Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 1376 to 1400 of 5000 results

1376. Baptism: The Common Call To Holiness

Mark 1:4-11

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... from evil and begin a new path which leads to God? Baptism is a rebirth into the life of repentance. Scripture states, as we just heard, that John the Baptist came as a precursor of the Lord to provide a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3; Acts 13:24). When one turns away from sin and begins anew, the value of such an act is incalculable. Repentance and reconciliation require courage and provide a challenge for others to seek a similar road in their lives. Baptism as a ...

1377. A Funeral for “I Can’ts”

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... three days rise again. He said this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things." Mark 8:31-33 In other words, Peter said, "You can't." Jesus said, "I will. Watch me and learn." Jesus then told the people, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." He laid out the path ...

1378. The 2 Love Laws

Matthew 22:34-40

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... is more to the story than this tragedy. In the Chicago Tribune on 16 September and 17 September 2008, two further reports by Stacy St. Clair and John Kass tell us the “rest of the story.” Tragedy is not the final word. The day after John and Mark Thanos, father and son, drowned in that churning creek, the young Doug and his family visited the newly widowed Victoria Thanos and her own sons. Ten-year-old Doug had made Victoria a home-made cake. Victoria hugged the neighbor boy tightly. She asked if he was ...

1379. John the Stall Cleaner

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... , cleaning out time, is necessary if we are going open up space, transform space, re-envision space in our lives for the miracle that is Advent approaching. Today’s gospel text is the prologue to the earliest of the written gospels: The Gospel of mark. The focus of this prologue is on preparation. God’s preparation of the world, God’s preparation of the people, involves far more than mucking out one stable stall. John the Baptist is called by God to be the ultimate “preparer,” the Advent stable ...

1380. Humble Beginnings

Mark 1:1-8

Illustration

Samuel Massey

... across the headwaters of the Mississippi River. It is no more than a tiny stream. It is amazing that a river so mighty can begin in such an inconspicuous way. Perhaps we have a similar experience as we read the first chapter to the Gospel of Mark. The message of Christ has raised up nations and brought them low, launched and defeated armies, started large social movements and destroyed others. Think of all that has been done in the name of Jesus Christ and how inconspicuously the Gospel begins according to ...

1381. A Go-Ahead God

Mark 16:1-8

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... . Even though sometimes there was really nothing to be gained by letting someone else "go ahead," you somehow felt safer just knowing that someone else had gone before you. On Easter morning, we are supposed to feel joy, wonder, triumph, exaltation. The women in Mark's gospel today enter the opened tomb expecting to find the dead body of their teacher Jesus. Instead, they find an angelic messenger who reveals to them, "He has been raised; he is not here." Hallelujah, Christ is Risen! But if we are really ...

1382. A Theology of Linguistic Linguini

Ephesians 1:1-14

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... are called to prayer five times a day. For the devout, prayer time is spent not only on their knees, but also in flat-out prostration, arms and forehead on the floor (or at least on their prayer rug). The mark of a pious, praying Muslim can be seen on the forehead. It is called a “zebibah” or “zabiba” — a prayer bump, a worn, callused raisin-ish mark where head has met hard surface, five times a day, every day, year in, year out. For the pious Muslim, a life of continually praising God leaves its ...

1383. Ephesians 1:3-14

Ephesians 1:1-14

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... the promised Holy Spirit” (v.13). God’s blessing of Christ’s saving mission is ultimately accomplished in this world through the activity of the Holy Spirit. The “seal” of the Holy Spirit clearly marks the community of faith. Those who are truly “in Christ” bear this “seal,” this mark, of the Holy Spirit’s presence in their lives. The central blessing portion (vv.4-10) describes just how disciples “in Christ” will experience this new reality in their lives. Though Paul introduces the ...

1384. James 1:17-27

James 1:17-27

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... messianic Jesus is known. In both this pericope and in the preceding story of the Syrophoenician woman, we see the boundaries of Jesus' ministry being stretched. The Gentile woman and this deaf-mute resident of a pagan city are both fully ministered to by Jesus. Mark's focus on Jesus' mission is now moving afield, beyond the Jews and into the larger world. From the Book of Proverbs comes the assurance that if we pray for wisdom, our God, the giver of all good things, will surely grant us that understanding ...

1385. Luke 9:51-62

Luke 9:51-62

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... the beginning of Luke's "journeying" section. In a major departure from Mark's outline, Luke inserts a huge section of material (9:51-18:23) that introduces new stories gathered around Jesus' ... in their provisions (foxholes and bird nests) than he, is hauntingly precise. Homelessness and rejection, veritably epitomized by this vagrant journey he has undertaken, is the mark of this Messiah's ministry (for the wildlife imagery see Mahlon H. Smith, "No Place for a Son of Man," Forum, 4 [December 1988], 83-105 ...

1386. Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... tradition forbade a woman from touching the tallith of someone who was not a member of her family. Nevertheless, the fringe of Jesus' garment is exactly what this woman reaches out for as she seeks healing. Matthew's version of her healing differs somewhat from Mark's and Luke's accounts. Here the woman is clearly healed only after Jesus turns and speaks words of healing to her. The woman is healed as soon as Jesus declares the motive behind her action faithfulness not when she reaches out and touches Jesus ...

