Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 1301 to 1325 of 4999 results

Micah 6:1-8

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" [8] He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? DO, LOVE, WALK. That's God's short list. Noticed, they're all action words. They're all verbs and imperative verbs at that. They're verbs that inevitably ask the questions What, How and Who. What are you DOING? How and who ...

1302. Come and See

John 1:29-42

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... said: "We've found the Messiah." That's all. He could have quoted Morpheus and said the same thing. "We've done it Simon. We've found him." Andrew Pointed to Jesus and he didn't get in trouble for pointing. But then I guess he was doing a different kind of pointing. He was pointing people to Jesus, not pointing out their faults and foibles. Andrew was pointing the way. B. And by Pointing the way, Simon's life and name were changed. James Moore in his book God Was Here, and I Was Out to Lunch tells about a ...

1303. Our Common Life in Christ

Philippians 2:1-11

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... other: “Restore him in the spirit of gentleness,” he said. “Gentleness is a fruit of the spirit. Our supporting, correcting, guiding and restoring activity is in the spirit of Christ, who is gentle and calls us to gentleness. We handle each person with a kind of gentle care with which we would handle a piece of precious, fragile crystal. We seek to be sensitive to the brittleness of persons, to their high emotional pain threshold. We are firm, seeking never to fall in the ditch ourselves in order to ...

1304. Holiness of Heart and Life

Romans 2:21-23

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... the tension that results from this is the cause of much of our physical and emotional suffering. And all of us know that kind of suffering to some degree pretending to be perfect when we are really imperfect; projecting an image of success when deep down ... That’s the point. In the meantime, what is to be our task! Our first and primary task is to be the Church — to be the kind of community we need to be in order to be faithful to the Christian gospel — to be the church we talked about last week, seeing ...

1305. Born Again

John 3:1-21

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... look around and see if the florist had come through. Stuck over in the corner, he found a funeral wreath with the inscription, “Rest in peace” and his name was on it. Now he understood his friend’s anger. He called the florist to cuss him out. “What kind of joke do you think this is? You sent a funeral wreath to my best friend on the happiest occasion of his life. What do you mean, “Rest in peace?” “Oh my goodness,” said the florist. “You think you’ve got problems! Somewhere in this town ...

1306. Lessons from Rephidim - Being the Lord's Intercessor

Exodus 17:8-16

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... speak of sickness, hate, meanness, narrowness of spirit, fear, lethargy and ill will, to name a few; we set ourselves against all such forces, to them we cry, “God’s will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.” You see there is a place in prayer for a kind of holy anger. When I enter a sick room, where a malignancy is about its hellish business, I cannot reach in with my hand and extract it. But I can wrestle with hell by my prayers, and I do. When I read in the papers of corruption in high places ...

1307. The Christ Connection

Colossians 1:9-20

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... Son of God, where would the world be without you? Even those who do not claim You as Savior and have yet to crown You as Lord, acknowledge you to be the greatest moral leader who ever walked the face of the earth. You have touched our world, inspiring human kind with a dignity that is often denied, a community that is often compromised, and a purpose for being that is seldom pursued. At our best we become like You because You were the model of the way life ought to be. CHRIST IS THE ANSWER to the riddle of ...

1308. Doing What Disciples Do

John 15:12-17

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... adults who worship his every word, delight in his every action, and jump to his every wish. Who wouldn’t be happy in those kinds of circumstances?” Children are that way and it is okay. But what is okay at five is not okay at fifty. Faith that reduces ... we abide in love, we are empowered to act in love. Love is an action verb. It calls us to do things. Disciples do certain kinds of things because God loves them and we are called to love one another. There are many we might list, but let me suggest three. ...

1309. The Constant God in a Changing World

Psalm 48:1, 9-14

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... God and then try to follow it. Those with spiritual sensitivity can discover the will of God through consolations and desolations. Then by the power of the Holy Spirit, they can determine to follow the will of God with confidence each step of the way. Do you seek that kind of direction from God in your life? I keep a portrait of Lincoln at prayer in my office. I have had it for many years. I keep it to remind me of something Abraham Lincoln said a long time ago. “I have been driven to my knees many times ...

