Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 1301 to 1325 of 4935 results

1301. www.Salvation.com

Ephesians 2:8-10

Sermon

James Merritt

If God had a website on salvation, and you were to pull up that page to find what the God, who will decide who gets into heaven and who does not, says about salvation, what do you think you would find? (Incidentally, there is such a website, because I found it in preparing this message—what they had on several pages I believe God probably could condense down to one paragraph, which is the text we are preaching from today. "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is ...

1302. There's God In Them There Hills

Psalm 19:1-14

Sermon

James Merritt

On September 27, 1998, Philip Ozersky went to a baseball game and saw his life changed forever. With one swing of a bat, and in two twinklings of the eye, he caught not just a baseball, but a gold mine. Now a lot of fans have caught home runs, but this was no ordinary home run. A lot of batters have hit home runs, but this was no ordinary batter. On that day, Mark McGuire came to the plate and hit his record-breaking seventieth home run. The ball was launched over Ozersky's head, hit a wall and bounced ...

1303. Your New Home

Joshua 24:14-15

Sermon

James Merritt

For almost two months now, we have been together in an extreme home makeover. You are looking at pretty much the finished product. It does look much different from what we had when we first started. The process has taken us from nails, boards, screws, nuts and bolts to our new house. What you see behind me, represents what we want every family to experience - an extreme home makeover. That is why we spent the last eight weeks on it. A great Christian who lived over a century ago, named G. K. Chesterton, ...

1304. God Where Are You? - The Problem of Evil

Genesis 3:1-6, Judges 6:13

Sermon

James Merritt

Whether it is the Holocaust, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11, a tsunami that wipes out 150,000 people in a day, or the massive starvation of millions of children around the world, you cannot deny the reality of evil. On the other hand, we saw last week how science itself has proved with certainty that the world is not eternal. The universe had a beginning. The only feasible option to explain the origin of the universe is a transcendent creator. DNA itself is a compelling ...

1305. Ministering Angels

Exodus 23:20-33

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Frederick Buechner is one of my favorite writers. I don’t know of any contemporary writer who says anything clearer or more creative than Buechner, He has one book entitled “Wishful Thinking” which he subtitles “Theological ABC”. In this book he defines words, words that are common in our Christian vocabulary. He’s the one I quoted a couple of weeks ago defining glory as “what God looks like when for the time being all that you have to look at him with is a pair of eyes.” He defines a glutton as “one who ...

1306. The Cost of Discipleship: Get Lost!

Mark 8:31--9:1

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

My favorite definition of the cross was given by the daughter of Dr. Joseph Cotton a number of years ago. When walking into the church for the first time, and seeing the cross on the altar, this little girl said, “Daddy, what’s that plus sign doing up there?” Have you ever thought of it that way? The cross as a plus sign. Keep that image in mind as we move through the sermon this morning. I am talking about the cross today because I’m talking about the cost of discipleship. The cost of disciple ship is to ...

1307. First Thing

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

James Merritt

Have you ever been so worried about anything at any time in your life that you couldn’t sleep? I don’t mean just for a day or two, but I mean weeks or maybe even months. If you have, listen to this true story. A man I know was dealing with a problem related to his ministry that so obsessed him and so worried him that for over a month, he was going on about 3 ½ - 4 hours of sleep a night. Different friends and coworkers would comment to him jokingly that they would get an email from him at 11:30-12am and ...

1308. The Knot: Bound

Genesis 2:4-25

Sermon

James Merritt

Do you ever wonder how a pastor determines what he is going to preach on each week—or each year? Sometimes it’s difficult, but other times there is a clear, strong call from God on a specific area of teaching. In this case, the area of marriage has for me been a clear, strong call from God in terms of teaching for this time in the life of our church. The reason is very simple. Hardly a week goes by that I don’t hear of someone having trouble in their marriage, both in our church and outside our church. It ...

1309. In Pisidian Antioch

Acts 13:13-52

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

The missionaries cross to Asia Minor, where Paul’s first recorded sermon is preached in Antioch. The speech is given at length, so that on other occasions Luke needed only to say that Paul “proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues” (13:5; 14:1; etc.) without feeling obliged to give the content of the preaching each time. And like the speech, the response was also a paradigm, with some Jews believing but many rejecting the gospel. It is possible to see in the pattern of ministry outlined in this ...

