Sermon and Worship Resources

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1. and Forgiveness Come Easy When You’re Filled with The Spirit

John 20:19-23

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... given to you and me. What a wonderful, freeing word. It takes the pressure off, makes life a little easier, a little more fun. That is why our gospel lesson says that "the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord" (John 20:20). In the 1522 sermon by Martin Luther that I have already noted, we find Luther summing up the essence of this joyful, Spirit-filled life just right. He was commenting on Jesus' word in our gospel lesson when he gave us the power of the keys to forgive sins and gave us the Holy Spirit ...

2. The Word Above All Earthly Powers

John 8:31-36

Sermon

Albert G. Butzer III

... have any Bibles?” Although those three things are very different from one another, they do have this in common: Each has the power to disrupt society and turn things upside down, as Martin Luther learned hundreds of years before. The other great word in the vocabulary of John’s gospel is the word truth. John used this word some twenty times in his gospel story but nowhere more dramatically than in the Upper Room in Jerusalem. Jesus was preparing his disciples for his upcoming glorification on the cross ...

3. Giving It All Up For Jesus And What’s Ahead

Philippians 3:4b-14

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... Paul To the Galatians” (1548), in Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol. XXI/2, trans. James Anderson, p.102. [5] John Chrysostom, “Homilies On Philippians,” in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol.13, ed. Philip Schaff, p.238. [6] Ibid., p.235. [7] Martin Luther, “The Freedom of a Christian” (1520), in Luther’s Works, Vol. 31, p.351. [8] Martin Luther, “Treatise on Good Works” (1520), in Luther’s Works, Vol. 44, pp.26-27. [9] Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety (New York: Pantheon, 2004 ...

4. Liberating Truth

John 8:31-41

Sermon

William G. Carter

... friends.2 Is there a way out? Is there some truth that will make us free? These questions haunted an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther. After a close call with a lightning bolt in the year 1505, he entered a monastery and took the vows. For a dozen years ... perspective, an overarching scheme, or the hidden structure behind all reality. The truth is a person named Jesus. He himself says, "I am the truth" (John 14:6). He is not only the way and the life; he is the truth. We do not have to go looking for him, ...

5. How Jesus’ Friendship Makes Your Burdens Light

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... Jesus and the time of the church, between his time and ours, so that the comments of Jesus in the gospel pertain to us, see page 233, nn.2-3. 2. Martin Luther, The Last Sermon, Eisleben (1546), in Luther's Works, Vol. 51 ed. and trans. John W. Doberstein (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), pp. 383-384. 3. John Calvin, Commentary On a Harmony of The Evangelists, Mathew, Mark, and Luke (1555), in Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. XVI.II, trans. William Pringle (Grand Rapids, Michigan Baker Books, 2005), p. 43. 4 ...

6. A Glory Revealed in the Cross

John 8:12-30

Sermon

... Oxford: Basil Blackwell, Ltd., 1985), p. 180. 2. Ibid., p. 152. McGrath notes that Luther’s manuscripts evidence that he wrote CRUX ("cross" in Latin) in all uppercase letters, and that he placed the word in a position of emphasis in the sentence in question. ("CRUX" sola est nostra theologie.) 3. No pals is the Greek term and can be rendered as either "child" or "servant." 4. This passage of Isaiah is probably the source of Jesus’ and John’s peculiar usage of "lifted up." 5. Isaiah 52:13f, and 53:2 ...

7. With a Firm Foundation, Application Is Second Nature

Matthew 7:15-23, Matthew 7:24-29

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... does not now consist in a self-assertive grasping a promise, in a self-willed desire to fulfill the law, as though this were an independent law...."8 Yes, Martin Luther was correct: Christians are receivers, not doers. In one of his sermons, a man widely recognized as perhaps the great preacher of the early church, John Chrysostom, wrote: "Wherefore both against our will He befriends us often, and without our knowledge oftener than not."9 This appreciation that we do nothing when it comes to Christ ...

8. Be Near, Ye Faithful

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

Sermon

Ronald Love

... in the Middle Ages. The earliest known manuscript of the hymn was discovered 1740. The discovery of the manuscript is attributed to John Francis Wade. In England he was a copyist and writer of church music. At this time there was a Holy War ... the Bible for themselves. It was also here that Satan continually attacked Luther, trying to prevent him from completing his translation of the Bible. It is here that we have the famous story that Luther finally became so angry at Satan that he threw his inkwell at ...

