Sermon and Worship Resources

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Joel 2:28-32, Joel 2:18-27

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

Have you ever felt that you were absolutely at the end of your rope, left without hope? Sometime during the years of 539 B.C. to 331 B.C. that is the way the people of Judah felt. It seems that their land had been ravaged by a plague of locusts which had had catastrophic consequences. Once a harvest has been destroyed, you cannot repair it. If a building has burned to the ground, you cannot repai...

2. A New Beginning

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

Is it really possible to make a fresh start? Can you really have a new beginning in relationships or on the job? Are new beginnings really possible? Normally the answer to these questions is “no.” Bad marriages and bad parent-child relationships do not usually get better. And once institutions get established they resist change. We are pretty dull, monotonous people! Part of the reason that chan...

3. A New Heaven And A New Earth: Our Problems Are Fading Away!

Revelation 21:1-6

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

There is not much more that should or could be said about this song in our second lesson. These are compelling images. A God who wants to wipe away every tear from our eyes is a God who you’ll want to love. He’s a God who makes life a lot easier to live. If we read these words in light of our whole text for the second lesson, in light of the whole book of Revelation, then the idea of God wiping a...

4. A Protestant (And Catholic) Way To Confess

Romans 10:8b-13

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

Confession: Most Protestants are inclined to say that confession is Catholic and stop there. Or we hear it said, “Confession is good for the soul.” Even then, we are likely to hear it like Roman Catholics[1], to suppose it means that we are to recount our sins. We don’t need confession in our church! Or do we? Paul gives us a model for confession of the faith in the Book of Romans. Recall that th...

5. A Sympathetic High Priest

Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

Whoever wrote this sermon (it is not likely that it was Paul, since its style is different from other books written by Paul) was addressing a group of Jewish Christians. But what he has to say is for us, especially at this time when we remember Christ’s death: Since then we have a great high priest who passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we d...

6. A Vision of Freedom

Isaiah 65:17-25

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

Freedom is such a lovely word, a compelling image. What is freedom? How would you define it? What does it mean to you? Webster’s New World Dictionary defines freedom as being exempt from control or from arbitrary restrictions. Freedom is said to be the ability to choose or determine one’s own actions. That was the sort of freedom, escape from foreign intrusion, which the Hebrews sought when our F...

7. An Our Good Works And Generosity

Matthew 6:1-4, Matthew 6:5-15, Matthew 6:16-18, Matthew 6:19-24

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

Jesus was giving his famous Sermon on the Mount. In the middle of it he looked at the disciples from his sitting position (as was customary for Jewish rabbis of the first century when they were teaching). And Jesus said: "Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven (Matthew 6:1)." To whom was Jesus refer...

8. and Forgiveness Come Easy When You’re Filled with The Spirit

John 20:19-23

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

It's Pentecost Sunday, a day when we celebrate the birth of the Church and the giving of the Holy Spirit, as our lesson from Acts (2:1-21) reports. But the Bible makes it clear that it was not just on that first Pentecost that the Holy Spirit was given. It happened to some in Old Testament times (Judges 6:34; 1 Samuel 11:6; 16:13). However, the Spirit was also given during Jesus' own life on earth...

9. Are You Born Again?

John 3:1-15

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

It was late, almost bedtime, when the Jewish leader came to Jesus' residence. Into Jesus' presence came Nicodemus, one of the best-known Jewish professors in all of Israel (a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin). Nicodemus finally reached the short ruddy-faced leader of the disciples, and he said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do unl...

10. Ascribing Greatness to God

John 3:1-17

Illustration

Mark Ellingsen

Martin Luther summarized the nature of Christian life, what it is like to be born again, very well in one of his lectures in 1535. He reported that his teacher, John von Staupitz, said to him: " 'It pleases me very much that this doctrine of ours gives glory and everything else solely to God and nothing at all to men; for it is as clear as day that it is impossible to ascribe too much glory, goodn...

11. Christian: Don’t Get So Hung Up On Churchy Things!

Revelation 21:10, 22--22:5

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

There was no temple in the city. Heaven is a place without a temple. A Barna Poll in 2016 found while 73% of Americans identify themselves as Christians, only 37% are likely to be in church (and people typically lie about church attendance in polls). A 2016 Pew Research Center poll found that 20% of the religiously unaffiliated are turned off by institutional religion. It’s all about being “spir...

12. Christianity: A Worldly Religion That Makes Sure That Even Animals Matter

Revelation 5:11-14

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

Christianity is all about salvation — the salvation of our souls, right? That’s why the church needs to keep its nose out of politics and all this stuff about polluting the environment. A 2016 Pew Research Center poll found that nearly 1 in 2 of us (47%) feels this way about the church keeping out of politics. And a 2017 poll by Pew found that just over 1 in 2 of us (55%) rank ecological destructi...

