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 2201 to 2225 of 2233 results

2201. Christ, Our King

John 18:33-37

Sermon

Thomas C. Willadsen

... speaking about many of ways we divide our loyalty. Whom should we put on the throne? To whom should we give our loyalty? In the paper recently, I saw this ad for computer software and DVD programs about astronomy. I thought at first it was for telescopes — it caught my eye because of the words, “Prove to your kids they’re not the center of the universe.” There was a man and a boy, presumably father and son, looking into the night sky with a telescope on a tripod.[1] I love astronomy. I love looking ...

2202. Christ, Our King

John 18:33-37

Sermon

Thomas C. Willadsen

2203. Pay Attention!

Luke 21:25-36

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... .” What a great metaphor for not paying attention –as though you are wandering through the woods, not paying attention to your path, where you are putting your feet, and consequently, you could likely and literally fall into a “trap!” And like an animal caught in such a snare, you will find it hard to escape it. For a “trap,” particularly a “spiritual trap” keeps you from moving forward, from walking your path with God. It keeps you bound to the earth and imminent death. It does not allow ...

2204. God on the Move

Luke 3:1-6 · Isaiah 40

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... to do? Too much stress? Are you feeling exhausted like you can’t take one more step? God will make your path walkable again! Have you made mistakes in your life that you feel you can’t forgive? Does your past torture you? Does meaning elude you? Are you caught in web of deceit either with others or yourself? God will set you straight and help you learn how to walk a new path in a brand new direction. Do you feel rough around the edges, angry or bitter? Has your grief made you hard, prickly, or heavy ...

2205. Words

John 1:(1-9), 10-18

Sermon

John B. Jamison

... ever said something to someone, and the very instant you heard the words come out of your mouth, you realized that you had gone too far? They were just words. But when you spoke them the world changed. You didn’t really mean to change things, you were just caught up in the frustration or anger but then it was too late. The words had been spoken and they changed your world. Have you ever heard yourself speak those words to a spouse or to a friend? Maybe you spoke them to a parent or to your child. Maybe ...

2206. Seating Arrangements

Matthew 25:31-46

Sermon

John B. Jamison

... them. These words become their focus, the center of every message they have to offer. And sometimes these words become points of pride. Sometimes they become weapons. While we certainly need to hear these words that Jesus spoke, there is a very real danger that we might get caught up in the picture they create and miss the real question we ought to be asking; The question the disciples asked Jesus when he first said those words to them. What are we to do? What am I to do if I want to end up on the right ...

2207. The Greatest Gift

Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... of gold, frankincense, and myrrh fascinate us. Why these? Why these treasures? And yet, if we think about it, in dwelling on these physical treasures, we’ve missed a far greater gift that the magi have offered –the gift of warning! The Magi were no fools. They caught on to Herod’s underhanded plot pretty much right away. They are “magi” after all! And so, they were “wise” to Herod’s motives, as a farmer to a fox. Not only that, they’d been alerted in a dream by God not to report to Herod ...

2208. Mountaintop Experience

Luke 9:28-36 (37-43a)

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... When he finally got to the city, it was in an uproar! The armies of Rome had just come home from the battlefield in victory and the crowds were turning out for a great celebration. They flowed through the streets like a tidal wave and Telemachus was caught in their frenzy and carried into the coliseum. He had never seen a gladiator contest before but his heart sickened. Down in the arena, men hacked at each other with swords and clubs. The crowds roared at the sight of blood and urged their favorites on to ...

2209. Scandal

Luke 22:14-23:56

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... they mended nets and hunting equipment, and swapped stories of fish and boars. It was in this setting that Don took his first furtive steps toward speaking the Sawi language and reciting stories from the gospels. Most of the time the others ignored him, caught up in their own manly concerns. The months progressed, and with little Stephen becoming a Sawi child, Carol adapted meals to local produce, and Don attempted to get the message of the Bible into a form the Sawi could understand. An Upsidedown Gospel ...