9. The Danger of Being Religious

Jeremiah 30:1--31:40

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... victims of religion? The prophets, like Jeremiah who gave us our text, were persecuted by religious people. Jesus was crucified by the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees, religious leaders of the day. John Hus was burned to death by church authorities. The church excommunicated Luther, who considered the head of the church to be antichrist. John Wesley was shut out of the churches, even his own father’s church. In our time, religion has done some terrible things, e.g., the poisoning of more than 900 in ...

10. It’s Not about You; It’s All about God

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... , and the friends who help you. It really is all about God. Back to our parable. The soil may help the seeds to grow. But it is just a channel (like the rain). God makes the growth happen. The ancient North African bishop who greatly influenced Luther and John Calvin, a man named Augustine, has a compelling image for explaining how God can be the source of all good while using earthly channels. He compared God to a vast, infinite ocean, one larger than the seven seas combined. Think of the whole cosmos as a ...

11. Life’s Purpose Is Often Hidden!

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... The Wheat and the Tares" (1960), in Justice and Mercy, ed. Ursula M. Niebuhr (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1974), p. 59. 8. Ibid, pp. 55-57. 9. Martin Luther, Sunday After Epiphany (1528), 10-11, in The Complete Sermons of Martin Luther, Vol. 5, ed. Eugene F. A. Klug (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2000), p. 268 10. Martin Luther, Letter To Philip Melanchthon (1521), in Luther's Works, Vol. 48, ed. and trans. Gottfried G. Krodel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1963), pp. 281-282 ...

12. Even Our Business Belongs to God!

Jeremiah 32:1-44

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... of the Cross). Work, your job, is a wonderful gift of God (even if it does not always seem to be). Believe it! As Martin Luther has put it: Your work is a very sacred matter. God delights in it, and through it he wants to bestow his blessing on you. ... significance. Open your eyes, and you will see that (sometimes in a hidden way) you are doing God’s work! The founder of Methodism, John Wesley, put it so well once in a sermon: 3. Yet again: In what spirit do you go through your business? In the spirit of ...

13. God's Gifts Are Free: Enjoy

Deuteronomy 26:1-15

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... care of them. Is that not a wonderful freedom? God’s gifts really are free, friends. Enjoy! We can never get around to saying thank you enough for all these gifts. 1. Luther, Lectures on Deuteronomy, in Luther’s Works, Vol. 9, p. 141. 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid., p. 255. 4. Ibid., pp. 141, 255. 5. John Wesley, Commentary on the Bible (1765-1766). 6. For this insight I am indebted to Martin Luther, Table Talk (1531), in Weimar Ausgabe Tischreden, Vol. 1, No. 124. 7. I am also indebted for this analogy to Martin ...

14. Twenty-First Century Reformation

John 8:31-41

Sermon

Warren Thomas Smith

... the human situation, the hope of liberation from the tyranny of the world, and the world’s values, lies in Christ. In Christ people are free, free indeed. "But does this apply to the Twenty-first Century?" Luther’s response would be that it applied to the sixteenth. Read our text, from John 8:36; it is all about freedom, about truth, about life. It just might be that we have here the secret to real liberation, and we had better not keep it a secret as we contemplate entering a new century. Redemption ...

15. When Walls Shift and the Ceiling Collapses

John 8:31-36

Sermon

R. Robert Cueni

... through the people of God. "What is this all about? Where is it going?" To use the metaphor of Tom Troeger's story, Luther's 95 Theses began to shift the walls of the established church. Eventually, the ceiling mosaic depicting the image of the church of ... Christ. That is the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The truth of "I am the way, and the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). "And that truth will set you free." This freedom of which Jesus speaks is not the current understanding of doing whatever you ...

16. Hanging Around Jesus Changes You

Philippians 3:17 — 4:1

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... for the Millennial generation has been offered by Jean Twenge, Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled — and More Miserable Than Ever Before. [2] Martin Luther, “Sermon for Twenty-Third Sunday After Trinity,” in The Complete Sermons of Martin Luther, Vol.4/2, ed. John Lenker. [3] John Calvin, “Commentaries On The Epistle of Paul the Apostle To the Romans” (1539), in Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol. XIX/2, trans. James Anderson. [4] Ibid., p.175. [5] Martin ...

