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 1951 to 1975 of 2815 results

1951. A Converting Presence

1 John 2:28--3:10

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... we continue to make decisions and we’re always responsible. Yet the process of conversion is the process of yielding every aspect of our life, every drive, every feeling, every passion, every instinct, to the indwelling Christ every day. I close with a contemporary parable. And the person of that remarkable musician, Pablo Casalles. “Each day I am reborn,” Pablo said, “each day I must begin again for the last 80 years, I have started each day in the same manner.” Listen to him. He said, “I go to ...

1952. Confession And Supplication

Philippians 1:1-11

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... over the practices of our culture that break the heart of God. Let me suggest a specific examination of consciousness, rooted in scripture, that will provide a way for us to be clear and specific in our confession as it relates to ministry and mission. Recall Jesus’ parable of the last judgment and ask ourselves if we did it unto the least of these. I recommend, not that you do this daily, but that you do it at least once a week, maybe on Saturday night or Sunday morning as you prepare for corporate ...

1953. The Christian Life Defined By Prayer

Philippians 1:1-11

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... America if 100,000,000 Christians in America really heard Jesus say what he did? I was hungry and you fed me. How could racism continue if 100,000,000 Christians in America live the faith of Jesus who took as his model and hero, of his moving parable a member of the most despised ethnic group of that day – the Samaritans. How could people suffer with disease and die without hope and die without Jesus Christ – if 100,000,000 Christians in America burned with the words of Jesus. I was sick and you visited ...

1954. Gethsemane: Prelude To The Cross

Mark 14:32-42

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

There is a parable of three kings searching for truth. When asked how far they will go to discover what they seek, how deep they want to immerse themselves in its meaning, one of the answers, “Not too far, just far enough so we can say we’ve been there.” That’s the tourist ...

1955. Living Deliberately

John 10:1-21

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... getting up or lying down. But the real issue is how I honestly feel about the matter. Because I must question myself relentlessly, my path is clear. I must dig. I must probe. Pretty soon I’ll start probing, I’ll count to three. ‘ It’s a parable of life. Most of us never get around to counting to three. We start, we debate, we rationalize, but we never get to the point of decision and action. We like to discuss matters, so we talk endlessly about alternatives. Someone has said we are victims of the ...

1956. This Is Eternal Life (Easter Message)

John 17:1-5

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... woman and discovered electricity." Now all of that is probably true, but there's a lot more truth to Franklin's life than we find in those words. So with Jesus. "Name Jesus anything you like. Remember Him in any way you want. Recall any of the parables He told. Quote word for word any statement He ever said. Put all these things together into some kind of historical record, and still you have nothing if you do not include this one truth" (Boulware, Ibid.): When Jesus becomes the way of being and doing for ...

1957. The Cross: God's Answer To Our Deepest Needs

Colossians 2:8-15

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... note and tore open the envelope. As she read the contents of it, her face fell and her shoulders sagged. She passed the note to the social worker. It read, simply: "To whoever finds this, I love you." (Bauknight, "Love is Linkage!", September 21, 1986). A poignant parable of the need to love and be loved. A powerful picture. But no picture of love is more powerful than the Cross: Charles Wesley felt it deeply and sang plaintive: O Love divine, what has thou done!Th'incarnate God hath died for me!The Father ...

1958. How May We Come To God?

Psalm 24:1-10

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... , we are judged by God not on the basis of how well we measure up, how absolutely clean our hands are, or how absolutely pure our hearts may be. We are judged according to our will and our willingness. In Franz Kafka's great novel, The Trial, there is a parable that I think will tie it all together. A man is told to enter a Kingdom through a certain gate. When he arrives at the edge of the Kingdom, sure enough, he finds the gate there just as he was promised. He also finds a sentinel there -- guarding the ...

