Sermon and Worship Resources

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Luke 19:1-10

Sermon

James Merritt

... of anything new, that everything's been done wrong. The simple agrarian America of Franklin's day didn't begin to need the answers we need today go do something about it.1 Benjamin Franklin is an illustration of the fact that there is potential for greatness in all ... and a rowing machine, Complete with gadgets to read my pulse, And gadgets to prove my progress results, And others to show the miles I've charted— But they left off the gadget to get me started. I will never forget the story of a woman who ...

2. When a Storm Is Raging

Mark 4:35-41

Sermon

King Duncan

... in admiration as the other guests marveled at how he had miraculously made the rough surface of the water as smooth as glass. Franklin finally explained that he had simply spread oil on the troubled waters. He had released on the rough surface of the water a ... of Galilee. The sea is more than six hundred feet below sea level. It is a relatively small body of water, ten miles long and four miles wide. However, it is about 150 feet deep. Because the sea is so far below sea level and is surrounded by mountains, ...

3. When the Drought Gets Really Bad

Isaiah 55:1-9

Sermon

King Duncan

... ’s true of people in every generation. In one of her books, Annie Dillard writes of the ill-fated Franklin expedition. In 1845, Sir John Franklin and 138 officers and men embarked from England on two large sailing vessels to find the northwest passage across ... not make it. They all perished including two officers who set out pulling a large sled. They traveled more than 65 miles across the treacherous ice with this heavy load in tow. When rescuers found their bodies, they discovered that the sled was filled ...

4. No Other Gods

Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... games.” U.S. citizens can thank Benjamin Franklin for starting the first garbage collection and street cleaning service in the 1700s, which greatly improved the health of the local population. (3) Franklin’s innovative methods proved a compelling point: ... God. And here’s another clue: once our heart belongs to God, then faithful service to Him is a joy, not an obligation. The Rev. Miles Brandon II tells how he saw this kind of faithful service to God in a young woman he dated in college. She worked as ...

5. The World's Greatest Cover Up

Romans 4:1-25

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... is spent covered and clothed. He contended that because the body is alive, like every other living entity, it needs air to survive. In Franklin's own words he declared: "I have found it much more agreeable to my constitution to bathe in another element, I mean cold air ... heart from everyone we meet. But we cannot cover up our soul from God's eyes. God can smell our unwashed interior a mile away, no matter how hard we work to cover up the stench with flowery fragrances. It's only through grace that we're ...

6. The Door Is Always Open

Luke 15:11-32

Sermon

James Merritt

... succeed the most respected, admired, and perhaps famous American of the Twentieth Century Billy Graham. His name is Franklin Graham. Today Franklin Graham not only has a tremendous benevolent ministry called The Samaritan Purse, and has met needs all over ... . He hadn't been gone too long when he sent his dad this telegram: Dear Dad: Here I am in the big city, flat broke, miles away from home, and no friends. What shall I do? The father wired back: "Make some new friends." The only friends this boy had now ...

7. The Darkness of a Youniverse

John 3:1-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... part of March. It may have been the dumbest idea of his brilliant mind. But it was Woodrow Wilson who implemented Franklin’s suggestion in 1918. After just barely beginning to be able to see to eat breakfast, for the past three weeks ... God’s design unfolds and gets underway. Today we know a lot about light. We know the speed at which it travels (186,000 miles/second, or 671 million miles/hour.) We know it comes on when we pull a plug or throw a switch. We know it describes potato chips that taste really ...

8. The Problem With A Promise

Genesis 15:1-18

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

... and said that she could not understand salvation. The preacher said, "Mrs. Franklin, how long have you been Mrs. Franklin?" "Why, ever since I was married," she replied. "And how did you become Mrs. Franklin?" he asked. "When the minister said, 'Wilt thou have this man to ... as we can. We will get there. But don't keep asking when we are going to get there - understand?" After traveling some miles, from the back seat of the car the boy ventured this question, "Will I still be alive when we get there?" We run ...

