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 1051 to 1075 of 4963 results

1051. Furnishing It with Love

1 John 4:7-18

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... a wedding I suppose it is fair to wish for a spouse that is always patient and kind, never boastful nor proud, one who is not easily angered, who keeps no record of wrongs. In moments like that you wish for a love that always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. After 39 years of marriage, I must confess I have not always measured up to such a high standard to love. Sandy might say I have miserably failed at it. So I no longer read that chapter with my name in it. Howard does fail, can ...

1052. Leaping Where You Cannot Look

Hebrews 11:1-40

Sermon

King Duncan

... heroes of the Bible who stepped forward when the times demanded it and the writer says, “Friends, that’s faith! That’s what it looks like. It’s not simply believing in a dead creed, it is serving a living God.” “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Faith is jumping even when you cannot see the Father’s arms ready to catch you below. The world sorely needs people of such faith today. Do you not sense it? We have staggering problems that politicians will ...

1053. Eat and Run

Exodus 12:1-14

Sermon

David J. Kalas

... who had died, about Christ's delay, and about life in the meantime. After so long a wait, it would be an easy thing — natural, really — for us to live with diminished expectations. To let one day flow mindlessly into the next, with no real hope that today might be the day. Jesus anticipated that possibility, that risk. He noted that the servant might observe, "My master is delayed in coming" (Luke 12:45), and consequently neglect his duties. But scripture warns us again and again that his coming will be ...

1054. Step By Step

Acts 11:1-18

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... Step process of creating and growing a world. We have to do the same thing in raising our children. Over the long haul, what we hope our children learn from us is: A sense of destiny: We want them to know they are unique, special, so they can have confidence for ... to know they are safe; that their family is their refuge; no matter what. We want them to be filled with a sense of hope and a hope filled sense of the future which will allow and challenge them to take risks. And most of all, we want them to have a ...

1055. We Are Blessed, Adopted and Sealed

Ephesians 1:3-14

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, [12] so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. [13] In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the ... and sealed. But you might ask WHY? Paul tells us why in verse 12. He says: "so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory." In other words, bringing glory to God through our lives and lifestyles is part of our ...

1056. The Dawn of Forever

John 20:1-18

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... of Jesus, when we accept not only the truth and the joy of the Resurrection but let them live in our hearts and fill us with hope, we are REFINED. The old ways, the old worldly ways get slowly stripped away. As we INCLINE more and more toward God. We get REFINED ... us, now all we have to do is claim Him. Once we accept Him as Lord and Savior, we become heirs to all the promises and hope and treasures of heaven. Today we stand in "The Dawn of Forever." We can return to the darkness of the tomb. Or we can walk ...

1057. The Thoughts of Our Hearts

Luke 2:22-40

Sermon

Robert J. Elder

... to see him before he died. He was as obedient to his dreams as he was to the law. Every day he looked hopefully into the faces of everyone he saw. One morning, there sat Simeon, staring aimlessly at the breakfast dishes, wondering what would fill the ... back on the road to Nazareth, they were glad to be leaving Jerusalem, with all of its spiritual fervency, behind them. Certainly they hoped they wouldn't have to make the trip there again soon. They would be happy to enter their little village once again out ...

1058. The Story That Shapes Us

Philippians 2:5-11

Sermon

Nancy Kraft

... a couple of examples from our American culture.1 One very common master story in our culture is the rags-to-riches story of success. If we work hard, we can all achieve great things. In this story, poverty is a temporary state and there's always the hope that things will get better for the deserving. Each person is given the same opportunity to succeed, based on his or her own merits. The measurement of success is financial wealth, and it has no limits. In this story, if more is better, than even more is ...

1059. Death Is Swallowed Up Forever

Isaiah 25:6-9

Sermon

Robert A. Hausman

... Lazarus out of the grave is only an echo of the call that called to life Jesus, the firstfruit, and will call us forth also. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised and we shall be saved. In the meantime, we live in hope. It is a hope expressed in endlessly beautiful and challenging visions in the book of the Revelation of John. The first image is cosmic. "I saw a new heaven and a new earth" — a restoration of creation, a return to paradise, a starting over. "And the sea was no more." The ...

