Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 2226 to 2250 of 4884 results

Mark 14:1-11

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

... and weddings. Big things they handle calmly, then an unexpected small gift will break them up. And logic - "the logic of a woman" is a proverb all its own! Well, here a woman is not negated, berated, accused, minimized, criticized, or put-down (which only proves how perfectly fair Christ always was. For had the same action been evidenced in a man, as it was in this case in a woman, his reaction would have been exactly the same. It is certainly not the "point" of this lesson, but it goes a long way toward ...

2227. When Christians Quarrel: Resolving Conflict in the Church

Matthew 18:15-20

Sermon

Jerry L. Schmalemberger

... have conflicts; but they are to resolve them. It is very true today that the behavior of us church members on this very issue makes Christianity to the outside world either repulsive or attractive. It isn’t a matter that Christians are perfect and will not have conflicts. There will always be quarrels, differences of opinion on how and who, disappointments with preachers and councils, hurt feelings, bent pride, loss of face, and lots of mistakes. It’s the idea that Christians can resolve these conflicts ...

2228. For Those in Church: Joy and Service

Matthew 23:1-39

Sermon

Jerry L. Schmalemberger

... in this Gospel is: Beware of showing off in our practice of the faith. The religion of the Pharisees was one of ostentation. If religion is keeping rules, if you keep rules, if you keep all of them, then you can acquire an air of perfection. Jesus selected certain practices where the Pharisees were showing off. He says, "... for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues, and salutations in the marketplaces ...

2229. Embalmed With Cardiac Arrest

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... We don’t know anything about magnetism. We have a lot of hypotheses about these things, but, remember, that’s what they are - merely hypotheses. Perhaps you heard about the woman who went to the doctor with back trouble. The doctor diagnosed her problem. It was perfectly obvious that her back was bothering her because she was wearing too tight a girdle. So, for the next two weeks, she went without a girdle. She went back for her next appointment, and the doctor said: "It’s obvious that your back needs ...

2230. Embalmed Leaders

John 10:1-21

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... attached to the public address system of the convention, and, very obediently, the Superintendent of Sewers cried out: "We want Roosevelt" for 22 minutes, until a spontaneous demonstration erupted on the floor of the convention. And all of this was considered as perfectly proper in the stuggle for the power of leadership. One can scarcely accept the excuse of the candidate who said: "I know that the office should seek the man, but I gave it plenty of time and it was apparently bashful." One remembers ...

2231. Embalmed Alive

John 14:5-14

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... a part, of that eternity. We see this brief pilgrimage in relation to the whole, In that light, life takes on new meaning, new richness. There are no declining years. Life is lived on the ascending scale. We are storing up spiritual riches. We perfect, as far as possible, the lovely art of worship. We learn to know the eternal joy of fellowship with our Eternal Father, and that association lightens and enriches our association with our fellow men. Love, joy, and deep abiding peace - these are the fruits ...

2232. The Embalmed Come Alive

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... his seat, and she is saying: "Okay, so you feel the Spirit, but not here in this Worship Service." That’s about the way it is with us, isn’t it, the main line denominations outside of what we sometimes disparagingly label the "Pentecostal Sects"? We are perfectly willing to talk about God the Father, our Creator and Preserver. We certainly have a great deal to say about Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior; but when it comes to the work and the power of the Holy Spirit, we become strangely silent. A lot of ...

2233. Justification and Reconciliation

Romans 3:21-31

Sermon Aid

T. A. Kantonen

... it into a gentle guide for holy living, to make it a way of salvation, a rival of the gospel. The law is "holy and just and good," for it is the revelation of the holy will of God, but no man can satisfy its demands. The law demands absolute perfection and pronounces a curse upon "every one who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them" (Galations 3:10). Not only does man’s effort to achieve salvation by keeping the law lead him into sin, but the effort itself is sin ...

