Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 1576 to 1600 of 2561 results

1576. O Holy Nightmare

Matthew 24:36-44

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

How have we managed to transform the Christmas season from an awe-filled consideration of "O Holy Night" into an awful "O holy nightmare"? Isn''t it time we rediscovered the real Christ of Christmas, the Christ who came (as that old revival saying put it) not to "see through you," but to "see you through"? "Be prepared." Jesus said it, Paul emphasized it, Matthew reiterated it, and eventually even the Boy Scouts picked it up as their own mantra. The season of Advent begins today with its own admonition for ...

1577. The Longest Journey Is the Shortest Distance

Acts 17:22-31

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

The longest journey can be the shortest distance the journey around and within. A big reason God is not more real is that we look only at remote and distant places and not AROUND and WITHIN. Ever notice how the places that are celebrated as perfectly gifted with the qualities that raise consciousness, enlighten the mind, bring peace to the soul are located about as far away from where you are as possible? Popular spiritualities routinely tout the mountains of Tibet, the temples of India, the deserts of New ...

1578. What Is a Good Samaritan?

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

In a world that teaches achievement (doing), Jesus teaches us the values of aliveness (being). The essence of Christianity is being, not doing. As Billy Graham has been preaching to the world for 40 years, if you want to make a difference, you have to be different. This was the error of the lawyer Jesus spoke with in today's gospel text. The lawyer wanted to reach his goal, his desired finish line of "eternal life" by doing something, by achieving something. The Good Samaritan parable demonstrates that we ...

1579. Do Not Grow Weary in Well-Doing

2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

At the same time Christians are called to rest and not grow weary, we are called to strain for the mark of our high calling and labor for the reign of God on earth as in heaven. In sum, the church is called to be at the same time a rest stop and a rescue shop. There is a Frank and Ernest cartoon that has the two of them riding a road that is marked by an arrow "Road to Success." But up ahead is another sign: "Be Prepared to Stop." In a world that prizes bigness, we need to be reminded that small is ...

1580. A Burden or a Song

Matthew 5:43-48

Sermon

James McCormick

Is your religion a load or a lift? That was a popular sermon topic during my growing up years. Preachers were fascinated with alliteration: load/lift, and they thought the idea was a catchy one, so I heard more sermons on the subject than I wanted to hear. Frankly, I never cared much for them. Do you have ideas, like that, that turn you off sometimes? I thought it was a pointless question. I thought the preachers were just setting up straw men only to knock them down again. After all, the answer to the ...

1581. An Unnerving Experience

Mark 9:2-13

Sermon

King Duncan

A woman from a military family tells a humorous story. Her father was stationed at the naval base in New London, Connecticut. Then he received orders that he was to be transferred to Hawaii. The family excitedly prepared for the move. Since dogs and cats have to be quarantined for 120 days upon their arrival in the Hawaiian Islands, they sent their family cat ahead of them. Then the father’s orders were canceled. The family didn’t realize their circumstances were of particular interest to anyone else until ...

1582. Mark 8:31-38

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

The central portion of Mark’s gospel, 8:27-10:45, is a journey narrative. This journey begins with Peter’s surprisingly astute recognition and declaration of Jesus as “the Messiah” (8:29). The “journey” that takes us across the scandalous topography of Jesus’ messianic identity, his mission, and the nature of the discipleship required by those who would follow him. Although Jesus had ordered his own disciples to keep his messianic identity a secret, Jesus now begins to tick off a list of the actions and ...

1583. Stilling Storms

Mark 4:35-41

Sermon

King Duncan

A mother was out walking with her 4 year old daughter. The child picked up something off the ground and started to put it into her mouth. The mother took it away and said “Don’t do that!” “Why not?” asked the child. “Because it’s on the ground,” said her mother. “You don’t know where it’s been. It’s dirty, and it’s probably loaded with germs that could make you sick.” The child looked at her mother with total admiration and said, “Mommy, how do you know all this stuff? You’re so smart.” The mother said, “ ...

