Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 201 to 225 of 302 results

201. John the Baptist

Matthew 3:1-12, Matthew 3:13-17

Sermon

David E. Leininger

A time to put your imagination to work this morning. The scene is a large, ornate room in the palace of Herod the king. In it, you and others who comprise the best and the brightest in all of Judea - religious leaders, politicians, courtiers. There is an air of expectation in the hall, for you are about to meet a man whose reputation has spread across the land. The king's men have arrested him after reports that he has denounced Herod's marriage to Herodias, until recently the wife of Herod's brother ...

202. He Has Done All Things Well

Mark 7:31-37

Sermon

King Duncan

It's time for us to visit again with our old friend Charlie Brown. Charlie, Linus, and Lucy are on their way to school. It's show and tell day. Lucy asks Linus if he has remembered to bring anything for show and tell. "Yes," Linus answers, "I have a couple of things here to show the class." He then unfolds some papers. "These are copies I've been making of some of the Dead Sea scrolls," he says. Holding them up for Charlie Brown and Lucy to inspect he continues."This is a duplicate of the scroll of Isaiah ...

203. Cut Down Lifted Up

Philippians 2:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

Once upon a time in the heart of a certain kingdom, lay a beautiful garden. Of all the dwellers of the garden, the most beautiful and beloved to the master of the garden was a splendid and noble Bamboo. Year after year, Bamboo grew yet more beautiful and gracious. He was conscious of his master's love, yet he was modest and in all things gentle. Often when Wind came to revel in the garden, Bamboo would throw aside his dignity. He would dance and sway merrily, tossing and leaping and bowing in joyous ...

204. Walking On The Water

Matthew 14:22-36

Sermon

King Duncan

We may wonder why such a whimsical story as that of Jesus walking on the water should even appear in the Scriptures in the first place. The story has certainly provided humorists with plenty of material. You know the kind of story I have in mind. "The wife of football coaching legend Bear Bryant once held a telephone receiver in her hand as she gazed out the window of a lakeside cottage, "Oh, no," she says, "It will be no trouble to get him. He is simply having his morning stroll across the lake." The ...

205. Started Toward A Great Tomorrow

Philippians 3:12-4:1

Sermon

King Duncan

He was one of the greatest soldiers of his time. He lived at a time when his country needed great soldiers! Yet his past so discouraged him that he almost never became the leader that his country needed. Hiram was born to a father who was harsh and cold and would always see him as a failure. His mother was not a source of emotional comfort to him either; he never once saw her moved enough to shed a tear. Hiram was always small for his age. He grew up ashamed he was not the kind of leader his father ...

206. Aren't You Glad?

Mark 16:1-20

Sermon

Anne-Rose Reeves

Pastor Jones, at St. Michaels Lutheran Church, wasn't quite sure just how to put his Easter sermon together. And believe me, it wasn't for lack of advice and study. At the last council meeting, the church president had jokingly told him he hoped that this year's Easter sermon would finally say something significant to all those "Christmas and Easter Christians" who show up only twice a year and only put a dollar in the plate. "Pastor, tell them how much money it takes to keep this building in good repair, ...

207. Freed From Fear

Romans 8:1-17

Sermon

King Duncan

On May 26, 1986, People Express flight number 14 from San Francisco to Newark was ready to depart. Suddenly a wild-eyed man who "looked Iranian" bolted from his seat and ran out the door. Knocking aside startled security officers, he frantically tried to escape through the locked doors of the terminal before an airport police officer finally tackled and subdued him. Was he a terrorist? No. He was just a very average American who was afraid to fly. Unfortunately, he was so frightened of being locked into ...

208. Empowered By Angels

1 Kings 19:1-8

Sermon

King Duncan

Colonel Jimmy Stewart stood looking out the window of his hut in England. He gazed in the direction of the English Channel and toward the continent beyond. Tomorrow he would command a squadron of B-24 Liberator Bombers on a dangerous mission over Germany. It was understood that some of the planes would not return; that some of the flyers would die or be captured. Jimmy Stewart was afraid. He replaced the blackout curtain, turned and sat on his metal cot. Switching on a small light, he pulled from his ...

