Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: Levi, disciple, evangelist, tax collector, the 12, the twelve, apostle, sermon on the mount, jewish audience, beatitudes, lord's prayer, great commission, parables, olivet discourse, mount of olives, olivet, synoptic

Showing 2001 to 2025 of 3314 results

2001. Bearing Fruit

John 15:1-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... in Phrygia. Bartholomew was flayed alive in Armenia; Andrew was crucified in Archia; Thomas was run through with a lance in East India; and Thaddeus was shot to death with arrows. A cross went up in Persia for Simon the zealot; and in Rome the old Apostle Peter was, at his own request, crucified head downward"” because he did not think himself worthy to die as his Lord had. Matthias was beheaded. Only John escaped a torturous death, and he died a lonely man in exile. Such heroics, however, are not limited ...

2002. A Church Fueled By Prayer

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Sermon

King Duncan

... 4:3; 5:40). Stephen was stoned to death for his preaching, and became the first Christian martyr (Acts 7:57-60). James, the brother of John, was slain by Herod, and shortly thereafter Peter was imprisoned again (Acts 12:1-5). All of the apostles, with the exception of John, who was banished to the Island of Patmos, were martyred. And persecution continued long after the apostolic age ended. When nearly half of Rome burned, Emperor Nero blamed the fire on innocent Christians and vented his fury on them. Some ...

2003. The Coming Of The Spirit

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... on each one of them. Crowds of Jews were gathered in Jerusalem from every nation. When they heard about the strange things that were happening at the meeting place of the disciples, a multitude of them gathered. They were bewildered, because each one heard the apostles speaking in his own language. They were amazed and wondered, saying "Are not all these speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language?" But others mocking said, "They are filled with new wine." The world ...

2004. When The World Goes Crazy!

Genesis 6:1-8:22

Sermon

King Duncan

... on a single road. Make me a fork that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me." (5) Every Christian is called to be a fork in the road. Our holiness is supposed to make us uncomfortable in the world. In I Corinthians, chapter 4, the apostle Paul calls Christians "fools for Christ's sake." He says that the world is going to ridicule and reject us for our faith. He should know. Paul lost everything when he became a Christ-follower. Like Noah, he never had a moment's rest, but he also had no ...

2005. The Competitor

Genesis 25:19-34

Sermon

King Duncan

... wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all." (Mark 9:34-35) There is nothing wrong with being ambitious, competitive, a striver--as long as you play by the rules and as long as you are ambitious for the right things. The apostle Paul wrote: "Therefore also we have as our ambition . . . to be pleasing to Him" (2 Corinthians 5:9, NASB). That is our ambition--to be pleasing to God. Jacob was a competitor. At first his only goal was to win. He was not above deceit and treachery. You ...

2006. What Would Bill Do?

1 Thessalonians 2:1-16

Sermon

King Duncan

... give up on God. Don’t presume to figure God out. God’s ways are not our ways, but God’s love for us is eternal. St. Paul never gave up on God. And St. Paul never quit serving people. Listen to his words to the church at Thessalonica: “As apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you, but we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you ...

2007. God's Witness Security Program

1 John 3:1-3

Sermon

King Duncan

... ? If you could stand up and say, “This is who I am, and nothing I do and nothing you do can detract from it”? According to our Bible passage today, you can do just that. Today’s passage is from I John 3: 1-3. It is written by the apostle John, a man who was once a member of Jesus’ “inner circle.” He is an old man now, and he knows he doesn’t have much longer to share Jesus’ message. The young churches throughout Asia and the Middle East are struggling to define what it means to be Christ ...

2008. To Care for the Earth

Leviticus 25:1-7

Sermon

Edward Inabinet

... a curse on the earth and on nature. "Cursed is the ground because of you," says the Lord. This is to say that both humanity and nature need redemption. Christ came to bring about that redemption. "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation," says the Apostle Paul. Here is the ultimate solution to all the earth''s problems. A redeemed person has a new heart and will. A redeemed person takes on new values and attitudes. A redeemed person understands the earth to be a gift from God of which he or she is ...

