Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 76 to 100 of 189 results

Matthew 3:13-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... that blessed driving rain falling from heaven while the water washes away the sludge and the stench and the fatigue from both his body and his soul. Andy is free! For the first time in twenty years he is free! Who can help but see in that driving rain a representation of Christian baptism? [We are continuing our series, A New You For a New Year. Last week we dealt with our need for a new vision. This week we want to talk about a new beginning.] For a number of reasons, some of us need to be set free from ...

77. The Counter Intelligence of the Cross

1 Corinthians 1:18--2:5, 1 Corinthians 1:10-17, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... Christians had become convinced they could think their way through their faith, that Christianity itself was at base a philosophy. Through debate, dissension, and even debacle, they believed they had the wisdom, the “sophia,” to think their way into a better representation of the Christian faith. For Paul it was the very heart of the gospel that was the first casualty of the “wisdom wars” being waged between the fighting factions in the Corinthian church. The cross of Christ, the scandal of a ...

78. Christmas 2

Psalm 147:1-20, Jeremiah 30:1--31:40, Ephesians 1:1-14, John 1:1-18

Sermon Aid

Marion L. Soards, Thomas B. Dozeman, Kendall McCabe

... in a number of ways with the preceding one. Imagery of Zion takes center stage over the exodus; metaphors for God change from father to shepherd; language describing the people of God shifts from the motif of conception as God's first-born to representations of communal life in a garden characterized by cultic celebration; and most important, I think, the second oracle is addressed to the nations and not to the remnant. Jeremiah 31:10-14 is saying at least two things. First, in describing the quality of ...

79. Matthew 10:40-42

Matthew 10:1-42

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... his representatives. So when Jesus declares that any who receive his disciples also receive him, the tradition and ideology behind this statement was immediately recognized. Yet Jesus escalates the representative status of his missionizing disciples even more by taking their representation to a third degree. Not only do they represent Jesus; they also represent “the one who sent” Jesus—that is, God. The power to heal and perform miracles was bestowed upon the disciples on their mission by Jesus. But ...

80. Finding Unity through Christ

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... was it possible for a band of disorganized, ill-prepared, and fortified colonists to defeat the might of the British Empire in the American Revolution? We all recall from our history books that our forebears rallied around the common battle cry, "Taxation without representation is tyranny." I am sure as well, that Patrick Henry's immortal words, "Give me liberty or give me death," stirred many to unified action. The unity of purpose and attitude galvanized the rag-tag colonists into a force that shocked the ...

81. Where Is Love?

Hebrews 9:1-28

Sermon

Lee Ann Dunlap

... returned from the divine presence alive, the people saw evidence their sins were forgiven and God's favor was assured for yet another year. All of this seems strange and archaic to our modern intellects. At best, it was a physical and symbolic representation of the spiritual quest, a tangible path to an encounter with divine mystery with appreciation for some deep spiritual truths about guilt and innocence and the need for reconciliation, not only with God but also with each other. To express it in our ...

82. Dots on a Screen

Hebrews 9:24-28

Sermon

Lee Ann Dunlap

... temples of the pagan gods of Israel's Canaanite, Egyptian, and Greek neighbors. Acknowledge the breach between God's holiness and rebellious humanity, offer the appropriate sacrifices and receive divine favor for another year. Dots on a screen, so to speak: visual representations of a bigger, richer reality that is far away and out of sight. Nevertheless, such dramas played a vital role in the shaping of the people's minds and spirits. Like the plays, television, and motion pictures of our own day, people ...

83. LightWorks

Deuteronomy 6:1-9

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... of faith must be able to produce light with the same intensity, tenacity and brilliance of that distant star - light that can be trusted to stay so true to its trajectory that the image it conveys is a vital, vibrant, distortion-free representation to generation after generation of the original faith community. It was Benjamin Franklin's least known, but perhaps most important political insights: "America's destiny is not power," he argued, "but light." Franklin's fixation was on the body politic, but his ...

