Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 2276 to 2300 of 2331 results

2276. What If You Could Change the Ending?

Luke 23:33-43

Sermon

King Duncan

... he is God’s Messiah, if you are the king of the Jews, aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” This is a déjà vu moment for Jesus. He’s heard these words before. In Luke 4, Satan presented Jesus with three temptations in the desert, and taunted him with the words, “If you are the Son of God. . .” Three times, he was given the opportunity to change the ending to the story. Three times Jesus refused. And in Matthew 26, Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane just before his arrest. Three ...

2277. Silent Sinning

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... lift them out of the water and onto dry land. If you are trusting in yourself, you aren’t trusting in God. You can only have one authority, one master, one sovereign in your life. If God is not your compass, you will be left trying to navigate the desert by following the mirages of your own mind’s making. When we humble ourselves before God, all of a sudden, everyone else looks a whole lot more human, a whole lot less different, and life looks a whole lot more beautiful –the way God intended it to be ...

2278. A Sign in the Heavens

Isaiah 60:1-6 · Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... men beheld the star shining over Bethlehem independently and yet at the same time. Each decided on his own to follow the star to find the newborn King of Kings. After traveling many miles from three different directions, they encountered each other in the desert. They were brought together by that star, and they discovered that they were on the same mission. So they banded together to continue the journey. They made their way past the mountains of Moab and past the rebuilt town of Jericho. Finally, they ...

2279. Fired Up and Fit for the Feast

Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... quiver. John, think the later Jonathan Edwards, cast the fear of God into everyone around him. He was an unusual person –ascetic, prophetic, deeply committed to a simple and Essene-like lifestyle. He came from the line of priesthood but defected to the desert to study, learn, preach, and life an entirely committed monk-like life. When he emerged as a prophet, people listened. Whether the Pharisees and Sadducees came that day to follow suit with all of the others and to be baptized by John or whether ...

2280. The Succession

Matthew 11:2-11

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... is repentance, a turning back toward God, humbly and relationally. His vehicle is baptism with water, a kind of cleansing and renewing of the spirit in preparation for a messianic appearance. After Jesus is baptized by John, he is driven into the desert for 40 days and nights, where he is tempted, tested, and prepared to undertake a three-year mission of salvation. When Jesus emerges, he begins to assemble disciples, baptize, and teach, initially echoing John’s call for repentance. Soon after this, John ...

2281. After Everyone Had Gone Home

Matthew 2:13-23

Sermon

John Jamison

... today. Instead of remembering the angels and shepherds, the gifts and the baby, we are reminded that there are people in this world who do unimaginably cruel things to get what they want. According to the story, when the wise men came from across the desert to find the baby, word of their arrival got to King Herod. Not much slipped-passed Herod. He immediately scheduled a reception for the foreign dignitaries, and at some point during the formal dinner he pulled the three aside and spoke with them. He told ...

2282. What Power Fears Most

Matthew 2:13-23

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... ’t going to crash with them head on. But eventually, their fear will calm, and their fire will fade, for power needs fear to function. Love, unconditional love, came into the world in the person of Jesus. Like a tiny seed buried in the desert, it would take time to emerge. It would need to slowly demonstrate itself, spread, disseminate God’s silent healing power person by person, area by area, little by little until when confronted with the powers that be, it would proclaim victory from a bloody cross ...

2283. What, Then, Would You Be?

2 Corinthians 5:20b—6:10

Sermon

Dr. Ronald Love

... in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago sitting in sackcloth and ashes.” The early church continued this practice. Ash Wednesday begins the liturgical season of Lent which lasts forty days, representative of the forty days Jesus spent in the desert enduring the temptations of Satan. In the early church on Ash Wednesday those Christians who committed grave faults were forced to wear sackcloth and be sprinkled with ashes. They were turned out of the Christian community the same as when Adam was ...