9. Away In a Manger

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

James Merritt

... was just a pawn in the hand of God that he was moving across the chess board of life. In 1787, Benjamin Franklin, speaking to the Constitutional Convention, made this statement: "I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more ... to go back to, what we would call today, his family "county seat." For Joseph that was Bethlehem. Bethlehem was a town five or six miles southwest of Jerusalem, on the main highway to Hebron and Egypt. In Jacob's time it was called Ephrath. It was the burial place of ...

10. Manual Labor Is Not the President of Mexico

Proverbs 6:6-8

Sermon

James Merritt

... to a sluggard, said, "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."4 Old Benjamin Franklin was right when he said, "I never knew a man who was good at making excuses who was good at anything else." The ... its own weight over a hundred yards. That is equivalent to a 200-pound man carrying five tons on his back for a distance of seventeen miles. In a single summer, a large colony of ants may excavate 30,000 to 40,000 pounds of earth to make its nest, and carry 5 ...

11. Dynamic Preaching January 2024 Sermons

Sermon

King Duncan

... Title: The Power of Listening 1 Samuel 3:1--4:1 January 14, 2024 (Epiphany 2) Legend has it that President Franklin D. Roosevelt got tired of smiling that big smile and saying the usual things at all those White House receptions. So ... battle raged fiercely against terrible odds. The situation was not completely hopeless, however. Roland had a horn whose blast could be heard thirty miles away. Oliver, his friend besought him to blow the horn so that Charlemagne would hear and come back to help. But Roland was ...

12. Frustrated By Their Lack Of Faith

Mark 6:1-6

Sermon

King Duncan

... the early fathers and mothers thought it would be suicide to defy the British empire. The faith of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and others is even more thrilling when viewed in that light. Then there was Francis Scott Key detained aboard a ... among his own kin, and in his own family." How true that is. One definition of an expert is that you have to be more than 200 miles from home. How we take for granted those persons closest to us. But notice, please, verse 5: "And he could do no mighty work, save that he ...

13. Strength Through Weakness

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Sermon

King Duncan

... the toast, "To King George the Third, the Moon, whose brilliance lights up the skies of Britain." Then, with that twinkle in his eye, Franklin slowly rose on his cane to say, "I cannot give you the sun nor the moon, but I give you General George Washington ... had been so inspired by the story that she determined to make the effort to live. And now she had traveled over a thousand miles to meet him in person and thank him. (5) Time after time we have seen people who were physically weak develop such spiritual ...

14. If I Have Not Love

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... usual greeting – and I gave it to her. She was not from North Carolina but from another state – had driven five hundred miles to attend the conference – which was an affirmation within itself. She wanted the opportunity to meet me – she said – because her church ... in Dallas, an eight thousand-member church. Walker rose to the pinnacle of success – from that rural church in Franklin County, Kentucky where Gladys was one of his parishioners – to being senior minister of that huge church in Dallas ...

15. LightWorks

Deuteronomy 6:1-9

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... distance of the star means that even though the brilliance of the explosion travels at the speed of light (180,000 miles/second), it takes generations to reach even our most powerful telescopes. Only when the light finally reaches us can we acknowledge ... after generation of the original faith community. It was Benjamin Franklin's least known, but perhaps most important political insights: "America's destiny is not power," he argued, "but light." Franklin's fixation was on the body politic, but his prediction ...

16. When Imagination Replaces Memory

Isaiah 42:18-25

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... colonial settler being pitted against the foreign forces of the King of England. Actually Americans fought Americans. Benjamin Franklin stopped speaking to his Tory son. Only a third of the colonists actively supported the war, and we ... . "Love your enemies! Bless those who persecute you. Turn the other cheek. If someone asks you to carry his pack one mile, you carry it two miles." Forgive people, how much, seventy times seven? Why this absurdity? "Parents, don't provoke your children to anger." What is this ...

17. Independence Day - The Mission of the Mighty

John 8:31-41

Sermon

... . We must endure freedom for the freedom to endure. After the meeting where the writing the Constitution was finished, Benjamin Franklin met his fellow citizens and newsmen on the steps of Constitution Hall and said, “We have given you a republic, ... CHRISTIAN EXPERIMENT. When the pilgrims came to America, it took them 23 years to pay for their own passage. They were blown 500 miles off their course, and so they didn't land in Virginia; they landed in Massachusetts. But when they finally stood on that rocky ...

