Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 101 to 125 of 662 results

101. The Master Has Come - And Is Moved With Compassion

Matthew 8:1-4, Mark 1:40-45

Sermon

... pain of love we find in Jesus Christ, which he had for all sorts of people - is not only something to be seen and heard by us. We are called to feel this pain in our hearts. We are called to be people of compassion. Saint Paul said, "Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children." Much of our world today is unfeeling, uncaring, unconcerned. Two hunters paid a high price for a bird-dog. They took him out for a field test. After an hour one said, "This dog is no good. We might as well put him to sleep ...

102. Counterfeit Christians and the Rest of Us

Matthew 13:24-30

Sermon

Gary W. Houston

... that is worthy of digging for in the earth. There are French names for American perfumes because the French have perfected perfume making. Surely in the alchemical process of our dross being burned away we will discover that part of us that is not counterfeit. I cannot be all imitation, nor can you. And it is that good part that Jesus wants to claim. And the good news is that we only have to leave the tares alone, not deny that they exist, but let them be and then God will uproot them and burn them up. In ...

103. Pentecost 23

Exodus 22:16-31, Leviticus 19:1-37, Ruth 2:1-23, 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10, 1 Thessalonians 2:1-16, Matthew 22:34-40, Matthew 22:41-46, Psalm 1:1-6

Sermon Aid

... Boaz that, before long, she became his wife. 1 Thessalonians 1:5b-10 (R, L) - "The Power in Example." 1. Paul and his companions offered the Thessalonians an example of Christian faith and life. 2. Moved by the Word and the Holy Spirit, the Thessalonians became imitators of that Christian life-style. 3. Their new life-style - a combination of faith, hope, and loving action - deeply moved other Greeks and became an example of the new life in Christ for them. 4. The story went out to all of their world. This ...

104. But Men Loved Darkness

John 3:1-21

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... love it, don’t we? We like to beat our drums just like the savages in the jungle. In the early days of civilization, it was quite natural that man, as an activity of courtship, should imitate the animals by engaging in mating dances just like many of the animals did, dances which were an imitation and a suggestion of the physical motions of sexual intercourse, displaying how well their individual bodies could perform these functions. For them, that was not sin, that was the level of their light. But we ...

105. Our Father Who Art on Earth

Proverbs 1:8-19

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... sentiments or emotions we manage to muster always seem to be a bit forced if not down right counterfeit. It’s sometimes a question as to who is the more embarrassed, the fathers or the children, when the whole thing turns out to be a rather tawdry imitation. Why? Who’s to blame, the fathers or the children? There is one telling indictment in the case against the fathers. Please note that today many pastors, I am sure, are standing before half-full pews. The pews which, on Mother’s Day, were filled and ...

106. Whispering The Lyrics (revised)

John 14:15-31

Sermon

Thomas Long

... mainstream. Many of us, when we were in high school, fancied ourselves a budding rock band. My friends and I did. We would play and replay our 45s attempting in vain to capture the sound. But how do you imitate someone like Reed. The pain-soaked cries of his mahogany voice could not be imitated by our too-tight, too-white, suburban throats. There's an interesting story behind the Jimmy Reed records. In placing the phonograph needle again and again in the grooves of Jimmy Reed's records, you began to notice ...

107. Defeating Giants

1 Samuel 17:1-58

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... school that you don't get along with or your inability to communicate with your family. Everybody faces at least one giant of some size. God wants to help us all be giant-defeaters in 1997. Let's look to David's example and see what we can imitate. I see in David three giant-defeating strategies that I am convinced will work for us. FIRST, BE FILLED WITH GOD'S SPIRIT BEFORE THE BATTLE. God's Holy Spirit will protect you from terror or despair. The rest of the Israelites were terrified, including King Saul ...

108. Egypt: Unlikely Refuge

Matthew 2:13-18

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

... concluded that there could be no one in the cave, for anyone entering would have torn the web. So the soldiers passed on, leaving the Family safe. And this, the legend says, is why we put tinsel on our Christmas trees, in imitation of that frosted spider web. Art, they say, seeks to imitate and expand on reality. Both the painting and the legend remind us not only that Egypt was a refuge for the Christ Child, but a rather strange refuge. The idea of the Baby lying asleep in the embrace of the Sphinx, or ...

