Sermon and Worship Resources

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2 Kings 2:1-18

Sermon

Robert Leslie Holmes

... confidence. “Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). But, Elijah went to heaven without dying! “Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven.” Isn’t it amazing! Does it sound far-fetched? Mysterious? It is, in fact, no farther fetched nor mysterious than your death or mine. “Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:51). For this we declare to you by the word ...

2. Lazarus Laughed

John 11:17-37

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... Peter usually plays in the Gospels. So perhaps Peter wasn’t there. And in those days there was no press corps or CNN to cover the event! No reporter from “the Bethlehem Star” was available. And so the first three Gospels missed it. This may not be as far-fetched as it sounds at first sight. We do know that in many places the Fourth gospel seems to draw upon a separate tradition from the Synoptics. The author has knowledge of some events in the life of our Lord which they do not have. Jesus did many ...

3. Never Too Old For God: Abraham And Sarah

Genesis 18:1-15

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... Abraham who is 100 and Sarah who is 90 have been waiting a long time to hear. The strangers tell Abraham that Sarah is going to have a baby. And that's when the laughter begins. We laugh, too because it seems so far fetched. But it's not really that far fetched, at least not today. Recently the news reported a 66 year old Romanian woman, Adriana Iliescu, who gave birth. They also reported a 62 year old English woman, a child psychiatrist, Patricia Rashbrook Farrant gave birth. And then there is the 59-year ...

4. Digging Deeper

Luke 1:1-4

Sermon

James Merritt

... , remember that Luke was a companion of Paul and traveled with Paul on many of his missionary journeys. Without question, he certainly met Mark, who had accompanied Paul on one of his journeys, and Luke traveled in Jerusalem and probably met Matthew, so it is not far-fetched to say the three of them actually compared notes. The simple point that is to be made here is that Luke wants us to know he is doing meticulous research. He is pouring over every source he can find on the life of Jesus that has already ...

5. God Cares

Ezekiel 34:1-31

Sermon

Argile Smith

... that he actually cares for you. You wonder if what the Bible says about God is actually trustworthy information. Maybe for you, the awful predicament described so far isn’t the product of your imagination at all. It really exists in your world. It’s not far-fetched. Rather, it is a fitting description of your situation right now. The ring of truth for you in the description is that God doesn’t seem to care about you where you are right now. You feel like you’ve been deported to a strange land ...

6. The Undoing of Babel

Acts 2:1-21

Sermon

Stan Purdum

... Babel as one where everyone could understand one another. The way God meant the world to be from the beginning, so the thinking went, was that people could communicate clearly and without confusion. When you think about it, that's not a far-fetched idea. Consider how much trouble we have in life because of communication difficulties — even between people who share a common language. How many marriages, for example, have problems because neither of the partners talk to each other about what's actually on ...

7. Our Common Life in Christ

Philippians 2:1-11

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... common life in Christ: Affection and compassion. IV I must close now. “If then common life in Christ yields anything to stir the heart” Paul said. Then he named the things we have been discussing: loving consolation, fel1ov the Spirit, Affection and Compassion. It sounds far-fetched, you say. You haven’t experienced that in the church. Yet, you long for it. That’s what we are all looking for. How can it be so? Paul answers that in vss. 2, 3, and 4. Listen: “Fill up my cup of happiness by thinking ...

8. Lean Thine Arm on the Windowsill of Heaven (Growing Old Gracefully)

Psalm 90:1-17

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... invented bifocals when he was 78; Sophacles wrote Oedipus Rex at the age of 75. Titian completed his masterpiece, “The Battle of Lepanto,” at the age of 95. At 94, Bertrand Russell led international peace drives; at 93, George Bernard Shaw wrote the play, Far fetched Fables at 91. At 89, Albert Schweitzer headed a hospital in Africa. So, don’t use growing old as an excuse not to be capable and useful. IV That leads to a third point: Keep a struggle going - keep something in your life with which ...

