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 127 results

1. Moving At The Speed Of Light: On The Mountain

2 Peter 1:12-21

Sermon

Frank Luchsinger

... in a too quiet home? How will these two spend their time? Where will the joy come from, the reason for being? The elephants are over the mountains and how will life be now? So the mountain successfully mastered, we reach a place where we make our descent from the lofty places to the plain. And when the journey has been difficult, we come to rest upon the plain, changed. When We Come From The Mountain To The Plain, Our Descending Approach Can Make All The Difference When Hannibal came down from the mountains ...

2. No Angels, No Shepherds, No Star

John 1:1-18

Sermon

King Duncan

... through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (NIV) No shepherds, no ...

3. The Surrogate

Matthew 1:1-17

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... purity (symbolized by Bathsheba in the washing/baptizing in the mikveh) is violated by the forceful authority of the powerful David? Does Uriah symbolize the foreigner who is disrespected and his possessions and feelings not valued, since he is not truly of Jewish descent? Is this David’s greatest sin? Just as Judah sinned against Tamar in not upholding her levirate right, David sins against Uriah, taking his prize possession. “If you do it to another, you do it to me,” said Jesus. As Ruth’s and ...

4. Walking On Our Hands

John 8:31-41

Sermon

J. Will Ormond

... and impervious to change. It served the past rather than being open to the present and the future. They had become slaves to the very system they claimed as the source of their freedom. Their fierce loyalty to their descent from Abraham had enslaved them. Since they believed that physical descent from Abraham was all that was needed to put one into right relationship with God, their ears were deaf to Jesus' call to discipleship. They did not recognize his word as coming from God the Father. "If you continue ...

5. Death Of A Dream - Birth Of A Church

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

... ." And so from this Genesis text we learn from it what to avoid doing rather than what to do. The church, in choosing lections for each Sunday, oddly enough has linked this text with the second chapter of Acts, which gives the account of the descent of the Holy Spirit. The Tower of Babel in Genesis has little, or nothing, to do with the Day of Pentecost, and yet when you examine these widely divergent passages, there are some amazing comparisons and sharp contrasts betwen them. Let us keep foremost before ...

6. Jesus, Where Are You?

John 12:20-36

Sermon

King Duncan

... me." We see Jesus in "the least of these." Knofel Staton in his book, Check Your Commitment, talks about something unforgettable that happened when he was a control tower supervisor in Japan. Two jet fighters were flying in formation and had just started their descent when the lead pilot radioed, "I've just lost my wing man." That meant that one of the two planes had gone down. Immediately workers in the control tower picked up the red crash phone connected to the rescue helicopter team on stand-by duty ...

7. Never Too Old for an Adventure

Romans 4:1-25

Sermon

King Duncan

... . It was as though Paul was teaching against the law. Remember the importance of the law for the Jewish people. Even though they were now Christians, many of those of Jewish descent still obeyed the letter of the law. They had heard that Paul was teaching the Gentile believers to disregard the law. This upset them a great deal. Paul wrote to the Romans hoping to smooth things over and to explain his position. The Jewish people looked to Moses as the ...

8. The Fourth King In The Christmas Story

Matthew 2:13-18

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... wrap around him, and he tries to throw them off, but as he throws off one tentacle, another one grabs him until they pull him down to death. Claubert's greed resulted in his descent into a watery grave. King Herod was a man of greed as well. His world revolved around his own selfish desires. And his greed resulted in his descent to the depths of human cruelty. That's not unusual when you refuse to submit your life to a higher authority. We run into less powerful King Herods all the time. There are people ...

9. Dealing with Our Doubts

Mark 9:14-32

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... There are those who spend much of their time on the fine art of ‘going uphill,’ climbing to some height of advantage, position, power, or wealth, and pay no attention at all to this much finer art, the art of going downhill. It is the lifelong descent from the place of vision to the place of deed, from the hill of privilege to the plain of need.” (Halford E. Luccock, THE INTERPRETER’S BIBLE, Vol. 7, New York and Nashville: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1951, 779) We all need times of escape. “Retreat ...

