Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 2001 to 2025 of 4963 results

2001. Dim Visions And Blind Guides

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... 't religious people decide without the aid of signs whether Jesus' teaching was true or not? So Jesus responded, "Why does this evil generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign shall be given to this generation (Mark 8:12).19 It remains a pivotal issue for our generation. Why do Christians need signs? Isn't Jesus' life and death enough sign for us? Can the proclamation of the kingdom and the cross stand as enough evidence? In essence, Jesus maintained that if believers have to have signs, then ...

2002. First Things First

Mark 13:1-31

Sermon

Thomas Peterson

... , the building represented the entire nation. Jesus took this simple comparison and turned it upside down, thereby giving us new insights which might otherwise escape us. “These great buildings,” he told them, “will eventually be torn down. Not one stone will remain on another. Even as nation goes against nation and destruction is the outcome, so earthquakes and wars -- all these are signs that the end is near. And toward the end more confusion and destruction will prevail.” What he is saying might ...

2003. A Name To Be Remembered

Exodus 3:1-22

Sermon

Walter Kimbrough

... . Some names are easy to pronounce while others represent varying degrees of difficulty. On some occasions we find the need to change our names due to marriage or religion. Then, there are those who do not particularly like their name, but the fact remains that everybody has a name. A name to be remembered. Some years ago, the students at the University of California began to protest, insisting that “nobody knows my name.” Classes with 500 to 1,000 students tend to become impersonal. Each student has ...

2004. God Works Through Opposites

Matthew 21:1-11

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... to such an extent be stripped of everything he calls his own ... Therefore we must in all things keep ourselves so humble as if we still had nothing of our own. We must wait for the naked mercy of God, who will reckon us just and wise."3 Remain humble as if you had nothing of your own. That is why God often hides himself. Luther says it beautifully again in one of his earliest sermons: "Therefore [he says] since he pelled to perform an alien work in order to make them sinners before he performs his proper ...

2005. Wash Up First For The Meal Before You Eat!

John 13:1-17

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... washed their own feet (see Genesis 18:4; 19:2; 24:32; 2 Samuel 11:8). The washing was also a courtesy of the guest, an act by which guests cleansed themselves of the grime that they had accumulated in order truly to be worthy to enter and remain in the presence of their hosts. Prior to Jesus, you washed your own feet when you were a guest. But Jesus took the next step in hospitality. He washed the disciples' feet for them! Of course, Jesus' action, doing everything for his guests, is very much in character ...

2006. Why Did Jesus Have To Die?

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... spirit (John 19:30)." Unlike in the other gospel accounts, John's version of Jesus' crucifixion still portrays Jesus as being in control of things.1 Yet the suffering was real and barbaric. Why? Why did he have to die? If God is all-powerful, and if Jesus truly remained in control of the situation as John seems to portray it, why did the Father not merely decree the forgiveness of our sins and leave it at that? Why did Jesus have to suffer and die for them? In addition, even if Jesus did die for our sins ...

2007. The Temptations Of Christ And Our Temptations

Matthew 4:1-11

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... with the same temptations we face. It makes God and Jesus a little more real, a little more in touch with us and our weaknesses. It makes it easier to relate to our God as a friend, because he has been there with us. Yet the nagging question remains: How can these temptations that Jesus has shared with us be overcome? Granted, he has conquered them. But he is God. How does this conquest of the temptations that we face help us to overcome them? Jesus' invocation of God's Word to ward off the tempter provides ...

2008. We Must Be Blind!

John 9:35-41

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... of our gospel lesson's story about the healing of the blind man. Some Pharisees were overhearing Jesus' dialogue with the blind man whom he had healed, and Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, 'We see,' your guilt remains (John 9:41)." We say that we can see, but in actual fact we do not notice all that God has given us. We really must be blind! Listen all you deaf and blind people: There really is good news! God is still eager to save. Prepare yourself for ...