1584. Ordinary or Extraordinary?

1 Chronicles 4:9-10

Sermon

James Merritt

I want to get your juices flowing this morning by asking you two questions. If you had a choice would you want to live an ordinary life or an extraordinary life? Which do you think God wants for you? I can tell you what Jesus said. He said in John 10:10, "My purpose is to give life in all its fullness." (John 10:10, NLT) God wants to make a difference in your life, so that you can make a difference in the lives of others. God wants to work in you, with you, through you and for you to manifest His glory in ...

1585. It’s Humble or the Umbles

Ephesians 6:10-20

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

You know you’ve crossed into some new station in your life when you visit the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art and realize as you are leaving that you completely skipped all the paintings. That’s right, the entire Renaissance wing just was not on the agenda. Suddenly it hits you: You are no longer a student, or a tourist, or an art lover. No, you are a parent of small, squirming children who need to see something big, and strong, and hard-hitting. So your museum tour was through the pyramids. Your ...

1586. One Nation Under God

2 Chronicles 7:14

Sermon

James Merritt

When Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States, he and Nancy had to get used to the Executive Mansion on their own. President Carter had broken with recent tradition and had not given the Reagans a tour of the White House. If you remember, during those days it was a difficult campaign with Carter and Reagan both bitterly fighting out what was to be a runaway election landslide for Reagan. The Carters greeted the Reagans a few days before the Inauguration, and then turned them over to White ...

1587. No One Left Behind

2 Kings 7:3-20

Sermon

James Merritt

"No One Left Behind" - that is a universal creed that is shared by every firefighter, soldier and law enforcement person in America. Whenever they go out on a mission to fight fire, to fight crime or to fire an enemy of our nation, they are determined that when it comes to their own there will be "No One Left Behind." I don't know where this motto originated, but it could have come from the story we will study today. The Kingdom of David, which then was passed on to his son, Solomon, was known as the ...

1588. Name Dropping

Exodus 20:7

Sermon

James Merritt

God's Name is so important to Him that it makes the "Top Ten" of the commandments He wants his family to live by. Most every one of us here very likely have some type of an alarm system in our home. We have that because we want to make sure our homes are secure. That is why we are in the middle of a series on the Ten Commandments that I have entitled "Homeland Security." Remember that the Ten Commandments are God's rules for His family. The Ten Commandments were not given to establish a relationship with ...

1589. Choose Life

Exodus 20:13

Sermon

James Merritt

If you ever travel to Florida on vacation you don't have to look very long until you will see license plates with the message "Choose Life." Several years ago, Marion County Commissioner, Randy Harris, was driving behind a vehicle with a specialty license plate, when he envisioned a Choose Life specialty license plate. It took a while for this to finally get through the legislature and for a republican governor to sign it into law. When it was approved, the license plate took off. Since November of 1999, ...

1590. A New Hope

Jeremiah 18:1-10

Sermon

James Merritt

Amazingly, George Lucas, who created one of the most famous villains of all time in Darth Vader, could not resist the storyline that even with the Darth Vader there is always "A New Hope." There is always the hope that anyone who has gone over to the dark side, no matter how far or how deep, can once again reemerge to the light side and the right side. Thousands of years ago God told the Prophet Jeremiah of a land that we could call "The Land of New Hope". To illustrate that land, He told Jeremiah to go ...

1591. God Where Are You? - The Problem of Evil

Genesis 3:1-6, Judges 6:13

Sermon

James Merritt

Whether it is the Holocaust, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11, a tsunami that wipes out 150,000 people in a day, or the massive starvation of millions of children around the world, you cannot deny the reality of evil. On the other hand, we saw last week how science itself has proved with certainty that the world is not eternal. The universe had a beginning. The only feasible option to explain the origin of the universe is a transcendent creator. DNA itself is a compelling ...

1592. Hell under Fire

Matthew 5:22; 28-30

Sermon

James Merritt

We are in a middle of a series that we have entitled "The War of the Worlds" and today the series is really going to heat up (no pun intended!) What we are talking about is the war of the world views. Remember, every person has a world view; a lens through which they see the world they live in, the life they live and it is the guide they use to make the crucial decisions about how they are going to live and what they are going to believe. There are basically only two world views the Christian world view ...

