Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 176 to 200 of 2962 results

176. Assurance: The Privilage of All Believers

Romans 8:1-17

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... over again., This is one of the strong in Wesley’s theology and we talked about it last Sunday – regenerative and sanctifying grace keeps man so long as man keeps it. In our scripture lesson today from Romans 8, Paul uses the terms “flesh” and “Spirit” to designate our dual nature. In the preceding 7th chapter he shared his own classic witness of the conflict that continues to rage in the life of the Christian : “For the good that I would I do not and the evil that I would not, that I do - 0 ...

177. Born Again

John 3:1-21

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... Syrian occupation of Judah, about two hundred years before Christ, and became the principal, spiritual and intellectual force in Judaism following the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. The Pharisee movement was not bad in intention or design. The unfortunate thing was that, like many religious people, the Pharisees became proud and self-righteous. They became hypocritical and scornfully contentious toward ordinary people. They were a kind of religious elite. It was obvious that Nicodemus was an important ...

178. Hot Air or the Holy Spirit?

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... than, bigger than, purer than, nor superior to, any other community of faith. One of my deepest regrets is that clergy are so competitive and lay people are so comparative about churches. On the other hand, churches are not country clubs; they are not designed to protect the interests and convenience of present members to the exclusion of outsiders. Even if it means sitting a little closer, parking a little farther, waiting a little longer, we must never lose our passion for seeking and saving the lost. Or ...

179. Eyewitness News

John 20:1-9

Sermon

King Duncan

... contrary, we have a subtle fear down in our hearts that the Gospel is simply too good to be true? Author Ron Mehl writes about a bridge in his home town of Portland, Oregon that goes nowhere. When the bridge was built back in the mid-1960s, it was designed to accommodate a freeway running east, but the freeway was never completed. “The result is an exit that drops off into empty space. You can see where the road was supposed to go. It juts out just a bit from the bridge structure, then it is cut off as ...

180. Practicing the Presence

Acts 8:26-40

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... in our abilities and skills? And yet that is exactly what we practice daily in our trusting in programs, plans, processes, technology, maps. Instead we are being invited in today’s text to live like Philip, not trusting in our own ability to program and plan, to design and direct, but trusting in the Spirit. In the words of Zechariah 4:6: “Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord.” Not by might, not by power, not by programs, not by processes, but by God’s spirit. It is time ...

181. How Many of Us Does It Take to Screw in a Light Bulb?

Mark 7:1-23

Sermon

King Duncan

... war horses. But wait . . . there’s more. When we see a space shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big boosters attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. These SRBs are manufactured in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory had to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit ...

182. A Road Straight to Your Heart

Luke 3:1-20

Sermon

King Duncan

... the time. Anyone traveling from Galilee to Jerusalem would have seen it. Everyone knew that a wide, straight even road was what you made when a king was coming. (1) We’re experts at building roads, are we not? Our land is covered with ribbons of concrete designed for our cars. And we have miles and miles of road projects underway in every nook and cranny of our republic. The most expensive highway project in our nation’s history was known as the Big Dig. It is in Boston. It involved building a buried ...

183. The Messiah’s Mark

Mark 12:28-34

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... , he merely asks him a question — the most fundamental mode of learning employed by Jewish scholars. This Scribe asks Jesus for his personal judgment upon which commandment is “first” among them all. As a Scribe, a learned scholar and designated interpreter of the Torah, this questioner certainly knew all the 613 commandments identified by Jewish tradition. He also knew that while all of those commandments were from God, Jewish scholars and rabbis had identified some commandments as “heavy” and ...

184. Mark 12:28-34

Mark 12:28-34

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

185. Signed, Sealed, and Delivered

Ephesians 1:1-14

Sermon

Timothy J. Smith

... on life.”[1] God through Jesus Christ has given each one of us a new lease on life, a second chance. In living out our faith we discover just how deep God’s love is for us and all people. We belong to God in and through Jesus Christ. That designation cannot be taken away from us. No matter what we do or where we are we will forever be children of God. We learn that God “chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love.” Before any of us were ...

