Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 576 to 600 of 656 results

576. Unashamed Love

Illustration

Editor James S. Hewett

... all he could to help his son through. There was no hint of embarrassment or frustration in that father's face—only love for his hurting son. That's how God speaks to us and in so many words says, "That's just the way I love you through your imperfections. I'm not embarrassed to have people know that you are my son." It's in our times of greatest frustration that the Father draws us close and weathers the storm with us. How good it is that with all of our faults we have a Savior who is "not ...

577. Can We Really Love Our Enemies

Luke 6:27-36

Sermon

Charles H. Bayer

... a beachhead for the kingdom on the inhospitable shores of a world now ruled by the ethic of revenge and violence. We are God's emissaries; we live as if the kingdom has already come. For in us, by the grace of God, it is now in our midst however imperfectly. We live and work by faith, giving ourselves in service to the one whose kingdom is both in our midst and on the way. For the coming of that kingdom we pray, waiting for that day when it is as real on earth as it is in heaven. Can we ...

578. The Trajectory of God’s Grace

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

Robert C. Cochran

... stands for Anal-Retentive Mower, and you who are my fellow ARMs know who you are. On the first run, I would finish off all the oddly shaped corners of the yard. Then I could do the rest of the lawn in a perfect square. Basically, I took out the imperfections and the idiosyncrasies of the yard, allowing me to mow the middle part without exerting any brain power at all! You have a lot of time to think while mowing a yard, but you don’t want to have to think about anything as mundane as where you should mow ...

579. Scrubbing Our Social Media Accounts

Romans 5:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

... can’t save you. Your good deeds can’t save you. Your status can’t save you. Can you achieve moral and spiritual perfection on your own? No? Then you are destined to spend eternity separated from God because God can’t share God’s glory with imperfection. And if we’re separated from God, then we are separated from all that God is—life, love, peace, hope, joy, truth, goodness. Imagine a world that is devoid of these qualities. It would be hell, wouldn’t it? That’s the whole point of it all ...

580. Blessed

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... his old age, survives. When he could no longer see to read he heard someone read this verse from 1 Corinthians: “By the grace of God — I am what I am.” He remained silent a short time, and then said: “I am not what I ought to be. Ah! how imperfect and deficient. “I am not what I might be, considering my privileges and opportunities. “I am not what I wish to be. God, who knows my heart — knows I wish to be like him. “I am not what I hope to be. Before long, I will drop this clay tabernacle ...

581. Revised and Revisioned

John 8:48-59, John 9:1-12, John 9:13-34, John 9:35-41, John 10:1-21

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... extraction from Jewish mysticism may seem more akin to something from the Hobbit (in fact we can guess that JRR Tolkien may have borrowed from this idea of the golem as well), still, the idea of the “golem,” a formed but not inbreathed human who remains imperfect until God’s breath is infused, also acts as a metaphor for spiritual awakening –or blindness.*** The golem is a creature blinded to truth. In fact, in the Jewish legend, one of the ways to “wake up” the golem is to write the word for ...

582. Trust in Me

Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... of love and grace. If we choose to heed them, they will take us in paths of love and grace. We don’t always get those messages in every circumstance, and we can’t be sure if it is that we are not listening, or if our intuitive sense is imperfectly tuned. Perhaps God’s voice comes especially in moments that make a difference to a huge amount of people, as we see in the Hebrew Scriptures again and again, and in the gospels. All we know is that for deep faith, we need to learn to “trust in Jesus” and ...

583. The Good Catch

Matthew 17:24-27

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... to come forward and to renew your baptism. Come, be blessed, splash some water from the basin up front onto your face and hands. And pray with me: “Lord, you have made me free in Jesus. Make me your disciple also here on earth. Bless this faith community. Imperfect as it is, we are the “body” of Christ. And I pledge my life to you in worship, ministry, and love. Amen. Based on the Story Lectionary Major Text Matthew the Tax Collector’s Witness to Peter’s Paying of the Temple Tax Per Jesus (17:24 ...

