Sermon and Worship Resources

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1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11

Sermon

Richard W. Ferris

... looking for the happy ending. But we're still in the midst of the story, so the ending is yet out of reach. Jesus taught his disciples how to fish. It wasn't exactly the kind of fishing that the Chinese proverb was referring to, but it was Jesus' version of fishing. "I will make you fishers of people," Jesus told his disciples. He didn't even tell them that they would be successful, he just said to do it. He didn't say they would live without problems. He didn't say they would enjoy great happiness. In ...

1127. Still Sinners, Still Forgiven

Romans 5:1-8

Sermon

William G. Carter

... figure it, somebody took Jesus down from the cross a long time ago. There is no reason for any of us to keep him up there. 1. Thomas G. Long, "Bold in the Presence of God: Atonement in Hebrews," Interpretation, Vol. 52, No. 1 (January 1998), p. 53. 2. This version is retold by Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel (Multnomah, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, 2000), pp. 115-116. 3. Robert Farrar Capon, The Mystery of Christ ... And Why We Don't Get It (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmanns, 1993).

1128. Are You Feeling Sheepish?

Psalm 23, John 10:11-18

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... . Jesus' revelation is even more radical. He showed us that God loves us so much that the shepherd became the sacrificial lamb. The third image of the shepherd is in the 23rd Psalm. It is the most famous of all the shepherd images. The choir sang one version of the 23rd Psalm. Richard, in his solo this morning, sang another one. Many of us raised in the Church memorized it in Sunday School. We all know it. The first two shepherd images contained radical revelations about God. The 23rd Psalm is the model of ...

1129. Get Lost

Mark 8:31-38

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... out of wood, or put on velvet and framed, put on the wall. But in my memory, never have I seen any of these sentences. "Take up your cross." I've never seen that needlepointed. Or, "Deny yourself." Or, "Get lost," which is the shortened version of, "Whoever would lose his life will find it." So there they are, grouped together, one after the other, with no subordinate clauses, no qualifying phrases. There aren't even any conjunctions between them. "He called to him the multitude and the disciples." This is ...

1130. Have You Heard?

Matthew 4:12-23

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... to God for all that has happened during this past year, and look forward to the future to what God has in store for us, particularly as we look forward to a new millennium. So it is appropriate that on this Sunday the gospel lesson be Matthew's version of the call of the disciples. That is what I want us to look at this morning. There are two classic interpretations of this scene. One is by John Greenleaf Whittier, and the other by Albert Schweitzer. We can find Whittier's interpretation in the second verse ...

1131. Here We Go Again

Luke 21:25-36

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... God will come and save us. God will lead us safely through the wilderness to our promised future. God will lead us back home, to Jerusalem, to rebuild the city. The problem is that Israel expected several Messiahs. A better way of saying it is, there were several version of who this Messiah would be, or how, or at what time, or when the Messiah would come. From the Son of Man, the warrior; to the Suffering Servant, who was despised and rejected; from a King on a white horse; to the Shepherd, who carries the ...

1132. I Thought You'd Never Ask

John 1:35-46

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... collected because they are supposed to be important. We expect something deep and profound from someone as their last words, the distillation of the wisdom of a lifetime. We also know about the last words of Jesus. Every gospel writer records his own version of the last words of Jesus. They are all different, his words from the cross. And every Good Friday, some place around the world, some church is commemorating the cross by meditating on the seven last words of Jesus, or singing some oratorio featuring ...

1133. The Messiah

Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... , and then lived in England. The Messiah reflects all of that. The English religious sentiment, which is highly aesthetic, rich, yet simple. It was the classic period of the English language. The 17th and 18th centuries, Shakespeare, the King James version of the Bible, and the Book of Common Prayer. Elegant, simple, beautiful prose. The libretto reflects that "classical" English. Handel's own native tradition would have been the German chorale, which tends to be more foreboding and sometimes even ponderous ...

