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Showing 126 to 150 of 517 results

126. When The Heart Is Right Before God

Acts 8:9-25

Sermon Aid

Clement E. Lewis

... to do with selfish and mistaken motives on the part of the new covenant, Simon, and ends with his being truly contrite, and asking for help from the apostles. Thinking, doing, and feeling right is of vital concern to all conscientious persons. Impulsiveness and personal ambition often get ordinarily good people into difficulty. David wanted and took that which was not right or honorable, including another man's wife and his life. Simon misunderstood the wonderful mystery of the faith, and thought that money ...

127. Prayer for Lent 2

John 2:12-25

Sermon Aid

Richard F. Bansemer

Commentary: Jesus seems to continue to act spontaneously -- even impulsively -- as he purges the temple. This passage is the first time God is named "Father" in John, and it is interesting to note that it follows immediately upon the miracle involving his mother. Very deliberately, Jesus is beginning to show the difference between earthly parenthood and godly Fatherhood. Not only ...

128. Proper 7

1 Kings 19:9-18, Psalm 63:1-11, Zechariah 12:1-9, Luke 8:26-39, Galatians 3:23-29

Sermon Aid

George Bass

... thought him to be; they told him that some thought he was John the Baptist, others thought he was Elijah, and still others one of the other prophets. And then he asked them the critical question, "But who do you say that I am?" Quite naturally, it was impulsive Peter who replied and said, "The Christ of God," which prompted Jesus to charge them to keep his identity a secret, because he, the Son of Man, must suffer, be rejected, be executed, and be raised on the third day. He went on to tell them what it ...

129. What Children Can Teach Adults

Luke 10:1-24

Sermon

Thomas Slavens

... tears, wiped them with her hair, kissed them with her lips and anointed them with ointment, he showed his approval of her spontaneity when he said, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” (Luke 7:50b) When Peter cried out in that moment of impulse, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” Jesus replied, “Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jona!” (Matthew 16:16b,17a) As the Christ loved those who responded to him spontaneously with childlike faith, so he loves those today who do not calculate the ...

130. Act III, Scene 2

John 21:1-14

Sermon

John M. Braaten

... . Then a man appears on the shore instructing them to cast the nets to the other side. Suddenly their nets are full of fish. It is then that the apostle John realizes that this is Jesus risen from the dead and he cries out, "It is the Lord!" Impulsively and with joy Peter jumps into the water and swims for shore. Soon the other disciples arrive, they join in breakfast and have a wonderful time together. But as abruptly as he came, he left. Why? What reason can there be for such behavior? Let's look at ...

131. Our Christian I.D.

Luke 4:1-13

Sermon

John M. Braaten

... your sense of belonging to the family of God. The ways Satan tries to convince us that we do not deserve to be God's beloved are most often subtle, clever and deadly. And these temptations, like the temptations of Christ, are far more insidious than any impulse to disobey the commandments. Consider this tricky question, "If you are a child of God, then why don't you feel more like one?" It's deadly because sometimes we don't feel much like a beloved member of God's family. The implication is that if you ...

132. Redrawing The Landscape

Multiple Scriptures

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... attitude. You cannot serve two masters. Either you will bow before the altar of revenge and scissor people out of your life, or you will bow before the altar of forgiveness and sew yourself into the wide fabric of humanity, as imperfect and impulsive as it is. Peter had not realized the greatness of forgiveness. You cannot forgive people and pray for them, even if they persecute you, without becoming a person of love. Forgiveness creates a loving spirit. Jesus told Peter, "You must forgive from your ...

133. The Dreamer Within You

Joel 2:18-27, Joel 2:28-32

Sermon

Richard Hasler

... spirit of the Revolutionary soldiers and their families who left New England to settle Marietta in 1788 and Belpre in 1789. We have inherited a singular legacy. Most significantly of all, we have a biblical reason. As we study the Bible we confront the pioneer impulse. We notice Abraham and Sarah went out to a far country, not knowing where they are going. The Apostle Paul pioneered too, following the Spirit’s dream within him until he not only spread the good news in Asia Minor, but crossed over into ...

134. Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian

Drama

Thomas A. Renquist

... part of the organist. He wrote: Reader 2: “With the tracker the finger feels a certain tension exactly when the tone comes; it feels the contact point. And the depressed key pushes up under the finger, in order that when the finger shows the slightest impulse to leave it, it may immediately rise with its own strength and lift the finger up with it. The strength of the keys cooperate with the will! With the tracker even the mediocre organist cannot smear. With pneumatics there is no such cooperation on the ...

135. Herod

Matthew 2:1-12

Drama

Dale Bringman

... and myrrh. I assumed these were for me. My ministers reported that, instead of bringing the gifts for me, those Wise Men had come asking: "Where is he who is born king of the Jews?" They had brought the gifts for him. I was outraged! My first impulse was to have those foreigners clapped into prison. Then, astutely, I consented to see them. After all, I was the King in that Jewish land. There had been no Jewish king since Israel's Babylonian captivity. The Sanhedrin and the High Priest were permitted to make ...

136. Been Fishin' Lately?

Mark 1:14-20

Sermon

Johnny Dean

... matter, look at it from every possible angle, weigh all of our options and come up with a five-year plan of implementation before we go one step further. We are, after all, rational, well-balanced, well-adjusted people, and we’re not willing to change directions impulsively, or make decisions based on passion rather than intellect. You just can’t be too careful, you know? Or can you? I want to share with you this morning a story I came across in the course my sermon research this past week. But before I ...

137. Elizabeth and Mary

Luke 1:39-45

Sermon

Brett Blair

... world. Of course, like typical Americans, we overdo it. Much of the music is too loud and incessant; we are saturated with carols long before Christmas ever arrives; many of the decorations are too big, too gaudy; but still, isn’t it a remarkable time of year? Our impulse to create a fairy tale stage seems to take our minds off the harsh Christmas realities. For even as we are caught up in the glitter and the tinsel we know that all is not well in the world. Fact: Murder and robbery in the United States ...

138. The Sound of Weeping

Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... ornaments hanging from them. The obvious function of the human ear is hearing. This is what makes it such a remarkable instrument. It takes sound waves from the air which cause the eardrum to vibrate. Those vibrations are then translated into impulses which are conducted to the brain. It is almost incredible how the ear faithfully does this and how the brain perceives its tonal patterns. Perhaps we don't fully appreciate the function of this precious instrument until we arethreatened with the possibility ...

139. WHAT IS MAN?

Sermon

Larry Powell

... any wrong. The long of it was, they had all sinned; the short of it was, they each had some virtue to which the moment was blinding them. The same appeal was made at the calling of the Twelve, especially Simon Peter. Hot-headed, abrupt, impulsive - an unlikely place to begin building a Church, but the carpenter was not blinded to what virtue there was. Zacchaeus was crooked, conniving, and full of trickery when it came to juggling the tax books, but his underhanded business practices could not blot out the ...

140. Encounters With Christ VI: Jesus and Caiaphas

Matthew 26:57-68

Sermon

James W. Moore

... can be laid upon any one person then that one… is not Judas or Pilate… but Caiaphas. To my mind Judas misunderstood, and Pilate… was frightened, but in Caiaphas there is cool, calculated cunning. There is bitter, implacable hatred. No hot impulse swayed Caiaphas, no grievous misunderstanding, no mere sudden fear. Here is the cold, deadly, clever brain. It is strange that in modern sermons we hear so much about Peter’s alleged denial and Judas’ alleged wickedness, but (says Weatherhead) the real ...

141. Breakfast in Galilee

John 21:1-14

Sermon

Robert Allen

... on shore called out: "Throw your nets on the right side and you will catch some." When they followed this advice, they caught so many fish they could barely haul them into the boat. It was at this time that they recognized it was the Lord. Impulsively, Peter jumped in the water and waded ashore. The others brought the boat ashore and Jesus invited them to a breakfast along the shore of Galilee by saying, "Come and dine." Apparently, Jesus had prepared this meal with his own hands. He had used hot coals ...

