Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 1026 to 1050 of 4999 results

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

... confided to me. "I haven't even been in the building since our minister started shooting off his mouth." What this man was referring to was his minister's pulpit counsel on lived discipleship in a world where the poor are powerless. "The pulpit is no place for that kind of talk," the man said. Many of us know that all we have to do to see sparks fly is to utter a good word for racial minorities in the right places. Or speak out for equality between the sexes. Or tell someone that his anti-semitism offends ...

1027. Is God With You, Or Not?

Exodus 17:1-7

Sermon

... but God would save his life and the lives of those on board. Jesus' life on earth was about as hard as it could be, yet God was with him every moment. Jesus, hanging on a cross, dying for sins he did not commit, knew first-hand the worst kind of difficulty and death. He even cried out, "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Did his crucifixion mean God's absence or abandonment? Never! He found, three days later, God was close enough to him to give him a glorious resurrection! Our knee-jerk reaction to trouble ...

1028. Trouble on the Mountain

Exodus 32:1-33:6

Sermon

... don't do it like they used to." "They don't sing the 'old' familiar songs anymore." "The church is full of hypocrites." "If acting the way 'they' act is being a Christian, then I want no part of it." "You can't be a Christian and stay in my kind of business." "Preachers preach too long (or are too dull, too simple, too deep) and the services are not over by twelve noon." "It's too cold in the winter and I'm afraid of snakes in the summer!" Will these excuses for our defection stand the scrutiny of the ...

1029. God’s Safety Net

Matthew 25:31-46

Sermon

D. Wayne Burkette

... when it was still performing under the big top. Who could forget those daring acrobats balanced on the trapeze or high wire and, under them, a net. When the act was finished they would fall gracefully from their lofty perch into the open arms of the net, a kind of tease, I suppose, a hint of the terror of even the slightest slip or false step. Occasionally there was a daredevil who would work without a net, and the drum would roll, and people would gasp, a few would scream. I never saw a performer injured ...

1030. The Dimensions of the Decalogue

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

... to fulfill the demands of the Law, and who are supported by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, are certain to discover, as they see their failures and triumphs, that their faith in God is maturing and deepening through Jesus Christ. People who live in that kind of a spiritual perspective, which is really what the first half of the Decalogue is getting at, are likely to give positive expression to their faith in God. They will put him first in their lives, rejecting the worship of false idols or anything else ...

1031. Coping With Anger In A Close-up World

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... 're glad to have you back in school, and you're glad to be here. It is not easy to be forgiving and kind in our kind of world. We all need space, and it is becoming harder to find. Our grandparents had lots of room. Agriculture was the primary ... a couple who has lost all energy and emotion. The latter couple is a hopeless cause. At least anger is energy, albeit the wrong kind of energy. That energy has at least the faint hope of being converted into another type of energy. But when the energy is lacking, ...

1032. Repairing Your Broken Dreams

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... be as a parent in my dreams. I'd be slim, popular, handsome and very caring and understanding. I'd be up on their music, and kind and tolerant when they brought home poor grades. I'd spend hours communicating with my boys. We'd go down the road, arm-in-arm like ... get to live the life of our dreams. A lot of things happen to us that are not good. We are indeed forced to live another kind of life at times. Paul is saying that if a person will consider all the experiences of his or her life, both the good and the ...

1033. Do Lettuce Seeds Grow Into Corn?

Galatians 6:7

Children's Sermon

... grow? (Let them answer.) Carrots. Very good. Now let's try another one. (Show them the seed package and find out what kind of seed and what they grow.) Very good, beans grow when you plant bean seeds. I guess the same thing would happen ... way. If we do bad, then we live bad. It really is as simple as this, Jesus told his disciples that we will always have the same kind of life that we work at having. Some people think that they can cheat and get something for nothing. Some people think that they can steal or ...

1034. Proper 8 & Pentecost 6

2 Kings 4:8-37, Genesis 32:22-32, Psalm 89:1-52, Psalm 17:1-15, Isaiah 2:6-22, Jeremiah 28:1-17, Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon Aid

... ." 2 Kings 4:8-11, 16-18 (R) This is the tale, finally, of two miracles performed for a woman of Shunem, who had been kind to Elisha, first feeding him and then, with her husband, building a spare room on the roof of their home so that the prophet might ... him and the people of Israel. So God blessed him. 1. The wrestling match. Faith in God often is a life-and-death struggle - a kind of wrestling match with God - for people who are serious about it. 2. Death grip. True faith holds on to God, despite the many ...

