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Showing 176 to 200 of 1354 results

176. Mark 2:23-3:6

Mark 2:23-3:6

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... Palestinian church as it developed within a strongly Jewish milieu. Accordingly, this understanding of verses 23-28 does not view it as confrontation between Jesus, his disciples and the Pharisees so much as an explanatory text enabling the late first-century church to defend its view of the Sabbath to the Jewish hierarchy. Given the contrived feeling to the scene depicted in verses 23-24 a group of Pharisees happened along just as Jesus' disciples stopped their Sabbath-day stroll to pick ears of grain it ...

177. A Plea for Fishing

Luke 5:1-11; Mark 1:14-20

Illustration

Darrell W. Robinson

... 't do, however: They didn't fish. In addition to meeting regularly, they organized a board to send out fishermen to other places where there were many fish. The board hired staffs and appointed committees and held many meetings to define fishing, to defend fishing, and to decide what new streams should be thought about. But the staff and committee members did not fish. Large, elaborate, and expensive training centers were built whose original and primary purpose was to teach fishermen how to fish. Over the ...

178. Christ The King

2 Samuel 23:1-7, Revelation 1:4-8, John 18:28-40

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

... a gift of the Father. Because of his divine nature, he was naturally king. 3. Done (v. 35). Pilate asked Jesus what he had done that made the religious leaders hand him over to him (Pilate) as a criminal. Jesus did not answer the question. Jesus was not inclined to defend himself or to prove to Pilate that he had done no wrong. He was not going to boast of the people he healed, the good he did and the truth he proclaimed. His record would speak for him. 4. Born (v. 37). Why was Jesus born? Here we have the ...

179. Can The Church Count On Me?

1 Chronicles 29:3

Sermon

James Merritt

... don't suit me, I'll criticize, complain and probably bail-out because my thumb is always out for a better ride." [1] What I am saying is this church not only needs your love; this church needs your loyalty. As much as you can, I need you to defend it, I need you to commend it and I need you to recommend it. All of which raises one last question… III. Can The Church Count On My Attendance? Hebrews 10:25 says, "Not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another ...

180. Decoding the Da Vinci Code (Part Two - Explaining the Facts)

1 Peter 3:15

Sermon

James Merritt

... to explain the facts. It is not enough to say that what is said in The Da Vinci Code is wrong, we have to go further and defend what we believe is right. We will do that by answering the last of the three questions that we said needed to be posed to The Da ... scholars agree that the writings of the Apostle Paul constitute the earliest archeological record of Christianity. In I Corinthians 9:5, Paul defended his right to have a wife when he made this statement. "Do we not have a right to take along a believing ...

181. When I’m In Trouble

2 Timothy 4:16-18

Sermon

James Merritt

... leave His subjects under any circumstances. He will always be there. II. I Can Count On God's Purpose For My Life Do you have the picture in your mind that the Roman courtroom is packed? As Paul stands to speak, this crowd senses this is no ordinary defendant. This is not your run of the mill Roman citizen. The judge, himself, senses that whoever this man is, he is not like any other person that has ever been brought before him. Since no one else would stand in Paul's defense, he was given the opportunity ...

182. Pro-Choice is No-Choice

Proverbs 24:11-12

Sermon

James Merritt

... 's health accounted for only 3% of abortions; the baby's health accounted for 3% and rape or incest 1%. In other words, 93% of all abortions were for purely social reasons. [4] We need to tell the truth about abortion, and we also need to be able to defend why we are against it. "Deliver those who are drawn toward death, and hold back those stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, ‘Surely we did not know this,' does not He who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, does He not know it? And ...

183. Stopping Pettiness

Mark 9:38-41

Illustration

Jerry Goebel

... harvest in during its due season, it will not just sit out there and stay ripe. This is the harvest time and we need laborers. Let's be one and pray for more! 2. Quit defending the faith and take the offense in outreach. Rest with Gamaliel, the wise Pharisee who trained Saul. In Acts 5:38 he said that God doesn't need us to defend his name; he is quite capable of that himself. If someone's work is of God, it will continue. If not, it will cease. 3. Recognize the signs of pettiness in our life and flee ...

