Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 2076 to 2100 of 4997 results

2076. The Idiot's Guide To Christianity

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

King Duncan

... person filling out the form would begin looking for Jesus in every person he or she meets. I wonder, if you were asked to sign such a form, would you do it? Would you become an Idiot for Christ. Treat everyone, whether poor or rich, with respect and kindness. Have no hidden agenda, no need to dominate others. Be pure in thought, word, and deed. This may make you a fool in other's eyes. At the same time, all these empty, cynical, status-seeking people will be strangely drawn to you. You will attract others ...

2077. It's A Good Thing There Weren't Unions . . .

Matthew 20:1-16

Sermon

King Duncan

... desire to pay all the same; is it against the law to give away my money if I want to? Should you be angry because I am kind?'" Then Jesus added these cryptic words, "So the last will be first, and the first will be last." (LB) Obviously this story took place before the ... think about this church. Do they see this as a place of grace? Or do they see us as a people who play the same kind of meaningless games that the world outside plays. I hope they see us as a place that welcomes sinners--in the same way that ...

2078. The Defining Moment

Luke 2:41-52

Children's Sermon

King Duncan

... greater than any king. Did he live like a king? (Let them answer.) Was he born in a palace? Did he have royal robes? Lots of servants? Did he wear a crown? Well, he DID wear a crown once. It was right before they crucified him. Does anybody remember what kind of crown he wore? That's right. It was a crown of thorns. Now why are we talking about the crown of thorns? It is because there was a legend that the crown of thorns was made of holly. I have with me a wreath. What ...

2079. God, The Promise Keeper

Luke 3:1-20

Sermon

King Duncan

... few decades ago are now full of fish and clean and safe enough for water sports. No one opposes that. Yet when the move was first on to clean up our air and our water good people, Christian people, were calling those who care about our environment all kinds of nasty names. Even today we sometimes hear these things. This is not to say that the environmental movement is always right, but most of us are indeed thankful for the benefits of the cleaner air and water that we now enjoy. I wonder 50 years from now ...

2080. An Unforgettable Day

Luke 2:41-52

Sermon

King Duncan

... and Ralphie expects the worst from his father that evening. At dinner, his father asked about his day. Before he had a chance to reply, his mother responded, "Nothing much. Ralphie had a fight." His father put down the paper and gazed at Ralphie. "A fight? What kind of fight?" Mom replied again, "Oh, you know how boys are. I gave him a talking to. Oh, I see the Bears are playing the Packers Sunday." Distracted by the sports page, the father forgets about the fight. Ralphie beams a smile at his mother for ...

2081. Like A Tornado

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... of today's lesson: "When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting . . ." A violent wind . . . The kind of wind that uproots trees, turns over mobile homes, fills men and women with awe and wonder. It may be that the writer of Acts is speaking metaphorically here. After all, the word "spirit" is the same word as the word "wind." He may have been saying ...

2082. About Marriage

Luke 20:27-40

Sermon

King Duncan

... he's the man I prayed for long ago. (7) That girl's name was Ruth Bell, and she later met and married the Reverend Billy Graham. It's not so important that you ask God to provide you with a spouse. What you need to pray about is what kind of a person that future husband or wife will be. Couples who are committed to God will be committed to one another. In an old Peanuts cartoon, Charlie Brown says to his friend, "My Grandpa and Gramma have been married for 50 years!" The friend replies, "They're lucky, aren ...

2083. Good Neighbors

Luke 10:25-37

Children's Sermon

King Duncan

... anything for a Jew. (Pat legs.) When he saw the injured man, he felt sorry for him. (Make a facial expression of surprise and sympathy.) He bandaged him up (pretend to wrap a bandage around your arm) and put him on his own donkey and took him to a hotel (kind of bounce up and down as if riding on a donkey). The Samaritan paid for the room (pretend to pay--dig into your pockets and hand bills to the clerk) and told the hotel clerk that if that wasn't enough money to take care of him, he would come ...

