Synonyms: renounce, relinquish, dispense with, forswear, disclaim, disown, disavow, discard, wash one's hands of, give up, stop, cease, drop, forgo, desist from, have done with, abjure, abstain from, discontinue, break off, refrain from, set/lay aside, desert, leave, leave high and dry, turn one's back on, cast aside, break (up) with, vacate, quit, evacuate, withdraw from, surrender, cede, yield, indulge in, give way to, give oneself up to, yield to, lose oneself to/in, uninhibitedness, recklessness, lack of restraint, lack of inhibition, unruliness, wildness, impulsiveness, impetuosity, immoderation, wantonness
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 1051 to 1075 of 4934 results
Sermon
Leonard H. Budd
Jesus’ brother is a leader of our church now. He wasn’t always. Once we called him a lunatic, and sought to have him put away. But now he is our leader. Of course, neither was I always a member - right from the start. You see, once, eighteen years ago, I owned the land on that special hillside. It was grazing land - for my flocks, and for others. It was land that had been in my family for a number of generations - as far back as I could trace. I count it as important land because of this. I’m a family man ...
Sermon
Eric Ritz
I have shared with some of you in this congregation and some of my closest friends in the ministry that the writings of Dr. R. Maurice Boyd and C. S. Lewis have been a tremendous source of insight and inspiration for me these past years in my spiritual journey. Those insights are especially helpful in reaching an understanding of what Paul was sharing in this passage of scripture we are looking at today from the Philippian Letter. Dr. Boyd writes in a printed sermon, "Permit Me Voyage:" "Walking through ...
1053. The Day Is Not For Sleeping
1 Thessalonians 4:13--5:11
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
There is nothing wrong with growing old and dying. The problem is too many people die and then grow old. When the death of Calvin Coolidge was made public, someone quipped, "But how can they tell?" George Bernard Shaw once said that the epitaph for many people should read, "Died at 30; buried at 60." Steve Franscioli sent me the following poem sometime ago, and I've been dying to use it in a sermon. Now is my chance. It's titled "A Little Mixed Up". It goes like this. Just a line to say I'm living That I'm ...
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
Connections are important. Nobody understands the word connection as do United Methodists. When we talk about the larger church we refer to it as “the connection.” Connections are important. I remember visiting with a young man in Nashville 25 years ago -- I was the editor of the Upper Room and this young man was a student at Vanderbilt University. His parents were friends of mine but I had known him only in passing. This was one of those encounters that we have now and then that we sense are charged with ...
Sermon
Mark Trotter
I was stunned by the Old Testament lesson for this morning, where it says the Lord changed his mind about the disaster he planned to bring upon his people. I have read that passage before, and there are many others just like it in the Old Testament. But I guess I never paid much attention to them. I thought that they were simply vestiges of a more primitive stage of religion, and something that we in the modern age need not take seriously. But then I read a book a few weeks ago by Richard Friedman, a ...
1056. Eye Exercises
Matthew 6:25-33
Sermon
Mark Trotter
I was stunned by the Old Testament lesson for this morning, where it says the Lord changed his mind about the disaster he planned to bring upon his people. I have read that passage before, and there are many others just like it in the Old Testament. But I guess I never paid much attention to them. I thought that they were simply vestiges of a more primitive stage of religion, and something that we in the modern age need not take seriously. But then I read a book a few weeks ago by Richard Friedman, a ...
Sermon
Bill Bouknight
Hear we are on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and I wonder if you feel very thankful. Some would reply, “Brother Bill, some of us are more thankful than others. It depends on one’s circumstances.” You know, it’s easy to celebrate Thanksgiving when your family is healthy, your income is ample, your stocks are ascending, your favorite team is headed to a bowl game, your sinuses have overcome the Memphis grunge, and your aches and pains are minimal. But that kind of thanksgiving can be awfully superficial. ...
Sermon
Billy D. Strayhorn
I'll never forget the time my little brother Scott got into major trouble. He was down in our basement shooting pool when dad called down and said, "Scott, supper's ready." Scott didn't answer. Again Dad called again. And finally Dad was mad, stood at the top of the stairs and hollered, "Scott, get up here, NOW, supper's ready." That last time got Scott's attention and just as he came up the basement steps, Dad yelled, "Where have you been?!" Everything would have been OK if Scott hadn't said, "I didn't ...
