Sermon and Worship Resources

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Ephesians 5:8-14

Sermon

Dr. Ronald Love

“Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Paul concluded this section of his lesson to the church in Emphasis, which was our reading this morning, with a quote from a hymn. As it is with us today, the hymn stanza would be instantly recognizable along with the message that was associated with the hymn. If anyone in the congregation was uncertain of the message that Paul w...

2. Invictus

Romans 5:1-11

Sermon

Dr. Ronald Love

Luther Haden Taylor was born on February 21, 1875, in Oskaloosa, Kansas. Taylor is a legend in baseball having played with the New York Giants before the franchise moved to San Francisco. He played with the team for nine years, from 1900 to 1908, while the team was still at the Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan. As a pitcher, he helped the Giants win their first World Series of the modern baseball ...

3. Mandatum

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

Sermon

Dr. Ronald Love

Today is Maundy Thursday and the end of Lent that began on Ash Wednesday forty days ago. These forty days were intended to be a time of self-reflection and spiritual renewal as one prepares himself or herself for Good Friday and Easter Sunday. In the early church, on Ash Wednesday, if you recall from my sermon on that day, those Christians who committed grave faults were forced to wear sackcloth a...

4. Moksha

Romans 8:6-11

Sermon

Dr. Ronald Love

Evagrius Ponticus, also known as Evagrius the Solitary, was a Christian monk and ascetic who resided in a monastery in the Egyptian desert. Concerned with the temptations that besought people, in the year 375 AD he compiled a list of the eight terrible thoughts, also referred to as the eight evil temptations. The eight patterns of evil that Evanrius listed are: gluttony, greed, sloth, sorrow, lust...

5. One In Christ

Galatians 3:15-25

Sermon

Dr. Ronald Love

It was Christmas Eve. A young Norman Vincent Peale was shopping with his father, Dr. Charles Clifford Peale. Clifford Peale was a physician who gave up his medical practice to become a pastor in the Methodist Episcopal Church. They were walking along Fourth Street in Cincinnati when a bum ” what we would call today a street person ” approached them. The man stretched out his filthy hand, placing i...

6. Pontifex

Hebrews 10:16-25

Sermon

Dr. Ronald Love

Jesse Owens panicked. How could he owe $114,000 in back taxes? Soon there would be a court trial sentencing him to a long prison term. This was an issue Owens realized he had to accept, failing to personally oversee his business ventures; but instead, allowing other individuals to do it for him. He had not scrutinized the character of the men who represented him, wrongly trusting his business part...

7. Smombies

Romans 5:12-19

Sermon

Dr. Ronald Love

Joseph Chamblin was lost, and then he was found. In 2011, Chamblin was lost. He was a staff sergeant in the United States Marines and one of the four snipers court-martialed for urinating on the fresh corpses of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. In 2016, Chamblin was found. He was dating Laura Buckingham who was well known, having appeared on the cover of Southern Indiana Living with her son. It ...

8. Sola Fide

1 Peter 1:3-9

Sermon

Dr. Ronald Love

Peter was so excited about his new life in Christ that he opened this section of his letter with a doxology. He began this section of his letter with this verse from a doxology, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!” Doxologies have always been a part of worship, with the earliest form dating back to Solomon. But the doxologies used in Jewish worship were given a new meaning in...

9. The Ear of the Heart

Philippians 2:5-11

Sermon

Dr. Ronald Love

Carol Klein, with schoolbooks under one arm and a sheet of music under the other, got off the express train from Brooklyn to Manhattan. The year was 1957 and the 15-year- old was determined to be a singing sensation. Wearing bobby socks, white sneakers, and a black skirt with a pink poodle embroidered on it, she opened the New York City telephone book. Starting with the “As” in the directory, she ...

10. The Sawdust Trail

Colossians 3:1-4

Sermon

Dr. Ronald Love

Presbyterian minister Reverend Benjamin Weir, in his book Hostage Bound, Hostage Free, reveals what it was like to be held hostage. He was captured on the streets of Beirut by a group of Shiite Muslim extremists, in May, 1984. Weir was imprisoned for sixteen months. During those torturous months he was often chained and held in solitary confinement. Weir’s devout faith and trust in God sustained h...

11. To Cross Over

Romans 4:1-5, 13-17

Sermon

Dr. Ronald Love

British writer Philip Norman completed his third book on the Beatles. This 800 page volume was a biography of Paul McCartney. Before researching the biography Norman thought that McCartney with all his musical talent must be very pleased with himself, only to discover that the opposite was true. Norman said he came to realize that the living rock legend, and I quote, is “also insecure… he’s in his...

12. What, Then, Would You Be?

2 Corinthians 5:20b—6:10

Sermon

Dr. Ronald Love

John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States, was an enthusiastic swimmer. Before starting each day’s work he would swim and bathe naked in the Potomac River. There was a newspaper woman, Anne Royall, who tried for weeks to get an interview with the president, but she was always rebuffed. One day she followed Adams to his watering hole. After he disrobed and got into the river, she ...

13. Why Do We Call Him Good?

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Dr. Ronald Love

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, in his autobiography TREASURE IN CLAY, recounts a visit he made to a leper colony in Buluba, Africa. He intended to give a silver crucifix to each of the 500 lepers residing in Buluba. The first person who came forward, however, was a man so disfigured by the ravages of leprosy that Sheen was repulsed by the sight. The man's left arm was eaten off at the elbow by the di...

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