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 4876 to 4900 of 4938 results

4876. I Started to be Grateful

Luke 17:11-19

Illustration

Brett Blair

Greg Anderson, in Living Life on Purpose, tells a story about a man whose wife had left him. He was completely depressed. He had lost faith in himself, in other people, in God--he found no joy in living. One rainy morning this man went to a small neighborhood restaurant for breakfast. Although several people were at the diner, no one was speaking to anyone else. Our miserable friend hunched over the counter, stirring his coffee with a spoon. In one of the small booths along the window was a young mother ...

4877. The Secret Story of Gabriel

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth.... (Luke 1:26) From our text in Luke you have heard the Bible’s account of how God sent the angel Gabriel to Mary. But this is not the only version of the story. There is another, unofficial, version which came to light recently when an ancient manuscript was discovered in Bethlehem. For those of us who like to stay on the cutting edge of biblical research, this new discovery is exciting and has changed forever the ...

4878. The Devil Quotes Scriputure, Too

Luke 4:1-13

Sermon

I will always remember the immortal words of Flip Wilson’s "Geraldine:" "The devil made me do it!" She said those words with a gleam in her eye which let you know just how enjoyable yielding to temptation really was. Temptation has come on hard times in our day. It has come to mean little more than resistance to a hot-fudge sundae when you are on a diet, or turning down a piece of chocolate cake. At most, resisting temptation seems to mean no more than the self-discipline it takes to stay away from ...

4879. Job’s Joy

Job 38:1--41:34

Sermon

Richard F. Bansemer

Two brief Old Testament lessons introduce the sermon for today. The first is from Job 38, the first two verses: "Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: ‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?’ " The second lesson is from the 55th chapter of Isaiah, verses eight and nine: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." ...

4880. The Church’s Fear and Comfort

Acts 9:19b-31

Sermon

Richard F. Bansemer

The sermon today is based upon the 31st verse of the ninth chapter of Acts: "So the church throughout all of Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was built up; and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit it was multiplied." Imagine yourself, for a moment, as the employee of a large corporation. Let’s take the company out of the United States, for what we are about to demonstrate is harder to believe in one’s home country. Pretend, if you will, that you are located deep ...

4881. What Does It Mean To "Believe"?

Romans 4:1-25

Sermon

Dennis Kastens

One of the most misunderstood terms in the New Testament is the word, "believe." We ministers preach on the word from time to time, and often-times never stop to tell what it means. This is especially perplexing to unregenerated people who do believe whatever they are told to believe, but who still do not consider themselves saved or born again, spiritually. Maybe you grew up under such circumstances. Perhaps as a child, you never heard of an infidel. Everyone you knew did not deny religion and the Bible. ...

4882. On Being Able to Be Sorry

Luke 15:11-32

Sermon

Allan J. Weenink

In the book, Love Story, Jennifer and Oliver have their first serious fight as newlyweds. Jennifer runs from the apartment and disappears. She has tried to build a bridge of reconciliation between her husband and his father ... and Oliver in anger tells her to get out of his life. Suddenly, Oliver realizes he has hurt her deeply, but she is gone! Frantically he rushes to the old familiar places searching for her. All the while she becomes more beloved to him in the emptiness of estrangement. Searching ...

4883. The First Murder - 1940

Matthew 7:1-6

Sermon

Kent Moorehead

There are four highly accredited ways to study the Bible. First, study the beauty spots, the familiar passages. Second, study the individual books and master them. Third, study the great biographies and know them. And fourth, study the structural ideas of the book as they are developed. Now this last method is unquestionably the most rewarding and likewise the most adequate way of knowing the Bible, but it isn’t the most interesting. The most interesting way to study the Bible is by studying the ...

4884. EPISODE 6: THE SIXTH WEEK IN LENT

Drama

Robert Clausen

EPISODE 6: THE SIXTH WEEK IN LENT MARY MARTHA MARY MAGDALENE CAPTAIN JUDAS SOLDIER JESUS PETER JOHN THOMAS [MARY and MARTHA are together. MARY MAGDALENE enters.] MARTHA: Mary Magdalene...! MARY MAGDALENE: Oh, Martha. I’m so glad to find you home ... and Mary. MARY: Come in, Mary Magdalene. Are you all right? MARY MAGDALENE: No ... MARY: Why, what’s the matter? MARY MAGDALENE: I can’t explain it. MARTHA: Try to tell us. MARY MAGDALENE: I should be happy after today ... the crowds, the cheering, the ...

