Sermon and Worship Resources

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1 Samuel 15:1-35

Sermon

Charles Curley

I made a big mistake when I began to read and study in preparation for this sermon on 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13. I decided to go back first and read all of Chapter 15, just to see what could possibly have happened to King Saul to bring us to the tragic point in the story of Israel where we read: "Samuel grieved over Saul, and the Lord was sorry that he had made Saul king over Israel." (1 Samuel 15:35) ...

2. Dry Bones And Live Hope

John 11:17-37

Sermon

Charles Curley

Jesus had a friend. The name of his friend was Lazarus. When you have a friend, and your friend needs help, you do what you can. So when Lazarus was ill, naturally they sent to Jesus for help. "You have healed others, why not your friend?" But Jesus did not do what they thought he would do. "This illness is not unto death; it is for the glory of God," and he went about his business. Yet Lazarus’ ...

3. Dry Bones And Live Hope

Ezekiel 37:1-14

Bulletin Aid

Charles Curley

Call To Worship L: Then he said to me, "Son of Man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, R: ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost, we are clean cut off ...’ L: Thus says the Lord God: Behold I will open your graves, O my people; and I will bring you home ... R: And I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken...

4. Giants In Your Way

1 Samuel 17:1-58

Sermon

Charles Curley

The hand of the Philistines was heavy upon Israel. The Philistines were an overwhelming, oppressive, intrusive presence in the land. They threatened to take away everything the people of Israel held dear. They threatened life itself, for death followed in their wake as they ravaged the land. Just when Saul and his armies were poised to drive the Philistines out of the land, Goliath appeared - a gi...

5. Listen

1 Samuel 2:12-26

Sermon

Charles Curley

It was a time of distrust and disillusionment in the land of Israel. People did not trust those who governed them. Those in positions of leadership were thought to be inept or corrupt, and often both. There was a lack of vision about the future of the people. Because those in leadership seemed helpless, hopeless and corrupt, God looked outside the tents of power to find new leadership with vision....

6. Send Me

Isaiah 6:1-13

Sermon

Charles Curley

It was the year of the dying of the king, when Isaiah saw the Lord, high and lifted up in the incense-shrouded heights of the sanctuary. When he heard God say, "Whom shall I send?" he replied simply, "Here am I, send me!" It was the year when the priests robbed the people in the name of God, when Samuel heard the Lord, as he was waking from sleep by the ark in the temple at Shiloh. When he heard G...

7. Shepherd Of The People

2 Samuel 5:1-5, 6-16

Sermon

Charles Curley

It was over, and it was beginning. The long agonizing struggle between David and Saul was over. Saul was dead, and David's reign, the reign of David the king, was beginning. David had been only a shepherd boy when God chose him to be king, saying, "You shall be shepherd of my people." Now he was 30 years old, and the people acknowledged him as king. On that day, the people remembered God's word, s...

8. Song Of Loss Song Of Hope

2 Samuel 1:1-16

Sermon

Charles Curley

David loved Jonathan and, from the day they met, David was loved in return, with a love which has virtually defined the meaning of friendship down through the generations. "The soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul." - 1 Samuel 18:1 The difficulty was that Jonathan was Saul's son and heir. Jonathan was to be the next king of Israel, following his ...

9. The Presence Of The Spirit

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

Charles Curley

Occasionally, while flipping through the channels on my television, I pause for a moment at a network sponsored by a consortium of those churches called Pentecostal. They are a loosely related confederation of individual congregations and denominations held together by their belief in the active presence of the Holy Spirit in the church today, just as the active presence of the Holy Spirit was wit...

10. The Way Of The King

1 Samuel 8:1-22

Sermon

Charles Curley

This sermon is built around a question, a question which I am not even going to try to answer. If this kind of sermon, one of questions not answers, disturbs you, then we are in trouble. But I'm prepared to leave you disturbed, for you are in good company. The question I find so hard to answer has disturbed and troubled the people of God since the time of Samuel the prophet. The way the question i...

11. To the Mountain

Luke 9:28-36

Sermon

Charles Curley

The story of the transfiguration of Jesus often seems like a way-station in Lent - a surprising oasis that catches us off guard after the sun-parched desolation of the temptation in the wilderness. Yet this story of God’s glory poured out on Jesus on the mountain is only a brief respite on the weary way to the cross. We never seem to fully grasp what it is all about, and it is soon forgotten as we...

12. What Kind Of King Is This?

2 Samuel 6:1-23

Sermon

Charles Curley

Around the end of November, just after Thanksgiving, we celebrate the beginning of the season of Advent: the advent, the coming of God into the world in a most unlikely form and in a most unlikely place. For we celebrate God coming as a baby, in a manger, in a stable, in the little town of Bethlehem. Today's scripture from 2 Samuel 6 is also about a kind of advent, which may serve to remind us th...

13. Where The Lord Dwells

2 Samuel 7:1-17

Sermon

Charles Curley

Life had settled down for David. The battles, the struggles, the rushing from one end of his land to another, trouble wherever he looked, these were all behind him, at least for the present. For, "the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him." (2 Samuel 7:1) In his unaccustomed leisure, David had time to build himself a house. A grand house. A house made of cedar. A house fit for a ...

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