Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 1 to 25 of 1857 results

Psalm 30:1-12

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... what percentage of cigarette smokers continue to smoke even after a cancerous lung is removed? A. 15 percent B. 25 percent C. 50 percent And the answer is . . . C. 50 percent. (See Sharon Bertsch McGrayne, Blue Genes and Polyester Plants: 365 More Surprising Facts, Breakthroughs, and Discoveries [New York: John Wiley & Slons, 1998], 139). And while 80 percent of smokers want to stop, fewer than 10 percent of smokers quit per year. The three classic signs of chemical addiction are all exhibited by smokers: 1 ...

2. Someone At the Door

Revelation 3:14-22

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... tall and is regarded as the finest rendering of the human male figure in the world. David has his sling over his shoulder, and seems perhaps to be sizing up the giant Goliath as they prepare to engage in mortal combat. Our guide shared a surprising fact about the statue. Michelangelo was not the first artist to work on this block of marble. The Italian sculptor Agostino d’Antonio worked diligently on it but gave up, claiming that this marble was of inferior quality. But when the masterful vision and skill ...

3. Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!

Matthew 24:36-44

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

“Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!” Many of us can still remember television’s Jim Nabors as Private Gomer Pyle, USMC, his eyes closed, a broad smile creasing his face, weaving his head and shoulders back and forth as he said that phrase. Surprises always pleased Gomer. He accepted them as gifts. Maybe that’s because Gomer was easy to surprise. He was naïve and rather simple. His heart was pure and he always assumed the best in, and expected the best from, people. Even when people, or the world, for that ...

4. Surprise

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

Surprise, Surprise, life is full of surprises! The Extreme Home Makeover crew drives up to someone's home and surprises them with a brand new house. Amy Grant surprises three people a week on TV by granting their wishes. A crazy youth pastor surprised his bride by having his dog be the ring bearer. To be surprised is to feel wonder, astonishment, amazement, at something unanticipated. To be surprised is to be dumfounded, even flabbergasted. Once upon a time, Christmas was full of surprises. You never knew ...

5. The Hiddenness Of Life’s Truths: Christian Life As Surprise

2 Corinthians 5:20b—6:10

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

The ashes of Ash Wednesday are icons proclaiming the hiddenness of God’s ways. And God’s ways are hidden. Paul tells us that in our lesson: We are treated as imposters, and yet are true; as unknown, yet are well known; as dying, and see — we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything (6:8b-6:10). It does not make sense, does it? How can we be imposters and yet the real thing, sorrowful but ...

6. The Butterfly Rock

Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

Carl Jech

Introduction Do you know what your name means? Many names do have a definite historical or linguistic meaning. Jeffrey, for example, means "peaceful." Helga means "holy." Vivian means "full of life." Carl means "strong" or "manly." Michael means "one who is like God." You would be surprised at how many names have religious or biblical background. All the various forms of the name John go back to the biblical, Hebrew name Jo-nathan - the Jo refers to God (Jehovah or Yahweh) and Nathan means gift. Thus Joan ...

7. Surprise! Surprise!

Matthew 25:31-46

Sermon

Michael L. Sherer

A wealthy architect, whose self-designed rambling lake home was the envy of the entire city, was given to hosting lavish dinner parties. They were always the event of the social season, and the folks who were invited always knew they were on a special list. One year the architect changed tactics. Instead of mailing special invitations, he simply ran an advertisement in the personals column of the Sunday classifieds in the metropolitan newspaper. "Masquerade Party!" the heading read, in type no larger - and ...

8. Predictable Surprises

Matthew 24:36-51

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

"Be Prepared." It's the Boy Scout motto. It's also what we tell ourselves as wild winter weather approaches. Local television stations compete with one another to be known as the storm center for their region: the greatest, most up-to-the-minute source of information, weather watches, emergency reports, and eye-in-the-sky overviews. The only problem with all this preparedness, with all this reliance upon emergency broadcast systems, is that once an ice storm, flood, hurricane or windstorm hits with its ...

