Sermon and Worship Resources

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Mark 8:31-38

Sermon

King Duncan

... to evaluate your own life, as will I. Are you a person who is focused on saving your life, and in the process losing it? Or are you a person focused on losing your life for Christ’s sake and actually saving it? Maybe we need to trade our Madonna cross--a mere decoration, for a Jesus cross--the cross of sacrifice and service. The choice is ours. Jesus summed up the entire matter like this: “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” 1. Robert C. Morgan, Lift High the ...

2. A Reminder of the Graciousness of God

Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... then faced the following test: “The young stars were drilled hard, participating in grueling 11-hour choreography sessions with Madonna’s own choreographer, several (script) readings with Madonna and a number of further auditions where they had to sing Madonna songs at Madonna for the approval of Madonna.” And it was all for nothing. In spite of their hard work, the film never did get beyond the auditioning and planning phase. (3) Why didn’t Jesus hold a “Disciple Bootcamp” to choose the best ...

3. A Message For Big Bird

John 11:17-37

Sermon

King Duncan

... said. "She was really religious, so I never understood why she was taken away from us. It just seemed so unfair. I never thought that she had done something wrong, so oftentimes I'd wonder what I'd done wrong." (4) We can t help but speculate that Madonna s attitude toward religion might be a whole lot more wholesome today if someone had been there to offer her some guidance and answer some of her questions at that critical time in her life. Cable TV magnate Ted Turner had the same kind of negative reaction ...

4. The Source

Hebrews 4:14-5:10

Sermon

Paul E. Robinson

... is better known than the Mother of Jesus in many pockets of culture, but the combination of presumption and lack of awareness of a broader reality on the part of Madonna's publicist is remarkable. And sad. There are some who feel that way about Jesus. About God. About the church. About faith. Empty, well-meaning words by pastors and priests at times of terrible pain have left a question mark about the ability of the Divine Reality to understand truly. ...

5. How Shall We Prepare?

Luke 3:1-20

Sermon

King Duncan

... during the busy Christmas season. This day was no exception. He waited anxiously for the postal clerk to weigh his packages and give him his stamps. His irritation quickly increased when he overheard a shabbily dressed man ask another clerk for $50 worth of Madonna stamps! "What corrupt influence is the government supplying society with now?" he thought. "Wasn't Elvis enough?" As the clerk in the next stall came to his clerk for extra stamps, Hensley leaned forward to catch a glimpse of what vile picture of ...

6. A Concert of Prayer

1 Corinthians 1:10-18

Drama

Leonard Sweet

... tell him, "If you promise not to tell anyone, I'll tell you who's on this plane." "Okay," Don said obligingly, "who's traveling with us?" "Madonna." "You mean the mother of our Lord?" Don countered. "No, no," said the flight attendant. "The real Madonna." How come no one had told this flight attendant who the real Madonna is? When is the last time you prayed for Madonna? Why are we who call ourselves Christians not, at best, late to hate, at worst, leaders of hate? Why are we hating and reviling people for ...

7. Holy Matryoshka!

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... , rests as the central kernel, which informs the stories of all of the other layers. The text both starts and ends with an angel. The text then sets itself within the time and context of Elizabeth’s pregnancy story. Within that context, the text reveals Mary, the Madonna, Mother of Mothers. But she is revealed in context of her engagement with Joseph of the House of David (another key and important clue to the child’s identity). The text then tells the story of Mary, who will bear a son, who will be the ...

8. The Call of the Cross

Luke 9:18-27

Sermon

... they identified him by what they had seen him do. They knew what they had seen, and this enlightened their understanding and faith in him. In July of 1981, six girls in the mountain village of Citluk, Yugoslavia, reported that they had seen a "golden-haired Madonna" who seemed to be "floating over a remote mountain meadow." The government’s official press paid little attention to the first reports but "as reports spread, as many as 30,000 Yugoslav Christians flocked to the area" in the hope of seeing the ...

9. Danny Devito In A Tree

Luke 19:1-10

Sermon

King Duncan

... 't you think Devito would be perfect for the role? But actually the story doesn't end here. Because now it is Danny Devito's turn--I mean Zacchaeus' turn--to reach out to someone else. That is what salvation is all about. 1. "Oprah Talks to Madonna," O magazine, January 2004, p. 122. 2. "10 Keys to True Happiness" by Bob Holmes, et. al. from New Scientist, reprinted in Reader's Digest, March 2004, p. 99. 3. Bernard Asbell with Karen Wynn, What They Know About You (New York: Random House, 1991). 4. Leonard ...

