Sermon and Worship Resources

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Ephesians 1:1-14

Sermon

Fredrick R. Harm

Just a few days ago we greeted loved ones and friends with a cheery, "Happy New Year." And we sincerely hoped it would be a year of joy and happiness for all. A New Year's card put it beautifully: "I am the New Year -- all that I have I give with love unspoken. All that I ask -- you keep the faith unbroken!" Newspapers and magazines covered the fascinating story of Admiral Richard Byrd's second t...

2. Ah, the Sweet Mystery of Life

Romans 16:1-27

Sermon

Fredrick R. Harm

An early movie version of Victor Herbert's romantic operetta Naughty Marietta has the young and dashing Nelson Eddy sing to an enraptured Jeanette MacDonald: Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life, at last I've found you. Ah, at last I've found the secret of it all... Yes, 'tis love and love alone The world is seeking.... This charming song expresses what the Christian has known to be true all along. It is ...

3. Bedlam or Bethleham?

Titus 2:1-15

Sermon

Fredrick R. Harm

I wonder if you have ever realized how the word "bedlam" entered our language? Here's how it came about. St. Mary of Bethlehem was founded as a hospital in England in 1247. Two centuries later it was restructured as an institution for the hopelessly insane. The noise and confusion of the hospital became widely known throughout the country. The cockney accent, over the years, contracted Bethlehem i...

4. Congratulations, You've Made the Team

1 Corinthians 9:1-27

Sermon

Fredrick R. Harm

Perhaps you remember, in high school or college, trying out for the varsity or junior varsity baseball, track, tennis, or football team. The competition was keen, you tried your level best, and finally the tryouts were concluded. A day or so later the bulletin board in the athletic department told the story. You stood there, and you read the list of those who made the team. Either your name was th...

5. Don't Fence Me In!

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Sermon

Fredrick R. Harm

Goodspeed translates our text: "I may do anything I please but not everything I do is good for me. I may do anything I please but I am not going to let anything master me." So Saint Paul is saying, "I am free and yet I am not free; I rejoice in my freedom, and yet I recognize that there are limits to my freedom." With these inspired insights we come face to face with one of the most critical issue...

6. Everybody Loves a Parade!

1 Corinthians 7:1-40

Sermon

Fredrick R. Harm

This is the season for parades. Not long ago we watched the Rose Bowl parade on television; on Thanksgiving Day, Macys of New York entertained us with its Turkey Day extravaganza. Our text for today calls attention to another, and more sobering, parade: the parade of life, the pageant of this world. "For the present form of this world is passing away" (v. 31). The words "passing away" are a transl...

7. The Answer Waiting for a Question

2 Corinthians 1:12--2:4

Sermon

Fredrick R. Harm

A number of years ago some Christians placed bumper stickers on their vehicles stating, "Christ is the answer." After some time a wiseacre started displaying a sticker that read, "If Christ is the answer, what is the question?" Of course this made a hilarious impression on those who seem to have "three sneers for everything and three cheers for nothing." As we consider our text for today we disco...

8. The Face that Launched a Thousand Lives

2 Corinthians 4:1-18

Sermon

Fredrick R. Harm

You will recall the ancient myth that lies behind our sermon theme for today. Helen, the wife of Sparta's king Menelaus, was acclaimed the most beautiful woman of Greece. The Greeks fought the Trojan War in order to get her back from Troy, where Paris, the son of King Priam, had taken her. In Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, the question is asked concerning Helen, "Was this the face that launche...

9. The Road Less Traveled

1 Thessalonians 5:12-28

Sermon

Fredrick R. Harm

A lecturer was talking about what he called "the most dangerous road in the world." Most people in the audience began to think of a journey into the African jungle, or facing shipwreck going through the Straits of Magellan. The lecturer explained: "More and more books are being sold about escaping prison with a toothpick or journeying up the Amazon on stilts. But the most dangerous journey is the ...

10. The Story behind the Glory

Galatians 3:26--4:7

Sermon

Fredrick R. Harm

Welcome to the Sunday after Christmas! Tell me, has the glory begun to fade? A pastor recently described his shopping experience at one of the busy malls. He watched a small boy put his hand hopefully on an inexpensive Christ-child on a counter. "What is this?" he asked his mother, who had him by the hand. "C'mon," the hurried woman answered, "you don't want that." She dragged him grimly away, he...

11. Waiting for Godot?

1 Corinthians 1:1-9

Sermon

Fredrick R. Harm

As we embark on another Advent Adventure we pause to remind ourselves that this sacred season holds a twofold emphasis. Not only do we journey towards Christ's nativity but also we project our thoughts towards his second advent when the final curtain will be lowered on the world as we now know it. This twofold emphasis is underscored in Saint Paul's greeting to his friends in today's text. In Sam...

12. What a Resume!

2 Corinthians 2:12--3:6

Sermon

Fredrick R. Harm

If you were to visit the Library of Congress and look up Jesus of Nazareth in the card catalog of authors, you will not find a single entry. Thousands of books have been written about Jesus, but he himself wrote no books, not even a pamphlet or tract. He was able to write, we know. When a woman accused of adultery was brought to him, Jesus "bent down and started to write on the ground with his fin...

13. What Are You Going to Do with My World?

1 Corinthians 9:1-27

Sermon

Fredrick R. Harm

A friend tells of his son who asked for a globe of the world as one of his Christmas gifts last year. Of course his parents were pleased to purchase something so useful for their child. So many Christmas lists leave much to be desired! The boy thoroughly enjoyed his gift and kept it on a small table in his bedroom. One evening his parents were discussing the fact that so many of our clothing items...

14. What Goes on When He Comes in?

Acts 19:1-22

Sermon

Fredrick R. Harm

As we grapple with the meaning of our first text for today, Acts chapter 19, how appropriate is the oft-used phrase, "We only get one chance to make a first impression." Unquestionably the disciples of John the Baptist, whom Paul met early in his visit to Ephesus, seemed to lack some evidence of God's Spirit in their lives. Their "first impression" was spiritually deficient! Christian scholars thr...

15. Who Can Ask for Anything More?

1 Corinthians 8:1-13

Sermon

Fredrick R. Harm

Those who have read Charles Dickens' famous story, Oliver Twist, will recall that little Oliver, still hungry after receiving the thin gruel doled out to him in the orphanage, was always saying, "More, please." Whether we are entitled to more or not, we human beings are very much like Oliver. We are always saying, one way or another, "We want more." Who was it that first said, "Enough is always a ...

16. With a Bang or a Whimper?

2 Peter 3:1-18

Sermon

Fredrick R. Harm

Back in 1925, T. S. Eliot wrote the poem, "The Hollow Men." It is an indictment of a whole generation of people whose lives are empty because they seem to believe nothing. They have been only a "paralyzed force, gesture without motion." They have accomplished nothing: they are the product of the dry intellectuality of modern life. Eliot describes them this way. We are the hollow men We are the st...

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