Sermon and Worship Resources

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John 14:1-4, John 14:5-14

Sermon

Erskine White

I spent some time recently with a number of clergymen and clergywomen from various churches, the scribes and Pharisees of our day. It was a Bible study session and we happened to be discussing the very same passage from John which is the text for this sermon. Do not misunderstand me. I do not consider myself superior in any way to the ministers I will tell you about. For all I know, they may have ...

2. A Letter From Paul

Sermon

Erskine White

So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13) The sermon which follows is an imaginary letter received from the apostle Paul, written to the church in America. It seeks to put a much-loved and all-too-familiar text into a new (though thoroughly Biblical) context. If the language of this letter falls short of the inspiration and glory of the origi...

3. A Perfect Prayer

Sermon

Erskine White

Romans 8:26-27 Give thy servant therefore an understanding mind, that I may discern between good and evil. (1 Kings 3:9) Most of us would admit without too much prodding that we are not perfect, that we are a frustrating blend of good and evil. Oh, I've known a few Christians who think they are without sin because they are saved, but these are people who don't understand themselves or the Scriptur...

4. A Thankful Heart

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon

Erskine White

Then one of them, when he saw he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice ... giving Him thanks. (Luke 17:15-16) If you ever doubted the importance of saying "thank you" to someone when a "thank you" is due, consider the story which is our text for this sermon. Luke tells us that Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem and as He passed near Galilee and Samaria, He was met by ten lepers....

5. A Whale Of A Tale

Jonah 3:1-10

Sermon

Erskine White

Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, "Arise and go to Nineveh." (Jonah 3:12) I'd be willing to bet a nickel (maybe even a dime) that if ten people were asked what they know about the Jonah story, most of them would say, "the whale." (Of course, the Bible never says that Jonah was swallowed by a whale - all the Bible says is "a great fish" - but everyone calls it a whale, ...

6. A Woman's Place

Genesis 2:4-25

Sermon

Erskine White

It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him. (Genesis 2:18) Ask a chauvinist where a woman's place is and he or she will say, "A woman's place is in the home," or, "A woman's place is subordinate to the man's." Ask a feminist where a woman's place is and she or he will say, "A woman's place is wherever she chooses to be," or, "A woman's place is anywhere a m...

7. Ashamed Of The Gospel

Romans 1:1-17

Sermon

Erskine White

For I am not ashamed of the Gospel. (Romans 1:16) I want you to step into a time machine with me this morning. We're going to spend a few minutes today back in ancient Rome. We are going to the place they call "the Eternal City." In this year of 54 or 58 A.D., Rome is certainly the most magnificent city this side of China. It is the hub and heartbeat of an empire from Europe to Africa to the edge ...

8. Blessed among Women

Luke 1:39-45, 1 Samuel 2:1-11

Sermon

Erskine White

"And Elizabeth ... exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.’ " (Luke 1:42) No one knows what she looked like. European artists have made her look European. African artists have made her look African. Native American artists have drawn her in their image, as have artists from South America, the Far East and nearly every other part of the world...

9. Blind Beggars All

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

Erskine White

... he began to cry out and say, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" (Luke 21:28) The town of Jericho was already 8,000 years old by the time Jesus and John the Baptist walked its streets. Think of it! Here in America, we were all excited a few years ago about our nation's bicentennial, our two hundredth birthday. Jericho was already 8,000 years old by the time of Jesus Christ. It remains tod...

10. Can A Nation Repent?

2 Chronicles 34:14-33

Sermon

Erskine White

Then the king gathered ... all the people great and small; and he read in their hearing all the words of the book ... (2 Chronicles 34:29-30) Oftentimes, as we move into the middle of Lent, people begin to grow weary. They begin to ask, "Why all this talk of sin and death? Why must we dwell so long on confession and repentance, "a broken and a contrite heart" (Psalm 51:17)? Who wants to be so gloo...

11. Can You Go Home Again?

Luke 2:3-4

Children's Sermon

Erskine White

Object: None One day not too many years ago, I decided to go back to my old elementary school and see if my third-grade teacher was still there. It had been a long time since I had been back, and I thought it would be fun to see if she remembered me and if the school was as I remembered it to be. Do you know what? Everything was different! My old teacher had retired, and someone else had taken h...

12. Come The Judgment Day

Jeremiah 16:1--17:18

Sermon

Erskine White

I, the Lord, search the mind and try the heart, to give to everyone according to their ways. (Jeremiah 17:10) In our text from Jeremiah, the prophet proclaims God's judgment over each of us as individuals, but sometimes I wonder: who really believes in a Last Judgment any more? Who takes seriously the idea that God "searches the mind and tries the heart, to give to everyone according to their way...