2084. Drowning In A Sea Of Stuff

Luke 12:13-21

Sermon

King Duncan

... me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?" Then Jesus turned to the crowd. "Take care!" he said. "Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." Then he told them a parable: "The land of a ... wouldn't be able to buy snacks or souvenirs for the rest of the trip. When Bruce Wilkinson heard that, he knew he needed to respond in kind. So he, too, gave every bit of money he had on him to the fund--even though, on that very morning, he had gone to the ...

2085. Who Did He Praise?

Luke 16:1-15

Sermon

King Duncan

... ask God to solve his problem for him. Now I have to be very careful here. It sounds so pious to say, "I'm just going to pray about this, and if God wants me to work, God will provide a job." Have you ever known anyone with that kind of attitude toward life? It sounds like such a nice, religious idea--waiting for God to provide our need. But friends, it can also be an evasion of responsibility. And as such, it can be deadly--deadly personally, professionally and spiritually. It's very much like saying, "If ...

2086. Who Are You?

Psalm 16:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

... "”eating, reproducing, and dying"”then there is no meaning, no rhyme or reason, no grand design to life. And there is certainly nothing to look forward to. One anonymous young scholar was asked to write a description of a human being. Here is what he wrote: "Your head is kind of round and hard and your brains are in it and your hair is on it. "Your face is the front of your head where you eat and make faces. "Your neck is what keeps your head out of your collar. "Your neck is hard to keep clean. "Your ...

2087. To Whom Shall We Go?

John 6:60-71

Sermon

King Duncan

... a lifetime! Let a vandal have his way for one night in any church that was slowly raised through generations and centuries, and in the morning you might find a smoldering heap. So it is with spiritual vandals whose main contribution is ridicule. In the face of this kind of person, you must ask the practical question found in the today's reading: "If we go away from Christ, to whom shall we go?" What do you do when you give up religion? What can you do when you give up on God? Let's examine the alternatives ...

2088. It Does Matter What You Believe

Acts 4:1-22

Sermon

King Duncan

... room for debate here. "There is none other name. . ." None. Not Mohammed, or Moses, or Buddha, or Darwin, or Marx, or Confucius, or anybody. There is no other name by which people can be saved than the name of Jesus. That's a powerful statement. It's the kind of declaration that crusades are made of. You've read about the crusades, haven't you? It was about 800 years ago when Christians took up the sword in the name of Jesus in an attempt to convert Jews and Moslems to Christianity. When we are tempted to ...

2089. A Church Fueled By Prayer

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Sermon

King Duncan

... was Christian. Ten years ago the figure was at least 20% of the country's 40 million population. Church membership is increasing by about 10% a year, especially among the young. One church in Seoul, with 370,000 members, claims to be the largest congregation of any kind, anywhere. (4) That same success story can be told in many places in the world today. Somebody must be praying. Such phenomenal growth can only come from God. God is not stone-deaf. SO IF GOD ISN'T STONE-DEAF, PERHAPS WE ARE. We tend to be ...

2090. Taking Time To Love

Matthew 22:34-40

Sermon

King Duncan

... love which Jesus manifested, and to which He summoned his followers, bidding them to do good to those who hated them. . ." (2) Most people love on a very primitive level--loving only those who love them. But Jesus calls us to experience a very special kind of love. In his autobiography, Dr. A. J. Cronin tells about a neighboring family, the Adamses. Mr. Adams was an accountant in New York City, but he loved to spend all the hours he could working in the garden of their Connecticut home, accompanied by his ...

2091. Like A Big Happy Family

1 Peter 3:8-22

Sermon

King Duncan

... one big happy family, full of sympathy toward each other, loving one another with tender hearts, and humble minds. Don't repay evil for evil. Don't snap back at those who say unkind things about you. Instead, pray for God's help for them, for we are to be kind to others, and God will bless us for it." (3: 8-9). Here is the real strength of the church--it is the love we share for one another. If we could but help people know that such love exists. Bennett Cerf, who many remember as the master of ceremonies ...

