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 1401 to 1425 of 4933 results

1401. Like Parent, Like Child

Matthew 22:15-22

Sermon

King Duncan

A little boy was in church one Sunday morning with his grandmother. Everything went well until it was time for the offering. The grandmother began to frantically search through her purse, but she couldn’t find her offering envelope. Apparently she had left it at home. It was a most embarrassing moment for her as she kept looking through her purse for something to put in the collection plate. Her grandson sensed her dilemma. The little boy had a solution to her problem. “Here, Gramma,” he told her, “you ...

1402. The Marvelous Meaning of the Cross

Galatians 6:11-18

Sermon

Eric Ritz

Toward the end of that marvelous classic, Pilgrim''s Progress, the character, Christian, is moving with tremendous difficulty on the highway between the walls of salvation. His heavy burden makes it almost impossible to move, though he slowly inches along. Finally, he reaches an elevated place upon which there stands a cross and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulcher. As Bunyan describes it: Just as Christian came up to the cross, his burden was loosened from his shoulders and fell from his back and ...

1403. He's Back

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

Mark Trotter

You all know what it is like at the airport during the holidays, cars piled up in big traffic jams. You can't even get up to the curb these days of the year. There was a woman who went out to the airport to pick up some friends who were coming to visit her at Christmas time. She could only get as close as about a block away, but she could see her friends standing at the curb. So she got out of the car, and hollered, "Alice, Kathy, over here, over here." They heard this familiar voice, picked up their bags ...

1404. Taking Aim

Acts 2:14-41

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

In 1221 the young Dominican order took on a new member who would ultimately be known as Peter Martyr. Young Peter's parents had been members of the Cathari sect, but Peter was drawn to the Dominicans while a student at the University of Bologna. A gifted and zealous speaker, Friar Peter became known for his preaching throughout Lombardy. But his notoriety begat jealousy and suspicion. He was accused of immorality (letting women into his monk's cell) and he argued with far too much success and conviction ...

1405. Who Let the Dogs Out?

Romans 13:8-14

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Last Christmas, K-Mart (or was it Wal-Mart?) announced it would be open for 82 hours straight with all sorts of bargains. On the morning the selling marathon began, over one hundred people were lined up waiting to get into the store. Some of them had been there for two or three hours. The crowds watched in disbelief as a man walked past the entire crowd, and began to squeeze himself in at the head of the line. As if with a single motion, the crowd moved him back to the end of the line. The man tried again ...

1406. The Candles of Advent - Year A

Bulletin Aid

Richard J. Fairchild

THE FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT: HOPE INTROIT - O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel. VOICE - Today is the first Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of Hope. VOICE - Our hope is in God, and in his son Jesus Christ. He is the one appointed by God to be judge of all things. He is the one through whom God has promised to save and redeem his people. VOICE - We light this candle today to ...

1407. Don't Look Back, Remember Lot's Wife

Genesis 19:24-26

Sermon

James W. Moore

When I was in the tenth grade in high school, I was a sprinter on the Memphis Tech High School track team. Back then, tenth grade was the first year of high school, so I was a real rookie on the track team. I had been running: - The one hundred yard dash. - I was also running on the sprint relay teams. - In addition, I was doing the long jump and the high jump. One day in a practice track meet, the coach suddenly decided to try me in the two hundred and twenty yard dash. I had never run this event before, ...

1408. Seeker-Friendly

Luke 15:1-10

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Jesus came to seek and save ... those who are lost. A family that wasn't in the practice of going to church attended the large, formal wedding of a friend. The family's youngest child, age three, sat perched on his father's knee watching all the comings and goings with great interest. There came a time in the service when a hymn was to be sung, and the organist crashed confidently into the opening chords of the song, putting the "pedal to the metal" in order to make a really good show. Immediately, the ...

1409. The Trinity

John 16:5-16

Sermon

A preacher proudly boasted that he does not preach doctrinal sermons. They are boring he asserts and people do not understand or relate to them. Further, he claimed, I am a preacher and not a theologian. I get down do the practical issues and simply preach Christ crucified. His thinking is faulty at several points. First, he is wrong when he says that he is not a theologian. The fact is that everyone to a certain extent is a theologian. Theology is nothing more than what you think about God. Well, shouts ...

