Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 176 to 200 of 1089 results

Mark 8:31--9:1

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... words of others disclosures that even they may not, in the short term, see. It understands how each human life is a mini-series, featuring the grand themes written about by philosophers and theologians, musically expressed by the great composers, and painted by the great artists. Sam Miller was getting at this fifty years ago when, in a little volume titled The Life of the Soul, he wrote this about the grand stories of faith: The stories of Eden, the Tower of Babel, the parables and the life of Christ all ...

177. Easter Transportation

John 20:1-9

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... ? Imagine going to a world-class art museum and finding a particular painting that captures your attention. If you wished, you could spend considerable time researching that painting -- its history, purpose, the nature of the paints the artist used, its many characters, the culture that gave rise to it, the artist as a person and more. You could then write all of this up in formal fashion and present it to others for their consumption. But with all that done, what would we have? We would have some insights ...

178. When the Boat Begins to Sink

Mark 4:35-41

Sermon

David G. Rogne

... on the face of Christ that this is the moment when he says, "Why are you afraid?" Fourteen figures are in the boat: the twelve disciples, Jesus, and Rembrandt himself. There he stands, clutching one of the stays, holding his head in terror. That is where the artist saw himself. And it is there that many of us find ourselves, with little hope and much fear, as the furious storms threaten to sweep us overboard also. It is to such persons as we are that this incident is directed. The Gospel writers felt that ...

179. The Lions Are Shackled

John 18:1-19:42

Sermon

King Duncan

... suffering Savior is the Heavenly Father. And the nails that pierce the hands and feet of Jesus also pierce the hands and feet of the Father. A crown of thorns that cuts into the brow of Jesus, cuts into the brow of the Father also. It is as if the artist is reminding us of Paul’s statement: “God commandeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (see Rom. 5:8). (6) That is why we are here today. To remind us of what Christ has done in our behalf. “Therefore I will ...

180. Look Inside and Discover Life

Numbers 21:4-9

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... observes his portrait and notes how it has changed. The eyes and face are different. They show a man who is sinister and evil. Dorian locks the picture in his attic, but the image will not leave him. In a fit of rage he kills the artist, Basil Hallward, an act which makes the portrait grow even uglier. In the end Dorian Gray cannot live with himself. His outside beauty remains while inside his corruption grows. The portrait shows the true person the one whom Dorian knows but is unwilling to accept, the ...

181. Dynamics Of Prayer

Isaiah 43:1-13

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... in front of that wall, as I did, reading the names. I scrutinized the wall excitedly, looking for my own name, Maxie. But Maxie wasn’t there. That was okay, because my spirit had been lifted. At the end of the wall there was an explanation for the art. The artist said that, naming, and the need to be named, is the most desperate of all human needs. Naming, and the need to be named, is the most desperate of all human needs. It may have been pop art, but it was relevant. It spoke to persons where they were ...

182. What Really Matters

Philippians 3:1-11

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... it is not by chance that Paul began with the power of his resurrection. We can know it. The power of his resurrection. Here is a hint of it. Arthur Ruebenstein, even at 80, reached a greater height than he had known in his long career as a peerless artist. In an interview, he was asked how after all the long years of perfection, he still kept his interpretations fresh and inspiring. Rubenstein answered, “Every day, every day, I am a new man. And every occasion is a new moment for me. When I play, it is no ...

183. Remember Your Baptism

Romans 6:1-14, Colossians 2:6-23

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... , it is the fact of baptism. Two or three years ago, I saw the death door at St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome. Some of you may remember that the great Pope John XXIII, bless his memory, commissioned the eminent artist, Geacoma Manza, to sculpt a new door for that great basilica, and the artist depicted on that door a series of death scenes. There was death by falling, death in war, the martyred death of Peter upside down on the cross, and others. Death by drowning is there, death by water. And I reasoned ...

