Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 1001 to 1025 of 2665 results

1001. The Jericho Road: Where the Action Is

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

... s the kind of road it was in Jesus’ day. It was a major thoroughfare, and a hazardous one. Jerusalem is 2,300 feet above sea level while Jericho is nearly 1,300 feet below sea level. This means that in the course of twenty miles there is a drop of some 3,600 feet. The countryside is thus very rugged. The ancient road took many sharp turns, the kind where you might find yourself suddenly confronted by a wild animal or a brutal human being. In the fifth century it was still called "The Bloody Way," and even ...

1002. Stewards of Our Money

Mark 12:41-44

Sermon

Jerry L. Schmalemberger

... forward in six months, it goes to the finder. It was delightful that Eric DeWilde, a sixteen-year-old orphan, was the one who had found it. Then we find with dismay the last paragraph states, "Charles Morgan, the boy’s lawyer, said Eric had dropped out of high school, partly because of the publicity over the find." Already, that wealth was causing deterioration and a change of priorities in his life. Jesus told the disciples on the Mount: "... You cannot serve both God and money" (Matthew 6:24b). Trying ...

1003. A Reed Who Became a Rock

John 1:35-42

Sermon

R. Blaine Detrick

... , who had been lame from the day of his birth. There he lay - begging, asking for alms. Peter and John (who was with him) stopped. The hopes of the beggar arose. Peter looked down and said, "Silver and gold have I none ..." Imagine the man’s heart beginning to drop: "If you don’t have any silver or gold, why did you bother to stop?" He didn’t say that, but I’m sure he must have thought it. Then Peter added, "Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I unto thee." And stretching forth ...

1004. A Tempting and Lonely Place

Mark 1:35-39

Sermon

Thomas Long

... second act of a play or even ... in the middle of a sermon. The Methodist pastor and chaplain William Willimon once received an agitated telephone call on a Sunday evening from a parishioner in his church. He said that his daughter Anne had just decided to drop out of pharmacy school. Anne had been home for the weekend. In fact she had worshiped with her mother and father that morning, and the news of her leaving school had caught them totally by surprise. Willimon asked why Anne was doing such a thing, but ...

1005. How Can We Meet Grief?

2 Samuel 18:19--19:8

Sermon

Edward Chinn

... been so conditioned by their parents that they do not dare to cry. When one of those boys reaches the age of twenty, he doesn’t even think of crying when he has experienced disappointment because his girlfriend has jilted him or he has been dropped from college. When this young man has reached the age of forty, says the psychologist, he doesn’t even know how to cry. However, though unexpressed by words, that grief may leak out as physical illness. II Secondly, consider the word "Delight." You can meet ...

1006. Will Names Never Hurt Us?

Proverbs 10:1-32

Sermon

Edward Chinn

... hands, the stones with which to kill this lawbreaker, he said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first" (John 8:7, NKJV). The crowd of accusers dissolved as one by one, beginning with the oldest, the men dropped their stones and left the scene. Then, for the first time in the encounter, Christ addressed her. Think of the names he could have used. Instead of using the bad, hurtful names people have created, he chose to dignify her by the power of a good name: " ‘Woman ...

1007. Is Your Religion Second-Hand?

Job 42:1-6

Sermon

Edward Chinn

... done anything to justify such dreadful suffering as he endured. After several rounds of sparring with his three "comforters," Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, the Book reached its climax when God overwhelmed Job with the mysteries of creation: Has the rain a father? Who sired the drops of dew? Whose womb gave birth to the ice, and who was the mother of the frost from heaven...? Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades or loose Orion’s belt? Can you bring out the signs of the zodiac in their season...? (Job ...

1008. Epiphany 3

Jonah 3:1-10, 1 Corinthians 7:1-40, Mark 1:1-8, Mark 1:9-13, Mark 1:14-20

Bulletin Aid

Paul A. Laughlin

... (of faith). Call to Worship Leader: When Jesus came to Galilee preaching the good news about the nearness of God’s Kingdom, People: HE ENCOURAGED HIS LISTENERS TO REPENT AND BELIEVE. Leader: Those who responded to that call, like Peter and Andrew, dropped everything to follow him. People: LET US LIKEWISE ADJUST OUR LIVES TO SERVE CHRIST AND THE COMING KINGDOM. Collect Glorious and gracious God, who have called us to repentance and belief through Christ, give us the strength to transform our lives in ...

