Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 701 to 725 of 928 results

701. By Enduring

1 Peter 2:19-25

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... the verses about slaves obeying masters and wives submitting to husbands. Some parts of the Bible ought not to be read in church. But it is hard to make Peter's point and ignore his illustrations. Before I got sick last weekend and cancelled a few days vacation, the mantel was hanging over Kaye's shoulder to preach this sermon. She is a Vanderbilt graduate. I was confident she could handle it. About ten days ago she walked into my office with a forlorn look on her face and said, “What am I supposed to ...

702. Lighting up Your Neighborhood

Acts 13:44-49

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... . Since I don't have a dog, and my kids are grown and I'm too old to play basketball, I've got it made as long as I can keep Sandy doing yard work. Most of us are fortunate to live in good neighborhoods. When I hurried off on vacation a couple of years ago, leaving our garage door wide open, our neighbor came over and closed it for us. For nearly two years now, another neighbor whom we have nicknamed the ‘paper fairy' lays our morning paper at the door. Who could ask for anything more? What kind of ...

703. Keeping Company with the Weary

Matthew 11:25-30

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... , up and down, but never seems to get you anywhere. Life is like a roller coaster ride. It lifts you high, slams you down, and jerks you around and lets you off at the same spot you started. One young mother lamented, “I'm so tired, my idea of a vacation is a trip to the dentist. I just can't wait to sit in that chair and relax." Paul said, “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do. Who will rescue ...

704. Conversion or Credentialing?

Acts 9:1-5, 10-12, 17-19

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

It's been an eventful week in the Olds' household. Sandy and I flew in from vacation last Tuesday and immediately drove to Lexington, Kentucky to participate in the service of ordination of our son, Wes, who is now a full elder in our denomination. As I recessed from that service a long-time friend of mine asked, “Howard, which was the best, your ordination or the ...

705. Finding Our Place in the Body of Christ

1 Corinthians 12:12-20

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... be the extreme middle where left and right, black and white, male and female; Jews and Greeks can be loved and accepted as complete children of God. Church hierarchy ought to be an 'oxymoron' in the body of Christ. A weird word like Holy war, working vacation, burial benefits, small crowd. Jesus said to his competitive disciples who were arguing about greatness along the road, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all." II. THE BODY OF CHRIST HAS ONE SPIRIT "For we were ...

706. Luke 11:1-13

Luke 11:1-13

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

Why is it . . . You’re on vacation in a brand new place . . . You go out to dinner at a brand new restaurant . . . You’re facing a brand new set of dining options . . . Yet you already know how the plates will look when they come to your table. Dad will have some kind of steak. Mom always goes ...

707. A Kingdom that Cannot Be Shaken

Hebrews 1:1-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... You always get the best parking spots. You never get into fights with people. You get the best jobs, with rapid promotions. You get straight A’s in college. Your love life is always great. You never get sick. You never get sad. It never rains on your vacations. Your favorite team always wins. Yes, indeed. The life of the Christian is one non-stop joy fest.” Then he adds, “You don’t look convinced. Is that not true? Oh, thank God,” he concludes, “I was beginning to think it was just me.” (3) We ...

708. Light and Hope for the New Year

John 1:10-18

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

... 30). We recognize this darkness today in our world. John understands the darkness as that which has invaded God's good creation. We know of the ways evil corrupts what should be good. Evil always plays the role of spoiler. A friend once returned home from a vacation to find that his refrigerator had broken down sometime during the trip. The freezer part of the appliance was full of bugs. The eggs embedded in the meat had hatched. That's the evil of the world: waiting for the right conditions to bring it out ...

709. Brought Together and Sent Forth

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Sermon

Lee Griess

... . Because holy communion teaches us that we are brought together as a community of faith. We gather as God's family to receive the bread and wine. At the communion table we are brought together as the family of God. A few years ago, my wife and I took some vacation time off and went to San Francisco. We'd been there for our honeymoon and wanted to go back. One of the places we wanted to see again was Muir Woods, a secluded forested place not far from the Golden Gate Bridge. It is a special place. In the ...

710. Unwanted Freedom

John 8:31-36

Sermon

Chris Ewing

... of speech has severe limits, as does freedom of religion. And most people are chained to the grind of daily circumstance to a degree few of us today can imagine: although there is a wealthy class, the majority of the population will never take a vacation — at best they'll manage a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for one of the major festivals — and they lead a hand-to-mouth existence that allows for few dreams. So in discussing "freedom," the kind of political voice and consumer "good life" that we take for ...

711. Masks

Matthew 23:1-12

Sermon

Chris Ewing

... hide or screen off things that should not momentarily be on view. Masks can hide, but they can also display. A mask can be a way of exploring another side of ourselves, or of bringing something deep within to light.2 Sometimes when we're on vacation we try on a different side of ourselves — the cautious accountant goes skydiving, the shy child goes to camp and starts enthralling cabin mates with tall tales, and the white-collar worker tries life at a dude ranch, while the busy life-of-the-party person ...

712. Kiss The Chef! Thanksgiving Day

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon

Chris Ewing

Years ago, during summer vacation, I took a whole pile of books out of the library and spent days and days just reading. Today I'd have trouble telling you what most of those books were, never mind what they were about. But there's one little snatch of dialogue from one of the books ...

713. Are We There Yet?

Acts 1:6-14

Sermon

Schuyler Rhodes

... comes. "Are we there yet?" They get obsessed with the destination, and miss the incredible scenery passing by the window. They focus on that point when the car will pull into Grandpa's driveway and they can spill out of the car for hugs and hoorays as vacation begins. In fact, they focus on this so much that they lose out on the opportunity to sing songs, play games, and engage in storytelling with the rest of the family as the journey continues. The disciples, of course, are not much better than this brood ...

