Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 1801 to 1825 of 2561 results

1801. Made, Lost, And Found

1 John 1:1-4

Sermon

Mark J. Molldrem

The most personal question anyone can ask is "Who am I?" It is the fundamental question of our human existence. Who is this person whose face reflects in the mirror every morning? Who is this person who laughs and cries, who works and plays, who eats and drinks and goes to the bathroom? Who is this person who hears and sees, smells, tastes and touches the world around? In one of his delightful books, Horton Hatches an Egg, Dr. Seuss portrays the agonizing search for an answer to this question. Horton, the ...

1802. Pentecost Communion Meditation: Monologue Of A Saint

Acts 2:42-47, Acts 2:14-41

Drama

Dr. Raymond Bailey

Theme: The Holy Spirit has, through the years, drawn us to Christ, that He might make us saints and family. Setting: Like Abraham, I set out on a journey. After twenty years teaching in a United Methodist Church college setting, I grew restless, but still did not know what to do with the rest of my life. For one year, I took a part-time appointment, a two-church circuit, 65 miles from my home in Lakeland, Florida. I had no idea whether I was up to the task of returning to the pastorate. How does one ...

1803. Structure And Clarity

Sermon

Michael Rogness

I understand the stories the pastor told and thought they were interesting, but I couldn't see how the sermon fit together. -- A 15-year-old's comment during the writing of this book Many sermons with good material fall flat simply because the audience doesn't follow the flow of the message. With today's audience listening superficially with a short attention span, there are some basic principles one can use so that the sermon will be (a) heard, (b) understood and (c) remembered. Our View And Their View ...

1804. Prayers for Divine Signs

Mark 13:1-31, 1 Samuel 2:1-11

Bulletin Aid

B. David Hostetter

Call to Worship Let us proclaim how mighty are the deeds of God, how glorious is the majesty of God's realm. Prayer of Confession Glorious God, Divine Human, Eternal Spirit, we get so mired in the stuff of every day that we rarely see visions and dream dreams. We are busy about daily routines for making a living and so preoccupied with the immediate that we do not look for signs of your judgment nor the changing seasons of divine history. Forgive our sins and wicked deeds for the sake of Christ's offering ...

1805. The Wisdom In Waiting

Luke 12:35-48

Sermon

W. Robert McClelland

"Fear not!" Jesus says. These are the same words spoken by the angels to the Bethlehem shepherds on the occasion of his first coming. Now they are used to speak of his second coming. The reason why we need not fear is because God's good pleasure is to give us the kingdom. We cannot earn it. We cannot build it. It is a gift of grace. Despite all the evidence to the contrary and all attempts to oppose it, the promise has been made. The kingdom of God is on the way. We are to wait for it and be ready. The ...

1806. Two Doors; One Choice

Luke 13:22-30

Sermon

W. Robert McClelland

In The Lady And The Tiger, Frank Stoc_esermonskton sets before the reader the dilemma of a gladiator who faces his fate in the arena standing before two doors. He must choose which of them to open. Behind one door waits a hungry tiger. Behind the other, a lovely maiden. Jesus presents us with a similar dilemma in this parable. Behind one door to the kingdom waits the tiger of divine wrath. Behind the other door stands the fair maiden of grace. The parable is offered in response to the worried question, ...

1807. Proper 16

Luke 13:22-30, Isaiah 28:1-29, Isaiah 66:1-24, Jeremiah 28:1-17, Hebrews 12:1-13

Sermon Aid

George Bass

THEOLOGICAL CLUE Depending on the lectionary being followed and the calendar of this particular year, Holy Cross Day will soon be celebrated. It's a festival that is relatively new to many Protestants, but quite familiar to Roman Catholics. To celebrate the cross and the crucifixion of Christ in August or September seems like a liturgical anachronism; Jesus' passion and death are remembered annually in the spring of the year, along with Easter, of course. But Holy Cross day comes at a propitious time in ...

1808. Good News From A Graveyard

John 20:1-9

Sermon

John M. Braaten

If wild applause was ever in order in the church, Easter is the time. It is a day for Christians to cheerfully celebrate Christ's victory over death. Clearly the dominant mood in our worship this morning is joy. It is a day for breaking out the band, clapping hands and singing, "Hallelujah!" But if you ever read the gospel accounts of the resurrection, you discover an unusual thing; the first reaction of the men and women who came to the tomb was not joy - it was bewilderment and fear! The immediately ...