1009. LORD, I BELIEVE

John 9:35-41

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... now began to apply the story of the ghost to himself. "Business!" cried the ghost, wringing his hands. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. My dealing in trade was but a drop of water in the ocean of the comprehensive demands of my business." Again, too little Christianity reduces our faith - so called faith - to fatalism. A cheap belief in God is always an easy way out of the hard challenges of life. A psychologist ...

1010. Facing the Glory Road

Matthew 20:17-19

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... of the twelve. They were promised nothing but blood and sweat and tears - and that’s what you were promised, friend. It would be easy and safe for me to stand up here on Sunday mornings and tell you that everything was going to be all right. "Little drops of water, little grains of sand Make a mighty ocean, and the pleasant land; Little acts of kindness, little deeds of love, Make this earth a heaven, like the heaven above." I could tell you that. You might even believe it. BUT THAT IS WHAT WE’VE BEEN ...

1011. OUR LORD RISEN

Sermon

E. Jerry Walker

... we do?" but Mary did not seem to know she was there, and Salome said, "I’ll go back to the city. Tell the disciples. Someone has taken him away." She stood a moment, waiting for Mary to say something, and when she didn’t, Salome dropped the roll of fresh linen onto a boulder, and trembling, fled toward Jerusalem. Mary did not move. She seemed rooted to the ground like one of the huge, ancient boulders, and the tears flowed, without thought, without emotion, for she was beyond recognizing any more her ...

1012. THIS IS THE WILL OF GOD, YOUR SANCTIFICATION

1 Thessalonians 4:13--5:11

Sermon Aid

John W. Rilling

... !" Blake felt that man is a creature of unfulfilled desires. He never is satisfied. "Man never is, but always to be blest." And so life is a series of rungs - infancy succeeded by youth and maturity or perhaps we should say adulthood: yesterday an infant dropping the toy in hand for the pretty bauble beyond his reach; today the adolescent wanting this and that; tomorrow the man reaching for the unattainable moon - or since it has been attained by a few, something beyond that. A man does not cease to have ...

1013. Commanded By Example

John 13:31-38

Sermon

O. Garfield Beckstrand, II

... up, goes in and stays about an hour and leaves. What a pity that such a beautiful Christian can go so suddenly to the devil." Then the pastor continued and said: "She died. Her husband asked me to conduct the funeral service. I told him she was dropped from the membership rolls and what I knew about her." The husband was shocked and said: "My wife had an incurable fatal disease which hit her three years ago. She bought the perfume to cover the odor. She wore flimsy negligees so the weight of the clothing ...

1014. Blessed With Peace

John 14:15-31

Sermon

O. Garfield Beckstrand, II

... yielding itself to the water, it survived. Suddenly the man saw himself. He had been fighting God, disobeying him, and trying to defy the spiritual forces at the heart of the universe. He realized now why his life was troubled, and his days were not worth living. He dropped to his knees and placed his life in God’s hands. He walked away into a new life of faith. Here we come to the core of heavenly peace as that man discovered it in the secret of the shell. Heavenly peace is not fighting God but obeying ...

1015. Strengthened For Life

John 15:1-17

Sermon

O. Garfield Beckstrand, II

... living Lord fell upon the audience with overwhelming power. Here was a man who not only dared to believe but who also gave his life as few men have, to bring the loving Lord to those primitive, savage people of Africa. Witnesses say you could hear a pin drop as he said, "I am going back. Shall I tell you what sustained me amidst the toil, hardships, and loneliness of my exiled life? It was the promise, ‘Lo! I am with you always, even unto the end!’ " How do you explain such a life, such fearlessness in ...

1016. Crowned With Victory

John 14:15-31

Sermon

O. Garfield Beckstrand, II

... through their bodies as he called out from that cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" What lumps must have been in their throats as he cried out in agony, "I thirst." Then they heard, "It is finished," and saw his thorn-crowned head drop lifelessly upon his breast. Friends as well as enemies watched as they stabbed his side with a spear before removing that mangled body from the cross. They stood silently as his body was being carried to the tomb. They saw the enormous stone rolled against the ...

