Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 2001 to 2025 of 3852 results

2001. Will You Still Listen?

Jeremiah 1:1-19

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... the ramp from its landing pad. The huge team of NASA engineers, computer programmers and systems analysts communicated across the millions of miles of space, telling Spirit to gradually turn itself around so that it could exit down a different ramp than originally intended. The air-bags that had cushioned Spirit's landing had blocked its appointed exit, requiring the NASA ground crew to spend days talking to all its six wheels and hundreds of directional controllers in order to convince Spirit to realign ...

2002. The Whole Shebang in Six Words

John 11:38-44

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... wanted to see. And when the Savior passed that way He looked up in the tree And he said, "Zaccheus, you COME DOWN, For I'm going to your house today." I see we all went to the same Sunday School. Actually, the way I learned the last line was originally "For I'm gong to your house for tea." I have some Salvation Army (a British import) in my religious DNA. Anybody else learn it "for tea" rather than "today?" "Today" we'd be more prone to say "for I'm going to your house for coffee." The Zaccheus story ...

2003. Inside-out Living

Mark 7:1-23

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... stinking from the center out to within a half inch of its outer skin. What had looked promising as a meal couldn't even produce a mouthful of unrotted pulpy flesh. The potatoes rotted from the inside out. This is exactly what the Bible means when it talks about original sin. We all have this blight in our being that rots us from the inside out. So even if we look great on the outside, and even if we tithe our lottery earnings and put lots of people to work, our hidden hungers and deep desires within are our ...

2004. Do You Have a GPS - A God Positioning System?

Galatians 3:1-14

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... "reading." Since the 12th century, Lectio Divina has been a method of reading the Scriptures a slow, deliberate, reverential reading more with the heart than with the head. We understand Lectio Divina today as the spoken or public reading of Scripture. But the original meaning of the phrase Lectio Divina was a larger understanding pioneered by the early Fathers of the Desert of Scripture as a school of life and a school of prayer. In the earliest understanding of Lectio Divina, what was important was less ...

2005. Attics, Basements, Closets

Psalm 130:1-8

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... set back in the so-called age of chivalry championed by so many who look at our present-day leaders with highbrow disdain. In the 14th century Robert Erdeswick of Stafford was the first English gentlemen (according to Maurice Keen, Origins of the English Gentleman: Heraldry, Chivalry and Gentility in Medieval England, c. 1300-c.1500; Arcadia; December 2002). Yet this first English gentleman was indicted for breaking and entering, assault and battery, and attempted murder. (In the 14th century they ...

2006. It Is Good News!

1 John 4:7-21

Sermon

James McCormick

... me: we will never understand the Christian gospel until we understand that it is not a discovery we have dug up in some library. It is not something we have invented by our genius. It is not something we have conjured up in our imagination. The gospel did not originate with us. It is a gift from God! It is the gift of Himself: His love, His mercy, His forgiveness, and His gift of abundant life. Surely that is the heart of the gospel – God giving Himself to us in Jesus! We hear the echoes of it again and ...

2007. Sing the Resurrection Song

Mark 16:1-20

Sermon

James McCormick

... accounts of the resurrection, though, probably most people like the story in Mark the least. It is the briefest and gives fewer details than the others. But the thing that makes us most uncomfortable, I imagine, is the abrupt ending. Many Biblical scholars believe that the original gospel of Mark ended with verse 8 of the 16th chapter. The rest was added later, they believe. I suppose that’s one reason I like the account in Mark. It ends with the words: “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for ...

2008. In Life Nothing Works but the Impossible

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... , and finally the greater identity of the child (see Genesis 16:11-12; Genesis 17:19; 1 Chronicles 22:9-10). The name “Jesus” is the Greek form of the Hebrew name “yeshua” or Yeshu” or in transliterated form, “Joshua.” While originally understood as “God helps” the presence of the Hebrew root for “saved,” “ys,” leads to a more emphatic translation of “God saves.” Here the angelic messenger qualifies the Jesus Mission: “he will save his people from their sins” (v.21). In ...

2009. 1 Corinthians 9:24-27

1 Corinthians 9:1-27

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... -discipline (egkrateuomai), crown (stephanos), box (pykteuo) and flail at the air (dero aera): all are part of that distinct "agon" lexicon; all stand out as atypical biblical terms. Despite this unusual terminology, Paul remains focused on his original argument against those Corinthians whose "freedom" included activities (such as eating suspect foods and attending pagan events) that misled others less "free" in their faith. Paul begins this section confident that his culturally savvy Corinthian audience ...

2010. Acts 19:1-7

Acts 19:1-22

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... community. This baptism "in the name of the Lord Jesus," accompanied by Paul's laying on of hands, so transforms this Ephesian faith community that it's now comparable to yet another new Israel. The text specifies that this newly baptized group numbers twelve, symbolically linking them both to the original twelve tribes of Israel and to the post-ascension restored twelve disciples (Acts 1:15f).

2011. A New Vision

Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

King Duncan

... words “Magi” and “imagination.” Imagination is from the word “image,”--meaning a form, a picture--and has descended to us from the Latin “imago,” which, in its turn, was derived from the old Semitic root, “mag,” the same root word from which magi originated. This Sunday is called Epiphany on the church calendar, and it is a celebration of the coming of the magi. In our secular language, an epiphany is a new way of seeing or understanding. It is so appropriate that we should begin a new ...

2012. Which End Is Up?

Ephesians 3:1-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... redemption. This weeks’ text opens with a verse that seems to go on tour, not returning home until 3:14. The prayer formula that beings in 3:1 immediately breaks off into a lengthy digression (an “anacoluthon”). It first explains Paul’s mission, its origin and content (vv.2-7). It then goes on to explore the “mystery” itself in greater detail (vv.8-12). The first “credential” supporting Paul’s apostolic mission and message is that he is “a prisoner for Christ Jesus for the sake of you ...

2013. Want to Be Happy?

Matthew 3:13-17

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... came up from the water” (v. 16) also differs somewhat from what is found in the other gospels. The events exhibit three features: first the opening of the heavens; second, the descent of the Spirit; third and finally, the divine announcement. The original manuscripts are not uniform here, with many adding “the heavens were opened to him.” The “to him” addition suggests that this was a vision experienced by Jesus alone. Mark’s gospel also seems to make the opening heavens Jesus’ private vision ...

2014. The Counter Intelligence of the Cross

1 Corinthians 1:18--2:5, 1 Corinthians 1:10-17, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... speech (“logos”) and knowledge (“gnosis”) have been “enriched” in the church community. The Corinthians might now be fussing and fighting over the relative status of these various spiritual gifts as experienced within the community. But the origin of these gifts is unsullied. Furthermore, by experiencing these gifts the power of Paul’s initial preaching to them, the “testimony of Christ,” is now “strengthened among you” (v.6). The “giftedness” and the “strengthened” presence of ...

2015. The Lonesome George Church

Matthew 4:23-25, Matthew 4:18-22, Matthew 4:12-17

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... bad for the Galapagos residents. The constant hunting and gathering of all these “endemic beings” was the death-knell for many of these one-of-a-kind species. Ironically the distinctiveness of species that helped lead Darwin to postulate his “origin of species” eventually became a prime example of his rules for extinction. Lumbering about the 3000 square miles in the Galapagos Islands are fourteen differing species of mammoth land tortoises, with nine of those being found on nine different, isolated ...

2016. Advent 1

Matthew 24:36-51, Romans 13:8-14, Isaiah 2:1-5, Psalm 122:1-9

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