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 851 to 875 of 4963 results

851. Vetted

Luke 3:21-38, Luke 4:1-13

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... the name of Jesus? Can you trust the name of Jesus? Jesus is our pass to the heavenly kingdom, our passcode to love, our passport to hope. Jesus is the Son of the Promise, the promise that God gives to every one of God’s children. The good news? You don’t have ... to give up Tank in order to do it, I am glad to have done so. He was my example of service and of love. I hope I honored him by my service to my country and comrades. All right, that’s enough. I deploy this evening and have to drop this letter ...

852. Dry As Toast

Matthew 12:15-21

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So I say to all of you today, “stretch out your hand.” Stretch your heart. As Jesus comes among you here and now in this place to restore you to right relationship with God the Father, put your trust and hope in the power of the Holy Spirit, and stretch out your hand! Come all of you who receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Stand now, and stretch out your hands to the Son of God. [Stretch out your hand and invite others to stretch out their hands to God ...

853. The Apothecary

Isaiah 40:1-31, Isaiah 61:1-11

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. Isaiah Proclaims the Year of the Lord’s Favor (The Eschatological Jubilee) The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on ...

854. Follow the Light

Genesis 1:1-2:3, Matthew 2:1-12, Revelation 22:1-6

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... gospel of John helps us to understand this metaphor in terms of Jesus more than any other gospel. The Light is God’s victory over the “dark night of the soul.” In coming into the world, Jesus meets us in our humanness, yet brings God’s hope and love into our darkest times. Written during times of persecution, the gospel of John knew just how dark life could be for early Christians, how death could loom, how doubt could plague, how despair could easily creep in. John’s gospel is a gospel of victory ...

855. Breath of God · COVID-19 and the Resurrection

John 20:10-18, John 20:1-9

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... is a “breath-taking” virus. It steals the breath from people’s bodies in a particularly terrifying way. It strikes suddenly leaving us frightened and breathless. With no cure in sight, the only thing we can do is hide away, covering our noses and faces with cloth, hoping to keep the aggressive beast away from our lungs. COVID-19 is a death threat that has already made good on many lives. This brutal virus makes us feel that we are locked up in a dark tomb for an impossibly long duration, as though the ...

856. Oh, That You Would Come Down?

Isaiah 63:7--64:12

Sermon

King Duncan

... we don’t want him. We want to achieve a world without suffering or sin, but we do not want to open our own lives so that he might begin his healing and reconciling work through us. There is no other way, however. Without him there is no hope, no peace, no love available to this world. Once there was a little girl named Annika, not quite four. Annika was fascinated by a waste basket filled with scraps of fabric left over from one of her mother’s recent sewing projects. Annika decided to root through the ...

857. I Have Seen the Lord

John 20:1-18

Sermon

King Duncan

... in which God whispers our name. As long as you believe that there is an answer, an answer will be found. I cannot recall any appearance of the risen Christ to an unbeliever. Your greatest ally in the long, dark night of the soul is your faith and your hope. “I am here,” he says, “I will never forsake you.” This brings us to the final thing we need to say on this Easter Sunday morning. The victory of Easter is a gift available to anyone who will receive it. The New Testament was not written by Greeks ...

858. The Days Are Coming

Jeremiah 33:14-16

Sermon

King Duncan

... say that he had mellowed. Perhaps so, but the situation had also changed. Before, his people needed to be confronted, now they need to be comforted. Before, they needed words of judgment, now they needed words of grace. Before, they deserved condemnation, now they needed hope. So instead of offering a word of punishment, Jeremiah offers a word of promise: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at ...

859. Listen!

Luke 9:28-36, (37-43a)

Sermon

King Duncan

... painful disruption in your life? A moment of pure joy? Or maybe you are still waiting for that experience. Maybe you still aren’t sure that you’ve ever experienced God in a moving and convicting way. That’s okay. I’m glad you’re here today, and I hope you have an experience in which God speaks to you or strengthens you or becomes real to you in such a way that it changes your life. And that brings us to the second thing we learn from this passage: prayer prepares us to experience God. Prayer opens ...

