Sermon and Worship Resources

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776. Loving Our Enemies, Christian or Crazy?

Matthew 5:43-47

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... an impractical idealist or practical realist? Well, you can decide. But never forget that Jesus dared to live his beliefs. If I long in any way to follow this value of Jesus, there are some questions that come to mind about this high and lofty ideal of life. I would like to discuss some of them with you today. I. Who Are Our Enemies? For the first hearers of these words, the enemy was no mere abstraction. They encountered the enemy every day. Some were religious authorities who called followers heretics ...

777. Honoring God in a Pluralistic Society

Matthew 22:37-40

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... his prayers. Come now and let us reason together. We live in a different kind of world. Reason causes us to question our desire for a Christian nation. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church said recently, “There is nothing more powerful than an ideal whose time has come. And the idea of reclaiming American as a Christian nation has definitely come." While I respect Dr. Kennedy, I have some questions. Is the goal of Christians to make America a Christian nation or to make Christians of people ...

778. Sharing God’s Blessings

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... that was to end all wars. We called it World War I. The smoke had hardly settled when we saw another 6 million people killed in World War II. Even now body bags containing our young men and women arrive back in the states every day. Is peace an optimistic ideal or a fervent possibility? I do not know, but count me among the peacemakers. I want to be called a child of God. We have been blessed. Will we use our blessings to bless others?

779. Embracing Christ—The Light of the World

John 8:12-20

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... of Jesus." I know that's hard to understand. There are many things about the nature of Christ that my small mind cannot comprehend. Christians have done things in the name of Christ that surely make God shudder. We've used His name to support our ideas and our ideals that would be far away from the way of God. Like people of every century, people of the 21st century form opinions about Him. We know in part and understand in part. But when the light fully comes, we shall know even as we are fully known. In ...

780. Colossians 1:1-14

Colossians 1:1-14

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... for Christ’s return for their complete fulfillment. But for all those who are truly “in Christ,” now there will be an expression of all these graces in the community of faith and in the world. Faith, love and hope are not ideas or ideals for Paul; they are action words and will be revealed by “bearing fruit and growing in the whole world” (v6). The stunning, transforming truth of God’s grace, once it is experienced, cannot help but change the Colossians and the world itself. Paul’s promise ...

781. Who Is This Jesus?

Mark 8:27-30

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... in the main a philosophy of life or a social program. Doubtless it includes all that: it involves an ethic, supplies a philosophy, enunciates a program for society. But basically, it is none of these things. It is not a message about human virtues and ideals at all. It is a message about God. That message is this — that the living God, eternal, immortal, invisible has one definite point broken through into history in an unprecedented way. Once and for all, in an actual life lived out upon this earth, God ...

782. What Happens When You Are Not Number One?

Mark 10:35-45

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... come to a place in our society when people believe that it is unacceptable not to be Number One. Good people are, by definition, those who have succeeded few people ask how — and bad people are defined as those who have failed. So success becomes the ideal and failure the manifestation of moral inadequacy.” (William J. Vamos, Ibid.) But this is no new problem. It started a long time ago. Mark, in our Gospel lesson, tells the story of James and John seeking places of honor in the fellowship of Jesus. The ...

783. Our Father...

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... Church? Consider this: the prayer Jesus gave to his disciples, the prayer we are all taught as children, begins with the audaciously familiar “Our Father.” What happens to our images of God when our images of “our fathers” are so tattered and torn? Ideally the Christbody community, the presence of Christ on Earth, should be able to provide all the images, all the examples, all the experiences of God “The Father” that would bring the children of God together in prayer and praise. So why are there ...

784. Wonderful Opportunities for Mission

Matthew 9:35-10:8 (9-23)

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... French scholar, Alain de Botton. He has done of nice job explaining how contemporary society impedes our generosity. Botton points out how we are driven to succeed in order to attain status in society. We are likely to have anxiety if we do not conform to the ideals of success laid down by society.9 In our context, where the accumulation of money counts for so much, there are all kinds of reasons not to give the impoverished and others in need too much. Not only will it result in less wealth, but the less ...

