Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: Levi, disciple, evangelist, tax collector, the 12, the twelve, apostle, sermon on the mount, jewish audience, beatitudes, lord's prayer, great commission, parables, olivet discourse, mount of olives, olivet, synoptic

Showing 1101 to 1125 of 2815 results

1101. Don't Let the Parade Pass You By

Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... from Joseph Scriven’s beloved hymn, "What a friend"? "O what peace we often forfeit, o what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer." Luke gives us this marvelous introduction to one of Jesus’ parables about prayer: "Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up." (Luke 18:1) While none of us should dare to regard God as our personal "Celestial bellhop," we can be sure that God hears and responds to every sincere ...

1102. Sole Brother

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

... to help you because we have to be. We hope you realize the inconvenience this is causing us. Here’s what you need. Take it and say ‘Thank you’." Such outreach contains more hurt than help. There is little wonder that writers have called this parable one of the most universal, timeless messages ever written. While the surface may be modernized and changed, and while the center lines may be repainted, the highway stays the same. And its message could never be more appropriate to any age than it is to ...

1103. Train Whistle In The Night

Matthew 25:1-13

Sermon

... within it: Half were sharing festive joy, half were left in the dark, cold loneliness of the night. At first glance it might seem as though Christ were telling us about a first-century fuel shortage or energy crisis. And a quick review of the parable gives us the impression that he was lending strong support to the first commandment of the new religion - that you are what you have. Five young women have sufficient oil for their lamps and apparently are something that the other five women are not. But ...

1104. For Freedom!

Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon

... us from bondage - bondage he has every right to hold us in - we have the freedom to refuse to live in terms of it. The parable which we have in the text today describes a man like that. The contrast between God’s generosity and his niggardliness is obscene. But ... inadequate can sense that this time someone isn’t merely trying to manipulate from a new and clever angle. In the parable which forms today’s text, it is clear that the recipient of grace - forgiveness richer than he could have hoped for - ...

1105. Your Money and Your Life

Matthew 6:19-24

Sermon

Robert Bachelder

... see that full justice be done to her." What does it mean to lay up treasures in heaven? One thing it means is to evaluate public policy not so much in terms of its impact upon us as its effect upon the disadvantaged. The message of the parable of the Good Samaritan is that we owe these people something, even if it is personally disadvantageous to us. Then we can say in response to Eliot’s question: "This is a community." Lent is speaking to us now, calling us to repentance. There is nothing easy about ...

1106. Free and Faithful

Matthew 4:1-11

Sermon

Robert Bachelder

... oppressed by this freedom, and the Church was correcting Jesus’ work. The Church was assuming the burden of freedom and exercising in its place its own severe authority, relieving people of their responsibility to choose for or against God. Dostoevski concluded his parable with frightening words: And the people rejoiced that they were again led like sheep and that the terrible gift that brought them such suffering (freedom) was at last lifted from their hearts. I think we are all a bit like the people ...

1107. Out of the Barnyard

John 11:38-44

Sermon

Robert Bachelder

... difference to the world if the churches were to shut their doors and never open them again? Many voices within and without the Church say no, it would make no difference. Soren Kierkegaard bemoaned the Church’s indifference to its mission. Frustrated, he wrote a little parable which tells of a flock of geese who lived together in a handsome and secure barnyard. From time to time one of them would climb up on the barnyard fence and tell the other geese about the joys of flight and how they were created for ...

1108. The Cunning Craftsman, God

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

Allan J. Weenink

... His life was gouged and disfigured by his own poor workmanship. He had no one to blame but himself ... yet he needed to turn to someone greater than himself for help. The divine architect hearing his cries of need stooped to aid and to redeem. Reads the parable: "and he went to his home justified" ... made right with God. As George Buttrick has well written: "Heaven bends low to the soul that feels its need. They that mourn for their sins are comforted, and the poor in spirit are enriched by the kingdom of ...

