Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: Levi, disciple, evangelist, tax collector, the 12, the twelve, apostle, sermon on the mount, jewish audience, beatitudes, lord's prayer, great commission, parables, olivet discourse, mount of olives, olivet, synoptic

Showing 1451 to 1475 of 4942 results

1451. Jerusalem’s Siege, in Parable and Sign

Ezekiel 24:1-14, Ezekiel 24:15-27

Understanding Series

Steven Tuell

Ezekiel 24 contains two discrete units. The first, verses 1–14, picks up on an image from 11:3: Jerusalem as a cooking pot. The parable opens with the word of the LORD came to me, and a very important date: the day when the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem began (v. 2). It closes with the oracular formula declares the Sovereign LORD (v. 14). The second unit describes the most difficult sign-act in this book. Here God forbids Ezekiel to mourn the death of his wife (vv. 15–27; for other sign-acts in Ezekiel, ...

1452. Jesus Adopted by Joseph

Matthew 1:18-25

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Jeannine K. Brown

Big Idea: Matthew confirms that Jesus belongs to Joseph’s genealogy by adoption, showing Jesus to be the Davidic Messiah and the embodiment of God’s presence to save. Understanding the Text Matthew concludes the genealogy from Abraham to Joseph by connecting Jesus’ birth to Mary, not to Joseph (1:16). In 1:18–25 Matthew “solves” this conundrum by emphasizing that Joseph names Jesus (1:21, 25), thereby adopting Jesus as his own son. This birth story also moves seamlessly into Matthew 2, where Jesus’ birth ...

1453. Jesus as True King of Israel

Matthew 2:19-23, Matthew 2:13-18, Matthew 2:1-12

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Jeannine K. Brown

Big Idea: Matthew contrasts Jesus’ identity as the Messiah—the true King who enacts Israel’s return from exile—with Rome’s client-king, Herod, affirming Jesus’ identity through Old Testament testimony, God’s protection, and worship of Jesus by the Gentile magi. Understanding the Text Matthew 2 narrates the political threat that Jesus’ birth creates for Herod and the ensuing need for Jesus’ family to flee the country. After time in Egypt, they return, settling in Nazareth. Themes of God’s protection and ...

1454. Jesus as God’s Wisdom Is a Hidden Reality

Matthew 11:20-24, Matthew 11:25-30

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Jeannine K. Brown

Big Idea: Rejection of Jesus as God’s wisdom both deserves judgment and fits a divine pattern in which truth is hidden from the wise and revealed to unexpected ones. Understanding the Text In this passage Matthew’s Jesus critiques various Galilean towns for failing to respond to his message of repentance (see 4:17). As in 11:2–5, the miracles that he has done are directly linked to this message and his identity (11:21–24), so their rejection of his miracles is an implicit rejection of his message and self ...

1455. Jesus’ Compassion and Authority to Do the Miraculous

Matthew 14:13-21, Matthew 14:22-36

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Jeannine K. Brown

Big Idea: Matthew shows Jesus to be worthy of trust as the Son of God, as he acts in compassion and authority to heal the sick, feed hungry crowds, and even walk on the sea. Understanding the Text Matthew narrates Jesus healing the sick, feeding the five thousand, and walking on the water to demonstrate Jesus’ authority over sickness and even the natural elements. Through these miracles Matthew reaffirms Jesus’ identity as the Messiah (“Son of God” [14:33]). The evangelist has already emphasized Jesus’ ...

1456. Jesus’ Compassion and Authority to Feed and Heal

Matthew 15:21-28, Matthew 15:29-39

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Jeannine K. Brown

Big Idea: Matthew demonstrates Jesus’ compassion and authority in a miraculous feeding and in healing that extends even to a Gentile, indicating that trust is the right response to Jesus. Understanding the Text For a third time in Matthew, Jesus withdraws from controversy (15:21; see also 12:15; 14:13) to minister with healing to the crowds (15:22, 30–31). Given that Matthew focuses almost exclusively on Jesus’ ministry to Israel (10:5–6), it is significant that the story of the healing of a Canaanite ...

1457. The Disciples’ Insufficient Faith to Heal as Jesus Heals

Matthew 17:14-23, Matthew 17:24-27

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Jeannine K. Brown

Big Idea: Jesus, now revealed as the suffering Messiah, continues his kingdom ministry of healing, while his disciples demonstrate their “little faith” by their inability to heal as he does. Understanding the Text Matthew’s emphasis in the account of the healing in 17:14–20 is on the disciples’ inability to heal (17:19–20) in spite of the authority given them by Jesus to do so (see 10:1, 8). Their inability is tied to their little faith (17:20), already attributed to the disciples at 6:30; 8:26; 14:31; 16: ...