2009. Vision For Mission

Isaiah 6:1-13

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... on self-fulfillment, but beneath the veneer there is little more than seif-centeredness based on self-deification. All man-made religion is self-centered. The biblical cOrrective in Isaiah is that the living God must forgive and renew or we remain in our sins with only an illusion of forgiveness. The danger of humanistic affirmation looms large in our day. The danger of professionalism in ministry also looms large. Ordained pastors insisting that they be treated like "other professionals" in compensation ...

2010. Preparing The Way

Malachi 2:17--3:5

Sermon

Ron Lavin

Frank kept the strangest of Christmas lists. He called it "My Refinement List." He first made one out when he was 45 years old. He worked at it faithfully for 29 years. He was 74 and a grandfather. In all that time it had remained a secret, but now his youngest grandchild, with the piece of paper clutched in hand, looked Frank dead in the eye, and said, "What's this?" "A special Christmas list," answered Frank, a bit vaguely. "Is it what you want?" asked the boy. "It's not that kind of a ...

2011. Singing Along The Way

Zephaniah 3:1-20

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... Maybe I'm out of sync with what's happening. Everyone, including my own relatives is committing immoral acts of sex outside of marriage and telling me that it is not a sin. Maybe I'm crazy and they are all right." This member was seeking to remain part of the remnant. How shall we do that? Sing the songs of Zion. William Barclay, the New Testament scholar, in his book Ethics in a Permissive Society says that when he came out of seminary the divisive questions were doctrinal, but almost all Christians agreed ...

2012. Everything Except God

Amos 5:1-17

Sermon

Richard Hasler

... by Clarence Jordan who starkly delineated peacemaking in these terms: “It’s what God does.”3 On a visit to the dentist a while back I had some time on my hands. I read the Sports illustrated and National Geographic magazines. The only other magazines remaining on the table were women’s magazines. I picked up one of them (I do not recall which one) and read an article by a woman who was drawing a distinction between infatuation and love. Perhaps thinking of her relationship with a friend she wrote ...

2013. The Best Offense Is A Good Defense

Zephaniah 3:1-20

Sermon

Richard Hasler

... practice goes back to childhood. Once we had made up our mind on something we did not like to change it. In fact, we might have feared changing it. New evidence that threatened to undermine our cherished ideas was unsettling. Far better for us to remain in our original thought patterns than to venture forth into the uncertain and often painful task of revising our ideas. We often reason that at least we can manage our small and restricted world. On the other hand, disciplined people realize that learning is ...

2014. The Illusion Of Neutrality

Deuteronomy 30:11-20

Sermon

Robert Beringer

... was an issue that threatened to divide his congregation, but this fellow kept his feet firmly planted in both camps. The man is a moral acrobat! In all of life's major choices, he straddles the fence, believing in nothing, caring for nothing, loving nothing, and remaining alive, only because he has nothing worth dying for in his empty life. Our modern society has made a kind of virtue out of openness and neutrality, but how sad it is to meet someone who lives with this form of self-deception. I once met ...

2015. The Baby Who Changes Everything

Isaiah 7:1-25

Sermon

Robert Beringer

... source of his compassion and concern. The powerful and noble concepts that motivate our lives at their best, freedom and peace, decency and kindness, forgiveness and love, all these we have drawn from Emmanuel. Of course, all these things did not happen at once, and much remains to be realized in our world as Christ continues to challenge us over the problems of war and race, economic injustice and the source of AIDS. But let us never forget that the One who began life as a baby in Bethlehem is the one who ...

2016. Mission Possible

Sermon

Robert Beringer

... comes to understanding our place in Christ's mission. Light is often a way of expressing what it means to come to a new understanding of something. We suddenly exclaim, "At last I see the light." Sometimes we parents would prefer it if our children remained in the dark a little longer. I think of that poor mother who was suddenly confronted with the inevitable question, "Where do babies come from?" She paused, wishing that her husband were home to answer their little son. In a moment of inspiration she said ...

2017. Ooo Boy!

Matthew 5:33-37, Matthew 5:31-32

Sermon

John Jamison

... for divorce. Oh, there were the old laws. But there were also loopholes. There were always loopholes. Marriage became something different. It became something difficult, something uncertain. If the only way to end a marriage was unfaithfulness then you could remain faithful and feel fairly secure in your marriage, but if your marriage revolved around whether the husband happened to see some attractive, new young thing down the road, where is the security? Marriage became so uncertain that many young girls ...