184. A Frightening Friday

John 18:1-19:42

Sermon

Donald Charles Lacy

... to be crucified. What a loser! It was indeed a frightening Friday and Peter was one of the biggest ducks in the puddle. He was so far removed from the imperative loyalty to lead the Jesus movement, we scratch and dig around to find something with which to defend him. Just the simple word, "coward," causes many of us to shiver and shake. Is there ever anyone who wants to be described as one? Except in jest and playfulness, we don't like any part of that word. Oh, we might like it applied to someone else ...

185. A Good-bye Topping All Others

Luke 24:44-53

Sermon

Donald Charles Lacy

... would assuredly hate to attempt to live by the teachings of a dead Messiah. Why not live by Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, or some great philosopher? While we may be tempted to live in the basking light of him arising from the dead, how can we defend a salvation devoid of supreme sacrifice? Again, we detect it is not either/or but both/and. Some would call it a trite reminder, but, it is nevertheless true the two provide us with the core belief absolutely necessary to the legitimacy of the Christian religion ...

186. Who?

Acts 5:27-32

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... and salvation, then can we at least, as Gamaliel counsels, stand to the side while new innovations are brought to worship and praise. Can we stand to the side while others forget trials in the mission field, and still others serve in the name of Jesus by defending death row inmates, pleading for the poor, and accompanying the outcasts who seek redress from civil authorities? As Gamaliel warned, if something is not of God, it will fail in time. But do you really want to be found standing in the way of God's ...

187. Casting Out Demons

Mark 1:21-28

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... /or demon possessed. Or it looks like this. Harper Lee wrote a novel some years ago about the South in the days when prejudice was institutionalized as an evil. The lawyer’s name was Atticus Finch. Atticus Finch is defending a black man in a system in which he had not chance at all of winning. But he defends him anyway, because he knows that the system is evil, the opposite of life, and he knows that he must oppose it. In the end he is defeated, the man is convicted, though he’s innocent, and later he ...

188. Why Am I a Christian?

Mark 1:4-11

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... all religions were represented. His approach was founded on these convictions: all religions share a common search for God, there is some truth in all religions, you tell me your experiences of God and I will tell you mine. In a world where we feel compelled to defend the faith, fight the foe, conquer evil, we might do well to remember that the Christian Crusades conquered Jerusalem and found in the end that Christ was not there. Christ is the Life! On the one hand, life has us. She gives us what she wills ...

189. The Dawn of Forever

John 20:1-18

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... we are and what we believe. In April 2002, the well-respected Oxford University philosophy professor Richard Swineburne defended the truth of the Resurrection at a high-profile gathering of philosophy professors at Yale University. Swineburne used Bayes Theorem, ... a broadly accepted mathematical probability theory and tool to defend the truth of Christ's resurrection. In a New York Times interview, Swineburne said, "For someone dead for 36 ...

190. When the Church Becomes a Culture of Complainers and Crusaders, What To Do?

2 Thessalonians 2:1-12

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... the wrongness of his critics. Paul’s message always, and without fail, is focused on the rightness of Christ. Christ’s love. Christ’s grace. Christ’s gifts for the people of God. That is the sine qua non of gospel truth. Paul does not defend himself, or his words. He only continues to preach Christ with passion and compassion, without restriction or reservation. And he answers his critics, by constantly pointing to Christ, not to himself or to them. William J. Locke has a novel about a woman who has ...

191. Good News about Hair

Luke 21:5-38

Sermon

King Duncan

... will be thrown down.” Of course, the Temple did come down in 70 A.D., about forty years after Jesus predicted it would. Titus, a Roman general, with 80,000 men, set siege to Jerusalem. It was a difficult city to take, set on a hill, and defended to the death. When the siege was successful and the city was taken, Titus ordered the whole city and the Temple to be razed to the ground. Josephus, the historian, who was actually there, tells us that 97,000 residents of the city were taken captive and enslaved ...