13. Competitive Kids

Mark 10:35-45

Illustration

Erskine White

Do we learn from children how not to be so competitive - how to be happy with our own gifts and achievements and not to be so obsessed with what the next person has? Well, consider the plight of poor Charlie Brown (in Peanuts), who is walking with his friends on the way to school one morning. It is "show and tell day," and Lucy is asking Linus if he remembered to bring anything for the class to se...

14. Do You Believe In Peace? - Memorial Day

Ephesians 2:11-22

Sermon

Erskine White

For He is our peace, who has made us both one. (Ephesians 2:14) If I asked the question, "Do you believe in peace?" everyone of us would say, "yes." Everyone wants peace and everyone believes that real peace would be a blessing to the earth. But if I asked, "Do you believe that peace is possible and that war can be abolished?" many of us would be inclined to say "no," and we could certainly be exc...

15. Dust And Ashes

Genesis 18:16-33

Sermon

Erskine White

Behold, I have taken upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. (Genesis 18:27) Tonight begins the forty-day season of Lent: forty days which correspond to the time Jesus spent in the desert wilderness being tempted by Satan. It is not a season we should enter into unadvisedly or lightly, for this is the most important part of the Christian year. Here we encounter our faith in ...

16. Faith To The Finish

2 Timothy 3:10--4:8, Isaiah 14:24-27

Sermon

Erskine White

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. (2 Timothy 4:7) In our first text for this morning, Jesus asks, "For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether [you] have enough to complete it?" Incredibly enough, we saw this parable being acted out not too long ago right before our eyes in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by none ...

17. For The Love Of What?

Psalm 137:1-9, John 2:12-25

Sermon

Erskine White

How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? (Psalm 137:4) I want you to try and picture the ancient Israelites in this 137th Psalm. They have been captured and taken against their will to exile in Babylon. They are cut off from the familiar places and familiar faces of home. Worse than that, they are surrounded by false gods and pagan values. Somehow, they must try to keep the faith and ...

18. Forgiveness Freely Given

Isaiah 55:1-13

Sermon

Erskine White

As a minister, I am continually reminded of the many burdens people bear in this life - the emotional scars, the painful memories, the gut-wrenching guilt and feelings of regret. Sometimes the stories I hear are staggering. Really, there are three kinds of people in this world: those who need to be forgiven, those who need to be forgiving of someone else, and the largest group is those who need to...

19. Giving Your All

Mark 12:35-40

Sermon

Erskine White

But she, out of her poverty, has put in everything she had, her whole living. (Mark 12:44) Jesus could really be rough on certain people, especially those whom He perceived to be falsely religious and self-righteous. Judging by some of the severe language we read in the gospels, you didn't want to be on the receiving end of a tongue-lashing administered by one Jesus of Nazareth. When our Lord spok...

20. God Forsaken

Mark 15:21-32

Sermon

Erskine White

And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, la'ma sabach-tha'ni?" which means, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Mark 15:34) Many churches today read from the Revised Standard Version or the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, but it wasn't always that way. In fact, the first RSV translation was printed in 1952. There were great arguments within many ...

21. God's Gift Of Life

Psalm 139:1-24

Sermon

Erskine White

For Thou didst form my inward parts; Thou didst knit me together in my mother's womb. (Psalm 139:13) Fathers in earlier generations usually weren't allowed to do this, but I have had the splendid privilege of watching and helping as two of my children were born. The first time, the experience was new and overwhelming. I felt I had witnessed God's hands at work in the world and when our baby was ...

22. Good Soldiers, Bad Wars

Joshua 11:1-23, Matthew 8:5-13

Sermon

Erskine White

It has become commonplace for the church to talk about peace in recent years; indeed, dozens of church statements have been issued for the purpose of condemning war. And this is entirely appropriate, since Christ has charged His people to be peacemakers (Matthew 5:9) in a world which is weary of war. But amid all the verbiage of ecclesiastical pronouncements, the church has been nearly silent abo...

23. Goodness and Mercy Will Win

Luke 21:5-38

Illustration

Erskine White

As some of you know, Fiorello LaGuardia was mayor of New York during the Depression, and he was quite a character. He would ride the city fire trucks, take entire orphanages to baseball games and whenever the city newspapers went on strike, he would get on the radio and read the Sunday "funnies" to the children. At any rate, one bitter cold winter's night in 1935, Mayor LaGuardia turned up in a n...

24. Hector’s Case Against Christmas

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

Erskine White

"In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee named Nazareth." (v. 26) I am going to begin the Advent season this year by telling you a part of the Christmas story which is unknown to most people because it was left out of the modern Bible. Of course, ministers have known about this for many years, but we have kept it secret because we didn’t want to shake anyone’s f...

25. Hope Against Hope

Genesis 17:1-27

Sermon

Erskine White

In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told. (Romans 4:18) Sometimes, as we get to this point in the year, it seems that winter will go on forever. It’s been cold for so long that you can hardly remember the last time you put on a pair of shorts and basked in the warmth of the sun. You are so sick of shoveling the driveway that you would ...

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