Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 101 to 125 of 1522 results

Luke 5:1-11

Sermon

Richard F. Bansemer

... but faith escapes them. Like the lover whom no one loves, or the bereft and the bereaved, ‘so now the believer who senses no faith senses a certain helplessness on earth. What is such a person to do? If there is a difference between faith-lacking and other "impossible" situations, what is it? As we turn to Peter’s’activities in the sermon text for today we see what happened to him as it relates to his faith. It was a narrow little lake, about thirteen miles long and eight miles wide, a big splash 680 ...

102. The Church’s Fear and Comfort

Acts 9:19b-31

Sermon

Richard F. Bansemer

... do it. or when. If you were his employee chances are you’d walk the straight and narrow. There would be no time for doing half a job. You would fear him, because he would have the power to erase you like a smudge on some paper. Impossible? Incredible? In a way, yes, for we have many safeguards in our country, and dictators have a way of eventually being overthrown But you’ve doubtlessly guessed that this sermon is not about the labor practices of a foreign dictator. We are talking about the absolute and ...

103. Stephen’s Stones

Acts 7:54--8:1a

Sermon

Richard F. Bansemer

... holding a grudge against someone in his life. Chances are, we’ll never get around to forgiving that person who harmed us. It’s not my purpose to dig up old wounds and make them raw again, but you and I might be among many who find it impossible to forgive someone who neither seeks nor wants our forgiveness! Someone who harmed us intentionally - or unintentionally, and took a dream away from us. We all know the eating feeling of anger, don’t we? We know what it’s like to be the object of gossip, or ...

104. To Be Perfectly One

John 17:20-26

Sermon

Allan J. Weenink

... hast loved me." That love, expressed in hope, is the bond that unifies all Christendom ... no matter how remote. The gospel of our unity has a way of reaching even the most isolated areas of the world. It is a miracle. But for those who believe and do, nothing is impossible with God. As we come to his table now, let us hear the word he has to speak to each one of us individually and so find encouragement for the word that we must speak, to keep faith with him. And let us sense anew his sacrificial love as ...

105. Defeating Giants

1 Samuel 17:1-58

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... position that God can support, and if you call on him in faith for a purpose that is in his will, God will go to battle with you. And as St. Paul said, "If God is for us, what does it matter who is against us?" The word impossible is banished from the dictionary. Whether in the boardroom, the classroom, the hospital room or the bedroom, God still works miracles. If you had asked David how he prevailed against Goliath, he would not have bragged on his marksmanship with the slingshot. Nor would he have called ...

106. Report of a Secret Meeting

John 3:1-21

Sermon

George Bass

... mea culpa "I have sinned" as we make our way through this sacred season. The temptation many of us face is simply that we take our stand with Nicodemus, who stood for a legal system designed to make people right with God. Human beings were left with an impossible task: through the deeds they performed under the Law they were to become worthy of God’s love and companionship. The system didn’t work then, and it doesn’t work now. You see, we must be "born again" to enter the kingdom, and that’s a ...

107. Called to Be Saints

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Warren Thomas Smith

... heaven. Whitefield’s response was, in effect: No, Wesley will be so near the throne of grace, and we so far away, we will not see Wesley in heaven. Attitudes What better text than the Beatitudes - the "Beautiful Attitudes." Some claim that we have an impossible list of spiritual/ethical/moral requirements. How can anyone measure up? Others maintain that Jesus was simply giving a set of standards which he alone could achieve. If this be the case, why are we taking time to study them? How do the Beatitudes ...

108. The Choice Is Always Ours

Ecclesiastes 9:1-12

Sermon

Gregory J. Johanson

... received a letter from a 53-year-old Christian minister whose successes for Christ and his Church are heralded internationally. Here is the beginning of the letter: Dear Brother Benefiel: This week I have had to add a new word to my vocabulary. It is "impossible." As you know, for all of my ministry I have preached from the text: "All things are possible ... only believe." (Mark 9:23) I have taught that if one used one’s most loving efforts, engaged the cooperation of the most devoted and able Christians ...