2234. Salvation as Personal Experience

Romans 9:30--10:21

Sermon Aid

T. A. Kantonen

... , meaning down payment or first installment by which the buyer bound himself to complete the full payment. Through the Spirit the believer already tastes of the powers of the world to come and has the pledge and earnest of the salvation to be perfected (2 Corinthians 1:22; 5:5). Just as being "in Christ" applies to the ordinary everyday life of the Christian in the world, so also being "in the Spirit" is not confined to an inner spiritual realm. Over against all idealistic interpretations, Paul affirms ...

2235. Salvation as Hope

Romans 13:8-14, 1 Thessalonians 4:13--5:11, 1 Corinthians 15:35-58

Sermon Aid

T. A. Kantonen

... will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you" (Romans 8:11). We are thus "being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another" (2 Corinthians 3:18) until the work of the Spirit reaches its perfection in the resurrection of the dead. The metaphor which Paul uses most often in speaking of death is sleep. The idea of soul-sleeping, however, is foreign to him and to the entire New Testament. The apostle shares instead the conception prevalent in antiquity that ...

2236. Paul Today

Acts 17:16-34

Sermon Aid

T. A. Kantonen

... faith, his hope, and his endurance." Obviously we have here a transcendent ideal rather than an empirical fact, although a saint like John XXIII came close to fitting the description. Paul himself would say, "Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has mode me his own" (Philippians 3:12). For Paul agape is the governing principle not only in individual life but in all human relations. "Agape does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore ...

2237. Christians In A Warring World - 1941

Galatians 6:1-10

Sermon

Kent Moorehead

... all my colleagues in the Christian ministry, what Paul said some 1,900 years ago to his friends: "Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfected together in the same mind and in the same judgement ... For though the word of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; unto us who would be saved, it is the rower of God" (1 Corinthians 1:10, 18).

2238. What Are Christian Liberals? - 1951

John 16:5-16

Sermon

Kent Moorehead

... humility. He knows he is liable to error and he knows he is susceptible to delusion. He has strong convictions but no pride of opinions, he distrusts all dogmas and he insists upon the prerogative of examining and testing all orthodoxies. For he knows perfectly well that nothing human is infallible or final. This is the contrast between the liberal and either of the extremes. You discover that a radical reactionary or a rabid radical is so cocksure of himself. There it is. Take it or leave it. A ...

2239. EPISODE 1: THE FIRST WEEK IN LENT

Drama

Robert Clausen

... in the kingdom. PETER: Lord ... JESUS: Yes, Peter. PETER: Tell us about the kingdom. JESUS: All right, I’ll tell you. Imagine a man who trades in pearls. Thousands, of all sizes, have passed beneath his eye. Then he finds a giant pearl, lustrous and magnificent, so perfect in its beauty that all the others in the world seem insignificant. He sells everything he has to buy this one pearl. So much does his discovery mean to him. And this is what the kingdom means to those who find it. JOHN: What else, Lord ...

2240. To Bethlehem and Beyond

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

Leonard Mann

... . But, if we can accept it, it is through his pain that we have our peace, it is "by his stripes that we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5). Because he gave, we may receive. Out of his sorrow comes our joy - and also his. For he is "the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross" (Hebrews 12:2). His joy is to be our Savior; and if there is pain in the process of getting through to us, there is joy when he does. What was the message heard by ...

2241. In The Nick of Time

Genesis 22:1-19

Sermon

Jon L. Joyce

... end with the shake of the doctor’s hand for our newborn child instead of standing face to face with the Great Physician. We thank the good neighbor for being a good neighbor instead of tracing goodness back and up to him "from whom cometh every good and perfect gift." We have not developed the habit of detecting the hand of heaven in our hour-to-hour affairs. Our imagination has not been stretched this way lately, in office or suburban life, in the last book we laid down or in the first thing we did this ...

2242. The Old and the New

1 Corinthians 5:1-13

Sermon

Jon L. Joyce

... rapidly growing advertising agency on Madison Avenue, New York, says of her fast rise to power and popularity and wealth: "This is our moment, and I’m not the least bit humble about it." The motto of the firm is: "If we were only modest, we’d be perfect." It was the late Fred Allen who was called as a witness before a Congressional Investigating Committee, and in the course of the questioning, as was the custom, he was asked what he did for a living. He said: "I’m the world’s greatest comedian." His ...

