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 1 to 25 of 2404 results

1. Achieving An All-In Victory - 1952

1 John 5:1-12

Sermon

Kent Moorehead

... he makes more largely determines his destiny than any other single factor. When I say that I must choose myself, I mean that I must act as though my best self were the most authentic and therefore my most legitimately authoritative self. There is no possibility of achieving an "all-in" victory so long as the beast in me is not in bondage to the best in me. There is only one rightful heir to the throne of my life - my noblest self. Anything less is a false pretender whose subversive activity must be exposed ...

2. Achievement vs Success

Illustration

Helen Hayes

Helen Hayes once said that her mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. Her mother advised her that "achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you. Success is being praised by others, and that's nice too, but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about success."

3. Achieving Peak Performance

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... mathematician for NASA. He was part of the Apollo Project that put a man on the moon. He left NASA to study psychology. He became interested in what motivates people to reach their highest possible achievement in this life. He went to Berkeley and got a PhD in psychology. Then he interviewed 1,500 people on how they achieved what he called "peak performance." He published that result in a book, and then he started on the lecture circuit. I read about that speech he gave on peak performance. He said the one ...

4. Motivation To Achieve

Illustration

Michael P. Green

Dr. Frederik Herzberg, writing in the Harvard Business Review, concluded from his research that six factors must be present to keep people highly motivated about sustained responsibility: Achievement Recognition The task itself Responsibility Advancement Opportunity for growth

5. Human Achievements and Wisdom

Ecclesiastes 1:12-18

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... :9), intermittently evaluating what he has experienced or observed. In an extended autobiographical section (1:12–2:26), Qoheleth relates his personal experiences. He first examines by means of wisdom (1:13; cf. 7:23) the gain that comes through a life marked by achievements and pleasures and then examines wisdom itself. He relates his findings in these two realms first in summary form (1:12–15; 1:16–18) and then more fully (2:1–11; 2:12–16) before drawing both negative and positive conclusions (2 ...

6. Overcoming and Achieving

Illustration

Editor James S. Hewett

Some of the world's greatest men and women have been saddled with disabilities and adversities but have managed to overcome them. Cripple him, and you have a Sir Walter Scott. Lock him in a prison cell, and you have a John Bunyan. Bury him in the snows of Valley Forge, and you have a George Washington. Raise him in abject poverty, and you have an Abraham Lincoln. Subject him to bitter religious prejudice, and you have a Benjamin Disraeli. Strike him down with infantile paralysis, and he becomes a Franklin ...

7. The Possibility Mindset

Mark 10:17-31

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... have to identify our boxes, break them open, and then step outside of them in order to get a different perspective on life and the world. It sounds simple in theory. It’s not so simple in practice for most of us. Why? Because our “Acquisition” and “Achievement” mindset keeps us conveniently locked up in a multitude of “boxes.” And they are hard to break out of. [Show a ruler.] Here in front of you I am holding a ruler. We all know what it is. It measures things. It tells us how large something ...

8. Are You Trying to Prove Something?

Genesis 12:1-9

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... one day he met Christ, and he experienced grace. That is what he called it. He called it grace, because it meant that it was the experience of being loved when he didn't deserve it. He couldn't get over that. He had been trying all his life to achieve the love of God through the Law. He wanted God to love him. He kept trying, harder and harder, as hard as he could to make himself acceptable to God, to be righteous. All that effort, all it did was to make him miserable and mean. But then he experienced ...

9. You Are Gifted

Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... is living a “gifted” life. The question is, what will you do with that gift, that gift of “life?” Because relationship is the meaning of all true life, the life that you have been given. The gift of relationship is not about attainment, or achievement, or besting, or best-selling, or climbing the ladder of success. The gift of relationship is about receiving that gift of life and truth and authenticity in Jesus that will transfigure the way you live your life –the way you live it with God, and ...

10. What Are You Sitting On?

Jeremiah 16:1--17:18

Sermon

King Duncan

... with it." (4) This brings us to the second thing to be said, GOD HAS PROVIDED US MEANS BY WHICH OUR DREAMS CAN BE ACHIEVED. God did not create us to wallow in despair and self-pity. I am always amazed at how many bright, talented, energetic people ... that it is God's will that we live successful lives, however we might define success. We believe He has given us everything we need to achieve our dreams. All we have to do is trust Him and venture out boldly to live the kind of lives He has called us to live. ...

11. The Peacemakers

Sermon

John A. Terry

... in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." These are words from President Lincoln's second inaugural address, seeking to make peace after our nation's Civil War. Being the bringer and maker of peace marked Jesus from the very beginning. At his ...

12. The Peacemakers

Ephesians 2:11-22

Sermon

John A. Terry

13. Who is Greatest Among You ...

Matthew 23:1-39

Sermon

... We look for and expect the recognition and reward that come with a promotion as we aim to move up another notch on the corporate ladder. And, if we end up disappointed with our advancement in life, well, we can still hope that our children will excel and achieve more than we did. It was the late coach of the Greenbay Packers, Vince Lombardi, who first coined the creed many would have to live by, "Winning isn’t the only thing," he once said, "It’s everything!" Jesus had something to say about our need to ...