584. The Catch

John 21:1-14, John 21:15-25, Acts 10:1-8, Acts 10:9-23a, Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... .** And there are many, many more. “Feed my sheep!” Jesus instructs Peter in his post-resurrection appearance. What has Peter forgotten? He’s forgotten his metaphor. A good metaphor covers what we forget, much as God’s love covers our sins and our imperfections. Peter’s metaphor is about fishing, because Peter is a fisherman. The Greek word used in Acts 10 is skeuos. Like most Greek words, it has multiple uses and multiple meanings, some of which are nautical. It’s unfortunate that most of our ...

585. The Good Husband

Isaiah 54:1-17, Isaiah 55:1-13, Isaiah 56:1-8

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... when catastrophe hits, when evil strikes, when humanness trips us up and intrudes into our lives. If they did, our lives would not be free, but we would be living in a padded cell. We can’t protect our children or our loved ones from living in an imperfect world. We CAN be there to pick up the pieces when sometimes our dreams and our hopes are temporarily shattered. We CAN have their backs. Yes, they will sometimes let us down. Our husbands may leave us, our best friend may betray us, our parent may even ...

586. Identity Crisis

Genesis 32:1-21, Genesis 32:22-32, Genesis 33:1-20

Sermon

Lori Wagner

We all walk with a limp. Our walk with God is a broken gait. Or at least an uneven one. God is always in the lead. Always sure. Always strong. We (on the other hand) walk with God weakly and imperfectly. Sometimes even disastrously. But as long as we continue to walk, we remain in relationship. And that’s what’s most important. In life, our limps and our scars tell our stories. Stories of the struggles we’ve survived. Stories of the wounds we’ve suffered. They leave a visible ...

587. Sealed and Sanctified

Matthew 2:1-12, Genesis 14:1-24

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... kind of connectedness. There’s an intimacy involved with looking at someone face to face. It’s no different in our relationship with God. To be intimate with God means to be “face to face” with God, to stand revealed before God in all of our brokenness and imperfection, and to allow ourselves to be gaze-bathed in God’s light and mercy. God is a face-time God. God’s greatest desire is to shine God’s glory upon us! Listen to what we call the Aaronic blessing: The Lord bless you and keep you. The ...

588. Sweet Salvation

John 2:1-11, Isaiah 25:1-12

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... other ceremonial washing rituals. Each one of the jars held 20-30 gallons of water. This “holy” water could only be used to “cleanse” one from sin in order to partake of traditional Jewish rituals. And yet that water was still incomplete, imperfect. No matter how much washing one underwent, one still could not relieve oneself of the “sin” that only God can heal. Ceremonial washing was a human-designed method of cleansing sin. Unlike the bottles of wine made from human hands through wine presses ...

589. Clear to Enter

John 20:1-9, John 20:10-18, John 20:19-23, Matthew 28:1-10, Luke 24:1-12, Hebrews 10:1-18, Hebrews 10:19-39, Genesis 3:1-24

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... during communion, during our reading of the scriptures, during our prayer time with God, the door between Jesus and us is opened for a while, and we can experience for that time, that beautiful relationship with God, in which we commune with Him fully, though imperfectly. It is our glimpse of a little bit of heaven. As our communion liturgy confirms….it is our “foretaste” of the world to come. A little lovin’ spoonful of the Feast of God’s heavenly table, where the feast is laid out, and we all ...

590. Lion of Judah

Gen 49:1-28, Judges 13-15, Matt 4:12-17

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... that some of you will look into that mirror, and instead of seeing the courageous, strong, beautiful, wild and free lion’s whelp that God created you to be, you see instead your faults, your mistakes, your pain, your guilt, your shame, your past, your failures, your imperfections. Take a moment and think about that. What do you see in yourself? What do you truly see, when you look at yourself and your life in the Divine Mirror? Let’s take a moment and look at your life. What do you most see about ...

591. How Did That Hole Get There?

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

... between Jesus and the founders of other religious faiths. Of course his resurrection is usually cited as the most important difference. But his ascension is every bit as important because it allowed for the coming of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit that allows imperfect folks like you and me to be effective witnesses for Christ in the world, not by our power but by the power of his Spirit. The day of Christ’s ascension tells us that Christ’s work on earth was done. Now the power of the ...

