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 4001 to 4025 of 4977 results

4001. Follow Your Questions (Series: An Invitation to Christian Discipleship)

John 20:24-31

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... be full of sunshine or cloudy and cold. Birds suffer at the hands of cruel boys and thoughtless developers who destroy their houses without the thought of providing them another place to live. Maybe birds do not have it made after all. But they do keep on singing. My friend Doris Jones defines spousal death as amputation without anesthesia. She says the death of a much loved spouse calls into question all the certainties of life and death. From her own experience of losing her husband and countless years of ...

4002. Follow Your Calling (Series: An Invitation to Christian Discipleship)

Luke 2:41-52

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... phones and Blackberries became a part of our anatomy, Covey warned that a phone call most likely will feel urgent, but it may not be very important. On the other hand, a call from God is both urgent and important. Two critically important questions every person must ask and keep on asking for a lifetime are “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?” Is that not what Jesus was asking when he got left behind at the temple in the story only Luke bothers to tell. Come, let’s take a look. I. Who Am I? Everybody ...

4003. Hope That God Is Nearby

Isaiah 7:1-25

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... and the stars. He never noticed the beauty of flowers, smiles of children, songs of birds, or the flowering of trees. He was content to keep looking down. If God moves from nowhere to now here, some of us will have to step off our race tracks and roller coasters long ... with us. E. God Is Beside Us If you are a person, you want to know and to be known. If you are a parent, nothing will keep you from your children. God is a person—He is with us to know and to be known. We are His children—He came to seek and ...

4004. Hope That Hangs In There

Isaiah 35:1-10

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... alone facing this difficulty. Stop complaining long enough to listen. There is another Voice in the wilderness. It is God coming to get you, to lead you to higher ground. God is in the desert. Somebody wrote this prayer that I think is worth sharing: Lord, I need to keep things in perspective, I get so engrossed in my ups and downs That I forget that you hold The whole world in you hands. Just for today, help me see the big picture. Fill my heart with a daring and dangerous hope. II. God Is In the Desert of ...

4005. Winning the War Over Fear (Series: Winning the Wars of Daily Life)

Luke 12:1-12

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... has revealed to us that even people in the church engage in these sins. If you are a child or a teenager, or an adult here today struggling with messy feelings of sadness, resentment, or rage that won’t go away because someone said, “Let’s keep this little secret between us,” stop hiding. End the shame, find someone who cares, speak the truth, feel the feelings. Do what you have to do to find health. If you are here today, trespassing on somebody’s personhood, stop it! Healing is possible. There ...

4006. Revelation 1:4-8

Revelation 1:4-8

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... in the battle between good and evil. Revelation 1:1-8 is the prologue to this great apocalyptic scenario. It paves a smooth road for the divine directive. Most notably, Revelation 1:3 offers a specific blessing to all those who “hear” and “keep” the message contained in the ensuing vision. This is a promise not made anywhere else in New Testament scripture. There are seven geographically definitive churches contained in Asia Minor who would be the logical recipients of John’s message. But it is ...

4007. A Backstage View

John 20:24-31

Illustration

Craig Barnes

... be encounters the backstage reality of who we really are. Nothing is more crippling to our souls than working at hiding shame. We lock up more and more doors, sealing off more and more rooms of the heart to prevent our true selves from being discovered. We think we are keeping the world out, but in fact we are ...

4008. The Color Wheel of Blindness

John 10:22-42

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... go yellow, the tree goes blind. 4) Black Eye: When someone shows up at work or school with a black eye, the big joke is always “I walked into a door.” Or “I fell and hit the floor.” No matter how much we may duck and weave and keep on our toes, everyone of us has sported a black eye at some point just from walking into life. Or falling and hitting the floor. Some of the most permanently damaging black eyes are those we receive from our own community of faith. “Friendly fire” has blackened the ...

4009. Will 2012 Be the End of the World?

Revelation 7:9-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... theaters across this land if people knew how the apocalypse really does end with the Creator of everything that is, or was, or ever will be wiping away the tears from His children’s eyes. Hollywood is missing a real opportunity. Since this topic of the end of time keeps rearing its ugly head, and since some people really do worry about it, let’s spend a few moments giving the subject a little perspective. The first thing we need to say is this: This world will come to an end some day, but the odds of it ...

4010. Hope In The Midst of Uncertainty

Matthew 24:36-44

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... be taken and one will be left. [41] Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. [42] Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. [43] But understand this: if the owner of the house had ... of life. We've all felt at the end of our rope. We've all felt like George Bailey. How do we find Hope and keep that Hope alive in the midst of not only the uncertainty of when Christ will return. But in the uncertainties of life itself? II. Signs ...

4011. The Inheritance

Colossians 1:11-20

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... God through Christ. No wonder we call Him Lord of Lords and King of Kings and celebrate days like today: Christ the King Sunday. This passage is given to us to remind us of God's love and to rekindle the fire of our hearts so that we can Keep the Fire Burning. Today we're reminded that through Christ the King we are RESCUED, RECONCILED AND REDEEMED. I. Rescued A. One of the first aspects of our inheritance, one of the first clauses of the will is that "[Jesus] has rescued us from the power of darkness and ...

4012. Pursue the Life That Really Is Life

1 Corinthians 13:4-8, 1 Timothy 6:6-19

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. [13] In the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you [14] to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, [15] which he will bring about at the right time he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. [16] It is he alone who has ...

