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Showing 1226 to 1250 of 4490 results

1226. An Altered State of Consciousness

Romans 5:1-11

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

Now we move to the fourth Sunday after Pentecost, and from the reading we select the text: "For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." We shall come into new life by his life. That means a different life, a new way of seeing things, "an altered state of consciousness." Let me give it to you in the terms of one man’s experience. He was an exceptionally fine plumber - so good that he was employed in a nuclear ...

1227. Grace, Salvation, and Redemption

Romans 8:18-27, 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, Romans 5:1-11

Sermon Aid

T. A. Kantonen

To be a Christian, says Emil Brunner, is to share something which has happened, which is happening, and which will happen. Archibald Hunter, in his book The Gospel According to St. Paul, makes good use of this approach and it provides a helpful scheme for our study of Paul’s basic theology of salvation by grace. First is salvation as a past event, in which the accent falls on redemption as a once-for-all divine act which has already occurred. Second is salvation as a present experience, the response of ...

1228. Samson, the Bully

Judges 16:1-22

Sermon

Don Yocom

"And he knew not the Lord had left him." The Old Testament story of Samson is a profile of a man who was a prankster, an arsonist and a bully, a strong man who did not know his strength, all rolled into one human being. He was emotionally immature and morally unsound. Yet his life indicates something to us worth noting. His name is legion today, if we count the multitudes who have never grown up spiritually, and who have little contact with God but may not even be aware of it. In addition to what we have ...

1229. A Song of Promise

Zephaniah 3:1-20

Sermon

Harry N. Huxhold

In 1967 Shastokovitch, the Russian composer, wrote a symphony titled October. The work was to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. In East Germany that year the Protestant Church observed the 450th anniversary of the Reformation. However, the dominant theme in East Germany that year was “Roter Oktober,” “Red October,” because of the dominance of the Russian government. The people were to celebrate their release from the yoke of Russian tsars and the freedom they had ...

1230. The Bedrock of Faith

Mark 13:1-8 · Luke 21:5-19

Sermon

Brett Blair

Have you ever tried to make a prediction? Here are some predictions from the past. All from people who were trusted individuals: Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, in 1943 said, "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." Popular Mechanics magazine in 1949 made this prediction: "Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons." There was an inventor by the name of Lee ...

1231. The Grief Grinch

John 11:17-37

Sermon

David E. Leininger

We are approaching an exciting time of the year - Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's. Times of celebration. Times for friends and family. Times of joy. And for some, times of incredible sadness. The holidays will be hard because someone with whom previous special days were shared is gone. To paraphrase Tennyson's In Memoriam, "Never Christmas wore to New Year's but some heart did break." If you have never experienced that, I would be tempted to offer congratulations, but I will not. They would probably ...

1232. God Bless the Child

Mark 10:13-16

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Several years ago, the Presbyterian Church prepared new catechisms for the instruction of both children and adults in the basics of our faith. What we had been using up till then (or NOT using, as the case generally was), had been written in the seventeenth century and was in archaic language that was difficult for modern ears to understand. The new catechism for children begins this way: Question: Who are you? Answer: I am a child of God. Good start, I think. And what brings it to mind this morning is ...

1233. A Soap Opera For Saints

2 Samuel 11:1-27

Sermon

King Duncan

Guin Ream Tuckett was asked to teach a junior high Sunday School class. All went well until she reached the lessons on sex. This is not a subject that is easy for adults working with this particular age group to broach. Although Guin worked out a well-balanced, Biblically-based lesson, her kids seemed pretty uninterested. That is, until one kid asked if there were sex stories in the Bible. Guin assured them that there were both good and bad examples of sex represented in the Good Book. Now she had their ...

1234. There's A Better Way Than Shooting Somebody

Matthew 18:15-20

Sermon

King Duncan

There is a story that Alfred, Lord Tennyson once invited a Russian nobleman to his estate to do some hunting. The nobleman went off by himself one morning and returned later in the day. "How did you do?" asked Tennyson. "Not too well," replied the nobleman. "I shot two peasants." "You mean two pheasants," Lord Tennyson said with amusement. "We pronounce it with a ph. Pheasant." "No," the nobleman said, "I mean two peasants. They were insolent to me, and so I shot them." The story is outrageous, of course. ...

