Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 1876 to 1900 of 4997 results

John 14:5-14

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... and the various diseases that he suspected he had contracted and what dire results they might have, and Thoreau wrote and said: "I would stop worrying about your health. I suspect you’re dead already," intending to shock him out of what he knew was a lifeless kind of existence. But such persons are legion. Such dead lives are common among all of us. What is the advice of the world? How does the world tell us to live? Adjust to society; Conform to the pattern; Live an average life; Don’t stick your neck ...

1877. The Embalmed Come Alive

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... which we can have relationship with the Father and the son is through the power of the Holy Spirit. People will say that somehow God seems to have deserted them, that they cannot feel his presence. They never hear his voice talking to them. They are talking the same kind of hogwash as the man who said he was going to sell his waterbed because he felt that he and his wife were drifting apart. God is not drifting away from you. I assure you of that. God is there, and he is speaking through his Spirit. It is ...

1878. Salvation as Personal Experience

Romans 9:30--10:21

Sermon Aid

T. A. Kantonen

... individual, and Christ the living centre of the new environment in which they live."21 While Paul’s own conversion experience, which gave a new center to his life, is at the root of einai en Christo, he uses the phrase to describe various kinds of conduct and attitude. This is not mysticism in the ordinary sense of something solitary, mysterious, ecstatic, or otherworldly. It is "in Christ" or "in the Lord" that Christians not only trust, hope and rejoice but also tell the truth, work, stand firm, agree ...

1879. Salvation as Hope

Romans 13:8-14, 1 Thessalonians 4:13--5:11, 1 Corinthians 15:35-58

Sermon Aid

T. A. Kantonen

... calls into existence the things that do not exist" (Romans 4:17). There is no genuine human existence without a body, but the God who gave me a body suited to earthly existence can also give me a body suited to heavenly existence. There are various kinds of bodies, earthly and heavenly, perishable and imperishable. Yet there is a continuity between the earthly body and the heavenly body just as there is between the seed sown in the ground and the new sprout which rises from it. The prototype of the new body ...

1880. Numbered Hairs

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

Herchel H. Sheets

... as Pierre does at one point in War And Peace. Tolstoy writes, "Pierre felt himself to be an insignificant chip fallen among the wheels of a machine whose action he did not understand but which was working well."9 But none of us can be satisfied with this kind of feeling. We long to know that we matter, that we count, that we have value. Jesus says that we do count, because we are valued by God. We are not valuable just because of some knowledge we have acquired, or because of some virtue we have developed ...

1881. Drastic Surgery

Matthew 5:27-30

Sermon

Herchel H. Sheets

... had used in making the amputation.1 Everything within us revolts at such a deed as that. And though we know that Jesus said, "If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it from you," we have no intention ourselves of taking that kind of action, and we would try to prevent anyone else from doing it, too. A person would have to be out of his or her head to do a thing like that, we would say. Really, what part of our body would be left if we had followed this suggestion ...

1882. Blinding Specks

Matthew 7:1-6

Sermon

Herchel H. Sheets

... Keller was still quite young, she read Macaulay’s Life Of Samuel Johnson. She said that her heart went out "to the lonely man who ate the bread of affliction in Grub Street, and yet, in the midst of toil and cruel suffering of body and soul, always had a kind word, and lent a helping hand to the poor and despised." He had his faults, she knew, but she said, "I rejoiced over all his successes, I shut my eyes to his faults, and wondered, not that he had them, but that they had not crushed or dwarfed his ...

1883. Unlimited Forgiveness

Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon

Herchel H. Sheets

... body of the letter, and then he said this in a postscript: "It’s also useful to think ‘Either X is not as bad as, in my present anger, I think, if not, how unjust I must be. If so, how terribly X needs my prayers.’ "8 That kind of spirit, if one can possess it, carries one a long way on the road to forgiveness. Trying to see the injury in proper perspective may help also. Just before Elizabeth Barrett eloped with Robert Browning, she wrote to Browning about her hopes for future reconciliation with her ...

