Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 1 to 25 of 50 results

1. Wait Patiently

Mark 1:1-8

Illustration

Mickey Anders

Henri Nouwen once said, "If we do not wait patiently in expectation for God's coming in glory, we start wandering around, going from one little sensation to another. Our lives get stuffed with newspaper items, television stories, and gossip. Then our minds lose the discipline of discerning between what leads us closer to God and what doesn't, and our hearts lose their spiritual sensitivity." It's ...

2. Getting to Bethlehem

Mark 1:1-8

Illustration

Mickey Anders

If you ask a travel agent how to get to Bethlehem you'll be booked on an El Al airlines flight to Tel Aviv, ride on an air conditioned coach up through the hills, probably pass through Jerusalem, and then into the tourist trap called Bethlehem. Ask anyone in the New Testament how you get to the little town of Bethlehem and they'll say, "Go out to the desert, keep going till you get to the River J...

3. LIVE-SAVING STATIONS

Mark 1:14-20

Illustration

Mickey Anders

On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur there was once a crude little life-saving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought for themselves went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost. Some of those who were saved, and various others in the surrounding area, wanted t...

4. Bigger Is Not Always Better

Mark 8:31-38

Illustration

Mickey Anders

The American businessman was at the pier of a small, coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied only a little while. The American then asked why didn't he stay out longer and catch mo...

5. Built around the Cross

Mark 8:31-38

Illustration

Mickey Anders

There's a great story about the artist Rodin, who one day saw a huge, carved crucifix beside a road. He immediately loved the artwork and insisted on having it for himself. He purchased the cross and arranged to have it carted back to his house. But, unfortunately, it was too big for the building. So, of all things, he knocked out the walls, raised the roof, and rebuilt his home around the cross (...

6. You Must Watch!

Mark 13:32-37

Illustration

Mickey Anders

One morning in the early 1890s, four workers were busy in a cornfield. One man with a scythe was cutting the corn and leaving it in long swathes. He was followed by a boy who was making bands of twisted cornstalks and laying them on the ground at intervals, side by side. The third worker had a small wooden rake with three six-inch teeth on it, and with this he was gathering bundles of the cut corn...

7. Born of the Spirit

John 3:14-21

Illustration

Mickey Anders

Windborne! That's a far better moniker for Christians than that mistaken term "born again." That's a phrase we picked up from Nicodemus' misunderstanding of entering a second time into the mother's womb rather than Jesus' terminology "born from above" or "born of the Spirit." "No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and wind - Spirit - pneumatos." Windborne speaks of being...

8. It's a Mystery

John 3:1-17

Illustration

Mickey Anders

You can analyze, even over-analyze sailing, by breaking it down into the scientific principles involved. You can study the Beaufort scale of wind speed, the principle of lift which pulls the boat through the water rather than pushing it, the many kinds and purposes of knots, the charts with all their legends and hieroglyphics, and the intricacies of sail trim. All of those can make you a better sa...

9. A Natural Born Pessimist

John 20:19-23

Illustration

Mickey Anders

Joe Gordon says a pessimist is someone "who can look at the land of milk and honey and see only calories and cholesterol." It was difficult for Thomas to follow Jesus for he was a natural born pessimist. Thomas was absolutely certain that disaster awaited them, but in an act of tremendous faith and loyalty he was ready to go with Jesus. Just because he was pessimistic, that was no reason to stop ...

10. A Seeking Doubt

John 20:19-23

Illustration

Mickey Anders

Someone described Thomas' doubt as a "seeking doubt, a doubt that wants not to continue to doubt but to come to believe." Thomas makes it clear to us that there is more than one kind of doubt. There is the kind of doubt that does not want to believe, that reaches for arguments in order to deny the affirmations of the faith. But there is also that "seeking doubt." This is a person who earnestly wa...

11. Even the Great Believers Doubt

John 20:19-23

Illustration

Mickey Anders

Most Christians think the great believers of the faith never doubted. They know about the faith of the famous Christian leaders, but not about their inner struggles. One Christian leader at the turn of the century wrote in his autobiography: "My religious faith remains in possession of the field only after prolonged civil war with my naturally skeptical mind." The Scottish reformer, John Knox, wro...

