Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 1401 to 1425 of 3160 results

1401. The Lord's Prayer: "Thy Will Be Done"

Matthew 6:5-15

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... people repeat these familiar words..."Thy will be done." Perhaps that is why all these terrible things happen; we are praying that they will. Years ago, in the midst of World War II, the great English preacher Leslie Weatherhead wrote, What sort of a God is this, who of his own intention, not through circumstances thrust into life by ignorance, folly, or sin, but of divine intention, pours misery undeserved and unhappiness, disappointment and frustration, bereavement, calamity and ill health on his beloved ...

1402. The Lord's Prayer: "Our Daily Bread"

Matthew 6:5-15

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... more plain to me everyday that when we pray "Give US this day our daily bread," God has already DONE so - there is enough food on this planet to feed 2-billion MORE people than are currently alive. But what God has done is arranged for a sort of cosmic warehousing system of which we in the West have been given temporary charge. If we are faithful managers, the problem of global hunger can be wiped out. According to the World Bank, it would take a redistribution of only TWO PERCENT of our planet's grain ...

1403. The Lord's Prayer: Please Forgive Us as We Forgive

Matthew 6:5-15

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... saving his weekly allowance. He returned a few weeks later with his piggy bank tucked under his arm. Smiling broadly, he lifted his bank onto the counter and broke it open. "It's all there!" he said joyfully. "So I see," said the owner, as he began to sort through the nickels and dimes and quarters. "There's the pen. Pick out any one you like." The puppies were yelping, wagging their tails, and crawling all over each other...all but one who sat forlornly off in the corner of the pen. The boy reached past ...

1404. Regis and Jesus

Matthew 6:19-24

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... store by things that you cannot say positively are yours anyway. If clothes are a big deal to you, fine...but be aware that they are not going to last. If accumulated possessions, the fruits of your labors, are important, okay...but make sure that you know that all sorts of things can happen to deprive you of them. If having a lot of money means much to you, all right...but remember, there is nothing to guarantee that you will keep it. As a matter of fact, about the only guarantee you can get with ANY of ...

1405. What Is Truly Important

Matthew 6:25-34, Matthew 6:19-24

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... be hidden. Compassion and prayer are healing and are ours to give in every situation and for all people. You know - that will Preach!!!(3) Indeed, it will, Gayle. Indeed, it will. Sometimes it takes an event like Floyd to help us put things in perspective, to help us sort the wheat from the chaff in the jumble of our lives, to help us see what is truly important. This week we buried Slick Shepherd, at age 95 St. Paul's oldest member. Not too many of you knew Slick - he did not join this church until he was ...

1406. Are You the One?

Matthew 11:1-19

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... for repentance from sin and right living. He certainly refused to mince words - he was abrasive, insulting, almost mean at times. And that is not to mention the wild hair and weird clothes. And what is with the diet of locusts and wild honey? Still, all sorts of people had come to hear his preaching - rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief. His celebrity had become such that even the hoity-toity religious types made their way out to the desert to see him. He insulted them along with everybody else, all to ...

1407. Stay in the Boat!

Matthew 14:22-36

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... in, I was just about to fix myself a drink. Can I interest you in one?' "'Sure,' I said, 'if it's caffeine free, diet.' "He poured out the drinks, offered me a seat, reared himself back in his chair, feet on the disordered desk before him. "'What sort of day have you had?' I asked. "'A typical day,' he said, again sounding tired. 'Misery.' "'Oh, I'm sorry. What was miserable about it?' I asked. "'My day began with my assisting a couple evict their aging father from his house so they could take everything he ...

1408. The Pleasure of Your Company

Matthew 26:17-30

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... . I'd love to go." The big night arrives. You have made all the appropriate preparations. Cleaned and pressed, washed and waxed. And so you go. 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. You are met out front by more black suits who escort you in. Inside the doors, a garçon of sorts takes over. Your steps echo as you follow the tuxedoed guide down the tall hall lined with portraits of past presidents. At the end of the corridor is the banquet room. In the center of the room is a long table and in the center of the table is ...