10. Want to Be Happy?

Matthew 3:13-17

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... baptism. Matthew’s description of the events that unfold as Jesus “came up from the water” (v. 16) also differs somewhat from what is found in the other gospels. The events exhibit three features: first the opening of the heavens; second, the descent of the Spirit; third and finally, the divine announcement. The original manuscripts are not uniform here, with many adding “the heavens were opened to him.” The “to him” addition suggests that this was a vision experienced by Jesus alone. Mark’s ...

11. Nothing but the Blood

1 John 1:7

Sermon

James Merritt

... have died nor shed one drop of His blood. But that He did die and that He did shed His blood, tells us that only His blood can cleanse us from all sin. I read a true story one time of a part of six people who began a dangerous descent of a peak in the Swiss Alps. The first man in line lost his foothold and slipped over an icy ledge. The next two men slid after him while the experienced climbers above braced themselves and stood firm to bear the shock. They thought, without any question, they would simply ...

12. Toward the Cross

Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

John E. Harnish

... and proclaim the year of our Lord," you want to shake your head and ask, "Does he really have a clue as to where that kind of preaching will get you in this kind of world?" And now, when he mounts a donkey at Bethpage and begins the final descent toward the city gates; when the people throw their cloaks and palm branches in greeting as the opposition leaders get more anxious with the swelling crowd, you want to ask, "How far will he go with this?" The answer is...ALL THE WAY TO THE CROSS. He comes, not ...

13. Down the Up Staircase

Genesis 11:1-9

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... of great words, supposedly representing formidable examples of faithfulness, utterly fail to incarnate that faith. The healing presence of the Lord cannot reach out to the wounded traveler because these men will not act as conduits, or "Jacob's ladders" for God's descent. But Habgood finds the other focus of this parable, though usually overlooked, an even stronger example of the divine desire to be with humanity. The priest and the Levite refused to venture even across the road in order to help the beaten ...

14. He Descended Into Hell

1 Peter 3:18-22

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... my batteries charged when I hear the words, "He descended into hell." I understand the woman who said that this was the most meaningful affirmation in the entire creed for her, because this statement told her, "He has been where I live every day." I will give you a descent into hell. It was a late spring night, June 7, 1998 in East Texas. James Byrd Jr. had been to a party. He had had a bit too much to drink and he was making his way home ... on foot ... staggering a bit. A pickup truck pulled alongside. In ...

15. They're Drunk

Acts 2:1-21

Sermon

Will Willimon

... back at her, and finally she said, 'Gosh, Reverend Long, we must have been absent that Sunday.' [1] And because you are in Duke Chapel, and because you are probably American, mainline Protestants, I expect that, if you were honest, upon hearing of the Spirit's descent in Acts 2, you are like that little girl. I must have missed church that Sunday. One Sunday, about seven years ago, I got a little carried away in a sermon, raised my voice, waved an arm. Someone, seated on the fourth row, obviously a first ...

16. Your Ordination

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Sermon

Will Willimon

... the call of God and to say, Yes. That day she got commandeered for God. From these stories I draw a couple of conclusions: 1. Ministry is a gift of God. It is not our idea. It is God's idea. 2. Ministry is a gift of God through the descent of the Holy Spirit. We are given the Spirit in baptism, not for some sort of personal comfort (though we well may receive comfort from the Holy Spirit) but rather so that we might be empowered to participate fully in the ministry of Christ in the world. 3. Ministry is ...

17. Why Pass By?

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... to come up. He presumably wanted something on the order of: ‘A neighbor (hereinafter referred to as the party of the first part) is to be construed as meaning a person of Jewish descent whose legal residence is within a radius of no more than three statute miles from one’s own legal residence unless there is another person of Jewish descent (hereinafter to be referred as the party of the second part) living closer to the party of the first part than one is, oneself, in which case the party of the second ...