2009. Amazing Grace

Romans 5:1-11

Sermon

Edward Inabinet

... . Paul sums up that amazing grace of God, the grace that he himself knew so intimately and so gloriously, here in this fifth chapter of Romans. No one before or since has been able to capture in words the essence of that grace as the Apostle Paul does here and throughout the book of Romans--that same grace which overtook John Newton and transformed his life and which has overtaken and transformed the lives of countless millions down through the ages. Paul writes, "While we were yet helpless, while we were ...

2010. When Death Is Gain

Philippians 1:1-11

Sermon

Edward Inabinet

(For a very faithful choir member who had given most of her life to singing in the church choir.) The Apostle Paul declared, "For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain." Paul loved life and loved his friends, but he knew it was better to die and be with the Lord. ________________ too felt it was time to lay aside the burden of illness and disease and ...

2011. Joy In the Midst of Sorrow?

John 15:1-17

Sermon

Edward Inabinet

... , suspicion, hard feelings, loneliness, disappointment with ourselves and with other people. But a Christian can have a joy that never fails because it comes from One who never fails us. He promises that His joy will be full and complete. No wonder the Apostle James can say then, "Count it all joy when you suffer various trials." We know, humanly speaking, that''s unrealistic and foolish, but when Christ is our joy human wisdom is transcendent. Even in the face of illness, pain and death we can rejoice ...

2012. The Comfort of God

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Edward Inabinet

... God, believe in me; in my father''s house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you I will surely come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there you may be also." The Apostle Paul speaks of the new resurrection body that will be ours. John tells of the home eternal where God dwells with His people--where all of our sins and sorrows and pains and decay will be removed. "Blessed are they who mourn for they shall be comforted." Professor William J ...

2013. The Living Hope

1 Peter 1:1-12

Sermon

Edward Inabinet

... to give eternal life to everyone who believes. That''s why Peter exults, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. By His great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead..." This great Apostle, in one of the most beautiful passages in the Bible, gives us hope to comfort our grieving hearts. FIRST, IT IS A LIVING HOPE. Christ is a living Saviour. Because he is a living Savior he now lives in the hearts of believers. With his life within we ...

2014. Father? Almighty?

John 14:5-14

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... Is that Something a Someone? Is the Ultimate Reality of the universe benign, malign, or indifferent? And I believe that the best clue to answering that question is Jesus Christ. I. IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER I SUGGESTED THAT I WOULD HAVE PREFERRED TO HAVE THE APOSTLES’ CREED BEGIN WITH JESUS CHRIST AND THEN WORK IT’S WAY TO GOD. If it had, the Church might have been saved a lot of foolish theology down through the centuries. It would have been saved the embarrassment of sometimes proclaiming a view of God ...

2015. Making Sense of the Ascension

Luke 24:50-53

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... it all back. But as he was leaving, he is said to have muttered under his breath, “Nevertheless, it still moves!” It wasn’t until 1822 that the Pope officially gave the earth permission to revolve around the sun. What, then, are we to do with the Apostles’ Creed, which, taking its cue from the Bible, says of Jesus, “He ascended into heaven, (and) is seated at the right hand of the Father, and will come again to judge the living and the dead?” We certainly know that heaven is not up, nor is hell ...

2016. What on Earth Is the Trinity?

John 14:15-31

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... earth. Everywhere you go in the world, you will find Christians using the same language about God. Just what do these words mean? Are they merely theological mumbo-jumbo designed to confuse the laity, or do they point to something real and important? In discussing the Apostles’ Creed we have looked at our statement of faith in God, in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, and, this morning we come to the phrase: I believe in the Holy Spirit. In discussing our Christian faith in God, we must go further ...

