Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 2151 to 2175 of 3852 results

Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... hopeless world" (Christianity Today, 18 November 89, 26). And what is this message? "Arise, shine, for your light has come." From what direction does it come? Not from economics or the wealth of nations, regardless of Alexander Pope's 1738 update of Homer's original maxim: "Get place and wealth if possible with Grace; If not, by any means, get wealth and place." -Imitations of Horace, Epistle 1, Book 1, 1.103. Not from education or the wisdom of the world. Not from science or technology. Not from star ...

2152. Body Sculpting and Self Shaping

Mark 1:21-28

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... of the Spirit - we are to grow our own body, that is the body God gave us; we are to grow our own soul, the soul God gave us. Different natures will have different needs, different personalities different carriages, because God created each one of us to be an original. The notion that with the right effort and willpower you can have the body you want to have denies that God is our sculptor. God is the shaper. We are not our own. When we surrender to the Master Potter, we are being "shaped" by God. Romans 9 ...

2153. Looking for Love in the Classifieds and All the Wrong Places

Ephesians 2:4

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... matter how often you preach on God's love, you will never be able to communicate completely the extravagant, superabundant nature of that love. YaleUniversity recently celebrated the bicentennial anniversary of the death of one of America's most original geniuses - Benjamin Franklin. When sixteen (1722), Benjamin Franklin published in the New England Courant a series of essays now known famously as The Dogood Papers. In these letters the widow Silence Dogood announces her availability for marriage and sums ...

2154. The Three Stages to Truth: A Biblical Philosophy of Education

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... out of the story: "Go and do likewise." As Brown puts it, "We do not really know the truth unless we are doing the truth, and only in the doing of the truth will we finally know the truth."(72) Slightly reworking Brown's original categories, we can suggest that for truth to become transformed from academic to engaged knowledge it must pass through three stages of development. Jesus illustrated these stages best in his peripatetic discourse on the Emmaus Road, before his disciples re-gathered in Jerusalem ...

2155. The Bonds of Love

1 John 4:7-12

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... of friendship and partnership is also rooted in our childhood, but it is our peers, our siblings, our play experiences that shape our friendship patterns. Unlike the attachment/caring bond - which finds same generation couples trying to adapt the rules they originally learned in an inter-generational relationship (parent-child) - the friendship bond translates more readily to marriages since couples are peers. But remember all those nasty children you were hurt by as a child when they wouldn't let you play ...

2156. Faith Is the Victory

Acts 10:44-48

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... God's faithfulness for its birth and growth. The word "faith" is one of the most widely used words in the NT. It is found in the First Testament through the verbal root aman, or as we would translate the word, "Amen." This word "faith" or "amen" originally expressed for the Hebrew people the idea of carrying, bearing, or supporting, such as a doorpost bearing pillars (2 Kings 18:16). Yahweh is called the "God of Amen." God is the solid base, the rock, the support, the "Amen," upon which life must be raised ...

2157. Revitalizing the Lo-cal Church

Acts 1:12-26

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... sermon we shall come to terms with what Jesus meant when he said in the Temple, "My house shall be called a house of prayer." Tennessee Banker/Foundation Director F.G. ("Moe") Cavin traces his Methodist ancestors to the time they were originally Episcopalian. How the switch happened is case-study of how the nineteenth century became known as the "Methodist Age" in American history. When Francis Asbury, and generations of Methodist itinerants or revivalists after him came to town, one of the first things ...

2158. You've Got That Healin' Touch

Mark 5:21-43

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

God is Creator (Father) and Redeemer (Son), but God is also Sustainer (Holy Spirit). God's sustaining nature always seeks to heal, to restore each creature and the entire creation to its original state of wholeness. Take time this week to explore with your congregation the diverse ways God has brought healing into your life together - either through other people, relationships, or the created cosmos surrounding you. It has been estimated that nearly twenty percent of the gospel narratives are devoted to ...