9. Surprise!

Luke 4:14-30

Sermon

King Duncan

A man wrote into Reader's Digest with an embarrassing story about his former boss. This gentleman was just stepping out of the shower one evening when his wife called and asked him to run down to the basement and turn off the iron she had accidentally left on. Without bothering to grab a towel or robe, the man headed down to the basement. Just as he reached the bottom stair, the lights came on and a dozen friends and colleagues jumped out and shouted, “Surprise!" His wife had planned a secret party for the ...

10. Surprise!

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Do you like surprises? Some folks do. Not I. I do not like bad surprises at all and only tolerate good surprises. In general, I prefer NO surprises. I realize that life is full of surprises though, so they will come whether I want them or not. Some will be bigger than others, of course. Ask Mary. She surely got a MAJOR surprise. There she was, doing the dishes or sweeping the floor or sitting engrossed in the latest Harlequin Romance or whatever young Israelite girls did in those days when suddenly ...

11. Surprised By Christmas

Isaiah 9:1-7

Sermon

King Duncan

If we took a poll of the most boring places on earth, a significant number of votes would probably go to doctors' offices. But it was in a boring doctor's office that Robert Fulghum was surprised, and even reminded of God. Fulghum had been under the weather for a while, so on a bleak February day he went to the doctor. As he sat in the waiting room, he noticed an attractive elderly couple waiting, too. The woman wore holly berries and poinsettia leaves in her hair. The man leaned toward Fulghum, smiled, ...

12. I've Seen the Lord

John 20:1-9, John 20:10-18

Sermon

David & Marian Plant

You and I come here for a variety of different reasons this Easter morning. For some, you come because of a deep abiding expectation that yearns to be reminded that our Lord died, but then out of death, God granted life. And in turn you know, therefore, that nothing is impossible with our Lord. For some you come because it is the thing you do... this Easter morning thing. Perhaps it is the response to an echo of remembrance embedded deep within from your youth that says, if nothing more, you should be here ...

13. Surprises

Luke 1:46-56

Sermon

Timothy Smit

Christmas Day is only three days away. We gather on this the fourth and final Sunday of Advent tingling with anticipation. Something wonderful is about to happen, and we are going to be a part of it. To rediscover the joy of Christmas we must realize that joy is a gift to us from the God who loves us. We cannot earn joy, we cannot follow step by step instructions and arrive at joy. Joy is a gift and is celebrated as a gift. Often times in our lives we experience joy at unexpected times and in unexpected ...

14. A “No Surprises” Easter

John 20:1-18

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Why do so many millions gather for worship on Easter morning? No doubt there are millions of answers to that question, but I suspect that one of the appeals of an Easter day is that the story is so consistent and has been from the beginning. The last thing we would expect as we listen to the gospel lesson for the day would be ... Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. With great fear and ...

15. Laughing in Church

Acts 9:1-19a

Sermon

Carl Jech

Introduction Long before the Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts came on the scene, I had been seeing preachers "roasted" at church banquets. The idea of honoring someone by kidding or insulting the person is nothing new. At a recent convention a United Methodist bishop (I'll call him Bishop Anderson) was roasted with this story: A recent Methodist arrival in heaven was being shown around by St. Peter. A couple minutes into the tour he saw an old friend of his. But it was a disturbing sight. Attached to his ...

16. Quantum Leap

Acts 13:13-52

Sermon

Carl Jech

Introduction The evidence is everywhere: we have made a quantum leap into "the age of the computer." In schools, hospitals, businesses, publishers, even local and national church offices, everything is "computerized," digitalized, programmed. You may be fascinated by computer technology or you may hate this computer craze. But none of us can escape a concern with the impact this "revolution" is having on our lives. (The other day I had to wait about three minutes for the clerk at Kentucky Fried Chicken to ...

17. The Preacher Was Caught by Surprise

Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

King Duncan

I heard an amusing story recently about a Southern Baptist pastor who answered his telephone one day and heard a man's voice. "Please send six cases of whiskey to my house," said the voice. "We're having a party." To say the least, the pastor was surprised. Southern Baptist pastors are not in the habit of delivering cases of whiskey to people's homes. Even more surprising, he recognized the voice as being that of one of his deacons. Evidently the deacon had been calling a liquor store and dialed his pastor ...

