Sermon and Worship Resources

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Genesis 22:1-19

Sermon

Lori Wagner

To know God’s heart – that is the goal of every disciple. To bear the heart of God in word and deed, that is the goal of every eager, mature, and serious follower of Jesus. It seems like it should be easy sometimes, doesn’t it, to be a Christian? We generally think of ourselves as “good Christians” if we attend church most weeks, engage in some community service, do some good deeds, hang around w...

2. A Little Bit of Honey

Matthew 10:40-42

Sermon

Lori Wagner

A little bit of honey goes a long, long way. Who doesn’t love honey! It’s smooth, it’s sweet, and so, so good. The unlikely source? Bees! Furry little insects that swarm and sting. And yet, they make the sweetest nectar imaginable. For a long while, humans persecuted bees. We swatted them, sprayed them, wanted to eliminate them from our lives. They felt like unwanted pests. Now, we realize the h...

3. A Man Under Authority / A Centurion's Faith, An Elder's Love

Matthew 8:5-13, Luke 7:1-10

Sermon

Lori Wagner

“Let it be done for you according to your faith.” Props: Centurion helmet or any military helmet and stick Hope pulls you forward. Faith pushes you forward. Love keeps you moving forward. A story recently made the news whereby a visitor from Israel to the US had a serious heart condition, and needed a heart transplant immediately or he would die. He was older than the recommended age for surger...

4. A Piggy Pudding

Matthew 8:28-34

Sermon

Lori Wagner

Prop: pig bones In my hand, I am holding pig bones. Now this may be nothing special to any of you who love pork! But pig bones mean everything to an archaeologist on a site in Israel today. Why? Because pig bones are only found in areas where non-Jewish practices were going on. Finding lots of pig bones in a certain town would indicate the presence of Greeks, Romans, or Philistines, depending ...

5. A Restless Spirit

1 Samuel 28:1-25

Sermon

Lori Wagner

It’s Mother’s Day, otherwise known in the liturgical church as the “Festival of the Christian Home.” Today parents remember our baptismal covenant and recommit to bringing up our baptized progeny in the Christian tradition in our homes, churches, and extended family. This is also when we honor mothers in particular and their influence on our lives. In honor of that celebration today, let me remind...

6. A Spooky Kind of Love

1 Samuel 28:1-25, Matthew 28:11-15

Sermon

Lori Wagner

Last week we remembered that Jesus walks beside us even when we don’t notice He is there. This week we are reminded that God is in charge, even when we try to take matters into our own hands! There’s an old saying, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” The phrase was coined by Allen Saunders in a Reader’s Digest article in 1957, later appropriated by John Lennon in his song,...

7. A Supernatural Leap

Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 1:46-56, Luke 1:39-45, Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

Lori Wagner

In the Napa Valley there is a place called “Stag’s Leap.” There, it is said that a supernatural stag leaps across the craggy slopes in the light of the moon. The tale goes back to the time of the Native Americans, but it soon was continued by early pioneers who claim also to have seen the mysterious animal leaping through the night. At one point, it’s said that a team of hunters followed the creat...

8. A Taxing Encounter

Matthew 9:9-13, Mark 2:13-17, Luke 5:27-32

Sermon

Lori Wagner

Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. (1 John 4:8) Prop: Envelope…junk mail marked IMPORTANT You know those envelopes you get in the mail sometimes marked IMPORTANT! Here is one of them. You scramble to open it, thinking it’s a check or some important document that you need . . . only to find that it’s an ad to buy life insurance or something you don’t need! Yikes! Fooled aga...

9. AAA=A

John 6:35, 41-51

Sermon

Lori Wagner

“Jesus, the incarnate God, the substance of the Father come down from Heaven to teach, to feed, and to save.” It was hard for Jesus’ own disciples to believe, let alone those who knew his family, grew up with him, taught beside him, saw him as a fellow rabbi and Jew. Now Jesus begins to say some pretty unbelievable things, at least unbelievable to the rational mind, the Jewish mind, anyone’s mind!...

10. Abiding by the Word

John 6:51-58

Sermon

Lori Wagner

Language is a fascinating medium. Without it, we cannot effectively communicate with each other. Language is our means for connection with the world, with each other, and also with God. For Christians and many other religions, sacred writings, for us the scriptures, not only give us a history of our faith and the people who came before us, but they also give us a window into what we believe about ...

11. Against the Grain

Mark 3:13-19, Isaiah 28:1-29

Sermon

Lori Wagner

Everyone here has probably heard the phrase, “to go against the grain.” The idiom means, to do something contrary to one’s natural inclination, to go in opposition to one’s natural direction, to do something different than the norm. It may mean taking a difficult path, the road less traveled, as Robert Frost said in his famous poem about roads converging in a wood. It might mean going up against t...

12. All Dressed Up

Luke 12:32-40

Sermon

Lori Wagner

Fashion is a trillion dollar industry. It makes up 2% of the entire world’s GDP.[1] Why does apparel, the clothing we wear, play such a large part in our lives? For this we can look to art and literature, and even to scripture and the church. Unlike other animals, for as long as humans have roamed the earth, we have been concerned with clothing ourselves. From the moment of the “fall” in Genesis ...

