Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 1551 to 1575 of 4997 results

Psalm 39 · John 6:51-58

Eulogy

Richard E. Zajac

... of the one universal action, the one signal, the one form of communication that is used and understood by every culture and in every country and that happens to be the smile.[1] A Dr. Paul Erkin did research on more than two hundred different kinds of smiles and came to the conclusion that a person can alter their immune efficiency by putting a smile upon their face; that when people smile, there’s an increased blood flow to the brain, resulting in the release of neuro chemicals responsible for health ...

1552. For a Special Woman

Proverbs 31:10-31, Luke 10:38-42

Eulogy

Richard E. Zajac

... there are other worlds in which to sing. And she wanted you to know that what was true for your canary was also true for her.” I tell that story because I could picture Kate being that operator. She had a warmth to her, she emanated tenderness, and she exuded kindness. As someone told me at the wake, she was a perfect combination of honey and sugar. If there was anyone in need of help, she was there. So, it would be just like her to reach out to that boy on the telephone to calm his fears and ease his ...

1553. For Someone Who Played a Background Role In a Successful Life

Mark 1:1-8 · John 1:6-9

Eulogy

Richard E. Zajac

... St. Patrick’s Day. Be it her presence at the major events of all of her family’s lives. Be it the prayers she said, the little things she did, her willingness to do anything for you, her gentle and kind demeanor, her attention to details, the warmth she generated, the kindness for which she was responsible, Helen Moran, from her background position, from her behind the scenes location was indeed a major player in the lives of each and every member of her family. She was the Dorothy Wordsworth, the Fanny ...

1554. A Sermon About Prayer

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... your son from his addiction and I would have if only you’d had five or six more people praying for him.” Or, “Oh, Mary Margaret, I would have loved to give you an A on that test and I would have, but your prayer lacked sufficient urgency for that kind of miracle.” I do not know why some people get what they pray for and others don’t. I do not know why some people get things, good things, that they haven’t prayed for and others, good people, who have prayed for those very things do not receive ...

1555. No Excuse

Luke 13:10-17

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... Jesus Christ. It has to do with how that relationship is lived out in our relationships with other people. It has to do with gentleness, kindness, and humility, as well as our love and support for each other. Do you think that this may not be the case? Ask the biblical ... so: It’s the way I was raised. It’s the community I live in. I can’t help the way I feel. I’m just that kind of person. I’m afraid. But, if we listen, God is here to answer us even as God answered the young Jeremiah, who was only a ...

1556. Suffering And Service

Isaiah 51:17--52:12

Sermon

Douglas J. Deuel

... young woman perceived that Christ was speaking to her through this person, saying, "I am with you in your pain." One week when she was feeling fatigued and weary, she attempted to slip into church unnoticed. Someone approached her though, and told her, "You are not the kind of person that people can just leave alone." She felt Christ was reaching out to her at that time to let her know, "Even when you desire to be alone, people will surround you with love because you are important to me. I want you to know ...

1557. When Self-esteem Gets Out Of Hand

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

J. Will Ormond

... of their self-worth. Often they try to compensate either by an obnoxious false bravado or an unctuous Uriah Heep groveling humility. Such people need help in raising their sense of self-worth. But this sermon is not addressed to this group, except, perhaps, in an oblique kind of way. But can self-esteem get out of hand at times? The apostle Paul gave this warning to the Roman Christians and to us: "I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think" (Romans 12:3). Jesus ...

1558. Topsy-turvy Christianity

Luke 6:17-26, Luke 6:27-36

Sermon

J. Will Ormond

... left the crowd in a huff, mumbling to themselves, "I'm not listening to any more of this stuff. The man is a revolutionary and heretic." These words of Jesus may not arouse such reactions today. Their sharpness has been dulled by familiarity or by a kind of casual attitude toward scripture. "Oh, that's in the Bible, and was spoken a long time ago in a culture different from ours. It is far too impractical for our time." The Lucan beatitudes and woes are certainly at variance with the accepted criteria of ...

1559. Disarming Evil

Colossians 2:6-23; John 8:44-45

Illustration

Richard A. Jensen

... sent by the court to see Dr. Peck because his grades in school were falling precipitously, he was depressed and he had an accident with a stolen car. Dr. Peck met with Bobby and heard his story. He noticed that Bobby's face was dull and expressionless, the kind of face one sees in people in a concentration camp. Dr. Peck was alarmed by what he saw. He was even more alarmed by what he heard. He learned that Bobby's older brother, Stuart, had committed suicide in June of last year. Stuart had shot himself in ...

