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 976 to 1000 of 4939 results

976. John 10:11-18

John 10:1-21

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... in the godhead. The complete nature of the “knowing” that exists between the Father and the Son gives purpose, clarity, and assurance to the good shepherd’s sacrifice. Jesus, as the Good Shepherd, does not give up his life blindly. He knows that redemption awaits on the other side of death. Jesus gives up his life “in order to take it up again.” As the Good Shepherd, living with perfect knowledge of the Father, Jesus has “power” to both “lay down” and “take up again” his life. But ...

977. A Career in The Kingdom

Matthew 21:23-32

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... ' detractors understood quickly that he was speaking about them. It is one thing to parade religious values as high-minded ideals, but quite another thing to put them into practice. No one who refuses to be a disciple can ever become a pilgrim. The disciple gives up his will for the sake of the master's teachings and good graces. The pilgrim sets out on the road of the kingdom in a journey of obedience. Therein lies the rub, of course, because the wandering steps of pilgrims only reach hallowed ground by ...

978. Samuel Was the Search Committee

1 Samuel 15:34-35, 16:1-13

Sermon

William J. Carl, III

... : First, the search takes a lot longer than you think. Second, you look at a lot of candidates who on the surface look pretty good but aren't quite right somehow. They all have good qualifications but there's still something missing. And third, you should never give up because the right one will come along someday. You just know it. Samuel knew it, but he didn't know why. I'll tell you why. It's because God does the choosing. Samuel may be the search committee but God does the choosing. That's always the ...

979. A One Sentence Legacy

Luke 14:25-35

Sermon

King Duncan

... men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.” Jesus was stating a solid spiritual principle in practical and recognizable terms. People fail in business. People also fail in life. And the reasons are often the same. One guy said sadly, “I started out on the theory that the ...

980. Serendipity

Matthew 13:44-46

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... slain before their work had hardly begun. One of the young men was Jim Elliott. When he was a college student, preparing to go to the mission field, he wrote down many of his deep convictions. One of his most memorable sentences goes like this: He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep in order to get that which he cannot lose. Well, Jim Elliott lived by his own word. He gave up what he could not keep—his life (for none of us, ultimately, can keep it)—in order to get what he could never, never lose ...

981. No Longer Orphans

John 14:15-21

Sermon

King Duncan

... needed to hear. At this low point in his life he didn’t want to live like an orphan. He wanted to know that someone cared about him. The doctors didn’t expect him to live, but J. C. Penney decided he wasn’t yet ready to give up. He cried out to God for help, and the Lord answered his request. His depression lifted, and soon he left the sanitarium. Once again he built his fortune and further established the company we know today as JCPenney. For decades, he gave away millions of dollars and shared ...

982. Garden of Love

John 20:10-18, Song of Songs 4:1-16, Revelation 22:1-6

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... and the omega,” the “root,” the star of light, the free water of Life. Jesus IS the Lover of Heaven, the Bridegroom who offers a garden life to all of us. His covenant is a sensory and sensual one, a loving one, in which He will never give up pursuing us, luring us, loving us passionately and eternally. “I am my beloveds and my beloved is mine.” (Song of Songs 2:16) These are the wedding vows of a Jewish union. This is the renewal vow between God and His people. Rabbi Akiva in the first century ...

983. Bringing Life to a Party

Luke 24:36b-48

Sermon

King Duncan

... are not ready for. Professor Maria Teresa Dávila put it this way: she writes that Jesus’ resurrected body shows his disciples that the triumph of life over death is “not a victory without cost.” God’s love for us required that He humble Himself, give up His power and authority, take on human form, and suffer humiliation and injustice and persecution and torture and death to save us. As Dávila writes, “Victory didn’t erase the scars. He continued to carry on his very skin the evidence of a life ...

984. The Blind See!

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

King Duncan

... s encouragement, Kyle began playing football at age eleven, then tried out for the wrestling team. Kyle was extremely strong, but he had some serious challenges wrestling against able-bodied opponents. He lost his first 35 matches, but he didn’t give up. Kyle’s coach came up with new wrestling moves that took advantage of his strength and made it more difficult for his opponents to pin him. Soon, Kyle was winning matches, and eventually finished 12th in the National High School Wrestling Championships ...