4885. EPISODE 8: GOOD FRIDAY

Drama

Robert Clausen

EPISODE 8: GOOD FRIDAY GOVERNOR GOVERNOR’S WIFE CAPTAIN JESUS BISHOP MAN (Non-Speaking: SOLDIER) [The GOVERNOR is alone. His WIFE enters.] GOVERNOR’S WIFE: Husband! GOVERNOR: Wife! You shouldn’t be here. WIFE: I had to come. I want to know what’s happening. GOVERNOR: To the prisoner? WIFE: Yes. GOVERNOR: The examination isn’t over. WIFE: Have you decided...? GOVERNOR: I thought I had. Now I don’t know. WIFE: What will you do? GOVERNOR: Why do you care? WIFE: I fear him. GOVERNOR: Why? WIFE: I keep having a ...

4886. THE MARK

Drama

Jerome W. Nilssen

A woman in black, calling. It is dusk, and imperceptibly the lights dim, until the last four or five speeches are given in almost total darkness. A single pool of light may be used. EVE Cain! Cain! Ca-a-a-i-n! (No answer) That’s all right - I know you can hear me. That’s perfectly all right. Well, they rip you to pieces when they’re born, and they keep at it until you’re dead - it’s the natural, inborn ingratitude of children. They watch out for themselves. Cain! You watch out for yourself! You do, don’t ...

4887. A Large Fish Story

Jonah 1:1-17, Jonah 3:1-10

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

Someone please explain a great mystery to me. Why is it that a person who is generally honest in all things cannot give you an accurate description of the fish he has caught? I mean, if you asked this person to tell you his net financial worth, he would tell the truth. If asked to describe his wife he would do so objectively, noting her strengths and weaknesses. But for the life of him he cannot give an honest, accurate description of a fish he caught. When showing you the length of the fish, he cannot ...

4888. Facing Life’s Central Tests

Mark 14:32-42

Sermon

Robert Allen

It was a beautiful spring afternoon in Eastern Oklahoma when my secretary told me that Oleatha was on the phone. Oleatha was 67 years old and she had been having problems. She often became confused. She had a tendency to forget. Once, she had gotten lost going from church out to her home on a bluff that overlooked the lake. At the insistence of her family, she had gone through a battery of medical tests. The reports were in and Oleatha wanted me to come by and visit her. When I drove into her driveway, I ...

4889. Take a Close Look (At the Widow)!

Mark 12:41-44

Sermon

James W. Robinson

Mark is a marvel when it comes to storytelling. He is the O. Henry of the New Testament, a magician with words, who squeezes a novel into a paragraph or two. His skill is nowhere more evident than in his account of the widow with the two coins at the temple treasury. It is a gem of a short story. He makes it so easy for us to visualize the woman as she waits patiently in line to drop her offering into the chest with the trumpet-shaped tube. Without going into a detailed character study, he makes us feel ...

4890. A Way Back In

Isaiah 40:1-31

Sermon

Thomas D. Peterson

A wise man once said to me that he tried never to let people get so far out on a limb that they could not get back in. He was the head-master of a preparatory school. As an administrator he did everything he could to enable the staff to make meaningful contributions to the school. He positively reinforced good performance; and, when a staff member got out on a limb, he not only initiated efforts to help the person back in, he also avoided putting undue stress on mistakes or attitudes which made it ...

4891. Mary Ann Was Born Again

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

Richard L. Eslinger

In the early church, three Sundays were reserved for the baptism of new Christians. Except in an emergency, these candidates for initiation into the church were baptized on one of these three days. The Easter vigil was the primary occasion, with its drama of darkness and new light, death, and new life. As our Lord made his Passover from death to new life, so the candidates were baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection. Pentecost Sunday was the second of these baptismal days for the early church. The ...

