Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 1476 to 1500 of 4943 results

1476. Moving on Up

Luke 14:1, 7-14

Sermon

Mark Trotter

Some of you may have seen a book entitled, The Second Book of Insults. Evidently the first book was so successful the publisher thought it deserved a sequel. I will confess that it sounds like an enjoyable read. It is in the grand tradition of a certain kind of comedy called the “put-down.” We love to see the pretentious slip on a banana peel. It is that kind of humor. There is a similar tradition in sports. We love to see the underdog beat the top dog. Which is why we look forward to the Padres meeting ...

1477. Get Up

Mark 5:21-43

Sermon

Will Willimon

In her novel The Living, Annie Dillard describes this scene from a funeral: ''Hugh stood with stiff Lulu and supple Bert at the graveside. The Nooksacks stood together with their preacher. ''Before the funeral, in mourning for his father, they had shrieked and pounded on boards... ''At last big-faced Norval Tawes read Scripture and prayed. 'O Death, where is thy sting?' Norval Tawes called out, and his little black eyes glittered on Hugh. ''Hugh thought, 'Just about everywhere, since you ask.''' And it is ...

1478. What Will It Take to Make You Happy?

Luke 6:17-26

Sermon

King Duncan

“Who do you think is happier?” asks Marc Reklau in his book Destination Happiness, “people who [have] won the lottery or people who [have become] paralyzed after an accident?” You may be surprised at the answer. “Yes, the lottery winners were very happy, but not for very long,” Reklau continues. “After six months they went back to their previous levels of happiness.” On the other hand, “the accident victims were sad, but surprisingly after six months, they [also] went back to their previous levels of ...

1479. The Devil Takes Visa

Isaiah 55:1-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Our five-year-old, Soren, attends the local Montessori preschool for kindergarten. Her classroom is a delightful mix of about 20 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children. At home, with just three kids, pandemonium seems to be a normative state. Despite closets, toy boxes, and floor sprawl that says the opposite, there are never enough toys to go around, never enough things for everyone to be satisfied. Yet every time we arrive to collect Soren from school the children in the classroom are going about their business ...

1480. Lighting up Your Neighborhood

Acts 13:44-49

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

Love your neighbor as you love yourself. The Bible is quite insistent about that. Eight times from Leviticus to First John the Bible comes right out and commands it. Numerous times it is mentioned as the foundation of all human relationships. Loving your neighbor is not a plaque to be posted in our court houses. It is a principle to apply in our lives. What part of neighbor don't we understand? I. NEIGHBORS ARE THOSE NEARBY The literal translation of neighbor is the “the person next to a person." Turn to ...

1481. Food for the Fed-up

John 6:25-59

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

Some years ago I had a friend who was on a 300-calorie-a-day diet under a doctor’s supervision. 300 calories! That boggles the mind! I inhale 300 calories just smelling the aroma of a good pizza. But my friend on the three-hundred-calorie-a-day diet lost sixty pounds, and as a result reached his near-ideal weight in a very short time. But one cannot subsist indefinitely on a 300-calorie-a-day- diet. Sooner or later there must come and end to the dieting, for starving oneself in this manner is highly ...

1482. God Never Gives Up on Anyone

John 14:15-21

Sermon

Richard Gribble

The name Robert Stroud is not one commonly heard in ordinary conversation, but this man's contribution to humanity will live on in the minds of many under a different title, "The Birdman of Alcatraz." By nature, Robert Stroud was not a congenial man. As a youth he was always getting into fights, disagreements, and various altercations. When he was only nineteen he killed a man in a barroom brawl, was convicted of second-degree murder, and was sentenced to the Federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, ...

1483. Will The Real Saints Please Stand Up

Esther 4:1-17

Sermon

John E. Harnish

It seems my little jaunt into English grammar, and especially the proper placement of prepositions, produced more response than almost anything I have written in Steeple Notes. I suppose that, in itself, is amazing. Several of you sent me Winston Churchill's famous quotation: "This is a situation with which I will not put up." But the best one came from a couple of my Wednesday morning Arbon Dennis buddies. It's the story of the little girl, already in bed, who berated her father when he came to read to ...

