Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 1426 to 1450 of 4963 results

1426. The Revelation Code II: Crash, Crisis and Christ

Revelation 5:1--7:17

Sermon

John E. Harnish

... , we cry out for one who can help us understand, one who can help us find the way, one who can interpret history and bring hope, one who stands in the midst and holds humanity in the palm of his hand. And that leads us to the primary theme of the Book ... , when we are moving at the speed of life, the Church of the Risen Christ lifts up the vision of God's shalom, God's dream, God's hope for the world. We proclaim it every week when we pray for God's kingdom to come, God's will to be done on earth, even as it ...

1427. From the Tomb

John 20:1-18

Sermon

John E. Harnish

... is one big difference. Yesterday Waterloo was a defeat…today it's a victory!"[2] Yesterday the cross was a defeat and death. Today it is the sign of victory and eternal life. Yesterday the Jesus story was one of sorrow and remorse. Today it is a song of hope and promise. Yesterday Mary was weeping for a dead Jesus. Today she runs to tell the good news: "I have seen the Lord." Frankly…I don't know why you have come this morning. I don't know why you are weeping, what burden you carry, what grief might ...

1428. Resolving Fights

Matthew 18:15-20

Children's Sermon

King Duncan

... and sisters when they want to wear something that is yours. Maybe you’re tired and they get in your way or you get in their way, and you get very angry with each other. That is simply part of being in a family it is not good and we hope to outgrow it. We have to really try to be patient and loving and kind, but we can do it. Our lesson today is about maintaining relationships. One way we do this is to forgive one another. When your brother or sister does something you don’t like, do you ...

1429. Being Single-minded

1 Corinthians 7:29-31

Sermon

Donald Charles Lacy

... about the events coming soon after our Lord's Ascension and the Day of Pentecost. A single-mindedness is virtually demanded. It all has to do with a single God/man they knew was the one in whom they found their salvation. He had given them more than hope. He had given them assurances of heaven with him. In one sense, nothing has changed during those twenty centuries. We are to be centered on the one and only certain Savior of humankind, that little Jewish boy born of Mary. As he made his way as a lad ...

1430. A Man for All Seasons

1 Corinthians 9:16-23

Sermon

Donald Charles Lacy

... we continue to seek to live the Christian life as best we know how. The history of the church is saturated with just what the apostle puts before us. In a way we are caught between two worlds and we have no choice. We live as well we can and hope for heaven. Sometimes our difficulties emerge because we fail to realize God is the God of both of them. The world may be corrupt and fallen but he has not abdicated his throne! Our freedom, like Paul's, is one of countless dimensions and allows us to relate to ...

1431. Looking to the Unseen

2 Corinthians 4:18

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... health and destiny, we often beat a hasty retreat to the security of a materialistic self-understanding of life. In the second century A.D., the writer of First Timothy advised: "As for the rich in this world, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on uncertain riches but on God who richly furnishes us with everything to enjoy." He goes on to say that "they are to do good, to be rich in good deeds, liberal and generous, thus laying up for themselves a good foundation for the future, so that ...

1432. A Time for Us

Ephesians 1:3-14

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... of January will melt into a perpetual June, busting out all over with flowers of success and blossoms of happiness. Somewhere, someday, there will be a time for us, a time when our career will come to its zenith, a time when the children will fulfill our expectations and hopes for them, a time when financial security will arrive, and we will not have to worry so much about the end of the month, or the end of the year. How we long for that time. And yet, how quickly time passes us by, even the young sense it ...

1433. Joy to the World!

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

King Duncan

... son in a stable in Bethlehem. Overhead angels sing glory to God in the highest. This is faith at its most basic. This is hope at its most triumphant. The birth of a child. There’s nothing like it. If you were to ask most parents, “What was the ... no room for them in the inn. His crib was a rough trough from which cattle fed. Millions of poor and weary people around our globe find hope for their lives from the story of Christ’s birth. It would not be the same if he had been born in a palace. Some of you ...

