Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 2251 to 2275 of 4943 results

2251. The Gift Of Sleep

Psalm 127:1-5

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

I think I've told you the story of the mother who was trying desperately to get her son out of bed, to get him up and ready for church on Sunday morning. None of you parents have that problem with your children, do you? The mother threatened, begged, cajoled -- but to no avail. "Come on, Son, she pleaded. Why don't you want to go?" "I'll give you three reasons, he said. One, the people down there aren't friendly. Two -- they don't like me, and three, they don't listen to what I have to say." Parents, have ...

2252. From Hurting to Helping

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

King Duncan

Two psychiatrists were at a convention. "What was your most difficult case?" one asked the other. "Once I had a patient who lived in a pure fantasy world," replied his colleague. "He believed that a wildly rich uncle in South America was going to leave him a fortune. All day long he waited for a make-believe letter to arrive from a fictitious attorney. He never went out or did anything. He just sat around and waited." "What was the result?" asked the first psychiatrist. "It was an eight-year struggle," ...

2253. God Communicates in Humanly Understandable Terms

Luke 2:41-52

Sermon

Richard D. Campbell

One Christmas morning, a young widow was doing her best to make Christmas happy for her two little boys. This was their first Christmas without their father. Unexpectedly, someone knocked at the door. "Who could that be?" she wondered. When she opened the door, she found her pastor standing with his arms full of toys and candy. This man, who was one of the most renowned preachers of his era, said quite simply: "I thought your boys might miss their father on Christmas morning." He spent the next two hours ...

2254. Get Rid of the Junk

Jeremiah 16:1--17:18

Sermon

King Duncan

Nome, Alaska, on the edge of the Bering Sea, is like many villages of the Arctic. The ground on which the community sits is frozen tundra. Burying the dead is a real challenge. Sanitation landfills are unheard of. Garbage trucks do not haul off the kind of refuse we leave curbside in the “lower 48.” Instead, a typical front yard displays broken washing machines, junked cars, old toilets, scrap wood, and piles of non-degradable refuse. Tourists who visit Nome in the summer are amazed at the debris and shake ...

2255. A Gift for You

Romans 1:1-7

Sermon

James L. Killen

Christmas is almost here. There is probably a Christmas tree in your house somewhere and there are probably presents appearing under it, all brightly wrapped and labeled. No doubt you have snooped around enough to see which packages have your name on the tag, and you may have begun to try to guess what is in them. If you have guessed what is in the package, you probably can't wait for the day to come for you to open it. If you haven't been able to guess what is in it, you are probably even more eager to ...

2256. Here We Go Again

Luke 21:25-36

Sermon

Mark Trotter

This last week I got a letter addressed to, "The Pastor of the MethodistChurch," unsigned. It began, "To the church that awaits my coming. I am the Lord." That got my attention. This is from Jesus, I could see. It was handwritten, which I want to point out to all of you who have been trying to get me to get a computer. I just follow Jesus. When he gets one, I'll get one. I read on. "I am not pleased with those who claim to be members of my body. You have turned away from me." The letter continues with an ...

2257. How to Be a Blessing

I Peter 3:8-12

Sermon

Mark Trotter

I love the story of a man who bought a new Alfa Romeo, the luxury Italian sports car, and wanted to do something to celebrate his purchase. So he went to the Catholic priest, and said, "Father, will you bless my Alfa Romeo?" The priest said, "Yes, but what's an Alfa Romeo?" The young man said, "Never mind, you wouldn't appreciate the significance of this purchase in my life." So he went to an Episcopal priest, and said, "Father, I've just bought an Alfa Romeo. Will you bless it for me?" He said, "Yes, but ...

2258. The Burglar's Christmas

Luke 15:22-24

Drama

Matthew Powell

Cast Narrator 1 Narrator 2 Young Man Will Mother Father (Narrators are seated on stools or chairs at stage right and stage left. Mother and Father are sitting on a bench or chairs up stage facing away from the audience. There is an unoccupied chair or stool in center stage. Will and Young Man are standing at center stage slightly down from the unoccupied chair) Narrator 1: Two very shabby-looking young men stood at the corner, looking despondently at the carriages that whirled by. Narrator 2: It was ...

