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 3701 to 3725 of 4681 results

3701. You Are God's Child

Romans 8:1-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... abide in Christ. And this is where you get your worth. I declare with the authority of the gospel of Jesus Christ that you are every bit as much a child of God as anyone . . . I declare with the authority of the gospel of Jesus Christ that you will bear fruit for God’s vineyard, through the power of God that is within you.” Then he handed Vickie the two pieces of paper on which those lies were written. She says she ripped them into pieces, and threw them on the floor to show herself and everyone in the ...

3702. It Was a Dark and Stormy Evening! Father's Day

Mark 4:35-41

Sermon

King Duncan

... break out in Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus.” There was peace in the midst of the storm! Isn’t that a powerful parable of a spiritual reality? Sometimes we are caught in the thunder and power of life’s perplexities . . . it seems we can’t bear much more . . . then suddenly peace breaks in upon us. It is difficult to see rainbows from the backside of the cloud. We are encouraged simply to press on, trusting the Rainbow Maker. The Rainbow Maker never fails! Storms pass, thunder tolls over the horizon ...

3703. Poem: Sonnet 116

Eulogy

William Shakespeare

... tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

3704. Poem: Crossing The Bar

Eulogy

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, When I put out to sea, But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home. Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark; For though from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crossed the bar.

3705. Poem: Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard

Eulogy

Thomas Gray

... to their eyes her ample page Rich with the spoils of time did ne’er unroll; Chill Penury repressed their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul. Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast The little tyrant of his fields withstood; Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s ...

3706. Right Answer - Wrong Conclusion

Mark 8:27-30

Sermon

King Duncan

... tells about a friend of his who has a brain-damaged daughter. Sometimes the sadness this friend feels over her daughter’s condition overwhelms her, as it did recently. She wrote Hybels a letter and gave him permission to quote from it: “. . . I can hardly bear it sometimes,” she writes. “My most recent wave of grief came just last year before her sixteenth birthday. As the day approached, I found myself brooding over all the things that she would never be able to do. What did I do? What I’ve ...

3707. God's Pattern for Sainthood

Psalm 24:1-10

Sermon

King Duncan

... The peasant pointed to the stars and replied, “I was just wondering how you and your crew would manage to get them down!” In his simple way he was right. The stars speak of God. The trees speak of God. The birds speak of God. All of creation bears witness to a God whose power and might is beyond our imagination. I realize that there are those who refuse to recognize the evidence God has provided. Some of you recall when Yuri Gagarin, the astronaut from the former Soviet Union who became the first man in ...

3708. A Fig Tree Sprouts Leaves

Luke 21:25-36

Sermon

King Duncan

... the story of NFL quarterback Jeff Hostetler, formerly with the New York Giants. At the beginning of his career, Jeff was a back-up quarterback. By the end of his seventh season, he had thrown less than two hundred passes, and none of them had any bearing on the outcome of a game. Then Phil Simms, the starting quarterback of the Giants, went down with an injury, and coach Bill Parcels looked to his back-up quarterback on the bench and said, “Okay, Jeff, it’s your turn.” Jeff Hostetler ran out onto ...

3709. When Walls Shift and the Ceiling Collapses

John 8:31-36

Sermon

R. Robert Cueni

... to see a church with a hole in the ceiling. Of course, there emerges a faction in that congregation that thinks it best to tear down the old church and start all over again. To that suggestion, loud protests are uttered by those who cannot bear losing what has been made holy by generations of marriages, baptisms, funerals, and memories. The conflict intensifies over what to do and how to do it. For the time being, the congregation assumes people will continue to come to church. They hope that the remainder ...

3710. King Jesus

Luke 1:46-56, Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... and identity as a key component in our Advent preaching. But that is not necessarily the case. Although the story is largely about Mary, the message is not. True, she is "highly favored," but when Gabriel explains why, the focus is on Jesus, not Mary. She will conceive and bear a son, but the son's name is already declared (mother Mary has no choice in the matter). Her son (not her) will be great. In fact, he will be identified with God, not Mary. And all the promises made to great King David in 2 Samuel 7 ...

3711. Uncovering Cover-Ups

John 16:5-16

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... realize the cover-ups in our lives. Many of us fear the truth. We do not want to be exposed to the light because our deeds are evil. Most of us have something about our lives we do not want exposed to anyone. If the truth be known, could we bear to live with one another? Let's ask the question differently. If the truth can never be known, or if there is no truth, no truth at all, does anything make any difference at all? Isn't life then a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury ...

3712. Demons, Pigs, and the Economy

Luke 8:26-39

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... mind before and after the healing or exorcism. More than that, as the only non-Jewish writer of the New Testament, Luke likes to emphasize Jesus' interest in all people, including Gentiles. (This exorcism takes place in Gentile territory and the cured man is asked to bear witness to his healing among the Gentiles.) The early church was fascinated with this powerful story and so are we. If we are to have healthy lives and a healthy economy, we need to deal with our demons. I. Let us consider the demoniac. We ...