2159. The Dawn's Early Light

2 Samuel 7:1-17

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... down the Bay searching for the already departed British fleet. Key's negotiating abilities were apparently quite good, for he duly returned with Dr. Beane, and "The Star Spangled Banner, " an almost completed poem he had composed during his mission of mercy. Originally intended to be sung as a hymn of thanks for the rescue of the city of Baltimore from bombardment from the British fleet, its hymn-like qualities are still quite evident. Unlike other national anthems, "The Star Spangled Banner" does not extol ...

2160. Minding Your Heart

Mark 6:30-44

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... passion. Indeed, he looked for the overflowing power of the heart in people. Bishop Arthur Moore used to say, "I'd rather restrain a fanatic than try to resurrect a corpse." "Captain Planet" is one of the most popular new shows on Saturday morning. Originated and designed by Ted Turner and produced by Barbara Pyle, this program is far more than just another "cartoon" (a word, by the way, that comes from the Greek kairos). It was designed to entertain children in a non-militaristic genre while educating them ...

2161. Global Warming

Genesis 2:18-24

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

An original twist is given the phrase "global warming," as the climate-altering effects of thinking "we" over "me" would bring healthy and health-giving atmospheric changes to people who are freezing to death in our well-heated churches and warmed-up planet. The Bible is a book about relationships; the relationship ...

2162. LightWorks

Deuteronomy 6:1-9

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... light with the same intensity, tenacity and brilliance of that distant star - light that can be trusted to stay so true to its trajectory that the image it conveys is a vital, vibrant, distortion-free representation to generation after generation of the original faith community. It was Benjamin Franklin's least known, but perhaps most important political insights: "America's destiny is not power," he argued, "but light." Franklin's fixation was on the body politic, but his prediction is even more true for ...

2163. The Crime of Christmas

Luke 2:8-20, Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... requires us to scrape off layers and layers of sedimented sentimentality built up between ourselves and the incarnation. Those layers have grown so deep they now threaten to block the flow of the divine message of fleshed-out love which Christmas originally communicated. It is not just the whirling dervish of secular culture that distracts us from a centered Christmas. We can be just as complicated by busyness that involves the church/liturgical season as we can the economic/marketing season that Christmas ...

2164. Tweed Jackets, Sweat Pants and Wet Suits

Luke 3:21-38

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... redaction and expansion."Second, the basis for judging whether such reworking was authentic was “continuity and coherence of the new expressions with the older."Third, authoritative tradition has at its essence a "re-expression of the essential message of the original fountainhead of the tradition to meet the needs of a different day and situation" (77-78). Paul endorses this vigorous image, writing in 1 Timothy 4:7that Christians should "train yourself in godliness." Or as the Moffatt translation puts it ...

2165. Aged to Perfection - The Third Age

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... intensity and vigor. This was Abram's experience of aging. But this vital picture of old age was not uncommon for the people of Abram's time and culture. Those Eastern cultures which nurtured Jewish Christian traditions venerated age. The Arabic term sheikh (leader) originally meant "elder," a term of immense social significance. The Old Testament declares that "a hoary head is a crown of glory" and "Honor the face of the old" (Lev. 19:27). Today, "ageism" would make age less the gateway to the fullness of ...

2166. The Seduction of the Palms

Luke 19:28-40

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... walks in our more recent history that have also visually demonstrated a call for justice - the walks from Selma to Montgomery, and the walk on Washington, D.C. One of the most intriguing palimpsests Kellermann discusses is based on an observation originally made by theologian William Stringfellow. Recall that at the start of Jesus' ministry, he was confronted by the devil with temptations of power. In Luke's text when Jesus successfully withstands the tempter's seductions, the devil retreats to await "a ...

2167. Shame on You

1 Timothy 1:12-17

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... then to successfully pass final blame onto someone else. We acknowledge our sins, but point the finger at someone else to take responsibility. Of course, such behavior is a time-honored human trait - see Genesis 3:12-13 for Adam and Eve's original rendition. A recent psychological trend has blossomed in popularity as a result of this love for buck-passing. Under the guise of "self-help" programs - patterned on the long-respected 12-step regime of Alcoholics Anonymous - an indulgent form of self-denial has ...

