Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 1 to 25 of 192 results

1. Wise, Worshipful, and Wonderfully Wayward

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... in New Orleans, or to volunteer service for the ravaged families in AIDS-riddled South Africa, or to volunteer time and money to the inner city neighborhoods in America that are deserts for hope. You say you follow Jesus? Then get off your high horse. Be wise. Be worshipful. Be wayward. Be fully human “homo sapiens” and never be afraid to step out of line. I want to end this sermon this morning with a story of one man’s dare to be different and to step out of line and be wise, be worshipful, and be ...

2. Wayward Children - Father's Day

Romans 5:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

... the father of a boy who takes his inheritance to a far country and spends in riotous living. Back home his father waits and worries and hopes and prays. There's nothing else that can be done except wait. God is a waiting parent, Jesus told us, waiting for the wayward child to come home. A woman lay dying of AIDS. The visiting priest attempted to comfort her to no avail. "I am lost," she said, "I ruined my life and every life around me. Now I go painfully to hell. There is no hope for me." The priest saw a ...

3. Reproached Rolled Away

Joshua 5:1-12

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

... their bodies as they did God’s work. God was pleased with their progress and decided to bless them as they prepared to settle in the new land. When reproach is rolled away, we can live as victors. When reproach is rolled away, we no longer must live as wayward wanderers. When reproach is rolled away we eat new manna in a new land. God rolls our reproach away as the stone was rolled away from the empty tomb. Today our reproach is rolled away by the love, grace, and mercy of Christ. The empty tomb is a ...

4. The Meeting Of Marriage Partners At The Well

John 4:1-26

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... Jesus to have been the next step. Yet, of course, marriage was not on Jesus' mind. God does not usually conform to our expectations; he never does things our way. Or does he? Besides, our beloved Jesus would not have had anything to do with such a wayward woman as the Samaritan woman he met that day at the well. Would he? After all, she had been married five times and most recently she had been living with another man. All of the foreign brides of the Old Testament patriarchs, whom I have mentioned, were ...

5. Gomer, God's "Yet"

Hosea 1:1-2:1

Sermon

Richard L. Sheffield

... will be his people. God had said to Abraham, "I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore" (Genesis 22:17). The message in Hosea is you may become a people as wayward as Hosea's wife, yet I will still love you. I have every reason not to, but I will be your God, and you will be my people, in spite of you, because I love you! In the midst of Hosea's reporting the bad news about us, there is ...

6. Week Two Of Lent

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... illustrates this second step in the journey of reconciliation. Active reconciliation must begin within our own person. The so-called prodigal son comes to the realization that he needs to forgive himself. He has wasted his father's money; he has lived a wayward existence. Before he could begin the physical journey back to his father he needed to find a change of heart within himself. He needed to forgive himself before he would be ready to accept the forgiveness of others. Reconciliation with others is the ...

7. The Soft-touch God

Hosea 11:1-11

Sermon

Keith Hammer

... people who were set on doing it their own way. They were just sure that they could do it much better than any way God’s laws would teach them to live. So they did -- again, again and again. There had to be limits on what God would let his wayward people do. Like a loving parent of teenagers, God had set limits. At times past he had punished his people because they did not follow what he had taught them. Now again he was being tested. “They insist on turning away from me. They cry out because of the yoke ...

8. Who’s In Charge Here?

Jeremiah 18:1--19:15

Sermon

Keith Hammer

... breathing machine to help them breathe or even breathe for them when they needed it. But to suppose that this machine or any others of the “miracle” machines of modern medicine give us the power to have control over life and death is just not true. Jeremiah reminded the wayward people of his day that just as they had come from the dust of the earth, they were still like clay in the hands of a potter to God. When the potter doesn’t like what he is making, he flattens the clay and starts over. God could ...

