Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 1576 to 1600 of 2962 results

Philippians 2:1-11

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... only on the lowest class and most worthless criminals, testifies to the depth of Christ’s humility. Yet this suffering and death were not random. Christ took on this human form and went to the cross out of “obedience” as part of God’s own design of salvation. Embracing humility even to the cross, Christ’s triumph comes when God “exalted him” and gave him “the name that is above every name” (v.9). Naming, of course, bestows power and authority upon the named one, and the name of “Jesus ...

1577. Integrity Deficit Disorder

Matthew 21:23-32

Illustration

Otis Young

... outside you has changed. If you have integrity it protects you from your changing moods, desires and feelings. It even protects you from the changing moods of other people. It protects you from saying you are going to something and then not following through. One day Jesus told a story designed for people who have integrity deficit disorder. His target audience were people who claimed to be the most religious.

1578. A New Day Is Coming

John 1:6-8, 19-28

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... . The National Party of South Africa, formed in 1914 after a revolt by the Afrikaner people against the British, created the system of Apartheid in 1948. Ostensibly it was advertised as a means for "separate development" but it in essence was a system designed to maintain white supremacy. Apartheid did not allow 77 percent of the nation's people, namely the black citizens, to participate in the government. South Africa's dark night lasted almost fifty years, but there was a ray of hope. The first streaks ...

1579. A Clock or a Compass?

Mark 1:9-15

Sermon

David T. Ball

... that the world as he and his society knew it — with its inherited symbols, rites, institutions, and relationships — was passing away, and a new age, an age over which God would reign, was beginning. As theologian David Batstone describes, Jesus’ teachings were designed to help his listeners understand the nature of the new era of God’s reign. The expected eternal fates of a poor beggar and a callous rich man are reversed (Luke 16:19-31); the repentant, though despised, publican is accepted before ...

1580. Salvation in Jesus’ Name

Acts 4:5-12

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... line in the midst of my people Israel" (RSV). One man described being out of plumb like this: A friend of mine, who is an excellent carpenter, made me a plumb line just like the one Amos saw the Lord holding in his vision. It was designed after the ancient Egyptian plumb lines used from the third millennium. In Amos' vision the Lord was measuring the perpendicular of Israel against the horizon of his commandments and his righteousness and justice. The nation was leaning out of plumb. I keep the model of the ...

1581. Creative Love

Matthew 22:34-46; Mark 12:28-34

Illustration

James A. Carpenter

... was to be. She portrayed the boy and the man of her hopes. She told God what she always expected me to be, and then how I had disappointed her hope. 'O God!' she prayed. 'Take this boy of mine and make him the boy and man he is divinely designed to be.' Then she bent over and kissed me and went out and left me alone in the silence with God."

1582. Matthew 23:1-12

Matthew 23:1-39

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

In today’s gospel text Jesus is still in the temple, teaching and speaking before his disciples as well as a mixed crowd of casual listeners. Certain scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees had been badgering Jesus with questions designed to make him look bad. They now have physically retreated from the scene. But these opponents are still the focus of Jesus’ words in 23:1-12, for they offer both examples of possibilities and pitfalls. As Jesus begins addressing “the crowds” and “his disciples,” he ...

1583. The Kingdom of Heaven Is Like a Professor

Matthew 25:14-30

Illustration

... together his graduate students and gave each of them projects to work on; to one he gave five projects, to another two, and to another one, each according to their ability. The one who received five projects immediately went to work, designing experiments, building equipment, and analyzing data. She worked long and hard, and eventually she achieved good results on each project. Likewise, the one who received two projects immediately went to work, and eventually got results as well. But the student who ...

1584. An Exquisite Attitude of Gratitude

Ephesians 1:15-23

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... your life and mine, turning each one of us, frumpy and feeble as we are, fickle and feckless, with all our failings and foibles, all our chipped teeth and cracked pots, into exquisite sounds of love and life. Each one of us is designed to be a Stradivarius, “vibrating strings of energy,” as super-string physicists would have it, a stringed instrument on which Jesus plays symphonies of love and passionate operas of truth. And the Nessun Dorma of Paul the Apostle, unlike the Nessun Dorma of Puccini ...

