Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 2301 to 2325 of 4681 results

2301. Spiritual Blindness

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

Warren Thomas Smith

... serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide, Doth God exact day-labour, light deny’d, I fondly ask; but patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need Either man’s work or his own gifts, who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best, his State Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed, And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest: They also serve who only stand and wait.2 "Sightless Milton dreamed visions no one else could see," said Helen Keller ...

2302. And It Came To Pass

Mark 13:1-31

Sermon

Warren Thomas Smith

... were Americans less proud? The spirit was: Just wait until 1988, at Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Do we have a contradiction here in Mark 13:24-31? If it will all pass away, why try? Ah, but what passes away? Transitory things will pass away - things which bear the mark of mortality, those fleeting things of earth. God and God’s purposes are eternal. God’s people are anchored in the everlasting. Therefore, we live in and for those qualities which endure. Why did the Puritans of Old and New England make such ...

2303. Ode to Wisdom

Job 26:1--31:40

Sermon

Alton F. Wedel

... altogether. The struggle starts where Christ lays hold on us, Wisdom in the flesh, and turns our footsteps to the cross - both his, and ours. The jealousy and the ambition hole up in the hearts of men like Judas, Caiaphas, and Pontius Pilate, who choose to bear the burden of their guilt while those who walk The Way amidst scorn and shame and sacrifice find crucifixion soon becomes their new creation. Their new life may not have all the answers, and their problems may not find a quick fix, and the riddles of ...

2304. The Marriage of Adam and Eve

Genesis 2:4-25

Sermon

Alton F. Wedel

This is how it started! It happened long ago and far away, in a place called Eden (Eden Prairie to the southwest of Minneapolis bears no resemblance to it), that the masculine and feminine were joined together as complement (not compliment) for each other ... that the man became a husband and the woman became a wife ... that the differences between the sexes formed a blend of unity and love. This is how it started! The ...

2305. The Heart of The Gospel

Isaiah 52:13--53:12

Sermon

Alton F. Wedel

... for sin, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand; he shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satisfied." (Second voice) "He shall make many to be accounted righteous; he shall bear their iniquities." If Jesus Christ had won his case, he would have lost the world. He lost his case and won the world. None of us has ever walked in Jesus’ sandals. We have never known a destiny like Golgotha. We can never comprehend the burden that he ...

2306. What Was That About?

Daniel 7:1-14

Sermon

Alton F. Wedel

... the scene is set in Babylon during the captivity, the book was written to address a period of persecution under King Antiochus Epiphanes, about 164 BC. Just before this paragraph, Daniel tells us that he saw four beasts - a winged lion and a bear, a four-headed leopard, and finally a fourth beast, terrible and dreadful and exceedingly strong, with ten horns, and different from the beasts that went before it. With this imagery and symbol, Daniel has described four nations - Babylon, the Medes, the Persians ...

2307. Abide in Christ

John 15:1-17

Bulletin Aid

James Wilson

... Leader: Let us draw closer to the Lord Who is our only true source of life. People: For we are the branches that grow from God's Vine. Leader: The Lord is the our source for all that is truly good, People: And we are the branches, called upon to bear God's good fruit. Leader: Let us give praise then to the living Lord with all that we are! All: Blessed be the name of the Lord! Collect O gracious and loving God, You alone are good and You alone are the source of all goodness in creation. Help us ...

2308. Love One Another

John 15:1-17

Bulletin Aid

James Wilson

Call To Worship Leader: Let us gather together all who would hear the word of the Lord! People: Let us carry to every nation the message of God's mercy and love. Leader: Let our lives bear witness that God's mercy and grace are real. People: For when we were each yet lost God sent the Christ to bring us home. Leader: Let us raise our voices in song and praise for God's healing love! All: Blessed be the name of the Lord! Collect O ...

