Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 1 to 25 of 564 results

Sermon

Jerry L. Schmalemberger

... we can; • that self-centered ego which tells us to tramp on others to get ahead; • that lack of self-esteem which drives us to be critical of everyone else; • and that which our American way of life encourages: "If it feels good, do it." Augustine’s and St. Paul’s struggle is our struggle: "Let us conduct ourselves properly, as people who live in the light of day ... and stop paying attention to your sinful nature and satisfying its desires." Our Human Nature Says: • Cheat if no one will know ...

2. Fake Augustine Story

Illustration

Michael P. Green

... , it is I.” He turned and said: “Yes, but it is not I.” Note: This story has been retold and published many times but it is wrongly connected with Augustine. Go here for more. It is a conflation of a fable (which Ambrose retells) and Augustine's conversion story. Here's the fable as retold by Ambrose: Let the man deny himself and be wholly changed, as in the fable they relate of a certain youth, who left his home because of his love for a harlot, and, having subdued his love, returned; then one ...

3. Augustine, Defender of the Faith

Children's Sermon

Jerry L. Schmalemberger

Object: large lump of modeling clay Good morning, boys and girls. Today I brought this lump of clay to this church service. It comes from the toy box at our house. I’ll bet many of you use clay at your house or at school. What I like to do best with this clay is make something nice like a house, a car, a castle, or some letters. Then I like to take what I made and mash it together, like I’m doing now, and reshape it into something else. It’s the same clay, but it takes a different shape. Over the next few ...

4. Week Three Of Lent

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... to others. This he is unable or unwilling to do. Thus, the king has the servant thrown into prison until all the debt is paid. Each of us knows people who have been given a second chance on life. There are the dramatic stories of people like St. Augustine; there are the simple tales of ordinary people. Each of us in our lives as well have received numerous chances from God. God is true to today's Gospel and has forgiven us seventy times seven times. The question remains for us, have we been as forgiving to ...

5. Putting the Puzzle Together

John 6:60-71

Sermon

King Duncan

... no more than social work." (5) I hope you are here this day to meet Christ. I hope you're not here for some other reason. I hope you are here to listen for Christ's word for your life. I hope you find what John and Simon Peter and Augustine and Pandita and Mother Teresa found: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God." 1. Dave Aufrance, Monday Fodder. 2. Stephen R. Graves and Thomas G. Addington, The Fourth Frontier (Nashville, Word ...

6. Will My Ship Sink or Float?

Romans 8:28-39

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... are at home with the voice of God, the more completely things work out for good. For some of us, we find ourselves at home with listening and seeing. For some of us we hear the word clearly spoken only in crisis moments. "He loves each of us," said St. Augustine, "as if there were but one of us to love." We can’t even get lost from God in the crowded conditions of today. If you doubt it, read once more the story of Jesus and the sick woman. She touched Jesus in a thronging crowd. Immediately Jesus asked ...

7. Not Far From the Kingdom

Mark 12:28-34

Sermon

Warren Thomas Smith

... . Let us consider some of the questions which have been asked: 1. Does God want me? Am I of the elect? Yes, God wants you, and no matter how you define the "elect" you may be sure God has never rejected you. He did not reject the scribe, Nicodemus, Paul, Augustine, or the Wesleys. 2. Am I good enough? No, you are not good enough. Neither am I. Neither were those just named. Nobody is good enough. It is not a matter of our goodness; it depends upon God’s goodness. 3. Am I supposed to change myself? No, God ...

8. When You Need Help

Matthew 15:21-28

Sermon

King Duncan

... Monica began to cry. The holy man sent her away, saying, "Go, go! Leave me alone. Live on as you are living. It is not possible that the son of such tears should be lost." The holy man was right. After many years and a fierce inner struggle, Augustine was touched by a revelation in Scripture, and became a Christian. When Monica learned of her son's salvation, she remarked that she had nothing left to live for, for the greatest desire of her heart had been fulfilled. Nine days later, Monica died. And the son ...

