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 126 to 150 of 1249 results
Sermon
King Duncan
... the secular world's values. Maybe it would be helpful, though, if you would discuss values with your children on the way home from church today. You may learn some frightening truths. That is one reason many of us are not more receptive to the voice of God - we have adopted the secular spirit of the society in which we live. THERE ARE OTHERS OF US WHO MIGHT BE MORE RECEPTIVE TO THE GOOD NEWS BUT WE ARE TURNED OFF BY THE PERSONAL WEAKNESSES OF MANY WHO CLAIM TO SPEAK IN GOD'S NAME. The sad saga of PTL's Jim ...
Sermon
King Duncan
... he asked if he could read the Scriptures and have a prayer. When they responded in the affirmative, he asked if there was anything in particular that they would like to have included in the prayer. The young wife responded, "Please pray that we will be able to adopt a child. We have been on the waiting list for a long time." He then asked if they had found it impossible to have children of their own. They shared how they had been to several doctors to seek help so that they could have children. All efforts ...
128. God's Children
Romans 8:1-17
Children's Sermon
King Duncan
... you don't "belong" in that family so you are shy. Our scripture today tells us that we should always act like God's children and not be shy. We need to realize that He adopted us when we asked Jesus into our hearts. Now we are really God's children. Have any of you been adopted into your families or do you know someone who is adopted? They don't have to be shy in that family anymore because they really belong there. That is the way it is in God's family. We really belong there and should act like it ...
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
... whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand...” Paul is making it clear that what Jesus revealed to us is grace. he talked about it in a lot of different ways: as love, forgiveness, reconciliation. He defined it as adoption -- we’re adopted as sons and daughters of God. All the images combine to demonstrate an undeserved gift, freely given, without price. That was what was so astounding to Paul and he never ceased writing about it. This was also the rediscovery of Martin Luther that ...
130. Proper 11
Genesis 28:10-22, Romans 8:1-17, Romans 8:18-27, Matthew 13:24-30, Matthew 13:36-43
Sermon Aid
John R. Brokhoff
... and creature. b. The creature and creation in need of redemption - vv. 19, 20. 1. Creature's fall into sin. 2. Creation's bondage to decay. c. The Creator's redemption of creation and creature - vv. 21-23. 1. Creation's liberation from decay. 2. Creature's adoption as sons of God. 2. Temporary Loss For Permanent Gain (8:18-23). Need: We live in an interim period. Now we have suffering, later permanent glory. Now we are children of God but not fully. In this transitional period on earth, we wait, groan, and ...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... Pairuno, Flona Gallan, and Feri Cornelia, and tens of thousands more. One of the greatest resurrections that could come out of this deadly tsunami is if individual churches were to adopt individual communities in the 11 countries affected by the tsunami. What if this church adopted a named community for prayer and support? What if your family adopted a named family who suffered the loss of loved ones for prayer and support. You will have to hunt to find them. But next week, during our prayer time, will ...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... Forget talk-show derangement. It's less and less necessary for us to see pictures of mom and dad in order to figure out who passed on what kind of traits or characteristics, weaknesses or strengths, to make up our individual genome. In a very short time, adopted children will no longer be able to argue that they need to know their biological parents in order to discover their medical history. All the information about us is stamped and available on every gene found in every cell of our body. We are our own ...
133. Baby Blues
1 Samuel 1:4-20
Sermon
Mary S. Lautensleger
... God instead. As time dragged on, Hannah began to question God. Did God think she was unworthy of motherhood? Was infertility some kind of celestial punishment she had earned? Since she had so much love to offer to a child, Hannah began to think about adoption as an alternative to giving birth. She had heard that the only babies readily available were those who had physical problems or were of a different nationality. What would people say if they heard she was raising an Ammonite or a Moabite baby in her ...
134. Ephesians 1:15-23
Ephesians 1:15-23
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... we tend to gloss over the harshness of Jesus' words to the "goats." Jesus' judgment against those who did nothing for others reveals that there is a price tag on all of God's blessings. In return for God's gifts love and forgiveness, salvation, redemption, adoption, an eternal life of blessing there is something required of us: that we love one another. Nothing got Jesus so angry as when good people treated each other badly; nothing got Jesus' goat so much as when people of faith failed to show love for one ...
135. Ephesians 1:3-14
Ephesians 1:3-14
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... sections that the author begins "in him," meaning of course "in Christ." These "in him" sections (vv.7, 11, 13) list the blessings we owe to God's work in Jesus Christ. It is "in him" that God's predestined plan for human redemption and adoption becomes a reality. The price paid for our redemption is high, however no less than "his blood," the way of the cross. Our prior convictions and guilty conditions are highlighted by the Greek term used here for "forgiveness" (aphesis). Aphesis was the legal term used ...
136. Baptism Of Our Lord
Mark 1:9-13, Mark 1:1-8, Acts 19:1-22, Genesis 1:1-2:3
Sermon Aid
John R. Brokhoff
... Life is a great privilege and adventure. It began on your birthday. b. The day of your rebirth baptism "Was baptized by John" (v. 9). c. Why baptism is the second greatest day in your life 1. New birth "The Spirit descending upon him like a dove" (v. 10). 2. Adoption into God's family "My beloved Son" (v. 11). 3. Were you at your baptism? (1:9-11). Need: How can one be baptized and not be there? It is possible for a candidate to be physically present but at the same time be unaware of the meaning of baptism ...
137. Penguins in Mission
Ephesians 1:1-14
Sermon
King Duncan
... responsibility. In the second place, says our lesson, we are chosen to live as God’s children. Listen again to Paul’s words: “In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ . . .” Those are words of encouragement. We were chosen “in love . . . to be adopted as his sons.” When children learn they are adopted they know that they were truly desired by their parents. They didn’t just happen. They weren’t accidents. Their parents went to a lot of expense to bring them ...