1585. Stay and Shine

Mark 13:24-37

Illustration

Eric Ritz

... Secret Life of Bees, tells about when her daughter was small and got the dubious part of the Bethlehem star in a Christmas play. After her first rehearsal, she burst through the door with her costume, a five-pointed star lined in shiny gold tinsel designed to drape over her like a sandwich board. "What exactly will you be doing in the play?" her mother asked her. "I just stand there and shine," her daughter answered. Sue Monk Kidd says she has never forgotten that response. Jesus' disciples were concerned ...

1586. Mark 1:1-8

Mark 1:1-8

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... some “good news” — the gospel itself. Like Genesis (and later John), Mark’s fitting first word is “beginning” (“arche”), letting his readers understand that this new thing that was revealed through Jesus Christ is part of the same God-designed activity that has been ongoing since the beginning of all things. This new work Mark identifies as “the gospel” (“euangelion”) is not Mark’s presentation of a written history. Rather, the gospel is “Jesus Christ, the Son of God” himself ...

1587. The Three Stages to Truth: A Biblical Philosophy of Education

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Ours is an educated era. Yet we seem to be filled with facts while remaining ignorant of true understanding. In these texts the greatest teacher we have ever known, Jesus, demonstrates an educative scheme designed to fill our hearts as well as our heads, and destined to get our feet moving along with our minds. The texts examined this week demonstrate the biblical understanding of Truth (aletheia in Greek) as "nonconcealment," the disclosure of the "full or real state of affairs." Two days after the ...

1588. LightWorks

Deuteronomy 6:1-9

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... love. For centuries a Jewish home has always been recognizable from the outside by the presence of a mezzuzah. The mezzuzah is a small enclosed container which is affixed to the upper third of the doorway into a Jewish home - size, shape, and design is completely variable. Thus the mezzuzah literally fulfills the commandment to "write ... on the doorposts ..." the Shema. Rolled up inside the mezzuzah is a scroll inscribed with Deuteronomy 6:49 and 11:13-21 on one side, and the single words Shaddai (Almighty ...

1589. Uh-Huh!

John 18:33-37

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... With the aid of jazz great Ray Charles, these musical ditties proclaim, "You got the Right One baby, Uh-huh!" It is an ingenious advertising idea that verges on the subliminal: Take one of the most common phrases used in the English language and design a marketing campaign around it so that whenever anyone says "Uh-huh" they will think either consciously or subconsciously of Diet Pepsi. You might tell your people that this sermon is an exercise in theological deprogramming, so that when they say this phrase ...

1590. Interior Decorations

Luke 21:5-38

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... season invites us to consider sprucing up our inner selves and souls along with our homes and offices and churches - interior decorations that will go with all our exterior decorations. The Advent season is a decoration season. In fact, most churches designate a decoration day called "Hanging of the Greens" or some such title. During Advent we spend a great deal of time decorating - we decorate our shops, streets, homes, trees, sometimes even ourselves with an upbeat mood, unusual sprightliness and even an ...

1591. The Crime of Christmas

Luke 2:8-20, Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... a centered Christmas. We can be just as complicated by busyness that involves the church/liturgical season as we can the economic/marketing season that Christmas has now become. Choral cantatas and Circle gift exchanges, committee dinners and angel-costume designing, can crowd out the true simplicity of the season as surely as can a shopping mall parking lot and the nauseating repetition of canned Musak Christmas carols in the supermarket. Who among us cannot identify with the little boy, exhausted from ...

1592. Back to School

Luke 2:41-52

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... - can the church continue to be "in session" throughout the rapid approach of the twenty-first century? Peter M. Senge ("The Leader's New Work: Building Learning Organizations, " Sloan Management Review [Fall 1990] 7-15) has suggested a whole new design for American corporations and management systems. He calls this model a "learning organization" - and it emphasizes the need for life-long learning to be a major goal of all institutions. All effective organizations must be education oriented. Only by ...

