Sermon and Worship Resources

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1 Samuel 3:1--4:1

Sermon

King Duncan

[While King Duncan is enjoying a well deserved retirement we are going back to his earliest sermons and renewing them. The newly modernized sermon is ... there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel answered, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” ----------------------------------------- 1. Tim Zingale, http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/the-world-of-words-tim-zingale-sermon-on-divinity-of-christ-54454.asp. 2. http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/help-information/mental-health-a-z/H ...

2. Connected

John 15:1-17

Sermon

King Duncan

A newspaper reporter went to interview a successful entrepreneur. "How did you do it?" he asked. "How did you make all this money?" "I'm glad you asked," the entrepreneur replied. "Actually, it's a rather wonderful story. You see, when my wife and I married, we started out with a roof over our heads, some food in our pantry, and five cents between us. I took that nickel, went down to the grocery store, bought an apple, and shined it up. Then I sold it for ten cents." "What did you do then?" the reporter ...

3. Are You Dressed For The Banquet?

Matthew 22:1-14

Sermon

King Duncan

Television journalist Hugh Downs and his wife once attended a function in Washington. When the time came to return to New York, they discovered that their flight had been cancelled due to bad weather. Downs immediately called the front desk and was informed that they could catch a five o'clock train, which was leaving in 45 minutes. Mrs. Downs was showering, and to save time, Hugh hurriedly packed all their belongings, called the bell captain and asked that the bags be rushed right over to the station and ...

4. Listen to Him

Mark 9:2-13

Sermon

King Duncan

There aren’t very many heroes nowadays, are there? Even in sports. Steroids. Drugs. Violence. Many of today’s best-known athletes reflect some of the worst values in our culture. There was a time, however, when sports stars were a steady source of positive inspiration. Take Lou Gehrig, for example. Even today, the name stirs positive emotions among baseball fans in spite of the fact that it has been 68 years since Gehrig last played the game, long before many of us were born. For those who don’t know his ...

5. One Life-Changing Word

Isaiah 9:2-7 · Luke 2:1-14, (15-20)

Sermon

King Duncan

One of the most popular and heart-warming stories ever told is Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. This story describes the lonely and mis-lived life of Ebenezer Scrooge. (1) The story opens on a bleak, cold Christmas Eve in London, seven years after the death of Scrooge‘s business partner, Jacob Marley. Scrooge, an ageing miser, dislikes Christmas and refuses a dinner invitation from his nephew Fred. He also turns away two men who seek a donation from him to provide food and heating for the poor . . . and ...

6. If It Had Been a Snake

John 1:29-42

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

Have you ever been looking for something and discovered it was right in front of you? In the South there’s an old saying about missing something that is in plain view: If it had been a snake, it would have bit you. You shake your head and feel like a fool. But this experience of missing what is obvious is so common that it is even the subject of psychological studies. Alejandro Lleras is a professor of psychology who studies what he calls “inattentional blindness,” or the ability to miss something obvious ...

7. I'm O.k.; You're A Little Suspect

Luke 6:37-42

Sermon

King Duncan

Author Tim Storey tells a great story about how easy it is to rush to pass judgement on others. Tim pulled up in front of his neighborhood barber shop and parked. As he fished around for his wallet, he felt the sickening crunch of metal hitting metal. Somebody hit his car! What an idiot! But when he jumped out to look, Tim didn't see anyone. As he was muttering under his breath about stupid drivers, a little old lady came out of the barber shop and announced, “I saw the whole thing." Turns out, he was the ...

8. Eight Days until Eternity

Mark 11:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

A little girl came home from worship. It was Palm Sunday. Her father asked what she had learned that day. She told him she learned all about the crowd waving their palm branches and singing a song to Jesus. The father was pleased that she had learned so much. He asked, “What was the song they were singing to Jesus?” The little girl paused, then said, “I think it was ‘O Susanna’.” Palm Sunday is the celebration of that momentous day when crowds of people welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem and the crowds sang, “O ...