1409. The Imperatives of the Resurrection

Matthew 28:1-10

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... it could make any difference in their lives, and people would ONLY hear if someone were to TELL them. Yes, there would have been the temptation to keep quiet had not the angel specifically told us to do otherwise. After all, why open yourself up to all sorts of snide remarks from a world that says, "When you are dead, you are dead - there is no such thing as resurrection?" Why let people think you are a crackpot? Why not just keep the news to yourself and save all that potential embarrassment? Why not ...

1410. The View from the Mountaintop

Mark 9:14-32, Mark 9:2-13

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... he wrote a friend and said, "I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth."(6) Of course, the President was the recipient of all sorts of advice to help him with his momentous decisions (just as Mr. Bush is today). Many of the arguments were based on religion and the unshakeable certainty that God wanted whatever problem was being discussed handled THIS way (which ever way the speaker was heading ...

1411. The Apostles' Creed: I Believe

Mark 9:14-32

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... that feels. His boy is sick - an epileptic, subject to violent seizures. I know how it feels to have a sick child. Dad has heard the neighborhood scuttlebutt about a certain Nazarene rabbi who had been touring the countryside with a reputation for being able to heal all sorts of diseases. He is not quite sure what to make of the word on the street, but when it comes to your child, you do whatever it takes. He loves his little boy and wants to do something... anything...to help him. I know...up to a point ...

1412. Welcoming Jesus

Mark 9:33-37

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... provide decent homes for those who would never have them without our help? Don't we blister our feet marching in the Relay for Life every year for the sole purpose of helping find a cure for a horrible disease? Don't we contribute our money to all sorts of worthy causes, both in the church and out? Absolutely! And we do not do badly, if we do say so ourselves. But before we say anything more, consider this true story:(5) recently a church youth group was on a wilderness back-packing expedition and got lost ...

1413. Jesus and Divorce

Mark 10:1-12

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... ' rather than God's `joining'?" ---"What if in the course of a marriage, the marriage relationship becomes fundamentally destructive to the partners (and/or their children), then what shape does God's gracious intention take?" ---"What if because of various sorts of 'hardness of heart' a marriage is dissolved, then are those who were a party to it forever shut out from God's gracious intention of `oneness?'" ...Neither the Confession of Faith nor the Bible wrestle significantly with the troublesome fact ...

1414. A Lesson in the Snow

Mark 10:13-16

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... the children:(1) Children are imaginative. A boy came home from Sunday School where they had just had a lesson on Adam and Eve. He was especially amused by the fact that Eve was said to be created from Adam's rib. Later that day he came down with some sort of intestinal bug and said to his mother: "Mommy, my side hurts. I think I'm going to have a wife." Children bring us smiles as they learn. For example, one child prayed, "Our Father, who art in heaven, how do you know my name?" Another, asked to describe ...

1415. No Holding Back

Mark 12:28-34

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... replied, "I'd be streaky." Out of the mouths of babes. It was dark, winter dark, so cold; And I Drowning; I cried aloud, "Lord, save me!" And then, Out of the bushes, I heard the Lord's voice, "Give me your hat." "No, Lord," I answered, - For in that sort of dream The drowning have breath and time to talk, - "I am fond of my hat Which reminds me Of many occasions I want to recall." Then my head went under for the first time, So I gave my hat into the Lord's hand: After that I floated much ...

1416. When Your Church Provokes You

Matthew 13:1-23, Hebrews 10:19-39

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... I get out of it?" This is backwards, of course. The gospel begins with GIVING -- "For God so loved the world that he GAVE..." -- and we respond by giving of ourselves (including our money) in return. That giving then supports ministries of all sorts - ministries of teaching, preaching, healing, feeding, services of amazing variety - with the result that great work is accomplished in the name of Jesus Christ. And that work happens because we give. OK, enough with the provoking to love and good deeds. What ...

