Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 926 to 950 of 5000 results

Mark 10:17-31

Sermon

King Duncan

... to him "You know the commandments: You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother." And the young man says, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth." And Mark tells us that Jesus, looking at him, "loved him." That is so significant. Jesus isn't out to trip this young man up. He wants to help this young man into the kingdom. So, he got off to a bad start with Jesus by idle flattery. So he ...

927. When The World Goes Crazy!

Genesis 6:1-8:22

Sermon

King Duncan

... the town are drunkards, gamblers, brawlers, prostitutes. The people are mired in evil, and they take affront when George Bailey tries to protest. What's the matter with him? Can't he see they're having fun? What's he being such a stick-in-the-mud about? Pastor Mark A. Tabb writes that Christians "are surrounded by people who would love to see us fall." He notes some of their favorite phrases: "Come on, what will it hurt?" "Why do you have to be so weird about all of this?" "It's no big deal." "Everyone else ...

928. Drinking From His Cup

Matthew 20:20-28

Sermon

King Duncan

... of Jesus to appear on their hands and feet. This was seen as a sign of deep spirituality. One night a monk, while praying for those marks, had a vision of Christ with another mark on his bodya bruise on his shoulder. That bruise came from carrying His cross. The monk suddenly realized that this was the mark that really counted. How many of us have bruises from carrying the weight of Christ's cross on our shoulders? It is acceptable, even admirable to aspire to greatness, but greatness has its price. One ...

929. Hope in the Shadows

Mark 13:1-31

Sermon

Darrick Acre

... true. We may not always recognize Him or understand His coming, but we know it to be promised and true. So we wait and we watch and we invest our hope in Him! When we light the candles of the Advent season, we take seriously the message of Mark 13, and we anticipate, watching and waiting, waiting and watching. We anticipate His coming in hope. This is the significance of Advent and Christmas. This is why it is the happiest time of the year. Jesus is coming. He has come, is coming, and will come again. And ...

930. Lazarus Laughed

John 11:17-37

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... as to the whereabouts of this rabble-rousing rabbi from Nazareth? If the Jewish tradition has a grain of truth in it at all, then the raising of Lazarus occurred forty days before Jesus’ own crucifixion, and from that time forward Jesus was a marked man. This would explain a couple of puzzling things in the Gospel record. For one thing, scholars have wondered why Jesus chose to remain in Perea two days after He had heard the news of Lazarus’ illness. Certainly it was not, as some have suggested ...

931. It Costs to Belong

Mark 10:35-45

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... up something. The Gospels also suggest that they had short fuses on their tempers, which earned for them the nickname “Sons of thunder” (Mark 3:17). But we’ll talk more about that next week. Just as Andrew lived in the shadow of his more famous ... AND HIS BROTHER JOHN. The Gospel records that they came to Jesus one day and asked to sit on His right and left side in the Kingdom. (Mark 10:35f) It sounds like a pretty crass thing to do, doesn’t it? Matthew’s Gospel tries to tone down the event a bit by ...

932. The Chicken or the Egg

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... If you do not get anything else out of this sermon this morning, remember this sentence: REPENTANCE is the direction our feet go when we finally come to realize that we are forgiven. The very word repent itself means change of mind or direction. According to Mark, Jesus proclaimed something like this: The new age has dawned; get a new mind to meet it. So Jesus went beyond the preaching of John the Baptizer. He said Repent! but he added the words about the kingdom and trust in the good news He came preaching ...

933. Afraid of Sanity

Mark 5:1-20

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... mixed up and confused as he was. And so, perhaps, can we. I. THIS IS A REALLY STRANGE STORY IN THE FIFTH CHAPTER OF THE GOSPEL OF MARK. There is so much we don’t know about what is going on, so much we wish we knew. It is clothed in the aura of ... of certainty, but we are not sure where it was. And we are not at all sure exactly what happened there. The story in Mark 5 reflects the demonology of the day, with additional features which make it sound like a folk tale. Scholars express extreme puzzlement about ...