9. Beaten Up, But Still Standing

Mark 5:21-43

Sermon

King Duncan

Pat Kelly, a major league outfielder in the '70s, was a born-again Christian. One day Pat said to his manager, Earl Weaver, "Aren't you glad I walk with the Lord, Earl?" Weaver replied, "I'd rather you walked with the bases loaded." When one football coach was asked about his offensive team's execution he replied, "I'm all for it." Sports are popular because they are a metaphor for our life experience. You win some, you lose some. Sometimes you feel like the champion of the world. Sometimes you just feel ...

10. Sowing Good Seed - Father's Day

Mark 4:26-29

Sermon

King Duncan

Today we honor our fathers. And that's good. Dads don't get much respect nowadays. A doting father used to sing his little children to sleep. He even learned a few lullabies to lend some variety to the task. This was something he could do at night to help his wife out. And he kept up this task until one night he overheard his four-year-old give her younger sibling this advice, "If you pretend you're asleep," she said, "he stops." That was the end of the lullabies. Garrison Keillor, on his "Writer’s Almanac ...

11. Baseball Will Be Fine

Illustration

King Duncan

In 1985 Tim Burke saw his boyhood dream come true the day he was signed to pitch for the Montreal Expos. After four years in the minors, he was finally given a chance to play in the big leagues. And he quickly proved to be worth his salt setting a record for the most relief appearances by a rookie player. Along the way, however, Tim and his wife, Christine, adopted four children with very special needs two daughters from South Korea, a handicapped son from Guatemala, and another son from Vietnam. All of ...

12. Where Is Your Home?

2 Corinthians 5:6-10

Sermon

King Duncan

Children say the most outrageous things. Laurie and her husband, Ralph, have a little ritual they go through with their kids when one of their pet goldfish dies. The whole family gathers in the bathroom and around the commode. Little Anthony, the 3-year-old, holds the "deceased" while his sister says a little prayer. Then Anthony drops the fish in the bowl and Lexy, the 5-year-old, flushes it to heaven. One day, during one of these rituals, Lexy asked her dad if "Wito," her Grandpa who passed away a few ...

13. Don't Give Up - He Hears!

Luke 18:1-8

Sermon

King Duncan

Some of you will remember when Clyde Beatty was the most famous lion tamer in the world. While Beatty was performing with THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH he also operated a small circus that played during the off-season. This circus was stationed in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and because of the very favorable climate from December through March, performed in the open air, without a big top. One day there was a heavy downpour and Beatty was forced to call off the show. Only one person had come to the box office to ...

14. Purpose-Driven

Jeremiah 1:1-19

Sermon

King Duncan

It was 2:00 a.m. and 26-year-old single mother Ashley Smith needed a smoke. But she was out of cigarettes. And so she decided to go to a nearby market in order to feed her addiction. As she was leaving her apartment, she noticed a blue truck in the parking lot with a man in it. She didn’t think too much about it. She had only moved into that apartment two days prior. So she thought maybe he was a neighbor coming home or something. She got into her car and went to the store. She came back to her apartment ...

15. Setting His Face Toward Jerusalem

Luke 9:51-62

Sermon

King Duncan

I’ve got a question for you this morning, a quick opinion poll. How many of you believe that current technology makes certain tasks easier? For example, how many of you prefer a washing machine to a washboard when doing laundry? How many of you like keeping in touch with family and friends on Facebook or Instagram? But how many of you also believe that we can misuse technology in ways that the inventors of these various technologies did not even think about when they invented them? For example, there was ...

16. The Blind See!

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

King Duncan

It seems that every week there is a news report on some new technology that is making the world more connected and safer than it was before. It’s an exciting time to be alive, isn’t it? A great example of this is an app that came out a few years ago called Be My Eyes. A blind or visually impaired person can download this app to their cell phone and enter in information on what state or country they live in and what language they speak. Sighted people who sign up to volunteer also download the app and enter ...

17. Trying To Get The Pageant Right!

John 1:19-28

Sermon

King Duncan

There's something very special about Christmas pageants, even those in which everything seems to go wrong. Robert Fulghum tells about one such Christmas pageant. Trying to outdo previous years they decided to rent a live donkey for Mary to ride on. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Have you ever noticed that a lot of things "sound like a good idea at the time?" The day of the pageant arrived. The congregation sang beautifully some Christmas carols and the angel choir, complete with haloes, got ...

