Sermon and Worship Resources

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Revelation 5:11-14

Sermon

King Duncan

A layperson wrote on the Internet that he attends a small village church in rural Pennsylvania. On any given Sunday, he says, they may have six or seven faithful children who come with their parents. The pastor has a white bag which is passed from child to child, making sure they get equal turns to put something in for him to talk about. Each Sunday, the pastor calls all the children up and he opens the bag to find a “surprise” on which he bases his children’s sermon. Easter week, the bag went home with a ...

777. Jesus Destroys the Power of Sin

Mark 2:1-12

Sermon

Richard Gribble

There is a story of a Vermont farmer who was sitting with his wife one evening on the porch, looking at the beautiful valley laid out before them. Everything about the moment was filled with peace. At last the farmer spoke quietly, as if reluctant to break the spell. “Sarah,” he said, “we’ve had a lot of ups and downs together during these forty years, and when I’ve thought of all you’ve meant to me, sometimes it’s been almost more than I could do to keep from telling you.” Sometimes things just “leak” out ...

778. Parabola

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Lori Wagner

[This is an interactive sermon. In order to preach this well, you need to allow your congregants to take part, answer questions, imagine themselves as part of the story.] Prop: ostrich egg I have here an egg. [You can pass around the egg.] This egg belongs to an ostrich. Let me tell you a story about the ostrich, who one day took her eyes off of the place in the sand where she buried her eggs. Lo and behold, when she finally remembered where she had hid them, a predator had come in the night and stolen her ...

779. The Healing Tree

Revelation 22:1-6, Luke 8:1-15

Sermon

Lori Wagner

“Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.” --Ezekiel 47:12 “The sun will no more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you, for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun will never set again, and your moon will ...

780. God Has Not Forgotten You

Jeremiah 29:1-23

Sermon

Lori Wagner

"’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”(Jeremiah 29:11) “However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8) Parable: An elderly man sat at North Port, where he sat each day for many years. One day, a stranger came by and asked him what he was waiting for. “I’m waiting for my ship to come in,” replied the man. “I don’t see any ships round here,” exclaimed the man. “Why don’t ...

781. Priceless!

Matthew 13:44-46

Sermon

King Duncan

There was a news story on AOL.com earlier this year about an unnamed U.S. Air Force veteran who bought a Rolex watch in 1974 through the Air Force base exchange while stationed in Thailand. He bought the watch, a Rolex Oyster Cosmograph after hearing it was good for scuba diving. When he received the Rolex, he decided it was too nice to wear in saltwater and decided to lock it away in a safe deposit box. There it remained for nearly five decades At the time he bought it, the watch cost $345.97, which was a ...

782. Verbose Grammar

Illustration

Staff

The original title of Noah Webster's first spelling book was "A Grammatical Institute of the English Language, Comprising an Easy, Concise, and Systematic Method of Education, Designed for the Use of English Schools in America, Part I, Containing a New and Accurate Standard of Pronunciation." It can still be purchased in bookstores today with the same title.

783. Stay Awake!

Mark 13:24-37

Sermon

Michael L. Sherer

A young professional woman from Ohio decided to seek her fortune, discern her vocation, and potentially change her life for the better by moving to England. She relocated to London where she began to pursue an advanced degree, seeking new opportunities in the work world. One of the things she took with her from the Midwest was an insatiable love for the Chicago Cubs professional baseball team. She followed the games on the internet, listening to the live feed. The problem with this arrangement was that, ...

784. Homecoming

Mark 16:1-20

Sermon

Will Willimon

I want to speak to those of you who are grieving the death of someone whom you love, which, by my reckoning, includes about everyone here. For some of you, your pain is still acute. Others, like me, found that the ache of the loss gradually receded. You got up, you went on, but still, at moments when you least expect, grief grips you again and you realize there are not many days in this life without loss. Those whom we love keep leaving, keep journeying to "that land from which no traveler has ever ...

785. For The Love of God is Creative

1 Corinthians 2:6-12 · Psalm 8

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

In Bil Keane's FAMILY CIRCUS, little Billy is watching television. The speaker boldly says, "Remember this, my friends, great things never happen until some person in this world makes them happen." Billy's mind gets to thinking about the snow, the reflection of the moon on the lake at night, the waves crashing at the beach, a butterfly breaking out of its cocoon, a gorgeous sunset and a beautiful waterfall and then he says, "Oh, yeah?" (1) Billy had the youthful wisdom to give credit where credit is due, ...

