazy people like this usually disappear, or the government takes care of them. Obed: My Lord Caiaphas, you are missing the point. Caiaphas: You, my friend ...

656. Resurrection: From Chaos to Order

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

Leonard H. Budd

... their own lives grow through cycles that brought them to the mystery when life ceased and the body returned to the dust of earth. There seemed an order. Yet, even as the boy and the Ancient One sat by the fire, there was the possibility that a wild animal would devour them both - even as the fire continued. Life had uncertainty. They sought to answer the unknown, thereby making it the known. It was an age before the pyramids. It was a time before the Babylonians built an empire, or even before the ancient ...

657. Resurrection: From Slave to Child

Galatians 3:26--4:7

Sermon

Leonard H. Budd

... sought his teaching and healing in the Galilee shouted out their joy with his arriving at the gate of Jerusalem. The donkey, with its special cargo, slowed during the final ascent to the city. The road pitched higher. The crowds were greater. The branches were wildly waved. The individual shouts were now blended into choruses of the Psalms: "Hozanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" (Psalm 118:26). In the final distance before the great arch of the gate, the palms were laid down upon the ...

658. A Man Whose Dreams Came True

Genesis 37:1-11

Sermon

R. Blaine Detrick

... , miles from home, far to the north, at Dothan. They saw him approaching, and began to talk among themselves; "Behold, here comes the dreamer," they said, as they began to plot, "Now’s our chance. Let’s kill him, and tell father that he was slain by wild animals." The oldest brother, Reuben, relented a bit. "No," he said, "let’s just drop him down into a pit." He intended, later on, to pull Joseph up and free him. So the brothers stripped Joseph of his colorful coat and lowered him into a nearby pit ...

659. A Shepherd Who Became a Sovereign

2 Samuel 12:1-31

Sermon

R. Blaine Detrick

... day, in the Lord’s name, Samuel anointed David. "Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7). Even while tending his flocks, David demonstrated strength and courage. The Bible tells us that at least twice, he killed wild animals which had threatened the life of the sheep he was protecting - once a lion and once a bear (1 Samuel 17:34-37). This is the kind of youth that he was: strong, stalwart, fearless, dependable. He also was a fine musician. He played the ...

660. A Man Who Was a Lion-Tamer

Daniel 6:1-28

Sermon

R. Blaine Detrick

... Jews cast into a great (lion-den, furnace, arena) for not worshiping his (father, image, altar). (3:19, 20) 14-16. King (Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Darius) became mad and lived like a (god, hermit, beast), eating (grass, burnt-offerings, locust and wild honey). (4:32) 17-19. King (Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Darius) saw a (bird, finger, flame) writing on the (ramparts, roof, wall) of his palace. (5:5) 20-22. King (Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Darius) had Daniel cast into a (lion-den, furnace, arena) because ...

661. A Man Who Lost His Head

Matthew 11:1-19

Sermon

R. Blaine Detrick

... . John lived a rough life ... a stern life ... a life of self-denial ... a life of hardship ... a life in the desert (Luke 1:80). His clothing was that of the desert - camel skins and leather belts. His food was that of the desert - locusts and wild honey. It was an intense, rigorous existence, with no place for self-indulgence and comfort. His very way of life became a protest against the worldliness and luxury of the political and religious leaders of his day. As parents today, we try to provide "the good ...

662. Shepherds and Bathrobes

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

Thomas Long

... Adidas sneakers. Suddenly a gauzily angelic version of the little girl from next door will burst onto the scene, lisping the good news through the gap where her next tooth will eventually grow. Other angels will soon join her, their foil-wrapped wings bouncing wildly to the beat of "Gloria in Excelsis." When the angels have fluttered to stage right, the shepherds will lumber left to Bethlehem to find a fawn-eyed Mary and a sheepish Joseph, whose steady downward gaze is fixed upon the blanket-wrapped doll in ...

663. A Tempting and Lonely Place

Mark 1:35-39

Sermon

Thomas Long

... that John the Baptizer fills the air with a cry for repentance. John is, in Isaiah’s words, the "voice of one crying in the heramos." Jesus is driven by the Spirit into the heramos to be tempted, and the heramos is inhabited both by angels and wild beasts. The heramos is the place where God’s will is made clear and where the demand for obedience becomes urgent. It is also the place where the temptation to disobey is felt most powerfully. The heramos is a holy place, alive with the presence of God ...

664. Inevitabilities and the Last Days

Mark 13:1-31

Sermon

James W. Robinson

... be achieved through horizontal mobility. The farm that has been in the family for generations is snatched away overnight, due to the vagaries of the marketplace and shifts in government policy. Sprawling residential and commercial developments swallow the wild and wooded scenes of our childhood. Chaos follows in the wake of the violent overthrow of governments, and tribes and villages are uprooted along contested national boundaries. Change is everywhere apparent. It is all very confusing. Of course ...

665. What Is God Like?

2 Samuel 18:1-18

Sermon

Edward Chinn

... Christ associating with prostitutes and racketeers, that’s how God’s undignified love always looks. It looks as undignified as a king like David, who had to flee as a fugitive, but was forgiving as a father. It looks as undignified as a father running wildly down the road to welcome his returning son. That divine love comes running down among us into the most undignified places! That love came running down to a shepherd boy named David and made him the shepherd of Israel, forgiving him his failures and ...

