Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 776 to 800 of 928 results

776. Forgive as You Have Been Forgiven

Luke 6:27-38

Sermon

Cynthia Cowen

... her door. The curtain quickly closed as he rang her doorbell. Hesitantly she cracked the door. "Hello, Mrs. Sko. Do you remember me? I'm Marge's son." Her eyes widened in surprise as a note of recognition appeared. "I live in Arizona now, and I'm here on vacation. I saw you in the window and just wanted to stop and say hello. May I come in?" She hesitated and then opened the door and asked him in. "Forgive, and you will be forgiven" Jesus tells us (Luke 6:37b). Today's gospel lesson is a challenging one ...

777. There’s Still Time

Mt 6:1-2, 5-6

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

Nowadays the cost of a dinner and a movie keeps going up, and a vacation can be especially expensive, but if I really want to go somewhere I just take the change out of my pocket and lay it on the desk. It's like a time machine. Each coin has a year stamped on it, and just thinking about the year helps me travel ...

778. Believing Thomas

John 20:19-31

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... it came to doubting, the apostles come first, all of them. They doubted the women. They doubted Mary Magdalene. Thomas just doubted some runaways, the disciples who abandoned and denied Jesus in his hours of pain and suffering. Do you remember the first day of summer vacation? No shoes, no shirt, no getting up until you wanted to. And the best part was that a week later it was still true! A week later — Easter is still true, but Thomas has not received the memo — until now. Again, Jesus shares the ...

779. The End of The Beginning

Acts 1:1-11, Luke 24:50-53

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... community as well as to the world. This activity is blessed with a deadline to make us take it seriously, for sooner or later Jesus is returning. Christians believe that if Jesus ascended into heaven it was with the intent to return. Even as Jesus prepares to vacate the scene the disciples ask the obvious question: "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6). His reply is that "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority ...

780. Don’t Be Afraid

Luke 12:32-40

Sermon

... buy more boats." "But why do I need more boats?" "So that you can have other people do your fishing for you." "And why would I want to have other people do my fishing for me?" "So that you could take time off, go to some exotic place for vacation, spend time with your wife and children ... oh!" and the businessman walked away reevaluating his own life while the fisherman took his catch to market and spent the rest of his day with his family. Jesus said that where our treasure is there our hearts will be ...

781. Will He Find Faith?

Luke 18:1-8

Sermon

Scott Bryte

... do good with his power? No, it was nothing like that at all. At long last, the judge assisted the woman because she was annoying him, and he wanted her to go away. It's easy to see why this is not one of the stories that gets told in vacation Bible school. What's it supposed to mean? The whole thing is introduced with these words: "Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart" (v. 1). If this is a story about prayer, is the poor woman supposed to be us? More ...

782. God’s Armor

Ephesians 6:10-20

Illustration

Leonard Sweet

... live a life of purpose and meaning. There are freeways, and factories, and families full of people who are just trying not to die. These people keep going to work, keep going on. But they don’t know why. Weekends and vacations become blurry, frantic “festivals” — parties devoted to trying to celebrate something other than the mere survival of another week, another season, another year. For Christians who feel the (enlightening) protective weight of “God’s armor,” there is a different goal: to ...

783. Be a Night Light

James 1:1-18

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... . Employment statistics are grim, and more and more of us just want “jobs” — forget about “careers.” This weekend, Labor Day weekend, marks the semi-official end of summer. Summer is the time to goof off a bit, kick-back, relax, vacation. Now it is back to work time, nose to the grindstone of school, studies, schedules, fourth quarter profits, long-range planning schemes. The dark dreariness of everyday survival mechanisms looms large. Shine a light, instead of shutting down. Shine a light ...

784. Routines

Mark 7:1-23

Illustration

Mickey Anders

While on vacation in Daytona Beach one summer, a family quickly fell into a regular daily routine. The first thing on the agenda every morning was a power-walk on the beach. They usually walked as fast as they could on the firm beach the mile or more to the pier, where they ...

785. God's Picture

John 1:10-18

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... not a pretty world, try as we may to think of it as such. Frankly, at times it does not look as if it is God's world at all. Despite the fact that God created it, it sometimes seems as if the almighty has left it and gone on vacation somewhere, or even worse, is not "almighty" and has been excluded from it by some awful enemy. When we look at the picture as it really is, we can hardly draw any other conclusion. Oh, really? The message of Christianity, the message that the angels brought to the skies over ...

786. They Are Biting

Luke 5:1-11

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... car, and even a cabin in the woods. They spend a fortune. The first day they go fishing they don't catch a thing. The same thing happens on the second day and on the third day. It goes on like this until finally, on the last day of their vacation, one of the men finally catches a fish. As they drive home, they are both really depressed. One turns to the other and says, "Do you realize that this one lousy fish we caught cost us $1,500?" "Wow!" says the other, "It's a good thing we didn't ...

787. Lent 5

Psalm 126:1-6, Isaiah 43:16-21, John 12:1-11, Philippians 3:4b-14

Bulletin Aid

Julia Ross Strope

... our prayer is that you enable all humankind to share the available water, oil, and grain. Let it begin with us. Majestic God — like the psalmist, we admire the oceans, the sand, and the rocks, and we imagine romantic things about the ocean and sky! We crave vacations from our work days to relax in the beauty of creation. Thank you for holding it all together. We admire the bodies we have, too. We’re glad when they function well and we retreat to physicians when they are off balance. We pray for health ...

788. Proper 22

Lamentations 1:1-6, Lamentations 3:19-26, Luke 17:1-10, 2 Timothy 1:1-14

Bulletin Aid

Julia Ross Strope

... Habakkuk and Jeremiah (Lamentations) decry the violence and terror they see. They implore God to do something — something that will help kindly people survive, something that will restore beneficent leaders for the people. In our time, the Gaza strip has been vacated by Israel, but Arabs and Jews maintain the ancestral rivalry for land and holy places. Like Habakkuk, we sit in our pews and world leaders in their towers keep watching what will happen. We keep hoping the people who work for fairness ...

