Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 1626 to 1650 of 2561 results

1626. Holy Smokes! God Is Here

John 6:1-15

Sermon

King Duncan

The Rev. Thomas Bandy tells about a meeting his wife Lynne, also a pastor, once attended. The meeting was sponsored by a group in their denomination. To begin this meeting, they had a customary sharing time. Each person answered the question: “How did you experience God this summer?” “Several people in the room told how they had experienced God in nature. At the cottage, in the woods, or on the lake, they saw a sunset, heard a loon’s cry, or felt a summer’s breeze.” And as they listened, participants ...

1627. Hit Me with Your Best Shot

Luke 4:1-13

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

Harry Houdini (1874-1926) was an expert at sleight of hand, a skeptic when it came to the spiritualists and other psychic phonies of his day, but he was best known for his ability to escape from what seemed to be impossible situations. Straitjackets, chains, ropes, jail cells, strange devices such as a milk pail filled with water — he managed to escape from one situation after another in full view of his audience. What did him in, however, was the blow he never saw coming. While reclining on a couch ...

1628. No Pleasing Some People

John 12:1-8

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

Secretly I'm on Judas' side on this one. You probably don't want to admit it, but so are you. He points out that 300 days' salary had just been cracked open and wasted on Jesus. Well, not wasted. Yeah, wasted. Because once that expensive perfume was used it couldn't be used again. It was a limited, one time resource. Can you imagine the good that could have been done for the poor? Try to imagine what our church could do if someone donated one year's worth of salary out of the blue! That's why I say that ...

1629. Believing Thomas

John 20:19-31

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

They say history is written by the victors, but I'm not always so sure. The forces of the Union roundly and rightfully defeated the forces of slavery known as the Confederacy, but 140 years later I'm not sure it's the victors who tell the whole story. Some things are known by their Union name. The decisive battle of September 17, 1862 is known as the Battle of Antietam, not Sharpsburg, as the Confederates knew it. Then there's the little-known Battle of Monocacy. Get off Interstate 70 at Fredericksburg, ...

1630. Veni, Spiritus Sanctus, Veni

John 14:8-17 (25-27)

Sermon

Arley K. Fadness

On this Pentecost Sunday, as we celebrate the birthday of the church, I want to teach you a simple and yet potentially powerful prayer. It goes like this ... "Veni, Spiritus Sanctus, Veni," or as the Germans would say it, "Komm Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott." In English it is simply, "Come, Holy Spirit, come." There is no prayer in German, Greek, English, Swahilli, or Latin more powerful than this — "Veni, Spiritus Sanctus, Veni." This prayer opens us to the Holy Spirit, who comes, fills, and leads our lives ...

1631. Sister Act(s)

Luke 10:38-42

Sermon

Arley K. Fadness

Today's gospel from Luke 10 follows the parable of the Good Samaritan. Luke positions the Good Samaritan and the Mary-Martha story back to back for good reason. The parable and the story are examples of the Great Commandment "to love the Lord your God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself." The Good Samaritan parable illustrates "love to neighbor," whereas the Mary-Martha story illustrates "love to God." Meet the two M & M sisters — Mary and Martha. They are two peas in the same pod and yet so ...

1632. Mary's Song

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

Sermon

King Duncan

I want to make my annual public service announcement to the men in our congregation. Guys, it’s time to do your Christmas shopping. I hope our men have this task already out of the way. But just in case, please heed my announcement. I understand that a [certain couple in our church] slipped off to [a nearby city] to do their Christmas shopping and somehow they got separated for several hours. Fortunately they had their cell phones with them. “Honey, where are you!?” [the woman] asked. “Darling,” [he] says ...

1633. Jesus - The Leader of Our Team

Philippians 1:1-11

Sermon

Richard Gribble

One day a young girl came home from school in tears because she had only been given a small part in the school play, while her classmate and best friend had received the lead role. After drying the girl’s eyes, her mother took off her watch, put it in her hand, and said, “What do you see?” The girl replied, “A gold band, the watch face, and two hands.” Then the mother flipped the watch over, opened the back, and again asked her daughter, “Now, what do you see?” The little girl looked closely at all the ...

