Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: ruler, sovereign, monarch, supreme ruler, crowned head, majesty, Crown, head of state, royal personage, emperor, prince, potentate, overlord, liege lord, lord, leader, chief, star, leading light, luminary, superstar, mogul, giant, master, kingpin, celebrity, lion

Antonyms: queens, peasant, serf, slave, subject, servant, average joe, common man, rank and file, lower class, common person, workers, commoner, the masses, the poor, plebians, bourgeois, proletariat, laborer, working class, middle class, blue-collar, a nobody, subvassal

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1. The Silence Broken, The Bride Restored

Isaiah 62:1-12

Sermon

Robert A. Hausman

... of Isaiah which is usually dated during the time of rebuilding after the return from exile. It is from the part of the tradition called Third Isaiah. It reflects a time of great discouragement. Israel lived and worshipped among ruins. Foreign overlords seized the harvest of the fields and the fruit of the vineyards, while the people went hungry (62:8). Enemies continually interrupted the rebuilding process. Israel felt desolate and forsaken, lost in darkness (cf. Isaiah 59:9-10). Israel felt the silence ...

2. Sermons

Sermon

John R. Bodo

... with God. The writer presents the quarrel in three stages. Disobedience The first stage we may call Jonah's disobedience to God. Out of a clear sky, God sends Jonah on a repulsive mission. He commands Jonah to go to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, the current overlord and oppressor of his people, to preach to the hated Assyrians so that they may have a chance to repent and be spared the awful judgment which God has in store for them. It is difficult for us to conceive how monstrous this mission must have ...

3. A Scholar · Nicodemus

John 3:1-21

Sermon

Gordon Pratt Baker

... the council's control over the Jews. All that was needed, he told the Sanhedrin, was to seize and execute Jesus as an enemy of the state. Once the empire saw how quickly the Jewish leaders dealt with any who threatened the interests of their overlords the nation -- and, with it, the council -- would be free of the specter of disaster. (John 11:49-50) Aware he was outvoted even before he spoke, Nicodemus nevertheless opposed the plot. "Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and ...

4. The Power To Defy Evil

Exodus 3:1-22

Sermon

Carl Hoefler

... world's future great religious heroes - one who would one day hold in his arms the will of God's law chiseled into a stone from Mount Sinai. The youth of Moses also fails to testify to his future greatness. One day, when he saw an Egyptian overlord beating a Hebrew slave, the hot temper of Moses exploded, and he killed the taskmaster on the spot. Fearing certain death because of his rash actions, he fled. No mark of a courageous hero here! In the country of Midian, he married a wealthy man's daughter, and ...

5. Boundaries or Frontiers?

Leviticus 19:1-37

Sermon

... can keep us from crashing into each other, but they cannot keep us moving along. God has to give us frontiers to keep us moving. First he sets our boundaries; then he brings us to his frontiers. Moses was a boundary man. After he had killed an overlord in Egypt, he ran away to hide in Midian. A man with great potential, he isolated himself as a shepherd watching his father-in-law’s flocks. Although Moses didn’t know it, God was drawing in this young man’s fences until he hardly had breathing ...

6. One Commandment is Enough!

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

... them with his anger, but this Law-Giver reminds them where the rules come from (it always makes such a difference who gives a command) - "You know me, I am the One who saved you." God is not coming to them as some superior feudal overlord who has triumphed at their expense, but this proclamation is a reminder of God's triumph for his people, not over them. These words are meant to be unequivocably obeyed, but they are, nonetheless, an expression of God's grace. God delivered his people, God intervened ...

7. Behold Your God

Isaiah 40:1-31

Sermon

Michael J. Anton

... families together by telling and re-telling the ancient stories of the good old days in far-off Jerusalem, now lying in ruins, the smoke of her ashes still twisting to the sky. People trying to eke out the best existence possible under the thumb of their Babylonian overlords. Those are the people to whom these glorious and triumphant words of Isaiah were first shouted. If you were ever a prisoner of war, or if you were ever someone waiting for a war to be over and a loved one to come home, or if you were ...

8. How to Motivate People

Matthew 10:1-42, Matthew 9:18-26

Sermon

Stephen M. Crotts

... terrorist who was to betray him? Why these twelve? They weren't rich. They weren't of high social standing. They weren't so well educated. Why, even their commitments varied! Matthew was a hated tax collector, one who, because he worked for the Roman overlords, was an outcast to his own people. What were they then? Why were they acceptable to Jesus as disciples? They were teachable. They could learn. They were willing to rethink Judaism. Are you teachable? Can you learn? Or have you already made up your ...

