Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 726 to 750 of 2404 results

726. Names, Not Numbers

Deuteronomy 26:1-15

Sermon

Carl Hoefler

... keep inflating our material life style. Luxuries become necessities. Gadgets become our gods. We spend more than we make, and we buy more than we need. As Oscar Wilde said of us, "Americans know the price of everything and the value of nothing." The effort to achieve and to maintain status is ultimately self-defeating. It leads only to a lack of identity. We do not know who we are. All we know is what we earn and how much we possess. The Internal Revenue Service becomes our contemporary Satan who threatens ...

727. A Sword and a Sacrament

Isaiah 50:1-11

Sermon

Carl Hoefler

... "Jesus Christ of Nazareth." Its title was "True Israel." The Suffering Servant was what Israel, as a people down through history, had struggled to become but never could be; totally and completely faithful and obedient children of God. "True Israel" was a goal never achieved, a hope never realized, a dream never lived out in daily life - until! Hundreds of years after Isaiah had lived, a baby was born in Bethlehem. He was an Israelite by birth. His human heritage was the history of Israel; but, his divine ...

728. An Easter-Life

Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

Carl Hoefler

... not only heard the message that you are to proclaim, you have also received the power of the Holy Spirit which enables you to pass that word on to others. God never asks us to do anything that he does not, at the same time, give us the power to achieve. The living Lord is alive in you. He will enlighten and enliven you to proclaim his Gospel to the world. In the novel, Green Street, the story is told of a lady who spent most of her youth taking care of her father. She was in love with a sea ...

729. No Grey Area

Acts 15:1-21

Sermon

Carl Hoefler

... last (but, that is another story). At the end of the convention, the various warring factions were united. However, this unity was not to last. The struggle for unity is a constant battle. Therefore, we need to look briefly at how unity was achieved, for a time, in the early church. There were basically five factors which marked the procedure that accomplished unity in that church convention which was held about fifty years after the death of our LOrd. First, despite their differences, they agreed to meet ...

730. The Foolishness of God is Wiser than Humans

1 Corinthians 1:18--2:5

Bulletin Aid

Carl Hoefler

Call to Worship Pastor: In our society of advanced technology, the life of Jesus is still a goal beyond the achievements of humanity. People: The ways of God do not always seem to be appropriate for our life styles; consequently we pay too little attention to God's will. Pastor: But the truth is that God's foolishness is wiser than the ways of humanity. People: We know that is true, ...

731. Trust in God, Not in Man

Jeremiah 17:5

Bulletin Aid

Carl Hoefler

... ourselves firmly in the oasis of your loving care; that we may enjoy the blessings of your providence even into eternity. We pray through Christ our Lord. Amen. Prayer of Confession Forgive us, Father, for the confidence we have placed in the outstanding achievements of our fellow humans. We are skilled in great demonstrations of power, but that power does not protect us. We sentence ourselves to a dry and thirsty land where life becomes lifeless. Forgive us for our misplaced trust. Lead us to the living ...

732. Reconciled with God by Christ's Death

Romans 5:1-11

Bulletin Aid

Carl Hoefler

Call to Worship Pastor: We are reconciled with God, not because of any religious achievements of our own, but because of the righteousness of Christ. People: We depend on Christ, who died for us, for any righteousness we can claim. Pastor: Even while sinning, God's love is poured out for us. That was the kind of love Jesus expressed when he died for us ...

733. Commitment to Christian Living

2 Timothy 1:1-2:13

Bulletin Aid

Carl Hoefler

... our Christian living, it is good for us to remind ourselves of the vows we took in the presence of God's congregation. People: We have promised to live our lives for Christ. We trust in him to be our source of strength, that we may achieve the victory awaiting us! Collect Almighty God, who challenges your children to live a life which demands strict discipline: Grant us the strength to live our lives each day in full commitment to you, that we may not allow ourselves to be weakened by inactivity in ...