Sermon
J. Howard Olds
Responding to a sermon I preached two weeks ago about religious signs on rural roads, someone said to me on the way out of church, “The sign I remember seeing was, GET READY TO MEET GOD." We had those signs in Kentucky, too. As we think about building a highway from Chaos to Christ this Advent, we would do well to hear again the words of the prophet John, who encouraged us and warned us to GET READY TO MEET GOD. In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea and saying, “Repent, for ...
Sermon
J. Howard Olds
Artist Billy Davis recorded a song a few years ago that goes something like this: “I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony, I’d like to hold it in my arms and keep it company. I’d like to see the world for once all standing hand-in-hand, And hear them echo through the hills for peace throughout the land.” Well, wouldn’t we all? Is peace and harmony a pipe dream or a purposeful pursuit? Is reconciliation a realistic expectation or a useless fascination? What is this ministry of reconciliation ...
Sermon
J. Howard Olds
The gentle healer came into a town one day. He touched the blind and helped the lame to walk away. But more than that, he forgave the sins of those who stray. The gentle healer comes into our town today. [1] A full twenty percent of the gospels deal with the healing ministries of Jesus. Seeing the crowds he has compassion on them and one by one, person by person, individual by individual, he heals their diseases, casts out their demons, forgives their sins, and challenges them to live a life of wholeness. ...
Sermon
King Duncan
It is one of the great adventure stories of all time. A man named Thor Heyerdahl wanted to test the theory that people from South America could have settled the Polynesian Islands in the South Pacific long before Columbus sailed to the New World. So Heyerdahl took a small team of men to Peru, where they constructed a raft out of balsa logs. These logs were tied together with rope much as a group of sailors might have done in earlier, less sophisticated times. Heyerdahl named the raft the Kon-Tiki. He and ...
Sermon
King Duncan
Dr. James Dobson tells about a friend of his, a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology. One day this friend telephoned another specialist in the same field and asked him for a favor. “My wife has been having some abdominal problems and she’s in particular discomfort this afternoon,” he said. “I don’t want to treat my own wife and wonder if you’d see her for me?” The other specialist invited the doctor to bring his wife in for an examination. When he did he discovered (are you ready for this?) that she was ...
1064. Samuel Was the Search Committee
1 Samuel 15:34-35, 16:1-13
Sermon
William J. Carl, III
I don't know about you but when I was growing up I always loved hearing the story of Cinderella. There was always something magical about it. It was more than Walter Mitty or Lee Iacocca — small-town boy made good. It was more than Prince Charles and Princess Diana in all their regal splendor long before Diana's untimely death. It was like the triumph of the poor and the oppressed over the powerful and the arrogant — the quintessential example of the first shall be last and the last shall be first. It was ...
Sermon
King Duncan
Dan Miller in his book No More Dreaded Mondays tells a delightful story about a farmer many years ago in a village in India who had the misfortune of owing a large sum of money to the village moneylender. The old and ugly moneylender fancied the farmer’s beautiful daughter, so he proposed a bargain. He would forgive the farmer’s debt if he could marry the farmer’s daughter. Both the farmer and his daughter were horrified by the proposal, but the cunning moneylender suggested that they let providence decide ...
Sermon
James Merritt
Every week that you walk into this church you hear me say something that actually begs a very big question that deserves to be answered. For example, I am going to tell you right now to take your Bibles, or your smart phone, or your tablet and [Turn to II Timothy 3]. Then as we do every week we read a passage from the Bible. This particular passage says this, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,that the man of God ...
Understanding Series
David J. Williams
Of the Roman historian Livy it has been said that though “the conflicts and issues and struggles in the story of Rome are, of course apparent to him … they are described in terms of individuals; there are not ‘movements’ or ‘tendencies’ or ‘forces’ at work unattached to men. History,” for Livy, “is the record of ‘doings of men’ ” (R. H. Barrow, p. 87). So also for Luke. He tells his story by means of paradigmatic people and events. The events of this chapter illustrate the opposition that the church soon ...