13. All In

Exodus 3:1-22

Sermon

Lori Wagner

We hear a lot about covenants in scripture. Anyone know what a covenant is? How would you define it if someone asked you, “What’s a covenant?” That’s right. It has “legal” connotation. It’s actually ancient legal language. You might call it a kind of agreement or contract between two or more parties in a legally binding promise or vow. If you look at our marriage liturgy, you can see it there! Yo...

14. All in God’s Time

Mark 13:1-8

Sermon

Lori Wagner

"Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord." Psalm 27:14 “They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31 “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!” Psalm ...

15. All In God's Time

Luke 24:44-53

Sermon

Lori Wagner

In our contemporary society in which information lies immediately at our fingertips or even at our voice command and we can instantly communicate our wishes in a variety of ways, we humans have become more and more…impatient. This quickly leads to frustration that our needs and desires are not being met. Impatience then causes stress, often making us feel more…impatient. How do we break this unhea...

16. All the Pretty Horses

Luke 12:13-21, Luke 12:1-12, 1 Kings 3:16-28

Sermon

Lori Wagner

Storing up! When we hear that parable that Jesus told, we immediately think of silos and cornfields and harvest and grain. And that’s exactly the metaphor Jesus uses to describe “storing up” to the man in the crowd who approached him about help to get his deserved portion of inheritance. But it’s too easy merely to say, don’t put your security into money but into God. “Be on guard against all k...

17. All Wrapped Up

John 20:1-18

Sermon

Lori Wagner

He is risen! [He is risen indeed!] This must have been the exclamation that followed Simon Peter and John’s visit to the tomb after hearing from Mary Magdalene that early, dark morning that we call resurrection day. Sometime in the night, something miraculous had occurred. Something had changed. When Mary came to the tomb and found the stone removed, she also found that Jesus was missing. And yet,...

18. All You Can Do is Laugh

Genesis 18:1-15, Genesis 21:1-7

Sermon

Lori Wagner

“God has given me laughter. Everyone who hears about it will laugh with me.” Sarah (Genesis 21:6) Laughter has got to be one of the strangest phenomena in the human response system. Why do humans laugh? “It’s rarely because something’s funny,” say Peter McGraw and Joel Warner of Slate Magazine.[1]The two describe an example of the vexing phenomenon of “laughing disease” in Tanzania, in which scho...

19. Almond Joy!

Numbers 17:1-13

Sermon

Lori Wagner

“There shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of its root.” (Isaiah 11:1) “Jeremiah, what do you see? I see an almond branch. You have seen well, for I am watching to fulfill my word.” (Jeremiah 1:11-12) Props: menorah, shepherd’s rod, almond tree, almonds “You are the apple of God’s eye.” So says the psalmist in psalm 17:8. God is watching over you. God is...

20. And a Child Will Lead Them

Exodus 2:1-10, Matthew 18:1-9, Matthew 18:10-14

Sermon

Lori Wagner

When Maria (name disguised), dying of cancer, watched her partner hurt her three young children for the 7th time that month, she did the most painful thing a mother can do. She sent them away. She secretly arranged for them to be rescued and adopted, so that she could ensure their safety when she knew she could no longer fend for them. She couldn’t bear to leave them with him while she spent her l...

21. Anointed and Appointed

John 15:9-17

Sermon

Lori Wagner

This is the time of year in which we begin to celebrate graduations! Graduations are not just endings but beginnings. They signal the end of an era of learning and the start of an era of adulthood or maturity in one’s course of study that allows graduates to launch in dynamic and hopeful ways. High school and college graduates will now have the opportunity to become vital members of their communit...

22. Apostles of Hope

John 20:19-23, John 20:24-31

Sermon

Lori Wagner

If you want to stay out of the rain, you need to invest in an umbrella. So the saying might go. Or in our world right now, if you want to stay clear of the “cloud,” you need to wear your mask. For what you can’t see, CAN hurt you! We can’t see it. We can’t feel it. We can’t hear it. We can’t touch it. And yet, we cower in our homes for fear of the viral invader we call COVID-19. This invisib...

23. Apples, Onions, and Cheese

Mark 7:1-23, Mark 7:24-30

Sermon

Lori Wagner

The word of the Lord Almighty came to me. This is what the Lord Almighty says: “The fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth months will become joyful and glad occasions and happy festivals for Judah. Therefore, love truth and peace.” This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Many peoples and the inhabitants of many cities will yet come, and the inhabitants of one city will go to another and say,...

24. Are you a G.O.A.T.?

Matthew 25:31-46

Sermon

Lori Wagner

In the language of social media today, artists and sports greats of all kinds often refer to themselves as GOATS. The term means “Greatest of All Time.” Once a term reserved for public acclaim of a popular sports figure, today, the term has been used to declare the best of the best, or at least, those who believe, they are the best--folks such as Muhammed Ali, Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, Kobe Bryan...

25. Are You a Lemming or a Lassie?

Luke 12:13-21, Luke 12:22-34, Luke 12:35-48, Luke 12:49-53, Luke 12:54-59

Sermon

Lori Wagner

Prop: red scarves or pieces of red material to pass out during the altar call Some stories just tug at our hearts and warm our toes. Stories about animals seem to do that a bit more than not. In a particular story written in 1859 by Elizabeth Gaskell, two brothers venture out together along with their loyal and beautiful collie dog. Soon, they are lost as a vicious snowstorm whips up around them....

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