1310. Miracle Four: Healing A Paralytic

Mark 2:1-12

Sermon Aid

Harold H. Lentz

BACKGROUND MATERIAL When Christ began his ministry of preaching and healing, his fame spread, until he was well known throughout a large area. He intended to make clear the message of repentance and salvation from sin, but the news of his astounding miracles was something people immediately grasped, and they spread the information everywhere. As a result, throngs sought Jesus in order to have him cure the victims of ill health within their family circle. To avoid huge crowds, Jesus would sometimes go out ...

1311. No Shortcut To Glory

2 Kings 2:1-18

Sermon

William L. Self

At the beginning of every new fall term, Dr. Sydnor Staley, the first president of Southeastern Theological Seminary at Wake Forest, North Carolina, welcomed the new freshman class with these words: "I wish that we could give each of you a theological diploma today. Then those who desire an education could go about their studies unhindered by those who are spiritually shallow." The student experience in a theological seminary is interesting as well as educational. There are all kinds of people there for a ...

1312. The Love Of Evil

Psalm 52:1-9

Sermon

Erskine White

You love evil more than good. (Psalm 52:3) Centuries ago, the great philosopher, Socrates, asked a question which troubles the sensitive conscience: "How can people know what is good but do what is bad?" The question has been pondered through the ages and we should be asking it tonight as we begin the forty day period of Lent. For some people, the answer to evil lies in education. They figure that people do bad things because of ignorance and so they put their hope in "getting the facts." They argue that ...

1313. Who’s Keeping Score?

Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon

William J. Carl

What we have in our passage is the contrast between a theology of grace and a theology of keeping score. The first is the one Jesus espouses in this text. The second is the one Peter is pushing and, by the way, the one our world has bought into for centuries. Anne Herbert once suggested that the whole thing started in Eden when Adam and Eve began keeping score. Certainly it was carried on in their children when Cain’s anger over Abel’s higher giving score finally led to murder. Anyway, God got so angry ...

1314. The Upside-down Kingdom of God

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Johnny Dean

Doesn’t it seem to you that our whole culture (when we’re not tuned in to catch the latest nonsense coming out of Washington) is devoted to reminding us that our chief goal in life is to be happy? ("Yes, what he did was wrong. But the economy is good and I’m happy.") There was even a song about the importance and preeminence of being happy a few years ago. Do you remember it? "Here’s a little song I wrote, you might want to sing it note for note: Don’t worry. Be happy!" Advertising sells products based on ...

1315. God's Push

Matthew 15:21-28

Sermon

Most of us, when we are pushed, will push back. When we are pushed harder, we will resist even more. A mother says to her teen-age daughter, "I'd like you to clean your room before you go away for the weekend." "Do I have to?" she groans. "Yes, you must." "I don't want to." "Do it," said the mother, "and that's final!" "No, I won't." And Slam! Bang! go the doors. Very few of us like to be pushed - and that's true of adults, not only youths. Sometimes, however, God pushes us. God nudges us toward something ...

1316. Hungry for Anything?

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

One time I was having lunch with a man in a Chicago Loop restaurant. The waitress came to our table, offered him the menu and asked: "Well, what would you like for lunch;" "I don’t quite know," replied my companion, "but whatever it is, I’m sure that you won’t have it." We never quite get over that kind of childishness, do we? How many people know what they want in life? Try asking them some time, and you will hear a hodgepodge of half-formed, ill-defined ambiguities. The simple truth is that most people ...

1317. Counting the Cost

Luke 14:25-35

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

The Lenten season, to which Ash Wednesday opens the door, is a time for heart-searching. "The Son of God goes forth to war a kingly crown to gain," and we are asked, "Who follows in his train?" Our Lord’s path to his kingly glory passes through Gethsemane and Calvary, and if we are to be his followers, we too must "climb the steep ascent of heaven through peril, toil and pain." We must count the cost and be willing to pay the price of true discipleship. The portion of scripture before us is a direct ...