Teach the Text
Jeannine K. Brown
Big Idea: While promising eternal reward to the first who have followed him, Jesus also warns against presumption of reward and status by telling a parable about the equalization of status that will occur in God’s kingdom. Understanding the Text Peter’s initial question in this passage about the rewards that he and the rest of the Twelve will have for leaving everything to follow Jesus (19:27) connects directly with the previous passage, in which a rich man chooses his wealth over the chance to follow ...
Teach the Text
Robert B. Chisholm Jr.
Big Idea: The Lord gives greater priority to obedience than to religious formalism. Understanding the Text In this account the narrator’s pro-David/anti-Saul agenda continues to gain momentum. In chapter 13 Samuel announced that Saul would have no royal dynasty, placing the king on thin ice. Chapter 14 did nothing to ease our concerns about Saul, as he exhibited a preoccupation with his own honor and an obsession with religious formalism, particularly oaths. He was ready to execute his own son, and he ...
Teach the Text
Daniel J. Estes
Big Idea: Zophar insists that God always punishes the wicked. Understanding the Text In Job 20, Zophar speaks to Job for his second and final time, because in the third cycle Zophar chooses not to answer him. So this chapter constitutes Zophar’s final answer to his friend. Numerous times he alludes to details in Job’s previous speeches, often trying to turn Job’s words against him, but in particular Zophar responds indignantly to Job’s reproof in 19:28–29. However, he dismisses what Job says rather than ...
Understanding Series
Larry W. Hurtado
15:1–5 In this passage the Jewish leaders meet to make a formal decision about Jesus (v. 1) and they hand him over to Pilate, the Roman governor, whose interrogation of Jesus is then briefly described (vv. 2–5). All three Synoptic Gospels record a morning meeting of the Jewish Council to deal with Jesus (cf. Matt. 27:1; Luke 22:66), which is further evidence that any hearing held during the night must have been either an interrogation or some sort of pretrial hearing, not a formal trial. Otherwise no ...
Sermon
King Duncan
Jesus told a story about a rich man named Dives and a very poor man named Lazarus. Dives drove a Mercedes, lived in a fifteen-room mansion, ordered his suits tailor-made from Europe. Poor Lazarus was a street person. The Public Library, where he tried to rest during the day—particularly on cold days—threw him out. Even the police turned their heads when they drove by. They were tired of giving him a free ride to jail for a meal and a night’s lodging. He had nowhere to sleep except a hard sidewalk. There ...
1073. The Light That Dwells Among Us
Matthew 16:13-20, Matthew 16:21-28, Matthew 17:1-13
Sermon
Lori Wagner
Animation: a Light Sunburn. We’ve all had it. We know that if we stay out in the bright light of the sun too long, our skin becomes red, and it burns. But did you know ….that internally, your cells are also changing? Light is a powerful force. You can’t touch it. You can’t catch it. You can’t control it. Light is one of those things in life that we either try to harness to our own devices, or simply avoid if there is too much of it. Without light, we would have no fire, no heat, no cooked food, no way to ...
1074. The Open Hand
Mark 2:23-3:6
Sermon
Ron Lavin
Whenever you consider the meaning of a Bible text, it is always good to look at the context. As we consider the meaning of Jesus' words to the man with a shriveled hand, we need to look at what happened before he spoke these words. The context of Jesus' words to the man with the shriveled-up hand in Mark 3:5 is conflict with the Pharisees in the areas of fasting, the Sabbath, and worship. The reason for this conflict was the Pharisees' closed minds, hard hearts, and clenched fists. The Context In some ...
Sermon
Frank Ramirez
When I was a kid the night before Christmas was the longest night in the world. There were only one or two clocks in our house as a general rule, and eventually eight of us kids. To forestall endless repetition of the question "What time is it?" our parents loaned us one of the clocks, and many times we'd sleep in only one or two rooms, waiting together. Each in turn would wake, and quietly, so quietly, attempt to turn the luminescent dial towards ourselves, believing it possible that we would not rouse ...
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