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 1948 results

1. The Origins of Passover

Exodus 12:1-30

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... to execute his wrath on the enslaving Egyptians and to set Israel free from her bondage. Thus from the time of Moses on, Israel has celebrated the Passover in commemoration of the Lord’s act of redeeming her out of slavery in Egypt. While originally the Passover in Exodus 12 looked forward to that redemption, in the years following, Israel’s celebration looked back to the deliverance from bondage. The exodus that Passover celebrates is the central redemptive act of God in the Old Testament, an act that ...

2. The Original "Average Joe"

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... a risk." Smart kid. Indeed, since the beginning of creation, God has been willing to risk. But I want you to note one thing, and if you take nothing else away from here this morning, take this. This very first story in the New Testament, this story about the original "Average Joe," this story...is really GOD'S story. From this first story till the last, the essence of all of them is caught in something as simple as a name we often hear at this time of year from the prophet Isaiah: Emmanuel - God is with us ...

3. Point Of Origin

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... . The perspective that the universe and human beings are created sets the biblical perspective apart from other, competing perspectives in life. Consider other perspectives of human development which often translate into practical consequences. The way we theorize about our origin and purpose often shapes the way we treat others. If we view human beings solely as highly-developed animals, we can find much to back up our claim. Certainly a biological or anthropological perspective has the weight of research ...

4. God's Original Seatbelt (Mother's Day)

John 13:31-38

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... son in the passenger seat and her outstretched arm protectively flung across his chest. I've heard a great deal from my sons about my overprotective tendencies but I think that this card's message said it best. The message said, 'To Mom, the original seat belt.' " (Judith Viorst, Imperfect Control: Our Lifelong Struggles With Power and Surrender [New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998] 157.) A mom's protective reach has always been the saving seat belt for her family. But this seat belt takes different forms in ...

5. Jesus: The Original Superhero?

John 18:33-37

Sermon

April Yamasaki

... was one more blatant Hollywood attempt to use pastors and churches to market a movie, complete with free screenings for pastors, sermon notes, and movie clips. Promotion aside, is it even appropriate to compare Jesus to Superman? Even if we think of him as "the original superhero," doesn't the term itself reduce Jesus from Christ the King to the level of a character in a movie? How can that possibly express the magnificence and mystery of the king of glory, who "is before all things, and in him all things ...

6. The One and Only Original Sin

1 Peter 3:18-22

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

In a culture where even the atheists claim to have a "spirituality," it's time for the church to soul out. Until March of 1997, the approaching Third Millennium sneaked up on us like some great, fun adventure. For intrepid entrepreneurs, the year 2000 promises huge sales in commemorative junk. Party planners have been plotting big New Year's Eve blowouts for years. Except for those nerdy computer types who are wringing their hands and predicting crash and burn for all computer systems that use just two ...

7. Sweet Vine

John 15:1-17

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... us, to re-form us, and re-root us, to pull us up when we’ve become rooted in wrong places, and to re-form our identity from the inside out, removing and re-phenotyping the mutations that have become embedded in our identity, that have mutated our original identity, to infuse in us a true vine-like Jesus DNA. When we allow God to infuse that Jesus DNA within our hearts, minds, and spirits, there is no way we can bear bad fruit. The closer in relationship we are to Jesus, the harder it is for mutations ...

8. God Is Not Yet Finished With You

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... body with its natural functions including sex to be bad. That is not so in God’s sight. The human body with sex is very good. It is only when the body and sex are not properly used for God’s intended purpose that evil enters in. If people were originally made good, they are indeed very precious. Every person is of real worth. The value is not in the commercial cost of the body’s chemicals but in being a product and child of God. Here is the real source of a person’s dignity and true worth. It is ...

9. On the Singing of Hymns

Mark 14:12-26

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... tend to view the whole flap about the new one as a tempest in a teapot. The hymns which we now sing are not sacrosanct. Some of us can remember what a battle the 1968 hymnal had in replacing the 1935 version! Hymn-changing and tampering with “the original words” is not a new pastime. It has a long and honorable history. John Wesley did not like the line “Thy saints have dwelt secure” in the hymn “Our God, our help in ages past,” thinking that was too Calvinistic, and so he re-wrote the line to ...

10. The Heart of an Intimate Matter

Matthew 5:27-30

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... and lie about it, teach your children to do the same. We dream of a better world; we just can’t get there. We are a mess and have together made a mess of our world. The name that best describes this frustrating and enduring reality is the doctrine of original sin. It is verified daily on the front page of every newspaper. But bad as it is, things are not as bad as we imagine they might be; God has set a gracious restraint on the powers of chaos. Life continues, but nothing is left unaffected by the blight ...

11. Where Are You From?

John 18:1-19:42

Sermon

David T. Ball

... they treat us in significant ways. "Excuse me, I demand to be given a table at this restaurant immediately! I live in a wealthy suburb!" I don't think so. A shift seems to have taken place, away from one's stature as a function of family and place of origin. These days, stature comes in two forms. One will get you a table. That kind is fame, and who you know. Maybe I'm wrong, because I can't get a good table anywhere, but I think that the main thing that gets people special treatment is, first, that they ...

12. Life’s Purpose Is Often Hidden!

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... in those segments of their lives are what Luther calls "pretended sinners." What does this all mean for the way you live? The first Protestant Reformer says that you will see grace more clearly, be a preacher of a true grace. That is in line with the original version of the parable of the weeds. Its point, recall, was to proclaim that God is realizing his kingdom, is working good among us, despite all the weeds. The pressure is off people who live the life of brave sinning. Brave sinners no longer need to ...

