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 2651 to 2675 of 4972 results

2651. Breakfast on the Beach

John 21:1-14

Sermon

Steven Burt

... please him. And Jesus’ eyes and Peter’s eyes meet for a moment, and while Peter’s eyes are filled with fears and tears, Jesus’ eyes are soft and loving and forgiving. But there’s a pregnant pause. Peter doesn’t know where he stands. His heart stops and his breathing ceases for a moment. And then Jesus slowly smiles and offers the invitation, as he did at the Last Supper, at the feeding of the 5,000, at the feeding of the 4,000, and at all the other meals. “Come,” he says, perhaps beckoning ...

2652. The Christmas Song

Luke 1:39-45, Luke 1:46-56

Sermon

James Garrett

... and those who don’t. I cannot explain it, but every year it happens. A special quality of Divine Presence invades our world. It is as if a magic wand is waved over the world and everybody and everything becomes different. Year after year the world in some measure stops to listen to the story. I love the Christmas music. Christmas has to be sung. Music and song began with the first Christmas. The song of Christmas sung by Mary is found in Luke 1:39-55. Here is a moving account of the mother of John being ...

2653. The Gospel Of Christmas

John 1:1-18

Sermon

James Garrett

... on the street corners blessed him on his way. “He rode all night, rehearsing his speech as he went. ‘Dad, you were right, it’s a tough world…. Dad, you were right….’ “At dawn on Christmas day, the bus pulled up outside the bus stop in his little hometown, and he tumbled off, wrinkled, unshaven, and a little worried about how it would be. “ ‘Son!’ a voice called. And there was his father. ‘But, Dad, how did you know?’ he stammered. “ ‘How did he know?’ said the old station ...

2654. The Proof Is In The Fruit

Luke 6:39-49

Sermon

James Garrett

... inside where we live and move and have our being as well as an outside of flesh and bone. Our actions and our words transmit something of the life we have inside us. What one is, one does. Remember the story of the plainly dressed Mennonite who was stopped on the street by a young convert who asked, “Brother, are you saved?” the long-bearded Mennonite did not respond immediately, but pulled out a piece of paper and wrote on it. Then he handed the paper to the stranger and said, “Here are the names and ...

2655. The First Christmas Message

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

James Garrett

... , but even the church people seemed to look at him as if they were afraid he might be a bad influence on their own children. One day a new preacher came to town. The boy went to church. When the service was over he tried to hurry out. The preacher stopped him at the door. He said, “Who are you, son, whose boy are you?” He felt that he would like to crawl into a hole somewhere. The new minister had obviously already heard about him. But before he could answer, the preacher said with a warm smile on his ...

2656. A Voice Out Of The Cloud

Luke 9:28-36

Sermon

James Garrett

... so many years. “Then one day I turned around, and God was there. Apparently, God does things in his own way and at his own hour. “But the important thing is that he was there. He found me. You were right. He found me even after I stopped looking for him.” “Tommy, you are saying something very important and much more universal than you realize. You are saying that the surest way to find God is not to make him a private possession, a problem-solver, but rather by opening yourself to his love.” My ...

2657. You Must Become As A Child

Mark 10:13-16

Sermon

Brett Blair

... were shouts of Hosanna, Son of David. This enraged the Pharisees. But when we read on we find out that the ones yelling this out are the children. The Pharisees come to Jesus and say: Tell them (the children) to quit yelling this. He answers: If I told them to stop, even the stones would yell it out." Lest you still do not believe that God used children to usher in the Kingdom, let me remind you that our Savior came to us in the form of a child. You see, only innocence and freshness can usher in the kingdom ...

2658. A Word For All Reasons

John 20:19-23

Sermon

John M. Braaten

... be with you." Those potent, piercing words slice through all our pretenses, surmount all our weaknesses, forgive all our sinfulness, abolish all our guilt, and overcome all our fears and our faithlessness. Not even our worst doubts can keep him from claiming our hearts. And he will not stop speaking his word until it can be said of us, as it was said of the disciples, "They were glad when they saw the Lord." "Peace be with you." That is God's word, that is our Lord's gift to you this morning, as you face ...

