Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 2101 to 2125 of 2157 results

Luke 13:10-17

Sermon

King Duncan

Have you ever wanted to trade lives with someone else for a day or two? I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Freaky Friday series of movies. The first one came out in 1976. Since then, three more versions of the movie have been made. Freaky Friday is about a mother and daughter who wake up one morning to discover they have magically traded lives. For one day, mother and daughter get a rare opportunity to see life through the other’s eyes. In the span of that one ...

2102. A VIP Seat

Luke 14:1-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... Fuller, o.m.i. of St. William’s Parish in Gainesville, MO., http://www.spirit net.ca/sermons/a or18 fuller.php. 5. Henri Nouwen, Can You Drink This Cup? (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1996), p. 89. John Ortberg, The Me I Want to Be: Becoming God’s Best Version Of You (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), pp. 22-23.

2103. Selling Out

Luke 8:26-39

Sermon

Dave Zuchelli

... passage concerning the Gadarene demoniac. Usually, Jesus is very understanding and compassionate toward sinners. In this case, he was extremely confrontational. That confrontation proved to be the key to his victory over the demonic power in the man’s life. In his gospel version of this story, Luke added that all the people of that area wanted Jesus to leave. He was gracious and conceded to their wishes. They were more comfortable with the status quo than with his presence. That’s where we come in. As ...

2104. The Steady March Forward

Luke 9:51-62

Sermon

Dave Zuchelli

... aisles trying to jog my memory. I finally settled on a box of donuts. I have to say, my Dad wasn’t the least bit happy with me. Today’s gospel passage (Luke 9:51) tells us “Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem” (NIV). The King James Version puts it this way — “he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Fortunately for us, he didn’t allow anything to deter him. Unlike me at twelve years old, he always knew where he was headed, and he always understood his destiny and destination. That ...

2105. Shameless!

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

Dave Zuchelli

... cited this knowledge by adding, “…just as John taught his disciples” (Luke 11:1). Jesus, of course, acquiesced by teaching them a form of prayer we now commonly call “The Lord’s Prayer.” A lot has been said about the prayer he gave them (particularly the version recorded in Matthew 5:9-13). In fact, entire books have been written to explain its nuances and meanings. My sense is that it’s less a prayer than it is an outline for prayer. If Jesus was praying in an extemporaneous way, as it seems ...

2106. Disabled

Luke 13:10-17

Sermon

Dave Zuchelli

... people’s personalities. You’ve heard many people say things like, “He’s dealing with his demons.” They don’t really mean demons, they just like to misuse the word and give it a new understanding. So in the new PCV (Politically Correct Version), Jesus is presented with a woman who has been disabled by some psychological disorder, addiction, or pervasive habit. Her demon of disability had her hunched over for eighteen years, and it seems no one could help her get straightened out (no pun intended ...

2107. Christmas Is Out of Control

Matthew 24:36-44

Sermon

John Jamison

... of justice while performing acts of injustice. I think some of us have talked about the day the pendulum will swing, and we will retake control of our kingdom. The day those now with power will see what it feels like to be powerless and will experience our version of justice. That day when we will drive out our modern Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, and priests, all of those controlling our lives, and it will be our time to repay them. No, I don’t think we can blame them…or fault them. Many of us have ...

2108. John and Frank

Matthew 11:2-11

Sermon

John Jamison

... to create from jail. He could still get messages to his followers. Their only option was to kill him. So, this tradition says John was arrested and put in prison where he would be killed and silenced for good. Other historians give a different version of what happened. This tradition says the decision to arrest John was made, reluctantly, by the Roman Governor, Herod Antipas. Herod knew about John. He had even had a dream that John was raised from the dead. Although John was a problem, Herod was hesitant ...