1035. The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Zechariah 9:9-13, Exodus 1:1-22, Exodus 2:1-10, Romans 7:7-25, Romans 8:1-17, Matthew 11:25-30

Sermon Aid

... that a blessing, not a curse of doom, would come to all the world in this king, and that's really different. 2. A different kind of king. Jesus came in a lowly manner, just as the prophet said he would come. He was indeed meek and lowly, humble enough to ... people bestowed upon him; even his birth was lowly. His humility identified him with common humanity, not royalty. He was a different kind of king. 3. A different sort of rule. He came to establish peace - between God and his people, between members of ...

1036. Proper 14 & Pentecost 12

1 Kings 19:9-18, Psalm 29:1-11, Psalm 106:1-48, Romans 9:1-29, Matthew 14:22-36, Exodus 13:17--14:31, Jonah 2:1-10, Psalm 85:1-13

Sermon Aid

... the Israelites by a watery defeat of the Egyptians at the Red Sea. In a petition that follows asking God to take the same kind of action - "He saved them from the hand of those who hated them and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy" - on ... magician, he may very well seem like the old lady, whose miracles didn't work. If we think of him as one who comes as a kind of ghostly presence, instead of the resurrected and reigning Lord, we may miss him altogether. If we listen to the Word, he comes to us most ...

1037. Epiphany 4

Micah 6:1-8

Bulletin Aid

... to Worship Leader: With what shall we come and bow before God? People: NOT WITH BURNT OFFERINGS! NOT WITH RIVERS OF OIL! NOT WITH THE FRUITS OF OUR LABORS! Leader: What has God shown us? What does God require? People: THAT WE DO JUSTICE! THAT WE LOVE KINDNESS! THAT WE WALK HUMBLY WITH GOD! Collect God of Israel Old and New, you have set before us in scripture clear requirements for service to you. Help us to read and heed the words of your will: that, moved to true godliness, we may live lives of justice ...

1038. Lent 3

John 4:1-26

Sermon Aid

... for salvation and new life - not two hours from now, not tomorrow, not just when we get around to it. God gives us a multitude of opportunities to know reality, truth, power. We can play all the games we want, saying "Later, Lord, Later." Now is the hour. What kind of a commitment are you making now? Planning for Your Congregation I. Other Scriptures Psalm 95 Psalm 143 Exodus 17:3-7 Isaiah 42:14-21 Romans 5:1-11 Ephesians 5:8-14 II. Suggested Hymns "Christ, of All My Hopes, the Ground" "O Come and Sing Unto ...

1039. A Glory Revealed in the King

John 12:12-19

Sermon

Charles M. Mountain

... , and saw the King arriving at the Holy City not mounted on a traditional military symbol of a horse nor in a chariot, but instead on a donkey. We do not think much of donkeys in our day, neither their ability to work, nor their symbolic value. But this kind of mount may have spoken volumes to the crowds of first century Palestine. Jesus came as King, to be sure, but by riding on the donkey he was silently declaring that he was a King coming as the Prince of Peace, in humility and without violence. He came ...

1040. Faithful People in a Fiery Furnace

Daniel 3:1-30

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... : "Let me write the music of a nation and I will determine its morals." Who said that? Was it Thomas Jefferson, Irving Berlin, Elvis Presley, or Adolph Hitler? If you guessed Hitler, you are right. He wrote that in his book, "Mein Kampf." Be careful what kind of music you listen to. Young people, there are certain hard-rock and rapper groups that ridicule anything and everything of God. Some of you say, "I don’t pay any attention to the words; I just like their sound." Don’t fool yourself. Their music ...

1041. Is Jesus Still in the Healing Business?

Luke 4:38-44, Luke 4:31-37

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... People who go to church have strong networks of friends who care about them when they are ill. Religious people are less likely to smoke, drink, and have other unhealthy habits. Furthermore, prayer may lower harmful stress hormones such as adrenaline. This kind of stress reduction promotes health. Perhaps you could become twice as healthy if you attend Sunday School and worship! (4) THE SECOND SUPER MEDICATION IS HOPE. As Isaiah the prophet taught us, "…those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength ...