10. The World's Worst Bargain

Mark 8:31--9:1

Sermon

King Duncan

... , sex don’t sell it for anything. Even if you are offered the whole world. Walk away. It’s still a bad, bad bargain. 1. The Associated Press, 2001. 2. By Peter Brown and Robert Rans, http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alan.stuart/music/madonna/material.html. 3. Illusaurus 4. Tommy Nelson, The 12 Essentials of Godly Success (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2005), pp. 61-62. 5. William Beausay II., The Leadership Genius of Jesus (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1997), p. 45. 6. Bruce Shelley, All The ...

11. Life on the Rock

Matthew 7:24-29

Sermon

James Merritt

... Buddhism, Judaism, and the Kabbala (ancient Jewish lore) My own religion combines all those. I would rather present the Bible to my daughter as "some very interesting stories you could learn from" rather than "this is the rule." [1] Now did you hear carefully what Madonna said? She is going to teach her child to do the very thing Jesus warned against doing. That is, hearing the Bible, but not heeding the Bible. Well her life, and the life of her child, will be built on a faulty foundation, because when ...

12. WeatherProofing Your Home

Matthew 7:24-27

Sermon

James Merritt

... to say, you've got to leave the church and live out what God's Word has to say. Everybody in this room has heard of Madonna. Madonna had a baby a few years ago and a reporter asked her what type of religious training she was going to give her little baby. I ... some of the things that you find in the Bible, but she is not going to teach her to obey what she finds in the Bible. Madonna's life and her family and her home is built on a faulty foundation because she is not going to be an example of moral consistency ...

13. Making Christmas Last

Luke 2:21-40

Sermon

Brett Blair

... - 443079 Martin Luther King - 8.48 - 381284 Pope John Paul II - 8.27 - 371899 Gordon B. Hinckley - 5.66 - 254665 Mohandas Gandhi - 3.63 - 163555 Ronald Reagan - 1.79 - 80890 *John Lennon - 1.42 - 64043 Henry Ford - 1.23 - 55489 Mother Teresa - 1.11 - 50178 *Madonna - 0.85 - 38510 Winston Churchill - 0.83 - 37551 Linus Torvalds - 0.53 - 24084 American GI - 0.52 - 23809 Nelson Mandela - 0.47 - 21422 Princess Diana - 0.36 - 16309 Pope Paul VI - 0.35 - 15795 Here is what the world chose as the most influential ...

14. Caution and Opportunity

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... to the Lord, always giving thanks to God for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." Caution and opportunity serve us well in any endeavor. For sixteen years the North Carolina Museum of Art displayed one of its treasures, Cranach's Madonna and Child. The painting dated to the sixteenth century. Unaware of any problems with its provenance or history, the museum had displayed the painting in its European galleries since it was attributed to a major artist of the German Renaissance. In the spring ...

15. The Spirit of...Winter?

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... Century, tells of reading in The Wall Street Journal (3 October 2005, p. 1) of a Harvard medical student's research on birth anomalies. He was visiting the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, where the curator showed him an obscure fifteenth-century painting of Madonna and Child. The child, the baby Jesus, had the features of Down Syndrome. The medical student, Brian Skotko, who has a 25-year-old sister Kristin who has Down Syndrome herself, said he thought "the artist was someone like me, living in the fifteenth ...

16. Building Your Home on the Rock

Matthew 7:24-27

Sermon

James Merritt

... and he never forgot what Jesus said. Years later, writing in his book, he said in James 1:22, "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves." Now if you think about it, only a foolish man deceives himself. Most everybody has heard of Madonna. She is the Dennis Rodman of entertainment. As you may or may not know, she recently had a baby. Well, a reporter asked her what type of religious training she was going to give that little baby. Here's what she said: I am baptizing her Catholic ...

17. Preparation for Christ's Coming

Luke 21:25-36

Illustration

Billy D. Strayhorn

... struggling with what to write to God. As he sat there thinking he looked up and saw his mother's favorite piece of sculpture on the mantel. It was a beautiful rendition of the Madonna, the mother of Christ. The boy perked up and ran out of the room. He came back with a towel and a shoebox. He walked over, carefully picked up the Madonna, gently wrapped it in the towel, carefully put it in the shoebox and then hid it in the closet. He immediately went back to the table and wrote: "Dear God, if you ever want ...

