Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 1151 to 1175 of 1182 results

1 Peter 3:18-21

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... minds; the flowers were a sign from the Great Spirit that they were forgiven. Thus, they sang and danced and thanked the Great Spirit and as they did a gentle rain began to fall. The land began to live again and the people were saved. This classic Native American story of the origins of the bluebonnet presents a powerful theme of the willingness of one to suffer so that good, and in the end triumph, can be achieved. As the Christian community begins to enter more fully and deeply into the season of Lent ...

1152. We Need Some Good News

Mark 1:14-20

Sermon

Michael L. Sherer

... clear intent of the Christian message has been taken hostage and perverted by elements within the American church community, groups determined to redefine what it means to be Christian. Bawer’s main argument is that when a movement takes a classic tradition and reinvents it for its own purposes, dangerous things happen. In this case, says Bawer, extreme fundamentalist religiosity has turned good news into bad news. To put it into theological terms, the gospel — God’s healing, freeing, forgiving, life ...

1153. Easter Power

Acts 14:8-18

Sermon

Will Willimon

... powerful religion that works. Paul and Barnabas, good monotheistic Jews, set the idolatrous Lycaonians straight. "We bring not even something so wonderful as power. We bring good news." Turn from these ''vain things." (They sure didn't think much of the Lycaonians classical, Greco-Roman education, did they?) Turn from these vain things to the Living God. Those who healed became those who taught. Lesson number one: The Christian faith is not chiefly about power, even the power to do good. It's about turning ...

1154. Being Good

Matthew 5:17-20

Sermon

Will Willimon

... reports that, when Jesus got finished with this Sermon, "the crowds were astonished at his teaching" (7:28)! You want to be good? Don't just keep the law like the scribes and Pharisees, go beyond the law. Duke's W. D. Davies, in his classic commentary on the Sermon, says that this text, opening the Sermon on the Mount, "stands as a guardian against every immoral or antinomian misunderstanding of the gospel." And what a guardian it is. Here we encounter the bracing unsentimentality of Matthew's moral gospel ...

1155. Missional Discontinuity

Mark 6:30-44, Mark 6:45-56

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... be Christian. But the disciples were so busy helping others that they could not find the opportunity or the leisure to even have a meal together. They were sacrificing their own nutrition and their own health in their service to others. They were setting themselves up to be classic cases of burnout. They had either forgotten or never learned the lesson of the oil lamp: It is not the wick that burns but the oil. As long as there is fuel in the lamp the wick will last a very long time. But when the fuel runs ...

1156. Big Boys Do Cry

Joel 2:1-2,12-17

Sermon

King Duncan

Bob Laurent, in his book, A World of Differents, tells of sitting in the living room reading when he heard a terrible scream just outside his front door. Like most parents, he could distinguish his own child’s crying, and so he flew out the door to the scene of the accident. There was his three-year-old son, Christopher, upside down and bawling, the victim of a hit-and-run collision with a Big Wheel 16 inch toy Tricycle. In one fell swoop, Laurent scooped his son up and had him in the house and up in his ...

1157. What Are You Bananas About?

Philippians 3:17-4:1

Sermon

King Duncan

... and well. The boys’ families had already held funerals for them. They had given up hope of ever finding them alive. They called the rescue a miracle. But how did six teenagers survive for more than a year on a deserted island? Those of you who remember the classic novel “Lord of the Flies” probably have one vision of how it all turned out. It doesn’t apply in this situation, however. Instead, these boys set up a system of work and rules to govern their days. They began and ended each day with a song ...

1158. Hold the Candy

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon

Mary Austin

... a gift from God and a choice. Love is not the movie-magic heart fluttering we associate with romance, but the daily choices we make…the ways we act…the repeated way we choose to organize our lives for someone else. As Scott Peck said in the classic book The Road Less Traveled, love is work. “Love is not a feeling,” he says. He added, “keeping an eye on a four- year- old at the beach, concentrating on the interminable disjointed story told by a six-year-old, teaching a teenager how to drive, truly ...

