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 131 results

1. The Ambiguity of Life, Deciding for Christ

John 10:22-42

Sermon

Carl Jech

... world's religions (as we discussed at some length during Lent). We have repeated many times that to focus on Jesus as the Christ is to focus on the Grace of God. It is this clear focus on God's unconditional love that cuts through all uncertainty and ambiguity, giving us a profound sense of belonging and security in the knowledge that the real Jesus Christ has arisen and lives in us. Blessed assurance! Jesus is mine! (Fanny J. Crosby) The story is told of a brilliant scientist at MIT. He was a leader in his ...

2. The Shortest Distance Is Not A Straight Line

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... the same color uniforms. You often have to run the play and set it in motion, then see who's coming to defend or advance. Ambiguity is a reality in life. There is never a formula for God. The Old Testament records show that sometimes God waits to act until ... that God is not a gumball machine. God has our welfare at heart. God is not mindless and impersonal. He is present in the midst of ambiguity. And he loves us too much to expect us to carry the whole load by ourselves. That is why he came to our kind of ...

3. The Wideness in God's Mercy

Mark 1:40-45

Sermon

Paul E. Flesner

... too much "importance" in our experience of God's goodness. Although I could see his point at the time, I was not about to write off this wonderful hymn just because of one phrase. Over the years I have come to understand that these words poetically describe the ambiguity of life which I am lifting up before you this morning. Good and evil do exist side by side in each of us. Martin Luther describes us as both saint and sinner. Even the great Christian hero, Saint Paul, exclaimed, "The good I would I do not ...

4. Commencement Address

Acts 1:6-14

Sermon

Bill Mosley

... now? I'm baptized; what now? I'm hired! What now? I've built my dream home; what now? "Why do you stand looking into the sky?" We are on the brink of a great adventure, but we face great risks, and we begin with the ambiguity of grief at losing our leader. We have an ambiguous day before us. Mother's Day. Today's celebration really goes back to the protest movements of the '70s and has it deepest roots in a certain protest that happened in 1872. Yes, I'm talking about Mother's Day. But we need to go ...

5. Colorizing Jesus

John 20:24-31

Sermon

Carl Jech

... this just sounds like confusing double-talk to you, if you would rather relate to a Jesus who is simple and one-dimensional, who comes in only one color (or in black-and-white), maybe this true story will help you better to cope with these ambiguous and perhaps threatening distinctions between the historical Jesus and the literary/biblical Christ, between faith that tries to rest mainly upon mere facts and faith that sees truth beyond or in spite of the facts. A famous actress tells the story of a friend of ...

6. You Figure It Out

Matthew 22:15-22

Sermon

... and healing of those around us on the planet God has given us. But it never will become a simple, black-and-white sort of decision to behave in a God-pleasing way. Until we see God face to face, we still will face a broken, sin-filled, ambiguous creation, where several evils crowd in on us at every turn and pure choices elude us. Jesus faced just such a world when he moved in our midst, sparring with the Pharisees and stepping deftly out of their well-positioned snares. Should we serve God or Caesar? Which ...

7. In Praise of Feeling Guilty

Psalm 51:1-19

Sermon

Gregory J. Johanson

... Association of Pastoral Counselors and a Licensed Clinical Psychologist. Her sermon published here was delivered at a chapel service at Christian Theological Seminary. In Praise of Feeling Guilty takes a realistic and creative look at many facets and questions surrounding the ambiguous concept of guilt. Cardwell includes perspectives on how guilt is both a hurt and a help in human community. This seems to be a surprising title - greeted by puzzled smiles when I have mentioned it. Feeling guilty feels so bad ...

8. Are You a King?

2 Samuel 23:1-7

Sermon

Robert A. Hausman

... glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory. — Psalm 24:7-10 Jesus is the one raised to power, whose rule is just, and who bears God's abiding commitment. How was the church to deal with the ambiguity built into kingship? In the gospel for today, John 18:33-37, Pilate asks Jesus, "Are you the king of the Jews?" Jesus answers, "My kingdom is not from this world, my kingdom is not from here." The fact that the rule of Jesus differs from Pilate's is evident ...

