Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: Levi, disciple, evangelist, tax collector, the 12, the twelve, apostle, sermon on the mount, jewish audience, beatitudes, lord's prayer, great commission, parables, olivet discourse, mount of olives, olivet, synoptic

Showing 1 to 25 of 950 results

1. The Way Up Is the Way Down

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... . In case you haven’t noticed, this world and its obsessions are opposed to the kingdom of God; therefore, the big issue in life, and the one from which all others precipitate, is this: Which kingdom are you loyal to? How would we know it? What we have in the Sermon on the Mount is not so much an ought and a moral obligation but an is and a new opportunity.4 Our world is wrong side up, and in Jesus and his kingdom teaching we see the world flipped back over; in him we get a preview of what’s ahead when ...

2. Look Ma, No Hands

Mark 6:7-13

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... for Christians who are on a journey. This is the way we are supposed to live. Mark doesn't record the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew records the Sermon on the Mount. Luke has his own version of the Sermon on the Mount. So maybe in Mark, instead of teaching the Sermon on the Mount, Mark has Jesus say to the disciples, go into the world and live the Sermon on the Mount. Listen to the Sermon on the Mount. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and ...

3. The Forbidden Anger

Matthew 5:21-26

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... St. Paul urged Christians to be quick in settling problems. He wrote, "Don't let the sun go down on your wrath." All of that sounds good when one is cool and collected, sitting peacefully in a worship service. But there is a problem here. The Sermon on the Mount asks the impossible of us humans. We are told to forgive our enemies seventy times seven times. Every lustful thought is labeled as sinful. Almost all divorce is outlawed. When someone does us wrong, we are labeled as sinful if we get angry; we are ...

4. A Second Look

Matthew 5:27-48

Sermon

Will Willimon

... ability to return the blow to the stomach before he again slaps my cheek; and quite easily to say No to "him who would borrow from me." even No to impecunious relatives and in-laws. This, we have come to call, "growing up," "being realistic" about the Sermon on the Mount. Not that I was always so. I remember the evening we had been visiting in New York when we were students. We had spent the day visiting anything that was free, walking the streets, eating our lunch out of a paper bag to save money. In Grand ...

5. Scaring the Church, So It Will Be the Church

Matthew 5:13-20

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

... is speaking. Every now and then, we hear of a survey that tells us that a surprising percentage of people in the church do not know who preached the Sermon on the Mount. In case a surveyor ever asks you, the answer is Jesus. Jesus is speaking in this passage. The question is, who is listening? In Matthew's mind, to whom does Jesus preach the Sermon on the Mount? Matthew is not quite clear about who the audience is. Matthew 5:1 says that Jesus saw the crowds, went up the mountain and sat down. Then Matthew ...

6. The Ultimate Mountaintop Experience

Mark 9:2-9

Sermon

King Duncan

... valley of doubt and despair. After the temptation experience Jesus had other memorable experiences on mountaintops. It was to the Mount of Olives that Jesus retreated for prayer--it was also the place where he was betrayed. And who can forget Christ’s Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7)? While we do not know from the Bible exactly where Jesus delivered this most famous of all his sermons, evidence suggests it was on a mountain near the Sea of Galilee and Capernaum, the fishing town located on the northern ...

7. Obedience Really Matters

Matthew 7:15-23

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... on kingdom parables, the fourth on church discipline, and the last on the end of the world. Moses had five books to his credit (the first five books of the Bible), and, as the new teacher, Jesus has five great discourses, the first of which is the Sermon on the Mount.8 Each ends with a strong warning. One of Matthew’s favorite moves is to lay out the teaching of Jesus on a topic and then take us to a scene of the Last Judgment to show why it matters. Heaven and hell, final blessing and final judgment ...

8. Being Good

Matthew 5:17-20

Sermon

Will Willimon

... were astonished at his teaching" (7:28)! You want to be good? Don't just keep the law like the scribes and Pharisees, go beyond the law. Duke's W. D. Davies, in his classic commentary on the Sermon, says that this text, opening the Sermon on the Mount, "stands as a guardian against every immoral or antinomian misunderstanding of the gospel." And what a guardian it is. Here we encounter the bracing unsentimentality of Matthew's moral gospel. It challenges us to be good, really good, if we would be God's. To ...

