Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 1151 to 1175 of 3160 results

2 Timothy 3:10--4:8

Sermon

George Bass

... profit-making venture as an after-dinner speaker who combined the humor of his television commercials with sometimes almost ridiculous "out-takes" from commercial taping sessions. With his football career long behind him, he is in considerable demand to speak to all sorts of groups, clubs, and churches about his experiences in football and television. His popularity continues to grow in this newer phase of his life. Saint Mark must have been known in parts of the ancient church long before he wrote his ...

1152. A Glimpse of God

John 14:5-14

Sermon

George Bass

... agnostic, after they have arrived at the point where they can have a serious discussion, says: "When you think what God - if there is a God - allows. It’s not merely the physical agonies, but think of the corruption, even of the children ..." He needs some sort of special revelation, as many of us think we do, in order to believe in Christ. His companion, the believer, says, "Of course there is no answer here. We catch hints." He continues, telling a true story of a childhood experience he had that was a ...

1153. The Role of an Angel

John 20:10-18

Sermon

George Bass

... said the mortician, "and nobody was stumbling over it ... it was just convenient for us." But it must have been a horrible shock to Mrs. Evans; fortunately, she had a strong heart. Because she didn’t look into Jesus’ tomb, Mary was spared the possibility of that sort of a shock to her system. It was probably much better that Mary met the risen Christ in the garden and mistook him for the gardener when he asked her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" Because she was weeping may have been the reason that she ...

1154. Lift High the Christ!

John 12:20-36

Sermon

George Bass

... and said to his brother, "To hell with you," was actually judged and condemned - and killed - by that which he had rejected, his brother and his coffin. To reject the death of Christ on the cross and simply call it nonsense is to place oneself in the same sort of jeopardy. "Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the ruler of this world be cast out." The cross of Christ - in the light of his resurrection - tells the world that Satan has been defeated and cast out; his hold on humanity has been broken ...

1155. The Joy of Sorrow?

Matthew 5:4

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... since childhood: Hark, hark ... the dogs do bark! The beggars are coming to town: Some in rags, and Some in tags, and Some in velvet gowns. Some of the truth of that nursery rhyme finally dawned on me last week: the grievers, those who sorrow, are dressed all sorts of ways in rags, tags, velvet gowns. Scratch the surface of any one of us, and you will find some kind of sorrow or heartache. Can there also be joy here? Our minds have tried to deal with this universal, emotion in four different ways. The first ...

1156. What Is Your Mercy Quotient?

Luke 6:17-26

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... family went on a picnic in a beautiful valley surrounded by mountains. Mrs. Mayer called Louis apart to a little clearing that faced a mountain, and she told him to say out loud what he had mumbled to himself at home the night before. Louis, embarrassed, sort of mumbled the curse under his breath. "Shout it, Louis," she told him. "Shout out what you said." "Damn you!" he shouted. From the mountain wall came the echo, "Damn you." To Louis it sounded like a voice from heaven denouncing him. Then his mother ...

1157. The Three Faces of God

2 Corinthians 13:11-14

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... by the fact of Creation. Christ, the Son, the human involvement of God, reveals redemption by the fact of Love. The Holy Spirit supplies the power and the guidance to be, by the fact of Indwelling. A confused person came to me asking: "Can you sort out the Trinity for me? Jesus taught us to pray ‘our Father.’ We complete our prayers in ‘Jesus’ name,’ yet I have heard devout Christians pray to Jesus." Yes - I answered, "the thief on the cross prayed to Jesus He was there, visible. The thief ...

1158. Will My Ship Sink or Float?

Romans 8:28-39

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... of God. How does it go - this battle between good and evil in our life? Are we winning or losing? Are we making progress or falling back? We can win, you know, by the grace of God. C. S. Lewis suggests that "We are haunted by the idea of a sort of behavior that we ought to practice." That is the pull of God. Righteousness is fulfilled spiritual behavior, by the grace of Christ, released within you. God seems, in all these ups and downs of life, to deal with us in strange ways. At times he appears to be ...