192. The Prayer of a Thief

Luke 23:26-43

Sermon

King Duncan

... his voice and turned away from the woman and asked sternly, “Are the two men who committed this horrible crime in the courtroom today?” At that the two defendants raised their hands. The courtroom galley and even the judge snickered. Noticing the two arms in the air, the prosecutor intoned, “Your Honor, may the record show that the defendants raised their hands and have just confessed to the crime.” (4) The woman must have given a powerful testimony. Usually the truth doesn’t come that easily ...

193. Truth: The Most Powerful Idea

Gen 1:1; Luke 10:27

Illustration

Max Anders

... all your mind; and, Love your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10:27). You and I may believe this thing and that about Scripture and about life in general, but these three statements are incontrovertible! They are true. They don't need to be defended; they only need to be lived. There are people in our society who spend too much of their energy and time defending God as if God needed it. Note: Marilyn vos Savant still has the recorded highest IQ according to Guinness because they have since retired the category

194. Forgiveness Should Be the First Response

Matthew 5:38-42

Illustration

James Merritt

Let me give you a simple rule. Be quick to defend others, but be slow to defend yourself. Abraham Lincoln once said, "I never give an explanation of my actions to my critics." He said the reason is simple. "My friends don't need an explanation and my enemies wouldn't believe it." Now that is wise advice, but having said that I think it is worth ...

195. The Easter Formula

John 20:1-18

Illustration

Billy D. Strayhorn

... truth of the Resurrection at a high-profile gathering of philosophy professors at Yale University. Swineburne used Bayes Theorem, a broadly accepted mathematical probability theory and tool to defend the truth of Christ's resurrection. In a New York Times interview, Swineburne said, "For someone dead for 36 hours to come to life again is, according to the laws of nature, extremely improbable. But if there is a God of the traditional kind, natural laws only operate because he ...

196. The Day God Voted

1 Samuel 15:34-35, 16:1-13

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... "People vote their pocketbooks." Does it matter that one candidate or another appears to have a vision for his or her constituency that parallels the biblical view of society? A view that stresses unselfishness, equal justice for all, a desire to defend those who cannot defend themselves, love for our neighbors, and caring for the poor and downtrodden? Does that outweigh our own pocketbook when we cast our votes? It should. Something else to note: God did not choose David over Saul on the basis of image ...

197. Disintegration and Reintegration

Mark 14:1-15:47

Sermon

John Smylie

... . The disciples kept falling asleep repeatedly, but Jesus didn't disown them. Let us bring to Jesus our halfhearted attempts and failures at our Lenten disciplines. Peter rushed to defend Jesus, cutting off a man's ear in the process. Jesus did not disown him. Bring to Jesus all your impetuous desires to be holy and right and to defend the truth. It is all there in the story — the highest, the noblest in humankind, the baseness, the willingness to compromise and betray, and the mediocre — those doing ...

198. Romans 12:9-21

Romans 12:9-21

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... to love one another with “philadelphia” — that is, with the special kind of love that binds family members to one another. The strong family units of that first century culture also defended the “honor” of the other family members. Christian brothers and sisters are called to do likewise, never seeking to defend one’s own honor but instead placing the honor of other community members “before” oneself. Genuine love, as expressed by the Christian community, is given hands and feet by Paul. It ...

199. The Home Court Advantage

Romans 12:9-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... playing at home breeds a sense of solidarity, or what used to be called team spirit, which means that players have more confidence in each other and work better as a unit.” Runciman conclude his critique by admitting, “I can’t prove my theory, but I can defend it. It chimes with what you can see happening in any team sport — the away players don’t quite believe in themselves in the way the home players do.” Team spirit. A spirit that binds together a bunch of individuals and lifts them up to a ...

200. Oops! I Did It Again

Matthew 16:21-28

Sermon

King Duncan

... no effort to sanitize these stories. There is no attempt to make biblical characters more holy than they were. One moment Peter proclaims Christ as the Messiah and the next moment he is telling Christ how to go about his work. One moment he is in the garden defending Christ with a sword against a Roman legion, and the next he is standing outside the palace where Jesus is being tried and denies with an oath that he ever knew Jesus. One moment he is in hiding as his Master is being crucified, and the next he ...

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