Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: captured, trapped, catch, took, arrested, grabbed, taken, seized, stuck, apprehended, picked up, entangled, nabbed, jammed, abducted, acquired, got, bagged, gotten, netted, cornered, appropriated, tangled, snared, ensnared

Antonyms: free, freed, unconfined, loose, unrestrained, set free, uncuffed, emancipated, enfranchised, released, ambiguous, flaccid, let go, discharged, unbound, uncaged, unchained, unfettered, unleashed, unshackled, untied, avoided, discounted, disregarded, missed

Showing 176 to 200 of 2233 results

176. Living Sacrifices

Matthew 16:21-28

Sermon

William J. Carl

... underprivileged people. When he asked her what had inspired her Christian faith and action, she shared her story of how seeing another Christian’s faith converted her. She was a Jew fleeing the German Gestapo in France during World War II. She knew she was close to being caught and she wanted to give up. When she came to the home of a French Huguenot, a widow working with the underground came to tell her it was time to flee to a new place. This Jewish lady said, “It’s no use, Ma’am, they’ll find ...

177. Breakfast on the Beach

John 21:1-14

Sermon

Steven Burt

... him to put out a little from the land. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat. When he had finished speaking, Jesus told Simon to put out into the deep water and let down his nets. But Simon protested, “Master, we toiled all night and caught nothingl But if you insist I will let down the nets.” And when they had done so, they enclosed a great shoal of fish; as their nets were breaking, they beckoned to their partners in the other boat to come and assist them. The fish filled both the boats ...

178. You Must Become As A Child

Mark 10:13-16

Sermon

Brett Blair

... very young children have an openness to all. I suppose most of us older folks remember Rogers and Hamersteins movie South Pacific. There is a song, sung by Mitzi Gainer, entitled: "You've got To Be Carefully Taught." If you are not careful, you will get so caught up with the catchy tune and the pretty face and you will miss the biting sarcasm that is in this song. It reminds us that hates and prejudices are taught behavior. For children the natural order is openness. "I'ts Got to be drummed in their dear ...

179. Redrawing The Landscape

Multiple Scriptures

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... tasks in growing up is that of accepting that we are not the axis around which everyone and everything revolves, that there are other people who are interested in themselves and are not particularly interested in us."39 We get angry when we feel helpless. We get caught in some bureaucratic system that we feel helpless to influence and we lash out before we get gobbled up. We get angry when we feel we are being neglected or ignored. What happens to us when we get angry? Hate pumps up our blood pressure. More ...

180. The Rich Young Ruler

Mark 10:17-31

Sermon

Brett Blair

... this by working his way into her heart. Instead of simply being himself and letting her accept him for who he is he gets all caught up in doing things. He takes her to the movies. He buys her jewelry. He jumps at her every beckon. There is nothing that he ... despair that I know. Notice that the rich young ruler's question was, “What must I DO to receive life?” You see he was caught up in this game of doing things. But it had not brought him fulfillment. He still had a nagging sense that there was something ...

181. Saved By Grace

Exodus 32:1-33:6

Sermon

Walter Kimbrough

... intensified. Sin gets your attention and causes you to want the very thing that will destroy you. Obviously, the time in the center of the garden was fabulous to the eye and Satan took advantage of them. Satan does the same thing to us today. We are caught in the trap of rationalizing the meaning of what God said. In other words, an attempt is made to take the word of God and make it fit our situation, giving our sinful actions justification. Even though the people of today are intellectually astute, sin is ...

182. Competition In The Kingdom?

Matthew 20:17-19

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... already. Baptism has given us all that we will ever need; nothing could be more estimable or admirable. We are God's people! And that makes us servants of Christ and our neighbor. Of course, the role of a servant is not all that appealing to the crowd caught up in worldly things. We in the church are drawn to the idea at first. We want a "hassle-free Christianity." We are reminded once again that God never gives us what we expect. I am reminded of those officers in that southern parish who wanted their ...

183. Are You Asking The Right Questions?

Zechariah 7:1-14

Sermon

Richard Hasler

... weaker persons and not to devise evil in their hearts (7:8-10). What about our own day? Are we asking the right questions? Are we really absorbed in the nature and function of our religious devotion and worship, or are we like the Bethel delegation caught up in the self-centeredness of things that do not really matter? In our young congregation we have had to re-examine our motives from the start of our existence. In a new church development the pressure is tremendous to ask survival questions rather than ...

