Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: Levi, disciple, evangelist, tax collector, the 12, the twelve, apostle, sermon on the mount, jewish audience, beatitudes, lord's prayer, great commission, parables, olivet discourse, mount of olives, olivet, synoptic

Showing 101 to 125 of 2273 results

101. The Three Kings--And The King Of Kings

Isaiah 9:1-7

Sermon

Thomas A. Pilgrim

... for being Catholic. But two Jesuits wrote a song of hope for all Catholics in England. And they sang it to bolster their faith and commitment in a difficult time. Here is the real meaning of that song: "Twelve drummers drumming" were the twelve beliefs outlined in the Apostles' Creed. "Eleven pipers piping" were the eleven apostles, minus Judas. "Ten lords a-leaping" were the Ten Commandments. "Nine ladies dancing" were the nine choirs of angels. "Eight maids a-milking" were the Beatitudes. "Seven swans a ...

102. Lamps, Cakes, and the Blasphemer

Lev 24:1-23

Teach the Text

Joe M. Sprinkle

... pure gold and located in the holy place (Exod. 25:23–30). “Two-tenths of an ephah” is two quarts or about “7 pounds” (NIVmg). Elsewhere called “the bread of the Presence” (Exod. 25:30; 35:13; 39:36), the “twelve loaves” presumably symbolize the twelve tribes. Given the small table, they must have been flat cakes in two “stacks,” not “rows” (contra KJV, NASB, NRSV). The loaves are not burned, but “incense” (or frankincense) placed beside the loaves is burned as a substitute to ...

103. The Wisemen

Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

Jerry Eckert

... turtle doves 30 French hens 36 calling birds 40 gold rings 42 geese a'laying 42 swans a'swimming 40 maids a'milking 36 ladies dancing 30 lords a'leaping 22 pipers piping 12 drummers drumming and 12 partridges in a pear tree Giving of presents and the twelve days of Christmas are traditionally tied to the coming of the three wisemen. There are a lot of stories written about them. I've tried my hand at it. Picture, if you will, three learned men, professors, scholars. Don't forget, while most of our European ...

104. The Authority of Jesus over Sickness and Death

Mark 5:21-43

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

... 37 He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John. Jesus keeps all his followers back except the inner circle of his disciples. There are four concentric circles of followers named: the 120 (Acts 1:15), the seventy (or seventy-two [Luke 10:1]), the Twelve (Mark 3:13–19), and these three, probably those closest to Jesus (cf. Mark 9:2; 13:3; 14:33). 5:39 The child is not dead but asleep. As in 5:35, the people have entirely lost faith in Jesus’s authority to heal, and the professional ...

105. The Arrest of Jesus

Mark 14:43-52

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

... 52). Throughout, Jesus rather than Judas or the mob is in control, and everything is happening because “the Scriptures must be fulfilled” (v. 49). Divine necessity lies behind every aspect. Interpretive Insights 14:43 Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared. In 14:18, 20 Jesus predicted that one of the Twelve would betray him. In 14:10–11 we are told that that treacherous member of the apostolic band is Judas. The crowd with swords and clubs probably is the temple guards, who formed a Levitical police ...

106. Live Spelled Backward

Matthew 26:14-27:66

Sermon

Robert Leslie Holmes

... of Olives. It is the last Thursday Jesus will be the Son of Man. Already the shades of evening are beginning to fall and he stands there in the company of his disciples and looks across Kidron Valley to the city of his destiny, Jerusalem. He looks the twelve in the eye and says, "It's marching time." They move out from Bethany, down through the valley, past the olive groves to the city of David, where they enter the gate and amble through cobblestone streets until they come at last to what someone once ...

107. Philip the First

John 1:43-51

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... best we can do in our day is what John Wesley said he did in the 18th century: “I offered them Christ.” The rest is up to them—and to God. The word “apostle” means “someone sent with a message to deliver.” And that is the mission not only of the Twelve, but of all of us. All of us, by virtue of our baptism, are ministers of Christ, called to minister to one another in Christ’s name—not just the clergy in the pulpit, but the laity in the pew. Mark Twain once asked someone, “Why do you sit ...

108. Wheel Within The Wheel

Acts 1:12-26

Sermon

Durwood L. Buchheim

... not replaced. The crucial factor in this special election seems to have been the defection of Judas. That scandal had to be corrected. He had to be replaced. We also remember the twelve had been appointed by the earthly Jesus and sent out to proclaim the gospel. The number twelve was a strong symbol. It brought to mind the twelve sons, the tribes of Jacob/Israel, and so symbolically linked the old Israel with the beginnings of the new church. Apparently this connection between the old and the new was so ...

