Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 1001 to 1025 of 4999 results

Matthew 16:13-20

Drama

Thomas Blowers

... was calling me: Peter. Funny how nicknames get started. We called the old man down on the corner "Grouch" because that's what he was. The name fit so that's what we called him: Grouch. Our parents didn't like it much, of course, all us kids putting that kind of handle on the old man. "Mustn't call people names," they said. But once in a while it would slip out and even our folks knew we had pegged him right. We called young George "Brains" too, because he sure had them. And used them. An "A" student, first ...

1002. Give Them Good News...

Romans 5:1-11

Sermon

Robert V. Dodd

... , "I'm going to eat with my friend Zacchaeus." And what a difference such unmerited love made in the life of Zacchaeus. In the presence of Jesus he became a changed man. Everyone wants to be loved and accepted as a person of worth. Everyone longs for a kind word or a ray of hope to light up their personal darkness. But most of what we hear today is bad news: political scandal, social decadence, economic disaster. Today's secular spirit has taken away man's fear of hell and judgment. But many people live out ...

1003. Getting The Facts

1 Corinthians 15:3

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

... pounds, you say? O.K., how much does this one weigh? Five pounds. And this? Well, you might be pretty close. But you know that kind of weighing would never work. The Post Office makes me use one of these. [Hold up scale.] I must know exactly how much each package ... up this box that I have here and hold it for a few minutes while I talk to you. [Give him the box.] You see the kind of thing that Jesus was talking about was not just big boxes, but he asked us to share our problems with each other as well. For ...

1004. People Get Ready!

Luke 12:35-48

Sermon

Brett Blair

... Jesus said, I am not your lawyer young man but I will give you a piece of advice: “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.” Now to us it seems fair that this young man should receive half but Jesus doesn’t see it that way. He turns ... that with their vast wealth they would gladly help you, you could be free from many a worry. You would have financial security. But that kind of security is hard to come by. How good it will be, when, out of the vast wealth of our Father’s grace, the Lord ...

1005. Partners With the Eternal

Matthew 14:13-21

Sermon

... . But the story doesn't end here and I don't think Jesus ever intended it should. There was something he wanted to teach those people, to show them, to demonstrate. He who often taught in parables, telling stories, was now about to teach through a parable of a different kind, a parable of action - not a teaching story, but a teaching act. So he said: bring those loaves and fish to me. Bring them to me, he was saying, and let's see if TOGETHER you and I might be able to feed those people. So they brought the ...

1006. Finding Life!

Matthew 16:21-28

Sermon

... life as well as physical. So there is the life we have and the life we may have. As biologically we are alive to the physical world of motion and sight and sound, so spiritually we may come alive to God and love and beauty of a more-than-physical kind. Our biological aliveness is merely the stage on which the high drama of living may be played. It is simply a framework made of energy and space and time upon which a tapestry of beauty may be woven. And it is the implication of what Jesus says in this passage ...

1007. Booby Trap

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

... likewise." (Luke 10:25-37) Other lawyers might have put him up to it, or perhaps it was the lawyer’s own idea to set a kind of booby trap for Jesus, but however it happened, the trap went off in his own face when he said to Jesus, "What shall I do ... catastrophe for the Hmongs, "Are these people our neighbors? Who are our neighbors?" Too many of us Christians seem to have a kind of vertical conception of the Christian faith - "You shall love the Lord your God with heart, soul, strength, and mind" - and we ...

1008. Dead or Alive?

Joel 2:28-32

Sermon

... s needs, and even gave his life in love for all humanity. I cannot forget a little book entitled Human Destiny, by a French writer named LeComte du Nouy. In it the author argues that all the processes of evolution have been pointed toward production of the kinds of persons that Jesus was. I like to believe that this is the purpose in God’s patient love - to lead the human family more and more into the life that was in Christ, to produce a maturity that will transcend sinful selfishness and the alienations ...

