Sermon and Worship Resources

Antonyms: keep, claim, continue, stick by, self-control, power through, achieve, defend, bear, hope, acquire, quick visit, adopt, continue along, adhere, remain, pursue, support, take up, keep up, reuse, advocate, stay, persevere, cherish, keep going, carry on

Showing 2476 to 2500 of 2664 results

2476. True Colors

Acts 9:1-19a, Acts 9:19b-31

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... it. Ever get a splinter in your finger? What’s the first thing you need? A bright light. Ever lose a button or a coin? What’s the first thing you do? Get a flashlight! Try to shine the light into the crevices and cracks where the item may have dropped, so that you can see to retrieve it. The brighter the better. How many of you wear reading glasses? I’m sure many of you, like me, put it off as long as you could, right? Well, I tried to ignore the fact that my eyes were aging. But as ...

2477. Slow Burn

Matthew 5:13-16, Matthew 6:19-24

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... , through just the wrong mineral content. Once it lost its ability to purify, preserve, cook, or taste, it had no more value. In our culture, cars lose value immediately the moment you buy them. After a year or two, the value has already dropped thousands of dollars just due to ownership. That’s called “depreciation.” Cars are not an appreciating asset, but a depreciating asset. In a sense, salt was like that in the first century. Salt was hugely valued. In fact, Roman soldiers often were paid ...

2478. The Plank

Matthew 5:38-48; 7:1-6

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... Some weeks the family had no idea where their meals were coming from. But one of the joys of her childhood was when a Salvation Army officer came by on Friday night with bags of groceries for the hungry family. The Salvation Army officer didn’t just drop them off though. He’d take time to talk and play with all of the kids, encouraging them and making them smile and laugh. Joan’s gift to the Salvation Army would ensure that many other children would receive the joy she did as a child. That particular ...

2479. Mending Fences

Luke 16:1-15, Luke 16:16-18

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing their way into it. It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law. “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. Image Exegesis: Mending Fences The Parable of the Dishonest Manager has been avoided frequently. And if you read it as ...

2480. Oh That Cookie Jar Goodness!

Matthew 19:16-30, Mark 10:17-31, Luke 18:18-30

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... 11 “Great Cloud of Witnesses” takes us down a long corridor of a rogue’s gallery. All biblical heroes were human people with foibles and faults. They were people who messed up, who doubted, and who balked. But they were faithful people willing to drop everything and follow God’s call, God’s summons, and to respect God’s authority and authorship of their story. They were willing to put their own rules, sense of justice, and ideas about what is “good” (or not) aside. They were willing to ...

2481. The Funeral Crasher

John 14:1-4, John 14:5-14, John 14:15-31

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... of our humanness, our inevitable cycle of birth, life and death, and the humility that comes with our humanity. Outside of Good Friday, it’s our most serious and solemn time of the church calendar. Our scripture for today bears that same kind of solemnity. The story drops in on Jesus’ disciples at a time of fear and confusion over when their master will leave them. He confirms that he will leave them. But he’s talking to them about death. His death! They react as you might expect or as you would react ...

2482. Peter the Petulant

Mark 14:1-11, Mark 14:12-26, Mark 14:27-31

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... are powerful reminders of who that person was to us, and who will always remain in our hearts. Images are powerful. They can impress upon our memories. They can also haunt us. A woman who lost her child in an automobile crash….can’t get the image of a dropped teddy bear out of her head. A woman who lost her son in Iraq couldn’t part with his beloved basketball. A man whose wife loved roses was reminded of her every time he would smell that scent. But the power of that linen cloth! There was no more ...

2483. The Catch

John 21:1-14, John 21:15-25, Acts 10:1-8, Acts 10:9-23a, Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... of all that it means to put on the “clothing” of a follower of Jesus –love, servanthood, baptism, covenant, loyalty, mission, righteousness, determination. And “right of access.” These allow Peter to bring the gospel to the “anthropoi” (to the people). The fishing net / the drop cloth that Peter witnesses in Acts 10 is like a dream unwrapped as a serving tray –a net filled not this time with 153 kinds of fish, but many kinds of birds and animals. But the message is the same. And it’s not ...

