Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 51 to 75 of 2331 results

51. So You Want To Go To Bethlehem, Do You?

Luke 3:1-20

Sermon

Johnny Dean

... might be surprised by their answer. "So you want to go to Bethlehem, do you? Tell you what to do: go on out to the desert, outside of the relatively safe confines of Jerusalem. Keep going till you get to the Jordan River. You’ll know it when you see it ... like a lion. You could probably hear him long before you could catch sight of him. You could hear "REPENT!" echoing off the barren desert landscape. And I don’t want to hear that, especially now, at this time of the year. Don’t you just want to shout ...

52. So You Want to go to Bethlehem, Do You?

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

Johnny Dean

... might be surprised by their answer. "So you want to go to Bethlehem, do you? Tell you what to do: go on out to the desert, outside of the relatively safe confines of Jerusalem. Keep going till you get to the Jordan River. You’ll know it when you see it. ... like a lion. You could probably hear him long before you could catch sight of him. You could hear "REPENT!" echoing off the barren desert landscape. And I don’t want to hear that, especially now, at this time of the year. Don’t you just want to shout ...

53. Three Secrets of A Life Well Lived

2 Timothy 4:6-8

Sermon

Brett Blair

... with a sense of satisfaction, rather than regrets? It was a fight, says Paul, but it was a good fight. II Second, Paul says, desertion does not mean defeat. Paul was brought before the Roman Emperor to defend the charges brought against him. It was in essence a one ... lose your faith in the bad times, but it is just as easy to lose faith in the good times. In bad times you feel deserted, in good times you feel as if you don’t need God. So the bottom line is: have we remained constant through the good and ...

54. Comfort

Isaiah 40:1-31

Sermon

Frederick C. Edwards

... made low; the uneven ground shall become level and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. - Isaiah 40:3-5 The way home was to be across the desert, in the fastest and most direct way possible. That was the price. Don’t waste time going the longer and easier way up the Euphrates River and down from the north. Take the risk! Seize the day! To understand the price of such a journey take a look at a ...

55. A Man Who Lost His Head

Matthew 11:1-19

Sermon

R. Blaine Detrick

... upon the common sins of mankind. He accused his listeners of all kinds of wickedness; he called them vipers ... thieves ... liars ... hypocrites. Yet, relentless and harsh as he was, they listened - and came back for more. Great crowds gathered - in the desert - to hear him. Lack of firm, basic beliefs is destroying the influence of the pulpit in the twentieth century. Too many who stand in our modern pulpits today have no bedrock beliefs. Their preaching has no power ... no authority ... no intensity ...

56. Be Careful How You Live

Ephesians 5:15-20

Sermon

Brett Blair

... s teaching: In life, there are two birds. The one bird looks for foolishness and stupidity, the other looks for wisdom. The vultures seek to fill themselves with the rotting flesh of drunkenness and debauchery, the hummingbird sobriety, freshness, and the Spirit. In the desert of this world you have your scavengers who are angry and ungrateful, but you also have those who hum a grateful hymn of thanksgiving. The irony is that you find what you are looking for. In the fifth chapter of Ephesians Paul outlines ...

57. A New Look at an Old Treasure

Psalm 23:1-6

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... my way through them, but I was never alone; the shepherd was my companion. I was able to be confident in the face of adversity. Why? "Your rod and your staff, they comfort me." The rod was a gnarled club the shepherd used as a weapon to defend against desert marauders, both animal and human. The staff was the crook that could be used to rescue one who had fallen from the path. Yes, it IS a comfort to know that your protector has the tools at his disposal to do the protecting. My shepherd has done such a ...

58. Is There Any Wind?

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... from summer rains, but this year it was positively luxuriant. Countless patches of brightly colored wild flowers dotted the roadside. The extremes were notable even to those most familiar with the rebirth that rain brings to the desert. (4) That’s what happens when a life-bringing wind blows across a desert. That is also what happens when the wind of God’s Spirit blows across our lives. We are refreshed, empowered and transformed. And so the question for the morning: Is there any wind? Are we left to ...

59. The Proof Is in the Pudding

Exodus 17:1-7

Sermon

David J. Kalas

... they journeyed by stages, reminding us that this was a process. They could not get from here to there in a sprint, a burst of enthusiasm. Perhaps, as they emerged from the borders of Egypt as freshly freed people, they felt that they could leap broad deserts in a single bound. The reality was that the Israelites would have to endure a lengthier process: They would have to journey by stages. We almost always do, of course. There is not much of lasting importance that can be had by a single inspired burst ...

