Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 176 to 200 of 975 results

176. For This Our Bounty

Illustration

Editor James S. Hewett

... endured, This priceless gift could never have been gained. In thanks and solemn praise, we raise our hearts, And vow to keep our honor still unstained. For this our bounty, Lord, we give Thee thanks With grateful hearts as brimming as our store. Our flocks are fed, our fields have yielded well. Dear Lord, we could not rightly ask for more. Pray, make us humble for our harvest's yield And mindful of our neighbors in distress; Unless in our abundance he may share Then empty is our show of thankfulness.

177. Wicked

Luke 20:9-19, Matthew 21:33-46

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... Luke’s Witness to Jesus’ Parable of the Wicked Tenants (20:9-19) Matthew’s Witness to Jesus’ Parable of the Wicked Tenants (21:33-46) Minor Text God’s Creation of Humankind and the Command to Bear Fruit (Genesis 1) Psalm 1: Blessed is he who yields fruit in season Psalm 128: The Lord’s Blessing Proverbs 11:30; 1:31; 12:14 You are the Fruit of Your Actions The Lord Plants, and the Lord Uproots (Jeremiah 12) Israel’s Unfaithfulness (Ezekiel 15) Israel’s Wickedness (Hosea 10) The Song of God ...

178. Secret Savior

Matthew 6:5-15, Matthew 6:16-18

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... , which you have profaned in their midst; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord,” says the Lord God, “when I am hallowed in you before their eyes.” Proclaimed God through Ezekiel. (Ezekiel 36:23) “I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not yield my glory to another or my praise to idols.” (Isaiah 42:8) When you sanctify God, when God is hallowed in your eyes and in your heart, your prayers will always be personal. And may your Kingdom be blessed: God is not only father but king. Today, we ...

179. Caring for the Vineyard We Did Not Plant

Matthew 20:1-16, Joshua 24:1-27

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... means caring for the ones that are also overgrown, or dying, or strangled with weeds. And it may mean too caring for vineyards that have roots in other places, systems, gods, or agendas –and growing love of God amidst it, so that our long roots begin to yield a different kind of fruit. In the scripture in Joshua, Joshua challenges God’s people: “Choose whom you will serve!” The issue of serving is a given! If we are not serving God’s mission, then we are serving our own, or someone else’s. Being ...

180. The Healing Tree

Revelation 22:1-6, Luke 8:1-15

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” The Tree of Life Then the angel showed me the river of the water of ... the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The ...

181. Why Can’t I Have It All?

Genesis 3:1-24, Genesis 2:4-25

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... by forces of destruction (shamar). In other words, “paradise” is not simply a gift, but an invitation to invest in relationship. The more cultivation of that garden’s beauty and propagation of its nourishing and yielding nature, the more guarding of its resources and viability, the more beautiful and yielding it becomes. And the wiser and more seasoned we become. Paradise is what a relationship looks like when its cared for and valued. Anyone with a great marriage knows that’s true! And it’s ...

182. A Dirt Story

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

King Duncan

... a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” The company of the committed refers to people that Christ can always count on. And notice what Jesus says about these folks: they produce a crop “yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” I believe that Jesus is saying to us that when we give Christ our best service our work is magnified more than we ever dream possible. Our influence on our family, our community, even our world is greater than we can ...

Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to.

Oscar Wilde

184. The Raising

John 11:32-44

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... land rock is granite. Most oceanic rock is thicker basalt. These rocks comprise 95% of the earth’s substance. The surface yields sedimentary rock, primarily such as shale and limestone, which make up the remaining percent.[1] From the beginning of time, humans ... have been fascinated with rocks –with the earth’s yields of gemstones, fossils, rock types, and magma. They collect rocks. We build with rocks. We take the minerals of the earth ...

185. Last But Yet First

Mark 9:33-37

Sermon

George W. Hoyer

... the Church. "You're welcome!" God says. "You can welcome," God says. "Lord, I would be selfless. Help Thou my selfishness!" You are able. You're a big child now. You have the wisdom. "The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace." Welcome him now, him who welcomes you to his table. "Come up higher," he says. "After you," we say ...

