Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: beginning, start, origination, genesis, birth, dawning, dawn, emergence, inception, launch, creation, birthplace, cradle, early stages, conception, inauguration, foundation, outset, source, derivation, root, roots, provenance, etymology, descent, ancestry, parentage, pedigree, lineage, line, line of descent, heritage, extraction, background, family, stock, blood, bloodline, genealogy, beginnings

Antonyms: end, conclusion, termination

Showing 1 to 25 of 1157 results

1. God Is Pro-Life

Exodus 20:13

Sermon

James Merritt

... , and she bore a son." Listen to what God said to Jeremiah. "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; and I ordained you a prophet to the nations." (Jere. 1:5) The Bible teaches before conception, at conception, and after conception, God was there all the time. It is God who takes the male sperm, and God who takes the female egg, and it is God that joins them together and forms that life; and what God has joined together, no man should put asunder. c. God Controls ...

2. Incalculable Riches by Bishop Roy C. Nichols

Ephesians 3:1-13

Sermon

Leonard Mann

... titled How to Pray to God When You Are Not Feeling Religious. I follow him pretty carefully, because he’s the same one who wrote the book, How to Become a Bishop Without Being Religious. In one of the sections in his book he makes an effort to desocialize our concept of God. It’s great to sense the immanence of God; but it’s important as well to understand the transcendence of God. To paraphrase Smith, in one place, he asks to keep on being the big God "I don’t want you to be my buddy," he says. The ...

3. Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments

1 Peter 3:15

Sermon

James Merritt

... twenty-three chromo-somes is not a human being, nor is a female ovum with its twenty-three chromosomes, but when they unite into forty-six chromosomes the result is a human being with its own unique genetic code. e. The Word of God says human life begins at conception. The following passages of Scripture settle the matter forever: Ps. 22: 9-10; Ps. 51:5; Ps. 139:13-16; Luke 1:41; Jere. 1:5. 2. Every Woman Should Have The Right To Choose a. The right to choose is not an absolute unlimited right. We can no ...

4. Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments

Proverbs 24:11-12

Sermon

James Merritt

5. Fleshing Out The Word

Luke 10:1-24

Sermon

Larry Powell

... the idea. In the same manner, Norman Lear undertook to portray a certain element in America to convey, what was at the time, a rather daring social message. His new television series centered around a narrow minded bigot. The character? Archie Bunker. When an idea or concept gets into a person, it comes alive! And again, there is no better example than a living example. Allow this Scripture to become fixed in your mind: "The Lord appointed 70 others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town ...

6. Stewards of Life, Death, and Beyond

Matthew 6:19-24

Sermon

Jerry L. Schmalemberger

... are physically dead. We can do that by wise estate planning now. We can remember our church in our will. This means that, long after we are dead, we continue to be a blessing and to have a part in the ministry of our church. This is taking seriously the concept of everything we have being on loan to us for a short time from God and our responsibility to return a portion of it even at the time we die. It must be what Jesus was saying in the Sermon on the Mount: "... store up riches for yourselves in heaven ...

7. Growing In Self-esteem

Psalm 81:1-16

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... of viewing ourselves through the eyes of grace." (Seamands, p.157). And those eyes of grace center of Jesus Christ. There is something we can be but will never be apart from Jesus Christ. As Christians the most important person in our lives is Jesus. Therefore, our self-concept may and can be established by what He thinks of us. Listen again to our text from John. See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called the children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know ...

8. Workaholics Anonymous

Genesis 2:1-3

Sermon

James Merritt

... is the solution? It is found, believe it or not at the very beginning of time, at the very beginning of human existence, at the very beginning of life, at the very beginning of the Bible. The God who worked to create this world, the God who created the very concept of work and the God who created the very first worker clues us in on how to handle our work life and keep it in balance in Genesis Chapter 2. "Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ...