18. Surprised by God

Genesis 28:10-19a

Sermon

James L. Killen

We live in a culture that is increasingly secular. At its best, secularism is simply what we Americans call the separation of church and state. It is a practical way to keep people from having to live lives regimented by someone else's religious convictions and that keeps countries from being torn by conflicts between religious groups that all want to write the rules. There is a lot of history in our world that argues for the practicality of that kind of arrangement. As it has taken shape among us, however ...

19. Some Illusions (Symbols) Are Better Than Others

Acts 14:8-20

Sermon

Carl Jech

Introduction Sigmund Freud said that God is an illusion. We take the idea of a loving father, he said, project it upon the universe, and call it God. Today's text from Acts bears witness to this process of creating gods by means of personification and projection. (A humorous way of criticizing our tendency to create God or gods in our image goes like this: "God created mankind in his image, and mankind returned the compliment!") I'm afraid we have to confess that all of us - not just the people in Lystra ...

20. Goin' Down the Road

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

David & Marian Plant

One of our family’s favorite films is the original Muppet Movie. It has a key song about moving down the road, being footloose and fancy free. The Emmaus road on the day of the encounter between Jesus and two disciples in our text was not a place for being footloose and fancy free. It was a road filled with people trying to make sense of the great tragedy that they witnessed in Jesus’ death. The word was everywhere. Not unlike what it must have felt several days after Pearl Harbor, after the planes crashed ...

21. Jesus’ Four Surprising Road Rules for the Missional Highway

Luke 9:57-62, Luke 9:51-56

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Road Trip! It’s more than a bad coming-of-age movie comedy (2000). For late teens and twenty-somethings, it is a coming of age rite of passage, even an initiatory pilgrimage into adulthood. Whether it is a short trip from a small town to a big city for the weekend, a coast-to-coast marathon to see the USA in a small over-packed car, or a backpacking Euro-rail adventure, a road trip is a first step in finding our own unique life path. Even for adults and the aged, there is nothing like a road trip to get us ...

22. Discover the Surprise of Christmas

Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

Like that Santa, some of us have been desperately trying to grasp the allusive feeling of Christmas. The feelings we remember from younger days and simpler days. Like that Santa Ornament, determined to get those cookies, we go through all sorts of gyrations and antics trying to resurrect Christmases Past because in our memories they feel perfect and unencumbered. But the past is the past, and we're called to live in the present. But Christmas isn't really about the present (or the presents under the tree. ...

23. THE SURPRISED

Luke 1:5-25

Sermon

Theodore L. Yewey

"There was a priest, Zechariah ... and he had a wife ... and her name was Elizabeth." With these words Saint Luke begins his story about the birth of Jesus. In the first few verses of his writing we are introduced to this priest, told that he is a part of the Temple Corps, that he has a wife named Elizabeth, and that they are both well on in years. The scene is set as the first rays of the morning sun begin to chase the shadows from the narrow streets and creep through the tiny windows of the buildings. ...

24. Surprised by Joy

Luke 2:8-14

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

The carol shouts “Joy to the world, the Lord is come!” In another the musicians are instructed to “play the oboe and bagpipes merrily.” In the little town of Bethlehem “we hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell.” The songs of Christmas are filled with “Hark!” and “Gloria!” and “Hallelujah!” The angels tell the shepherds to be not afraid because they are bringing “good news of great joy.” The Advent/Christmas season is one filled to overflowing with Joy. No wonder the secular world embraces ...

25. Listening 101

John 4:1-26, John 4:27-38, John 4:39-42

Sermon

David & Marian Plant

Somewhere in my life I heard someone say something like, “The challenge with John (the gospel writer) is he is better at theatre than at writing.” The implications of this comment were about passages such as this one about Jesus and the woman of Samaria. Today’s reading is long enough that when read you begin to lose your place. But as drama (theatre) you can remember it well. You remember a woman coming to a well and an encounter with a strange man at a historic landmark of faith. You recognize that this ...

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