934. Men Like Trees Walking

Mark 8:22-26

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... But we aren’t trees. We are people. In our Scripture lesson we find the story of a man who couldn’t tell the difference between the two. Not until Jesus touched his eyes for the second time. Prof. Williamson, in his excellent commentary on Mark says of this passage: “For once, in Mark, Jesus’ attempt to heal someone seems not to be immediately successful. The need for a second touch may explain why Matthew and Luke leave this story out. Yet this two-stage movement is the very point of the story in ...

935. Radical Surgery

Mark 9:42-50

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... the more important and not the less. As a rabbi friend of mine puts it: “You only live once; but if you do it right, once is enough!” That seems to be what Jesus is saying in this passage in Mark. III. WHAT IS THE GOAL FOR WHICH EVERYTHING ELSE IS TO BE SACRIFICED? Twice Mark says it is “life,” and then, at the end of this difficult passage, he says it is “the kingdom of God.” Maybe they are not two different things. It seems that the two are interchangeable in Jesus’ mind. “Life” is ...

936. Salty Saints

Mark 9:42-50

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... , they did not remember the context in which it was said. The result is that we sometimes get a whole bunch of disconnected sayings of Jesus stuck together because they stuck in the writer’s mind in a certain way. That seems to be the case here. Mark got off on a tangent about salt, one thing led to another, and he strung together everything he could remember that Jesus had ever said about salt. The result is several very confusing sentences! On the other hand, a textual variant (noted in the footnote in ...

937. Knight of the Woeful Countenance

Mark 10:17-31

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the the kingdom of God.” (Mark 10:25) We’ve been trying for centuries to get that camel through that needle’s eye. One of the most ingenious ways is to suggest ... bad; it all depends upon the use to which it is put. Jesus does not frown upon him and his riches, but rather, says Mark, in a touching sentence Jesus LOVES him. He loves the man whose primary love is for his possessions. (That’s a fascinating twist!) This ...

938. Childish or Child-like?

Mark 10:13-16

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... on the street, in the home, in the workplace, even (God forbid) in the Church! However, we are not called by Jesus to be childish, but child-like. III. “WHOEVER DOES NOT RECEIVE THE KINGDOM OF GOD LIKE A CHILD SHALL NOT ENTER IT.” (Mark 10:15) In childhood Jesus found the perfect analogy for membership in the Kingdom. Not in childishness, but child-likeness. A good many sermons have been preached about this young lad, declaring that what Jesus wanted people to emulate was the supposed “innocence” of ...

939. Sine Qua Non

Mark 12:28-34

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.” (Mark 12:29-30) Jesus began by quoting the call to worship used in the Temple in His day, (Deut. 6:4-5) and the confession of ... , if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” Jesus said to this man: “YOU ARE NOT FAR FROM THE KINGDOM OF GOD.” (Mark 12:34) He was not far, but he wasn’t there, yet. He knew it with his mind, but he had not yet experienced it in his ...

940. On Doing Beautiful Things

Mark 14:1-11

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... work were Jesus, how would you act toward them? Well, friends, those people are Jesus, and what you do to them, you do to Him. “...truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.” (Mark 14:9) YES, BUT WE DON’T EVEN KNOW HER NAME! She belongs to the ranks of the anonymous saints in all the centuries who pour out their hearts and lives for others. Jesus said of her: “Leave her alone...she has done what she could!” Have we? I ...

941. Whose Hand Is On Your Shoulder? (Part 4)

1 Chronicles 4:1-23

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... . There is nothing unjust in God’s laws, he continued. We have nothing of our own to boast about, but if we give our lives to Christ we will have nothing to fear in eternity. On and on, Pastor Marks preached eloquently on this subject of nothing. A few months later, Pastor Marks returned to Ancaster and announced to the assembled crowd that this time he would preach on the word "something." There is something in man that yearns to live forever. There is something in the gospel that gives us hope. There ...

