Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 76 to 100 of 1522 results

76. Stargazing, Naval Gazing, and Other Waiting Games

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

Tony Everett

... some power soon when the Holy Spirit came upon them. Power to do what? The Spirit would give them power to witness while they wait… power to be Jesus’ “witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Huh? Impossible and overwhelming for sure. How were they to do this anyway? Was Jesus going to stay with them and instruct them in what to say and how to say it and when and where to say it? Jerusalem would be difficult enough but to walk all over Judea ...

77. Mary: The Handmaiden of the Lord

Luke 1:38-45

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... God!” –Luke 1:36-37 (CEV) Now why does this sound familiar to me? I can tell you that the story of Mary and Elizabeth means more to me and Brandy this Christmas than it ever has! And I can also tell you that Gabriel speaks the truth! Nothing is impossible with God! Mary responds to Gabriel and says, “I am the Lord’s servant! Let it happen as you have said.” And the angel left her. –Luke 1:38 (CEV) Mary did not question it any more. She accepted it and said, “So be it! Let’s do this!” Mary ...

78. Oh That Cookie Jar Goodness!

Matthew 19:16-30, Mark 10:17-31, Luke 18:18-30

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... what needed to be done, with trust in God’s strength and wisdom (Moses). A hand in the cookie jar is not a foot in heaven. As Paul would go on to say, “My strength is made perfect in your weakness.” Or as the writer Luke has said, “What is impossible with men (and women) is possible with God.” Sarai knew it when she conceived a child in her barrenness. Joshua knew it when a horn’s cry felled Jericho. David knew it when he took up a stone to battle Goliath. Daniel knew it when he entered into the ...

79. All You Can Do is Laugh

Genesis 18:1-15, Genesis 21:1-7

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... disbelief. Yet, God is not angry, but affirms Sarah’s laughter. And when Sarah bears Isaac, (Yitzchaq in Hebrew), she names him after the laughter God blessed her with. For Sarah’s laughter was the recognition of God’s miracle, God’s absurd and impossible miracle in the midst of her barren expectations. The word Isaac means, "he will laugh, he will rejoice,” derived from the Hebrew verb which means "to laugh.” Sarah’s laughter acknowledges God’s power to defy the rules of nature, to defy our ...

80. Holy Matryoshka!

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... God’s transcendent present made personal, human, and real on earth in the form of Jesus. In this week’s scripture, we see that Light open up into a “dream vision” with real people, a real Madonna, a real baby, and a realized miracle. The impossible has become possible. The dream has become reality. Today, most of us don’t believe in dreams. We push them aside, and decide, as Scrooge did in the age-old tale, “The Christmas Carol,” that our dreams must be the stuff of an undercooked piece ...

81. Pulling Our Punches

Mark 10:17-31

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... out of their way to encourage people to plan for the future so they can donate large sums at the end of their lives to the support of a beloved church? This is where salvation by grace comes into play. “Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.” That’s the place to where we need to come. If we rely on human righteousness alone we are stuck. But we need not do so. We are saved by grace. That grace assures us that we have a heavenly ...

82. Divine Divestment

Mark 10:17-27

Sermon

Will Willimon

... sweet or nice about it. It's hard. As a preacher, I must not make this sound easy. It's hard. In fact, it is impossible. Then Jesus says, ''With God even this is possible." It is even possible for someone who is rich to divest and get into the Kingdom. ... news because Jesus says, nobody who's rich and big can get into his Kingdom. But then this good news: With God even the impossible is possible. Or is this bad news? You make the call. C. S. Lewis once noted, ''Now all things are possible. All things are ...

83. Faith and Fury

Luke 19:28-40

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... wisdom be your grounding. The more you stop trying to exert power over others, the more you will empower yourself to grow, stretch, and be at peace, and the more clearly your will hear God’s voice ensuring your path. What may feel impossible for you, will never be impossible for God. Put your faith in Jesus –he is your ultimate peace. We all know the ending to this story –the rising of Jesus from the tomb and the empowerment of Jesus’ disciples through the movement of the Holy Spirit. They would go ...

