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 4401 to 4425 of 4957 results

4401. Stand by Me

Mark 4:35-41

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... from someone who had been thoroughly wet and worried. And then wowed. Jesus quieted the wind and calmed the waves with a single rebuke, the divine directive: “Peace, be still.” Aside from raising the dead, this is the biggest and earliest direct revealing of his claim to divinity. No one controls the winds; no one calms the waves; no one calms the weather, except the one who created them all, the Lord God, the Creator of the universe. Because Jesus could keep climates in the palm of his hand, he had no ...

4402. Holy Smokes! God Is Here

John 6:1-15

Sermon

King Duncan

... to see a simple carpenter who built cabinets and kitchen tables and instead they found themselves in the presence of the one who created the universe. Make no mistake about it. Jesus was more than a wise teacher. We have always had wise teachers. Every faith has laid claim to wise teachers. And we should listen to them. The Lord knows we need all the wisdom we can gather. But Jesus was more than a great teacher. He was more than a great physician. We prize people who can heal our bodies. We call them “Dr ...

4403. Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... windows and outside homes: “99%.” It’s one of the oddest slogans to “catch on,” this proud proclamation that one is among the “99%.” What was meant as an isolation of the uber-wealthy, the “1%,” essentially has everyone else claiming “we’re all alike.” For a culture that has spent the last twenty years ultra-personalizing and customizing every facet of life (ring tones, web-sites, school curriculums, insurance plans), the boast to be “just like everyone else” sounds decidedly off ...

4404. Aroma of Christ Church

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

4405. It Depends upon Today

Eph 5:15-20

Illustration

King Duncan

A man claimed to be the most accurate fortuneteller in the world. A woman came to this fortuneteller and said she had only one real question about her future and that was, "How will my life end?" The fortuneteller gazed into the crystal ball and then announced, "Your life will end when you ...

4406. Don’t Touch Me With That Water!

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Sermon

Cynthia Cowen

... with a questioning look. "Didn't these boys have a name before this time?" Smiling at Mauricio, she responded, “Yes, they did. At their birth they were named, but now they are given new birth through their baptism. They are now children of God who claim the name of Jesus, the name above all names." As the boys lifted their heads, their faces shone. They knew their sins. They wanted forgiveness for the wrongs they had done. They knew their need to be forgiven. They wanted God's approval. As God spoke ...

4407. Fit the Picture

Luke 4:21-30

Sermon

Cynthia Cowen

... them were amazed at his insights and wisdom. Their first impression was that God was with him, but then things abruptly changed. His words became challenging, and his listeners were scandalized. "Is this not Joseph's son?" (Luke 4:22b) they asked, surprised at his claims. Jesus did not fit the picture they had in mind of the Messiah. First impressions are important. A person, interviewing for a high profile position, would want to make a good first impression - no blue jeans or white socks; no mini-skirt or ...

4408. There’s Still Time

Mt 6:1-2, 5-6

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... the world's temptations. There is something better! One of my favorite movies is the 1966 film The Trouble With Angels, featuring Hayley Mills and Rosalind Russell. It marvelously chronicles a call to ministry, demonstrating the way God seeks out — and claims — the least likely. Set in an all girls' boarding school, it centers around a headstrong, young girl named Mary Clancy who proves she's tougher than all the teachers and Mother Superior combined. Time and again Mary Clancy clashes with the Mother ...

4409. The Tower of Siloam

Luke 13:1-9

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... who reads scripture from beginning to end recognizes that justice, the balancing of all scales to achieve God's righteousness on the earth in the form of shalom, is a constant thread that runs through the biblical tapestry. From God's law, through the claiming of the land, the struggles with judges, prophets, and kings, through the writings of the psalmist, there is the recognition that God's justice is an objective standard, and that we are all called to live that justice. In the New Testament, Jesus ...

4410. Believing Thomas

John 20:19-31

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... Thomas, Determined Thomas, Confessing Thomas, and Converting Thomas. There is a tradition in the early church that Thomas traveled as far as India to share the wonderful Word made flesh. That does not sound like the work of a doubter. So what name do you claim? Believer? Unbeliever? Jesus has yet another name for you. Speaking to Thomas — and to us as well — Jesus says, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe" (v. 29). There's ...

4411. Low-Carb Christians

John 21:1-19

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... . I'm not a solitary Christian, either. I need to be present and accountable to the body of Christ in order for the faith to work. I refuse to be a low-carb Christian. Toward the end of the first Christian century there were those who claimed to have special "knowledge" of Jesus. They considered themselves the elite. They were called gnostics, from the Greek word gnosis for "knowledge." These gnostics believed that Jesus was all spirit and no flesh, that he only appeared to die on the cross, and that the ...

4412. Advocate and Redeemer

John 14:23-29

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... cried aloud for when he quoted from Psalm 22:1 from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?" Resurrection rewards those who are faithful even when things seem hopeless. We who claim Jesus as our goel, our redeemer, must learn to put our trust in that risen Lord and count on him to be our Advocate. We must learn to trust the Spirit, too. It means taking things on faith. The words of Jesus to Believing Thomas are especially ...

4413. That We May All Be One!

John 17:20-26

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... who gathered in one building and praised God together. He was writing to a confederation of house churches, at least four, who were divided in witness and purpose. There was the Paul church, the Peter church, the Apollos church, and the Christ church, each one claiming to be better than the others — which is why he wrote, "What I mean is that each of you says, ‘I belong to Paul,' or ‘I belong to Apollos,' or ‘I belong to Cephas,' or ‘I belong to Christ' " (1 Corinthians 1:12). And that ...