1109. The Good Samaritan Didn’t Leave His Name

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... to be righteous and acceptable for God. One particular lawyer, evidently a man who had done much good, put Jesus to a test saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus answered him with the poignant and lasting parable of the good Samaritan. I read the parable of the Samaritan many times before I grasped its full significance. The Samaritan performed good deeds. Yet he performed them in an almost anonymous way. In fact, Jesus did not even bother to give him a name. I have often wondered ...

1110. At the Door of the Church

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... we give you some of ours there will not be enough for us and for you. Go to the dealers and buy for yourselves." While they were gone, the bridegroom came and those who were ready went with him to the marriage feast and the door was shut. This beautiful parable on being prepared should speak to us. Often many people say to others, "My religious fire is going out. Church and worship just don’t mean the same to me anymore. I just don’t feel like getting up and getting there. And when I do get there, it ...

1111. Love of God and Love of Country

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... producing people who can meet America’s real needs, which are ethical principles. In my opinion, Cohen could have written his book about the churches in America. The gospel according to the churches, I am afraid, does not resemble the principles found in the parable of the laborers in the vineyard either. We in the churches have also been hung up on our own success. Buildings and budgets have taken precedence over installation of values in much church life. In fact, we could dare ask the question if our ...

1112. The Little Miracle Before The Big One

Luke 22:47-53

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

... : "Tell me again, mamma, tell me again!" Could it have been that way with Malchus? We can’t say for sure, so just consider a "parable" of Malchus with me: Malchus is aglow with a new knowledge. He’s a slave (and that’s not new), but now for the first ... could do it, that he would do it! I should have realized God would not let him die - to live no more!" And maybe, our parable says, Malchus became, forever after, a true disciple and follower of Christ. And maybe Malchus had a small son, a son who was his ...

1113. Paul Today

Acts 17:16-34

Sermon Aid

T. A. Kantonen

... Corinthians 5:19-20). Here is a way of speaking which is never out of date and is relevant wherever human hearts throb. It is the language, not of the slave-market or the courtroom, but of human relations. Our Lord himself in his greatest parable preserved the message of reconciliation in terms of forgiving love which brings about the restoration of a father-son relationship. The Father who runs down the road to embrace his wayward son is the God whom Paul describes as justifying the ungodly and acquitting ...

1114. Your Image of Tomorrow

Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon

Leonard Mann

... all of this is tomorrow, some tomorrow. I’m not sure that which one is of any great importance. Any one is good enough. If you want a proper image of the future, then get all of it into your picture. In Luke 12:16-21 Jesus gives us the parable of a rich landowner whose lands one season brought forth so abundantly that his barns were too small for the harvest. He commanded his servants to tear them down and build larger barns. Then he spoke to his soul, and this is what he said: "Soul, you have much goods ...

1115. Jeremiah and the Potter

Jeremiah 18:1--19:15

Sermon

Don Yocom

... of God, but to be made, that of men" (Paul Elmer Moore). God’s power can flow into human lives if we let it. It can also flow into the nation, if that nation accepts God’s sovereignty and lets Him hold that nation in His power. That is the parable which God showed Jeremiah. To carry the illustration further: If we are rebellious and will not let the Divine Potter mold us, He may cast us out as broken sherds. Hence, the prophet speaks the oracle of doom on Israel for not being like clay in the potter’s ...

1116. The Might of the Mite

Mark 12:41-44

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... of hundred? When your doctor checks your blood pressure, you and he are interested in a specific number. Jesus told a parable of 99 sheep that were safe in the fold but one was lost. Jesus didn't say that the shepherd had a bunch of sheep or a ... large flock of sheep. The number was important because in the parable sheep represented people. I heard about a cute elderly lady who got stopped for speeding. She was going 70 in a 40 mile per ...

1117. Song of the Vineyard

Isaiah 5:1-7

Illustration

Larry Powell

... . He anticipated a magnificent yield. God had cleared the land of impediments to growth (Canaanites and others), planted premium vines, and set a watchtower over the vineyard. But alas, the harvest turned out to be sour fruit. 3. The song was the basis for Jesus’ Parable of the Vineyard. Compare Isaiah’s song of the vineyard with Mark 12:1-12. For both accounts, Jeremiah 2:21 provides a fitting epilogue: "I planted you a choice vine, wholly of pure seed. How then have you turned degenerate and become a ...

