Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 726 to 750 of 3160 results

Joshua 24:1-27

Sermon

Robert S. Crilley

... yet, even if change weren't part of the overall design, I suspect it would still be one of our greatest desires. After all, don't we often claim that "Variety is the spice of life"? If nothing ever changed, and every waking hour were sort of stirred together into this bland porridge of predictability, with each dull and tiresome day trailing off into the next like so many colorless beads, we would quickly find ourselves as bored and restless as a classroom of third graders during the closing week of school ...

727. Recalling, Remembering, And Rejoicing

Deuteronomy 8:1-20

Sermon

Robert S. Crilley

For all of his charisma as a leader, his skills as a diplomat, his savvy as a politician, Moses was not the sort for whom making speeches ever came easily. Rhetoric simply wasn't included on his resume, public speaking never being one of his fortes. And of course, back at Sinai before this improbable pilgrimage began, he had admitted as much to Yahweh: "O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither ...

728. A Long Obedience In The Same Direction

Matthew 3:13-17

Sermon

Mark Radecke

... in Christ, Jesus is indeed establishing justice and righteousness in the earth. For what is just and what is right in God's eyes is a long obedience in the same direction, and a long obedience in the same direction is precisely the sort of life the risen Christ empowers us to lead. The baptismal font or baptistery is the debarkation point for this spiritual pilgrimage. Our world is and likely will remain a microwave world, instant, impatient, petulant, confusing. A long baptismal obedience in the same ...

729. Thistles Among The Wheat

Genesis 28:10-22, Psalm 139:1-24, Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, Romans 8:12-25

Sermon Aid

William E. Keeney

... manifests a confidence about the working of God's kingdom in history. If the seed is sown, we can be confident that it will germinate without our having to force it. It will produce fruit and the harvest will come. We are not the servants who are to try to sort out the ambiguities of good and evil in history. Rather we are to sow the seed and wait in confidence that the harvest will come, that the good will endure beyond the fruits of evil. 4. Evil is found in the world. Dante in his Divine Comedy says the ...

730. The Promise Of The Spirit

Sermon

John A. Stroman

... . "Communities are like individual human beings in the sense that times of decline, uncertainty, insecurity, and threat are times of greatest temptation. When threatened with harm, extinction, or even change, we human beings will latch on to all sorts of ideologies, worldviews, demagogues, authorities, and institutions which we think may save us. Times of peril and insecurity are times of idolatries and absolutisms" (p. 133). The mainline churches, staggered by losses, now begin to envy religious movements ...

731. Holy Love and Herod's Love

Matthew 2:13-18, Matthew 2:19-23

Sermon

Mark Radecke

... reveal, embody, enflesh, make real the love of his Father God. And he will lay down his life that we -- his beloved -- might live. What, then, does this mean for us? I suggest a few things: * In all the circumstances of our lives, we remember with what sort of love God loves us. Not with Herod's love: selfish, punishing; but with holy love: giving, freeing. * We remember that we have been bought with a price -- that having been so loved and so set free, we are now able to pass that love on, knowing that ...

732. Two-and-a-Half Cheers For Hypocrites

Matthew 6:1-2, Matthew 6:5-6, Matthew 6:16

Sermon

Thomas Long

... in pulpits) on Sunday mornings praying the prayers and singing the hymns when, truth be known, they are really just as sinful as the secular types who have partied like jackals on Saturday and whose Sabbath liturgy consists of sleeping late and pondering what sort of toppings should go on the Domino's pizza they will order for the halftime of the football game. In fact, people with a sharp eye for hypocrisy would consider those who stay at home on Sunday as actually morally superior to the hypocrites ...

733. Words, Words, Words

John 4:1-26

Sermon

Thomas Long

... right. You have no husband. You've had five husbands, and the one you are with now is not your husband. You told the truth when you said you have no husband." Now the commentators have raised their eyebrows about this woman, as if she were some sort of merry divorcee, the Liz Taylor of ancient Samaria, trading in husbands like sports cars. But all of their moral umbrage misses the point that women in the first century simply did not have that option. She has not devoured husband after husband; she has been ...

