Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: Levi, disciple, evangelist, tax collector, the 12, the twelve, apostle, sermon on the mount, jewish audience, beatitudes, lord's prayer, great commission, parables, olivet discourse, mount of olives, olivet, synoptic

Showing 201 to 225 of 1232 results

201. Stay—Tuned

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... explains why our New Testament begins with four gospels instead of just one — we have four different perspectives on Jesus’ life and work. If we only had Mark, we would miss the infancy stories of Matthew and Luke — no wise men or shepherds, no Sermon on the Mount or Lord’s Prayer. We would have missed out on some beautiful parables like the good samaritan and the prodigal son. Without John’s beginning description of the pre-existence of the Trinity, we might have been tempted to think of Jesus as ...

202. The Faith of a Saint

Luke 6:17-26

Sermon

King Duncan

... no accident that these challenging words from Luke are chosen for this special day, for it is wrestling with these words that we come to understand the faith of a saint. At first glance this passage appears to simply be Luke’s scaled down version of the Sermon on the Mount, which appears in a fuller view in Matthew 5-7. But there are some significant differences. If we turn to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5, we read this in verses 1 and 2, “And seeing the multitudes, he went up on a mountain, and when ...

203. Righteousness Through Faith

Romans 3:21-31

Understanding Series

James R. Edwards

... .; see also Gal. 3:1–20). The law’s function had been to reveal sin (3:20) and to demonstrate the need of a savior apart from the law. In 2 Corinthians 3:6 Paul says, “The letter (law) kills, but the Spirit gives life.” In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus repeatedly reinterpreted the law in terms of its motive or intent (e.g., Matt. 5:21–22, 27–28). The purpose of the commandment, in other words, had been to engender a proper attitude and behavior toward God’s will. It is this original intent or ...

204. When We Don't Know God

Philippians 3:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

... talk to me. I was born in the church. Cradle roll from day one. I wasn’t a week old when I attended my first church potluck . . . I memorized the Ten Commandments when I was six. I memorized the Beatitudes when I was seven. I memorized the Sermon on the Mount when I was ten. I not only knew the rules at an early age, I kept them. No drinking, no chewing, no dancing. I had perfect Sunday school attendance for seventeen straight years, and it would have been longer if the doctor hadn’t insisted that the ...

205. Christianity and Conflict: Dual Citizenship (Part VII)

Philippians 1:1-11

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... reminded of the witness of a devoted Christian in the South that produced conflict in the very church he was trying to live the commands of Christ. Clarence Jordan was a Baptist preacher who tried during the fifties and sixties to live out the Sermon on the Mount in south Georgia. One day the church there in Americus to which Clarence belonged decided--like too many of our churches reflecting our culture rather than Christ--to have a meeting with him and "church" him--meaning kick him out of the membership ...

206. When Do You Feel God's Pleasure?

Matthew 3:13-17

Sermon

James W. Moore

... a poisoned soul. Jesus knew this… and so, He called for us… to be bridge builders, to be peace-makers to receive forgiveness from Him and offer it to others. This was a key theme of many of His parables. It was a dominant theme in the Sermon on the Mount. It was the major theme of His life… So, this is number one, First of all, we feel God’s pleasure when we forgive like Christ forgave,… when we offer to others Christ-like forgiveness. II. SECOND, WE FEEL GOD’S PLEASURE WHEN WE INCLUDE OTHERS ...

207. The Four Horsemen

Revelation 6:1-17

Teach the Text

J. Scott Duvall

... ungodly. This text also reinforces the biblical teaching that humanity is divided into two groups: those who follow God and those who reject him (here the “martyrs” and the “earthdwellers”). As with the message of the Prophets, the close of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 7:13–27), and the messages to the seven churches in Revelation 2–3, the vision of Revelation 6 presses readers to choose a side. Neutrality is not a long-term option. God in his sovereignty exercises patience even as his ...

208. The Law of Unintended Consequences

Matthew 5:13-20

Sermon

King Duncan

... get rid of the stuff. Kudzu seemed like a helpful agricultural plant when it was first imported to this country. No one guessed how destructive it could be once it took root. Unintended, but a real nuisance. Our Bible passage today comes from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ first major teaching in the book of Matthew. Jesus has been preaching, teaching, casting out demons and healing sickness. A big crowd has gathered to see what he is going to do or say next. So Jesus sits down and begins to teach ...