9. Confusion Over a Questioned Book

Daniel 7:1-14

Sermon

George Paul Mocko

... enough that you can make it any one of those. The picture has enough details so that, if you want to be a stickler for those details, you can also disprove any one of them. And that combination of ambiguity and detail is precisely why the passage has been the happy hunting ground it has been down the centuries and is so today. Sometimes the interpretations have been more bizarre than the original imagery. We'll not hunt in that happy hunting ground. Because the real point is that very ...

10. Whatever Became of Sin?

Romans 5:12-21

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... claim far more for a situation than there is in it. We see even how some beauty comes out of an evil situation. Under the pressures of this court trial, the true love and compassion of the old doctor’s wife broke through and were unveiled. There are ambiguities and hidden struggle in every life; these can lead to a break with God or to a reunion with God. Maybe Jesus makes sense in letting the tares we have sown in our own lives to remain until Judgment - but remember, there is a day of accounting wherein ...

11. Faith's Curious Dynamic

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Stephen M. Crotts

... we live out our faith. You see, faith too has a curious dynamic about it. The language of faith is not all about cheerfulness and certainty. It is not presented in the Bible as a sure thing once acquired. Faith seems to embrace a good deal of ambiguity. I like the definition presented by novelist Doris Betts that faith is "not synonymous with certainty ... [but] is the decision to keep your eyes open."2 This is All Saints' Sunday, and one of the things that made those who have gone before us in the faith ...

12. Looking for Shoots or Roots?

Matthew 11:1-19

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... oneness of twoness.” But to review: to live paradoxically means, for example, to live remembering that you are in the eyes of God both saint and sinner; you and I are messy, mixed up, morally ambiguous creatures, and yet God wants to have a relationship with you and me—as messy, mixed up and morally ambiguous as we are. Remember how G. K. Chesterton defined paradox: truth standing on its head with both legs dangling to gain attention. Second, to live Adventually is to live with a sense of adventure. The ...

13. What the Lord Does Best

Exodus 1:1-22

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... outline of it in four words – covenant, change, conflict, and commitment. I want us to return to this first chapter again this morning, but with a more narrow focus, keeping in mind this old Jewish saying – what the Lord does is certainly best, probably. Now the ambiguity of that may not leave us, but I think the affirmation of faith that it is will become clearer to us. Throughout this book of Exodus, you will find the purposes of God very clear. The purposes are not always clear in prospect, but they ...

14. Living While You Wait

Philippians 4:2-9

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... , certain attitudes. One of these was a tolerance for uncertainty. They seemed to know how to live with the unknown without feeling threatened or frightened. Taking a cue from Maslow, psychologists are talking a great deal about a “tolerance for ambiguity”. Uncertainty and ambiguity - not knowing about the future, and the confusion about value and things as they are - are characteristics of life. How we need to appropriate Paul’s word, “Be anxious for nothing.” Anxiety in the way Paul is using the ...

15. An Answer Out of the Whirlwind

Job 38:1-7 (34-41)

Sermon

Robert A. Hausman

... to know that behind the chaos is a God in control, but we are still left with that troublesome character of a God who banters with the tempter and permits his servant to be battered. As we move to the New Testament lessons, we can move away from ambiguity, not to answers, but to paradox. Hebrews tells us that, in Jesus, we have a great high priest (4:14) who, like Job, makes sacrifices for us. In what sense is he great? Hebrews says that Christ did not glorify himself, but was appointed by God to this ...

16. When God Measures The Church

Amos 7:7-17

Sermon

Stephen P. McCutchan

... words of the prophets. We need to hear these words, not because they are comforting but because they shake us out of any temptation to complacency so that God might get a word in edgewise. However hard we try, none of us are a righteous people. Life is too ambiguous for such purity. But it is only as we are honest with our sinfulness that we can appreciate the enormity of God's grace that continues to love us. In the words of 1 John 1:8-9, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and ...