2210. What If It's ALL True?

John 20:1-18 · Matthew 28:10

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... and dropping the box. It is one thing to hope for a life come back to life. It is another thing to accept that there actually may be an indestructible spirit that can overcome death, that resurrection may be real. Most of us are caught somewhere between wanting to believe in the power of resurrection and the stupefying strangeness of a life that might transcend death. As biological beings we instinctively recognize the “end signs” of physical death. Yet our spiritual selves still wait for the next act ...

2211. Going Home ― Part Two: Then And Now

Luke 4:21-30

Sermon

John B. Jamison

... to throw Jesus off the side of the mountain, but Jesus just ended up leaving town and going on with his work elsewhere. They were so angry that Jesus had suggested God would care for someone other than them, even someone less than them. They were so caught up in arguing about what they believed it meant, they missed the important point Jesus was making. We sometimes miss it too. Let’s hear what the other gospel writers said about what happened that day and see if we can hear it. Luke said, “But he ...

2212. Into the Deep

Luke 5:1-11

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... , when Jesus told his soon-to-be disciples to push out further into the deeper water, the catch was overwhelming! Practically speaking…one could say that 1) if the fish were not swimming in the shallow water, they were likely in the deeper water 2) the fish they caught at dawn in the deeper water would be larger and more hearty bringing in a fuller net and a more expensive catch and 3) they would in this manner catch a more diverse net of fish, not just the usual Tilapia and other small fish swimming near ...

2213. God Soaked

Luke 13:1-9

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... unfortunately in our concepts of what and who meets our expectations. Here’s where our “rulers” go wrong. Often, very wrong. And it has to do with “judging.” In our society, and in our personal concepts of right and wrong, we often can get caught in the trap of measuring sin –and mind you—that usually means measuring “other people’s” sins. But it can also mean that we feel we also don’t “measure up!” Either way, this kind of “judging” becomes detrimental to us. This is because ...

2214. When the Small is Great, and the Great is Small

Mark 12:38-44

Sermon

Will Willimon

... trifocals. Now, it's contacts. For someone whose vision for more than thirty years was 20/20, it's tough to be reduced to stumbling about in the early morning until my eyes are in. (You parents will know of what I speak.) I have this fear of being caught out on the road, alone in a Days Inn, abandoned, with no contact lenses, no glasses. I'd be lost forever! It's tough to see. It's tough to see certain people, contacts or not. A friend who lives in Manhattan complains that, in New York, residents quickly ...

2215. The Call to Encounter

Luke 8:26-39

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... boats and off they went. We don’t know where they were headed, but they ran into a storm, which Jesus quieted, and they ended up landing near the town of Gerasa, home of the Gerasenes. The Gerasenes are Gentiles, not Jews, and Luke’s audience probably caught their collective breath as they heard this because you never knew what those Gentiles were going to do; how they were going to react to or treat Jews. A common reaction to “the other,” is it not? Our sons and daughters grow up and say they want ...

2216. Keep On Moving

Luke 9:51-62

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... in Luke 10, he will send out 72! Earlier in Luke 9, he had sent out the 12. He is training them for the mission they will need to undertake –how to be on the road and not get distracted. How to proclaim God’s favor without getting sidelined or caught up in anger when people don’t listen. He is teaching them about danger. But even more so, he is teaching them about rejection. Even his time at Lazarus’ home later will focus on keeping your mind’s eye on what’s most important: Let go of things that ...

2217. Why Pass By?

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... of stopping in a bad neighborhood to help someone and being beaten, robbed, or even killed, ourselves. We leap to the worst cases scenario and it is hard to refute that it would, indeed, be dangerous under those circumstances. It would be, and, if any of us are caught in that scene. we would have some tough decisions to make. But let’s not dismiss the lesson of the good Samaritan so quickly. For most of us, that scene is one that we are likely never going to face. No, the good Samaritan scenario is, for ...