2109. Why Christianity?

Romans 1:1-7

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... God is love, approachable, and compassionate, or living in a world without the assurance that we have been forgiven and redeemed? (Finding God in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” eChristian Books: https://www.amazon.com/Finding-God-Its-Wonderful- Life/dp/1618433059, 2012, Kindle Version). If Jesus did that for the world, imagine what he can do for your life! Jesus is not a gift we find, but a gift that finds us! Imagine what your life would be missing without him. Or maybe I should say: Imagine what your ...

2110. Get the Grinch

Titus 2:11-14

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... -sure-the-grinch-didnt-steal-christmas-this-year 2. https://www.oneplace.com/ministries/daily-hope/read/devotionals/daily-hope-with-rick-warren/come-home-to-gods-rest-daily-hope-with-rick-warren-december-22-2017-11784711.html) 3. Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Random House, 2013, Kindle Version.

2111. What If You Could Change the Ending?

Luke 23:33-43

Sermon

King Duncan

... the bad guys, they prevented the bomb from exploding, Edward Norton’s character spent time in a sanitarium where he received psychological treatment, and he was discharged from the sanitarium in 2012. (1) So if you’re a big fan of Fight Club, now you know the Chinese version has an unexpected happy ending. But what if we had the power to change the ending to a true story to make it as happy or as chaotic or as unexpected as we wanted? There is a genre of books in the publishing world that does exactly ...

2112. Response Ability

Luke 17:5-10

Sermon

Lori Wagner

Responsibility. We all would say that it’s an important feature of adult life. We all would say that we as people need to take responsibility for our actions, our lives, and our engagement with the world. We all would say that it’s wrong to simply expect everyone else to do everything for us. This is what it means to graduate from childhood to adulthood. We learn and we grow, and then we take our place within our families and communities as contributors, taking responsibility for our jobs, our deeds, and ...

2113. Are We Living In The Last Days?

Luke 21:5-19

Sermon

Richard Hasler

... the beginning of the twentieth century. Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas, and the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago became hotbeds of dispensational premillennialism. Even more so, in 1909 the Scofield Bible was published based upon the King James Version of the Bible, but containing in the margins the whole theory of dispensational premillennialism. In the twentieth century advocates of this view included Hal Lindsey, Pat Robertson, and Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, the latter two co-authors ...

2114. Paradise Promise

Luke 23:33-43

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... in us a new lease on life, and to offer us a life that cannot be destroyed. That is God’s “paradise promise.” And we see it in that scripture today with Jesus. The word “paradise” is an unusual one. In the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures, the word was used for the “Garden of Eden.” The word “paradeisos” is a Persian loan word, meaning pleasure garden. Within that garden lies the Tree of Life. We left God’s beautiful Eden, once our garden of pleasure, and our ...

2115. Close! But No Cigar!

John 3:1-17

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

Have you ever gotten an unexpected visitor? Maybe you’ve just settled into your easy chair for the evening. Your only plan is to turn off your mind and relax a while. And then the doorbell rings. There go your plans. Who knows what needs are on the other side of that door? All you know is your plans for the evening just got put on hold. You may remember a story that made international news back in 1982. Very early in the morning of July 9, 1982, a young man named Michael Fagan broke into Buckingham Palace ...

2116. The Succession

Matthew 11:2-11

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... how the companies should be run, but their tempestuous leader has no current intention of passing the baton. The dark comedy portrays the power, wealth, and often underhanded “politics” of one of America’s elite media monopolies. If the television version of “succession” portrays the worst of human nature, then the situation in our gospel story for today as told by Matthew shows us the best –an alternative kind of culture in which respectful succession is part of the counter-cultural kingdom ...

2117. With Gratitude and Humility

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Sermon

April Yamasaki

... of all our carefully curated photos may not be as fun as we compare them with the humdrum of our daily lives. After all, the ordinary, uncurated reality we live every day can never measure up. Some studies suggest that endlessly scrolling through the idealized versions we see on Facebook and Instagram can even lead to depression. The technology to curate our lives online may be relatively new, but the impulse to re-arrange our lives and show them in the best possible light is an ancient one, dating back to ...

