Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: Levi, disciple, evangelist, tax collector, the 12, the twelve, apostle, sermon on the mount, jewish audience, beatitudes, lord's prayer, great commission, parables, olivet discourse, mount of olives, olivet, synoptic

Showing 1751 to 1775 of 3314 results

1751. Nag, Nag, Nag!

Matthew 15:21-28

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... was a revolutionary thing when Paul received the revelation that God included the Gentiles in his plan of salvation. Paul became the missionary to the Gentiles. Christ was understood to be for both Jews and Gentiles. When the Jews refused to accept Christ, the apostles gave the gospel to the Gentiles. In today’s Second Lesson, Paul expresses the hope that the Gentiles’ acceptance of the gospel would encourage the Jews also to accept Christ as Lord. When Jesus left the earth, he gave as his last command ...

1752. Incalculable Riches by Bishop Roy C. Nichols

Ephesians 3:1-13

Sermon

Leonard Mann

... was a partial Bible reader who did not comprehend the fullness of the gospel. He was upbraiding the United Methodist Church for the utilization of women preachers. He said it was unscriptural, and he quoted chapter and verse. But in all fairness to the Great Apostle, one needs to understand the context out of which he spoke when with some haste and heat he chided those Corinthians. The record will show they needed strong words. But when St. Paul was speaking ex cathedra, in Galatians 3:28, he said, "There ...

1753. The Deeper Meanings of The Christian Faith by Dr. Bryant M. Kirkland

Romans 8:18-27

Sermon

Leonard Mann

... perceived the deeper, richer, broader, different meanings, how can you say so proudly you are living in the 20th century when you deal only with the facts and you are very pragmatic? Scripture says that none of us really knows the facts fully. St. Paul, the same apostle who spoke on Mars Hill, said, "We look through a rearview mirror in the car darkly. In fact, we only know in part. Someday we shall know more fully even as we are known and are seen by God now." (Of course, that is a modern adaptation ...

1754. To Hoist a Sail

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

Allan J. Weenink

... to convince people - to convict them, to cleanse, to renew, and to make them over in the likeness of Christ. Pauls lists what he calls the "Fruits of the Spirit," "... love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control ..." The apostle would have us know that we do not make Christians of ourselves by merely cultivating the Christian graces, manicuring our souls or pulling ourselves up by our moral bootstraps. Rather, we open our lives in faith, hoist the sail of the soul ...

1755. Little Things Affect Little Minds

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... color of the carpet, decide on new choir robes, preach a sermon with a vague point, or decide to spend $25.00 on a new collection plate." Over-reaction to little things has shackled Christians and churches from their very beginnings. The Apostle Paul wrote several letters to the church at Corinth. This church was being disturbed by doctrinal and ethical problems. Some were throwing up issues like speaking in tongues, prophecy, who possessed the greatest gifts, etc. With great courage, and, I feel certain ...

1756. Forgiving Is Forgetting

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... of God in being able to forgive others. So often we emphasize being saved as coming solely from the grace of God after our own confession. Yet Jesus continually stressed the fact that a man who cannot forgive his brother is not saved. One day the great Apostle Peter was finding it hard to live among a certain group of people. He ran up to Jesus and asked if seven times was enough to forgive his brother who sins. Jesus answered, "Not seven times but seventy times seven (Matthew 18:21-22)." The essence of ...

1757. The Return to Catholicity

John 17:6-19

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... Lord, that makes us holy, even in the filth of our sinfulness. The catholicity - one God and Father of all, who is above all, through all, and in all, and the apostolicity in the fact that we hold the same hope of the gospel that the apostles held. There is, however, one note of sadness in this celebration, for we have not officially joined together in communing with Christ through his Sacrament. It is the tragic irony of the history of the church that that Blessed Sacrament, with which we receive the sign ...