1417. Surprise!

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... get through it. God will give it to you and me too. The message of our Gospel lesson is not simply a narrative about the beginning of Jesus' earthly life. It is a reminder to us to be on the lookout for angels - heavenly messengers of some sort (maybe some celestial being, maybe a Bible verse, maybe some Christian friend, maybe even something as mundane as a sermon) - with an announcement...one that could be surprising and unexpected, one that calls us to give life to Christ again. We can ignore it. We can ...

1418. Ready or Not, Here He Comes!

Luke 3:1-20

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... beside the river where they would hope to be safe! John is not simply in the name-calling business here, but he IS calling a spade a spade. He knows that the people have traveled out to him and are ready for his baptism because they see it as a sort of fire insurance. They are escaping from God's refining fire, just as snakes escape the desert's fire, and John says that ought not happen. As desert fires clear out old growth to make room for the new, John wants the people ready to have the dross and dead ...

1419. Fish Bait

Luke 5:1-11

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... I have heard. But I was passing your church last Sunday, looked in the window, and noticed you had not caught too many..." Too true. Too true. Of course, our lesson is the source of that "fisher of men" designation. It too is a "fish story" of sorts. It starts out with Jesus being pursued by the curious crowd, folks who have heard about this amazing young man - his healing miracles, casting out demons. What does he have to say? So they press close, as the text says, "listening to the word of God." Too close ...

1420. The Forgiveness Business

Luke 7:36-50

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... like it so well. It is certainly astonishing. Put it in the context of a dinner party at your own home or even a supper downstairs in Fellowship Hall. By this time in Jesus' ministry, he had garnered quite a bit of public notice. All sorts of people had been attracted to him - rich, poor, educated, illiterate, from the highly respectable to the lowly riffraff. To have this famous rabbi come to dinner was very special and everyone would have been excited...and perhaps a bit nervous at the same time - after ...

1421. A Tale of Two Sisters

Luke 10:38-42

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... any rate, the big moment arrives, Jesus comes in, and begins a conversation with Martha's sister Mary who, up till here had been helping with the preparations, but now had stopped assisting big sister and turned all her attention to their visitor. A minute or two of this sort of thing was all it took for the steam to start coming out of Martha's ears. We do not know exactly how long it took, but finally, with teeth barely unclenched and a fake smile feigned on her face, she comes in and asks, "Lord, don't ...

1422. Is God Like Daddy? - Father's Day

Luke 15:11-32

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... , because I suspect that more than intuition was involved. This was the kind of home in which the concept of sin and its consequences would have been taught to that boy from his childhood. His father was not like so many today who shy away from any sort of religious education for their children. They say they do not want to force anything down their kids' throats. "Wait till they get older, then let them make up their own minds." Well, bunk! If the Prodigal's father had felt that way, the boy might still ...

1423. Would a Loving God Really Let Anyone Go to Hell?

Luke 16:19-31

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... spend eternity. But what about the Bible? What does that say? To be honest, not a great deal. In the Old Testament, there is nothing about a place of eternal torment for the damned, nothing. Life after death for everyone - good or evil - is seen as some sort of shadowy existence in a place known as Sheol but not much more. There are a number of Old Testament references like that but nothing about unending torture, even for the worst of this world. Actually, the first time we run into a place of after-death ...

1424. Pentecostal Power

Acts 2:1-21

Sermon

King Duncan

... that husbands learn two techniques for listening to their wives: the “hold the bucket” technique and “the mirror stance.” Men are fixers, so when women talk about their problems men usually want to offer solutions. But women often talk about their problems in order to sort through their feelings and look at the problem from all angles. They don’t want a solution as much as they want understanding and empathy. The best thing for a husband to do when his wife has a problem is to “hold the bucket ...

1425. About Kissing

2 Corinthians 13:11-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... to 30 percent more monthly and they live about five years longer than those who don't even give each other a peck on the cheek. The reason for this, says Dr. Sazbo, is that the kissers begin the day with a positive attitude. A kiss signifies a sort of seal of approval, and those who don't experience it, for whatever reason, go out the door feeling not quite right about themselves. (3) Which reminds me of a wonderful true story. A man tells of depositing his wife and three-year-old daughter in a taxi during ...

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