1410. The Ministry Of Do WOP

James 1:17-27

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

A radio announcer on KLOS in Los Angeles, about thirty minutes after a major earthquake, made these two statements: "The telephone company is urging people to please not use the telephone unless it is absolutely necessary in order to keep the lines open for emergency personnel. We'll be right back after this break to give away a pair of Phil Collins concert tickets to caller number 95." (1) A Major was assigned to a new office on a military base. While working to set up his office a Private knocked on his ...

1411. A Strange Authority

Mark 6:1-13

Sermon

Kristin Borsgard Wee

When I was just barely into my teens, I went through a period of time when I wanted to be someone else. I didn't like the way I looked. I was self-conscious about the spaces in my teeth. I hated that the veins in my hands stuck out. I wanted to be just like my friend, Marilyn. She was perfect — in everything — and, the boys liked her. I used to stand in front of the mirror and practice smiling like Marilyn. For a while, I dressed like she dressed, walked like she walked, and laughed like she laughed. But, ...

1412. The Coat Off Your Back

Luke 3:7-18

Sermon

Cynthia Cowen

Thanksgiving — cornucopias, fall harvests, turkey and pumpkin pie, corn stalks, and scarecrows — outward signs associated with the holiday we celebrated only seventeen days ago. Even before Halloween and Thanksgiving ended, holiday colors had changed. Orange pumpkin lights were replaced by white or multicolored twinkling lights. A small town policeman looks forward every year to hanging his outside Christmas lights. His goal is to measure up to Chevy Chase's outlandish display in the movie, Christmas ...

1413. Jerusalem’s Siege, in Parable and Sign

Ezekiel 24:1-14, Ezekiel 24:15-27

Understanding Series

Steven Tuell

Ezekiel 24 contains two discrete units. The first, verses 1–14, picks up on an image from 11:3: Jerusalem as a cooking pot. The parable opens with the word of the LORD came to me, and a very important date: the day when the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem began (v. 2). It closes with the oracular formula declares the Sovereign LORD (v. 14). The second unit describes the most difficult sign-act in this book. Here God forbids Ezekiel to mourn the death of his wife (vv. 15–27; for other sign-acts in Ezekiel, ...

1414. “They Will Proclaim the Works of God and Ponder What He Has Done”

Psalm 64:1-10

Teach the Text

C. Hassell Bullock

Big Idea: God outstrategizes evil and its perpetrators and exhausts their arsenal of weapons. Understanding the Text Psalm 64 is an individual lament, identifying the problem that stimulated the psalmist as the “threat of the enemy,” the “conspiracy of the wicked,” and the “plots of evildoers” (64:1–2). It sums up with the aphoristic commentary of verse 6c: “Surely the human mind and heart are cunning” (lit., “the inward person and heart are deep”). In addition to this detailed description of the problem ( ...

1415. Lamb and Wolves

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Sermon

Dave Zuchelli

In last week’s lectionary passage (Luke 9:51-56), we were told that Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem. This didn’t mean he was making a beeline toward the city, but it was clear the Holy City was his goal. Many things happened along the way to the cross. He met hundreds of people, taught most of them, and healed many. He did this by moving from village to village, and town to town. We don’t talk about it much, but this isn’t something he did in a helter-skelter manner. It appears that, after his ...

1416. Good Witnesses

2 Peter 1:19

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

Object: A copy of the Bible Lesson: Good morning, boys and girls. Today I have a book with me which you all know about. What famous book is this? (Hold up Bible. Let them respond.) Yes, this is a copy of the Bible. We use this book from which to read our lessons each Sunday, don't we, boys and girls? Does anyone know when the Bible is used for something besides reading? (Let them guess.) Well, the Bible is used in a court of law. If you ever have to go to court to be a witness in somebody's trial, you will ...

1417. Satisfaction Gauranteed

Sermon

Paul E. Robinson

I remember a song of some years back that I never liked. The singer screamed as much as he sang, and he repeated the words over and over again. But the message and the title of the song I remember well, and so will you: "I can't get no satisfaction!" As we think about our lives today, is it not true that there are those days, those weeks, and those periods in our lives when we could easily intone with great feeling, "I can't get no satisfaction"? My big, red, unabridged power-dictionary I quote now and ...