1959. Singing The Lord's Song In A Strange Land (i)

Psalm 137:1-9

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... at the whole. 3. We don't look to the Bible to close a discussion, but to open one. I like the way William Sloane Coffin put it: "It is a mistake to sharpen our minds by narrowing them...God leads with alight rein, giving us our head. Jesus told parables for this reason; stories have a way of shifting responsibility from the narrator to the hearer.Christians have to listen to the world as well as to the Word. And do not all of us learn more when we do not try to understand too soon?" (The Courage to Love ...

1960. Loving The Jesus Way

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... is neither anxious to impress, nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance. C. H. Dodd was for many years a professor of biblical studies at Cambridge. He has written a number of books on biblical studies -- a classic one on the parables, and another on Paul's teaching entitled "According to Paul." His imperious attitude toward his students and faculty colleagues set him apart in a kind of Olympian detachment and prompt an oft-repeated limerick in the Halls of Cambridge: I deem it exceedingly ...

1961. A Love For All Seasons (i)

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... . Therefore, her question, quiet as it was, carried with it the accumulated baggage of a long and painful history: "How many times do you take the Prodigal back?" (Dr. William A. Ritter, October 16, 1988, preached at First United Methodist Church, Kalamazoo, Michigan). So the parable of the Prodigal son isn't the complete answer, is it? You know the story -- the young man took all of his part of the family's wealth when he was far too young to take it -- took it in his own selfish headstrong way – and ...

1962. In The Beginning And The End...God

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... that we understand clearly the nature of the message of the early Genesis stories in order that the light that is in them may illuminate our own needs. These stories throb with a message that only our spiritual hearing can detect. They are parables, not history or explanations. Consequently, they continually imply that beyond the words is a meaning which, "He that hath ears to hear" may hear. But there's no attempt to formulate intellectual propositions to state basic truths. Instead, the method is that of ...

1963. The Future You Hope For

Jeremiah 29:1-23

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... carpenter ants and honey bees were used in the studies, and both species were found to age more rapidly and die more quickly in a weightless environment. It seems they needed the pull of gravity to make them work and maintain their physical vitality. That's a parable for us humans. If things are too easy, we grow flabby. We need the difficulties to keep us strong. This awareness gives us a new way of seeing. "This has been the period of my greatest growth in life," a fellow said to me. The significance of ...

1964. God Is Like A Mother

Isaiah 66:1-24

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... Lord is my Shepherd." And, Jesus Himself did it -- you remember the 15th Chapter of John: "I am the vine, my Father is the vine-dresser -- you are the branches." So, don't mock the metaphor. Don't snide at the simile. Don't put rigid parameters on the parables. We never outgrow our need to see God freshly. That's the big point. We never outgrow out need to see God freshly. So let's look at these three beautiful expressions of the maternal note of the Eternal one sounded in the Bible. I. First, God is like ...

1965. How To Be Rich And Poor

James 1:1-18

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... they had never been.James is saying that as the grass and flower wilt, and their beauty comes to an end with the scorching sun, so "will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits." This is the same message that Jesus sounded. In his parable of the Sower, he describes the seed that fell among the thorns, "And the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in, choked the word, and it becomes unfruitful" (Mark 4: 19). I read recently of a woman who went ...

1966. What Is Your Life?

James 4:13-17

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... kept hitting the top of the container. Finally they realized they couldn't jump any higher, so they measured their jumps. Later, the teacher removed the container. But the fleas continued to jump at the same height, as if the container were still overhead. That's a parable of life. We too easily allow limitations to limit us. We settle for less than is possible. We allow mediocrity to become the mean, the standard of our life. So, we are not faithful -- we are not good stewards of the gift God has given us ...

1967. The Church Of Our Dreams

Ephesians 4:1-16

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... Joseph and Mary were a homeless couple. They didn't have a house. The baby Jesus, our Saviour, was born in a borrowed room. When I mentioned that, I choked up, and it was, I thought, minutes -- but it was probably only moments before I could speak. It was a parable, a vision of what the Church must be. Not just at Christmas-time when we give 400 coats to cold children -- Bless you women who did that. Or, when once a year we build a house. Those are dramatic things and we should do even more of them everyday ...