109. For Laughing Out Loud!

Genesis 18:1-15

Sermon

King Duncan

... one morning to find a puddle of water in the middle of his king-size water bed. In order to fix the puncture, he rolled the heavy mattress outdoors and filled it with more water so he could locate the leak more easily. The enormous bag of water was impossible to control and began rolling on the hilly terrain. He tried to hold it back, but it headed downhill and landed in a clump of bushes which poked it full of holes. Disgusted, he threw out the water bed frame and moved a standard bed into his room. The ...

110. Never Too Old for an Adventure

Romans 4:1-25

Sermon

King Duncan

... over and to explain his position. The Jewish people looked to Moses as the great law giver. Paul suggests a new hero, Abraham, as the example for Christian faith. Abraham, Paul argued, lived his life by faith, believing in God's promise even though it seemed impossible. Thus Abraham was saved by faith and not by the law. Indeed, because of the way he lived his life, Abraham became the father of faith. You See, Faith Is, First of All, A Matter of Simple Trust. In his first encounter with God, God promises ...

111. Standing On Your Head For God

2 Samuel 6:1-23

Sermon

King Duncan

... God!" "Do you believe that?" Alfonso addressed the question to everyone. And several of them replied, "Yes!" From that day onward the church prayed for 500 souls. Through faith ” and against his better judgement ” Alfonso had ventured from the possible to the impossible, from what he knew his church could do to what he believed it would do. God rewarded Alfonso's faith. Today Taytay United Methodist Church in Manila has over 1,000 members. It has grown faster than any other church in its denomination ...

112. A Question We All Ask

Mark 10:17-31

Sermon

King Duncan

... the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God." The disciples were incredulous! "Then who in the world can be saved, if not a rich man?" they asked. Jesus looked at them intently, then said, "Without God, it is utterly impossible. But with God everything is possible." And that is the point of the story. With God everything is possible. This rich man had kept all the commandments from his youth up and yet he still lacked one thing. That one thing was God. 1. Jokes@jokeseveryday.com ...

113. Time For A New Vision

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

Angela Akers

... form of an old blessing, "God be with you." (9) And this was exactly the blessing that Jesus was leaving with his followers, those many centuries ago and even today. God is with us. God is in us. If we truly have Jesus' vision, then nothing will be impossible for us. God be with you. 1. From Leadership Magazine, Spring 1996, p. 73. The Pastor's Story File, vol. 17, No. 8, June 2001, p. 1. 2. Ben Burton, The Chicken That Won a Dogfight (Little Rock, AR: August House Publishers, 1993), pp. 131-135. 3 ...

114. Excited, Motivated, Changed!

Acts 2:14-41

Sermon

King Duncan

... time is required." For six months they struggled with drawing after drawing, design after design. Nothing. Another six months. Nothing. At the end of the year Ford checked with his engineers and they once again told him that what he wanted was impossible. Ford told them to keep going. They did. And they discovered how to build a V8 engine. (4) Motivation that lasts comes from having someone greater than ourselves instructing us, encouraging us, prodding us, exhorting us. The disciples were changed because ...

115. No Longer Orphans

John 14:15-31

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... just left. "Well, Donald," said the minister, glancing at the chair, "I see I am not your first visitor." The old Scotsman looked up in surprise, so the minister pointed to the chair. "Ah," said the sick man, "I'll tell you about that chair. Years ago I found it impossible to pray. I often fell asleep on my knees, I was so tired. And if I kept awake, I could not control my thoughts from wandering. One day I was so worried I spoke to the minister about it. He told me not to worry about kneeling down. "Just ...

116. Not the Seasons for Figs

Mark 11:12-19

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... a moment He forgot who He was and simply did something stupid, (like the rest of us), to putting the blame for the whole affair on the fig tree. One commentator says that finding a tree with ripe figs in the spring is not impossible; highly improbable, but not impossible. Some trees manage. Another explains that any tree bearing leaves in the spring has kept them since the previous fall, along with the ripened figs which are now ready to eat. So it was not such an unreasonable request to find edible figs on ...

