Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 1976 to 2000 of 4972 results

1976. The Most Generous Gift

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

King Duncan

... . As she drew closer to the man, Erick’s mother turned her back trying to sidestep the man and avoid any air he might be breathing. As she did, Erik leaned over her arm, reaching with both arms in a baby’s “pick-me-up” position. Before the mom could stop him, Erik had propelled himself from her arms to the old man’s. Suddenly the ragged man with sorry-old shoes and a young child with a face full of giggles were in full embrace. The baby, in an act of total trust and love, laid his tiny head upon ...

1977. Getting It Right in the Coming Year

Galatians 4:4-7

Sermon

King Duncan

... aware that we need to make some improvements in our lives. However, change is never easy, even when it comes to following through with a few resolutions. “I read somewhere that the top five resolutions are to get personal finances in order, lose weight, stop smoking, become more physically fit, and improve personal relationships. Some folks even decide to attend church more faithfully. I think they’re going to start next week. Good. But the fact is that after only one week, almost a quarter of us have ...

1978. The Three Kings

Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

King Duncan

... , “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” Someone put it this way: “Suppose you were about to enter Heaven, and stopped to make a few remarks to people on earth. Suppose at the same moment a sunbeam were leaving the sun, and that your words and the ray of light had the same distance to reach the earth. In eight minutes the people on earth would see that ...

1979. Simple Faith?

Mark 1:9-15

Sermon

John Jamison

... a loving God would put his children through this kind of testing anyway. Does God really love us? Does God really love me? Is there actually a loving God out there somewhere? Once we start down that path of questions about the wilderness experience, there’s no stopping it. If God is... then why? But throughout history, as in today’s story, we’re reminded that God is in the wilderness, not in the city. Jesus chose to go to the wilderness, just as he chose to step into the river. He could have stepped ...

1980. The Week

Mark 14:1-15:47

Sermon

John Jamison

... end of the world. (fade out, pause, then up) Gethsemane is a small olive orchard at the bottom of the Kidron Valley between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives near where the town of Bethany sits. It was as safe a place as any for Jesus and the disciples to stop. Mark tells us that Jesus told the group to sit down while he prayed, and then took Peter, James, and John with him to another part of the garden. Jesus began to get upset, saying “I am deeply grieved, even to death” and asked the three of them to ...

1981. Have You Ever Screwed Up?

John 20:1-18

Sermon

John Jamison

... ask when they were coming back home. The elderly father they had left to run the business would look with hopeful eyes to see if they had come back to take the burden from his shoulders once again. But as the months went by, they stopped coming out and they stopped looking. How could any of these guys go back home and explain anything? Where would they go? What would they do? Mary may have struggled the most with this question. If anyone was facing a difficult time returning home, it was this young woman ...

1982. The Shepherd

John 10:11-18

Sermon

John Jamison

... make sure everything was safe. He made one quick trip around the low, stone wall of the sheepfold, making sure the wall was still secure. Then he stopped at the gap in the wall filled with briars, at the gate. The sheep began to stir as he walked around, and one by one they ... their morning drinks, the shepherd walked around the nearby pasture. He walked slowly, closely examining every inch of ground. He stopped to pick up any sharp stones or briars that might cut the soft noses of his sheep. He looked for ...

1983. Making Sense

John 17:6-19

Sermon

John Jamison

... of the faith. They get started and things go very well until the day they run into a passage like this one in John; one that seems to defy them to understand what it says. In almost every case that is the day they stop reading. There is usually one of three reasons they actually stop. Either they aren’t capable of understanding the great mysteries of the word of God, the Bible is just too old to make any real sense today, or the Bible is just kind of thrown together with no real design and no real way ...

1984. When a Storm Is Raging

Mark 4:35-41

Sermon

King Duncan

... the day to appropriate that faith for yourself. 1. Robert Hendrickson, American Literary Anecdotes (New York: Facts On File, Inc., 1990), p. 80. 2. Zeeya Merali, https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7726-oil-on-troubled-waters-may-stop-hurricanes/. 3. Henry Gariepy, Portraits of Perseverance (Wheaton, Illinois: Victor Books, 1989). 4. Edward F. Markquart, http://www.sermonsfromseattle.com/series_b_tornado_time.htm. 5. Cited at http://www.christchurchsummit.org/Sermons-2006/060129-WhenGodSeemsSilent.html 6 ...