2659. A Strange Kind Of Glory

John 13:31-38

Sermon

John M. Braaten

... Christ's. We, too, are to serve under the sign of the cross. I recall a farmboy telling of the time he came out of his house and heard a commotion by the chicken coop. He ran quickly and found a hen being savagely attacked by a large hawk. He stopped, picked up a stick, and ran to the hen's defense, but he was too late; as the hawk flew off, the hen collapsed. The boy looked sadly at the stricken hen wondering to himself, wondering why the hen had not fled to the safety of the chicken coop which ...

2660. Our Christian I.D.

Luke 4:1-13

Sermon

John M. Braaten

... because Christ has chosen you, and enabled you to acknowledge his claim on your life. Some of you, if you're anything like me, need to be encouraged every day to step out into the joy and freedom of believing that that's the way it is, so you can stop wondering who you are and what you are, and can press on as God's beloved children in this world. In some churches when babies are baptized they are given a candle; it is to be lit each year on the anniversary of their baptism. Those candles are given as ...

2661. Two R-Rated Stories

John 7:45--8:11

Sermon

John M. Braaten

... rights of the leper. But when there was a leper in his path he did not walk abound him like the priest walking on the opposite side of the road from the man set upon by thieves, on his way to Jerusalem to preach his famous sermon on compassion. Jesus stopped. And healed. And loved. Not causes, but people."1 Jesus said to Judas, "The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me." It was not that our Lord was against helping the poor, but he was saying that there are times when giving to other ...

2662. Standing Up To Death

Romans 6:1-14, Psalm 90:1-17

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... story of a young vicar, serving the Indians of the Northwest, who faces an early death. At one point this young vicar and his bishop are returning to civilization and when they reach an inlet, this interchange ensues: When they entered the inlet, the Bishop motioned Mark to stop the engine. "Let's not hurry," he said. "It's so seldom I have a few hours to myself." The breeze was gentle with the first promise of spring. They could see the float moored to the inlet side and beyond it they could see the jagged ...

2663. Through the Valley of the Shadow

Psalm 23:1-6

Eulogy

Carl B. Rife

For a Cancer Victim This sermon was preached at the memorial service for an aunt who died of lung cancer. Recently, while I was driving in Frederick, I had a rather lengthy wait at a stop light while a very long funeral procession went through the intersection. I must admit that my reaction was annoyance and impatience: I had things to do and places to go. But as I moved beyond my initial feelings I had a number of thoughts about the whole matter of death. ...

2664. God Promises Abraham And Sarah A Son

Genesis 18:1-15

Drama

Dallas A. Brauninger

Suggestions: Use as an anthem. * = optional stopping point 4 readers - 3 men, 1 woman Key: 1 = storyteller 2 = Abraham 3 = person representing three men 4 = Sarah 1: The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He looked up and saw ...

2665. God Moves In Mysterious Ways

1 Kings 17:7-24

Sermon

Robert Allen

... the floating chapel. The church moved on. By now, the building had made its way to the center of the town. As dozens of amazed and helpless townspeople waited, the church veered off the road, headed for the center of a vacant lot, and there it stopped, and there it is to this very day, more than 100 years later. The shrewd, prosperous businessman who had refused to sell this choice vacant lot to the Methodists, sloshed his way through the water and went to the Methodist minister and presented him with the ...

2666. Overcoming The Blues

1 Kings 19:1-8

Sermon

Robert Allen

... and going for several months without finding another. Without a job, she dreaded sitting at home and she started going to the park to mope and feel sorry for herself. One day, while she was sitting on a park bench, an elderly woman jogged by and stopped to tie her shoe. The woman said, “I’ve seen you around here every day. Do you work around here?” Linda looked up and thought her comment was just an excuse to start a conversation. But, she quietly answered, “I’m unemployed.” “You know,” the ...

2667. The Call To Ministry

1 Kings 19:9-18

Sermon

Robert Allen

... I believe that God is calling to you and me in a very personal way. God is calling your name this very moment. You always hear with your own name. You always hear with your own experience. You always hear personally. This does not mean that God stops the whole universe and speaks directly to you. It simply means that the presence of God in Jesus Christ is always calling. Can you hear him calling your name? Listen! Listen very carefully and you will hear your personal call to ministry! Prayer: Our Father and ...