18. Looking Back; Moving Forward

Exodus 34:29-35

Sermon

Tony Everett

... others in his name. It is Christ in our midst who gives us power to face the chaos and confusion that accompany our early pilgrimage. Today, Transfiguration Sunday, we celebrate that glorious reality of Christ's presence with us. And, today, we prepare to begin our descent from the Christmas mountaintop to walk with Christ and the disciples on the road to Jerusalem. Today we begin our journey from the shining face of the baby in a manger to gaze at the agonized face of a Savior on the cross. Today the going ...

19. Breakthrough!

1 John 4:7-21

Sermon

B. Kathleen Fannin

... weight: the branch couldn't support both. With an ear-splitting crack it snapped, and now she was falling ... But this was like no fall she had ever experienced. It was as if someone invisible force had grabbed her when the branch collapsed and was now slowing her descent. "That's it!" she thought. "I've lost my mind. I know I've been under a lot of pressure. I probably should have come walking months ago, to ease the tension, to regain perspective. But there was no time. And now it's too late. I've gone ...

20. In The Beginning God

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

William L. Self

... He begins a work and confirms that it is a good work. As Mark says it, "You are my Son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased." These words of affirmation are words of grace. Grace is what we hunger for. Baptismal affirmation empowers us for ministry. The descent of the dove empowers the baptized not only to defeat every form of evil, but also to be the people of God -- as God has called them to be. Henry David Thoreau once went to jail rather than pay his poll tax to a government which supported slavery ...

21. Point Of Origin

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... to Homo erectus as our Homo sapien ancestor. Perhaps a magic twist in 0.1 percent of our genes within the past 60,000 years did create the anatomical basis for spoken complex language. Certainly as long ago as Charles Darwin's The Descent of Man, it has been pointed out that we are similar to other animals in being subject to the same laws of development from primitive forms in nature, passing on variations by inheritance from individual to individual, reproducing in greater numbers than can survive ...

22. The Peace That Jesus Gives

John 14:15-31

Sermon

Lee Griess

... on noticed anything. However, soon it was apparent the jet was in trouble. The pilot came on the speaker system and announced that Flight 143 would be making an emergency landing. The 69 people on board were trapped in an agonizingly slow but inescapable descent to earth. For several minutes a desperate silence hung over the cabin. Then fear gave way to screams of anxiety as the landing neared. All the latest technology could not keep the jumbo jet in the air. What had happened was this. The electronic ...

23. Responding In Anger

Job 7:11-21 · Matthew 21:12-13

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... night he gave one of the best interpretations on the work of the Holy Spirit I had ever heard or read. He went back into the Old Testament to show how God's Spirit was "in the beginning," and carried us right up to the day of Pentecost and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the early church. The sermon got to the place that all good sermons must reach. This is when the congregation is to ask itself, "So what?" As a result of all that has been pointed out, "What are we to do?" The preacher that evening ...

24. Just In Time

Ephesians 1:1-14

Sermon

Frank Luchsinger

... for a yawning, boulder-filled crater. There is no gliding in space to conserve fuel, a lander is nothing but dead weight in a vacuum. "Ninety seconds ... Seventy-five seconds ... Sixty seconds," Aldrin calls out the amount of fuel remaining. The slow descent continues as the cool test pilot/astronaut Armstrong searches for a flat place. Someone in Mission Control half whispers, "You'd better remind them that there are no darn gas stations on the moon." "Thirty seconds."... There! A spot where the rocks ...

25. The Narrow Gate

Luke 13:22-30

Sermon

John G. Lynch

One long, shadowy afternoon, when the light was more smoke than light, a young American of Russian descent wandered along a canal in Leningrad, searching for the Palace of Prince Yarosof, where the monk Rasputin had been killed. Leningrad in winter is not a cheery place. The sun rises late in the morning and sets about 4 p.m. Daylight, always weak and wintry, never rises above a ...

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