Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 2301 to 2325 of 2331 results

2301. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning

Deuteronomy 34:1-12

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... . God is faithful to His promises. God is faithful to His people. The God who called Moses when he was a solitary shepherd in the wilderness, the God who revealed His name and His goodness to Moses, the God who led the Israelites through the desert—this God would take His people into the Promised Land. Moses’ faith had not been in vain. His labor had not been in vain. God would fulfill His promises to His people. One of the most famous works of medieval English literature is The Canterbury Tales ...

2302. The Way of a Saint

Revelation 7:9-17 · Luke 6:20-31

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... rejects: those with leprosy, prostitutes, tax collectors, paralytics, notorious sinners . . .” And yet, Yancey notes, “To Endo, the most powerful message of Jesus was his unquenchable love, even for—especially for—people who betrayed him. One by one, his disciples deserted him; yet still he loved them. His nation had him executed; but while stretched out naked in the posture of ultimate disgrace, Jesus roused himself for the cry, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’” (2 ...

2303. Remember...

Deuteronomy 8:7-18

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... days in jail. What were the first words he spoke when he stepped outside the prison walls? He lifted his hands and he said, “God is so good. God is so good. God is so good.” (1) The Hebrew people had spent forty years wandering in the Sinai desert after escaping slavery in Egypt. They are now standing on the borders of Canaan, the promised land. Moses is an old man and is about to die. And he gives them instructions for how they are to deal with the new phase of their existence as a people. These ...

2304. Walk the Talk

Matthew 21:23-32

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... in some cloud millions of miles away, but God actively intervenes in our lives and in our world. God’s most blatant intervention? Jesus. In the form of Jesus, God broke through into the created world, touched down in the middle of the desert, and started a ripple movement that would culminate in a life, death, and resurrection! Why? Because something radical had to happen. God thought it was time to do something spectacular, miraculous, stupendous, unparalleled in the world so far. As if Creation itself ...

2305. Dynamic Preaching January 2024 Sermons

Sermon

King Duncan

... the final chapter. The people were ready. And history has never been the same. It was of John the Baptist that the prophet Isaiah wrote centuries before: The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord; Make straight in the desert A highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted And every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight And the rough places smooth; The glory of the Lord shall be revealed.” In ancient days when an Oriental king planned ...

2306. Passover Or Passalong?

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

Sermon

John B. Jamison

... the family, from youngest to eldest, they all played a role. The adults would read the important lines of the ritual, the younger would take turns asking the required questions, and the youngest would join in the search for the hidden matzo that represented desert. As they joined around the table tonight, their thoughts were a mix of what had been happening this week, over the past three years together, and all of those memories of seders gone by. They knew the parts of the seder and what they represented ...

2307. Your Body Is a Temple

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Sermon

Ronald Love

... . But does that mean we have never lusted? Does that mean we have never engaged in one of the seven deadly sins? Evagrius Ponticus, also known as Evagrius the Solitary, was a Christian monk and ascetic who resided in a monastery in the Egyptian desert. Concerned with the temptations that besought people the most, in the year 375 he compiled a list of the eight terrible thoughts, also referred to as the eight evil temptations. The eight patterns of evil thought are gluttony, greed, sloth, sorrow, lust, anger ...

2308. The View From The Mountaintop

Mark 9:2-9

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... unaccepting of women in the pulpit.[6] As to Mr. Lincoln, in a way, it is surprising to look back on him as a great wartime leader because story after story has come down to us concerning his compassionate nature (pardons for deserters, help for needy southern families, and mercy for the Confederacy at Appomattox). At the beginning of the war he was convinced that firmness should be tempered with restraint. Lincoln promised that while suppressing the rebels, Union troops would avoid “any devastation, any ...

