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 2401 to 2425 of 4976 results

2401. Our Strange, Strong Peace

John 14:15-31

Sermon

David & Marian Plant

... cadence: “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me....” Level Three stronger still — here is the directive again, for real: Jesus said, “They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me, and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them. The entire gospel of John depicts a strong, powerful, in-charge Jesus. He took charge over his own arrest. “Then Jesus ...

To keep the fire burning brightly there's one easy rule: Keep the two logs together, near enough to keep each other warm and far enough apart - about a finger's breadth - for breathing room. Good fire, good marriage, same rule.

Marnie Reed Crowell

2403. No Shame

Illustration

Long ago Demosthenes had written: "We keep prostitutes for pleasure; we keep mistresses for the day to day needs of the body; we keep wives for the begetting of children and for the faithful guardianship of our homes. So long as a man supported his wife and family there was no shame whatsoever in extra-marital affairs."

2404. Lord, Let My Heart Be Good Soil

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

R. Kevin Mohr

... back up to the surface and has to be drowned again through daily repentance. In the language of today’s gospel reading, the old Adam and Eve are like weeds that keep coming up — they have to be plucked out, dug up, and thrown away. The more you keep at this spiritual weeding, the easier it becomes, but if you let it go for too long, the weeds of our sin can take over, and, just like a neglected garden, it can be overwhelming, depressing, just too much to handle. That’s where the faith practices ...

2405. Jesus’ Recipe for a Kingdom Style Feast

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... rejected it. In the end, God will take an accounting of all people. And will note those whose hearts contain the Truth Jesus taught. Jesus’ message to his disciples: Once you let it go, your job is done. God will take it from here. Step Six: Keep All Recipes in Safekeeping. They are all worth their weight in gold. Jesus tells his disciples that those trained to teach about the kingdom of heaven must both honor the old and invite the new. Time honored recipes never grow old. And yet, new recipes constantly ...

2406. Christmas Snapshots

Luke 2:1-14, (15-20)

Sermon

King Duncan

... But in the caption the little girl calls out, “We forgot to put the baby Jesus in the manger on Christmas Eve, Mommy. He’s still in the drawer.” (2) I hope Jesus is not still in the drawer at your house. How difficult it is, sometimes, to keep our priorities in the proper order. But that’s why we’re here this evening. And I know all our boys and girls are going to receive something good from Santa this year—not because they have been good necessarily—though most of them have been—but because ...

2407. The Old, Old Story

Matthew 25:14-30

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... ’s people, Jesus’ beloved of the world, until he comes again at the great harvest time. We are in other words, Jesus’ “hands and feet” in the world at this time. The first parable speaks of the kingdom in the coming time and tells us to keep our faith fresh and prepared. This parable speaks of the kingdom in this time, in real time, and tells us to actively invest in making God’s kingdom grow, making God’s love and compassion and mercy grow, in making people aware everywhere of Jesus’ power ...

2408. We Wobble, but We Don't Fall Down

2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1

Sermon

King Duncan

... trust his future to God. Terry was propelled by that which was unseen. St. Paul was also looking toward those things as yet unseen. This hope kept him from losing heart. Belief in God will do that. That is the first step we need to take in order to keep from losing heart—in order to strengthen the inner person while the outer person is wasting away. Don’t let discouragement defeat you. The second step is to focus on the tasks at hand. Wise people learn to let go of both their regrets about the past and ...

2409. Hail, King!

Jeremiah 23:5-6 · Psalm 93 · Revelation 1:4b-8 · John 18:33-37

Sermon

Will Willimon

... meaningless quislings, mere puppets in the hands of pagans. Annas and Caiaphas are lackies for the Romans, who let them be priests ''that'' year. Pilate shows himself to be a weak, indecisive little man. (What good is a Roman governor if he can't keep these Jews in their place?) In contrast, the prisoner Jesus is quiet, assured, clear-eyed, and totally in control while everyone else in the drama is running back and forth, merely filling minor roles. "Are you King of the Jews?” asks Pilate, eyebrows raised ...

2410. Chosen and Appointed

John 15:9-17

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... following him to work together for the good of the mission when their only common factor was him? How would they continue to do so after he was gone? Love one another, he said. Enough to lay down your life for each other. Enough to be in mission together. Keep your eyes on what needs to be done. Enough to show the world that being my disciple means that even the most diverse and at-odds people can be in community together and work for the common good. Show the world that this works! Jesus in his very inner ...

2411. Mary's Song

Luke 1:46-47, 52

Sermon

Will Willimon

... First Century Judea, in the December darkness, without a star in the sky, people shut up in the darkened houses for fear of Roman soldiers, streets deserted and fearfully quiet. (One way to handle an oppressive situation in a place like Nazareth is to keep your bead down, your mouth buttoned shut.) There, in the dark silence, a pure, clear, feminine voice cut through the night. "My soul magnifies the Lord,... he has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree." Before Herod knows ...

2412. What Do You Expect?

John 6:24-35

Sermon

King Duncan

... relate to John Stott’s realization? When you sit in church and hear about the goodness of God and the joy of knowing Him, do you feel empty and disconnected? Do you feel left out? Are you living with a sense of eternal purpose, or are you just trying to keep up? Here’s the good news for the day: It was to meet this need—to fill this emptiness—that Jesus Christ came into the world. “I am the bread of life . . .” says Jesus. You can search all over this earth to find that one thing that is missing ...

2413. Good-Bye

John 17:20-26

Sermon

Will Willimon

... rush?" ask our hosts. "You sure are in a hurry to get out of here!" they say to me. Why can't we just leave? I keep asking her on the way home. No, she says. There's a way to leave. One should leave a home the same way molasses leaves a ... again, in John's Gospel, the story is the same, the disciples, like Mary, try to get a hold on Jesus, fix him, define him. But he keeps vanishing, leaving them as quickly and mysteriously as he came. "I'm going to prepare a place for you," he tells them. He can't prepare ...