2092. God Has Gone Up

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

... , it is an occasion for unadulterated joy. There was joy in the early church. And there ought to be joy in every church. There is a story about a traveling salesman who stopped in to visit a church for the first time in a strange community. He was an emotional kind of fellow and he got carried away in the service. He even let out a little "Amen." Several people turned around and looked at him rather sourly. He hung his head as if to say, "I'm sorry." The lady next to him whispered, "We just don't do that ...

2093. Formula For A Glowing Face

Romans 12:9-21

Sermon

King Duncan

... the two were happily married, but then the prince felt he should tell his new wife of the deception. But when he took the magic mask off to show her the lie, she could not tell any difference between it and his real face. His face had conformed to the kind lines of the mask. An advisor once urged Abraham Lincoln to give a friend of his a post in the cabinet. But Lincoln refused. "Why?" asked the advisor. "Because I don't like the man's face," was the reply. "But the poor man isn't responsible for his face ...

2094. The Sower and the Seed

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

Brett Blair

... to his surprise and total delight, however, he discovered that the garden was in tact and more beautiful than ever. What had happened? Just a few months after he had filmed the original story a Korean lady drove by and stopped at the park. She too was met by the kindly old man. She said that she didn’t really want to go through the entire garden but he insisted. A few weeks later, after she had returned to her home to the West Coast, the gentleman called her and pleaded with her to come and live in the ...

2095. The Three R's Of A Spiritual Life

Romans 8:1-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... up to the cost of their destructive lifestyle until it was too late. Knowing as much as we do now about how harmful chemical addictions can be, we have to wonder why any intelligent person would ever risk putting an addictive drug of any kind into their bodies. There was a sad story in Time magazine a couple of years ago concerning Audrey Kishline, author of the book,- Moderate Drinking: The New, Option for Problem Drinkers. This book purported to set guidelines so that people with alcohol problems could ...

2096. God's Design and Our Destiny

Isaiah 63:7--64:12

Sermon

King Duncan

... a fiery pit in order to get us to repent of our sins, though some preachers have tried to do that very thing. No, God entered our world in the helpless babe lying in a stable, and God showed us a better way, the way of love and gentleness and kindness and compassion for all people. And God says to us, “This is what I created you for. This is what life is all about.” Isaiah concludes this chapter with these words, “Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the ...

2097. Three Words America Needs to Hear

Acts 24:1-27

Sermon

Edward Inabinet

... his own body. The body is not meant for immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body." Instead of saying that, he is devoting his life now to telling young people that safe sex is the way to go. But we are not helped by that kind of testimony from leading figures in the sports world, nor are we helped by the testimony we often hear from religious leaders in our world today. Just this week I clipped a little item from the newspaper titled, "The Bishop Says Adultery is in the Genes," and it goes ...

2098. Born Again? When?

John 3:1-21

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... Spirit-filled Christians turn out exactly alike! This brings us back to the chap I mentioned in the beginning of this sermon who was afraid that his daughter might become one of those “born-again” people. What he was referring to, I think, was the kind of spiritual totalitarianism which we often find in the “born-again” movement, where people say, “Unless you have been born again the way I have been born again, you haven’t really been born again.” We have all seen people who have become rigid ...

2099. On Doing the Truth

John 3:14-21

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.” (John 3:19-21 NRSV) You see, there really are just two kinds of people, according to Jesus. There are those who believe, which means those who live according to the truth revealed to the world in Him; and those who do not believe, that is, who do not live according to that truth. In the Fourth Gospel, “judgment” is not something ...

2100. How Free Are We?

John 8:31-41

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... . In many ways they were far sicker than the people whom they looked down upon. Their problem was that they didn’t realize it, and if they did, they refused to acknowledge it. As the 17th century French philosopher Blaise Pascal put it: “There are but two kinds of people: the righteous who know that they are sinners, and the sinners who think that they are righteous.” The best way to summarize the Biblical view of sin is to see it as bondage. This is brought out vividly by Jesus’ dialogue with His ...

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