2309. Growing Into Our Scars

John 20:19-31

Sermon

Mary Austin

... were hiding in fear of the people who put Jesus to death, which is understandable. Would the authorities come looking for them next? They may also have been hiding in fear of Jesus. They had good reason to hide. They fell asleep when he needed them, they denied him, deserted him at the cross, and then gave in to fear. But still Jesus came and what he said was: “Peace be with you.” Don’t fret, he was saying. Don’t get stuck in the past. The one with the scars is also the one with the ability to ...

2310. Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf?

John 10:11-18

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David will be the ruler living among them. I, the LORD, have spoken. “And I will make a peace agreement with my sheep. I will take harmful animals away from the land. Then the sheep can be safe in the desert and sleep in the woods. I will bless the sheep and the places around my hill. I will cause the rains to fall at the right time and will shower them with blessings. And the trees growing in the field will produce their fruit. The earth will give its ...

2311.

Psalm 128:1-6

Understanding Series

Craig C. Broyles

... claims are lofty (“blessings and prosperity will be yours”) and universal (for “all who fear the LORD”). But for many believers they may not ring true to life. How can the Bible make such claims, we wonder, when genuine believers endure cancer, desertion, and worse within their families? In this psalm, the claims are qualified immediately by the rest of the passage, which consists of a prayer or invocation that these ideals become reality: “May the LORD bless you” (v. 5), just as he “who fears ...

2312. Zion's New Name

Isaiah 62:1-12

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... the literal name of the city is replaced by another but that the city’s transformation makes it appropriate to give her an extra name (cf. the note with which Ezekiel closes, 48:35). This is so not least because she has been bearing an extra name, Deserted, and that needs to be replaced. The estranged couple are back together again. To mix metaphors, the estranged wife who is now a bride again will not merely wear a garland (61:3; NIV reads crown of beauty) but be one (62:3; NIV reads crown of splendor ...

2313. The Dream is Fulfilled

Daniel 4:28-37

Understanding Series

William Nelson

... a divine spirit comes upon him and he has an ecstatic experience in which he utters a sort of prophecy. He predicts the coming of Cyrus, “a Persian mule,” and expresses his wish that the invader would “be driven through the desert, where wild animals have their dwellings, and birds roam” (Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 9.41.6; Eusebius cites as his source Abydenus, who cites Megasthenes). Of course, Nebuchadnezzar’s curse is not effective in preventing Cyrus from taking over Babylon, but ...

2314. A Basket of Ripe Fruit

Amos 8:1-14

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... (cf. 1 Sam. 28:5–15). We have pictured here a desperate population, staggering, that is, running to and fro in an agitated state of distress, wandering the length and breadth of their land, like a starving man seeking food or a dehydrated wanderer in the desert seeking water. Frantically they search for the word of God, but that word has been withdrawn from them, because God has withdrawn from them (cf. Hos. 5:15). The Lord has abandoned them to their fate (cf. God giving over sinners in Rom. 1:24, 26 ...

2315. Gathered Around Jesus

Mark 6:30-34; 53-56

Sermon

David Coffin

... on a cross - yet, seeds of the kingdom had been planted along the way. In this season of Pentecost when many mainline denominational churches wonder about their future, Mark 6 is an invitation for those of us who gather around Jesus to, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile” Mark 6:31 (RSV). We may have to live with a very real possibility that congregations will die. But there is new life after every death. What kind of seeds are we planting now? As we gather around Jesus ...

2316. The Loaves

John 6:1-21

Sermon

David Coffin

... of humanity, so we may eternal life John 3:16 (RSV). In this case, the Passover event celebrated the nation of Israel being delivered from the Egyptians by escaping through the parting of the waters of the Red Sea, and then they were sustained in the desert by eating manna and quail provided by God (Exodus 16; Numbers 11). Jesus’ loaves of bread sign “upped the ante” in John 6 in terms of him being more than a Moses prophetic figure. After observing the large crowds who were hungry, he knew what he ...

