Sermon and Worship Resources

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Romans 10:5-15

Sermon

Jeff Wedge

There are some things which are not often associated with the word "beautiful." Our lesson today ends with an image associating such an item with "beautiful," and then bringing up another topic which seems completely unrelated. This odd sentence is: "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news." It is strange enough to call feet beautiful. Most often we think of feet in a much more ut...

2. Body Parts and Pride

Romans 12:1-8

Sermon

Jeff Wedge

It sometimes happens that small parts of the Bible seem to become dated, especially when they echo particular periods of time. When these small portions are brought up later, they seem out of touch with the modern world. The lesson today might serve as an example of this phenomenon. When we read the lesson it sounds almost as if it should be a part of the '60s. Early on, there is a comment about ...

3. Bragging Rights

Philippians 3:4b-14

Sermon

Jeff Wedge

A mouse was once riding on the back of an elephant, and the pair went across a rickety bridge. As might be expected, the bridge shook and rattled. When the duo had successfully navigated the bridge, the mouse exclaimed, "My, oh my, we certainly made that bridge shake, didn't we?" It is all too common an experience to meet people who sound as if they are somehow related to that mouse. People who b...

4. Complete Joy

Philippians 2:1-11

Sermon

Jeff Wedge

There was once a man who decided he was dead. He was actually quite alive, but the man insisted he was really dead. The man's friends were quite concerned over this attitude, and tried hard to persuade the man he was actually alive, but nothing seemed to work. Finally, one friend with a scientific turn of mind tried to convince the man of the error of his insistence. The friend pointed out that d...

5. Doing Well and Doing Good

Romans 13:8-14

Sermon

Jeff Wedge

There is a cliché thrown around the business world that states that people should do well by doing good. This translates into a rationale for doing works of charity and for being generous to employees, customers, and communities. The reason for these good deeds is to engender good feeling and, in the long run, to make more money, in other words, to do well. By being good to employees, costs...

6. Effective Suffering

Romans 8:26-39

Sermon

Jeff Wedge

Many people have heard a part of this lesson before. Most particularly, the last two verses, the part about "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." These verses are often a part of funeral services. In t...

7. Families in Christ

Romans 9:1-5

Sermon

Jeff Wedge

Aren't families fun, at times? Paul reminds us in the lesson for today that families can be a source of many things in our lives. Consider the husband who had promised his wife to replace the kitchen cabinets, but kept putting off the home improvement. The wife had to leave to care for her sick mother for two weeks and returned to find the new cabinets installed in the kitchen. She was very plea...

8. Heaping Coals and Virtues

Romans 12:9-21

Sermon

Jeff Wedge

A French writer and historian once wrote, "We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity - romantic love and gunpowder." While many people might be tempted to agree that gunpowder has been an invention which has caused many problems for humanity, it is the other item which is surprising to find on a list of the worst inventions of humanity, particularly on the very short list. Ev...

9. Irrevocable Gifts

Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32

Sermon

Jeff Wedge

People have had a wide variety of reactions to the idea of politically-correct language. One of the more interesting is a series of books by James Finn Garner. A look at the contents of the volumes gives an insight into the way things are handled. The stories include such titles as the politically-correct bedtime story of "The Three Codependent Goats Gruff," and the holiday story of "Rudolph, the ...

10. Life, Death, and Judgment

Romans 14:1-12

Sermon

Jeff Wedge

In 1741, Jonathan Edwards preached a famous sermon with the title, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." In great detail Edwards spoke of the wrath people rightly faced when they confronted the judgment of a God who was angry at the way the people had failed to do what they were called to do. While many people understand only this much about that famous sermon, and hold it up as an example of th...

11. Struggles, Death, and Christ

Philippians 1:21-30

Sermon

Jeff Wedge

Many people cling very tightly to life. They refuse to let go of it, and hold onto a shred of life beyond all reasonable expectations. And then there are others. There was an old man, lying in the bed in the back bedroom, surrounded by his wife, daughter, and his four granddaughters. His breath was coming slowly, almost in sighs, and the time between the sighs was stretching to longer and longer ...

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