18. A Brass Cross and a Barometer

Luke 6:1-11

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... hoped to catch them doing something wrong. Perhaps they were monitoring them to see if they walked over 3/4th of a mile. The disciples were a bit hungry. So, as they walked, they plucked some heads of grain, rubbed them in their hands to release ... usually means that they aren't very hungry. At the recent inauguration of President Bush, the two pastors on the program, Franklin Graham and Methodist pastor Kirbyjohn Caldwell, both ended their prayers with these words-"through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." Some ...

19. How Can We Foretell the Future?

1 Kings 2:1-12

Sermon

Edward Chinn

... other things, they will find a model of the Eiffel Tower, 800 books on microfilm, 11 tape-recorded hours of President Franklin Roosevelt’s voice, seeds, a movie projector, and a machine to teach English. How fascinating it is to think about those ... by the winter cold, read, "Watch the rut you start in. You’ll be in it for the next thirty miles!" If we could borrow that sign and change the word "miles" to the word "years," what an insight it might give to some young person, trying to foretell his future: " ...

20. Follow that Dream

Genesis 12:1-8

Sermon

King Duncan

... than a small satchel of clothing, he started walking from Malden, West Virginia, 500 miles away. Eventually he made it to Richmond, about eighty miles from his destination. He worked there for a few days unloading pig iron off a ... who dream. I want to read a letter to you that is dated November 6, 1940, and mailed from Santiago de Cuba. It is addressed to Mr. Franklin Roosevelt, President of the United States. Here is what it says, "My good friend Roosevelt: I don't know very English, but I know as much as ...

21. Hard Choice

Deuteronomy 30:11-20

Sermon

King Duncan

... the Hopi Indians perform ceremonial dances. It was a long lonely drive to the reservation across secluded desert terrain, and the last 65 miles of it was over very rough roads. Late afternoon, after the dances, the man returned to his car only to discover he had ... 's will for each of us is to make choices that lead to abundant life. It's like an incident that Benjamin Franklin related in his autobiography. An English clergyman was once ordered to read a special proclamation issued by King Charles I. After a ...

22. Focusing On The Possibilities

Matthew 14:13-21

Sermon

King Duncan

... athlete follows the steps he or she must take to accomplish that goal. An example of an athlete using such positive powers is Franklin Jacobs, one of our country's premier high jumpers a few years back, though he is only five feet eight inches. "People have ... . One night word came to him that an elderly Civil War veteran, Colonel Trumble, wanted to see him. So traveling some 30 miles into the country, Pastor Webb came to the bedside of the old soldier. "I'm not going to make it, Preacher," the colonel ...

23. Getting Rid Of Fear

2 Timonty 1:6-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... Program assisted 830 drivers across the Mackinac Bridge, which is five miles long and rises two hundred feet above the water. At Maryland's Chesapeake Bay Bridge, which is over four miles long and rises two hundred feet above the water, authorities took ... is driven by a mission will be a person of power. Some of you are old enough to remember Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She arrived at the seat of power as a president's wife, but her power was much more pronounced than that of ...

24. Morning Has Broken

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

Curtis Lewis

... be forever etched in the soul of America. September 11, 2001, is a date that, to use the words of Franklin Roosevelt, will "live in infamy." The pictures of airplanes deliberately crashing into the WorldTradeCenter and the Pentagon will be ... walk the road hoping to find a house from which they could make a phone call for assistance. Struggling in the cold darkness, they walked several miles but could not find a house or see a light. As they rounded a curve in the road, they spotted a glimmer of light in the ...

25. The Way Up Is the Way Down

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... experiential and hands-on. Get your hands greasy, then learn about the physics of internal combustion. Drive around the track at a hundred and sixty miles per hour, then learn about what the roll bar in a race car is for. Throw you in the water, then ask you if ... of which was to pass on wisdom. One of my favorites is from the pagan teacher Menander who sounds a bit like Benjamin Franklin in Sir Richard’s Almanac, “Blessed,” he wrote, “is the man who has both mind and money, for he employs the later ...

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