2018. Enough!

Matthew 2:19-23

Sermon

John Jamison

... that there are a couple of verses that are left out of the reading. That's probably because there really isn't much holiday spirit in them. They aren't very Christmasy, and they certainly aren't very joyous. But they are real, and with only a few days remaining until the beginning of a new year, perhaps reality is a good place to be. So with apologies to the fine folks who put these lectionary passages together, we are going to hear the story within the story, the one they left out. All the rest is true ...

2019. Love Without Demand

Ruth 1:1-22

Sermon

Sims Robert

... time went by her condition degenerated. Jane fell into a deep depression, and she appeared to have lost all contact with the world of reality. She sat in her hospital room staring blankly into space. She would not look at anyone or speak a single word. Jane remained in that dormant condition for months. One day her psychiatrist told an artist about Jane’s condition. The artist asked if he might stop and visit with her. Each day the artist went to her room, sat down in front of her and held out before her ...

2020. Under The Wings Of The Almighty

Ruth 2:1-23

Sermon

Sims Robert

... famous Presbyterian pastor, once described an occasion when he was a boy. He was walking home in Scotland in the darkness when he suddenly stumbled and fell. As he reached out his hand in front to brace himself and stand up, there was nothing there! Frightened, he simply remained in that position until the morning. In the early light of day he could see that he had fallen at the edge of a high cliff. One more step and he would have fallen to his death. He determined then and there that if God could guide ...

2021. When God Has Enough

Zephaniah 1:4-13, Zephaniah 1:14--2:3

Sermon

Sims Robert

... in sin, that we are children of the kingdom of God and yet citizens of this world. The New Testament tells us that the ruler of this present darkness is Satan. Whether we use the name Beelzebub, Lucifer, the Devil, Force of Evil or some other designation, the truth remains that the world in which we live is under an evil power. It is broken, shattered and corrupt. The truth is we do not have to be convinced of the brokenness of our world, do we? We experience it in our own lives every day. We are like the ...

2022. A Good Thing To Know

Luke 19:11-27

Sermon

Theodore F. Schneider

... the kingdom. Paul, decades later, will write eloquently to the Christians at Corinth: "We have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us." Though the king appears to be "gone for a while," the kingdom remains the king's kingdom. The disciples and early Christians were the managers left to tend and to trade the resources of the kingdom, not for their own comfort, pleasure and purpose, but for the king's. When the king returns, as he surely will, there ...

2023. Crown Him Lord!

Luke 23:26-43

Sermon

Theodore F. Schneider

... Later in the same gospel, Jesus proclaims: "Before Abraham was, I am!" In the Transfiguration, reported by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus discusses with Moses and Elijah his departure which he is to accomplish in Jerusalem. Moses the law-giver and Elijah the ancient prophet remain part of the "team" working for our redemption. Jesus Christ is the Lord of history and of eternity. He is the lord of time and of space. He is the "Potentate of Time." Extending The King's Rule The excitement of the early church ...

2024. The Spontaneous Routine

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon

Theodore F. Schneider

... preserved me in true faith, just as he calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth....4 A Last Question For those who have come today to worship, heeding our president's call to the "duty of giving thanks," one question remains. Clearly, not all the blessed are thankful. For some, even the healing of 10 lepers seems too little to strike a joyous chord of thanksgiving or even a word of appreciation. There are others who are gracious even in difficult times. Still others can ...

2025. Our Living Hope

Luke 20:27-40

Sermon

Theodore F. Schneider

... the dead, but of the living. Further, Jesus draws upon the ancient Jewish theological conviction that the dead are separated from God, which is what makes death so terrifying. At the time of Exodus 3, the patriarchs were long ago dead. But for God to remain their God, they must be living, or at least they are going to be living again. Setting aside the exegetical technique of a first-century rabbi, Jesus now moves beyond the point of the Sadducees' misunderstanding of the Scriptures to note that they have ...

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