Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 2026 to 2050 of 2844 results

2026. Bringing the Gospel to Marriage

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

Gregory J. Johanson

MARCUS D. BRYANT is an ordained minister who served in a number of Christian Church congregations and on the faculty of Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, before accepting his present position at Texas Christian University. There he is Professor of Pastoral Psychology and Pastoral Care at Brite Divinity School and a supervisor and consultant both at the Pastoral Care Center at Brite and the Azie Pastoral Counseling Center. His sermon published here was delivered at a seminary chapel service. In Bringing ...

2027. What Must I DO to Receive Life?

Mark 10:17-31

Sermon

Brett Blair

I heard about an expert in diamonds who happened to be seated on an airplane beside a woman with a huge diamond on her finger. Finally, the man introduced himself and said, "I couldn't help but notice your beautiful diamond. I am an expert in precious stones. Please tell me about that stone." She replied, "That is the famous Klopman diamond, one of the largest in the world. But there is a strange curse that comes with it." Now the man was really interested. He asked, "What is the curse?" As he waited with ...

2028. Ready or Not - Here I Come

Mark 13:32-37

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

When you were a child, did you play the game, Hide and Seek? If you did, you will remember that the person who was "it" closed his eyes while the rest went to hide. To give them time to hide, the child started counting: 5, 10, 15, 20 and up to 100. Then he would say, "Ready or not, here I come!" The point of the game was to hide oneself so well that the leader could not find you, for if he found you, and beat you back to the goal, you had to be "it" the next go-around. The secret of the game was preparing ...

2029. Living Free

Haggai 2:1-9

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

Why are things not better in America? With the booming economy, the new freedoms won by the Civil Rights movement and the Feminist movement, why is there still so much poverty, inequality, and discrimination? Questions such as these that we are asking today were on the lips and in the hearts of ancient Jews around 520 B.C. Many, if not most, of these Jews in Judah (southern Israel) at that time had been exiles in Babylon during the Babylonian Captivity. Some eighteen to twenty years before they had been ...

2030. One-Fired Up Preacher!

2 Kings 2:1-18

Sermon

Robert Leslie Holmes

Norval Christy was fifteen years old when he agreed with the Lord that everything he possessed was a gift and that he was willing to use it in God’s service however, whenever, and wherever God chose. After attending Westminster College in Pennsylvania, Norval applied to Harvard Medical School and was accepted in spite of long odds. He was in the process of doing his medical residency when a call came to help the thousands of refugees who were flooding into Pakistan from India. Norval agreed to interrupt ...

2031. Days of Promise

Jeremiah 33:1-26

Sermon

Harry N. Huxhold

Without a doubt the most troubling time in the history of the United Sates was the Civil War era. Devastated by the ruins of war, the country was drained emotionally and spiritually. The hostility had developed not only between regions of the country, but it spilled over into families and institutions. At given moments of the war, people questioned whether they would ever be able to recover from the debacle that had been wrought upon the nation. The future was in grave doubt. People lost their perspective ...

2032. Keep Looking For Jesus

Matthew 2:1-12

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

Object: Items used in a search such as map, flashlight, dog leash (bloodhound), magnifying glass. Good morning, boys and girls! Today I need some help. I want to begin a search for a missing child. I have looked around my house, and I have found these things which I hope will help me in my search. How many of you have ever had to look for something and you didn't know where to look? (Let them answer.) Oh! Good. That means I will have some experienced people to help me. Experience is very important when you ...

2033. The Bedrock of Faith

Mark 13:1-8 · Luke 21:5-19

Sermon

Brett Blair

Have you ever tried to make a prediction? Here are some predictions from the past. All from people who were trusted individuals: Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, in 1943 said, "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." Popular Mechanics magazine in 1949 made this prediction: "Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons." There was an inventor by the name of Lee ...