84. Has He Appeared to You?

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... has led others to propose certain modifications of his "sunflower" model. In order to emphasize the inter-connectedness of these always adjusting interfaces, the vibrating, elliptical symbol for the atom has been suggested as a more accurate representation. Our spirituality forms the nucleus in this model - with the physical, psychological, interpersonal, institutional and ecological components of our existence orbiting about that spiritual center like protons and neutrons. Even as the atomic number of an ...

85. The Hand, the Lamb and the Dove

John 3:1-17

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... there is a triangle in which the monogram of the name of Christ was placed. The three persons were often represented in art, but they were shown separately. The first time they seem to have been placed together was in the fourth century, and that representation consisted of "the Hand, the Lamb and the Dove," which is said no longer to exist. Some of the best attempts, however, have come exactly when we seem to be grasping at straws or perhaps more accurately, at braids. One of my favorite contemporary ...

86. Revelation 7:9-17

Revelation 7:9-17

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... a kind of textual time-out from the angst-inducing opening of the seven seals. Whereas the first of these intercessory visions restricts the saved by number (144,000) and by heritage (those from the original 12 tribes), verse 9 begins a second, far more inclusive representation of the faithful. Verse 9 begins with the formulaic "After this I looked," a phrase that signals the writer is now moving on to a new separate vision (see 4:1; 7:1; 15:5; 18:1). Note how this new sight is accompanied by new sounds ...

87. Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... families from generation to generation. Here in today's text we have the only detailed example of that Levitical precept being carried out. Because it is the only extant example, we should be cautious about assuming its universality of representation of actual cultural practices. With no other reference to compare against, it is impossible to know whether this example in Jeremiah 32 is paradigmatic of land redemption procedures. Indeed, because of the intentionally symbolic nature of this transaction, it ...

88. John 2:13-22

John 2:13-22

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... accordance to the strict laws Yahweh had given to Moses. Animal sacrifice was a central part of Judaism during the existence of the temple. All rituals involve a kind of substitution where an abstract concept is concretized by a material/physical representation. While there is extensive debate about what the ritualized slaughter of animals meant to a worshiping community, it was clearly a way of establishing or re-establishing a right relationship with the divine within the community. Whether the blood of ...

89. In Search of Jesus

John 6:16-24

Sermon

King Duncan

... (which was very unlikely for a first‑century Jew. Most said he was handsome, and no one said overweight. Yancey then showed them a BBC film featuring “a pudgy actor” playing Christ. Some students found the film offensive. Yancey concluded that our “glamorized representations of Jesus say more about us than about him.” (3) Let’s talk for a few moments about finding Jesus. I want to direct your attention to verse 24 of our lesson from John’s Gospel: “Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus ...

90. Culture Shock

1 Kings 18:21-40

Sermon

James Merritt

... schools simple prayers. At Christmas time, they sang Christmas carols. Suddenly, all of that is taboo. Within living memory, homosexuals were for the most part discrete. Suddenly, we find that they demand public legitimization of their peculiarities, stage parades and demand representation on governing bodies as a legitimate minority. Is there any question that a revolution has in fact been imposed upon an unsuspecting nation?"[1] Simply go back just twenty years ago and see what was on prime time TV then ...

91. Until He Comes

2 Timothy 4:7-8

Sermon

James Merritt

... simple prayers. At Christmastime, they sang Christmas carols. Suddenly all of that fell under proscription. Within living memory, homosexuals were, for the most part, discreet. Suddenly we find that they demand public legitimization of their peculiarity, stage parades and demand representation in governing bodies as a legitimate minority. Is there any question that a revolution has in fact been imposed upon an unsuspecting nation? Now I would take issue with some things Mr. Hart said, but his major point is ...

