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Showing 1951 to 1975 of 4933 results

1951. His Triumphal Entry

Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

Brett Blair

Seven days changed the world. These seven days have been the topic of a million of publications, countless debates, and thousands of films. These seven days have inspired the greatest painters, the most skilled architects, and the most gifted musicians. To try and calculate the cultural impact of these seven days is impossible. But harder still would be an attempt to account for the lives of men and women who have been transformed by them. And yet these seven days as they played out in Jerusalem were of ...

1952. His Death

Luke 23:26-43

Sermon

Brett Blair

We are continuing our Lenten series on the Passion of the Christ, the last week of the life of Jesus. We are nearing Easter. On the first Sunday of Lent we looked at the events of Sunday when he enters Jerusalem on the donkey fulfilling the Messianic prophecy of Zechariah. It was a day of celebration. On Monday Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, curses the fig tree, and clears the Temple of the moneychangers. It is a day of emotions. Tuesday was the day of teaching, a day of critics questions. Wednesday was the ...

1953. Good Friday: The Three Crosses

John 18:1-11

Sermon

Brett Blair

The Cross. It struck fear in the hearts of the world. It was Rome’s means of controlling the people. According to Roman custom, the penalty of crucifixion was always preceded by scourging; after this preliminary punishment, the condemned person had to carry the cross, or at least the transverse beam of it, to the place of execution, exposed to the jibes and insults of the people. On arrival at the place of execution the cross was uplifted. Soon the sufferer, entirely naked, was bound to it with cords. He ...

1954. Wise Leadership

1 Kings 2:1-12, 3:1-15

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Solomon. The third king of Israel. The son of David and Bathsheba. Solomon is remembered for a number of things: his building program which included Jerusalem's original magnificent Temple, his immense wealth generated through trade and administrative reorganization, his 700 wives and 300 concubines (or PORcupines, as some Sunday School students will tell you), and his legendary wisdom, the result of the prayer we read in our lesson. If there is any single story commonly remembered of King Solomon it is ...

1955. The Pitcher Is Not Alone In This

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

Sermon

King Duncan

A bright yellow highway department truck creeps along a quiet, city street. A worker slowly climbs out of the truck and laboriously digs a large hole between the sidewalk and the street. A few minutes later, a second worker gets out, fills in the hole, and tamps down the dirt. A few yards down the street they repeat the same procedure, then again and again. An elderly lady has been watching. She walks over and asks, "What in the world are you doing?" One of the workers says, "We're on an urban ...

1956. A Soap Opera For Saints

2 Samuel 11:1-27

Sermon

King Duncan

Guin Ream Tuckett was asked to teach a junior high Sunday School class. All went well until she reached the lessons on sex. This is not a subject that is easy for adults working with this particular age group to broach. Although Guin worked out a well-balanced, Biblically-based lesson, her kids seemed pretty uninterested. That is, until one kid asked if there were sex stories in the Bible. Guin assured them that there were both good and bad examples of sex represented in the Good Book. Now she had their ...

1957. Dressed For The Wedding

Matthew 22:1-14

Sermon

King Duncan

Lyn Cryderman decided he was tired of the dark, depressing clothes that he had become accustomed to wearing clothes that most men in business wear every day. So one day he worked up enough courage to tell his wife, Esther, he needed a new look. Maybe something that wasn't so conservative. So Esther, with unbounded style-threatening enthusiasm, went on a sartorial mission for her beloved husband. It wasn't long before Lyn noticed a stack of unfamiliar clothes on his side of the closet. As he pulled a ...

1958. A Great Love Story Gone Awry

Genesis 24:1-67

Sermon

King Duncan

Comedians have a field day with the subject of marriage. The jokes probably number in the thousands. Rita Rudner used this classic: “My mother buried three husbands.” Then she adds, “And two of them were just napping.” One woman said to a friend: “I’m in trouble. I broke my husband’s favorite golf club.” “What did he say?” her friend asked. The first woman smiled and replied, “He said, ‘What hit me?’” Erma Bombeck had this to say: “People are always asking couples whose marriages have endured at least a ...