2309. Jesus Is Lord of All

Mark 4:35-41

Bulletin Aid

James Wilson

Call To Worship Leader: Let us come together and worship, all children of the living God. People: In Christ, we are adopted into the family of God. Leader: And the Holy Spirit goes with us, bearing witness of God's love. People: Through the storms and through the good times, God is there. Leader: Let us proclaim for all the world to hear God's love in Christ! All: Blessed be the name of the Lord! Collect Almighty and merciful God, You have shown us You ...

2310. Other Voices

John 10:11-18

Illustration

John M. Braaten

... , "sometimes a sheep gets sick, and then it will follow anyone." We have seen it, haven't we? People, young and old, who are "sick." Battered by the storms of life and distracted by voices urging them to go this way and that, they have lost their bearings and they don't know where they are or where they are going. That can be more than a little frightening; it leads to despair, to hopelessness. And when someone is "sick" they will follow anyone who will promise a moment of happiness, a brief feeling of ...

2311. The Advent Hope

Romans 14:1--15:13

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

... of his return in glory. The ultimate triumph of Christ is based upon the victory achieved by his resurrection. Karl Heim, one of the great theologians of our century, describes this in a dramatic way. High above an Alpine valley are towering mountains bearing a tremendous mass of snow. A gunshot or some other vibration of sound is sufficient to set in motion an avalanche which rolls into the valley burying everything it meets. Before the avalanche the enormous energy contained in the mass of snow, capable ...

2312. Christ and Time

Galatians 3:26--4:7

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

At the beginning of a new year we are confronted with the mystery of time. The familiar old year has passed away, and an unknown segment of the future, which we call the new year, has taken its place. "Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away." Where did this stream originate and where does it finally end? What is this invisible something that we call time? What is this mysterious series of hours and days and years and centuries that moves steadily on and carries us to the end of our ...

2313. The Word of the Cross

1 Corinthians 1:18--2:5

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

In the center of Christianity stands the cross of Christ. The Apostle Paul defines the whole gospel as "the word of the cross." Both the Christian message and the Christian life are cruciform, bearing the shape of the cross. Thus we cannot avoid speaking about the cross, directly or indirectly, throughout the year. But during Lent, and especially on Good Friday, we try to keep silent and let the cross speak its word to us. We are not commissioned to trim and hew the ...

2314. The Exalted Christ

Ephesians 4:1-16

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

... triumph over the world with you, come to us clothed in the glory of the world." All the worlds of science and art and society have their existence and achieve their purpose only through him. There is not one thing in the entire universe which does not bear the stamp of his ownership. It is all one vast temple in which everything we see or touch must be consecrated to his glory. With a grasp of this truth, the astronomer Tycho Brahe never entered his observatory without putting on his court apparel. For was ...

2315. The Home Under God

Matthew 6:5-15

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

... flickering emotion. It is strong and sturdy, and often the father’s faith in the son who has failed has made him exert every ounce of his strength to make good. God, says Christ, is like that. "No earthly father loves like thee, No mother, e’er so mild Bears and forbears as thou hast done With me, thy sinful child." We have betrayed him and disgraced his name, yet he continues to trust us and to give us new opportunities. He knows our worst and still believes in our best. Many of the dark things in life ...

2316. The Heart of the Reformation

Romans 3:21-31

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

... a changed man. He said that he first became involved in sexual immorality when he went to Europe to study, leaving his trusting wife behind. When he returned home he continued his double life. The innocent trust of his wife stabbed him like a knife until he could bear the guilt no longer. He made up his mind to make a full confession to her but he was afraid that it would break up their marriage. But one day he decided to face it and told her the whole wretched story. As she realized what he was saying ...

2317. The Priesthood of All Believers

1 Peter 2:4-12

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

... for Christ. A person who is consecrated to him cannot keep silent. Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks. This duty no one can do for you. As Franklin Fry expressed it, "No one can love my wife for me, and likewise no one can bear witness to my Savior for me." This is an intensely personal privilege and obligation. You cannot hire a preacher to do it for you. The spread of Christianity in the first century was chiefly a lay movement. During the first persecution of the church in Jerusalem, "they ...