1387. Romans 12:1-8

Romans 12:1-8

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... to "fit in" with those surrounding you at work and at home (to "squeeze you into a mold"). What Paul calls Christians to do instead is to "be transformed." This term is used elsewhere in the New Testament to describe Jesus' moment of "transfiguration" (in Mark 9:2) and a believer's ability to be "transformed" in God's likeness by beholding God's glory (2 Corinthians 3:18). In both these cases, this "transformation" involves a complete, radical, re-centering of the self. The transfigured Jesus was no longer ...

1388. Luke 5:1-11

Luke 5:1-11

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... crusades and believing crowds. Yet he was still working alone. Now, in chapter 5, Luke begins to develop another aspect of Jesus' message _ his desire to put together a team of disciples to work with him. Today's text incorporates the calling scene from Mark 1:16-20 but couples it with a fishing miracle that is nearly identical to the post-resurrection event described in John 21. Indeed, some scholars are convinced that Luke may have been trying to set a pre-resurrection precedent for that post-resurrection ...

1389. James 1:17-27

James 1:17-27

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

1390. Luke 9:51-62

Luke 9:51-62

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

1391. 1 John 5:9-13

1 John 5:9-13

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... offers has been given by external events the water of baptism, the blood of the cross the witness of a believer will result when these externals are internalized as an experience of faith in God's testimony. Just as 1 John doesn't hesitate to discuss such messy marks of faith as blood and water, he doesn't shy away from describing the loss that awaits the one who "does not believe in God." Denying God's witness in Christ means calling God "a liar." If we declare God's witness is false, God's essence must ...

1392. Luke 4:14-21

Luke 4:14-21

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... 6:1-6; Matthew 13:53-58). Thus Luke's own textual hints that Jesus was busily engaged in a public ministry in Galilee before this Nazareth visit would seem to be validated by the positioning of Mark's and Matthew's "Nazareth" stories. A second, important theme throughout Luke-Acts and articulated by Jesus himself in this pericope is an understanding of his ministry as the beginning of an eschatological "THIS DAY." Jesus himself makes this eschatological link when he proclaims, "Today this scripture has been ...

1393. Luke 5:1-11

Luke 5:1-11

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... unique combination of events is found only in Luke's text. Of course, Luke knew of and was influenced by the exceedingly abrupt "call" passage Mark relates in 1:16-20. With little fanfare, no miracles and few words, Jesus extends an invitation to "fish for people" to Simon and his ... respond to the call in verse 11. The mission-charge, to "catch people," is essentially the same as in Mark's "call" text. The response is immediate and dramatic. The boats, still filled with fish, are brought ashore and abandoned ...

1394. Luke 6:17-26

Luke 6:17-26

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

1395. Luke 4:1-13

Luke 4:1-13

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... Jesus at his baptism, now fills Jesus. Its guiding presence continues as it leads him out into the wilderness for a period of fasting and testing. Note that in Luke, the Holy Spirit's presence appears almost as an internalized force in Jesus' life. In Mark, the Holy Spirit acts as the external force that drives Jesus out into the wilderness (1:12). For Luke, the Holy Spirit that descends on Jesus at his baptism is an inseparable part of Jesus' being. After this temptation sequence is played out, Luke once ...

1396. Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

1397. Luke 7:36-8:3

Luke 7:36-8:3

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... texts. Luke's narrative takes place at the beginning of Jesus' Galilean ministry not as it does in Mark, on the night before Jesus' death. The story's location in Luke enables the startling words and attitudes Jesus reveals to season his entire ... public ministry. While the "anointing" stories in Mark, Matthew and John point toward Jesus the Messiah, Luke reveals more about Jesus the teacher and the radical challenges he ...

1398. Luke 21:5-19

Luke 21:5-19

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... dedicated to God, which then became a part of the permanent temple decorations. Some of these were quite elegant and expensive, like the so-called "golden vine" Herod himself is supposed to have given to decorate this place of worship. Repeating Mark's warning, Luke predicts that despite its beauty, its elegance and the dutiful homage it evoked, the temple will be utterly destroyed (see also Luke 19:44). Not surprisingly this terse bombshell elicits a panicky response from Jesus' disciples. Their questions ...

1399. Matthew 11:2-11

Matthew 11:2-11

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... when he says, "but I tell you that Elijah has already come ..."). In verses 4-6, Jesus responds to John's disciples with words that both recall the prophetic texts of Isaiah 26:19 and 35:5-6, and recap some of the most dramatic events that thus far have marked his public ministry. (See Matthew 4:23; 9:35; 9:27-31; 9:2-8; 8:1-4; 8:32-33; 9:18-26.) Following this litany of miracles that have unfolded during the course of his ministry, Jesus proclaims, "... blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me" (v ...

1400. John 1:(1-9) 10-18

John 1:(1-9) 10-18

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... ' pre-existence as the eternal Logos. Introduced in 1:1, Jesus' pre-existence is reaffirmed in 17:5 by Jesus himself. While the other three Gospels take pains early on to locate Jesus firmly within a specific human history (Matthew and Luke with their birth narratives, Mark with his reference to Isaiah), John alone opens by looking beyond Jesus' humanity to his eternal presence. Another theme articulated in 1:4,9 and then reiterated in 8:12 and 9:5 is John's theology of light. Even as he is drawn to that ...

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