2317. More Than Gimmicks

John 6:24-35

Sermon

David Coffin

... . This is indeed true. Jesus responded by reminding the people that it was God who provided such manna and quail during the wilderness journey. This bread soon perished. If the nation tried to preserve the food, it would spoil or grow bad while out in the desert’s dry lands. Jesus’ bread from the past meal was able to be gathered up and given to other people in need. It had a longer shelf life — possibly eternal. “Bread” is a metaphor used by John the evangelist to invite the hungry and thirsty ...

2318. Creation Reborn

John 20:1-18

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

When I was a pastor in rural southern Alberta, we held our Easter Sunrise worship services in a cemetery. It was difficult to gather in the dark, since neither mountains nor forests hid the spring-time sun, and the high desert plains lay open to almost ceaselessly unclouded skies. Still, we mumbled in hushed whispers as we acknowledged one another, and saved our booming tones for the final rousing chorus of “Up from the grave he arose…!” We did not shake the earth as much as we hoped. But we were ...

2319. Love Lives

Philippians 2:5-11

Sermon

Bonnie Bates

... call to serve and teach in “his Father’s” house, which was such a gift and such a wonder. The beginning of the public ministry of Jesus with his baptism at the River Jordan, was well documented as were his trials and temptations in the desert. The most documented, for us was the life and active ministry, the three years when Jesus walked throughout Israel and Judah teaching people about a loving God who wanted a relationship with the people, wanted to love people more than judge them. The parables and ...

2320. At the Table

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

Sermon

Bonnie Bates

... that is part of the power of the communion table and the invitation to it. All are welcome. All are invited. On the night this passage commemorates, Jesus invited to his table the one who would betray him, the one who would deny him, and the ones who would desert him. None of that mattered. All were welcome. All were called to the table to share in the feast of love, the feast bread and cup, the feast of remembrance. There was a time when many of our churches didn’t welcome those we didn’t know to our ...

2321. Famine of the Heart

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... ” and our imperial instincts that we feel only resentment, anger, envy, and bitterness when a “sinner” commits to change? What does your inner landscape look like? Is it the lush, green landscape of acceptance and growth? Or the barren, dry desert of resentment and envy? Is your heart beating with Jesus’ resurrection promise? No matter who you are –or what kind of “sinner” –Jesus offers you resurrection! And a brand, new, beautifully beating heart. [Put your hand on your heart---feel ...

2322. Stay Close

John 10:22-30

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... others. But to fill the kinds of holes that fear, mistrust, and grief have wrought, that years of damage and mistrust have formed, only Jesus will do! Only Jesus will do! When all else fails and life gets real, when our friends hurt us and our loved ones desert us, when our spirits sink, and we don’t know where to turn, when we question ourselves and those around us….only Jesus will do. Jesus knew this all along. That’s why next to his resurrection, the Holy Spirit is the most beautiful gift that he ...

2323. Basta, basta!

John 16:12-15

Sermon

Lori Wagner

On of my favorite painters is Caspar David Friedrich, a German Romantic era artist famous for his mysterious landscape paintings. From “Morning in the Giant Mountains” to “Cross in the Mountains” and “Monk by the Sea,” you can see that the artist was fascinated by unusual landscapes, fog, the vastness and barrenness of creation, and the mysteriousness of its Creator. One of his most well-known paintings is this one, “Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog”: The painting shows a man presumably on a mountain-top ...

2324. The Power of Story

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... unchanged. The story that shook a world and grew a faith. The story that is your story still today. In a world that is filled with hate and fear, anger, and division, God’s Story can be a healing force, a saving grace, water in the midst of a desert, real change. In the midst of news in which no one knows what is true, reports that cause us pain, fighting on social media, branding, and influencers, the Truth lies in God’s story. And hope. And change. You want hope? Turn to Jesus. You want to change the ...

2325. Learning to Lean

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... and relationships and her need to come to a place of peace with herself and her life. As she undertakes her journey of self-discovery in 1995, she physically sets off on a 1,100-mile hike, following the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert to Washington state. As she moves forward through the challenges of the trail, she also processes the emotions, memories, and pain of her inner journey, arriving at a destination, in which she feels ready to embrace life once again from a new and hopeful perspective ...

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