184. The Rejected Cornerstone

Luke 20:9-19

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... , in another century, gained an abundant life without a life of abundance. His name was Lorenzo Ghiberti, born in Florence, Italy in 1378, died in Florence, in 1455 at the age of 87. Lorenzo Ghiberti was an artist. What he primarily did in his 87 years was to build 6 doors. Most of his artistic career was consumed in building 3 pairs of doors for The Baptistery in Florence. The doors are exquisite. The magnificence of them come from the intricate detail of the bronze sculptures which depict various Old and ...

185. Remember Your Baptism

Luke 3:1-20

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

186. Epiphany:The Joy of Fulfillment

Luke 4:14-30

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

... the Holy Family, they usually painted them with typical German, Italian, or Flemish features. It was not imagination or prejudice which made them do so, but the instinctive feeling that Jesus belonged to them; he was one of their people. In our time, Christian artists in Africa and Asia paint the Holy Family with features and coloring appropriate to their world. Again, it is because they feel that Jesus belongs to them. The mountain church, where a duet twangs out country-western music on a guitar, may seem ...

187. Whether You'll Weather the Weather

Luke 6:46-49

Sermon

David J. Kalas

... he heard. Which of the two builders am I like? Which of the two characters are you like? Have we acted on what we have heard from the Lord? Have we responded to his Word with our lives? Every so often you hear the story of a scam artist who manages to bilk some poor, trusting souls out of their life savings. He makes promises, he offers guarantees, and they invest most or all of what they have in his proposal. But then both he and their money suddenly disappear, leaving them devastated. The original scam ...

188. God Outwits Us

Psalm 31:1-24

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... universe has become flesh; He has revealed himself as a loving father. God cannot be less than we are; he must be more. Our understanding is partial and dim, but we know at least that God is greater than we are. We grasp for analogies. Some people are artists, but God is the greatest artist. Some are wise, but He is wisdom itself. When we run out of analogies, we say that God is love, because love is the best thing we know. But then, how do we talk about the love of God? We are not likely to say God loves ...

189. Now Here Is the Plan

John 12:20-36

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... presence of the cross, the real cross, with a man on it, you can't say anything, anything that comes close to what people have felt for 2,000 years in looking at the man on the cross. The artists are the best expositors of the cross for that reason. I especially like the medieval artists. They all show Jesus on the cross in the center of the painting. Mary Magdalene is there. Why is Mary Magdalene there? Well, he literally saved her, forgave her, saved her from those who would stone her. Mary, the mother ...

190. Murphy's Law and Messiah's Law

Luke 8:26-39

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... that. You're here to be faithful to the place and people God put you with. The story is very short. It is about a poor artist, a man named Niggle, who spent all of his life trying to paint a huge mural of a tree on the side of the post office ... able to go back to work. He realized that he would never produce the whole tree, the whole glory of God. -Tim Keller, "Why We Need Artists," in It Was Good Making Art to the Glory of God, ed. Ned Bustard (Baltimore, MD: Square Halo Books, 2000), 87. All that you and I ...

191. My Precious, My Precious

Luke 12:13-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... In 1986, a couple from Barnstaple, Devon, dropped by the show while taking their dog for a walk. They took with them an old picture from the loft which neither of them liked, and were dumbfounded when told it was a long-lost work by the Victorian artist Richard Dadd. They sold it to the British Museum for 100,000 pounds. An even better story of treasures in the attic is the recent discovery of a completely unknown early work by Rubens, The Massacre of the Innocents. The painting had hung in a private house ...

192. The World's Best Hearing Aid

Mark 9:2-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... that it should be put on display for the benefit of his admirers. But it looked far too common for such an important purpose, so someone suggested that it be embellished by an artist. A few centuries later, when the pipe was given a new home in an upscale museum, a committee said it needed improving yet again. So another artist was employed to overlay it in fine gold and silver filigree. The result, in the end, was a breathtaking piece of art, a marvelous sight indeed. It was so beautiful, in fact, that ...