1593. The Great Divide

Luke 16:19-31

Sermon

James Merritt

One of the most fun trips I have ever taken in my life was years ago when my wife and three sons went out west to Colorado, and spent a week in a part of the country we had never been in before. We did everything from horseback riding to white water rafting, to just exploring the great outdoors. But one of the highlights for me, strangely enough, was driving up to a top of one of the Rocky Mountains and standing on what is called by some, "The Continental Divide," and others "The Great Divide." Geologists ...

1594. Decisions, Decisions

Matthew 7:13-14

Sermon

James Merritt

If you haven't yet seen the trilogy of movies called, The Lord Of The Rings you really need to see it. It is not only clean, but it is extremely thought provoking. The author of the work upon which those movies are based was a man named J. R. R. Tolkien. A little known fact about Tolkien is he was the man that was instrumental in bringing C.S. Lewis to faith in Jesus Christ. He spent much of his early life as an agnostic and then an atheist, but through a meeting one night with Tolkien, he became a ...

1595. One Step at a Time

Nehemiah 2:1-10

Sermon

James Merritt

Two hundred thousand miles from home. You can't pull over to a gas station. You can't take your spaceship into the garage, but you now know that you have two hours to keep your space ship from becoming a permanent tomb floating in outer space. Jim Lovell, John Swigert, and Fred Haise realized they were facing an elephant of a problem, but they kept their wits about them enough to realize that the way to solve their problem was the same way you eat an elephant - one bite at a time. Has it ever occurred to ...

1596. The Hard Sell

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Sermon

Donald Charles Lacy

Our blessed Lord presses the issue. Do you or do you not want to be my disciple? If you do not, then it is with great sadness that your Savior must move on with those who are willing to fully commit themselves. In our lives, each and every one of us receives Christ’s invitation of discipline and abandonment of the world. No longer are we getting acquainted. We are being asked to come into a relationship at once glorious and painful. Yes, it comes to all of us — sooner or later. It is like moving from an ...

1597. Who Will Go?

Isaiah 6:1-8 (9-13)

Sermon

Mary S. Lautensleger

Ken had not realized there was a shoplifter in the supermarket. He had been standing in the checkout line, "blissfully unaware" of any suspicious activity going on nearby. That all changed dramatically as a security guard, "300 pounds of corpulent fury, came barreling like a cannonball out of the security surveillance room" and down the next aisle. That human behemoth of a security guard swooped down on the culprit, grabbed him by the belt at the small of his back, and lifted him off the floor. With his ...

1598. The Hard Task of Truth-telling

Jeremiah 1:4-10

Sermon

Lee Ann Dunlap

Carrie's[1] high school guidance counselor noticed she had been acting out a bit in school recently. She had appeared depressed and had been having some authority issues over rules and such. The guidance counselor set Carrie up with a local pastor who had been volunteering a few hours each Friday after a teen suicide a few months before. Most of the other students who came to see the pastor just needed someone to listen to their usual teen issues and heartaches. But, shortly into their time together, ...

1599. Flying First Class

Ephesians 1:3-13

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

Grace. God's unearned, unmerited love is what unites us and binds us together. We never know when it will enter our lives. It's always there; always available, we just never know when the Grace of the Kingdom of God will break in upon us. And it does. Over and over again. Sometimes, out of the clear blue, when we least expect, Grace Happens. Our spirits are lifted. Grace is like having our tickets or seats Upgraded to First Class when we're flying? When we experience God's Grace it's like Flying First ...

1600. Easter: Seeing Is Believing

John 20:1-18

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

I read a great story about a six-year-old boy named David who was taking a walk one day with his grandmother. They decided to detour through the local graveyard. They stopped to read some of the tombstones and Grandma explained that the first date on the tombstones was the day the person was born and the second date was the day the person died. "Why do some tombstones only have one date?" little David asked. "Because those people haven't died yet," his grandmother explained. David was obviously stunned by ...

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