Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 101 to 125 of 340 results

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

... . After it happened, the world went on just as it did before." My old professor was only mildly cynical when he said that. A good share of human history will prove him right. But one event was supremely different. What happened at Bethlehem not only was the consummation of all that led up to that point, it changed the course of all that would follow. And not only was it an event encompassing all of the human story, it involved the whole cosmos, the very universe itself. Robert G. Hamerton-Kelly, Dean of the ...

102. A Shepherd Who Became a Sovereign

2 Samuel 12:1-31

Sermon

R. Blaine Detrick

... there lurks within your heart the seeds of some evil. And no matter how evil you may be, there lies within you the very image of God. David shows us this mixture of good and evil. Through the centuries, looking toward the coming Messiah - Jesus, the fulfillment and consummation of God’s redemptive plan - that Messiah is called the "son of David" (see Matthew 12:23; 21:9). Not the son of Abraham. Not the son of Isaac. Not the son of Jacob, or of Joseph, or of Moses. The son of David! And Jesus, the Messiah ...

103. A Citizen of Three Worlds

Sermon

R. Blaine Detrick

... this chapter accomplishes nothing more than to send you to the Bible to discover more about Paul for yourself, it will be worthwhile. He is the one person, primarily, through whom God spread abroad his message of world-wide redemption - consummated through the sacrificial suffering and substitutionary atonement of his only begotten Son. The foundation had been laid ... the preparation had been completed ... the saving act had been accomplished ... now the world needed to be informed and invited. God, in his ...

104. Waiting

Isaiah 63:7--64:12

Sermon

Thomas D. Peterson

... in God’s overarching order becomes part of the daily context of how I treat you, and you treat me, and we treat the world around us. The evolving outcome of God’s order we call the Kingdom. Though fulfilled in Jesus, we yet work and wait for its final consummation. ... the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day. (Proverbs 4:18)

105. Believable Light

2 Corinthians 1:12--2:4

Sermon

William F. Dunkle

... mules from a Baptist. "I’ll pay half the price now and the other half in thirty days," was the Methodist's proposition. "You can trust me ’cause I’m a steward in my church," he added. It convinced the Baptist, and the transaction was consummated. Later the Baptist asked his pastor, "What’s a steward in a Methodist church?" "They’re like deacons in our church," the pastor replied. "Well, there go my mules!" the Baptist concluded sadly. It's in the ordinary, the plain and everyday business of life ...

106. Faith As Healing Energy

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... seed ... nothing would prove impossible for you." How can the Father help you if you do not trust him? Faith is reaching out toward "the real truth and the Supreme Reality ... the Good, the supreme goal and the one and only Consummation of our life, the eternal, hidden, and incomprehensible Peace" (Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Faith and Belief, Princeton Press). Faith bridges the gap between the contemporary and the eternal, between the present and the everlasting reality, between man and God. Smith says it ...

107. Life After Life

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... goes on here? This house is alive. It is filled with life." I rejoice that we can keep the benefits of our scientific knowledge and at the same time rediscover the ultimate and the immediate reality of the Spirit. This is where life finds its final consummation; otherwise, there is no meaning. J. B. Phillips, the well-known British New Testament scholar and friend of C. S. Lewis, shares an experience in his book, For This Day. He was near death in the hospital. Apparently he was in a coma. He could make ...

108. And It Came To Pass

Mark 13:1-31

Sermon

Warren Thomas Smith

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away." (v. 31) Here is the existential consummation of history. This is the frame of reference within which the early church lived and breathed. In the end it was the parousia, the event of Christ coming in glory. Things of earth would pass away. This would be the final reckoning, the ultimate judgment. I always thought, as have ...

109. The Fulfilled Promise

Acts 2:14-41

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

... of the new age, the spearhead established by the Messiah in his conquest to win back all creation to God. It is "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people" (1 Peter 2:9). The church looks to the future for the final consummation of the Kingdom. But in giving his people the "earnest" of the Spirit, God has already given them the initial installment of the future Kingdom. The heirs of the Kingdom taste here and now the power of the world to come and are the channels through which it ...