9. Be Reconciled — To Christ and Others

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... to forgive himself, before he would be ready to accept the forgiveness of others. Reconciliation with others is the second active aspect. The older son in the parable is representative of one who cannot forgive others. He is angry with his brother for his wayward actions. He is even more incensed, however, by his father who has not only forgiven the younger boy's transgressions but has celebrated his return with food and dance. We learn about the need to forgive others in the character of the older son ...

10. How Jesus’ Friendship Makes Your Burdens Light

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... can think and live for you and know you better than you know yourself. In Jesus, you and I have that sort of full-time intimate friend. And of course, in view of the way in which we twenty-first-century Americans are messing things up, wayward and confused that we are, we need someone to make us sane. With all our squawking despite all the things we have to make our lives easier, our moaning when we should be rejoicing and rejoicing (laughing at the Reality TV shows) over things that warrant mourning ...

11. A Lost Boy

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Sermon

King Duncan

... group it is God in the end who says, “Thy will be done.” God always leaves us free to choose. The father let his young wayward son have his way. The son’s request surely hurt his father. It bruised his heart. How many of you would feel hurt if your ... Parent, by Margie and Greg Lewis tells the story of a couple with two daughters still at home who received a call from their wayward son late one night. He had called from a hotel and told his mom, “I’m hurting and really hungry . . . tell me what to ...

12. God Is Like...a Parent

Hosea 11:1-4 · Luke 15:1-32

Sermon

Kenneth L. Gibble

... familiar with it that we can miss the surprising behavior of the father. He didn’t scold the boy for leaving home and wasting his inheritance. He didn’t say he hoped his son would never do something like that again. No, he ordered that something be brought for the wayward one to eat. He dismissed the boy’s attempt to apologize by telling his servants to bring his son some proper clothes. All he could say was my boy was lost and now is found, he was dead but now he’s alive. Who is the father in the ...

13. God Is Like...Fire

Malachi 3:1-4 · Luke 3:1-6, 9,16-17

Sermon

Kenneth L. Gibble

14. To Have And To Hold (Your Tongue)

Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

Paul W. Kummer

... ? First, we must learn and receive strength from Jesus, the One who kept his mouth shut and didn't even defend himself when accused at his trial. Our hope is in the cross and the open tomb of this Easter season and the One who conquered both. He forgives wayward tongues and empowers us always to speak the truth in love. The hope is hearing Jesus' tongue say, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do," and using our tongues to cry out to him and say, "Forgive me, Jesus, and make me more like you ...

15. Pain And Promise In The Heart Of God

Hosea 2:2-23

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... spouse. With the image of God as a pained, brokenhearted husband as a backdrop, the lection for today describes Hosea's vision of a resumed marriage between God and God's people. Hosea paints a picture of God's incredible desire to live with this wayward partner. Perhaps hundreds of sermons are preached each week in our nation on the topic of Hosea and his relationship with Gomer. Unfortunately, the text easily opens itself up to the preacher's whim, allowing the preacher to define as sin whatever in his ...

16. The Story Of The Scandalized Neighbors

Luke 15:11-32

Sermon

John M. Braaten

... simply did not believe that Judah should have been bestowed with all the signs of sonship and authority, at least not without some kind of probationary period. I speak for all of them when I say this is the way that the homecoming should have gone: Then Eli saw the wayward boy coming and waited for him to get to the gate of the family home. He stood there with his hands on his hips glaring at Judah until he withered before him and dared not say a word. So the father was the first to speak. "I knew you would ...

17. Find Your Way Home

Hosea 4:1-19

Sermon

Keith Hammer

... with a long and warm embrace. “I know it’s the pits,” she said, “I’ve been where you are tonight. Now I’ve come to help you start the trip back like Sally did for me. Let’s go out and eat. It’s on me.” God answered his wayward peple. He heard their prayers of repentance. And like a loving parent, he said something like this, “Oh, what am Ito do with you? You are trying so hard to please me, but your love disappears like the morning mist. It’s here one moment and gone the next. Now ...