1758. Is The Social Gospel Out Of Date?

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

Kent Moorehead

... of God only once. And this reference is only a marginal reference to a state beyond this earthly life - a heavenly kingdom. No mention, mind you, of this central concern of the Master in either the Nicene, the Athanasian, or the Apostles’ Creed. Why? What does it mean? The answer must not be oversimplified. However, two facts stand out quite clearly and explain much: First, there is the indispensable emphasis upon the necessity of personal commitment to Christ. Instead of this commitment being considered ...

1759. Your Image of Tomorrow

Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon

Leonard Mann

... : "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, but just felt in the heart." We really haven’t gotten perspective upon what life is all about until we have begun to see with the heart as well as the eye. The Apostle Paul is thinking of this fact in Ephesians 1:18 when he expresses the prayerful wish that we will have knowledge of God, as he says, "having the eyes of your hearts enlightened." The heart needs an enlightened eye. We need the heart as an instrument of vision ...

1760. The Time of Our Visitation

Sermon

Leonard Mann

... this, one does not continue to go about "business as usual." In the upper room of that Jerusalem home that Thursday night of Jesus’ last earthly week he said a momentous thing which we often miss in our casual reading. It’s in John, chapter 14. Jesus said to his apostles, "You believe in God ... believe also in me." He is saying you do believe in God; now I ask you to believe also in me. You do believe that God is; now I ask you to believe also that he has expressed himself. You do believe in the God ...

1761. A Faith for the Uncharted Way

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Leonard Mann

... come on and meet me here. But there are other far voices, too - voices such as the voice of glory and of joy and of home. And they call us out, and on, and up. And the most wonderful of the far voices calling is the voice heard by the Apostle Paul and described to us as "the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:14). As we stand at the edge of the unknown, let us hear the far voices, and not ever fear them. We cannot tell what word of summons they will bear, but we can ...

1762. Moving Fences

2 Corinthians 5:16-19

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... , He Changes Our Vision. Notice St. Paul's words in verse 16: “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no 1onger.” Back when Paul the Apostle had been Saul of Tarsus, he ha regarded Jesus as a blaspheming pretender who deserved to die. But when Jesus confronted Paul one day on the road to Damascus, Paul's view of Jesus changed. Paul's primary mission in life became to tell the story of Jesus ...

1763. The Level Ground Beneath The Cross

Romans 3:21-31, Romans 3:9-20

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... three times. Then, he turned to the congregation and said, "If I remember geography right, the earth is one-fourth land and three- fourths water. Water reminds me of what is really on my heart-- baptism by immersion." Some folks don't take hints, do they? The Apostle Paul was a bit like that Baptist preacher in that he had a kind of one-track mind. No matter what he talked or wrote about, it seemed to lead back to the Cross. "I determined to know nothing," he said, "but Christ and Him crucified." I share ...

1764. Because He Lives

1 Corinthians 15:12-34

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... ---"It doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're sincere." That truism is a lie which is as dangerous to the church as cancer is to a physical body. What do we Christians believe about resurrection? We say it every Sunday in the Apostles Creed--"...the third day he rose from the dead." Listen to our official United Methodist view from our Book of Discipline, Article III: "Christ did truly rise again from the dead, and took again his body, with all things appertaining to the perfection of man's ...

1765. The Road To Emmaus

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

Brett Blair

... arose; interpreting it to be no other than a command from God to open the book, and read the first chapter I should find... Eagerly then I returned to the place where Alypius (his friend) was sitting; for there had I laid the volume of the Apostle. I seized, opened, and in silence read that section on which my eyes first fell: ‘Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh...’ No further ...

1766. Christ Shall Return

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds..." (Matt. 24:30-31) In both the Nicene and Apostles Creeds we affirm that "Christ shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead." Jesus' second coming is mentioned more than 300 times in the New Testament. This doctrine directly contradicts the secular view that as we educate and liberate people the world ...