1560. The Parables About Response

Mark 4:30-34, Mark 4:26-29

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... wither because the upper layer of soil is shallow. Hidden from sight there is the layer of rock which prohibits growth. In a desert area like Israel, this layer of rock was a real problem for farmers. When I lived in Arizona, we faced the same kind of problem. We planted trees, plants, and shrubs which initially started to grow but died off quickly because of the concrete-like soil called caliche beneath the shallow top soil. Some people are like that. They are dramatic starters, but with no depth. They are ...

1561. Sabotaging The Sabath

Luke 13:10-17

Sermon

Richard Patt

... by contention: our childhood, our school days, marriage, family life, our jobs and careers, and on and on. Likewise here, an act of kindness on the Lord's day ends in an uproar. Things ended up the way they did (and do in our lives), because of ... come around reminding us, "You made your bed; now sleep in it." Maybe you have been in a gift shop or a pottery store where all kinds of fragile vases and plates were for sale. Perhaps you noticed a warning sign on the shelf in such places. It read, "You break it; ...

1562. Made New By Taking A Different Road Home

Luke 1:39-45, Luke 1:46-56

Sermon

Richard A. Wing

... take the ones that needed moistening, and when they were handed to her, she told the postal worker that HE needed to lick them and put them on her cards because she was too busy and in a hurry. At that, the whole line of people broke out laughing. The kind man simply gave her a complaint card to fill out that could be sent to his supervisor. I also read about a lady who was hurrying to get her cards out in the mail. She noticed some Christmas cards already on sale before Christmas and swooped up dozens of ...

1563. Kneeling And Redirection

Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

Richard A. Wing

... of God. Right after that Jesus says he will be opposed by the religious leaders and will be killed. That is when Peter takes Jesus aside and "rebukes him" (a strong Biblical word). In turn, Jesus rebukes Peter and says in essence, "Your refusal to face pain is the kind of work that is at its core evil." Jesus then sets his face toward Jerusalem and faces the inevitable pain of life. Jesus instructs us that our joy in life will not be in the escaping of pain and evil, but will be in the very midst of the ...

1564. Advent 1

Luke 21:5-38, 1 Thessalonians 3:6-13, Jeremiah 33:1-26, Psalm 25:1-22

Sermon Aid

William E. Keeney

... change and reconciliation. 2. Alert While Watching and Waiting. In a Salvation Army settlement house on the southwest side of Chicago the staff sometimes set up a ball game for the children inside the gym. At the time they did not have nerf balls, so they used a kind of softball made from rags. The rules of the game said that a person could bat once. Whoever caught the ball had the next turn at bat. The staff person was the catcher. In that position he could observe and was ineligible to bat. As the game ...

1565. Tempted By Good

Matthew 4:1-11

Sermon

Don M. Aycock

... rocks that looked like loaves of bread into real loaves. What could be the harm in that? Jesus was in the desert coming to grips with the kind of Messiah he was to be. He was settling in his own mind what he needed to do and how he needed to go about his work ... treated like a person with dignity and worth. I want to be accepted for whom I am. I want to love God because he loves me. What kind of God would he be if he held a dagger to my throat and asked, "Now, don't you want to follow me?" The devil wanted to ...

1566. Why Be Good?

Luke 6:37-42

Sermon

Charles H. Bayer

... fruit. To turn the image a bit, a tree does not produce apples in order to be an apple tree, but because that is the kind of tree it already is. "Figs are not gathered from thorns, nor grapes picked from a bramble bush." The righteous do not produce good ... when I think that loving God is confined to what I hold love to be, someone who never heard of my God comes along and is kind, gracious and forgiving to me, even while I call him a pagan -- or worse. It is true in our homes. If there is some domestic ...

1567. Rich Toward God

Luke 12:13-21

Sermon

John G. Lynn

... game. He also went on to say that he was sharing all of it -- 100 percent -- with his friend. In this way Luther demonstrates how we can give away God's gifts of grace and mercy and still have all of it left for our own needs. This kind of magnanimity is what Jesus is talking about in today's gospel: an open-hearted attitude toward abundance and a positive outlook about the goods of the earth, prayer, possessions, psalms and commentaries on the psalms. God does not want us to be stuck in the hour before ...

