Sermon and Worship Resources

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1 Peter 3:8-18

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... lips from deceitful speech. They must turn from evil and do good; they must seek peace and pursue it.” (1 Peter 3:10-11) The writer of 1st Peter is quoting Psalm 34. It seems like a tall task to always seek peace, especially when you are faced with a difficult person. How can you do it? Well, read what 1st Peter says next. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer. (1 Peter 3:12a) How do we repay evil with a blessing? By understanding that God is watching us ...

2. Dealing With Difficult People

1 Corinthians 1:10-18

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... tell them? 1 Peter tells us in verse 18. 1 Peter 3:18 says: For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God (NRSV). This is what you tell them. For, you see, all of us can be difficult. All of us can be abrasive and insensitive. All of us can be impossible to deal with. And how did Christ respond to us? With unbelievable love, grace, and mercy! We repay evil and insults with a blessing because that is what Christ has done for us. So often we ...

3. A Difficult Day to Follow Jesus

Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon

King Duncan

... to forgive our enemies. Why? Because God has forgiven us. God gave His only Son in order that we might be forgiven. We in turn are to forgive those who have transgressed against us. Do you see now why I say that Sept. 11 is particularly difficult for Christians? The couple who said they would not be in worship after Sept. 11 because they knew Jesus would be requiring forgiveness out of them was making one of the most honest professions of faith that I can imagine. Forgiveness is hard. Forgiveness cost God ...

4. The Most Difficult Commandment

Mark 12:28-34

Sermon

King Duncan

... shall care about other people. Red people, yellow people, brown people, black people, white people…people of every race, people of every religion, people of every nation, people of every political persuasion. We shall love one another. How difficult can that be? Well, evidently, it is quite difficult. Here, in our own nation a nation fashioned on Christian principles as we like to remind ourselves we are a nation divided. We are divided by race, by religion, by economic position. What is the solution? How ...

5. Facing Difficult Decisions in Life! Part VI

Philippians 1:1-11

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... IS TO SIMPLY OPEN OUR LIVES TO JESUS CHRIST AND ALLOW HIS JOY TO FLOW IN TO TURN BURDENS INTO BLESSINGS. In a recent edition of Today''s Christian Woman magazine, I read a fascinating story told by a woman named Annie Oeth. It shared how God took a difficult dilemma facing her husband Ed and their family and turned a burden into a blessing. Ed, like some of the men in our church family, lost his job when the company he gave years of loyal service to began to lay people off. Ed reacted like most men would ...

6. Not Such a Difficult Question

Matthew 22:34-46

Sermon

King Duncan

... a smile, “The day comes first.” “And why would you say that?” the professor asked. “Sorry, sir,” the young woman said, “but you assured me that I wouldn’t need to answer the second difficult question.” (1) Just like last week, our Bible passage today is about the religious leaders asking Jesus difficult questions, not because they wanted real answers, but because they wanted to trap him. They wanted to make him look foolish. To make him less popular with the Jewish people. In today’s ...

7. A Difficult but Joyous Journey

Luke 1:39-55

Sermon

King Duncan

... Mary would gladly have taken her son’s place on the cross of Calvary just as he took ours. Life took some strange twists and turns for the mother of our Lord. Just like it does in many people’s lives. Many of us are having a difficult time coping with life precisely because we think life ought to be smooth and predictable. When it’s not, some of us are unable to cope. Yet, in the providence of God, sometimes we discover we have our most reliable times of growth when life is challenging. People ...

8. Nothing Difficult Is Ever Easy

Matthew 22:34-40

Sermon

Johnny Dean

... you?" I think I know what Jesus would say, don’t you? "With all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might, you shall love the Lord your God and you shall love your neighbor." That may sound simple, but you and I both know how difficult it can be. Sometimes, when life gets hard, when we lose a loved one, when a marriage shows all the signs of falling apart at the seams, it’s not easy to keep loving God unconditionally, is it? And, Lord knows, our neighbors can sometimes do things or say ...

