Sermon and Worship Resources

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Showing 1 to 25 of 81 results

1. Reformation Sunday

Jeremiah 30:1--31:40

Sermon

George Paul Mocko

... making our way to God, of seeking and finding him, of climbing us to him, through our efforts of mind, of pious practices, of decency, of good works. And that, of course, is what the matter of indulgences was all about; we quite literally purchase the favor of God, ... whole point, the whole open secret is that it is not a matter of my getting to God by my mental processes, my prayers, or my decency. But rather a matter of God getting his call to me, in spite of all that I do. Not my cry, but God's call does ...

2. The Parable Of The Kindly Innkeeper

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

King Duncan

... a call to well-doing. This is the kind of story we use to wash out our brain. It reminds us that kindness and decency are possible in the world. When Edgar Guest, the American poet and writer, was a young man, his first child died. Writes Guest: " ... he referred to us as a light set on a candlestick. God has planted us in the world to set an example of both kindness and decency. After people see our willingness to get involved, then they will get involved too. Not only do we respond to human need out of our ...

3. Love Is Not Easy

Romans 13:8-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... mean that the law of love is to be interpreted like this: as long as nobody gets hurt, we don't need to worry about being moral. The truth of the matter is that life rarely works that way. Someone invariably gets hurt when we do not uphold standards of decency. But, even if no one else gets hurt, we hurt ourselves. When we do anything that is a betrayal of our values, our lives are cheapened in our own eyes. One way to increase your self-esteem is to always do what you know to be right. It's called ...

4. Marks Of A Champion

1 Timothy 6:3-10

Sermon

King Duncan

... s mainly what they talked about. Food. Feasts. Sumptuous meals. Can you imagine hunger that is so obsessive that it colors all your thoughts and conversations? Now listen to the words of Jesus: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness." Righteousness--morality, decency, commitment to right living--is no small matter. It is the first quality of a champion of faith. Then comes godliness. That's a word we don't hear much anymore--godly. Pious. It means a self-conscious sense of God's presence ...

5. Who Loves More?

Luke 7:36-50

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... never think about it. Maybe we are here because we think that’s where decent people should be. Well, the church is a good place for decent people. Maybe here—in the church—our decency will become more than cultured good manners and middle-class notions of what is acceptable and proper. Maybe here our decency will become love and our love will burn with passion, which will express itself in compassion for those around us in the church, outside the church, and outside our proper social network. It rolls ...

6. How to Turn the Ballot into a Blessing Box

Proverbs 29:2

Sermon

James Merritt

... Texas. The Texan sneered at her and said, "Well, go ahead and build it, and if I like it I'll buy it." Well, I want to tell you there are some things that should not be for sale at any price, and they include honor, character, name, decency, and country. Billy Graham once said, "When wealth is lost nothing is lost; when health is lost something is lost; when character is lost all is lost."8 What is true for an individual is true for a nation. In ancient China the people wanted security against the barbaric ...

7. The Dynamics of Being a Dad

Ephesians 6:1-4, Ephesians 6:10-20

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... you play a vital role in the spiritual development of the next generation. So today I want to talk about the dynamics of being a dad with the understanding the principles apply to all of us. I. DADS ARE TO BE HONORABLE When Moses was trying to bring decency and order to the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, the Lord called him to the top of Mt. Sinai and gave him the Ten Commandments. Whether or not we can post them in public places, these ten rules for living continue to be the foundation for a moral ...

8. St. Andrew Christians

John 1:35-42

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... . Even more telling and tragic is that such images move our hearts and souls, as though they were truly exceptional events. We parade the pedestrian. We applaud what should be ordinary. We are so acclimated to badness that to entertain an expectation of decency and the occasion of excellence is almost beyond our belief. It is far easier to believe that everyone lies, that everyone is evil, than to open ourselves to the possibility that someone might genuinely be offering us something good. And what if that ...