12. You Should Have Seen It…

Mark 4:26-34

Illustration

Mickey Anders

I remember an old story about a man who bought a house with an overgrown garden. The weeds had long since taken over the garden and it was a mess. But slowly the man began to clear the weeds, till the soil and plant the seeds. Finally, he had made it into a showcase garden. One day the minister came to visit, and when he saw the beautiful flowers and plants, he observed, "Well, friend, you and God...

13. They Knew Agriculture

Mark 4:26-34

Illustration

Mickey Anders

The Bible is a book that is loaded with images from agriculture. The reason is obvious. The people described from the first page to the last lived close to the land. They were a people who knew what it was to stoop for long hours in the hot sun to till the soil. Their toes and feet were often covered by the black soil on a spring day. They chopped and hoed through the summer, waiting patientl...

14. God’s Garden

Mark 4:26-34

Illustration

Mickey Anders

Inch by inch, row by row Gonna make this garden grow All it takes is a rake and a hoe And a piece of fertile ground That's the way a wonderful children's song by David Mallet starts. It's entitled "Garden Song" and continues this way: Inch by inch, row by row Someone bless these seeds I sow Someone warm them from below 'Till the rain comes tumbling down. Grain for grain, sun and rain, Find my ...

15. Failure

Mark 6:1-13

Illustration

Mickey Anders

Failure is a word that strikes fear in the heart of everybody. Our society has become so success-oriented that we have very little tolerance for failure. We glamorize Lebron Jameses of the world, and ridicule misfits and also-rans like you and me. There was one of those reality television shows on with several young people placed in a house together for weeks. One of the girls made the candid re...

16. Shake Off the Dust

Mark 6:1-13

Illustration

Mickey Anders

Sometimes our highest hopes are destroyed so that we can be prepared for better things. The failure of the caterpillar is the birth of the butterfly. The passing of the bud is the blooming of the rose. The death of the seed is the prelude to its resurrection as wheat. Someone has said that plants grow best in the darkness of night just before dawn. Our failures can be the door to a new succes...

17. The Wilderness

Mark 6:30-44

Illustration

Mickey Anders

I have always been fascinated by the amount of ink the Bible gives to wildernesses and deserts. Have you noticed that? Hagar, Moses and Elijah go to the wilderness and find God. Moses was walking in the wilderness when he came upon a bush that was burning but not consumed. The children of Israel had to wander in the wilderness for 40 years before entering the Promised Land. John the Baptist w...

18. Overcoming the Sacred Cows

Mark 7:1-23

Illustration

Mickey Anders

Every church has such traditions that have become sacred cows. In one church I pastored, the color of the carpet had become the sacred cow. We had always had red carpet, but now the property committee was going to change it to blue. Some people just weren't sure they could worship God on a BLUE CARPET, God forbid. At another church, we had the Great Hymnbook Controversy of 1975. For twenty ye...

19. Dying Like an Amateur

Mark 8:31--9:1

Illustration

Mickey Anders

In George Seaton's film The Proud and the Profane, the steps of a young nurse are traced to Iwo Jima where her husband had been killed in World War II. She goes to the cemetery where her husband lies buried and turns to the caretaker, a shell-shocked soldier, who had seen her husband die. "How did he die?" she asked. "Like an amateur," he replies. "They teach you how to hurl a grenade and how ...

20. Two Schools of Thought on Divorce

Matt 5:31-32; Mark 10:1-12

Illustration

Mickey Anders

There were two schools of thought in Jesus' day concerning divorce, one liberal and one conservative. Rabbi Shammai taught that divorce was only permissible on the grounds of some sexual impropriety. His was the stricter view. Rabbi Hillel, on the other hand, had a more liberal view and taught that a man could divorce his wife for any reason. If she burned his breakfast, put too much salt on his f...

21. Let It Crawl, Reverend!

Mark 10:17-31

Illustration

Mickey Anders

Flip Wilson had a weekly TV comedy show back in the 70s, and one of his favorite characters to portray was Brother Leroy. In one skit, Brother Leroy was leading services Sunday morning. It wasn't going very well. People weren't very responsive. It came time to receive the offering and so Brother Leroy passed the collection plates. They came back empty. So he passed them again. Same thing. Empty. B...

