Sermon and Worship Resources

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1. A Commitment That Is Entire

Matthew 13:44-46

Illustration

Leonard Mann

A goal that is worthy deserves and demands a commitment that is entire. An Olympic athlete must be committed to training; a great violinist must be committed to practicing; anyone who pursues a goal must be committed to the disciplines the achievement requires. After hearing a famous pianist, a lady said to him, "I would give anything to be able to play like that." He replied, "I'll bet you would...

2. A Faith for the Uncharted Way

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Leonard Mann

A few summers ago my family and I made a motor trip west from our home in Ohio to the Pacific coast, and returned. We crossed the prairies and the plains, the Mojave Desert and the great salt flats of Utah; we drove through the Badlands and the Grand Tetons, and crossed the Sierra Nevadas and the Rocky Mountains twice. We followed the trails of the pioneers, the Mojave, the Wyoming, and the Santa ...

3. Fear for the Future

Illustration

Leonard Mann

A story is told about a man who was a successful bill collector. He could collect old debts from people upon whom all the other collectors had given up years before. Someone asked him how he did it. He replied, "O, it's quite simple really. I just write them one letter, and in that letter I tell them just one thing, and that one thing is this: if you don't pay this bill immediately, that thing whi...

4. God Lets Us Help

Matthew 14:13-21

Illustration

Leonard Mann

Ethan Allen was a big, voluble, rather flamboyant Vermonter, Colonial patriot, a somewhat controversial hero of the American Revolution. He organized a rag-tag army of freedom-lovers known as the Green Mountain Boys. On May 10, 1775, Allen and his "Boys" captured from the British the strategic Fort Ticonderoga. Having returned from this successful venture, Allen did something which he was wont to ...

5. God Works with People

Matthew 14:13-21

Illustration

Leonard Mann

Historically, God has always worked with people, and through people, to get things done in the world. Remember, please, that it was with the food the disciples brought to Jesus that he fed the multitude. And he didn't feed them, really; it was the disciples who did that; it was from their hands those people received that food that day. It is the way of God to use human instrumentality to accomplis...

6. Incalculable Riches by Bishop Roy C. Nichols

Ephesians 3:1-13

Sermon

Leonard Mann

In Ephesians, Chapter 3 and verse 8, Paul says, "To me, least of all the saints, is given the grace to preach the unsearchable riches of the gospel of Jesus Christ." One of our modern translations renders the text thus: "the incalculable riches." I like that better, because it expresses the vastness of the gospel, rather than its "mystery." Paul was sharing this testimony with the members of the c...

7. It Is Really Something New by Dr. Frank Bateman Stanger

2 Corinthians 5:11--6:2, Acts 17:16-34

Sermon

Leonard Mann

The six of us ministers during this special series have been given a very demanding assignment. There is nothing more exacting than to try to tell the meaning of something. Certainly it is not easy to verbalize accurately a meaning. I remember shortly before I left the last local church which I served as pastor that one of the young adults, a very attractive, intelligent, spiritually sensitive la...

8. John Had an Outlook

Matt 3:1-12; John 3:22-36

Illustration

Leonard Mann

In the story of Adam Bede, George Eliot describes a certain conceited person as being "like the cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow." I've known, as you probably have, a few persons along the way who were just about as vain as this. Remember that line by Tennyson: "One far-off divine event to which the whole creation moves?" I knew one fellow once who apparently believed himself to...

9. Miracle On Main Street by Dr. George A. Buttrick

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Leonard Mann

There’s always mystery on Main Street, and one day the miracle occurred. You look into the mirror. You don’t say, "Who am I?" No, a Voice asks, "Who are you?" You don’t say, "I needn’t be here." No, the Voice says, "It is inevitable that you are here." Try it, and see. You are meant to be here. Then trouble begins. Who meant your life? "My parents," you say. Oh no, parents don’t create life: they ...

10. Name Above Every Name

Luke 2:21-40

Sermon

Leonard Mann

The first thing about anyone is his name. A human person is born into the world, and almost immediately a word is chosen to denote him. Not a number, not a sign, not a shape - but a word. And that word becomes everyone’s way of saying who he is. For all of his lifetime that word is used to indicate him. By means of it, he says, "This is I." By means of it, others say, "That is he." In a very real ...