2034. Nicodemus

John 3:1-21

Sermon

David E. Leininger

They say, "There is no fool like an old fool." And I am afraid that is exactly what I have been. I have been so busy protecting our religion that I have been missing our God. I should explain. My name is Nicodemus. I am a member of the Sanhedrin, one of the seventy men charged with the oversight and defense of our historic and honorable faith, the faith of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the faith of our fathers for hundreds and hundreds of years. Our task - one handed down from generation to generation since ...

2035. The Apostles' Creed: Maker of Heaven and Earth

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

David E. Leininger

"I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth..." No surprise. Most church folks would have little difficulty acknowledging God as creator of all that is. There may be some disagreement on HOW creation took place - some want to say it happened in six 24-hour days, others want to say the "days" of which we read in the Genesis account should be understood as meaning thousands or even millions of years, still others say it was the "Big Bang." More about that in due course, but, for the ...

2036. The Grief Grinch

John 11:17-37

Sermon

David E. Leininger

We are approaching an exciting time of the year - Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's. Times of celebration. Times for friends and family. Times of joy. And for some, times of incredible sadness. The holidays will be hard because someone with whom previous special days were shared is gone. To paraphrase Tennyson's In Memoriam, "Never Christmas wore to New Year's but some heart did break." If you have never experienced that, I would be tempted to offer congratulations, but I will not. They would probably ...

2037. The Last Laugh

Genesis 18:1-15

Sermon

David E. Leininger

An old, old story has a fellow coming to the most famous and expensive doctor in town. From the very beginning the patient admitted that there was no way he could afford the physician's $500 fee, but he happened to catch the Doc on a generous day and the fee was reduced to $400. "But Doctor," pleaded the man, "I have a wife and six kids to feed." The fee was reduced to $250. "But Doc, that's a month's rent." Eventually, the fellow's begging and poor-mouthing got the fee down to $100 then $50 and finally to ...

2038. But God...

Genesis 50:15-21

Sermon

David E. Leininger

There is an ancient Chinese story of an old farmer who had an old horse for tilling his fields. One day the horse escaped into the hills and when all the farmer's neighbors sympathized with the old man over his bad luck, the farmer replied, "Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?" A week later the horse returned with a herd of wild horses from the hills and this time the neighbors congratulated the farmer on his good luck. His reply was, "Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?" Then, when the farmer's son was attempting ...

2039. The Bush Is Still Burning

Exodus 3:1-22

Sermon

David E. Leininger

There is an old story of a very long evening. The search committee for a new pastor had been going over resumé after resumé in hopes of finding the perfect minister. None so far. Tired of the whole process, they were about ready to call it a night when they came upon this letter of introduction from a candidate: To the Pulpit Nominating Committee: It is my understanding that you are in the process of searching for a new pastor, and I would like to apply for the position. I wish I could say that I am a ...

2040. God Cares About Justice!

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

David E. Leininger

The Gallup organization regularly conducts polls to determine the religious beliefs and practices of modern Americans. Despite new attitudes about morality, fluctuations in church membership, higher levels of education, and so on, there have been remarkably few changes in responses in recent years. The polls generally show that about 95% of us believe in a God of some sort. People may call God by different names, if indeed they believe that God is callable at all, but they do believe that a God exists. In ...

2041. The Ten Commandments: One God, Only One

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

David E. Leininger

A few weeks ago, you no doubt saw or heard about a list of the 100 best English-language novels of the past hundred years. It got quite a bit of comment because virtually no one agreed with the list-makers in their selections, and virtually everyone agreed that the number one pick, James Joyce's Ulysses, is a miserable read. Still, no one could agree on a new number one, nor, for that matter, any substitute list either. About all anyone would grant is that Americans do love lists. In fact, the Arizona ...

2042. Religion and Politics

Isaiah 1:1-31

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Religion and politics. In years past, we were told those were two subjects that were not good for pleasant conversation. In the church, many of us grew up hearing that religion and politics should be kept strictly apart - "separation of church and state," after all. But in 2004, we are being treated to regular helpings of both from every point on the partisan spectrum. There are regular references to personal faith by candidates on the right and left. The press has taken note of the phenomenon and has ...