985. Chief Among Sinners

Luke 19:1-10

Sermon

Jill J. Duffield

... God made the wrong choice. We think Zacchaeus and all within and around him too far gone and not worthy of Jesus’ time and attention. Sometimes we may even believe this about ourselves. We certainly say it of others. But Jesus knew better. Jesus refused to give up on God’s beloved world, even the ugliest, most sinful aspects of it. Jesus had the power to save and that salvation had the power to transform. That transformation brought the abundant life Jesus came to give. Even if we can’t yet see it, it ...

986. Chapter X

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Frank H. Seilhamer

... they are infected with chamad. We get to loving something someone else has, something other than we have, and we want more, and more and more. And it is amazing how much we will sacrifice to try to fill our lives full of these things we crave. Men will give up almost anything to acquire what they think they want. We will work at jobs we hate because they pay higher wages. We will moonlight at two, maybe three jobs to make payments on houses we can’t afford and are miserable living in while we are doing it ...

987. Do You See What I See?

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

Steven E. Albertin

... has none of these. Yet, he still believes. And he invites us to believe the same today: "Do you see what I see? Do you believe what I believe?" It would be tempting to see Bartimaeus as a heroic example of faith. He was unwilling to give up his conviction that Jesus was the Messiah. He had courage. He hung in there even when others discouraged him. He could be seen as a clinical example of the healing powers of faith. See, if you believe hard enough, persistently enough, sufficiently enough, strongly enough ...

988. The Risky Business of Faith

Genesis 12:1-8

Sermon

R. Robert Cueni

... dreams of an exciting vacation in a faraway place or even relishes a simple task like cooking a meal. Life comes up short. They failed to grasp that life is a spiritual journey requiring risk to move from stage to stage, step to step. What a terrible thing when people give up on life. What a shock it can be to think you have it together only to discover there is always one more hill to climb, one more problem to face, one more crisis to endure. What a terrible thing to exist even for 70 or 80 or 90 years ...

989. Hate Your Mother And Father?

Luke 14:25-35

Sermon

John G. Lynch

... the crest of their waves than hope from God. That's why they were harassed and troubled. Standing still, like Henry Aldrich at the foot of the hallway stairs, their lives were poised only to answer, "Coming, Mother!" It is not easy for us to give up these natural priorities established when we were very young. Had not mother and father been priorities, then we would not have survived. There comes a day when priorities must alter, when the wind for our sails must come from another direction. The risky road ...

990. Persevering In The Faith

Numbers 21:4-9

Sermon

E. Carver McGriff

... mother, fighting back her tears, encouraged the child to try again. It was surely heartbreaking work for both of them. Any outsider could have wondered how a mother could be so callous as to drive a crippled child to such effort. But the mother wouldn't give up. This all went on for days, then weeks. But the day did come when the child managed a few halting, stumbling steps before falling. Then one day, she almost made it, falling at the last and pulling the curtains down on top of her. Patiently, mother ...

991. The Cleansing of the Temple

John 2:12-25

Sermon Aid

Wayne B. Keller

... , brokenness, 1-centeredness, sin as the attempt to justify our behavior, the sin of making a mockery out of our own temples. After several moments of silence, ask the people to consider silently the sins they omitted, as for example, refusal to give up an unhealthy liaison, watching too much television, withholding words of affection, failure to write a letter, make a phone call, speak a kind word. Again, give several moments of silence for people to write these on paper. Then, to introduce the assurance ...

992. St. Jim, Your Halo Is Tipped

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... of God can fall into the trap of feeling sorry for himself. So, after great victories, people can be particularly vulnerable to temptations. The scene is set. The tension has peaked. The drama unfolds. The man of God, the only one left, in his opinion, is ready to give up. What will God do? First, Elijah, standing on a great rock on a great mountain just outside his cave, feels a wind beginning to blow. His hopes rise. "Maybe God will be in the wind." But no. Trees tumble. Rocks fall. But God is not in the ...