1009. The Yoke of Christ

Matthew 11:25-30

Sermon

... or cows together in their task of pulling a load. It consisted of a cross-piece and two bows which fit around the necks of the animals. (Harpers) Jesus is now offering us this piece of subservience. He wants to fit us with a yoke of his own making. What kind of a yoke, then, is Jesus offering us? Two points we can make about it. First, this: The yoke of Christ is easy and light when compared to other yokes. Again, not no burden at all, but a lighter burden when compared to other burdens. You and I have the ...

1010. The Empty Pillow Case

Romans 13:8-14

Children's Sermon

... to one another? That was fine. Sometimes we forget to say nice things to each other, don't we? This morning I have brought with me a wonderful friend called Patty. Patty is quite a girl. As a matter of fact, Patty has a middle and last name that are kind of funny. Her name is Patty Pillow Case. Patty is a nice friend, but there is something wrong with her. I don't know what it is, but it seems that Patty is missing something. I have checked her all over and she seems to be all right, but I ...

1011. The Golden Gift

Drama

... me at inns and not ask for my passport. BISHOP: What we have here is yours. We want to help you all we can. JEAN: You are kind, Father, but - BISHOP: I have a rule that I retire early. I believe it was the American, Dr. Franklin, who said, "Early to bed and early ... Mayor of the town. "But I have never told anyone about our meeting in the Christmas season of 1815. Please know that the kindness you did to me has been repaid 100 times over, and I will continue repaying it as long as I live." Your servant, ...

1012. The Confessions of a Younger Brother

Luke 16:19-31

Sermon

... the mountain and the date they expected the great happening. I thought about it when I was shaving that morning. That’s the kind of super extravanganza, headline-grabbing revelation that I want to experience. I want a special word from God. Anyhow, the rich man ... just like him. I’ll bet he waited all his life for some miraculous signal from God. That’s why he wants to bring that kind of experience to me now. He thinks it will work for me because he had wanted it for himself. Well, it never came to him ...

1013. To Thank Is To ...

Deuteronomy 26:1-15

Sermon

... or "my share." There is only God’s. Whether the funds feed the poor or buy me a double dip, chocolate mint ice cream sugar cone, the funds remain God’s. The few moments funds are in my hands doesn’t change that. There’s a fierce kind of scriptural logic about that. "For we brought nothing into this world and we certainly shall carry nothing out." When Nelson Rockerfeller’s daughter saw her father in his coffin, she remarked, "He looks so small." To that the pastor said, "None of us is larger than ...

1014. Christ's Passion Portraits

Isaiah 50:1-11

Sermon

Paul Hegele

... mentions Jesus' appearance. So, which of the scores of paintings available should we choose? Everyone had a favorite. The youth representative to the committee had torn from a catalog a picture of a laughing Jesus. "It's a fresh look," he said. "It makes Jesus the kind of person it would be fun to know." An elderly housewife held up a copy of Sallman's famous Head of Christ with its glowing, calm face and its placid eyes staring off into space. She would gladly donate this from her bedroom wall. The Sunday ...

1015. ... and Justice for All

Ezekiel 18:1-32

Sermon

... the head. Several men immediately organize a posse to go and find the rustlers and to bring them to justice - the "lynching kind" of justice. As they gather, one man urges the group to wait and go through the proper channels of the sheriff and the ... gallon, I had been putting something in that was not good for the engine. This same principle applies to our bodies and our minds. What kind of junk do we put into our bodies that clogs up the system? What cheap things do we put into our minds? Fuel-injectors can ...

1016. Not Blind but Seeing

John 9:1-12

Sermon

Dean Lueking

... turning him into a cheerleader instead of Savior and Judge. It is common to want his gifts but not his people, to profess a private kind of line to him but never to see our place in the church to which he always calls us. Jesus does not go out of ... right base for your dignity, your confidence, and your security as a person. Being blind to this is what sets us up for all the wrong kind of self-affirmation, or the denial of the fact which is plain to everyone else - we need help! Surely each of us knows what it ...