2168. Toys R Us. NOT!

Ephesians 1:11-23

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... comes a sense of disappointment, but it should also bring a sense of freedom - for suddenly there is time to devote to a whole host of other interests and activities. As we dabble in this and discover that, we develop our unique, original, unrepeatable character. Christians should have the most complex, multi-faceted characters imaginable. We have freely admitted we are not "the best" at being human - created in the image of God. Once that confession has been made, we are called into a new relationship ...

2169. O Holy Nightmare

Matthew 24:36-44

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... -organized its calendar to accommodate it. The season of Winter Lent was shortened to four weeks and given the name Advent ("coming"). Even though the penitential aspect of this season has been thoroughly lost to us in practice, we still recall that original focus by clothing the altar in purple (the color of penitence). Appropriately the joy of Christ's impending entry into the world should remain tempered with the recognition of our own sins and shortcomings. Yet somehow we have managed to move from this ...

2170. Christ the Apple Tree

Isaiah 11:1-10

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... forth the green, supple new growth of a completely new being - the Second Adam, the Messiah, Jesus. Christ's birth itself is the real Christmas tree, the true Tree of Life being made incarnate in our world. Because Christmas is celebrated in mid-winter, originally to more easily Christianize European pagans who were already used to a festival of winter solstice, we have often let the evergreen image overrun the message of the apple tree and the Second Adam. Christ incarnates the Tree of Life and brings the ...

2171. Welcome Home, Joseph

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... text that challenges the assumptions of modern readers. The most important point to keep in mind is that it would go without saying (and thus does so in Luke) that if Joseph and his pregnant wife showed up in his family's village of origin, they would be greeted as long-lost brothers and sisters. No effort would be spared on their behalf. Kinship ties were the strongest, most important realities governing the everyday life of these peasants. To turn away visiting relatives was positively unthinkable. Mary's ...

2172. A Concert of Prayer

1 Corinthians 1:10-18

Drama

Leonard Sweet

... last time, change your posture as you are able (stand up, kneel, bow your head) and hold hands as you begin your prayer with "I love you because...." MUSIC TRANSITION: "My Hope Is Built" Now turn around and get in groups of six. Introduce yourselves, tell where you're originally from, where you now live, etc. There are lots of hurts here this morning in our families. Lots of pain. How do I know? I'm your pastor. I know how difficult it is to build a family in the world in which we live. Spend a few minutes ...

2173. Give me a C...

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... our street was called 'Hungry Hill.'" No matter how self-denigrating these statements might seem, they are still boasts. It makes us feel better about how well we've done and how far we've come if we can make the measurement of distance from point of origin as long as possible. "We were so poor" boasts also serve as a subtle way to fish for compliments. It gives others a chance to make a gratuitous comeback. Not even Paul was immune to the temptation to boast through belittling. How many of you suspect with ...

2174. The Well That Will Never Run Dry

Exodus 17:1-7

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... A fountain is "something which is simultaneous rest and movement, always changing, always staying the same, ever new and ever old. The fountain expresses power and it contains light. A fountain is the exuberant play of fundamental elements: light and water, issuing without interruption from a single point of divine origin" (David Martin, Divinity in a Grain of Bread [Cambridge, Eng.: Lutterworth Press, 1989], 65.) 6. Flowing water is purifying and cleansing. 7. As a fluid, water can merge with its medium.

2175. Make Disciples

Matthew 9:35-10:8 (9-23)

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... but Jesus is still calling new disciples each and every day to set out on that same mission. Where do all these disciples come from? The list Matthew provides in today's gospel text gives names but not a lot of details about the Twelve that Jesus originally called. We know that four of them were perfectly prepared for a life of active ministry as fishermen. We know that one of them led a morally exemplary lifestyle before his calling the tax collector Matthew. We know that one of them had a temperament that ...

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