The finest works of art are precious, among other reasons, because they make it possible for us to know, if only imperfectly and for a little while, what it actually feels like to think subtly and feel nobly.

Aldous Huxley

I never expect to see a perfect work from an imperfect man.

Alexander Hamilton

I should esteem it the extreme of imprudence to prolong the precarious state of our national affairs, and to expose the union to the jeopardy of successive experiments, in the chimerical pursuit of a perfect plan. I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man. The result of the deliberations of all collective bodies must necessarily be a compound as well of the errors and prejudices, as of the good sense and wisdom of the individuals of whom they are composed.

Alexander Hamilton

I think we learn the most from imperfect relationships - things like forgiveness and compassion.

Andrea Thompson

The fastest way to break the cycle of perfectionism and become a fearless mother is to give up the idea of doing it perfectly - indeed to embrace uncertainty and imperfection.

Arianna Huffington

Life is just an endless chain of judgements. The more imperfect our judgement, the less perfect our success.

B. C. Forbes

It is at once by way of poetry and through poetry, as with music, that the soul glimpses splendors from beyond the tomb; and when an exquisite poem brings one's eyes to the point of tears, those tears are not evidence of an excess of joy, they are witness far more to an exacerbated melancholy, a disposition of the nerves, a nature exiled among imperfect things, which would like to possess, without delay, a paradise revealed on this very same earth.

Charles Baudelaire

There is a kind of beauty in imperfection.

Conrad Hall

Any person seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity.

David Hume

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Antonyms: deficient, imperfect

Showing 576 to 600 of 656 results

576. Unashamed Love

Illustration

Editor James S. Hewett

577. Can We Really Love Our Enemies

Luke 6:27-36

Sermon

Charles H. Bayer

578. The Trajectory of God’s Grace

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

Robert C. Cochran

579. Scrubbing Our Social Media Accounts

Romans 5:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

580. Blessed

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

581. Revised and Revisioned

John 8:48-59, John 9:1-12, John 9:13-34, John 9:35-41, John 10:1-21

Sermon

Lori Wagner

582. Trust in Me

Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

Lori Wagner

583. The Good Catch

Matthew 17:24-27

Sermon

Lori Wagner

584. The Catch

John 21:1-14, John 21:15-25, Acts 10:1-8, Acts 10:9-23a, Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

Lori Wagner

585. The Good Husband

Isaiah 54:1-17, Isaiah 55:1-13, Isaiah 56:1-8

Sermon

Lori Wagner

586. Identity Crisis

Genesis 32:1-21, Genesis 32:22-32, Genesis 33:1-20

Sermon

Lori Wagner

587. Sealed and Sanctified

Matthew 2:1-12, Genesis 14:1-24

Sermon

Lori Wagner

588. Sweet Salvation

John 2:1-11, Isaiah 25:1-12

Sermon

Lori Wagner

589. Clear to Enter

John 20:1-9, John 20:10-18, John 20:19-23, Matthew 28:1-10, Luke 24:1-12, Hebrews 10:1-18, Hebrews 10:19-39, Genesis 3:1-24

Sermon

Lori Wagner

590. Lion of Judah

Gen 49:1-28, Judges 13-15, Matt 4:12-17

Sermon

Lori Wagner

591. How Did That Hole Get There?

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

Aldous Huxley

I never expect to see a perfect work from an imperfect man.

Alexander Hamilton

I think we learn the most from imperfect relationships - things like forgiveness and compassion.

Andrea Thompson

The fastest way to break the cycle of perfectionism and become a fearless mother is to give up the idea of doing it perfectly - indeed to embrace uncertainty and imperfection.

Arianna Huffington

Life is just an endless chain of judgements. The more imperfect our judgement, the less perfect our success.

B. C. Forbes

Charles Baudelaire

There is a kind of beauty in imperfection.

Conrad Hall

Any person seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity.

David Hume

Showing results