Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 1876 to 1900 of 3852 results

1876. Christ Signs The Letter Of The Church

Colossians 1:15-23

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... of universal life, he now presents Him as the source of that new life which is operative in the Church. The church as the body of Christ was Paul's favorite metaphor. To be such an expression, the church must remember two things: (1) the church originated with Christ; the church is Christ's doing, not ours; (2) the Church depends on Christ continually as the source of energy and power. He is the head of the church, not merely in the sense of being the most important member or having control; but rather ...

1877. The Game Is For A Team

Colossians 4:7-18

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... , playing a unique sound. In the Narthex of our new Chapel, there is going to be a magnificent window. It's unlike the beautiful stained glass windows inside the Chapel, but I believe it will be equally commanding. This window is an anonymous gift. Originally the donors thought about honoring a long-time beloved member of this church, now dead, whose family does not have the resources for such a memorial; but then the donors thought that would be inappropriate. Finally they said to me, "What we really want ...

1878. How May We Come To God?

Psalm 24:1-10

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... of Hosts, strong and mighty in battle." "Then open the gates and the ancient doors," would come the shout, and the response, "that the King of Glory may come in." Then the procession moved into the holy city, and the great celebration began. That was the original setting. Now, the Psalm lives on, recited now by faithful Jews as the first act of awakening on the first day of each week. It is used by more liturgical Christians world-wide on what we call Ascension Day. Many churches in the Reform tradition ...

1879. In A Mirror Dimly

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... church triumphant. This is All Saints Sunday -- and on this day we celebrate the memory of those of our membership who have passed into glory during this past year. Actually, All Saints Day is November 1st. This Christian festival, which is celebrated world-wide, originated in the seventh century. At that time, Pope Boniface IV, converted the Pantheon in Rome into a Christian place of worship. He dedicated it to the Virgin and all the martyrs. Later this feast day evolved into a time to honor all the saints ...

1880. A Sovereign God With A Shepherd's Heart

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... there shall be no end" (1: 32, 33). Likewise, Zachariah and his prophecy speaks of Jesus as a horn of salvation raised up by God in the House of David (1:69). Nor is this a little local colloquialism which came from Christ's Palestinian Jewish origin, but which disappeared when the Christian Gospel moved into the Gentile world: It remained an essential part of the Gospel. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, described the Gospel as "...the Gospel of God...concerning his son who was born of the seed of David ...

1881. And God Breathed Into Man

Genesis 2:4-25

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... is of the same substance as the animal and vegetable world, formed of the "dust of the ground". His existence is dependent upon the breath of life which he has only as the gift of God. Even the name by which he is called is derived from his humble origin. The Hebrew word for man is Adam; the word for ground is Adamah. III. We are creatures among creatures, yet we have been given dominion. Now a final word. We are creatures in the image of God -- God has breathed his breath into us and made us living souls ...

1882. The Rest Of The Story

Genesis 3:1-24

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... God had made." How the serpent came to be there, and how evil got into the human environment, is not the concern of this sermon. Our concern is to recognize that evil is there. It's obvious that Satan assumes many forms. We think of him as originally being a snake. But I was puzzled one time when I saw a pen and ink drawing of The Fall by Rembrandt. The artist had pictured Satan as a grotesque dragon, half hidden among the branches of the forbidden tree, with wings and claws, while below an apprehensive ...

1883. I Am Christ's

2 Corinthians 5:17

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... will tell you. They've been as racist as any of us -- but something new is operating within them -- a new source of strength. Remember the story I repeated in the beginning -- about three year old Ryan -- and Jesus walking around inside. On Monday after I originally told that story two weeks ago, Tom Marino, our Director of Youth Ministries, told me a similar experience he had had with his four-year old son, Thomas. Thomas is very special. He often prays for me by name even without his parents suggesting it ...