9. Breakdowns and Breakthroughs

Genesis 22:1-14

Sermon

Stan Purdum

... they become untenable, inconsistent, or unworkable — or until some new light is shed on the subject. For example, in our individual lives, God as we envision him now, should be different from how we envisioned God when we were children. We adults cannot easily worship the concept of God that exists in the mind of a child unless we are prepared to deny our own experience of life. Think of the image of an insect in the larva stage. It has a shell, but as it grows, the shell becomes too tight. Eventually ...

10. Three In One

John 16:12-15

Sermon

Dave Zuchelli

... have arrived. If there was, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. You can’t point to one verse and say, “See! That proves there’s a Trinity.” While many of us accept the doctrine, there are still many people (Christians included) who wrestle with the entire concept. It’s not an easy one, to be sure. For many, the question is not so much, “Is there a Holy Trinity?” The real question becomes, “What does that mean for us? How should this affect the way we live and respond to the living Lord ...

11. The Voice of Truth

John 18:33-37

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... of God as Truth. He may see Jesus’ idea of himself as representing God’s Truth as faulty or he may actually deem Jesus an ethical and worthy philosopher. In any case, Pilate actually has no interest in sentencing Jesus. A disagreement in their concept of truth was after all to be expected. After all, as Pilate says, he’s not Jewish! He has essentially no interest in Jesus and most likely is annoyed at the Jewish authorities for “wasting his time.” Pilate will try to pass him off. The Jewish ...

12. Week Three Of Lent

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... day! Friday Week ThreeHosea 14:2-10Mark 12:28-34 Love Is The Binding Force As expressed in yesterday's readings, the concept of unity is very important. Unity is natural to our world; it is that which we seek. In order for things to ... binding force in the way we conduct our lives; it must be the glue that keeps us close to God and one another. Love is a complicated concept -- this is nothing new for any of us. Today's readings show that love must be manifest in the respect we have for others. God gave free ...

13. Throw Your Heart at the Sky

John 21:1-14

Sermon

Carl Jech

... Who Wrote the Bible?, Summit Books.) Nor should it bother us to recognize that there is a lot of symbolism in the Gospel of John and in our story for today. We know that the Gospel of John starts out by borrowing the rather abstract Greek concept of the Logos to explain the meaning of Jesus: Jesus is the ultimate expression of the divine principle of creation. Jesus is the ultimate Symbol of symbols! Our story in chapter 21 clearly symbolizes the missionary commission to be "fishers of men." While there are ...

14. Christ and Time

Galatians 3:26--4:7

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

... of time with a purpose, fulfilled time, God’s time. "When the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son." The New Testament in its original Greek uses two different words for two concepts of time. One is chronos, time in its ordinary sense of sequence and duration. But there is another kind of time, for which the New Testament uses the word kairos, time which cannot be measured by clocks or calendars but by the fulfillment of God’s purpose. Thus when our ...

15. Would a Loving God Really Let Anyone Go to Hell?

Luke 16:19-31

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... love whom we have come to know in Jesus would not condemn someone to the kind of Hell our tradition has always described. Then what would God do? Obviously, I cannot say for certain but I am rather drawn to the idea of punishment with a purpose, a concept of Hell that would allow for final restoration. That would seem to make sense, not to mention justice. A friend of mine describes it as a "period of adjustment." Some will require more than others, and for a few, it will be a HELL of an adjustment. Would ...

16. The Ministry of the Holy Spirit

John 16:7-11

Sermon

James Merritt

... that unless the Holy Spirit convicts you it is true. b. The Character Of Sin But even if you were to believe in the concept of sin, the Holy Spirit must also convict you of the nature of sin. The Lord Jesus boiled sin down to one word: unbelief—" ... To You The Remedy For Sin Jesus goes on to say in v.10 that the Holy Spirit has come to show us the concept "of righteousness." Obviously, if the world does not understand sin, it cannot understand righteous-ness. For the world thinks that men are sinners if ...

17. A Cure for the Workaholic

Genesis 2:1-3

Sermon

James Merritt

... in verse 3, "Then He blessed the seventh day." (Genesis 2:3, NASB) He didn't bless the other six days, but He blessed the seventh day. He made it plain that there was to be something special about this one day of rest. We know a lot about this concept of rest from the very Hebrew word it comes from, because the Hebrew word gives us the English word, "Sabbath" and it literally means to "cease activity" or "to quit working." Whatever else the Sabbath day was meant to be - it was meant to be a day of rest. I ...