17. The Mud Room

John 9:1-41

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... and who others truly are apart from our imposed categorizations and biases. Left to our own devices, we will mess things up (and not in a good way). Allowing ourselves instead to marinate in the muck of life, to live in the grey areas, to tolerate ambiguity, to be ok with some confusion, mystery, difference of opinions, and supernatural truth, allows us to gain new clarity and a clearer understanding of what it means to be alive, to be vital, to feel creative, renewed, and to be relational. In order to see ...

18. Who Am I?

Matthew 3:13-17 · Isaiah 42:1-2

Sermon

Will Willimon

... talked to people who have had such experiences right here in Duke Chapel, when it was if a voice spoke to them as, if the veil of heaven was pulled back and they heard, they knew, they saw. Most of us must content ourselves with less dramatic revelation, so ambiguous, veiled and quiet that we often miss if if we're not careful. That's the way God speaks to most of us, not through some heaven descended dove, but through some still small voice. A person was telling me about a woman of her acquaintance, a New ...

19. Us Against Them

Exodus 4:21

Sermon

Will Willimon

... we share a mutual enemy, we forget our differences, step into line behind the flag, and fight as one. Nothing brings a people together like a common enemy. Any religion is bound to be popular which does a good job of identifying an· appropriate enemy. Reality is so ambiguous. If our lives are to have coherence, we must sort out the world, so to speak. Is not this the goal of all religion, to identify on which side God stands and to get on with the business of getting ourselves over to that side? Of course ...

20. Easter Power

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

Sermon

Harry N. Huxhold

... death for us was a significant victory. This was no hollow victory. We think of the problems we have in trying to determine what we have achieved in our swift and brilliant victories in previous wars. Sometimes our victories haunt us. Sometimes they are ambiguous. Too often the victories are only momentary. Not so with our Lord's decisive victory over the grave. Jesus comes from the grave with an authority he could now share in a meaningful way with his disciples. What God achieved through the death and ...

21. The Little Boat

Mark 4:35-41

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... 't you care? Aren't you there?" That is the feeling which the apostles had when the storm threatened them as Jesus slept. That is the feeling which many have as they face the storms of life, cry out to God for help, and get no immediate answers. The ambiguity of the human situation is that at the worst times, it may seem that God is asleep. Suddenly, there is a crisis. Bad things often happen to good people. The Jones family moved to a new house in south Florida near a pond. There were two other houses on ...

22. The Compassionate Healings

Mark 5:21-43

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... it mean to care? Let me start by saying that the word care has become a very ambivalent word. When someone says: 'I will take care of him!' it is more likely an announcement of an impending attack than of a tender compassion..." Real care is not ambiguous. Real care excludes indifference (as in "I don't care.") ... It is the opposite of apathy.1 To care means to suffer with the other person. That's what the woman with a bad theology saw -- Jesus cared. Jesus entered into her suffering. He communed with her ...

23. All Stirred Up

Luke 10:38-42

Sermon

Richard Patt

... part of God's plan for the world's salvation, and how the Father in heaven would bring all of this to a salutary ending in the resurrection on the third day. What food, what bread -- the Master himself giving a personal, unerring interpretation about all the ambiguous events that were about to happen! Who would have wanted to miss out on that? Whenever we sit with the Lord, he brings us insight and understanding, not only about his own suffering and struggle, but about our own as well. When you and I feel ...

24. Confession

Job 42:1-6

Sermon

John A. Stroman

... . This is the turning point in Job's life. He turns from a secondhand knowledge of God to a personal encounter with God. What had been merely abstract and mental accent was transformed into personal experience and awareness. What had been distant and ambiguous was now close and real. What had been detached and remote was now genuine loving concern. The transcendent and inaccessible was now lovingly and graciously immanent. How many times have I heard the same story. A person grows up in the church, attends ...

25. Baptism And Self-Esteem

Mark 12:28-34

Sermon

Steven E. Albertin

... making this incredible claim on our behalf. He comes with the highest authorization. He is Jesus. He is God's very own Son. He is the one who comes among us to make public the secret, to reveal what has been all too hidden in the pain and ambiguity of this fallen world: God loves you and me. God forgives us. We are his beloved sons and daughters. We can have self-esteem. There is probably no other action in the church's liturgical and worship life which so dramatically reveals that our self-esteem is purely ...

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