Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 1 to 25 of 913 results

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... of animals. Society, in the words of Carlyle Marney, can sometimes be "a composite picture of (our) great power to harm."30 I've been associated with campus ministry or churches near university campuses for 23 years. Currently I am privileged to teach an honors section of a religion course. It has thirteen honor students in it. But I have nineteen former students who are currently in prison as I speak to you. Those nineteen would be a great section, academically as bright and capable as any honors section ...

2. The Inner Galaxy

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... went with purple until I saw the sunset you made on Tuesday. That was cool." If nature suggests mystery, so does human nature. Famous Harvard psychologist, William James, wrote of the universal pervasiveness of the mystical experience without respect to specific religions or cultures or races. Consider the experience of Thomas Aquinas, theologian par excellence of the thirteenth century. Aquinas had revived the classics, especially Aristotle. He wrote prolifically, including his Summa Theologica, which is ...

3. The Apostles Creed: "The Holy Catholic Churc"

Matthew 16:13-20

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the head thereof...The visible Church, which is also catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion, together with their children; and is the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ; the house and family of God...(5) When God's people was simply the Jewish ...

4. A Career in The Kingdom

Matthew 21:23-32

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... his world. Such an education is not something completed in five hours on an afternoon, or even during a term at college or university. It is something that involves a whole-life commitment, surrounding every motive of our hearts and every choice of our minds. This is what Jesus expected of his relationship with the twelve when he called them to himself as "disciples." The other word in the Bible for those who take religion seriously is "pilgrim." A pilgrim is someone who is on a journey in life. A pilgrim ...

5. Preachers, All!

Acts 2:1-13, Acts 2:14-41, Acts 2:42-47

Sermon

Will Willimon

... help, to inquire about the possibility of that occasion, but you also said, ''I guess we have never talked about something like religion, or spirituality, but I want you to know that I believe that Jesus Christ is more than an idea. He is a presence. ... the acceptable year of the Lord when God shall save God's people. I vividly remember James T. Laney, former president of Emory University, telling about being on an airplane ride where he experienced Christian witness. He got on the plane and nodded to the man ...

6. Here

Luke 2:1-20

Sermon

Will Willimon

... Jones' across town toward more universal, society-wide concern for the less fortunate. Greatest good or the greatest number and all that. Big. General. Universal. And yet, here is a Christmas story which is anything but big, general or universal. The story of the Nativity, ... sentiment. We love to drink religion in the form of clear, distilled liquor, from which the gross particularities of history and geography have been distilled. We thrill to the enunciation of universal, timeless truth, relevant to ...

7. The Things That Make for Peace

Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... diversion. We have become addicted to it. "Voyeuristic violence." The most popular talk show on television today is the most egregiously violent. It is universally condemned as being not worthy of being on television. It is not worthy of being in our homes. Yet as I understand it ... rather than with the whole. To find our identity in race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, or in political ideology. Which means that we find our identity in what divides us, rather than in what unites us. The same thing is ...

8. Dealing With Guilt And Shame

Romans 7:7-25

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... kind: "foul was the evil, and I loved it." In each of us there is sin. Now whether we talk about this in terms of original sin, or the universality of sin doesn't matter. The fact is that since Adam and Eve, sin has been a part of every human life. This is what Paul ... ." (Les Carter, Putting the Past Behind, Moody Press, pages 57,58) This kind of thinking has become a kind of religion which we may call "secular humanism". Among it's devastating fallouts is a public education without a value base, that is ...

9. The Promise Of The Spirit

Sermon

John A. Stroman

... the so-called mainline denominations from the center to the margin of American religious life (A Nation of Behavers, University of Chicago Press, 1986). It is not only a margin of numbers but of vitality and influence. He ... are the reasons for the decline of the mainline churches? 2. What is your response to the statement that "God is not calling us to religion or success, but to be faithful witnesses to the gospel"? 3. How are the mainline churches to regain their vitality? What role does the Holy Spirit ...

10. The Power of a Helping Hand

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... . Let me bring this story a little closer home. Do you ever feel the need for greed? Students at the University of North Carolina doing DNA research on fish in local supermarkets discovered owners were taking inferior fish like sheepshead and ... a title fight. His hearers had to be stunned, shocked, stumped. But the message is powerfully clear. Need has no boundaries of race, region, religion, or relationship. You don’t throw a life away just because it’s been banged up a bit. It’s not those who talk the ...

11. A New Kind of Teaching

Mark 1:21-28

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... ago education was an option in this country, but now it is law. And in this great nation we have more students in college or university than ever before anywhere in history. Learning is a way of life, teaching an honored and powerful profession. But it is an increasingly ... -- himself. By virtue of the fact that he embodied his ideal, what he said was living and vital and impelling. For religion is a personal thing. It can never become an abstract principle. It is a way of life" (The Teachings of Jesus, ...

12. Hope That God Is Nearby

Isaiah 7:1-25

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... is something to be proud of. It nearly always indicates a healthy mind.” It’s a free world; people have the right to their own religion or their rejection of it all. Ivan was not that kind of atheist. When I met him on the back seat of church one Sunday he said ... F. God Is Inside Us Paul said, “Christ in you is your hope of glory.” God is big enough to rule this mighty universe, but small enough to live within your heart. What is your hope for glory? A hit song? To win the lottery? Success in business ...

13. Jesus' Temptation

Luke 4:1-13

Sermon

Will Willimon

... the forty days of Lent with Jesus' forty days of testing in the wilderness. It is fitting that we recall this story in a university chapel because (don't you agree?) it is at the beginning of your life, when one is a young adult, that one is most ... . Temptation is a function of hunger. Is God for us or not? they asked Moses. Let's have bread as proof that God is our kind of God, i.e., a God who responds to our hungry need. What good is religion or praying, or your getting out of bed and being here in Chapel ...

