Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 2176 to 2200 of 2844 results

2176. The Family: A Place For Persons

2 Timothy 1:1-2:13

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

I doubt if there is anything more important for persons in shaping their lives than the families in which they are nurtured. So, on this Father’s Day, and the day following the marriage of our daughter, could I preach about anything else than family? I want to talk particularly about the family as a place for persons. The family is threatened in our day. The pressures of modern living bring explosion to the home. Consider these shocking statistics – over 40% of all marriages today end in divorce; 59% of ...

2177. The Family: A Place For Persons

Colossians 3:18-4:1

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Listen to this newspaper advertisement: Shrimp lovers platter with champagne and dessert -- $10.75 -- now until February 17. Come to Red Lobster from now to February 17, and along with our other specials, we'll woo you with our very special "Shrimp Lovers' Platter". Start off with an Alaskan Shrimp cocktail; after that, enjoy a delicious combination of fried shrimp and stuffed shrimp. Then get a valentine: Your choice of a glass of champagne or soft drink and a dessert. All for only $10.75. But hurry! You ...

2178. The Game Is For A Team

Colossians 4:7-18

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Clarence Forsberg tells a story about what it means to be a part of a team. It is a story of Al McGuire and Butch Lee. McGuire was a great basketball coach, who retired from Marquette after winning the NCAA tournament in 1976. Butch Lee was a kind of prima donna player on that team. The story is about McGuire trying to teach Butch Lee about team basketball. This was the coach's word. "Now, Butch, the game is forty minutes long, and if you divide that between the two teams that means there is twenty minutes ...

2179. East Of Eden

Genesis 3:1-24

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Last Sunday we talked about The Fall in Eden in terms of Paul Harvey's phrase: "The Rest of the Story". The story is simply told -- "Evil entered paradise. Satan tempted Eve and Adam by appealing to their pride and vanity to "be like God." After their sin and expulsion from the garden, death made its first relentless assault on the race. There was "brother trouble" when Cain killed his brother Abel. In Genesis 4: 7, we have this stark warning: "Sin is crouching at the door; its desire is for you, but you ...

2180. The Nuclear Truth Of Christianity

Ephesians 2:1-10

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Amos Alonzo Stagg was one of the great football coaches of all time in sports history. As a coach he constantly tried to keep his substitutes prepared and ready on the bench. He had the habit of prompting alertness by suddenly popping questions at them while the game was underway. One afternoon he turned to a fourth-string player who hadn't seen a single minute of the game during all the season. Stagg barked, "You, Cartmell! What would you do if we had possession of the ball with one minute to play, the ...

2181. God Shaves With A Borrowed Razor

Isaiah 7:1-25

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

For weeks before Columbus discovered the new world, some members of his crew kept telling him, "Turn back before we run out of food and perish! Turn back before we are attacked by sea monsters! Turn back before we sail off the edge of the earth!" There was a name for those people -- we would call them today "Consultants." Now, obviously, I am in for making a little fun as we begin today -- but all for a purpose. I hope you will see it. Recently I came across a report of a Consultant. The title of the ...

2182. The Day Is Not For Sleeping

1 Thessalonians 4:13--5:11

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

There is nothing wrong with growing old and dying. The problem is too many people die and then grow old. When the death of Calvin Coolidge was made public, someone quipped, "But how can they tell?" George Bernard Shaw once said that the epitaph for many people should read, "Died at 30; buried at 60." Steve Franscioli sent me the following poem sometime ago, and I've been dying to use it in a sermon. Now is my chance. It's titled "A Little Mixed Up". It goes like this. Just a line to say I'm living That I'm ...

2183. Baptized...and Baptized

Luke 3:1-20

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Last Sunday, we talked about John's message of repentance as the "no" that becomes a "yes." We talked about the fact that the call to repentance is a call to repent of our sins, but it's also a call to repent of trying to hide from our sins. We never repent of our sins until we quit hiding from them. Also, repentance is more than a feeling. It is a mind-change -- a mind-change that involves admitting we have been wrong in supposing we can manage our life as if we were God. A second aspect of the mind- ...