18. Spin-masters Need Not Apply

1 Corinthians 1:18--2:5

Sermon

King Duncan

Anne Watson tells a delightful story about her mother's family from Tennessee. Grandma was a country schoolteacher. Her brother Ed was a country lawyer. Ed was a big man. He stood over six feet in his socks. He didn't look like a smart person. "Why, just to look at Ed," says Watson, "œyou'd feel sorry for the man. You'd think 'Here's a soul to be specially kind to.'" Ed cleaned up on this. He had a little office in a town right on the Arkansas border. He handled all the law for miles around, which wasn't ...

19. Passing The Test Of Faith

2 Timothy 1:1-2:13

Sermon

King Duncan

A juggler with a circus was pulled over for speeding. The officer was suspicious when he looked in the back seat and saw several large knives. "What are you doing with those?" he asked. "I'm a juggler with the circus," said the man. "To make it more exciting I juggle those large knives." "Well, show me," said the officer. So the juggler started juggling six of these large knives all at once. Knives were flying everywhere, though amazingly all of them were expertly under his control. While he was performing ...

20. The Divine Balance

Jeremiah 30:1--31:40

Sermon

King Duncan

A banker called in a certain man to talk to him about his account. "Your financial affairs are in a mess," he said to the poor man. "Your wife constantly overdraws your account. She is behind in her charge accounts at the department store, and her check stubs are all added wrong. Why don't you talk to her about it?" "Because," said the man, "I would rather argue with you than with her." There's a man whose marriage is badly out of balance. Balance. We are all trying to find it, aren't we? Balance between ...

21. Another World

Exodus 24:1-18

Sermon

King Duncan

Two men--hundreds of years apart--climbed mountains and the world has not been the same since. Moses climbed Mount Sinai. He had received a personal invitation from God. "Come up here on the mountain," said the Almighty to Moses, "and I will give you tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that you may teach them." And Moses climbed the mountain and a cloud covered it. And suddenly the glory of the Lord filled Mount Sinai, and the cloud remained more than six days. On the seventh ...

22. Any Friendly Bears Out There?

Matthew 22:34-40

Sermon

King Duncan

They were on a military training exercise and they were getting bored. Still, it was surprising when the radio operators of the British divisional command heard a voice one quiet night breaking the silence. The voice asked over the air, "Are there any friendly bears listening?" After a moment, another voice replied, "Yes, I'm a friendly bear," and then another voice-- "I'm a friendly bear too!" At this point, the Officer at Divisional Command Headquarters grabbed his microphone and let loose a blistering ...

23. About Marriage

Luke 20:27-40

Sermon

King Duncan

The soloist had laryngitis. The flower girl was ill with pneumonia. The ring bearer had an accident in his blue-velvet pants just before the ceremony, and the mother-of-the-bride left her dress at home by mistake. Things continued to go downhill after the ceremony. It was the coldest day in Maryland in 20 years The newlyweds, Melissa and Tim Donnelly, had borrowed a 1941 Cadillac to ride away in. It got stuck in the ice in the church parking lot, so Melissa stuffed her gown into the back seat of a two-door ...

24. He Was Afflicted

Isaiah 63:7-14

Sermon

King Duncan

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas. I hope Santa brought you just what you wanted. Now we can put an end to the rumor that Christmas was being canceled this year. Oh, you hadn't heard that one? What I heard was that Christmas had been canceled and it was all your fault because when you told Santa you had been good this year, he died laughing! But I'm glad the rumor was false. It would be awful if we couldn't laugh. Here's something I'll bet you didn't know: According to Chase's Calendar of Events: 2003, ...

25. Teach Us To Pray

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

A few years ago, Rabbi Wayne Dosick was at the airport when he witnessed an unusual scene. A police officer approached a mother and her small daughter. Someone had filed a missing-persons report on a little girl of the same age and appearance as the little girl in the airport. The officer was asking the mother to prove that the child was actually hers. First, the officer tried questioning the toddler, a technique that proved to be futile. He asked the name of her father. She replied, "Daddy." He asked ...

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