Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 1101 to 1125 of 1131 results

1101. Giving Comfort

Isaiah 40:1-31

Sermon

King Duncan

... was so angry that she fired the maid on the spot. But that night when she went to bed, she couldn’t sleep. Tossing and turning, she couldn’t get that simple prayer out of her mind. Finally, she knelt by her bed, and in an act of deep surrender she prayed, “O Lord, make my heart a manger where the Christ child can be born.” In that moment, in the depth of the night, when she cried out in anguish, God heard and answered her prayer. “I’ve always been religious, you know. I’m a Catholic,” she ...

1102. House Rules, Forgiveness, and Why Rat Poison Is not Good for You

Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon

Roy Howard

... act is the courage of the Holy Spirit at work within us. All that is required of us is to take the next right step in faithful obedience to Jesus’ command. Some wounds are deeper than others and require more work. Yet I am certain that freedom lies in surrendering those who have offended me unto God whose ways are mysterious and whose justice is as certain as it is merciful. This is the way of freedom, and it is the Spirit of Christ at work within us that makes it possible. Perhaps this is why Saint Paul ...

1103. Imagination

Luke 1:39-45, 46-55

Sermon

Will Willimon

... ? Children have not been informed of official, adult restrictions on reality. Therefore their world still has room for wonder. Everything--a box, a towel, another person--is packed with possibility. Oh, that we big, grown ups could for a moment surrender our certainty and expect to be surprised! Imagination is essential prerequisite for creative thought or action. In seminary, when we took a course in ethics, in thinking and acting like Christians, I got the I impression that ethical thought involves ...

1104. Not Gullible; But Skeptical

John 20:19-31

Sermon

King Duncan

... not seen and yet believe.” Doubt is an obstacle that, when overcome, can cause us to have a deeper, richer, more meaningful faith. In the struggle for meaning the wise person learns to move beyond his doubts. The way to prove faith is to surrender yourself to the Lordship of Christ, walk in his way and experience his love for yourself. **Staff Note: After the writing of this sermon by King Duncan, a four-month investigation into Ravi Zacharias found that he hid hundreds of pictures of women, engaged in ...

1105. This Verse Says It All

John 3:1-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... emotional kind of experience. It does not require a spectacular vision. Your experience of God’s grace need not be the same as every other believer’s. But there needs to come that time in your life and mine when by faith we make a conscious decision to surrender everything we are and everything we hope to be to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. God so loved the world. That’s us. That He gave His only Son. The Lord high and lifted up humbled Himself. For whom? Whoever—that’s every one of us regardless ...

1106. Don't Fall

Luke 22:39-46

Sermon

Timothy W. Ayers

... was right there before me. I stopped. Set everything down and walked to my office where I started back to work on a sermon about, of all things, temptation. I was being tempted. I could walk away and never put the shelf together, which is another form of surrendering, or I could relax and think it through. God provided the door away from temptation and I ran. I finally got the shelf together, at least, in two pieces. Instead of a five shelf unit, I now have two separate shelves of three and two. God gave me ...

1107. The Vine

John 15:1-8

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... stands before us. We accept that invitation by Baptism. We accept it by our Confirmation of that Baptism. We re-accept it every time we partake of Holy Communion with Jesus. In fact, we affirm that decision each and every time we step into a time of worship and surrender ourselves to Him. So I ask you today to reaffirm your own decision to allow Jesus to dwell in you, to change you and mold you, grow you and nurture you into the fruit-bearing vine God created you to be. Pray with me now: “Lord God of the ...

1108. Treasure Hunters

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Sermon

Schuyler Rhodes

... ? In the wake of all this I want to call us back to this time of reflection and self-examination, to this Lenten journey we begin this evening. I know that tradition has us giving something up for Lent each year. The symbolism of this is that we surrender something sacrificially to honor and focus upon the sacrifice that will be made for us on the cross on Good Friday. But what if we try something different this year? Instead of giving up coffee or sweets or something like that, what if we commit to a new ...

