Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 901 to 925 of 2962 results

Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

Carl Hoefler

... It was the name of a spring festival in honor of the goddess of light and spring whose name in Anglo-Saxon was Eastre. Sometime, about the Eighth Century, the name was transformed by the Anglo-Saxons to the Christian festival that was designated to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. However, for you as a Christian, what does Easter mean? Or, perhaps, more appropriately stated, as a Christian what does the resurrection of Christ mean personally to you? Most of you would probably say, "The resurrection of ...

902. The Centrality of Love in Christian Service

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

Bulletin Aid

Carl Hoefler

Call to Worship Pastor: We are gifted people because of God's gracious design with which he has created us. People: Some are gifted in teaching, some in administration; and still others in benevolent service. Pastor: The greatest gift of all is love. It is that gift that makes all the others effective. People: We cannot carry out the task God has assigned to ...

903. The Descent of the Holy Spirit

Acts 2:1-13

Bulletin Aid

Carl Hoefler

Call to Worship Pastor: The church is of God, and is ordained by his Spirit to proclaim the truths of God. People: We thank God the church is not an institution of man's design.Pastor: Today is the birthday of the church, celebrating that Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles, inspiring them to preach God's salvation. People: We are Christ's church, and pray for the Holy Spirit to inspire us with power to fulfill our ministry. Collect Almighty God, ...

904. Sacrifices in Being a Follower of Jesus

Luke 9:57-62

Bulletin Aid

Carl Hoefler

... . We pray through Christ our Lord. Amen. Prayer of Confession Lord, we are overwhelmed by discipleship that seems so demanding. But when we consider anything less than that, we confess it is not real Christianity, nor is it real living. Forgive us for wanting to design our own life, and then fill in the gaps with a little religion. Help us to reorient our lives, and build them around our sacrificial commitment to you. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Hymns “Are Ye Able?” “Jesus Calls us O'er the Tumult ...

905. After A Lost Election, Field Of Dreams

Jeremiah 8:4--9:26

Sermon

James Angell

... quivered in the freezing wind. During that year, as the new young pastor, I came down with the mumps, just as Holy Week was beginning. It seemed like an awful disaster to me. The congregation took it in stride. One day in the spring was designated Rose Sunday. And members were invited to choose a single rose from their gardens to be displayed at worship. Lee Beymer brought his Peace rose. Weddings, ice-skating nights, remodeling the manse. Calling in a home where a middle-aged woman lay terminally ill and ...

906. Is It Well With Your Family? (Mother's Day)

2 Kings 4:8-26

Sermon

Brett Blair

... , I’m busy, go watch television.” The most often spoken words in the American household today are the words: go watch television. If not now, when? Later. But later never comes for many and the parent fails to communicate at the very earliest of ages. We give her designer clothes and computer toys, but we do not give her what she wants the most, which is our time. Now, she is fifteen and has a glassy look in her eyes. Honey, do we need to sit down and talk? Too late. Love has passed by. The person who ...

907. Is It Well With Your Family? - Sermon Starter

2 Kings 4:8-37

Illustration

Brett Blair

908. The Same New Jesus

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

Carl Hoefler

... altar is a stained glass window which depicts the ascending Christ. The congregation decided to completely remodel the chancel of the church. Because of the sentimental attachment of the people to the altar window, they decided to retain the ascension window in the new design. When the remodeling was completed and the congregation returned to the church for worship, the little seven-year-old son of the pastor leaned over to his mother and said, "A brand new church, but the same old Jesus." Now, it is true ...

909. The Role of the Father (Father's Day)

Matthew 7:7-12

Sermon

Brett Blair

... dad is supportive, loving, and attentive then the child grows to see God as their intimate and caring Heavenly Father. How is that father’s play such a huge role, whether they are willing or not, in the development of a child? I believe it is by design. In one of her humor columns Erma Bombeck described what the scene must have looked like when God created fathers. She writes: When the good Lord was creating Fathers he started with a tall frame. And a female angel nearby said, "What kind of Father is that ...

910. Seeking What Matters

Matthew 13:44-46

Sermon

... interest, made for our highest good. Again and again in his many parables, Jesus said, "The Kingdom is like ..." It is like this, it is like that, it has many aspects - and our human life has a dimension to match every one of them. He who knows our needs has designed his Kingdom to meet the needs he knows we have. If you and I know life, and if we want for it what is highest and best, then no pearl, of whatever price, should ever be so greatly treasured as the Kingdom is. I have a question for you, for ...

911. Finding Life!

Matthew 16:21-28

Sermon

... stuck at some lower level and never rise to where the real adventure is. Many souls are anchored in harbors unworthy of great ships, many are tethered with ropes too short. Caught in the quagmire-world of things, they never get loose. And some get trapped in designs of their own making, get lost in the little playhouses they have fashioned for themselves. A humorous story is told of a fellow who loved the color yellow. He drove a yellow car, lived in a yellow house with a yellow fence around it and yellow ...

912. Life's Third Dimension

Matthew 20:1-16

Sermon

... persons; they were equal at the essential heart of what they were. Perhaps this was the way the vine keeper saw them - I don't know. But I do know that this is the way God sees us. We are equally third-dimensional beings, creatures of spirit, designed to be alive not just in length of years or reach of mind, but in depth of soul. We celebrate life's length; we commemorate birthdays; we recognize milestones; we cherish the linear extension of life. I wish there were some way to celebrate the extension of ...

913. An Everyday Theology

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... said he tried to communicate ad populum ("to the bulk of mankind"), to those who neither relish nor understand the act of speaking, but who, notwithstanding, are competent judges of those truths which are necessary to present and future happiness - I design plain truth for plain people. Notice that Wesley was no intellectual dunce. He was an Oxford graduate and had a lively interest in everything from science to medicine and the theater. Some more narrow follower, unfortunately, burned Wesley’s extensive ...