1134. They Grow Up Fast

Luke 2:41-52

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... theology with the Rabbis. He has found his vocation. Which is what you were supposed to do in that culture when you are twelve years old. Luke makes this point with this marvelous irony. Jesus says, "I must be in my Father's house." But the old King James version reads, "I must be about my Father's business." My criterion in choosing the best, most accurate translation, is to pick the one that says what you want it to say. Only in this case, they are both the same, really. Whether he is "in my Father's ...

1135. This Is the Day

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... don't worry about what they are going to wear tomorrow. Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like any of these." So why do you worry about tomorrow? Let tomorrow worry about itself. For this is the day. God hasn't created tomorrow yet. We read the Matthew version of this passage, which is in the Sermon on the Mount. Luke doesn't have a Sermon on the Mount. But he takes the same teachings of Jesus and puts them at the conclusion of the Parable of the Rich Fool. The rich fool is a man who kept building ...

1136. Timing Is Everything

Matthew 11:2-11

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... a fire in the fireplace and an easy chair pulled up to the fire. He sat down. Then he noticed at his elbow a little table next to the chair, with a Bible opened to the 59th psalm, where there is a verse that reads, in the King James version, "The God of my mercy shall prevent me..." In the old King James English, "prevent" means "go before." Hugh Redwood said that somebody had written in the margin after that verse this paraphrase: "My God in his loving kindness shall meet me at every corner." Redwood said ...

1137. What Kind of Name Is That?

Luke 1:26-31

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... comes with the conferring of a name. And that is the kind of name that was given to Jesus. It was conferred upon him a destiny, a vocation that he was to fulfill for us. His name was given in the event that is called The Annunciation. There are two versions of it: one in Luke, that annunciation is given to Mary, and there is one in Matthew, that is given to Joseph. This morning we heard the annunciation to Mary: "Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus." Last ...

1138. What Will They Think Up Next?

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... Gabriel visited Zechariah, Gabriel visited Mary. That is when you are supposed to laugh, or gasp in amazement. First of all, she's a woman. Angels only appear to men in that patriarchal society. This is the first time an angel appears to a woman. Even Matthew, in his version of the nativity story, says the angel appeared to Joseph, not to Mary. But in Luke, it's a surprise. The angel comes to Mary. And what's more, Mary is not old, like the others. She is young. She is a virgin. Which is pointed out not so ...

1139. The Problem Is Not Faith

Luke 17:1-10

Sermon

King Duncan

... , but he didn’t want to spend a few years at seminary. Would God approve of him buying a fake seminary degree from an online degree mill? The deacon concluded this was certainly God’s will after he read First Timothy 3:13 from the King James Version. It reads like this: “For they that have used the office of a deacon well purchase to themselves a good degree.” These well-meaning people looking for a sign remind me of Jesus’ disciples asking him for more faith in our lesson for today. Already, in ...

1140. Why The Evergreen Trees Never Lose Their Leaves

John 1:1-14

Drama

Matthew Powell

... wing may keep their leaves all winter long. Narrator: That is why the spruce, the pine, and the juniper are always green, and that is why the evergreen tree is the symbol of kindness and of the birth of a new life at Christmastime. The End Source: There is a version of this folk tale in Good Stories for Great Holidays by Frances Jenkins Olcott, published by Houghton Mifflin Company in 1914.

1141. The Rest of the Story

Matthew 2:19-23, Matthew 2:13-18

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

... pretend that Jesus is immune from such terror? Just substitute the name Hitler or McVeigh or bin Laden or Hussein for the name Herod, and you have a thoroughly modern tale of murder and slaughter and hatred. Several years ago, in Bethlehem, the following version of "O Little Town Of Bethlehem" was sung (written by an American from Littleton, Colorado, and circulated on the internet): O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie; Above thy deep and restless sleep, a missile glideth by; And over dark ...

1142. Visions and Voices

Matthew 17:1-9

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

... - a shimmering window into pure, unadulterated divinity. This isn't just a "thin place" where hints of the holy seep into the ordinary. This is a ripping of the barrier between God and us - and God comes flooding into our midst. An intriguing detail of Matthew's version of the Transfiguration is that the disciples do not seem all that amazed when Jesus suddenly turns into a pulsing light show, when all of a sudden he stands in the august company of Elijah and Moses. All of this they seem to take in stride ...