13. Competition In The Kingdom?

Matthew 20:17-19

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

Jesus and his faithful band had begun their final journey to Jerusalem; it was the last trip that they would take together. Along the way Jesus told them again that he would be condemned to death by the authorities, he would die, but would be raised on the third day. It would happen to him on this very trip to Jerusalem, he said. This was the third time that Jesus had made this prophecy in the pre...

14. Easter Makes Us One!

Acts 10:34-43

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

What Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in 1963 is still true today. He stated, “We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers [and sisters].” Dr. King is still correct. The Trump election made clear our attitudes towards Muslim immigrants. A Detroit News poll conducted over a decade ago (in 2007) is still relevan...

15. Even Our Business Belongs to God!

Jeremiah 32:1-44

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

The weekend is shot (almost). Tomorrow it is back to the “real” world, back to the grind, at least for most of us. Where will God be in all that? Be honest with me: Do you feel God’s Presence on the job, as you go through the usual Monday routine? Is God directing you as you attend to your e-mail, run through your voice mail, review the reports, or check your assignment? Let us be frank with each...

16. Focus Your Faith

John 14:5-14

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

"There are so many religions in the world. Everybody believes in God his/her own way. Consequently, it can't matter what you believe: That wouldn't be fair if it did! No, it does not matter what you believe; it's if you believe that counts. As long as you believe in something. That is what counts!" "Ah, the church; who needs it? All you get there is a lot of hassles: Money-talk, changes, all thos...

17. Giving It All Up For Jesus And What’s Ahead

Philippians 3:4b-14

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

Take a moment to consider all you have done with your life. Whatever you came up with, Paul says in our lesson that it’s just the past. We ought to look at the past like twentieth-century American poet Paul Eldridge once wrote: “Praises for our past triumphs are as feathers to a dead bird.” Get over your successes. No matter how good you have been, how spiritual you are, no matter how much you hav...

18. God Doesn’t Always Behave Like We Think He Should

Philippians 2:5-11

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

In some ways life hasn’t treated you like you wish it had, right? All the childhood dreams have not been fulfilled, have they? Some friends have been lost along the way. Beloved family members are gone. Maybe family life hasn’t been quite what we’d hoped. The job’s not all we thought it would be. You name it. For all of us life hasn’t turned out just the way we had planned. Life is not like the p...

19. God Works Through Opposites

Matthew 21:1-11

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

God simply does not seem to do the sort of things we would expect our God to do. He does not always give us what we want. Most of us do not have everything we had hoped and dreamed for in life. He does not always answer our prayers. After all, we have all lost loved ones. Sometimes God seems so far away. We pray to him, and nothing is there (or so it seems). We look to God to intervene in our wor...

20. God's Gifts Are Free: Enjoy

Deuteronomy 26:1-15

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

Thanksgiving: How do we say thanks authentically and not lapse into the platitudes so often associated with this holiday? There are several dangers associated with the holiday. Ever since it was instituted as a national holiday by Abraham Lincoln, and even before when various state governors instituted it in their states, Thanksgiving has not been a strictly Christian holiday. There has been a lot...

21. Good Works Will Not Save You!

John 14:15-31

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

Jesus was still in the middle of his farewell discourse to his disciples. He was trying to comfort the despair that they were feeling when they had first heard the news (during the last supper) that Jesus would be leaving them (John 13:21, 33; 14:1). He had comforted them with the good news that he was on the way to God the Father, that in associating with Jesus, the disciples had been in fellowsh...

22. Hanging Around Jesus Changes You

Philippians 3:17 — 4:1

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

Writing to Christians in a Macedonian city of Philippi, Paul writes: “For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ...” (v.18). People don’t like this message, don’t want anything to do with the cross of Christ. No surprise. Who of us wants to mess with death and suffering? Why, it’s just common sense. Cross-bearing goes against the grain of what pop culture in America tells us about life. It g...

23. Having Fun with The Great Commission

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

I find it interesting that today as we commemorate the Trinity doctrine, the church assigns the Bible reading that includes Jesus' Great Commission — Jesus' mandate to go and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19). You can't do evangelism without believing in the Trinity, proclaiming the Triune God in whose name we baptize. And to believe in the Trinity, it seems, is to be an evangelist. Th...

24. How Jesus’ Friendship Makes Your Burdens Light

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

Jesus was teaching about the kind of authority he has. We need authority in our context, because to Jesus' mind we are a very confused, wayward generation. There was nothing to compare the people of his time to, nothing to compare us to.1 They and we are wayward, hardened, confused people. Inappropriate behavior seemed to be the order of the day in Jesus' view. The people of Israel were like child...

25. If Your Sense of Purpose Ever Becomes a Burden, Remember Your Value

Matthew 10:40-42

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

Do you ever wish you counted for something, that you had value? All the talk about purpose in church circles these days tries to respond to the natural human desire to count for something, to be somebody. But I worry about that way of thinking. If your value is all about your purpose in life, what if you fail? Are you then without any value? Today's gospel lesson is Jesus' final words of instruct...

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