914. Barefoot in the Palace

Luke 13:22-30

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... these new arrangements. Many will call us to dampen our enthusiasm because their anxieties about the unknown have nearly overcome them. If we are on a committee drawing up architectural plans for a new church, it is much easier to think of planning for colonial design rather than a contemporary structure. The reason is obvious: we know what a good colonial church building is like, but we are much less certain what a contemporary building would demand. We don’t have many models to guide us. So we’ll need ...

915. Christ the King The King On His Cross

Luke 23:26-43

Sermon

Alvin Rueter

... m after in this third part of the sermon is to make sure we want what he offers. Unless you’re hopelessly ill and suffering incredible pain, we may assume you don’t want paradise, at least not right now. That’s not necessarily wrong, because our Creator designed us to live; he gave us the urge to fight to stay alive. Our Lord has also commanded, "You shall not kill." That means he doesn’t want anyone to shorten our lives. He doesn’t want us to shorten our own lives either. Furthermore, we notice ...

916. Lord, Teach Us to Pray

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

... , "Who Can Forget the Bomb?" She began: "It was a story about The Bomb, and who wanted to hear about that? The report came out of Princeton that John Aristotle Phillips, an aerospace-engineering student, had taken to the drawing board and produced The Design - a blueprint for an atomic bomb that could fit right into your car trunk and level a quarter of Manhattan." Phillips wanted to alarm people - and he did - when he insisted that "a college undergraduate with a basic foundation in physics is capable of ...

917. Are There Any Questions?

Luke 20:27-40

Sermon

... question that concerns the resurrection, the highest and most certain hope we have as sons and daughters of the heavenly Father. The Sadducees, we have to understand, did not believe in resurrection, neither Christ’s, their own, nor ours. Their question, therefore, was designed to make a farce of it, to present the resurrection in the most absurd and scornful way they could. But we are glad they asked the question, for it lent the opportunity to Christ to underscore again this platform of our faith, to ...

918. Why Aspire to Sainthood?

Daniel 7:1-14

Sermon

Today on the church calendar is designated All Saints’ Sunday. It is a time for remembering persons who through the generations have been so outstanding in faith and ministry that their lives have been a special blessing to all who have known them. As someone has said, they have adorned the Gospel of Jesus Christ, though it ...

919. Working and Praying Go Together

Matthew 14:13-21

Sermon

... us. Having a blast. Impressing our neighbors and relatives with homes and cars and clothes and our ability to send the kids to name-brand colleges. If this is so, our daily work is often unexciting and frustrating, too, because all the rest of our life is designed mostly for our own selfish purposes. We will never feel filled. We will never be fulfilled. What can we do about all this? We need to pray more. Our theme says, "Working and praying go together." But you are saying inside, "C'mon, preacher! That's ...

920. Hallelujah - Christ is Risen

1 Peter 1:3

Children's Sermon

Object: Signs of the family (perhaps you can borrow or even send away for a family crest. For the really imaginative you might design your own: ex. Bowman; the Bow - quiver and arrows); other signs representative of a family might simply be a picture of a house (yours), dog, etc. HALLELUJAH - CHRIST IS RISEN - CHRIST IS RISEN from the dead. It’s Easter, boys and girls, and that means it is the most wonderful ...

921. Proper 4

Genesis 12:1-8

Sermon

... : "Something hidden, Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges - Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!" When God took a bit of clay, molded it around, shaped it - when he was working with the idea of making humanity - it was his design to make a person; not a system, not a community, not a church, not a nation, but an individual who was capable of thinking, dreaming, deciding, and acting. The soul that is forged in the white hot heat of the struggle is the only thing in life of ...

922. Proper 6

Genesis 25:19-34

Sermon

... things are priced quite cheaply." Esau valued his birthright cheaply and paid a high price for a bowl of lentil soup. What did Esau give up when he forfeited his birthright? Well, it wasn't worldly prosperity. As we read later, though Esau lost this special designation, he still had an abundant fortune. When he met Jacob some years later, he was followed by a retinue of 400 armed men, quite a sizeable and expensive cadre for the time. Moreoever, Esau lived a prosperous and splendid life and went down to his ...

923. God Is a Mystery

Luke 19:1-10

Sermon

... in the air, and they had no effect on Jesus. The disappointed people watched as their hero went off to have lunch with their enemy. Their dream for vengeance became a nightmare. Some of them stood around in small groups looking down at their feet and making designs in the sand while trying to put it all together. Efforts to explain the behavior of Jesus varied widely. Some thought that Jesus was kind to Zacchaeus because he saw in him the same serious doubts that he had seen in his disciple, Thomas. One of ...

924. New Help on an Old Question

Luke 20:27-40

Sermon

... in which we are cast today and to think of new relationships. If we can do this, the whole concept of life after death will have a new ring of authenticity. Last spring Maya Ying Lin stunned the architecture world when she won the nationwide design competition for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial which is to be built on the Mall near the Lincoln Memorial. In an interview with Phil McCombs of the Washington Post, she shared some insights about death and our uneasiness with it. It is interesting to see ourselves ...

925. Seek Good, Not Evil (That You May Live)

Amos 5:1-17

Sermon

... good will reign. We are to be consumed by the same kind of passion that consumed our Lord. The purpose of the text and of this sermon is not the development of a new program in niceness. It is a seeking after life itself, as God describes and designs that life. To live, to be alive means to seek good, not evil, to establish justice, to uphold righteousness, rather than cast it down; to be exacting in charity rather than in covetousness. That’s but a partial description of what it means to be alive. That ...

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