1434. Accepting the Lord Once Again

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ looks with compassion for the world. Christ has no body on earth but yours." As the prayer indicates we are the presence of Christ. We are the light, the hope, the bearers of good news. If Jesus' birth means something more than a respite from the day-to-day grind, then it must take root and blossom forth in what we say and do. As Saint Paul says, we are the Body of Christ. We have a responsibility to ...

1435. Write to the Heart

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Sermon

Mary S. Lautensleger

... , he preaches to prepare them for God's judgment. As judgment approaches, Jeremiah looks beyond it and in God's mercy, sees hope for the people. King David's monarchy had long ago split into two kingdoms after an uncivil war. Jeremiah lived in the ... of the covenant will be poured from that sacred heart for all peoples for the forgiveness of their sins. Jeremiah has a word of consoling hope for us as well as for the peoples of Israel and Judah. Only God can heal our incurable wounds. No matter what you have ...

1436. Twas the Beginning of Advent

Mark 13:24-37

Illustration

Richard J. Fairchild

... mine - Todd Jenkins. It will tell you a little bit about this season we celebrate. 'Twas the beginning of Advent and all through the Church Our hope was all dying we'd given up on the search. It wasn't so much that Christ wasn't invited, But after 2,000 plus ... to be found? Can we block out commercials, the hype and the malls? Can we find solitude in our holy halls? Can we keep alert, keep hope, stay awake? Can we receive the child for ours and God's sake? From on high with the caroling host as he sees us, He ...

1437. Heresies of the Heart

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... in the destroyed temple, mute and mournful, oblivious to and indeed resentful of Jeremiah's words of consolation. All God's promises are in vain. Human nature and our hardened hearts are beyond God's healing touch. With no cause for hope there is no room for grace, and the result is a carefully nurtured spirit of divisiveness. On this spirit congregations are fragmented, marriages split, and retaining walls erected and fortified. The heresy of hopelessness may even lead Christians to embrace the catchall ...

1438. FaithRace

2 Timothy 4:6-8

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... We are circumspect to a fault. We prefer to speak softly. We would rather write in the lower case. What is missing are the exclamation marks. In a world where there are constant spiritual showdowns between hope and despair, love and hatred, faith and fear, we are modest about exclaiming what we believe: that our hope and strength come from the Lord! One of the great moments in sports history came on Sunday afternoon when the New Orleans Saints and the Detroit Lions were playing. The Lions were leading 17-16 ...

1439. Armageddon Anxiety

John 6:56-69

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... scene. Obviously, he has just been quizzed by a rather dazed, innocent looking gentleman, about what it is like farther down into the scorching caverns. As a frowning devil looks over his shoulder at them, the long-term human resident of Hades tells the expectant, hopeful arrival, deflatingly, "No, it's not going to be okay." (James V. Schall, "The Power of Evil Is Based on a Lie," Vital Speeches LXII (July 1, 1996), 557. The world is desperate for "It's-going-to-be-okay" assurances. The politically correct ...

1440. Mark 13:24-32

Mark 13:24-32

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... Jews and Gentiles, were beginning to experience their own persecution. From the book of Daniel, the source of today's apocalyptic imagery, the vision of the captive Jew in the Babylonian court of King Belshazzar (Nebuchadnezzar's son) provides a similar message of hope. Over-run by the might of the Babylonian empire, Jerusalem had fallen quickly and completely. Daniel was among those chosen as young men to decorate the royal court with comeliness and cleverness - a fate that meant living out his life in the ...

1441. Jeremiah 31:7-14

Jeremiah 31:7-14

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... strength of the Babylonian Empire (587 B.C.) (see 30:3,8-9,17;31:23-26, 27-28, 38-40), there are clearly sections which may be confidently attributed to Jeremiah during the Deuteronomic reform period. In the text read this week, the hope the usually dour-voiced Jeremiah expresses is directed at the Northern kingdom. Assyria's weakening hand and the vigor of the Deuteronomic reforms inspired Jeremiah to face those tribes exiled in 722. His references to "Samaria," the Northern kingdom's former capitol (v. 5 ...