789. Born at Bethlehem — Hope

Micah 5:1-4

Sermon

Derl G. Keefer

... family. Four children and two parents were packed inside the family car. The tent was stowed away on top of the vehicle traveling from site to site. Each night they set up camp as the light faded. She tells that there were many happy memories from that vacation, but there was also the deep feeling of loneliness and being misunderstood. She was the youngest of the four children and too young to go on the long hiking trips with the other siblings, yet too old to be happy staying behind with her mom and dad ...

790. Obedience: Our Gift to Jesus

Hebrews 10:5-10

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... library and said he was going to march his son immediately down with the comic books to apologize and to restore all he had stolen. After returning from the library he gave Matthew a stern lecture about stealing. The following summer, the family took its vacation in a small community in Vermont where there was a general store. When they returned home after the summer, the father went into Matthew’s room and again found a pile of comic books in his dresser drawer. Matthew this time admitted, "I stole them ...

791. Christ: The Victor over Death

1 Corinthians 15:51-58

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... , pointing out to his parents that he was half English. However, as his parents would often say, he fit the model of Saint George more because he always wanted to do what was right. When Nicholas was seven years old his family took a vacation to Europe. Among many places they visited was the beautiful Swiss Alps where a family photograph captured Nicholas in front of the fabled Matterhorn. Four days later the family was in Italy sightseeing like so many other American tourists. The date was September 29 ...

792. Running with Perseverance

Hebrews 11:29 – 12:2

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

... solved in an hour. We don't know much about endurance anymore. We know from other realms of life that perseverance pays off. If we want to speak a foreign language, we must keep at it. The pay off comes when we can converse with a native on our vacation. If we want to play an instrument, we must practice our scales. The pay off comes when beautiful music flows from within us, brought to life by the instrument we have mastered. True faith needs perseverance. When we look at our own spiritual lives, we may be ...

793. God as a Consuming Fire

Hebrews 12:18-29

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

... The damage often begins in childhood. Because children can be rambunctious, adults too often try to frighten them into obedience. The church is no exception to this practice. Parents sometimes report that their children have come home from Sunday school or vacation Bible school in tears and trembling because some misguided adult had tried to frighten them into faith with horrifying images of the punishment that awaited them after death. The adults behind such fear-mongering often claim that they have to do ...

794. Guarding the Treasure

2 Timothy 1:1-14

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

... to type into our cell phones, our computers, our ATMs, and a host of other gadgets. We need these to protect ourselves. Identity theft has become a serious problem. We have all seen the commercials on television of the person bragging about a dream vacation, but the voice coming out of the character's mouth is another person's voice. The character in the commercial is portraying an identity thief. In real life, identity theft is not as funny as the commercials. People's lives have been ruined; some ...

795. It Was a Dark and Stormy Night....

Humor Illustration

Bob Hill and his new wife Betty were vacationing in Europe....as it happens, near Transylvania. They were driving in a rental car along a rather deserted highway. It was late and raining very hard. Bob could barely see the road in front of the car. Suddenly, the car skids out of control! Bob attempts to control the car, ...

796. A One Sentence Legacy

Luke 14:25-35

Sermon

King Duncan

... man who ran out of money building a tower or the king who brought too few soldiers into battle, Lionel simply didn’t take all the necessary contingencies into consideration. How much time do you spend planning for the future? Some people spend more time planning for a vacation than they do planning for their life. We are so busy with so many things in our lives, we may not even think about the things that really matter. I want to ask you two questions that all of us must answer at sometime or another. Let ...

797. Spirit-Direct

Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

Timothy J. Smith

... to the example of Christ.” This man’s words were true. Forty years ago at Valerie’s baptism those church members made this promise and they kept it. “Now that baptism promise has new meaning for me,” she says. “Whether I’m helping with Vacation Bible School or teaching a class for children, I do so with more enthusiasm. Something I say or do may contribute to the spiritual growth of a child.”[1] We are reminded of the importance of our baptism and also our responsibility. When a child ...

798. Going Home

Deuteronomy 34:1-12

Sermon

Argile Smith

... days or weeks earlier can sometimes provide the best snapshot of the whole trip. The word home has a pleasant ring to it, and it’s a particularly beautiful word to hear after being away from it for a while. While such an assertion makes sense after a weeklong vacation at a theme park, it makes even more sense after the long journey called life. For Christians, coming to the end of life’s journey doesn’t have to prompt a sense of dread and fear. Because of what we know about God’s love for us and his ...

799. He's Back

John 20:19-23

Sermon

David O. Bales

... s not a comment upon the poor quality of buildings in first-century Jerusalem. Jesus appears suddenly and insists, whether or not he has an appointment, that we deal with him. We might think other things are more important: health, family, job, house, car, or vacation. We might even be concentrating upon improving our character or our church. Suddenly Jesus stands in front of us, eyeball to eyeball with us, and, when he speaks to us, it’s about eternal matters. He tells us we’ll never get away from him ...

800. What If Joseph Were the Patron Saint of 2014?

Matthew 2:13-18

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... ” may be the theme song for December 24 and 25. But by the 26th, many of us have changed our tune. It’s now “On The Road Again.” Whether traveling back from a family Christmas gathering, setting off on a snowy or sunny Christmas week vacation, or just returning to the routine of work and daily travel, journeying is a big part of season we call Christmastide, those Twelve Days of Christmas extending from Christmas Eve to Epiphany Eve. In this week’s gospel text from Matthew, Joseph, Mary and the ...

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