Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 151 to 175 of 1522 results

Isaiah 42:18-25

Sermon

William L. Self

... shifted and we have to be like the great church at Antioch. We must turn loose the old ways and grasp the new. It is impossible to hold on to the past while facing the future. This does not mean that we are changing our belief structure. That is firm and ... where he can do ministry -- perform rituals, conduct weddings, attend rehearsal dinners, keep traditions, but he/she won't like it. It is impossible to go back to Egypt as the Israelites begged to do. We are not called to safety, nor are we on a career ...

152. God Is Down To Earth

John 1:1-18

Sermon

John A. Stroman

... sit down at the old upright piano to play. Cousins said that the piano was at least fifty years old. The keyboard was badly stained. One or more strings were missing on a dozen keys. The jungle heat and moisture made its tuning almost impossible. This great interpreter of Bach's organ music sat down to play this dilapidated old instrument. To Cousin's amazement the old instrument seemed to lose its poverty in Schweitzer's hands. Its capacity to yield music was now being fully realized. For whatever reason ...

153. Too Light A Thing

Isaiah 49:1-7

Sermon

Paul E. Robinson

... of God. We struggle with little things so long that they fill our lives and become the big things. Isn't that one of the dangers of retirement? You spend your life wrestling with heavy responsibilities on a job, whether it's in the home with the impossible challenge of raising children, or out in the business world, where the bottom line looms as the be all and end all. And then you retire, and the little things can easily take over. The anxiety about the leak in the roof. The anger about the neighbor ...

154. Who Lives In You?

Luke 13:31-35

Sermon

Lee Griess

... our priorities between serving ourselves and serving God. We cannot live as citizens of heaven and be strangers to God. Jesus says, "Either you will hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. No one can serve two masters." It is impossible to hold dual citizenship. To be a child of God is to allow God to be our Father. To live as a citizen of heaven is to allow Christ into our hearts. For when we have the love of Jesus in our hearts, we know a life of discipleship and ...

155. Sermons

Sermon

John R. Bodo

... are times when a baby grins at us and a little hand trustingly explores our face, and suddenly we know that God is love. But there are other things in life which make it difficult for us to believe that God is love: not just difficult but nearly impossible. I am not thinking about man's inhumanity to man. Wars and all forms of violence are ultimately our responsibility. God is not the President of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Humans. We dare not blame God for the ghastly things we do to one ...

156. Growing In The Lord

1 Samuel 2:12-26

Sermon

Robert A. Hausman

... in these stories? They are marked first by human frailty, barrenness, and despair. As humans, we are not able to secure our future by our own powers. God gets involved, however, and promises hope, a new beginning. Our impossibility becomes God's possibility. The woman believes the promise however impossible it may seem, and sees the fulfillment, the gift of a child. That is usually where the story ends in our lives. God intervenes with a gift, and we quickly forget about the giver. We quickly forget the ...

157. You Can Be Happy

1 Chronicles 13:1-14

Sermon

Michael B. Brown

... is the one thing we all think we know how to do and thus quit trying to learn to do any more authentically or effectively. If the topic is "How To Be Happy," our focus sooner or later has to turn to love, for without that, happiness is literally impossible to find. So, what advice did Paul offer his friends in Corinth? Among other things he told them: Treat People Right "Love is patient and kind," he said. "It is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it ...

158. God Is Down To Earth

John 1:1-18

Sermon

John A. Stroman

159. Prayer Clothes

Hebrews 4:14-5:10

Sermon

Mark J. Molldrem

... God's will that Jesus suffer and die for the sins of the world, so be it. It will be hard, yes. But it will not be impossible; for with God all things are possible. It is God's will that accomplishes what God wills to accomplish. When God desired to create a world, ... . There is no burden so crushing that your Heavenly Father cannot lift you up in prayer. There is no future so impossible that your Heavenly Father cannot lead you there according to his will. "Prayer is an invitation to God to intervene in ...

160. Do Not Be Doubting But Believe!

John 20:24-31

Sermon

Lee Griess

... pulse, and the rapid speech as she tried to share the news with the disciples. But we can also imagine the difficulty they had in believing it. For it is incredible news! The One who was dead is now alive. On the face of it, it is impossible. In fact, the Bible tells us that their first response to the story was to regard it as idle nonsense, told by a distraught and hysterical woman. That very evening the disciples gathered again, once more behind locked doors, not knowing for sure what to think about ...

161. Who Lives In You?

Luke 13:31-35

Sermon

Lee Griess

162. Redrawing The Landscape

Multiple Scriptures

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... wrong done to us but in the wrong we can do to ourselves if we let ourselves become inwardly hardened. Can you imagine having to work in a job which stirs up a vindictive response in you? Who has the reward? You or your enemy? How impossible Jesus' ideal seems at first - "Love your enemies and pray for them that persecute you." But on second glance it seems to be the most practical and rational rule for daily living that could be laid down. The only rewards in life come through working through relationships ...

163. Revealed Glory

Exodus 16:1-36

Sermon

Walter Kimbrough

... separated by thousands of years of time and space, have come to a place of agreement in the declaration that the glory of God is revealed. No longer is God’s glory a hidden commodity or expression, no longer is the glory foreign or even an impossibility experientially. God’s glory is a present reality. Moses declared that it’s as close to you as the morning. Allow me the time to explore three significant things we ought to remember from our study of revealed glory. The first significant thing we ought ...

164. Mission Possible

Sermon

Robert Beringer

... ." For many years the MI Task Force took on what seemed like an incredible assignment, and in less than an hour, they did the impossible! How wonderful it would be if carrying out the mission of Jesus Christ in this world were as easy. The challenge to us in this season of Epiphany is the ongoing proclamation that the "light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:5)." But ...