84. The Art and Agony of Patience

James 5:7-10

Sermon

Heather Sugden

... the due date! Instead, I found that not being able to control the timing of her arrival, not being able to control what turned out to be the beautiful arrival of new life, not being able to control all that was beyond my control left patience looking like an impossible ask. I know — I need to have more patience. I know, I say to myself as I read these words from the New Testament book of James — I hear you speaking to me when you urge us all to be patient. I know — patience is exactly what I need ...

85. New Wine

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

... would not rush in headlong on their own, independent of God's guidance. He wanted them to wait for God. What an impossible task that must have seemed to those early believers. Christ was alive and they wanted to act. Jesus said "wait" and they ... The man yelled to his partner to ask him, "Hey, Fred! Do you think for $100 you could step on that rake one more time?" Just so impossible is it to imitate or duplicate the events of Pentecost in our day, but we do know that God would like to send a fresh outpouring ...

86. "No Contest"

1 Kings 18:16-46

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

... makes for feeble faith. There is nothing that so quickly feeds faith and opens heaven's doors as a true repentance when we have sinned. Then follows a quiet assurance that God hears us when we lift our needs to him. What Elijah asked was virtually impossible as far as humanity was concerned, but Elijah knew that nothing was too big for God, nor too impossible. Many persons are afraid to pray because they are afraid they will ask God to do something he cannot do. But if God is God, then be realistic. Ask the ...

87. For I Have Chosen You!

Haggai 2:20-23

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... kingdoms of the nations, and overthrow the chariots and their riders; and the horses and their riders shall fall, every one by the sword of a comrade. -- Haggai 2:21-22 So audacious is this prophecy that there must have been some who laughed at its impossibility. Zerubbabel was no king. He was a governor of a tiny region on the edge of a province in a huge empire. He probably had no standing army, only a ceremonial guard. Zerubbabel himself might have been nervous about all this, looking this way and that ...

88. Running Around The Empty Tomb

John 20:1-9

Sermon

Thomas Long

... . In John Updike's A Month of Sundays, there is a parable about how the Christian faith is, indeed, an improbable wager on the impossible possibility. In one episode, a group of men are playing a variation of poker. In this game, each person is dealt several cards, some ... a loser to his. Two truths dawned upon me: He was crazy. He had won. He had raised not on a reasonable faith but on a virtual impossibility; and he had been right. "Y-y-y-you didn't feel to me like you had it," he told me, raking it in.1 The ...

89. Why Not Walk On What Jesus Walked On When He Walked On Water

Matthew 14:22-36

Sermon

Roger G. Talbott

... about when we talk about "breaking the surface" of water). Maybe it would be possible to increase that surface tension to the point that it would bear the weight of a full-grown man. It isn't highly probable, but who is to say that it is impossible? However, spending all day trying to explain this miracle scientifically misses the point. When we ask, "What did Jesus walk on when he walked on water?" we aren't asking a scientific question. We are asking a religious question. It is a question that has to do ...

90. Why Do We Ignore Warning Signs?

Matthew 21:33-46

Sermon

Roger G. Talbott

... in the vineyard who refused to pay the rent, unless . . . unless I walk humbly with God. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us that people who are poor in spirit are happy because they will have the kingdom of heaven. It is impossible to think about what it would take to really be just and really be kind in this world without feeling poor in spirit. It is impossible to look at that poverty of spirit, that coldness of heart, that lack of love and care, that deadness of soul without mourning. It is ...

91. The Condition Of Mercy

Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon

Donald Dotterer

... a debt. This would have made only token payment, but the king would have at least recovered some of his lost money. However, the slave fell on his knees and begged for mercy from the king. He promised to repay the debt, an act that was, of course, impossible. It is the response of the king that is important for us to appreciate. What he does here is immediately respond with more than the servant has asked. The king not only decides not to sell the man and his family into slavery, but to forgive entirely the ...

