Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 1 to 25 of 60 results

1. A Grim Anniversary

Matthew 2:13-18

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

Suppose you had been a Christian believer in the mid-first century. Suppose you were observing Christmas and the birth of Jesus the Savior in whatever way the earliest church celebrated that season. But suppose that in the midst of marking Jesus' advent, you ran into a Jewish couple who trembled with rage at the very mention of this Jesus whose birth Christmas marks. Suppose further that upon inqu...

2. A Heart that Sings with Joy

Luke 15:1-32

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

"I saw them eating and I knew who they were." That saying, or some version of it, is well-known now. And it certainly describes the Pharisees whom we encounter in Luke 15:1-2. Jesus was welcoming the very folks whom the religious establishment had written off. Worse, he was at table with them, which was an intimate act of fellowship that implied a kind of personal bond and connection. So we're tol...

3. A Lifelong Bond

Luke 1:39-56

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

Scientists tell us that there is a most amazing, and thus-far inexplicable, phenomenon called "quantum entanglement." If two particles of energy are kept in close proximity to each other for a long time, they form a relationship, a kind of bond, that defies the imagination. The connection between these two particles is so strong that if you take one particle to a laboratory in Los Angeles and remo...

4. A Whole New Set of Values

Luke 9:51-62

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

Barbara Brown Taylor once said that if a man in the church loses his job, the pastor may well call this person to offer sympathy and prayer. But suppose that a pastor one day got wind of the fact that a certain member of his congregation had gotten a big promotion at work along with significantly more pay. And suppose the pastor then called this person and said, "Charlie, I've heard your news and ...

5. Deferential Joy

John 16:12-15

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

Some while ago three other drivers and I all arrived at a Four Way Stop intersection at virtually the same moment. Although altogether too many drivers seem unaware of this fact, the rule at Four Way Stops is that drivers take turns in a clockwise fashion or according to whoever got to the intersection first. In this case, the four of us arrived simultaneously and so there was no logical starting ...

6. Destroy the Temple

John 2:13-22

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

"Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again." Given that Jesus was standing smack in the middle of a literal, brick-and-mortar temple at the time he said this, it seemed merely obvious that Jesus meant the physical building. And so everyone who heard him responded the same way, "It has taken us forty-six years just to get this far, and even so the construction project isn't fin...

7. Don’t Forget Your Dance Partner!

Mark 1: 21-28

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

C.S. Lewis once penned some thoughts on worship, particularly in the face of liturgical innovators in England who seemed to think that every worship service needed to be a kind of variety show with each week being different from the week prior. Lewis had no truck with that kind of thinking. Worship, Lewis wrote, should be a bit like dancing. Once you have learned how to dance and have become good ...

8. Forgiveness Is an Every Day Reality

Matthew 18:21-35

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

Some while back I visited an online greeting card website to send an electronic anniversary card to some friends. As I was glancing through this website's menu of choices, I noticed they had a separate category of cards devoted to "Forgiveness." Since that is a pretty vital theological category, I naturally was drawn to check out those cards. Mostly they were humorous intended to be used for rela...

9. Forgiveness: Where Ordinary Folks Struggle

Matthew 18:15-20

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

Recently the Templeton Foundation, which has campaigned for an increase in what it calls "forgiveness research," funded a major nationwide study on people's attitudes toward forgiveness. Co-sponsored by the University of Michigan and the National Institute for Mental Health, the study found that 75% of Americans are "very confident" that they have been forgiven by God for their past offenses. The ...

10. Forgiving As God Forgives

Matthew 18:21-35

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

Someone once said that the scariest, most sobering word in the entire New Testament is that tiny little word "as." "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us." That vital connection between God's abiding forgiveness of us and of our in turn forgiving others tells us that we must forgive. This is not some weird demand on God's part, however. This is not some hoop we must jump throu...

11. Getting the Memo

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

In the film The American President we see workaholic presidential assistants living life every day going 600 MPH furiously flitting around the president in a non‑stop treadmill of busyness. At one point one of these aides says to another, “Well, maybe we should knock off for a few to celebrate Christmas.” The other aide replies, “It’s Christmas?” To which the first man says, “Yeah, didn’t you ge...

12. Great Laughter

Matthew 20:1-16

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

Frederick Buechner has often said that as much as anything, one of the things that finally made him turn his life over to God was something that the preacher George Buttrick said in a sermon one Sunday. Buttrick said that every time Jesus is crowned as Lord and King within someone's heart, this wonderful moment takes place amid "confessions, and tears, and great laughter." Buechner says that it w...

13. He Has Given Us the Glory

John 17:20-26

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

The church and the gospel it proclaims are never some local phenomenon. Despite our denominational fractures and the lack of formal unity we may have across the face of the Church today, the fact is that in every hamlet where a tiny congregation gathers in the name of the risen Christ, in every soaring cathedral where hundreds gather, in every megachurch that packs in people by the thousands, and ...

14. Holiness Shining through Humanity

Mark 9:2-9

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

Frederick Buechner muses on the Transfiguration this way: In the Transfiguration it was the holiness of Jesus shining through his humanness, his face so afire with it that they were almost blinded. Even with us something like that happens once in a while. The face of a man walking his child in the park, of a woman picking peas in the garden, of sometimes even the unlikeliest person listening to ...

15. Hope in a Dark Spot

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

In the novel and movie The Shawshank Redemption, a lifelong convict nicknamed Red, keeps telling his fellow prisoner, Andy, to stop talking about hope since in prison, hope is a dangerous thing. It's better to live without hope than to have a hope that will torment you by virtue of it's not being fulfilled. But then at one point in the story Andy barricades himself in the warden's office, flips on...