786. The Art of Fruit

Luke 3:7-18

Sermon

Lori Wagner

When 16th century Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo painted his first “fruit face,” imagine the reception he must have garnered.[1] His work has to be some of the strangest in the history of art. But it seems, there is an art behind his madness. In 1562 at the age of 36, Arcimboldo received an invitation to accept a post as Court Portraitist at Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II’s imperial court in Vienna. Suddenly the budding artist was thrust into a rich renaissance-style intellectual and artistic ...

787. Welcome, Joe!

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Sermon

King Duncan

Welcome to worship this morning. I’m glad to see you here. And I’d like to offer a special welcome to all our Joes in the congregation this morning, since March 27 is officially “National Joe Day.” I’m not kidding. I don’t know who decides these things, like National Goof Off Day (March 22) or National Waffle Day (March 25), but March 27 is designated as National Joe Day. It’s a day for celebrating anyone with the name Joe. In fact, the founder of National Joe Day invites all people to change their name to ...

788. First Things First

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

Will Willimon

“In the beginning…God.'' The lection for the first Sunday after Pentecost is the first verse of the first chapter of the first book of the Bible, ''In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth…” How fitting a text for Father's Day--a reflection upon the work of God the Father. For whether you take this as a description of God as Father or God as Mother (all this creating and begatting seem a good deal more maternal than paternal to me), it is a delightful, childlike moving symphony of ...

789. The Lawyer

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Dave Zuchelli

“You jerk! What kind of question is that?” That might have been my response if I had been Jesus in that moment when asked, “And who is my neighbor?” The question was obviously a set-up. This expert in the law was trying to trip him up to catch him in some sort of “gotcha” moment. This was typical of his exchanges with the legalistic types — the Scribes and the Pharisees who were hung up on the law without regard for the Spirit behind it. They were so protective of their territory; they weren’t interested ...

790. The Lord Is With Us

Luke 1:26-38, 2 Samuel 7:1-17, Romans 16:1-27

Sermon

Will Willimon

I would be the last person to tell you that the Bible is an easy book to read. How many dear, devout souls have resolved to read the Bible straight through, from Genesis to Revelation, only to fall away after a couple of chapters? It's not only that the Bible is an ancient book, written in ancient tongues. One of the most distressing aspects of biblical religion is the way it shuttles back and forth between the earthly and the eternal, the fleshly and the spiritual. Oh, there are parts of the Bible which ...

791.

Psalm 143:1-12

Understanding Series

Craig C. Broyles

No One Is Righteous before God This individual prayer psalm is highly formulaic, that is, it consists of stock phrases repeated elsewhere in the Psalms (v. 3 // 7:5; Lam. 3:6; v. 4 // 77:3; 142:3; vv. 5–6 // 77:2, 5, 12; v. 6 // 63:1; v. 7 // 69:17; 88:4, 14; 102:2; v. 8 // 90:14; in general cf. Pss. 25; 86; further parallels listed in Culley, Oral Formulaic Language, p. 107). Yet it reflects an intimacy with God that is strikingly singular among the psalms. 143:1–2 The opening and closing verses draw ...

792. Body

2 Corinthians 4:1-18

Understanding Series

James M. Scott

In 2:14–4:6, the first step in his defense of the legitimacy of his apostolic claim, Paul repeatedly refers to heavenly realities he has known as an apostle: He has entered the heavenly throne room of God; he speaks in the presence of Christ; and he has seen the glory of God in the face of Christ (cf. 2:14, 17; 4:6). The emphasis in the previous section has thus been on the glory of Paul’s apostolic ministry. The problem is that Paul’s body does not manifest the glory of God in a tangible way. According to ...

793. Yada, Yada, Yada!

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

Sermon

Lori Wagner

July 23rd is annual “Yada, yada, yada” day according to sources online.[1] It’s the day to celebrate the 153rd episode of Seinfeld (the 19th episode of the 8th season of 1997, for which writers Peter Mehlman and Jill Franklyn won an Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series)! The phrase was already popular through the comedian Lenny Bruce but caught the winds of culture in the 1990s with Seinfeld’s episode entitled, as you might imagine, “The Yada, Yada.”“Yada, yada, yada” is a kind of evasion tactic ...

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