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 1126 to 1150 of 2815 results

1126. The Call of the Trumpet

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Sermon

George Bass

... the Chinese and had come to be known as "the Lutheran theologian of the Orient." A kindly man at all times, I discovered that he could gently prod a lecturer to get at some missed or deeper meaning. Just recently, I read one of his many books - this one The Parables for Today - in which he said: It is not a sin to be rich. It is a sin to misuse one’s riches. And, obviously, material wealth involves many temptations that are unknown to the person with a modest bank account, or none at all. He adds: On the ...

1127. Partners in the Impossible

John 6:1-15

Sermon

Richard Patt

... day. By what kind of impossible political coup do you and I turn those facts around? This story in our text is indicative of where Jesus’ heart is. His heart is with the hungry! That’s what he meant when he gave his church the parable of the Good Samaritan. This parable is still in effect for Christians. In fact, it is the state-of-the-art story for God’s people who want to he partners in the impossible. To get us started, there is little more we need do than take Jesus’ question quite literally ...

1128. Dealing With The Dividing Walls

Ephesians 2:11-22

Sermon

James W. Moore

... people, or make jokes about other people, or reject other people who are different from us… then we are building dividing walls of hostility… it’s so wrong. I remember watching Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. As I watched, I realized that the story is a powerful parable about the danger of prejudice. Do you remember how the handsome prince was put under the spell that turned him into a beast? He was in front of his castle one day when what appeared to be an old beggar woman came by. She offered him a ...

1129. Preconceived Ideas - Sermon Starter

Mark 8:27 - 9:1

Illustration

Brett Blair

... the real tragedy of the story was not the open rebellion of the younger son or the jealous envy of the elder brother. The real tragedy was that neither one of them really understood the father. This was certainly one of the problems of the one talent man in the parable of the talents. He went to the master and said: “I knew you were a hard man reaping where you did not sow.” He just didn’t understand the master. As it was then so it is now. So few understood Jesus; so few understand him today. Why is ...

1130. Ready or Not - Here I Come

Mark 13:32-37

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... praying in Gethsemane, he found his three closest friends asleep even though he asked them to watch and pray for him. In the parable of the virgins, five foolish virgins missed the bridegroom at midnight because they were asleep and allowed their lamps to go out. It ... And Work! Watch and wake up! Watch and pray! Here he comes -- ready or not! You and I had better watch and work! In the parable of the text it says "to every man his work." What are we to do while waiting for Christ's return? Sit and twiddle our ...

1131. Old Favorite

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... the congregation, an accountant who does not love the unlovely, is to find no meaning in life whatsoever. Said Paul, “If I lack charity I count for nothing.” Paul was on target in broaching the subject of love with these Corinthians. They did not need a parable on evil or racism or knowledge. He was dealing with the age-old problem of the well-to-do: Charity tends to decrease as incomes increase. That has always been a strange fact of life. Even today it remains a truth. A Gallup Poll produced profiles ...

1132. Experience the Mountaintop But Don't Forget the Valley Below

Luke 9:28-36

Sermon

Brett Blair

... to us his plan. It’s found in Jesus. We are to listen to him. Have you come to a place in your life where you have listened? Listened to his parables, learned from his teachings, watched his miracles, felt his sacrificial love? If you haven’t you need to go up. Experience the mountaintop. If you have already listened to his parables, learned from his teachings, watched his miracles, felt his sacrificial love. For many of you it may have been a long time ago that these things happened. But if you have ...

1133. Increasing Our Standard of Giving

Luke 16:1-15

Sermon

Brett Blair

... that with increasing income, what should rise is not the Christian’s standard of living but the standard of giving. Increasing our standard of giving. What a great Christian man and what a great lesson he taught us. It is the same lesson found in the parable for today. Let’s take a look. The Pharisees are standing off to the side watching Jesus as was their custom. Jesus’ disciples are listening intently as he tells his story. Probably on this occasion there were more than just the 12. A large number ...

