Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 801 to 825 of 4963 results

801. Going The Wrong Way On A One Way Street

Mark 2:23-3:6

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... , it may be convenient to have God in your hip pocket. The "God of the hip pocket" is not God at all. Believing in God is different from believing that there is a God. In the first instance, God is in control; in the second, you remain in control - or at least, you try to remain in control, as did the young lawyer in the familiar story in Luke’s Gospel. One of the key stories in the New Testament is the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). This story clearly shows that faith is more than head ...

802. Service

Mark 10:35-45

Sermon

Warren Thomas Smith

... people called for substance and integrity in preaching and pastoral leadership, which this well-meaning preacher was unable to give. Life patterns had become too firmly established for him again to shift to being a student. How much better if he had remained a dynamic layperson, serving through pew rather than pulpit, witnessing as a lay-leader rather than as pastor. John Wesley admonished his lay preachers to learn to study or "go back to your trade." Francis Asbury taught himself Hebrew and records, "I ...

803. The Father Who Wanted His Son To Succeed

1 Kings 2:1-12

Sermon

Alton F. Wedel

... . The balance of trade was always in the country’s favor. The wisdom of Solomon was heralded around the world so that even the Queen of Sheba came to test him with hard questions (1 Kings 10:1). "Solomon in all his glory" became and still remains a byword through the generations, and the envy of succeeding kings and emperors and presidents across the centuries who sought to reach that glory, too. Or can we forget the temple on Mount Zion, the building and the worship ritual that were his most magnificent ...

804. Ode to Wisdom

Job 26:1--31:40

Sermon

Alton F. Wedel

... this chapter seems to jar itself upon Job’s story and intrude upon its continuity, some sage students of the scripture see it as an independent poem that was added by the author or an editor. We need not be troubled by it, for the message it conveys remains the word we need to hear. The search for wisdom is its theme - the search not one of us has ended. "Where, then, shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?" The questions that the book of Job has raised for every generation are the ...

805. The Good News of Easter

John 20:1-9

Sermon

Brett Blair

... with me: 1. The story appears to be historical and not metaphorical. The disciples could never have simply believed in the resurrection of Jesus without it being true. For a first century Jew the idea that a man might be raised from the dead while his body remained in the tomb was simply a contradiction in terms. 2. On the night before and the day of his crucifixion the disciples out of fear left Jesus and denied they even knew him. Some even went back to their old businesses. But they returned to being his ...

806. Thomas

John 20:24-31

Sermon

Brett Blair

... Thomas a third lesson: We must move beyond doubt to faith. It is all right to doubt, but in our discipleship we should move beyond doubt. Jesus admonished Thomas, “Stop doubting and believe.” Unbelief is a normal part of life but it is not healthy to remain in unbelief. In the early days of John Wesley’s ministry he was racked with doubts and uncertainties. So he went to his old friend and mentor Peter Bohler and laid his soul bare. When I first read Bohler’s response to Wesley in seminary I thought ...

807. The Word of the Cross

1 Corinthians 1:18--2:5

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

... : I crucified thee." If we take a look at the people who brought about the crucifixion and then look into our own hearts, we find that "we were there when they crucified the Lord." Consider first the judge who condemned Jesus to death, the man who remains pilloried in the creed: "crucified under Pontius Pilate." He is not a wicked man. He has a sense of Roman justice. He affirms Jesus’ innocence and tries to wash his hands clean of the guilt of condemning an innocent man to death. But he is a superficial ...

808. The Heart of the Reformation

Romans 3:21-31

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

... a new life, I felt the offer of a new beginning made by the crucified Christ. From that moment I was a changed man." Only the Cross has the power to transform our self-centered life into a God-centered life. So long as life revolves around "I" it remains negative in quality, for "I" is only a minus sign standing up. It is when the Cross - God’s great plus sign - takes the place of "I" that we can wage a victorious battle against the forces of evil. We are crucified with Christ, and the risen Christ lives ...

809. The Dynamic Word

Isaiah 55:1-13

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

... . He is in the same predicament as the Soviet cosmonaut who returned from space saying that he had found no trace of God. Or like the surveyor in Franz Kafka’s story The Castle, he tries to get through to the headquarters but hears only garbled sounds and remains baffled about his mission. Ignorant of the center of his existence, he begins to play in his own clumsy way the role of God in his own life. The dynamic Word addresses man in this very condition. The God who speaks is the living God, the God who ...

810. No Fifth Wheels in God’s Economy

1 Corinthians 7:1-40

Sermon

Gregory J. Johanson

... have not heard many sermons on the text, "To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain single as I do." Every person, single or married, must eventually come to terms with his or her own life, accept it where ... gift from God, one in this manner, and another in that. But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for them that they remain (single) even as I." Paul understands singleness as a gift. The state in which you are living now, if you are single, is a gift from the ...

811. Bringing the Gospel to Marriage

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

Gregory J. Johanson

... business, in family, in all manner of giving, to be faithful is hard. Sometimes it seems easier to break a contract than to remain faithful to it. In many marriages struggling for survival, there seems to be no better way than to break the agreement and ... pointing up God’s creative act bringing woman and man together, and the place of fidelity in the union.: Few Christians remain totally faithful in their lives, even though they may do so in marriage. Fidelity holds our lives together: faithfulness to God ...

812. Backsliding

John 6:60-71

Sermon

Brett Blair

... from Paris to the United States, only slow-moving ocean-going ships. And so Bill found himself in a dilemma. Should he go to Paris and risk not being at his wife's side when their first child was born? Or should he withdraw from the team and remain behind. Bill's wife insisted that he go to Paris. After all, he had been working towards this for all these years. It was the culmination of a life-long dream. Clearly the decision was not easy for Bill to make. Finally, after much soul searching, Bill decided ...