18. You Can Go Home Again!

Jeremiah 3:6-4:4

Sermon

Frederick C. Edwards

... we deny our own complicity in the situations that alienate us from one another and from God. Moving past the stage of denial is necessary before coming to a healthy acceptance of one’s own part so as to get on with life. You can come home again. The wayward son in one of Jesus’ stories found that out. But one must come to the admission of one’s guilt in at least contributing to the problem in the first place. The admission and acceptance of one’s own responsibility for the way things are is so much ...

19. A Match Made In Heaven

Hosea 1:1-2:1

Sermon

John W. Wurster

... names. The first child is named Jezreel. The name points back to former times, to battlefields of the past, to political shenanigans and treacherous acts, to authority exercised through violence, to rulers who put personal gain over common good and who led the people down wayward paths (2 Kings 9-10). God’s memory is long and God’s perspective is wide and God’s justice is deep. The name Jezreel is a reminder that there is a history of disobedience to be reckoned with. The second child of Hosea and ...

20. Is God Like Daddy? - Father's Day

Luke 15:11-32

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... know, but that I like to assume anyway. I think the Prodigal Son would have turned out to be a pretty fine fellow. Over and over again through history we hear stories of wayward sons coming to their senses because of the influence of their fathers during their early life. There are others who were never particularly wayward, but still say they became what they did because of their fathers. Reinhold Niebuhr was the son of a minister. One afternoon, while walking home with his father from a local celebration ...

21. God And The Irs

Matthew 22:15-22

Sermon

King Duncan

... pray a prayer to dedicate all that I have to Him. It is his. I will be his manager." When Truett had finished, the deeply moved cattleman also prayed, "And now dear Lord may I also give you my wayward son? Please save him." Dr. Truett said that later that night in the evening service that wayward son came to Christ as well.(2) That cattleman's vast estate did not obscure what was really importanthis relationship with God and his relationship with his own son. "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's ...

22. Taking Charge

Joshua 5:1-12

Sermon

King Duncan

... a little scary. How can you remedy a situation unless you accept responsibility for it? A man who was more than a little intoxicated got on a bus late one night, staggered up the aisle, and sat next to an elderly woman who was clutching a Bible. She looked the wayward drunk up one side and down the other and said with conviction, "I've got news for you, Mister. You're going straight to hell!" The man jumped out of his seat and shouted, "Oh, man, I'm on the wrong bus again!" Well, he was on the wrong bus ...

23. To Hell and Back

Luke 15:1-7

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... How could God be happy as long as there was one lost sheep outside of the fold?” The second replied, “Who says that God has to be content or happy? Perhaps there is an eternal cross at the heart of God, as God sorrows for His lost and wayward children.” So, as another professor of mine used to say: You pays your money, and you takes your choice. As Christians, I guess we will have to just live with the tension between God’s sovereign Love and God’s suffering Love. Perhaps there is an eternal cross ...

24. The Nuclear Truth Of Christianity

Ephesians 2:1-10

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... House, Grand Rapids, Michigan). By grace -- that's the resounding word of the gospel -- grace. By grace Paul means the active, compassionate, redeeming love of God. It is the unmerited favor of God -- God's agape -- his active love claiming us out of our waywardness to be his children again. "Human beings are not called upon to aspire after a spiritual realm of perfect forms and satisfactions. Men are not asked to lift themselves, by a supreme act of will, out of their mundane groveling, and to soar aloft ...

25. Speak And It Will Be

Luke 7:1-10

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... . I believe that most of the marriages that fail would not fail if husband and wife would struggle together with a mutual commitment to Christ, and trust him to work in their relationship. Some of you have a wayward child. How long has it been -- a year, two years, three years. You wonder if that wayward child is going to ever return. I hope you do not hear it as a superficial word. There are countless people in this congregation, seated all around you today who have walked that same road for years. Some ...

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