22. A Brain, A Heart, A Home, The Nerve

Mark 12:28-34

Illustration

Mickey Anders

One of the disadvantages of growing up in a very religious home like I did was that you never knew the end of Sunday night TV movies. When the annual showing of The Wizard Oz came on television every year, I sat through the tornado, saw the house that smashed the wicked witch of the East, and heard the munchkins sing about the yellow brick road. But then just as it got to the exciting parts, my pa...

23. We Expect the Ground to Be Firm

Mark 13:1-8

Illustration

Mickey Anders

Biblical writers were fascinated by earthquakes, and referred to them often to make their point. An earthquake is a good image for cataclysmic times when "everything nailed down is coming loose." Earthquakes threaten our assumptions about the stability of life. We like to think of earth as rock solid, but sometimes the earth moves. Sometimes when people fear flying on a plane, they resort to the a...

24. We Need to Look Within

Luke 1:26-38

Illustration

Mickey Anders

Back in 1957, when the first Russian cosmonauts flew into space, one of them came back with the brave announcement that he had been "up there," but he didn't see God. He was looking in the wrong place, and so do we. We need to look within. One of my favorite religious authors, Karen Armstrong, makes this point when she shares her own testimony in a book called, A History of God: "As a child, I...

25. Dedicated to God

Luke 1:39-45

Illustration

Mickey Anders

In his book Reaching for the Invisible God, Philip Yancey tells about a surgeon friend of his who performs delicate surgery to rebuild the human hand after a severe injury. Whenever he gets a call that there has been an accident, the doctor knows that he will be staring into a microscope and doing delicate surgery for six hours. And this can happen at all hours of the day or night. On one occasio...

Showing 1 to 25 of 50 results

1. Wait Patiently

Mark 1:1-8

Illustration

Mickey Anders

2. Getting to Bethlehem

Mark 1:1-8

Illustration

Mickey Anders

3. LIVE-SAVING STATIONS

Mark 1:14-20

Illustration

Mickey Anders

4. Bigger Is Not Always Better

Mark 8:31-38

Illustration

Mickey Anders

5. Built around the Cross

Mark 8:31-38

Illustration

Mickey Anders

6. You Must Watch!

Mark 13:32-37

Illustration

Mickey Anders

7. Born of the Spirit

John 3:14-21

Illustration

Mickey Anders

8. It's a Mystery

John 3:1-17

Illustration

Mickey Anders

9. A Natural Born Pessimist

John 20:19-23

Illustration

Mickey Anders

10. A Seeking Doubt

John 20:19-23

Illustration

Mickey Anders

11. Even the Great Believers Doubt

John 20:19-23

Illustration

Mickey Anders

12. You Should Have Seen It…

Mark 4:26-34

Illustration

Mickey Anders

13. They Knew Agriculture

Mark 4:26-34

Illustration

Mickey Anders

14. God’s Garden

Mark 4:26-34

Illustration

Mickey Anders

15. Failure

Mark 6:1-13

Illustration

Mickey Anders

16. Shake Off the Dust

Mark 6:1-13

Illustration

Mickey Anders

17. The Wilderness

Mark 6:30-44

Illustration

Mickey Anders

18. Overcoming the Sacred Cows

Mark 7:1-23

Illustration

Mickey Anders

19. Dying Like an Amateur

Mark 8:31--9:1

Illustration

Mickey Anders

20. Two Schools of Thought on Divorce

Matt 5:31-32; Mark 10:1-12

Illustration

Mickey Anders

21. Let It Crawl, Reverend!

Mark 10:17-31

Illustration

Mickey Anders

22. A Brain, A Heart, A Home, The Nerve

Mark 12:28-34

Illustration

Mickey Anders

23. We Expect the Ground to Be Firm

Mark 13:1-8

Illustration

Mickey Anders

24. We Need to Look Within

Luke 1:26-38

Illustration

Mickey Anders

25. Dedicated to God

Luke 1:39-45

Illustration

Mickey Anders

Showing 1 to 25 of 50 results