14. The Bread That Endures

Luke 22:7-38

Sermon

Larry R. Kalajainen

... is not merely a clich‚. It's true. There's probably no more universal food than bread. Since human beings first learned to cultivate grains, they have been grinding that grain into flour or meal and baking bread. Perhaps that's why baking bread is such a ... and we behave in certain ways that may be very different from the way we behave at work or at the football stadium. A fourth compartment is labelled religion or church, and we're a different person there too. We give God a certain portion of ourselves, ...

15. Nothing but the Blood

1 John 1:7

Sermon

James Merritt

... criticized because of a particular subject they preached about. When Billy Graham was getting started, a professor from Cornell University wrote him a letter and said, "Mr. Graham, you have great talent, and you have what it takes to ... that you give to your heart that gives it that racer's edge. The blood of Jesus is not something you add to your religion, or add to your ritual, or add to your righteousness, to cleanse you. His blood alone cleanses from all sin. So many people have the idea that salvation is ...

16. The Problem with Promises

Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7

Sermon

James L. Killen

... his partners. But just as Abe was about to finish his Master of Business Administration degree at an Ivy League university, he began to experience some deep restlessness. His teachers were telling him things that bothered him. They told him that ... that have to do with religion or with faith? The answer is: It has everything to do with it. After all, a person's real religion has to do with the important things that are going on in his or her real life. And faith has to do with whether or not you can venture ...

17. Children in the Arms of a Loving God

Mark 10:13-16

Sermon

Michael Milton

... this passage we come to see that God welcomes little ones who cannot make decisions, cannot debate or enter into arguments about religion or even express faith. Yet, Christ touches these children as if they were to be included in His ... early touch of Jesus led me home even though I wandered far away from God. Not long ago I was watching a program in which university researchers tagged a baby whale in Monterey, California. For years they watched as that baby grew. She went all over the world, but at the ...

18. Moses: A Traveling God in a Pop-Up Camper

Exodus 13:17-22, 33:7-11

Sermon

John E. Harnish

... thing: As Americans, we are bowling alone. [1] In religion, the same seems to be true. Today there is more interest in personal spirituality and less commitment to organized religion or the church—just me and Jesus. Personal spirituality is ... God's people…together, and God is made known in the midst. My friend Tom Frank, professor at Candler School of Theology, Emory University, recently wrote a book called The Soul of the Congregation. He talks about his experience as a pastor and that moment of insight ...

19. Why Am I a Christian?

Mark 1:4-11

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... friends should do, He clasps my hand as I shiver in the shadows, My God and I are going to see this through. All other religions place salvation on the shoulders of human beings. If we try hard enough, pray long enough, keep coming back often enough, we will eventually ... the way for the chosen ones. In Romans 11:26 Paul says, “All Israel will be saved." Without surrendering to pluralism or universalism, some of us believe that there is “wideness in God's mercy, like the wideness of the sea and that there ...

20. The Courage to Be Me

Sermon

Gregory J. Johanson

... young people who, in the midst of intellectual discomfort, surrender their doubts to an adherence to pious mediocrity in religion or to the camp of detractors, who offer only despair and cynicism. What kind of choice is that? There is, ... object of the game is simple: knock down someone else so that you can be on top. (It can be played in business, in marriage, or in a university department, if in a bit more sophisticated way!) Imagine yourself playing King of the Hill on a pile of sand in your own childhood ...

21. What Happens When I Die?

John 14:1-4

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... sermon is not ‘What happens if I die?’ but rather, ‘What happens when I die?’ None of us is going to get out of this life alive. Saroyans question has perplexed all of us at one time or another. It is the on universal question of humankind. Some believe that that question is the beginning of all religion. What happens when I die? I. THE CREEDS REPLY TO THE QUESTION is simply to state; I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. At first glance, we are tempted to say: That can ...

22. Ten Friends Drive Us to the Promise

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20

Sermon

Arley K. Fadness

"One day last spring, something memorable happened at Carleton University (in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, not to be confused with Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota). Thirty-one students in the ... is going to the dogs and one way to rescue it is to bring back the Ten Commandments. Another side in the debate argues that no one religion or religious teachings ought to be dictated in a pluralistic country. The main purpose of the commandments and their application today is the real crux of the matter. Nestigen ...

23. The Bridge at Sychar

John 4:1-26

Sermon

David O. Bales

... just Jesus’ style. It’s also the main theme of the Bible. We don’t work our way to God by being good, studying religion, or even seeking God. No matter how we view it from our perspective, the Bible tells the true story: God searches for us. In ... about ourselves. Learning that God is our creator means that we aren’t a speck of dust free floating in a meaningless universe. Learning, as does the Samaritan woman, that Jesus is God’s emissary of eternal life restores us to our true place as creatures ...

24. Time to Pick a Side

Luke 12:49-53

Sermon

King Duncan

... the world have to meet in secret. It’s why people say that you should never talk about politics, religion or money in polite company. Talking about your faith in certain quarters is guaranteed to create divisions. That’s ... J. P. Moreland, in his book Apologetic Reasoning and the Christian Mind, tells of sharing his faith with a college student at the University of Vermont. The student was a believer in ethical relativism. Here is how a believer in ethical relativism would express his faith: “Whatever ...

25. Ignite: Set On Fire!

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

James Merritt

... promised in the Old Testament and the very Lord of the universe. From its very beginning the church was not to be built around the teachings of Jesus, the miracles of Jesus, the life of Jesus, or even the death of Jesus. The church was to be built ... ? Attend church regularly? Eat more chicken? Get religion? Or, what I would have said, “It is time for the offering.” No, he says the same thing I believe every preacher should say every Sunday in one form or fashion. “And Peter said to them, ‘Repent ...

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