Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 1476 to 1500 of 3852 results

Matthew 12:22-37

Sermon

Herchel H. Sheets

... powerful, too influential, for us not to be accountable for them. But more than that, they are also too revealing. Where do words come from anyway? They do not come from the tongue or the lips. They come from the heart. That’s their source, that’s where they originate. And so words are at least a partial revelation of the heart. This is true no less of one’s careless or idle words than of one’s planned words. In fact, it may be more true of these, for they are spoken without being censored. Much of ...

1477. Voluntary Blindness

Matthew 6:1-15

Sermon

Herchel H. Sheets

... . You will miss this, Jesus was saying, if your goodness looms so high in your eyes that the praise of people becomes your highest goal; rather than that, choose voluntary blindness. Actually we have no goodness of our own. All the good that we do or possess has its origin in the heart of God. He is "the source of all goodness and beauty, all truth and love." So our practice should be to seek to point beyond ourselves to God himself and say, "By the grace of God I am what I am," and "To God be the ...

1478. Achieving An All-In Victory - 1952

1 John 5:1-12

Sermon

Kent Moorehead

... two such philosophies, not three, not thirty. On the one hand, he can assume that he is fundamentally a beast, an animal driven by instincts he can neither change nor control. On the other hand, he can assert that he is a person, divine in origin, spiritual in nature, infinite in possibilities of development, potentially a god. In other words, he can choose to believe that his real self is his worst self; or that his true self is his best self. And the choice he makes more largely determines his destiny ...

1479. Trumpets in Church on Easter, The Very Idea!

Mark 16:1-20

Sermon

Jon L. Joyce

... , but trumpets in the church on Easter, the very idea! That’s carrying things a bit too far." Well, bless her soul, like a lot of other pinch-mouthed Christians, she hadn’t read her Bible carefully enough to discover that the new pastor wasn’t being particularly original with the trumpet bit. A preacher by the name of Paul, you see, beat me to it by quite a few centuries. He put it this way: "For the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised; then shall be brought to pass the saying that is ...

1480. Thorns and Roses

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... was epilepsy or migraine headaches or a malarial fever common in the eastern Mediterranean area. Notice that Paul refers to the thorn as a "messenger of Satan." The Bible teaches that all diseases and death came into the world because of sin. God's perfect original creation did not include disease or death. People do not get sick and die because God wills it. People get sick and die because our world is flawed by sin. In this flawed universe, thorns are distributed indiscriminately as one would deal a hand ...

1481. Saints With Crooked Haloes

2 Samuel 12:1-31

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... of enormous faith, incredible virtue, and unblemished moral record. But when the church was brand new, all Christians were called "saints." They were simply believers being re-made by the Christ-Spirit living within them. The contemporary theologian Frederick Buechner gets at the original meaning of "saints" when he writes, "I mean saints as men and women who are made not out of plaster and platitude and moral perfection but out of human flesh. I mean saints who have their rough edges and their blind spots ...

1482. Getting Under Your Neighbor's Skin

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... on. What we are talking about is getting under people's skin by aggravation. But there is another way to get under someone's skin, and this is what Jesus' fifth Beatitude is all about--"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." In the original Aramaic which Jesus spoke, the word "merciful" means literally "to get under someone's skin." It means to wear his skin, as it were; to see life from his perspective, to stand in his shoes. It means more than sympathy; it means active empathy or merciful ...

1483. The Waters of Your Baptism

Colossians 2:6-23

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... a certain person and his entire family or household were baptized. Surely there had to be some infants in those families. Furthermore, we know as an historical fact that two of the most prominent bishops of the early church, Polycarp and Origin, practiced infant baptism. Infant baptism does not mean that baptized children are saved and unbaptized children are not. All children below the age of discretion are still citizens of heaven. The same goes for persons who are not mentally capable. Gene Stallings ...