666. I Affirm

Acts 27:13-26

Sermon

... his way toward Rome and his eventual death there. It is aboard the ship that is crossing the Mediterranean Sea in a stormy period of the year that this raging wind comes which is the source of the story. They were tossed day after day by the wild storms. They threw out the cargo. They lightened the ship by throwing out its gear, its sails. They ran before the wind. At last it seemed there was no possible way that they could escape destruction. Then it was, after long silence, this prisoner in chains stood ...

667. Looking Ahead with Hope

John 1:43-51

Sermon

... when God works in the minds and hearts of those who love Him. IV The law of the unforeseen has been evident in many lives. Think of a boy wearing a coonskin cap, and trousers made out of a deerskin, driving four cows down a woody pathway in the wilds of Kentucky. Not much culture, not much of a home, not much possibility of an education. Yet, when you look for the unforeseen you see a President’s name - Abraham Lincoln. Or, consider a drunkard in a town in Germany, who courted and led to the altar a ...

668. The Most Beautiful Word

2 Corinthians 5:11--6:2

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... it, "There are only two kinds of men, the righteous who believe themselves a sinner and the sinners who believe themselves righteous." Or Mary Wilson Little put it, "Men who make no pretensions of being good one day out of the week are known as sinners." Or, as Oscar Wilde has said, "Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner." It would be so simple, wouldn’t it, if the fact of sin could be brushed off as easily as these quipsters make it appear. It doesn’t work, though, does it? You ...

669. Facing the Glory Road

Matthew 20:17-19

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... you don’t have to come back." Somehow, that reaches us - some of us - even through the thick layers of our insulating, styrofoam upholstery. Something stirs deep within us, like the wind off the sea reaching an aged, landlocked sailor, like a fat, domesticated dog hearing the wild, free cry of a wolf somewhere in a distant forest. A memory stirs and gasps for life that out there somewhere there is a LIFE to be lived; there are DANGERS to be faced; there is a MISSION to be accomplished; there is PAIN to be ...

670. Who Needs a Shepherd These Days?

John 10:1-21

Sermon

Charles L. Koester

... , and then impatience, at what seemed to be a never-ending movement. Thousands upon thousands of moving animals. Nor could I associate their shepherd with Jesus. Who knows how long he had been out in the hills tending his flock? He appeared like the wild man of Borneo; a living commercial for soap and deodorant. Circumstances today, far removed from biblical times, would have us ask, "Who needs a shepherd these days?" In fact, what, if anything, do most of us here this morning know about sheep except the ...

671. Focused Light

Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

William F. Dunkle

... color of bridesmaids’ gowns, wouldn’t we also dismiss that as much ado about nearly nothing? Suppose, though, the bride and her mother were arguing about the color of the groom’s skin. One can easily imagine outbreaks of outrage, wild storms of tears, tragically ruptured family relationships, yes, and fervent appeals to religious convictions. Is color all-controlling? Blue or purple threads? Black or white skin pigment? Or do creeds bind and fetter us? Is nationality the boundary of our brotherhood ...

672. Extended Light

1 Corinthians 7:29-31

Sermon

William F. Dunkle

... that when a peasant teenager gave birth to a baby she named Jesus, babies and women counted for very little anywhere in the world that night. Unwanted babies could be thrown over the walls of any ancient city to perish in the cold or be devoured by wild dogs. Who would care? Women were chattels, all wholly subject to men and could be cast off entirely at male will. Joseph was a just man, scripture records, not willing to do more than put Mary away privately when her pregnancy was first discovered. But in ...

673. OUR LORD DENIED

Sermon

E. Jerry Walker

... stilted smile on his face, to join them later on the hillside with a rabble of ruffians, to whom he actually betrayed their Lord. Betrayed him with a kiss! That’s when he should have used his sword. Used it on Judas! Not wasted his one gesture of wild protest on the sniveling servant of the high priest. That act with the sword had been impulsive, and as Peter thought back on it, he was not sorry. But then, when Jesus reprimanded him and he looked into those eyes, so deep and sorrowful, all his bravado had ...

674. OUR LORD DELIVERED UP

Sermon

E. Jerry Walker

... is the Romans who must execute the sentence. He will have to be tried and found guilty by Pilate, the Roman procurator." Nicodemus came alert. In his heartache, he had let this fine point slip by his mind. Now, thoughts tumbled together in wild association. True, the Sanhedrin had condemned him. But on what charge? Blasphemy! That was no charge which the Roman procurator would countenance! What did he care about blashpemy against the Mosaic Law? Perhaps there yet was hope. But even as he was giving credence ...

675. OUR LORD TORMENTED

Sermon

E. Jerry Walker

... charges against him." He paused, a gratuitous smile twisting his face. "And neither did Herod, for see, he has sent him back to us. Nothing deserving death has been done by him. I will therefore chastise him and release him." At this there was a wild, frenzied outburst of protest from the mob, but Pilate merely gestured with his arm and his soldiers took the Galilean roughly and led him into the fortress. He proceeded then with casual concern to hear the charges against the other three, who had committed ...

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