1767. The Hiding Angel

1 John 2:28--3:10

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... Jesus Christ more than ever," then surely more of the angel or saint within us will find expression. That's the message of our scriptural lesson for today. It comes from the first letter of John. This letter was not written by John the Apostle but by some later pastor. The letter is a loving and anxious sermon to several churches, probably written around 100 A.D. Pastor John was concerned because these second and third generation Christians were losing some of their enthusiasm and confidence. They had begun ...

1768. You Have Been Subpoenaed!

1 Peter 3:8-22

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... other way to fix our sin- marred lives and to save our eternal souls. Alright, if we know the where and the why of witnessing, let's talk about how to do it. This is the message of our scripture lesson for the morning. This passage was dictated by the Apostle Peter to his trusted secretary Silvanus in Rome about 63 A.D. Rome was at that time a hornet's nest for Christians. In a short time, St. Paul would be executed there. The Emperor Nero was about to burn down the city of Rome and blame it on the ...

1769. A Gospel that Fills the Glove

Sermon

James Bjorge

... this miracle of new life must communicate this glorious fact to all men that all their needs are met in this Jesus who walks and talks through his people today. He said it all, "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly" (John 10:10). And the Apostle Paul bore witness: "And my God shall supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:19).

1770. But Men Loved Darkness

John 3:1-21

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... presented in the Word of God is nonsensical enough that it can be laughed off with impunity, THEN THINK AGAIN! The Greeks were quite sophisticated people also, you know. They couldn’t accept the old Hebrew idea of judgment any more than we can. And so the Apostle John wrote to the Greeks in the Third Chapter of his Gospel in a way that confronts both them and us with a judgment that is inescapable. "This is the judgment," he writes, "that light has come into the world; and men loved darkness better than ...

1771. Well, What Did You Expect?

Acts 12:1-19a

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... they have fallen into the routine of saying prayers that are far below the adult level, or they have abandoned prayer altoghter. Why don’t we get better results in our praying? There’s an interesting little incident in Chapter 12 of the Acts of the Apostles that gives us one answer. Peter, the account tells us, had been cast into prison by Herod, and the Early Church was deeply concerned about its leader, and the account tells us that they prayed unceasingly for his release. One day a group of these ...

1772. Perhaps Next Summer...

Acts 24:1-27

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... perhaps the classic example in Scripture is the character Felix, the Governor of Caesarea, before whom Paul had to defend himself against the false charges that had been brought against him. Instead of defending himself as in a trial, the little apostle stood before the great Felix, ignoring the Governor’s position, ignoring the situation; and he preached with such fervor, conviction and eloquence that we are told that Felix, understanding the justice of the judgment that was to come, trembled. Finally he ...

1773. Fishers of Men

Luke 5:10-11

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

... to fish all night in the Sea of Galilee. Sometimes it was fun but it was also hard work. They also did something else that you may know about. Besides being fishermen, they were also the first (see if you can get them to say disciples or apostles) That's right, they were disciples - pastors or preachers. Jesus said that he wanted them to go right on catching things, only instead of fish he wanted them to get men so that they could tell them about Jesus. That can be hard work too, because sometimes people ...

1774. Growing Up

Judges 17:1-13

Sermon

Michael J. Anton

... against the evils of our times. But this has always been the message of the prophets who were called to speak up for God and often suffered for it. And this message must be sounded until man has turned back to accept the King. We have heard the apostles of permissiveness to the point they make us sick. We hear we have been duped by the puritanism and prudery of the Christian ethic, and instead it is the sacred right and privilege of every human to live without and beyond the old-fashioned restraints of the ...

1775. TEACHER

1 Chron. 25:8; Rom. 2:20

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

... forget the great respect in which the teacher was held. The word "teacher" is frequently used as a term of respect, and is found coupled with "lord" and "king." In Ephesians 4:11, teachers are listed among those who have received divine gifts, and there is no apparent distinction between "apostles" and "teachers." This would seem to indicate that St. Paul gives equal standing to those who are able to instruct in Christian doctrine, and considers them as leaders in the young church.

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