1134. A Famous Atheist Believes In God - Sermon Starter

Matthew 1:18-25

Illustration

Brett Blair

... JRR Tolkein. I don’t know how you stand in front of the author of The Chronicles of Narnia and the author of Lord of The Rings and argue that God doesn’t exist. But Professor Flew did and this is what he said. He began with this parable: Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, "Some gardener must tend this plot." The other disagrees, "There is no gardener." So they pitch their tents and set a watch ...

1135. The Lord's Prayer: Please Forgive Us as We Forgive

Matthew 6:5-15

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... puppy down on the floor and lifted the cuffs of his pants. There were a set of braces, reminders of a childhood disease. The lad said, "Yes, he's crippled. But I'm crippled too. I thought since we were both crippled, we could be better friends."(8) What a parable for the church. We are all crippled, aren't we? Our wounds come in many different forms, but we are all crippled. We came to Christ to be healed. He gathered us together with others looking to be made whole, his plan being that we, the church, be a ...

1136. The Good Samaritan: A New Look at an Old Story

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... to the place and saw him, [and] passed by on the other side." Another hero! Now what? By normal storytelling conventions, we can expect we are about to meet a third character who will break the pattern created by the first two. In the context of our current parable, the expected sequence would be a priest, a Levite, and then...TA DAH!...our hero will be an ordinary Israelite who will come to the rescue even when the high muckety-mucks of the Temple fail to do so. The story would have an anti-clerical edge ...

1137. A Fishing Trip To Remember

John 21:1-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... order to pull us from one dimension of life to a more important one. James K. Baxter tells a most unusual story ” a parable, really ” about a man in Australia who decided that life was too hard for him to bear. However, he ruled out suicide. ... were shining like the sun. (2) Now I hope you don't get hung up on the thought of Jesus shooting a gun. It's a parable. Christ comes to confront us when we would shrink back from our responsibilities. He comes to confront us when we would flee back to our nets ...

1138. What's This World Coming To Anyway?

Luke 15:11-32

Sermon

Randolph W. Barr

... and all of your resources because God is going to forgive you just like the father forgave and welcomed the young son in the parable that Jesus told." Defensively Pastor Smith said, "Hank that's not what I said and you know it. That sounds like an open ... than you are with those of us who have put our hearts and souls into this place most of our lives." "Just like the parable on Sunday, pastor," Hank added. "You guys are sounding like the elder brother in the story," the pastor said. "Pastor that's the ...

1139. Last Words

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

King Duncan

... to know what God thought. "God told me He is rejoicing," his friend said. "Rejoicing?" Jamie asked. "How can God rejoice when one of His best-known TV evangelists has brought shame and reproach to the kingdom?" Then his friend quoted Jesus' closing statement in the parable of the good shepherd and the lost sheep. "I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent" (Luke 15:7). His friend was ...

1140. A Distant Light

Isaiah 2:1-5

Sermon

King Duncan

... weeks toward the stable in Bethlehem one symbol of our faith will be preeminent “that is the symbol of light. Tree lights, candle lights and in the heavens the radiant light of the star the wise men followed on that holy night. It is perhaps a parable of our times that we are rarely without some form of light. We have Thomas Edison to thank for that I suppose. It is said that after thousands of experiments, when he finally achieved this monumental breakthrough that would affect all of human history, he ...

1141. Marriage: Agony Or Ecstasy

Matthew 5:31-32

Sermon

King Duncan

... who had been married to five men and was now living with a sixth man out of wedlock, as well as his parables, such as that of the prodigal son, Jesus personified the very grace of God lived out in love, forgiveness and acceptance. Knowing ... from the Bible. We were created to help one another. A husband and wife should, first of all, be best friends. There is an old rabbinic parable about a king who once assigned a blind man and a crippled man to guard his fruit. The crippled man said to the blind man, "What ...

1142. Cut Down Lifted Up

Philippians 2:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

... to each other, staring at a starfilled sky. "Would you like to see a falling star?" Charlie Brown asks Linus. "Sure..." Linus responds. "Then again, I don't know," he adds, after some thought. "I'd hate to have it fall just on my account." In the book Parables of Peanuts, Robert Short uses this cartoon to make the point that a star did fall on our account. God came down to us as Jesus: like a lamb led to slaughter, He died on our account. What humility. What love and, oh, what he accomplished there. Back ...