1884. Cheering Stones

Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

Herchel H. Sheets

... lot of cheering is being done today, but too few are seeing in Christ the One who supremely deserves their cheers. It is tragic, in addition, that some of the cheers raised for him are hollow and merely vocal. He is listening for cheers - indications of one kind and another - that testify that we recognize who he is and the significance of his cause among us. He is listening for cheers that express our appreciation for his work in our lives and in our world. And he is listening for cheers that have in them ...

1885. To Bethlehem and Beyond

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

Leonard Mann

... . And it is written: "They did not understand what he said, and they were afraid to ask him what he meant" (Mark 9:32). At this point I think what I want to say is this: When we learn the language of God, we’d better be prepared for some kind of revelation. I doubt if God deals in inanities. When he speaks, we should expect something more than small talk. What will the revelation be? It may be, as it was to Belshazzar, that you cannot build a kingdom that will last very long if you build it on slavery ...

1886. A Reason For All To Be Thankful

Romans 8:28-39

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... confessed to me at times that what she really wanted was a gun with which to end it all. She noticed painfully when her five- year-old son began distancing from her which was his own subconscious way of dealing with a dying mother. I prayed with a kind of desperation for Jill, and hundreds of other people were praying, too. Then I saw a miracle emerge gradually like a sunrise. It was not what we wanted most, a cure for the illness. But it was a miracle nonetheless. I saw her terror and anger subside. Jill ...

1887. "Almost" Is A Sad Word

Matthew 19:16-30

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... as to who I am?" "Do you know my relationship to God?" In the Living Bible, Jesus' question becomes this statement: "When you call me good, you are calling me God." Jesus was gently probing to see if there was within the young man a smidgen of faith, the kind of faith that could transform his life. We have just entered the year 1996 A.D. "A.D." means in Latin "Anno Domini" or "in the year of our Lord." In our secular society we seldom say "in the year of our Lord." Nevertheless, all of history is divided ...

1888. Crossing Over

Joshua 3:1-4:24

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... . I felt a similar mixture of excitement and anxiety recently, on the golf course, of all places. I was invited to play at Southwinds by two good friends who are excellent golfers. Though I am just a mediocre golfer, I was not too worried. My friends are charitable and kind. I arrived early and was hitting a few balls on the driving range when one of my friends walked up. We greeted one another. Then I asked, "Are we going to have a foursome today, or will just the three of us play?" He replied, "Oh, didn't ...

1889. God Got Personal

Sermon

James Bjorge

... with an affirmation of love. It happens again and again in that way. A letter was recently sent to me from a couple who came back to Iowa to attend the burial of a loved one. The following words were penned: "We have seen the epitome of Christian love and kindness in so many of your flock during our two brief visits. The easing of the burden, the assurance of yet another episode of our being together, did so much to fill the void left by the loss of our loved one. Not enough can be said of the church circle ...

1890. People Who Wear Red...

Acts 10:34

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

... that he had followers among all the peoples of the world. He loved them all. Peter was shocked because he had always believed that God loved the Jews more than anyone else, and now God was telling him that he had the wrong information. God loves all people and all kinds of people love him. You know now that I was kidding about people who wear red. Wouldn’t that be awful if I liked some people more than others just because they wore red? It is a good lesson to learn and remember. God loves us all, and we ...

1891. Be a Good Thermometer

2 Thessalonians 1:12

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

... outside what is going on in the inside. A thermometer is very important to a doctor. In a way we are thermometers for Christianity. People can tell a lot about our church and what our church thinks of Jesus by watching us. If we are full of love, kindness and enthusiasm about Jesus, then people will think a lot about Jesus and the things that he teaches. If we are rather cool and uninterested toward Jesus, then they will know that we don’t think that he is very important. When we are filled with Jesus, we ...

