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 4501 to 4525 of 4957 results

4501. Nicodemus: A Young Old Man

John 3:1-21

Sermon

David O. Bales

... ? Two men approached at a distance. Nicodemus dashed into an alley and walked faster. The wind curled under his cloak and he clung more tightly. Is it because of Jesus’ freedom with the law, challenging all, yet not like one of those men-haters who claim a prophetic calling in order to shout cruel things to others? Or is it his eyes — looking at evil and making it wither, looking at obedience and inspiring greater devotion? Or is it the eyes of those Jesus cured, eyes that moments before revealed long ...

4502. Remembering Jesus

Matthew 26:17-30

Sermon

David O. Bales

... yours? That was pretty awful, you know. Sure, God forgives others, but your sin was so stinking, so gigantic, so hurtful, with results that will leak into the lives of others and spread destruction through the coming generations. Where do you get off claiming forgiveness? You presume just to walk forward to this rail and be forgiven! You?” A rotten memory can bother us. You could say that our memory misfires. Jesus, however, wants us to remember the forgiveness of sins. In the scriptures, in worship, and ...

4503. What If Joseph Were the Patron Saint of 2014?

Matthew 2:13-18

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... our family trees, did the same. Unless your genetic heritage is native American, someone, sometime, somewhere, had to grab a boat, train, plane or automobile, and make the plunge into the unknown. One of your ancestors had to go boldly into the new and unfamiliar, claiming it as a new home. Joseph, Mary and Egypt went to Egypt — almost an anathema for a Jew. There was a precarious Jewish presence in certain regions of Egypt, as we have said. But Joseph was leaving Israel, a Promised Land, to go there. It ...

4504. "Before" and "After"

Psalm 31:1-24

Sermon

King Duncan

... love. Notice what the psalmist is not saying in these verses. He is not denying the existence of God. He is not accusing God of abandonment or failure. He is not demanding that God leave him alone and let him control his own life. And he is not claiming that his suffering is proof that God doesn’t love him. In fact, he still refers to God’s “unfailing love.” This man actually believes that God can bring something good out of his dead-ness and broken-ness. What do you believe? What can God do with ...

4505. Framed, Changed, Challenged

Acts 2:42-47

Sermon

Tony Everett

... to know the story of Jesus as told by the eyewitnesses, the apostles themselves. Here Christians learned how their experience of Jesus as Messiah was described in their own scripture. Here they discovered what it really meant to be named as Christ’s followers, claimed by Christ himself, and framed in Christ’s own embrace. Here they began to grasp a vision of what Christ was challenging them to be and to do. Second, living in close and daily fellowship with other Christians was essential. It was within ...

4506. You Are the Light of the World

Matthew 5:13-16

Sermon

King Duncan

... in their lives? It is because they have kept the light of Christ bottled up within, focusing on their own needs and concerns rather than sharing Christ’s light with others. I love the way that Dr. William P. Barker once put it. He writes, “Astronomers claim that light travels 186,000 miles per second. If that is too hard to imagine, think of it another way: The starlight shining in your window left the star about the time Shakespeare was writing his plays. The light has been traveling all that time to ...

4507. A Breath of Fresh Air

Ezekiel 37:1-14

Sermon

Tony Everett

... about the present and yearn for a future that will never be? Do your memories of a glorious and cherished past seem to be gone forever? Do you sometimes feel so used up and dried up that you have given up all hope? Some scholars claim that congregations belonging to mainline denominations are now on the decline, watching life from the sidelines, reacting with a ho-hum line, and rapidly descending to flat line. “They have become dried up, helpless, and hopeless… just like the bones in Ezekiel’s vision ...

4508. In the Mood for Murder

Matthew 5:21-26

Sermon

King Duncan

... take these words to mean that all anger is sin. Paul tells us, “Be angry and do not sin” (Eph 4:26). There are times when expressing our anger is the proper thing to do. There is an old story of a Swami at a village temple in Bengal, who claimed to have mastered anger. When his ability to control his anger was challenged, he told the story of a cobra who used to sit by the path and bite people on their way to the temple. The Swami went to visit with the snake to end the problem. Using a ...