1484. Growing Up

1 Corinthians 13

Sermon

John E. Harnish

1485. Take an Ember Day

Mark 4:35-41

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

How can we regroup, catch our breath, decompress, get some rest and regain our strength? There's an answer in Church tradition. Canadian postmodern theorist and culture critic Arthur Kroker, professor of Political Theory at Concordia University in Montreal, calls this time we live in "the recline of Western Civilization." Not "decline," but "recline." Some symptoms of "recline"? You're sitting in your family room, parked in a La-Z-Boy, a proverbial couch potato. The perpetual motion of your remote control ...

1486. The Ultimate Mystery

John 18:28-40

Sermon

Lee Griess

An event is like a living organism. Its life depends on the inter-working of all of its parts. Take any one part and you steal the life from the whole thing. This is especially true of John's account of the death of Jesus. John, the theologian of the Gospel writers, more than any of the rest, views the crucifixion of Jesus as more than mere history. In the death of Jesus, John sees the person and purpose of Christ revealed. Let's take a step forward and, by means of John's description of Calvary, stand at ...

1487. A Second-place Finish

John 1:29-34

Sermon

John Jamison

When his parents died he was still too young to be on his own. Zechariah and Elizabeth had been very old when John was born, so it was no surpirse that it happened, but apparently nothing had been done to prepare for it just the same. The rest of the family had gone north to Nazareth because of political problems, and John was alone. According to tradition, he was taken in by a group of old men who lived in a little village down by tahe Dead Sea. The place was called Qumran, and the men were known as the ...

1488. Your Choice

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

John Jamison

He stood on the steps and waved. He nodded to those cheering to him from below, and took a deep breath as if to soak up their praise. And he deserved it. He had taken a good thing and made it better. Much better. He had created an empire like no one had ever seen, or would see again. He had the touch. He always seemed to know exactly the right thing to do and the right time to do it. It was more than shrewdness, it was wisdom. Like that time he traded those 10 old cities up north to King Hiram of Tyre for ...

1489. Sticking Up for God

Acts 13:8

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

Object: None or Magic 8 ball to show what someone like Bar Jesus might consult Have you ever been tricked? When someone makes you believe that you can have something for nothing, and you agree to try it his way and end up losing everything, you have been tricked. Some people have some very good tricks. People who like to trick other people also like to have very powerful friends so that if something goes wrong, the powerful people will protect them. It happened this way a long time ago to St. Paul and his ...

1490. Listen Up!

Drama

Dave Marsh

Director's Notes: Wow. A pretty normal drama. We are always too busy to listen - both to God and others. God's Word says that we need to be slow to listen. It's only then that we discover true fellowship. Cast: Emily: A mom at home, watching soaps and ignoring her daughter. April: Emily's daughter Props: A couch or two chairs put together A remote Setting: A family room (Setting: Emily and April’s house.) (LIGHTS UP CENTER STAGE on Emily who is intently watching her soap opera – handkerchiefs in hand. We ...

1491. Messiah’s Community

John 20:19-31

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

In his widely-read testimony, Man’s Search for Meaning, famed psychiatrist Viktor Frankl remembered a terrible day during World War II. He was on a work gang, just outside the fences that hid the horrors of Hitler’s infamous Dachau death camp. “We were at work in a trench,” wrote Frankl. “The dawn was gray around us; gray was the sky above; gray the snow in the pale light of dawn; gray rags in which my fellow prisoners were clad, and gray their faces.” Frankl told how he was ready to die. It was as if the ...

1492. All Dressed Up And Somewhere To Go!

Isaiah 62:1-12, Isaiah 61:1-11

Sermon

Harold Warlick

In Tennessee Williams' play Sweet Bird of Youth, the heckler says to Miss Lucy, "I believe that the silence of God, the absolute speechlessness of God, is a long, long and awful thing...." The late Carlyle Marney retired from his church in Charlotte and went to Wolf Pen Mountain. There he waited for God to say something. He confessed that he had figured if he could get some time completely free from his preaching, his church work, and his worldly obligations that God would really jabber. After five years ...