1235. Meeting Jesus Along The Way

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

King Duncan

There is an 80-foot tall maple tree in Milford, Connecticut that hasn ™t changed much over the years. There are new leaves every spring, of course, and the leaves fall off every autumn. And there is the spot where a limb came off when Hurricane Gloria blew through in 1985. Other than that missing branch the tree on Hawley Avenue has looked the same for as long as anyone can remember. The spot where the limb was blown off caused quite a stir in the neighborhood sometime back. One of the residents, Claudia ...

1236. Whatever Became of Sin?

Romans 6:23

Sermon

Lowell D. Streiker

On a sunny day in September, 1972, a stern-face, plainly dressed man could be seen standing still on a street corner in the busy Chicago Loop. As pedestrians hurried by on their way to lunch or business, he would solemnly lift his right arm, and pointing to the person nearest him, intone loudly the single word "GUILTY!" Then, without any change of expression, he would resume his stiff stance for a few moments before repeating the gesture. Then, again, the inexorable raising of the arm, the pointing, and ...

1237. Busybodies

Luke 13:10-17

Sermon

King Duncan

People who knew legendary jazz musician Cab Calloway as a man of dignity and humor. One night at Birdland, the legendary jazz bar, Cab was introducing a promising young saxophone player. As the sax player finished his set, a self-appointed jazz critic came over to him and said, in front of Cab, "You aren't that good, man. All you can do is play like Charlie Parker." Cab took the young man's sax and handed it over to the critic. "Here," he said, "you play it like Charlie Parker." (1) Isn't it true that ...

1238. Passing The Test!

Genesis 3:1-24

Sermon

Eric Ritz

Back in the 1920s, residents of Cades Cove, Tennessee, lived in fear of the legendary Wampus Cat, a creature known to be vicious, supernaturally strong, and sly. The Wampus Cat was so sly that no one had actually seen one, but there were those who swore that it existed. One loud shotgun blast echoing through the Cove would warn the men of the town that the Wampus Cat had been sighted, and they'd all grab their guns and go out hunting it. Only after the legend of the Wampus Cat was passed down through many ...

1239. It's A Terrible Thing To Be Rejected

Matthew 21:33-46

Sermon

King Duncan

One of the characteristics of many Eastern cultures is a deep sensitive people are to other people's feelings. For example, one publication, the Financial Times, carried this rejection notice, written to a writer by the overly polite editor of a Chinese economic journal: "We have read your manuscript with boundless delight. If we were to publish your paper," says the editor, "it would be impossible for us to publish any work of lower standard. And as it is unthinkable that in the next thousand years we ...

1240. Prepare The Way Of The Lord

Isaiah 40:1-31

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

No shout in Scripture is more familiar than the shout of the prophet Isaiah. "Get ready!", he is saying, "The Messiah is coming. Prepare the Way of the Lord." Isaiah 40 is one of the most familiar passages in the Old Testament, made so in large part by Handel's MESSIAH. It's the call of Advent: "Prepare the way of the Lord." Now I know that the coming of Christ is always gift, always grace. So we need to think a little about how the spontaneous working of God's grace, unearned, unexpected, undeserved how ...

1241. Jesus Transforms the Darkness into Light

John 20:1-18

Sermon

Richard Gribble

Pastor David Johnson was all ready, he thought, for his Easter sermon. Having only graduated from the seminary three months prior to taking his present position at the Maple Street Community Church, he possessed all the latest and most interesting theology. He made the final touches to his sermon on Holy Saturday morning and outlined its content to his wife. He told her that his sermon was based on theology of Paul Tillich and spoke of the resurrection as a symbol that the estrangement from our authentic ...

