Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 76 to 100 of 4508 results

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

The emphasis throughout the Advent season is typically about God’s gift to us—“of the Father’s love begotten”—Jesus, the gift of God’s love. Also, the ministry of Jesus—His gifts to us: to us who think we have everything are to us when we think we have nothing. Our theme hymn today forces another focus. The question is not “what is God’s Christmas gift to us?” Instead, what is our gift to God? Wh...

77. The Hopes and Dreams of God

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

A little boy in a church Christmas program, only had one line to remember. He was the Angel of the Lord and his line was: "Behold, I bring you good tidings." After the rehearsal, he asked his mother what "tidings" meant. She told him that it meant "news". When the program was put on, the boy got a case of stage fright and couldn't remember his line. then all of a sudden the idea came back and he...

78. Keep Watching, Keep Warning, Keep Chasing

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

When you turn sixteen, what’s the most important thing in the world? Any 16-year-olds here? Anyone want to take on that question? That’s right. Getting your driver’s license. In most states, if you are under the age of eighteen, you now need to take “Driver’s Ed” before you can qualify for a driver’s license. That means students have already had to learn all the “rules of the road,” those traffic...

79. Joseph, When Did You Know?

Sermon

King Duncan

We are just days away from Christmas, and I hope that this season has been full of hope, joy, love and peace for you. I hope that you have had time to reflect on the promises of the Advent season, the season in which we prepare ourselves for the coming of Jesus. It’s funny that the modern Christian church spends four weeks—the season of Advent—preparing for Christ’s coming, because the first Chri...

80. Have a Jolly Imperfect Christmas This Year!

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Some Christmas’s stay forever in our hearts and minds because they were so beautiful, so magical, so perfect. You got your Red Ryder BB gun or Malibu Barbie. The time the Christmas pageant went off without a hitch. The year when everyone got to come home. A blanket of snow on Christmas Eve draped everything in white and wonder. But other Christmas’s are forever etched in our memories because the...

81. Emmanuel - God with Us

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

In his little book, Portraits of God, Harold T. Bryson tells boys who asked their minister for a service project where they could help somebody. The minister gave them the name of a blind man who wanted someone to read the Bible to him. When the boys arrived at the blind man’s house, they agreed that over a period of time, they would read the entire New Testament to him. However, when they starte...

82. Chaos or Christ: Dreams Which Calm our Fears

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

Author Scott Peck opens one of his most popular books with these three simple words: LIFE IS DIFFICULT. “If we can embrace that truth," continues Peck, “life will no longer be difficult." I'd like to talk about that for a few moments this morning. In Matthew's account of Jesus' birth, there are no angels singing, no shepherds watching, no cattle lowing, no tiny babe wrapped in swaddling clothes l...

83. Believe

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

It’s been said that even the deepest meaning of Christmas is chocked full of make-believe. God does the making and invites us to do the believing. That’s what I would like to talk about today. Why not make this Christmas more than an adventure in fantasy? Why not, for you personally in your life, make this Christmas an affirmation of faith? For beyond the tinsel and beneath the hay and more import...

84. The Wonder of It All

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Many of you know the name Henry Drummond, the great Scotsman of another century. Henry Drummond was probably best known for the great books that he wrote and the many tracks that were circulated throughout Scotland and throughout the world really. He was also in his time a distinguished scientist. Above all, Henry Drummond was a noble and winsome Christian. When he died, a man named George Adam Sm...

85. The Power of Positive Dreaming

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

According to tradition, Joseph was the strong, silent type - an older carpenter who willingly submitted to impotent fatherhood - a second-string player in the drama of God's human birth. But according to scripture, none of this is true. All that is actually recorded in the Bible is that Joseph was a dreamer - a righteous man who transformed the meaning of righteousness by taking seriously his drea...

86. Joseph’s Dream

Sermon

God was working overtime when he visited Joseph, Mary’s fiance, in a fantastic dream shortly before the two of them were to be married. An angel - it must have been Gabriel - appeared in his dream and told him to go ahead with the marriage, despite the fact Mary was pregnant. That would make a story in itself; who would think of marrying someone who was going to deliver a child fathered by another...

87. Naming the Divine Baby

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

Naming a new baby is a challenging process. It’s hard to please everybody with a name. Dad wants a name with alliteration in it, something that would sound good on a sports report--Sammy Sousa or Johnny Justice. Mom selects a fashionable name and insists on no nicknames, something like Catherine or Benjamin or Cynthia. Grandpa wants to use a hallowed family name from the past, like Reuben or Ho...