1493. Tying Up A Strong Man

Mark 3:20-30, 1 Samuel 8:1-22, 2 Corinthians 4:1-18, Mark 3:31-35, Psalm 138:1-8

Sermon Aid

William E. Keeney

Mark's gospel account very quickly gets into the conflict that will eventually culminate in the death of Jesus. Despite, or because of, Jesus' works which aroused wonder and amazement in the multitudes, opposition also arose. Any activity so extraordinary upset the status quo. His popularity threatened the authority and leadership of the official religion. They had to try to put it down before it got out of hand. Even the friends and family of Jesus were concerned about him. How often do people try to ...

1494. Ka-Chang

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

John Jamison

It was a strange sound. Some said it was a kind of "clanging" sound, while others said it was more of a "ka-ching," or more accurately, a "ka-chang!" It sounded like the result of metal hitting metal, which is exactly what it was. In the valley off to the west from the hillside is a steep cliff rising up the face of Mount Arbel. The face of the cliff is covered with hundreds of caves, with no good way to get to them without climbing straight up the cliff. That's why the Zealots liked them. They were safe. ...

1495. Stand Up for Jesus

John 2:12-25

Drama

Robert F. Crowley

Theme: Who will speak out for Jesus when it becomes necessary? Summary: The worship service is interrupted by several people and we're thrust into a drama before we are aware of it. People are complaining about Jesus and how he disrupted things by cleansing the Temple. A Levite and a priest speak out against Jesus and finally someone asks if there isn't someone who will come to Jesus' defense. Playing Time: 3 minutes Setting: Your church Props: None Costumes: Whatever is appropriate for your church Time: ...

1496. All Dressed Up

Ephesians 6:10-20

Sermon

King Duncan

When Edgar Allen Poe was a young man, he was a cadet at West Point. But he didn't really like it there. He didn't like all the rules, and all the training he had to go through, so one day, when all the cadets were supposed to turn out in formation on the parade grounds, and march before the generals, Edgar Allan Poe checked his rule book to find out what the dress code was for the occasion. It said that he was supposed to wear white gloves and a white belt. So that's what he put on: white gloves and a ...

1497. Take This Job And Love It

2 Thessalonians 3:6-15

Sermon

King Duncan

Ignace Paderewski, the famous Polish pianist, made his first tour of the U.S. in 1891. He soon won over American audiences with his powerful playing. In one concert in New York, Paderewski severely injured his hand. The injury, which caused him to lose the use of one of his fingers, left him in constant pain, but he insisted on continuing his tour. In all, he played 107 concerts on that tour. In 1892, Paderewski returned to the States for a second successful concert tour. At one point on this tour, he ...

1498. Character Approved: Stand Up or Stand Out?

Luke 14:1-14

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

August is county fair time. Hooray! Who doesn’t like a county fair? Yes, we are sophisticated, urbane, high-tech people. But there is something about a good old-fashioned county fair that is like catnip. County fairs still draw us to our local fairgrounds like cotton candy draws us to paper cones. Who can resist taking just one ride on the Ferris wheel? Who can resist eating deep-fried something (this summer’s new something hamburger with a deep fried doughnut for its bun!). Who can resist walking through ...

1499. Tangled Up in the Vines

John 15:1-8

Sermon

John Jamison

This passage from John is one that has created great comfort for many people, and at the same time has created profound pain and suffering for others. It has pulled us together and brutally split us apart. This simple story of a vine, growing in a vineyard, both heals and destroys. Many who read this story see it as a reason to turn away from the biblical story. Let’s begin by recognizing what was going on when Jesus first told this story of the vine. It will help us to remember that stories about a vine ...

1500. In the Mirror

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

The first birth is extraordinarily exciting, isn’t it? My wife and I were married less than a year when our firstborn came along. We knew right away that she was the most beautiful, most intelligent, most promising human being that had ever come into this world! Parenting the firstborn is an experiment in everything new. First smile, first coo, first steps, first words… One first we did not anticipate, however, was the first time our little Kristyn recognized herself in the mirror. We had often held her up ...

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