2284. Smombies

Romans 5:12-19

Sermon

Dr. Ronald Love

... with God. We are told that Elijah spent forty days and nights walking to Mount Horeb. It is reported that God sent forty days and nights of rain in the great flood of Noah. It is recounted that the Hebrew people wandered forty years in the desert while traveling to the promised land. Jonah’s prophecy of judgment gave forty days to the city of Nineveh in which to repent or be destroyed. Jesus retreated into the wilderness, where he fasted for forty days while being tempted by Satan. Tradition holds that ...

2285. How Does Prayer Work?

1 Corinthians 2:1-12 (13-16)

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... is the burning question for many of you today. How does prayer work? Well, I know someone who has the answer. His name is Jesus. Jesus knew how about the power of prayer and how it worked. Take a look at this verse from Luke: [Jesus] would withdraw to deserted places and pray (Luke 5:16 NSRV). In the gospel of Luke, we find fifteen different references to Jesus praying. Jesus taught us what prayer is by his own example. He prayed at every turn in his life. He prayed as he sensed God’s call on his life ...

2286. Why Doesn’t God Prove Himself To Doubters?

2 Peter 1:16-21

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... where you may be today -- and that’s okay. God still believes in you even if you don’t believe in him. But notice what happens next in the text: So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” (John 6:67 NRSV). Jesus saw everyone deserting him and he turned to the twelve and said, “Everyone’s leaving me. What about you? You want to leave me too?” Simon Peter replied with the wisest answer anyone could give: “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68 ...

2287. The Hidden City

John 3:1-17

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... explained to him that it isn’t enough to be baptized with water, with the baptism of repentance. We also need to be “baptized” of the Holy Spirit –to be “Spirit-birthed,” if you will. When Moses led the people of God out of the viper-filled desert and toward the promised land, he held up a symbol, a serpent on a pole, a representation of their sin and the promise of God’s redemption and healing, for the people to follow. Likewise, Jesus will be lifted up as well, as symbol of our sin redeemed ...

2288. Framed by Love

John 14:15-21

Sermon

April Yamasaki

... and over again. He invited them into relationship with him. He shared the good news of God’s kingdom and taught them. He settled their quarrels and answered their questions. He included them in his ministry. He would forgive them for falling asleep on him and deserting him in his time of need. And finally he would give up his life on the cross. Clearly for Jesus, love meant even more than washing feet. Jesus’ love for his disciples and for the world cost him his life. It was a self-giving, sacrificial ...

2289. Praying All the Way

John 17:1-11

Sermon

April Yamasaki

... fill. He prayed at the tomb of Lazarus, and Lazarus was raised from the dead. But what happened when Jesus prayed for protection and unity for his disciples? One of them betrayed him and later died by suicide. Another denied him. All would end up deserting him. Today the church continues to fragment, and even individual congregations may have trouble staying together. When it comes to Christian unity, we’re clearly still living in the already-but-not-yet. If Jesus were here in the flesh to pray with us ...

2290. Day of Pentecost

John 20:19-23

Sermon

William G. Carter

... had been accomplished. Something had been “finished.” In chapter after chapter of his book, John gave us glimpses of something holy breaking through the ordinary moments of life: at a wedding bash water is turned into wine, a multitude is fed in a deserted place, a paralyzed man is healed after years of lingering around the miracle shrine. Now Christ breaks into a locked room to pronounce peace where there was fear. He declares forgiveness where there has been disappointment. This is a glimpse of the ...

2291. Converts Or Disciples?

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

William G. Carter

... . He had the authority of heaven, the authority of earth. In speaking of Jesus Christ, authority is one of Matthew’s favorite words. “Exousia” is the word in Greek – “authority” – and Jesus had received it from God. The devil had offered him authority in the desert. He took Jesus to a very high mountain, extended his arms, and said, “Look at all the nations of the world and their splendor. Wouldn’t you like to have all of that? Just say the word and it can be yours.” But Jesus told him ...

2292. When Everything That Matters Has Been Torn Away

Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... for God to provide them with a promised son, Sarah gave her handmaid, Hagar, to Abraham. Hagar gave birth to Ishmael. Hagar seemed to think she had some advantage over Sarah, so Sarah—perhaps burning with envy—drove Hagar and baby Ishmael into the desert, where God protected them and declared a gracious promise over Ishmael’s life. And now, the Ishmaelites have bought the favored son, Joseph, to be their slave. And that brings us to the first question I have from the life of Joseph: Who are you ...