4509. I Told You Not to Bite

Mt 5:21-26; Eph 4:26

Illustration

King Duncan

There is an old story of a Swami at a village temple in Bengal, who claimed to have mastered anger. When his ability to control his anger was challenged, he told the story of a cobra who used to sit by the path and bite people on their way to the temple. The Swami went to visit with the snake to end the problem. Using a ...

4510. Right in Front of Our Eyes

Matthew 17:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... were in danger after their experiences with Christ, if Mother Teresa was in danger even after all her good works then how much more danger are you and I in of allowing our hearts to grow cold and our lives to become indifferent to Christ’s claims. That is the importance of being in worship each week, that is the importance of sharing in small groups with other believers, that is the importance of immersing ourselves in the Scriptures to guard against entropy of the soul, the natural tendency when we are ...

4511. Jesus and the Man Born Blind

John 9:1-41

Sermon

James W. Moore

... as a Man. He says “The man Jesus did this for me.” Next, He calls Jesus a Prophet. He says: “To be able to do this he must be a Prophet.” Then in that intimate moment at the end he sees Him as the Son of God. And finally, he claims Him as “The Lord of His Life.” Look at this now… The closer he gets to Jesus, the more time he spends with Jesus,… the clearer he sees God! And that’s the way it works for us, too, because you see, that’s what it means to have Christ ...

4512. Five Ways to be "Holy" During Holy Week

Matthew 21:1-11

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... inspired random group of people who agreed to “show up” and participate in some unified, yet uninformed, communal act. The first successful “flash mob” was in a Macy’s department store in the rug department. There a crowd of 200 strangers claimed to be shopping for a carpet for their “group home,” and everyone had to agree on the design. Since then “flash mobs” have showed up — by definition randomly — all over. Impromptu gatherings of people with open umbrellas, doing jumping jacks ...

4513. A Prayer for Persecuted Christians Everywhere

John 17:6-19

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... ’s dream for humanity. We are sketchy and scared. But we have a secret power source. We belong to Jesus, and Jesus declares that “all mine are yours and yours are mine and I have been glorified in them” (vs. 10). As followers of Jesus we need to claim this plug-in to the ultimate power grid. Jesus came to unite us. Jesus did not come to separate us or divide us. We can always have different tastes and tribes and traditions. But we can also always have a common identifier: love. We can also always have ...

4514. Where the Church Gets Its Power

John 17:6-19

Sermon

King Duncan

... prognosis isn’t good. Or you had an emotional breakdown. To whom do you tell it? “We’re the only outfit I know that shoots its wounded,” Chuck concludes. “We can become the most severe, condemning, judgmental, guilt-giving people on the face of planet Earth, and we claim it’s in the name of Jesus Christ. And all the while, we don’t even know we’re doing it. That’s the pathetic part of it all.” (3) That’s a pretty powerful indictment of the church at its worse. But it’s not the kind ...

4515. Waking the Giant

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... of Jesus Christ. Think about that. There are more than two billion Christians of all ages around the world, representing nearly a third of the global population. Christians are also geographically widespread so far-flung, in fact, that no single continent or region can claim to be the center of global Christianity. A century ago, this was not the case. At the beginning of the twentieth century, about two-thirds of the world’s Christians lived in Europe. Today, more than a third of all Christians live in ...

4516. The Nano-Punch of Pentecost

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... a daily reality. Jesus’ disciples are first charged with the Holy Spirit — a force that bonds them together in a way that no other force on earth could possibly imitate. But there is also a second “zap” for disciples of Jesus, for those who would claim the directive to be in mission. That second “charge” is not just to affirm, but to attest. Not just to be charged up to witness certain things, but to be charged up to witness to certain things. Being a disciple is NOT just about believing. Being ...

4517. The Key to Getting Enough Rest

Matthew 11:25-30

Sermon

King Duncan

... shake her awake after the crash. (4) Being able to sleep like that is a gift, and I hope that some of you are so gifted. But many of us pride ourselves on being able to push through our need for sleep. We idolize Thomas Edison, who claimed he could live on fifteen minute naps. Somehow we forget Albert Einstein, who averaged eleven hours of sleep a night. A certain family was visiting New York City for the first time. They were dazzled by the sights and the bustling crowds of Manhattan. “This is the city ...