3713. The Wrong Gift

Luke 2:1-14 (15-20)

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... him from time to time, so he rarely uses it; bladder stones cause him daily pain; he doesn't sleep well; he catches cold easily; and horseback riding tires him, so he is often carried to the battle?eld on a litter. Can you imagine a man bearing that description becoming the great Caesar Augustus? Yet he did. Part of his secret lies in an event that occurred when he was a young boy. One day he visited the well-known astrologer and fortune-teller Theogenes. When Theogenes read the boy's horoscope, he was ...

3714. Discipleship: Backward or Forward to God

Luke 9:51-62

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... same river once," meaning that even as you step into the river it is flowing and changing and so are you. Life is flux and change and process. Perhaps it is because life is constant change and flux and process that we try to go home again to get our bearings, especially if we have a strong sense of place as do I. I don't know about you, but I do try to "go home again." I like to revisit familiar places to recall wonderful happenings and to bask in sentiment and nostalgia. I like to return to my Wisconsin ...

3715. Mary and Martha: Nine to Five and Five to Nine

Luke 10:38-42

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... No, but at least I'd like to make some progress. Man: I don't blame you. Sometimes women have been badly maligned in our Christian history. Listen to this quote from John Knox, of the early Calvinist tradition. He said: "To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, or empire above any realm, nation or city is repugnant to nature, contumely to God, a thing most contrarious to his revealed will and approved ordinances." (Knox must be spinning in his grave at the thought of a woman running for president!) By ...

3716. Two Kinds of People

Jeremiah 17:5-10

Sermon

King Duncan

... in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.’ “Notice, Bob,” Dwight continued, “that this ‘blessed’ person is joyful in his soul. He trusts God in all circumstances and he draws nourishment from his faith in God. And he produces healthy fruit; undaunted by drought.” After spending considerable time pondering this ...

3717. Prepare for Death and Follow Me

Illustration

Michael P. Green

An Indiana cemetery has a tombstone over a hundred years old that bears this epitaph: Pause, Stranger, when you pass me by, As you are now, so once was I. As I am now, so you will be, So prepare for death and follow me. An unknown passerby had read those words and scratched this reply below them: To follow you I’m not content, Until I know which way you went. The passerby was right, the important thing about death is what follows. Where are you going?

3718. She is Gone

Illustration

Loraine Boettner

... sky come down to meet each other. Then someone at my side says, “There, she is gone.” Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side, and just as able to bear her load of living weights to its place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her, and just at the moment when someone says, “There she is gone,” on that distant shore there are other eyes watching for her coming and other voices ready to take up ...

3719. The Unbaptized Arm

Matthew 3:13-17

Illustration

Staff

... . As a general he was brilliant. He drove out the Tartars and established peace across the nation. However, Ivan was so busy waging his campaigns that he did not have a family. His friends and advisers were quite concerned. “You must take a wife who can bear you a son. Otherwise there will be no heir.” Ivan said did not have the time to search for a bride, but if they would find a suitable one, he would marry her. The counselors and advisers searched the capitals of Europe to find an appropriate ...

3720. The Well Filled Bow Low

Illustration

Michael P. Green

... and make a name for yourself and hold your head up high in the world like me?” The brother pointed and said, “See that field of wheat over there? Look closely. Only the empty heads stand up. Those that are well filled always bow low.” Said differently, “The branch that bears the most fruit is bent the lowest to the ground.”

3721. Who Was Paul?

Illustration

Michael P. Green

... should believe in the possibility of Jews coming to faith. The minister who had attended the mission service asked the other where he had been and was told that he had attended a special service in honor of St. Paul at the cathedral bearing his name. The clergyman who had attended the Jewish service asked, “Who exactly was Paul?” The hesitating reply was, “I suppose you would consider him a believing Jew.” “What music did they have at the service?” “Why, Mendelssohn’s St. Paul, of course ...

3722. Remove the Law, Remove the Temptation

Illustration

Michael P. Green

... . They needed a solution. Finally it was decided that the signs inside the rooms which stated “no fishing from balcony,” would be removed. The windows were safe at last. What happened? The law suggested something the occupants never would have dreamed of doing -- fishing from their rooms. The law always bears fruit in disobedience.

He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.

Friedrich Nietzsche

3724. The Pain of Crucifixion

Illustration

Michael P. Green

... of misery went on gradually increasing, there was added to them the intolerable pang of a burning and raging thirst; and all these physical complications caused an internal excitement and anxiety, which made the prospect of death itself—of death, the unknown enemy, at whose approach man usually shudders most—bear the aspect of a delicious and exquisite release.

3725. How to Get People To Win For You

Illustration

Michael P. Green

Said Bear Bryant, one of the greatest college football coaches ever, when he was pushed to explain his philosophy of coaching: “There’s just three things I ever say to my players: If anything goes bad, then I did it. If anything goes semi-good, then we did it. If anything goes real good, then you did it. That’s all it takes to get people to win football games for you. I can do that better than anybody.”

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