1985. Some Things I've Learned Since I Knew It All

Mark 4:26-34

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... to help but were frustrated since he continually refused to take responsibility for his troubles. On top of all his other troubles, Adam had a drinking problem. He maintained he wasn't an alcoholic and that he could stop drinking any time he chose to, but somehow the drinking never stopped. He was locked into the alcoholic syndrome -- drinking to solve problems until drinking became his biggest problem which he tried to solve by drinking. One drink was too much and a thousand drinks were not enough -- the ...

1986. You Are What You Eat

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Sermon

Rick McCracken-Bennett

... to repeat over and over, positive affirmations. And I did... over and over and over. I suppose that was more helpful than repeating negative statements like, I'm too stupid, too slow, I'm too inexperienced. Over time I stopped using these affirmations. I'm not sure why, I just stopped thinking about them. However, I did begin to pick up some different ones that have become increasingly helpful and very much a part of my spiritual disciplines. These mantras are often verses of scripture, most often from one ...

1987. When I Am Weak, I Am Strong

2 Corinthians 12:7-10

Sermon

King Duncan

... . As renowned and successful as he was, however, Winston Churchill had his struggles. Churchill as a young man was confronted with two big challenges. First, he suffered a speech impediment--a lisp caused by a dental condition. But this did not stop him from becoming a celebrated public speaker. We’re told that he often wore an artificial tooth, designed to ease this impediment. He also avoided words in his speeches that he had difficulty pronouncing. Yet his speeches were both inspiring and motivating ...

1988. Could the Pharisees Have Been Irish?

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Sermon

King Duncan

... of us can be hypocritical in our condemnation of tradition-keepers. There is a story about a so-called assimilated Jewish woman--that is, one who no longer keeps the traditions of her faith--from the Midwest who was visiting Philadelphia. She boarded a bus. A few stops later, a man with a wide‑brimmed black hat, white shirt, long black coat, black pants, black shoes, and a long curly black beard gets on and sits down beside her. The woman looks at him with disgust. “Jews like you,” she hisses at him ...

1989. Things a Child Can Teach Us

Mark 9:30-37

Sermon

King Duncan

... the lollipops in?” “Blow your horn and make that police car get out of the way, Mom.” “Janie just dropped the ketchup bottle on top of the prune juice, and the bag’s leaking.” “Drive faster, we’re missing a good program on TV.” “Stop bouncing the car, I can’t read the message on the cereal box.” “It’s cold back here, sitting on the frozen food.” “Who put the fingerprints on the back window?” “Why’d you turn the radio off?” “Jimmy’s opening the cookie bag.” And ...

1990. Playing Golf at Midnight

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

King Duncan

... to the difference in pressure below the water and above it. Young Washington, himself, suffered from this condition to such an extent that he became paralyzed, deaf, and mute. Can you imagine what this would have been like? But this wasn’t going to stop him from building his father’s bridge. Able to move just one finger, Washington devised a system by which he could tap on his wife’s arm and communicate with her. He continued to direct the construction of the bridge from his bed, giving instructions ...

1991. The Peace of Christmas

Philippians 4:4-7

Sermon

King Duncan

... ’ve been waiting my turn all day, bring me some tea!” But the waitress ignored her. A few moments later, a friendly young man came to her table smiling and said, “I’m Rob, your waiter.” After he took their order she noticed that Rob stopped to help the rude waitress with her tray. He greeted the other customers and staff. In the midst of dozens of hurried shoppers and restaurant staff he conducted himself in a polite, unhurried atmosphere of calm. When he refilled her tea, Lucinda noticed a silver ...

1992. A Difficult but Joyous Journey

Luke 1:39-55

Sermon

King Duncan

... to wave down a passing motorist to help, but to no avail. Finally, after more than two hundred cars had whizzed by, one stopped. The couple in the car took care of the injured boy, returned the two of them to their home, and then went on. ... the truck and drove to the address they were given and rang the doorbell. Who should answer the door but the humble couple who had stopped to help him on the highway just weeks before? (3) Life does not always work out that neatly, of course, but Christmas is all about ...