1418. Palm Sunday

Bulletin Aid

Jack Brownlee

ORDER OF SERVICE Opening Words L: Let us worship God, our creator and redeemer, the God of Love. P: God continually preserves and sustains us. L: We have been forgiven with a powerful and engaging love. P: Christ has entered into our hearts and lives, waiting for us to recognize his Lordship over us. Hymn "All Glory Laud And Honor" Prayer Of Confession (Unison) Our hearts break, O Lord, as we watch the poverty and loneliness that confront us on the street and in the news: we feel powerless to respond. We ...

1419. Keep Spinning

1 John 4:7-21

Children's Sermon

Kenneth Mortonson

Purpose: To show our need for regular worship and study; and to see our need to put into practice what we have learned from God. Materials: A piece of cardboard and a piece of string, about four feet long. Special Preparation: Draw a five or six inch circle on the piece of cardboard and cut out the disk. Punch two small holes in the disk, about one-eighth of an inch on either side of the center of the circle. Loop the string through these two holes and tie the ends together. Hold the knot in one hand and ...

1420. Large Or Small

Matthew 6:25-34

Children's Sermon

Mark A. Hultquist

Object: Five sheets of paper, 8 1/2 x 11, each with a word printed on it - moving from very large print which can be seen at a distance to very small print; a magnifying glass. Lesson: Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them Have you seen those charts used at the eye doctor's office? The doctor has a long chart on the wall with different letters on it and he asks you to read each line to see how good your vision is. Have any of ...

1421. No Snap Courses

Luke 17:1-10

Sermon

Carveth Mitchell

More than a century ago Sydney Smith wrote in his Lady Holland’s Memoir these disturbing words: "Whoever wishes to imply the absence of everything agreeable and inviting, he calls it a sermon." How shall we escape that indictment today? When we read verses seven through ten in today’s Gospel, it is somewhat shocking to read that Jesus said this in describing our relationship with God. We must remember, however, that like most parables, this is only a partial view of God. There is no mention here, for ...

1422. Christmas Now!

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Theodore L. Yewey

Christmas has come and gone for another year. And we are left remembering, wondering, and a little more financially embarrassed than we were a few weeks ago. In some there is a cynicism as seen in this poem: CHRISTMAS PAST The carnival has ended. Marionette "Jesu" no longer performs At the whim of carolers’ tunes. Neon stars diminish and disappear. Plastic virgins steal away To be hidden among the angel suits. Brown "evergreens" stand naked and embarassed. Love seeks a place to hide Amid shepherds’ crooks ...

1423. Butterflies and Jesus

Mark 9:2-13

Sermon

Daniel G. Mueller

As I was working on my sermon this past week I toyed with the idea of bringing a live butterfly along with me to church this morning so I could let it go right about now, as an attention getter. I decided against doing that, however, because I was afraid it would get your attention so well that I might never get it back again. I had visions of all of you sitting out there spending the rest of the service distracted as you followed the butterfly around, your heads bobbing up and down after it. So I brought ...

1424. Work (Labor Day)

Genesis 1:1 - 2:25

Sermon

David E. Leininger

A Christian Understanding of Work...an appropriate topic for a Labor Day weekend. If most Christians were asked for their understanding of work, they probably would say WE OUGHTA. Those words we just read from Genesis are clear in saying that, from the very beginning, God planned for us to work: work was a part of God's good creation. Martin Luther said, "God gives every bird its food, but he does not throw it into the nest." Our society can buy that. Kennan Wilson, the founder of the Holiday Inn chain ...

1425. Afraid Of The Water

Mark 1:9-13

Sermon

King Duncan

A family once had a backyard pool. It was an above-ground pool without a shallow end. There were life-jackets for the young children who had not yet learned to swim. Some friends were visiting and the children were bobbing in the middle of the pool having a great time. All except one little fellow who was holding on for dear life to the edge. He was frightened and cold. "Hand over hand he went around the edge only occasionally letting go with both hands for a terrified instant." He was so afraid that he ...

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