9. Let’s Climb a Mountain

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

James W. Robinson

... Were not the right man on our side, The man of God’s own choosing. B. Include mourners among the crowds who sat at the feet of Jesus when he taught on the mount - and in the meadow and by the sea. In the context of the Sermon on the Mount, the mourners are "those who are peculiarly sensitive to sin in themselves and society, and who feel deeply all the distress caused by the greed and covetousness, the selfish ambitions and cruelty of men." C. The meek were represented in the crowd, too. The gentle people ...

10. With a Firm Foundation, Application Is Second Nature

Matthew 7:15-23, Matthew 7:24-29

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... life in the church. Among its gems include The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12 — where Jesus refers to the blessedness of those who mourn, are pure in heart, and are peacemakers). Matthew also reports that Jesus taught The Lord's Prayer as well the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:9-13). In Matthew's version, the sermon as a whole is a summons to a way of life. This emphasis fits the first gospel's orientation to making Jesus' teachings more important than any of the other three gospel writers do, presumably ...

11. Past, Present, Future

Isaiah 43:16-21

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... , the only way to live — if we want to live like Jesus. Historically, the church of Jesus Christ has tried to find a way to get out of doing what Jesus mandated. One of the most popular "outs" given by church leaders is that this Sermon on the Mount is delivered to the disciples, not the crowds. It doesn't count for us. Only those specially chosen by Jesus should turn the other cheek. This way of thinking became necessary when Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal around the year 315 A.D. Once the ...

12. Building According To Code

Matthew 7:24-29

Sermon

Brett Blair

... the book of Matthew and read to the end of the 7th. If you are going to build a home, Jesus said, you must build upon something solid. There are no words more solid on which to base your life than these words from the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon has been called the Christian Magna Charta, the Christian Manifesto, the Design for Life, and the Rules for Christian Living. It contains the Beatitudes, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Golden Rule. It deals with murder, adultery, divorce, oaths, revenge, and worry ...

13. Plain Talk

Luke 6:17-26

Sermon

Charles H. Bayer

... poor, the left out, the desperate, the marginalized. And if I read the statistics right, that's most of the people of today's world. Which gospel do we read -- and love? If I asked how many of you have heard of and can even quote sections of the Sermon on the Mount -- Matthew's beatitudes or the Lord's Prayer, for instance -- I'd get a pretty good show of hands. But if I asked how many of you knew of and could quote anything from Jesus' plain talk in Luke, there would be little response. We can take comfort ...

14. Fear of Missing Out

Matthew 5:38-42

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... . It is that new reality, the reality of God’s presence made human on earth through a body of human beings, where love and compassion become the driving forces in our lives, that is the heart of gospel. And it must be the Heart of the Church. The Sermon on the Mount tells us that no one has to miss out. In His message on that hill with people from everywhere and all walks of life gathered around Him, Jesus tells us that we are invited to tune in, join in, come in, be in relationship with Him. And that ...

15. Loving Like God Loves

Matthew 5:43-48

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... cares for everyone he takes captive.” Such stories are humbling; they raise the question, Am I willing to become one who loves enemies as if it were the only right thing to do? If we read the teaching of Jesus in this section of the Sermon on the Mount as just another set of commandments, of impossible things we have to do to earn the title disciple or get our ticket for heaven or earn God’s approval, then we will have misunderstood them and not take them seriously. We will conveniently brand them as ...

16. Life on the Rock

Matthew 7:24-29

Sermon

James Merritt

... winner would be Jesus Christ. There is almost a universal consensus that Jesus was indeed a great, if not the greatest teacher who ever lived. That is exactly the way people who actually heard Him teach felt. Because as we come to the end of the Sermon on the Mount, we read – "And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes." (vv. 28-29) No one had ever heard teaching like the teaching of ...