734. Love Within the Family

Ruth 1:1-22

Bulletin Aid

Carl Hoefler

... With gratitude, we express our praise to you, O God, for the blessing of family ties. But so often we want to receive from the family more than we contribute. Forgive us when our selfish ways hinder the wholeness which you intend each family member to achieve. Help us so to love, that our lives will be a source of joy in our homes. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Hymns "Children of the Heavenly Father” “Happy the Home when God Is There” “Lord of Life and King of Glory” “O Lord, May Church ...

735. Windows Of Wonder

Sermon

James Angell

... were for the grave of her son who was buried there - who, after he had completed high school, had sat for an examination in a larger adjoining town, and had qualified for a scholarship to Oxford. The whole village had experienced a burst of pride over that achievement. (People of the town I grew up in felt that way when John Smoller, one of our own, received an appointment to West Point. For our 7,000 inhabitants, it was a distinction comparable to being chosen as an astronaut or winning a Van Cliburn piano ...

736. Make Way For Poets Of The Heart

Sermon

James Angell

... to the preaching event, or where kerygma fits into our hunger for Brother Lawrence's kitchen. Is it because the path is so private - where finding a way to make oneself accountable for the stewardship of such a mystic potential becomes achievable only when applied to one other person? Where most pain and the gain involves lonely struggle or individual ecstasy? Where meditation risks getting separated from the prayers of the people, and the sacramental character of the commonplace is forfeited in the ...

737. The Aim Of Preaching: To Bestow The Kiss Of Life

John 20:19-23

Sermon

James Angell

... . A simple one-celled beginning that became a complex multiverse is trying to become a universe again. But it was the third that really surprised me. He wrote that we now come to the conclusion that life is a spiritual enterprise for which no secular achievement, no source of pleasure, and no material convenience is a substitute. A Walter Brueggemann book titled Finally Comes The Poet borrows its name from a passage in Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass that offers a hopeful note to end on. After the seas are ...

738. Dollar Signs and Life Symbols

1 Timothy 6:3-10

Sermon

Rev. Donald R. Shank

... of her life was a refrigerator and her struggle was to put a padlock on it. During football season I have a feeling some wives may feel the most appropriate symbol for their husbands would be a TV set. Some person's lives are best symbolized by an achievement. I had a professor in college whose life symbol I'm convinced was AB BSed BD MA THM PhD - a string of six academic degrees. And what a crushing blow it was to his symbol when a man joined the faculty with seven degrees. Sometimes a personal habit ...

739. Give Them Good News...

Romans 5:1-11

Sermon

Robert V. Dodd

... daily lives in their own private hells. Modern man may no longer believe in sin, but he is certainly bothered by it. We can waste a lot of time trying to make non-Christians act like Christians. We can waste a lot of energy trying to discredit scientific and technological achievements and put the fear of hell back into people's hearts. Or, we can give them the Good News of Christ. We've had enough of this talk about what a sick and sinful world we live in, I realize that all is not right in this world. But ...

740. Having a Life in His Name

John 20:19-23

Illustration

Ed Jansen

... work lacks? Please, tell me, I must know!" Michelangelo responded, "It is perfect in every detail. Your work is magnificent. It only lacks one thing, life itself!" Now the master could not pay any artist a finer compliment, but the young man knew that without life, the best he could achieve was to convert an ugly mass of stone into a beautiful mass of stone. Life was the essential ingredient that his creation lacked.

741. The Same New Jesus

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

Carl Hoefler

... us what the disciples had experienced as the Son returned to the Father; they said that he ascended into the clouds and above the clouds into heaven. There he reigns in power with God the Father. To argue the historic factuality of the Ascension-event is not to achieve a more accurate communication of revelation, but to distort it. In the end we miss completely what God, through the sacred record of the Bible, is trying to say to us. God does not desire to prove that he can defy the law of gravity, nor is ...

742. The Power Of God

Luke 24:50-53

Illustration

Russell F. Anderson

... her into the spotlight, where she received the recognition she so desperately sought. She set her goal to become a national news anchorwoman by the age of thirty, a goal in which she eminently succeeded. Yet, the faster she ran, the more she achieved, the more tortured and insecure her life became. Jessica had several failed relationships with men. She was beaten by her lover and one of her husbands committed suicide. She got hooked on booze and cocaine. Her career collapsed suddenly, like a house made ...