9. Just Say the Word

John 1:1-9, 10-18

Sermon

Robert J. Elder

... thing for the Jewish community. Hanukkah spent most of its 2,000-year history as a rather minor celebration, commemorating the Maccabee family of Israel, who, before the time of Jesus, managed to lead a popular rebellion to throw off domination by corrupt Greek overlords. This hard-won freedom lasted only for a short time, until Roman armies came through, and Israel was, once again, a vassal state. The major feast of Judaism, the rabbi correctly pointed out, is Passover, not Hanukkah. But we'd never know it ...

10. God's Gift

Jeremiah 33:1-26

Sermon

Derl G. Keefer

... only hope lay in a nationalistic redeemer, a Savior, a Messiah who would bring them freedom from the invading armies. As God’s time came for the Messiah to be born in Israel, the people were waiting and expecting him to release them from the overlords of Rome. God’s promise was not for political release, but spiritual release. Their sins held them in bondage more than any invading army ... they just didn’t seem to understand that fact. Many seek God to release them from their bondage to some exterior ...

11. Making Ourselves At Home

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

... with living and made themselves at home. I cannot help but wonder if God's advice to the people was not meant to be a subtle reminder of the earlier sojourn in a foreign land by their ancestors who were being oppressed by their Egyptian overlords. In spite of that difficult prior situation, the children of Israel grew in numbers and thrived and were eventually led miraculously out of slavery in Egypt by God. The unexpected message of Jeremiah's letter acknowledges the reality of God's punishment of his ...

12. Suffered under (Saint) Pontius Pilate

John 18:28-40

Sermon

David O. Bales

... him a saint. On Good Friday we always concentrate upon Jesus. For once, let’s also spend a little time looking at Pilate. Officially in first-century Judea Pilate represents the Roman Empire, which means he stands for the power of the military overlord; because, Rome has occupied Palestine since 63 BC. Only a few Judeans at Jesus’ time consider the Roman presence a benefit. Romans wouldn’t be anywhere unless for their own self-serving reasons, which sometimes take five, ten, or twenty years to ...

13. Starting Over

John 12:20-36

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... over in love toward us, even after the Great Syllabus demands a divine reckoning. Jeremiah 31:31-34 These are extremely powerful words. Jeremiah is living in desperate times; wimpy and changing leadership plays fast and loose with the powerful Babylonian overlords who are currently in control, thus bringing the small nation of Judah rather rapidly toward its certain demise. Most of the towns of the region have already been destroyed by siege and conquest, and the palace and temple treasuries have been ...

14. Faces of Failure: Pontius Pilate

Matthew 27:1-2, 11-26

Sermon

Don Tuttle

... begins with the next morning, when the chief priests and elders met again to finalize their condemnation of Jesus. While they had the authority to punish those that violated Jewish Law, they didn’t have the right to impose the death penalty. Only their Roman overlords could do that. So they bound Jesus and delivered him to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, who would have come to Jerusalem to keep the peace. Matthew doesn’t say much about Pilate, but the historian Philo suggests he wasn’t a man with ...

15. God Has Not Forgotten You

Jeremiah 29:1-23

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... their covenant faith wherever they are, no matter how long it takes. Huge amounts of the most gifted Jewish people were deported from their homes and relocated in Babylonian cities. But whereas the prior Assyrians had been brutal and vicious overlords, the Babylonians were much kinder to the Jewish people. The Assyrians had carried many off into slavery and had killed men, women, and children alike. The Babylonians allowed Jewish communities to flourish in Babylon. Synagogues and schools of learning were ...

16. Joy

Luke 2:1-11 · Isaiah 9:2-6

Sermon

Will Willimon

... , get a plan, take matters in hand. When the Emperor Augustus commanded his enrollment, we know that there were massive, numerous revolts among the Jews. During the time of Jesus, there were at least sixty cases of armed, violent rebellion against their Roman overlords. Pick up a gun, take matters in hand, use your initiative and act for change. I find it interesting that none of these revolts is reported by Luke. Mary and Joseph plod toward Bethlehem rather than rebel. What could they do, poor as they ...

17. Amazing Grace

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

Will Willimon

... close to the ground, near the bottom. The tax collector wasn't trying to be humble. He was humble. He wasn't acting like he did not know what to pray. He didn't know how to pray. He was down. Having defrauded his neighbors on behalf of the Roman overlords, he had much to be humble about. He was a sinner, personally and corporately. He wasn't trying to act like he didn't know what to do in church; he didn't know what to do in church. Do any of you high achievers and parent pleasers know what ...

18. A Last Appeal

Luke 23:33-43

Sermon

Richard Hasler

... ; they often were left to die of hunger and of thirst, sometimes being left for a week or more. They were deliberately exposed for many days so that their plight would be an example to others not to take for granted the Roman overlords. [2] Regarding the theological meaning of the cross, the New Testament writers used a variety of ways to explain the cross, not just one. For example, they said what happened was like: a defendant going free, a relationship being reconciled, something lost, being redeemed ...

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