Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 876 to 900 of 1089 results

John 20:1-18

Sermon

John Jamison

... and believing? Were they all really that gullible? What had happened? And why did Judas do what he did? Did he somehow believe that if he forced a confrontation, Jesus would call down the angels from heaven right then and there? Or was he just a con artist? Why had it ended like this? What had happened to the kingdom? What happened to the dream? What had happened? But it was the second question in each of their minds that was the more difficult and painful to answer. They realized that they may never ...

877. Such a Little Thing

Mark 4:26-34

Sermon

King Duncan

... scientists were killed and a multi-billion-dollar program was jeopardized because this one tiny detail was overlooked. (7) One little detail overlooked can make the difference in success and failure in almost any venture. Michelangelo, one of the world’s great artists, was also a great sculptor. One day a visitor was looking at a statue that Michelangelo was making. The visitor said, “I can’t see that you have made any progress since I was here last time.” Michelangelo answered, “Oh, yes, I ...

878. What Does the Kingdom of God Have to Do With Anything Today?

John 3:1-17

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... him. He became a Christian and a leader in the infant Christian church. That's the good news about Nicodemus who first heard what has been called "the gospel within the gospel." That "gospel within the gospel" summarizes the whole of the Christian faith. Children memorize it. Artists set it to music or paint it in pictures. People hold on to it for dear life. "God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall have eternal life." That's what the kingdom of God is ...

879. Speaking Truth to Power and Hope to the Powerless

Mark 9:30-37

Sermon

Rick McCracken-Bennett

... the scale of importance at my high school if they called on me. I wouldn't just be the skinny kid, yeah... just try to imagine that, the skinny kid with a tuba and an out-of-tune guitar. I would have been on the stage with a national recording artist. Sadly, but in the end, thankfully, the guitarist arrived and I was spared the humiliation. I don't think I was then, or now much different from a lot of people. Look at the preponderance of TV shows where people of great talent as well as those of dubious ...

880. The Lazarus Experience

John 11:17-44

Sermon

April Yamasaki

... to bring abundant life -- not only as a future promise in the resurrection from the dead to come, but here and now -- today. That doesn't mean we won't experience difficulty. Ironically, Rembrandt's painting of The Raising of Lazarus was sold along with the artist's house and other artwork because he had so many debts he was forced into bankruptcy. So the painting that gives testimony so vividly to the resurrection power of God in Jesus Christ has its own sad history. But whatever we face in life or death ...

881. Searching for Happiness

Ephesians 5:15-20

Sermon

King Duncan

... shopping bags from Macy’s. They stuffed each box with bricks and newspapers until it weighed a couple of pounds, then wrapped everything in bubble wrap and affixed the stickers. As the evening rush‑hour traffic backed up at the Holland Tunnel, the con artists started wandering the curb, carrying the bogus boxes inside the Macy’s shopping bags. When they spotted a potential buyer stranded in traffic, they walked up to the car window and started fast‑talking a cash deal. “Hey, man, I got a Sony ...

882. A Word to the Wealthy

Mark 10:17-30

Sermon

King Duncan

... ever see the commercial on TV where a man is sitting in the chair at a tattoo parlor expressing his love to his girl Donna by getting her name tattooed on his arm? Part way through the procedure he asks how much it will cost. “$50,” says the tattoo artist. The man pulls out his wallet and says, “Oh, I only have $41.” The camera cuts to the couple outside on the sidewalk, Donna is storming off and the guy is yelling after her, “I’ll get it fixed.” The camera zooms in on the tattoo which reads ...

883. Elvis and the King

John 18:33-37

Sermon

King Duncan

... on these stones than I was stepping on the moon.” (5) Why was he so excited? Because Christ is King of all creation . . . the moon and the stars. I understand that in the Berlin art gallery there is a painting by the famous artist Adolph Menzel that is only partially finished. It is supposed to be a painting of King Frederick of Germany. In the painting Frederick is talking to his generals. Menzel painstakingly painted the generals first . . . they were around the outside of the painting. The King ...

884. At the Intersection of Heaven and Earth

Luke 3:1-6

Sermon

King Duncan

... I have not opened our heart to His love? God has come down in Jesus Christ. God humbled himself in our behalf. Humanity has been lifted up. Salvation has come near. Where the horizontal and the vertical intersect, there is the cross of Jesus Christ. A famous artist painted a picture of the Nativity. In his painting, across the crib falls the shadow of the cross. Salvation is God’s eternal plan for humanity. This is why He has come down. This is why we have been lifted up. Heaven and earth have intersected ...

885. A Difficult but Joyous Journey

Luke 1:39-55

Sermon

King Duncan

... Mary and Joseph and the new babe are forced to flee to Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod. So once again Mary and Joseph were on the move--fleeing to protect the life of their son. Martin Luther, in commenting on the flight to Egypt remarks, “The artists give her a donkey. The gospels do not.” Probably, Mary trudged over the hills in winter on foot, nursing her precious child and leaning on her beloved Joseph for support. It was not until after Herod’s death that the young family was able to return to ...

886. On Welcoming the Imperfect

John 10:22-30

Sermon

R. Robert Cueni

... to live and to those who seldom darken the door of any church, we say, “Come on in.” You are welcome here if you are a teenager growing up too fast or if you over seventy and never grew up. We welcome soccer moms, NASCAR dads, starving artists, tree-huggers, latte-sippers, vegetarians, and junk-food eaters. We welcome those who are in recovery or still addicted. We are especially equipped here at this church to welcome you if you are “down in the dumps” or having some sort of life crisis. In this ...