1458. Community Discourse: Care for Others in the Kingdom

Matthew 18:1-9, Matthew 18:10-14, Matthew 18:15-20

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Jeannine K. Brown

Big Idea: Jesus confronts the disciples about their preoccupation with status and teaches that the kingdom community is to be not status focused but other focused, with Jesus in their midst, caring for the vulnerable and addressing sin that might harm the community. Understanding the Text Chapter 18 is the fourth of five major teaching discourses in Matthew (chaps. 5–7, 10, 13, 18, 24–25) and is often referred to as the Community Discourse. The first half of the discourse (18:1–20) focuses on Jesus’ ...

1459. Eschatological Discourse: Prediction of the Temple’s Destruction

Matthew 24:1-35

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Jeannine K. Brown

Big Idea: Jesus predicts the temple’s destruction—a vindication of his own message and mission as the Son of Man—and warns his followers not to confuse the signs of its destruction with the event itself. Understanding the Text This passage begins Matthew’s fifth and final discourse containing Jesus’ teaching (chaps. 24–25) and is directed to the disciples. The focus of 24:1–35 is Jesus’ predictions about the temple’s destruction (introduced in 23:37–39). In 24:3 the disciples respond to Jesus’ initial ...

1460. Jesus Is Anointed and Celebrates the Passover with His Disciples

Matthew 26:1-5, Matthew 26:6-13, Matthew 26:14-16, Matthew 26:17-30

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Jeannine K. Brown

Big Idea: Matthew contrasts the Jewish leaders and Judas, who conspire against Jesus, and even the disciples, who continue to lack understanding about Jesus’ impending death, with an unnamed woman who anoints Jesus for his burial, pointing toward his missional death to bring covenant renewal through the forgiveness of sins. Understanding the Text Chapters 26–28 narrate the passion and resurrection of Jesus. After Jesus predicts his coming death again (26:2; also 16:21; 17:22–23; 20:17–19), Matthew narrates ...

1461. Jesus’s Authority to Forgive and Heal Sinners

Mark 2:1-12

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Grant R. Osborne

Big Idea: In contrast to the crowds, the leaders begin to oppose Jesus’s ministry because he ignores the requirements of their oral tradition. Jesus, however, conducts his ministry not to satisfy rules but to bring sinners to forgiveness. His authority to forgive sins is proof of his divine sonship. Understanding the Text Jesus’s authority continues from Mark 1, but now with a polar opposite reaction: rejection rather than wonder. This begins five episodes (2:1–12, 13–17, 18–22, 23–28; 3:1–6) that center ...

1462. Jesus Calling and Accepting the Outcasts

Mark 2:13-17

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Grant R. Osborne

Big Idea: Jesus’s purpose is to bring sinners to forgiveness (2:1–12), and that includes inviting a tax collector to join his apostolic band. Levi uses the occasion to invite other social outcasts to meet Jesus, and that brings opposition from the religious leaders. Understanding the Text This section is all about forgiveness (2:1–12) that leads to discipleship (2:13–17), and this is set in contrast to the intransigence of the religious leaders. There is a reversal, for those who think they are healthy ...

1463. Jesus as Lord and as Archcriminal

Mark 2:23-3:6, Mark 2:18-22

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Grant R. Osborne

Big Idea: In Jesus the new age has come, and this new reality cannot be immersed into the old ways. Jesus the Son of Man has authority over the Torah and is Lord over the Sabbath. Understanding the Text The opposition to Jesus intensifies with each of the episodes in this section. The central story among the five in 2:1–3:6 tells why the conflict is occurring (2:18–22): in Jesus a new era has arrived, one in which he must challenge the old traditions. Those who cling to the old (symbolized by the issue of ...

1464. The Gentiles Are Included in God’s Provision

Mark 8:1-13

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Grant R. Osborne

Big Idea: Jesus’s ministry in Gentile lands continues with a second feeding miracle that shows the inclusion of the Gentiles in Jesus’s messianic ministry of provision. In contrast, the confrontation and rejection by the Jewish leaders intensifies, leading to Jesus’s christological destiny in Jerusalem. Understanding the Text This is part of the longer section 6:31–8:21 described earlier (see “The Text in Context” on 6:31–44), dealing with “failure-faith-failure.” Here, as in 6:31–7:23, a feeding miracle ( ...

1465. Realizing the True Nature of Jesus the Christ

Mark 8:27-30

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Grant R. Osborne

Big Idea: The central themes of this passage and the next are Christology (8:27–33) and discipleship (8:34–9:1). This passage picks up the Christology of 1:1 and the truth of Jesus as the Messiah and then defines his messianic work in terms of the Suffering Servant. Understanding the Text We are at the turning point (called the “watershed” by many) in Mark’s Gospel. The first part (8:27–30) sums up the first half of the Gospel and addresses the identity of Jesus. The second part (8:31–33) sets the scene ...

1466. Praying in Faith

Mark 11:20-25 (26)

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Grant R. Osborne

Big Idea: The clearing of the temple and the cursing of the fig tree (11:12–18) portray the messianic authority of Jesus to act for God, and here this authority is passed on to Jesus’s followers through the power of prayers made in faith. Understanding the Text The authority of Jesus in cursing the fig tree (vv. 19–21) and through it the temple is extended to the disciples, who participate in Jesus’s authority through prayer/faith (vv. 22–26). The promise of authority contains the thematic command for ...