1060. Meet in the Middle

2 Cor. 5:18-19

Illustration

Tim Kimmel

... the church with kerosene until they smelled the smoke. The dried wooden skin of the small church quickly ignited. Fumes filled the structure as tongues of flame began to lick the baseboard on the interior walls. There was an immediate rush for the windows. But momentary hope recoiled in horror as the men climbing out the windows came crashing back in their bodies ripped by a hail of bullets. The good pastor knew it was the end. With a calm that comes from confidence, he led his congregation in a hymn whose ...

1061. Crying at the Tomb

John 20:10-18

Sermon

King Duncan

... and heart and to know that the Good News really is true. Christ lives and because he lives, you and I can receive the gift of eternal life. It is natural for us to have these yearnings. Even the most skeptical among us still have a glimmer of hope that the Easter story is true—that Christ has been raised from the dead. There was a report sometime back in the The Futurist magazine. The Futurist is a magazine for people who seek to anticipate the changes that are taking place in our society. The subject of ...

1062. Walls, Walls, Everywhere Walls

Ephesians 2:11-22

Sermon

King Duncan

... what we can do is take responsibility for our lives, to pray for God’s love to reside within us, and then live out that love on a day-to-day basis so that everyone we come into contact with is touched by that love. Do you see any other hope for the world? I don’t know of one. We need leaders and we need citizens who are committed to love, committed to peace and committed to justice in this world . . . or hatred will destroy us all. Surely, if we are totally committed to it, we can find new solutions ...

1063. Holy Smokes! God Is Here

John 6:1-15

Sermon

King Duncan

... that worship services should always conclude sharply at noon. He keeps teaching and healing people long into the afternoon. People are sitting there with their mouths open in awe at his wisdom and his acts of healing. It is a wonderful event. It’s all you had hoped it would be and more. However, your stomach is beginning to growl. You had come expecting that the event would last an hour or so; you hadn’t even thought to pack a lunch. Not a brilliant move. Is there a village nearby where you can grab ...

1064. Advocate and Redeemer

John 14:23-29

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... a Christ we have not seen? Will we trust the Messiah's promise that death has been overcome, even at the moment we feel most without hope? Will we live in the kingdom now, playing by kingdom rules? Sometimes we say we want to live the resurrection. Sometimes we want to ... beyond the flesh? That's what Jesus is asking us to do. There is a place where our innocence, our expectations, our hope, is vindicated. Heaven and earth will pass away, but God's word will not pass away. The grass withers, the flower fades ...

1065. Epiphany

Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14, Isaiah 60:1-6, Matthew 2:1-12, Ephesians 3:1-12

Bulletin Aid

Julia Ross Strope

... when we are magi and bring our best gifts to God. Leader: God quite clearly is here — People: in each of us! Leader: We have hopes that when the stars shine just right, we will find the baby who grows up to be our teacher and guide. People: We will search ... and expect justice and peace. The sky gazers, attuned to the movement of the stars and their own dreams, guard the baby and their hope. Epiphany means to see clearly. God is clearly seen at work in the sky and with the magi who knew the scriptures well ...

1066. Acts of God?

Luke 13:1-9

Sermon

Brett Blair

... 1508 soldiers in Iraq tells me that peace has an enormous price (the number is deaths in combat activities). The burial of 350 children last year in Russia tells me that evil still wins in this world. Don’t get me wrong. I as much as any man have hope in the resurrection. I simply cannot deny the picture painted by the Psalmist when he asks, “Will the Lord cast off for ever?” And will he be favorable no more? Is his mercy clean gone forever? Doth his promise fail forever more? Hath God forgotten to be ...

1067. When God Adds Insult to Injury

Colossians 2:6-15

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

... not a warm, comforting, fuzzy, feel good. Faith was gritting our teeth, walking through the agony and helplessness of addiction recovery, and continuing to put one foot in front of the other, doing what we were told was the right thing to do, and trusting, praying, and hoping that God was in control, that our tortuous journey would end, and that on the other side was a life worth living. Faith happens when we are at our most desperate moments, and we hold our heads up, doing what we hear God tell us in our ...