1634. Formula for Eternal Life

1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50

Sermon

Richard Gribble

George lives in FortPortal, a town on the western front of Uganda, some fifty miles from the Congo. Like the RwenzoriMountains (the Mountains of the Moon) that surround the town, George is a beautiful man in many ways. He works as a cook, among many other tasks, for a local school. There is actually little that George does not do. He is the one who washes, irons, and mends the students' clothes, cleans the dormitory, fixes what is broken, does the grocery shopping, and takes care of the outside yard. In ...

1635. But When God ...

Galatians 1:11-24

Sermon

April Yamasaki

In the early Christian church, there were no pulpits. It wasn't until the Middle Ages that pulpits were first introduced in churches and not until the Protestant Reformation of the 1500s and 1600s that the pulpit became a central symbol for the authority of scripture and the preaching of the word. But it hasn't always been that way. Instead, the very first Christian churches were house churches, where there were no pulpits, and everything was done face-to-face without a piece of furniture in between. The ...

1636. The Winning Word

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

Sermon

Derl G. Keefer

Tom Barnard tells of his great love for sports stories, especially where an athlete survives an ugly situation and is honored for his or her lifetime achievements. One of those celebrations occurred on baseball's opening day, 2008. It happened to William Joseph "Bill" Buckner, a former major league baseball player for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, California Angels, Kansas City Royals, and the Boston Red Sox. Accompanied by a loud, standing ovation prior to the start of the Red Sox home opener ...

1637. Heisman In The Hudson

Isaiah 43:16-21

Sermon

David J. Kalas

In December of every year, the Downtown Athletic Club in New York City awards the coveted Heisman Trophy. Voted on by over 800 media members, the Heisman is awarded to the most outstanding college football player during that season. Past recipients have included such notables as Roger Staubach, Marcus Allen, and Barry Sanders. It is a great honor, and it represents the broad and non-partisan recognition of a player's outstanding season. In the case of this particular young man, let us say that he has just ...

1638. Making Ourselves At Home

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

In a scene from the romantic comedy, ‘While You Were Sleeping', "Ox" Callaghan is waxing eloquent at the breakfast table one morning about those rare moments in life when everything seems to be going just right and falling into place. "In that one minute," he says, "you have peace." But his son, Jack, who is Ox's partner in the family business, has finally decided it is time to break the news to his dad that he wants out to start his own business, and so he bursts his father's bubble, saying, "Pop, this ...

1639. Your Home Page

Hebrews 13:1-25

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

What used to be true for boats is now equally true for cell phones. The best day of your life? The day you bought your boat. The second best day of your life? The day you sold your boat. That kind of love/hate relationship is even fiercer when it comes to our most beloved, most bemoaned tech toy — the “smart phone.” Every time you “upgrade” from a version “3" to “4” to “5” . . . it seems that only minutes later there is a version “6.” Almost as soon as you can get out your credit card, you are the proud ...

1640. A One Sentence Legacy

Luke 14:25-35

Sermon

King Duncan

I heard recently about a guy named Bob. Bob was single and lived with his father. Bob worked in the family business, a very successful family business. When it became apparent that his father would not live much longer, and that he would soon inherit quite a fortune, Bob decided to find a wife with whom to share his soon-to-be abundant wealth. One evening, at an investment meeting, Bob spotted the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her natural beauty took his breath away. “I may look like just an ...

1641. The ME and the WE

Luke 15:8-10, Luke 15:1-7

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

The gospel is not a tablet of ink, but a table of food around which everyone is invited to sit down together and eat, drink and dream for tomorrow we act. A few weeks ago we marked the fiftieth anniversary (1963-2013) of Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “I Have A Dream” speech. The power of that proclamation, the timely words of one man spoken at the one right moment before the enormous crowd gathered before the Lincoln Memorial, provided the “tipping point” for the civil rights movement and for decades of ...

1642. Jesus’ Prayer: The Pause in the Battle

John 17:1-11

Sermon

David O. Bales

In 1936, near the beginning of the Spanish Civil War one horrible center of fighting was the Alcázar fortress near Toledo. In the middle of horrific fighting, however, every day the firing stopped twice in order to allow a blind beggar to tap his way on the street between the firing lines. We can imagine how welcome those few minutes were to the men on both sides. They probably hoped that the blind man walked slower to give them a few more seconds of peace. Then the reprieve ended and the slaughter again ...

