Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 676 to 700 of 4508 results

Sermon

Lori Wagner

Hear the word of the LORD, you nations; proclaim it in distant coastlands: 'He who scattered Israel will gather them and will watch over his flock like a shepherd.' Jeremiah 31:10 Props: Conch Shell You are being called. It’s the middle of Monday morning. You’re in your office amidst the hustle and bustle of people rushing down the hall. You’re late to a meeting. Your report to the boss is due ...

677. Casting the Net on the Other Side of the Boat

Illustration

John R. Steward

Since many of the followers of Jesus were fishermen, it made sense for Jesus to use fishing as an example of the Christian life. In Matthew 4:19, as Jesus is walking by the Sea of Galilee, he sees Simon Peter and Andrew in the process of fishing. He says to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." In this text, Jesus gives them another picture of the work they would be doing. On the...

678. FISHERMAN

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

Isaiah 19:8 - "The fishermen will mourn and lament, all who cast hook in the Nile; and they will languish who spread nets upon the water." Matthew 4:18 - "As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen." Luke 5:2 - "And he saw two boats by the lake; but the fishermen had gone out of th...

679. Andrew’s Life

Illustration

Daniel W. Brettell

Even at the end of life, Andrew continued in his own way to bring people to Christ. We have no historical evidence — he never wrote an Epistle; he never founded any churches we know of; he isn't mentioned in the book of Acts or in any of the Epistles. But Eusebius, the ancient church historian, passed on the oral tradition that Andrew carried the Gospel north, perhaps going as far as the British I...

680. Fishing Takes Practice

Illustration

Samuel G. Candler

Ernest Hemingway loved fishing as much as he loved writing. He would never have been a great writer had he not fished, and he would never have been a great fisherman had he not written. Maybe his great work "The Old Man and the Sea" is so powerful because it is at one time so dramatically simple and also so dramatically deep. But "The Old Man and The Sea" is only one of Hemingway's great stories a...

681. The World’s Only Hope

Illustration

Thomas A. Pilgrim

G. Ray Jordon, Methodist preacher from North Carolina and teacher of preachers at Emory University, wrote years ago, "The hope of civilization is that we shall be able to produce enough Christlike men to save it." That is the world's only hope. It was when Jesus first walked along the Sea of Galilee. It still is today.

682. His First and Last Words to Peter

Illustration

Brett Blair

Jesus lived three years with his disciples. They went everywhere together and did everything together. They ate, slept, and breathed the life of Jesus and yet it was difficult for them to make the transition in their minds from a Messiah who would be a mighty King of Jews to a Messiah that would die for the sins of mankind. But Jesus never wavered in his mission. Throughout his entire ministry amo...

683. The Evidence of Life Is Growth

Illustration

King Duncan

A disciple is one who studies with a great teacher. It is implied that those who follow Jesus need to grow. We do not blossom overnight into mature spiritual giants. As Dr. Dwayne Dyer said in his book, Your Erroneous Zones, "How do you distinguish between a flower that is alive and one that is dead? The one that is growing is alive. The only evidence of life is growth." So it is with the life of ...

684. Fishers Of Men

Children's Sermon

Robert B. Lantz

Object: Fish stickers, erasers, or tiny toys (If you are a fisherman you might wear a favorite fishing hat.) Good morning, boys and girls. How many of you children have ever been on a fishing trip? I've done that and it is really fun. Sometimes I let the fish go after I've caught them, 'cause it's the fun of the catch that I enjoy most. Although sometimes if I'm out camping I fry the fish and hav...

685. Jesus Heals the Sick

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

In Matthew 4:23–25, Matthew summarizes Jesus’s ministry by describing his three primary activities: teaching, preaching, and healing (4:23). Preaching “the good news of the kingdom” connects with the summary of Jesus’s preaching at 4:17, while subsequent chapters take up teaching (chaps. 5–7) and healing (chaps. 8–9). The summary statement in 4:23 is virtually repeated at 9:35, creating a bracket ...

686. Jesus Heals the Sick

Understanding Series

Robert H. Mounce

4:23–25 Verse 23 is a summary of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. (The three parallel phrases are repeated verbatim in 9:35.) Although the population of Galilee was mixed (cf. 4:15), it was to the synagogues that Jesus went in order to preach. In Matthew, Jesus’ ministry is primarily directed to the people of Israel. Custom dictated that following the reading of the Law and the Prophets any Jewish man ...

687. The Great Physician

Sermon

King Duncan

It was rumored that the owner of a certain hardware store had discovered a cure for arthritis. As you might imagine, this stirred a great deal of interest in the small town where the hardware store was located. One day, the locals saw a little old lady, bent over on her cane, enter the store for a visit. A little later this same lady came out walking almost perfectly straight with her head held h...

688. The Field House

Sermon

Lori Wagner

The Allen Fieldhouse on the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas is home to the Kansas Jayhawks men’s and women’s basketball teams. Dedicated in 1955, the Allen Fieldhouse is noted as a historical and rave-worthy building, hosting NCAA regional tournaments, NBA exhibition games, famous concerts, and high-profile speakers. But its notoriety comes not from the building itself but from what happe...

