Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 1 to 25 of 60 results

1. Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There!

Matthew 17:1-13

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... like that? Why aren’t we like that? (He walked through the house and high-five’d a teenager on the couch.) Because we’re crazy driven, hard-working believers, that’s why. Those other countries think we’re nuts. Whatever! Were the Wright brothers insane? Bill Gates? Les Paul? Ali? Were we nuts when we pointed to the moon? That’s right, we went up there, and you know what we got? Bored. So we left. Got a car up there, left the keys in it. Do you know why? Because we’re the only ones going back ...

2. Feel the Rhythm

Humor Illustration

King Duncan

A boy received a nice guitar for Christmas. He put his hands on the fret and held it in one fixed position while he strummed on the instrument hour upon hour. His father became vexed with him and said, “Son, you are supposed to move your left hand up and down the neck of the guitar and produce new sounds. Chet Atkins and Les Paul, the great guitarists, do that.” The little boy replied, “Well, Dad, they run their left hand up and down because they are still looking for it--I found it.”

3. The Golden Gift

Drama

... the streets to prove their virtue. We can make no other teaching." One of his most famous sayings was: "Les galères font le galérien." Translation: "Prisons make the criminal." The story of the good Bishop Bienvenue and the ex-convict Jean ... : I will not tolerate impertinence! Go to your room - at once! (She bursts into tears, goes stomping out again.) PAUL: You gave them to him? BISHOP: Release the prisoner. PAUL: Why would you give them to him? He is a convict. He has a yellow passport. BISHOP: Our Lord, ...

4. Carrying Worshipers out on Stretchers

Acts 2:1-21

Sermon

King Duncan

... . How those Christians loved one another! No one was in need, because they shared all things in common. No one was excluded. No one was forgotten. There were differences of opinion, of course. That is obvious in Paul’s letters. Anytime you have a group of people, you have differences of opinion. Youth pastor Les Christie says he learned a few hard lessons about how a church works in the early years of his ministry with youth. He decided that the youth group needed to paint the youth room. When the teens ...

5. Surprises

1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11

Sermon

David O. Bales

... anxiety" means "care, worry, or anxiety" depending on the context. It's the word Jesus uses to tell us not to worry about ourselves. Paul employs the exact word to talk about his concern for the church. Same word, but it refers either to an anxiety about ourselves ... fills people and spreads the faith to others and grants others the will and the ability to resist evil. The town of Le Chambon had something enduring to offer not only to fleeing Jews but to the world beyond. Years later, a despairing professor ...

6. The Promise that Won’t Be Broken

2 Timothy 1:1-14

Sermon

Clayton A. Lord

... . A parishioner of a fellow pastor, Les was only 62 years old when he learned of his diagnosis. He wasn't happy about the cancer. His faith was strong and in the following months he learned just how deep that faith was. As he shared his testimony, he was always quick to point out that he and Jesus were going through this together. He would say, "As long as Jesus holds my hand I knew everything, absolutely everything, will be all right." That is the same sentiment that Paul shares in Philippians 1:21 when ...

7. Step Eleven - Spirituality

Mt 26:36-46 · 1 Thess 5:12-22 · Ps 25:1-15

Sermon

John A. Terry

... evil they have done. Ours is not to quench the spirit. Ours is to help the weak, to be patient with all persons. Paul gives what seems rosy advice "Rejoice always." Why? Should we really be giving thanks to God for all the struggles of life? Should ... medieval legend which says that sometime during the 12th century, Henry II of England laid siege to the French city of Le Mans, but he failed to take it, and so he retired, baffled and enraged. According to the legend, he deliberately blasphemed God in order ...

8. The Fountain of Truth

2 Peter 1:12-21

Sermon

James Merritt

... , to travel from where we live to downtown Atlanta, you can go down Ponce de León Avenue. Ponce de León discovered the State of Florida because he was looking for the legendary fountain of ... am going to die, but you will still have the word of God." The messenger may die, but the message will live on. Peter was a great teacher, but he's gone; Paul was a great teacher, but he's gone; James was a great teacher, but he's gone. Down through the centuries there have been some great preachers of the word of God ...

9. Anger - Eleven Ways To Blow Up, Seven Ways To Cool Off

Matthew 5:21-26

Sermon

R. Curtis Fussell

... to ensure that you keep yourself in a state of uproar and anger. These eleven ways to make yourself good and angry come from the psychologist Les Carter in his book on anger.4 But be careful. The tendency on hearing these methods is to say "I hope so-and-so heard ... always negative, not always bad. Anger can be positive and have a rightful place in life. As the examples show, God, Jesus, and Paul are angry at evil, at false worship of God, at what distorts the good news. The Bible speaks of God hating evil and ...