186. The Runner

Romans 9:30--10:21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... way for human beings to be in an intimate and honest relationship with the divine. But this “new way” required the vanquishing of sin, the erasing of the first Adam’s disobedience, which then turned all of humanity against God’s first desires and designs for God’s children. No longer innocent, human beings needed a way to become obedient children of God once again. God offered Moses and the Israelites the “Law,” 613 of them to be exact. But the overwhelming power of sin made even keeping God ...

187. The Right Connection

John 15:1-17

Sermon

James Merritt

... of God the Son. I know that for one simple reason. Fruit always reflects the character of the tree or the vine from which it is connected. Go to an apple tree and you will find apples. Go to a pear tree and you will find pears. Grape vines are designed to produce grapes and a follower of Jesus Christ is to produce the character of the Christ in which he is connected. Keep in mind that the gardener’s number one concern for the branch is not just that it bears fruit, but that it bears the most fruit it ...

188. Unity in the Body of Christ

Ephesians 4:1-16

Understanding Series

Arthur G. Patzia

... means “to walk.” At one time their “walk” conformed to “the world’s evil way” (2:2); now they are exhorted to “walk,” to live out their new life in Christ and the unity that is theirs in the church. They are a part of God’s grand design for the world, which includes the uniting of all things in heaven and on earth (1:10). 4:2 This verse presents a list of personal attitudes essential for unity in the body of Christ. There is a striking similarity to the list in Colossians 3:12–15, but ...

189. Moses and the Burning Bush

Exodus 3:1-22

Understanding Series

James K. Bruckner

... he said, The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us, he spoke the name of their God. This would seem like a natural ethnic religious request to the pharaoh. Egyptian records of forced-labor administration mention such religious pilgrimages. Pharaoh recognized the ethnic designation “God of the Hebrews” though he claimed not to know Yahweh (the Lord; 5:2–3; 7:16; 9:1, 13; 10:3). The request for a three-day journey into the desert was more of a problem for the pharaoh. Not only would they miss ...

190. Habakkuk’s Prayer

Habakkuk 3:1-19

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... response, corresponding to the nature of the vision. As a vision of Yahweh coming to act in wrath, with its cosmic reverberations, it was intimidating, terrifying, and paralyzing (see v. 16a). Yet as a vision of Yahweh coming to deliver Judah, it was designed to inspire hope and confidence (see v. 16b). The NIV makes this tension explicit with its Yet, but there is no “yet” in the Hebrew; if anything, the conjunction (ʾasher) that appears at this point means simply “when” or “as” and continues ...

191. A Call to Build the House of the Lord

Haggai 1:1-15

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... and poor harvests. 1:12 Given that Yahweh commissioned Haggai to speak to Zerubbabel and Joshua but through them to the people, it is appropriate that the response comes from the two leaders and from the whole remnant of the people. That latter designation might have various implications. In origin, talk of a remnant surviving a catastrophe is a way of indicating how devastating the catastrophe was: only a remnant has survived. The term thus suggests the reduced nature of the community in Jerusalem; it is ...

192. John the Baptist's Testimony about Jesus

John 3:22-36

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... without the article. 3:28 I am not the Christ. The first half of John’s self-quotation refers clearly to 1:20, but the second half is not a word-for-word quote of anything that has appeared earlier (though cf. Mark 1:2; Luke 7:27). John is designated in the prologue as having been “sent” (1:6), whereas the idea that he was sent ahead of the Messiah may be an inference from statements that the Messiah would come “after” him (1:15, 27, 30). The matter is complicated by the assertion in 1:15, 30 that ...

193. Pilate and the Condemnation of Jesus

John 18:28-40, John 19:1-16

Understanding Series

J. Ramsey Michaels

... cross is the ironic moment of Jesus’ “lifting up,” is not his formal presentation as king outside the governor’s palace the ironic moment of his glory? Is it only coincidence that the place of crucifixion and the place of the presentation are each carefully designated with both Greek and Semitic names (vv. 13, 17)? It appears that the two events are intended to form a pair, with the precise time reference of verse 14 placed between them to do service for both. They are joined not simply for the sake ...

