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 1 to 25 of 29 results

1. Itchy Ears

2 Timothy 3:14-4:5

Sermon

Donna Schaper

... to do but pick flowers. She spent life in a meadow just figuring out which ones were most beautiful. All of a sudden one day, on her way to pick a flower way across the field, the earth opens up and she is consumed. She is abducted into the underworld. Many people speak of the lives of adolescent girls this way: They figure out around age twelve that they can no longer be either smart or athletic and still fit the bed of marriage and femininity. So they go underground. Many therapists call underground ...

2. Restarting Joy - Rejoice

Isaiah 55:10-13

Sermon

Derl G. Keefer

... days earlier from her high school and was well loved by her family and friends. While at that parking lot she was kidnapped and murdered with her body thrown out near a lake several miles away. In a Kansas City Star newspaper article on the one-year anniversary of her abduction, the reporter wrote that for more than three days, her family and friends had no clue what had transpired. In the hot sun, they walked the neighborhoods within a five-mile radius of the Target store's parking lot where she was ...

3. The Joy of Being Found

Luke 15:1-10

Sermon

King Duncan

... Our Daily Bread (p. 303). Discovery House. Kindle Edition. 7. Contributed to “Humor in Uniform” by Glen Mullineaux, Reader’s Digest. Received from: DailyInbox Presents, http://www.beliefnet.com/newsletter/step1.aspx and select. 8. “Moment parents are reunited with son who was abducted 24 YEARS ago aged two after father travelled more than 300,000 miles around China searching for him” by Jack Newman for MailOnline, July 13, 2021. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9782885/Father-reunited-son ...

4. How Good News Spreads!

1 Kings 8:22-61

Sermon

Stephen M. Crotts

... of us songs ... how shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?" There have been many led against their will to foreign lands. But they went with Jesus and evangelized the people to whom they were brought captive. A Welshman named Sucant was abducted by pirates in 403 A.D. The sixteen-year-old Christian lad was taken to Ireland and enslaved for five years by the cruelest of Irish chieftains. Eventually Sucant escaped to join a monastery in Southern France. There he changed his name to Patrick, and ...

5. A Queen Bee’s Sting

2 Samuel 6:1-23

Sermon

... Michal to the outskirts of a village called Bahurim, nestled on the slopes of the Mount of Olives. But Michal’s royal heart was made of sterner stuff. Granite-faced she marched to her fate as a member of David’s harem. Unlike the Mozart opera The Abduction from the Seraglio, this daughter of Saul knew her life would be spent in a silk-screened prison as just another of the courtesans forced to pay court to the king. The last scene of the tragic wedlock of Michal and David was witnessed by the frenzied ...

6. John the Baptizer

Isaiah 40:1-31, Luke 1:67-80, John 1:19-28

Sermon

Warren Thomas Smith

... on soldiers, the multitude, taxgatherers, with equal candor. No one was spared the strict, moral earnestness of his evangelizing. Few preachers in the history of the church have demonstrated such power and rough, innate eloquence. When Herod Antipas abducted Herodias - wife of his half-brother Philip - John denounced their flagrant adultery. Josephus describes the cruel result: John’s imprisonment at Machaerus. During those torturous days in a frightful cell came periods of deep depression accompanied by ...

7. When the Guest Becomes the Host

Mark 14:12-26

Sermon

George Bass

... years and it will be much better than when you left it." Betty Mitchell did go back and says, "But of course it wasn’t (any better)."29 Altogether she has spent 28 years as a missionary to Vietnam, before and after her husband’s abduction. She still prays for her husband. And hopes. But her primary purpose in returning to Vietnam was to proclaim the gospel to the Vietnamese. Today she is a missionary in Malaysia, still following Jesus and obeying his commands about discipleship as best she can. Judas ...

8. A World in Turmoil

Matthew 21:1-11

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... , not all children's programmes feature explicit violence. But the vast majority perpetuate the mythic pattern of redemptive violence in all its brutality. "Few cartoons have run longer or been more influential than Popeye and Bluto. In a typical segment, Bluto abducts a screaming and kicking Olive Oyl, Popeye's girlfriend. When Popeye attempts to rescue her, the massive Bluto beats his diminutive opponent to a pulp, while Olive Oyl helplessly wrings her hands. At the last moment, as our hero oozes to ...