2484. Dry Bones

Ezekiel 37:1-14, Ezekiel 37:15-28

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... to put it into the kiln and fire it, so that the colors and textures become fixed. If that pottery is not fired, and you leave it lie without being used for a long period of time, it will dry out, become brittle, and it will finally break. If you drop it, it will shatter. This is in a sense the kind of metaphor that Ezekiel is describing in his vision of the valley of dry bones. These are not bones who have recently lived. They’ve been long neglected. They are souls that have so long denied God, so long ...

2485. The Apothecary

Isaiah 40:1-31, Isaiah 61:1-11

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... the Spirit of the Lord, or instruct the Lord as his counselor? Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him, and who taught him the right way? Who was it that taught him knowledge, or showed him the path of understanding? Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales; he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust. Lebanon is not sufficient for altar fires, nor its animals enough for burnt offerings. Before him all the nations are as nothing; they are regarded by ...

2486. The Promise of Dreams

Genesis 37:1-11, Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... eyes now for a moment. I want you to feel God’s Holy Spirit pouring over each of you….over this entire congregation. Feel it. Embrace it. As God’s Spirit pours over you, feel the chains around you that bind you to worry, to doubt, to despair, to fear dropping away from you to the floor. You are freed to follow God’s dream of love. To be a God dreamer. You are free to follow Jesus into the world in light, and love, and hope. Go..and follow your dreams.

2487. Song of Promise

Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 1:46-56, Luke 1:39-45

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... her under his wing, and made her a star. The family’s life changed. But with change comes many other new things….. And the question is….are we ready for the responsibility that comes with God’s gifts of grace? A song is like a wish, a prayer, a little drop of hope that cheers you when you’re down. It’s a dream that we lift up, one that keeps us going with lifted chin and set jaw. And as long as it stays a dream….we can imagine a different life, but we don’t have to take the ...

2488. Faith is a River That Flows

Genesis 19:1-29

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... his family, and in particular, Lot’s wife. We don’t even know her name. Poor woman doesn’t even get a name in the story, but man does her story resonate with us, doesn’t it? I mean, let’s be truthful. We diss this poor woman at the drop of a hat. We call her sinful, one of the “bad” women of the Bible, the one who did the “wrong” thing, the one we don’t want to pay attention to, ‘cause she isn’t the heroine of the story. But I think we give “Lot’s wife” (some ...

2489. Emergency!

Genesis 11:1-9

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... buildings, safe in our ivory towers and cathedrals, but about jumping onto God’s ladder of hope and going wherever hurting people need to see God’s saving presence, providence, and participation. The House of God, the True Bethel, is wherever God’s saving ladder drops down and intervenes within the world to touch the hearts and heal the burns of a lost humanity. We are God’s firefighters. We hop on board God’s ladder truck wherever it may take us. Like Elisha’s altar, God puts out the consuming ...

2490. Let 'Er Rip

Mark 13:1-31, Mark 13:32-37, 1 Thessalonians 5:12-28

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... is something to see, now you’re looking for it. Now, you’ll see it. And you’ll wonder how you ever missed it. It’s that way with the presence of the Holy Spirit. [Pass around the bowl of mustard seeds.] Jesus said, if you just drop one of these tiny, insignificant mustard seeds into someone’s well-planted garden, slowly maybe out of sight and out of mind, it will start growing and germinating. More will catch root, and the plant will begin to spread until…..a “tipping point” when all of a ...

2491. Almond Joy!

Numbers 17:1-13

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... to the ordeal He faced for us. Human beings hate to feel bad. We all know that right? We will do anything to feel good. Just look around in our world today. We drink. We take mood enhancing drugs. We engage in endless busy-ness, we shop ‘til we drop, we go from relationship to relationship, we pretend we’re happy when we’re not. We will do anything not to feel the sadness and pain of mourning or the mounting guilt and shame of sin. Ever notice that when someone loses a spouse or gets divorced, many ...

