Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 151 to 175 of 769 results

Sermon

Joann Hary

Do you believe in original sin? If I asked, some of you might answer quite cutely, "Yes, I believe in original sin, in fact I have always thought that if I was going to sin, I might as well be original about it." Then, of course, there are the many stories, such as the one about the church billboard that said, "If you desire to be done with sin, come on in." As the people read more closely, they ...

152. Lent 1

Sermon Aid

Marion L. Soards, Thomas B. Dozeman, Kendall McCabe

OLD TESTAMENT TEXTS The themes of sin and death that were central to Ash Wednesday are carried over into the First Sunday in Lent. These themes, however, are explored somewhat differently. Rather than a prophetic announcement of divine judgment against the people of God in the form of the Day of the Lord, as was the case in Joel 2, Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 explores the consequences of sin for al...

153. We All Sin So What?

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

One day a young skeptic knocked on the door of a rectory. A priest opened the door. The visitor said, “Come out. I want to talk to you about a problem.” “No,” the priest replied, “You come in. I want to talk to you about your sins.” After Adam and Eve sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, God came one evening and called to them, “Where are you?” Because they were afraid of what God might do to the...

154. Proper 23

Sermon

George Paul Mocko

Atlas, Hercules and Tantalus; a Powerful and Deadly Fruit; All About War and Rape and Divorce; Laziness and Guilt Trips and Punishment for All The Above But Don't Despair: a Touch of Salvation Too. As a boy, I was facinated with those Greek myths, the stories of Hercules and Atlas, Zeus and Mercury, Narcissus and Neptune. Let me tell you one of those - one which brings together the familiar words ...

155. Marked For Death

Sermon

George Bass

“Remember, you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.” Genesis 3:19 “The cross is still there!” It is a reminder that all of our lives we have to live with a death sentence. We, too, are “marked people.” The cross stands before us at the beginning of Lent, reasserting what God said when he passed judgment upon the whole human race in the Garden of Eden long ago: “Remember, you are dust, and unt...

156. Where Are You?

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

The largest and most tragic industrial accident in history occurred in 1986 in Russia. It was the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. But it was not really an accident. Now that the Cold War has ended, more information is available about that tragedy. Two electrical engineers were on duty that night. Whether they were sober or not is unclear, but they were playing around with the machines. These engineers...

157. The Snake: A Slick Salesman

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

Some years ago a relative of mine adopted a baby raccoon. Herbie was its name. Herbie was the cutest, most cuddly little creature imaginable. He was hooked on oreo cookies. Because Herbie was fed an ample, high calorie diet, he grew rapidly into a rolly-poley prankster. We had been warned that raccoons go through a glandular change at about two years of age and often attack their owners. A 30- po...

158. The Reality Of Sin

Sermon

Robert Allen

Someone once asked me, "Where was the Garden of Eden located?" I looked at him and said, "The Garden of Eden was located at 803 Blue Street in Hope, Arkansas." A surprised look crossed this man’s face. For a moment he was speechless and then he asked, "Arkansas? I thought the Garden of Eden was supposed to have been someplace in the Middle East.""Well," I responded, "I don’t really know where the ...

159. Man, Where Are You?

Sermon

Alton F. Wedel

The story of the fall of Adam and Eve disturbs a lot of people, raises many questions, and poses many problems. How can anyone who lives in this advanced society with our advanced technology and our unlimited horizons believe in talking serpents? • Or with our advanced theology how are we to understand a God who hangs our fate in trees? • Or when we have passed the finals and the orals and have ga...

160. The Shadow

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

At Dolphin Cay, our home on Orcas Island, Washington, we have standing just outside our front door an old ship's binnacle--a 3.5-foot tall wooden post fitted with a maritime compass and leveling weights. But in the black of night, with the dim, blue-black porch light burning behind it, this benign binnacle takes on an insidious nature. Coming down our hallway anytime after midnight, it looks as th...

161. The Fall

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

There are only four chapters in the Bible where Satan is not implicitly present in the world, the first two and the last two. The Bible begins and ends with him out of existence. But between Genesis 3 and Revelation 20 he is a factor to be reckoned with. The Hebrew word for “serpent” may be connected either with an adjective/noun meaning “bronze” (suggesting something that is shiny), or with a ver...

162. The Fall of Man

Understanding Series

John E. Hartley

The Fall: The interchange among the man, the woman, and the serpent provides dramatic movement, and captures how motivation to disobey God rises from an inversion of the order of responsibility that God had established. 3:1–5 Act 2 of the drama begins with the introduction of a new actor, the serpent, one of the wild animals the LORD God had made (2:19). The serpent is described as more crafty (’a...

163. The Garden of Temptation

Sermon

King Duncan

A woman tells of joining a weight-loss organization. At one meeting the instructor held up an apple and a candy bar. “What are the attributes of this apple,” she asked, “and how do they relate to our diet?” Among the answers that came from the group: “Low in calories” and “lots of fiber.” She then detailed what was wrong with eating candy, and concluded, “Apples are not only more healthful but ...