1484. The Beauty of a Childlike Faith

Matthew 18:1-9

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... power. But, says Harry, I was really nobody. Because at that point I was not in a personal relationship with the only one who can make a nobody into a somebody--Jesus Christ. You see, I am not God's child simply because I am created in his image. Original sin was also part of my nature from birth. The only way for me to become a child of God is through adoption. God wants that to happen. He sent Jesus Christ to make it possible. At my baptism he submitted the application forms. But the transaction could not ...

1485. Needed: Fidelity Insurance

Ephesians 5:22-33

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... is reverenced or served in a marriage, our Lord does three things that underwrite fidelity insurance. (Please write these down.) First, Christ Corrects. All of us come into this world with varying degrees of brokenness. That's part of the sad legacy of original sin. All of us have our maladjustments. When we reverence Christ we give him permission to mend our brokenness with the glue of his grace. It's an ongoing process that lasts a lifetime. An unhappy wife said to a sympathetic neighbor, "My husband ...

1486. Worthy Is The Lamb

1 Timothy 2:1-15

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... the message which is the heartbeat of our faith. In our own Methodist Book of Discipline, Article XX reads as follows: "The offering of Christ once made, is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual, and there is none other satisfaction for sin but that alone." Our own Bishop Ken Carder has written this: "In the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ, God did everything necessary to overcome all that separates us from God ...

1487. The Sabbath - Delightfully Different

Exodus 20:1-21, Mark 2:23-3:6

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... . "No photograph allowed on the Sabbath," she shouted as she wagged a finger in his face. Suddenly I understood exactly the kind of legalism that Jesus and the disciples confronted long ago in a cornfield. Jesus responded by taking his critics back to the original intent of the Sabbath. He said, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." Today our problem with the Sabbath is not too much strictness. The pendulum has swung to the other extreme. Our society disregards the Sabbath. There are two ...

1488. This Adulterous Generation

Matthew 5:27-30, Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... ten. The bad news is that adultery is still in there." The seventh commandment is very simple: "You shall not commit adultery." The word adultery means the sexual involvement of a married person with someone other than his or her spouse. In the original Hebrew it meant to add something to a substance which dilutes or cheapens it. This is the commandment which gives Americans lots of trouble. Some recent studies suggest that 50 percent of married persons violate this commandment at one time or another. Jesus ...

1489. Adultery, Cure and Prevention

Proverbs 7:1-27, John 8:1-11

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... or wanted to do the same thing she did." The Bible tells us that those Pharisees slipped away. Really, they slunk away. Even they could stomach only so much hypocrisy. When all had departed Jesus said to the woman, "I do not condemn you. Go and sin no more." The original Greek means that Jesus deferred judgment. He did not say to her, "Forget it. It's no big thing." What he meant was: "I am not going to pass judgment on you now. The jury is still out on you. Go out and live a different life; prove that you ...

1490. "Hands Off!"

Exodus 20:1-21, Luke 19:11-27

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... most serious of all. I refer to the stealing of someone's good name. As Shakespeare wrote in "Othello," "He that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed." One of the surest signs of original sin is our delight in hearing and repeating what is discreditable to others. Before repeating anything negative about another person, we should ask three questions: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary? In the Eighth Commandment, God is calling us to a strict and ...

1491. The Bite of The Lying Tongue

Exodus 20:1-21, James 3:1-12

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... money; it's the principle of the thing"; it's the money. There is another kind of lie much worse than all the others. I refer to the MALICIOUS LIE. It is this kind of lie that is specifically prohibited by the Ninth Commandment. In its original form, the Ninth Commandment referred only to the false witness given in a judicial setting. In ancient times, if you told a lie about someone in a courtroom, it could cost that person his life. But the Ninth Commandment cannot be limited to the courtroom. It refers ...

1492. God Got Personal

Sermon

James Bjorge

... moment. History bears the footprints of God marching on. His hands seem to have been molding and making something for someone. But it was difficult to determine just what was happening and where it was all going to end. Schiller, the poet, said that "man originates in the muck, sits in the muck, makes muck and, in the end, returns to muck." Cynical and fatalistic men might agree. But men looking for signs of God working on the planet have tended to disagree. They have seen evidences of God’s fingerprints ...