1959. I THIRST: The Fifth Word

John 19:28-37

Sermon

Eric Ritz

We continue on our journey today as we examine and reflect on--for our spiritual edification--"The Fifth Word" of our Lord Jesus Christ from the cross. So far, we have heard our Lord share these words from the cross: First he said, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." Then he promised the repentant thief, "Today you will be with me in Paradise." He committed the care of His mother, Mary, to his closest friend John. Last week we heard that powerful cry from the cross "My God, My God, why ...

1960. Sowing Good Seed - Father's Day

Mark 4:26-29

Sermon

King Duncan

Today we honor our fathers. And that's good. Dads don't get much respect nowadays. A doting father used to sing his little children to sleep. He even learned a few lullabies to lend some variety to the task. This was something he could do at night to help his wife out. And he kept up this task until one night he overheard his four-year-old give her younger sibling this advice, "If you pretend you're asleep," she said, "he stops." That was the end of the lullabies. Garrison Keillor, on his "Writer’s Almanac ...

1961. In the Darkness of Uncertainty, There Is the Light of Wonder

Luke 2:8-20

Sermon

Thomas A. Pilgrim

William Sloane Coffin, Jr., was, for several years, the pastor at Riverside Church in New York City. In his autobiography, he told of going back to France and visiting some of the places where he had been in World War II. One of those places was the town of Sainte-Mère-Eglise. The 82nd Airborn Division had dropped into that town. While there for his visit, the mayor showed William around. They went inside the village church. The mayor pointed to a beautiful stained-glass window that depicted the 82nd ...

1962. Inward, Upward, Outward

Romans 9:30--10:21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Stuck in an endless traffic snarl the other day I punched on the radio just to hear another voice. The news channel was just finishing up a long in-depth report on the nasty mad-cow threat. Mad cow meat. Cancer causing farm fish. Avian flu chicken. What's left to eat any more? Pretty soon they'll find deadly bacteria on broccoli. The radio news channel, staying on the theme of American eating habits, moved on to a special segment on obese kids. Because of obesity, "This may be the first generation of ...

1963. When God Speaks You Better Listen

Jonah 1:1-17

Sermon

James Merritt

There is an old saying that "truth is stranger than fiction." Many times that is true. The book of Jonah proves that very point. When a man catches a fish, we accept that as truth. But if a fish catches a man, we would think that is fiction. Jonah is a story of truth that sounds like fiction. One reason I know it is true is because Jesus Christ believed it was true. He said in Matt. 12:40-41: "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days ...

1964. Soulistic Health

Mark 5:21-43

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Jesus calls each one of us to be whole. But what does "whole" mean? How are "whole" and "soul" related? No matter that the much touted "health-care reform" package of a few years ago never made it out of Congress. We are still living in the middle of a tremendous health-care revolution. Health insurance might still be a quagmire, Medicaid still inadequate, but the way we think about our health has changed radically in the past two decades. Most of us now realize that we cannot be truly healthy if we ...

1965. Household of Faith

II Timothy 1:3-7

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

As speaker and author, Tony Campolo, tells the story, it happened during a sophisticated academic gathering at the University of Pennsylvania which neither he nor his wife wanted to attend. During their mixing among the faculty, a sociology professor came up to Mrs. Campolo and said, “What do you do for a living?" Mrs. Campolo, feeling the compelling task of raising children, gave this reply, “I am socializing two homosapiens into the dominant values of the Judeo-Christian tradition in order that they ...

1966. The Power to Look Up

Luke 24:44-53

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

He lived in a shack on the edge of town. He wore overalls to church before casual dress was cool. He didn't own a car; he didn't have job. As a sixteen-year-old kid, fresh from the courthouse with my driver's license, it became my privilege to drive Porter home from church on Sunday. I would pull into Porter's driveway. He would get out of the car and then as if it were an afterthought, although he never failed to do it, Porter would peek back into the car and say, “Keep looking up, Bubby, keep looking up ...

1967. Encountering Incomparable Riches

Ephesians 2:4-10

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

A little over 100 years ago things were hard for Americans. Economic depression caused many banks and businesses to fail. The average family had a hard time making ends meet. It was about that time that someone discovered gold in Alaska. People by the thousands made their way to this treacherous northwest territory trying to strike it rich. If you have visited Skagway, Alaska, and taken a ride on the White Pass Railroad you have seen first hand the tremendous sacrifices people made searching for a richer ...