743. Come From Anywhere

Matthew 15:21-28

Sermon

... it caused her to persist, not to give up. Her faith was great in yet a third way: in its consequences, its results, the benefits it brought, the fruits it produced. There were two of these. First: because of her faith, the noble object of her quest was achieved: her daughter was made well. Second: because of her faith, the disciples of Jesus that day gained a basic insight into the nature of Christ's mission in the world and of their role in that mission. Indeed, yes, the woman's faith was great in what it ...

744. On Staying Awake

Luke 12:35-48

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... need God," and so spoke for all of us. God is what all of us are really searching for. This is the quest that provokes all searches and all dissatisfactions. We don’t even have to know that this inner uneasiness, this sense that all of life’s achievements and successes have a hollow quality about them, is a search for God. But it’s there for believer and unbeliever alike. The Biblical testimony has words for it: As a hart longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for thee, O God. My soul thirsts for ...

745. Christ the King The King On His Cross

Luke 23:26-43

Sermon

Alvin Rueter

... your stomach. And so it is with everything else we like to do in this life. There’s always a boundary to the fun. Let’s say your hobby is redoing furniture. You might be an expert, but there’ll be some frustration somewhere in the project. You won’t achieve all you want. It could even turn out pretty well so that you could take a lot of satisfaction from it. But perfection? When you reach for it, it pops. That’s the thirst for paradise. It’s like the thirst for justice. We feel it in our bones ...

746. Lord, Teach Us to Pray

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

... his life for his mother and father, he replied, "Nobody ever loved a son more than I loved you." Sifford said, "Pop and I didn’t leave anything unsaid." And, in his turn, he told his father, "You and Mom are responsible for making possible everything I can achieve in life. There is no other way I can thank you enough for what you have done for me." And his father answered, "Only a father can know how good it feels to hear a son say that ..." So Jesus teaches us, "When you pray, say, Father, hallowed ...

747. Heaven Can’t Wait

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

... kingdom life that he has promised as a gift to all of us, and that he came to bring us through his death and resurrection. This is how we understand the blessedness of that new life described in the Beatitudes - not as a pattern of behavior we achieve by trying harder, by taking charge of our own lives, by a slight adjustment of the carburetor, but the blessedness of life as he takes charge and shapes us as his new creation. The disciples had grown calloused through the years to the usual behavior patterns ...

748. Believing is Seeing

Luke 23:26-43

Sermon

Alton F. Wedel

... and crashes like an auto on a slippery slope in wintery Minnesota. The church, frequently it seems, has little more to offer. The lust for power, honor, glory that has been the character of people everywhere has not been lost within her pale. We struggle to achieve greatness, put in our bids in not-so-subtle ways for seats of honor in the Kingdom. There are dirty-tricks campaigns that scatter victims on their way. Impatient with the impact of the Gospel, we try to make the Kingdom come on our terms, not ...

749. The Sign in the Subway

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

Carveth Mitchell

... of God’s love, so that when the answer is "No," we are sure it is for the ultimate good of ourselves and of those for whom we pray. The following lines should help us keep our prayers in the proper perspective: I asked God for strength that I might achieve; I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey. I asked for health that I might do great things; I was given infirmity that I might do better things. I asked for riches that I might be happy; I was given poverty that I might be wise. I ...

750. Why Aspire to Sainthood?

Daniel 7:1-14

Sermon

... begin becoming visible. We must not be under any illusions, however. While such lifestyles are possible, they are not free or easy. Prayer, discipline, hard work, suffering, self-sacrifice, persistence, and even humiliation are commonplace invorvements. Achievement and maintenance carry a price tag of eternal vigilance and personal anguish. Consider Jesus, often at prayer, even sweating blood in Gethsemane, and finding strength on the cross to pray for his executioners. Consider Saint Paul, wrenching ...

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