194. Abraham Tested

Genesis 22:1-19

Understanding Series

John E. Hartley

... to stay there while Isaac and he went ahead and worshiped. Abraham used an imprecise term for worship so that the servants would not surmise what he intended to do. He concluded with the assertion, We will come back to you. This statement was designed to belie any suspicion that they might have had of what he was about to do with Isaac. Abraham spoke definitively by using intense Hebrew verbal forms (cohortatives): we will go, we will worship, we will return. He was thereby expressing both his resolve ...

195. The Only Place of Worship

Deuteronomy 12:1-32

Understanding Series

Christopher J. H. Wright

... 11–12) call for two things: (a) that the people should bring their offerings of all kinds to the sanctuary of Yahweh, and (b) that they should eat and rejoice there in a community-inclusive way (v. 12). The list of seven different items in verse 6 seems designed to be as broad as possible, but is not concerned with precise or exhaustive listing. (On burnt offerings and sacrifices, cf. Lev. 1–7; on tithes, cf. Deut. 14:22–29; on vows, cf. Deut. 23:21–23 and Lev. 27; on the firstborn, cf. Deut. 15:19 ...

196. Adonijah Sets Himself Up as King

1 Kings 1:1-27

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

... ch. 1 eating, while his world falls apart around him. Certainly there is a neat irony in the fact that, while Adonijah imagines that it is David who lacks the crucial information from “outside” his small bedroom world that would enable him to frustrate his designs, it turns out to be Adonijah who is fatally ignorant, closeted away from political reality, wining and dining his friends. There is probably even more to it than that, however. It is at least a curious coincidence that the name of Adonijah’s ...

197. Amaziah King of Judah

2 Kings 14:1-22

Understanding Series

Iain W. Provan

... ’s reign are certainly large enough to make space for different scenarios in which he might have “restored” territory to his southern neighbor (under treaty? for administrative purposes?). The perplexing “Judah in Israel,” for all we know, could have been an Israelite designation for Judah during Jeroboam’s reign (representing a claim to overlordship?), if indeed the Hb. phrase lîhûdâ beyiśrāʾēl does not simply mean “to Judah at Israel’s cost” (cf. Hb. be in 1 Kgs. 2:23; 16:34). 15 ...

198. A Rebellious Nation

Isaiah 1:1-31

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... felt inner desire to express anger. “Avenge myself” adds the notion of fair punishment; it is a less emotional expression than the English one. I will turn my hand against you adds the idea of direct, careful, personal involvement. The hand that was designed to work for them and against their enemies is turned the other way. 1:25b–26 Now a surprising transition comes about. The act of judgment with wholly negative intent becomes an act of purging with creative, positive intent. The grieved and angered ...

199. Hezekiah’s Illness

Isaiah 38:1-22, Isaiah 39:1-8

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... chapter 39, a drama foreshadows a crisis. We have noted in the introduction to chapters 38–39 that Merodoch-Baladan’s friendly gesture belongs in the context of the political events that led up to the Assyrian invasion. It will have been designed to encourage Judean solidarity with other peoples who were seeking independence from Assyria (see on chapters 13–23). And presumably that is part of the background to verse 2 here: the Babylonians are discovering what resources the allies have available. They ...

200. Jerusalem to Be Inhabited

Isaiah 44:24--45:25

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... merely an introduction to 45:1–8, without a point of their own. Structurally, that is, they comprise an introduction to Yahweh’s words in verse 24a followed by a long self-description on Yahweh’s part that occupies verses 24b–28. Such a self-description is designed to buttress some point that Yahweh wishes to make. This self-description thus corresponds to the ones in 43:14a, 15 and 43:16–18 in the parallel section, which in turn buttress the points made in 43:14b and 19–21. But the point Yahweh ...

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