209. Political Pardon

Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... enough, that he was good enough, that he had arrived as some new level of spiritual graduation. But accomplishments that become self-serving and occasions for self-congratulations are not the goal of discipleship. Jesus, in fact, had said earlier, in the Sermon on the Mount, that those who pray in public and make a big show of giving to the poor have their immediate gratification, but it holds no heavenly value. The goal of spiritual growth is transformation, not arrival. We are to be engaged in a process ...

210. Two Harvests

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Sermon

Stephen M. Crotts

All of the Bible is inspired. But just as some parts of a turkey have more meat on them, so some parts of the Bible are meatier than others. For example, the genealogies of Leviticus versus the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 13 is one of the meatier portions of the scriptures. It is unique as an identifiable sermon of Christ Jesus, a series of seven, maybe eight parables that seem to be prophetic, to foretell the history of ministry ahead of time. The parable of the wheat and the tares ...

211. Don't Worry Be Happy!

Luke 12:22-34

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... do it. But I do listen to popular music, and often times it teaches me. The song from which I got the title for the sermon was popular many years ago. But I wasn't preaching through the Gospel of Luke then, or dealing with Matthew's record of the sermon on the Mount. So it's only now that I can use this popular song as a springboard for a sermon. You remember it. Here's a little song I wrote. You might want to sing it note for note. Don't Worry Be Happy. In Every life we have some trouble,When ...

212. Encounters With Christ II: Jesus and Mary and Martha

Luke 10:38-42

Sermon

James W. Moore

... anger of the person who nurses his or her wrath to keep it warm… an anger that festers and will not die. That is “Orge`”… a seething, burning, brooding anger … and that is what resentment is made of. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks repeatedly about the dangers of resentment… and He says in effect:- Beware of resentment… it is dangerous! - Beware of brooding, seething anger! - Beware of resentful gossip! - Beware of the contemptuous resentful tone or attitude! All of these are murderous ...

213. What Jesus Saw In Martha

Luke 10:38-42

Sermon

James W. Moore

... is the anger of the person who nurses his or her wrath to keep it warm… an anger that festers and will not die. That is “Orge`”… a seething, burning, brooding anger … and that is what resentment is made of. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks repeatedly about the dangers of resentment… and He says in effect: - Beware of resentment… it is dangerous! - Beware of brooding, seething anger! - Beware of resentful gossip! - Beware of the contemptuous resentful tone or attitude! All of these are ...

214. Our Greatest Enemy

Illustration

Richard Rohr

... not doubt; the greatest enemy of faith is fear. Most of the world is controlled by fear, petty and big. Petty fears control people; great fears control nations. We could feed all the people in this world if we would stop building arms, but we are afraid. In the Beatitudes (Sermon on the Mount) Jesus said, "Those of you who make peace will he happy. You will be God's own." Yet even Christians are preoccupied with fear and protecting ourselves because we don't believe what Jesus said. The ...

215. Whatever Happened To Sanctification?

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Durwood L. Buchheim

... the connective tissues of society."2 When truth becomes whatever people in power say it is, then slowly but surely, trust is replaced by cynicism, and loyalty is for sale to the highest bidder. In a strong, courageous book on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount titled Into the Darkness, Gene Davenport shares these thoughts about this commandment: "Perhaps the most influential expression of language’s bondage to the Darkness in Western society today live in a society characterized by duplicity. One of the primary ...

216. Blessed Are Those Who Are Awake

Luke 12:32-40

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... I have dealt with recently in other contexts. So, that’s the way I arrived at the focus today: “Blessed are those who are awake”. I state that as a Beatitude — a Beatitude of Jesus. Though not among the ones found in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is pronouncing a blessing: “Blessed Are those whom the Master finds awake.” Blessed are those who stay awake, alert, and ready for what life presents them — to be awake in order to be responsive and responsible to all the unexpected visitations or ...

