Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 776 to 800 of 1044 results

776. The Wholeness Question: Do You Want To Be Made Well?

John 5:1-15

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

One day a cowboy out in Arizona was riding down a trail. All of a sudden as he rounded a bend, he saw an Indian lying down in the middle of the trail. He had his ear pressed close to the ground. As he got closer the Indian began to speak "Wagon," he said, "drawn by two horses. Horses both dapple gray. Passengers in wagon. Two passengers. One man, one woman. Man driving." The cowboy was amazed. He just couldn't believe it. "That's incredible, I can't believe it! You can tell all of that just by listening ...

777. The Cross Question: Am I Not To Drink The Cup?

John 18:1-11

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

John Milton was one of the great English poets. In 1629, he wrote his ever lovely, "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity." A year later, he attempted to write a companion poem to it on "The Passion." After some eight toilsome verses had been written, he gave it up. Sometime later, he wrote these words about the unfinished poem: "The subject the author finding to be above the years he had when he wrote it, and nothing satisfied with what was begun, left it unfinished." Today, many Christians are also ...

778. You Can't Tell A Book By Its Cover

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

I don't usually recommend the books I have written, and I'm certainly not going to begin now. But I need to tell you about this one. I'm sure none of you have ever seen it. It was edited by the staff of Upper Room and this special edition of it was given me when I left the Upper Room to come here as your pastor 10 years ago. It's a beautiful thing as you can tell, handsomely bound, with embossed silver printing of the title on the shelf-back and cover. All of it was a surprise to me. You can't imagine how ...

779. Strategic Kindness

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sermon

King Duncan

A woman sued her husband for divorce. She told the judge she had nagged and nagged, but she couldn't get him to do right. The judge wondered if she had tried using kindness. Referring to the biblical passage, which says that when we show kindness to our enemy it is like heaping "burning coals on his head," he asked her if she had tried heaping coals on his head. She answered, "No, but I don't think it will work. I already tried scalding water and that didn't do any good." I'm not sure this woman understood ...

780. A Strange Kind of King

John 18:28-40

Sermon

King Duncan

A five-year-old boy was stalling going to bed. He asked for a glass of juice. "No, sir," his father answered. "No more juice. I’m king of the juice in this house." "That’s not right, Daddy," the young fellow retorted. "Our Sunday school teacher said Jesus is the king of the juice." Pilate summoned Jesus to his palace and asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?" Jesus doesn’t answer the question directly. How could he? The title "King of the Jews" hardly sums up his mission. But finally he does concede ...

781. Equipping the Whole People of God: Penultimate Questions

1 Peter 2:4-12

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Some of you have known me long enough to know that one of my favorite theologians is Charles Schultz, the artist who gave us the wonderful Peanuts cartoons. In one of my favorite cartoons, Lucy comes storming into the room and demands that Linus change TV channels and then threatens him with her fist if he doesn’t. “What makes you think you can walk right in here and take over?” asks Linus. “These five fingers,” says Lucy. “Individually they are nothing, but when I curl them together like this into a ...

782. Awake to Glory

Luke 9:28-36

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

Today we celebrate one of the most neglected passages in the Bible. It's possible that more sermons have been preached from some of the obscure places in First and Second Chronicles than from this tremendously significant scripture which describes the transfiguration of our Lord. At the time of the transfiguration, Peter finally broke the awed silence, but the Gospel writer says that he knew not what to say. I expect we preachers and teachers still feel a bit that way when we approach this story; probably ...

783. The Prize of the High Calling of God

Hebrews 11:1-40, Philippians 2:12-18

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

I am intrigued by bumper stickers. Someone was smart. Since modern Americans spend so much of their time in cars, why not turn the bumper into a kind of chrome or, alas with modern cars, plastic bulletin boards. Thousands would get the messages as they come near the car in front of them. It was a brilliant idea. Religious folks have not missed this communication opportunity. So you have the traditional bumper sticker message: “Honk if you love Jesus”. And the more avant-garde, “In case of the rapture, this ...

784. The Prize of the High Calling of God

Philippians 3:12-4:1

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

785. The Church: An Enclave of Resistance v2

Romans 12:1-8

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

In September of 1997 there was a groundbreaking service for a Catholic cathedral that is going to be constructed in Los Angeles. The Diocese of Los Angeles commissioned the famous Spanish architect Jose Rafael Moneo to design the building. Their hope is that the cathedral will be completed by the beginning of the millennium. It’s to be a peculiar witness to the glory of God. There were models of the cathedral at the groundbreaking service and on the basis of the models a Los Angeles Times reporter wrote a ...

786. The Work of An Evangelist

Colossians 1:1-14

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Do we need to remind ourselves of what the work of an evangelist is? An evangelist is one who shares in word, deed and sign the good news of Jesus Christ – the good news that redeems us from sin, makes us whole, and transforms us into participants in God’s Kingdom enterprise. I like the way Paul expresses the work of God in our lives – Col. 1:13-14: “God has rescued us from the power of darkness, and transferred us into the Kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the ...

787. In the Wilderness With Moses

1 Corinthians 10:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

There is a hilarious story about a man who is walking along a lonely beach when he suddenly hears a deep voice that says to him: DIG! He looks around: nobody’s there. “I am having hallucinations,” he thinks. Then he hears the voice again: I SAID, DIG! So he starts to dig in the sand with his bare hands, and after some inches, he finds a small chest with a rusty lock. The deep voice says: OPEN! OK, the man thinks, let’s open the thing. He finds a rock with which to destroy the lock, and when the chest is ...