184. Crown Him Lord!

Luke 23:26-43

Sermon

Theodore F. Schneider

... walled garden" becomes "my Father's house" of "many rooms," to which Jesus is going to prepare a place for us. Paul comforts the troubled Christians at Thessalonica with the assurance that the dead in Christ will be raised first, and "then we who are alive shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we always be with the Lord." Whether we speak of a walled garden, a house of many rooms, or being gathered together in the clouds, it matters not! The important ...

185. Captive To The Word Of God

John 8:31-41

Sermon

Theodore F. Schneider

... , lest we criticize others without charity and fail to keep vigilance in our own souls. Isn't it so! Just as the institutions of Judaism of the first century had been caught up into a centuries-old struggle for survival in a world that was secularly and politically hostile, so the Roman Catholic Church had been caught up in issues of spiritual and secular concern. The church was as institutionally defensive and protective of its traditions and authority as were the Sanhedrin and priests of Jesus' day. While ...

186. Repent Your Way To A Merry Christmas

Luke 3:1-20

Sermon

Brett Blair

... minimized, if not altogether eliminated. For many the word repentance is a word that belongs to yesterday. It is equated with sackcloth and ashes and mourners benches. Some see repentance as something that we do only if we get caught. But repentance is far more than simply blurting out "I'm Sorry" if we get caught cheating on the IRS or our wife. Nor is repentance merely turning over a new leaf. I will have to admit that one of my favorite times of the week is Sunday after the evening worship service. The ...

187. The Butterfly Rock

Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

Carl Jech

... of our cocoons. It calls us to embrace life with all its surprises and changes. It calls us to have an open mind about what God can do with our future. The surprising and paradoxical symbol of "the butterfly rock" calls us all to be caught up in the kind of metamorphosis in which Peter was caught up. The message of Easter is that a cocoon is a nice place to be from! 2. A Symbol Is A Great Place To Be From For the next six weeks we are going to be considering some other surprising and paradoxical symbols of ...

188. Some Women's Stories

John 7:45--8:11

Sermon

Carl Jech

... story of the woman at the well, Jesus explains and demonstrates by his actions that those who worship "in spirit and in truth" may find themselves protesting social customs - like the establishment of male dominance - in the name of higher principles. But the story of the woman caught in adultery from our main text here in John 8 is not just a woman's story. It is a story that reinforces a consistent theme in John's Gospel, the theme stated most eloquently in the famous John 3:16-17 passage: "God so loved ...

189. Throw Your Heart at the Sky

John 21:1-14

Sermon

Carl Jech

... heart at the sky"! What a marvelous way to personalize the universe which can sometimes appear to be cold and uncaring. To have simple faith and trust in God's grace is to throw our heart at the sky and know that it will be caught! In his book about the dangers of fanatical cults, Howard J. Clinebell Jr. lists twelve tests for mentally healthy religion. The second item on his list reads, "Does a particular form of religious thought and practice strengthen or weaken a basic sense of trust and relatedness ...

190. Windows Of Wonder

Sermon

James Angell

... to a small village he had once heard of, and which had been memorialized in a poem as a tiny out of the way place where nothing ever happened. He wasn't in a hurry so he turned in that direction for a look. Upon arriving, the first thing that caught his attention was a neat, white church with a small adjoining cemetery, and he wound his way around to the front door to see if there was any notice there about evening worship. Yes, there would be a service - one around seven. It sounded like that might get him ...

191. Is Christianity Practical?

Jeremiah 17:19-27

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... ? Let us not make the mistake that fact can only be something that is hard and physical and tangible. Fact can be mental, emotional, spiritual, and still be fact. A materialist would ask of us in a challenge, "Have you ever caught God in a test tube?" with which we could counter, "Have you ever caught love in a test tube?" Does that make love any the less a fact of life? Facts can be both tangible and intangible. When we speak of idealists here, we mean the person devoted to an ideal (no matter how fine ...