60. Stephen’s Speech to the Sanhedrin

Acts 7:1-53

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... 4:28) the angel (v. 35), that is, with the help of God himself (see disc. on v. 30). By the hand of God, Moses was able to do wonders and miraculous signs (see note on 2:22) in Egypt, at the Red Sea and for forty years in the desert (v. 36). There is nothing in this second statement that cannot be borne out by the Old Testament, but again the allusion to Christ is unmistakable, the more so as Luke brings Stephen’s expression into line with descriptions elsewhere of the work of Christ and of his followers ...

61. Crossing the Sea

Exodus 13:17--14:31

Understanding Series

James K. Bruckner

... of the Lord to the people continued in the wilderness and at Sinai. 14:1–31 The Lord set a strategic trap for Pharaoh in the exit from Egypt. God sent the people of Israel to a vulnerable location next to the sea and “hemmed in by the desert.” This was part of the Lord’s plan to draw the pharaoh out. Moses, the people, and Pharaoh all play their roles. The narrative is packed with action: the people obey the Lord’s directions; the king pursues them with chariots; the people cry out in terror ...

62. Jesus Feeds the Four Thousand

Mark 8:1-13

Understanding Series

Larry W. Hurtado

... or uninhabited place (8:4, see note). This is surely an allusion to the OT passages that speak of God’s future salvation as a new miracle in the “desert,” like the miraculous preservation of Israel in the desert under Moses (e.g., Isa. 43:19–20), and that describe God’s promised time of new blessing as involving a miraculous abundance in desert places (e.g., Isa. 35:1, 6; 51:3). Another important detail is the statement that some of the crowd have come a long distance, better translated “from ...

63. A Pep Talk for a New Year

Matthew 2:13-23

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... offered to add her name to a text prayer chain so other women in their small town could pray for her race. On race day as Beth and her team gathered near the starting line, Beth’s phone suddenly pinged. Her teammates stared at her. They were in a remote desert region that had no cell phone service. The ping was a text from the neighborhood prayer chain back in North Carolina. Beth read it aloud to her team. It was Isaiah 41:10, a promise from God to the nation of Israel, “So do not fear, for I am with ...

64. Jesus Our Rock

1 Corinthians 10:4

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

... today reminded me of one of the stories of the Old Testament -- the story of Moses and the chosen people, wandering in the desert for 40 years. Do you all know who Moses was? (Let them answer.) Moses lived many hundreds of years ago. God chose ... to the chosen people, boys and girls? He sent them Moses to free them. Then he sent them food and water to get them through the desert. Today, Paul reminds us that God did the same kind of thing for us. Instead of Moses, he sent us someone else. Who was that someone ...

65. When Life Doesn't Go According To Plan

Genesis 21:8-21

Sermon

R. Robert Cueni

... turn out that way, but life doesn't always go according to plan. Hagar and Ishmael wander south to the wilderness near Beersheba. They exhaust the food and water supply. The strength of the teenager, Ishmael, fails first. His mother puts him under a bush, out of the blazing desert sun. As the boy sinks toward death his mother sits down about 50 yards away and waits for the inevitable. It is a scene as sad as those we see on the evening news. A famine in the land. A starving child waits to die. A mother sits ...

66. Moses's New Job

Exodus 4:18-31

Sermon

Jerry Eckert

... I had to do. You remember that Pharoah failed to come after you after the princess was killed. And you now have had experience in this desert area. You'll bring them out through these places and Pharaoh's armies will not follow you here." "If you can do all that, why don' ... the pieces in this puzzle," the voice came back. "Even if I try it, no one's going to believe me. They'll think I'm desert crazy. For instance, who will I say is the God involved?" "I AM WHO I AM!" the voice said. "So I am who I am," I ...

67. Advent 2

2 Peter 3:1-18, Isaiah 40:1-31, Mark 1:1-8

Sermon Aid

Russell F. Anderson

... grace of God in Jesus. A voice crying in the wilderness (v. 3). John was literally a voice crying in the wilderness. He had forsaken the holy city and the temple, probably because of their corruption. He was probably influenced by the Essenes, whose desert commune was an attempt to flee the contaminating effects of society. Yet prophets of every era have been those crying out in the wilderness. They have been shoved to the periphery of existence, mocked, ignored and feared. Many Christians feel that way at ...

