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 4201 to 4225 of 4957 results

4201. In Whose Likeness?

Matthew 22:15-22

Sermon

Chris Ewing

... bears a graven image, strictly against Jewish law, a graven image of the emperor. And the inscription upon the coin identifies that emperor as a divinity, son of the divine Augustus Caesar. How can any self-respecting monotheist pay tribute to someone who claims to be God? And how can a healthy Jewish patriot stomach paying taxes to occupiers anyway? If Jesus gives an un-Jewish answer, lacking in either theological correctness or patriotism, he will be completely discredited as a teacher of his people; he ...

4202. From “Uh-oh” To “Ah-hah!” — An Axe, A Stump, And A Shoot

Isaiah 11:1-10

Sermon

Tony Everett

... , of knowledge and the fear of the Lord (Isaiah 11:2). These are not simply qualities of character. The gift of God's Spirit is intended to result in practical actions. This new king will discern and do God's will. He will not be deceived by false claims of morality, contrary to the corrupt and unfaithful actions of previous leaders. He will act on behalf of the poor and weak in society (Isaiah 11:3-5). Do you catch a glimpse of Jesus here? Does this sound anything like the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew ...

4203. What About the Baby?

Isaiah 9:2-7

Sermon

Tony Everett

... . Open the manger of your heart to receive the baby, the Christ Child. Get ready to see with new eyes the light of God that forever shines from the baby's face. Get ready to reflect the joy of the new baby, the joy given to God's named and claimed people everywhere. Get ready to show what it looks like to live in the promise of lanu immanu; the gift of God for us, to us, and with us. Listen again to Isaiah's list of names for the child and pay attention to how they describe how the reign ...

4204. Restoration Frustration

Isaiah 63:7-9

Sermon

Tony Everett

... of our Old Testament lesson, God reminds the discouraged of God's continuing and loving presence. "Surely they are my people," says the Lord, "and he became their savior in all their distress" (Isaiah 63:8). Surely we are God's people, named and claimed by God at baptism. In Jesus Christ, whose birth and resurrection we celebrate on this first Sunday after Christmas, God became our Savior in the midst of our own restoration frustration. In this passage, God is showing us how to reclaim the vitality and ...

4205. Burned Beef

Isaiah 42:1-9

Sermon

Tony Everett

... me? Why us? "Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you" (Isaiah 43:4). Wow! Precious! Honored! Loved! Why? Just because God declares it! Today we celebrate the baptism of our Lord. Today our lessons remind us of God's choice to name and claim and keep us as God's own children. Today we celebrate the prototype — the example of God's first choice ... Jesus Christ, God's own Son in whom he was well pleased. Let's look again at our text in Isaiah today. Keep in your mind God's choice ...

4206. Being a Blessing

Genesis 12:1-4a

Sermon

Schuyler Rhodes

... that we can be a blessing. The possibilities are virtually endless and the future spreads before us, beckoning, calling, daring us to step up to the plate with our sisters and brothers as we work to become the blessings that we have received. Let us renew our hope. Let us claim this day as a new beginning, and let us be a blessing to one another, to our community, and to our world. In Jesus' name. Amen.

4207. To Be Passed Over

Exodus 12:1-4 (5-10) 11-14

Sermon

Schuyler Rhodes

... offerings of food and livestock. For these people, this wasn't a check made out for an amount of money that would not be missed. It was an offering of something important to them. Food! As Christians standing in this long line of tradition, history, and faith, we claim this God of Israel as our God, our Maker, our Redeemer. This is God. This is the one who comes to us in Christ Jesus and sits this night at table preparing to sacrifice (him)self for us! If we truly believe this, how can we do anything ...

4208. Where the Rubber Meets the Road

Isaiah 52:13--53:12, Romans 7:7-25

Sermon

Schuyler Rhodes

... of self-sacrifice in time of tumult and war. I am reminded of the story of the father who stepped in front of his son so that he would go to the Nazi gas chambers in his son's place. All of these stories reveal to some extent, what we claim in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. What we accept, indeed, what we affirm with power tonight is the notion that it wasn't just one thing or one error or a couple of bad things, but the sins and brokenness of the whole world that Jesus took on himself. Think ...