1310. When You Are Up And Out

Luke 19:1-10

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... to your house today.” When I was taught the childhood song that we sang to start the sermon, there were actions and motions that went with it. When you got to this part, you pointed your finger and you said at the top of your voice in an imperative, stern kind of way, “Zacchaeus, you come down, for I’m going to your house today.” I don’t think that is how it happened. There is no preaching here; there is no rebuking here. There is the loving Savior who looks up and sees a man out on a limb and ...

1311. The Lord's Unanswered Prayer

John 17:20-23

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... prayed. John 17 records that prayer. It is really the Lord's Prayer in John 17. It is the prayer that the Lord himself prayed. In it He prayed for Himself asking that His life may be glorified. He prayed for his disciples asking that they be protected in the kind of task that was lying before them. Then Jesus prayed for you and me. He prayed for all who will come to believe in His name in the years and centuries to come. He prayed for us. Jesus remembers us in prayer. For years I was sustained in ministry ...

1312. The Power of a Vision

2 Corinthians 5:11-21

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... goal miserably, wandered from that vision carelessly, strayed from that purpose selfishly; but God has never failed me yet. The greatest passage in the Bible is John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. We are the recipients of that kind of love from God. As Stephen Doughty tells the story in Weavings, a couple adopted a little girl. When Sarah was about 18 months old, her parents would say, “How big is God’s love?” Sarah’s arms would shoot straight away from her shoulders, her ...

1313. From Lust to Love

1 Corinthians 13: 1

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... because he wanted to. Not because he should, he did it because he could. Then Paul in this old poem says, "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily ... trying to kid?" There is only one way to read this passage. Listen to it. Such love is of God. God is patient. God is kind. God is not easily angered. God keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. God always protects, ...

1314. Develop Leaders—Humbly

Colossians 3:12-17

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... land where there are no worries, no responsibilities and no problems." God doesn't call us there; remember who you are, Simba. You belong back among your people setting them on the right road. I invite you to a simple prayer of dedication that we may be the kind of leaders who glorify God. If you are a staff member, come to this altar. If you serve on any ministry or administrative team, teach a Sunday school class, lead a small group, youth-children's worker, I want to see you at these altars. If you are ...

1315. The Gentle Healer

John 9:1-11

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... want to know. I read it now with different eyes than I have read it before and I would like to share with you what is kind of new in this story for me. When you are ill, you use what you've got. The pool of Siloam was an open air basin ... be choosers. You have to use what you've got all the time in trying to find health. After having a negative reaction to several kinds of chemotherapy, I said to my oncologist, “You know people fifty years from now are going to look back on the present day treatments for ...

1316. Holy Waste

Mark 14:1-11

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... had performed in their own lives, still they must have had in the back of their mind a deep foreboding. For some the Cross was on their mind as they gathered there in that little house at Bethany. It must have been so with Mary. She knew their kind of celebration might not happen again. She slips away, and in a minute return with something in her hand. Use your imagination. See the deep emotion written on her face. She is trembling a bit. She’s about to do something or say something which comes from the ...

1317. A God Who Suffers with Us

John 9:1-41

Sermon

Lee Griess

... did they follow? Did they really think that God looks down from heaven and says, "All right, fellow. I've seen you cheating on your taxes; I've seen you skipping church. So I've decided to make the precious baby of yours be born blind." What kind of God would do that? Why would the disciples think that way? And yet as shocking as it sounds, many people view God in precisely those terms. The ancient Jews dealt with illness and suffering much differently than we do. In fact, it was common belief that illness ...