785. A Career in The Kingdom

Matthew 21:23-32

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... he realized who he truly was and what he had become, and he then went out to the field to do the work. What was the point? Jesus' detractors understood quickly that he was speaking about them. It is one thing to parade religious values as high-minded ideals, but quite another thing to put them into practice. No one who refuses to be a disciple can ever become a pilgrim. The disciple gives up his will for the sake of the master's teachings and good graces. The pilgrim sets out on the road of the kingdom ...

786. All Who Share This Hope

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Chris Ewing

... ? Well, of course, there are those who have been especially recognized by the church — Roman Catholic church, anyway — for their exemplary lives. Since we Protestants do not officially recognize saints in that sense, we have a more generalized — and perhaps more idealized — vision of a saint as someone absolutely loving and Christlike, who not only knows what God wants them to do, but who always does it. A saint in this definition is an exemplary (and probably unreal) model of faith, whose example ...

787. Masks

Matthew 23:1-12

Sermon

Chris Ewing

... . Sometimes we put that mask on because of the intolerance of others: if we can't be good, we'll at least try to look good, because it saves a lot of friction. I think that for leaders this has a special edge. We want to believe in those high ideals, and so we preach them, and we do what we can to model them outwardly at least. Sometimes it just gets too painful to ask about what's going on inwardly, and we mask it off, maybe even from ourselves, until we're nothing more than a hypocrite, an actor ...

788. A Honeymoon at Church Camp: A Real Homecoming

Jeremiah 31:7-14

Sermon

Tony Everett

... Rachael and Wally's infatuation blossomed into romance. They became engaged with plans to marry during the Christmas season following college graduation. Everyone was thrilled. Here was the perfect couple. Their pastors, families, and friends on the camp staff gave them the ideal (for Rachael and Wally, anyway) honeymoon — a free week in a secluded cabin on the grounds of the camp where they met and fell in love. The newlyweds were ecstatic and joyfully set off to begin their lifelong adventure. Late one ...

789. This Is In the Bible?

Acts 2:42-47

Sermon

Schuyler Rhodes

... fact that this call to "share well with others" is not only here in scripture before us, it also seems pretty clear that the early church did indeed try to live this way. In fact, there are still Christian communities across the globe striving to reach for this ideal. And it's not just me. We, as a community committed to authenticity, really must confront the depth of this passage and all that supports it as we seek to be faithful. Do we trust one another? Do we trust God? Forgive me, but I assume that no ...

790. All About Me?

Romans 1:16-17; 3:22b-31

Sermon

John N. Brittain

... Paul was unfairly being compared, but this foolishness is full of far more truth than what passes for human wisdom. For Paul, of all people, the former Pharisee, the gospel, the good news, is about God. It was God who had created humankind and placed them in ideal circumstances on an earth, which at every point in its creation, had been pronounced "good." It was God who after the flood made covenant with Noah that the earth would never again be destroyed in such a way. "I have set my bow in the clouds, and ...

791. Yes, You

1 Peter 2:2-10

Sermon

David O. Bales

... with our prayers, whether about the largest or smallest matters. Every Christian has the task and joy of sharing their faith with others. If we allow the accretions of tradition to pile up a definition of a pastor, what do we get? A popular survey has determined that the ideal pastor is 28 years old and has been preaching for 35 years. She has one brown eye and one blue. He parts his hair in the middle: blond and wavy on the left side, brown and straight on the right. She has a burning desire to be with ...

792. Reasons for Rejoicing

Philippians 4:2-9

Sermon

Mary S. Lautensleger

... one in this day of dissent and divisiveness. I would certainly hate for another Christian church to be reading about my mashed-potato debacle 2,000 years from now. Visitors and church members alike are turned off by bickering within the body of Christ. Ideally, churches should be filled with the sort of sacred fellowship that turns a house of worship into a place of rejoicing. A Boy Scout camp hosts a well-publicized tug-of-war every spring. Scout troops train and prepare to pull together on their end ...