10. No Instant Maturity

Matthew 7:15-23

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... Then there is this truth: perspective not proficiency alone is required for maturity. This is the second thing I want to emphasize. Le me tell you what I mean by perspective. John McKay is the coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. At ne time he ... I will not expose myself to different people and different ideas is a sure sign of immaturity, and a sure sign that I will never grow. Paul said, “I am a debtor both to the Greeks, and to the barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise” (Romans 1:14 KJV). When ...

11. Grace Upon Grace

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... of, the grace of God.3 Victor Hugo makes the same point, that grace is never cheap for the giver in his marvelous novel Les Miserables, which most of us, today, know as a famous musical play and film. In the play and the movie the character of Bishop ... friends who display unity of spirit as they speak out on behalf of the wrongly accused and imprisoned.5 For me, the theologian, Paul Tillich said it best in these words which strangely warmed my heart and transformed my life nearly fifty years ago. I hope ...

12. Body / Ambassador

2 Corinthians 5:11--6:2

Understanding Series

James M. Scott

... looks: Man looks at the face, but God looks at the heart” (cf. Ps.-Philo 59:2; b. Sanh. 106b; Gal. 2:6). As we have discussed, Paul is open to the charge of being a fraud, because his glorious claims (cf. 4:6) cannot be verified by any physical change in his body ... ). Cf. Martin Hengel, “ ‘Setze dich zu meiner Rechten!’ Die Inthronisation Christi zur Rechten Gottes und Psalm 110, 1,” in Le Trône de Dieu (ed. Marc Philonenko; WUNT 69; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993), pp. 108–94 (here esp. p. 142 ...

13. No Confidence in the Flesh

Philippians 3:1-11

Understanding Series

F. F. Bruce

... had already gained; he expands its significance in v. 10. See R. Bultmann, TDNT, vol. 1, pp. 689–714, s.v. “ginōskō,” “gnōsis” etc.; J. Dupont, Gnosis; La connaissance religieuse dans les épîtres de saint Paul; B. E. Gartner, “The Pauline and Johannine Idea of ‘to know God’ against the Hellenistic Background,” NTS 14 (1967–68), pp. 209–31. I have lost all things: Gk. ta panta ezēmiōthēn (passive), lit., “I have been fined everything”; “I have been deprived of all that ...

14. Body

2 Corinthians 5:1-10

Understanding Series

James M. Scott

... ’s idea is very close to that of Philo at this point (e.g., On the Confusion of Tongues 78). The trials that Paul faces on earth are typical of one who is in exile in a foreign land (see further on 2 Cor. 11:23b–29). 5:10 Cf. Martin Hengel, “ ‘Setze dich zu meiner Rechten!’ Die Inthronisation Christi zur Rechten Gottes und Psalm 110,1,” in Le Trône de Dieu (ed. Marc Philonenko; WUNT 69; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993), pp. 108–94 (here esp. pp. 142, 164). In light of Hengel’s argument, it ...

15. Living to Please God

1 Thessalonians 4:1-12

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... treatment of this theme of the work ethic as a factor in promoting well-being both of the church and of society. Alone among NT writers, Paul insists that one of the criteria of Christian action of any kind is its effect on the world at large (cf. 1 Cor. 14:16, 23f ... admonition should be understood has a long and complex history. For a full discussion of that history, cf. B. Rigaux, Les Epîtres aux Thessaloniciens (Paris: Gabalda, 1956) pp. 502–7, and for the scholarship since Rigaux, see R. F. Collins ...

16. Warnings Against Idleness

2 Thessalonians 3:6-15

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... to commend this suggestion). Most scholars find the idleness to be rooted in an eschatological excitement stemming from the Thessalonians’ belief in the imminence of the Parousia (see, e.g., von Dobschütz, Die Thessalonicher—Briefe, pp. 179–82; B. Rigaux, Saint Paul Les Epîtres aux Thessaloniciens [Paris: J. Gabalda, 1956], pp. 519–21; Best, pp. 176–78; Bruce, pp. 90f., 204–9; Morris, Themes, p. 74; for the suggestion that it was a symptom of Gnosticism, see Introduction on The Writing of 1 ...