2218. The Mother of All Yard Sales

Luke 12:13-21

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... catch Northern Pike.” “But it didn’t catch Northern Pike?” “Nope. Not for me it didn’t.” “Are you sad that you bought it?” He looked, twitched his rod a little, then looked down at his tackle box. “Dean, to tell you the truth, I haven’t caught fish on most of the lures in that box. But you don’t know until you try them and, I can’t help myself. I see a lure; I just have to try it.” Golfers, fishermen, bowlers, writers, even television watchers — we are all convinced that no ...

2219. Give Me Your Word

Luke 16:1-13

Sermon

Jill J. Duffield

... ― painful as it is. But I am not strong enough to dig, I am too proud to beg. All I can do is go out and do more of what I did that got me in this predicament in the first place. That’s the kicker, right? This guy got caught red-handed and what did he do? He went out and cheated some more. Sound familiar? Have you ever sworn up and down that you’ve learned your lesson, that you are truly sorry and you humbly repent, then darned if you don’t go out in all that sincerity ...

2220. The Unknowing Evangelist

Luke 16:1-13

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... for saying, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians.” In his mind, most Christians he met had failed to act with the compassion, love, mutual respect, and understanding that Jesus taught and modeled. Often Christians can get so caught up with doctrine, rules for behavior, religiosity, and selfish motives, divisions, and judgments that they can end up as Christians in theory but not in practice. Jesus is not commending the dishonest manager for being dishonest. He’s noting that, though ...

2221. Not Independence, But Freedom

Acts 2:42-47

Sermon

Gerald Whetstone

In a brochure about an AIDS hospice, one of the residents who had recently died was quoted as having said, "The hardest thing about having AIDS is asking for help, but this house is nice for that sort of thing." A dying man's childlike affirmation of a place to seek and receive help describes one of the deepest needs we bring to our lives in the church. Like the AIDS victim, we've always found that asking for help is difficult. We want to be independent, to stand on our own, to not be indebted to anyone. ...

2222. Our Defense In A Stone-littered World

Acts 7:54--8:1a

Sermon

Gerald Whetstone

"Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong. They are weak, but he is strong." The children will sing their hearts out, joining in this beloved song. But stand in the midst of a bunch of young children and ask, "Who here is weak?" You'll be barraged with denials, protests, and muscle flexings. The bravado of children is difficult to exaggerate. An image endures for me. Once a group of young boys from an inner city congregation was spending the weekend in my rural ...

2223. Paring Down Our Pantheons

Acts 17:16-34

Sermon

Gerald Whetstone

"Tell me a story," said the little boy to his dad at bedtime, "tell me a story and put me in it." There are no stories to which children pay better attention than those in which they play a part. Even as the years go by, and the eager child becomes one of those cool, disinterested teenagers, watch how she perks up when you say, "I remember the time that you...." Adults will follow the same pattern. At an annual congregational meeting, suppose we show a series of slides of the Holy Land; some of you surely ...

2224. Standing and Understanding with the Apostles

Acts 2:14-41

Sermon

Gerald Whetstone

The word for "stand" in the language of signing is to place your index and third fingers upright on your palm, held flat, as if standing. When I first learned some signing years ago, the father of a deaf boy in my parish was amused to point out that even signing has its slang. There's a proper sign for "understanding," which derives its origin from the learning process it describes. But he noted that there is also a slang equivalent. You take the sign for stand, and turn it upside down. How very ...

2225. All The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise

Acts 10:34-43

Sermon

Gerald Whetstone

Is it tomorrow, or is it still yesterday? In the cartoon, Dennis the Menace is tugging at his dad's covers, and Mr. Mitchell is trying to lift one eyelid. Dennis wants to know, "Is it tomorrow yet? Or is it still yesterday?" It's a profound question. Something like that -- some 2000-year-old Aramaic version of it anyway -- must have been in the minds of the women on their way to the tomb. In fact, they went to the tomb fully expecting to find yesterday, and instead found tomorrow. They went expecting death ...

Showing results