1318. Hunger and Politics

Matthew 14:13-21

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... came to realize that the only way we can see God is when we take what little God gives us to work with and use it as a kind of tarnished mirror to seek out God's distant face. In other words, said Hull, we are all somewhat blinded, and we need to use things like ... the face of God in some longing for home will we regain a glimpse of our own best faces reflected back toward us in the kindness and smile of God. Here is where the hunger found in Matthew's story connects with us. We are the people who go out into ...

1319. Sleeping through the Alarm

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17

Sermon

Schuyler Rhodes

... as it is, needs to give way to the rest of life's demands. I don't much like it, but I have to wake up or all kinds of bad things could happen. If I don't wake up, my children won't get a nourishing breakfast before school. If I don't wake up, the ... the wake of this call we need to stop what we're doing. We need to pause and pay attention in a confessional, truth-telling kind of way. Let us, in this season, learn how to rend our hearts and look past the carefully constructed numbness of our lives. Forget, for ...

1320. Choosing to Love

Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67

Sermon

Stan Purdum

... us that when it came to his marriage, Isaac acted like a grown-up! He realized that real love is a choice, and he chose to love this woman he had married. So it is for us. We either choose to love or we choose not to. And that kind of decision is something quite apart from any particular emotions we may feel about our mate — which, as we all know, can come and go like the wind. Real love is a commitment of loyalty and faithfulness to another person, not rooted primarily in emotions. One very important ...

1321. Are We There Yet?

James 5:7-10

Sermon

John N. Brittain

... in a position of considerable importance within a major Christian denomination. He was, on the one hand, admired as a "go to" kind of person who could really produce results. But to those who worked with him closely, he was also known as an individual ... 5:7-8a). Some folks get nervous whenever they see a reference to the second coming because they assume it will be taken as a kind of "pie in the sky when you die, bye and bye" escapist and quietistic theology. "Nothing to do until the Lord comes and takes us ...

1322. Freedom and Slavery

Romans 6:15-23

Sermon

Steven E. Albertin

... expects to make a profit." Martin Luther describes it well in the opening words of his famous 1523 treatise "On the Freedom of the Christian." He says, "I am perfectly free, subject to no one. At the same time I am a slave, subject to everyone." People, this kind of freedom is yours. You are free in Jesus Christ. You no longer need to be enslaved to your old selfish wants and desires. You are free to be slaves of Jesus Christ and servants of your neighbors. What a blessed freedom it is! Could there ever be ...

1323. A Truly Universal Operating System

Romans 14:1-12

Sermon

Larry Lange

... days? The commandments? It's clear Jesus doesn't think we're capable of obeying even ten laws, much less a whole book full! The apostle Paul's letter today seems to indicate that eating meat sacrificed to idols (or not) or celebrating holy days of various kinds (or not) are not a matter we Christians should be fighting about. We shouldn't be fighting at all. We are, as the apostle Paul reminded us in chapter 12, one body. I like that metaphor." "So do I," the presbyter agreed. "What settles the whole issue ...

1324. Does God Have Fun?

Ecclesiastes 3:1-22

Children's Sermon

Marti Kramer Suddarth

... of the animals, and puppies are animals. Puppies are cute and cuddly and lots of fun to play with ... and God invented them! Exhibit B: the aye-aye. (Show the picture of an aye-aye.) The aye-aye is a strange looking creature. Believe it or not, it’s a kind of lemur. One of its fingers is really long and skinny. It taps on logs and tree branches until it hears the sound of bugs inside, uses its teeth to dig into the branch, and then it sticks its finger into hole and pulls out the bugs to eat! When ...

1325. Science And The Bible

Isaiah 40:1-31

Children's Sermon

Marti Kramer Suddarth

... science. Sociologists and archeologists know that you can learn a lot about someone by studying what he made. That’s true for God, too. When we study science — something invented by God — we can learn not only about science, but about God himself, too. So what kinds of science did God invent? Some of them are listed in the very first chapter of the Bible — Genesis, chapter 1. Let’s read some of the verses. (As you read each verse, ask a child to hold up the corresponding card. Have the children ...

Showing results