887. Bondage, Real or Imagined

Illustration

Zig Ziglar

Harry Houdini, the famed escape artist from a few years back, issued a challenge wherever he went. He could be locked in any jail cell in the country, he claimed, and set himself free in short order. Always he kept his promise, but one time something went wrong. Houdini entered the jail in his street clothes; ...

888. The Unique Child of God

Luke 15:11-32

Illustration

Bon Benson

... , plenty of ball games to go to, plenty of responsibilities, plenty of laughter, plenty of everything…except Mike. And in parental math five minus one just doesn't equal plenty. And I was thinking about God. He sure has plenty of children—plenty of artists, plenty of singers, and carpenters, and candlestick makers, and preachers, plenty of everybody…except you, and all of them together can never take your place. And there will always be an empty spot in His heart, and a vacant chair at His table when ...

889. Who Is Happy?

Illustration

Editor James S. Hewett

An English newspaper asked this question: "Who are the happiest people on earth?" These were the four prize-winning answers: • A craftsman or artist whistling over a job well done. • A little child building sand castles. • A mother, after a busy day, bathing her baby. • A doctor who has finished a difficult and dangerous operation, and saved a human life. No millionaires among these, one notices. No kings or emperors. Riches and rank, no ...

890. Win a Little, Lose a Bunch

Illustration

David Barrett

Several centuries ago one of the popes, an avid patron of the arts, is said to have surveyed the vast artistic riches he had amassed and to have gloated: "No longer can the church of Jesus Christ say, 'Silver and gold have I none."' And a subordinate replied, "But then neither can she now say, 'Rise up and walk."'

891. The Strategic Role of the Successful Mother

Illustration

Theodore Roosevelt

... to the community, and occupies, if she would only realize it, a more honorable as well as a more important position than any man in it. The mother is the one supreme asset of the national life. She is more important, by far, than the successful statesman, or businessman, or artist, or scientist.

892. The Ravaged Life

Illustration

Editor James S. Hewett

... , the great painter noticed a man in the streets of Rome whom he selected as his model. With shoulders far bent toward the ground, having an expression of cold, hardened, evil, saturnine, the man seemed to afford the opportunities of a model terribly true to the artist's conception of Judas. When in the studio, the profligate began to look around, as if recalling incidents of years gone by. Finally, he turned and with a look half-sad, yet one which told how hard it was to realize the change which had taken ...

Why is it if we are all so well-educated and brilliant and gifted and artistic and idealistic and distinguished in scholarship, that we are so selfish and scheming and dishonest and begrudging and impatient and arrogant and disrespectful of others?

Mary Caroline Richards

894. Are You Suffering from FOMO?

Luke 10:38-42

Sermon

King Duncan

... ? How would you treat that moment? How would you prepare for it?. . . the only moment that you must take responsibility for right now is the one in front of you . . . the moment you are in right now waits to be seized…” (7) Best-selling Christian artist David Crowder had a moment like that--an experience that changed his views on God. He was in high school, and he regularly attended church. He thought he had God all figured out. However, one particular day, he was feeling down. He wandered around his ...

895. Use Your Head as Well as Your Heart

Luke 14:25-33

Sermon

King Duncan

... to give some thought to the conduct of their lives. By thinking through what you’re doing before you act, you can save yourself a lot of trouble . . . in every area of your life. A few years back the Associated Press carried a story about an artist named Trevor Corneliusien, a 26-year-old young man who went camping in an abandoned mineshaft about five miles north of Baker, California. His plan was to wrap a chain around his bare ankles, lock it, and then, for whatever reason, draw a picture of his legs ...

896. Comfort Zone

Illustration

Paul F. Rack

... asking why he didn’t play ballads more often since he played them so well. Miles responded: “I don’t play ballads because I love playing ballads too much.” In other words, ballads didn’t challenge him. They didn’t force him to grow. He insisted as a matter of artistic integrity that he should pointedly not do what was right in his own mind, not pursue the most comfortable path, but instead find the most difficult.”

897. Playing It Safe

Luke 8:26-39

Sermon

Robert C. Cochran

... those who get off the couch and get in the game. I was thinking about cardinals the other day, not the kind who wear red robes but the kind that sit in trees. Now, if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to have the mind of an artist or writer, those of us who have such minds are right now imagining high officials in the Roman Catholic Church wearing their high hats and all of their bright silk finery sitting in trees! It’s pretty entertaining having such a mind, but one is terribly distracted most of ...

898. Less Fear; More Fruit

Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... be both knowledgeable and wise. His decisions would be fair, his choices just, and his greatest delight would be in his relationship with God. In verse 6 he moved into an extended metaphor using animal figures that later were made famous by Quaker artist Edward Hicks in his “Peaceable Kingdom” series. Where Hicks took a literal approach to Isaiah’s poem, most biblical scholars tell us that what Isaiah was talking about here, is people. From the millennia before Christ right up to modern times, animals ...

899. Recognizing Who God Is

Job 42:7-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... hour? Master violinist Itzhak Perlman was performing at the Lincoln Center when one of his violin strings broke. He continued to play, improvising new arrangements of the music to avoid the one broken string. The concert was a huge success. Afterwards, Perlman commented, "Sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left." (3) So your perfect plan didn't work out. Are you going to reject God? Are you going to turn inward in self-pity? Or are you going to ...

900. An Invitation That Went Astray

Matthew 3:13-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... closely with his favorite soccer club, the Flamengos, that he covered his entire torso with a tattoo of the team’s jersey. From his neck to his waist, he has tattooed on the stripes of his favorite team. According to this report, it took 32 sessions with a tattoo artist and over 90 hours to complete the tattoo. (7) We may doubt this young man’s sanity, but we can’t doubt his commitment to his team. He was willing to invest his money, time and even his pain to show the world what he believes in. What ...

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