9. There's A Better Way Than Shooting Somebody

Matthew 18:15-20

Sermon

King Duncan

... MEANS OF DEALING WITH ANGER. Anger is a very appropriate response to perceived injustice. Robert Polhill, when he was released by his kidnappers in Lebanon last April, said that he maintained his sanity by striving to maintain his anger at these terrorists who had abducted him. Polhill knew that he needed the emotional and mental energy from that anger if he were to remain sharp under such trying conditions. His anger was most appropriate and he used it in a positive way. Of course, now that he is home ...

10. "Why Don't We Just Tell Them Our Names?"

Psalm 23:1-6

Sermon

Siegfried S. Johnson

... 't even know. Laura Beth said, "Why don't we just tell them our names?" (2) When I saw that line I thought of the 1991 classic film, "Silence of the Lambs." The FBI is profiling and tracking a dangerous serial killer who has abducted 21-year-old Catherine Martin. Her frantic and distressed mother, Senator Ruth Martin, broadcasts a televised plea for mercy in hopes of convincing the killer to release Catherine. During the plea, she speaks her daughter's name, Catherine, over and over and over, while showing ...

11. Ready For A Change

Matthew 9:9-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... Jesus. MANY PEOPLE HAVE STORIES LIKE THAT TO TELL. Stories of a new beginning, stories of a sudden life-changing experience. There was quite a remarkable story in Reader's Digest sometime back. In December 1974, ten-year-old Christopher Carrier was abducted by one of his father's ex-employees, David McAllister. McAllister stabbed young Christopher with an ice pick, shot him in the head, and left him in crocodile-infested swampland in Florida. Incredibly, Christopher survived, but he was blinded in one eye ...

12. Hope For A New Year

Ephesians 1:1-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... overload. The lack of stress helped her to sleep "like a baby," she says. (2) Well, Susan, welcome back to the real world the world of 24 hour news and unceasing stress. Whether it is war in the Middle East, terrorism, corporate malfeasance, little girls abducted from their homes, snipers, West Nile virus, or whatever it may be, there is plenty in this world to keep you awake. If you lost money in your pension fund last year in the slump of the stock market, you were probably furious at the actions ...

13. Strategic Kindness

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sermon

King Duncan

... us from our sins. We hated, God loved. We struck out in blind fury: God responded with unconditional acceptance. We shut him out; God brought us in. If you want to imitate God, that is how it is done. Chris Carrier of Coral Gables, Florida, was abducted when he was 10 years old. His kidnappers, angry with the boy's family, burned him with cigarettes, stabbed him numerous times with an ice pick, shot him in the head, and left him to die in the Everglades. Remarkably, the boy survived, though he lost sight ...

14. With Jesus In The Wilderness

Luke 4:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... one’s skin. She is told that the way will be long and hard to redeem her brothers. Furthermore she has to gather this plant herself and spin it into thread by hand. She herself is not allowed to speak out loud until she can redeem her brothers. She’s abducted from her land and carried to a new place that is strange to her and where she has few friends. The girl cannot speak aloud until she finishes her task. But she keeps on with the task even as her hands become disfigured and all gnarly. Out of this ...

15. Humans, Inc.

Luke 19:1-10

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... or cat ever intentionally put out cigarettes on their offspring's legs. Herds of zebras don't band together and kick herds of gazelles to death, much less gas and shoot 6 million Jews to death. No king of the jungle was ever barbaric enough to abduct and recruit into martyrdom 10,000 Iranian children, who in the 1980s were thrown across minefields into the line of Iraqi fire, with a little key to paradise round their necks. Nature is red in tooth and claw. But its redness is related to hunger and survival ...

16. Fear Factor

Psalm 25:1-22

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... accepted; fear of being sexually assaulted; fear of looking foolish; fear of being needy; fear of being dependent and having to have someone take care of you; fear of being in a car accident; fear of having a mental breakdown; fear of your children being abducted by a kidnapper; fear of not having enough money to take care of those you love; fear of having your house broken into; fear of being held up; fear of becoming permanently disabled; fear of tornados; fear of the IRS; As disciples, participants in ...

