Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 1676 to 1700 of 4943 results

1676. Sermons

Sermon

John R. Bodo

Introductory Note "Thomas the Doubter" is obviously an Easter sermon. However, for Christians every Lord's Day is Easter, because ours is a Resurrection faith. Without the Resurrection, we have nothing distinctive -- for our own comfort and growth or for a world in pain. In "Thomas the Doubter" I hazard a hypothesis about Thomas' life prior to his meeting Jesus. The hypothesis seems fairly plausible. His nickname, Didymus, appears in the biblical record (John 11:16). "Thomas the Doubter" argues for the ...

1677. Chapter II

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Frank H. Seilhamer

"I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; You will have no other gods before me. You will not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you will not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but ...

1678. THE OLD MAN IS WASTING

Drama

Jerome W. Nilssen

In JAREL’S apartment. There is a table in the room, with a telephone on it. JAREL is seated. SETH is standing, with a deck of cards in his hand. JAREL Look, I never invited you here, I never asked you to come in, and I absolutely do not want to go back to him. And, finally, I don’t want to play any silly game. SETH Don’t knock what you haven’t tried. JAREL I could always try calling the police. You’re not exactly a guest. SETH Go ahead. I’ve got my story ready: FAITHFUL BROTHER-IN-LAW REBUKED IN ...

1679. The Ten Commandments

Deuteronomy 5:1-33

Understanding Series

Christopher J. H. Wright

Introduction to Israel’s Covenantal Constitution: The Decalogue · Here opens Moses’ second discourse (chs. 5–26), the central section of the whole book. It is subdivided into two main parts. Chapters 5–11 are a broad exhortation to covenant loyalty and obedience, following up and amplifying the theocratic and covenantal challenge set forth in chapter 4. Chapters 12–26, with their subheading in 12:1, are more detailed legislation, much of which renews, expands, and sometimes modifies laws already given in ...

1680. Legends Of Christmas

Drama

Georgianna Summers

Scene I [Members of a junior high Social Studies class are seated on one side of stage area. Miss Hardgrader, the teacher, stands in front of them.] Hardgrader: Now, class, before you leave today I just want to remind you that your reports on Christmas legends are due tomorrow. [Everyone groans.] I will call on some of you to read yours aloud; so all of you come prepared. I’ve also invited the other grades in our wing to come visit our class tomorrow when you give your reports, and I thought it would be ...

1681. The Knot: Tied

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon

James Merritt

There are two topics a pastor can talk about that are guaranteed to generate emails, letters, phone calls, discussion, and debate. Those topics are money and marriage. I knew that this series we are doing on marriage would generate a lot of interest, reveal a lot of anguish, and strike a lot of nerves. There is an old joke about marriage that goes like this: “Marriage is like a deck of cards. In the beginning all you need is two hearts and a diamond. At the end you wish you had a club and a spade!” ...

1682. Prayer And Compassion Fatigue

Matthew 14:13-21

Sermon

Roger G. Talbott

They were tired and they needed a day off. The crowds kept getting larger. More and more sick people were being brought to Jesus and his disciples were getting burned out dealing with all that human misery. So Jesus declared a holiday. "Let's go camping," he said. At least that is what I think he said. Matthew makes it sound like he said, "Let's go off alone to a deserted place." My guess is he got no arguments from his disciples. They took off their beepers, unplugged the phones and put up the "Closed for ...

1683. God Gives the Pharisees the Finger!

John 7:25-44, John 7:45--8:11

Sermon

Lori Wagner

Prop (Animation): Scale or coins (three types) and blackboard with the words: mene, mene, tekel, upharsin; clay pot Judging. It’s something we do almost without thinking. Judging. And justifying. And we’re so GOOD at it! We love to sit on our holy thrones (or in the case of football, cause it’s the season now –lounge in our armchairs) and cast judgments upon those people who are on tv, in the spotlight, on trial, or in any way aren’t in our circle of friends. Many of us judge our friends too! All you have ...

