Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 1301 to 1325 of 3160 results

1 Corinthians 9:1-27

Sermon

William F. Dunkle

... men," is his conclusion, so that, he continues, "I might by all means save some." Nobody is beyond a Christian’s loving concern. Nobody is outside a Christian’s caring responsibility. You can’t serve Christ and check off any kind or sort of other people. Wrestling against "spiritual darkness in high places" many Danish Christians wore armbands when occupying Nazis first forced Jews to wear them. Christians have always known that the hurt of others is their hurt also and Christian humility requires us ...

1302. Glorious Light

2 Corinthians 4:1-18

Sermon

William F. Dunkle

... In a semi-whimsy manner he said, "It means to be in a state of statutory senility." The old man was aware. In a generation when a larger proportion of our population are senior citizens and when people are living longer, that’s serious. Any sort of senility, statutory or otherwise, is sad waste indeed. But the Christian life Saint Paul described as "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ" remains expansive, progressive, enriched, ever useful. Jesus does not offer our futures ...

1303. OUR LORD DENIED

Sermon

E. Jerry Walker

... in desperate futility. They had come with swords and clubs to take his Lord, his friend. He had stood up against them and this solitary act of loyalty, an impulse of courage beyond what he had thought he was capable, had turned to ashes, been twisted into a sort of betrayal, and he could not, he would not accept this! What had his Lord expected of him? That he would stand there and let them take him? How could this one gesture of devotion have been an offense to him? Why hadn’t Jesus understood? How was ...

1304. Blessed With Peace

John 14:15-31

Sermon

O. Garfield Beckstrand, II

... The atmosphere was electric with tension because they knew that all hell was about to break loose. Yet Jesus stood before them in perfect serenity and said, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you ..." Those were not idle words nor were they the sort of Pollyanna remarks we hear so often from superficial minds which mean so little. His words came from a heart and mind that knew the heartaches and disappointments of life here and now. His words came from one who had come from God, who walked with God ...

1305. Reinforced With Joy

John 15:1-17

Sermon

O. Garfield Beckstrand, II

... more beautiful with the years. Joy, heavenly joy, makes life worth living and our tasks worth bearing. Listen to this statement: "I have had more fun than any man in the world. I have never met anyone who has had such fun as I have had." What sort of person could possibly have made that extravagant statement about joy? Could it be a libertine who had explored the world of sexual pleasures and looked back on them without regret? Could it be a world traveler who had roamed the globe in a Bohemian existence ...

1306. Waiting

John 1:6-8, 19-28

Sermon

Brett Blair

... dissension, no more drugs. There careful use of resources. By the time she got back to the counter, she had a long list. Jesus looked over the list, then smiled at her and said, "No problem." And then he bent down behind the counter and picked out all sorts of things, and finally stood up, and laid out the packets on the counter. "What are these?" the woman asked. "Seed packets," Jesus answered. "This is a catalog store." "You mean I don't get the finished product?" "No, this is a place of dreams. You come ...

1307. The Only True and Eternal God

1 Corinthians 8:1-13

Bulletin Aid

James Wilson

... : Let us receive God's light and share it with all the world! Leader: And from the joy in our hearts let us lift our voices in praise! All: Blessed be the name of the Lord! Collect O Lord, there are no other powers or forces or entities of any sort that can compare to Your majesty and greatness. Yet You have chosen to love us in our humble estate. We praise You, Lord. In Christ we pray. Amen. Prayer Of Confession Lord, so often we have failed to reach out and be the witnesses of Your grace You would have ...

1308. Suffering

Mark 8:31--9:1

Drama

Robert F. Crowley

... 't know. SYLVIA: Why won't God take care of us? REGGIE: Do you know what I was thinking the other day? SYLVIA: What? REGGIE: I was thinking that this was good. SYLVIA: This is good? What are you saying? REGGIE: I'm saying that maybe God allows this sort of thing so we can be more like Christ -- suffering, you know. SYLVIA: Oh, that's hogwash and you know it. REGGIE: No, I don't. Think about it. Job suffered, didn't he? SYLVIA: Sure, he did. REGGIE: And the disciples suffered. And Jesus suffered. SYLVIA: Oh ...

