Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 76 to 100 of 3160 results

Job 12:1--14:22

Sermon

... and quietly upon it when you were weary. I wish you could have seen that tree. You would have enjoyed it, and you, too, would have known its quiet grace and protective care. But the tree is gone now, and yet it is not really gone. You see, it’s sort of in me. The picture, the memory, the inspiration - they are vividly in me. So as you come to know me, you come to know the tree which you never saw. You come to know an oak in the shadows. An oak which once lived, gave sustenance, inspired, and still ...

77. For Freedom!

Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon

... crippling, debilitating, frightening. If God had made the universe and put us in it - made us and the world magnificently, with all sorts of possibilities - but made it so that we were never free from the down-pressing sense of bondage that it casts us ... you somehow "deserve" my help, my friendship, my assistance; if I think you must repay what I do for your benefit; if I lay any sort of condition upon my relationship with you; then I am asking God to treat me in the same way. In fact, that amounts to my ...

78. It Isn’t Fair!

Matthew 20:1-16

Sermon

... fairness. But the God who on the Damascus Road rescued Saul from his own self-destructive tendencies has plans for people who did not come over on the Mayflower, or can’t find any relatives in "Who’s Who in Religion." God has an embarrassing abundant sort of grace that sweeps up saints and sinners, Jews and Gentiles, Old Line Churchly types and gutter bums. It’s generous to a most embarrassing degree - but fair it isn’t. Well, why should it be "fair" anyway? What need has God for "mere justice?" If ...

79. You Figure It Out

Matthew 22:15-22

Sermon

... find the gun and likely kill you. Should you kill him first? Which choice is better? 2. God Gives Us Resources to Cope Is this some sort of cruel joke then? Did God plunge us into a world without clear answers so that he could drive us mad? No. Not at all. ... the betterment and healing of those around us on the planet God has given us. But it never will become a simple, black-and-white sort of decision to behave in a God-pleasing way. Until we see God face to face, we still will face a broken, sin-filled, ambiguous ...

80. The Need for Transfiguration

2 Peter 1:12-21

Sermon

Hubert Beck

... a way of transporting us out of our every-day world into another kind of world. Contemporary music with its driving rhythms and its compelling pulsations of sound is often accused of this as though it were demonic, but classical music of the most traditional sort can also draw people up and transform them in all kinds of ways. Literature and drama are vehicles for doing the same thing - to take people outside of the realities of the moment and to lift them up into another dimension, transforming them from ...

81. One Thing

Sermon

Raymond Gibson

... living a certain number of years until our time runs out. Kairos, however, is God’s time, time that comes only at certain moments, life-or-death time, the time when we must act now or never. It was this sort of kairos time which possessed Paul, and which drove him as a Christ-possessed man. It is the sort of time which should drive every Christian to the doing of Christ’s imperatives now. Now is not only the acceptable time and day of salvation; but now is the only time we have to do what Christ wants ...

82. Ghosts - 1951

Ephesians 6:10-20

Sermon

Kent Moorehead

... when she exclaims: Ghosts! When I heard Regina and Oswald in there, I seemed to see ghosts before me. I almost think we’re all of us ghosts, Pastor Manders. It’s not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that "walks" in us. It’s all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they cling to us just the same, and we can’t get rid of them. Whenever I take up a newspaper I seem to see ghosts gliding between the lines. There must be ghosts all ...

83. EPISODE 1: THE FIRST WEEK IN LENT

Drama

Robert Clausen

... control of things? JUDAS: Yes. JESUS: What purpose will it serve? JUDAS: Then you can give orders. JESUS: I can force my will on people? JUDAS: If it’s for their good. JESUS: Do you think this way also, Peter? PETER: You’ll have to admit, Lord, we’re just sort of marking time. The people like you, they’re coming out to hear you ... but Judas is right. We’re just a bunch of nobodies. If we don’t use the people now, while we’ve got them with us, who knows where they’ll be tomorrow, next week ...