2184. More Tolerable For Sodom And Gomorrah

Luke 10:1-24

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Cracow, the ancient capitol of Poland, remains a medieval city for it somehow escaped the devastation that leveled so many other European cities during the war. Cracow was once a flourishing member of the Hanseatic League, an association of independent merchant towns that exerted so much power and influence in the Middle Ages. The hugh sprawl of covered market still stands in the central square, dominated by a tower from which each night a trumpet tune sounds (the interesting thing is that in the midst of ...

2185. Sweet Little Jesus Boy

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Tired from another hectic day, a successful business executive collapsed into his easy chair. The bright colors of a magazine cover in his den caught his eye, and he picked up the periodical and leafed through it while he waited for dinner. It was an issue of The Christmas Annual. There were beautifully illustrated reproductions of Christmas carols. He began to read the familiar word, but being in a caustic mood, he began to revise the carols into parodies: "Silent night, holy night All is calm, all is ...

2186. Overcoming The Destructive Dont's That Have Shaped Our Lives

2 Corinthians 1:12--2:4

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

NOTE: The updated version of this sermon will be posted this evening. If I've heard it once, I've heard it hundreds of times -- and so did most of you. It was one of my mama's favorite exhortations. I think she thought it was a verse of Scripture. She quoted it with that kind of authority. "A man is known by the company he keeps." Was that ever said to you by your parents? Have you repeated it to your children? Maybe you think it’s a verse of Scripture also. It really isn't, but it is sound advice. A man ...

2187. Reflections On A Calling (ten-year Anniversary Sermon)

2 Corinthians 4:1-18

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

One of my heroes is Bishop Gerald Kennedy. He was the Bishop in Southern California who extended me the invitation to join his conference when we were under such great pressure in Mississippi back in 1964. I spent ten wonderful years under his leadership there in Southern California. He's one of the greatest preachers, I believe, on this century. He was fond of telling about the Anglican Bishop who defined a sermon in this fashion: "A sermon is what a preacher will travel across the continent to deliver, ...

2188. What Do You Want To Be Like When You Are 65?

Proverbs 3:1-35

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

There is a classic story of a Russian countess who sits in the theater on a cold, winter night. Her emotions are played upon by the sad scene depicted on stage -- so much so that she sheds copious tears. Meanwhile, outside, her coachman is shivering in the cold as he awaits to take her home. She allows the emotion of pity to be excited by an imaginary scene, but refuses to allow pity to play on the chords of her daily life in relation to her driver. The Proverbs will play on the cords of our daily life if ...

2189. Watering The Garden Of Our Life (communion Meditation)

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Across Northern Africa stretches the largest desert in the world, the Sahara, almost as large as the United States. From east to west, it measures thirty two hundred miles, farther than the distance from New York to San Francisco. Mile after mile of scorching, shifting, sand dunes make up the Sahara, where temperatures reach 130 degrees Fahrenheit during the summer -- so hot that breathing is nearly impossible. Yet at the eastern edge of this mammoth oven lies one of the richest, most fertile valleys know ...

2190. Smart Living

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sermon

King Duncan

A fifty-five-year-old man was arrested in Buffalo, N. Y. sometime back for stealing a $270 case of liquor. He wouldn't have gotten caught except that as he ran away, he dropped his ill-gotten goods and shattered all the bottles. He still wouldn't have gotten caught except that, after leaving the scene, he returned with a straw to suck up the pool of booze. He was still on his knees when a police officer showed up. He tried to escape, but was caught and arrested. (1) Obviously he's not the smartest candle ...

2191. Putting the Puzzle Together

John 6:60-71

Sermon

King Duncan

I normally don't tell blonde jokes. Some of my best friends are blondes. And there is a sexist element to such jokes, I will admit. But sometimes one comes a long that's really funny. A certain young lady calls her boyfriend and says, "Please come over here and help me . . . I have a jigsaw puzzle, and I can't figure out how to get it started." Her boyfriend asks, "What is it supposed to be when it's finished?" The young lady says, "According to the picture on the box, it's a tiger." Her boyfriend decides ...