110. A Happy Ending

Luke 24:50-53

Sermon

Brett Blair

... In 1848 Lord Shaftsbury said: Nothing can save the British Empire from shipwreck. In 1849 Ben Desrelli said: In industry, commerce and agriculture, there is no hope. In 1852 the dying Duke of Wellington said: I thank God that I will be spared from seeing the consummation and ruin that is gathering about us. If that is all that you knew about the first half of the nineteenth century you would probably conclude that the world was on the verge of coming to an end. Yet, during this same time period, while these ...

111. All I Want for Christmas is Hope

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

James W. Moore

... entrust the future into His hands... even though it put her in an awkward, difficult, complicated situation. How would she explain this? How would she communicate this to her parents? How would she tell Joseph? They were legally engaged. They had not yet consummated their marriage, but they were considered “good as married” and in those days when you became formally engaged as they were, the only way you could be separated was through divorce. How could she tell Joseph and how would he handle it? And ...

112. But God...

Genesis 50:15-21

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... , instead they were a demonstration of supreme faith, faith that God would intervene. Of course, these are not the only stories in scripture that lead us to understand God's intimate involvement with our lives. From the story of creation in Genesis to the consummation in Revelation the message is clear. In fact, story after story says that, not only is God involved, God makes mid-course adjustments to bring things to a proper outcome. The brief passage we heard earlier from the book of Genesis is the climax ...

113. Civil War Isn't!

2 Samuel 18:1-18, 19--19:8

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... . Our lesson tells the story of Israel's ancient Civil War, the attempted overthrow of King David by his son, Absalom. Absalom was David's third oldest son, the child of a union with the princess of a neighboring city-state,(1) no doubt to consummate a political alliance, as was the practice of the day. The first time we hear anything of Absalom beyond his brief birth announcement is as the avenging hero in a tawdry family drama.(2) It seems that David's eldest son, Amnon, had become romantically obsessed ...

114. Religion and Politics

Isaiah 1:1-31

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." If anyone wonders how political THAT is, simply recall that it was one of the most favorite expressions of one of our generation's most consummate politicians, Lyndon Baines Johnson. God is pleading for a turnaround and an outcome other than judgment. Do it and be blessed; don't and "be devoured." Well. Religion and politics. As old as the ancient prophets; as modern as tomorrow's newspaper. In my estimation ...

115. The Lord's Prayer: Thy Kingdom Come

Matthew 6:5-15

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... end of physical death; it did not mark the day when justice would roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. There is still so much wrong in this world. Yes, Jesus brought in the kingdom, but He told us to pray for the eventual consummation. He told us to pray, "Thy kingdom come." Someone has written that this prayer is not for the well-meaning, but for the desperate...those who over and over ask "What's Wrong?" - not just with the Buffalo Bills, but "What's wrong with this world?" - and ...

116. Winning over Worry

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... some years ago called How to Win over Worry.(2) It quoted some statistics that are probably just as valid today as when they were published in the mid-sixties. The book pointed out that more people die in America as a result of suicide (the consummation of stress, duress, anxiety and worry) than who die from the five most common contagious diseases combined. Twice as many people die by suicide as die by homicide. Fifty percent more people die because of ulcers than die because of murder. Another book by a ...

117. The Apostle's Creed: Jesus Christ...Our Lord

Matthew 16:13-20

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... in a borrowed tomb. But we know the story does not end there. And that is why we can continue to affirm, "I believe in Jesus Christ...our LORD!" LORD. What does the name mean? To the ancients it meant master or owner and was always a title of consummate respect. In the modern world, to call Jesus "Lord" is to say he is the chief, the boss, the main man, the head honcho. The buck stops with him; his decisions are final. Hear the "Declaration of Faith" written by the Southern Presbyterians a few years ago:(2 ...