109. Gentle Light

1 Corinthians 10:14-22

Sermon

William F. Dunkle

... abrasively. Not judgmentally. Not violently. Not angrily. Not suspiciously. Not sourly. Only courteously. Only gently. Only lovingly. And to show the Corinthians exactly what he meant, Saint Paul dares to say, "Be imitators of me." Yet in the same breath he adds, "... as I am of Christ." Christians have ever since been convinced that to be imitators of Christ Saint Paul is the best example we know. The hymn line, "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild ..." does not describe a sissy model. To be a gentle-man is never ...

110. The Jamie Farr Connection

Joshua 24:1-27

Sermon

... have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God." Shades of Klinger drooling over those hot dogs he remembers as a child! But there’s a deeper motivation for these vows of devotion. They’re an imitation of God’s own example of devotion to us. Like small children craving to imitate the father we adore, our oaths of allegiance are but the mirror responsives of his oaths of allegiance to us. And the name by which we know his pledge to look out for us and our pledge to serve him is ...

111. Your Sins Are Remembered No More! You Are Free!

Jeremiah 30:1--31:40

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... sometimes he catches himself thinking or acting in ways he never did before they met nearly three decades ago. He says that when he thinks more about those behaviors, he realizes that his new cautiousness is really an emulation of her style. Not that he is really imitating his wife self-consciously, but he says that he can see her style and thought patterns in what he is doing. It is not “her” style that he is embodying in those instances. It is now he. Her style has rubbed off on him. Likewise when he ...

112. Real Gratitude

Luke 19:1-10

Sermon

James W. Moore

... now and then I try to think of a new idea about what it means to be grateful. Here is my thought for this year: If gratitude is the celebration of God’s generosity, then the Christian lifestyle is the imitation of God’s generosity. That is, the best way to express our gratitude to God is to imitate, to model, to emulate His generosity in our daily living, to take on His gracious and generous approach and to live daily in that spirit. Zacchaeus got it! He saw it and did it! The question is, do we? Are ...

113. Christian Living As It's Meant To Be

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sermon

King Duncan

... dismal failure. And the whole purpose of Christianity is to lead others to spiritual success. SO FIRST, WE SET AN EXAMPLE; THEN WE OFFER ENCOURAGEMENT; AND, FINALLY, WE GIVE UNCONDITIONAL ACCEPTANCE. Paul writes, "Be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us." But what does this mean, to be "imitators of God"? How are we to live in love? Well, in a very practical way this teaching reminds us to treat other people, the everyday people we come in contact with throughout our ...

114. A Picture Of A King

Psalm 72:1-20

Sermon

King Duncan

... power and control? What are legitimate and illegitimate uses of power? In his book Somebodies and Nobodies: Overcoming the Abuse of Rank, author Robert Fuller charges that American society is infected with the disease he calls "rankism." We admire and imitate those with rank. We admire and imitate those who have more power in our society, while ignoring or abusing those who have less. Fuller cites the fact that we expect our company to pay for our health insurance, but we don't offer health insurance to ...

115. About Work

2 Thessalonians 3:1-5

Sermon

King Duncan

... the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness . . . For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, and we did not eat anyone's bread without paying for it; but with toil ... we might not burden any of you. This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of ...

116. The Lord's Prayer: Forgive Us Our Trespasses

Matthew 6:5-15

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... Jesus Christ on the Cross for my sins and the sins of the world is of no eternal value. It might bring temporary gain but no permanent peace with God. If we receive the real thing, then we pass on the real thing. If we receive a cheap imitation, we cannot forgive anyone. It is that simple. LASTLY, GOD''S FORGIVENESS OF OUR SINS, AND OUR ABILITY TO FORGIVE OTHERS, IS THE MOST THERAPEUTIC CONCEPT IN THE WORLD. I believe it was Bishop Everett Palmer who always enjoyed telling the story of a certain man who had ...