1684. Caring for the Vineyard We Did Not Plant

Matthew 20:1-16, Joshua 24:1-27

Sermon

Lori Wagner

How many of you have seen an episode of “This Old House”? How many know what I’m talking about? The show, on television for nearly 40 years (since 1979), now also has a website and a magazine. The innovative show has developed a “buzz” as the “go-to” site for creative hands-on remodeling --for men and women alike! Its premise is simple: how to take an ordinary, drab, old, crumbling, or even condemned house, a “fixer-upper” if you will, and renovate and revision that house into a new, sound, and exquisite ...

1685. Illusion Or Reality?

Sermon

Harold Warlick

Back in the mid 1970s to early 1980s hypnosis was viewed as a major cure for many of society's ills. If you had a problem with being overweight, smoking cigarettes, drinking too much, or being a juvenile delinquent, many professional hypnotists would, for a hefty fee, offer their services to hypnotize your problems away. The church I pastored in Texas at the time contained among its members some overweight women with a passion for improving their bodies. These women had apparently tried everything they ...

1686. Living Deliberately

John 10:1-21

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Our scripture lesson is taken from the 10th chapter of the Gospel of John, beginning with the 7th and reading through the 18th verses. I’m reading from the Revised Standard Version. This is the word of the Lord. “So Jesus again said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not heed them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and ...

1687. Elihu Makes His Appearance

Job 32:1--37:24

Teach the Text

Daniel J. Estes

Big Idea: The young Elihu claims to know the truth that has escaped Job and his friends. Understanding the Text After Job concludes his words in 31:40, the reader expects to hear Yahweh speak to resolve the debate between Job and his friends. Instead, a young man named Elihu bursts upon the scene, and for the next six chapters he holds the stage. In his long, uninterrupted speech, Elihu summarizes the points made by Job and the friends, often quoting or alluding to their specific words. He agrees with them ...

1688. Chapter VII

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Frank H. Seilhamer

"You will not commit adultery" Exodus 20:14 If I had my "druthers" I would skip this Commandment and go on to the next one, because this "word" speaking about sex is a difficult one to deal with frankly and directly. What makes it so hard to do that without beating around the bush is the fact that most people are still skitterish about the subject. Oh, most of us are able to talk about sex with a few choice friends, or in some small groups, but a lot of us still start to get up tight when the subject comes ...

1689. Marching Forward by Faith!

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

Have you heard the story about a man who slipped and fell while trying to clean the limbs from his roof? He slid down the steep shingles, slipped over the eave, and barely managed to grab hold of the gutters. Dangling there three stories from the earth, the man looked to the heavens above and shouted “My God can any body help me?" Suddenly time stopped, the clouds parted and a voice from heaven said, “Have faith, turn loose." The man took one more glance at the ground below, then looked back to the heavens ...

1690. Redrawing The Landscape

Multiple Scriptures

Sermon

Harold Warlick

One summer's day my wife and I journeyed to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to attend a conference. We packed early in the morning and joined a colleague and his wife for breakfast. The other couple was also attending the Pittsburgh conference. After saying "goodbye" to our friends, we indicated that we would see them at the hotel in Pittsburgh. We were leaving directly from the breakfast while they were not leaving for another two or three hours, after they went home, packed, and took their children to the ...

1691. Let's Have A Fruitful Christmas Season

Drama

May Dembowski

Running Time Twenty-five minutes (including one two-minute break) What's It About? This is a skit written for a Christian Women's Pre-Christmas-Season program, suitable for a ladies' breakfast, brunch, luncheon, and so forth. It is not evangelistic, but rather an idea-filled dialogue which gives some practical suggestions for keeping Christ in Christmas and heading off the usual frenzy of the busy season. How Many Characters? The four characters are women who are meeting for their regular kaffee klatsch ...

1692. What to Do When Life Is the Pits

1 Peter 5:5-11

Sermon

James Merritt

You would think that fear, anxiety, stress, and worry has always been a part and parcel of everyday life. But studies now show that these things have never been so epidemic as they are today. Two sociologists in the 1920's examined a small American town—with a fictitious name of Middle Town, though the town itself was real—and found that they could not establish a single case of overt anxiety syndrome among anyone who lived in the town. When Dale Carnegie set out to research his best selling book, How to ...