1143. Building Our Foundation on God

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... always wanted to be, a "couch potato." When he was playing baseball for the Senators the people never saw the real Joe. Today, the Christian community throughout the world begins the discipline of Lent, and the gospel for today's service, drawn from Saint Matthew's version of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, tells us of our need to change on the inside, to demonstrate who we are, and not concentrate on what others will see. We must be transformed so that God, the one who looks into the heart and understands our ...

1144. God, Or the World?

Matthew 4:1-11

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous." It is through the obedience of Jesus, countering the sin of Adam, that we have the opportunity to live and even flourish in a sometimes difficult and troublesome world. Saint Matthew's version of the temptation in the desert is his way to show his readers that any route to the kingdom of God cannot bypass Jesus, yet temptation lurks around every corner. As we celebrate this first Sunday in Lent we must ask ourselves the question, where ...

1145. Through the Lens of God

John 4:5-42

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... person called when a person got sick. She made the medicines from roots and herbs that seemed to cure almost anything. She had a family of her own, but all the children in the area felt they belonged to her. Everyone called her 'Maum' Jean, a slurred version of Mama. Maum Jean spoke to the Lord often and we all suspected that when she spoke, the Lord stopped what he was doing, listened, and took the appropriate action. Her heart reached out to the small and the helpless, so she took a particular interest in ...

1146. The Incomparable Christ

Matthew 16:13-20

Sermon

Stephen M. Crotts

... and die like a sacrificial lamb, yet not one of his bones would be broken. There were over 300 such prophecies. And Jesus Christ fulfilled every one of them literally. So, indeed, he is the one promised of old - Jesus, the Christ. "Jesus" is the Greek version of the Hebrew "Joshua." The name means "savior" or "health-giver." "Christ" is Greek for "the anointed one of God." So, his very name means, "The anointed one of God to bring health." His Teachings When one turns from the initiative of God and prophecy ...

1147. Redundant Love

Matthew 22:34-40

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... God's love for creation, for all of the universe, through each pathway. If we then genuinely love God then we too must love all creation--a creation which includes the self and the neighbor. When the first-century rabbinic scholar Hillel offered his negative version of Jesus' statement, "What is hateful to you do not to your neighbor," he concluded "that is the whole Torah, while the rest is commentary on it; go and learn it" (b.Sabb.31a). All Scripture is a wonderful, complex, interconnected network of ...

1148. Don't Fit In, Fit Together

Philippians 3:1-11

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... how to function in zero gravity and then re-learn how to walk and move within the earth's familiar gravitational pull once they return. That's the difference between fitting together and simply fitting in. For some reason in this year's new Martha Stewart version of The Apprentice, Martha has chosen to dismiss each week's failing contestant with the line, "You just don't fit in." Perhaps the new kinder, gentler Martha thinks "You just don't fit in" is somehow more friendly than Donald Trump's beloved "You ...

1149. God Will Take Care of You

Matthew 14:13-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... children's prayer he learned first in German. His translation into English goes like this: Lord Jesus, who does love me, Oh spread thy wings above me, And shield me from alarm. Though evil would assail me Thy mercy will not fail me. I rest in thy protecting arm. The version of this prayer I learned as a child came in the form of a song. It was written by a minister's wife, which she entitled "God Will Take Care of You." The words go like this: Verse 1 Be not dismayed whate'er betide, God will take care of ...

1150. Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord

Ephesians 1:15-23

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... -day ritual. But it's most heavy in the morning: deleting the overnight invasion of junk e-mails. In this massive assault, there are always two or three cut-rate, can't-pass-it-up, how-can-you-not-consider-buying-this ads for life insurance policies. Visual versions also pop-up on television as well. You can tell one is coming as soon as you see featured a comfy living room stocked with chatty aging actors who suddenly begin urging us to make sure we don't leave any burdensome debts for our loved ones after ...

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