4209. Preaching Peace By Jesus Christ ...

Acts 10:34-43

Sermon

Schuyler Rhodes

... in the world; how our faith calls us to lay down our arms and to walk in the ways of peace. Indeed, I do believe this is all true, but fidelity to the text calls us to discuss what it means to be unified in Christ. As we sit today claiming the reality of Christ's rising, how do we speak to eirene, or unity in Christ Jesus? What does unity mean to us as a church sitting here today? How, in the resurrection story that we celebrate today, do we find unity? What does unity mean to us as a ...

4210. Martyrdom Chic

Acts 7:55-60

Sermon

Schuyler Rhodes

... fabric frays and extremism rears its contorted countenance, we have the clarity and beauty of what it means to live a life of balance and wonder in the folds of God's unfailing grace. And yes, it does begin and end with love. Then, knowing of the resurrection, we claim that it begins once again! Born in a barn, raised on the road, executed like a common criminal, and back again on the third day! It all moves around the unmovable axis of God's unfailing love for us and for the world he created. So where do ...

4211. Hearts on Fire

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Sermon

Timothy J. Smith

... will not resemble the ones the people had previously broken. God would forgive the people for their prior shortcomings as well as the times when they had broken preceding covenants. This covenant would be between God and the people. What would make this covenant unique, God claims, "I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." This covenant could not be broken; it would become an integral part of their identity, written on their ...

4212. The Victory Is Ours

Revelation 7:9-17

Sermon

Timothy J. Smith

... him that every relationship hit bumps in the road, even with our closest friends, but that should not spoil the ride. By the next morning the two boys were best of friends again. "My father's lesson has served me well through 38 years of marriage," Jon claimed. His father's words spoken over fifty years ago "taught me everything I ever needed to know about selflessness and generosity," he wrote. "And I feel all the closer to God for it."1 Today we give thanks to God for those special people in our lives ...

4213. A Question of Loyalty

Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25

Sermon

Timothy J. Smith

... and spent," she recalled. Before she was rescued by a helicopter the next day, she felt God remind her of the two greatest commandments, love of God and love of neighbor. "I'd loved Jesus since I was eleven," she said, "but I hadn't yet surrendered my claim on my life. I was still going my own way. Those nights on the ledge, I determined to make knowing God's heart, thoughts, and purposes my passion in life." Another lesson she learned from her experience was that you cannot continue down a wrong path and ...

4214. Headed in the Right Direction

Romans 15:4-13

Sermon

John N. Brittain

... goes without saying that we have often placed far too much emphasis on God's mercy as a gooey kind of all-accepting love and forgiveness. In the last few years, a new kind of American religion has been described by researchers who claim it is particularly prevalent among young people. I think it crosses age boundaries. It has been termed "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism." According to researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, this new faith consists of beliefs like these: "A god exists ...

4215. Set Apart at Christmas

Romans 1:1-7

Sermon

John N. Brittain

... is introducing himself in a way that emphasizes his status as a servant of the Lord of the universe, Jesus Christ. While there is a grain of truth here, we are all aware of damage that has been done to the cause of Christ by those who claim a special status or special privileges because they are Christians. (I have been embarrassed to be in settings where pastors, for example, were demanding their 10% or 20% discount.) To fully grasp Paul's use of this word, we have to recognize Paul's unique ability to ...

4216. No Partiality

Acts 10:34-43

Sermon

John N. Brittain

... the Old Testament "Curse of Ham" as teaching that it was God's will that blacks be subservient to whites. Twenty years later, in 1985, Falwell backed the newly elected (and final) apartheid regime of P. W. Botha in South Africa because it claimed to be a theocracy. He even labeled then Archbishop Desmond Tutu "a phony" for speaking against apartheid. He sort of apologized after donations to his ministry deceased by one-half million dollars a week and President Reagan imposed an embargo on South African ...

4217. Caught in the Middle

1 Corinthians 1:1-9

Sermon

John N. Brittain

... like a variety of services for every age group and niche marketing of worship styles) either amuse or befuddle many third-world Christians where they all get together for worship and do it all, all day long. And the pseudo-gospel of success, the "name it and claim it" gospel of prosperity, simply mystifies Christians in parts of the world where material success is limited to the ruling class who is intent on keeping it that way. As Paul moves from the general salutation he goes on, as he does in nine of his ...