164. Changed Lives: Adam and Eve

Sermon

King Duncan

Temptation. We all have our own ways of dealing with it. Some of us flee from it. Others, less wise, embrace it. Karen Hickey embraced it. Karen, of St. Louis, MO had often wondered how it felt to be handcuffed. She found out the hard way. The 22-year-old secretary discovered a pair of old handcuffs that her boss had brought to the office. She couldn’t resist trying them on. “Next time, I’ll ask...

165. To the Rescue

Sermon

James Merritt

Some of you may remember the most famous advice communist of all time. Her name was Ann Landers. For decades, her answers to every question you could imagine from all over the country was read in hundreds of newspapers. Her byline “Dear Ann”, became famous all over the world. Towards the end of her career, she sat down for an interview with NBC and she was asked this question, “Of all the questio...

166. Proper 23

Bulletin Aid

Paul A. Laughlin

First Lesson: Genesis 3:8-19 Theme: Changing images of God Exegetical note: God is portrayed here as anthropomorphic, finite in knowledge (those are not rhetorical questions!), excessively punitive (penalizing unborn generations), jealous of divine prerogatives (knowledge and life), and perhaps even deceptive, in that the predicted consequences of the eating the tree - sudden death - did not res...

167. Temptation Island

Children's Sermon

King Duncan

Object: A bag of cookies Boys and girls,The Bible tells us that Jesus went into the wilderness where he was tempted by Satan. Have you ever been tempted? For some people these cookies would be temptation. To be tempted is to be attracted to something that is not right or is not good for you. For some school children, looking on somebody else's paper during a test might be a temptation. For someon...

168. Excuses

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Excuses, excuses! We love 'em. Our national credo seems to be, "Any excuse is better than none." One college president, after years of working with students, said that he was not sure whether the degree B.A. stood for Bachelor of Arts or Builder of Alibis.(1) Douglas Bernstein, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois, recently asked faculty members for the "most unusual, bizarre and ...

169. Clear to Enter

Sermon

Lori Wagner

You’re “clear”! Cleared for entry! Those are the words you hope to hear when passing through the security section of our airports today. Fly recently? If you have flown recently, you went through a security check before being allowed to enter the secured part of the airport where the flight gates are located. Depending upon your “clearance” level, you either waited in a very long line which so...

170. God Where Are You? - The Problem of Evil

Sermon

James Merritt

Whether it is the Holocaust, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11, a tsunami that wipes out 150,000 people in a day, or the massive starvation of millions of children around the world, you cannot deny the reality of evil. On the other hand, we saw last week how science itself has proved with certainty that the world is not eternal. The universe had a beginning. The only...

171. East of Eden or Home

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

A friend of W. E. Sangster, the great English Methodist preacher, was stopped by a tramp one day. “Excuse me, sir,” said the tramp. “I know I have no business to stop you. If I am caught begging I’ll be the guest of his Majesty for a bit. I guess I’m not much to look at. Poverty doesn’t help a man look handsome and there’s no denying I don’t live straight, sir. I paid the penalty to the full, but ...

172. East Of Eden

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Last Sunday we talked about The Fall in Eden in terms of Paul Harvey's phrase: "The Rest of the Story". The story is simply told -- "Evil entered paradise. Satan tempted Eve and Adam by appealing to their pride and vanity to "be like God." After their sin and expulsion from the garden, death made its first relentless assault on the race. There was "brother trouble" when Cain killed his brother Abe...

173. Family Tree

Sermon

Bill Mosley

The fence between Heaven and Hell was falling apart. It was badly in need of repair. Saint Peter consulted his records and saw that by the terms of an ancient agreement, it was Satan's turn to fix the fence. So he gritted his teeth and sought an audience with the Prince of Darkness. He found him in the nether regions, cleaning his pitchfork. Peter did not sit down. The smell of brimstone was heav...

174. Paradise Lost

Sermon

James Merritt

Vesna Vulovic made history on January 26, 1972 and in doing so made the Guinness World Book of Records. It is not an honor that she wanted, was looking for, or particularly enjoyed. She was a flight attendant on a DC-9 that was flying over what is now the Czech Republic when a bomb went off and blew the plane apart. She fell 33,330 feet and going 122 miles an hour landed on the side of a mountain...

175. The Rest Of The Story

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

As Adam and his sons, Cain and Abel, were walking one day, they passed the beautiful Garden of Eden. Just to pass by was an experience. Adam knew what was inside those beautiful gates -- the lush fruit, the gorgeous flowers -- it was a place of endless delight. An angel with a flaming sword was guarding the gate. Adam said, "Boys, take a good look. That's where we lived before your mother ate us ...

Showing 151 to 175 of 769 results