1643. Syncing with the Spirit

Matthew 24:36-51

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

It is officially “count-down” time. The moment the red cranberry sauce is wiped off our chins and cleaned off the tablecloth, Black Friday starts. And on Black Friday comes the count-down of the diminishing days until Christmas. That tick-tock of passing time is supposed to induce us into a buying panic and jump-start our frenzied consumerism. It pretty much works. But the church has its own “countdown to Christmas.” It is called “The Season of Advent.” Instead of being a time of consumer manic panic, ...

1644. Treasure Hunt

Matthew 13:44-46

Sermon

King Duncan

Back in 1905, there was baseball game played in Salt Lake City. A team called the Rhyolites were playing against a team called the Beattys and the Beattys were up to bat. The pitcher threw the ball, the batter swung and the ball rocketed toward first base. William Giffiths, the first baseman, saw the ball coming his way. Then he watched with amazement as the ball ricocheted off a small stone and landed right in his glove. He beat the runner to first easily for the out. The little stone had given Griffiths ...

1645. God Is Not Dead

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

James Merritt

If there is one commandment that is usually thought to be irrelevant, it is the second commandment. However, it may be second in position because it is second in importance. This commandment is one that is probably the most easily ignored and, yet, the most blatantly broken. In case you doubt that idolatry is alive and well right here in America, picture a newspaper article entitled, THE DEIFICATION OF ELVIS: Those who worship ‘the king’ practice their own form of religion. This newspaper writer thought at ...

1646. The God of Second Chances

Jeremiah 30:1--31:40

Sermon

King Duncan

A national magazine for pastors once carried a rating system for sermons similar to the rating system we’re all familiar with for movies. It went something like this. The person who designed it was a little bit cynical. Here is the rating he gave to various kinds of sermons: “G” - Generally acceptable to everyone. Full of inoffensive, childlike platitudes; usually described as “wonderful” or “marvelous” by those who leave church to shake the hands of the pastor. “MC” - For more mature congregations. At ...

1647. The Big "W"

Mark 8:31--9:1

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

There are two kinds of dogs in this world (not people this time!). There are the dogs who eat everything and anything - toss them a bit of anything, meat, cauliflower, mushrooms, shoe leather - and it will be snapped out of the sky and scarfed down without hesitation. Then there are the dogs that approach every tidbit offered to them with suspicion. They stop, they sniff, they consider, and then they finally — tentatively — accept the goodie offered to them. The spoiled doggie message being sent here is ...

1648. The Good Life

John 10:11-18

Sermon

James Merritt

I read a story the other day id never heard before about Abraham Lincoln. He was surprised one day when a rough looking man drew a revolver and put it right in his face. Trying to remain as calm as he could Lincoln simply asked the man, “What seems to be the matter?” The stranger replied, “Well some years ago I swore an oath that if I ever came across an uglier man than I am I’d shoot him right on the spot.” Lincoln smiled and said, “Well then please shoot me for if I’m an uglier man than you are I don't ...

1649. The Reject

Luke 19:1-10

Sermon

James Merritt

Her name was Vicky Harrison. By all appearances she was a beautiful 21-year-old perky blonde with a sweet personality, great ambition, and a seemingly bright future. Tragically she became another suicide victim. She killed herself after more than 200 unsuccessful job applications. She had dreamed of a career as a teacher or a television producer, but gave up hope for the future. A day after her 200th rejection, she wrote heartbreaking notes to her parents and boyfriend saying 'I don't want to be me any ...

1650. When the Golden Rule Isn't Enough - Mother's Day

John 15:1-17

Sermon

King Duncan

Today we honor our moms. Not everybody can be a mom, but everyone at some time in their life has had a mom, and at that time our mom was the most important person in our world. Some of us had moms who made great sacrifices in our behalf. We are profoundly grateful for that. So today we honor our moms. It’s not easy being a mom. Here are some examples of some mothers and things they could have said: Mona Lisa’s mother: “After all that money your father and I spent on braces, Mona, that’s the biggest smile ...

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