9. Not So With You

Mark 10:35-45

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... Peter, from claiming any special seats in the world-to-come. Since Mark’s gospel only rarely invokes the names of individual speakers, and in this case the connection is so negative, the Petrine source of this scandalous request is hardly far-fetched. Even before James and John make their “request,” their attitude is audacious. While they address Jesus as “Teacher,” their words are rude, not respectful: “do for us whatever we ask of you.” The brothers want a guarantee from Jesus, before they ...

10. Some Women's Stories

John 7:45--8:11

Sermon

Carl Jech

... is still the case with Orthodox Jews today, strict custom separated men and women in certain ways. It was considered inappropriate for Jesus to talk with a lone woman in such an informal setting - especially an outcast Samaritan woman! It is not at all far-fetched to see Jesus as a forerunner of both women's and men's liberation movements. He was willing to cross artificial barriers and challenge customary sex roles. In this story of the woman at the well, Jesus explains and demonstrates by his actions that ...

11. Prepare The Way

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

Brett Blair

... from God whose name was John, He came for testimony to bear witness to the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but he came to bear witness to the light. What drew people to John and his message? Well, John was far-fetched. His austere life style was a compelling reason to listen to him and perhaps his strange ways convinced some people to follow him. I think many thought he was Elijah the prophet who returned. But there was more to John than simply a bizarre strange life. John ...

12. Report of a Secret Meeting

John 3:1-21

Sermon

George Bass

... confronted with Christ’s cross in the very middle of Lent. There is no way we can save ourselves and extricate ourselves from our predicament; self-salvation is an utter impossibility for every one of us. Gerhard Forde writes, "To use a rather far-fetched illustration, [self-salvation] would be something like saying that you have to grow freckles in order to be saved. Well, then, if you don’t have them (by some mysterious predestination) the question would be, ‘How do I get freckles?’ ‘By grace ...

13. Childish or Child-like?

Mark 10:13-16

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... t,” said Bill. “Even my wife began to develop ideas I was not comfortable with, so now she worships in the northeast corner of the living room and I am in the southwest...” (BOOKS THAT BRING LIFE,” Lubbock, Texas: Net Press, 1984) Does that sound far-fetched to you? Then you haven’t read church history! Unfortunately, we see childishness at work in the world wherever we turn. On a world level, we see nations unwilling to play the game of peace. On a national level we find too many politicians who ...

14. Freedom

Galatians 5:1-15

Sermon

King Duncan

... women, and the senior warden.” (3) The leaders of that parish were concerned about a tradition--men do not wear hats in worship. They were more concerned about keeping that tradition than they were about welcoming strangers into their church family. Far-fetched? Have you ever been in a sporting event and heard the announcer say, “Gentlemen, remove your hats for the singing of the national anthem”? Have you noticed that young men wearing ball caps are everywhere? We can assume from this announcement ...

15. No Substitute

John 2:13-22

Sermon

David T. Ball

... didn’t see it that way. Unless there’s a concern that we can discern that Jesus felt seriously enough for him to jeopardize, at this early stage in his ministry, his freedom to continue to travel and preach. Because it wouldn’t have been far-fetched at all for the Roman authorities to have reacted to this very disruptive disturbance of the peace at a time when thousands of Jews were streaming into Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover by arresting Jesus, locking him up, and leaving him there for a good ...

16. Fish and Sheep

John 21:15-25, John 21:1-14

Sermon

Donald Charles Lacy

... want to visualize some well-to-do fellows, dressed in sport clothes, sitting in a restaurant. Our dear Lord looks much like them, except he has on a clerical collar! They have the works. There are eggs, pancakes, ham, sausage, bacon, toast, coffee, juice, and jelly. Far-fetched and amusing? Well, yes, because it bends the story so far it loses its majesty. It also has pork on their plates! They all knew it was the Lord. Plates were not passed and he served them, which is significant. Do you get the idea ...