860. Find Joy Again!

Romans 15:4-13

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:13 NRSV). Also consider these words from Paul: Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment (1 Timothy 6:17 NIV). A long, long time ago, a group of people in the church got together and thought it was important to list the most important beliefs of Christianity. They called it a “catechism.” But ...

861. Missing!

Luke 15:1-10

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... gifts to humankind is the gift of freedom, the gift of choice, of discernment, of self-motivated loyalty, of learning. While a coin cannot return to us on its own, neither a sheep as it were, we however can. And God hopes that we will. Much as a parent hopes that his or her teen will survive the hormones, dangers, and temptations of young and inexperienced adulthood in a yet unknown and sometimes misleading world, trusting in the child’s ability to learn and grow from experience, stability, and roots, God ...

862. To Cross Over

Romans 4:1-5, 13-17

Sermon

Dr. Ronald Love

... can embark on any ministry or mission for the church we must first be empowered by our belief in God. We also learn from Abraham that it is our faith in God that will sustain us during our difficult times. It is our faith in God that will give us hope in the midst of life’s tragedies. It is our faith in God that will calm our doubts. It is our faith in God that will give us security when we are plagued by insecurity. We must believe before we can act. We must believe before we can cross over ...

863. The Last Laugh

Luke 24:1-35

Sermon

Will Willimon

... 't know what has happened in Jerusalem this weekend? Don't you read the papers?" "What things?" asked the stranger. "What things? Things concerning Jesus -- a great prophet of mighty deeds. But now the authorities have put him to death. We had hoped he would be the Messiah. We had hoped that he would redeem Israel. But the authorities feared him, the people turned against him, his disciples forsook him. What can a person do? You can't fight City Hall. It was good while it lasted. You win some; you lose some ...

864. Processing Grief

Lamentations 3:1-66

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... certainty of hearing,” or confidence, statements. The Lord’s great love (3:22) follows through on covenant obligations. God’s compassion cannot be exhausted. His faithfulness to his covenant is unfailing. Whereas the poet has earlier given up hope (3:18), he now determines that God will be his hope. Verses 21–26 have been called the theological high point of the book. One of the poet’s answers to suffering is to affirm God’s goodness. For this reason the afflicted do well to wait even in silence ...

865. The Interpretation of the Dream

Daniel 7:15-28

Understanding Series

William Nelson

... ’s vision at other times, predicting that he will return in power and glory riding on clouds (Matt. 19:28; 24:27, 30; 26:64). John also utilizes the imagery for Jesus in his apocalypse (Rev. 1:7, 13; 14:14). Daniel’s vision in chapter 7 gives us hope for the future. Jesus will return to raise from the dead those believers who have died (1 Cor. 15:22–26; 1 Thess. 4:14–17), to gather together his living followers, and to set up God’s kingdom in its fullness. The oppressive regimes of this world will ...

866. Will You Sing With Me?

Romans 15:4-13

Sermon

Heather Sugden

... a loud singer for the world. His songs shape us into people who are willing to sing out loud for all to hear. When we tell the story of Jesus, when we share it with those around us through word and through deed, our lives become a living song of hope. When the song is shared, others cannot help but listen to the lyrics, and be drawn into learning, repeating, and believing the words of faith. So what songs are we teaching our youth? What songs do we know the words and melody so well that we are not afraid to ...

867. An Extremely Odd Couple

Luke 18:1-8

Sermon

J. Will Ormond

... African-American slaves of recent centuries singing spirituals in the cotton fields of the South. They took up the cry of the Hebrews in Egypt, "Go down, Moses. Tell old Pharaoh, 'Let my people go.' " With persistence and patience they continued to pray and hope for freedom and justice. There were many times when they could cry to God, "How long, O Lord?" But at last in the middle of this century things began to change. African-Americans finally won a measure of freedom and equality in this country. They ...