13. Meal of Death

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

Sermon

Steven E. Albertin

... us of an altar. In fact, even though it looks like a table, we still call it an altar. Perhaps if we knew why it is an altar rather than a table, we would better understand what we are participating in when we gather around it. If we knew its origin, then we would know why it is an altar. As an experiment sometime, when you are at home sitting at the kitchen table with one of your children, ask this question: "Where does that slice of bread in your stomach come from?" You will probably get a variety of ...

14. Really!

Luke 20:27-40

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... shortcomings are beckoned to come and take a new path. Even in his final human encounter, Jesus offers to the unnamed “criminal” on the cross next to him a transfigured place of peace and paradise. Jesus approached everyone he met Really! as an original sacrament of God with a transfigural future, a future that radically transfigured his or her present straits and straightjackets. Can we greet each and every one we meet as someone real, someone already on a journey to a real, transfigural future? Can we ...

15. Night of Light

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

Timothy Cargal

... at which Jesus of Nazareth was actually born, from a spiritual perspective, nothing could better capture the significance of the time of Christ’s birth than to call it “the Night of Light.” Isaiah 9:2-7 This oracle attributed to Isaiah of Jerusalem was not originally a prophecy at all, at least not in the sense that we typically now use the word “prophecy.” That is to say, Isaiah did not compose this poem in order to predict long distant events (the birth of Jesus lay some seven centuries in the ...

16. Uncontainable Faith

Mark 7:24-37

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... there, parents and grandparents began to use the phrase not as a positive in trying new things but as a warning to curious children to check their desire to delve into things that could harm them or cause them trouble. So what was the original phrase about? The original phrase, “Care killed the cat” comes much earlier from the 1500s, in which the meaning was that sorrow or worry could keep one from doing what needed to be done. The cat who plays with the mouse instead of doing what needed to be done ...

17. The Revolution Against Evolution

Genesis 1:1

Sermon

James Merritt

... of God. At the age of 81, after decades of insisting that belief in God was ridiculous, has now changed his mind and has now stated that based on scientific evidence, there had to be a super-intelligence, a first-cause, as the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature. Do you know what Dr. Flew had to admit? Design destroys the theory of evolution. It takes out chance and it puts in God. That is why the evolutionist hate the theory of design so much. Let me make this super ...

18. Every Day God Enriches

1 Corinthians 1:1-9

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... church and Enrich the world. I. Enriches A. First, let's look at the word enriches. God does enrich our lives in the food industry sense. You see, because of the fall, because we have been disobedient, because we've turned away or drifted away from God, that original relationship has been stripped and lost. We've become a broken people. And in the process, our relationship with God is broken. B. On May 21, 1972, during the 11:30 a.m. worship service at the Vatican in St. Peter's Basilica, a man leaped over ...

19. Captive Free!

Romans 7:15-25a

Sermon

Steven E. Albertin

... from Peter. Peter wants to know how many times he has to forgive another in order to remain in good standing with Jesus. He thought he had all his bases covered by suggesting seventy times seven. Peter's question was just the pious arrogance of an original sinner. It assumes that he has got to do something, forgive so many times, in order to please Jesus, and then everything will be okay. Jesus tells him the parable of the unforgiving servant to show him how wrong his question was to begin with. Only ...

20. Here's Mud in Your Eye

John 9:1-12

Sermon

King Duncan

... story in which Jesus spat in the dirt and made mud and rubbed it onto the eyes of a blind man and healed the man’s sight after telling him to go wash it off in the Pool of Siloam. We don’t know where the phrase comes from originally. But it is an amazing coincidence if it has no connection to our lesson. Let me refresh your memory concerning this old, old story. One day Jesus came upon a man blind from birth. This was not unusual. There were many persons with various handicapping conditions begging for ...

21. Let It Shine!

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

... . Perhaps the darkness had a problem with God calling the light good and God not calling the darkness good. Whatever the case, the terms and conditions of the war of light and darkness were set into creation. Whereas darkness and light were originally created to function and coexist in harmony, when God began separating them and valuing them, the terms for the struggle between light and darkness began. In the beginning they were created as soul mates, but as God began to separate them, jealousy, envy ...

22. A Fool’s Tools

Matthew 25:14-30

Sermon

... the many generations since its opening night. Act I was entitled "the gifts"; Act II, "the erosion"; and Act III, the one you had just witnessed as you came in, "the living death." It never was intended to be a musical comedy, but there was no original intent to make it the tragedy it had become either. Starting as a one-act play entitled "The Gifts" it quickly had evolved into three acts retitled. Somehow this seemed more lifelike ... closer to the way things were. And the actors had little trouble getting ...

23. Change Is Possible

Galatians 1:11-24

Sermon

King Duncan

... really want to. WE CAN ALSO CHANGE IF WE HAVE A VISION OF SOMETHING BETTER THAT WE MAY ASPIRE TO. Flip Wilson used to say, "What you see is what you get." Modern research into human behavior says that is true. There is a scene in the original KARATE KID movie that is quite striking. The main character, Daniel, is befriended by the wise and elderly maintenance man, Mr. Miyagi. Daniel goes to see Mr. Miyagi and finds him trimming a delicate bonsai tree. Daniel is fascinated by this, so Miyagi tells him to try ...

24. Clean Hearts And Dirty Hands

Mark 7:1-23

Sermon

King Duncan

... time the newest monkey starts up the stairs, he will be attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in beating the newest monkey. After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try to reach the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that's the way it's always been done around here ...

25. Why Believe the Bible?

John 17:17

Sermon

James Merritt

... . Have you ever thought about how many copies or manuscripts we have of these historical figures and how close they are to one another. Have you ever thought about what the time span is between the copies that we do have and the original copies that must have been written? Let me just give you the manuscript evidence for the ancient writings related to these 3 historical figures I just gave you. Julius Caesar - earliest manuscripts 1000 years after Caesar lived - only 10 manuscripts exist. Plato - earliest ...

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