1892. Were You There?

Mark 2:23-3:6

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

... book.) How many of you have ever seen an attendance book? Lots of you have seen this kind of book. Is this the same kind of a book that your Church School Teacher uses and your school teacher uses? Sure it is. They write your name in the book and then when you ... are absent she puts another kind of mark that tells her you have missed. This way the teacher remembers your name and when you attend class. When the teacher ...

1893. Freedom Can Be Frightening

Leviticus 25:8-55

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... one left. There are other signs of the dangers of liberty. Washington, whom we like to call the "Father of our Country," told us in his Farewell Address that "the foundation of the republic is morality." We have always naively assumed that there was some kind of national, secular ethic that would supply that morality, buried right in the fabric of the nation, somehow, just as secure as the gold that we thought we had at Fort Knox. But social scandals of the past twenty years should convince anyone that this ...

1894. Chapter III

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Frank H. Seilhamer

... first thing we do when we meet strangers is tell them who we are. That act would have been unthinkable then. To give your name was to open yourself up to the scrutiny of another. Since names were given at birth to describe what a baby was like, or what kind of person his parents hoped he would become, to know its name would be to get an insight into that person’s personal make up. Names were not given then just because they sounded nice when matched up with the family name. To give your name, then, was to ...

1895. Chapter VI

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Frank H. Seilhamer

... . And the reason God did that was to bring the man into being in order to live, and develop, and grow. God did not go to all of the trouble fashioning the man to have the life impulse he gave to him squeezed out of him by another of his kind when he came along. Man had been "thought up" and "put together" to inhabit the Lord’s earth and in the process learn what it means to be a man, especially God’s man. And God wanted that learning, developing, and maturing process to last for a long time, because ...

1896. Is It Wrong for Us to Brag?

Luke 18:14

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

... to have the warm weather. Say, I brought some friends with me today. Well - at least one of them is a friend. The other is kind of a big blow-hard, if you know what I mean. Do you know what you call these? (Hold up paper sacks or bags) Sacks, ... . I give my sacks names like Mike, Henry, Pete, etc. You know what I mean? Well anyway, this sack is called George and George is kind of funny. I mean, he never wants do anything but talk about himself and only listens when someone else is talking about him. We call ...

1897. God Is Like a Circle

Luke 10:25

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

... of sad? Most of you will be going back to school soon and all of your free days will be coming to an end. And, you know, your little brothers and sisters will be sorry to see school start again because they’ll miss you and their world will be kind of quiet. Almost all good things come to an end, don’t they? Even vacations. Some people would say that everything comes to an end but I have something here this morning that doesn’t begin or end and it’s very important for us to know about it because ...

1898. Let the Son Shine in

1 John 1:5--2:14

Sermon

Michael J. Anton

... God. We don’t really care too much for exams when it comes to our faith. We shy away from the subject. We plead a kind of spiritual fifth amendment, knowing only too well that anything we say might incriminate us. But John will not let us get away that easily. ... To hold back is to lie; it is to live apart from the truth. And it is to make God himself a liar. This kind of confession is painful at best, but it is not degrading. Because when it is sincere, we receive forgiveness and cleansing from God. The ...

1899. Free to Be

Acts 4:23-31

Sermon

Michael J. Anton

... God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard." That’s the kind of answer that keeps us free. But I am afraid for my security and safety. If I put my life where my mouth is, I run ... religious thoughts. When I came home to share those conversations around our table, my father would issue a stern warning, that I had best stop that kind of talk or I would be without a job. My fear for my own security can be a great enemy, and it can enslave me. ...

1900. Judgement Day Is Coming

Matthew 13:24-30, Matthew 13:36-43, Matthew 13:47-52

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... liberal Methodist lady in his conference named Tess Hoover. One day Tess said to him, "Bishop, you're so conservative that you probably believe in the devil." "Yes I do," he said, "and I don't like her at all." A SECOND TRUTH IS THIS: GOD IS PATIENT AND KIND. In Jesus' parable, the owner of the farm does not clean out the weeds right away. God is amazingly patient with us sinners. Listen to this word from II Peter 3:9: "The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with ...

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