1968. How Is It With Your Soul?

Luke 6:37-42

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... oxygen and then they take off and soar. Annie Dillard came upon one of these sphinx moths on the deck rail of a ship, frightened him before he was ready to fly, up and down, up and down, then unable to stay airborne plunged to the sea. It's a parable of our life. Because we fail to breath the Spirit's power and cultivate the presence of the indwelling Christ, we are up and down, up and down…in and out of hypocrisy, and living far below our capacity. How is it with your soul? Are you by the Spirit ...

1969. I've Been To The Mountain

Luke 9:28-36

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... us awake to God's glorious presence. Rufus Jones was one of the great spiritual giants of this century -- a Quaker, a great champion of the inner-life. He went through a long period of illness -- illness of body and mind. A friend of his, Violet Hodgkins, gave him a parable. She said to him, "Isn't it strange how one has to learn to lie like a starfish on the beach, high and dry and cutoff from all renewing while the tide rises and falls just out of reach. That's the most tantalizing part. And then at long ...

1970. More Tolerable For Sodom And Gomorrah

Luke 10:1-24

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... 't lay eggs, there are no workers. So eventually the colony will die." (Katie Sherrod, "Still Paying Too Much Attention to Wrong Assumptions and Ideas", The Commercial Appeal, June 23, 1991, p. B5). It's almost impossible to read this story as other than a wonderful parable for our times. Just think how often we humans are busy about the work of tending headless queens." Our government does it and we allow it by our votes or failure to vote, by our staying quiet in the presence of evil, by our accepting ...

1971. A Pattern For Giving And Living

2 Corinthians 8:1-15

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... son withdrew from society and lived the remainder of his life a babbling, bungling shell of his former self. In one of his more lucid moments, he spoke the words which constituted his biography: "I died the day I received my exemption papers." (Donald Shelby, "Be Responsible") It's a parable. None of us are exempt from life, from giving and serving. When we think we are, we die. We may even die eternally.

1972. Reflections On A Calling (ten-year Anniversary Sermon)

2 Corinthians 4:1-18

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... I know that I have an awesome responsibility and a glorious privilege. I know there is a demand upon me to stay prepared -- that is, always be ready to meet the Master, and be the entree through which other meet Him. This image come alive in Jesus' parable about the servants of the household being prepared when the master came home from a wedding feast. They were to have their loins girded and their lamps burning. The long flowing robes of the east were a hindrance to work. When men prepared for work they ...

1973. The Medicine Of A Cheerful Heart

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... one can take away. It's a book that calls God's people to celebrate, to clap their hands and shout for joy. So, hear our proverb today -- an exciting, challenging proverb for daily living. "A cheerful heart is good medicine." Add this twin parable to support that affirmation: "A cheerful heart has a continual feast." So our sermon today is: "The medicine of a cheerful heart." I. Let's begin with an elaboration on the title: Cheerfulness, laughter, is a healing medicine for body and soul. The ancient writer ...

1974. Epiphany: A Faith to Work Miracles

John 2:1-11

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

... a performance, a mere demonstration of power. In a way, it hardly seems worthy of our Lord. What is the meaning of it? Some scholars feel that it was purely a symbolic act. They question whether it actually happened, and think of it rather as a kind of dramatic parable, to show the power of Christ to bring excitement and renewal into human life. Others say this is a beautiful way of showing God's care for the common business of life. In a way, it is a living-out of Jesus' statement that the hairs of our ...

1975. From Empty Nets to Full Lives

Luke 5:1-11

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

... may still feel an emptiness deeper than empty nets and a yearning more poignant than the desire for economic security. You and I know some people like that; and there are many others in this category. It is sometimes said that the miracles of Jesus are parables in action; they teach a lesson. Jesus surely used this miracle in that fashion. "Do not be afraid," he told the frightened Simon Peter; "From now on you will be catching people" (v. 10). It was both the contrast and the reassurance Simon needed. At ...

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