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 4176 to 4200 of 4972 results

4176. Get a Peace of the Rock

Luke 10:1-24

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... presence" was not enough. In today's text Jesus specifically counsels his envoys to stay and live with the households they entered, teaching and preaching and healing and thereby incarnating the peaceable ways of the kingdom. They were not simply to evangelize (stop people on the street). They were to make disciples of this peace they offered. They were to stay and teach peace, bring peace, until the peace of the Rock became an indistinguishable part of the household they shared. When you divorce evangelism ...

4177. God for Dummies

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... way of life. And what is even more than that, the "Good Samaritan" parable goes into extraordinary detail to recount all the life-saving, neighbor-loving risks we are to take for those who aren't one of us and don't even like us. Just by stopping to offer aid the Samaritan puts himself at risk. The evidence testifying to the risk of violent robbers is laying on the road bleeding. But the Good Samaritan cares for the wounded man by using up some of his own traveling provisions. He takes the injured traveler ...

4178. God's Original Seatbelt (Mother's Day)

John 13:31-38

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Anybody here this morning remember what it used to be like to drive a car . . . before power steering? before automatic transmission? before air conditioning? before seat belts? Let's stop there for a moment. Before seat belts, parents could pack eight kids into a family car, ages one week to 18 years, with no restraining thoughts or devices. Automobile safety is much more regulated than it used to be. Today we have laws requiring children under four years and forty ...

4179. If the Shoe Fits, Wear It

Matthew 4:18-22, Matthew 4:12-17

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... of my computer, as if I were entering some holy ground. Padding through the airport in your stocking feet is an uncomfortable and unsettling experience. It shouldn't surprise us that there is a renewed emphasis on judging people by their shoes. If you stop to think about it, shoes have always told us a lot about the person wearing them. Cowboy boots, wing tips, Italian loafers, spike heels, flats, sensible shoes – they reveal worlds about people. So do the brands of shoes. And their appearance. We even ...

4180. Let's Dance

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... it to God in trust and confidence, and leave it there. · When your heart is wormed out with worry, trust in God for a new heart. · When the body is willing, but the brain isn't, keep the Rainbow Room clean and maintained. · When the music of faith stops playing in your life, let God lead the dance. · When you can no longer dance even with God as your dance partner, let the church dance for you. · Then when your mind is healed and your faith secure, you can pick up the pieces, pick up where you left ...

4181. Others

Romans 9:30--10:21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... from your head that is now swizzling like a stick as you ponder which one of the thousand paths in this maze your kid has darted down. As frustrating and frightening as these floor plans may be, store designers know what they are doing. We do stop and look at stuff, too often even buying stuff that we had no intention of shopping for. Getting us off the familiar beaten track, the one-way straight-line, opens our eyes to new possibilities and forcibly expands our tunnel vision. Today's text from Paul ...

4182. The Real Winning Attitude

1 Timothy 6:3-10

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... photographer to a pulp become part of a great lay-up follow through in basketball. „h When did racial slurs become part of the new tennis etiquette? „h When did playing tough, even playing rough, become playing down and dirty. „h When did we stop caring about anyone or anything except how the final score reads? In the last few years the winning attitude we so successfully nurtured among our youngsters in sports-for-fun has changed the face of professional sports accordingly. It is a face now cut ...

4183. The Ultimate Happy Meal

Matthew 14:13-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... up super-sizing ourselves. Never have we been so informed about the dangers of obesity, the threat of cancers, heart diseases, strokes, diabetes, and high blood pressure – all associated with high fat diets and low or no exercise lifestyles. So why are so many of us stopping at the take-out window at the same time we're stocking our freezers with "Lean Cuisine?" Are we hungering for something that we just can't seem to satisfy, no matter how many Happy Meals we ingest? The issue is not eating. Jesus loved ...

4184. True Disciples

Isaiah 1:1-31

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... won't follow the worshiper OUTSIDE. Only a disciple brings worship out the door. It doesn't matter whether or not your hands go UP, DOWN, FORWARD, or BACKWARD when you sing. What matters is if your hands go OUT to others when you stop singing. Worship experiences should lead to changed lives. Worship experiences transform believers into disciples, and disciples are God's means for transforming the world. The church has too many true believers. To believe that Jesus is the Son of God isn't enough. The ...

4185. WaterFire Disciples

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... then explain: 'I get real angry sometimes when I see what's going on in the world, and I like to wrap my fingers around that rock and hold it for a while before I put it back.' Then, pausing for effect, he would add, 'But someday if the music stops working, I might have to use that rock.'"

4186. You've Got Mail!

John 10:22-42

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... 1000 messages. After that any new e-mail messages coming your way simple aren't delivered and they are jettisoned back into cyberspace. If you choose never to respond to the "you've got mail" directive, eventually you WON'T get any more mail. The messages will stop coming and your electronic mail box will become dead space. Turn to someone else around you and say, "You've Got Mail." God keeps after us, day after day, always there, always sending us messages to keep in touch. We can choose to "listen up." Or ...

4187. How High Is Your Faith Quotient?

Jeremiah 30:1--31:40

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... newest rage. EQ stands for Emotional Quotient. People with high EQ's are people who are in touch with their feelings. High EQ people supposedly make better team players, demonstrate better attitudes, and are more motivated. But the IQ and EQ phenomenon doesn't stop there. Now there are two more being added to our vocabulary: AQ and SQ. AQ – Adversity Quotient – measures how well you handle hardship. A high AQ person does four things: (1) identifies what can and can't be controlled (2) takes ownership of ...