813. Why Prophets Get Under Our Skin

Luke 3:1-20

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... nations are as nothing before him. They are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. (40:15, 17) Nations come and go, political leaders rise and fall, generals have their day in the sun and fade away, but the kingdom of God remains forever, says John and all the prophets. Therefore, soldiers individually and collectively should never be deceived into thinking might makes right, and that the strong are never wrong. The problem is, say the prophets, the strong often are wrong, and the mighty often ...

814. The Inner Galaxy

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... to God where she wrote: "Dear God: My brother told me about being born, but it doesn't sound right" (Children's Letters to God). And yet, even with all the births (all of them miraculous), even with Jesus' birth, many remain hopeless. They remain hopeless, says anthropologist Loren Eiseley, because they see man as the "brawling ape and bestial fighter" struggling for existence. All these births bring more of the same, say the pessimists -- a human being controlled by dark passions and bloody instincts, a ...

815. Good News for Good Living

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... . Today’s text, which reminds us of the dramatic initiative God takes in confronting us with the claims of resurrection, can become an urgent revelation for our own human condition. Just as others preceded us and remain after us in time, Paul readily acknowledges that the Easter faith preceded us and remains after us in time. In a strange way, today’s text, with its loud assertion that “he was raised on the third day,” can “neither be measured nor contained by time and history in any ordinary ...

816. A Note to Fearful Hearts

1 Corinthians 15:12-34

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... on a bodily death and bodily resurrection must have been quite difficult for first-century converts to Christianity to understand. It was, perhaps, even more difficult for them to grasp than for us. Yet the great scandal of the resurrection of the dead remains the central belief of fearful hearts in every age, including ours. In Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke noted that “people have oriented all their solutions toward the easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that ...

817. "...Yet"

Jeremiah 4:5-31

Sermon

John W. Wurster

... upon blessing, but the people didn’t seem to notice. God gave of himself in every way, but the people remained indifferent. They served themselves. They worshiped gods of their own making in the temples of their own hearts. They lived ... give up. The next step is risky, yet God will not let go. You didn’t do your best, yet God will not give up. The bitterness remains, yet God will not let go. The argument only made things worse, yet God will not give up. The cancer may have spread, yet God will not ...

818. A Messenger of Promise

Malachi 2:17--3:5

Sermon

Harry N. Huxhold

... these oracles of the prophet thought that the prophet who wrote or uttered them was the one to make these assurances real for the people. In time, the people were able to see the promises fulfilled with the rebuilding of the Temple. Yet tensions remained between the ideal and the reality. The religious community was to experience dark days in the future just as they had in the past. The Messenger Of The Covenant It is unlikely that the prophet who delivered this oracle saw its fulfillment. The editor ...

819. The Promising Child

1 Samuel 2:12-26

Sermon

Harry N. Huxhold

... grant her petition. She returned to her family, ate of the festival foods, and returned to her home with joy. Her prayer was granted, and she bore a son whom she named Samuel. When Elkanah took his family again to Shiloh for the annual worship, she preferred to remain home with the child. She waited until she had weaned Samuel and then took him and an elaborate sacrifice to present Samuel to the Lord. She explained to Eli that she had been the woman he had comforted, and now she was placing the child in Eli ...

820. Keeping the Glow On

Exodus 34:29-35

Sermon

Harry N. Huxhold

... the mountain and received the word from God inscribed upon two new tablets of stone. On this occasion, Moses had remained in the mountain forty days and forty nights during which time he neither ate bread nor drank water. The New ... to be a symbol for the people of that glory that had been revealed at Mount Sinai, and that the presence of God was assured, but the glory remained behind the veil. So the wearing of the covering on the heads was also to be a reminder of that fact, according to Paul. For Paul, it ...

821. His Resurrection

John 20:1-9, John 20:10-18

Sermon

Brett Blair

822. The Last Laugh

Genesis 18:1-15

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... maid, Hagar. Not uncommon practice back then (even though we might have a moral dilemma with it these days), so Abraham and Hagar went to work and the result was a boy named Ishmael. Had things remained the same after that, Ishmael would have been the heir to Abraham's fortune. But as we all know, things did NOT remain the same. One day, when Ishmael was thirteen, God said to Abraham that he and Sarah would have a son together. Abraham did not just chuckle at that. Scripture says "Then Abraham FELL ON HIS ...

823. Our Magnificent, Mysterious, Mischievous God

2 Kings 5:1-27

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... ? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy? See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me." The message to those hearing this story would be that this king (who, mercifully, remains unidentified) is a stinker. Despite the long history of his people, despite their deliverance from Egypt and wanderings in the wilderness, despite the powerful ministry of the prophets, it does not occur to this king to turn the problem over to God. All he sees is all ...

824. The Preacher Was A Bigot

Jonah 3:1-10

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... shun the temptation to break the law. "Think about your future," she said. "Lady, why should we listen to you?" one boy answered angrily. "Lady, I ain't got no future." Was the boy right? Thirty-five years later, black unemployment remains horrible, and black opportunity remains limited. According to current CDF figures, black youths across all age groups are more likely to be victims of violent crime than their white counterparts. Black males, ages 15-19, are murdered at a rate more than seven times that ...

825. God and Hurricanes

Matthew 5:43-48

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... need; • that we remember God is still in charge; • that in the midst of rebuilding our material world, we nourish our souls (true story: a few days after Hugo, the Charleston Symphony Orchestra held a free outdoor concert downtown to celebrate the beauty that remained - isn't that perfect?) Other than those specifics, pray as the Spirit moves you. If Floyd takes a different turn (you can't trust these storms), apply the prayers above to the people wherever it does hit.(1) In the face of Hurricane Floyd ...

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