Sermon
John Jamison
... treated like slaves, and being constantly punished for breaking endless rules and laws, Paul suggests that they are more like adopted children, or sons of God. He even uses the term, Abba, which in simple language means "daddy." God is that ... daddy. My friends, I believe this is what Paul had in mind as he wrote these few paragraphs to the Romans. When Paul said that we were now adopted as sons of God; this is the kind of father of which we are the sons. The choice between law and love is a simple one. Oh, but ...
Sermon
Billy D. Strayhorn
... Father is not like that. In Galatians 4:4-7 (NRSV) Paul writes: [4] But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, [5] in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. [6] And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" [7] So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God. In other words, in God's Kingdom ...
140. With Our Own Eyes
2 Peter 1:16-21
Sermon
John N. Brittain
... " (2 Peter 1:20-21). This pseudo-gospel of success represents a very real twenty-first-century threat to the gospel from within and from without. It represents a kind of entrepreneurial free-market capitalism that, rather than being critiqued by the churches, has been adopted by them. Because the whole context of scripture, what we have collectively seen with our own eyes, is put aside in favor of teachers who suit our desires, as 2 Timothy 4:3 would put it. This is not just theological fretting. It really ...
Sermon
Mary S. Lautensleger
... to hear those words from a trusted relative, surprise would be an understatement, I'm sure. Total shock would probably be more descriptive terminology for your emotional state as you examined the official court record and your original birth certificate. "Adopted" does describe each of us though, because we have been adopted by God into God's family. How do we know? The Bible tells us so. When the Spirit of God dwells within us, we are given new birth as God's children, and new life (Romans 8:11). We are ...
Sermon
Richard Gribble
... this Christmas is Jesus himself. He brings with him all sorts of hidden gifts. As the homeless man and the little boy’s mother each received hidden gifts at Christmas, so too Jesus showers us with gifts beyond our imagination. We have been chosen as God’s adopted children. Jesus came to ransom us and to forgive our sins. God’s plan to bring the world together in Christ has been revealed to us, and we have become inheritors of life, the fullness of life today and eternal life tomorrow. May we have the ...
Sermon
Richard Gribble
... this Christmas is Jesus himself. He brings with him all sorts of hidden gifts. As the homeless man and the little boy's mother each received hidden gifts at Christmas, so too Jesus showers us with gifts beyond our imagination. We have been chosen as God's adopted children. Jesus came to ransom us and to forgive our sins. God's plan to bring the world together in Christ has been revealed to us, and we have become inheritors of life, the fullness of life today and eternal life tomorrow. May we have the ...
144. Duuuh!
John 14:15-31
Sermon
David O. Bales
... born in our very lives — God’s gift to the world through each of us. For the last half of my life I’ve returned repeatedly to compare Jesus’ Spirit within us to what a man told about his daughter. His daughter was adopted and she’d never known her biological parents. When this adopted daughter was grown and gave birth to her first child, she held the newborn infant in her arms. She said, “For the first time in my life, I’m touching my own flesh and blood.” When we allow Jesus to be born into ...
Sermon
King Duncan
... God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.” What great good news! We are God’s chosen ones. His elect. God doesn’t want our lives ...
Sermon
... smile, the affirmation of sonship. I don’t have to be perfect, I’m not expected to never feel pain or worry or care. But I’m expected to know whose I am, and that I belong. And that for whatever extravagant, outrageous reason, I’ve been loved and adopted by the One True God.” (1) Our lesson from Ephesians begins like this: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the ...
Understanding Series
David J. Williams
... this was an instance—by no means out of character—in which he simply acted without thinking. Barnabas did the same (Gal. 2:13), and it only goes to show how strong a hold the old ways still had on these people and how hard it was for them to adopt a new way of life. Another argument brought against the identification of Acts 15:1–29 with Galatians 2:1–10 is that the Galatians passage is only the second visit mentioned by Paul in the letter, whereas Acts 15:1–29 is Paul’s third. This is a problem ...
148. In Corinth
Acts 18:1-17
Understanding Series
David J. Williams
... lictors drive the petitioners from his court. 18:17 What happened then is not clear except that they all turned on Sosthenes the synagogue ruler and beat him (cf. v. 8). Some manuscripts give an explanation of who they were, but the best reading (adopted by NIV) leaves them unnamed. One suggestion is that, despite Luke’s failure to mark the change of subject, it was the crowd who set upon Sosthenes. Encouraged by Gallio’s attitude, they were quick to show their own contempt for the Jews. Alternatively ...
149. The God of All Comfort
2 Corinthians 1:1-11
Understanding Series
James M. Scott
... him on a mission to the Philippian church (Phil. 2:19–24). Paul calls Timothy our brother. There are two possible ways to interpret this expression. On the one hand, the first person plural (our) may include the Corinthians with Paul as brothers of Timothy. As adopted sons of God (cf. Gal. 4:6; Rom. 8:15), believers are united as “brothers” in Christ, who is the Son of God and “firstborn” brother into whose image all believers will be transformed at the Parousia (cf. Rom. 8:23, 29; 2 Cor. 3:18 ...
150. Paul Opposes Peter
Galatians 2:11-21
Understanding Series
L. Ann Jervis
... s Hypocrisy 2:18–21 Paul continues to argue with Peter by pointing out that adding the law to the gospel would be to go backward, to rebuild what has already been destroyed and so to admit that one was mistaken all along. If Paul were now to adopt the law it would effectively prove that he was a lawbreaker when he believed in Christ as the means of justification. Paul reasons that rather than becoming a “lawbreaker” he has become one able to live for God. He has not broken the law but rather died to ...
Showing results