186. Called To Pull Down; Called To Rebuild

Jeremiah 1:1-19

Sermon

Robert A. Hausman

... of self-assertion, self-fulfillment, self-made men and women. Our common cliches are "do your own thing" and "I did it my way." Jeremiah makes it clear, however, that such autonomy is illusionary. Kings and commoners, princes and paupers, all eventually must yield to the call of God. Jeremiah must have sensed that this powerful claim of God brings tension and conflict, for he immediately resists. He did not claim sinfulness as his excuse, as Isaiah did (Isaiah 6:5). He claims inadequacy: "Ah, Lord God ...

187. Out Of The Whirlwind

Job 38:1--41:34

Sermon

John A. Stroman

... may be that just when everything is going great and it appears that God is smiling on your life the unexpected happens. It may have been the result of a devastating diagnosis that leads to the deterioration of your health; the loss of your job; the yielding to temptation that compromises your relationship with your spouse or children bringing a sense of shame and loss. It may be the breaking of a relationship by divorce or death and for the first time you are alone. It strikes with the force of a whirlwind ...

188. Thankful Living

Joel 2:18-27

Sermon

John A. Stroman

... be at peace with God and live in conflict or discord with what God has created. Joel admonishes the soil to be glad and rejoice, and the animals in the field not to fear; the pastures will turn green, and the vines and the trees will again bear their yield. God will again give the usual "early" rain in October and November and the "later" rains in March and April, as God has always done before. Joel declares that Judah's response to all of this is to "praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt ...

189. The Waiting Place

Isaiah 63:7--64:12

Sermon

William L. Self

... born outside the waiting place. "The greatest revelation is stillness," said Lao-Tzu, and it is most often in this stillness that we become aware of the Holy Spirit and Jesus. It is in this engraced stillness of Advent that we, after the example of Mary, yield to being God-bearers in the world. In this stillness, we commit to being Christ's presence in the world, the flesh of faith, the unfolding of the incarnation. God makes this plain: "They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength" (Isaiah 40:31 ...

190. In The Beginning God

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

William L. Self

... for God. As the spirit moved upon the waters at creation, so the spirit moves upon the chaos of human life and brings order. The baptized life is the opposite of the undecided life. Regardless of its form, or the candidate's age, it is the yielded life that began when we were "drowned" in baptismal waters and rose resurrected in the Spirit. Because of this decision, aimlessness is no longer an option. The decision for Christ has become the first thing in the new life of order and grace. Everything else is ...

191. The Man With Two Umbrellas

1 Samuel 3:1--4:1

Sermon

William L. Self

... 000 of an ounce of radium was accidentally dropped and broken on the hardwood floor. With a camel's hair brush, they swept up the radium. Then they washed the floor to get the rest of it. But enough remained to render four more washings necessary. Each yielded more radium. Finally, a carpenter scraped the floor three years later, the shavings were burned, and the ashes were found to be strong in radium. We cannot get rid of influence. The Bible tells us that no man lives or dies to himself (Romans 14:7). To ...

192. Advent 1

Isaiah 63:7--64:12, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9, Psalm 80:1-19, Mark 13:32-37, Mark 13:1-31

Sermon Aid

William E. Keeney

... us to an understanding of the need for a power outside ourselves. We realize that in our own strength we are insufficient. We are alienated from God and that leads to alienation from others around us. Ultimately we recognize that we are even alienated from our true selves. We yield ourselves to the power of Christ's spirit to redeem us and enable us to come to our real self in him. The second type of sign is in the society of which we are a part. Having the model of the kingdom of heaven as a realm of ...

193. The Potter Almighty

Jeremiah 18:1--19:15

Sermon

Richard L. Sheffield

... as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10). And then to live life as in the words of the old hymn: "Have thine own way, Lord! Have thine own way! Thou art the potter; I am the clay. Mold me and make me, after thy will, while I am waiting, yielded and still."5 So, in the still of this moment, what shall we say? For some reason the committee that chose the lesson from Jeremiah chose not to tell us what the people said. They left out the last verse in this section. But that which is too often left ...