192. Finding Life!

Matthew 16:21-28

Sermon

... rise to where the real adventure is. Many souls are anchored in harbors unworthy of great ships, many are tethered with ropes too short. Caught in the quagmire-world of things, they never get loose. And some get trapped in designs of their own making, get lost in ... very mistaken notions as to what living is. Someone has mentioned that western civilization is a lot "like a hardware store caught in a whirlwind." With this picture in mind, the late Dr. George A. Buttrick made reference once in a sermon to what ...

193. If Only We Would Accept Responsibility ...

Ezekiel 33:1-20

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... the thief replied, "I broke in to pray. That’s what God told me to do." "You can try that out on the judge, but as far as I’m concerned we caught you red-handed," the officer responded as he handcuffed the thief and led him to the patrol car. The writer of the third chapter of Genesis tells us that Adam and Eve were caught "red-handed." When they were, they did what the transient and the burglar did. The transient and the burglar made God and "the devil" responsible for their actions. When Adam and Eve ...

194. Proper 6

Genesis 25:19-34

Sermon

... decide which is going to be the hero. Both have previous liabilities. Jacob, the schemer, is constantly striving to improve his position in the world, struggling to get a little advantage over other people; pushing to get to the head of the pack. Esau, earthy, relaxed, caught up in the moment, is willing to give away his spiritual heritage to fill the hunger of his stomach. It is not difficult to see how these two brothers are prototypes of modern people. Our only hope comes from the fact that he who calls ...

195. The God Who Doesn’t Give Up

Hosea 11:1-11

Sermon

... said, "Old man, is what we have behind our back alive or dead?" The old man looked at them and said, "The answer to that question, my children, is in your hands." He equated the bird to the earth and advised, "You have become a powerful people and you have caught a little bird and hold it in your hands. I hope that you will find the wisdom to let it fly away." God is a parent who treats us mercifully. He also wants us to find the wisdom to treat others with compassion. The Lord does not give up easily ...

196. Is Repentance Necessary?

Acts 2:14-41

Sermon

... his rifle at fenceposts, trees, barns, and anything else that did not move. One day a man was following him down the road. He saw that everywhere the young man had shot his rifle he had hit the center of the target, a bull’s eye every time. Finally he caught up with the boy and said to him, "You know, you are quite a marksman! I was following you and discovered that everywhere you shot you hit right in the center of the bull’s eye. That is good shooting!" The boy replied, "Oh, it ain’t so hard. All ...

197. But Where is the Lamb? John W. Cobb

Genesis 22:1-19

Sermon

... sin of the world." (John 1:29) We therefore can sing at the eucharist "O Christ, Thou lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, have mercy on us." In the celebration of the eucharist the lamb is here for us just as the lamb caught in the thicket of the mountain was there for Isaac. John, the theologian, expresses it well, "These are they that have come out of great tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb." (Revelation 7:14) The chief thought throughout ...

198. Is God With You, Or Not?

Exodus 17:1-7

Sermon

... ! That's a promise, it is his promise to us. Let me remind you that Christ's very name promises his presence. One of his best names is Emmanuel, which means "God with us." A Bahamian priest tells the story of a two-story house that caught fire. The family, father, mother, and several children, was on their way out of the burning building when, suddenly, the smallest boy became terrified, tore away from his mother, and ran back upstairs. His father, outside, shouted to him, "Jump, son, jump! I'll catch you ...

199. Trouble on the Mountain

Exodus 32:1-33:6

Sermon

... ," said the country cousin. "My tractor fell on me one afternoon, and the pig ran for help and saved me from dying. Sometime later, my son was drowning in that pond over there, and the pig swam out in the water and saved him. And then, still later, my house caught fire, and the pig woke us up and saved our lives from that burning building." "That's really great," said the city fellow, "but why does the pig have a wooden leg?" The farmer replied, "Don't you know anything? You don't eat a pig like that all at ...

200. In The Lion's Den

Daniel 6:1-28

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... issue an edict…" That was a lie. Daniel was one of the big three but he had not been consulted. The edict they recommended was that no one be allowed to pray to any god or man other than to King Darius for the next thirty days, and anyone caught violating that order would be thrown into the lions’ den." They urged the king to put this edict in writing so that it could not be altered or withdrawn. Old King Darius, his ego over-stimulated, issued the decree. Daniel’s custom was to pray three times a day ...

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