1309. When God Is At Work

Mark 1:40-45

Sermon

Brett Blair

... other side of the security screen was this tiny woman who looked 100 years old. Yes, it was Mother Teresa. This hardened prisoner wrote about his experience, he said, "You have to understand that, basically, I'm a dead man. I don't have to observe any sort of social convention; and as a result, I can break all the rules, say what I want. But one look at this Nobel Prize winner, this woman so many people view as a living saint, and I was speechless." Michael said an incredible vitality and warmth came from ...

1310. The Call of the Trumpet

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Sermon

George Bass

... lives and jeopardize our claim to his gift in Christ. In "The Enduring Chill," Flannery O’Connor tells the story of the return of Asbury Fox to his mother’s home to die. He is a young man, a frustrated artist and intellectual, who is "above" the sort of life lived in rural America. Asbury is convinced that nothing and no one - and certainly not the town doctor - can save his life. Although he is Protestant, he asks his mother to send for a priest who, he believes, is an intellectual. Father Finn turns ...

1311. A Dreadful Declaration

Mark 8:31--9:1

Sermon

George Bass

... whose reaction was tempered by common sense and good judgment). The current crisis stemming from the wanton destruction of 269 lives does, in a way, give us some insight into Peter’s reaction to Jesus’ words. He really didn’t want the Suffering Servant sort of Savior described in the scriptures. Peter was a disciple because, at this point in his life, he believed Jesus to be the Messiah, the kind of Messiah the Jewish nation was looking for: a political leader who would free them from Roman domination ...

1312. Confrontation in the Temple

John 2:12-25

Sermon

George Bass

... air and it catches me under my ribs and tries to pull me up but I can’t move because Mummy is holding my feet and all I can do is sing in her voice, it’s the Lady’s voice, God loves you! ... God loves you." In this strange sort of way, Sister Agnes is possessed of God - so much so that she is out of step with reality. That was not the case with Jesus. He, too, had a dramatic experience when John baptized him in the Jordan River; the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, came ...

1313. The Passing of the Peace

John 20:24-31

Sermon

George Bass

... his "Unless I see the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe"? He is often called "doubting Thomas," but I like to think of him as "lucky Thomas" because he had the sort of experience with the risen Lord that all of us would like to have but will not. We have to take this story and the other stories about the appearances of the resurrected Lord strictly at face value and by faith alone. And when, through the grace of God, we ...

1314. The Man Who Asked For Dinner

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

George Bass

... ghost. That was just about the only way that he could come back to them, wasn’t it? Human beings just don’t return from the dead, let alone suddenly appear in a room where the windows are closed and the door locked. Only spirits are able to do that sort of thing. But there he was among them again and talking to them as he used to. They had good reasons to be surprised and afraid. Why weren’t they simply surprised? He had told that he would rise again, hadn’t he? But like this? Something like that ...

1315. The Shepherd Who Loved His Sheep

John 10:1-21

Sermon

George Bass

... him and call him Lord and Savior. We love the wonderful things he said and the stories he told while he was alive; and we revere and study most carefully what he taught and preached. We wonder about the miracles that he performed to heal and cure people of all sorts of maladies, and we are amazed at the depth of his compassion for the poor, the hungry, and the oppressed. In all that he did and said, we see the hand of God and the voice of God operative in this world; no one has ever spoken as he spoke ...

1316. The Final Farewell

Luke 24:50-53, Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

George Bass

... the question, "Where did he go when he disappeared out of their sight?" Heaven? "Where is that located?" Since the beginning of the "church building era," the risen and ascended Lord has been located on the ceiling of church apses, usually seated on a throne and, occasionally, sort of floating around up in the sky. In this age when men have flown to, landed upon, and walked on the moon, such an image of the ascended Christ is equally unsatisfying. Where did he go and how did he get there? The best we can ...

1317. A Prayer for the Faithful

John 17:6-19

Sermon

George Bass

... the life of today’s world, or if we see how we ought to witness to others in the name of Christ, perhaps we are afraid to do so. Perhaps those who dare to speak up and articulate the good news of the gospel in a world filled with all sorts of injustice, hatred, and the constant threat of a holocaust do so because they know that the Lord God is with them. "Holy Father, keep them in thy name," prayed our Lord, and God does just that when people entrust their lives to him. In the fall of 1983, a ...