9. Living With Difficult People

1 Corinthians 1:10-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... we deal with this age-old and universal problem. FIRST OF ALL, IN ANY CONFLICT TRY TO SEE WHAT THE OTHER PERSON SEES. All of us have our own perception of reality. When we are in conflict with another person, it may not be that they are trying to be difficult to get along with. They may actually see reality in a different way than we do. Leo Buscaglia tells of being aboard an airplane for a five-hour flight from Los Angeles to New Jersey. When he took his aisle seat, it was obvious the man next to him was ...

10. A Plan For Difficult Times

Luke 21:5-38

Sermon

Theodore F. Schneider

... all prisoners - the gallows. We said goodbye to him. He took me aside: "This is the end, but for me it is the beginning of life." The next day he was hanged at Flossenburg.7 But What Does It All Mean Without a doubt, this is a challenging and yet difficult text for us. We can understand it in its historical context, but what does it all mean for us? We are not likely to stand before diets, be tied to stakes, or to look into the noose of a gallows. And how do we understand the prediction of international ...

11. Chaos or Christ: Dreams Which Calm our Fears

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... on rocks and foolish people building houses on sand. If you are going to build a tower, you should first sit down and count the cost. He did not learn that in seminary because he never went to seminary. He learned it from his earthly father. When life is difficult, be faithful. You may not always be right, but you can always be faithful. Perhaps the best thing that we could do today would be to just stand here for a moment and adore him, and lay our lives before him. You may not always be right, but you ...

12. Jesus Christ, Our Passover Lamb

Exodus 12:1-30

Sermon

Steve Burt

... 't no place that far." We can't run away from it nor can we hide from it. The Hebrews' troubles didn't end the night of the Passover. They headed out and wandered the wilderness for 40 years. They had a peck of troubles. Life is, always will be, difficult. In a movie called Innerspace a man and the capsule he is in are shrunk down to the size of a pinhead and injected into someone's body. All goes well for a while, and he smoothly pilots the craft around inside the body. Suddenly there's a fight, and ...

13. And Then Came The Angel

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

William B. Kincaid, III

... about the days during their betrothal in which they anxiously awaited the blissful day of their marriage? At first it may have sounded like an easy option for Joseph--marriage or divorce, but when we begin to weigh all the factors, Joseph's decision was a very difficult one. It doesn't say how long it took Joseph to reach his decision or how many people he asked for advice, but Matthew does say that Joseph decided to divorce Mary. And then, then came the angel. The angel said, "Joseph, don't be afraid to ...

14. The Road Less Traveled

Luke 13:22-30

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... accepting the grace that God offers us in Jesus Christ. III. But, there is more here, and we need to look at the more that is here. Let me put it this way. The narrow door is open to all, but to walk the way into which it leads is difficult and demands striving. Put another way: On the road of a disciple of Jesus, conversion is not merely a point, but the beginning of a process. So, let’s return to our image — the image of the road less traveled, and the narrow door. “The issue under discussion (in ...

15. The Challenge Of Simplicity

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

John Jamison

... with the hard questions. If the preacher can preach a sermon about whether Jesus was on a mountain or a plain, we don’t have to worry about the sermon saying something that might really put us in a tough spot. So just a warning: this may become difficult at times. Jesus sat down, which is what a teacher did when they were going to say something really important. The crowd grew quiet and everyone leaned forward to catch every word. Then he began. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of ...

16. Winners Never Quit and Quitters Never Win (Fruit of the Spirit: Patience)

Galatians 5:22

Sermon

James Merritt

... not tools to tear you down, they are tests to build you up. So often when we think about Job, we tend to focus on the first part of the book, and we forget about the last part of the book. Because after Job went through all of his difficult problems and came out on the other side, listen to what he said: "Then Job answered the Lord and said: ‘I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.' You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?' Therefore ...