92. Reformation Sunday

Revelation 21:1-27

Sermon

George Paul Mocko

... history, beyond this life? Can we really believe such a thing? I ask why not? is not this world with its vastness, incredible complexity and power and beauty, is not this world quite unbelievable? When you survey all that is, it is impossible that it should have come out of nothing. Impossible, yet surely it is here. It has been created by the God of power and might. So if this one obviously has been created out of nothing, why not another world beyond? That, to me, is not any more unbelievable than whet ...

93. The Problem With A Promise

Genesis 15:1-18

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

... God, saying, "He can't fix it," except in our time frame. Abraham was 75 and Sarah was 65 when God gave them the promise - how easy it would have been for Abraham to say to God, "You'd better hurry - Sarah's not getting any younger. It's impossible now, but it's getting more so every day." Amazing, when you think about it, this "father of faith" had such simplicity of trust in the promise. Note the three words, "Abraham believed God." Don't you wish it could be written of us, "Barbara believed God." "John ...

94. The Priesthood Of All Believers

Exodus 19:1-25

Sermon

Walter Kimbrough

... shot, but rather passes the ball to the priest in the open for an easy score. Yes, when we work together on the team, the job of the world’s salvation moves from the realm of impossibility to the shore of possibility. Thank God for priests who are team players, for men and women in the church who do not seek to be the celestial stars, but fellow servants in the faith. A priest is one who understands and is committed to being a team player. Thirdly, ...

95. The Cross And Our Shadows

Joel 2:1-11

Sermon

Carl Jech

... in God's eyes, then the point is that "God is Love!" As long as the problems of Israel and the Palestinian State today is defined in terms of who can have exclusive rights to land and governance, then resoloving the "Middle East" question will probably remain impossible. But if the issue is defined in terms of how people can share the land and the promise of peace, then there is hope! As long as we stress who is excluded, there will be trouble. When we stress how everyone can be included, then there can ...

96. A Daffy, Magnificent Hope

Ezekiel 37:1-14

Sermon

... since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that we are so ineffective in this one. Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth 'thrown in'; aim at Earth and you will get neither." To have high hopes is not to dream the impossible dream. With God, all things are possible, said St. Paul. The whole point of the resurrection was God could take the worst possible fate - betrayal, shame, painful execution - and turn it into victory. In fact, the Christian realists are those who do dream, think big ...

97. The Importance of Forgiving Others

Matthew 5:17-20

Sermon

... of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." One could get the impression that reconciliation with God depends upon the good works which people do in their daily lives, couldn’t one? It sounds as though Jesus is making it almost impossible for ordinary people to become reconciled to God and enter into the kingdom, doesn’t it? Who could surpass the "righteousness of the Pharisees"? They tried to obey every detail of God’s Law. How could anyone improve upon the religious life of the ...

98. Teachers Without Chalkboards

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

... names Father, Son and Holy Spirit are far more than a liturgical formula. They sum up the content of any specific teaching that we might carry out. As the Church's ancient creeds testify, it is impossible for Christians to speak of the God they worship without speaking of God's going forth out of himself as creator, redeemer and renewer. It is impossible, for example, for us to speak of Jesus apart from the Father who recognized him at his baptism and gave him all authority at his resurrection. It is also ...

99. The Love God Wants

Matthew 22:34-40

Sermon

... assisted my neighbor, love is diminished. Love for God or for neighbor is never immune to the fatal disease of self-righteousness; to the contrary, it is as susceptible to it as is obedience to any of the other Commandments, maybe more so. The impossible possibility of the dual love for God and neighbor thus serves to cast us anew upon God’s grace and mercy. As our love, feeble as it is, continually falls short of the complete and selfless love Jesus commanded, we experience that essential inability ...

100. Round Trip to Bethlehem

Ruth 1:1-22

Sermon

... wife and son, along with her parents, finally were able to get to France, and from there to the United States, where husband, wife, and son were reunited. It took over five years of arduous labor and careful saving for Dai to accomplish what had once seemed impossible. It is a story with an extremely happy ending, a remarkable story in all respects, and it is a true story, too. All went well for Naomi and her family, it appears; they must have been assimilated into the society of the Moabites, and the two ...

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