Synonyms: take action, take steps, take measures, take the initiative, move, make a move, react, do something, proceed, go ahead, behave, function, perform, operate, work, take effect, serve, be efficacious, play, play a part, take part, be an actor, be an actress, be one of the cast, appear, pretend, play-act, sham, fake, feign, put it on, bluff, pose, posture, masquerade, dissemble, dissimulate, deed, action, gesture, feat, exploit, performance, undertaking, maneuver, stunt, operation, venture, effort, enterprise, achievement, accomplishment, law, decree, statute, bill, Act of Parliament, edict, fiat, dictum, dictate, enactment, resolution, ruling, rule, judgement, canon, ordinance, proclamation, command, commandment, mandate, measure, stipulation, direction, requirement, division, section, subsection, portion, part, segment, component, bit, turn, routine, number, item, piece, sketch, skit, playlet, dance, song, pretense, false display, show, front, facade, charade, guise, affectation, appearance
Antonyms: do nothing
Showing 1 to 25 of 4346 results
Sermon
James L. Killen
... is true and that belief will make a big difference in your life. That is why the text goes on to say, "Grace has appeared, bringing salvation." Salvation means a lot more than many people think it means. It means more than having your guilt atoned for so ... meant for everyone else in just the same way that it was meant for you. The text goes on, "The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all." - "For all!" God loves everybody just like God loves you and God wants fullness of life for everybody just ...
2. Has He Appeared to You?
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... , shards and fragments of what God intends us to be, Christ's healing, wholesome love enters all these broken pieces of our lives. Isaiah, Paul, and Simon Peter all confess to living in a wrong, wretched state when they are confronted by the appearance of the divine. It is as if the encounter with such wholeness and perfection magnifies every ugly, stunted, soured facet of their souls. We are extremely good at dissecting our existence into smaller and smaller pieces - as if by separating all the shattered ...
Sermon
King Duncan
Pastor Phil was sitting quietly in his office going over some last minute notes on his Sunday sermon when his wife, Connie, appeared in the doorway and stated, "We have to talk!" Phil, knowing his wife was usually a very calm person, sensed that something disturbing had happened, and so asked his wife to come in and close the door. Connie, looking deeply concerned, came into the office, closed the door and sat ...
Sermon
... from the dead. How could they be so blind to the work of God in their midst? How could they be so blind to the worth of the people they put down? Even more importantly, could we be just as blind? Can you look beyond people’s outward appearance to their inner needs? Some years ago, there was a story on the news about a bizarre tragedy involving a private jet. Aboard the jet were the pilot and one passenger. During its flight, air traffic controllers noticed that the plane was off its flight plan, and the ...
Sermon
King Duncan
... from the dead. How could they be so blind to the work of God in their midst? How could they be so blind to the worth of the people they put down? Even more importantly, could we be just as blind? Can you look beyond people’s outward appearance to their inner needs? Some years ago, there was a story on the news about a bizarre tragedy involving a private jet. Aboard the jet were the pilot and one passenger. During its flight, air traffic controllers noticed that the plane was off its flight plan, and the ...
Sermon
Lori Wagner
... , the last person she expects to run into is Jesus. She no doubt wonders, as she hears His voice repeat exactly what the angels have just asked her: “Why are you crying?” The voices seems to come from the angels, and then from Him, as He seems to appear out of nowhere taking her off guard. She turns toward Him. Perhaps she glances at Him in her confused state. But she is upset. She is upset that Jesus’ body is missing. And now she must wonder if she is seeing and hearing things too. Perhaps the voices ...
Sermon
John M. Braaten
... is near. We are not able to touch him, but he can and has touched us. True to form, Jesus comes to us just as he appeared so long ago to his friends. That is, he flows in and out of our lives so naturally that unless we take time for meditation ... that he has come. That truth was experienced even by Elijah of Old Testament. He expected the Lord to make a big fuss when appearing to him at Mount Horeb. But the Bible says, "Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks ...
8. Angels
Psalm 91:1-16
Sermon
David E. Leininger
... and Eve were banished (and those cute cuddly pictures of chubby little cherubs does NOT reflect the Biblical image). Seraphim appear only in Isaiah's vision and there attend God's throne and offer praises. All three categories present us with ... not have possibly have been out on a wintry night. Could the doctor have been called in the hour of desperate need by an angel who appeared as this woman's young daughter? Was this the work of God's angels on behalf of this woman? I cannot explain it. I will say ...
Sermon
Mark Trotter
... there on the mountain. They can see it in his face. He is a different man now. The text contains this wonderful line. It says, "Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God." Experiences that you have will shape your appearance. The people knew that Moses had been with God. They could see it on his face. The text goes on to say that Moses had to wear a veil over his face because the people, looking at the glory of God shining in the face of Moses, were afraid to ...
Sermon
... God there is something he can do with us to help us win victories as well. David’s heart, of course, was not always right with the heart of God. The other story by which we know David is the story of David and Bathsheba. When we see the outward appearance of the story of what David did to Uriah and with Bathsheba, we ask, "How could the Lord have chosen a man like that to be the leader?" The story is more like a Hollywood movie, made to satisfy the sex-consciousness of America and the world, than a story ...
Sermon
Mark Trotter
... have textbook committees in our states, to make sure that only the authorized histories get into the schools. An authorized history is a history that puts the nation in its best light. Israel's history is not like that. Compared with other histories, Israel's history appears to have been written by Mel Brooks. It records all the foibles, all the mistakes, all the sins of all the people. And it begins, incredibly, with an old man and an old woman being told, you're going to have a baby. And they laugh. And ...
