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

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1. God's Going To Bring His Children Home

Hosea 11:1-11

Sermon

James McLemore

... can a nation be a child? With its government, its political institutions, its vast array of organizations, how can a nation be a child? With hundreds of years of history behind it, how can a nation be a child? God remembered this nation of Israel from its inception. God remembered when he conceived it through Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees. God remembered when he brought it forth like a newborn babe, in Goshen, when Moses took Israel out of Egypt. God nourished Israel at the Red Sea, and cared for it at the ...

2. Life's Loose Threads and The Tie That Binds

Deuteronomy 34:1-12

Sermon

Robert S. Crilley

... , and by November had started writing a third -- of which only a single page was ever transcribed. Nevertheless, it was already apparent that this orchestral arrangement would be inimitable, far exceeding anything earlier achieved. Scarcely two months after its inception, however, Schubert suddenly decided to shelve the entire score, leaving it forever inconclusive. Indeed, the "Unfinished Symphony" may now be as well-known for its ambiguous title as for its beautiful music. In 1932 Karl Barth published the ...

3. From Rejection To Redemption

Ruth 3:1-18

Sermon

Zan W. Holmes

... Carolina. She was the fifteenth child of former slaves, yet she acquired a passion for education that would help redeem the lives of poor and oppressed blacks. In 1904 she moved to Daytona Beach, Florida, and took $1.50 and opened a school, which at its inception had four little black girls and her son as its student body. Her husband eventually left for another town and died after a few years. But even though she was a poor, single woman in a racially oppressive society, she kept her dream alive. She baked ...

4. Holy Arithmetic!

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

Johnny Dean

... usually go on to state that the doctrine of the Trinity was something theologians dreamed up centuries after the death and resurrection of Jesus. And the controversy over the validity of the Trinity is not a modern-day invention. From the very inception of the thought that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are three manifestations of the same God, the debate began to rage. One early scholar, Michael Servetus, did an exhaustive study of Scripture, the result of which was, according to Servetus, conclusive ...

5. The Lord's People Together

Matthew 18:15-20

Sermon

... into the stomach, the whole body will die. The hand cannot always behave by direction of its own whim; it must do what is best for the body of which it is part. So it must surrender all notions of doing as it jolly well pleases. At the inception of the American Revolution, Patrick Henry stirred the fervor of Virginia's patriots by shouting, "Give me liberty or give me death!" A noble sentiment this is; but you cannot run a baseball team on that, or a football squad, for each player must give up something ...

6. The Post Launch Slump

2 Cor 8:10-11

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... he or she will be good enough to include one that I have written for these pages. This is how it goes: The probability of success for any ecclesiastical undertaking is inversely proportional to the amount of clamor present at that undertaking’s inception. That all translates into this simple observation: it would appear that in the church, we are much better at beginnings than we are endings and that because we invest a disproportionate amount of energy in beginnings, there is precious little energy left ...

7. Chapter I

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Frank H. Seilhamer

... are as valid today as they were at the time when they were given by God. Moreover, they are just as central for the lives of Christians as they ever were for the Hebrews who camped at Sinai. In the years since the Commandments had their inception the basic issues of life have not changed, nor has man himself. While our technology has changed the crucial, gut-level principles that govern our lives together, as well as our relationship to God, have not changed. Some people, somewhere, somehow, have gotten the ...

8. Chapter IX

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Frank H. Seilhamer

... his piece. Hence, in either case, woe be it to the man who twisted the truth out of shape. Yet, while the primary stage where this Commandment was set to play its part was in the law court, which usually met at a city’s gate, from its inception it was understood to have a significance that went beyond legal proceedings. Like all of the other Commandments, this one has a universal application. In its broader sense it is a call for all men to deal forthrightly and honestly with each other in every kind of ...

9. Knowing the Secret

Mark 1:9-13

Sermon

Thomas Long

... ? By whose order and arrangement have this place and time been allotted to me?" For many, the secret remains concealed. Who am I? Why am I here? What am I worth? I am afraid. In baptism the secret is out at the beginning, the truth is known at the inception, and there is no need to fear, come what may. "You are my beloved child, my very own. I have placed you here and called you to be my own. In you I delight." In his autobiographical book Creative Dislocation, Robert McAfee Brown remembered the day in 1960 ...

10. The Lord's Prayer: "Thy Will Be Done"

Matthew 6:5-15

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... to spend $1.4-million because he is convinced that President Clinton's Health Plan is NOT God's will. Randy Shilts died last week. Randy was a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle who wrote the best-seller, And the Band Played On,(1) the story of the inception of the AIDS epidemic in America. Randy died of AIDS. He was gay. Some folks would say that is God's will. Some folks think that God WILLS this team or that individual win in sports. Some probably think that it was God's will that Dan Jansen win ...