1568. What's So Great About Jesus?

2 Samuel 23:1-7

Sermon

John A. Stroman

... you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father ... I am in the Father and the Father in me." What kind of heavenly Father do we see in Jesus? We see one who is willing to socialize and eat with sinners. Jesus enjoys the company of people, ... s wedding. Jesus was sensitive to their embarrassment and he helped them. In our liturgical journey through the church year this is the kind of heavenly Father that Jesus has come to reveal to us. That's what is so great about Jesus! The story of the ...

1569. Telling The Truth

John 8:31-41

Sermon

Steven E. Albertin

... longer the church. Then it needs to be reformed. Such truth-telling is ultimately what sets the church apart from every other kind of organization in this world. Other clubs and associations may have rituals and holy meals and baths and their sacred books and ... ! Doctor, you must have confused my diagnosis with someone else's! This can't be true! I feel fine." No one wants to tell this kind of truth. No one wants to be a bearer of news this bad. But if the patient who has been diagnosed with cancer has a ...

1570. No Freudian Slip!

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

Steven E. Albertin

... from many rounds of dialysis, his fear of the whites in town, his quiet despair. In my mind his presence challenged the credibility of everything we were doing in that service. How can we thank God when there are so many with so little in this world? What kind of God is it who would permit such gross disparity between the haves and the have-nots? How can we be praising God for such bountiful blessings when there, sitting in the back of the sanctuary for everyone to see, is someone who obviously has not been ...

1571. Miracle Three: Healing A Leper

Mark 1:40-45

Sermon Aid

Harold H. Lentz

... contact with the Son of God, the ruler of the universe. The man- made command was disobeyed, but a higher authority brushed it aside, and a pitiful leper was healed. Recounting God's Blessings · We take so much for granted. We accept so much kindness and consideration without a thought of expressing gratitude. Here the cured leper could not be silenced. He went about vigorously proclaiming Christ's goodness in healing him. As a result, throngs of people went in search of Christ. The hymn calls us to "Count ...

1572. Will The Real Messiah Please Stand Up?

Isaiah 61:1-11

Sermon

William L. Self

... disastrous human situations, when sorrow robs the heart of its last resources and strengths, the Bible discovers an opportunity for the coming God. The Lord hears those whose hearts are broken. "A broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." Every kind of human helplessness is a recommendation to God. The third category of people in this audience will be the captives. The world is full of captives. They are the victims of evil habits and ill-regulated deeds, settling down into an ill-regulated ...

1573. Possession Is Nine-tenths Of The Law

Daniel 7:1-14, Daniel 7:15-28

Sermon

Robert P. Hines

... beasts of Daniel's vision find no political or military equivalent in our lives. But that is not to say we don't face our own kind of beasts. Anyone who has ever had a drinking problem will tell you what an oppressive power alcoholism can be. Anyone who has ever been ... will tell you this. But the good news of the gospel, and the message of Daniel, is that these things don't have that kind of power. They don't have the last word, after all. The last word belongs to God. As Daniel's vision is explained to ...

1574. Promises Kept In Unusual Way

Jeremiah 23:1-8

Sermon

Robert P. Hines

... the remnant of God's people (who had been dispersed after the Babylonian victory), and to raise up a new shepherd, a king who will execute justice. This passage was obviously addressed to the Jews living in exile. In their situation, they needed some kind of hope. The very foundation of their lives had been destroyed with the unimaginable Babylonian victory and conquest of Jerusalem. Psalm 137 captures the mood of the Jewish people well. By the rivers of Babylon -- there we sat down and there we wept when ...

1575. Ya Can't Make Me

Luke 9:57-62, Luke 9:51-56

Sermon

Alexander H. Wales

... warned you about dealing with people you don't know. Whether it was some transient begging for coins on a city street, or some con artist offering you an opportunity to win big money at a game of chance at a carnival, or some individual handing out some kind of tracts on a street corner, somebody probably told you to keep your distance and save your money. There was a father and his family heading home from church on a lonely highway when they passed a car with its hood up, obviously in trouble. The owner ...

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