18. The Forgiving Christ

Mark 2:1-12

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... warned others about the evils and dangers of “the material world...the physical world...the world of illusion that we think is real." “We live for it and are enslaved by it," said Madonna, “And it will ultimately be our undoing." The former “Material Girl" turned protective mother and Jewish mystic also declared, “People are going to hell if they don't turn from their wicked behavior." Praise God for prodigals who finally come to their senses. Poet Carl Sandburg writes, “There is an ...

19. The Parable of the Careless Farmer

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

King Duncan

... the Material Girl herself said, “We as Americans are completely obsessed and wrapped up in a lot of the wrong values looking good, having cash in the bank, being perceived as rich, famous and successful . . .” If Madonna is right, and certainly she is for a segment of our society at least, could it be that mammon is America’s real god? USA Today told of a Pew Research Center poll that asked people what their life goals were. According to this poll 81% of young adults between ...

20. Defeating Discouragement

Mark 1:21-28

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... did the half-time show at the Super Bowl. It was quite a spectacle. Vogue magazine gave the show rave reviews. You know why they thought the show was so good? Because, for a moment, they felt that Madonna looked like she was in her twenties again. Our culture does not like to hear that “youth will faint and be weary and the young will fall exhausted,” but it is true as the day is long. It is only when we stop resisting this truth that we open ourselves ...

21. Ready Or Not -- He Comes

Mark 13:32-37, Mark 13:1-31

Sermon

John A. Stroman

... and blood, fears and frustrations, anxiety and hope, just like us. Mary and Joseph are not stained-glass saints. They are ordinary artisans of humble faith with a sincere commitment to do the will of God. The child is not an infant prodigy of Raphael's Madonna, but a kicking, crying, helpless baby in Mary's arms, who will grow up in a world that will never really understand him. The shepherds are not idyllic figures, but rough and tough, unkempt men of the Judean plains. They are the migrant workers of the ...

22. The Savior Life Diet

John 6:25-59

Sermon

Alex Gondola

... children and their children, the right car, the right house in the right neighborhood, the right career, the right social status, the right vacation location, the right title, even the right church. Someone has said that our model for living today is more like Madonna, the "material girl," than it is like Mother Teresa. Have we somehow confused our wants with our needs? So, we may be hungry not hungry for food, but hungry in another way. In one of her books, Mother Teresa writes: The spiritual poverty of ...

23. Wind -- Word -- Spirit -- Community

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

Arthur H. Kolsti

... is something in our culture that leads us to devalue words. Readers of Marshall McCluhan in the '60s got the message that words are dead. Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady sang out, "Words, words, words, I'm so sick of words." A few years ago, Madonna had a hit song, "Papa Don't Preach." There is also much in our national experience that makes words suspect. Words from high places have been used to deceive, cover up, and stonewall. Yet here is the strange thing. Despite the influences that would devalue words ...

24. Proper 27 & Pentecost 25

Psalm 50:1-23, Psalm 43:1-5, Psalm 63:1-11, Amos 5:18-27, Hosea 11:1-11, 1 Thessalonians 4:13--5:11, Matthew 25:14-30

Sermon Aid

... will be discarded ("into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth"). SERMON SUGGESTIONS Matthew 25:1-13 (R, E, C) See the sermon suggestion from the Lutheran reading for Pentecost 24. Matthew 25:14-30 (L) - "In the Meantime...." "The Madonna of Medjugorje," a town in Yugoslavia, is the title of a television documentary about the daily "apparitions" of the Virgin Mary on a hillside to a group of young girls. The Virgin continues to appear to them, even when a priest has to hide them ...

25. Worthy Is The Lamb

1 Timothy 2:1-15

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... ." Dr. Williams is not a United Methodist, but there are Methodist students at Union Seminary. Other people trivialize the cross, reducing it to just a meaningless piece of jewelry, often worn as a necklace or in the case of baseball players dangling from the ear. Madonna's frivolous use of the cross has spurred its marketability. A jewelry store clerk asked a customer if she wanted the plain cross necklace or "the one with the little man on it." In this secular society in which the cross is still a scandal ...

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