1159. Finding Your Place

Romans 12:1-12

Sermon

Will Willimon

... . 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 that they were participating in research on human behavior. He asked them to work a dial which was said to administer an electric shock to a person in ...

1160. Show Us the Father

John 14:8-17, 25-27

Sermon

Dave Zuchelli

... I don’t need anything except this ashtray, this paddleball, and this remote control.” By the time he walks out the front door, he has an ashtray, a paddleball, a remote control, a box of matches, a lamp, and a chair. That’s all he needs. It’s a classic, funny scene. It’s one of those scenes that sticks with you over the years — long after you’ve forgotten the rest of the movie. It’s also a scene that can remind us of our penchant for wanting more. We’ve got this, this, and this. If only ...

1161. A Law Against Dying?

Luke 20:27-38

Sermon

King Duncan

... s enduring love, or God’s everlasting love? Why would God make us for a loving relationship, then let us die? Jesus’ life, death and resurrection are proof that God planned us for eternal life with Him. Some of you are familiar with the origin of a classic Gospel song that is dear to many hearts. In 1932, a young singer and songwriter named Thomas Dorsey lost his wife in childbirth. His newborn son died the next day. Dorsey commented later, “I became so lonely I did not feel that I could go on alone ...

1162. After Everyone Had Gone Home

Matthew 2:13-23

Sermon

John Jamison

... king safe. It was a miracle dream. But, if I was one of the fathers in Bethlehem burying my son, I honestly don’t think that’s the miracle I would be much interested in hearing. Whatever we do take from this frightening story, it is a classic example of someone who represented everything that Jesus would later stand and speak against. If we wanted to find a good example of the meaning of “evil”, of the opposite of what Christmas represents, King Herod might be enough. With that said, I need to take ...

1163. In the Wilderness

Matthew 4:1-11

Sermon

April Yamasaki

In Hannah Hurnard’s classic allegory, Hinds’ Feet on High Places, little Much-Afraid leaves her home in the Valley to journey to the High Places at the invitation of the Great Shepherd. In the High Places she would finally be delivered from all her fears, her crooked feet made straight, and she would be ...

1164. The Power of One Passion and One Prayer

Acts 1:6-14

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... . At that moment, the preacher’s sermon got cut off by the radio announcer reading an ad for a local funeral home. (1) Wouldn’t you hate to miss the ending to a really exciting story? Author Charles Dickens, who is famous for writing such classics as A Christmas Carol, Great Expectations, and A Tale of Two Cities, also wrote a serialized novel titled The Mystery of Edwin Drood. His plan was to write the novel in twelve installments published in a monthly magazine. Halfway through the series the title ...

1165. God Bless Santa!

Luke 2:1-20

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... . Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, `If you see it in The Sun it’s so.’ Please tell me the truth — is there a Santa Claus?” and the letter was signed, “Virginia O’Hanlon.” The response was a classic. It read in part, “Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia ...

1166. The Great Discovery

Luke 15:14b-18a

Drama

Arley K. Fadness

... only three days earlier on May 21. Thanks be to God. C.S. LEWIS: My name is Clive Staples Lewis. Just call me C.S. I was an agnostic until I became a Christian. Later as a new Christian, in 1952, I wrote a book that became a classic in Christian Apologetics, titled Mere Christianity. Here’s one thing I said: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him (Christ): they say,’I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t ...

1167. You're In the Army Now

Ephesians 6:10-20

Sermon

Will Willimon

... of first century Christians? See them huddled together with nothing more to uphold them than their psalms, their baptism, their vision of truth, these words? How utterly hopeless is their future when set against Caesar’s armies and the beautiful seduction of Classical culture! See these little of twentieth century believers, huddled with nothing more to defend them than these hymns, this chapel, these words called scripture? Hopeless? Yes, were it not for the word that this cause is also God's -- that God ...

