Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 151 to 175 of 797 results

Luke 4:1-13

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R.T. France

... during that period, and it is from those chapters that all three of Jesus’s responses in 4:4, 8, 12 are drawn. Deuteronomy 8:2–5, the source of the first of those responses, describes Israel as God’s “son,” “tested” and learning to depend on his Father through the discipline of deprivation in the wilderness. This is the background for Jesus’s own testing as the Son of God. Interpretive Insights 4:1 full of the Holy Spirit . . . led by the Spirit. This double mention of the Spirit leaves ...

152. Sabbath in Capernaum

Luke 4:38-44, Luke 4:31-37

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R.T. France

... save one soul from death than have a monument of solid gold reaching from my grave to the heavens.” He spent his entire postconversion life both emphasizing the absolute importance of learning and teaching Scripture (he was involved in the creation and perpetuation of institutions of learning) and caring for and encouraging the disadvantaged. His range of influence is immeasurable. In the introduction to his biography of Moody, Lyle Dorsett writes, “The testimonies . . . are legion from people who ...

153. Jesus’s Fallible Followers

Luke 9:51-56, Luke 9:46-50, Luke 9:37-45

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R.T. France

... is thus not just a matter of being nice to children, but of taking seriously, and indeed giving priority to, those (of whatever age) whom one may be tempted to despise or ignore. In 18:15–17 the disciples will show that they have not yet learned this lesson. Such “welcome” will also be conspicuously lacking in the story that follows in 9:49–50. 9:49 someone driving out demons in your name . . . not one of us. Compare Acts 19:13. Jesus’s reputation as an exorcist tempted other Jewish exorcists ...

154. Priorities

Luke 12:35-48, Luke 12:22-34

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R.T. France

... Birds Our Teachers, by John Stott. Besides being a renowned Christian leader, scholar, and cleric, John Stott (1921–2011) was an avid birdwatcher. In this book he notes that Jesus himself told us to be birdwatchers (see Matt. 6:26; cf. Luke 12:24) and to learn from them. Stott quotes Martin Luther: “We have as many teachers and preachers as there are little birds in the air.”1He includes a chapter on sparrows (see 12:6–7) and one on ravens (see 12:24), both of which contain helpful illustrations and ...

155. Getting Ready for the Passover

Luke 22:7-38, Luke 22:1-6

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R.T. France

... Israel’s existence as the special people of God. Jesus’s death and resurrection are to take place in this setting, and his explanatory words over the bread and wine, uttered at a Passover meal, will draw on the Passover symbolism of redemption. All this, we learn from these verses, was not a matter of happy coincidence, but of Jesus’s deliberate planning. He intended his saving death to be seen as the focus of a new exodus (cf. 9:31: “departure,” exodos), and so the inauguration of a new basis for ...

156. On the Mount of Olives

Luke 22:47-53, Luke 22:39-46, Luke 22:7-38

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R.T. France

... useful device. In the same way, if prayer is only about getting somewhere—like into a blessing, or out of a crisis—it can seem like a wasted or even torturous exercise. If, on the other hand, prayer can also be about fellowship with God and other believers, building character, learning about God’s voice, learning patience, grieving loss, and expressing hope, it is an incredibly blessed and useful activity.

157. The Gospel of God in Christ through Paul

Romans 1:1-17

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C. Marvin Pate

... education had come to a climax; [his] knowledge was being validated.”5 He felt the Spirit was with him even though he was in a small parish with a homely office. He began preaching with a certain power. Then, through members of his congregation he began to learn to listen, to pay attention to what they were trying to teach him. He says then, “Earn your right to be heard by The City. . . . It comes of a very specific labor. It comes when you—to your own sacrifice—commit your ways to the people.”6 ...

158. God’s Saving Righteousness and the Restoration of Israel

Romans 3:21-31

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C. Marvin Pate

... at the University of Hamburg, talks directly to young theologians about the inherent dangers at their stage of life. Of the importance of humility he writes, Truth seduces us very easily into a kind of joy of possession: I have comprehended this and that, learned it, understood it. Knowledge is power. I am therefore more than the other man who does not know this and that. I have greater possibilities and temptations. Anyone who deals with the truth . . . succumbs all too easily to the psychology of the ...

