Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 726 to 750 of 1230 results

Mark 4:35-41

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... perhaps even sitting a little low in the water. The Sea of Galilee sits at the bottom of a basin, with hills and mountains surrounding it. The exchange between the cold mountain air and the much warmer, below sea level marine air, provides ideal conditions for the creation of fast, fierce storms. Despite the fact that Jesus and the disciples leave after evening had come, when the air should have been calmer, they quickly find themselves in a “lailaps megale anemou,” a “fierce windstorm” (v.37). The ...

727. Proper 4

Mark 2:23-3:6, Psalm 139:1-24, 1 Samuel 3:1--4:1, 2 Corinthians 4:1-18

Bulletin Aid

B. David Hostetter

... their own foolishness have become the victim of drugs, or of habits that they cannot break, and which are breaking them. Bless all little children and protect them from predators, that they may grow up in innocence and joy. Help all young people to find the ideals that will protect them from the strong temptations that beset them. Refresh those in midlife, those who bear the burden and the heat of the day, those who have the responsibility of earning a living and making a home. Help them to go on even when ...

728. Proper 5

Galatians 1:11-24, 1 Kings 17:7-24, Psalm 146:1-10, Luke 7:11-17

Bulletin Aid

B. David Hostetter

... also. Comfort the lonely, encourage the depressed, heal the sick, mend the broken, and send help to the powerless. Make us strong to do what we can and humble in knowing what is beyond our power to remedy. Keep our country true to its highest ideals, and where our actions have fallen short of our ethics grant us the will to change and serve the commonwealth more diligently. Open to our children and their teachers the treasures of holy wisdom. Illumine their minds with the truth of Christ. With the advance ...

729. Proper 10

Psalm 82:1-8, Amos 7:7-17, Luke 10:25-37, Colossians 1:1-14

Bulletin Aid

B. David Hostetter

... our resolves to serve you faithfully as long as life lasts. Make your church truly a morning star, heralding a brighter, better day. Conserve in our national life the great values of our heritage, and reform our society in striving for the high ideals we have espoused but not yet achieved. May your name be hallowed by all. Bless all branches of our government, that our lawmakers may themselves be law abiding, and our executive and judicial branches equally of good reputation and entirely trustworthy. Tender ...

730. Third Sunday in Lent

1 Corinthians 10:1-13, Isaiah 55:1-13, Psalm 63:1-11, Luke 13:1-9

Bulletin Aid

B. David Hostetter

... will have mercy on us, and to our God, who will abundantly pardon. INVOCATION Eternal God, we return to your house to pray, and we turn from sinful ways at your bidding. We rejoice in your promised pardon and seek to fill our minds with the high ideals of your holy Word as written by prophets and apostles and lived out in Jesus Christ. Amen. PRAYER OF CONFESSION Holy God, how exalted are your ways! Holy Savior, how sinless is your life! Holy Spirit, how pure is your nature! Whatever progress we have made ...

731. “Bad Form” and Bad Jesus

Ephesians 2:11-22

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... with “being” than “saying,” more to do with “reality” than “rhetoric.” The third sacred text was a “commitment card” that every civil rights worker had to sign before he or she could march in the demonstrations or be a part of the sit-ins. [Ideally, this would be the time to pass out these cards to every person present . . you could do a facsimile of the card, as outlined below.] Martin Luther King Jr. came up with a 10 Commandments card to keep his civil rights workers from doing “Bad ...

732. Bad Form and Bad Jesus

Ephesians 2:11-22

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

733. Lent 5

Psalm 130:1-8, Ezekiel 37:1-14, John 11:1-45, Romans 8:1-17

Bulletin Aid

B. David Hostetter

... pray not only for ourselves but for others, that together, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. Free your church from any captivity to the limited truth of political parties and secular philosophy. May the whole truth of Christ be our ideal for daily life. Trusting in the power of the living word in Christ, and speaking the truth in love, may we draw outsiders into the church with the gracious invitation of your gospel. So may your church grow in numbers and influence wider society. Sustain ...

734. Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany

Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18, Psalm 119:33-40, Matthew 5:38-48, 1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23

Bulletin Aid

B. David Hostetter

... Christs" to the honor of the name of Jesus Christ. Amen PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING We give thanks, O God, for your great wisdom and understanding of our humanity. For perfection you have created us, and with patience you work with us to fulfill the ideals of character that are most evident in Jesus Christ. We are thankful for the influence of the Holy Spirit, our family Spirit who draws us all into an always-loving relationship. We praise your name, loving Parent, caring Brother, tender Mother. Amen PRAYER OF ...

735. Bread As A Weapon

John 6:25-59

Illustration

Brett Blair

... Bread can be used as a weapon. Indeed, there are those in our own government that have advocated that very thing. If nations withhold oil from us, then we withhold bread from them. On the surface feeding the world's hungry sounds like such an ideal thing, but when this whole issue is examined it becomes much more complex. In the novel The Brothers Karamazov, we read a fictionalized scene that takes place between an old church Cardinal who is engaged in the Spanish Inquisition with Jesus, who supposedly has ...

736. Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... with their own hands” (v.28). Working with one’s own hands was certainly the well-known trademark of Paul’s own apostleship (1 Corinthians 4:12; 1 Thessalonians 2:9; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-11) and was strongly advocated by Paul as a community ideal. But it is not just honest labor for its own sake that this Ephesians’ author advocates. The fruits of that labor were the true goal, for those fruits could be “shared with the needy.” The thief who before had only “taken” from others could, through ...

737. Baptism - FAQ's

Acts 2:42-47

Sermon

James Merritt

... followers of Christ. They were the charter members of Cross Pointe—the church at Jerusalem Center. Here we see the church "in its prime." Eventually, troubles would set in, problems would crop up as they do in all churches, but in Acts 2:41-47 we see God's ideal for the church. In a moment we're going to read Dr. Luke's description of the church, which raises a question: How do we want people to describe Cross Pointe whenever they come on any given Sunday? What do we want them to see? What do we want ...

738. Marriage 101

Ephesians 5:22-23

Sermon

James Merritt

... . The number of Americans getting married has dropped to a 40 year low, and "I do" has been replaced with "I won't" or "I no longer will." A study by Rutgers University National Marriage Project found that Americans have not given up on marriage as an ideal, but there has been a catastrophic drop since 1960 in the number of couples who actually walk down the aisle and get married.1 Just consider the following:Over the last four decades Americans have become less likely to marry, and fewer of those who do ...

739. The King and His Kingdom

Matthew 6:33

Sermon

James Merritt

... comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power." Can you imagine what that will be like? In 1516 Thomas More wrote a book entitled Utopia. In that book he described an imaginary ideal society free of poverty, suffering, pain and sorrow. In fact, the word comes from a Greek word that literally means "no place." That is, there is no place like it. A utopia is a dream. But the kingdom of God is not. Can you imagine what it would be ...

740. The World’s Favorite Scripture

Matthew 7:1-6

Sermon

James Merritt

... ; for then you will never have to face Him as your judge. [1] Jonathan Alter, "In the Time of Intolerance," Newsweek, March 30, 1998, p. 29. [2] Cited by Steve Farrar, Point Man, p. 53. [3] William J. Bennett, The Death of Outrage: Bill Clinton and the Assault on American Ideals, p. 121. [4] Illustrations for Biblical Preaching, Edited by Michael Green, p. 207.

741. Life on the Rock

Matthew 7:24-29

Sermon

James Merritt

... if you live in the South you'll face tornadoes; if you live in the North you'll face floods; if you live in the East you'll face hurricanes. You see Jesus is not telling us how to find a safe place to live where the atmosphere is ideal, the winds gentle, the rains controlled, the sun always shines, and the climate is perfect. That place doesn't exist really anywhere on earth, nor does it exist anywhere in life. I want to share with you another true story that is very fascinating. It happened almost seventy ...

