Sermon and Worship Resources

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1. 365 ‘Fear Nots’

John 6:1-21

Illustration

Donald B. Strobe

Someone once calculated that the words "fear not" appear in the Bible 365 times, and that means that there is one "Fear Not" for every day of the year! That makes a good story, but I tried to find the exact words in the electronic Bible on my computer, and could not find them even once! But I found similar ones, and I am sure that the meaning is there. But I need no "proof text" for every day of t...

2. A Chance to Wipe the Slate Clean

John 21:1-19

Illustration

Donald B. Strobe

Some years ago the London Daily Telegraph carried a letter written by an eleven-year-old boy to his mother while he was on vacation in Switzerland. He wrote this: "Dear Mom, yesterday the instructor took eight of us to the slopes to teach us to ski. I was not very good at it, so I broke a leg. Thank goodness, it wasn't mine! Love, Billy." Now, that mother had only a limited insight into what actua...

3. A Growing Surprise

Mark 9:38-41

Illustration

Donald B. Strobe

The name of E. Stanley Jones is familiar to most long-time Methodists. He was a missionary-evangelist who traveled around the world for many, many years, especially in India, proclaiming the good news of God's love in Jesus Christ. Stanley Jones lived a life of joy and peace which came from his faith. In the ninth decade of his life he set pen to paper and wrote his autobiography titled A Song of ...

4. A Sign for a Sign

Mark 8:11-13

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

I happened to see part of a comedy program on television a couple of weeks ago. One of the segments of the program consisted of two or three short movies made by a producer unfamiliar to me. I take it that he is just getting started in this business. But he had a terrific “gimmick.” He found out when buildings were to be demolished in New York, and then arranged to take pictures of them being b...

5. A Terrorist among the Twelve

Luke 6:12-16

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

One of the retired ministers in our congregation bet me that I won’t be able to finish my series of sermons on the Twelve Apostles. The reason is because we know so very little about some of them, especially these last four. In the case of the one we are considering this morning, we only know one word. But that one word speaks volumes. The Gospel says that he was a “Zealot.” Luke refers to him...

6. Afraid of Sanity

Mark 5:1-20

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

In J. D. Salinger’s famous novel, The Catcher in the Rye, 15-year old Holden Caulfield says: “I can’t always pray when I feel like it. In the first place, I’m sort of an atheist.” (That would put a damper on prayer, wouldn’t it?) He goes on: “I like Jesus and all, but I don’t care too much for most of the other stuff in the Bible. Take the Disciples, for instance....They were all right after J...

7. An Unpopular Profession

Matthew 9:9-13

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

Matthew was a tax collector. He was probably stationed in Capernaum, an excellent spot for collecting excise from travelers and merchants, on the trade route between Ptolemais and Damascus. Now, tax collectors are not on the list of anyone’s favorite people at best, but in ancient Israel it was even worse. Tax collectors had little or no social standing. Their word was not accepted in a Jewish...

8. Angels in the Wilderness

Mark 1:9-13

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

As soon as Jesus was told that He was the Son of God at His baptism, Mark says that “The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan.” (1:12-13) A strange and rather inauspicious way to begin one’s ministry! And what about this “Satan” business? Dr. David Read of New York tells of the old Scottish lady who remarked about her m...

9. Any Favorites?

John 10:22-30

Illustration

Donald B. Strobe

A mother of eight children was once asked if she had any favorites. "Favorites?" she replied. "Yes, I have favorites. I love the one who is sick until he is well again. I love the one who is in trouble until he is safe again. And I love the one who is farthest away until he comes home." Jesus said, "That is what God is like. God is a Divine Parent whose love never stops, a Parent whose love will n...

10. Are We Able?

Mark 10:35-45

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

There is an old saying that “To the victor belongs the spoils.” Nowhere is that more evident than the period following a presidential election. That is the time when the new president-elect begins to divvy up the various cabinet positions and political plums and reward those who helped him get to that exalted position. I.SOMETHING LIKE THAT FORMS THE BACKGROUND FOR TODAY’S SCRIPTURE LESSON. Jes...

11. Aren’t All Religions Basically Alike?

John 14:5-14

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

College students have an innate sense of fairness. They may not always practice it, but they usually have it lurking around somewhere. And so they often ask ministers questions like, “Why should Christianity claim to be the one true religion? What is God going to do with all those millions of people who are not Christians, and who never heard of Jesus Christ? Aren’t they as sincere as we are? ...

12. Beauty and the Beast

Mark 12:28-34

Illustration

Donald B. Strobe

G. K. Chesterton once said that the really great lesson of the story of "Beauty and the Beast" is that a thing must be loved before it is loveable. A person must be loved before that person can be loveable. Some of the most unlovely people I have known got that way because they thought that nobody loved them. The fact of the matter is that unless and until we feel ourselves loved, we cannot love. ...