714. Appointment with Thunder

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20

Sermon

David J. Kalas

... some time since some of us read them carefully. Or thought about them carefully. Or perhaps obeyed them carefully. And then there is this other matter. The Ten Commandments suffer a bit from the fact that we teach them to children. In Sunday school classes, in vacation Bible schools, in children's Bible stories, and in our homes, we teach the Ten Commandments to children. Please don't misunderstand my meaning: It's not a bad thing to teach the Ten Commandments to children. It's good and it's right. But in ...

715. Not All of This Is Me

Deuteronomy 8:7-18

Sermon

Timothy J. Smith

... , our own smarts, or ingenuity. We live in a world where people live as though they are the only ones who are responsible for their achievements. It is easy to get puffed up, highlighting our jobs and promotions, the neighborhoods where we live, the cars we drive, the vacations we take and many, many other things. Do not fall into that trap this Thanksgiving as we acknowledge that God is behind all that we are and have. We are a people of faith. We belong to God. We depend on God's grace for all that we ...

716. Caught in the Middle

1 Corinthians 1:1-9

Sermon

John N. Brittain

... demands the workplace is putting on everyone, creating conflicts not just between work and family but between work and personhood. Many of us have looked wistfully at the comparisons between the length of the workweek and the number of weeks of vacation provided in certain European countries. On campuses, the tension is between academics and co-curricular activities, particularly big-time sports at some schools. And, of course, there is no end of political debate about how many of our resources should be ...

717. In Spite of Evidence to the Contrary

Romans 4:13-25

Sermon

Steven E. Albertin

... contrary, Jesus says you are somebody! And that is all that matters. If you don't have the right house in the right neighborhood, if you don't drive the right car, send your kids to the right kind of schools, if you don't go on the right vacations and have the right clothes (how often is this not the mantra of our town?), you are nobody. You don't count. You might as well not exist. Nevertheless, "hoping against hope," in spite of evidence to the contrary, Jesus says you are somebody! And that is all that ...

718. God’s Doing

Philippians 1:21-30

Sermon

Larry Lange

... corporate ladder to one rung below the vice-presidents —who were all brothers. So Don knew he wasn't going any higher on the ladder. That was okay with him. They had treated him like family. He had earned a six-figure salary and eight weeks of vacation and had 10,000 frequent flyer miles to play with. Then leukemia drove his wife, Donna, into the hospital where they shoved needles into her and pumped her full of chemicals and new bone marrow and blood and sent her home again — alive, but quite possibly ...

719. Unexpected Cost

Luke 14:25-35

Illustration

Thomas C. Short

Pastor Thomas Short tells the following story: when I was in college I was one of several young men who decided to go to work on the railroad during summer vacation. At that time, there was very little automation on the railroad, and most of the work was done by manual labor. Many people warned us about the job. It was a hot job ... very, very hot. It was difficult. Everything out there was heavy. It was a dirty job, and ...

720. Would You Still Be His Disciple If You Lost Your All?

Luke 14:25-33

Illustration

Jerry Ruff

Jesus doesn't call us to be "convenient Christians", he calls us to be committed Christians who put Him first above everything else — even if that means dad, mom, siblings, kids, work, vacations, playtime, money, homes, friends. This is where the Living Bible translation fits in. Jesus is saying to us as His followers, "Sit down, count your blessings and then renounce them all for me." Would you still be His disciple if you lost your job? If you lost your savings? If ...

721. Peace and Quiet

1 Timothy 2:1-15

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... , iPhone, Facebook culture. All those wonderful electronic connections that make it possible for us to stay in touch, stay on top, stay informed, stay current 24/7 also make it almost impossible to encounter “peace and quiet.” When you made your summer vacation plans, how important was it that wherever you were headed there was wi-fi available? Is there anything more pitiful than watching your teenage daughter discover she has left her cell phone re-charging at home? A dropped cell phone connection is ...

722. LENT: The Passion of Christ: "Betrayed"

John 13:21-30; Matthew 26:14-16; 45-50

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

A Vacation Bible School teacher, one summer, taught class on Judas' betrayal of Jesus. After the lesson, she went over the review questions and asked, "Who betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver?" Without hesitating, her 7-year-old son replied, "I know! It was 'Judas the Scariest!' " (1) For me Judas ...

723. Unlocking the Access

Ephesians 3:1-12

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... they weren't sharing it. The rest of the world had been locked out. The rest of the world needed Access. For the rest of the World the Mystery was HIDDEN. I. Hidden: No Access A. The Mystery Was Hidden: No Access. There's a story about a family on vacation who stopped at a park for lunch one day. When they finished the little girl saw a playground and wanted to play. The little girl wanted to go in but the gate was locked. Daddy explained that she couldn't play in the playground because the gate was locked ...

724. Made Perfect In Weakness

2 Corinthians 12:2-10

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... fill it back up with dirt. After this went on for some time, the man went over to the workers and asked why one was digging holes while the other was filling them back up. One of the workers spoke up, "Well, the man who plants the trees is on vacation." (5) Too often that's a parable for the church. Too many people forget about the future. They don't see what they are doing or not doing as connected to the continuing ministry of the church. They don't consider those who will follow. They don't consider the ...

725. Rich In His Poverty

2 Corinthians 8:7-15

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

One of my favorite memories is the summer of the treasure hunt. A number of years ago, when my wife's nephews, Chris and Matt, and our son Joshua were around seven or eight, we decided that the two families needed to take vacation at the same time so the boys could get to know each other. So we all met at the farm where my wife's parents live. It's a great place for kids. Well, there were no video games or cable TV to keep them entertained and the boys were ...

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