11. Like A Big Happy Family

1 Peter 3:8-22

Sermon

King Duncan

... anyone else in the club who represents a firm that has been in existence for a hundred years.?" A minister arose, and said, "President Jim, I have the honor of representing an organization that has been at work in this community ever since its inception and in the world for nineteen hundred years." (5) No organization ever founded has been based upon sounder principles or rendered more vital service than the church of Jesus Christ. Here is how we recapture that electricity. Here is how we become that big ...

12. Don't Forget What You Look Like

James 1:19-27

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... more than pray and confess. Its members made plans for restitution so their lives could mirror their beliefs. Reparation, the process by which one makes amends for wrongs or injuries done to others, has been a part of the Christian tradition since the inception of the church.2 The epistle of James and other verses throughout the New Testament illustrate that one's relationship with other human beings provides an accurate measuring stick for the status of one's relationship with God. Reparation is a clear ...

13. Let Me Tell You about the Birds and the Bees

Proverbs 5:15-23

Sermon

James Merritt

... passing out erasers. Sex Education is primarily a "con" job pushing nothing except contraceptives and condoms. But it's not working. Since 1970 the Federal Government has spent $3 billion dollars to promote contraception and "safe sex." In the twenty years since the inception of federal family planning programs, there has been an 87% rise in pregnancies for teenagers between the ages of 15 through 19.3 Unplanned births have risen 61%.4 And syphilis rates have risen 60% for teenagers 15 through 19 since 1985 ...

14. Gift of Positive Thinking

2 Corinthians 1:18-22

Sermon

Donald Charles Lacy

... anything in your life that is never in some way an opportunity? Perhaps, as one dear lady said, always try to make lemonade out of lemons. The worst situations that appear so bleak can become made over by the God of all of us. Since the inception of the ancient church we have seen this happen over and over. Death and destruction were present. Perhaps both occurred but who became the victor? This precious earliest of churches received the body and blood of their Lord. Then, they prepared to give their bodies ...

15. Changing Dysfunction Into Function: Isaac, Jacob and Esau

Genesis 27:15-24, 30-34

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... glean this week, one of the major problems within most dysfunctional families is the way the members of the family communicate with each other. One of the best known dysfunctional families in the Bible is that of Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob and Esau. From the moment of inception, fraternal twins, Jacob and Esau were fighting for position and dominance. If you remember Genesis 25:22, it basically says, the children tumbled and kicked so much that she went to God and said, "If this is the way it's going to be then ...

16. Eat and Run

Exodus 12:1-14

Sermon

David J. Kalas

... of celebrating that commemorative holiday meal, when Jesus embarked on words and actions so familiar to us, but undoubtedly strange and troubling to the disciples. The Jewish observance of the Passover meal had acquired layers of symbolic elements and practices, and from its inception it was clearly understood as a teaching tool — "When your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this observance?' " (Exodus 12:26). But in Jesus' association of the bread with his body and the cup with his blood, the old ...

17. The Place beyond Punishment

Sermon

Donna Schaper

... over 650 agencies (homeless shelters, soup kitchens, churches, food banks, and the like) that distribute food to over two million families in Florida each year, Founded in 1992 with one volunteer and one phone, it has distributed over 100 million pounds of food since its inception, most of which is fresh food. Like the squash, many of us are too crooked to go to market. Many of us are the snarled zucchini or the bruised tomato — ugly and used up — but Jesus went to Jerusalem for us. Whether we are ...

18. Priceless!

Matthew 13:44-46

Sermon

King Duncan

... donated the proceeds from those auctions to the GLIDE Memorial foundation, a ministry of San Francisco’s Glide Memorial church. Glide Memorial is a remarkable multicultural church committed to helping the poor, the homeless, and the most vulnerable among us. Since its inception, the auctions of these lunches with Warren Buffett have raised more than $30 million for that ministry. (3) You heard me right—30 million dollars for a series of simple lunches with the Oracle of Omaha. Would you like to know how ...

19. Trick Questions

Matthew 22:15-22

Sermon

Steve Molin

... on it?” “Well, that’s Caesar’s name and face, of course,” they said. “All right then,” Jesus answered. “You pay to Caesar that which belongs to Caesar, and you pay to God that which belongs to God. It’s that simple!” From its inception, the church has lived in a tension with government. Our credo, “Jesus is Lord,” flies straight into the face of the Roman oath that said, “Caesar is Lord.” Early on, Christians drew a line in the sand, confessing, “To God alone we render worship ...

20. The Greatest Gift

Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... deeper than artificial or cultural divisions. It’s about caring about each other and doing the right things even when the rest of the world seems intent on going the other way. Communities foster love. Communities take courage. From the beginning of its inception, the Church was conceived as an “alternative” community –a model for the rest of the world, a place in which those persecuted by others could find safety and sanctuary, a place in which even those who failed can be given another chance. The ...

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