Sermon and Worship Resources

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Showing 1 to 25 of 38 results

Sort

1. A Peaceful Life in an Unpeaceful World

1 Timothy 2:1-7

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

I'm tempted to ask for a show of hands. How many people here have passed on an email making fun of a politician or political leader? It can be fun to do that. Passing on a cartoon about a politician helps us vent our frustrations at the foibles of our government. We sometimes feel helpless in the face of all of the corruption, bickering, pandering, false promises, and just general buffoonery that ...

2. A Peek at the Resurrection

Revelation 7:9-17

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

As the movie Contact opens, the audience sees a precocious girl named Eleanor learning how to use a ham radio. Nicknamed "Sparks" by her father, she has reached a man in Florida, and is excited that her radio lets her speak with someone so far away. In a later scene she asks her father wistfully if she can call her deceased mother on the radio. He responds sadly that no antenna is big enough...

3. A Shepherd's Story

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

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

It's not an easy life, I'll tell you that. I work my small farm during the day, but that doesn't bring in enough money. I have a family to support, taxes to pay — oy, don't get me started on taxes — so I need more than my farm brings in. I do the only other thing I know how to do. I hire myself out for the night shift watching other people's sheep. Tending sheep would not be my first choice, you u...

4. A Strange Way in and a New Way Out

Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

The heroes of this little narrative certainly seem familiar to us. Each year we all receive at least one Christmas card with their picture on the cover. Every card depicts them exactly the same way: long flowing robes, beards, and big turbans. They are always in one of two poses: either kneeling at Jesus' crib or sojourning across the desert on camels. In our carefully carved nativity sets, they r...

5. Becoming Good Trees

Matthew 5:17-30

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

Most pastors have seen the damage caused when a purple-faced preacher has sought to scare a person into faith. Pastors counsel with people even into their eighties and nineties who still have trouble feeling love from God because when they were children, someone had frightened them with images of an angry God, ready to smack them down if they didn't behave and believe. Parents will tell us of chil...

6. Center Stage

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

Now that Matthew has finished his genealogy, he starts his narrative. We would not have much of a Bible without the narratives, but sometimes the biblical authors frustrate us. We always want more details. We want to know where the characters come from, what happens to them as they walk off stage. Just as we are starting to identify with a character, she will disappear, never to return. Matthew is...

7. Choosing a Master

Matthew 6:16-24

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

It was supposed to have been fun. No one was supposed to have gotten hurt. Little children haven't become greedy yet have they? A minor league baseball team in Michigan held a promotion after a game, dropping $1,000 in cash from a helicopter over the outfield. Then they let the children run after it. The air should have been filled with giggles as the children plucked dollar bills from the air and...

8. Filling Moses’ Shoes

Joshua 3:7-17

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

What will they do now? Moses has died, and nobody even knows where he has been buried. Moses is the one who led the people of Israel out of Egypt, and all along the way in the wilderness. Now he is dead, and what will happen next? Maybe Moses' burial place was kept a secret so that the people wouldn't hang around his grave wringing their hands over the loss of their leader. The people have n...

9. From Slave to Brother

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

We often shortchange love. We think of it as sweet and sentimental, something that is good for children and family members. We think of love as sort of soft and cuddly, nice in its place, but not very useful in the things that really matter. Do we think of love as tough, transforming, powerful? This little book of Philemon, tucked into the back of the New Testament at the tail end of Paul's ...

10. God as a Consuming Fire

Hebrews 12:18-29

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

Every pastor sees the damage that is done to people by too heavy an emphasis on God's judgment. The damage often begins in childhood. Because children can be rambunctious, adults too often try to frighten them into obedience. The church is no exception to this practice. Parents sometimes report that their children have come home from Sunday school or vacation Bible school in tears and trembling be...

11. God’s Weather Report

Matthew 5:38-48

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

In the 1985 movie, Witness, Harrison Ford plays a tough Philadelphia detective who uncovers corruption within his department. To protect himself and a young boy who has witnessed a murder, Ford's character, John Book, hides out among the Pennsylvania Amish, the community from which the little boy comes. In one scene of the movie, Book and several of the Amish go into town for a day of shopping. Wh...

12. Guarding the Treasure

2 Timothy 1:1-14

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

Most of us have a long list of passwords, PINs, and usernames to type into our cell phones, our computers, our ATMs, and a host of other gadgets. We need these to protect ourselves. Identity theft has become a serious problem. We have all seen the commercials on television of the person bragging about a dream vacation, but the voice coming out of the character's mouth is another person's voice. Th...