788. The Way Up Is the Way Down

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

Potato chips, cheese curls, and candy may be some of your favorites, but for twenty-four mule deer in the Grand Canyon National Park, these indulgences proved deadly. Park rangers were forced to shoot more than two dozen mule deer who became hooked on junk food left by visitors. It was death by Cheetos and suicide by Snicker bar! Why eat twigs or chew bark if a Twinkie is nearby? Once deer taste the sugar and salt of snack foods, they develop an addiction and will go to any lengths to eat only junk food. ...

789. A Kingdom Investment Policy

Matthew 6:19-24

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

It is by chance that Damian discovers a huge bag of money near his home. It is just days before British pounds are converted to Euros and the old money is worthless. In the scenes that follow, Damian and his brother spend money as fast as they can, with Damian giving to the poor. Their father eventually discovers their secret, and Damian learns that the money was stolen. This is the moral dilemma and plot of the movie Millions. The thief who lost the money soon figures out that Damian is the finder. They ...

790. To Live Is to Dance

John 10:1-21

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

When you hear the word of the Lord, as we find in the tenth chapter of the Gospel of John, reading only the 7th through the 10th verses of that gospel. ‘So Jesus said again to them, truly, truly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not heed them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. I am come that you may have life, and ...

791. You Are Somebody!

Galatians 3:26--4:7

Sermon

King Duncan

There is a time-honored story which you may remember that comes from the French Revolution. King Louis XVI and his queen were condemned to death. They were escorted to the guillotine in a public square in Paris where they were beheaded. The mob was not satisfied. "Bring out the Prince," they cried. "He is next!!" The young boy was terrified. He was only six years old, but he was next in line to be King. In the mind of the crowd, he had to be eliminated. According to the story, the young prince stood on the ...

792. Bragging Rights

Philippians 3:4b-14

Sermon

Jeff Wedge

A mouse was once riding on the back of an elephant, and the pair went across a rickety bridge. As might be expected, the bridge shook and rattled. When the duo had successfully navigated the bridge, the mouse exclaimed, "My, oh my, we certainly made that bridge shake, didn't we?" It is all too common an experience to meet people who sound as if they are somehow related to that mouse. People who brag loudly about their successes, their skills, the ways they are crucial to the history of the world, or at ...

793. He's Here Somewhere

John 1:6-8, 19-28

Sermon

Mark Trotter

To understand the gospels you must remember that they were written some generations after the Resurrection, and written to answer the questions being raised in that generation. In the case of the Gospel of John, which is the lesson for the sermon this morning, it was written at least sixty years after the Resurrection, three or four generations after. So the question being asked in our text is, "Where is he?" "If he has been resurrected, then where is he?" It is a particularly critical question for that ...

794. Honoring the Fathers

Hebrews 11:17-22

Sermon

Mark Trotter

795. Joy to the World

Mark 16:1-8

Sermon

Mark Trotter

The mass suicide up in Rancho Santa Fe provides a grim backdrop for the celebration of Easter this year. The breaking of the story during Holy Week invited comparison with the Christian celebration of Easter and its message of resurrection. But in my understanding of the event, its occurrence during Holy Week was a coincidence. The real precipitating cause was not the celebration of Easter, but the arrival of the comet that many of us saw during the last days of this week. My understanding is that they did ...

796. Lord of the Dance

Mark 2:13-22

Sermon

Mark Trotter

The song we have just sung, "Lord of the Dance," declares that the proper response on learning the meaning of the Gospel is to celebrate, to dance. This hymn is one of the less traditional hymns in our hymn book, written in the 1960's, which you may have guessed, when the Church began experimenting with new music. It was finally included in the 1988 hymnal. It was written by an Englishman, a man named Sydney Carter, who put the words to the arrangement of the American Shaker hymn, "Tis a Gift to be Simple ...

797. The Wedding Guest

John 2:1-11

Sermon

Mark Trotter

I imagine those of you who have been hosts at a wedding reception, or anticipate doing that sometime in the future, were interested in the Gospel lesson for this morning, where Jesus attends a wedding and turns the water into wine, not only producing the finest of vintages, but also covering for the host’s bad planning. The host was able to tell his guests, "Well, I was just reserving the best for the last." Someone suggested the title of this sermon ought to be, "No Wine before Its Time," which is clever ...

798. Try to Be Nice

Philippians 4:2-9

Sermon

Mark Trotter

I remember a cartoon; it showed a middle-aged man, pot-belly, frown on his face, wearing a T-shirt. Across the T-shirt was the message, "Please don't ask me to have a nice day." I first saw that cartoon on our refrigerator door, placed there when our children were still living at home. They thought it captured their father. It probably did. I can identify with W. C. Fields, who said, "I start off each day with a smile, and get it over with." I confess I don't like clichés, especially clichés like "Have a ...

799. Jesus Transforms the Darkness into Light

John 20:1-18

Sermon

Richard Gribble

Pastor David Johnson was all ready, he thought, for his Easter sermon. Having only graduated from the seminary three months prior to taking his present position at the Maple Street Community Church, he possessed all the latest and most interesting theology. He made the final touches to his sermon on Holy Saturday morning and outlined its content to his wife. He told her that his sermon was based on theology of Paul Tillich and spoke of the resurrection as a symbol that the estrangement from our authentic ...

800. The Incomparable Christ

Matthew 16:13-20

Sermon

Stephen M. Crotts

While sightseeing in Boston last fall, I entered the narthex of a church building. Much to my surprise I discovered a gallery of marble busts, images of some of history's great leaders. Socrates and Aristotle were there. So was Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Joan of Arc, Shakespeare, Confucius, Moses, Mohammed, and Christ. I personally found the display troubling, mainly because Jesus was just one of the crowd. And that just isn't historically or theologically accurate! For you see, Christ is so unique ...

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