2259. In the Darkness of Anxiety, There Is the Light of Peace

Luke 2:8-20

Sermon

Thomas A. Pilgrim

On a recent Sunday night, my wife and I went to a nearby church for their “Bethlehem Walk.” Each year, they re-create the town of Bethlehem with shops, sheep, Roman soldiers, a prophet crying out in the street who looked, strangely enough, like the pastor of the church, and a young couple with a new baby out in an animal shed. We arrived early so we would not have to wait in line long. That probably does not make sense, since we were in line long, but not a long line being at the front of it. As we stood ...

2260. Life's Four Big 'Ds' and One Bigger 'D'

Galatians 2:11-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Here are the catalogues that came to our house this past week. (Save in a box or basket all the catalogues that arrive at your home for one week, and empty them out in front of the congregation.) Order anything from any catalog and you immediately get on the mailing list for hundreds of others. Depending upon your attitude, these catalogs can either be a delightful escapist fantasy, or a miserable consumeristic experience in "wannabe-ness." Here are some exclusive, high-end catalogs. These are especially ...

2261. Make Me a Sheep

Revelation 5:1-14

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Our eight year old came home from school a few weeks ago singing a new song they had been learning, "Lord, Make Me A Sheep." Now . . . even though the song was cute and catchy, and even though I know it was teaching an important theological truth, it still rankled. Make Me A Sheep? It just doesn't sound like a dream any father or mother should want for their son or daughter. Make me courteous and kind. Of course. Make me strong. Yes, definitely. Make me independent. Sure! Make me courageous. Of course. ...

2262. Don't Lose Your Footing

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Every sport seems to come with occupational hazards. Take baseball. Baseball pitchers tend to end up with gimpy, arthritic elbows. Take football. Football players can end up with rickety, rocky knees. Take ballet. Ballet dancers almost always end up with the most gnarled, nobbed, ugly stumpy feet you can imagine. In fact, once you've seen a dancer's unslippered foot, you can never watch the grace and beauty, the fluid movement across the floor and into the air, in the same way. How can they move so ...

2263. Parable of the Crabby Grass

Matthew 13:24-30

Children's Sermon

Brett Blair

Exegetical Aim: Encouragement to be wheat rather than tares. Props: A tray, a strand or clump of good grass, and a patch of crabgrass (or weed). Try and pull up one whole system of each. Place the grass side by side in the tray so that they initially look like one system of grass. Lesson: I have something in this tray. Can anybody tell me what it is? (grass) Is there anything strange about the grass? (response) Look at it closely; do you notice anything odd? (response) If they do not see the difference ...

2264. Be of One Mind

2 Corinthians 13:11-14

Sermon

King Duncan

There is an old story about a henpecked husband who went to a psychologist. He was tired of being dominated by his wife. The psychologist told him, “You do not have to accept your wife’s bullying. You need to go home right now and let her know that you’re your own boss.” The husband decided to take the doctor’s advice. He went home and slammed the door on the way in. He confronted his wife and said, “From now on you’ll do what I say. Get my supper, then go upstairs and lay out my clothes. After I eat, I’m ...

2265. The Attitude of Gratitude

1 Thessalonians 5:18

Sermon

James Merritt

Rudyard Kipling was a best selling English author at the turn of the century. He wrote one of the best books for children of all time, entitled, The Jungle Book as well as the poem "Gunga Den." He made a tremendous amount of money with his writings. A newspaper reporter came up to him one time and said, "Mr. Kipling, I just read that somebody calculated that the money you make from your writings amounts to over $100 a word." Kipling raised his eyebrows and said, "Really, I certainly was not aware of that ...

2266. Body Building at Its Best

1 Corinthians 12:13-27, Ephesians 4:1-6

Sermon

James Merritt

Take a moment and just think about your body. It represents a state of engineering that IBM, Mercedes, and Lockheed combined, could not ever match. Listen to this eloquent description of the magnificence of the human body: The body is a temple, warehouse, laboratory, pharmacy (the brain alone produces more than 50 cycle-active drugs), electric company, farm, mass-transit system, library (the brain stores the equivalent information of 500 sets of the Encyclopedia Britannia, utility company, hospital, and ...