9. You Will Never Walk Alone

Luke 24:13-20, 25-26, 28-35

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... . He is really a seeker. He is seeking God, even though he doesn't know it. One night he is talking to an old friend, another fisherman named Nick, whom he respects. Nick becomes for Gus what Ambrose was for Augustine. He leads him to God. It is an amazing story that Nick tells him. When he was a young man fishing on a boat in the North Sea, a wave swept him off the deck of the boat. He went into the freezing water of the North Sea. Just as ...

10. A Mother’s Faith

Matthew 15:21-28

Illustration

King Duncan

11. Responding to God

1 Samuel 3:1-10 (11-20)

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... Even in difficult circumstances he is able to respond in a positive way to the Lord. As God called Anton Bruckner, Albert Einstein, and Saint Augustine to do great things, and as the Lord called Samuel to listen to his word, so God calls all of us. The question, of ... exile, and the revelry of the loungers shall pass away" (Amos 6:4-7). Thus, we, like Bruckner, Einstein, and Augustine must be willing to move from our comfortable existence and venture forward, with faith, into the unknown. A certain sense ...

12. The Majesty Of God's Love

John 17:1-11

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... prayer teach. They teach us an important lesson about the majesty of God's love. The Majesty of God's Love. For me the love of God and its relationship to the Trinity has been best explained by an African theologian of the earliest centuries, a man named Augustine. Augustine took very seriously the idea that our God is a God who wants his people to love in a special way. What is that special way? The Bible teaches it. In marriage, it claims, God wants love to make one out of two (two become one) (Ephesians ...

13. The Road To Emmaus

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

Brett Blair

... had just heard a sermon by Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. We are told in public speaking and preaching classes not to read long quotes but I’m going to do it anyway and read something that Augustine wrote. These two paragraphs shaped the hearts and minds of hundreds of thousands of people throughout history. He is looking back on his conversion to Christianity and the convictions of his heart. Here’s the quote: “One day, under deep conviction: I cast myself down I know not how, under ...

14. Grace in the Midst of Unanswered Prayer

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Sermon

Glenn McDonald

... reflected on his mother's sincere prayers that night. He was grateful -- grateful that God chose not to answer them. If God had said, "Yes," then her real desire for his spiritual awakening might never have been satisfied. Augustine wrote this prayer of thanks: "Thou, in the depth of thy counsels, hearing the main point of her desire, regarded not what she then asked, that thou mightest make me what she ever desired." God doesn't always give us what we ask. But God unfailingly provides us with what ...

15. Not Always A Saint

Luke 24:13-35

Illustration

Brett Blair

... had just heard a sermon by Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. We are told in public speaking and preaching classes not to read long quotes but I'm going to do it anyway and read something that Augustine wrote. These two paragraphs shaped the hearts and minds of hundreds of thousands of people throughout history. He is looking back on his conversion to Christianity and the convictions of his heart. Here's the quote: "One day, under deep conviction: I cast myself down I know not how, under ...

16. United We Stand

John 17:11b-19

Sermon

King Duncan

... deeds bothered Patricius, he respected her beliefs and not long before his death, both he and his mother converted to Christianity. Monica and Patricius had three children, two of whom entered religious life as young adults. The third was a son named Augustine. Augustine was more of a challenge. By his own admission he was a wayward youth, giving in to most of the pleasures of his day. One writer describes him as lazy and uncouth. But Monica kept praying for her son. Her watchful, prayerful persistence ...

17. Balaam, The Donkey And The Angel

Numbers 22:1-20, Numbers 22:21-41

Drama

Peter C. Garrison

... confused and frustrated. Off he went down the beach. There was a little boy taking water from the Mediterranean Sea and pouring it from a bucket into a little hole he'd dug in the sand. Augustine asked the boy, "What are you doing?" The boy replied that he was attempting to put all the sea into this hole of his. "Stupid boy," Augustine observed. The boy replied, "Not as stupid as you trying to explain God." A Prayer Starter Dear God, you are my God. I am your child. Help me to trust you and your love for me ...