109. A Reed Who Became a Rock

John 1:35-42

Sermon

R. Blaine Detrick

... pass over the period of the life of Jesus: the coming of the promised Messiah ... the climax of God’s redeeming work ... the time of the Incarnation ... when God became man ... when the eternal entered time ... when the heavenly became earthly. Two of the twelve apostles of Jesus were chosen as favorite men of the Bible: 1) Peter, whom we shall consider in this chapter, and 2) John, the beloved disciple, whom we shall think about in the next chapter. Concerning Peter, let us first note several interesting ...

110. LENT: The Passion of Christ: "Betrayed"

John 13:21-30; Matthew 26:14-16; 45-50

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... wasn't all that much. It was enough to buy a slave's freedom but not enough to retire on. All it did was buy Judas into slavery to his sin. Some have said that it was because of Jealousy. Judas was a Judean, from Kerioth, the only one of the twelve who wasn't from Galilee. So he felt a little alienated, like an outsider. Plus the fact that Judas wasn't a part of the inner circle of Peter, James and John. Others have said that it was Anger, lingering anger from the rebuke he received when he objected to ...

111. More Than Enough

John 6:1-21

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... Walmart. It was not asked because Philip was familiar with the territory and knew where the bread store was. It was asked not because Jesus was truly flummoxed about what to do. It wasn’t even asked because it was somehow the responsibility of Jesus and the twelve to feed all these people. In reality, it was not. It was a rhetorical question, asked, as all rhetorical questions are always asked, as a teaching tool. Jesus knew what he was about to do and he wanted to see if Philip could figure it out. What ...

112. A Man Whose Dreams Came True

Genesis 37:1-11

Sermon

R. Blaine Detrick

... we discuss in this chapter. He lived at a very critical time in the life of this new nation which the lord was cultivating. This young man’s name was Joseph - the son of Jacob and his favorite wife, Rachel. Joseph was almost the youngest of the twelve boys - he had ten older brothers (really, half-brothers) - but was the first son of Rachel. Because of this, Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children, creating jealousy in the family, and intensified that envy by making him a gift of a very ...

113. Brainstorms

Sermon

John R. Bodo

... . But you can tell a great deal about a man by the company he keeps, the organizations to which he belongs, the causes he supports. Much of who we are can be deduced from the cards we carry in our wallets. Andrew seemed content to be just "one of the Twelve." He did not join James and John when they asked the Master, foolishly, whether they might sit one at his right hand the other at his left, in the kingdom (Matthew 10:35-45). He did not register any jealousy when he was not permitted to witness Jesus ...

114. The First Disciples

Luke 5:1-11

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... Now Luke fills in the background to that mention by telling of the recruitment of the first and closest of the disciples who will accompany Jesus in his ministry. They are the first of a growing number of people publicly associated with Jesus (5:33; 6:17), of whom the Twelve will be only a select few chosen to be his closest associates (6:13). From here on this will be the story not of Jesus alone but of Jesus and his disciples, and he will very seldom be seen apart from their company until he is taken from ...

115. Son of Thunder, Son of God

Mark 10:35-45

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... day he opened every can in the hotel. We don’t need everyone to do the same thing. We don’t need clones; we need Christians! We do know that both John and his brother James were men of violent temper. When Mark gives his list of the Twelve in Chapter 3, he says that Jesus even gave them a nickname: “Boanerges,” i.e., “Sons of Thunder.” Luke 9:54 tells us that when Jesus and his disciples left Galilee for Jerusalem and a Samaritan village refused to welcome them, James and John wished to “bid ...

116. Which Kingdom Do We Serve?

Mark 6:14-29

Sermon

David Coffin

... sins of humanity. But this kingdom would live beyond any grave and unto eternity. There is new life after every death. This is the good news of the Christian church. Before we take costly risks, we should ask ourselves which kingdom we are serving? The twelve disciples also would soon find out. When the disciples returned with positive reports of ministry well done, Mark the gospel writer also wanted to warn readers that both Jesus and his disciples of a similar untimely death as that of John the Baptist ...