4013. Time to Get Wet

Revelation 22:1-6

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... water make mud, or clay, and you and I are clumps of clay that the Divine Potter scooped out of the ground and breathed into these mud pies the breath of God. For God to continue to mold you and shape you, your clay must be moist. What keeps your clay moist? What's your moisturizer? If your clay hardens, and loses its wetness, your soul gets hard, brittle and bitter. In the new creation, the newly redeemed, restored, reborn community of Christ’s presence is called to be "wet and wild." We are to be dunked ...

4014. Love and Obey (Mother's Day)

John 14:15-31

Sermon

King Duncan

... on . . . it makes the house look more cheery.” 4. “Let me smell that shirt Yeah, it’s good for another week.” 5. “Go ahead and keep that stray dog, honey. I’ll be glad to feed and walk him every day.” 6. “Well, if Timmy’s mom says it’s OK, that’s ... exercise discipline over our spiritual lives. We are to obey Christ’s commands. We are to love our neighbor. We are to keep the Ten Commandments. We are to help the poor. We are to welcome the stranger. We are to forgive those who wrong ...

4015. Living While You Wait

Philippians 4:2-9

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... joy is something else, and its primary source is obedience. Recall Jesus’ words when a woman in the crowd shouted out to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked.” Jesus responded, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it.” (Luke 11:27, 28). Do you see what that means? The person in the crowd was crying out a blessing to Mary the Mother of Jesus. And what is this Jesus is saying? It is a more blessed thing to live in obedience than to have been ...

4016. One to Take the Place of Jesus

John 14:15-31

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... alone God has given us the Holy Spirit to be our companion. Two, when in trouble and distress, or doubt or bewilderment, we have someone to call upon for help. Let’s focus for a moment on Jesus’ word preceding his promise of the Spirit: “If you love me, keep my commandments.” “To John there is only one test of love, and that test is obedience. It was by his obedience that Jesus showed his love of God; and it is by our obedience that we must show our love to Jesus. C.K. Barrett says: ‘John never ...

4017. Born Again

John 3:1-21

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... scornfully contentious toward ordinary people. They were a kind of religious elite. It was obvious that Nicodemus was an important Pharisee because he had been named as a member of the Sanhedrin; along with others in the movement, he was serious about ethical ideas, about keeping the Law, about knowing the will of God. He had a deep concern for truth. Because of this deep concern and position he held as a Pharisee and as a member of the Sanhedrin, it is highly probable that this was not the first encounter ...

4018. Who Will Cast the First Stone?

John 7:45--8:11

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... you from celebrating the success of someone you know, maybe even a loved one? Have you refused the word of another as truth because you still harbor the memory of a lie he told you? Have you participated in keeping alive a morsel of destructive gossip? Could it be that keeping alive that destructive word is an effort on your part to pay back that person for something they did to you? Or unrecognized desire to hurt someone else because you have been hurt? Have you secretly delighted in the misfortune ...

4019. A Gallery of Mirrors

John 12:1-11

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... $2,000? What does it say? What we love is glaringly revealed in these patterns of giving. And what we love most is obviously not Jesus Christ and His Kingdom. One of the great ministries of tithing is giving 10% of our income to the Church – that it helps us keep our love and priorities in perspective. Few, very few, people of this congregation are tithing. It would be easy, really, for twenty of us to give $5,000, fifty of us to give $2,000 and 150 of us to give $1,000. That would do it, and that wouldn ...

4020. The Essence of the Gospel

2 Corinthians 4:1-18

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... was, that at about 2:00 am, he roused, opened his eyes, and said, “Preaching always did take something out of me.” Well it does, and it should. My calling to preach was confirmed that day in an extra portion of God’s Grace which I’ve tried to keep alive through these years since. For me that day was one of those Mt. Tabor experiences — when God allows us to see a huge portion of His glory, and in the ecstasy of that experience, lays his claim upon our lives and we can never, ever quite forget it ...

4021. That The World May Believe

John 17:20-26

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... word is involvement. Look again at verses 15 and 16: “I do not pray that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” It is in the turbulent world that ... Memphis as it was in A.D. 30 in Galilee; that the highest call of life and the only principles will save us and keep this world sane are those laid down by Jesus - all rooted in that ultimate principle: “Love one another as I have loved you.” ...

4022. The Gospel of Marah

Exodus 15:22-27

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... harken to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give heed to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases upon you which I put upon the Egyptians; for I am the Lord your healer ... you will harken to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give heed to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases upon you which I put upon the Egyptians; for I am the Lord your healer.” There ...

4023. Whatever Happened to Respect?

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... was something he must never forget. Here was a sacred spot on earth and he must always remember where it was. “So it is with the Ten Commandments. They have been set up for us so that we will never forget the importance of some things. We keep coming back to them for they speak to us of eternal truths and values.” (T. Cecil Myers, Thunder on the Mountain Abingdon Press;. 1965, pp. 94-95) Somewhere down the road, I may preach a series of sermons on The Ten Commandments, but in this preaching journey ...

4024. Updating Some Ancient Laws

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... if you’re making notes. What do I think about most when I’m not thinking about my work? Two, move a bit deeper. How do I spend my leisure time - the time not required for my job or my keeping the household going? How do I spend my time - the time not required by my job or by keeping the household going? The third question is this: How do I spend my money? Look at that closely friends, and don’t pass it off without studying the issue. Get beyond your normal complaints about big grocery bills, and high ...

4025. Lessons from Rephidim - Being the Lord's Intercessor

Exodus 17:8-16

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Vs. 10-12) Then after calling on the Ephesians to put on the whole armor of God, Paul begged them: “Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication, to that end keep alert with all perseverance making all supplication for all the saints. (Vs. 18) So prayer is often a battlefield, where we fortify ourselves to endure, where we deal with our temptations, where we engage the devil and all of his efforts to divert us from ...

Showing results