2318. As We Remember - Memorial Day

1 Chronicles 11:10-25

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

... not only the parades of today but also an otherwise invisible parade of heroes marching from Valley Forge and Gettysburg as well as the battlefields of the present century, soldiers whose blood has nourished the soil from which our freedom grows. When the train bearing the body of Abraham Lincoln to its final resting place stopped at the railroad station in Albany, and crowds gathered to get a last glimpse of the martyr president, a poor black woman lifted up her little boy above the crowd and said, "Son ...

2319. Christian Thanksgiving

Philippians 1:1-7

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

... Lord opened her heart," Luke tells us, so that she not only received Christ but also opened the door of her house to Paul and his companion Silas. Lydia’s home became Paul’s headquarters in Philippi as he taught the new Christians to bear witness to others of the Savior whom they had found. Thus was established the first Christian congregation in Europe, from which the word of the gospel was spread throughout the continent. The Philippian Christians not only received the gospel but they were partners in ...

2320. Paul's Thorn In The Flesh

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... pain yields some good." I have known couples whose thorn was their inability to have children. Sometimes, despite much prayer, that condition does not change. Some of these couples have decided that with God's help they will force this thorn to bear dividends. Some have adopted children. In some cases these have been so-called "hard to place" children. Others have become foster parents for children in crisis situations. These brave adults did not become bitter or bemoan their fate. Instead, they forced that ...

2321. Letting Go

Sermon

Gregory J. Johanson

... darkness and void within us to bring light and form. Letting go may be viewed as self-surrender, a self-surrender which results in death to be sure, but a death followed by life, in a re-birth whose labor is as difficult as our first birth though now we bear the pain of birth. Letting go is the way to life through death of the old self. Another way of saying this is that what is sought is freedom from the past, from the self of the past. This is not to say that there is no continuity between the ...

2322. The Flow of Life

Ecclesiastes 3:1-22

Sermon

Gregory J. Johanson

... . Men are like rivers. The water is alike in all of them; but every river is narrow in some places and wide in others; here swift and there sluggish, here clear and there turbid; cold in winter and warm in summer. The same may be said of men. Every man bears within himself the germs of every human quality, displaying all in turn; and a man can often seem unlike himself - yet he still remains the same man.1 That seems to be the way it is with all of us. Things are generally in motion, whether we recognize it ...

2323. Conflict and Hope: One in the Spirit

Philippians 1:12-30

Sermon

Gregory J. Johanson

... understand that his imprisonment is for Christ. At the end of the epistle when he is sending greetings, he mentions those who want to be remembered, and includes "especially those of Caesar’s household...." Whatever else these two cryptic phrases mean, they most certainly bear witness to the fact that as Paul was confined in the prison, he took opportunity to tell his captors of the love of Jesus. So it was that the strife with which he was confronted was indeed "worthy of the gospel," as the members of ...

2324. God, Alpha and Omega

Revelation 21:1-27

Bulletin Aid

Dallas A. Brauninger

... what we cannot yet perceive. We know that our imaginings of life after death reflect our individual yearnings. If the physical body suffers now, later all suffering will cease. If our relating to others has been troublesome, later all such distress will be in the past. Bear with us, O God, until the time comes and we will know and finally will relax into your care. Amen. Hymns "Come, Let Us Join With Faithful Souls" "The Savior Calls; Let Every Ear" "O What Their Joy And Their Glory Must Be" "O Savior, For ...

2325. You Don't Need Jesus

John 1:19-28

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... points to Christ as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. All sin is against God and only God can take it away by forgiveness. And God did this by coming in Jesus of Nazareth at Christmas. God identified with humans, becoming sin, and bearing the sins of humankind for all time. His death on the cross was the perfect sacrifice for the sins of the world. This is what Christmas is really all about. He was the fulfillment of God's promise to send a Messiah to deliver the world. His name indicated ...

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