1168. Taking the Long Way Home

Mark 7:31-37

Sermon

Will Willimon

... thirty children, there is no way he 'can help everyone. “What you say about dogs is true” this gutsy mother replies, “but even dogs are allowed to clean up the children’s crumbs.” “Touché”' says Jesus. “Stranger, for a cultured, educated, classical Greek, you are almost smart.” He heals her daughter. From here, Mark takes Jesus on a ridiculous itinerary. He says that Jesus went from Tyre to Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, through the Decapolis-- equivalent to saying that Jesus traveled from ...

1169.

Psalm 82:1-8

Understanding Series

Craig C. Broyles

... is evident in the NIV’s rendering of this psalm. In verse 1 the literal phrase “the assembly of El/God” is translated as “the great assembly,” and “gods” is placed in quotation marks (likewise v. 6), though not indicated in the Hebrew text (Classical Hebrew does not have such punctuation marks). In verse 7 the words “mere” and “other” are not present in the Hebrew text. The most obvious reading of this psalm, especially from the Hebrew, is to understand the ʾelohîm and “sons of the ...

1170. “Lord, Our Lord, How Majestic Is Your Name in All the Earth!”

Psalm 8:1-9

Teach the Text

C. Hassell Bullock

... of faith still smolders. In Christianity, three hermeneutical approaches have come to some prominence in the messianic interpretation of the Psalms, all revolving around the place of Christ in the Psalms. The first we may call the All of Christ approach, classically represented by Augustine (AD 354–430), who typically saw Christ or the church in every psalm.1 Yet, this method tends to de-emphasize the historical fabric of the Psalms. The second approach is the None of Christ approach, which basically ...

1171. Jerusalem’s Humiliation

Lamentations 4:1-22

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... and ugly ethos prevails. People have become hardened, even heartless. Ostriches lay their eggs in the sand, thus putting the future of their young in jeopardy. Besides, they treat their young harshly. The rich have become poverty-stricken. Sodom and Gomorrah are the classic symbols of catastrophe (Gen. 19:24–25, 29; Jer. 20:16; 23:14). Instead of “princes” (4:7), the Hebrew text reads “Nazirites.” The Nazirites were a group that vowed self-discipline and devotion to the Lord’s service (Num. 6:1 ...

1172. Zion's New Name

Isaiah 62:1-12

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... in its own right but also introduces recapitulations of the promises. Accounts of a prophet’s own experience or actions appear in the OT because the testimony is in some way significant for the audience, though the way in which it is relevant varies. In the classic accounts of Yahweh’s commission of prophets such as Isaiah ben Amoz, Amos, or Jeremiah, the logic is, “This is why you ought to take me seriously and turn back to Yahweh” (or why you ought to have done so). In 59:21 the testimony related ...

1173. The Interpretation of the Dream

Daniel 7:15-28

Understanding Series

William Nelson

... angels to interpret dreams and visions. Rather, he is the interpreter, getting insight directly from God. In chapters 7–12, however, there are intermediaries. This shows the more apocalyptic character of the second half of the book. The tendency in classical prophecy is for God to speak directly to the prophet. The development of apocalyptic literature begins in the exile, where angels are prominent, such as in Ezekiel 40–48. Zechariah, in the postexilic period, carries this further. The interpreting ...

1174. The Seventy “Sevens”

Daniel 9:20-27

Understanding Series

William Nelson

... to the surrounding material: the remainder of the chapter fits with chapters 8 and 10–12 by being rougher and containing Aramaisms (Hartman and Di Lella, Daniel, p. 246). In response, one could argue that the author of the book chose a stock prayer in more classical Hebrew and inserted it here. If such is the case, then while he did not compose the prayer, it is still “original” in the sense that it was not added by a later redactor but was part of the first edition (Collins, Daniel, p. 347). Next ...

1175. David's Mighty Men

2 Samuel 23:8-39

Teach the Text

... the birds and wild animals from devouring the decaying carcasses of her sons is a vivid reminder of the unforeseen consequences of sin. Illustrating the Text God’s justice is sometimes harsh. Quote: Life Together, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In this classic exploration of life in Christian community, Bonhoeffer (1906–45) discusses the hardness of God and the way Christian community should model it: Reproof is unavoidable. God’s Word demands it when a brother falls into open sin. The practice of discipline ...

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