1884. The Nuclear Truth Of Christianity

Ephesians 2:1-10

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... is God's grace effective in our life. "What is the nature of the response that makes mind's life this fear of God's action. For God never violates human personality. He never intrudes himself where he is not wanted. He took risks with man in his original creation by giving him freedom of choice; he continues to respect the free choice of man to accept or to reject his grace. Man's positive response to God's grace is faith. "by grace you have been saved -- through faith." "Faith is openness toward God. It is ...

1885. The Ministry Of Making Many Rich

1 Timothy 6:11-21

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... prosperity gospel.” The prosperity gospel says that our faith can insure our bank accounts. In fact, the picture is often painted in such extremity that the poor are completely left out of God’s economy. The prosperity gospel is a perversion, and I’m not sure the origin of it is not out of the very pits of Hell. Yet, here I am saying that the call of the Christian is to be rich. Now, before you jump to conclusions about that, and about what you are hearing, listen again to our second scripture lesson ...

1886. Count It All Joy

James 1:1-18

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... discipleship, or as I said earlier, a manual of practical Christianity. We are going to take twelve Sundays to move through it. Our approach is going to be to center on the crisp, pungent truths that fall one after another. Some believe that the Epistle was originally a sermon or sermons preached by James, the brother of our Lord, and then recorded in this fashion. In fact, there is one theory of authorship which has it that this was a sermon preached by James in his Aramaic tongue, taken down by someone ...

1887. Swift To Hear -- Slow To Speak

James 1:19-27

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... , their religion is useless. But in this particular section of Chapter 3, he goes even further than that. Always skillful with language and metaphor, he boldly announces that "the tongue is a fire." It has the ability to poison the entire body. And he says the origin of that fire is Hell itself. That's colorful language -- but hardly an overstatement. He uses two colorful images to talk about the tongue: "bits in a horse's mouth" and "the rudder of a ship". He words it in this way -- Listen to verses 3 ...

1888. What Is Your Life?

James 4:13-17

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... every parent knows they always are, that they hear everything that we say, and so he bounds up on the porch, and says, "What do you mean, Grandmother? -- I'm so glad you decided to have little Gettis." And at that point he learned something about his origins that he had never known before. His mother was 48 when she had conceived him. She had read all the literature about the problems that attend a pregnancy when the mother is of that age, and therefore they had gotten in dialogue with the family doctor and ...

1889. The Church Of Our Dreams

Ephesians 4:1-16

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... Church. If you are not a member, what are you looking for in a church? Though these are all rhetorical questions, I'd really like to know the answer. I've been thinking about devising some sort of questionnaire that would give us that sort of data. My original idea when I planned my preaching schedule was for this sermon to be a sort of "state of the church" message. I'm not really comfortable with that. It doesn't set well with me to turn the Sunday morning sermon into a CEO's Report to the Stockholders ...

1890. The Whole Load

Luke 6:27-36

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... the notion of calculated giving or manipulative behavior. He's not calling us to the sort of studied behavior that asks: "What's in it for me?" There's too much of that kind of selfishness built into us. In fact, that may be a part of our original sin, always asking, "What's in it for me?" Jesus is talking about a way of living that is clearly like himself -- always extending ourselves for the sake of others -- but when that is our style, amazingly, the blessings come back to us. It's the overflow of ...

1891. More Tolerable For Sodom And Gomorrah

Luke 10:1-24

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... So, the wickedness of Sodom is set forth so emphatically that it's name has become proverbial--"a very Sodom." So, Jesus' word is a terribly harsh one. "I tell you, it shall be more tolerable on that day for Sodom than for that town." When I originally planned this sermon, in my general plan of preaching, while on study leave back in April, I was not aware that this particular sermon would fall on the Sunday following the Fourth of July. Back then, my working title for the sermon was "Shake the Dust Shuffle ...

1892. I Saw Satan Fall

Luke 10:1-24

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... I’d like to come here to take care of me and my folks.” (Don Shelby, Final Evaluations) Isn’t that beautiful? And it hints at what I am saying. We can be so at one with Christ that Christ will live and act through us. Go back to my original question now—the question with which we began: Has there been a time in your life when Jesus, looking at your life and ministry, has said, “I saw Satan fall?” Maybe you can begin to answer the question now. For Satan falls when a person trusts Jesus with his ...