9. The Sacred Other

Isaiah 42:1-9

Sermon

Paul E. Robinson

... the prophet Isaiah was communicating in the portion of his writings we are looking at now, chapter 42, verses 1-9. "A bruised reed he will not break." All of us surely shudder and shrink from the unthinkable carnage and lack of any semblance of human decency depicted in that scene from the film, so different from protecting even a bruised reed in the wind. What is so troubling is that our minds and emotions have adjusted themselves only too easily to scenes only too similar to the one in the movie. How ...

10. The Oil For Squeaking People

Genesis 18:1-15

Sermon

R. Robert Cueni

... 't you join us." When Jimmy sits down at the table, the father asks him to say grace for the evening meal. Jimmy responds with a beautiful invocation in which he blesses the family and calls for a better world in which everyone treats everyone with decency and respect. After dinner and on the way to the movie, Suzie, the young girl, comments, "Jimmy, I didn't realize you were such a religious boy. That prayer was lovely." To which the rather embarrassed Jimmy responds, "And I didn't realize your father was ...

11. Emmanuel: An Advent Dayenu

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Mark Radecke

... but which also made Joseph unwilling to marry her, and so he "planned to dismiss her quietly." God had other plans, and in a dream God informed Joseph of those plans. The question for Joseph then becomes a question of conventional wisdom and common decency versus radical faith and obedience to the living God. Where shall he invest his trust? In God's promise and command, or in currently accepted practice that passes for righteousness? Put that way, the question is not only applicable in our day, but urgent ...

12. Uncovering Cover-Ups

John 15:18--16:4

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... -- Defending Against Drugs and Social Disorder, hit the street every Friday night to patrol and keep kids from shooting one another. So long as there are groups like that, so long as there are churches and religious people standing up for non-violence and decency, so long as there are people working for gun control and social responsibility -- so long as these and many other things take place, the Holy Spirit is convicting the world for righteousness' sake and love's labor is not lost. Let no one cover ...

13. Salvaging Our Lives

Genesis 29:15-30

Sermon

... still another sad story of deception in which people are used and hurt. Of particular note is the treatment of Leah and Rachel, who seem to be played as mere objects in Laban's hand even though they are his daughters. What is absent is a sense of decency and honesty. But there is something else absent here that is striking. I don't know if you noticed it or not, but throughout this entire drama not one word is mentioned about God. Apparently, God has no role in what takes place between Jacob, Laban, Rachel ...

14. Can Christians Dance?

Sermon

William G. Carter

... sight came into view. About a hundred teenagers had gathered beneath a picnic pavilion. They were moving to the rhythms of the music. "My God," I thought, "this is church camp! What would John Calvin think?" The camp director had been clear. My job was to preserve decency and order. Running to the pavilion, I climbed up a picnic table and shouted, "Wait! It's curfew! It's the wrong time to dance." But the music kept playing. The teenagers kept dancing. Much to my shock, one of them moved toward me, her arm ...

15. Gunda

John 6:60-71

Sermon

Robert Salzgeber

... thoughts rambled on. "To become a leader one somehow has to put one's self in compromising power positions," Paul's thoughts continued, "Money, power, prestige, a good old boy in the community ... is that what it really takes to get elected? What about integrity and decency and ethical values and compassion and common courtesy?" Paul's thoughts meandered almost out of control now. He felt tired. "I guess it's time to go home," he mused. But Paul Dicerio didn't get up from his bar stool. Because a name kept ...

16. Remembering The Saints

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Larry R. Kalajainen

... remembrance of their dead ancestors, Davies argued for a recovery of the best part of the ancient Halloween -- the remembrance of the dead. Let us recognize that we are not the ultimate triumph but rather that we are beads on a string. Let us behave with decency to the beads that were strung before us, and hope modestly that the beads that come after us will not hold us of no account because we are dead ... What might we profitably do on Halloween? Look backward, and consider those who went before us. The ...

17. The Prodigal Nation

Luke 15:11-32

Sermon

Erskine White

... , in our business - God forgive us, it's even in our churches. What does God think of us when we as a nation honor Him so much with our lips and so little with our policies, our programs and our deeds? Finally, we once had at least some sense of decency and integrity in our public culture, but look at us today! It seems that anything goes so long as it sells, so long as it feels good and you can get away with it. We stand at the shoreline of moral standards and watch the tide come in, the rising ...