1993. What To Say When You Roll Out Of Bed

Mark 12:28-34

Sermon

William G. Carter

... , but arrived home an hour too late, apologizing with the words, "I love you." He promised to balance the checkbook, but didn't get around to it until three or four checks bounced. Then he expressed his regrets, adding, "I love you." One day his wife said, "You must stop saying that you love me." He complained, "But I do love you. I feel it; I say it; I think it." She said, "No, if you loved me, you would do something about it. You would keep your part of the relationship." She was right, because she knows ...

1994. Holy Happiness

Luke 6:17-26

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

... will get.” What is going on here? There is a true story about a Quaker who put up a sign on the vacant piece of land next to his house. It read: This Land Will Be Given To Anyone Who Is Truly Satisfied. A wealthy farmer who was riding by stopped to read the sign and said to himself, “Since I have all I need as a wealthy man, I certainly qualify. I might as well claim the land.” He approached the Quaker to seal the deal. “And art thou truly satisfied?” the Quaker inquired. “I am, indeed. I have ...

1995. The Reception was Excellent

John 2:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

... s presence and give thanks. Dr. John Killinger tells a wonderful story about a friend of his named Millard Reed. Millard, a college president, was on a speaking trip in South Carolina when he suddenly fell ill and was rushed to the hospital. His liver had stopped functioning. His system was shutting down. The doctors said he would die. But a lot of people prayed for Millard, and when the doctors found a new liver for him and implanted it, he began to recover. “One day, when Millard was back in Nashville ...

1996. Are You in the Right Place?

Matthew 6:1-6

Sermon

King Duncan

... working. Pastor Lee took the clock down and it turned out to simply be that the batteries needed changing. When it was pointed out, one lady said that in all her years of coming to church she never knew the clock to stop working or the batteries to need changing. Sometime later Pastor Lee noticed a hinge on one of the cabinet doors in the fellowship hall was loose. The pastor heard many people complain about the hinge being loose but no one took time to fix it. After several more similar incidents ...

1997. The Journey of Salvation

Luke 22:39-46, 2 Corinthians 5:17-21

Sermon

King Duncan

... people at a place called Gabbatha. But Gabbatha is not the end of our journey. From Gabbatha our story moves to the third stop on the journey of salvation. It is, as you have already guessed, a hill called Golgotha--the place of the skull. The soldiers compelled ... had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:18-21). So, the last stop on the journey of salvation is our town as we seek to tell the good news, as we seek to make disciples of all men and ...

1998. Good-Bye Mardi Gras, Hello Lent

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Sermon

R. Robert Cueni

... some claim, however, it is not true that “all the church wants is our money.” Actually, our faith expects a great deal more than our money. A minister friend tells the story of an evangelism call he made on man who had been attending church. The minister stopped one Saturday morning to ask if this fellow was ready to confess his faith in the lordship of Jesus Christ. When the minister arrived at the house, the man was working in his lawn. As the minister got out of his car, the man good naturedly tossed ...

1999. Thinking Big

Illustration

Charles E. "Tremendous" Jones

... a week he began to pity the boy who was striving to sell his puppy. The salesman knew the boy didn't "See It Big." He stopped and said, "Son, do you really want to sell this dog?" The boy replied, "I certainly do. " "Well you're never going to sell him until ... Puppy For Sale—$5,000. The salesman gulped and realized he had forgotten to tell the boy about Keeping It Simple. That evening he stopped by to tell the boy the other half of the formula, only to discover that the boy was gone, the puppy was gone and ...

2000. Let Him Play

Illustration

Editor James S. Hewett

... and began to play. Suddenly the cathedral was filled with the most beautiful music the custodian had ever heard in all his years in that place. The music seemed to transport him heavenward. In what seemed all too short a time, the dowdy stranger stopped playing and slid off the organ bench, and started down the stairway. "Wait!" cried the custodian. "That was the most beautiful music I have ever heard in the cathedral. Who are you?" The stranger turned for just a moment as he replied, "Mendelssohn." The ...

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