Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 1326 to 1350 of 5000 results

Revelation 21:1-27

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... , in special places such as this, but a God who dwells among us, within us, in our struggle to become, in our passionate drive to be transformed and to transform, in our persistent gnawing urge to keep on moving in our life and in our death. This is the mark of our being, this divine discontent is always a fragment – unsatisfied this side of paradise. And that brings me to the next sounding. Death is a part of the process. Death is a part of the process. And I don’t want us to be sentimental about death ...

1327. Blessed Are Those Who Are Awake

Luke 12:32-40

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... only give the change. Another ten minutes more Twain said, “I was darned if I’d give him anything at all. Then, when he finally stopped and the plate came around, I was so exhausted, I decided to steal $2 just for spite.” Now I know you sympathize with Mark Twain. I don’t hear as many preachers as you do — or, I don’t hear preachers on a regular basis the way you do, but I understand that sympathy. I have to listen to myself every week. But I also feel for the poor preacher in Twain’s story ...

1328. Our Father's Love Begotten

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... there. The beginning of God in Jesus is also the key that unlocks the mystery of life and that writes the final amen on history. There's no disconnecting the Advent of Christ, His birth, from the wrapping up of his Kingdom announced in His second coming. Mark closes his "little apocalypse" with the words in verses 32 and 33, "But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, kept alert; for you do not know when the time will come." In relation ...

1329. How To Fail Successfully

Mark 6:7-13

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... man who was possessed by demons and lived in madness in a cemetery. And then came the healing of the woman who had been hemorrhaging for twelve years, and the raising of a little girl from death. All of this is recorded in chapters four and five of Mark. Jesus was obviously a success. Chapter six opens with Jesus coming to Nazareth and teaching in the synagogue and the people being amazed, asking the question, where did this man get all His wisdom and all his power? They were amazed. It is in the midst of ...

1330. All This And Heaven Too

Revelation 21:1-27

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

1331. Clean Hands

Mark 7:1-23

Sermon

King Duncan

... 't look like a nice person." The daughter is shocked. "Daddy," she says, "If he wasn't such a nice person why would he be doing 500 hours of Community Service?" Sometimes you can judge by appearances. Sometimes not. In our lesson for today from Mark's Gospel, the Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law had come from Jerusalem. They gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were "unclean," that is, unwashed. (The Pharisees, being devoted Jews, did not eat unless ...

1332. A Celebration of Love

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

King Duncan

... reminds us, in the shallowness of the materialism and glitter of our times, of those things that really matter. God, family, our responsibility for others. Christmas. Can any word be more beautiful than that one? Christmas, a celebration of love. 1. Mark Mail, http://mrhumor.net/WITandWISDOM(tm). Subscribe: Send an e-mail to: witandwisdom-on@lists.tagnet.org. 2. Karl Shaw, Oddballs and Eccentrics (Edison, NJ: Castle Books, 2000). 3. Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd III, http://www.trinityboston.org/wsp_smn_smnpage.asp ...

1333. Some Healing Is Up To You

John 5:1-15

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... that God has performed a miracle, a bringing together of the presence of His Son, Jesus and us, in order that our lives might be made whole again. It’s a miracle. Then, there is a fourth miracle – the miracle of the sufficiency of God’s grace. Now mark this down. Not all of us are going to be healed. And sometimes some of us are going to be given a circumstance that will stay with us forever – a painful circumstance, a suffering malady. Paul called it his “thorn in the flesh.” I have an idea we ...

1334. Awake to Glory

Luke 9:28-36

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

... says that when people saw and heard what had happened, "everyone was amazed." But in the next chapter, Jesus is in his hometown and the unbelief of the people was such that "he could do no deed of power there," except for a few minor healings. Mark says that Jesus "was amazed at their unbelief" (6:5, 6). The crowds marveled that Jesus could work miracles; Jesus marveled that people could be so possessed of unbelief! The crowds looked upon miracles as out of the ordinary; Jesus thought of unbelief as out of ...

1335. Some Healing Is Up To You

John 5:1-15

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... crowd. In her mind, she must have been thinking, “If I can just touch him, I will be whole.” And you know what happened. She touched the hem of his garment. The fountain of blood ceased to flow and she felt in her body that she was healed (Mark 5:24-34). There is a parade of witnesses like her who move through the Scripture. You can’t read the Gospels without experiencing the glorious truth: Jesus’ ministry is a healing one. One of my favorite hymn stanzas is from one of my favorite hymns, “O For ...

1336. The Church: An Enclave of Resistance v2

Romans 12:1-8

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... an antidote to a world that is increasingly spiritually empty.” Then he wrote this sentence: “The cathedral, set in the midst of the secular city, will be an enclave of resistance.” What an image . . . the Church an enclave of resistance. My friend Mark Trotter, who shared that story, suggested that that word should be a part of the mission statement of every church in the city, “an enclave of resistance against all that diminishes human life” (“An Enclave of Resistance,” a sermon preached by ...

1337. Staying Alive All Your Ministry Life: Will You Finish Well?

Exodus 32:1-33:6

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... ’t intend that for any one of us. So I surrendered. I realized again how limited I am and how dependent I am upon the Lord; how yielded I must be to Him if His power is going to be perfected in my weakness. The line that I had marked in my devotional reading a few days before had been made powerfully alive by my dream; “Let not your will roar when your power can but whisper.” Now here’s the kicker. A year after that dream, I became the President of Asbury Theological Seminary. I accepted that call ...