1159. The Impartiality of God

Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

Hubert Beck

... be hard pressed to name them at any one time, for they tend to come and go like the wind. Some are faddish nonsense and others are continuing refinements of methods that have proved helpful under given situations and circumstances. How does one ever sort through them all? Better stated, how does one ever find a true Savior among the many who offer themselves to the world? It is difficult to imagine why the Christian idea that humanity needs a Savior meets with such strong resistance when it is perfectly ...

1160. Binding Up the Fractured World

1 Corinthians 3:1-23

Sermon

Hubert Beck

... text for today. But a closer look will show a deep inner thread of continuity which finds its focus in the Second Lesson. For the Corinthian congregation is a divided congregation as Paul describes it in the chapters preceding this, and our text for today is a sort of brief summary of the point Paul has been making for three chapters. He is pointing toward a binding of the wounds, toward re-uniting the divided and strife-torn congregation so that the world can see in the church what the intentions of God in ...

1161. Journey to the Cross I: Jesus And The Demon-Possessed Man

Mark 5:1-20

Sermon

James W. Moore

... that needs to be changed? Do you feel like Legion? Do you feel like you are being pushed and pulled and jerked and yanked in so many different directions that you are out of control? Do you feel like your life is out of balance? Out of sync? Out of sorts? Out of step? Do you feel that you are constantly doing battle with everybody you meet? That life is a war… and that it is overwhelming you and ripping you apart? Do you feel worn and tired and rejected? If so, Jesus Christ has a word for you today. He ...

1162. Journey To The Cross II: Jesus And The Hemorrhaging Woman

Mark 5:21-43

Sermon

James W. Moore

... Notice how gentle and loving Jesus is with her. As He gives her a new lease on life… He doesn’t chastise her for interrupting him. He doesn’t critique her theology… or her superstitious expectations. He doesn’t rebuke her for seeing Him as a “sort of last resort.” Rather, He gives her act the most gracious possible reception. And although we know the healing came from Him, He gives her the credit… “Your faith has made you well,” He says to her. Now, the rest of the story is even more ...

1163. Journey To The Cross III: Jesus And The Extravagant Woman

Mark 14:1-11

Sermon

James W. Moore

... this beautiful thing) is criticized by some of the folks in the room. The Gospel of John says that Judas reprimanded her for being so wasteful. And then Jesus reprimands Judas for being so “stingy.” Stinginess means being overly concerned about money… sort of like the kidnapped man’s wife, who obviously felt that money is real important. Maybe she reasoned like this: “Which is easier to replace, a husband or $100,000?” That is stingy thinking, materialistic thinking. That is the Judas mind-set ...

1164. Journey To The Cross IV: Jesus and Judas

Mark 14:43-52

Sermon

James W. Moore

... several states over many years. He needed to be in prison. I knew that and he knew that. The community needed to be protected from him. And he told me that day that he wanted to be there! He had come to realize that he really needed and craved some sort of strong supervision. Here was a man who, because of his traumatic early years, was now consumed with anger, was now a menace to himself and to his community and was now unable to recall a single moment of any tenderness at all in his life. Here was a man ...

1165. IN SEARCH OF HAPPINESS AND SUCCESS

Illustration

John H. Krahn

... said, "I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly." His will is that we have happiness and purpose in life. I would like to suggest what I call the three P’s to developing a relationship with God. They are: People, Prayer, and Pursuit. Sort of three P’s in a pod - the pod, or encompassing factor, is God himself. Our first P is for People. It is difficult to discover God in a vacuum. On several occasions teenagers leaving for college have told me that they didn’t plan to attend church ...

1166. On Being a Beautiful Christian

Mark 14:1-11

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... Johnson wrote a biography of Woodrow Wilson. Listen to a few excerpts: "Woodrow Wilson had a way of rubbing people the wrong way ... He had an unusual share of the more distasteful virtues ... He had the unhappy faculty of being right in the most irritating sort of way."2 Awkward goodness! Woodrow Wilson was a man of brilliance and of unique world vision. He had much to do with establishing the League of Nations. If the U.S. had joined the League, the second World War might have been prevented. History ...

1167. A Daughter of Jacob

Matthew 15:21-28

Sermon

Richard Hoefler

... Taylor expresses this same idea very clearly when he says, "What the Pharisees were among the Jews, that the Jews were themselves at that time among the nations."16 This approach presents Jesus as role-playing the inner thoughts and attitudes of his followers. It is sort of an "Archie Bunker" approach where ugly bigotry's personified and held up before us that we might see our true selves in the actions of another. Many times this is the only way to expose us to what we really are, and then having been ...