2017. What the Heck Is Sin?

Luke 15:11-32

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... of God. The poet Goethe once said that If I were God, this world of sin and suffering would break my heart. The Gospel says that it did. And that is what the Cross is all about. When we affirm our belief in the forgiveness of sins in the Apostles Creed, we declare our faith in the central miracle of the Christian Faith, namely, that by the grace of God we can be changed and reformed and transformed. No matter how bad our sin may be, God will forgive it and help us to become new creatures in Christ ...

2018. God’s Body Language

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... to the heresy of “Docetism,” from the Greek dokeo which means “to seem.” This heresy taught that Jesus never had any real human body, but just sort of flitted over the earth like a ghost. It is interesting to note that in the familiar “Apostles’ Creed” the phrase “born of the Virgin Mary” was inserted in the first place not to emphasize the word “virgin,” but rather to emphasize the word “born.” Lest you think that this theological debate is all long, long ago and far away, may I ...

2019. What’s the Good Word?

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... Of course not. I have as much of the River Jordan as I can get into a bottle. Well, Jesus is as much of God that can be crammed into a human being, without wiping out that human being’s own humanity. So in II Corinthians, the apostle Paul says, “...in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.” (II Cor. 5:19) God was in Christ, but certainly not all of God. This is another instance which shows us the ...

2020. Christmas and the Condensed Bible

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... , is about a God who gives himself away. That’s the meaning of what theologians call “revelation.” What we have in the Bible is, I believe, not the revelation of God itself, but rather the record of the revelation of God, the stories of prophets and apostles through whom God gave God’s self to us. And central to the whole story is the good news that in Jesus Christ God made the fullest revelation possible. “The Word was made flesh, and lived among us.” Flesh and blood like ours. That is what ...

2021. Jesus and the Divorced Evangelist

John 4:1-26

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... gets too close to home for comfort, you can always switch to a theological discussion. Talking theology beats the dickens out of talking ethics. There is an old story of a college chaplain who had a student say to him, “I am having trouble with the Apostles’ Creed.” To which the wise chaplain replied, “And are you also having trouble with the Ten Commandments as well?” It is an age-old dodge. Theologian Karl Barth was not the first to note that people sometimes use religion as a shield to keep God ...

2022. The Glorious Interpolation

John 7:45--8:11

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... made its way back into the “canon” of the New Testament, because it gives us hope that you and I can make our way into the Kingdom of God. The Christ portrayed in the story is depicted as the “Friend of Sinners” - and that includes all of us. The apostle Paul says that “...there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:22b-23) All have not sinned alike, but all alike have sinned. We may not be guilty of the so-called “sins of the flesh,” but we ...

2023. Let the Son Shine In

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... feared the darkness. They believed that the ghosts of the dead stalked about in the night. The lights of flickering campfires made the woods appear to be alive with threatening spirits. And so you can imagine what a deep sense of joy swelled up in the heart of the apostle when, after coming to know about Jesus, he wrote, “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.” (I John 1:5) The night sky was, for the first time, swept ...

2024. Is Suffering Punishment for Sin?

John 9:1-12

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... dealing with the suffering which comes into the world because of the wrongdoing of others. We may protest that it is unfair, but that’s the way life seems to work. In the Letter to the Romans, St. Paul calls it the “wrath” of God. When I read the apostle’s words, I get the impression that, for him, God’s “wrath” is not simply God getting angry at the world; it is more like God’s moral ordering of the universe. God does not have to punish us for our sins, because sin is itself the punishment ...

2025. Lazarus Laughed

John 11:17-37

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... themselves. Originally, the Gospels came with no authors’ names attached to them. The Fourth gospel has traditionally been attributed to the unnamed disciple who is know only by the appellation as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” We have usually assumed that was the apostle John. But the only disciple in all of the Gospels who is specifically referred to as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” is Lazarus! Remember how He was told, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” (John 11:3) The jury is still out ...

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