1338. Loving Like God Loves

Matthew 5:43-48

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... can only do with Christ’s help. On Sundays most of the prayers I hear are for the smaller circle rather than the larger circle. Why do I not hear any prayers for Muslim leaders or personal enemies? Perhaps we should be honest and have a time of prayer marked only for enemies. As I have asked this week, Who are my enemies, and who do I feel justified in putting outside my circle of concern? I have found the words of the Thomas Merton most helpful: “Do not be too quick,” he wrote, “to assume that your ...

1339. Get off the Throne and Learn Wisdom

Matthew 7:1-6

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... rushed to judgment without first taking time for self-correction. While visiting a neighbor, five-year-old Andrew pulled out his kindergarten class picture and began describing each classmate. "This is Robert; he hits everyone. This is Stephen. He never listens to the teacher. This is Mark. He chases us and is very noisy." "And this is me. I'm just sitting here minding my own business."12 We are Lucy. We are the monks. We are Andrew. We are laughing at others, but Jesus is laughing at us. And we deserve it ...

1340. Ascension of Our Lord

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... and gives answers to it. For some persons spend a lot of time, standing around, trying to figure out the date of the Lord's second coming. There have been countless times in human history when some so-called prophet has decided that such and such a date will mark the time when the final cataclysm takes place and the Lord Christ will come again. I'm sure you all have read newspaper accounts of such people. They sell all their goods and go out and stand on a hill top, gazing into heaven, looking for Christ's ...

1341. The One Who Came Still Comes; The One Who Spoke Still Speaks

Mark 11:1-11

Sermon

Michael Milton

... name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!” And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve (Mark 11:1-11). Small Expectations Let me tell you how we almost missed seeing the Queen of England. Several years ago my wife and I were in London. One evening we ventured out into the theater district just to walk around and look at the sights. We noticed ...

1342. The “Sad-You-See” Syndrome

Mark 12:18-27

Sermon

Michael Milton

... , and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong” (Mark 12:18-27). The Futility of Self-diagnosis Not too long ago I had a physical ailment. Like any red-blooded American male, I knew what ... in Jesus Christ. I want to testify to His love, to His grace, to the hope that comes from following the One who lives forever. [1] Mark 11:27-12:12 [2] “If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall ...

1343. A Cloud of Witness

Hebrews 12:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... Then he begins chapter 12 with these words that give us our text for today: “THEREFORE, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” It’s a vivid picture. In ...

1344. Bloody Lintels — Broken Bread

Exodus 12:1-14

Sermon

Arley K. Fadness

... were clear: "Take an unblemished year-old male lamb on the tenth of Nisan, the seventh month, which is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 23:27), keep it until the fourteenth of Nisan, slaughter it, roast it, and eat it. Take its blood to mark the lintels of the household. The blood will secure that home as a safe haven -- a place of safety from the angel of death who comes at midnight." Night comes. A terrible wail is heard throughout Egypt. The firstborn are killed, even the cattle. But every ...

1345. A Tale of Two Dancers

Mark 6:14-29

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... we will listen to one another and see if the Spirit working through us will not produce something new." That is the antidote to pride. It is called humility. The second is service. Not only did Jesus say that the true mark of a disciple was humility, but even more so, the true mark of a disciple is service. The Christian does not so much have the truth, but he or she does the truth. The most authoritative passage of scripture supporting that is the 25th chapter of Matthew, where Jesus says that those who ...

1346. I Thought You'd Never Ask

John 1:35-46

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... who brings the new Law. As Moses went up the mountain to receive the Law, the Ten Commandments, so Jesus goes to a mountain to preach the new Law, the new way of living in this world. In the Gospel of Mark, the first words of Jesus are, "The kingdom of God is here--Repent." Because in Mark, Jesus is pictured as a warrior king who comes back to the land that is rightfully his and liberates it from the enemy occupation. In Luke, Jesus' first official words are in the sermon that he preached in the synagogue ...

1347. If I Were a Rich Man

Mark 10:17-27

Sermon

Mark Trotter

The gospel lesson for this morning is from the Gospel of Mark, the story of the rich, young ruler who came to Jesus, asking, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" ... can prove it. He's got wealth, he's got the credentials, which was to say, he was living the kind of life God wants him to live, and therefore God has blessed him. In Mark he is simply referred to as a "man" who comes to Jesus. In Matthew he is called a "good man." In Luke he is called a "ruler." So the composite picture of him, which is ...

1348. Reflections on a Bumper Sticker

Mark 2:1-12

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... God, this man thinks he is the Son of God, or something blasphemous. They write it all down in order to get rid of him. But Mark writes this incident down in his gospel in order for you to come to him. "For the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive ... the world, but that the world through him would be saved." That's the way the Gospel of John puts it. The Gospel of Mark puts it much more simply. "The Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins." When Jesus talked about what forgiveness means, what ...

1349. Scandalous News

Luke 4:16-30

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... feast. According to the Gospel of John that was the inaugural event of Jesus' ministry. According to Luke, and also Matthew and Mark, the inaugural event of Jesus' ministry was the sermon at Nazareth. The way a presidential candidate will go to his hometown in ... he finished, the old man said, "Well, you really gave it to them this morning. Too bad they weren't here to hear it." People tell me, "Mark, I'm not going to be there Sunday. I'm sorry I am going to miss your sermon." I say, "I am too. I wrote it ...

1350. The Wedding Guest

John 2:1-11

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... , "making a statement"? That is what Jesus is doing in this scene. He is making a statement. He is saying, this is who I am, this is what I have come for. It is especially significant when you compare this scene with the other three gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. They have a different opening scene. The three agree. They all say Jesus' first act, his debut, was a sermon. They say he first went to Nazareth, his hometown, and preached in the Synagogue on the text from Isaiah, the Year of Jubilee, when all ...

Showing results