4518. The Parable of the Careless Farmer

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

King Duncan

... control his own life. He hears the Gospel every Sunday, but the seed never really penetrates the soil of his heart. Very few of the values that he hears in church are translated into Bob’s everyday life. Bob knows what he wants and very little of it fits the claims of Jesus on his life. The altar Bob worships at is the altar of Bob. Bob’s problem is that he has committed himself to himself instead of to Jesus Christ. Bob is his own lord. Bob is the king of his own life. He gets turned off by preaching ...

4519. Breaking News: The Middle East

Genesis 12:1-8

Sermon

James Merritt

... Arab, by the name of Mohammed, befriended some Jews who taught him the Old Testament. He discovered Abraham had two sons. Arabic tradition said that Ishmael eventually migrated to a place called “Mecca.” During the month of Ramadan, Mohammed, while sitting in a cave, claimed to have had a visit from the angel, Gabriel, who told him he wanted him to be God’s prophet to the Arab people. At this time in his mind, there was no conflict between Christianity and Judaism, because they both worshipped one God ...

4520. On the Ropes: Round 1 - Doubting God

Habakkuk 1:1-4

Sermon

James Merritt

... babies to die in car accidents?” or “Why doesn’t God spare the lives of parents and kids in that fire?” or “Why did God allow that Christian to go through the pain and death caused by cancer?” or “Why didn’t God stop that terrible tsunami that claimed the lives of thousands of people?” In fact, I want to be even more candid with you. If my own family had been involved in the tragedies I mentioned, I may have had a “shake your fist in the face of God moment”. All over this world this ...

4521. On the Ropes: Round 2 - Debating God

Habakkuk 1:12--2:1

Sermon

James Merritt

... income? Here you are in a faithful marriage, love God, play by the rules, are a committed servant of God’s church and you just got the pink slip? The problem is God is asking a completely different question. His question is, “Should I expect more out of people who claim to know Me, love Me, fear Me, serve Me, and worship Me or should I expect more from people who don’t? Habakkuk, I am going to teach you that I expect far more out of my people than I do out of others.” Remember, Habakkuk is trying to ...

4522. Family Re:Union - Great Expectations

Ephesians 5:22-33

Sermon

James Merritt

... enough that in time can give you such expertise that people begin to come to you for education, knowledge and information and that is experience. Today, I am going to talk about something that many have multiple years of experience in and that is marriage. I am not claiming to be an expert in marriage. I want to say right up front that even though I have a wonderful marriage; a marriage that is as strong and stable as any marriage I know, marriage is hard work. In fact, it is such hard work that fewer and ...

4523. Treasure Hunt

Matthew 13:44-46

Sermon

King Duncan

... House would entice us to buy magazines by filling up our mailbox a few times a year with notices telling us that we may already have won a million dollars? Did you ever paste the appropriate stickers on the enclosed card and send it back in to claim your prize? I’m still getting the magazines from those promotions. Just kidding. Besides, according to my e-mail, there is a Nigerian Prince who is trying to give me $50 million if I will advance him a small fee to help unlock the funds from the national ...

4524. Follow the Directions

Psalm 119:9, 18, 89

Sermon

James Merritt

... :18-19, NIV) If anybody needs to hear from God it is the ruler of a people. God said to His kings, “I want you to keep a copy of My Word right by your throne. I want you to read it every single day.” How many of us who claim to believe the Bible “from cover to cover” have never read it cover-to-cover? Did you know if you will read the Bible just 15 minutes a day you will read it completely through in a year? If you were to cut one 30 minute television program out of ...

4525. Ignite: Fire and Water

Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

James Merritt

... to be baptized, follows up with baptism. We have almost a 100% rate of following Jesus in baptism. Of those who have checked the box saying they have professed their faith in Christ, almost none of them follow up in baptism. I want to say this again, “If you are claiming today that you are a follower of Jesus Christ and received Christ into your life whether you have done it recently here in one of our services or done it in another church or did it 25 years ago there is no such thing in the Bible as an ...

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