1693. Peacemaking and Self Control

Matthew 5:21-26

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

The date was June 11, 1963; the place- The University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. Vivian Malone, a young black woman, enrolled that day as a freshman. Federal troops ensured her entrance, but the doorway was blocked by Governor George Wallace. Holding out for segregation, the governor ultimately failed, and Ms. Malone became the first African-American to graduate from the University of Alabama. Vivian wasn't the only newcomer that day. James Hood was at her side and needed encouragement. So she slipped him a ...

1694. Oracles of Restoration

Ezekiel 34:1-31, Ezekiel 35:1-15, Ezekiel 36:1-38, Ezekiel 37:1-14, Ezekiel 37:15-28

Understanding Series

Steven Tuell

Ezekiel’s Message of Hope and Restoration: Ezekiel 34–48, the second major part of this book, is concerned with a message of hope for the exiles and with the promise of Israel’s future restoration. That message has broken through in a muted sense in chapters 1–33 (11:14–21; 16:53–63; 20:33–44; 28:25–26), but it now becomes the central theme. These fifteen chapters fall into three sections. The first, chapters 34–37, is a series of seven oracles dealing with the restoration of Israel. The second section ...

1695. Trials and Temptations

James 1:1-18, James 1:19-27

Understanding Series

Peter H. Davids

Wisdom for Life’s Tests 1:1 The letter from James opens with a simple and direct greeting. The writer identifies himself simply as James, a servant of God. There was only one James so well known in the early church that he would need no other form of identification, and that was James the Just, brother of Jesus, leader of the church in Jerusalem. The readers are expected to recognize the name. Yet for all his prominence and important position in the church (so important that the letter from Jude begins, “ ...

1696. Listening and Doing

James 1:19-27, James 1:1-18

Understanding Series

Peter H. Davids

1697. Paradoxes Of The Christian Faith

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

There is something strange and paradoxical about the faith of Christians, and many people struggle to understand how we can celebrate the life of someone who died on a cross; someone who didn't fit the conventional criteria of success; someone who brought good and joy to the world, yet was executed by the very people to whom he brought goodness. How could God take someone who was penniless and make us wealthy; someone who was homeless and provide us with a many-roomed mansion in our Father's house? What a ...

1698. Are You a GOT TO or a GET TO Christian?

Genesis 15:1-18

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

When I was growing up in the 60's we practiced drive-by littering. The big game was to see if you could get in front of a pick up, throw out the window a Carrolls hamburger wrapping (they were the competitor to McDonalds that went belly-up), and have it land in the lap of the pickup bed. Today kids don't do drive-by littering. They do drive-by shootings. Or in-school shootings. Do you remember the rash of in school shootings that affected areas around the country? · Jonesboro, Arkansas. · Paducah, Kentucky ...

1699. The Great Dinner

Luke 14:1-14, Luke 14:15-24

Sermon

Lori Wagner

Animation: sweet rolls or some other food to feast on / juice It’s dinnertime! So everyone scrambles to the table to get the best seat, claim the biggest pork chop, peek at the choicest rolls… It’s the story of almost every large family, buffet, or large gathering. Who gets the last piece of cake? How does it work out in your family? Is it first-come, first serve. Or does it go to the eldest? Or the littlest? The saddest—the one who can beg the best? The quickest? The one with the best or most convincing ...

1700. The Healing Of Simon Peter's Mother-In-Law

Mark 1:29-34

Drama

Dallas A. Brauninger

WHAT'S HAPPENING The Gospel called Mark wants to set a tone of direct action and quick response in this story. Mark shows an absence of dragging feet and suggests a sense of urgency. Jesus gets things done. From Mark's perspective, whatever happens around Jesus, the response is always immediate. "Immediately" is a favorite action word in the first chapter of Mark. After the baptism of Jesus, the Spirit immediately drives him out into the wilderness (Mark 1:12). When Jesus calls Simon and Andrew to be ...

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