117. Grace in the Midst of Limited Resources

2 Corinthians 8:1-15

Sermon

Glenn McDonald

... of gum. God assures us that our destination is another country. Only a fool would spend his life trying to hold on to the currency of this world, which in the next world will be powerless to buy anything. The currency of heaven is the degree to which we are imitators of the Son of God. Jesus, though he was rich, for our sakes became poor. Are we sharing and investing the good things that God has poured into our lives in such a way that we are looking more and more like him? In recent years Paul Azinger has ...

118. A Prophet Among Them

Ezekiel 2:1-3:15

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... people for God, reminding them that holiness is not an option for God’s people. It is not likely that our prophetic words to the nations will be heard unless and until there is at least a remnant of faithful people who seek to be as Paul says, “Imitators of God – holy as He is holy and living ‘in love, as Christ loved us and gave Himself for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5:1-2). What a powerful reminder. Our prophetic/priestly function of speaking to the people for God ...

119. A Church for the 21st Century: Holy, Charismatic, Apostolic - An Enclave of Resistance

Luke 4:14-30

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... Therefore be imatators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma.” Does that grab you as it does me – be imitators of God. How can we imitate God – the One who is omnipotent, all powerful – the One who is omniant, all knowing; the One who is III The Church as an enclave of resistance will be holy, and also charismatic. By charismatic I mean that the Church came to birth through the ...

120. Chimps, Mount Saint Helens, and the Holy Gust

Acts 2:42-47

Sermon

Bill Mosley

... now?" And he nods and looks satisfied and says, "Good." The chimps know the moves people make to talk on the telephone, but the chimps can't actually talk on the telephone. They have the imitation but not the knowledge. People who study such things say they have found places where apes and chimps have built fires -- that is, they have imitated people they have seen assemble twigs and limbs and branches to make a fire, but of course, they don't know how to light it. They can study the moves and know how to ...

121. They Grow Up Fast

Luke 2:41-52

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... them for so many years, that they just assume that those possibilities are not open to them, until they see somebody like them in those positions. Then they say, "I can do that, too!" That's a role model. Heroes are not necessarily people we can imitate. Heroes are people we admire, because they transcend whatever role they are in, whatever status they have in life, no matter who they are. They transcend it and exhibit the greatest that human beings are capable of. They demonstrate for us what each one of ...

122. The Spirit of...Winter?

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... painting appeared to have similar features to that of a child with Down syndrome." When the museum purchased the picture in the 1930s, it was thought to be by 15th-century Italian painter Andrea Mantegna. Now historians believe it was painted by a lesser artist, imitating him. The two men worked from a checklist used by doctors when they make a diagnosis of Down syndrome. The child appeared to have some of the features, such as a protruding tongue, a gap between his first and second toes, and short, broad ...

123. Changed Lives - Nicodemus

John 3:1-21

Sermon

King Duncan

... humanity. His singular act of love and redemption has multiplied into countless lives transformed by faith. This is the Kingdom. Our lives transformed by the loving act of sacrifice on the cross. In our personal lives we must imitate this, picking up our own cross and being transformed while we imitate a sacrificial life. If any of these images help you understand what that means, then great. You’re not far from the Kingdom. [ORIGINAL SERMON] If you have ever been around a child who is mentally challenged ...

124. Making Disciples

2 Corinthians 3:1-6

Sermon

Donald Charles Lacy

... were ministers of a new covenant, unique and powerful for living a victorious existence here and now and forever and ever. Apparently, he liked to show and tell. You want to meet a Christian? Come and I will introduce you to one! Should we imitate him? Definitely. Can we imitate him? Yes, but be prepared to die to yourself. For many it is increasingly problematic to sustain one's life as an open book. What we have to remember is we are dealing in spiritual matters. By its very nature, the secular world ...

125. Miss Manners and Mr. Goodwrench

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... creates an atmosphere that welcomes and accepts all who tune in to his recipe/sermon. Sure, it's "just" a cooking show. But the spirit that Jeff Smith succeeds in making palpable in his kitchen is the same Spirit that Paul insists that we seek to imitate as we act as representatives of Christ's body here on earth. Besides, as Baldrige says, "When you ask someone to share a meal, it is the ultimate compliment" (65). Perhaps another way to encapsulate what Paul is urging is to contrast our frantic, fractured ...

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