2243. Thorns and Roses

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... thorn was epilepsy or migraine headaches or a malarial fever common in the eastern Mediterranean area. Notice that Paul refers to the thorn as a "messenger of Satan." The Bible teaches that all diseases and death came into the world because of sin. God's perfect original creation did not include disease or death. People do not get sick and die because God wills it. People get sick and die because our world is flawed by sin. In this flawed universe, thorns are distributed indiscriminately as one would deal a ...

2244. Saints With Crooked Haloes

2 Samuel 12:1-31

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... simply believers being re-made by the Christ-Spirit living within them. The contemporary theologian Frederick Buechner gets at the original meaning of "saints" when he writes, "I mean saints as men and women who are made not out of plaster and platitude and moral perfection but out of human flesh. I mean saints who have their rough edges and their blind spots like everyone else, but whose lives are transparent to something so extraordinary that every so often it stops us dead in our tracks." I know that God ...

2245. Our Exclusive God (The First Commandment)

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... compulsive about reconstructive surgery. These compulsions are not limited to youth. Newsweek magazine reports that there is a growing number of persons, mostly women in their 30's and 40's, who are perpetual plastic surgery patients. They are always in search of that "perfect look" that will make them acceptable in their own hyper-critical eyes. Our love for status can be silly. You know how neat the driver looks rolling down 1-40 in his BMW talking on his cellular phone. Well, some company is offering a ...

2246. Our Unmanageable God (The Second Commandment)

Exodus 20:1-21, Ephesians 3:14-21

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... ancient scribe made a transcription error in copying the Bible, that does not bother me. And it does not make the Bible one bit less authoritative. We don't worship the book. We worship the God revealed by the book. If you want to identify something as perfect and flawless, point only to the God revealed in Jesus Christ. Some people allow their love for their CHURCH OR DENOMINATION to get out of hand, to the point that the church becomes an idol or God-substitute. But the Bible reminds us that "We have this ...

2247. A Mother Who Could Let Go

1 Samuel 9:1--10:8

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... you. It's so hard to leave my friends alone To work out their own problems. Help me to trust more, and interfere less. I give them over to you, Lord. Bend down to them, Take care of them, Give good things to them. In the name of Jesus, Your perfect gift to the world. Amen."

2248. Blessed Are The Focused - Father's Day

Proverbs 4:1-27

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... to the evening news, your child will form conclusions about people of other races. If your child hears you use God's name carelessly or profanely, the child will draw conclusions both about God and your relationship with God. None of us is perfect. We sometimes show our worst sides before our children. How important it is at such times to acknowledge our failings honestly and ask forgiveness. A SECOND TRUTH FOR PARENTS IS THIS: NOTHING CAN SUBSTITUTE FOR YOUR PRESENCE. Many parents rationalize by saying, "I ...

2249. Because He Lives

1 Corinthians 15:12-34

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... in the Apostles Creed--"...the third day he rose from the dead." Listen to our official United Methodist view from our Book of Discipline, Article III: "Christ did truly rise again from the dead, and took again his body, with all things appertaining to the perfection of man's nature, wherewith he ascended into heaven, and there sitteth until he return to judge all men at the last day." Go to any society on earth, however primitive, and you will find a yearning for eternal life. Surely God must have planted ...

2250. The Road To Emmaus

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

Brett Blair

... to them…and their eyes are opened. In that moment they were transformed. There’s a story about a young boy named Walter Elias. Born in the city, his parents one day moved out to the country to become farmers. Walter had a vivid imagination and the farm was the perfect place for a young boy and a wondering mind. One day in the apple orchard he was amazed when he saw sitting on a branch of one of the apple trees an owl. He just stood there and stared at the owl. He thought about what his father had told ...

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