1493. An Identity Crisis

Sermon

James Bjorge

... many of the living religions of the world today most of them agree on one view with some variations; that is, that human beings as they usually exist are not what they were created to be. Our Christian faith is implicit in that we have lost our original state. Figuratively speaking we were made to be tigers and we are living like goats. And it bugs us for there is something inside us that makes us discontented with our goathood. The grass never really fills us. We bleat well but we have a suspicion we ...

1494. SALLY JANE

Drama

Jerome W. Nilssen

... junk, paper plates and plastic forks. CAIN (Finally noticing JAREL) Hmm? Are you drinking again? JAREL (Emptying her glass) That’s a chrome-plated table in the dining room. CHROME! Dime store stuff. You can’t tell me they bought chrome because the original wore out. Oak is good for a lifetime; two, three lifetimes. (Confronting CAIN) No sir, you came sneaking back here like a four-flushing pirate, and you sold it all - oak and silver and pewter, the candlesticks and the rugs and the crystal chandeliers ...

1495. Just Common People?

Romans 12:1-8

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... , which is the only reasonable thing you can do with your life. Not to be CONFORMED with the common herd, but to be TRANSFORMED by the power and the grace that God gives you, that you may prove what is His will, what is good and acceptable and perfect." Authors original ending to this list: Sexual intercourse on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. "Passout on Sunday" is our substitution for this potentially controversial line line.

1496. Hungry for Anything?

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... houses making love." She said: "We have some peanuts. Would they come out for them?" He replied: "Well, I don’t know, madame, would you?" It’s a relevant question! The most determined characteristic of human behavior is a certain deep-seated, original hunger that mere animal comforts can’t satisfy. There are unseen, intangible hungers that lure us beyond life’s purely physical satisfactions into the larger experiences of the soul of man. The simple sounds of nature, for instance, don’t satisfy the ...

1497. Worn Out? Tired? Weary?

Matthew 11:25-30

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... consuming your own emotional energies. To hate someone, for instance, to be uncontrollably angry, is to use as much energy as in a day’s work. Did you ever feel, after a terrific argument with someone, how physically drained you are? Since tiredness originates in the mind, movitated by the spirit, then the therapy is to get yourself out of the CENTER of your attention. Worry is, after all, merely the process of allowing yourself to occupy your whole attention. When you worry, your mind is running ...

1498. Well, What's for Sure?

2 Timothy 1:1-2:13

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... by a contrast between his courses in science and those in philosophy. In mathematics or physics, he gets a Q.E.D. answer - "quod erat demonstrandum" - "it has been demonstrated," and so it is true. But in philosophy, when he discusses the origin and meaning and purpose in life, it often sounds like guessing - intelligent guessing, but, nevertheless, ending up in speculation, surmise and conjecture, rather than in provable certainty. And so, the student wants to know whether in religious faith there is an ...

1499. Freedom Can Be Frightening

Leviticus 25:8-55

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... that jubilee year, slaves, who were citizens of Israel, were to be freed. Note, only those slaves who were citizens of Israel. Foreign slaves were still to remain slaves. Land, which had been taken away because of indebtedness, was to be returned to the original owner. And there were several other minor provisions by which the law of Leviticus would be relaxed a bit. It was about this jubilee year that these words were written: "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land." And when did that jubilee year come ...

1500. Chapter II

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Frank H. Seilhamer

... that it led to a removal of those things that caused barriers to exist between man and God, and weighed a person down. Our English translations usually miss the power of these different terms, commonly translating them all as "forgiveness" without any hint of their original shadings. Caphar, for instance, means "to smear over with pitch, to cover up." The point it makes is that the old slate of wrongs once done is being put into the past. A new chance is being given. The old errors are blotted out. Hence ...

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