1168. Forever His

Romans 14:1--15:13

Sermon

Raymond Gibson

... . If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord." Not only do we belong to Jesus first of all while we live as Christians, but we also belong to him first of all when we die as Christians. This sort of statement sounds strange to many people because the prevailing opinion today is that when we die, we belong first to the attending physician and then to the undertaker. When a person dies, nothing can be done until the attending physician pronounces that person officially dead. Even ...

1169. A Liturgical Drama For Advent

Drama

Tom Eberle

... name, "church," people are quick to agree with you that I am confusing. Light: I am well aware of that. You don’t know how many times you have caused me to bite my tongue and count to twenty-seven thousand. But you are my church, and in your struggling sort of way you allow my light to come through. Minister: We try to be faithful to the story of your light that has been given to us; but, as you are aware, we have also distorted that light. Light: Let me hold my flame closer so that you can see ...

1170. What Is Your Holy Week Address?

Matthew 27:45-56

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... have had one or two or twelve defeats, but that they have placed an exclamation point after their defeats and now say of themselves what is descriptive of their efforts: I am a failure. Bonaro Overstreet pushes the point a bit further. "Persistent failure of one sort and another - job failure among them - is, we have come to recognize, a not infrequent device for self-punishment."2 Failure may be for many too awful to think about, but it does not in the slightest degree change the fact that everyone at some ...

1171. Don't Be Afraid of the Future

Matthew 28:1-10

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... of the so-called “Jesus Seminary.” They regard all miracles, especially the Resurrection, as “mythical metaphors developed by the Early Church.” Some revisionist scholars have concluded that Jesus arose only in the sense that his spirit goes marching on, sort of like the way the spirit of Abraham Lincoln continues to influence America. But William Lane Craig, perhaps the world’s foremost authority on Resurrection, dismisses such a theory. Dr. Craig is an English scholar with two earned doctoral ...

1172. Mary Magdalene, Stephanus, and Lucia

Drama

Jon Joyce

... more widespread that I imagined. And, Judas. It’s got to be Judas. He must be planning to ... to betray the Master. [She chokes back a sob] Yes, Judas said all is vain and something about promises that aren’t kept. He has been acting strange lately. Unhappy. Sort of disturbed and ... and almost sick, as I was before the Master healed me. Oh, my! It’s almost too much to bear. But, the Master has seemed so strong and confident, even though he, too, has had an unusual look in his eyes this past week. He ...

1173. Claudia Procula, Peter, and Centurion

Drama

Jon Joyce

... we’d better get to shelter. CENTURION: Don’t worry yet, my lady. That’s a typical storm. It’ll be awhile 'for it gets here. CLAUDIA: As I was saying, I have heard that some of the people here in Palestine consider that carpenter to be some sort of god. PETER: There is talk, yes, that he is the Messiah. CLAUDIA: What is that? PETER: A Savior sent from our God to save our people from ... [He glances at CENTURION and CLAUDIA, wary of continuing. Then he shrugs and speaks] What good now, to try to ...

1174. The Unexplainable Reality

1 Corinthians 1:18--2:5

Sermon

Allan J. Weenink

... quite impossible. The ever-mounting force of God’s redeeming purposes pulsated through the lives of converted men and women. And so the Christian church was born. It did not come about in an orderly meeting where men decided that they would form some sort of sacred society. Its birth pangs took place at a quiet gathering where, suddenly, people were transformed in such a way that they were accused of being intoxicated. And so they were. Not with bottled spirits, but with the Holy Spirit, Christ’s power ...

1175. Running With Patience

Hebrews 12:1-13

Sermon

Allan J. Weenink

... sound assurance that "this too shall pass;" and on the other side of the mist the sun still shines and God still cares. Patience means staying in step with self-capacity without trying to out-distance God. It is the art of receptivity, the ability to sort out the useless from the meaningful, the quietness to listen. Yet it is also the determination to maintain a steady course, the stabilizer when panic threatens, the resolution to stay alert for the best signs in the worst times and the grace to accept what ...

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