2192. Clean Hands

Mark 7:1-23

Sermon

King Duncan

A father opens the door to greet his daughter's date. There stands a young man, cap on backwards, jeans that sag practically to his knees, a diamond stud in his lower lip, and wearing a set of earphones. The young man grunts hello and comes in. The father is more than a little taken back. He goes upstairs where his daughter is putting the finishing touches to her make-up. "I don't think you should go out with this boy," says Dad. "He doesn't look like a nice person." The daughter is shocked. "Daddy," she ...

2193. Two Small Coins

Mark 12:41-44

Sermon

King Duncan

A very wealthy man rang his minister at two in the morning. "Pastor," he said, "I lost everything on the stock market yesterday. I can’t believe it. It’s all gone!" The slowly awaking pastor tried to reassure the man. He said, "I’m so sorry. I know this is a difficult time for you." "But what bothers me the most," the man continued, "is the two million dollars I had pledged to the church building fund. It’s gone, too." "Don’t stress yourself over it," replied the pastor. "The Lord will take care of ...

2194. Christmas and the New Family

John 1:1-18

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

When Wilbur and Orville Wright completed their historic flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903, they sent home a succinct telegram. In minimum words it reported that their venture had succeeded, and concluded, "Home for Christmas." Whether they knew it or not, their achievement had ushered in a new age. Along with that, their "coming home" announcement might seem very mundane. But any of us who have longed to go home for Christmas will understand that the two subjects of the telegram ...

2195. Whether You'll Weather the Weather

Luke 6:46-49

Sermon

David J. Kalas

Every so often, toward the end of a hot, still, muggy day here in the Midwest, we'll have a television show interrupted by an alarming beep and a printed message scrolling across the bottom of the screen. It's tornado season, and so the message usually features one of two words from the National Weather Service. It's either a "watch" or it's a "warning." A tornado watch means that the atmospheric conditions are ripe for the development of a funnel cloud. A tornado warning, on the other hand, means that a ...

2196. A Celebration of Love

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

King Duncan

Mark Mail was waiting in line at his local post office. Only one clerk was working the window. The line was moving quite slowly. As Mark waited, he began to fill out a check. He was hoping to speed things up when he reached the counter. Unsure of the date, he turned and asked the woman behind him. ‘It’s the fifth,’ she replied. Before he could write in the date on the check, he heard a voice. A man from the back of the line cautioned, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t write the date in just yet.’" (1) Now that was a slow- ...

2197. Growing with God

1 Samuel 2:12-26

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

There are times in the life of the world or of a nation when one individual changes the whole course of history. Perhaps we might say that such a change occurred when the Emperor Constantine declared Christianity to be the official religion of the Roman Empire. Certainly we could agree that Martin Luther introduced an entirely new era when his actions initiated the Protestant reformation. And we might say that Mahatma Gandhi began the fall of the British Empire, or that Gorbachev began the dissolution of ...

2198. Commandments of Conduct

Nehemiah 7:73b--8:18

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

We live in a society in which right and wrong have become largely a matter of personal opinion. All individuals are seen as a law unto themselves, and what is right for one person is not necessarily right for anyone else. Indeed, if any person tries to impose their ethical standards on another, the response is usually defensive anger. "Don't try to impose your middle-class morality on me," goes the complaint. "I know what is right for me, and you have no business trying to meddle in my life!" The result is ...

2199. The Conversion of Saul

Acts 9:1-19a

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

We have three different accounts of the conversion of Saul in the Gospel according to Luke (9:1-20; 22:6-16; 26:12-18). They differ in a few minor details, but essentially they are the same. In addition, Paul writes of his conversion in Galatians 1:11-16, and in 1 Corinthians 9:1 and 15:8-9, stating that at the time of his conversion on the road to Damascus, he saw the Lord. For Paul, that made him an apostle, equal to the twelve. An apostle, in Paul's thought, was one who had seen the risen Christ and had ...

2200. In the Wrong Place At the Right Time

Mark 15:21-32

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Back in early December, Jerry and I were in Jerusalem for a meeting of the presidents of the World Methodist Council. We deliberately chose to meet in Jerusalem because we wanted to identify the world Wesleyan family with that small, often- persecuted and almost always forgotten Christian community in that land our Lord made holy. It disturbs me greatly that of all the millions of Christians who visit that land, very few seek out the Christians there and hear their story. A Christian should not go to ...

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