Sermon and Worship Resources

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John 11:17-37

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

During this past week, I was confronted by an impossible task. I was asked, by her friends, to see a young woman in an attempt to cheer her up, or bring her out of her time of bitterness and depression from which she was suffering. Get the picture, please. Just about two years ago, this attractive young mother had her leg amputated in a motorcycle accident. She still suffers the pain of learning ...

2. But Men Loved Darkness

John 3:1-21

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

If you should ask the question: "What is wrong with our world today?" you would probably get as many answers as there are persons who are interrogated. Indeed, it is often like the lady foreman of the all-woman jury who was asked by the judge whether the jury had reached a verdict. "Yes, your Honor," she replied, "we have reached twelve verdicts." I suppose I’m considered a male chauvinist pig for...

3. Embalmed Alive

John 14:5-14

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

The words are probably the most plain, the most authoritarian, the most all-inclusive of the great "I am" statements made by Jesus Christ. In Chapter 14 of the Gospel According to St. John, verse 6: "I am the way, the truth, and the life." In unmistakable, explicit words, our Lord is saying that the human being cannot have life without him. I suppose that our culture can be divided into two types ...

4. Embalmed Leaders

John 10:1-21

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

In the best tradition of science fiction, it is always a little, three-toed, one-eyed, green skinned creature with a radio antenna sticking out of the top of his skull that steps out of a flying saucer space ship and says to the first American he meets: "Take me to your leader." Have you ever asked yourself, if you were confronted by such a question, just where or to whom would you take this visit...

5. Embalmed With Cardiac Arrest

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

I always wonder what an agnostic or an unbeliever or a skeptic does on Easter Day. Have you ever wondered that? Out of curiosity, let’s join two of them on the first Easter day. For them, the story was all over, the last curtain was rung down. Their hopes lay shattered. Their dreams lay twisted and ruined. Easter Day found them on the way back home to Emmaus, back to the old home town, about seven...

6. Facing the Glory Road

Matthew 20:17-19

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

Tell me, how would you like to have life served up to you? The newest neophyte among the Madison Avenue ad men will tell you. Every word of copy that they write promises to fulfill what they consider your deepest yearnings. You want it soft, just as soft as Puff facial tissues. You want it comfortable. You want it secure. You want to live in a kind of bovine, cud-chewing complacency, comfort, and ...

7. Fingertip Embalming

John 20:24-31

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

Have you ever noticed? It seems that there is always one at every party. No matter how carefully you select the guests, there is always one - the wet blanket, the killjoy, the party pooper, the spoilsport, the kind of person to whom you’d like to say: "I never forget a face, but in your case, I’m going to make an exception." I am reminded of the mother whom I was visiting in a home and, as we visi...

8. Freedom Can Be Frightening

Leviticus 25:8-55

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

In November of 1751, the Provincial Assembly of the Colony of Pennsylvania ordered a bell for its new State House. The order directed that the new bell should have a biblical quotation inscribed around it, as the specifications read, "in large and well-formed letters," and the quotation that was prescribed was verse 10 of chapter 25 of Leviticus. These words: "Proclaim liberty throughout the land,...

9. God of the Weekday

John 4:1-26

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

You say that we are a sophisticated, civilized, and intellectually mature people, that certainly in the climb of human progress, we have risen above such primitive things as, for instance, superstition? Well, let us think again, dear friends. Whether we like it or not, the old superstitions persist, the old fetishes still cling to us, the old fantasies still control us. A case in point: I remembe...

10. How Do You Like Yourself?

1 Peter 3:8-22

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

Tell me, what do you think of yourself? How do you feel about living with you? You know, the precedents aren’t too encouraging. A man that we call Saint Peter cried out: "O, Lord, keep away from me, for I am a sinful man." A man whom we call Saint Paul had the words wrenched out of him: "O, wretched man that I am." And the great king, David, cried out in the Psalm: "I am a worm" - I am a worm! - "...

11. Hungry for Anything?

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

One time I was having lunch with a man in a Chicago Loop restaurant. The waitress came to our table, offered him the menu and asked: "Well, what would you like for lunch;" "I don’t quite know," replied my companion, "but whatever it is, I’m sure that you won’t have it." We never quite get over that kind of childishness, do we? How many people know what they want in life? Try asking them some time,...

12. If You Had Been Here

John 11:17-37

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

Have you ever felt as if God had let you down, had withdrawn His protecting arm from you? Even the question seems foolish, because we know the answer before we ask it. We pastors who have walked hospital corridors with loved ones have seen the prayers of so many people seemingly go unanswered. We have seen parents pray earnestly for a sick baby, and then have gone to the cemetery to bury the much-...