117. Easy to Say, Hard to Do

1 John 4:7-21

Sermon

Paul E. Robinson

... ," he thought. Another day he was touched by the joy of the sharing of skills, money, and effort with others in meaningful, difficult service and mission projects. "I can't be doing this," he thought. "Impossible." And suddenly, one day, he got up in the morning and looked in the mirror and realized that for the first time in his life he could say to the one looking back at him, "I love you." And he became a new man. Were it not for the church ...

118. The Cross: God's Answer To Our Deepest Needs

Colossians 2:8-15

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... die. So the cross meets that need. Listen to Jesus: "If any persons would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me." He's talking about nothing less than the Kingdom. When we pray "Thy Kingdom come", we are taking on an apparently impossible task. "Dr. Chad Walsh pointed out, in a preface to a book by C. S. Lewis, that "the forces of evil are locked in combat with the servants of God. However humble our status in this world, we are summoned to fight on one side or the other ...

119. We Can't Afford It! Oh, Really?

John 6:1-15

Sermon

King Duncan

... , hope to the desperate. We have the resources. All we lack is faith. What is it that Christ said? “…if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:20-21) The problem, dear friends, is not our lack of resources, but our lack of faith. In today’s lesson from the Gospel, Jesus is on a mountainside with his disciples. The Jewish Passover Feast is near. He looks up and sees ...

120. Can't Help Dreaming

Acts 2:1-21

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... of losers. I am tempted to point that out to Mr. Turner, who owns the Atlanta Braves, and who lost the National League Championship to a team that bears the name of Christian missionaries. But apart from that irony, he is right. Christianity is based on an impossible dream, a vision of what this world should be, a world when all people will live together in peace, a world when every person born will find the fulfillment of their life that God intended for them, a vision where men and women will live for the ...

121. Can These Bones Live?

Ezekiel 37:1-14

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... , suffering, crime, violence, and evil — none of our programs seem to do away with them forever. For every solution, there is a new problem, for every program, an unforeseen shortcoming, and unless healing and restoration are in the hands of God, good life seems impossible. Our bones are dried up; we are clean cut off. O God, will you restore us? It is unfortunate that this text from Ezekiel has been paired in the lectionary with the gospel lesson in John 11. For that passage talks about the final ...

122. You've Gotta Believe

Hebrews 11:1-6

Sermon

James Merritt

... the Word of God. Faith is the legal proof and the absolute guarantee of things that are not seen. Faith sees what the eye cannot see. The eye gives you sight, faith gives you vision. Faith sees the invisible, touches the intangible, hears the inaudible, and attempts the impossible. Your sight may be 20/20, but the eyes of faith can see farther, deeper, clearer, and better than the eyes of flesh will ever see. When my flesh looks at the sun, my faith sees Jesus, the Light of the World. When my flesh looks at ...

123. The Key That Unlocks the Door to Spiritual Power

Mark 14:36

Sermon

James Merritt

... was an hour of despair. Yet, Jesus still said, "All things are possible for You." One of the greatest definitions of faith I have ever read in my life is this: Faith conceives the invisible, believes the incredible, and receives the impossible. The God of the invisible wants you to know that he can make the impossible become an incredible possibility. And no matter how dark the night may be, no matter how difficult the day may loom, we must ever maintain faith and confidence in the God for whom nothing is ...

124. It Was the Birthday of a King

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

James Merritt

... Jesus Christ. In all honesty, the Bible doesn't give an explanation, it simply gives a revelation. Doctors and scientists may say that the virgin birth is impossible, but Luke 1:37 tells us, "with God nothing will be impossible." A person can be saved without knowing about the virgin birth. A person can be saved without understanding the virgin birth. But it is impossible to be saved and deny the virgin birth. b. The Majesty of His Birth "Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken ...

125. The World's Greatest Body Builder

1 Corinthians 12:13

Sermon

James Merritt

... . For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body-whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free-and have all been made to drink into one Spirit." Six times in two verses Paul speaks of the body of Christ being "one." Before Pentecost, it was impossible for Jewish, Gentile, or Samaritan believers to come together as one. They had no unity because there was no basis for unity. But now Jew and Gentile, bond and free, male and female, are all in one body. Because of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, we ...

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