1017. L’Chaim!

John 10:1-21

Sermon

Dean Lueking

... points to the blind man who had received the gift of sight as an example of the healing and redeeming work God accomplishes through his Son - who came that they might have life and have it abundantly! And the deeper meaning of the miracle has to do with another kind of seeing, the vision of faith which can behold in Jesus Christ the one whom God sent, the one by whom grace and truth flow out to the whole world of humankind who need the mercy of God. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I ...

1018. John the Baptist

John 1:19-28

Children's Sermon

... suppose you know that Jesus had a cousin named John the Baptist who was important to the world and to Jesus. John was a strange man by the way you and I think of people. He dressed a little differently than the other people did, and he ate some different kinds of food. But we don't remember him for how he dressed or what he had to eat. No, we remember John because of the things that he did for and said about Jesus. It would be easier for me to tell you about John the Baptist if I used ...

1019. Choosing to Serve God

Luke 11:14-28

Children's Sermon

... stand, but instead they just collapse. The reason that I tell you this story about my friend Sam Stool is that it helps me to tell you in another way something Jesus once said. People used to wonder if the things that Jesus did that were so wonderful and yet kind of frightening were because God gave him the power or because the devil gave him the power. Jesus said to the people, "The devil would want people to feel sick and he would want people to do bad, so why should he help me get rid of things that were ...

1020. God's Bandage

Matthew 5:21-26

Children's Sermon

... been his fault because he started it. Still, we really hurt because we are not friends anymore. God says we need a bandage -- a special kind of bandage that will help us to stop hurting. This bandage is called "forgiving love." When we go to our friend and tell him that ... that we don't want to fight anymore, then our hurt begins to feel a lot better. God then says when we have used that kind of a bandage on ourselves we should come to church and he will make us completely healthy again. Do you know what I am ...

1021. Training Session

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

... ; when they make peace among people and the nations of the earth, they become the "children of God," for that is the way the "children of God are expected to live; when they face death for Christ - actually, or in the form of insults and ridicule or other kinds of persecution from the enemies of Christ, they know that God has a place for them in the kingdom of heaven. And the message to you and me is this: We are the people of the promise, and Jesus was talking about us, too, when he addressed the disciples ...

1022. The Importance of Forgiving Others

Matthew 5:17-20

Sermon

... of the procession and seems to be affirming what is happening to him. He pictures the eleven disciples shrinking away in the background, just as he believed that his painter-friends and colleagues had abandoned him, too. "Christ Delivered to the People" is a kind of self-portrait, simply because it seems to reveal the character of Spencer and his refusal - to his dying day - to forgive the people whom he counted as his enemies. And isn’t that a picture of us, too, at our worst? "Unless your righteousness ...

1023. Cross Work

Matthew 5:27-30

Sermon

George Bass

... off; the highjackers beat him, and shot him in the head, and then threw his body out of the airplane onto the tarmac in Beirut. The condition of the world in which we live seems to demand that we take personal action in response to the different kinds of threats we face: Give in to those who offend you before they do whatever was intended in the first place. The terrorists and others have taught us that, and retaliation could very well become the order of the day in contemporary life. Time told about the ...

1024. An Easier Way?

Matthew 16:21-28

Sermon

... was of God. This Jesus, this marvelous and shocking Jesus who dared call me "Satan," began that day to help me discover that true faith always involves the cross as the rocky road to life. Strange how we have to be shocked into this reality. Imagine for the moment a kind of "time warp." If you could think of me, Peter, as being able to speak to you over the centuries which separate us, but, in the spirit of the Christ, unite us. I would tell you about the way of life. You may say, "Isn't there an easier way ...

1025. Living Water

John 4:1-26

Children's Sermon

... me which one you would like to drink. The first one comes in this jar. (Show them the dishwater.) I got this out of my sink after I washed some dishes. It looks about the same as the water looked after I took my bath. I have also seen this kind of water after washing clothes, or my car. It seems a little dirty, but it is wet. I can pour it, splash in it, and make mud pies with it. How many of you would like to have a drink of this water? (Let them vote.) Now I have another ...

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