Sermon and Worship Resources

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Mark 8:27-9:1

Sermon

John E. Harnish

... find it. For what does it profit if a person gains the whole world, and loses their soul? Our Lenten theme is "Walking with Jesus." It is an invitation to a journey. Like the penguin's march, it is a journey of love which begins with an act of utter foolishness. Every year, at about the same time, we leave the comforts of our daily lives and embark on this incredible journey. It's not an easy journey, mind you. If you really want to go, if you choose to follow, it might even mean denying yourself, taking up ...

2. Vital Vulnerability

Luke 2:8-20, Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

... five days in each case. The first birth was a bit traumatic, so I needed all that time to heal medically. But the second birth was much easier, and so I had five days to sleep, to eat, to ponder, and to hold my daughter — just to hold her in utter wonder and amazement. The touch and the smell — the satin skin and the greedy mouth and the tiny toes — it was moment after moment of miracle. I agree with Anne LaMott when she writes: “This is in fact what I think God may smell like — a young child’s ...

3. That Hallowed Name (The Third Commandment)

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... we are alone with someone who uses profanity, we can say to him, "My friend, if you realized how much God loves you, you couldn't use his name that way." That statement gets to their hearts every time. The bottom line is this: we Christians must never utter those holy names without awe and reverence. My late father, whom we called "Papa", was a Methodist preacher who lived the faith at home that he preached at church. I never heard him say an obscene or profane word. But I recall clearly the closest he ever ...

4. The Persecuted

Sermon

John A. Terry

... cup (of suffering) pass from me" (Matthew 26:39). Jesus accepted suffering when it was forced upon him, but he never sought or desired it. When we try to be the best Christians we can, but find ourselves being reviled and persecuted, having all kinds of evil uttered against us falsely, we can say it is not fair, which it is not. If our concern is our immediate reward, we will pity ourselves for the injustice done us. However, if our concern is to do what we do for Jesus' sake, then the things that happen ...

5. The Persecuted

John 15:18-27

Sermon

John A. Terry

6. Minute Accounting

Matthew 12:22-37

Sermon

Herchel H. Sheets

... insuring that these be the right words is to be ourselves the right persons. It has been said that success in marriage depends less upon finding the right person than upon being the right person. This is true in regard to careless speech, too. If such speech is an utterance of our true selves, the only way to make that speech what it ought to be is to be the right kind of person. This calls for a cleansing of the inner being, for an opening of ourselves to the inflowing of God’s Spirit. "How can you speak ...

7. Sermons

Sermon

John R. Bodo

... the radiance of the Risen Lord. Say with him: "My Lord and my God!" Then hear with him the tender, final Beatitude uttered by our Lord: "Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe...." 2. Jonah Introductory Note This treatment of the ... our approval or at least without protest. A Man Born Blind But think of that man born blind, a man who has spent a lifetime in utter darkness. When you were little and your parents first pointed out to you the man with the white cane and the gentle dog, how did you ...

8. Preaching Unpopular Truth - 1943

John 18:38

Sermon

Kent Moorehead

... they agree or not, they show me in a thousand ways that they want me to preach whatever I believe to be true without fear or compromise. If a preacher really loves his people hard enough, they will know it - and they will not only allow him to utter his deepest convictions, they will virtually compel him to do so by the urgency of their expectation. Lastly, I deliberately immerse myself in the spirit of my own earthly father, who has been my ideal of all that a minister should be. Very seldom do I enter the ...

9. Name Above Every Name

Luke 2:21-40

Sermon

Leonard Mann

... he is getting married, he says, "I the denoting word, take thee, the denoting word, to be my wedded wife." If he is being awarded a college degree - or is being sentenced to hang - the decree is issued to the denoting word. And the word means the person. It is utterly fascinating that in the Gospel According to John it is written: "In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was with God, and the WORD was God ... and the WORD became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:1, 14). It seems to me that in a very ...

10. What Do You Want Me to Do for You?

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... me!” (10:47b) “Son of David?” Now, that was a dangerous thing to say. It was a Messianic title, and it has within it the thought of a conquering Messiah, a king of David’s royal lineage who would lead Israel to national greatness. Bartimaeus was uttering seditious thoughts. Here is exactly what Herod the Paranoid (I refuse to call him “Herod the Great,”) feared the most: a popular rabbi who would be a true “son of David” and therefore be a king by right and not (as he was), a king by might ...

11. Obedience Really Matters

Matthew 7:15-23

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... with a supernatural world view and lively spiritual walk in which I fully expect to see more and more of what I read in the Bible made real in experience. About half my life is a to-do list of duties; the other half consists of divine appointments and utter surprises. If you followed me around for a week you would be amazed at what happens, the best explanation for which is that Jesus is still alive and messin’ with Pastor Phil. I love it. I recommend it. I want more. When I confess the Nicene Creed it is ...

12. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

John 16:17-33

Sermon

James McCormick

... them. All of that is possible because of God – God’s grace and God’s power. I don’t know about you, but my experience tells me that not only will I have to take some beatings in life, but also that, apart from God, I will be beaten – utterly broken and defeated. Alone, I cannot stand up to life. That’s why, for me, one of the most strengthening, encouraging verses in all of scripture is the one which assures us, “Remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.” I like the way ...

13. The Lost And Found Collection

Luke 15:1-7

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... and loses one of them.” (Luke 15:4) When I was a boy growing up in York, South Carolina, one of my friends had three or four sheep. These were pets that grazed in his large fenced-in back yard. They were affectionate animals and were utterly defenseless. A sheep cannot even make much noise, and certainly cannot run fast. My friend’s sheep were killed, one by one, by domestic dogs that came at night, sensing how defenseless the sheep were. Perhaps the Bible does not flatter us by calling us sheep; but ...