4414. Amazing Faith

Luke 7:1-10

Sermon

Arley K. Fadness

... Jesus we are saved. Baptism is our connection in which we are grafted into that new life in Christ. Sir James Simpson, discoverer of chloroform, was asked, "What do you regard as your greatest discovery?" Up to that time it had been claimed that the discovery of the use of chloroform saved more people from pain than any other single medical discovery. The interviewer expected Simpson to say, "My discovery of chloroform." Simpson answered, "My greatest discovery was when I discovered Jesus Christ is my ...

4415. Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing

Luke 9:51-62

Sermon

Arley K. Fadness

... recommended a book by Jon Sobrino. The Salvadorian Jesuit blew most of my ducks out of the water. He threw a hat down on my scrabble board and messed up many of my combinations. He forced me to contend for the ground that I had claimed. The question Jon Sobrino put to me I must share with you: "Are you following Jesus, or believing in Christ?"1 Harry Wendt of Crossways International asks: If akoloutheo represents a dominant motif ... why, then, do we hear so little about following Jesus in the church ...

4416. Checked the Ditch Lately?

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Arley K. Fadness

... fence and looked for assistance. A man in the nearby community came up to me and said, "I'll help you. I'm a Mormon and I'll help you get gas." There is no religious group that I disagree with more doctrinally. The Church of Latter Day Saints claim to be Christian but fail to hold even one orthodox Christian teaching. Nonetheless, it was this kindly Mormon who helped my friend and I get enough gas to get to the next station. He said and acted out essentially, "What's mine is yours." Who is my neighbor? Who ...

4417. What If the Disciples Had Email and One of the Disciples Was a Woman?

Luke 13:10-17

Sermon

... us. I just read an account in the Jerusalem Sun-Times of the scene Jesus made at the synagogue. I know you know this, but I want to remind you that there are many magicians out there who can do the same sorts of so-called miracles that this Jesus claims to do. We've had to put up with these so-called Messiahs for quite some time now. Our ancestors even warned us in the story about Moses and Pharaoh, how the court magicians could do almost everything that Moses could do by the power of God. Yet, Priscilla, I ...

4418. Getting Back into Shape

John 8:31-36

Sermon

Scott Bryte

... Luther, and singing hymns written by Luther? This day, like any anniversary is, of course, about then and now. Today we remember what Martin Luther did centuries ago — how he questioned the practices and teaching of the medieval church and refuted the claim to authority made by the pope and the hierarchy of Christendom. Recalling how Luther and his followers got kicked out of the church for their insistence that we are saved through grace alone, through faith alone, trusting the authority of scripture ...

4419. Not Just Being Polite

John 6:25-35

Sermon

Scott Bryte

... certainty that we will always have blessings to count because we know what those blessings are. Jesus died for us. Jesus rose to give us life. Jesus loves us. Jesus forgives us. That was true last year and it'll be true next year. In Jesus Christ, God claims us as his children. Always there is hope. Always there is mercy. Always there is life. God gives us purpose. God gives us the future. We are never alone. God gives us himself. God gives us each other. God opens our eyes and opens our hearts and gives ...

4420. How Many of Us Does It Take to Screw in a Light Bulb?

Mark 7:1-23

Sermon

King Duncan

... pastor, says that people in Charleston, South Carolina pay more attention to tradition that any place he has ever seen. He says they pay particular attention to how long a family has lived in their city. The general assumption is that a family cannot claim to be native Charlestonians until they have lived in Charleston for at least three generations. And that means being born in Charleston and remaining in Charleston until “death do you part!” He says that at a dinner party, he met a man whose accent ...

4421. Sonny Moneybags

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... about striking out on his own. Every boy does. But his duty to father and family won out and he remained to do what was expected of him. He was a righteous young man ... a little self-righteous, really. But he was virtuous enough to be able to claim that he was righteous to his father without Dad laughing at him. Then nobody ever laughed too much at anything Sonny said. After all, Junior was the one that got the laughs. What would have happened had Junior met Sonny on the road instead of their father? I ...

4422. Divine Dynamite

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... the Spirit have had to do with the religious fringes. We turn on the television and see people with faces turned to heaven, eyes tightly closed, hands in the air, and shouting gibberish. We see others coming down to a stage to meet a faith healer who claims the power of the Spirit as his own but who is also well known as a charlatan. We are sometimes confronted by folks who are convinced that this is the only kind of Christian experience that is legitimate, and we are even accused of not really being ...

4423. Our Family Inheritance

Galatians 3:15-25

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... of the parents. The covenant includes our children as scripture makes abundantly clear. And quite frankly, if it did not, I doubt that very many of us would be interested in it anyway. Who among us would be content in the knowledge that the God who claims to care about us does not really care about our sons and daughters? That is not my kind of God! My friend, Bill Carl, President of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, has described it this way. To understand God's love and grace, think of parents who really ...

4424. Lust

Galatians 5:16-26

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... so loved the world that he gave ..." (John 3:16). But many people so love that they take. If I really love another person, I am at least as anxious to give as to take. Nothing reveals lust more than the selfish desire to run roughshod over the needs and claims of the other. If a man truly loves a woman, nothing is so important to him as her welfare, her peace of mind, her dignity as a human being. And for that, no restraint, no delicacy, no sensitiveness, is too high a price to pay. The same holds true of ...

4425. Repressive Religion

Luke 13:10-17

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... in any other voluntary activity. Gallup polls in this country consistently find that more than 95% of the population professes belief in a god, 85% believe that the Ten Commandments are God's law and should be obeyed, and almost 70% of the adult population claims a personal relationship with the Lord. As much as we hear of the decline of religion and the rise of secularism, the doomsayers have a long way to go before they would ever see their prophecies fulfilled. Move that a step further. Why are the ...

Showing results