13. Hard Words to Hear at Christmas

Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

We've gathered here today on the second Sunday of Advent to continue to prepare ourselves for the coming of our Lord. This task of preparing for the arrival of the Lord is not as easy as we might think it is. As in other areas of life, we find ourselves having to unlearn some things in order to see what the scriptures teach us about God's act in Jesus. We've let the culture around us snatch away m...

14. Healing the Pain from the Past

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

A pastor friend and his wife once adopted a young cat that bounced up to his parsonage looking hungry and friendless. From the beginning of the relationship, the cat readily came to them and blissfully stroked her whiskers against their outstretched hands. She was comfortable with people. My friends were quite willing to provide for the cat's few needs: food, fresh water, a potent flea colla...

15. How Rich Is Rich?

1 Timothy 6:3-10

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

We can simply stay away from some of the things that are bad for us. A person who is addicted to drugs or alcohol will be counseled by those with experience to abstain totally from alcohol: no social drinking, no wine every now and then. Just leave it alone. Never touch it. The same principle applies if the addiction is to gambling or pornography and many other kinds of addiction. Overcoming an ad...

16. Killing What Is Already Dead

Colossians 3:1-11

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

Every pastor has had this experience. It doesn't have to be the husband in a marriage, but let's just say that it's the husband. The man comes to the pastor's study clutching the report from the physician's office: high blood pressure, overweight, danger of heart disease. The physician has ordered the man to lose weight and to stop smoking. Sitting in the pastor's office, the man swears he is goin...

17. Letting Go of Our Nets

Matthew 4:18-22

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

Did they have any idea what they were getting themselves into? Peter, Andrew, James, and John had no crystal ball that day when Jesus called them. When the call came, they were going about business as usual: casting nets, pulling them back in, sorting and salting the fish, taking them to market, and maintaining their equipment. However it was that they became fishermen, they had not chosen an easy...

18. Light and Hope for the New Year

John 1:10-18

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

Early January always feels like a fresh start. The Christmas whirlwind has settled down. We still have a fighting chance to keep our resolutions for the new year. Cartoons always depict the New Year as a baby, full of possibilities and innocence. We hope that with a new year we can leave the baggage behind us, stretching toward a brighter future. The gospel of John begins when everything was new,...

19. Looking at Jesus from Behind Prison Bars

Matthew 11:2-11

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

How different things must have looked for John behind prison walls. If ever the word "free spirit" applied to anyone, it applied to John. He said what he wanted to say, without holding back. If the scholars are correct that he was an Essene, then he had gone into the wilderness specifically to get away from everyone. The Essenes wanted to worship their way, with no interference from anyone. Now, t...

20. Passing and Failing

Deuteronomy 8:7-18

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

School might be tolerable if we could do away with tests. We would still have the awkward social situations and homework, but getting rid of tests would surely help. After all, who needs the late nights, the sweaty palms, or the mental blocks? What do you do if you've studied hard, but the teacher asks a question about the one part of the assignment you didn't understand? Then, we have to deal wit...

21. Preaching to a Stone

Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

I'm going to confess a trade secret. We preachers often wonder just how much good our preaching does. We all appreciate the compliments at the end of the service, especially when someone says that he or she really needed a particular sermon we have preached. At those moments, we begin to believe that our work and struggle have paid off. We wonder, though, about the compliments we receive at the en...

22. Ruining the Christmas Spirit

Matthew 24:36-44

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

This morning is the first Sunday of Advent, and therefore the first Sunday of the church year. We begin Year A of the cycle, which is Matthew's year. When I read the scripture lesson, you may have noticed a couple of things. You may have noticed that we read a passage from near the end of Matthew. It may seem strange to read from near the end of the book that will guide us during the next year. Sh...

23. Running with Perseverance

Hebrews 11:29 – 12:2

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

United Methodist Bishop, Robert Schnase, tells of his hobby as a "serious runner." He reports that people often ask him how to get started on a running program. He recounts the usual practice of people trying to become serious about running. The typical start date is January 1, as part of a New Year's resolution. The resolution holds fast for the first week, with an early rise and an eager first f...

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

Matthew 5:13-20

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

Sometimes when we read a passage of scripture, we may need to pay careful attention to who in the text is speaking. Our understanding of the words themselves may change, depending on whose mouth they come from. If we are reading Job, we need to know which character is speaking in the passage. If Job's friends are talking, we know their words cannot be trusted. They are too self-righteous. Sometime...

25. Seeing Just Enough of God

Exodus 33:12-23

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

Life never stands still. It can crawl along too slowly, zip past us before we know it, torture us with opportunities we can never get again, or bewilder us with which path to take. But it never stands still. A woman who learned about life's twists and turns shared her story with a pastor friend of mine. Shortly after her marriage, in full flush of love, she went out for a jog. Bursting with ...

Showing results