217. Playing to the Right Audience

Matthew 6:16-18, Matthew 6:1-4

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... the best are Richard Foster, The Celebration of Discipline (San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998); Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines (San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991); John Ortberg, The Life You’ve Always Wanted (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002). 15. A.W. Hunter as quoted in Charles Talbert, Reading the Sermon on the Mount (Columbia, SC: USC Press, 2004), 106. 16. Virginia Law Shell, Good News, Jan./Feb. 1991. 17. PreachingToday.com search under spiritual disciplines.

218. The Christian Journey IV: The Pool

Sermon

John N. Brittain

... : to be a Christian is to live in a certain way, to follow a certain hodos, a path. We thought about the mountain, so often associated with the awesome power of nature and God, the place of the giving of the law, the sermon on the mount, the emotional high of mountaintop experiences. But we noted two other things of which the image of ascending the mounting reminds us: first that Christian discipleship takes effort, foresight, and (as the word indicates) discipline, like that exercised by a skilled mountain ...

219. WeatherProofing Your Home

Matthew 7:24-27

Sermon

James Merritt

... atmosphere that you set inside that home is what really weatherproofs your house from the storms of life. Weatherproofing your home is something that Jesus was greatly concerned about. At the conclusion of the greatest sermon ever preached in the history of the world, The Sermon On The Mount, Jesus closes with a parable; it is a story of two home builders. He tells us in this parable that the most important part of building a home is not what you build, nor how you build, but where you build. I think you ...

220. The Privilege and the Price

Matthew 5:13-16

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... against all that is wrong with our world. We are the people who belong to Jesus Christ. Don’t ever underestimate the power of a committed minority. 1. For historic sermons on this text, see John Wesley, “Upon our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount,” Discourse IV: Matthew 5:13-16, in Albert C. Outler & Richard D. Heitzenrater, editors, John Wesley’s Sermons: An Anthology (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1991), 193-206; Martin Niemoller, “Christians Must Be A Light To The World,” www.abcog.org/niemoll.html ...

221. Going Hard against the Grain

Matthew 5:33-37

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... of Promises," A Chorus of Witnesses (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994). 6. The Book of Discipline 2004, 65. 7. PreachingToday.com search under Matthew 5:38-42. 8. The Canadian Mennonite, September 4, 2000, 11. 9. Exodus 22:25-27, DT. 24:10-13, 17 10. Charles Talbert, Reading the Sermon on the Mount (Columbia, SC: USC Press, 2004), 88-93. 11. For a critique of GroupThink, see George Hunger III, Christian, Evangelical & Democrat (Nashville, TN: Abington, 2006).

222. Ready!

Mark 13:24-37

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... -time best-seller. Unfortunately, most Americans are remarkably ignorant of biblical basics. One Gallup survey, for example, shows that fewer than half of our nation can name the first book of the Bible (Genesis). Only one- third knew who delivered the Sermon on the Mount (many said Billy Graham, not Jesus). One quarter could not say what we are celebrating at Easter. One New Jersey pastor made his own small effort to encourage Bible reading, posting this adage on his church sign: “A Bible that is falling ...

223. Epiphany 8

Isaiah 49:8-26, Matthew 6:25-34, 1 Corinthians 4:1-21

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

... done wrong. Only God is to judge, for he alone knows the heart. Gospel: Matthew 6:24-34 There is no need to be anxious about material needs, for God will provide them to those who trust him. In the last paragraph of the sixth chapter of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus discusses materialism as a god. It is not possible, he teaches, to hold to this god and God. If we would serve God wholly, the material side of life God would provide. With faith in God's provision of our daily needs, we would have no anxiety ...

224. Uncovering Cover-Ups

John 15:18--16:4

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... of social snobs who have kept us out of their clubs or social circles. Convinced that most everyone has a character flaw covered up somewhere, we resent the thought of anyone judging us for anything. We quickly justify our feeling quoting Jesus' famous saying in the Sermon on the Mount, "Judge not lest you be judged." And again we quote his saying that we ought first to cast out the wooden beam in our own eye before we try to remove the sawdust from our brother's or sister's eye. But the judgment referred ...

225. Don't Worry! Give Thanks!

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

King Duncan

... going nowhere. Or as someone has said: “Worry is like a rocking chair. It will give you something to do but it won’t get you anywhere!” It is interesting that on Thanksgiving Day, our lesson from the Gospel should be on being anxious. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or ...

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