14. A Niche For Every Itch

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

King Duncan

... want more than anything else to do the accepted thing. Therefore, to sell a product to people in this group an advertiser will stress that the product is the most popular product of its kind. That same pitch would not work with a group of achievers, however. Achievers, so the theory goes, are financially successful people who would not want to buy the most popular product. They only want to own things that most people can't afford. An example of how this particular theory is put into practice can be seen in ...

15. A More Perfect Union

Habakkuk 2:1-5

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another." That is the kind of ethic that makes freedom possible. We think not only of our own welfare, but we are concerned about the welfare of other people. To achieve this more perfect union two things had to happen. The states had to surrender some of their sovereignty, and the citizens had to discipline their freedom. And they did. But the core of this vision, this dream of a more perfect union, was the belief that ...

16. The Power of Belief

John 20:24-31

Sermon

King Duncan

... his legs were affected, she argued, not his brain or his spirit. For seven years FDR threw himself into his recovery. He spent all his time exercising and exploring new cures. He dreamed of one day walking unaided. That never happened, but he still believed he could achieve great things. He turned to politics. In order not to be perceived as handicapped, he had the steel braces on his legs painted black; he wore his trousers long to hide the braces when he sat down. He had wheels put on a kitchen chair so ...

17. The Power of Belief

John 20:24-31

Sermon

King Duncan

18. No Confidence in the Flesh

Philippians 3:1-11

Understanding Series

F. F. Bruce

... Lord, sharing the experience of his death and resurrection. 3:7 It was but reasonable to take pride, as Paul once did, in such a catalogue of merit. If a reader suspects that Paul still feels some pride in being able to present such a record of past achievement, all such suspicion is swept away by what Paul now says: whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ—that is, for the sake of gaining Christ. From the credit side of the ledger they have been transferred to the debit side ...

19. Abraham Justified by Faith

Romans 4:1-25

Understanding Series

James R. Edwards

... lost,” said Milton, “but sav’d who will, Yet not of will in him, but grace in me Freely voutsaft” (PL, 3.173–75). The decision to act salvifically on behalf of the world derived solely from God. Faith in God’s saving action is not the will to achieve it, but the will to receive it. Salvation must depend on grace and not on works, for if salvation comes by grace then it depends on God and is therefore certain; but if it depends on works or law, then it is as unreliable as the human heart and will ...

20. New Year's Resolutions

Illustration

Stephen Shapiro

... concerning New Year’s resolutions: Forty-five percent of Americans usually set New Year’s Resolutions; seventeen percent infrequently set resolutions; thirty-eight percent never set resolutions Eight percent are always successful in achieving their resolutions; nineteen percent achieve their resolutions every other year; forty-nine percent have infrequent success; twenty-four percent (one in four) never succeed and have failed on every resolution every year. Forty-seven percent set resolutions related ...

21. Easter Power

John 20:19-23, John 20:24-31

Sermon

Harry N. Huxhold

... faith. What was important, however, was to make it clear that faith is a miracle. It is the Holy Spirit who has the power to create faith in the hearts of people. The Holy Spirit works that miracle in helping people to believe in the Christ who has achieved our salvation for us. Believe! John concludes his Gospel with the words, "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah ...

22. God Works Through Opposites

Matthew 21:1-11

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... the cross that the contrasts are the most stunning. For on the cross we see God using death to give life. That is why the cross is the symbol of Christianity. That is why we call God's inclination to work through contrasts and opposites in order to achieve his aims, the theology of the cross. What does it mean? What does all this imply for our Monday through Saturday lives? Palm Sunday and the theology of the cross explain the problems that I was talking about at the beginning of this sermon. They speak to ...

23. In Quest of a Treasure

James 1:1-18

Sermon

Larry Powell

... . We do not live forever, do not always stay young, and do not always do the proper thing. That is indicative of our kind. It is "perfectly" human. To be anything more would be superhuman, and it is nowhere written that any of us can achieve that in this life. There are some mild comforts, however, about our fumblings. For one thing, at least some of the time we are by ourselves when they occur, which mercifully spares us from embarrassing guffaws. For another thing, we have the satisfaction of knowing ...

24. A Man Whose Dreams Came True

Genesis 37:1-11

Sermon

R. Blaine Detrick

... man." So Joseph was promoted and became second only to the Pharaoh in power. A royal seal was placed around his neck and a royal ring upon his finger. He became, we might say, the prime minister of the whole land of Egypt. Dreams vs. Achievement Then it was that Joseph faced one of his greatest problems, a problem of a different kind. When you are true to your dreams, through all kinds of animosity and adversity, through all kinds of allurement and temptation, through all kinds of apathy and forgetfulness ...

25. Do Children Like You?

Mark 10:13-16

Sermon

Richard Patt

... law for you because you are so hard to teach" (v. 5). To us Jesus is saying, "Do I have to write down lists and laws for you about how to love your husband or wife or children? Just allow selfless love and caring to guide you; the tasks and achievements of life will be met, and if they aren’t always accomplished, you will still have someone who will hug and embrace you when you fail." In another place Jesus said it like this: "Above all be concerned with the Kingdom of God ... and he will provide you with ...

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