13. Believing Isn’t Easy

Hebrews 11:1-40

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

A fellow was on an airplane flight home one afternoon. He sat in the non-smoking section, as he always did. This day he was seated on the aisle of the plane. After the plane had taken off the man across from him took out one of those little short cigars that look like compressed leather. He lit up and started puffing noxious black smoke into the air. The first man leaned across the aisle and ...

14. Believing Thomas

John 20:24-31

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

I have always thought that Thomas got a bum rap. Down through the centuries we have called him “Doubting Thomas,” when, in reality, he was the greatest believer of them all. He ended up proclaiming the highest profession of faith we find in the Gospels. Beholding the risen Christ he said, “My Lord and my God!” I. THE FIRST GLIMPSES WE HAVE OF THOMAS IN THE GOSPELS PORTRAY HIM AS A MAN OF CONSI...

15. Body Language

John 1:6-8, 19-28

Illustration

Donald B. Strobe

Presbyterian preacher Thomas Hilton tells of watching Billy Graham on television a few years back, when his small daughter Karin came into the living room and looked at the television set and exclaimed, "Dad, what is he so mad about?" To a small child the body language of a person is often more important than the verbal language. She saw the raised arm, heard the loud voice, saw the intense face, ...

16. Born Again? When?

John 3:1-21

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

A layperson was talking to a friend of mine recently, and told him of his teen-age daughter who had recently decided to become a Christian. The father was a life-long member of the church, and was naturally pleased by his daughter’s decision, but he was worried as well. He told his pastor that the daughter had decided to attend a Christian Youth Camp the following summer. Then he paused, and a ...

17. Centuries of Christian Rebukes

Mark 10:2-16

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Donald B. Strobe

Through the centuries there have been far too many Christians who have felt that their primary calling in life was that of rebuking somebody. There have been too many who have felt that God wanted them to look around to see if anybody was having any fun, so they could put a stop to it. A priest once said to Groucho Marx: "Oh, Mr. Marx, I want to thank you for bringing so much joy into the world." ...

18. Childish or Child-like?

Mark 10:13-16

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

“And he took a child, and put him in the midst of them; and taking him in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me...’” (Mark 9:36) I feel sorry for the poor kid who happened to be there the day Jesus decided to use him as an “object lesson.” No child likes being used in this way. Some of us can remember being stood up before a group of adults and having ...

19. Children in Reality

Mark 10:1-12

Illustration

Donald B. Strobe

Two theologians were walking across a seminary campus when one asked the other, "Do you believe in Original Sin?" The other said, "Yes, I do. We have a child." "Do you believe in Total Depravity?" asked the first man. "No, I don't. That is an excess of Calvinistic theology," replied the second. The first replied, "Just wait until you have two children!"

20. Christmas and the Condensed Bible

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

I must confess that I am not a great fan of Reader’s Digest, but in a strange way, the magazine is partly responsible for my being in the United Methodist ministry. You see, during the late 1940’s and 1950’s, the “red-baiting” era of the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Reader’s Digest published an article titled “Methodism’s Pink Fringe.” The article purported to show that Methodists were, in reality...

21. Crying On Palm Sunday

Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

Ernie Campbell once preached a sermon with the title: "Did Jesus cry? In it he took issue with the familiar Christmas lullaby (sometimes attributed to Martin Luther), which contains the words: "Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, the little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head." The second verse is the one that caught his attention: "The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes. But little Lord Jesus, no...

22. Cut It Out

Mark 9:38-41

Illustration

Donald B. Strobe

The analogy of an operating room, where radical surgery must be performed, is a most useful way to understand this Scripture. Most of us today would accept the notion that the whole body is worth more than any of its individual parts, and when we develop a cancerous tumor on eye, hand, or foot, we cast aside "the offending member" — with regret, of course; but we operate on the assumption that it ...

23. Dealing with Our Doubts

Mark 9:14-32

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

David Heller is a young Boston psychologist who, as part of a continuing research interest, collects letters children have written to God. “Dear God: Children’s Letters to God” (New York: Doubleday, 1987) is Heller’s second publication on this subject. In it he reports the following letter: “Dear God, I have doubts about you sometimes. Sometimes I really believe. Like when I was four and I hur...

24. Does God Give Out Blank Checks?

John 15:1-17

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

One of my favorite authors is Father Andrew Greeley, who, when he is not writing newspaper columns, popular (and somewhat racy) novels, and technical sociological treatises, somehow finds time to write passable books on theology. Greeley is so prolific that some have suggested that he is a committee rather than one individual man. Some critics say that he has never had an unpublished thought; bu...

25. Doors Are for Entering

John 10:1-21

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

“I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.” (John 10:9) That’s the way the New Revised Version translates the more familiar words of Jesus, “I am the door.” Let us consider these words in the light of the customs and pastoral imagery of Jesus’ day to see if new light can be shed upon them. We might begin by considering a Palestinian shepherd...

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