142. Jesus, Mary, Gustav Mahler, Brother Martin, and the Magi

Luke 20:9-19

Sermon

Carl Jech

... the grace of God converge to produce what might quite appropriately be called "religious secular humanism!" I realize that upon hearing of such non-traditional, paradoxical notions as "religionless Christianity" and "religious/secular humanism," some Christians may have a first impulse to kill or quash the bearer of such a message. But before we jump to the conclusion that this kind of thinking denies our tradition, we should refer ourselves to this parable that Luke directs at the religious leaders who ...

143. Jesus Meets Buddha and Confucius

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

Carl Jech

... - to the degree that they matter - will automatically follow. The main issue for Christianity, however, is that even when we know what is true and right, we often don't act accordingly. There is a problem with our will, our sinful impulses. Enlightenment alone is not enough. The tendency to emphasize knowledge crept into the Christian tradition in the form of Gnosticism. The greek word, gnosis, means knowledge, and early on, the Christian church rejected the interpretation of Jesus as a Messiah whose ...

144. Natural Or Supernatural?

Luke 9:28-36

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... , he went downstairs. When, therefore, the supernatural dwindled, as man's knowledge and discovery stretched further and further, expanding what he called the natural realm, as that expanded, the supernatural dwindled. And for many of those impressed by natural law, their impulse was to take God to the frontiers of the universe and bow him out. As Staley, one of the great astronomers, has said, "We no longer need the God hypothesis to explain the universe." For many today, the natural order is everything ...

145. Is It A Devil or a Disease?

Luke 12:1-12

Illustration

... to ignorance and that evil could be eradicated by education. In our psychologically enlightened times we have avoided the more ancient religious and mythological language of devils and evil. We have instead preferred words like repression, impulses, sublimation, drives, complexes, phobias, regression, neuroses, psychoses, manic-depressive, schizophrenic and schizoid -- to name a few. If we have been suspicious of religious healers and exorcists and spiritual counselors, we have been implicitly trustful of ...

146. Discipleship Occurs Only In Community

Illustration

Maurice A. Fetty

... in, and support of, a community of like-minded people. Likewise in the church -- a forerunner of the new kingdom. Very few achieve Christian maturity all by themselves. Seldom is the Bible studied diligently without the aid of scholars and teachers. Rarely are people led to generosity by their own impulses.

147. On Staying Awake

Luke 12:35-48

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... is not contributory to persons falling asleep before their big moment with God. III The question now becomes: what does wakefulness look like? What are the signs of staying awake? What qualities of alertness should we inventory? One very obvious sign of wakefulness is the impulse to hang around the church. This is a playing of the spiritual odds - that there is a high incidence of God confronting us in the life and work of the church. Of course, the church is sometimes the worst place to find God. "... It ...

148. Counsel for Discouraged Disciples

Habakkuk 1:1-4

Sermon

... of the most vivid representations in his story, Pilgrim ‘s Progress, has to do with what happened in the Valley of Humiliation. No sooner had Pilgrim entered this valley than he saw the foul fiend Apollyon bearing down upon him, breathing fire and smoke. Pilgrim’s first impulse was to turn and flee for his life. As he was about to do so, however, he remembered that the only armor he wore was on his front side. Reasoning quickly in the light of this fact, he decided that if he had nothing more in mind ...

149. Why Aspire to Sainthood?

Daniel 7:1-14

Sermon

... . In the middle of a night, his wife awoke to find him missing from their bedroom. Looking out a window, she saw him in the bright moonlight sowing the evil neighbor’s field with his own seed. Clearly, God can give people strength to overcome their baser impulses, to transcend the ordinary and commonplace in their human nature. He can endow them with power to live in terms of the highest they know. It is possible to forgive one’s enemies. It is possible to love people who are unlovely. It is possible to ...

150. The Now-ness of Eternity

Zechariah 7:1-14

Sermon

... in the makeup of the human heart and mind. More than this, eternity, like a magnet, exerts a constant tug on our daily living. It prompts us through conscience to distinguish between right and wrong, and to choose the right. It stirs in us the ethicizing impulse to grope beyond what is toward that which ought to be. And by thus involving us in the valuing process it draws us toward the kind of living that has enduring quality in it. It was the tug of eternity that prompted the prophet Micah to ask ...

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