165. For Your Part

Matt 5:17-37

Sermon

John Jamison

... reads on?) Can you see it? That's what Jesus called for that morning on the hillside. No more hassle. No more law courts. No more! Can you hear the people of the crowd? For some on the hillside it was too much. This is where Jesus became impossible for them. They stood, and slowly walked out of the crowd, and went back home. Many people went up that hillside to hear Jesus but could not walk back down it with him. They could be Christian on the inside, with the spiritual highs, the warm fuzzies, the deep ...

166. Not Your Favorite Father's Day Scripture

Genesis 21:8-21

Sermon

Johnny Dean

... ’t DARE do that to their mother! As I stated on Mother’s Day, sometimes the folks who compiled the Lectionary don’t do us preachers any favors when it comes to special days like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. It’s hard, sometimes even impossible, to prepare a sermon that does honor to those special people in our lives using the texts suggested by the lectionary. And today’s selection from the Old Testament is a prime example. Since this is not a popular story, perhaps it would be best if I ...

167. He Who Has Ears to Hear, Let Him Hear

Luke 8:1-15

Sermon

Larry Powell

... gnaw away at us, too. It is a blessed thing to be able to forget, and, in one sense, forgetting may properly be interpreted as a gift of grace. So much of Christianity is predicated upon grace and forgetting. Christian love and forgiveness would be impossible without it. The Almighty has promised to forgive our transgressions, to "remove them as far as the east is from the west" and "remember them no more!" In our own realm of affairs, we have been reminded to "forgive men their trespasses as they forgive ...

168. In Quest of a Treasure

James 1:1-18

Sermon

Larry Powell

... the destination, or better yet, the privilege of even getting to be a part of the journey at all? (c) Free from pests. Ever try to sleep with a mosquito in the room - just one? Something has to be sacrificed, either your sleep or the mosquito. It is impossible to lie down in serenity in the midst of bothersome irritations. How wonderful is the shepherd who leads his flock beyond irritations to lie down and be rested. It is a good thing not to strain a gnat while swallowing a camel; it is also good to know ...

169. No Ignorant Brethren

1 Thessalonians 4:13--5:11

Sermon

Rev. Kenneth H. Sauer

... A small boy was once asked by a friend what he was going to be when he grew up, and he answered, "Possible." Responding to the surprise this answer brought, he said, "My mother always says I'm impossible, so when I get older I want to get possible." Now Christians are often guilty of acting like children, dreaming of impossible things. Your council would tell you of ways to spend a million dollars. It is telling you $85,000 worth of Possible things we can do. Do not be ignorant of the fact that we can only ...

170. On Staying Awake

Luke 12:35-48

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... have a continual infusion of new people, especially young people. The reason for this is that new people have not built up a paralyzing load of arrogance. New people do not "know" that certain things are impossible. Unburdened by this lack of limiting certainty, they often accomplish the impossible. Thoreau once called for the creation of a "Society for the Diffusion of Ignorance." All of us could use the "ignorance" that undercuts our assumptions that we have seen it all. Otherwise, we miss the big moment ...

171. Proper 4

Genesis 12:1-8

Sermon

... What About Tomorrow? (page 172), J. Wallace Hamilton speaks about a writing by Margaret Slattery called, "The Charm of the Impossible." He says, in this little book, Ms. Slattery traced through history the dream-driven people and pointed out it is through the lift ... of the dream, through the charm of the unattainable and the impossible, most human progress has come. That certainly applies to many of the stories in the Old Testament. Abraham went out in ...

172. Cross Work

Matthew 5:27-30

Sermon

George Bass

... including the death of Johnny Ring, while saving the captain’s dress sword which had been given him by their townspeople and which led to the conversion of the atheistic lawyer into a committed Christian and a dedicated and inspired minister of the Gospel.47 It is impossible to hate those who insult you, injure you, even kill you, if you pray for them; Jesus proved the truth of what he taught on the cross. Christians are not merely to look in amazement and adoration at the cross of Christ; they are to do ...

173. Christmas Vision

Isaiah 9:1-7

Sermon

... kings to the brightness of your rising. (Isaiah 60:1-3, RSV) The Vision. God wrapped in a baby, in human flesh, opens history and changes circumstances. How else do we see a newborn babe in billowing straw as God? How else do we see the most impossible of all impossibilities, life out of death? When we are grasped by the vision of God in human form our whole perspective changes. The way we view the world, the way we view things is different. The vision of God in human flesh turns the whole crazy, mixed-up ...

174. The Necessity Of Forgiveness

Luke 7:36-50

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... do to ourselves if we let ourselves become inwardly hardened. Can you imagine having to work in a job which stirs up a vindictive response in you? Who has the reward? You or your enemy? How impossible Jesus' ideal seems at first - "love your enemies and pray for them that persecute you." But it is not impossible. In fact, on second glance it seems to be the most practical and rational rule for daily living that could be laid down. The only rewards in life come through working through relationships. There is ...

175. Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Daniel 2:24-49, Daniel 2:1-23

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... the dream. To add to the pressure, the King told them he would kill them if they did not. Nothing clears one's head so quickly as a death threat. But the poor advisors were helpless. In verse 11, they cried out, "What you ask, O King, is impossible." The King was furious. He issued a decree that all his advisors, including Daniel and his friends, be executed. Arioch, the commander of the King's guard, was about to execute all these advisors when Daniel went to him, with tact and wisdom. He found out from ...

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