2267. The Lion King

Revelation 5:1-14

Sermon

James Merritt

There was a Gypsy in England who stopped a preacher one day; not knowing he was a preacher, she said she would tell his future for $500. The preacher said, "You mean you can tell me what I will be doing a year from now if I give you $500?" The fortune-telling Gypsy said, "I can tell you exactly what you will be doing a year from now." The preacher then asked, "You mean you can tell me what I'll be doing this time tomorrow?" The Gypsy said, "Absolutely." The pastor then said, "If you will tell me what I was ...

2268. Joshua: Why These Stones?

Sermon

John E. Harnish

It was bound to happen. God knew it. Joshua knew it. Someday, a child would ask the question. · Someday, when the people were comfortably settled in the Promised Land and the tales of Abraham and Sarah living in tents had given way to high rise lofts and seaside condos; · Someday, when the stories of Moses and the manna had blended into a mosaic of ancient myth and the traveling tabernacle had been replaced by a permanent temple; · Someday, long after the bones of Joseph had found their final resting place ...

2269. The Miracle Fruit

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

“Miraculin.” If you haven’t heard of it before, you’ll no doubt hear of it in the future. In fact, you will probably be invited to a “miraculin” party someday. “Miraculin” or “miracle fruit” is a small berry that grows on a plant in West Africa that looks like a rhododendron. The technical name is the “Synsephalum dulcificum” plant. It looks somewhat like a cranberry, or when unripe a coffee bean, and has a slightly citrusy taste. [If you can order some in advance from this website, and get people to try ...

2270. A Shepherd's Love

John 10:1-21

Sermon

King Duncan

Two television evangelists were talking. One was explaining how he was seeking to be the ideal shepherd to his television flock. “There are three ways I seek to do that,” he said. “What three ways do you mean?” asked the other evangelist. “Well” he explained, “First, we FIND them. Every year we find new stations to carry our ministry. Then we FEED them. I give them the plain unvarnished word of God.” “But what’s the third thing?” asked the second evangelist. “Well,” he answered, “Once we’ve found them and ...

2271. A Little Dirt Is Good for You

Mark 7:1-23

Sermon

King Duncan

A teacher observed a boy entering her classroom with dirty hands. She stopped him and said, “Johnny, please wash your hands. My goodness, what would you say if I came into the room with hands like that?” With a smile the boy replied, “I think I’d be too polite to mention it.” A pastor says his son’s Sunday School teacher approached him after church and said, “Let me tell you what your son said in Sunday School today (a phrase sure to strike fear in the heart of every pastor). She had been teaching about ...

2272. With The End In Mind

Philippians 3:7-11

Sermon

James Merritt

One of the best selling books written in the twentieth century and one that made a tremendous impact on my life is a book by Stephen Covey, called The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People. That book has sold millions of copies and even to this day sells extremely well. One of the seven habits Covey says of an effective person is beginning with the end in mind. He begins this chapter with this thought provoking scenario. "Picture yourself driving to the funeral parlor or chapel, parking the car and ...

2273. A Stone’s Throw From: The Harvest

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

A long time ago, I remember hearing a story about a young boy who was helping his grandfather dig potatoes. After a while, the little boy began to get tired and bored. "Grandpa," he asked wearily, "what made you bury all these potatoes here anyway?" How many of you have ever planted anything? We all have. When we plant potatoes we expect to get potatoes right? I remember a time when Mary and I were gardening. We went to the nursery and bought a number of different starter plants. One was Bell Peppers and ...

2274. A Chance To See

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

An older women came home one day to find that her house had been broken into. She immediately called the police and told them. The nearest officer to her house happened to be a K-9 unit, so that officer was the one who responded to the call. The officer drove up to the house and proceeded to let the dog out of the car. The woman came running out of the house when she saw the police car, but stopped when she saw the dog getting out. She threw up her hands and said, "Great. This is just great. Not only have ...

2275. Discover the Meaning of Christmas

Luke 2:1-14, (15-20)

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

Did you know that the celebration of Christmas is one of the biggest seasons of the year in Japan? It's odd because Japan's population only has about ½ to 1% of the people who are Christians. Yet, they love Christmas. It's not a national holiday like it is here but they still decorate their houses with lights, most homes will have a Christmas tree. But for them it is all focused on the consumer side. It's a time simply for parties and celebrations. The Japanese remind me of a young family I read about who ...

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