13. Is Christianity Practical?

Jeremiah 17:19-27

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

Text: Jeremiah 17:5 - Thus says the Lord: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm, whose heart turns away from the Lord."Let's face it, we are paradoxical, a people who, while expressing our trust in Almighty God, are motivated by the apparent conviction that humanity is more to be trusted. That which is real is that which is pragmatically, empirically proved to be of value to...

14. Just Common People?

Romans 12:1-8

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

Some years ago in the Letters to the Editor in the Saturday Evening Post, I found one letter by an artist, who was describing the illustrations on the cover of the Post. The term that he used for them was pungent - "Insignificance, U.S.A." Well, most of us, I’m sure, have, in the past, found the Post covers, especially those paintings by Norman Rockwell, delightful. Yet, on the other hand, perhaps...

15. Life: Sacred or Stupid?

John 20:1-9

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

The phrase "while it was still dark," is greatly suggestive. The darkness was not only a description of the earliness of the morning, but it was a description of all people without firm belief in the Resurrection of Christ. Without that knowledge, as St. Paul has said, "we are a bunch of miserable human beings," because we have no understanding of the eternal and sacred character of human life, an...

16. Living Passionately

Luke 4:14-30

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

Text: Luke 4:18-19 - "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."Some years ago a friend wrote to the Russian author, Turgenev, telling him that he felt that the most impo...

17. LORD, I BELIEVE

John 9:35-41

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

Some years ago the eminent clergyman and preacher, S. Parks Cadman, was conducting a Question and Answer period for a group of men. His answers were brief, eloquent, pungent, to the point. And then, finally, came the question, "Dr. Cadman, do the dead live?" Like the crack of a pistol, Dr. Cadman retorted, "They certainly do; and if you don’t believe me, come down to my church and take a look at s...

18. Molehills and Mountains

Matthew 6:25-34, Mark 8:31--9:1

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

The story is told of George Bernard Shaw that he was once seated beside a Duchess at a dinner party. In the course of their conversation, he asked: "Tell me, Duchess, would you live with a man for a million pounds?" "Well," replied the Duchess, "I suppose I would" Then Shaw asked her: "Would you live with a man for five pounds?" The Duchess was insuited: "What do you think I am?" "We’ve already es...

19. Natural Or Supernatural?

Luke 9:28-36

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

Text: Luke 9:29-31 - And as he was praying, the appearance of his countenance was altered, and his raiment became dazzling white. And behold, two men talked with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was to accomplish at Jerasalem. I am sure that there is no one within the sound of my voice who was not vitally aware that a few weeks ago we celebrated Sup...

20. Our Father Who Art on Earth

Proverbs 1:8-19

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

This morning we celebrate a rather poor imitation of something that takes place on the second Sunday in May. It is the day when we pull our leftover sentiments out of the deep freeze where we stashed them on Mother’s Day, warm them up a bit to dish them out now for Father’s Day. Yes, it is Father’s Day. It always comes as a bit of a shock and surprise, doesn’t it? No one talks very much about it. ...

21. Perhaps Next Summer...

Acts 24:1-27

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

The poet said it: "The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year." And suddenly, it came to us this past week that summer was over. Unbelievably, it was the first day of autumn. Actually, we don’t regret the passing of any other season, but, somehow, it is different with the summer. We all look sadly at each other and ask: "Where did it go to?" We all have the frightening feeling that some...

22. SURVIVAL IN THE RAT RACE

Psalm 46:1-11

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

Dear friends, I know what I am supposed to do up here in this pulpit. I’m supposed to startle you with some stabbing statement of Scripture. I’m supposed to challenge you with some call of Christ. I’m supposed to impress you with some imperative of the Gospel. But, do you know something? I don’t want to do any of those things today. I just want to tell you to relax, to rest, unwind, sit loose, tak...

23. Talk! Talk! Talk!

Jeremiah 1:1-19

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

Text: Jeremiah 1:6 - Then, I said, "Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak ..." Jeremiah was expressing a common need of most of us. One of the miraculous abilities of the human being is his ability to speak to another human being and be understood, that the mind can communicate its thought to another mind or minds by way of speech. But how tragic it is that we misuse and waste this God-...

24. The Crisis of Commitment

1 Corinthians 11:17-34

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

In a few moments, we will commune with our Lord at the Table that He has prepared for us. His command is simple and direct: "This do." But there is an added admonition. It is repeated four times in the accounts of the institution of this Sacrament, and so, certainly, it must be important: "This do in remembrance of me." To eat this bread and drink this cup without remembering, remembering the terr...

25. The Embalmed Come Alive

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

I was amused, if a bit sadly amused, at the cartoon that I saw in an issue of The Lutheran magazine. It shows a man leaping up from his pew in the middle of a worshiping congregation. He is waving his arms in the air. His mouth is open with a shout of joy and glee. And beside him, his wife is frantically trying to pull him back into his seat, and she is saying: "Okay, so you feel the Spirit, but n...

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