1809. Where To Go When You Grieve

Matthew 14:1-12

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

Death in Mid-life This funeral sermon was preached for a forty-year-old member of my congregation; he died after an illness of six weeks, leaving a wife and two teenage daughters. What do you do and where do you go when a loved one dies? Where do you go when you have a pain in your heart that no physician can cure? Where do you go when you feel like you've swallowed a stone? Where do you go when the heaviness of your grief is like a staggering load? Where do you go when tears run down like rain on your ...

1810. Advent's "Invisible" Man

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

The idea of-the invisibility in our culture is no new thing. The great H.G. Wells wrote a book called The Invisible Man. In it he imaginatively explores the development of a professor's ingenious use of science to effect his own invisibility. Invisibility becomes a metaphor for invincibility. His becoming invisible is by his own choosing. He literally disappears with the ingestion of a certain chemical solution, which eventually drives him insane. The point here is this man, Griffin, chooses to become ...

1811. A Handful Of Dandelions

Drama

Timothy W. Ayers

Topic: Mother's Day, motherhood, joy of children Characters: One woman Props: Bouquet of dandelions Scene: A house, no scenery needed Mother: (She is holding a bunch of dandelions in her hands) All through high school, I couldn't wait until prom night when I would get a corsage of beautiful flowers. They smelled so sweet. I still have some of those things pressed away in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. Filed under the letter of the boy who took me. I guess I'm a little silly about it all. I think it's ...

1812. The Best Offense Is A Good Defense

Zephaniah 3:1-20

Sermon

Richard Hasler

Reading the title you may jump to the conclusion that I do not know football. To be sure, the saying usually goes: “The best defense is a good offense.” But consider the plight of Joe Paterno when he became head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions in 1967. He realized that he did not have a squad of outstanding athletes, particularly defensive players. To Paterno, defense was the key to winning football games. What was he to do? In his own words: “I had to find a way of playing great defense without ...

1813. The Road To Samaria

John 4:5-42

Sermon

Thomas A. Pilgrim

When I was growing up we had a joke in our family about my father's shortcuts. Whenever we were off on a trip somewhere he always knew a quicker way to get there, or back home. I remember one time when I was about 10 years old we were on the way home one night. My father decided to take one of his shortcuts. He made a turn to the left, went around a curve, took the first right, then back to the left, and we wound up in the middle of a cornfield. At one point in his ministry Jesus was in the area of Judea. ...

1814. Improving Your Serve

Isaiah 49:1-7

Sermon

Robert Beringer

Charles Swindoll in his popular book, Improving Your Serve, tells of how he was at first haunted and then convicted by the Bible's insistence that Jesus came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many (Mark 10:45)." The more he studied what the Bible says about servanthood, the more convinced Swindoll became that our task in this world, like that of Jesus, is not to be served, not to grab the spotlight, and not to become successful or famous or powerful or idolized. Our calling ...

1815. Religion's Built-in Hazard

Isaiah 58:1-14

Sermon

Robert Beringer

A Japanese legend says a pious Buddhist monk died and went to heaven. He was taken on a sightseeing tour and gazed in wonder at the lovely mansions built of marble and gold and precious stones. It was all so beautiful, exactly as he pictured it, until he came to a large room that looked like a merchant's shop. Lining the walls were shelves on which were piled and labeled what looked like dried mushrooms. On closer examination, he saw they were actually human ears. His guide explained that these were the ...

1816. Ooo Boy!

Matthew 5:33-37, Matthew 5:31-32

Sermon

John Jamison

I don't know what started the argument. I don't know if anyone really knows what started the argument. In all honesty, it doesn't matter. I think we all know that most arguments never end up where they end up because of where they started. It might have started over some disagreement over the children. It might have begun over something about the in-laws, or perhaps it was her cooking again. Who knows. But it really doesn't matter how it started, what matters is that it has suddenly gotten very quiet in ...

