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Sermon
Lee Griess
Numbers. Our lives are filled with numbers. Each year we file our income taxes. Now that's an exercise in numbers to end all numbers games. Pages upon pages of numbers: earned numbers, spent numbers, invested numbers, and saved numbers. When it is finally prepared, we send it off to the Internal Revenue Service with our Social Security number on it. And the IRS takes all those numbers and puts the...
Sermon
Donald Charles Lacy
History shows that people are invariably looking for Messiahs or Christs. There is that special person who is to come among them and, in a sense, do for them what they cannot do for themselves. Even for years after our Lord arose from the dead and ascended — yes, and still at this moment — people are looking. Our Jewish friends, in particular, have this long historical record of watching and wait...
3. God Is Greater
John 10:22-42
Sermon
King Duncan
A new kind of modern airplane was on an experimental flight. It was full of reporters and journalists. A few minutes after the takeoff the captain's voice was heard from the loudspeakers: "I'm delighted to be your pilot, and the captain of this airplane on its first historical flight. I can tell you that the flight is going well. Nevertheless, I still have to tell you about a minor inconvenience t...
Sermon
King Duncan
A couple retired to a small Arizona ranch and acquired a few sheep. At lambing time, it was necessary to bring two newborns into the house for care and bottle-feeding. As the lambs grew, they began to follow the rancher’s wife around the farm. She was telling a friend about this strange development. “What did you name them?” the friend asked her. “Goodness and Mercy,” she replied with a sigh. (...
Sermon
John M. Braaten
Listening to a television talk-show one night I heard the cartoonist Jules Pfeiffer discussing a comic strip he once drew. In it, a little boy was afraid to go to school because he thought his parents might move away while he was gone. He didn't want to go to bed at night becuse he feared that his parents might die while he slept. "Coping with fears is a terrific battle for a child," said Pfeiffer...
Sermon
James Merritt
If there is anything this post-modern culture that we live in is sure of it is that you cannot be absolutely sure of anything. You can believe in many things. You can be passionate about a lot of things, but nothing can be known absolutely, especially in the area of spirituality and morality. I discovered this quote by Gandhi that serves to emphasize the almost universal uncertainty that is assoc...
Sermon
R. Robert Cueni
Our gospel lesson for the day opens with John telling us it is time for the Festival of Dedication. Over the centuries, this festival has evolved into what we know as Hanukah. It commemorates events that occurred about a century and a half before the birth of Christ. Since Hanukah is usually in November or December some Christians mistakenly think of it as Jewish Christmas. It is not. If anything,...
Sermon
Glenn E. Ludwig
It is reported that during World War II, a young bomber pilot, just before taking off on a critical mission, lit a match in the presence of the chaplain, and, after having blown it out, asked him, "Now, tell me, man to man, is that all that happens to us when we die?" Peggy Lee, several years ago, asked something of the same question in her plaintive song: "Is this all there is?" The question is ...
Sermon
King Duncan
A man was boarding an airplane one day. As he came on board, he happened to notice that the head of the plane's cockpit flight crew was a woman. That was no problem. Still, it was a new experience for him. As he found his seat, he noticed three persons sitting immediately behind him. One was a young boy about six or seven years of age. Next to him was a man in his early thirties. And next to the ...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
When anxious teenagers finally go to get that sovereign rite of passage into adulthood called the “driver’s license,” they have to pass a tricky written test and a nerve-racking driving test. But there is a third test they must pass as well: A vision test. It is one of the odder quirks of the DMV (Division of Motor Vehicles) that the eye exam is often given last — suggesting that knowing the rule...
Sermon
Carl Jech
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. (John 10:28) I've seen it from both sides - from the side of the family with a difficult child and from the side of the mother who complained that one "rotten apple" in her son's third grade class was disrupting the learning environment for the whole group. Both sets of parents would no doubt prefe...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
Our extremely elderly American Eskimo dog Signe knows her family and their movements better than she knows what dogs do. Lying at her master's feet she knows whether to get up and follow Elizabeth when she rises or to stay put because Elizabeth is just getting a cup of tea and will be right back. · She's right at the door even before we can grab the car keys, but doesn't budge if we head for the ...
Sermon
James Merritt
There was a man who lived in a small southern town, and after twenty years of shaving himself every morning, he decided he had had enough. He told his wife he wanted to go down to the local barber, just for once, and get shaved himself. When he put on his hat and coat, went to the barbershop, which was owned by the pastor of the Baptist church, the barber's wife, whose name was Grace, was working...
14. Shepherd Dreams
Jeremiah 23:1-8, 1 Samuel 16:1-13, Psalm 80:1-19, Psalm 23:1-6, John 10:22-42, John 10:1-21
Sermon
Lori Wagner
Prop: shepherd’s staff (invisible cloak / rock of salvation / living water / sling and staff) We all have dreams for our children! We set them free to make their own decisions in the world, but at the same time we take care to guide them, pray for them, dream for them, envision a future for them in which we play a relational part. We so want them to live fulfilling and satisfying lives, filled wi...
15. The Infiltrator
John 10:1-21, John 10:22-42
Sermon
Lori Wagner
Prop: visual of Solomon’s Porch on the east side of the Jerusalem Temple / visual of David’s threshing floor The Infiltrator is a 2016 movie about the true-life take-down of Pablo Escobar’s drug trafficking ring. The hero is federal agent Robert Mazur. The movie tells the story of Mazur’s infiltration of the famous money laundering crime family in-order-to expose them and tumble them down from th...
Sermon
Schuyler Rhodes
I remember once a few weeks ago, I was having a bad day. Have you ever had a bad day? Bad days can cover a pretty wide arc of human reality, but my day began with not being able to find my bedroom slippers. Then, as soon as I got in the shower, someone downstairs ran the dishwasher and I was suddenly receiving cold water therapy at no extra charge! Then I tripped getting out of the shower and brok...
17. The Voice
John 10:22-30
Sermon
Lori Wagner
Everyone loves the show “The Voice,” now in its 22nd season in the US. The show is exciting not only because of its fabulous music, competitive spirit, and engaged crowd, but because it catapults everyday people who love to sing into possible fame and stardom. At the very least, it gives them stage time in front of the entire country and a shot at something more. Every week hundreds of thousands ...
Showing 1 to 17 of 17 results