942. Our Hope for Years to Come

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Paul E. Flesner

... a voice, and a pair of hands. This is the miracle of the Word made flesh: God delivered his message to us in person by becoming one of us. The impact of this event has been earthshaking. Regardless of the number of world religions in existence, our present world marks time from the time of his birth. This Word of God is the pivotal person in our history. The meaning of all life -- past, present, and future -- is focused in this man! If John takes us back to the beginning, the writer of 2 Peter 3:13 takes us ...

943. What Gets Into People?

Mark 1:21-28

Sermon

King Duncan

... disciples were in Capernaum. It was the Sabbath and Jesus was teaching in the synagogue. The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. Suddenly a man in the synagogue who, accordig to Mark, was possessed by an evil spirit cried out, “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are--the Holy One of God!” “Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” The evil spirit shook ...

944. Birthing the Kingdom

Mark 13:1-31

Sermon

Cathy A. Ammlung

... still to come"; to hear this Gospel text -- well, let's just say that many good people would rather not hear any of this! But of course we must hear Jesus' words and struggle with them. We're his disciples or else we think we'd like to be. And Mark's Gospel puts these hard words of our Lord in the last week of Jesus' life, when everything he says and does is brought to its sharpest, most piercing peak. Jesus wasn't a mere armchair speculator offering his opinion about what is to come. He wasn't spouting ...

945. A Healing Presence

1 Thessalonians 5:12-28

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... writing things down that I feel in order that I can get into perspective that which is going on in my life, also that I might track my relationship with God. I had gone through this auto accident, it was quite a trauma physically, mentally, and, to a marked degree, spiritually. And a kind of summing up of my ordeal came one day early in the morning in this prayer, which I wrote in my spiritual journal. “Lord, it seems as though you’ve decided to keep vivid signs from me. I suppose you know how gullible ...

946. Called To Finish What Is Finished

Colossians 1:24--2:5, Colossians 1:15-23

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... got so exasperated that he said, "Please don't say that anymore. It sounds like you are trying to ride on God's coat-tails. I know that God loves me. You don't have to tell me that. Just once I'd like to hear you say, "Mark, I love you." That silenced the woman. It shut her off completely. Finally she said, "I can't say it," and turned and walked away. A fellow once said to someone, all too glibly: "Remember, God loves you." To which the other man responded, "I know -- that's his job -- ...

947. Rejected at Home

Mark 6:1-6

Sermon

King Duncan

... 's public library for over seven years. Today he is a favorite son, but for many years he was an embarrassment to many of the residents of that lovely, Southern city. Jesus was an embarrassment not only to his hometown, but also to his own family. Earlier in Mark's Gospel we read these mystifying words, "Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, 'He is out ...

948. The Two Ways of Life

Jeremiah 16:1--17:18

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... prophets locate our dependence on God, for as Jesus says, it is what comes out of a person, out of the heart, that defiles him (Mark 7:14-23). If the heart is sound, life and good action flow out naturally, but if the heart is corrupt, out of it come ... can call for the people to get themselves a new heart lest they die (Ezekiel 18:31). We are called to love God with all our heart (Mark 12:30; Deuteronomy 6:5), as well as with our soul and mind and strength, for it is in our hearts, as we all know, that our ...

949. A Church Shaped By The Great Commission

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... and Richard Hauerwas used to describe this aspect of the nature of the Church. Jesus, Himself, provides the model. He was fully in and with the world, but He lived by a contrasting set of realities and was always in tension with the world—and to a marked degree, always in resistance to it. In one of my favorite Peanuts cartoons, Lucy 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 ...

950. A Church for the 21st Century: Holy, Charismatic, Apostolic - An Enclave of Resistance

Luke 4:14-30

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... image has continued to force itself into my awareness. It is a powerful image that is shaping my thought about the church – the now and future church. We must not forget that the church is not our idea, but God’s. The church has stayed, and missed the mark when we have sought to shape her apart from God’s vision. God called Israel to be “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.” Jesus was clear about ti. His church would be built on the faith commitment that he was the ...

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