209. Scamming God

Matthew 6:1-4

Sermon

King Duncan

An Italian newspaper recently carried a story about a young couple in Milan who seemed particularly devoted in their worship. The priest at a cathedral there reported that the pair spent an hour or more on a regular basis sitting before a statue of the Virgin Mary. Naturally, he assumed they were praying. Turns out, this young couple was recharging their cell phone. They had noticed a stray electric cable sticking out of the wall behind the statue of the Virgin Mary. Whenever their phone's power supply ...

210. Yes, Virginia, There Is a Hell!

Luke 16:19-31

Sermon

Edward Inabinet

Today I want to talk with you about one of the hardest subjects in all the world to talk about as a pastor. In fact, experts in church growth tell pastors and church leaders to steer away from this topic because even church people don''t want to hear about it. If you don''t want to lose your congregation, they tell us, don''t talk about this particular topic. But we are duty-bound, we are under commission to talk about this subject because the Lord talked about it so very much in his life and his ministry. ...

211. Confronting Hypocrisy with Humility

Matthew 23:1-12

Sermon

Brett Blair

Politicians in Washington play the gotcha game to perfection. To make matters worse the news media feeds on it. Not only do they feed on it, they feed it, hoping for a national scandal to make themselves appear relevant. These various political events are a fitting context for our scriptural text about hypocrisy. Listen to what Jesus says about these politicians (in his day they were called Pharisees): “They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a ...

212. Afraid of Sanity

Mark 5:1-20

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

In J. D. Salinger’s famous novel, The Catcher in the Rye, 15-year old Holden Caulfield says: “I can’t always pray when I feel like it. In the first place, I’m sort of an atheist.” (That would put a damper on prayer, wouldn’t it?) He goes on: “I like Jesus and all, but I don’t care too much for most of the other stuff in the Bible. Take the Disciples, for instance....They were all right after Jesus was dead and all, but while He was alive, they were about as much use to Him as a hole in the head. All they ...

213. Secrets Shared for the Journey of Life

Philippians 4:10-20

Sermon

Eric Ritz

Dr. Fred Craddock tells of growing up during the depression and how often money was not in great supply for his family. The family had to move to town to seek work. Every able family member tried to find some work to earn money. The family kept a cigar box on the kitchen table where all the funds that were earned were kept in order that his mother could pay the rent and buy the necessary food items. However, once in a while his Dad, on a Friday night, would take the money and go to town and buy his wife a ...

214. Will the Real Blind Beggar Please Stand Up?

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

Cathy A. Ammlung

It's easy to slap some people down. Little kids, poor people, beggars, the handicapped, foreigners, old people, minorities ... the list goes on. Sit down and shut up and be grateful for what you have. What do you know? Who asked you? You should be seen and not heard. Those are things we say -- or maybe have had said to us. That's assuming the person in question isn't being ignored into oblivion. We sinful human beings sometimes waver between abusing and ignoring someone who offends, disturbs, or makes us ...

215. The Making of a Saint

John 11:38-44

Sermon

Cathy A. Ammlung

Today's Gospel is difficult to preach on All Saints' Sunday. The story of the raising of Lazarus is familiar and uplifting, but this section is a little awkward. We enter just in time to witness Jesus' tears and anguish, some graphic words about how the body would smell, an odd little prayer, and -- almost as an afterthought -- the calling forth of four-day-dead Lazarus, still bound in his shroud, shuffling awkwardly from his tomb before the astonished mourners. No ringing words about Jesus as the ...

216. Everybody Loves a Parade!

1 Corinthians 7:1-40

Sermon

Fredrick R. Harm

This is the season for parades. Not long ago we watched the Rose Bowl parade on television; on Thanksgiving Day, Macys of New York entertained us with its Turkey Day extravaganza. Our text for today calls attention to another, and more sobering, parade: the parade of life, the pageant of this world. "For the present form of this world is passing away" (v. 31). The words "passing away" are a translation of a Greek word meaning "to lead by." It suggests the picture of a parade of soldiers being led past a ...

217. The Holiness of the Sacred

1 Corinthians 1:18--2:5

Sermon

Paul E. Robinson

In the April 7, 1999, issue of The Upper Room, Merial Scott of South Dakota wrote the following: One summer morning when I was very small, Mother woke me with the words, "Get up and dress quickly now. I'm frying trout for breakfast." Astonished, I wondered how we could have newly caught fish when the day had just begun. At the table, I learned that my father had driven at dawn to one of his favorite streams and gotten a strike on almost every fly he cast. The unexpected breakfast was less of a surprise ...