689. The Healer

Sermon

Lori Wagner

“Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18) “I am the Lord, who heals you.” (Exodus 15:26) Prop: stethoscope [Hold up the stethoscope.] How is your heart? [Have a volunteer come up. Listen to the heartbeat. Put the stethoscope to the mic.] What do you hear? [Allow people to listen to the beating heart.] Listen to that. That’s the sound of a living hea...

690. Remembering The Saints

Sermon

Larry R. Kalajainen

There was a column in the New York Times on Wednesday, October 28, 1992, by Robertson Davies titled "Haunted By Halloween." After tracing the origins of Halloween to the ancient Celtic festival of the Death of the Year, and showing how the Christian church piggybacked the Feast of All Saints onto this pagan festival which marked both the death of the sun at the beginning of winter and the remembra...

691. How Does One Follow Jesus During The Threat Of War?

Sermon

George Johnson

It has been difficult for me to decide what sermon I should preach today. I had planned to preach on the lectionary text in Acts which is assigned for this Sunday. That story of Peter and Cornelius has been occupying my thoughts for several days, and I had a pretty good idea of how the sermon would be developed. But the present historical crisis has been capturing the attention of us all. My sense...

692. Trial-and-Error or Grace

Sermon

Thomas Peterson

(This sermon was preached at the Windsor, N.J. United Methodist Church on the occasion of its 150th Anniversary.) Sometime ago I discovered that God wants us to be happy. Happiness, I already knew, is no simple matter. The Bible teaches much about it, but the Beatitudes, to me more than any other text strike to the heart of the working ground for true happiness. “Blessed are those who….” is transl...

693. Ka-Chang

Sermon

John Jamison

It was a strange sound. Some said it was a kind of "clanging" sound, while others said it was more of a "ka-ching," or more accurately, a "ka-chang!" It sounded like the result of metal hitting metal, which is exactly what it was. In the valley off to the west from the hillside is a steep cliff rising up the face of Mount Arbel. The face of the cliff is covered with hundreds of caves, with no good...

694. The Upside-down Kingdom of God

Sermon

Johnny Dean

Doesn’t it seem to you that our whole culture (when we’re not tuned in to catch the latest nonsense coming out of Washington) is devoted to reminding us that our chief goal in life is to be happy? ("Yes, what he did was wrong. But the economy is good and I’m happy.") There was even a song about the importance and preeminence of being happy a few years ago. Do you remember it? "Here’s a little song...

695. The Evangelism Of Emphasis - 1946

Sermon

Kent Moorehead

Emphasis on evangelism is essential to vital Christianity. The evangelization of the world is its main business. But this means vastly more than a matter of additional church members. It is, above all else, a matter of transformed, empowered personalities. Evangelism means preaching the gospel to secure conversions. The essence of the gospel that the Christian Church is supposed to proclaim is sim...

696. Getting Under Your Neighbor's Skin

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

I have a friend who used to be a city judge. One day he said to me, "I want you to come to my courtroom and watch our next dog case." "What in the world is a dog case?" I asked. He smiled and replied, "Periodically a person is charged with having a dog which because of its incessant barking is a public nuisance." "But what," I asked, "could be interesting about that kind of case?" "It's more tha...

697. Create Your Own Happiness

Sermon

Robert Allen

One night I was sitting up late watching the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. A guest on the program that evening was a 94-year-old man. He spoke of the changes that had taken place during his lifetime and he said he was against all of them. He spoke of the garden that he planted every spring. He introduced his 75-year-old girlfriend who drove him to the NBC studio for his appearance on the Tonigh...

698. Matthew 5:13-20

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

The gospel text for this week deals primarily with criteria for discipleship. In Matthew, these criteria follow on the heels of Jesus' more impersonal list of "Beatitudes." These two units are linked together by the personalization that finally emerges in the final Beatitude ("Blessed are you when people revile you"), and the emphatic "you" Jesus offers in verses 13 and 14, "You are the salt," "Yo...

699. Matthew 5:21-37

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

As Jesus' great sermon called the "Sermon on the Mount" progresses, its message grows in pungency and particularity. The soaring Beatitudes that begin this section are surprising in content but so lofty in scope that listeners or readers could avoid finding themselves personally challenged. Jesus' directive about "salt" and "light" begins to personalize his message by evoking the emphatic "you." Y...

700. Matthew 5:1-12

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

The crowds gathered to hear what is in Matthew Jesus' first major teaching discourse (5:3-7:27) probably expected the familiar, comforting guidelines of traditional wisdom sayings. Conventional Jewish wisdom taught that right behavior resulted in rewards, that certain human actions would guarantee specific outcomes. Earlier beatitudes (e.g. those in Proverbs or Psalms) testified to this predictabl...

Showing 676 to 700 of 4508 results