4218. The Way Things Are

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

Sermon

John N. Brittain

... how in 45 AD a man named Theudas promised that if people followed him to the Jordan River at his word the waters would divide and they would walk across on dry land. Thousands followed him to disappointment. Less than a decade later, an Egyptian claiming to be a prophet persuaded 30,000 to accompany him to the Mount of Olives with the expectation that at his word the walls of Jerusalem would collapse! These were certainly fervent expectations. But as far as we know, none of the common Jewish expectations ...

4219. Will It Last?

1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23

Sermon

John N. Brittain

... 2:6). Now another metaphor: that of a building. Paul says that he laid the foundation. Indeed, according to Acts 18:11, he labored at this great seaport city for eighteen months before moving on, an unusually long stay for this itinerant apostle, so to claim the title of "foundation-layer" was not at all unreasonable. And, he felt sure, the foundation he laid was that of Jesus Christ. But he knew, as do we, that in the catastrophic scenarios we have considered, often all that is left is the foundation ...

4220. Spiritual Judo

Romans 5:1-11

Sermon

David O. Bales

... into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us." This is Paul's experience of having access to God's grace. Our Christian faith works, even in suffering. It's not easy, or automatic, but God's grace is prepared for us. We need to claim it, appropriate it, and use it in all things. God's grace awaits us, even when we don't expect it. That's why Paul expresses such confidence in God, even in suffering. God could use Jesus' horrible suffering, so God can use even ours. That's the promise ...

4221. Spiritual Resuscitation

Romans 8:6-11

Sermon

David O. Bales

... to mean different things. A friend of mine gave an introduction to new Boy Scouts in his group by talking about "the spirit of scouting." One boy's father, a religious zealot who seemed unable to understand a dictionary, protested the use of the word "spirit," claiming there are only two spirits: that of the Lord Jesus and that of the devil. Paul uses a number of words to describe God's activity and a number of other words to describe the power that oppresses and captures humans into a negative pattern of ...

4222. Yes, You

1 Peter 2:2-10

Sermon

David O. Bales

... to us. That's what the church is about. In the New Testament, we find no ranks of first-, second-, or third-class Christians. We enjoy complete equality between believers because we're equally in need of God's grace. We're equally claimed in order to serve God, no matter what our exact ministry might be. Jesus spent his ministry bumping against the priests, scribes, and Pharisees who, for different reasons, thought themselves superior to others. Jesus swept aside all distinctions of family, learning, or ...

4223. Rock Bottom

1 Peter 3:13-22

Sermon

David O. Bales

... not understand all that Christ does in the invisible realm of the Spirit, with the angels, authorities, and powers mentioned in verse 22, or what Christ did between the time he died and was raised from the dead. We know that we're baptized in God's name, claimed by God in baptism. That's closer to where we live. "And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you." If we've been baptized into Christ we can say, as did Martin Luther when he was most confused or tempted, "I have been baptized." God had plunged ...

4224. Power Sharing

Ephesians 1:15-23

Sermon

David O. Bales

... Christians abandoned the exciting New Testament reality that we're all saints. In the New Testament, "saint" seldom refers to the dead. It means those whom God uses in this world, those who live by God's power here and now. Christians won't claim the gifts Jesus died to give if they think that living close with God and living wondrously for others is something for an elite few called saints — most of whom are dead. The Protestant Reformation was freeing and empowering for Christians because all believers ...

4225. In Spite of Evidence to the Contrary

Romans 4:13-25

Sermon

Steven E. Albertin

... on the cross, but he never gives up that faith. "Hoping against hope," in spite of evidence to the contrary, he never gives up his conviction that God is his "daddy." When God raises him "after three days," God vindicates Jesus' faith. God vindicates Jesus' claim. God is indeed, in spite of evidence to the contrary, in spite of bucket loads of evidence to the contrary, our loving Father and we are his beloved sons and daughters. It is the mission of this congregation to offer this amazing promise to the ...

Showing results