734. When God Is The Problem

Psalm 13:1-6

Sermon

Robert G. McCreight

... the circle -- where the good things of life reside and can be enjoyed. And how uncomfortable are those who cry out in pain and bitterness that their lives are being lived out "outside" the circle and they don't deserve this. Their lives are in some sort of crisis from which they need to be delivered. That crisis could be serious illness, or militant enemies threatening at the borders, or a bad marriage, or children who turn out to be an embarrassment, or gossipy neighbors, or any of a number of things. The ...

735. A Faith I Could No Longer Count On

Psalm 73:1-7, 13-18

Sermon

Robert G. McCreight

... the life of faith for everyone who is honest enough to allow his or her faith to be pushed to the limit. It begins with a simple, Sunday School outlook which lifts up the clear virtue of a good God who is good to good people. We all like that sort of thing, and quickly say "Amen" to that. It doesn't take long at all for the psalmist to "grow up" and realize that the simple theology of a good God smiling on good people doesn't hold much water. Just because that's what Mrs. Gray says in the ...

736. The Bread Of Life

John 6:25-59

Sermon

Marc Kolden

... of eternal life." "But what should we do?" they asked. And Jesus replied, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom God has sent." The crowd was not sure about that and challenged Jesus to do an additional miraculous work of some sort to prove that they should believe in him. They suggested that he should do something to top the Old Testament miracle of manna in the wilderness. But Jesus challenged them by saying that it wasn't Moses who was responsible for giving their ancestors bread from ...

737. Stop Being Afraid

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

Marc Kolden

... he himself will acknowledge them before God. That's a promise. One commentator translates this verse: "Every person who stands up for me in front of others, I will stand up for that person in front of my Father in heaven." It is that sort of rock-solid guarantee, a promise won through the fires of crucifixion, that enables us to stop being afraid of people and circumstances and shout the gospel from the housetops. Fear of God as we know God through Christ bestows fearlessness of people and circumstances ...

738. Professor Of Paradox

Matthew 13:47-52, Matthew 13:44-46, Matthew 13:31-35

Sermon

Roger G. Talbott

... one hand, said Jesus, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that catches every kind of fish in the sea. The kingdom of heaven has the original policy of nondiscrimination. On the other hand, Jesus says, the kingdom of heaven will be like the angels sorting the fish. The good ones will be kept and the bad ones will be thrown away. In other words, the kingdom of heaven is highly discriminating -- a very exclusive realm. "Do you understand?" Jesus asks his disciples. They say that they do. Jesus says that his ...

739. The Man Born Blind

John 9:1-12

Drama

Dallas A. Brauninger

... questions: Does the light of God still open your closed-up world? What darkness of your world does God light? What blindness of spirit do you participate in? Beneath what dark shadows of outmoded ways do you crouch? Interviewing Jesus Asker: Jesus, you bring all sorts of light into this interplay between sight and different kinds of blindness. Into the eyes of the man blind from birth, you bring the light of sight. You open the eyes of the Pharisees to their own unseeing hearts. You tell your disciples that ...

740. Sermons

Sermon

John R. Bodo

... John 9:17) the man said, which was the last thing the Pharisees wanted to hear, since they were trying to prove that Jesus was both an ordinary man and a fraud. A Witness To God's Love But the man born blind was now beginning to see all sorts of things. The opening of his physical eyes was bringing him unexpected spiritual insight. He had gotten hold of just one bit of truth, but his understanding of this bit of truth grew in the process of fighting for it! It is not necessary to know everything about Jesus ...

741. Yearning For A Loyal Friend

Job 6:14-30 · Matthew 26:69-75

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... of woe was what Job needed from his three friends. For seven days they brought Job comfort. It was only when they started talking that Job realized that they did not identify with him, that not one of the three was willing to take his place. They were sort of standing on the shore, trying to make sense out of his sinking in the ocean. Each of them came at Job three times. So nine times he had to endure their "explanations." Eliphaz was the first. "Job, you know you are being punished for some secret sin ...

742. Hailing The King Of Chaos

Job 12:13-22· Matthew 27:32-44

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... sins and prejudices, try to rise above them to bring order out of chaos and new hope out of old hates. God is always stirring in our midst, although often God becomes obscured in the clamorous confusion. None of God's appearing is spectacular. God's actions are not the sort of news that makes the headlines. But I can witness that whenever my soul gets sick and tired of all the sordid stories in the news, when I feel that my faith in my fellow human beings needs a lift and I want to be sure of God again, I ...