1242. More Power to You!

Romans 1:1-17

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Well, we've done it again. We've made it safely through another high alert weekend, with official government warnings about credible terrorist threats. The highest ranking military officers in the world's most powerful armed-forces (ours) are candidly admitting on national TV that they have no way to really defend against a suicidally-committed homicide-bomber. It seems that all our standing armies, all our military hardware, all our advanced weapon's systems cannot protect us from a single-minded, ...

1243. Pay It Forward!

Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

There is no place like an island to bring home how vitally interconnected we are to each other. The other night, one lone deer on tiny Shaw Island managed to plunge all the San Juan County islands into complete darkness and powerlessness for about five hours. This deer, it seems, decided to cross the road at the same time some unsuspecting driver (and there are only about 50 cars on the entire island) came around the corner. Whether to save Bambi or the front grillwork, the driver swerved sharply. He ...

1244. Ever Been Robbed?

John 3:1-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

It's a sad life-lesson. You probably learned it first as a young child. Leave something out, unattended, not locked-down or locked-up, and it's a pretty safe bet it's going to get stolen. Depending upon where and when you grew up, this lesson might have been learned later or earlier. But I doubt if there's anyone here today who hasn't had the experience of being robbed of something at sometime in their life. (You may want to get stories from your congregation of things they had stolen as children or as ...

1245. In Life Nothing Works but the Impossible

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

EXEGESIS of Matthew 1:18-25 Matthew begins his gospel by taking special care to establish Jesus’ historical and theological identity. The first seventeen verses enumerate the genealogy of Jesus “the Messiah” and establishes Joseph’s lineage as a descendant of the royal house of David. Yet this information also problematizes the narrative, for Matthew also reveals that Jesus’ conception was a miraculous work of the Holy Spirit. Mary, a betrothed young woman, remained a virgin until Jesus’ birth. In today’s ...

1246. An Emmaus Experience

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

Mark R. Smith

There's a story about a young boy named Walter Elias. He was born in the city, but his parents moved out to the country to become farmers. Walter had a vivid imagination and the farm was the perfect place for a young boy and a wondering mind. One day in the apple orchard he was amazed when he saw sitting on a branch of one of the apple trees an owl. He just stood there and stared at the owl. He thought about what his father had told him about owls: owls always rested during the day because they hunted ...

1247. For His Eyes Only

Matthew 6:1-4

Sermon

James Merritt

If you have ever gone for a job interview, one of the questions that you will be asked is something like this: "Tell me what you have done in the past that would qualify you for this job?" Or, they may ask you something like this: "What character qualities do you have that would make me want to hire you?" But if you will think back to any job interview you have ever had you were never asked this question: "Why do you do what you do?" When people try to size us up and find out what kind of persons we are, ...

1248. Never Say What You Won't Do!

Genesis 2:4-25

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

The well-known pastor, teacher, and writer, Chuck Swindoll, has observed that dating couples are often less than honest with each other. This is even true when they are engaged. For example, a man may tell his wife-to-be how much he loves the symphony. He eagerly escorts her to these performances, grinning like a mule eating briars, trying to impress his fiancée with how much he loves the arts. She is thinking, oh boy, I finally found a really cultured man! However, when they return from the honeymoon, he ...

1249. The Three Stages to Truth: A Biblical Philosophy of Education

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Ours is an educated era. Yet we seem to be filled with facts while remaining ignorant of true understanding. In these texts the greatest teacher we have ever known, Jesus, demonstrates an educative scheme designed to fill our hearts as well as our heads, and destined to get our feet moving along with our minds. The texts examined this week demonstrate the biblical understanding of Truth (aletheia in Greek) as "nonconcealment," the disclosure of the "full or real state of affairs." Two days after the ...

1250. Call to Oneness

John 17:20-26

Sermon

Donald Charles Lacy

When, dear God, shall Christians all be one? It is a first-century inquiry. It is a here-and-now recurring question. Countless programs have been launched. Numerous proposals have been given. Only God knows how many problems have risen in our quest for Christian unity. We live and minister in the twenty-first century in ways not that different from what our spiritual ancestors experienced. Have some things and relationships improved, especially since Vatican II? The answer without doubt is a resounding, " ...

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