1467. The Good Life

Luke 6:17-26

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R.T. France

Big Idea: Jesus contrasts the blessings of life in the kingdom of God, with all its hardships, with most people’s idea of the good life. Understanding the Text Following after the selection of the Twelve, this is the beginning of a programmatic sermon on the blessings and demands of discipleship, which continues to the end of the chapter. The parameters are thus established for the role that the disciples will play in the developing story. Outline/Structure Luke 6:20–49 is a much shorter “equivalent” to ...

1468. Hearing and Responding

Luke 8:19-21, Luke 8:16-18, Luke 8:1-15

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R.T. France

Big Idea: When God’s word is proclaimed, there are different levels of response, ranging from those who take no notice to those whose lives are transformed. Understanding the Text At the heart of Jesus’s mission as announced in 4:14–21 is teaching and the proclamation of good news. We have had an important section of his teaching in 6:20–49, which concluded with trenchant comments on the importance of putting into practice what is heard—a theme that runs through this whole section. Since then, Jesus has ...

1469. Lessons in Discipleship

Luke 17:11-19, Luke 17:1-10

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R.T. France

Big Idea: True discipleship cannot be undertaken casually; the service of God demands all that we can bring to it. Understanding the Text In 17:11 Luke reminds us that Jesus and his disciples are still on the journey to Jerusalem. Much of the journey narrative (9:51–19:44) consists of teaching given to the disciples. In the last few chapters this has largely taken the form of parables, and we will return to parables at the beginning of chapter 18. But in this section we find four separate units of teaching ...

1470. God’s Saving Righteousness and the Restoration of Israel

Romans 3:21-31

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C. Marvin Pate

Big Idea: Paul anticipates here in verses 21–26 Martin Luther's famous question, “How can I, a sinner, stand before a holy God?” The apostle's answer is that at the cross of Jesus Christ, the judging righteousness of God (his holiness) is reconciled to God's saving righteousness (his mercy) such that God is at once both just and the justifier of him whose faith is in Jesus. Understanding the Text Romans 1:17–18 signaled two aspects of divine righteousness: saving righteousness and judging righteousness. ...

1471. New Dominion as a Blessing of the New Covenant: Dead to Sin

Romans 6:1-14

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C. Marvin Pate

Big Idea: In chapter 6 Paul presents another blessing: new dominion. The first Adam forfeited his dominion over the earth. But Christ, the last Adam, inaugurated a new age and new covenant, restoring the lost dominion. Believers enter that new dominion by uniting with Christ’s death and resurrection: they become dead to sin and alive to God. Understanding the Text While Romans 3:21–5:21 developed the theme of justification, Romans 6:1–8:16 is devoted to the topic of sanctification.1On the one hand, ...

1472. Israel and the Present Curses and the Past Blessings of the Covenant

Romans 9:1-29

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C. Marvin Pate

Big Idea: Chapters 9–11, which correspond to the curses component of the covenant (chaps. 5–8 enunciate the blessings), answer the question “Have God’s promises to Israel failed?” Paul answers, “No!” In 9:1–5 he broaches the problem of Israel’s unbelief. Israel previously enjoyed the blessings of the covenant but is now under its curses for rejecting the Messiah. Understanding the Text In order to situate Romans 9:1–5 in its literary setting I must briefly make four points. First, what is the relationship ...

1473. Introduction and “Hello”

1 Corinthians 1:1-9

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Preben Vang

Big Idea: Paul introduces himself as a fellow Christ follower and reminds his Corinthian friends that calling Christ Lord should generate life patterns that reflect such a relationship to Christ. Understanding the Text If anything strikes someone who begins reading 1 Corinthians, it is how Paul packs content into every word from the outset. When we realize how well he knows the Corinthian congregation even on a personal level and recognize that this is at least his second letter to the church (5:9), it is ...

1474. Christian Maturity

1 Corinthians 3:1-23

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Preben Vang

Big Idea: Mature Christians recognize that Jesus Christ must remain the church’s only foundation. The existence of church cliques testifies to infantile behavior, and God will expose those practicing it. Understanding the Text Although Paul has made it clear that those who rely on human wisdom and rhetorical inspiration are doomed to become nothing (2:6), he is not opposed to effective communication. Paul’s use of metaphor and simile to drive home his point aligns well with ancient rhetorical conventions,[ ...

1475. Worship and Proper Attire

1 Corinthians 11:2-16

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Preben Vang

Big Idea: The form of the Christian worship service must express the nature of Christ, and the behavior of the worshipers must exemplify his character and humility. Understanding the Text After a strong call to Christians to avoid participation in pagan banquets, which ultimately were worship services, Paul now turns to the Christian worship service itself. Since the behavior at pagan worship services so clearly was an abomination to God, how should Christians reconsider their practices when approaching ...

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