88. A Faith for the Uncharted Way

Sermon

Leonard Mann

A few summers ago my family and I made a motor trip west from our home in Ohio to the Pacific coast, and returned. We crossed the prairies and the plains, the Mojave Desert and the great salt flats of Utah; we drove through the Badlands and the Grand Tetons, and crossed the Sierra Nevadas and the Rocky Mountains twice. We followed the trails of the pioneers, the Mojave, the Wyoming, and the Santa ...

89. And Then Came The Angel

Sermon

William B. Kincaid, III

If we cannot relate to Joseph and appreciate his situation, then our lives are simple, easy lives indeed. Now, by relating to Joseph or understanding what he endured, I don't mean to suggest that we all either have been engaged or married to someone impregnated by the Holy Spirit. Even in our frantic search for ways to explain how such a thing might have happened, we probably didn't think of blami...

90. The Infinite Becomes An Infant

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

The Miracle Of The Nativity Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; 19and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. 20But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a...

91. Joseph's Story

Sermon

Erskine White

An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife." (Matthew 1:20) I am the forgotten person in the Christmas story. Oh sure, you all have little statues of me in your creche scenes at home and you set them out every year at Christmas time, but let's face it: people who look at your creche are looking at the Christ Child and His moth...

92. Transformed By A Babe

Sermon

King Duncan

Bret Harte has a story of how a baby came to a mining camp and transformed that camp. A poor woman with a questionable reputation, the only woman in the whole camp, died. She left behind a small baby and the men of the camp had to take care of it. The baby was lying in a box. The men felt that a box was not fit for a baby’s crib. So they sent one of their members eighty miles on a mule to Sacram...

93. What If It Is True?

Sermon

Mark Trotter

Well here we are already, the fourth Sunday in Advent. Christmas is just a few days away now. If you have noticed the sequence of lessons read here in church during these four weeks, they begin the first Sunday with longing, and expectation, and the hope that God will send a savior, a Messiah. Each week we move closer to that event that we as Christians believe is the event in which God kept that ...

94. The Original "Average Joe"

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Do you know the name Melana Scantlin? She is a former NFL cheerleader, a former Miss Missouri. She is beautiful, she is blonde, she is brainy. Melana is the beauty who squared off against 16 "beasts" in television's latest surpassingly strange reality series, "Average Joe." The premise for the show was that, while it is a no-brainer to be attracted to a hunk with washboard abs and $50-million in m...

95. The Nightmare before Christmas

Sermon

David E. Leininger

What a week! The confluences of history have flowed together as never before. On the one hand, bombshells in Baghdad; on the other, bombast in Washington. For someone who is as much of a history buff as I am, these would seem to be exciting times, but instead they are just sickening. As one congressman noted in the impeachment debate on Friday, this is "The Nightmare before Christmas." Under norm...

96. The Forgotten

Sermon

Theodore L. Yewey

Christmas is a very special time at our house. It is a time when we try to do many things together as a family. One of the traditional rituals we all share in is the decorating of the various rooms with things that have special sentimental significance for us all. Over the years we have accumulated a number of unique scenes of the Nativity. We generally try to have several of these displayed in va...

97. Advent 2: Let Us Go Over To Bethlehem And Find The Promise of Christmas

Sermon

James W. Moore

This sermon is based on Matthew 1:18-25: Perhaps you have heard the one about the attractive young woman who boarded a plane in Los Angeles heading toward New York. The young woman was tired. She knew it would be a long flight, so immediately she asked the flight attendant for a pillow and a blanket. She hoped to be able to sleep most of the way to New York. Her head had just nestled into the pil...

98. The Christmas Promise: God With Us

Sermon

James W. Moore

G. K. Chesterton, the noted British poet and theologian, was a brilliant man who could think deep thoughts and express them well. However, he was also extremely absent-minded, and over the years he became rather notorious for getting lost. He would just absolutely forget where he was supposed to be and what he was supposed to be doing. On one such occasion, he sent a telegram to his wife which ca...

99. Emmanuel: An Advent Dayenu

Sermon

Mark Radecke

In the Jewish tradition there is a liturgy and accompanying song called "Dayenu." Dayenu is a Hebrew word which can be translated several ways. It can mean: "It would have been enough," or "we would have been grateful and content," or "our need would have been satisfied." Part of the Dayenu is a responsive reading that goes like this: O God, if thy only act of kindness was to deliver us from the ...

100. Deliverance (Angel on Your Shoulder)

Sermon

Lori Wagner

In our culture, we are fascinated by people who seem to have an intuitive, intimate relationship with animals. While most people like animals and admire them, a few people seem to have a kind of inside track on how to communicate emotionally and intuitively with animals in ways that are relational and respectful. Animals immediately sense this in people, and respond in a trusting, calm, and easy m...

Showing 76 to 100 of 4508 results