17. In Debt Forever!

Romans 13:8-14

Sermon

Raymond Gibson

... of the five senses? By keeping God’s commandments, that’s how. "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments," says John (1 John 5:3) - and Paul agrees when he says, "Therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." If we honestly want to pay our debt of ... he had been justified by faith through grace (or love), Luther had a good and healthy opinion of himself. "I want to be none other than I am," he once told his wife Katie. "I am Martin Luther, a man in whom Christ lives!" In his book, Through ...

18. Walking On Our Hands

John 8:31-41

Sermon

J. Will Ormond

... , many of them dealing with Jesus' own identity. "I am ... the good shepherd ... the door ... the bread of life," and the like. This characteristic of being a maverick, of nonconformity, makes John an appropriate Gospel to provide a text for Reformation Sunday, for the early reformers were the mavericks of their day. Luther, Calvin, Knox, and others who struggled against the rigidity of the church walked on their hands. Of course, they did not suddenly decide to begin walking on their hands and lay ...

19. Baptized...and Baptized

Luke 3:1-20

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... United States. But even there the story doesn't stop, does it? No, because then you've got to ask how it was that Martin Luther King was motivated and who inspired him to do what he did. Then you come to an insignificant black lady who was a seamstress in ... such men as these had counseled, sometimes rebuked and denounced emperors and kings and priests and even nations at large. That's who John is -- in that line of great prophets -- but he tells us that he's not the Messiah as people thought he might be -- ...

20. Reformation Sunday

Jeremiah 30:1--31:40

Sermon

George Paul Mocko

... ! God, I really am pretty good at making a fool of myself." Somehow the prayer has to come to something like that. It did so for Luther. And it was out of that that he wrote those classic words for his Small Catechism, "I believe that by my own reason or strength I ... but the power of his will. "You have not chosen me. I have chosen you," said Jesus (John 15:16). "Not that we have loved God, but that he has loved us," said John (1 John 4:10). "I sought the Lord and afterward I knew he moved my soul to seek him ...

21. A Glory Revealed to Faith Alone

Numbers 21:4-9

Sermon

... in the wilderness, so it was necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up, so that all who believe [by looking on him] (See the note at the end of this chapter for an extensive discussion of this rendering.) might have eternal life."- John 3:14f. Luther wrote, "By this story many were undoubtedly offended.... Who would have had the audacity to refer this story to Christ? [Yet Jesus] plainly related it to himself, saying, ‘This is the bronze serpent; I, however, am the Son of Man. These people were asked ...

22. Whosoever Will

Acts 2:1-21

Sermon

Stan Purdum

... men who were prominent leaders of that division were Huldreich Zwingli and John Calvin. They were contemporaries of Luther, but whereas Luther and his followers rejected only those aspects of the Catholic church they ... have eternal life." In other words, God excludes no one from his invitation to come to him. Some may exclude themselves, but God does not do that. John 3:16, by the way, inspired a hymn, one that I remember from my childhood, called "Whosoever Will." The whole hymn was based on this one theme ...

23. In, But Not Of, The World

Jeremiah 29:1-23

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... ! 1. G. W. Anderson, The History and Religion of Israel (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 141. 2. For this insight I am indebted to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, ed. Eberhard Bethge (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1968), p. 160. 3. Martin Luther, Sermons on the Gospel of John (1537), in Luther’s Works, Vol. 24, p. 82. 4. For an elaboration of these themes, see Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Men and Immoral Society (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932), pp. 274-276. 5. Martin ...

24. Write to the Heart

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Sermon

Mary S. Lautensleger

... Christians regardless of age, gender, race, or educational background have the right to read scripture for themselves. All Christians are welcomed as leaders and participants in worship services. Two centuries after Luther, John Wesley attended a small gathering in a chapel on Aldersgate Street in London. Someone there read from Luther's "Preface to the Epistle to the Romans." That evening while the reader was explaining the change that "God works in the heart through faith in Christ," Wesley remarked, "I ...

25. Sick People Like Us Will Always Need The (Divine) Doctor

Matthew 9:9-13

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... and I carry as a result of our fallen human nature. In his commentary on this text, the great Protestant Reformer, John Calvin, pointed out why we do not want to hear this message. Hypocrites, being satisfied and intoxicated with a foolish confidence ... with which you and I have been cursed since birth. But hanging around that doctor (Jesus) can make you healthy, pure, and well. Martin Luther put it this way one time in one of his 1535 lectures. Thus if I look at Christ, I am completely holy and pure, ...

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