17. A Letter in Time

1 Peter 3:18-22

Sermon

John B. Jamison

... do I need to believe? I thought I was doing that… but, it sure doesn’t feel like it’s getting any easier. Just when does it get better?” For some of us, it takes until we finally get tired of trying harder, and we find it more and more difficult to believe in much of anything. We just settle. We settle for surviving; for getting by. Our life of faith becomes a way to just get us through the day. Some of us come here on this first Sunday in Lent because it is a part of our settlement; something ...

18. The Final Questions

John 6:60-71

Sermon

George W. Hoyer

... in us and we in him. These were the lessons which prompted the first question. Some in the class said, "This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?" Rhetorical, of course. Or it could have been their way of saying, "We certainly can't accept it." In ... lifted up out of their sight, to see him disappear into a cloud. But we have only read the report. That's one of the difficult things to believe, all this "up" and "down" talk. Is that reasonable for our scientific age? Is it too much for you? Then answer, " ...

19. What's In The Final Exam?

Matthew 25:31-46

Sermon

George Johnson

... and the poor are getting poorer. Hunger in the world is worse today than it was 10 years ago. Tax laws continue to put a heavier burden on the poor. Women and children suffer the most from injustices. If it is so simple, why is it so difficult? The cross is a constant reminder that to love one's neighbor is not always easy or well received. 3. There are surprises, unexpected discoveries, that disturb, yet serve to enlighten us. Matthew includes these surprises now so that they can serve to warn us, alert us ...

20. Clouds and Son-Shine

Ephesians 3:1-13

Sermon

Hubert Beck

... never have a definite answer. But there are some things we can know very well, although we rarely think about them. They are all too ordinary, and we prefer to think about things that are much more interesting! We can know, for example, that this journey was difficult for the wise men, as any journey in that time was. We come to think of travel in terms of relative ease with cars or airplanes, even though these, too, can on occasion cause us some grief. Think, though, about this long journey on foot or by ...

21. Doing Well and Doing Good

Romans 13:8-14

Sermon

Jeff Wedge

... , has been replaced by this summary, this command to love our neighbors as ourselves. This simple summary makes things much more difficult for us. Now we have to consider our actions not as actions under the rules of the commandments; now we have ... love of God for us in our lives with our neighbors. We have no list of specific actions to take, but we are given the more difficult thing, to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ"; to let our actions and our lives be guided by the example of the self-sacrificing love of ...

22. How Can I Know God's Will?

Acts 1:12-26

Sermon

King Duncan

... up in court and Wesley made the wise decision that Georgia was not the place God was calling him to be after all. This should caution us that even spiritual giants may not have a clue as to the will of God in matters of the heart. It is very difficult to know the will of God. It humbles us all. A couple wants to start a business. They are a very religious couple of a strong evangelical background. They want to do God’s will. So they decide to “put out a fleece.” The concept of putting out a “fleece ...

23. No Turning Back

John 6:56-69

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me (6:56-57).” The response of some of his disciples was disheartening: “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it (6:60)?” These disciples, unlike the Samaritan woman at the well, were unable to get past the literal — and shocking — meaning of this saying. Being born again, having living water to keep one’s bucket full, the flesh and blood of Jesus ...

24. Suffering And Service

Isaiah 51:17--52:12

Sermon

Douglas J. Deuel

... we render, then we have no other reward to anticipate in the future. If we serve Christ because we are seeking the praise of others or some type of material benefit, then that alone shall be our reward. We cannot have it both ways. It is always a difficult lesson when we are forced to learn that life is not fair. To be a servant for Christ means to willingly accept that life will not be fair. We will work to further the kingdom of God. We will promote justice, loving-kindness, peace and harmony among all ...

25. Is God With You, Or Not?

Exodus 17:1-7

Sermon

... water, they inquired, "Is the Lord with us, or not?" We ask the same question yet today. How pertinent it is. Hundreds of times, in difficult situations, we've said, "Where is God? Is he here or not?" There are ways to find if God is with you or not. " ... to his father, "But daddy, I can't see you!" "I know," his father called, "I know, but I can see you!" It may be a hard, difficult road you travel just now. You can't see anything but darkness, and you can't find God at all. Your problems blot God from your ...

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