17. The Thrill of Victory Beats the Agony of Defeat

Judges 7:1-17

Sermon

James Merritt

... year. One million teenagers run away from home every year, and suicide is now the second leading cause of death among teenagers. This year Americans will spend $240 billion on gambling. This year 2.5 million children will be reported as being abused, missing, or abducted. Reports now show that the number one killer of children are their own parents. 50,000 drug addicted children are born every year just in California. Every year 800,000 babies are born to unwed teenagers. This year 1 1/2 million babies will ...

18. Armageddon Anxiety

John 6:56-69

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... 's six-pack speculations and calculations, heady over the "what ifs" and "whens" that await us in the next eon, we are beguiled by numbers, strategies and predictions. Instead of following Jesus, we follow the "last-times" headlines of world disasters, weather disasters, alien abductions, etc. We can become so fixated on the Jesus who is to come that we do not see or hear the Jesus who is in the midst. Thus, doom-and-gloomers use the approaching eschaton as an excuse to withdraw from this world, abandoning ...

19. Turning Evil Into Good

Genesis 45:1-8a, 50:19-20

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... there's an aggravated assault every 34 seconds, a robbery every 1.3 minutes, a rape every 5.8 minutes, and a murder every half hour. In our country, this place we love, one out of three females will suffer some kind of sexual abuse and the abduction of children has been so rampant this summer that parents are now afraid to let their children play outdoors. Just ten days ago our own daughter-in-law was assaulted when a stranger stormed into their home threatening her life and the life of our grandson. Only ...

20. Praising God All Day Long

Psalm 100:1-5

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... the bottom is sound and because it is sound they have a reason to give thanks. They have found the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever. May 2001 Martin Burnham and his wife Gracia, missionaries on the Philippine Island of Palawan, were abducted by terrorists. For three hundred seventy-six days they were held hostage. Just before the Philippine military made a raid, Martin and Gracia hovered together in a hammock under a makeshift tent and seeking to find comfort in that tragedy, prayed. Martin turned ...

21. Jonah: The Problem of Mercy

Jonah 4:1-11

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... 's novel, Ladder of Years, Delia Grinstead, the wife of a prominent physician, mother of three children, the caretaker of an extended family, took a stroll down a Delaware beach while on a family vacation and never came back. She did not drown. She was not abducted. This slender, small-boned woman with light brown hair simply strolled into the afternoon sun, and into a strange new way of life. I guess there is more than one way to run away. Some run with their feet. Others run with their feelings. They shut ...

22. Strong in God’s Name

Matthew 4:1-11

Sermon

Lee Griess

... easy to say no. Perhaps Mark Twain was right when he said: "I can resist anything except temptation." Did you know that during the years of 1987 and 1990, eight million children disappeared in the United States? However, not one of them was abducted. Not one of them was kidnapped or harmed. No. Rather, in the year 1987 the Internal Revenue Service first began to require proof that children claimed as dependents actually existed. Beginning in 1987, Social Security numbers were required on tax returns when ...

23. Tradition Can Be Changed

Luke 2:41-52

Sermon

Cynthia Cowen

... stroller was empty. Panic set in as she searched the aisles for her son. "Nathan! Nathan! Where are you? This is not funny! Tom, Nathan's gone!" Immediately, parents and clerk began a search. Store security was called. Was their son hiding? Had someone abducted him? Fear gripped father and mother. Nathan was nowhere to be seen. Then they heard childlike laughter coming from under a display of jackets. Parting the hangers they discovered their smiling son sitting on the floor beneath it. "I'm not lost ...

24. When Your Parents Don't Understand

Luke 2:41-52

Sermon

King Duncan

... Patz. Someone asked what Etan’s mother was thinking of letting him walk that distance by himself. Someone else explained that back then, in 1979, you didn’t worry so much about a child walking by himself on a city street. But after Etan’s abduction, society changed. People started being much more careful about leaving children on the own. Times change. Worries change. Mary and Joseph lived in a different time. There was perhaps just as much crime as there is today, but it was a different kind of crime ...

25. A Prayer for Persecuted Christians Everywhere

John 17:6-19

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... but it does recur. Nothing repeats, but everything recurs. On April 14, 2014 almost 300 school girls in Nigeria were kidnaped, rounded up and carted off in trucks from their school in the north eastern Borno region of Nigeria. They were abducted by a radical, militant, terrorist group called “Boko Haram” — a name that literally translates as “Western education is a sin.” But it is not just Western education that “Boko Haram” finds unacceptable. The school where these girls were being educated ...

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