1017. Something Good Can Come From Nazareth

John 1:43-51

Sermon

Brett Blair

... you." After introductions, the dark-skinned man said, "I am Filipino. I was born into a good Catholic home. I went to the United States as a young man to study in one of your fine universities, intending to become a lawyer. On my first day on campus, a student dropped by to visit. He welcomed me and offered to help in any way he could. Then he asked me where I went to church. I told him I was Catholic. He explained that the Catholic Church was quite a distance away, but he sat down and drew me a map ...

1018. Academics, Fanatics, and Other Disciples

Mark 1:14-20

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... bait their hooks. They would throw in their lines, and almost before I got my line in the water, they were hauling in bass. One after another they would reel them in with gleeful excitement. And on my fishing line -- nothing, zero! Now and then I will still drop a line off my sailboat, but with no success. I admit it. I was not and am not much of a fisherman. But Peter, Andrew, James, and John were a different matter. Living on the shores of the Lake of Galilee, they with their fathers were professional ...

1019. Standing Room Only Religion

Mark 2:1-12

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... . One can almost see the ideas click on in their minds as they focus on the outside stairway leading up to the flat roof of the house. And then I wonder about practical questions, like how four men could carry a paralyzed man on a stretcher up those stairs without dropping him. If the man had not been paralyzed up to that point, he might now be paralyzed by fear! No doubt he was feeling like a lot of older or handicapped people who often are taken where they do not want to go, and are not taken where they ...

1020. Astonishing!

Mark 1:21-28

Sermon

Brett Blair

... right when he said that the heavier an object, the faster it would fall to earth. Aristotle was regarded as the greatest thinker of all time, and surely he would not be wrong. Anyone, of course, could have taken two objects, one heavy and one light, and dropped them from a great height to see whether or not the heavier object landed first. But no one did until nearly 2,000 years after Aristotle's death. Legend has it that in 1589 Galileo summoned learned professors to the base of the Leaning Tower of Pisa ...

1021. Confrontation in the Temple

John 2:12-25

Sermon

George Bass

... The summer before, "during a casual discussion of midlife plans," he writes, "a friend asked me what goals I had. To his surprise (and my own), I said my main goal was to live long enough to see my four-year-old daughter get an education. Then we dropped the subject of the future." The very next day, Proffer was hospitalized with severe abdominal pain with "shifting diagnoses" of an ulcer, appendicitis, or a hernia. He was operated upon and, he says, "when I awoke my wife was there to tell me I had a right ...

1022. The Technicolor Sign

Genesis 9:1-17

Sermon

Larry Powell

... also a sign that we are loved. Ah, but you say that we enlightened people now, possessors of scientific knowledge enabling us to explain rationally natural phenomena, and rainbows are actually created by refracted sunlight reflecting upon rain drops. Realists, therefore, will hastily challenge the proposition that rainbows are of the slightest theological significance. Immediately, we are driven to the matter of the perspective by which a thing is viewed. A religious-minded couple, whose lives are nurtured ...

1023. Behold the Blood of the Covenant

Exodus 24:1-18

Sermon

Larry Powell

... sour note during the anthem?" "No," answered George. He had missed that. "Well, did you see that ridiculous hat the lady sitting almost in front of us was wearing?" George had not seen the hat either. "Surely, you noticed one of the ushers almost drop the offering plate?" "Guess I must have been looking the other way," George answered. "Don’t tell me you didn’t hear the minister bump the microphone with his hand?" George had not heard that either. Exasperated, the woman said, "George, sometimes I think ...

1024. We May Have to Change Our Name

Isaiah 61:1-11

Sermon

Richard L. Eslinger

... a kind of angry grief as the television coverage showed the bodies being exhumed from the shallow grave and covered with those blankets - the garments of salvation, their robes of righteousness. Have you ever taken some clothes out of your bulging closet and dropped them in a bag to be sent to [Church World Service, Lutheran World Relief]? Did you ever picture them being sorted by volunteer youth groups and shipped to the refugee families around the world? These, too, are garments of salvation. So the first ...

1025. Luther of Wittenberg

Drama

Michael L. Sherer

... . The heart of his argument in the controversial sentences is that forgiveness is not a matter of exchanging money for a certificate, but rather an activity that takes a lifetime - and a repentant heart. Short-range effects of the move are expected to be a drastic dropping off of money collected to rebuild St. Peter’s Church in Rome. Nobody can be sure at this point what the long-range effects may be. We’ll keep you up to date on developments ... ANTAGONIST: The thing that bothers me about Luther is the ...

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