2668. Marked In An Empty Tomb -- The Cross Is Still There

Sermon

George Bass

... So the church, to save the faith, made it a spiritual God, invisible. It’s obviously made up.”18 For her and the others, the resurrection of the Son of God can be nothing else except pure and unadulterated nonsense. So much for the resurrection of Jesus if we stop reading the story at the point where the disciples regard it as “an idle tale.” But Peter, at least, was curious and ran out to the tomb to see if it really was empty; the two angels were gone but the cloths in which Jesus had been wrapped ...

2669. Marked For Death

Genesis 3:1-24

Sermon

George Bass

... they saw my plight, that there was no way I could get back into the boat and make my way to the shore. The man shouted, “Hang on! We’re coming.” He and his wife paddled over in their canoe, began to tow the rowboat toward shore. Before I could stop him, he jumped into the cold water without thinking about its temperature or depth, to help me out of the lake and on to dry land. He didn’t really have to jump into the water, but he did, and that action will always be symbolic -- to me -- of Jesus ...

2670. Marked By The Cross

Romans 6:2-4

Sermon

George Bass

... sealed us” into a permanent relationship with the Lord. Barbara Schmich, a liturgist who is associated with the Notre Dame Center for Pastoral Liturgy, and is also the mother of three children, tells how her three-year-old son became aware of crucifixes. He would stop, look at one, and declare, “Jesus is dead.” She realized, after awhile, that he was making a “request,” and was really seeking information, so she told him, “Yes, Jesus did die on a cross, but he rose from the dead. He is alive and ...

2671. Marked At The Table

Sermon

George Bass

... for his father’s pack mule, “And God bless Blackie, too.” I suspect that the child’s very intelligent father can’t understand his “Saint Francis-like” prayer at all; I doubt if it is even “cute” to him, but he doesn’t do anything to stop his son’s “pack mule prayer.” When Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, Peter wanted to turn this experience into a kind of baptism, “… not my feet only, but my hands and my head as well.” He wanted a baptism that was the next thing to total ...

2672. Hang Time: A Good Friday Sermon

Matthew 27:45-56

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

... 's not doing that he's not paying his rent, as my late grandmother used to say. Everybody should be paying the rent here on earth by making the world a better place to live, and that's what Jesus was all about. But the hammer time folk tried to stop him dead in his tracks with some nine-inch nails and some two-by-fours and some cast iron hammers. Just as the show time people specialize in hanging for the things of Jesus for a short while, the hammer time people don't hang for the things of Jesus ...

2673. Hostage Crisis

1 Kings 19:1-8

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

... proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." The junkie with the cooker at this sermon's opening is now a free man because he turned away from his sinful addiction and allowed the word of God to come into his life. And he discovered that the prayer saints never stopped praying. If Christ can free him from crack; if God freed Elijah from fear of Jezebel's traps, freed Jesus from the bonds of Satan's wraps, God can free you and me from the chains of hopelessness and despair. If you're gonna be a prisoner, be a ...

2674. How’s That Again, Jesus?

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

Larry Goodpaster

... in capsules. An alleged serial killer stalks the neighborhood. Suddenly the disturbances take on a new character. When our convictions are challenged, when our viewpoints are refocused, and when our beliefs come under decisive questioning, the grins disappear and the fun stops. One of the least frightening, and perhaps most predictable, things in our lives is our concept of Jesus. For the most part our images of Jesus are inherited from our childhood Sunday school days. They tend to be quiet, pastoral ...

2675. When One Is Better Than Many

2 Kings 13:10-25

Sermon

Keith Hammer

... your time to line up the arrow and aim it. It went straight to its mark. So it is with you. You are the Lord’s arrow. When you take time to listen to what God expects of you, you will accomplish his purposes and there is nothing that shall stop you. You will have victory over Syria and all your enemies. Now take the rest of your arrows out and destroy them.” The king went out and destroyed some, but he just could not bring himself to destroy all of them. He needed to hold back some for his own ...

Showing results