1968. Thanks for the Memory, Bob

John 6:24-35

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Several years ago, America paused to mark the passing of a great man. Kudos and compliments came by the boatload. No, it was not someone who brought world peace or cured cancer or accomplished some incredible feat. This was the man they called the "Entertainer of the Century," Bob Hope. As Woody Allen noted, "It's hard for me to imagine a world without Bob Hope in it." I suspect there are millions of others who would echo that, especially those who, as young men and women in uniform around the world at ...

1969. Looking for the Child of Bethlehem

Luke 2:1-7

Drama

Arley K. Fadness

Theme: Searching for the newborn babe Characters: Leader Asher Innkeeper (nonspeaking) Innkeeper’s Wife (nonspeaking) Innkeeper’s Child (nonspeaking) Joseph (nonspeaking) Mary (nonspeaking) Shepherds (two or three, nonspeaking) Shopper 1 Shopper 2 Carolers (six to eight) Child Reader 1 Reader 2 Tone: Devotional, thoughtful, joyful ending Setting/Props: Appropriate biblical costumes Simple stable scene Papers Shopping bags for Shoppers Stools Approximate time: 15-30 minutes Production notes: Asher may use a ...

1970. Wise Leadership

1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14

Sermon

Donna Schaper

Solomon asks for the right thing: He asks for wisdom. He asks for it from a very humble place, the place of knowing that he is but a child and still he has been put in charge of large things. Leadership is a treacherous thing. How can we possibly know so when we are but children? That is what Solomon knew. He knew, even as a child, just how much help he was going to need to be a leader. He already had some of the wisdom he seeks. Ironically, he was wise beyond his years. God rewards him with wisdom for ...

1971. All in God’s Time

Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21

Sermon

Steven E. Albertin

"Why do bad things happen to good people?" is the way we say it today. That surely must have been a question on the hearts and minds of those first-century Christians as they suffered under the brutal persecution of the Roman empire. It is a question that surely was on the hearts and minds to whom John had written this extraordinary piece of literature we call the book of Revelation. Many of them were convinced that they were innocent and righteous sufferers sent to their deaths in the coliseum because ...

1972. The Man Who Wasn’t There

Acts 16:9-15

Sermon

David J. Kalas

I've never had a vision — at least not of the sort that Paul had. I don't know personally, therefore, what you feel the next morning. But it's clear from the story that whatever Paul felt, he felt it so strongly that he and his companions changed their itinerary immediately in response to that vision. Perhaps this sort of turn-on-a-dime operation is acceptable for a missionary. It's a little hard to imagine in other lines of work, however. Does the salesman staying in Phoenix tell his boss that he ...

1973. The Lord’s Prayer and The Stones-Serpents-Scorpions Story

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

What you do is your history. What you set in motion is your legacy.” Are you just pouring concrete or building a skyscraper? Every one of us wants to leave a “legacy.“ Something that outlasts our biological lives and can somehow continue to declare “I was here.” For a very few this is achieved through intellect or infamy, greatness or great sacrifice. But for those of us who know we are not Augustine or Martin Luther, or Christopher Columbus or George Washington or Albert Einstein or Martin Luther King, Jr ...

1974. The Widow and the Unjust Judge

Luke 18:1-8

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

We all do it. The door of heaven’s House of Bread, the ultimate pastry palace, is standing open. But we keep trying to break in the back door of the local bakery. A parable by a well-known rabbi tells the story of a moth and a fly. One day a moth and a fly were together near a window. The moth sat comfortably on the side peering out, watching as the fly relentlessly flew up and around and straight into the window. The stunned fly would fall, then get up and try again. On and on the fly tried to find a way ...

1975. Judgment and Salvation

Isaiah 65:1-16

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

Yahweh’s Closing Critique and Vision: In these last two chapters of the book, once more we cannot discern an order or structure. The succession of phrases that look like introductions to prophecies (65:8, 13, 25; 66:1, 5, 12, 22) and the movement between verse and prose suggest that here it is not because a prophet let a stream of consciousness have its way. It is, rather, because a number of separate prophecies have been accumulated at the end of the book. These different prophecies have overlapping ...

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