2414. The Organic Gospel

Mark 4:26-34

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... a people. Our job is not to reach a destination in which we have reached our independent goals, no longer need God, or no longer have a sacred purpose to pursue. Our job as God’s people is to be in a perpetual and life-long process of nurturing, keeping, seeding, and sowing the covenant of God, even as God continues to nurture and grow us as people. The purpose is in the process, not in the destination. In our scripture for today, Jesus re-explains what it means to be in covenant with God, to be a worker ...

2415. Faith Power

Mark 5:21-43

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... ’t come from the pious Jewish men of the synagogue, nor even from Jairus himself, who makes the petition, but is easily swayed in doubt by his unbelieving friends and family. Jesus needs to shut out those voices from Jairus’s head in order to keep him focused on the faith needed at hand. No, the enormous faith in this story comes from an outcast, ill woman, who “knows” that if she even just touches Jesus’ clothing, she will be made well. The juxtaposition of these stories tells us something about ...

2416. Mary's Witness

Luke 1:39-45, (46-55)

Sermon

King Duncan

... , recorded by Francesca Battistelli. 4. “The Lord is Near,” Advent Meditations from the works of Henri Nouwen, p. 30. 5. “4 Inspiring Stories About Gifts that Keep On Giving presented” by HuffPost and Ebay, December 15, 2016, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/4-inspiring-stories-about-gifts-that-keep-on-giving_n_58262353e4b0c4b63b0c8811. For more information, see https://littlestnick.org/ 6. “Christmas light display inspires teen with autism to speak for the first time” by Rachel Paula Abrahamson ...

2417. Briny Faith

Mark 9:38-50

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... of salt. Because in our scriptures for today, that’s exactly the way he describes it. Listen again: “Everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt loses its saltiness, how will it become salty again? Maintain salt among yourselves and keep peace with each other.” Obviously to be salted with fire refers to being touched by the Holy Spirit, that purifying, change-agency of God that takes our restless, obstinate, sludgy, or petulant hearts and spirits and creates within us a sense of calm ...

2418. It Helps If You Laugh

John 15:9-17

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... if I got hit by a car. Not only that but my Mom broke the child labor laws. She made me make my bed every day, and keep my room clean. I had to wash or dry the dishes. I had to mow the lawn and take out the trash. I had to learn how ... grasp and it shots out of your hand like greased lightening, too loose a grip and it just slips away. A gentle but firm grasp keeps it in your control. Our children need that gentle but firm grasp. When children are raised in a Christian environment with Christian values by ...

2419. Impetuous Faith

Mark 10:35-45

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... being themselves. They are people you admire not for their status or their positions of power but for their lack of the need for it. And likely they are people who have taken their faith seriously. They live it out daily. They know what it entails. They keep God close to their hearts. They walk their faith out no matter what the cost. Impetuous faith or committed faith? That is the question that Jesus asks every one of us as disciples of the Way. Are you agreeing to be Jesus’ disciple simply because you ...

2420. In the Wilderness of Temptation

Mark 1:9-15

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... mom and Dad, Mary, Joshua, my old High School buddies. I even found most of your clocks and name tags, all except for Marcus Stewart. Marcus Stewart's Clock just wasn't anywhere in sight. The other strange thing was that each of the clocks was keeping a different time. Some of them were keeping regular time, some were a little slow or a little fast. I saw Kirby Stewart's and it was stuck on the time of her birth while others were going extremely fast. It was odd so I asked St. Peter about it. In my dream he ...

2421. If It Helps You Laugh

John 15:1-17

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

2422. Passing on the Flame

Psalm 138:1-8

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... faith in front of each other. So that others can be guided by our actions and our faithfulness. And so that we can be guided by the actions and faithfulness of others. That's why we perform baptisms and ordination in front of witnesses, so that we can keep each other accountable and rely on each other. You see, none of us can do it on our own. We all need the faithfulness of others to help our faithfulness. And there are none who need your faithfulness more than the ones who stood before you to make their ...

2423. More Certain Than a Tom Brady Pass

Jeremiah 1:4-10

Sermon

King Duncan

... is going to throw it to just the right spot. Bob writes, “With God, when you follow His principles, the results are almost always delayed. As in, when He asks you and me to do something, we rarely see the results of it immediately. We have to keep doing what we know He told us to do (running) and trusting that God will get us the results (the ball) somewhere downfield . . . If I were playing catch with NFL quarterback Tom Brady and he said, ‘Just start running and the ball will be there when you ...

2424. Grace Under Pressure

Luke 4:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... , World Suicide Prevention Day, Drew asked to speak to his former teammates and the staff of the San Francisco Giants. He told them his story and the lessons he had learned from almost losing his life. Many of the players and staff wept when they heard his story. Drew keeps the bullet from his suicide attempt in a small box by his bed. As he says, “I look at this thing and think, I'm stronger than you. I'm stronger than what I thought I was.” (8) I pray that someday you will look back on your wilderness ...

2425. Take Heart

Matthew 14:22-33

Sermon

Will Willimon

... did you doubt?'' This is a constant theme throughout the Gospel of Matthew…doubt. Why do we doubt? These disciples are not perfect, they are like us. They doubt when they see the wind, feel the waves, water up to the neck. They begin to sink. But Jesus keeps working with them. Finally, by the end of Matthew's Gospel, Jesus gathers his disciples on a mountain, appears before them in all of his glory, telling them to go into all the world, with all nations, telling them, that ''Lo I am with you always.'' At ...

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