4188. What's the Value of Your Life?

Genesis 28:10-22

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... all those things that flesh out the bones of our existence suddenly take on great value to be revealed as beyond price. For Jacob such an "aha" moment was the sudden revaluation of his life and its meaning that took place at that insignificant camp site he choose to stop at as the sun went down. It was a place like any other in the long trek between Beer-Sheba and Haran. To prop up his head, he pulled up any old rock to serve as his pillow. He saw nothing remarkable about this site. His soul felt nothing ...

4189. Who Put It There? (Mother's Day)

1 Peter 5:1-11

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... enables Christians to witness the wonder of Christ's love to the world. We can endure more than we might ever dream possible when we do it out of love for Christ, love for this world he died for. We can do more than we might ever imagine when we stop trying to do it all ourselves and instead let God's mighty hand open the doors and plow the lands. Today is Mother's Day and so we naturally think of those special qualities of life and love that make a mother. Perhaps it's also true that each of ...

4190. ASAP

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... from her first year away at college. It was a west-to-east coast journey, made over the course of a few long days of driving. Father and daughter held long conversations. The dad navigated, picking main routes, by-passes, restaurants, and over-night stops. The daughter drove, chose all the music, and chatted with her other girlfriends. But Dad never left the house on the east coast. The daughter was on her first big solo adventure. Yet because of their joined-at-the-ear, cross-country cell phone connection ...

4191. DodgeGod

Amos 8:1-14

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... of charcoal and berry juice. He even makes a paint brush out of a piece of bark. He holds the brush in his beak. It may take a bowerbird months to build his bower. He would like to share it with a lady bowerbird. When one comes along, the male stops work on the house. He does a dance for her. After a while she goes in to see if she likes the bower. But she never uses the bower for a nest. When the time comes to lay her eggs she flies away. She makes a plain nest for herself ...

4192. Prayer

Matthew 11:1-19

Bulletin Aid

Stephen Brown

... cries, we ignore the pleading, we will not listen for hope. We are lame and lost… afraid to walk among the darkness in the streets, refusing to pass by the battlefields, given up marching for peace. We are speechless and lost… we no longer utter harsh truths, we stopped naming the wrongs, we ceased lifting our spirits in prayers. We are lost in the wilderness… O God. We look and do not see. We listen and do not hear. We walk and get nowhere. We talk and do not speak. We wander blindly while the world ...

4193. Are You Living the Three Advents?

Romans 13:11-14

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... a piece of art that relates to the Christmas story. Here is a version of the 23rd Psalm that ought to be mandatory reading each day of Advent, and a unison reading each Advent Sunday. The lord is my pace setter . . . I shall not rush He makes me stop for quiet intervals He provides me with images of stillness which restore my serenity He leads me in the way of efficiency through calmness of mind and his guidance is peace Even though I have a great many things to accomplish each day, I will not fret, for ...

4194. Which Will It Be - the Silvered Cross or the Slivered Cross?

Matthew 17:1-13, Mark 9:2-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... symbol of the human capacity for cruelty, blood-thirstiness, abandonment, and evil. And for that reminder alone we should all thank Mel Gibson. The designer Roger Dubuis offers for sale a "Follow Me" watch in the form of a cross. It starts at $12,500. Let us stop domesticating the cross. The cross is not a geometric figure that can conveniently hold a lot of diamonds or rubies to make a dazzling piece of jewelry. The cross is a symbol of the barbarism and butchery that is made possible by human sin and hate ...

4195. The Four Marks of Failure

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... -dollar bills and coins loose on the streets and in the winds (with the word "love" written on every bill.) As people scrambled for the money, the activists sang and chanted. Banners throughout the area proclaimed the message of the organizers, including 'Stop Terrorism . . . Share,' and Gandhi's statement, 'There is enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed.' Police eventually moved in to break up the event. One of the activists was arrested but released without charge. The money used ...

4196. Dare to Be Different, Not Just Better

Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... who had no intention of buying a bag of those fluffy puffs. College kids know that the easiest cure for an empty, dull dorm room is to pop a bag of Orville Redenbacker's into the microwave. Within minutes friends you never knew you had will be stopping by to say hi! And while we're happy to gum up the healthful properties of popcorn with butter, palm oil, cheese, caramel, and chocolate: a big bowl of lightly salted, fake-buttered popcorn is still a dieter's delight. It has a great smell, crunchy texture ...

4197. Wherever You Are, You Are Always at Home

Luke 2:41-52

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... of the holy temple, Jesus felt God's presence most fully and as a result felt completely at home. On the other hand, the twelve year-old Jesus' response is also full of the self-absorption so typical of all adolescents. Adolescence is when we stop being defined as our parents' children and we start the struggle to find and be our own selves. There is a refreshing (if aggravating to parents) adolescent candor about Jesus' first response back to his mother: "Why were you searching for me?" (verse 49). DUH ...

4198. Innercizing Your Shopping List

1 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... but do not show love to my family, it profits me nothing. If I trim the spruce with shimmering angels and crocheted snowflakes, attend a myriad of holiday parties and sing in the choir's cantata but do not focus on Christ, I have missed the point. Love stops the cooking to hug the child. Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the husband. Love is kind, though harried and tired. Love doesn't envy another's home that has coordinated Christmas china and table linens. Love doesn't yell at the kids to get out of ...

4199. A Personal Testimony

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

Russell N. Gallimore

... me!” So I led them to a cobweb-covered cattle-cave nearby. It wasn’t the best of surroundings, I must confess, but it did offer some shelter from the cold and some privacy. Though I considered it the meagerest of offerings, the man was overjoyed and couldn’t stop thanking me for my kindness. I told him he could settle up with me the next morning. I left and went back to my stool and soon forgot all about them as I dozed off into dreamland. Lost in the midst of dream castles in my peaceful slumber, I ...

4200. A Personal Testimony

Luke 2:1-7

Drama

Russell N. Gallimore

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