1109. Dirty Feet

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Sermon

Schuyler Rhodes

... August, we were outrageously and unashamedly barefoot. There was real joy in being barefoot. We squished through the mud of July rainstorms and scuffed in the dust of high noon heat. Our feet got scuffed and scraped, cut and bruised, and still we would not surrender to the oppression of socks and sneakers. It is a memory that I cherish and share with my siblings when we gather. The one thing about going barefoot that must be confessed, however, is that feet get dirty — really dirty. Feet get so dirty that ...

1110. Christ’s Call to Discipleship

Luke 5:1-11

Sermon

Derl G. Keefer

... . Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “The disciple simply burns his boats and goes ahead. He is called out, and has to forsake his old life in order that he may ‘exist’ in the strictest sense of the word. The old life is left behind and completely surrendered. The disciple is dragged out of his relative security into a life of absolute insecurity…out of the realm of the finite…into the realm of infinite possibilities…it is nothing else than bondage to Jesus Christ alone.” (Quoted from The Cost of ...

1111. Not As the World Gives

John 14:23-29 · John 5:1-9

Sermon

Schuyler Rhodes

... -like juggling of power. This is the peace of an idolatrous culture which says that you can’t love someone else until you love yourself. Friends, today we come to abandon the peace of this world and to receive the peace that Christ brings. This peace of Christ surrenders the self and opens the cosmic heart to the reality of the other. It opens us to the pain of strained and broken relationships. It opens us to the struggles of someone who is out of work; it opens us to the heartache of loss and grief; to ...

1112. Finding Your Place

Romans 12:1-12

Sermon

Will Willimon

... of oneself.” According to Becker, we want to be somebody but we also want to be protected by everybody. We want to stand out but not to be isolated. Therein is our dilemma. Time and again, research has shown that you and I will surrender much to institutions or personalities that give us security. We yield to authority if we believe that by doing so, we will be protected and accepted. In a classic experiment, Stanley Milgram brought people off the street into his Yale laboratory. There they were told ...

1113. How to Pray

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... or asking urgently or making a pious wish. In our Bible passage this morning, Jesus and his disciples use the Greek word proseuche when they refer to prayer. Pastor Rick Renner writes that proseuche refers to a face-to-face, intimate prayer in which we surrender our lives to God. (2) So the disciples aren’t just asking for a prayer formula. They’re asking about closer communication with God. They’re asking, “What do you and God talk about? Why does it seem like my prayers are hitting a ceiling ...

1114. Wake Up! Get Ready!

Luke 12:32-40

Sermon

King Duncan

... . But the prayers and support he received at Hope Ministries made him re-think his path in life. He said, “I looked back at my life and all the choices I’d made, the holes in my soul that I’d tried to fill through my addictions. I surrendered my life to Christ and that’s the one choice that has changed my entire life.” Ron entered the recovery program. He re-connected with his daughter. He got a job. With his commitment to following Jesus and the support of his new friends, Ron re-built his ...

1115. A Miracle of Grace

Philemon 1:1-21

Sermon

King Duncan

... But the driver was nowhere in sight. Deputy Sheriff Cromie ran into the nearby woods to find him. It didn’t take him long. The man was nearby, crashing around in the bushes. As soon as Cromie shined his light on the suspect, the driver surrendered. The intoxicated man was panting heavily, bleeding from numerous scratches, and at the point of exhaustion. He remarked to Cromie, “You must be Superman . . . Man, you been chasing me for forty-five minutes, and you aren’t even winded . . . you ain’t even ...

1116. The Steady March Forward

Luke 9:51-62

Sermon

Dave Zuchelli

... stayed close to Jesus, and wished for the best — at least, the best as they understood it. One wonders what their actions would have been had they actually believed Jesus was headed there to suffer and die. On the night he was betrayed, Jesus surrendered to the authorities in the Garden of Gethsemane. Seeing the disciples’ reaction to the events of that night, one might guess they would have abandoned him earlier had they known what was coming. A less likely scenario might be one where they kidnap Jesus ...