84. Chapter IV

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Frank H. Seilhamer

... a "tent," even if it is made of brick and sits in a sprawling suburban subdivision, and though the "fold" is a bank account, or some change in the pocket of our pants, the fact that we have either is something that we owe largely to him. We have all sorts of temptations around us to make us forget that. "Secular" jobs, done to earn lop-eared dollars, to buy canned corn, can lead a man to think that he is all alone in this universe. One can easily conclude that there is nothing more to life than we see as ...

85. The Very Nearness Of Holy Week

Sermon

Leonard H. Budd

... this holiday ... even the entrance into the big city of this young man and his enthusiastic followers. By chance we were to see him again, and the crowds that followed him. Next day my family and I were entering the outer courts of the great Temple when all sorts of noise and commotion came from between the granite pillars to our left. We were at the Temple to buy a sacrificial dove to use as our offering and prayer in the Temple. And so it was surprising to see a whole flock of doves winging their way ...

86. Report of a Secret Meeting

John 3:1-21

Sermon

George Bass

... makes us good and acceptable to God. Christ had to be "lifted up" so that all people might see him and know that they have been released from the condemnation of sin and become the children of God again. Jesus’ death was never meant to be seen as some sort of a semi-private execution that was to take place within the confines of a prison or a death chamber isolated from public view. A recent headline read: "He bled to death behind unlocked gate."18 It introduced the story of a man who bled to death after ...

87. Marduk? or Yahweh?

Isaiah 40:1-31

Sermon

Richard L. Eslinger

... the Baptist at the Jordan - this wilderness way is now promised to those in exile. And it is Yahweh, not Marduk, who speaks. Whatever else this Advent is about, it is this: this promise of a way whenever God’s people find themselves in some sort of exile, some sort of far country or another. A way for people alienated from God and one another. There are times when foreign powers work to exile God’s people, like the persecution of the church in Japan during the Shogun era. But we people of the covenant ...

88. We May Have to Change Our Name

Isaiah 61:1-11

Sermon

Richard L. Eslinger

... and praise will spring forth together. They belong together, and the church is really being the church when they bloom in the same garden. When the civil rights movement began to shake the old foundations in this nation, now some 25 years ago, all sorts of folk were surprised to see the insistence on righteousness and the necessity of praise springing forth together. They were never separated, or the movement would quickly have ground to a halt. The people would gather in a church hall for last-minute ...

89. Mary Ann Was Born Again

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

Richard L. Eslinger

... they commuted in every week to be part of one in the city. Mostly, though, the staff was composed of young adults like Mary Ann. Their social life centered on the drop-in center and the interminable staff meetings, rather than on singles bars and those sorts of things. In the midst of this labor, there seemed to be a spirit, an intensity, compassion about these folks. And the spirit was catching. In fact, Mary Ann had caught it. Now the rhythm of life for a drop-in center staffer almost necessarily involved ...

90. In, But Not Of, The World

Jeremiah 29:1-23

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... world. We have previously talked about this. (See the sermon for Proper 21.) We Christians can also contribute to the welfare of the world in a very special way by virtue of our status of being in, but not of the world. Because we are aliens in the world, sort of like those exiles in Babylon to whom Jeremiah wrote, we may be less prone to work only for ourselves. After all, as aliens we can never make the world our own, just as a Hebrew could never have become the Babylonian Emperor. To the degree that we ...

91. A Match Made In Heaven

Hosea 1:1-2:1

Sermon

John W. Wurster

... on Hosea. “Okay,” I yielded, “but I’m not going to say the word ‘whore’ at your wedding.” So we came up with a sort of compromise whereby I would share the general message of Hosea, but the passage to be read in the service would come from a ... this is the woman that God would have Hosea marry, this faithless women, this adulterer. Their relationship is presented as a sort of parable of the relationship between a loyal God and God’s disloyal people The children that result from this marriage ...