118. Are You Going Down?

Luke 2:1-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... strap, once worn by a mongrel dog, who had died as he lived, in absolute love and infinite devotion." Remember how the littlest angel at the last moment sought to hide his humble gift and tried to run from the royal assembly but stumbled and rolled in a ball of consummate misery right to the foot of the Heavenly throne. And the voice of God spoke, saying, "Of all the gifts of all the angels, I find this small box pleases me most. Its contents are of the earth and of men, and my son is to be King of both ...

119. Have You Changed Your Clock?

Mark 13:32-37

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... I have always seen it as the fulfilling of the great salvation work God began in Jesus Christ. It has always been a sign of hope, not doom, for me. The Second Coming of Christ is not an appendage to our faith story, but the culmination and consummation of it. However, I can affirm with other committed and devout Christians who on their faith journey have at times had questions about God's timing of this great conclusion of our salvation story. Perhaps the most insightful thing I can share with you is if you ...

120. Profits And Losses

Mark 8:31--9:1

Sermon

King Duncan

... .'" He went on to explain that when a climber slipped and fell, the person holding the tether line could save the victim only at a very painful price. The tether would snake through his hands at blinding speed, burning through his gloves and his flesh. It took consummate courage to hold on. This man was the kind of man you would want holding the rope. He could be trusted. His word was his bond.* Jesus gathered his disciples around him. They could tell by the sadness in his face that this was not easy. He ...

121. How To Love

John 15:1-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... to be supportive of their children? Why is it so easy for many parents to be critical? Again, my guess is that this is what these parents experienced when they were growing up. Communication specialist Roger Ailes tells an interesting story about one of America's consummate showmen, a man known to the world simply as Liberace. Liberace was known to his friends as Lee. When Lee was a small boy growing up in Wisconsin, he had to play piano in beer halls to make money. His father was a very stern, somewhat ...

122. The God Who Is Near

Isaiah 55:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... Academy of Mathematicians. He arrived as others were just beginning to assemble, went to the head table as was his custom, and noticed another man, slight and graying, already seated at the head table next to his own place. And Alexander, the consummate extrovert, blurted out, "Say fellow, you look familiar, what's your name?" And the man quietly replied, "My name is Albert Einstein." Well, that shook Alexander--not only because he had failed to identify the greatest mind of his age, but also because ...

123. It’s Hard to Eat While Lying

John 13:18-30

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... , for the sins that you and I commit were there, and our sins crucify Him anew. Have any of us ever been embarrassed by Jesus? Have any of us ever found Him so uncomfortable that we have tried to get Him out of the way? When we are about to consummate a shady deal, or an act of adultery, or campaign for a candidate whose position is antithetical to all that Jesus said and did, have we never felt that Jesus was a hindrance; in the way, as it were, and tried to get Him out of the way? We say ...

124. Only the Abba Knows

Mark 13:32-37

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... of a physical coming of Christ in the clouds, or a physical trumpet blast. But what the doctrine of the Second Coming conserves is the tremendous fact that there is one divine, far-off event to which the whole creation is moving; there is a consummation; there is a final triumph of God.” (William Barclay, THE MIND OF ST. PAUL, New York: Harper and Bros., 1958, p. 229) James S. Stewart, another Scots New Testament commentator once said, “The world is moving on, not to chaos, but to Christ.” Evangelist ...

125. Come On Down

Isaiah 63:7--64:12

Sermon

Curtis Lewis

... how he came and helped in the past. He wants God to intrude once again in the life of the people. Is not the purpose of Advent to take us back to the beginning in the person of Jesus Christ and to remind us that Jesus Christ will come to consummate all history under his reign of love? When we look at the pain and suffering of our dark world, the prophet's cry becomes our cry, for we want God to "come down" and right wrong and reveal his glory and majesty by his presence. The prophet petitions God to ...

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