17. Leaving Home

Genesis 12:1-8

Sermon

King Duncan

... Stroobants. “Do you have a parakeet?” she asked. “I used to,” said the elderly gentleman. “I miss him terribly.” When he saw his Pootsie, he was thrilled. “You know,” he said with delight, “Pootsie even knows his phone number.” (3) That sounds far-fetched to many of us, but there is something about home. We often describe our country as being very mobile, but did you realize that fifty per cent of Americans live within 50 miles of their birthplace? Most people, given a choice, like to ...

18. The Great Inescapable Question of Eternity

Mark 8:27-38

Sermon

Robert Leslie Holmes

... his memory — that's pretty remarkable, 2,000 years on."1 On the opposite end of the spectrum, Bono, lead singer of the rock group U2, asked if he believes the claim of Jesus' divinity is farfetched, replied with this statement. No, it's not far fetched to me. Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: he was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the lines of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucius. But actually ...

19. More Than Sex

Sermon

John N. Brittain

... results when one feels the intensity of God's love in Jesus Christ: one will be friend to others, one cannot help having expanded horizons and changed views of others. Many Christians today find Saint Bernard's approach, the anagogic reading of Scripture, to be far-fetched, even ludicrous. I think Saint Bernard knew what we forget: that there is something even more passionate and powerful than the sexual love between a man and a woman, and that is the love between God and a human soul. We are reminded that ...

20. The Righteous

Sermon

John A. Terry

... another planeload of children crashes right next to the first. Ten minutes later, a third crashes. And the tragedies continue: every ten minutes, a jet falls to earth, all day and night, day after day, month after month. Such a great number of deaths is not far-fetched. The same number of children -- 40,000 -- die each day from hunger-related diseases.1 Jesus wants these human hungers to be satisfied, for things to be put right with the world, so that no child ever goes to bed hungry at night. At one point ...

21. The Righteous

Psalm 107:1-43

Sermon

John A. Terry

22. Even God Called Time Out

Mark 2:23-3:6

Sermon

James Weekley

... . Although personal prayer before bedtime and upon awakening helps us to stay in touch, what he is after in our lives is arm-in-arm fellowship, those two-on-two encounters. Some of our more intimate moments with him come through sharing time with our families. Does that seem far-fetched? Do we really want to pay that price, to give an honest full pound measure? Isn't it true that most of today's church families just won't make the time for informal sharing? Can't we give thanks to our VCR's and cable TV for ...

23. A Blood That Passes Over

Exodus 12:1-30

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

... in Christ’s blood passing us from the sins of our present age. The blood of the lamb passes over our condemnation as sinners. As coconspirators in our own enslavement, we have been judged to be eternally branded and condemned for our sins. It is not far-fetched to believe that many of the Israelites may have been conformed to their own captivity due to a lack of faith and the presence of fear. The sin of slavery is not only visited upon the enslavers for their terror and brutality but is imposed upon ...

24. Hope for Hurting Hearts

Isaiah 35:1-10

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... in her purse. He also notes that he has just lost his job - his congregation's Administrative Board fired him. Why? "They say because I can no longer do my job." "Why do they say you can longer do your job?" "Because I don't believe in God." Oh. Far-fetched? A minister losing his faith? It can happen. And if it can happen there, it can happen anywhere...maybe even right here. The temptation is great to leave it at that, to wallow in self-pity. But then, good church folks no matter what, we find ourselves in ...

25. The Good Samaritan: A New Look at an Old Story

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... that. He would not want to be like the Priest or Levite either, so the only character left with which to identify would be the man in the ditch. Hmm. Now Jesus concludes, "Go and do likewise." What? Be the guy in the ditch? Perhaps that is not so far-fetched as we might think. We never hear if this poor victim recovers, but my assumption is that he does. That being the case, what would the effect have been on him that he had been rescued by a Samaritan? One would presume that it would forever color his view ...

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