868. Paths Of Desperation

1 John 5:1-12

Sermon

Richard A. Jensen

... cancer. She would surely die. That's when Dick learned about hopelessness. Dick's dad was also in shock. And he was angry. He was angry with the doctors who had seemed to give up hope on his wife. Suddenly hopelessness was the order of the day. And where to go with this hopelessness? Dick's parents found a place that offered some hope for cancer treatment. A doctor about an hour's drive away claimed to have a cure for this type of cancer. Before long Dick's mother was housed with that doctor in the far away ...

869. Homecoming

Jeremiah 30:1--31:40

Sermon

Robert A. Hausman

... my faithfulness to you" (vv. 2-3; cf. Exodus 33:12-17). The Lord who brought them out of bondage in Egypt can bring them out of bondage in Babylon. Exile is not defeat or failure for God. Human impossibility becomes God's possibility. Homecoming is not a futile hope, but a divine assurance. "See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth" (v. 8), for "He who scattered Israel will gather him" (v. 10). The Hebrew word for "gather" is the word we ...

870. Prepared Servants

Luke 12:35-48

Sermon Aid

William E. Keeney

... responsibilities for the activities of the church. They do not translate the message into their daily lives. Is it not also a temptation to wait for some future apocalyptic act of God to bring justice and righteousness into the world? Is it the hope and expectation of some divine consummation that allows them to ignore the demands for action in setting right injustices and evils that are around them? Jesus would probably say to couch potato Christians, "Wake up! Go forth from that comfortable pew and serve ...

871. Seeds And The Kingdom

Mark 4:30-34, Mark 4:26-29

Sermon Aid

William E. Keeney

... 3. The End is in the Beginning. (vv. 31-32) A. The Beginning Point May be Small. The spoken word may seem insignificant but can be powerful. B. The Outcome Depends on the Beginning. Only good means serve to bring good results despite apparent consequences otherwise. C. Hope for the Harvest. Faith includes the trust that God will produce the harvest even when we cannot see far enough to see all the outcomes. 4. Speaking the Word. (vv. 26, 33-34) A. The Seed Must be Scattered. The word needs to be proclaimed ...

872. Promises Kept In Unusual Way

Jeremiah 23:1-8

Sermon

Robert P. Hines

... foreign land? Psalm 137:1-4 At this point in time, Jeremiah's message changed from one of condemnation and judgment to one of hope. The people who wept in Babylon could count on God bringing them back to their homeland, and giving them a new king who would ... with his work. It didn't look like he would be able to get away for a vacation that year. But they made plans anyway, hoping things would work out. When it came time for the vacation, the husband just could not get away. But he helped them load the car, ...

873. The Christmas Cactus

Isaiah 35:1-10

Sermon

Paul E. Robinson

... movie or a new job. We are all on a journey. And it is a very "long, long trail awinding" indeed, into the land of our hopes and dreams, into the arms of our loving God. Such a journey has been known by people as long as there have been people, for God ... in the midst of the desert of political unrest, poverty, and religious cynicism that God sent Jesus to live and to be a blossom of hope and truth, the means of connecting us once and for all with our Creator, who loves us more than we can possibly know. God ...

874. You Can Be A Livesaver

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Michael B. Brown

... to be careful and conservative. Many of us find ourselves reflected in an old poem: Money talks, I don't deny; I heard it once; it said "goodbye." Money, though, does more than just talk. In the right hands used in the right ways, it saves lives and restores hope and heals hurts and builds futures. In a church I once pastored was a woman named Evelyn. She lived alone in a small frame house less than a block from the church. She was a dear, sweet-natured lady who late in life developed diabetes and serious ...

875. "But Some Doubted"

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

Sandra Hefter Herrma

... have this experience. Not just so we might have a "religious experience," but so that we "may [now] know what is the hope to which he has called [us]," and "what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints." In other words, the ... to see God and live. We are not certain that we can by any means enter the "strait gate" as the old King James English put it. Our hope is a more tenuous thing, more fragile than we wish it to be. Paul goes on to say that he wishes we could know "what is the ...

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