Sermon and Worship Resources

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Sermon

Harold Warlick

... a mystery as the peace he so pointedly tried to articulate. When I pastored a church in Texas, a man named Virgil Dunn was a member. Virgil was 93 years old when I knew him. He wore thick glasses and he spoke mainly in whispers. His body was thin and bent ... , the logic, the talk, the manipulation, the budgets, the study groups, the music, and the sermons, all of which are great and good, is there a peaceful presence of Jesus Christ in our lives that guards our hearts and minds? We live in a world ...

2. The Preacher Was Caught by Surprise

Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

King Duncan

... In the Heat of the Night, it is set in Sparta, Mississippi during a time when the South was just emerging from the dark days of segregation. A murder has been committed. Rod Steiger plays sheriff Bill Gillespie, a good lawman despite his racial prejudices. When Virgil Tibbs played by Sidney Poitier, a well-dressed northern African-American, comes to town, Gillespie instinctively puts him under arrest as a murder suspect. Tibbs then reveals that he is a Philadelphia homicide detective. Tibbs offers to help ...

3. 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18

2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... the face of expected death Paul uses three phrases to encapsulate the quality and character of his life: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." These words, of course, echo his previous athletic imagery in 1 ... the course" or "finished the race" was a phrase found on Dido's lips in Virgil's Aenead. "I have lived; I have finished the course that fortune assigned me" (as cited in Virgil's Aenead, tr. Michael Oakley [New York: Dutton, 1957] 84). But this phrase also ...

4. The Story of Israel Now and Later

Romans 2:1-16

Teach the Text

C. Marvin Pate

... pictorial illustration of Dante’s Inferno, such as Gustave Doré’s classic engravings illustrating the nine circles of hell. Dante’s poem begins on the night before Good Friday in the year 1300. Dante is lost in a dark wood (often interpreted as sin) and is unable to find the right way to salvation (symbolized by the sun behind the mountain). Virgil comes to his aid and guides him on a journey to the underworld. There he sees that individual sins are punished in ways symbolically appropriate to their ...

5. Four Cornerstones

Ephesians 2:11-22

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... so that he has the leisure to become a great artist or thinker, or better still, decide to become a simple ferryman. Who knows what's good or bad, success or failure in the long term? It may be that there's no success like failure and no failure like success. The ... in the morning to eight at night. By the time he was 18, he had so mastered Latin that he could read Horace and Virgil with ease. · The atheist Sigmund Freud lived in constant pain the last 16 years of his life and endured 33 operations. But he ...

6. The Inaugural Address

Luke 4:14-30

Sermon

Brett Blair

... a story about a Neurologist, Dr. Oliver Sack, who was able to give site back to a 50 year old man named Virgil. His first experiences with sight were confusing. He was able to make out colors and movements, but arranging them into a coherent ... criminal evil. Now this is no complement! Listen to his words: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, he has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go ...

7. Remember Lot’s Wife

Luke 17:20-37

Sermon

Don Yocom

... told me to look ahead, see the point we were aiming to reach across the field, and guide the plow forward. The Bible story is too good not to apply it in our day because, as we have pointed out, we are not to look backward either. We all wish things did not ... the present horizon of insecurity, and sometimes adversity, dawns an eternity fairer than day. When someone dies, we often sing Virgil Brock’s hymn, BEYOND THE SUNSET, which contains this truth. Surely death upsets us; but it, too, shall pass. The ...

8. The Great Inescapable Question of Eternity

Mark 8:27-38

Sermon

Robert Leslie Holmes

... and watching Jesus Christ, they have no doubt that Jesus is truly "the Christ." Who Jesus Says He Is In Greek literature, Virgil wrote about the plight of humanity and how something new needed to be done to help humanity out of its predicament. In ... will have the light of life. — John 8:12 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. — John 10:9 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. — John 10:11 I am God's Son. — John 10:36 I am the resurrection and the ...

9. In Lystra and Derbe

Acts 14:8-20

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... The wreaths were those used to garland the victims and perhaps also to adorn the priest, the altar, and the attendants (cf. Virgil, Aeneid 5.366; Euripides, Heracles 529). It is not clear in the Greek to which gate the sacrificial procession was heading. ... in the past was not culpable (see disc. on 3:17; 13:26; cf. 17:30f.), though this would no longer be so now that the Good News had been announced. Paul takes a much harder line in Romans 1:18ff., but his purpose there was a different one (in any case, cf. ...

10. Two Parables about Prayer

Luke 18:9-14, Luke 18:1-8

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... even a man like this can be prevailed on, how much more so will a response be obtained from God, who really does care for his people’s good. 18:3 Grant me justice against my adversary. We are not told the nature of the dispute, but it may well have been about property. The root term ... In his famous work The Confessions, which has been translated into more languages than any Latin writings except those of Virgil, he writes, “You put forth your hand from on high,” and you drew my soul out of that pit of ...

11. The Poor In Spirit

Sermon

John A. Terry

... proud in spirit. In classical Christian theology, pride is the chief sin. There is the account in The Divine Comedy of Virgil and Dante meeting the Angel of Humility. The angel struck Dante's forehead with his wings, and thus erased the pride- ... self-will. We let go of preconceived ideas of God's will and way. To be poor in spirit, we discard ideas of our own goodness and spiritual self-sufficiency, or any other thing that stands between us and God. This is entrance into a life where God eliminates the need ...

12. The Poor In Spirit

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

John A. Terry

13. The Ministry of Fading

John 12:20-36

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... 't that what worship is all about -- our stepping aside so that God can step forward? Back in the early 1970s, a concert was given on the Boston Common by the late organ virtuoso, Virgil Fox. At that point Fox was into capes, and he cut quite a figure. He was a bit flamboyant, but one suspects he did that for a very good reason. The capes and color and pizazz certainly got people's attention, but once he got that attention, Fox ushered them into a musical kingdom where they were treated to the musical gold ...

14. Identification and a Wish for Grace and Peace

Galatians 1:1-10

Understanding Series

L. Ann Jervis

... Cor. 9:1). 1:5 We might compare this passage with another in Paul—Rom. 11:36. We might also compare it to one in Virgil’s Aeneid, where priests are worshiping the glorious acts of Hercules by saying “Oh, unconquerable! You are the slayer by your own might of those ... of changing from one thing or state to another. In this context, in which Paul thinks of his gospel as that which is good, the sense of distortion or change for the worse is given. The idea of change dominates verses 6–7. Paul’s own ...

15. Future Glory

Romans 8:18-27

Understanding Series

James R. Edwards

... were cursed because of human disobedience. Subsequent rabbinic tradition universalized the idea, teaching that all things, though initially good, were corrupted by Adam’s sin. Humanity, in particular, bore the brunt of the curse by a diminishing of ... human sin and the futility in creation. 8:23 Dante picks up the theme of suffering and glory in a conversation between himself and Virgil in The Inferno, So we picked our way among the shades of filthy rain speaking of life to come.… speaking of pain and joy ...

16. Homecoming

Mark 16:1-20

Sermon

Will Willimon

... book and discovering a mere grocery list there, written in his mother's own hand. He said, "I was utterly undone." When Virgil shows Dante the land of the dead, Dante marvels at the sheer magnitude. "I had not known that death had undone so ... loved the absent son as abundantly when he was away, as when he was back home. The father waited in the confident expectation that the good-as-dead son would return, would be back home, and then the party could begin. It's time to talk resurrection, eternal life. It's ...

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