1442. 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... rarely dawns on us that in this entire chapter there is no mention of Christ, no explicit Christology whatsoever. Not only may that fact startle us a bit, but so also might the realization that discourses such as this one - discussing the merits of love, hope, faith and truth were fairly common in ancient literature. There are several Greek parallels of Paul's words here - in Plato, Tyrtaeus and Macimus, as well as Jewish parallels from wisdom literature (such as 3 Ezra 34-40). The form and content of Paul ...

1443. 2 Thessalonians 2:13-3:5

2 Thessalonians 2:13 – 3:5

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... his conviction about God's love for all of them (a God who loves "us") and expresses a wishful longing for the Thessalonians' continued trust in the love, comfort and hope that is available only through their response to God in Christ. Paul's use of the term "good hope" once again intimates some of the eschatological expectations of the Christian faith. "Good hope" was a phrase used in the Hellenistic world to refer to life after death. Here Paul links it up with "encouragement" or "comfort" to carry the ...

1444. Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... author beyond the boundaries of a country to include the entire earth. The faithful sojourn as strangers on this earth, he declares, as they await the time of their entrance into the heavenly city of God. This fervent longing by the faithful was not a vain hope. Faith, for this writer, relies on the absolute trust we may have in God's promises. Thus, before he recounts one of the most astounding acts of Abraham's faith his willingness to sacrifice Isaac at the Lord's command the writer makes it clear that ...

1445. Jeremiah 31:7-14

Jeremiah 31:7-14

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

1446. 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

1447. Rainbows and Roses

Genesis 9:1-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... to all humankind. Never again would God send a flood to destroy the earth. And this would be a sign of God’s promise. God placed a rainbow in the clouds. Whenever we see the rainbow we can remember God’s promise. There’s something special and hopeful about a rainbow, isn’t there? There are some things about rainbows that you may not know. “Rainbows appear at the end of rainstorms because it is then that you have the two prerequisites for making them: 1) water droplets suspended in the sky and 2 ...

1448. All Saints

Psalm 24:1-10, Isaiah 25:1-12, John 11:32-44, Revelation 21:1-27

Bulletin Aid

B. David Hostetter

... we are forgiven. Exhortation Trust in God and you will understand all the truth you need on this side of the grave and have strong hope of eternity with God. PRAYER OF THE DAY Jesus, Lord of life and death, free us from the fears that bind us and help us ... for us. Amen PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING God our savior, Christ our pioneer, Eternal Spirit, we give hearty thanks for our hope of life everlasting. Your prophets foresee banquets and other signs of your abounding grace. Your word promises the intimacy of ...

1449. Proper 5

Galatians 1:11-24, 1 Kings 17:7-24, Psalm 146:1-10, Luke 7:11-17

Bulletin Aid

B. David Hostetter

... truly a revelation of God. Galatians 1:11-24 Gospel—Another resuscitation of a widow’s son gives the people a reason to have hope that another prophet like Elijah has come. Luke 7:11-17 CALL TO WORSHIP Leader: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with ... also with you. Leader: Happy are you whose help is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. People: We are happy for our hope is in our God, who keeps faith forever. INVOCATION Eternal God, we worship you, for you lift us up when we are bowed down, you ...

1450. All Saints

Psalm 24:1-10, Isaiah 25:1-12, John 11:32-44, Revelation 21:1-27

Bulletin Aid

B. David Hostetter

... are upon the chosen in Christ. People: The faithful will abide with God in love. Pastor: Friends, believe the Good News! People: In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. Exhortation Trust in God, and you will understand all the truth you need on this side of the grave and have strong hope of eternity with God. PRAYER OF THE DAY Jesus, Lord of life and death, free us from the fears that bind us and help us to live a day at a time, trusting that you will provide for us what we need and in the end will take us to ...

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