92. The Ten Commandments #9: No False Witness

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... has not made them more truthful. The funny part of it is that this story about the virtue of telling the truth is itself not true - Parson Weems or somebody made it up. O tempora, O mores. I wish I could say that preachers were innocent of that sort of thing. There is the classic story of the young boy coming home on a Sunday afternoon and asking his minister father about something he heard in the morning's sermon. "Daddy, was that really true, or was it just preachin'?" Ah, well. What is surely true is ...

93. Salvation

Psalm 118:1-29

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... and my might; he has become my salvation" (Ps. 118:14), the affirmation is that God delivers the people from all sorts of disasters - slavery in Egypt, wars with the Canaanites, bondage in Babylon. Indeed, one of the great heroes of ancient ... Go back the way you came." The point? Adam and Eve do not go back because they do not THINK they can. They THINK themselves into all sorts of problems. After-effects of the fruit, the Rabbi says. Perhaps WE ought not to think so much. I do not mean to say that we should ...

94. What On Earth Is The Trinity?

John 14:15-31

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... ." For a lot of people, religion is a matter of "Holy Spurts." There is a burst of activity at Christmas and Easter, but little in between. These are the folks in the outer circle. In the Middle Circle are those who have had some sort of religious experience somewhere along the line. They attend church fairly regularly, contribute fairly well. They are essentially good people. But their religion has little joy and power in it. They go through the motions, but there is something missing. They have a deep ...

95. Building A Church

John 17:1-11a, Acts 1:12-14, 1 Peter 4:13-14

Children's Sermon

King Duncan

... church can be like a stew sometimes. There are all different kinds of people in a church. We don't all think alike or act alike. But when we all come together, we can do some wonderful stuff together. But just like all sorts of different foods mixed together make a really great stew, all sorts of different people working together make a great church. But we have to work together. We have to care about each other and try to understand each other. We have to live in peace with one another. That's the only way ...

96. Through the Eyes of an Eagle (Introduction)

John 20:24-31

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... not always certain just which words are the actual words of Jesus and which are the editorial comments given to us by the author. Sometimes the writer tells us when he is inserting his own comments on Jesus’ words, sometimes he does not. It is left to scholars to sort it all out, and those who publish Bibles with the words of Jesus printed in red in them have their work cut out for them when they come to the Gospel of John. John’s Gospel omits many things which the other Gospels include. In it there is ...

97. What’s the Good Word?

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1) The opening verses of the Fourth Gospel are sort of like the preface to the book. A wise reader does not skip over the preface, for in it the author usually tries to set forth the point ... and to rhapsodize about the meaning of Jesus’ coming into the world. The opening verses of the Fourth Gospel are sort of a hymn to Christ. Scholars have long noted that the Greek Text echoes the rhythmic pattern of poetry, and ...

98. Let the Son Shine In

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... of life.” Down through the centuries millions of people have found Him to be as good as His word. The metaphor of light suggests a couple of possibilities to us. For one thing, light dispels darkness. Darkness is a frightening thing. A hardy old sea captain, used to braving all sorts of dangers at sea, once said that the severest test of a person’s nerve would be to go out into a dark, solitary place and shout one’s own name three times! I have never tried it, but I am not sure that I would care to do ...

99. How Do You Explain the Resurrection?

John 11:17-37

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... the grave grew slowly over many centuries. The earliest glimmering of such an idea was the belief that at death the soul of every person, good or bad, went to a place called in Hebrew Sheol. Sheol was not necessarily a place of torment, but merely a shadowy sort of existence, a place where God was absent. Therefore it came as something of a shock when the author of Psalm 139 said confidently, “Even if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you (God) are there!” (Psalm 139:8) Instead of being a sad place where ...

100. Lazarus Laughed

John 11:17-37

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... is ill.” (John 11:3) The jury is still out on this question, but it does, you will admit, open some interesting possibilities! At any rate, this story does not sound like an allegory or a parable or a “made up” story. It is filled with all sorts of little details which give it the ring of veracity. Why, then, did not the “Synoptic Gospels” (that’s what we call the first three) mention it? Could it be that Lazarus was still alive when they wrote, and they wished to save him the embarrassment of ...

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