17. The Kindness and Sternness of God

Romans 11:11-24

Teach the Text

C. Marvin Pate

... to Israel if they come to faith in Christ but stern to Gentile Christians if they do not remain in faith. Verse 24 concludes Paul’s third reason with another qal wahomer argument: if God grafted the wild branches (Gentiles) into the tree of the people of God (greater ... . Film: Weapons of the Spirit. This award-winning documentary (1987) is the stirring account of the villagers of Le Chambon in France, many of them descendants of French Huguenots, the first Protestants in Catholic France, who remembered ...

18. Ethics and Eschatology

Romans 13:8-14

Teach the Text

C. Marvin Pate

... that obedience to the Torah in this age (13:8–10) will bring about the age to come and the Deuteronomic blessings (13:11–14). Paul, however, reverses that tradition: only those whose faith is in Christ, not the law, and who thereby live a life of love (13:8–10 ... final resolution awaits the return of Jesus Christ (eschatology). Illustrating the Text Our continuing debt is to love others. Literature: Les Misérables, by Victor Hugo. In a well-known scene from this novel (1862), which has been made into a ...

19. Face to Face

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... recognition. Seeking God’s face, getting a glimpse, a shadow, a suggestion — that is the spiritual quest God calls his faithful to follow. Paul’s assertion is that we now have the most powerful of guides on this quest. No less than the human face of God ... honor and acclaim and pomp. Glory is transcendent goodness and beauty and love. The big time, bit hit movie of this winter is “Les Miserables.” It is a musical based upon a two hundred plus year old novel about France. Doesn’t sound like it would ...

20. Staying Alive All Your Ministry Life: Will You Finish Well?

Exodus 32:1-33:6

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... women’s groups. Ministry may certainly be that much – but it is not only that much – it’s far more. Though Les and Leslie Parrott are dealing with this next issue, I have to register if. Family pressures can really handicap character – ... only then that we put ourselves in the position for the Spirit to work within us. While we are not to seek ecstasy but surrender, Paul weds the two in a remarkable way. Here is one example of it. They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been ...

21. Don’t Be Childish, Do Be Child-like

Romans 8:1-17

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... big difference between a child’s “child-like” behavior and an adult’s “childish” behavior. In this week’s epistle text Paul is pleased to pronounce all those who follow Jesus and have received the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the living ... the remembrances that now live on are life affirming, not vendettas of vengeance. Remembering is actually “re-membering,” as writer Meridel le Sueur first put it in her admonition to re-member the dismembered of the world. Re-membering is a way of ...

22. Be Charitable In Your Judgment

1 Corinthians 4:1-21

Sermon

Richard Hasler

... task of God's servants. If that is the case, then God alone is capable of judging the acts and motives of his stewards. Paul confesses that he is not overwhelmed by the criticism of others, nor is he preoccupied with his personal success. When he intimates that his ... what about those of us who know that we have done wrong, sometimes flagrantly? The long-playing Broadway musical Les Miserables with its spectacular music and staging has thrilled American audiences in recent years. The story written by Victor ...

23. Treasures from the Past

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Sermon

Mary Austin

... all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me. This deep knowledge of Jesus, even after his human lifetime was over, changed Paul’s life. I wonder if the same is true for us. This is our inheritance, too. It’s passed on to us through ... us, just like Grandpa’s stamp collection, our aunt’s killer chess talents, and the family recipe for sourdough bread. Adrienne Minh-Chau Le is the daughter of refugees from Vietnam who fled Vietnam at the end of the war. Before she was born, her mother left ...

24. Dealing With Guilt And Shame

Romans 7:7-25

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... use of foul language, live in relationships, teenage suicide, seductive music videos, and a general disregard for authority." (Les Carter, Putting the Past Behind, Moody Press, pages 57,58) This kind of thinking has become a ... You've got to be patient with God. And the only way that patience can be kept alive and grow is to continue to believe that God is faithful. Paul put it this way "I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to perfection." (Philippians 1:6). God ...

25. Living Between D-day And V-day

Romans 6:1-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... . We know in whom we believe, but somehow the victorious life has eluded us. So how can we know the newness of life about which Paul writes? Dostoevsky once wrote, "The ant knows the formula for the anthill. The bee knows the formula for the beehive. They do not know the ... from the power of sin. One of the great stories of literature is that of Jean Valijean in Victor Hugo's novel, Les Miserables. After his parents died, Jean went to live with his sister. After her husband died the responsibility of being the ...

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