2293. How Much Should We Pack?

Matthew 9:35-10:8, (9-23)

Sermon

William G. Carter

... dead. Touch the untouchables. Kick out the demons. You have been treated generously, so live generously… travel light.”9 We know that too much baggage can get in the way. That was our discovery during a family trip years ago. On the way through the Mojave Desert, our rental car got a flat tire about a hundred miles shy of Barstow, California. The tire was changed with a spare, but the punctured tire wouldn’t fit underneath where the spare came from. And there was no room for the tire inside the car ...

2294. House of God

1 Kings 8:22-30

Sermon

Will Willimon

... ," we are only confessing what we experience here. Time and again we have-come here, and churches like here on Sunday, out of the workaday world and we exclaim with Jacob before the ladder, "Surely the Lord is in this place!"Jacob rested one night in the desert. And during the night he had a dream in which heaven's ladder came down to him. When he awoke he piled stones there and made a shrine, his "Bethel," meaning," house of God." In the majestic music, the soaring arches, the windows with riotous summer ...

2295. Rest

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Sermon

William G. Carter

... after I bought my first laptop computer some 25 years ago: because we can do work anywhere, we never stop working, especially if the work is mental, emotional, virtual, or expected of us. Let me tell you it was demanding to spend some recent time in a desert where there was little internet service, and cell phone service was available if you stood on a table with your left arm in the air as an antenna. Don’t ask how I discovered about the cell phone service. So what is the rest that restores our souls ...

2296. The Last Laugh

Luke 24:1-35

Sermon

Will Willimon

... You have seen enough cowardice, violence, cruelty, betrayal in your day to believe it in Jesus' day. You know: the good get it in the end, evil always has the last word. You have seen the cross raised on battlefields, ghettos, concentration camps, Ethiopian deserts therefore you know about the cross raised on Golgotha. Feel good? Come to church, we'll cure you of it! Church is for mourning, laments, and dirges. Worship is getting together and feeling sad. Sunday is about the terrible thing which happened to ...

2297. The Contestant

Matthew 14:22-33

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... we are right and God is wrong, or that we know best what we need for our lives. Why do you think Jesus had such a hard time teaching people in his time? Why Moses had such a hard time leading the people of God out of the desert? Why every prophet was practically stoned? Why Jesus in the end had to die? Bravado. Stubbornness. Stiff-necked people. And yet God never gives up. Jesus never gives up. The stories of Jesus’ disciples have got to be some of the most humorous stories in scripture sometimes. Like ...

2298. Hark, The Herald... What?

John 1:6-8, 19-28

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... all the details available to us. But if you are interested in angels, be glad - it is a sign of a healthy hunger for the answers to the great mysteries. Listen for God’s messengers and messages, even from a wild-looking character from out in the desert who is the last one we would ever imagine at this time of year when we raise our voices with “Hark, the herald angels sing.” Remember, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of...” Hamlet (1.5 167-168) Angels. Amen! 1 ...

2299. Pursued by Mercy

John 10:11-18 · Psalm 23

Sermon

Will Willimon

... of life, and for the end. It's a rare funeral where Psalm Twenty-Three has not been invited to speak a word or two over the grave. "I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever." Whenever, in this life, we have been forced into some dry desert or had to sail tossed and turned in a raging torrent, it was this old friend who reminded us of the green pastures and still waters, and thereby restored our souls. When we wander, without direction or meaning, there was good old Twenty-Three to point out the right ...

2300. God's GPS

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... them: “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (Exodus 19: 6, NIV) Remember, generations of Israelites had lived in slavery, without the agency to create their own laws and manage their own lives. Now they were wandering through the desert, desperate for enough stability to envision a future for themselves. How can they catch God’s vision for a peaceful, just, stable and righteous society that demonstrates to surrounding nations the character of God? By establishing commands that emphasize peaceful ...

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