1593. Grits, Grats and Gruts...Not Grunts

1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital by the time he was 33. He is most famous for performing the first completely successful separation of Siamese twins joined at the head, and for his perfection of the pediatric hemispherectomy -a surgical procedure designed to control severe, life-threatening seizures. But Dr. Carson's skill and success did not come without a struggle. As recounted in the pages of Christianity Today, his physical world once threatened to overwhelm his spiritual gifts. Carson was born ...

1594. Wounding Love

Psalm 23:1-6

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... pattern" (Confessions of a Conservative Liberal [London: SPCK, 1988], 177). Habgood touches another raw nerve twitching in our psychological reactions to the physical assault of the AIDS virus. By attacking our immune system, this pathogen invades that very part of our bodies specifically designed to keep the other out - to keep the self safe and intact. The awful truth about the AIDS virus is that it not only gains access to our bodies at moments of intimacy. It then makes it impossible for our bodies to ...

1595. Down the Up Staircase

Genesis 11:1-9

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Whose life will be a staircase for God''s descent to earth? The tower of Babel would seem like pretty short stuff compared to today's architectural wonders. Buildings are now built so tall that engineers design flexibility into their frames, allowing them to sway in the swirling winds without damaging the integrity of the structure. Our cities are so filled with sky-scraping boxes that we have created whole new weather and wind patterns within these steel and concrete canyons. A few creatures have even ...

1596. The Necessary Book

Luke 16:1-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... carry around only in our minds. Filling the pages of a Necessary Book was undoubtedly a time for contemplating what was really important in one's life. A wealthy man's book might record the existence of a great deal of wealth. But if it failed to designate where or to whom that money was to go after his death, it would appear that the rich man's concern was primarily with accumulating wealth, not circulating it back into service. On the other hand, a man of modest means who carefully catalogs a long list ...

1597. Pit and Rock

Colossians 1:11-20

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... this cosmic Christ. Breaking into song for pure joy is a human response that looks beyond our own navel, beyond our nose, beyond our nest and reaches into the outermost stretches of the universe. It is a sound that comes from the soul. This Sunday is designated as Christ the King, calling us to recognize anew the power and glory of Christ among all creation. As in the directions read in this week's psalm (95:6), we should always begin our worship with humble adoration and praise, keeping uppermost in mind ...

1598. Welcome Home, Joseph

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... Joseph's name and the status of wife, making her pregnancy a positive, joyful expectation. But still we are appalled at the testimony that there was no room at the inn. The word translated in Luke as "inn" is katalyma - a term elsewhere used to designate a special guest chamber - often attached to a home. Indeed it is in a katalyma where Jesus and the disciples gather for their last Passover supper (Mark 14:14, Luke 22:11). What seems likely then is that upon arriving in Bethlehem, Joseph sought out family ...

1599. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

1 Thessalonians 5:12-28

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... faithful to “get on the good side” of the gods. Christian prayerfulness flows from confidence in the God who loved the world so much that God gave what was most precious to God’s heart. Prayer is not a ritual practice assigned to designated times of a day. Prayer is a continual consciousness of God’s grace and goodness. As they are fueled by joy and steeped in prayerfulness, no wonder Paul’s third directive to the Thessalonians is that they offer thanksgiving “in all circumstances.” Disciples ...

1600. Jesus, The Light of the World

John 1:3-9

Illustration

John H. Townsend

... and consolation. Burdened by his inability to reach out to people in their time of need, one resourceful pastor thought of the magnificent stained glass windows that graced his church. Those windows faced a major thoroughfare and were large and commanding in design. He had numerous floodlights placed inside the church; illumination through the glass to the outside world gave passers-by the full effect of the window's story. There for all to see were the matchless portrayals of Jesus: Jesus the good shepherd ...

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