2043. Trouble in the Manse

Hosea 1:1-2:1

Sermon

David E. Leininger

There once was a retreat attended by the clergy of a community for the purpose of establishing support groups. To kick things off the leader broke the participants up into groups of four and instructed them to confide in one another. In one group, a rabbi broke the ice by saying, "I'll begin by sharing one of my most disturbing problems. Occasionally I slip out of town and give in to my craving for pork - I stuff myself with bacon, sausage, ham, pork chops, and sometimes even baby back ribs." At this point ...

2044. I'm On a Mission from God!

Jonah 1:1-17

Sermon

Did you happen to see the tribute to John Belushi on television this past week? (Or TRY until the cable went out?) John was an incredible comic talent who created fascinating characters. What brings him to mind this morning is the delightfully wacky pair that he and Saturday Night Live partner Dan Ackroyd teamed up to create - Jake and Elwood, the Blues Brothers. These two genial bozos are sent out on an ill-fated fund-raising mission for their old parochial school by a fierce old nun. As they blunder ...

2045. The Preacher Was A Bigot

Jonah 3:1-10

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Jonah. Terrific story. One of Sunday School's most memorable hours - it is great drama. As you recall Jonah was a prophet in Israel. God came to him and said that he should leave his nation and go over to the capital of one of his country's fiercest foes...Ninevah in Assyria. Jonah did not want to go. So he went down to the seaport of Joppa and got on a boat headed for Tarshish in Spain. The direction was exactly opposite the one God wanted him to take. Jonah did not want to preach to the Ninevites. After ...

2046. Real Religion

Micah 6:1-8

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Micah 6:8..."He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" Familiar words. Perhaps you memorized them in Sunday School in years past, or perhaps you saw them on the wall of the Library of Congress. (They are inscribed there.) They are an ancient answer to the modern acronym that Christian youngsters wear on tee-shirts, bracelets, and necklaces: WWJD - What would Jesus do? These few words spell it ...

2047. The Nightmare before Christmas

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

David E. Leininger

What a week! The confluences of history have flowed together as never before. On the one hand, bombshells in Baghdad; on the other, bombast in Washington. For someone who is as much of a history buff as I am, these would seem to be exciting times, but instead they are just sickening. As one congressman noted in the impeachment debate on Friday, this is "The Nightmare before Christmas." Under normal circumstances, you would have found me glued to the tube on Friday and Saturday. After all, this was history ...

2048. Are You the One?

Matthew 11:1-19

Sermon

David E. Leininger

A few years ago in Reader's Digest a lady reported searching for the perfect birthday card for her husband. She came across a promising one. On the outside it read: "Sweetheart, you're the answer to my prayers." Then she turned to the inside, which was inscribed like this: "You're not what I prayed for exactly, but apparently you are the answer."(1) OK. In a strange way, I will bet that something like that was running through John's mind as he sat there in that prison. He and his people had hoped and ...

2049. The Apostle's Creed: Jesus Christ...Our Lord

Matthew 16:13-20

Sermon

David E. Leininger

"I believe in God, the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary..." After all, we call ourselves CHRISTIANS...CHRIST-ians. Of course, we believe with Simon Peter that Jesus is the Christ. Let me press you on that. Be specific. What exactly do you believe about Jesus? Some years ago, in my seminary days, our first course in Systematic Theology dealt with that question. Our professor described Jesus as "the ...

2050. Stay in the Boat!

Matthew 14:22-36

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Familiar story. Mark Twain refers to it in one of his books. He recalls a visit to the Holy Land and a stay in Capernaum. It was a moonlit night, so he decided to take his wife on a romantic boat ride on the Sea of Galilee. Twain asked a man in a rowboat how much he would charge to take them out on the water. The man saw Twain's white suit, white shoes and white hat and supposed he was a rich Texan. So he said the cost would be twenty-five dollars. Twain walked away as he said, "Now I know why Jesus walked ...

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