1068. Saint and Sinner

Romans 3:21-31

Sermon

Scott Suskovic

... pretty decent. Nonsense! Stop the lies. Each one of us silently jingles in our pockets the nails from the cross. I put him there. I nailed him there. I crucified Jesus. I am powerless over sin. Step Two: Turn your life over to God. For if there is any hope for me, any hope at all beyond the grave, it will not come from me. I cannot get myself out of this box, this hole, this hell — I need to be lifted out from a power outside of me. Turn your life over to God. Step Three: Come clean. In your own ...

1069. Lessons From a Hurricane

Jeremiah 17:5-10

Sermon

Derl G. Keefer

... After a short time far away in Iowa, God used a congregation that was yielded to him to carry Herbert, his family, and several others from his little congregation to that state where they assisted them in housing, food, and help.[3] God will fill us with courage and hope as we continue to trust him in our hurricanes of life! II. Exist With God In Life's Hurricanes (Jeremiah 17:7-8) Jeremiah says in verse 6 that they will be like a desert shrub that exists in the desert parched land. Their lives are like the ...

1070. The 5 Worst Things Christians Say After A Tragedy

Luke 13:1-9

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... the end of every good action movie the big time bad guy finally gets what is coming to him. When the good guy hero dispatches the evil-doer, the audience cheers. Obviously this final judgment was well deserved and proved that the wicked will be punished — hopefully in some dramatic and dreadful way. We all like to believe in cosmic come-uppance. In this week’s gospel text some of those listening to Jesus speak ask him to comment on some “current events” of the day. The tragedies reported by those in ...

1071. The Healing Fountain of Tears

Revelation 7:9-17

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... they take over the kitchen. Your washing machine dies and suddenly you have no clean underwear and the laundry room turns into a Fort Knox for funky smells. Or, worst of all, something in your life breaks — a relationship, a promise, a dream, a hope, a haven — and a snowballing of bad side-effects start stinking up your world more than you could have ever imagined. We are not clean. We are creatures. And creatures stink and sweat and stain everything we touch with sins and shortcomings. Our critical ...

1072. Voice in a Vacuum

Genesis 12:1-8

Sermon

Tony Everett

... question. If you were in a vacuum and I was speaking to you, would you be able to hear my voice?” “Uh, that depends, I guess,” Bob stammered. “Yeah, it depends all right,” Bill added. “Okay, go on. It depends on what?” asked Mr. Jones, hoping against hope that Bob and Bill had at least paid some attention to the part of the lecture that described how sound waves travel through air. No such luck, Mr. Jones. Together Bob and Bill proclaimed, “It depends on whether or not the vacuum is on or ...

1073. The Key to Getting Enough Rest

Matthew 11:25-30

Sermon

King Duncan

... the 65-year-old husband. “I could feel the heat from the exhaust system coming through the sheets.” Still, that wasn’t enough to wake his wife. He had to shake her awake after the crash. (4) Being able to sleep like that is a gift, and I hope that some of you are so gifted. But many of us pride ourselves on being able to push through our need for sleep. We idolize Thomas Edison, who claimed he could live on fifteen minute naps. Somehow we forget Albert Einstein, who averaged eleven hours of sleep a ...

1074. The Knot: Tied

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon

James Merritt

... :7, ESV) That means loves takes the long view and not the short view. It keeps the big picture in mind. It hangs in there and refuses to quit. It takes seriously those words, “til death do us part.” You can’t kill a love that bears, believes, hopes, and endures all things. It is a love that will endure forever. Let me tell you what this verse says. This verse is for that vow you took when you said, “For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.” Marriage is not multiple ...

1075. Is the Doctor in Today?

Mark 5:21-43

Sermon

King Duncan

... it. Faith will determine your success in the workplace and even in your relationships. There may be disappointments and setbacks in any important endeavor, but you will not be defeated until you let go of your faith. As long as there is God, there is hope. In a book titled God’s Little Devotional Book there is a story that I find very inspiring. It is about a woman named Mary Manachi. Shortly after Manachi gave birth to her second child, Marylou, Marylou was diagnosed with Cooley’s anemia. This is ...

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