1318. Obedience Really Matters

Matthew 7:15-23

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

It is because we are a people of such high intelligence, and perhaps the threat of product liability litigation, that the following warning labels were recently found on consumer products? On a Duraflame fireplace log: "Caution - Risk of Fire." On a children’s Batman costume: "Warning: Cape does not enable user to fly. On a bottle of hair coloring: "Do not use as an ice cream topping." On a cardboard sun shield for a car: "Do not drive with sun shield in place." And, for the first time parent, this label ...

1319. How Moses Handled Stress

Numbers 11:4-35

Sermon

Mark Trotter

I once saw a list of professions ranked according to the degree of stress that can be found in that vocation. I looked for "minister." It wasn't there. I assumed there must be a mistake, so I looked under "clergy." It wasn't there, either. I looked under "pastor," and "priest." Not there. Later somebody told me that, as a matter of fact, ministry is considered one of the least stressful vocations. Which meant that all the worrying I've done for the last thirty years was for nothing. The fact of the matter ...

1320. When Saying No Means Yes

Luke 4:1-13

Sermon

Mark Trotter

Traditionally the lesson that is to be read on this Sunday, the first Sunday in the season of Lent, is the story of Jesus' Temptation. There is a reason. Lent begins forty days before Easter, excluding the Sundays. Forty days were chosen as the length of the season because Jesus was in the wilderness during his temptation for forty days. The number has an even more ancient significance. Israel spent forty years in the wilderness, in what is called the Exodus. The Exodus and the Temptation are tied together ...

1321. What to Do with Yesterday - A Sermon for a New Year

Psalm 103:1-22

Sermon

James McCormick

One of the first things Patricia and I had to learn when we moved to Big Canoe was how to deal with our garbage. We learned very quickly that if we just let it sit there, it would begin to stink up our lives. It would invite all sorts of pests. It would make our lives unpleasant in a variety of ways. So, as a matter of regular discipline, we had to pack it up, load it in the car, and take it to the dump. We had to get rid of it. Of course, there is more than one kind of garbage. The kind of garbage we put ...

1322. The Counter Intelligence of the Cross

1 Corinthians 1:18--2:5, 1 Corinthians 1:10-17, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

This week’s epistle text is a long one: 19 verses. It faithfully follows the precise, prescribed unfolding of Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church, which in turn faithfully follows the niceities of proper letter composition in the first century Greco-Roman world. The genius of Paul is to work within formulaic frameworks while finding a way to add his own unique touches in order to preach the gospel. In his salutation (vv.1-3) Paul asserts his own apostolic identity, his “call,” and identifies the source ...

1323. Doing Right When You Have Been Done Wrong

Ephesians 4:31-32

Sermon

James Merritt

I have been ordered by Dr. Freddie Gage to speak on the topic of bitterness and forgiveness. Now like most preachers, I don't like to be told what to preach, but in Freddie's case I gladly acquiesce because I knew if I didn't, Freddie would get bitter and never forgive me. Now some people might think it strange to speak on a topic of bitterness to a bunch of Baptists. But bitterness is certainly no stranger to Baptist churches. I heard about a Baptist businessman that was taking a business trip on an ...

1324. Close Up - Wives: Sweet Surrender

Colossians 3:18

Sermon

James Merritt

Respect - if the coach doesn't have it, he loses control of the team. If the officer doesn't have it, he loses control of his troops. If the teacher doesn't have it, he loses control of the class. If the home doesn't have it, then the entire family is in trouble. We are in the middle of a series entitled, "Picture Perfect" and we have said over and over, "God desires for your family to reflect His glory." The way the family does that is by each member of the family fulfilling their God given roles and ...

1325. Kill Them with Kindness

Proverbs 3:3, 19:22

Sermon

James Merritt

One of the advantages of growing older and getting a few more years under your belt is the opportunity to learn. In fact, I really believe if you're not learning, you are really not living. The day you quit learning or the day you lose your desire to continue learning, your life basically is over. The longer you live, the more you can learn. One of my goals in life is to try and learn something new every day. I do it either by reading a book or a magazine or perusing the internet or asking questions of ...

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