2118. The Challenge Of Simplicity

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

John Jamison

... area. So we debate. Where were they? Was Matthew correct or was Luke? Can we really say that one of the gospel writers was wrong? We get distracted. Then someone points out that Matthew writes about the eight Beatitudes that Jesus mentioned, while Luke only has four in his version. What do we do with that? We find some historians who argue that Jesus did not speak the Beatitudes on a mountain or on a plain, but they were part of what Jesus said that day he sat on the boat and spoke to the crowds gathered on ...

2119. When You’re Out Of Tune

1 Corinthians 3:1-9

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... , but we have no right to act arrogantly or exclusively. Remember that in the New Testament, God in Jesus is going to the ungodly. In Jesus’ stories, it is the religiously wrong who get praise. The Good Samaritan is religiously wrong, has the wrong version of the scripture, and worships improperly -- but in Jesus’ story, he is closer to the kingdom. In Matthew 8, it is the pagan centurion who has faith greater than any Jesus had seen in Israel. Watch out in the New Testament! The outsiders become ...

2120. A Reminder of the Graciousness of God

Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... us into His merciful love and then sending us out to share that love with others. 1. “God in True Light” The Rev. Dr. Roy W. Howard, Saint Mark Presbyterian http://www.saintmarkpresby.org/pageSermondecember%205,2004.htm. An earlier version of this sermon was published in the journal Homiletics November December 2004. 2. Audrey West, WorkingPreacher.org. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/third-sunday-after-epiphany/commentary-on-matthew-412-23-2 January 27, 2008. 3 ...

2121. Broken

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... Mary, were traveling dejectedly back to their home in Emmaus.[1]Disillusioned by Jesus’ death, they believed the mission was over. Their hopes and those of Israel had been dashed. Jesus challenges them and takes them through the scriptures which point to his version of the messianic promise, one so foreign it was hard to wrap the head around: death and resurrection.They don’t really understand what he’s getting at with his unique reading of the scriptures, and don’t even recognize him …..until ...

2122. Rest

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Sermon

William G. Carter

... some coffee, and ask if there was anything he could do to help. He didn’t rest when he went on vacation. There are a lot of people like that. They can quote the Bible: “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop,”(Proverbs 16:27, TLB) says one version of a verse from the book of Proverbs.(Proverbs 16:27) Or there is that section that somebody read to us at dawn at the teenage Bible camp: Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares ...

2123. The Paradox of the Yoke

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” “For MY yoke is easy, and MY burden is light.” Jesus is not only the stabilizing force in our lives, but he makes it possible for us to learn, grow, become, and be the best version of ourselves. But Jesus is not only speaking to people in pain, people who have lost loved ones, people grieving, or people with heavy hearts. I believe, he is also speaking to people with hardened hearts. In fact, the hardened heart I’m guessing is the worst ...

2124. In-Between People

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

... A woman agonized in a recent counseling session, “But I don’t want a divorce. Please help me!” The need and the plea are loud and clear. Estrangement, not only between individuals but the ruptures in our society, are all so obvious. The Cottonpatch version of the New Testament has this word from St. Paul: “God was in Christ, putting His arms around the world and hugging it to Himself.” That’s what persons need to do. To be an in-between people -- bridges or reconciliation, with our arms around ...

2125. Jesus' Final Exam

Luke 20:19-40

Sermon

Will Willimon

... . "Who is the Messiah? Who could deliver you?" "No one was able to answer him a word," says Luke. "For they no longer dared to ask him any question." In case you're keeping score, the score is: Jesus-3, authorities-0. Then, fed up with this Mickey Mouse version of the $64,000 Question, Jesus blows his top, lets them have it. Dean and Judicial Board be damned, he tells the professors what he thinks of their religious SAT. I'm sorry that those of you who think Jesus was a nice guy have to hear this. Mr ...

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