159. The New-Covenant Blessings: Peace and Hope

Romans 5:1-11

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C. Marvin Pate

... the Civil War. In his poem he expresses the irony that in response to everything he asked from God he was given the opposite, which created in him compassion and growth and blessing. I asked God for strength, that I might achieve; I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey. I asked for health, that I might do greater things; I was given infirmity, that I might do better things. I asked for riches, that I might be happy; I was given poverty, that I might be wise. I asked for power, that I might have ...

160. Message to Pergamum

Revelation 2:12-17

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J. Scott Duvall

... security. But together, this powerful ministry couple determined to stand, whatever the cost. As a result, Richard suffered years of brutal imprisonment and torture. When finally freed, the Wurmbrands took the lead in alerting the world to the sufferings of the persecuted church. (Learn more about the Wurmbrands in Tortured for Christ and more about the persecuted church at www.persecution.com.) We are called to be in the world but not of the world. History: As people who live in a particular time and place ...

161. The Fifth Trumpet (First Woe)

Revelation 8:6--9:21

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J. Scott Duvall

... sins mentioned at the end of Revelation 9 equates idolatry with demon worship (9:20–21), and the inhabitants of the earth eventually learn that the evil powers they have been following are not friendly. Their own gods will seek to destroy them, since demons only ... the door to repentance. The judgments are limited in scope and duration. At the end of the series we also learn that unbelievers refuse to repent, indicating that the possibility existed (9:20–21). While God displays his sovereign power over ...

162. The Ordination of Aaron and His Sons

Leviticus 8:1-36

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Joe M. Sprinkle

... of sentiment. Our desire should be, like these priests, totally dedicated and consecrated to God, even down to the level of our body parts. God calls ministers to set an example. Education: In an article describing how young children learn, educational researcher Jeanne W. Lepper comments, In a natural, almost unconscious, process, children follow the examples set by others, modeling both behavior and the accompanying emotional tone. When children see their parents reading regularly, they want to read and ...

163. Uncleanness Due to Childbirth

Leviticus 12:1-8

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Joe M. Sprinkle

... the women of the tribe were not valued. Generally, the wives walked behind the husbands. Often, they carried loads while the husband did not. Initially, the missionary couple thought these practices to be the signs of a repressive culture, but soon they learned better. Very often, couples had to make their way through tall grasses and thick jungle. The husband would walk first, wielding a machete and clearing a path, an impossible task for someone with both hands full. The missionaries came to understand ...

164. The Census and Duties of Levites

Num 3:1–4:49

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Joe M. Sprinkle

... in its midst, has been replaced by the anthropological sacred people of God, who individually and collectively are indwelt with God’s Spirit and who now constitute God’s temple (1 Cor. 3:16–17; 6:19; Eph. 2:19–22). Nonetheless, Protestants can learn from the Old Testament and from the Catholic and Orthodox traditions that symbolize the holiness of God by maintaining the holiness of spaces of worship in a way close to the spirit and practice of the Old Testament. Protestants, too, could invest into ...

165. Failure to Enter the Land

Num 13:1–14:9

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Joe M. Sprinkle

... spiritual authority (Num. 12). In each of these cases God had intervened with a mixture of punishment and grace. Now they come to Kadesh (or Kadesh Barnea) in the Desert of Paran (Num. 13:26) just south of the land of Canaan. Israel has not learned its lesson from the events of Numbers 11–12. After sending scouts on a reconnaissance mission into the land of Canaan and hearing the majority opinion that the land would be impossible to conquer, the Israelites again rebel against God and Moses. This rebellion ...

166. The Lord Chooses a Prophet

1 Sam 3:1--4:1

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Robert B. Chisholm Jr.

... and the New Testament gives us no reason to expect it to be in ours. Illustrating the Text God will honor those who honor him. Literature: Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë. In this beautifully written and principled novel (1847), the lead character, Jane, learns restraint over her anger at the way people have treated her in her past and present. Jane has been orphaned young, then severely mistreated by extended family, and finally placed in an orphanage where the children are abused; she survives because of ...

167. Job Shatters the Silence

Job 3:1-26

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Daniel J. Estes

... , in the context of the book they imply how much he does not understand about his situation. When God later asks seventy unanswerable questions of Job, Job at last recognizes and admits that he is in no position to call God to account. Like Job, we need to learn and remember that God’s knowledge is infinite, far above our finite human understanding, so we will never be able to comprehend all that he is doing in our lives. Instead of viewing God through the lens of our limited understanding, we need to ...