1042. Sole Brother

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

... but it was devastating to realize that in that half-hour period at least thirty-eight residents were known to be watching, and none of them sought either to help or to call the police. Had the Good Samaritan in us died, or was this a special kind of situation? The incident triggered both concern and research, confirming some of the suspicions you and I might have had for some time - that the more of us there are watching a critical need situation, the lower the likelihood that any one of us will render help ...

1043. Forgive To Be Forgiven

Genesis 50:15-21

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... pound of flesh, to pay back more than we received. Ann Landers tells about a man who saw an ad in a newspaper for a practically new Porsche for sale at fifty dollars. He figured it was a typographical error, for even $5,000 would be a bargain for that kind of car, He hurried to the address to look at the car. The lady who answered the door assured him the price really was fifty dollars. He went to look at the nearly new beautiful Porsche and drove it around the block. When he returned, he gave her fifty ...

1044. Heart To Heart

Ezekiel 18:1-32

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... , for Paul writes, "The Lord is the Spirit." The letter kills but the Spirit gives life. The Spirit is Christ. To have the Spirit is to have a heart filled with the Spirit of Christ. His spirit is one of love and goodness and truth and peace. The kind of heart the Spirit creates in us is described by Charles Wesley: O for a heart to praise my God, A heart set free from sin! A heart that always feels Thy blood So freely shed for me. A humble, lowly, contrite heart Believing, true, and clean, Which neither ...

1045. Loving Unconditionally

John 13:31-38

Sermon

Robert Bachelder

... God is like. "Let your light so shine ..." he said. Now it is true to say that the way of Jesus is narrow; but it is the narrow path of unswerving, unstinting, unbounded compassion. It is the way of a love which, in Paul’s words, is "patient and kind, not jealous or boastful, not arrogant or rude, not insistent on its own way, not irritable or resentful." That is the way of Jesus, and if we in the Christian churches really believe that Jesus is the only way to God, if we want really to make his way our ...

1046. Solomon’s Search

2 Chronicles 1:1-17

Sermon

Richard F. Bansemer

... over again, but this time, you’ll concentrate. "Dear God:" (Said it again! Oh well, he knows what I mean.) "Dear God: "It’s a funny kind of night tonight, if you know what I mean. No one being here makes me think about you, and about me. God, I really don’ ... a little richer. No, that’s not what you want me to say is it? Pretty tricky, God. You ask the question and expect a certain kind of answer. All right, I’ll try. I want to be a better Christian. How about that? Is that better? Or, I want to be ...

1047. What Is Your Mercy Quotient?

Luke 6:17-26

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... gives back to you. Curse it, you will be cursed. Bless it, and you will be blessed. That became a good principle for his life, he said. "If I put hatred, meanness, revenge into life, they are things will receive from life. But if I put kindness, forgiveness, and mercy into life, they are the things life returns to me." That experience made all the difference in Louis Mayer’s attitude toward life and others. When I read of Mr. Mayer’s experience, I kept thinking of the fifth Beatitude, "Blessed are the ...

1048. Clouds and Son-Shine

Ephesians 3:1-13

Sermon

Hubert Beck

... care about at all? Take those wise men from the East, for example. We read a lesson like that so easily and wonder about what kind of star this may have been or just where these men came from or how many men there actually are - all theoretical questions to ... an "ordinary" thing, for we have known it all our lives. Epiphany calls us to see a star, to travel with wise men to find what kind of surprise God has prepared for us, to find a child, to go with a man to a cross, to see water enlivened by God and ...

1049. The Need for Transfiguration

2 Peter 1:12-21

Sermon

Hubert Beck

... like this? One wonders just what may have gone through their minds as these three men experienced this, though. They were, after all, quite surely convinced by now that he was somebody very special and unique. Were they quite ready to receive the full impact of this kind of vision, though? Any doubts they may have entertained before this as to who it was they travelled the roads of Palestine with were surely dispelled by now. They knew full well that they had been keeping company with the divine. What other ...

1050. The Agony and Ecstasy of Sight

John 9:1-12

Sermon

Richard Hoefler

... man. He could not cure himself. He had to have help from outside himself. And so for us; we need the same kind of help - "outside our world" help - if we are to be changed and become new persons. Little did the engineers and working ... is introduced by the phrase, "He (Christ) found him." John Marsh writes concerning this miracle story: it is "the work of God, sheer grace, sheer kindness."22 And so it is. God speaks to us in this miracle story and promises to give us a greater gift than physical sight, and ...

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