16. Humble Servanthood

Mark 1:40-45

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

Nothing succeeds in America like success, they say. We like winners and brush aside losers. Let me throw out some names for you: Alfred Landon, James Cox, John Davis, Charles Hughes, Alton Parker. Sound familiar? Probably not. Yet every one of them was so important and well thought of that at some point in the twentieth century each was a nominee for President of the United States. Millions voted ...

17. If It Meant Losing Our Heads

Mark 6:14-29

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

Nestled into the midst of this sordid tale is the curious line in verse 20 that Herod liked to listen to John. What do we make of that? Did he like to listen to John in the way a man might enjoy watching a trained monkey or the antics of a pet dog? Was John the Baptist a kind of court jester for Herod—someone whose wild-eyed, red-faced, veins-popping-out-of-his-neck preaching helped to pass the ho...

18. If It Were Up To Me

Matthew 22:1-14

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

If it were up to me, I'd draw a thick black line underneath Matthew 22:10 and just end this parable right there. If I were allowed to edit the sacred text, I'd grab my little bottle of White-Out and paint over verses 11-14. Because up to that point this had been a fairly lovely parable of grace. Had the story concluded with verse 10, we'd be left with the happy portrait of a succulent feast being ...

19. I’m in the Bible!

John 20:29

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

When I was a kid, my father read the end of John 20 at the dinner table one night for our family devotions. After he read the part about Jesus’ telling Thomas that there would be lots of people who would not see him but who would still believe in him anyway, my mother commented, “Jesus means us. He’s talking about us. We’ve never seen him the way the disciples did, but he is our Savior and we beli...

20. Joseph’s Kid?

Luke 4:21-30

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

Based on verse 22, it appears there was immediately a double-reaction: some were amazed and part of their amazement at his "gracious" speech gets expressed in the line "Isn't this Joseph's son?" But that question seems to cut two ways, and Jesus' subsequent words indicate his awareness of this. The question "Isn't this Joseph's son" CAN be a source of genuine wonder and appreciation—look how far o...

21. Juicy Spiritual Fruit

Matthew 3:1-12

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

Of course, like all preachers, John didn't get through to everybody. Some who came to the Jordan with no intention of getting taken in by this man stuck to that determination pretty fiercely. The religious leaders provided John the opportunity to cut loose with his strongest language."Sneaky snakes!" John fairly howled! "Somebody set the field on fire and out slithered you all! Well, I'm here to t...

22. Let Us Never Lack for Humility

Luke 18:9-14

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

Let's say that at some point in his life, Chip Brewster was the smartest math whiz in his class and the fastest running back on the football team at Hardy High School in Rapid Brook, Nebraska. He was the best of the best and felt mighty good about himself as a result. What he didn't know is that he seemed to be a big fish only because the pond he was in was so small. So one day he graduated high s...

23. Loving as Jesus Loved Us

John 13:31-38

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

Some years back neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote a fascinating vignette of an intriguing neurological difficulty. As some of you know, Tourette's Syndrome is a bizarre mental disorder that causes victims to have any number of physical and verbal tics. Some Tourettic people have constant facial twitches, others find themselves uncontrollably uttering verbal whoops, beeps, and sometimes also raunchy s...

24. Mixing Up the Old With the New

John 10:11-18

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

Those of you who are familiar with art may recall a funny habit which many Medieval painters practiced for quite a long time in Europe, and particularly in Germany. Artists such as Lukas Cranach and others painted many depictions of biblical scenes but they did so with the curious twist of dressing the biblical characters in the contemporary garb of the Middle Ages. So in one Cranach painting of w...

25. Nervous Anticipation

Luke 1:26-38

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

When children are small and are just learning how to eat from a spoon, parents involuntarily open their mouths even as the baby opens his or her mouth. It's quite comical to see. Pastors who get to sit up front in church each week often get to see a similar spectacle whenever young children participate in a church service or Christmas program. When a son or daughter is up front speaking various ...

Showing results

Showing 1 to 25 of 60 results

1. A Grim Anniversary

Matthew 2:13-18

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

2. A Heart that Sings with Joy

Luke 15:1-32

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

3. A Lifelong Bond

Luke 1:39-56

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

4. A Whole New Set of Values

Luke 9:51-62

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

5. Deferential Joy

John 16:12-15

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

6. Destroy the Temple

John 2:13-22

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

7. Don’t Forget Your Dance Partner!

Mark 1: 21-28

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

8. Forgiveness Is an Every Day Reality

Matthew 18:21-35

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

9. Forgiveness: Where Ordinary Folks Struggle

Matthew 18:15-20

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

10. Forgiving As God Forgives

Matthew 18:21-35

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

11. Getting the Memo

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

12. Great Laughter

Matthew 20:1-16

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

13. He Has Given Us the Glory

John 17:20-26

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

14. Holiness Shining through Humanity

Mark 9:2-9

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

15. Hope in a Dark Spot

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

16. Humble Servanthood

Mark 1:40-45

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

17. If It Meant Losing Our Heads

Mark 6:14-29

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

18. If It Were Up To Me

Matthew 22:1-14

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

19. I’m in the Bible!

John 20:29

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

20. Joseph’s Kid?

Luke 4:21-30

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

21. Juicy Spiritual Fruit

Matthew 3:1-12

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

22. Let Us Never Lack for Humility

Luke 18:9-14

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

23. Loving as Jesus Loved Us

John 13:31-38

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

24. Mixing Up the Old With the New

John 10:11-18

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

25. Nervous Anticipation

Luke 1:26-38

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

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