1318. On His Way

Matthew 21:1-11

Sermon

Larry Powell

... dying. The old fellow was frightened to the point of tears. As Weatherhead spoke to him as tenderly as he knew how about God and religion, he was interrupted by these words: "Preacher, I have led a very busy life. I have never had time for that sort of thing." Weatherhead thought to himself, "You have had over 4,000 Sundays." We all have time. Did we turn back because we do not have answers to some difficult questions? Martin Niemoeller was a German pastor who was confined to a concentration camp for eight ...

1319. Whom Do You Sit East Of?

Jonah 3:1-10

Sermon

Richard L. Eslinger

... stock-taking, real soul-searching, perhaps even prayer. And from the belly of the great fish, there ascends to the mighty God of Israel an especially pious Psalm of lament. Probably, there are more "fish-belly" type prayers than any other kind - at least of the individual sort. "Get me out of this mess I got myself into, Lord, and you will have an exemplary servant on your hands." "God, I have just borrowed my folks’ car without permission and wrecked it. If you get me out of this, I won’t miss youth ...

1320. How To Be Used By God

1 Samuel 16:14-23

Sermon

Roger Prescott

... , helped clear the land and farm, then worked in a sawmill and an iron forge. Discovering a small deposit of ore, he built a combination blacksmith shop and forge, which he sold in order to provision himself for the westward journey. "I grew up as a sort of leader," says Crocker. "I had always been the one to swim a river and carry a rope across." - Irving Stone* (*Men to Match My Mountains, Doubleday, 1956, p. 144.) True leadership will surface. In our narrative today, we see how David’s ability was ...

1321. A Royal Lament

2 Samuel 1:1-16

Sermon

Roger Prescott

... : How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! ...How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished! - 2 Samuel 1:25, 27 Those of us in our "middle years" know of this vulnerability. We have lived long enough to see all sorts of accidents, illness, and just plain surprises. And our bodies grow tired a lot quicker. But our "middle years," given a realistic understanding, can free us up for a recovering of creativity. Ric Masten writes: I turned forty a while ago and came dribbling out of ...

1322. Celebration As Worship

2 Samuel 6:1-23

Sermon

Roger Prescott

... 2 Samuel 6:3-5 There is a lot to this story of bringing in the ark. Here are three aspects on which we can focus today: The ark; Uzzah; and how celebration can be worship. 1. The Ark As creatures of time and space, we seem to need some sort of center for our faith. The local church serves this purpose for many, and our grand cathedrals attest to this as well. For David and the Israelites the centering impulse was focused on the Ark of the Covenant. One of David’s shrewdest acts was to rescue the Ark from ...

1323. God Dwells With People

2 Samuel 7:1-17

Sermon

Roger Prescott

... grand old storyteller, Harry Golden, makes this point in one of his stories. When he was young, he once asked his father, "If you don’t believe in God, why do you go to the synagogue so regularly?" His father answered, "Jews go to synagogue for all sorts of reasons. My friend Garfinkle, who is Orthodox, goes to talk to God. I go to talk to Garfinkle." The temple at Jerusalem was to be built in splendor later on, but for now God was interested in establishing another kind of "house." An English word to ...

1324. A Prayer of Wonder

2 Samuel 7:18-29

Sermon

Roger Prescott

... to prosper; and now Jerusalem had become the religious center. David now ponders it all. This portion of the narrative - 2 Samuel 7:18-29 - is referred to as "David’s Prayer." It is a chance to reflect, a chance to pause for thought, a time to sort everything out. Good prayer - nourishing prayer - will do that. All of us need to take time to pause and reflect, to "center ourselves down," and really listen to our lives. David’s prayer is a natural response to the promises that had been made to him and ...

1325. The Promise Of Life ("U" Turns Permitted)

2 Samuel 12:1-31

Sermon

Roger Prescott

... You are the man," David said to Nathan - in words that reveal a deep sense of guilt and penitence - "I have sinned against the Lord" (2 Samuel 12:13). Usually we don’t get "lost" or "off the track" all at once. More often, we do as sheep do: we sort of "nibble ourselves lost." When we finally realize how far we have gone astray, if we’re lucky we’ll admit it and make an immediate turn around. A "U" turn. And in all cases it is we who have drifted away, not God. A couple, celebrating their 25th wedding ...

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