993. Love Over Logic

Luke 13:1-9

Sermon

Carl Jech

... ourselves how important our religion would still be to us even if there were no heaven to gain or no hell to flee. (Would that the perpetrators of the Spanish Inquisition had asked themselves that question!) If we think that "being a good Christian" means giving up many pleasures now for the sake of heavenly pleasures later on, then we are likely to get angry even with this hypothetical question of "what if there were no heaven or hell?" We would want our self-denial rewarded and the self-indulgence of evil ...

994. The Golden Gift

Drama

... anniversary of something. BISHOP: Now I should get it. Um - December 8th. The Battle of Waterloo. No. That was only six months ago. ARLETTE: No, no, Uncle. It's more personal than that. BISHOP: Ah! My dear niece. This tired old brain of mine will have to give up. ARLETTE: Very well. Today is the 10th anniversary of your becoming a bishop. BISHOP: So it is! December 8th, 1805. Has it been 10 years?! ARLETTE: Yes! I shall get some wine. We must observe the occasion properly. BISHOP: Did I ever tell you how I ...

995. Proper 6

Genesis 25:19-34

Sermon

... in overnight and changed all the price tags so that the cheap things are priced quite highly, while the truly valuable things are priced quite cheaply." Esau valued his birthright cheaply and paid a high price for a bowl of lentil soup. What did Esau give up when he forfeited his birthright? Well, it wasn't worldly prosperity. As we read later, though Esau lost this special designation, he still had an abundant fortune. When he met Jacob some years later, he was followed by a retinue of 400 armed men, quite ...

996. John the Baptizer

Isaiah 40:1-31, Luke 1:67-80, John 1:19-28

Sermon

Warren Thomas Smith

... one is popular, to say, "He must increase, but I must decrease." (John 3:30 RSV) But sometimes it is necessary. John had enough raw courage to do it. Not all of us are granted center stage; we do not all have the spotlight. Frequently, some must step aside, give up the spotlight, make room for another. As a result we may not even be on stage when the great moment comes. Our lot in life may be that of preparing the way. Let us employ the celebration of Christmas as an example of what John means. Is Christmas ...

997. Living With The Aches And Alleluias

Mark 13:32-37

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... into our world. There came life and there came a future. No matter how hard circumstances seem to be, there is never a time in the life of a child of God when he or she ought to conclude, "That's it! I quit! I throw in the towel! I give up!" If God can reach down and touch the earth in all its darkness and sin and win the victory, God can bring victory into our situation whatever that situation may be. If freedom is the ability to fulfill the purpose for which we were created, then fear is that power ...

998. Focusing On The Possibilities

Matthew 14:13-21

Sermon

King Duncan

... There is always someone saying, "You can't do it." "You can't lose that weight. You can't get that job. You can't make that marriage work. You can't really change." And because we listen to people who say it can't be done, we give up before victory is ours. There is an autobiography titled In Praise of Imperfection: My Life and Work. It is written by a woman named Rita Levi Montacini, an Italian scientist. By looking back over her life as a scientist, she is convinced that in research, neither intelligence ...

999. Building a Nation

Matthew 11:25-30

Sermon

King Duncan

... singing, "Amazing Grace" even under the most horrid of conditions. (6) This is the stuff of which our commitment as Americans to freedom, justice, equality is made. Our faith helps us live out our commitment to freedom. Why? Because we understand that only in giving up some of our autonomy as individual citizens do we truly become free. In Jesus' time, oxen were linked together by means of a wooden yoke across their necks that helped to evenly distribute the weight of a load so that both oxen carried it ...

1000. The Problem With Keeping All The Rules

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... ready to be molded into something beautiful for God. 1. “Shooting Dreams" by Francine Prose, The Oprah Magazine, April 2001, pp. 168-171. 2. Don Emmitte 3. “Restorative Responses: From Vision to Action" by Jean E. Greenwood, The Clergy Journal, April 2001, p. 7. 4. Ray S. Anderson. Don't Give Up on Me I'm Not Finished Yet (New York: McCracken Press, 1994), pp. 75-76. 5. Dr. William Mitchell & Michael A. Mitchell. Building Strong Families (Nashville: Broadman and Holman), pp. 154-155.

Showing results