17. The Sure Foundation

Matthew 7:15-23, Matthew 7:24-29

Sermon

Marc Kolden

... of mine" and does or does not act on them. The house (or the life) that falls is the house of persons who find Jesus' words important enough to hear but not realistic enough to live. When we remember that these words conclude all the exhortations and warnings of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, we cannot help but feel their heavy weight. We must do the will of God or we will be cast out; we must hear Jesus' words and do them or we will fall. This does not sound like good news. Yet it is the word of ...

18. Pour the Salt and Turn on the Light

Matthew 5:13-16

Sermon

James Merritt

... The Only Way to Live." The reason I have given it that title is because that is exactly what Jesus tells us in the greatest sermon ever preached in the history of the world—the Sermon on the Mount. A Chinese Christian came to a missionary one time and said, "I have learned to quote the entire Sermon on the Mount by memory." He stood before the missionary and perfectly quoted the sermon word-for-word. The missionary said, "That is wonderful. How did you do it?" The Chinese Christian said, "I spent the last ...

19. Hell under Fire

Matthew 5:22; 28-30

Sermon

James Merritt

... world view does not allow us that luxury, so I want to share with you heaven's view of hell. I. The Son Of God Affirms The Reality Of Hell Anyone who knows anything about preachers and preaching, sermonizers and sermons agree that the Sermon on the Mount is perhaps the greatest sermon ever preached. To quote just one man, Franklin Roosevelt said: I doubt if there is in the world a single problem, whether social, political, or economic, which would not find ready solution if men and nations would rule their ...

20. Training Session

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

... for those people who accept what I have preached and have come to believe in me." The message of this training session is almost an answer to people who ask the old question of Jesus, "What’s in it for me?" It could be said that the Sermon on the Mount is a product-oriented lesson given by Jesus. The Christian faith has benefits and blessings; it is the source of genuine joy which cannot be taken away from people by anything that might happen to them. God, we know now, has given us entrance into the ...

21. The Importance of Forgiving Others

Matthew 5:17-20

Sermon

... purpose of Jesus’ mission two thousand years ago was to bring about reconciliation between God and his people and between all people on the earth. He began his ministry by proclaiming, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." And now, in his Sermon on the Mount, our Lord adds a warning, "For I tell you that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." One could get the impression that reconciliation with God ...

22. Being and Doing as the People of God

1 Peter 1:13-2:3

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... . Two words are important: being and doing. Our identity as the people of God involves both. To seek to separate the two is like severing a plant from its root. Various interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount illustrate this. In the early church, the requirements of the Sermon on the Mount came to be viewed as a ‘council of perfection. It soon followed that these requirements were reserved for Monastic Orders – those who had made a deliberate decision to completely separate themselves from the world ...

23. The Heart of an Intimate Matter

Matthew 5:27-30

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... been radiated with sin and pass on the legacy at every level. Sasha’s problems are more visible; because of self-deception, ours require a bit more self-examination to uncover. It was partly to expose the truth about us that Jesus gave the central teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. In each case he refuses to stay at the level of external conformity to the law of God but pierces to the heart. “You have heard that it was said to the men of old.... But I say to you....” Then he unzips and exposes our ...

24. Blessed

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... to be blessed and they are all, surprisingly, similar. Almost all of them involve fame or power or wealth — or sometimes, all three. Jesus takes all of this and stands it on its head. Jesus re-defines what it means to be blessed. The “Sermon on the Mount” runs from Matthew 5-7, three chapters, which contain the teachings of Jesus. Today, most biblical scholars believe that, at the time the gospel writers were doing their writing, the Jewish war with Rome (66-70 CE) had recently ended and was much on ...

25. A Law Written On Our Hearts

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Sermon

King Duncan

... John 13:34, “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” That is the law that is written on the Christian’s heart. However, few of us can be said to live that law out fully. R. Kent Hughes in his book The Sermon on the Mount tells a story about a woman, a friend of his wife, who committed herself to that kind of love. This woman’s family had come home from the mission field “. . . and had rented a rather nice townhouse--at least it was very nice compared to what they’d ...

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