117. Jesus Is God’s Faithful Son in Gethsemane and at His Arrest and Trial

Matthew 26:31-35, Matthew 26:36-46, Matthew 26:47-56, Matthew 26:57-68, Matthew 26:69-75

Teach the Text

Jeannine K. Brown

... our God-given mission. 2. Matthew portrays the commitment to “being with” Jesus as fundamental to discipleship. In the scene of Jesus’ desertion by his disciples we get a glimpse of how important it is for followers of Jesus to remain loyal to him. For the Twelve, who have been present with Jesus for much of Matthew’s narrative and whose call to follow has been about presence (4:18–22), to desert Jesus now at his most vulnerable and difficult hour is an abdication of their most important role. In ...

118. The Request of James and John

Mark 10:35-45

Understanding Series

Larry W. Hurtado

... On the other hand, we can see a dream that is seriously out of keeping with what the reader knows now to be Jesus’ immediate fate and his teaching about the proper role of his followers. This is then another instance of Mark’s portrayal of the Twelve as fumbling, failing disciples, who serve as a warning to the readers to be sure of their own understanding of and obedience to Jesus’ teaching. In a sense, the reader is prepared for this request for special places with Jesus from these individuals, for ...

119. The Sound of a Mighty Wind

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... was burned at the stake. Nothing is known about the fate of James the Less or Matthias, the disciple who was chosen by the casting of lots to replace Judas in Acts 1. They were rather obscure figures, but undoubtedly they paid a price as well. Only one of the twelve disciples probably died a natural death the beloved disciple John, the one to whom was given the care of Jesus’ mother. It is said he died in 98 A.D. According to Jerome, John was so frail in his final days at Ephesus that he had to be carried ...

120. A Light for All Nations

Isaiah 60:1-6, Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

King Duncan

... three French hens, four calling birds, five golden rings, six geese laying, seven swans swimming, eight maids milking, nine ladies dancing, ten lords leaping, eleven pipers piping and twelve drummers drumming. The song is a delightful way to celebrate the twelve days of Christmas. The idea of the twelve days of Christmas is based on the tradition that the wise men, or magi as they are also called, arrived to worship the Christ child twelve days after his birth. You will remember that in Matthew’s telling ...

121. Paul in Ephesus

Acts 19:1-22

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... by Luke’s statement that “there were about twelve men in all” (19:7), a statement that again evokes the symbol of twelve (see 1:15–26). Under the leadership of the Twelve, the Jewish believers witness the dawn of the eschatological Spirit on the restored people of God. Here the presence of the Spirit among the twelve disciples in Gentile lands confirms that God has indeed taken “a people for his name from the Gentiles” (Acts 15:14). Finally, the message Paul preaches is also of significance ...

122. Eternity: The New Jerusalem

Revelation 21:1-27

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... God with the church. The dimensions of the city are an allusion to Ezekiel’s vision of a restored temple in which God’s glory is manifested as rivers of living water flowing from the sanctuary’s foundation and each of its twelve gates is named after one of the twelve tribes of Israel (21:15–17; cf. Ezek. 40:1–4; 43:1–5; 47:1–12; 48:30–35). Just as Ezekiel’s dimensions make the temple a perfect cube, so do the bowl angel’s measurements of the New Jerusalem make it a cube. Yet everything ...

123. If There Isn’t Enough To Go Around

Matthew 14:13-21

Sermon

William G. Carter

... send them away.” According to the gospel of Matthew, however, Jesus did not let his fishermen off the hook. As surely as this story of feeding the multitude is about Jesus, the founder of the feast, it is also a story about his twelve disciples. When the twelve said, “Lord, get rid of this crowd,” he replied, “You give them something to eat!” Now that’s a striking aspect to this story. Jesus did not turn stones into loaves of bread to feed the crowd. Instead he demanded his followers to pitch in ...

124. Elijah and the Prophets of Baal

1 Kings 18:16-46

Sermon

Don Yocom

... table used for Holy Communion. Someone made this suggestion: Every family was to contribute a piece of wood from around their homes. A skilled craftsman was hired who took those pieces of wood and made an altar to God from them. It was just as symbolic as the twelve stones in Elijah’s altar on Mount Carmel. The church came alive and responsive to God. What is most important is that the altar of God be used as a commitment place for man before the Supreme Being of the Universe. We must rebuild our altars ...

125. The Man From Galilee IV: The Treasure Of His Kingdom

Matthew 13:44-46

Sermon

Thomas A. Pilgrim

... had to get in a boat and speak to them as they crowded along the shore of the lake. That day He spoke many things to them in parables, those little stories which Jesus told which contained such great truths. Later, after the people had left, Jesus and the twelve went back to Simon's home in Capernaum. The disciples asked Jesus to explain one of the parables. In the course of their conversation He gave them other parables about the kingdom of Heaven. One of them was the parable I have read for us today. In ...

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