18. Finding Oneself in the Wilderness

Matthew 4:1-11

Sermon

Thomas Slavens

... commercials, through shop talk with friends, it whispers, “Man lives by bread alone.” Sometimes we are so snared by this whisper that our lives become feverish attempts to insure that we and ours have enough of this bread. Many are tempted to compromise decency and a concern for the welfare of their neighbors to insure that they themselves get their daily bread. Jesus had no quarrel with the statement, “Man shall live by bread.” He was close enough to poverty to know the importance of bread, but ...

19. Jesus Is Baptized

Luke 3:21-38

Sermon

James Garrett

... . Human nature is adaptive, and capable of change. No matter however inadequate a human being may be, that doesn’t relieve a person from the responsibility of making oneself over into what he should be -- a warm human being capable of love and decency. Those easy evasions: “You can’t change human nature,” “the leopard cannot change its spots,” “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” and the like, are false. Human nature isn’t something that is fixed and inflexible. While it is true ...

20. Playing By A Different Set Of Rules

Matthew 13:24-30, Matthew 13:36-43

Sermon

Larry Goodpaster

... , through heavy metal, and into the current foray, some people have been in the forefront of wanting to ban certain types of music. Many of us on the panel agreed that the lyrics were not acceptable according to our personal standards and views of decency. However, the question debated centered on whether to ban the music in order to protect young, innocent ears. At the end of the program we had arrived at a proposal that ratings, or at least information regarding the content of the material on the album ...

21. The Baby Who Changes Everything

Isaiah 7:1-25

Sermon

Robert Beringer

... all. Hospitals and homes for the elderly, playgrounds and libraries, and institutions dedicated to public service all draw their being from the source of his compassion and concern. The powerful and noble concepts that motivate our lives at their best, freedom and peace, decency and kindness, forgiveness and love, all these we have drawn from Emmanuel. Of course, all these things did not happen at once, and much remains to be realized in our world as Christ continues to challenge us over the problems of war ...

22. A Crippling Spirit

Luke 13:10-17

Sermon

Brett Blair

... encourage you to do something. If you have never read Victor Hugo’s memorable novel the “Hunchback of Notre Dame,” pick up a copy and read it. Hugo uses an interesting literary technique in the story. The reader is allowed to see the basic decency and humanity of Quasimodo, the hunchback, while the crowd sees him only as a monstrous freak. The story, in its essence, is part tragedy, and part hope. Our text this morning, not surprisingly, comes from Luke’s Gospel. This story also, is part tragedy and ...

23. An Intimate Conversation and an Exclusive Covenant

Exodus 19:1-25

Sermon

... but also our social life. That indeed is a large order for people to fulfill who live in a world that tells them there is no God, and they may live any way they choose, as long as they are within the law of land and the limits of decency and decorum. Jonathan Swift is buried in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, where he served boldly and faithfully as dean. A plaque was placed on the wall over his tomb: Here is laid the Body of JONATHAN SWIFT, Doctor of Divinity, Dean of this Cathedral Church, Where savage ...

24. Christ My Light

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sermon

Dennis Kastens

... situation, our international tensions, and our domestic relationships. However, most noticeably it characterizes the current moral and spiritual malaise evidenced across our nation and throughout society. Individuals everywhere seem to be abandoning truth, decency, honesty, purity, and uprightness. The darkness of midnight enshrouds our societal and familial undertakings, our ethical standards; and most particularly our relationship with God and the issues which pertain to eternity. The jet-blackness ...

25. The Impartiality of God

Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

Hubert Beck

... could reveal to him the Savior! Is it not this way with us? Much as we need to be saved from our evil deeds, even more at times do we need to be saved from our good deeds, from ourselves, and the pride that is willing to settle for decency and piety rather than righteousness and godliness. In himself Cornelius was not, at least to any outward appearance, a "bad man," nor are most of us. But to "not be bad" is quite different from being Godly. To be Godly we need deliverance even from our own selves, from ...

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