1893. A Pattern For Giving And Living

2 Corinthians 8:1-15

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... are.3. The giving that counts for eternity is the giving of ourselves. "Out of the period of the Civil War, there comes a tale that sums this up. A shack just off the highway had housed a hermit for more than a generation following the War. The hermit's origin had become a legend. Essentially it told the story of his past. During the War, the man's father, who could not bear sending his son off to war, had paid another man to serve for that son. The War ground to its close, and most of the others from ...

1894. The Grace Question: Are You A Teacher...and Yet Do Not Understand?

John 3:1-21

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... on in." Nicodemus didn't understand that. "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet do not understand these things?" The question still remains. Despite the witness of scripture and our experience, we continue to question grace. Maybe it has something to do with our original sin. It certainly has a lot to do with our pride and perverted self-sufficiency. So, let's think about it. I. Focus first on that phrase that shocked Nicodemus. "You must be born again." I was talking to a person recently, and he referred ...

1895. The Commitment Question: Will You Lay Down Your Life For Me?

John 13:31-38

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... , p.25, John R. Kelly, "Do You Know?") The commitment question is the one that Jesus would ask: "Will you make My will your will? Will you allow me to sit on the throne?" II The second question is this: "Will you make my style your style?" When I originally planned this sermon series, I intended to deal with another question Jesus asked earlier in this chapter 13 of John's Gospel, verse 12: Listen to it: After He had washed their feet, had put on His robe, and had returned to the table, He said to them, "Do ...

1896. The Easter Question: Why Are You Weeping? Whom Do You Seek?

John 20:1-18

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... us an ongoing life with Him for eternity. A number of years ago there appeared in The Los Angeles Times a poignant story of a four and one-half year old girl named Katie Sleeman, a patient at Children's Hospital, who was dying of cancer. "She had originally been diagnosed as a seven-week-old baby with retinoblastoma a cancerous tumor in the eye. She lost both eyes, and despite the best that medical science could do for her, a tumor appeared near her brain and it could not be removed. So Katie suffered more ...

1897. Food That Is Needful

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... of the Empty House." In the parable, Jesus expelled a demon from a man's life. The man's house is now empty. He didn't replace the evil force with anything else. After wandering and looking for another dwelling place, the demon finding none, returned to his original dwelling. The man's life, which the devil calls "my house", is empty. No other tenant has replaced him, so the demon occupies it again and brings seven other demons with him. The old farmer was wise and right. The only way to get rid of devilish ...

1898. Through God's Breathed Word

2 Timothy 3:10--4:8

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... , for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for good work. I read recently of a monkey escaping from a zoo. They found him in the library with two books -- the Bible and Darwin's Origin of the Species. What he was trying to do was to find out whether he was his brother's keeper or his keeper's brother. Now that's a crucial issue -- how we use the Bible, how we perceive it, whether we take it seriously enough to apply ...

1899. Clean Hands

Mark 7:1-23

Sermon

King Duncan

... , that's us. They didn't want to be tainted by contact with slimy, creepy, crawly creatures like you and me. You see, we were once on the outside looking in. If we could see ourselves as those who were once discriminated against because of our ethnic origins, we might be slower to discriminate against others. But there is another side to the Pharisees' actions. Psalm 24:3-4a reads, "Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place?" The answer:"Those who have clean hands and pure ...

1900. From Hurting to Helping

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

King Duncan

... ." It was many years ago, in January 1882, that this hymn first appeared in Life and Work, the official paper of the Church of Scotland. You may recall that the third stanza of the hymn pursues the theme of the rainbow. It is interesting that in the original version Matheson wrote: "I climb the rainbow in the rain." Somewhere along the way this was improved with the line we know: "I trace the rainbow through the rain." But, as Dr. Daniel Lioy points out, first of all the blind poet was climbing the rainbow ...

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