1118. Preparing for the Wrong Thing

Luke 12:13-21

Illustration

Larry Powell

... the younger brother (Deuteronomy 21:15-17). In all probability the person who approached Jesus in our text was a younger brother who wanted more than his legal share of an inheritance. Jesus replied to the subject at hand by citing the parable of the "Rich Young Fool." The bottom line of the parable is that the rich fool had prepared for the wrong thing. He had taken his goods into account, but had made up no provision for his own soul. A dear couple in another city, exceptionally active in the church I was ...

1119. I Believe In Judgment

Matthew 25:31-46

Sermon

Robert Allen

... can go on with our lives and leaving God out, disobeying his laws, and failing to be the people he calls us to be. But, we need to remember that judgment is a reality. The most definite evidence of its reality is Jesus’ parable on the last judgment. At the end of the parable, the sheep are separated from the goats with unerring certainty. With this same certainty, I believe that there will be judgment in our lives. We cannot get away from it because it is a reality. I want to look at the idea of judgment ...

1120. Not of the World

John 17:6-19

Sermon

Richard A. Jensen

... merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is he (Jesus said) who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God" (Luke 12:19-21). Jesus also told the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Lazarus was poor. Very poor. He lay at the rich man’s gate every day begging for food. Both men died. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried; and ...

1121. How Can We Foretell the Future?

1 Kings 2:1-12

Sermon

Edward Chinn

... of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30), for example, the elements of risk and investment are shown to be as necessary in the religious dimension of life as they are in the business area. Or turn from his parables to the pattern of his life. Like Moses and Elijah before him, Jesus spent time at the beginning of his ministry weighing the alternatives that lay before him, counting the cost, and making the choices that would shape his future ministry. The importance of our choices in shaping our future ...

1122. Christmas Gift

Isaiah 61:1-11

Sermon

Thomas D. Peterson

... is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything ... it is to know not as yet that you are under the sentence of life ... (Francis Thompson in Under Sentence of Life, quoted in George A. Buttrick, The Parables of Jesus, [New York, Harper and Brothers, 1928], p. 51.) Isaiah preached in the worst of hard times. Israel was in exile, hundreds of miles from home, temple, and heritage. It was as though she would fall off the map of history. Just a little ...

1123. THE NEIGHBORHOOD GAP

Sermon

William McKee Aber

... . The lawyer asks Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?" and the answer is obviously the "Good Samaritan." Somehow, we’ve always translated that to mean that our neighbor is anyone in need, and we are to respond to that need wherever we find it. And so we are. But the parable makes the point a different way. The Good Samaritan is obviously meant to be God - the God who reveals himself in Christ. It is HE who is our neighbor! And because He is, He’s in the world with us. And because He loves us, and picks us up ...

1124. Recognizing The Hidden

Sermon

Leonard H. Budd

... teaching and healing that had so cruelly been stopped by a cross. They told of the blind who now could see, of the lame who walked, of the crooked made straight, of those who were blessed, and those who chose a curse. The men retold the familiar parables, and they recalled Jesus’ words - words that could never be nailed on a cross, or sealed within a tomb. And they wondered that one so good would be killed. And as the three walked and talked, the stranger also spoke - and spoke with authority about the ...

1125. Advent 4: Let Us Go Over To Bethlehem And Find The Christ of Christmas

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

James W. Moore

... 1960’s called, "I've Got a Secret"? (Gary Moore was the host. People would come on with unusual secrets and a panel of celebrities would ask them questions... and then try to guess their secret.) There was a particular program that is something of a parable for the way we sometimes celebrate Christmas. A group of people in Ohio decided to give a man a surprise birthday party. They got together and organized the party in great detail. They set up several committees to take care of the arrangements for food ...

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