Sermon
King Duncan
... spoken, they found that Jesus was alone. The disciples kept this to themselves and did not tell anyone at that time what they had seen.” Here on the Mount of Transfiguration we have the highest epiphany of all. We see Christ in all his glory. We see his appearance changed, both his face and his clothing. They were “as bright as a flash of lightning.” And we see him in the company of the two leading lights of the Old Testament, Moses and Elijah. And we hear the voice of God: “This is my Son, whom I ...
13. The Death of John the Baptist
Matthew 14:1-12, Mark 6:14-29, Luke 9:1-9
Sermon
Lori Wagner
... . Luke’s Witness to Herod’s Guilty Fear that John the Baptist had Returned Now Herod the ruler heard about all that had taken place, and he was perplexed, because it was said by some that John had been raised from the dead, by some that Elijah had appeared, and by others that one of the ancient prophets had arisen. Herod said, “John I beheaded; but who is this about whom I hear such things?” And he tried to see him. Image Exegesis: The Death of John the Baptist Note: John’s story is told only ...
Sermon
King Duncan
... birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. "And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been ...
Sermon
Ronald Love
... now we do hear? We have invited Jesus into our lives. We have been converted. We have been “born again.” Being born again, it is our challenge, which requires a great deal of self-discipline, to continue to hear Jesus until we can rejoice in Jesus second appearance. We keep the words of grandma, spoken to her grandson Devon back in Wilmington, “The Lord speaks to all of us, Devon, but you’re never going to hear him if you don’t open your ears and listen.” Now that we are listening to Jesus, we ...
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
... symbol for St. Mark is the lion, as anyone who has visited the Piazza de San Marco in Venice knows. The Lion of St. Mark is just such a two-tailed creature. Mark’s Gospel has (at least) two endings, and in a number of ancient manuscripts they appear side by side. If you have a Revised Standard Bible, the translators and publishers were courageous enough to note that the best manuscripts end at verse 8, and they put the two variant readings at the end for the sake of interest. Some even dare to leave these ...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... !" "Candid Camera" was so popular it had the whole nation on guard, suspiciously expecting anything or anyone out of the ordinary to spring up and command, "Smile, you're on Candid Camera!" The miracle story from this week's gospel text describes how Jesus appeared to his disciples in a totally unexpected place and time. The disciples had suffered through a long night of whipping wind and whopping waves. Yet, they are still struggling to get beyond the midpoint of their journey. Land is yet a long way off ...
18. Misled By Beauty
1 Samuel 15:34-35, 16:1-13
Sermon
Stan Purdum
... the other based on their looks. But an even further point is that trying to avoid this bias is not just smart behavior, it is also a religious matter. If we are trying to be followers of Jesus, then we ought to work at looking past a person's physical appearance. The text also invites us to learn a different meaning of beauty. Saying that God looked on David's heart and found him worthy to be the next king is a way of saying that even though David was a good-looking man, his real beauty was at the heart ...
19. Mistaken Identity
Matthew 16:13-20
Sermon
Wayne Brouwer
... as well. It is important that we understand who Jesus is, not just in our sometimes mistaken notions of who we would like him to be, but who he is by his own testimony and actions. That seems to be why Jesus challenges his disciples to read the appearances well as they walk one day in the north country of Palestine. "Who do people say I am?" he asked them. The setting was quite appropriate for such a question, even if it does not immediately strike us that way from our first reading of the text. They ...
Sermon
John N. Brittain
... , which some of us rather like to ignore in favor of concepts of "pure grace" and "gifts without price." But we can't get around it. Two things are worth noting. First from whence does this training come? It comes from the grace of God that has appeared. So the pure, unmerited grace of God, given as a gift without price, is meant to accomplish something which requires training. And the term used here has its root in the term for "child" (paidia). It literally means to "train a child, to educate, to bring up ...
Sermon
King Duncan
... ’t you, that by just looking at them, I could tell they’ve spent a lifetime in God’s presence? It shows in their face and how they carry themselves. Today’s lesson from Luke’s Gospel is about a time when three of Jesus’ disciples saw his appearance change in a powerful way and it had a powerful impact on their lives. You know the story. Jesus often went off by himself for a time of prayer. This time he took three of his closest disciples with him--Peter, John and James. Together they went up ...
Sermon
King Duncan
... going to ask if you have ever faked interest in someone because it was good business or simply out of courtesy. All of us are guilty of such interest sometime or another. All of us are guilty of some hypocrisy. I got a chuckle from an ad that appeared in a small college town paper during the days before the annual Parents Weekend at the college. The ad was sponsored by a tavern frequented by students at the college. The ad read: “Bring Your Parents for Lunch Saturday. We’ll Pretend We Don’t Know You ...
Sermon
Lori Wagner
... and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you? Because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead. When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love (agapeo) me more than all of this?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love (phileo) you.” Jesus ...
24. True Colors
Acts 9:1-19a, Acts 9:19b-31
Sermon
Lori Wagner
... is morphed and changed, only to emerge as a new person, in which Christ lives in him. God’s covenant is a covenant of light. In Abram’s story, the one most that I find links with this story, after Abram is put into a deep sleep (remember Adam), God appears as a fiery tannur (a smoking furnace or clay kiln). In a kiln, pottery (remember God as the potter in Genesis 2) is fired into a new form. When the covenant is cut with Abram, he too is a “made” man, who will father a child and birth a people ...
25. Translucent Grace
Mark 9:2-13, Luke 9:28-36, Revelation 1:9-20, Revelation 2:12-17
Sermon
Lori Wagner
... As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, “Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (He did not know what he was saying.) While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and covered them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. A voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.” When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone. The disciples kept this to themselves and ...
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