793. Luke 14:1, 7-14

Luke 14:1-14

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... in this week’s gospel text is a big Sabbath Supper — an after synagogue gathering of a group of people with close familial and community ties. It was a big-deal meal. It was a big deal to be invited. And it was a big-deal ideal time for the guests to establish their place in the synagogue’s social pecking order. Perhaps the most surprising thing about this gathering is that Jesus is invited to attend at all. Luke’s text has already clearly communicated the growing animosity between the powerful ...

794. A Man Named Useful

Philemon 1:8-25

Sermon

King Duncan

... man named Useful another chance. Did he? I hope so, and if there is someone to whom we need to give a second chance, I pray that we will be strong enough as well. 1. Oops, The Book of Blunders. 2. (Nashville, TN: Ideals Publications, 2006), p. 318. 3. http://www.stbarnabas‑sbnj.org/sermons/070304s.htm. 4. http://golf.about.com/cs/2003seniortour/g/bldef_mulligan.htm. 5. http://www.foresthilluc.org/sermons/FeelingJudgedhtml.html. 6. Cited by Leslie Schultz, http://www.lesandhelga.com/sermons/2004/022204 ...

795. Radiate Love

Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... him off. Johnny escapes, wounded, and finds his way to a secluded Monastery where he is taken in by the kindly monks and brought back to health. Along the way Johnny learns a few things about life. And what he regarded as initially an ideal hideout until he could plot his revenge against Jack, turns into a life changing experience and the one time hood becomes the placid, life appreciating "Brother Orchid." Despite the chance of reclaiming his turf, Johnny returns to the monastery where he at last finds ...

796. When the Mood Shifts

Luke 23:33-43

Illustration

Alton F. Wedel

... -needed reform of the broken healthcare system. We cheer the tax reform that promises more disposable income. As someone once or twice was known to say, "Progress is our most important product," and we are on the move. But as our expectations soar, disappointment deepens. Visions of the Kingdom evaporate. Ideals dampen to realities. The mood of the Emmaus disciples takes hold again. "We had hoped ..."

797. An Introduction to John the Baptist

Matthew 3:1-12

Illustration

Thomas Long

As the door to a new era swings open, John the Baptist is the ideal hinge. He is dressed like the old age, but he points to the new. His preaching style is vintage Old Israel; his message paves the way for New Israel. He appears to have wandered out of some retirement home for old prophets, but he announces the arrival of one who ...

798. Time to Unpack

Matthew 11:1-19

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... who, against all reason and for our redemption, is making a journey TOWARDS us. This week’s gospel text reminds us just how long God had been preparing for this journey. Before the baby Jesus was even born, God had arranged for the ideal advance man, the perfect prophet to be conceived and born and nurtured to adulthood. Generations before John the Baptist there were other prophets whom God provided with selected slices of insight, like a freeze-framed GPS map. Moses and Isaiah, Malachi and Daniel: all ...

799. The Evangelist Has a Shady Past

John 4:1-26

Sermon

King Duncan

... , and big sister, or do you want to go to the lake of fire to be with the Devil and bank robbers?” David thought a moment, then replied, “I want to stay right here.” (1) Sounds like a smart little fellow. Maybe little Debbie was not the ideal evangelist. But her heart was in the right place. It’s a wonderful thing to help people find Jesus. The highly esteemed theologian Karl Barth had a painting of the crucifixion on the wall of his study that was painted by the artist Matthias Grunewald. In the ...

800. The Triumph and the Tragedy

Matthew 21:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

... . Sigurd Grindheim, http://www.sigurdgrindheim.com/sermons/king.html. 3. Pastor Jim Rand, http://www.tosapres.com/sermons.php?sermon=96 4. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdsmans Publishing, 1998), pp. 126, 129. Cited by Javier Viera, http://www.mamaroneckumc.org/2003sermons/0413.htm. 5. Ibid. 6. Daily Guideposts (Nashville, TN: Ideals Publications, 2006), p. 73.

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