11. Pilgrim Living in a Vagabond World

Matthew 7:13-14

Sermon

Leonard Mann

I am thrilled to see a powerful airplane cut a straight path across the sky, above the mountains and the rivers, homing in on some distant destination. I am much moved when I watch a huge ocean liner disengage from the dock, slowly make its way out to the harbor’s edge, and then swing about, point its stately prow toward an oceanside city 3,000 miles away, and open all engines to full power. And I...

12. Sacrifice: What It Is Worth

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Illustration

Leonard Mann

The process of our living involves a lot of trade-off and barter. We are forever giving up some things in order that we might have others; we are perpetually sacrificing this so we may have that. We do this in our marriages; we do this in our occupational choices; we do this in the matter of having children; we do it at almost every juncture of the journey we make. In most of our choices we are ac...

13. The Art of Living Until

Matthew 24:36-51

Sermon

Leonard Mann

There are many things about your life which I do not know. But one thing I do know: you are living in an interim. And so am I. We are in time-in-between; we are between what has happened and what will happen. We know a great deal about the former and very little about the latter. What has been is past, and we are moving away from it, going on to what is to be. How we make this journey is very impo...

14. The Bible, Your Mirror? by Dr. Lawrence L. Lacour

Acts 17:16-34

Sermon

Leonard Mann

Jesus, the authority on people, knows and understands you. We have our text to assure us. Think of it! Through faith in Christ we can understand ourselves and others. These words about Jesus have a unique relationship to the theme for this series. The Greeks, who asked Paul about the meaning of "this new teaching" were hearing this message for the first time. But the teaching about Jesus and the ...

15. The Deeper Meanings of The Christian Faith by Dr. Bryant M. Kirkland

Romans 8:18-27

Sermon

Leonard Mann

I would like to talk with you about the meaning of Christianity. I took seriously the assignment that was given to me. I studied about Paul’s sermon at Mars Hill where he stood up in the great place of debate and spoke so eloquently that the people said, "Tell us what is the meaning of this Jesus and the resurrection that you proclaim." I have tried to work out this message mindful of what I imagi...

16. The Light that Shines Within

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Leonard Mann

The story of the birth of Jesus has been variously told. Luke has told it in relation to the appearance of angels and the visit of shepherds. Matthew has told it in the context of a brightly shining star and the coming of wise men from the East. Others may very well have associated the story with other signal happenings mentioned by neither of these; for any event of importance is attended by a va...

17. The Time of Our Visitation

Sermon

Leonard Mann

You know how it was that Jesus of Nazareth began his career as a teacher and public figure in Galilee. You know how John came out of the wilderness and preached to the people who gathered around him on the banks of the Jordan. You know how for many long centuries the Jewish people had looked for the coming of their Messiah. When John appeared, their scholars speculated that perhaps this impassione...

18. This Grace In Which We Stand by Dr. Gene E. Bartlett

Romans 5:1-11

Sermon

Leonard Mann

Anyone who has browsed through a gift shop sooner or later has come to a polite but insistent sign, "Please Do Not Touch." It was refreshing, therefore, to come recently upon a sign of different tone. In the gift shop at O’Hare Airport the word above some African wood carvings said, "Please touch. You can’t appreciate these until you do." There are many evidences that this in fact was the mood in...

19. To Bethlehem and Beyond

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

Leonard Mann

The Christian gospel began at Bethlehem one star-kissed night when a baby was born, and angels sang, and shepherds came - when the heavenly Father was so loving the world that he was giving his Son. To most of us the outward signals of the Bethlehem Event are rather well known. We know how shepherds received from heavenly messengers the announcement of the birth of Jesus, and how they said, "Let u...

20. What the Future Holds

Matthew 3:1-12

Illustration

Leonard Mann

Have you seen ancient maps of unexplored portions of the world? Maps that portrayed the prevailing ideas of what lay beyond, the unexplored lands and the uncrossed seas? Maps from before the adventures of Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan? How grotesquely inaccurate those maps were! How vastly they differed from what the explorer eventually found! How fantastic were the no...

21. Your Image of Tomorrow

Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon

Leonard Mann

"Among those who are born of women ..." If you are thinking of the human race, this is a rather inclusive statement; I can’t think of very many people it leaves out! And this is a statement of Jesus as he offers a summa cum laude of highest praise to one of his associates in the dissemination of truth and light. He says, "Among those who are born of women, there has not arisen a greater prophet th...

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