193. Make Room for Mystery

Isaiah 55:1-13

Sermon

James McCormick

... we can’t. Mystery. Isn’t it true that at the deepest levels of our human experience we are always out of the reach of satisfactory explanations? We can’t explain how we are moved to tears by a great play or a magnificent piece of music. When a great artist produces a painting, he doesn’t attempt to explain it – it is to be experienced, not explained. How can we account for the goose bumps when we look up into a starry sky, or when we watch the sun go down in glory behind the mountains? How can you ...

194. Don't Sweat the Sin Debt

John 19:30

Sermon

James Merritt

... word tetelestai was a very common word in the days of Jesus. It was used by servants. When a master would order his servant to do something, the servant would go and do the work and come back and say, "Tetelestai It is finished!" It was used by artists. When an artist was painting a portrait and touched the canvas for the last time, applied the last drop of paint with the last stroke of his brush, he would step back and say, "Tetelestai it is finished!" Jesus said in Jn 4:34, "My meat is to do the will ...

195. The Agony of Defeat

2 Samuel 11-12, 1 Kings 15:5

Sermon

James Merritt

... We think of David, the singer, the greatest songwriter of all time whose psalms make up the largest book in the Bible. But today we are going to look at David, the sinner. When Oliver Cromwell sat for a portrait, the artist left off the big warts on his face. When the work was finished Cromwell looked at the artist and said, "It's very good, but it isn't honest. You left off my warts. Paint me again, warts and all, then it will look like the real Cromwell." One of the reasons why I believe the Bible is the ...

196. I Believe In God The Father Almighty

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... suddenly come upon a mountain bearing the unmistakable likenesses of four American presidents, looking just like the pictures in your history book. Surely you would not conclude that this is just an accidental work of wind, rain, and glaciers. No, you would say, “An artist has been at work here.” (5). Just consider how unique planet earth is in our solar system. No other planet seems to be the least bit hospitable for human life. Is that an accident or has an Intelligent Designer been at work? Though ...

197. The Blessing Complex

Philippians 3:1-11

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... this place, you bring the blessing of Christ, not yourself, into the world. You release the energies of the risen and regnant Christ into the world, not yourself. For an artist the goal of creativity is not to imitate Michelangelo or Renoir or Picasso. For a musician the goal of fulfillment is not to imitate Beethoven or Mozart or Debussy. The artist or musician, inspired by the geniuses of the past, who can find their own unique and genuine gift and express it as fully as possible, that is the one who ...

198. Jesus the Iconoclast

Matthew 22:15-22

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... a mid-career accident which took the sight from one of his eyes and forced him to "reframe." Suddenly Chihuly discovered symmetry wasn’t as necessary as he thought. His new perspective made him into an "iconoclast" . . . and one of the world’s greatest living artists, the Michelangelo of glass. Have you heard of Howard Armstrong? He invented FM radio. He had to set up his own FM antennae when the reigning czar of the AM radio waves, RCA, told him his invention was both impossible and then, when he did ...

199. Four Perspectives

Mark 1:1-8

Illustration

Glenn Pease

... three friends set out to paint the same landscape. They each were committed to produce as accurately as possible what they saw. Nevertheless, the result was four different pictures, as different as the four personalities of the artists. The same thing happened when four well-known artists painted the portrait of the United Nations hostess, Maria Lani. Each of them knew her personally and saw her from a different perspective, and the result was four remarkably different pictures. This helps us understand why ...

200. The Adoration of the Shepherds

John 1:6-8, 19-28

Illustration

King Duncan

... child, with Joseph in the shadows in the background. Peering into the manger where the babe is lying are the shepherds, with their sheep scattered around them. They could not leave the sheep in the field, they had to bring them along. Arching above the manger the artist has painted a ladder which suggests, in the shadows it casts, the form of a cross. Rembrandt was too great a painter just to put a cross in, with no justification in terms of the picture itself, but the ladder subtly suggests it. And on the ...

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