194. Expecting the Unexpected

Judges 4:1-24

Sermon

Robert S. Crilley

... exegete. Much like a stubborn child refusing to speak, the text just sits there on the page before us with arms folded, lips tightly sealed, and appearing almost to stare off in another direction. Jesus denouncing that defenseless fig tree with a withering curse for failing to yield a little fruit ahead of schedule, or the time he instructs Peter to pay the temple tax by catching a fish and getting it to cough up a spare coin, are two which come to mind. Or how about that unnerving scene of the she-bears ...

195. Wicked Tenants

Matthew 21:33-46

Sermon Aid

William E. Keeney

... stewardship over it. They are temporary tenants who are to tend it as a vineyard. If cared for properly it will produce abundant fruit and sustain life. They are not to abuse or misuse it for immediate gain at the expense of future yield. The environment is created by God with amazing recuperative capacity. Good tenants assure that the bounds set on the productivity of the earth do not exceed its possibilities of continuing, life-sustaining productivity. 2. Freedom to Reject. Persons are created with the ...

196. The Holy Spirit As The Dove Of Peace

Sermon

John A. Stroman

... world of creation and sees the bloodshed, violence, and destruction that men, women and nations have brought upon one another. We seem to be hell-bent on destroying the environment and ourselves with it. Morality And Peace Isaiah declared that "righteousness will yield peace" (Isaiah 32:17 NEB). There is a relationship between morality and peace. A relationship that we have not yet seemed to understand or comprehend. We have not aimed high enough in our desires for peace. We have allowed the politicians to ...

197. Sermons

Sermon

John R. Bodo

... of Martha and Mary, is dying. Jesus is ready to start out for Bethany at once, but the Disciples resist him. "Master," they plead, "the people were but now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?" But when they cannot persuade him, they yield. Only Thomas takes the dark view. "Let us also go," he says, "that we may die with him." The second time Thomas says something for the record is at the Last Supper. Having long since accepted the worst, Thomas appears grieved and peeved at the Master ...

198. Following God's Lead

Joshua 5:1-12

Sermon

Rodney Thomas Smothe

... as a culture we are faced with a dilemma of our own design. In a "me, me" generation to think about submission to anything or anyone other than our own desires seems foreign. Submission is not a giving away of one's identity; it is yielding oneself to the authority or will of God. Another important understanding of submission is to make oneself available to God. The Lenten season involves a time of reflection and introspection. A time of soul-searching and self-examination. A time of dying and living again ...

199. Christmas Letters

Drama

Karren Boehr

... nations of the world up into one giant shovel and place them before your lowly manger. Surely they would see the message, the love. (Shakes head and sighs) No, probably not. People's hearts seem so cold, so calloused. Kneeling before a manger is so humbling, so yielding. And yet you were willing ... willing not only to be born in a common stable but to die for sins you never even committed. (Stands up, looking toward heaven) Which brings me to the purpose of this letter. I want you to teach me the way of ...

200. When God Has Other Plans

Drama

Karren Boehr

Theme: Surrendering To God's Plan For Our Lives Yielding to the plan of God for one's life is often difficult. This play takes an "almost humerous" but powerful approach to an individual's decision to decide his/her own destiny. (Designed for small spaces and easy production, this drama also adapts to younger actors. Props and costuming are ...

Showing results

Showing 176 to 200 of 975 results

176. For This Our Bounty

Illustration

Editor James S. Hewett

177. Wicked

Luke 20:9-19, Matthew 21:33-46

Sermon

Lori Wagner

178. Secret Savior

Matthew 6:5-15, Matthew 6:16-18

Sermon

Lori Wagner

179. Caring for the Vineyard We Did Not Plant

Matthew 20:1-16, Joshua 24:1-27

Sermon

Lori Wagner

180. The Healing Tree

Revelation 22:1-6, Luke 8:1-15

Sermon

Lori Wagner

181. Why Can’t I Have It All?

Genesis 3:1-24, Genesis 2:4-25

Sermon

Lori Wagner

182. A Dirt Story

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

King Duncan

Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to.

Oscar Wilde

184. The Raising

John 11:32-44

Sermon

Lori Wagner

185. Last But Yet First

Mark 9:33-37

Sermon

George W. Hoyer

186. Called To Pull Down; Called To Rebuild

Jeremiah 1:1-19

Sermon