1143. What About the Weeds?

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Sermon

King Duncan

... abundantly than zucchini--so gardeners are constantly giving zucchini to anyone who will take them. (1) I thought of the abundance of zucchini when I read again this week Jesus’ parable about weeds. If there is anything that grows more abundantly than zucchini, it might be weeds. Especially if you are trying to grow a garden. According to Jesus’ parable, a sower sowed good seed in a field, but an enemy came and sowed weeds. Later Jesus explained that the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom ...

1144. Time To Walk On The Water

Matthew 14:22-36

Sermon

King Duncan

... know what happened? While the domestic fowl very much enjoyed hearing about the glories of flight, they never tried to fly themselves. And the wild goose, even though his wing healed, just continued to talk about flyingbut never flew again either. (3) I say that is a frightening parable. Why? It hits too close to home. How easy it is to be at ease in Zion and to ignore Christ's call to action. How easy it is to sit in our comfortable pews and ignore a world in desperate need. There was an article recently ...

1145. Time For Action

Matthew 21:28-32

Sermon

King Duncan

... to the sidelines. "What's wrong?" shouted Zuppke. "Why didn't you take that man's place like I told you?" "It ain't necessary, Coach," gulped the youngster. "He's still breathing a little." That young man had taken his coach's pep talk to heart. Jesus told a parable about a man who had two sons. The man went to the first one and said, "Son, I want you to work in the vineyard today." The son was in a somewhat rebellious mood and answered, "I will not!" But afterwards he repented and went. The father went to ...

1146. Lesson From Five Maidens

Matthew 25:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... oil. The foolish maidens ran out into the village to try to find oil for their lamps. While they were gone the bridegroom came and when they returned to the feast, the doors were shut and they could not get in. William Barclay tells us that the parable of the wise and foolish maidens is based on no fairy tale. Even today middleclass families in Palestine celebrate weddings just as the Master described them 2,000 years ago, and still we can imagine that there are some who miss out on the feast! J. Alexander ...

1147. What We Are About

Acts 13:13-52

Sermon

King Duncan

... hair was shoulder’s length, his skin was the color of a dead man’s. He had been failing his courses at the university and was afraid to face the consequences. He had fled the responsibility of the world to the attic of the church. Another parable: A certain seaside town was justly proud of its rescue squad. They were able seamen with a concern for others. Whenever there was a shipwreck on the jagged rocks that protruded along the coast near the little town, the members of the rescue squad would quickly ...

1148. Persistence In Prayer

Luke 18:1-8

Sermon

King Duncan

... our own answer to our prayers. If there is something constructive you can do while you are waiting, by all means do it. There is an old Indian proverb that says, “Call on God, but row away from the rocks.” You have to admire this widow in Jesus’ parable. She didn’t wait for someone else to solve her problems for her. She took responsibility for her situation, and did all she could. That’s a good lesson for all of us. Don’t give up on your prayers. God does hear and does answer the prayers of ...

1149. United We Stand, Divided We Fall

1 Corinthians 1:10-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... , and the cross brought a new spirit in." (4) The church at Clyde's Corner had recovered its focus. Everyone's contribution was valued. Now it could concentrate on its ministry and mission. Now it could truly be the undivided body of Christ. 1. The Parable of the Ten Preachers (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992), pp. 2022.) 2. Lewis Grizzard, Chili Dawgs Always Bark at Night (New York: Villard Books, 1989), p. 53. 3. Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Road to Daybreak (New York: Doubleday, 1988), p. 212. 4. Troeger. op ...

1150. Treasured Relics

Matthew 25:14-30

Sermon

King Duncan

... the talents entrusted to him. NOTE, FIRST OF ALL, THAT EACH OF US HAS DIFFERENT GIFTS. Jesus does not pretend in this parable that all of us are alike. Max DePree is chairman and chief executive officer of Herman Miller, Inc., the furniture maker ... to succeed. IT IS NOT AS IMPORTANT WHAT OUR GIFT IS BUT WHAT WE DO WITH WHAT WE HAVE. That is the obvious point of this parable. The servant with one talent had the same opportunity as the one with five talents, but he chose to bury his talent in the ground. That ...

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