168. Job Presents Evidence against the Retribution Principle

Job 12:1--14:22

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Daniel J. Estes

... is convinced that when he argues his case, God will declare him innocent, thus admitting that he has treated Job unfairly, and that the friends will be shown to be in the wrong. At the end of the book, Yahweh does vindicate Job (42:7–8), but Job also learns how much he does not know about God and his ways (42:3). Although Job is right about the final verdict, he does not anticipate correctly the path Yahweh will take to get to that conclusion. 13:20–21 Only grant me these two things, God. In verse 21 ...

169. Job Feels under Attack by God

Job 16:1-17:16

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Daniel J. Estes

... the reader if Job decides at this point to give up on life and on God, but he does not. Rather, even in his great pain Job persists in looking to God for help. In what appear to be hopeless circumstances, Job keeps hoping in God’s justice. Job will learn and grow much in his faith in God over the course of the rest of the book, so what he says in chapter 16 is sometimes startling to read. Nevertheless, his fervent anticipation of God’s justice is a good pattern for us to follow. Job begins his response ...

170. Job Feels Both Confidence and Terror

Job 23:1--24:25

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Daniel J. Estes

... for God, Job cannot locate him. Job longs to regain communication with God, and he wants to stand before God to appeal his case, but God is nowhere to be found. Job’s prolonged time of waiting is often echoed in the lives of Christians who have to learn through long and painful experience to trust God even when he seems silent and hidden. Despite all his unanswered questions, Job also has some answers to share. He insists that God knew what he was doing as he ordered Job’s life. Job also knows that his ...

171. “The Lord Is My Shepherd, I Lack Nothing”

Psalm 23:1-6

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C. Hassell Bullock

... an individual psalm of trust (see the sidebar “Psalms of Trust” in the unit on Ps. 16).[1] Psalms of trust arise out of some trouble that the psalmist has experienced, although we cannot always determine specifically what it was. Yet through this experience the psalmist has learned to trust in the Lord. Sometimes these psalms include a petition (e.g., 4:1, 6) and a vow to praise God (e.g., 16:7), but Psalm 23 contains neither. As Goldingay says, it is “radically a psalm of trust.”2 While we do not ...

172. The Image of Gold and the Fiery Furnace

Daniel 3:1-30

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Ronald W. Pierce

... as the country’s president from 1994 to 1999. From his teens he demonstrated remarkable courage in opposing the oppression of his people, even in the face of severe personal persecution. Yet consider one of his most frequent and often remembered assertions: “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”8When we are faced with frightening circumstances and overwhelming human powers, fear and ...

173. Daniel in the Den of Lions

Daniel 6:1-28

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Ronald W. Pierce

... , as well as those of the high administrators, so that it cannot be removed without being noticed.4 Interpretive Insights 6:10–11 Daniel learned that the decree had been published. This statement links the reader to the narrative of 6:1–9. Having an upstairs room with windows ... for us to remain faithful to him. Sometimes God asks us to face very difficult trials alone so that we can learn to trust him more deeply. In this passage the only voice of hope comes, strangely, from a pagan king. Take this ...

174. A Worthy Woman Meets a Worthy Man

Ruth 2:1-23

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... knows this; 2:1) of Boaz’s ability to meet an even greater need (2:20). On account of Ruth’s fruitful workday and the owner’s obvious generosity, Naomi pronounces a blessing on this man without knowing his identity (2:19). However, once Naomi learns that Boaz is the man Ruth worked for, she bubbles over with enthusiasm and pronounces a second blessing on him. But the latter arises because of the concrete knowledge Naomi now possesses. Not only is Boaz a man of stellar character and wealth, a relative ...

175. David’s Success

2 Samuel 9:1-13

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... continues to handle problems with great skill. His kindness to Jonathan’s son Mephibosheth demonstrates his genuine compassion for others. As a military leader, David has known only victory in battle ever since his triumph over Goliath, and the Ammonites and Arameans learn about his military prowess the hard way. In light of the covenant God has made with David promising to show kindness to his family forever, it is fitting that David remembers the covenant he made with Jonathan. When most kings came to ...

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