18. The TV Audience

Sermon

Michael Rogness

... television over reading say, "In reading I don't see anything. On television I can both see and hear it." Television has the appeal of furnishing the whole picture ready-made for the audience. People accustomed to television understand an idea or concept best if it is conveyed with an image or story -- a visual picture in their mind illustrating the idea being conveyed. This is nothing new, since good speakers have always illustrated their message with concrete examples, but it is particularly true in ...

19. God's Gift Of Life

Psalm 139:1-24

Sermon

Erskine White

... respect with all our soul and might God's precious, priceless gift of life? Amen Pastoral Prayer Almighty God, whose hands have made all the worlds in awesome wonder, we thank You for blessing us and keeping us all the days of our lives: from our conception, to that difficult and dangerous journey into life, to that final, unknown journey into death. And when Your saints lay down from all their labors to rest, we thank You for the promise of everlasting life, purchased for us at great price by our crucified ...

20. Holy Arithmetic!

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

Johnny Dean

... doctrine of the Trinity resolved in twenty minutes or less - you might as well get comfortable and go ahead and drift off to sleep, or daydream, or whatever you usually do when the preacher starts rambling. It’s just not that easy to explain the concept of the Trinity in any meaningful way in twenty minutes or less. When I was in seminary, one of the required courses for first year seminarians was "Basic Christian Beliefs." I remember that course vividly. My final grade for the course was "C", the only ...

21. Giving Away the Store

Luke 22:7-38, John 13:1-17

Sermon

Carl Jech

... cup of the new covenant in my blood." Of course, over time many if not most Christian communities have come to use liturgies that speak of the wine as being the blood of Jesus - "Take and drink. This is my blood." To the extent that we accept the concept of "eatingand drinking the body and blood of our Lord" as an appropriate symbol we have to realize that such imagery would have asked Jews to give up one of their most pious notions - the kosher taboo against eating blood. In a sense, to ask Jews to give ...

22. Will the Real Jesus Christ Arise?

John 20:1-18

Sermon

Carl Jech

... stories of the resurrection of Jesus show us that life, and love, and the grace and faithfulness of God eclipse all other values. The only thing which would be truly unfair would be not to be loved! Above all perhaps, the problem with the traditional concept of reincarnation is that it believes both too much and too little! By suggesting that life is just a recycling of what we already know, that past lives and future lives are not that different from this life, reincarnationists claim to know more about ...

23. Jesus Meets Buddha and Confucius

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

Carl Jech

... ethics, we need to look at a few more angles on what the Indians call Karma-Samsara. One of the main appeals of this twin doctrine is that it offers to explain how life is always fair in the long run. The problem with this concept of the relationship between the "now" and the "not yet," from the Judeo-Christian perspective, is that it is too patient. By maintaining that we have virtually endless time and infinite, multiple identies through which we can work out our karma, reincarnational thinking encourages ...

24. Emancipation Proclamation

John 8:31-41

Sermon

... centuries ahead of Abraham Lincoln, he issued the emancipation proclamation: "If you continue in my word, then you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." Slippery words, I said, for when we think we have these concepts, truth and freedom, neatly boxed and wrapped with pretty ribbons, they begin to slip away. The usual baggage we have stuffed inside of them is baggage light enough to handle easily, like carry-ons. We can take it with us in a purse. But on the ...

25. The Now-ness of Eternity

Zechariah 7:1-14

Sermon

... the line of self forgot - Or help God make a blossom or a star.(1) In my confusion, however, I have a growing conviction that eternity is now, and that eternal life is essentially a quality of existence. This may not be all, but it is for me the foundational concept. It is what comes through most vividly to me in the many words and images of the Scriptures. A simplistic analogy was brought to my mind somewhere along the line in the days of my schooling. I am sure it is nothing new to most of you, but I have ...

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