4892. A Secret Is Finally Revealed

Ephesians 1:1-14

Sermon

Harold Warlick

Picture an attractive mother, a handsome husband, and three lucky children. The little children are fortunate because they have been adopted by the mother and father. The mother can not naturally bear children. She had a bodily imperfection when she was born which resulted in her having had a colostomy, the process where you wear a bag with a tube to empty your wastes from your body. It was a most difficult and, obviously, painful condition with which to live. Consequently over the years the parents ...

4893. Family Night Live

Drama

Dave Marsh

Director's Notes: I wrote this drama in hopes of showing the myths that some people have about God. They think that: A) He is either not interested in us any longer B) He is a taskmaster that cares more about do’s and don’t's C) He is a kindly old man who merely wants us to believe in Him Of course, God wants to be friends with us. And as we develop that friendship with Him we desire to do things that please Him and refrain from that which hurts our relationship... Cast: John: Dad. Angela: Mom. Isabelle: ...

4894. A Tsunami Appeal

Sermon

Eric Hudson

Jeremiah 31:7-16 Ephesians 1:3-14 St John 1:10-18 A few days ago, in the middle of the week, I had come to the conclusion that I would have nothing to say to you this morning. I felt drained. The developing news of what was happening in south east Asia was just too much. What can you say in the context of Christian worship at a time like that? Sure, we’ve had disasters before. How shocked we all were as we saw the events of September 11 developing in front of our very eyes. And for many people, not only ...

4895. A World in Turmoil

Matthew 21:1-11

Sermon

David E. Leininger

"When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred..." Or as the New Revised Standard Version has it, "When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil..." TURMOIL. Great word. It has a feeling about it. Something is bubbling up and about to boil over. There is tension. There is danger. The Greek word is seio and means to rock to and fro or to agitate, to quake or shake. And contrary to the parade and party atmosphere that we often associate with Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, ...

4896. The Church Should Go to Hell!

Luke 4:1-13

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Last summer, shortly after my arrival in Warren, one of the first things I encountered as a "problem" in our worship services was the "Passing of the Peace" - some folks did not like it; they felt it was a disruption in the dignity of worship, this period of enforced sociability. For what it is worth, this is not the only congregation where that feeling has ever been expressed. Despite that, we continue the practice (and there has been less complaint about it in recent months as we are more and more such a ...

4897. Jerry's Christmas

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Clark D. Cowden

Once upon a time, there was a man named Jerry. Jerry was a builder. He had started off as a carpenter, and learned to build homes and construct small office buildings. He lived in a small, but growing town on the edge of a big city, so there was always a lot of work to be done. He gained a reputation as the best in his field; he was honest, hard-working, didn't rip people off, and did a high quality job. Jerry made a lot of money in his business. He was able to purchase ten acres of land, and built himself ...

4898. Why Jesus Was Baptized

Matthew 3:13-17

Sermon

King Duncan

Are you nervous in the presence of celebrities? Would you feel awkward if President Bush came to your house for lunch today? Are there people around whom you are very selfconscious? There is a famous story about a woman who goes into an ice cream store. Suddenly she recognizes that Robert Redford is also buying ice cream in that store. The woman is on the verge of swooning with ecstasy, but she is determined to remain calm. She does not want to disgrace herself or invade her favorite movie star's privacy. ...

4899. You Are A Winner!

Romans 5:12-21

Sermon

King Duncan

Some people like stories about winners. It gives them something to aspire to. Some of us prefer stories about losers. Losers help us feel better about our own lives. Like Mrs. Dora Wilson, an English housewife. On February 18, 1981, Mrs. Wilson looked out her window in Harlow, Essex, and saw a group of men loading her neighbors' priceless collection of Persian carpets into a moving van. "What are you doing?" she called, knowing her neighbors were on vacation. "We're taking them to be cleaned, madam," the ...

4900. Out Of Our Control

Romans 8:18-27

Sermon

King Duncan

No matter what happened to a certain gold miner he always described it as pure luck. It was a particularly bitter winter. He was nearly freezing to death, but he kept digging for gold in the granitelike ground. Finally, as the Earth thawed in the Spring and he was down to his last meager ration of food, he broke through the hard crust and dug and dug until at last he hit a box. Inside the box was a carton of canned food left behind by some earlier miner. "Boy, am I lucky." he said, "it could have been gold ...

Showing results