218. Epiphany: The Tragedy of Rejection

Luke 4:14-30

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

In the church, most of us think of Epiphany simply as a season on the church calendar, and sometimes as a season we don't understand too well. We may recall that we are celebrating particularly the revealing of Christ to the Gentile world, via the Wise Men, but not much more. The dictionary, however, adds further dimension to the word, listen: "a sudden, intuitive perception ... into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or ...

219. God's Battle Against Sin

Zephaniah 1:1-3

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

Can we believe that God is carrying on a war against all sinners? He is, of course, according to the scriptures. Jeremiah gives us pictures of God attacking his sinful people in the form of that mysterious Foe from the North (Jeremiah chapters 4-6). Ezekiel declares that there is a breach in our wall of defense, caused by our sin, and that the role of a true prophet is to go up into that breach and by sacrifice and intercession, turn aside God's attack (Ezekiel 13:5). Earlier in Zephaniah, the prophet ...

220. Homesick For a Future: New Life for the New Millenium

Genesis 12:1-8

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

I don’t know how it is with you, but occasionally I have flashbacks. Sometimes these are connected with a task at hand, or a decision with which I am struggling, or when I am wrestling with what I perceive as a call of God upon my life. Occasionally these flashbacks are connected with my preaching. It happened a couple of months ago. I was struggling with personal direction issues, but had also begun to think of the assignment of preaching on this occasion. The words of a young man named Nicholas in The ...

221. Staying Alive All Your Ministry Life: Will You Finish Well?

Exodus 32:1-33:6

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

There are some experiences or encounters that are so solidly lodged in our memory they continue to invade our consciousness – to haunt us – to help us or to hinder our Christian walk, to call and challenge us to be more than we are. John Birkbeck is a person around whom for me a whole cluster of memories is gathered – memories that invade my immediate awareness now and then. John was a Scot Presbyterian preacher. During a part of my tenure as the World Editor of The Upper Room, he was the editor of the ...

222. Joy in the Journey

119:129-136

Sermon

Michael Milton

This section contains seven of the eight words used to refer to the Law in Psalm 119. Each line of this section begins with the Hebrew letter Pe, though each is a different word. Yesterday my son, as he often does, read cartoons to me. One was Dennis the Menace. Dennis is kneeling beside his bed, devoutly gazing toward heaven, saying his prayers. The caption read, “You’ll be glad to know that I only broke three-ana-half commandments today.” Only three-ana-half! Way to go, Dennis! Well, the cartoon is funny ...

223. A Discussion Among Angels

Matthew 24:36-44

Drama

Matthew Powell

Cast Storyteller The Archangel Michael The Archangel Uriel The Archangel Raphael The Archangel Gabriel (The Storyteller stands off to one side. Michael, Uriel, and Raphael are seated in the center and stand when they speak and remain standing. Gabriel sits slightly farther back from the others. He stands and comes forward when he finally speaks) Storyteller: A company of angels, returning from their various labors on earth, was sitting in friendly conversation. There were three of the company who seemed to ...

224. Proper 6

Matthew 10:1-42, Matthew 9:35-38, Romans 5:1-11, Psalm 116:1-19, Genesis 18:1-15

Sermon Aid

Marion L. Soards, Thomas B. Dozeman, Kendall McCabe

OLD TESTAMENT TEXTS The Old Testament texts for this Sunday explore the question of whether anything is too difficult for God. This question is central to the story of Sarah's miraculous birth in Genesis 18:1-15; 21:1-7, while Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19 is a song of thanksgiving, which celebrates the fact that indeed nothing is beyond God's reach. Genesis 18:1-15 (21:1-7) - "Is Anything Too Difficult for God?" Setting. The Old Testament lesson for this Sunday is a familiar miracle story about the birth of Isaac ...

225. Looking Into the Eyes of the Risen Christ

John 20:11-18

Sermon

James W. Moore

On December 10, 2003, a new movie was released. It was called Big Fish. The main character in the film was a man named Edward Bloom. Edward Bloom loved to charm people with his “larger-than-life stories” (some would call them “tall tales” about his youthful and extraordinary adventures with circus performers, with giants and werewolves and one amazing encounter with a so-called witch. In the witch story (which was his son’s favorite bed-time story), Edward Bloom describes in vivid detail how when he was ...

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