742. A Sense of Place

2 Samuel 5:1-5, 6-10

Sermon

Stan Purdum

... Later still, when they are finally able to return, the people set about rebuilding the city, seeing it as central to who they are as a people. And when the prophets spoke of God's kingdom fully coming at the end of things, they described that ideal kingdom as a restored or new Jerusalem (Zechariah 8:1-8), a vision Christianity has embraced as well, as seen in Revelation 21. It is worth asking ourselves how a particular physical location figures into our life of faith today. To what degree has this building ...

743. The Maybe Moment

2 Samuel 11:1-15

Sermon

Stan Purdum

... us may change with aging, but temptation does not avoid us. We may not be tempted to have a fling or to steal from our place of employment, but there is always the pull to be less than who we want to be, to not live up to our best ideals. There is an old saying to the effect that you can't keep a bird from flying over your head, but you can keep him from building a nest in your hair. The point, of course, is that temptation, no matter what its subject is, can arise from a thought ...

744. Can't We All Just Get Along?

Mark 9:38-41

Sermon

King Duncan

... , we can get along here. We all can get along. I mean, we’re all stuck here for a while. Let’s try to work it out. Let’s try to beat it . . . Let’s try to work it out.” (4) Rodney King may not have been the ideal spokesman for love and understanding, but his question still haunts us, “Can’t we all get along?” God’s dream for the world is that we shall all get along. Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals, liberals, First World, Third World, rich, poor, young, old it grieves the heart of God ...

745. Recognizing His Disciples

John 13:31-35

Sermon

Donald Charles Lacy

... a sure sign for all of us to lay our claims, as Christians, before others. It is to be above and beyond everything the world has to offer. You and I may still be at a point in our lives where we accept this new commandment as strictly an ideal. But is that what Christ had in mind? We can talk back in well-phrased rationalizations and indicate Jesus really did not mean what he said in the strictest sense. It is one of those teachings when we say, "He meant well," but the reality is quite different. Therefore ...

746. A Good-bye Topping All Others

Luke 24:44-53

Sermon

Donald Charles Lacy

... them do unto us is an ethical dilemma, unless we have accepted both cross and the crown. In reality to love the Lord our God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength and our neighbors as ourselves is a natural fruition of the two. The ideal of pre-Christian teaching becomes reality with the power the two give us. Are we seeking to be too theological for our Lord's sheep and lambs? Not if we are totally serious about living a victorious Christian life! So, we are gently but sometimes firmly summoned ...

747. Jesus Rewards the Just

Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... Cost of Discipleship. Too often when trials come our way we back off; we fail to engage the challenge. G. K. Chesterton, the early twentieth-century British essayist was right when he declared back in 1910 in What's Wrong with the World? "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried." Despite the suffering, pain, and challenges of the Christian life, John assures us that all are invited to the reward which Jesus brings. The Spirit and the bride, an ...

748. Don’t Hope…Decide

Mk 10:1-12

Illustration

King Duncan

... that passionate after twelve years!" The man stopped smiling and said, "Don't hope, friend . . . decide!" And that's it, isn't it? For most of us it comes down to a decision. "Till death us do part." It doesn't happen in every relationship, but that is still the ideal that Jesus gives us.

749. Strange Arithmetic

Mark 10:7

Illustration

Donald B. Strobe

... happens when two become one in a real marriage? Some think that it reduces your individuality. Too often one party or the other seems to be saying: "Alright - we two shall become one...and I AM the one!" Obviously, such a marriage is headed for trouble. Ideally, when "two become one" it means that each one is doubled, but not duplicated. You still retain your individual identity, but you add to yourself the identity of the other, and the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. "For this reason a ...

750. Do All the Good

Mark 10:17-31

Illustration

Clement E. Lewis

... Wesley proposed an excellent guide to goodness. He said, and he practiced what he preached: Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In all the ways you can, At all the times you can, As long as ever you can. Someone else has expressed the ideal of goodness in a wonderful way, saying, "I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore, that I can do, or any goodness that I can show to my fellow creatures, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall ...

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