18. A Living Sacrifice

Romans 12:1-8

Eulogy

Lawrence Ruegg

... spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." In the calendar of the Church Year, one day is set aside to cornmeinorate St. Augustine. There is much that could be said about him; but of greater significance today is his mother, Monica, who for years had hoped and prayed that her son would become a Christian. His mother kept on hoping, praying, believing; until one day ...

19. When God’s “No” Means “Yes”

Habakkuk 1:1-4, Habakkuk 2:2-20

Sermon

Richard Hasler

... decided to leave North Africa and sail for Rome she was horrified. She believed that in Rome’s cosmopolitan environment he would go further astray. She pleaded with him not to sail and prayed with tears that God would intervene, but to no avail. Later, Augustine inscribed these words in the Confessions as part of his recollection of the incident: “But thou, taking thy own secret counsel and noting the real point to her desire, did not grant what she was then asking in order to grant to her the thing ...

20. Do Not Let Him Find You Sleeping

Luke 12:32-40; Mark 13:1-37

Illustration

Brett Blair

... that he heard a boy or girl--he says he does not know which it was--singing a song. The sound was coming from a neighboring house. The child was chanting over and over: "Pick it up, read it; pick it up; read it." Here is what happened next in Augustine's own words: "Immediately I ceased weeping and began most earnestly to think whether it was usual for children in some kind of game to sing such a song, but I could not remember ever having heard the like. So, damming the torrent of my tears, I got to my ...

21. The Holy Trinity

John 16:5-16

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

... Holy Spirit. God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, the Son of God is our Lord and Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit makes redemption real in our experience. This kind of logic can be grasped only from the center of the gospel: God is love. Augustine was right, "You have an insight into Trinity, if you have an insight into love." Just as love is the last word about God, so Trinity is the last word in the doctrine of God. The doctrine of the Trinity, as the Athanasian Creed holds, shows a Christian ...

22. Let's Play, Stump The Theologian!

John 16:5-16

Sermon

King Duncan

... was walking along the seashore pondering how God could be One and yet Three. Suddenly he stopped and watched a child who was carrying a cup of ocean water to a small hole he had dug in the sand. "What are you doing?" asked Augustine. The child replied, "I'm trying to pour the ocean into this hole." The bishop laughed and said, "That's impossible." The child stared into his eyes and said, "It is no more impossible than for you to put Almighty God into your small mind." (2) And it's true. ...

23. What's Your Status Symbol?

Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... head. Paul boasted about how many towns he had been kicked out of, how many times he had been beaten, how long he had been imprisoned. These were his status symbols. Augustine's early life was filled with wine, women, and song. Anything debauched and depraved, Augustine was for it! After his conversion, however, Augustine delighted in following Christ, working for the kingdom, leading the church. Still his status symbol was not his new life as the respected bishop, the obedient servant. Throughout his life ...

24. Paying Dues to God

Matthew 22:15-22

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... to sometimes thwart justice. Yet the ringing phrase "justice for all" remains the thread that ties together our social fabric. Even if we don't always see it functioning, we are familiar with what it means to "do justice" to other human beings. St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, church patriarch, and according to his own words, the classic "bad boy" turned good (or at least turned toward God) was also arguably the church's greatest theologian in the tradition of justice. In both his Confessions and The City of ...

25. The Woman at the Well

John 4:1-26

Sermon

King Duncan

... . In the military, we might hear the command, “As you were.” We never hear, “As you were” as a follower of Christ. Following Christ is about real change. It is said that St. Augustine, shortly after his conversion, was accosted on the street by a former mistress. Augustine turned and walked in the opposite direction. Surprised, the woman cried out, “Augustine, it is I.” But Augustine, proceeding on his way, cried back to her, “Yes, but it is not I.” (3) An amazing change had taken place in ...

Showing 1 to 25 of 564 results