14. A New Point of View

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Sermon

Steven E. Albertin

... to a "human point of view." He is not even viewing it according to God's point of view as reflected in Moses and the prophets. Instead of judging sinners, he is the friend of sinners. He eats and drinks with outcasts. He embraces those who seem to be utter failures and losers. He takes upon himself everything that is wrong and sick with this world. He bears it all. He "who knew no sin" ... was "made to be sin." By whom? By God, himself! Why? "For our sake" (v. 21), because God loves us that much. On the ...

15. "Before" and "After"

Psalm 31:1-24

Sermon

King Duncan

... and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak. 11 Because of all my enemies, I am the utter contempt of my neighbors; I am a dread to my friends those who see me on the street flee from me. 12 I am forgotten by ... and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak. 11 Because of all my enemies, I am the utter contempt of my neighbors; I am a dread to my friends those who see me on the street flee from me. 12 I am forgotten ...

16. Dry Bones

Ezekiel 37:1-14, Ezekiel 37:15-28

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... hand of YHWH, the Breath of Life, was on me, And in a rushing-breath YHWH brought me forth and set me in the center of a valley - Full of bones! - And led me all around them, all around. Here! - Very many on the face of the valley, and here! - utterly dry. And said to me; "Child of Adam, earthling, can these bones live?" I said - "Pillar of the World, Breath of Life - You know-it-in-your-heart, and only you." Then God said to me, "Prophesy upon these bones! Say to them, 'Dry bones, Hear the word of the ...

17. Easter Power

Acts 14:8-18

Sermon

Will Willimon

... news of Easter is present, disciples must also be teachers, teaching the world the difference between the ways of God and those of Zeus and Hermes. "Well, I don't really agree with what these people believe, but they do a lot of good." What could be more utterly American than that? Who cares if they lift up some new counter-god, or else make demi-gods of themselves? They "do a lot of good." What's religion about, if not about that? Their stuff works! Friends, Easter Power is set loose in our troubled world ...

18. A Word For All Reasons

John 20:19-23

Sermon

John M. Braaten

... burden of guilt they bore. They had not only deserted their Lord and Master, but had denied him, failed him. Not only had their faith proved inept and powerless and their resources of courage been woefully inadequate, but they had shown themselves to be utterly shameless. Consider. If it had not been for Joseph of Arimathea, what would have happened to the body of the crucified Christ? Like the bodies of all criminals it would have been ruthlessly torn from the cross and carelessly thrown on the garbage ...

19. Advent's "Invisible" Man

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

... culture we think that presence means talkativeness. Those who are present have to make the most noise to have high visibility. But there are those men who may not say much, but they have presence. They have the confidence to be men. They don't utter many words, but when you need them in the crunch of battle they're there. When all hell breaks loose and the foundations are ripped asunder, they stand tall amid the storms and whirlwinds of life's tragedies and calamities, holding the rails of stability until ...

20. The Sound of Weeping

Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... friend, Lazarus, sharing the bereavement of his sisters, Mary and Martha. He was moved to tears. Jesus' weeping, there on the donkey, overlooking Jerusalem, is a different kind of weeping, a staggeringly different kind. His tears are the tears of a love that is utterly frustrated and can do no more. "Eternal peace was within your reach, and you turned it down. You have rejected the opportunity God offered you." It is important that we listen to what Luke is felling us here, that we really hear him describe ...

21. The Dynamics of Doubt

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... . He understands. You can talk to God about anything if you stand in the biblical tradition of expression. You can be that honest with God about your feelings, whatever they are, as long as you talk with God, not just about God, as long as you utter your feelings in the atmosphere of human limitation and confession, instead of just complaining to other people about God. Jesus said, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" He expressed his feeling of being forsaken. Once and for all he silenced those who ...

22. Learning to Walk on the Water

Matthew 14:22-36

Sermon

... : "It's me; and I'm, scared to death!" Well, something went wrong, didn't it? Obviously, standing there alone in the presence of all those people, the little lad was totally taken over by what he conceived to be his own predicament. He was consumed by it, and utterly paralyzed. Had he kept focus on what he was supposed to do, he would have been all right. But he got to thinking of himself and where he was, the situation he was in, and he couldn't be aware of anything beyond that. A similar thing often goes ...

23. Cross Purposes

1 Corinthians 1:18--2:5

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... The metal of the guns was melted down and made into crosses. On the front lawn of a church in Dallas, Texas, there is a cross made up of weapons used in crime: guns, clubs, whips, and other instruments of death. The principle of the cross is utter foolishness to the world. The cross holds to the principle that strength is in weakness, in sorrow comes joy, in suffering we get character, in defeat comes victory, in humility comes exaltation, and out of death comes life. The world cries, "No, No, No!" to this ...

24. Where Does One Go When Darkness Floods One’s Life?

Genesis 32:22-32

Sermon

James Cobb

... a terrific burden of sin and guilt. As he approaches his destination he sends gifts to his brother to assuage that guilt. Then he divides his family and followers and sends them in different directions, so that if one is destroyed the other will be safe. Now he is utterly alone and it is in this extremity that God comes to him in the form of an angel and the wrestling takes place. Note also that this meeting with God is extremely important; it tells us that God loves us, every one, as if there were only one ...

25. Lost in Wonder, Love, and Praise

Romans 11:33-36

Sermon

Raymond Gibson

... was confronted by God in the temple and cried out, "Woe is me! I am a sinner, a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips" (Isaiah 6:5). Even in the New Testament with Jesus as God-in-the-flesh, utter reverence was necessary. When the risen Christ confronted Saul on the Damascus road, his presence was so overwhelming that Saul was blinded for three days. To recapture a sense of wonder and awe in our worship does not mean we must become more formal and ritualistic and "high ...

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