743. Something New, Something Old

Sermon

John N. Brittain

... in which Jesus fulfilled all the old expectations in a new and often unexpected way. Over and over Matthew, and Matthew alone, explicitly points out how Jesus' words and deeds "fulfilled what was foretold by the prophets." Jesus was, after all, not exactly the sort of Messiah many persons expected. They were looking for a new king like David, a military leader who would throw out the Roman occupation army and set up a Jewish state. Instead, Jesus came as the Suffering Servant of whom the prophet Isaiah had ...

744. The Christian Journey II: The Mountain

Sermon

John N. Brittain

... of ascending a ladder, like that in Jacob's dream. This ascent literature speaks of the ways in which disciples of Jesus Christ may advance in their spiritual walk, ever moving closer to Christ. Many persons have criticized this school of writing and this sort of imagery for putting too much emphasis on human effort and constructing an artificial plan of "first you do this and then you do that" to advance to the next higher level of spiritual growth. I personally feel that both of these objections have ...

745. Come As You Are

John 21:1-14

Sermon

Alex Gondola

... , sweaty from softball games, whatever. Summertime is a great time for "come-as-you-are." That reminds me a bit of the text found in John 21:1-14 which describes one of the Risen Lord's appearances after his resurrection, a "Come As You Are" party of sorts. The disciples had been out all night fishing in a boat. No doubt they were sweaty and tired. Probably they smelled pretty bad: fishing boats are smelly. Their faces no doubt were dirty, and their hair was all messed up from the wind and the waves. Peter ...

746. Christmas Letters

Drama

Karren Boehr

... , certainly not to spread Christmas cheer. (Sighs) You and I haven't had a whole lot to do with each other for quite a while. Hey, I'm young. I've got places to go, things to do. (Pauses in wonderment and disbelief) And I was standing in the back sort of mouthing "Silent Night," and you hit me with a brick. Your presence was all over the snow, in the air and I suddenly knew you were the Savior of the World ... and you loved me. Where did all the unrest inside of me go? It's gone! It's ...

747. Is Your Christmas A Compromise?

Drama

Karren Boehr

... say "Merry Xmas." (Pauses) Yes, Xmas ... not Christmas, and they have a real cool cartoon Santa with all his reindeer underneath ... (Pauses) Yes, I know, they're not religious, but, hey, it's no big deal. And you've got to admit mangers and wisemen and camels look sort of dorky on cards. Just old people send that kind of stuff. Anyway ... (Pauses as if thinking of something else to say) are you going to go tonight? (Pauses) All right, I suppose I can call Claire and change my plans. But it's going to be so ...

748. All Things Hidden Will Be Revealed

Drama

Karren Boehr

... haltingly) Hello ... 1ST SAINT: Ah ... nice day ... 2ND SAINT: Yes ... nice day ... 1ST SAINT: Well ... ah ... if I didn't know better I'd guess this must be heaven ... or at least the gates of heaven. 2ND SAINT: (Continues to look around) You know, I'm sort of getting the same general picture. The Gatekeeper ... the books ... those must be the Books of Life. (Gestures toward books) 1ST SAINT: (Looks around) Amazing, it's almost like I pictured it would be. Though I've got to admit I got here much sooner ...

749. The Ugly Duckling

Drama

Karren Boehr

... when does welfare give out health club memberships. LINDA: (Uneasily) Maybe she's just had a hard day. ANN: (Gives stranger a snobbish look and begins doing leg bends) Do anything special New Year's Eve? LINDA: We had a candlelight service at our church. Sort of a rededication of our lives to Christ. ANN: Oh, yes, I forgot, you're into that religion stuff. LINDA: (Almost apologetically) Well ... yes ... I mean ... Actually, I guess God is a pretty important part of my life. Before Christmas I told you about ...

750. The Insignificant Valentine

Drama

Karren Boehr

... a box with valentines on it. Coming back, she hands the box to 2ND GIRL who walks over to BOBBY sitting on steps. She hesitantly hands him the box and both girls walk off stage. BOBBY takes the box hesitantly. Frowning, expecting it to be some sort of trick, he opens it and takes out the first envelope. Opening it, he studies the valentine, checking out the signature. Turning his hat around, his face becoming more pleasant. He opens and reads another) (Exits when Scene II action begins) Scene II Setting: A ...

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