2492. Seeing with Eyes Closed

Exodus 34:1-28, Exodus 34:29-35, John 1:1-18, Acts 9:1-19a

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... new (in)sight and new ministry in the Name of Jesus: “This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” Boom! Drop the mic! Saul’s vicious anger, his killing frenzy, his willful ignorance about Jesus has been short-circuited by the powerful strike of the Holy Spirit. Paul will never be the same person again. He has been inexplicably and undeniably changed. His mission to the gentiles ...

2493. Raison d’Etre

Matthew 5:13-16, Matthew 5:17-20

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... miles from the place he had spent the night to meet up with his friends at a place called, simply, the camp. He intended to leave at nine in the morning and arrive easily by noon. The night before he left it snowed three feet and the temperature dropped to 75 degrees below zero. Over confident to the point of arrogance, he decided to ignore the warnings and advice of those around him and make the hike anyway. He hadn’t gone far before he realized that his nose and cheeks were frost bitten. He should, he ...

2494. Hold Me When I'm Angry

Joshua 5:1-12

Sermon

Carl Jech

... wanderings in the wilderness. At first they are full of love and thankfulness toward God for the miracle of this manna - thought by some modern scholars to be the honeydew excretions of scale insects, plant lice and other insects ... secretions which rapidly turn into drops of sticky solids in the dry desert air. But in the book of Numbers, chapter eleven, verse six they begin to complain bitterly that "there is nothing at all but this manna to look at." In reaction to this fickle love-hate attitude on ...

2495. Trapped!

Romans 6:15-23

Sermon

King Duncan

... tells of accompanying his son Nathan on an outing to Six Flags Magic Mountain, a theme park in Southern California. Six Flags Magic Mountain features an enormous roller coaster named, quite appropriately Goliath. Goliath features such thrills as a 255-foot, nearly vertical drop, which propels the hapless rider at a speed of eighty five miles per hour into a pitch dark tunnel. Naturally Nathan loved it . . . and Mark Roberts loves his son Nathan. So . . . that particular day Roberts with a certain amount of ...

2496. A Dirt Story

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

King Duncan

... is given to young recruits in professional baseball who perform marvelously in spring practice in Florida or Arizona but then as they travel north and experience the lengthy baseball season, they begin to wilt like a morning-glory flower. By June their batting average drops to an unacceptable level. And by July they are released from their team. (3) Seed that falls on rocky soil is like that. It may take root initially but because it doesn’t get the nutrition it needs it eventually wilts and dies. Morning ...

2497. Priceless!

Matthew 13:44-46

Sermon

King Duncan

... from a massive waterfall makes the rocks and vegetation along the lip of that chasm as slippery as a slide at a water park, but far less tolerant of error. While taking pictures at the falls with his girlfriend on New Year’s Eve, Michael dropped his glasses over the rim. For some strange reason he decided to retrieve them. A headmaster at Summit College in Johannesburg and a highly regarded lecturer in geography, Michael was certainly aware of the risk. Nevertheless, he slowly edged his way to the rim ...

2498. Be Like Dad

John 17:1-5

Sermon

David & Marian Plant

... perfectly cherubic child and she settled in for the first afternoon. It was about two hours before the boy went down for his first nap after his afternoon breastfeeding. Sleeping well, the nurses checked in and saw nothing wrong, nothing at all. Just as mom dropped off to sleep, about an hour and a half into prayers for healing uttered aloud and under her breath and too weary to continue, it happened. The gagging and choking began, the child attempting to awaken from some ungodly grip. The nurses were there ...

2499. Desperate Times Call For...

Matthew 15:21-28

Sermon

King Duncan

... to minister to this Canaanite woman. And Jesus walked in our shoes all the way to the cross for no other reason than that he loves us. He shared our weakness, our questions, our pain. Remember that the night before his arrest Jesus prayed so desperately that he sweated drops of blood. Jesus understands what it is to be desperate. He didn’t come to wave a magic wand and take away all our troubles. But he did come to show us that we are not alone. His message and his ministry kept coming back to this one ...

Love is a piano dropped from a fourth story window, and you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Ani DiFranco

Showing results