68. Made New By Getting Lost

Luke 3:1-20

Sermon

Richard A. Wing

... tears. Parents who had loved and lost children of all ages embraced his life, and helped him to begin the long trek out of the wilderness toward the healing that will never be complete. Hear this deep and often terrible truth: your being lost or getting lost in the desert wilderness is a clear sign of God's nearness. Turn around! God is near! I. We get lost. We get lost oftentimes on streets that were once familiar. I remember a man who told me about going back to his hometown where he knew no one. He said ...

69. Boundaries or Frontiers?

Leviticus 19:1-37

Sermon

... women, and making decisions for himself? None of these were options in the monastery. After years of living in those enslaving monastic walls and thinking that he loved it (just as the Israelites thought they loved the slavery of Egypt more than the freedom of the desert), Luther came to see how self-destructive those boundaries were. God had to break down Luther’s love for restriction to bring him to the frontier of faith. God first compels us to despair of ourselves so we may learn to trust in his Word ...

70. Pilgrimage of Faith John M. Cobb

Exodus 3:1-22

Sermon

... was a boy, growing up in the United States, that there was one part of this story I could hardly understand; and that was: - why these slaves were so reluctant to go! - why they resisted the leadership of Moses! And then, once they had gotten out into the desert - how it was that some kept wanting to go back! As the saying goes "to the fleshpots of Egypt." I mean, as a good "freedom-loving" American, I just couldn’t understand why anyone would not do just about anything to escape from slavery! I think now ...

71. Man Of Sorrows

Isaiah 52:13--53:12

Sermon

Larry Powell

... his words, or better still, hold his tongue altogether. Nicodemus was present when Jesus was stood up before the high priests. But he opened not his mouth. Nicodemus, the outside chance, bridled his conscience and secured his position. He also added his name to the list of "Deserters." Jesus was totally alone. It was as he had said: "The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, every man to his home, and will leave me alone" (John 16:32). He was in that moment "a man of sorrows and ...

72. Ready or Not, Here He Comes!

Luke 3:1-20

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... CAN be better than we are, and that reasonable measures taken can MAKE us better - then the coming...the Advent...of this newcomer is good news indeed. Ready or not, here he comes. Are you ready? To be honest, probably not. We would rather be the snakes in the desert who are content to run to the river for safe haven from the flames. Are there things in our lives that ought not to be? Are there people who have been neglected who need our love and attention? Has life become too hectic, too wrapped up in the ...

73. Broken Hydrants

Jeremiah 17:19-27

Sermon

King Duncan

... the "rough cut" and wanted more time to revise and edit; but it was too late. (3) How true to life. "Cursed is the man," says Jeremiah, "who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert...." Some people live barren, empty lives. BUT WAIT! GOOD NEWS! THERE IS HOPE. Jeremiah describes another type of person: "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is in the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the ...

74. Making It Last

Luke 3:1-20

Sermon

Timothy J. Smith

... were the fruits their new life would produce. When we are attentive to other persons in need we have opportunities to show our love in action. As the late Albert Outler once said, "The world hears the Gospel when it sees it." Some of the people out in the desert began to wonder if John might be the Messiah. John the Baptist preached the good news. When Jesus began preaching he picked up on this same theme as his cousin John. John the Baptist was clear about his role. He was the one sent to clear the way for ...

75. What Is The Question?

Job 38:1--41:34

Sermon

Charles R. Leary

... to be misleading, but I want to read something which I think is rather alluring. Don Marquis wrote this whimsical piece. In it he has two ants talking to each other. The ant named Archy says, "It won't be long now, it won't be long, man is making deserts on the earth. It won't be long now before man will have used it up so that nothing but ants and centipedes and scorpions can find a living on it. Man has oppressed us for a million years, but he goes on steadily cutting the ground from under his ...

Showing results

Showing 51 to 75 of 2331 results

51. So You Want To Go To Bethlehem, Do You?

Luke 3:1-20

Sermon

Johnny Dean

52. So You Want to go to Bethlehem, Do You?

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

Johnny Dean

... might be surprised by their answer. "So you want to go to Bethlehem, do you? Tell you what to do: go on out to the desert, outside of the relatively safe confines of Jerusalem. Keep going till you get to the Jordan River. You’ll know it when you see it. ... like a lion. You could probably hear him long before you could catch sight of him. You could hear "REPENT!" echoing off the barren desert landscape. And I don’t want to hear that, especially now, at this time of the year. Don’t you just want to shout ...

53. Three Secrets of A Life Well Lived

2 Timothy 4:6-8

Sermon

Brett Blair

54. Comfort

Isaiah 40:1-31

Sermon

Frederick C. Edwards

55. A Man Who Lost His Head

Matthew 11:1-19

Sermon

R. Blaine Detrick