1817. Chosen By God

Ruth 4:1-12

Sermon

Sims Robert

All of us love to be chosen. It is a wonderful thing to be chosen. A teen-age boy tried out for the basketball team. When the coach posted the list of those who had made the team, he was thrilled to discover that the coach had chosen him. A young woman was one of 75 applicants for a high-paying job. She exclaimed with great excitement in her voice, “Of all the applicants, they chose me.” A young friend who had made application to the Naval Academy announced with great pride that out of the hundreds who had ...

1818. Captive To The Word Of God

John 8:31-41

Sermon

Theodore F. Schneider

The Zealots had made a courageous stand, holding off General Silva and his elite Roman legion for more than a year. Jerusalem had already fallen months ago, and the mesa named Masada, along the west coast of the Dead Sea, was the site of the last pocket of Jewish resistance. Come morning, that, too, would change. The wooden walls were burning, and within the day's first light the Roman battering ram would begin again and make its final assault upon the weakened walls and gates. The leader of the 960 men, ...

1819. Is It Hard To Believe?

Sermon

Erskine White

Texts: Luke 24:1-12; 1 Corinthians 15:12-22 If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and all your faith is in vain.(1 Corinthians 15:14) When Jesus was asked to heal a boy who had suffered seizures since his birth, our Lord said to the boy's father, "All things are possible to those who believe." And the boy's father said to Jesus, "I believe; help Thou my unbelief" (Mark 9:23-24). I wonder how many of us want to say those words as we come to the empty tomb this Easter morning: "Lord, ...

1820. Checking The Vital Signs

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

Jerry L. Schmalemberger

It was Easter Sunday. One thousand, seven hundred fifty showed up for worship that day. Boy, was this place full! And it really felt good. We sang some of the same hymns as today. I gave the kids red Easter eggs and my sermon title was: “Don’t Be Alarmed.” The main idea was that Christ is alive and with us, so there need not be any event or situation in our lives here that should scare us. In addition, even at our death and the death of the people we love, we need not have any fear since Christ has come ...

1821. Our Time Will Come!

1 Samuel 16:14-23

Sermon

Donald Zelle

Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him. And Saul's servants said to him, "Behold now, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. Let our lord now command your servants, who are before you, to seek out a man who is skilful in playing the lyre; and when the evil spirit from God is upon you, he will play it, and you will be well." So Saul said to his servants, "Provide for me a man who can play well, and bring him to me." One of the young men answered, " ...

1822. Recollections of Abdul, Camel Boy for An Eastern Potentate

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

Drama

Robert A. Morgan

Dramatic Monologue I'm glad I'm home. That's the first thing for me to say. I'm really glad I'm home. What with one thing and another, there were many moments - even hours and days - when I was not sure I would ever see home again! And considering what home is for me now, and what home life is like now, it's a wonder I'm so glad to be back. But I am glad. For more reasons than I can count, I'm glad to be home again. The other thing for me to say right at the outset is that I'm glad I went. I am so very ...

1823. Changing The Rules

Mark 7:1-23

Sermon

Robert Salzgeber

When I was a camp director the rules of long established and understood games were constantly being changed in order to incorporate a larger sphere of players. For the same reason Jesus said, "You have a clever way of rejecting God's law in order to uphold your own teaching." Jesus had a knack for constantly changing the rules of the game of life in order to incorporate a larger sphere of people in his kingdom net. One such game where the rules were often changed was volleyball. Volleyball is a well- ...

1824. Fishers of Men

Luke 5:1-11

Children's Sermon

Brett Blair

Exegetical Aim: The evangelistic nature of Christianity. Props: A fishing pole or rod with no line. Lesson: [Two volunteers from the congregation to act like caught fish. The chairs of the evangelism committee and the outreach committee would be a good tie in. Otherwise, choose a male and female to represent the fish.] I have a question for you this morning. What do I have in my hand? (a fishing pole) What do you do with a fishing pole? (you catch fish with it) That's right. How many of you have been ...

1825. Bold Talk Of Faith

Job 23:1--24:25

Sermon

John P. Rossing

One of Gary Larson's The Far Side cartoons is called "God at his computer." It shows God with long white hair and beard watching a computer screen where an unlucky-looking fellow is walking down a sidewalk with a piano suspended by a cable over his head. God's hand is on the computer keyboard, and his finger is hovering over a key labeled "SMITE."3 The cartoon suggests two things about God's way of determining a person's fate: first, that God is impersonal and inaccessible. God with his finger on the smite ...

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