92. Lean on Me

Luke 18:1-8

Sermon

John Wayne Clarke

... a goal. That goal has been carefully planned and determined by the sovereign will of God. The widow in our parable has no visible means of hiring a competent attorney to plead her case. We are so used to seeing high-profile people with high-profile representation. From O. J. to Michael Jackson, we see that wealth can purchase the very best legal minds. Our lesson drives the point home that it is not money, nor who the attorney is — it is who Jesus is that matters! As was mentioned earlier, this parable ...

93. Building the Temple of God

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

Sermon

John Wayne Clarke

... needed to know that it was not the structure itself that brought such glory to the people, it was the fact that God was present in it. It was natural to make comparisons between Solomon's temple and Zerubbabel's temple. These buildings were visible representations of the fact that God has seen fit to dwell among the people. The new temple that they were constructing, though less splendid than that of Solomon, is nevertheless God's dwelling place, a place where God's people can come to worship God. Their ...

94. Altar Your Witness

Matthew 5:13-16

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... , what you have in your hand is just a rock, but for you, at this moment, that stone represents an important moment in your journey of faith. This wooden altar is like those stones. This wooden altar, like every altar in every church in the world, is a representation of the presence of God in the world and in our lives. It reminds us of both the promises of God yet to come and the promises which have already been fulfilled. It represents all the events in the life of this church and every individual who has ...

95. Luke 9:28-36

Luke 9:28-36

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... among Moses and Elijah on the mountain top. The first connection made by Luke, however, is not with Moses, or with Elijah. It is with God in prayer. In Luke the transfiguration is a prayer experience for Jesus; it is a visual representation of the relationship between Father and Son. While Jesus is in direct communication with God “the appearance of his face changed” (v.29). Luke uses the term “eidos,” “appearance,” to describe this change that comes over Jesus. He does not use “metamorphoreo ...

96. Mistaken Identity

Matthew 16:13-20

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... that found in the prophecy of Ezekiel. According to Ezekiel, when he was approached by heavenly messengers to form a link in the communication process between God and God's people, the angels called him "Son of Man." The designation was more of a representational term than anything else. In effect it was an acknowledgement that Ezekiel was truly human, but that he was being used in these settings as the conduit between the celestial and the terrestrial. The "Son of Man," thus, was someone who had no unusual ...

97. Where the Rubber Meets the Road

Isaiah 52:13--53:12, Romans 7:7-25

Sermon

Schuyler Rhodes

... is something that we see every time we come into our church. It's something we look at every day, and don't think about too much. Take a look up on our altar. What do you see? That's right. It's the cross. On our altar is a representation of the instrument of execution that was used by the Romans to kill Jesus. We've lost much of the power of this symbol over time. There are a lot of reasons for this, not the least of which is the fact that we no longer execute people on crosses ...

98. He Descended Into Hell

1 Peter 3:18-22

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... Creed speaks of Jesus, "who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and departed in peace, in order to preach to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the saints concerning the end of the world and the resurrection of the dead." There are any number of artistic representations of the story. One of the more famous is a painting by Baldovinetti that hangs in the Museum of San Marcos in Florence showing Christ standing on the gate of hell that has been knocked off its hinges. Under the gate lies the struggling devil ...

99. Grand Opening

Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

Robert J. Elder

... Protestants in the one Christ is automatic in many places today. Chasms of enmity stretched between Jew and Gentile in those early churches, chasms not yet breached. The gospel of unity in the birth of this child not only demands preaching, it demands faithful representation before the world. Any insistence on acceptance of social position over acceptance of gospel demands is treacherous. If we say that this or that kind of person with this or that kind of job, or this or that ethnic background just doesn't ...

100. The Three Crosses

Illustration

Source Unknown

... impressed by the various facial expressions and actions of the people involved in the awful crime of crucifying the Son of God. Finally, your eyes would drift to the edge of the painting and catch sight of another figure, almost hidden in the shadows. Art critics say this is a representation of Rembrandt himself, for he recognized that by his sins he helped nail Jesus to the cross.

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