1117. Small Beginnings, Great Endings

Luke 17:5-10

Sermon

Richard Hasler

... said Tuesday.’ I say, ‘I know I’ve grown since Tuesday. Do you expect me to be last Tuesday’s Leo today?”[4] Buscaglia cooperated by improving himself from week to week. Spiritual growth involves patience, cooperation, and finally what I call surrender. We must give up our old ways and seek something radically new. To be blunt, we must plant seeds, die, and wait for resurrection. Literary scholars often consider the Russian novelist Feodor Dostoevsky’s greatest novel to be The Brothers Karamazov ...

1118. What, Then, Would You Be?

2 Corinthians 5:20b—6:10

Sermon

Dr. Ronald Love

... for the sake of the gospel. These are: afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, and hunger. He placed these before the Corinthians asking if they were willing to make the same sacrifices. Paul was asking if they would surrender the worship of false gods to accept the challenge of obedience to the gospel message. Paul was asking if they would stop quarreling among themselves, and act in unity for the evangelistic mission of the church. Paul is asking us ...

1119. All Sorts of Ways to Murder a Person

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

Indifference -- is anything more painful and destructive? In his book The Surrender and the Singing, Ray Ashford wrote, “I once watched a man murder a beautiful and intelligent woman. It wasn’t, mind you, a crime of passion in which he took her life with a knife or gun in a single explosive moment of blinding rage. It was, rather, a crime ...

1120. Confident in God

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

In 1984, Louise Degraffinreid of Mason, Tennessee, astounded the nation when she persuaded an escaped convict to surrender. The prisoner, brandishing a gun, surprised Louise’s husband outside their modest home and forced him inside. Louise was not afraid of the gun. Amazingly, this grandmotherly woman, with a confidence that had to be from God, convinced the prisoner that he should put his gun down while she fixed ...

1121. Dynamic Preaching January 2024 Sermons

Sermon

King Duncan

... SOUL. By the soul we mean "the whole person." Who we really are inside. Not what other people see. Not a tiny fragment of our being, but the totality of our being. Our personality, our dreams, our fears. When we understand who we are under God when we surrender ourselves to his love and trust in his providence there is healing. Such a healing took place in the life of actress Betty Hutton. This is an old story but one I love. One night Miss Hutton joined the cast of the Broadway production of the musical ...

1122. We're On the Move Now!

Sermon

Ronald Love

... reported, “the people would not receive Jesus, because his face was set toward Jerusalem” (9:53). Even though he was ignored and shunned, the Messiah would not relinquish his commission. As futile as it may seem, we must never surrender to debauchery. Persecuted — we continue to chastise demagogues. Ridiculed — we never cease questioning the intemperate. Scorned — we still fervently announce the coming kingdom. Martin Luther King Jr. stepped down off the trailer. The demonstration was over. It was ...

1123. Faith In Death

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

... . Today there was something different about her. Subtle, but distinctly different. "How are you?" I asked. Immediately she responded, "I'm praying, and I want you to pray that Jesus will come soon and deliver me." We did that together. It wasn't a surrender to despair; it was a yielding to certain hope. It was her ultimate commitment. For more than a year she had fought a courageous battle and lived in the strength of her faith. Now she had moved to another level of commitment. She prayed confidently ...

1124. Into The Valley Of Despair

Mark 9:2-9

Sermon

Ronald Love

... younger ‒ much younger – I used to go camping on the weekends. This for me was a high mountain experience. In the solitude of the woods it seemed as if the world had stopped. It was quiet. It was peaceful. It was relaxing. It was refreshing. Having surrendered my ambition to go camping I have found new high mountains to climb for solitude. I often go to the church sanctuary and sit quietly, surrounded by those beautiful stained-glass windows, focused on the altar cross before me. I often go to a coffee ...

1125. The Practice

Mark 1:9-15

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... ,” do not usually come as innate abilities for us human beings. They require preparation. They require practice. But they will always result in our growth and in the growth of faith and reassurance in others. For Love is a practice that defines us. Forgiveness is a practice that frees us. Surrender is a practice that heals us. Faith is a practice that grows us. May you cultivate within your Christian community a community of practice, and may God bless you in your mission to become “soul whisperers.”

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