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 60 results

1. Look Carefully How You Walk

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... laid hold of by Christ as Paul would say. You remember Paul's testimony in Phil. 3: 12-14. "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect; but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do; forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Jesus Christ ...

2. A Tale Of Two Peters

Acts 5:27-32

Sermon

David J. Kalas

... of the place was shattered. It all happened so quickly: torches, spears, and clubs; menacing guards accompanied by Judas; a kiss and a confrontation; a swing of a sword and a rebuke. Then, within just a few minutes, the garden was quiet again. Jesus was gone: apprehended by the mob and the disciples were gone; they had fled into the night. Peter had enough temerity to follow rather than flee. He followed at some safe distance, to be sure, but he wanted to see what was going to happen to his friend and ...

3. The Promise of Emmanuel

Isaiah 7:1-25

Sermon

... for King Ahaz. Centuries later another pregnant woman, named Mary, gave birth to a baby boy. That child born in Bethlehem is God with us. In Jesus the mighty, exalted, holy God became like us and continues to be with us. Because our God is with us, we can apprehend the dual nature of our Advent anticipation and deal with this duality in our own lives and world. The advent promise is that God is coming to us ever new and ever fresh. And yet the Advent promise is, also, that God is with us, freeing us to cast ...

4. Out With the Old - In With the New

Philippians 3:12-14

Sermon

James Merritt

... and tomorrow, you need to cut down some trees in your past and forget them. III. Be Devoted To a Purpose The secret, I believe, of Paul's great life was he understood the power of concentration. He says in v.13, "Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do." Paul said I'm going to give my life to one thing. Those two words "one thing" are very important in the Bible. When the rich young ruler came to Jesus and asked how to be saved, Jesus said, "One thing you lack." When Martha ...

5. I’m Movin’ On

Philippians 3:12-14

Sermon

James Merritt

... 're going to have to cut down some trees in your past and forget them. III. Be Devoted To A Purpose The secret, I believe, of Paul's great life was he understood the power of concentration. He says in v.13, "Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do…" Paul said I'm going to give my life to one thing. Those two words "one thing" are very important in the Bible. When the rich young ruler came to Jesus and asked Him how to be saved, Jesus said, "One thing you lack." When ...

6. How Odd Of God

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

John A. Stroman

In every generation if we are to apprehend the abiding forces that will dominate and direct the future, then we must believe in the minute, the diminutive, and the inconspicuous, as is seen in such New Testament words as "mustard seed" and "leaven." The most remembered events turn out to be not the vociferous and noisy affairs that ...

7. Holy Love and Herod's Love

Matthew 2:13-18, Matthew 2:19-23

Sermon

Mark Radecke

... is not a godly option. The birth of the Christ child, together with his inevitable violent death and glorious resurrection, has the power to free us from the deadly deception that is Herod's love, and free us for the living truth that is holy love. Those who have been apprehended by the vision never say, "It's only a dream"!

8. Hope Against Hope

Jeremiah 33:1-26

Sermon

Robert A. Hausman

... not all from the same historical period, they all reflect the same conviction of the Jeremiah tradition -- the God who plucks up can also replant, the God who tears down can also rebuild, the God who nullifies can also do a new thing. Before Israel can apprehend this hope, however, it must relinquish the past. Let us recall that past. In 586 B.C.E., Jerusalem had fallen to the Babylonians, the temple had been destroyed, and the best and the brightest had been exiled to Babylon. "By the rivers of Babylon ...

9. Followership

Matthew 4:18-22, Matthew 4:12-17

Sermon

Mark Radecke

... and broke them too." The strange peace of God penetrates and permeates our every fiber even as dye permeates a piece of unbleached fabric. The primacy and priority of that peace of God which lays claim on us and lays hold of us: that is what we need to apprehend as we reflect on our own daily need and struggle to repent, renounce, obey and follow. In today's Gospel text, Jesus says, "Repent" -- and he means it! He goes on to say "for the kingdom of heaven has come near." The rest of Matthew's Gospel can be ...

10. Wonderful Story

Genesis 17:1-27

Sermon

E. Carver McGriff

... that. Seeing this, and imbued now with Adoniram Judson's teachings of sacrifice and love, his young friend and convert jumped into the water, quickly swam to the woman and dragged her gasping but alive to the far shore. Adoniram and his friend were quickly apprehended and, in accord with the swift and violent justice of the time, they were brought before an elderly magistrate. He listened to the villagers' report of what had happened. He stroked a long, white beard as he pondered for a few moments. Then he ...

11. Written On The Heart

Jeremiah 30:1--31:40

Sermon

E. Carver McGriff

... who had also been turned away recently were seen approaching the corner of a fence designed to keep them out. The shadowy figure sneaked over, lifted some loose wires, and the miscreants climbed under the fence. Quickly, the man in the darkness was apprehended. To Peter's amazement, it was Jesus. "But master," Peter spluttered. "What are you doing? I turned these people away just today." "Sorry, Peter," Jesus said. "But these are friends of mine." Silly story, maybe. But you see, that's what Christianity is ...

12. Would That God. . .

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

Thomas Peterson

... for herself. “If I keep faith with all the things that matter to my husband; if I invest in whatever is required to reach my goal, then I stand a chance of getting what I believe to be the most important thing in the whole wide world.” She apprehends how her faith-at-work spreads itself into the future. Now imagine again that she comes to the counselor: the counselor sees that this time she means business. “Well, you’re already on your way; you already have the ability to see. Go, for your faith is ...

13. The TV Revolution

Sermon

Michael Rogness

... to draw crowds with jerky old black-and-white silent movies in this age of wide-screen, brilliant colors, Dolby sound and computer-produced graphics. The concern of this book is: How has television affected the way people listen to and apprehend the spoken word, and how should we preachers respond? From Orality To Print Ancient societies were oral. Without alphabets the only means of communicating words was to speak person to person. History and culture were transmitted by storytellers and poets speaking ...

14. The Conversion of Saul

Acts 9:1-19a

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

... legalistic background, in spite of his prejudices and arrogant opinions, in spite of his learning and cleverness. But because of the seeking Savior and persons of the Way, he was found by Christ. Of course it is always through Christ's initiative that we are apprehended in our head-long dash for self-destruction. Because of Christ, Saul found knowledge of the Way - Way both in a person and in a direction for his life. We, too, are saved, because God always uses the intricate weaving of other lives into our ...

15. What Happens When We Can't Believe It?

John 20:24-31

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... feeling and faith are two different things. It is the nature of faith not to feel, to lay aside reason and close the eyes, to submit absolutely to the Word, and follow it in life and death. Feeling however does not extend beyond that which may be apprehended by reason and the senses, which may be heard, seen, felt and known by the outward senses. For this cause feeling is opposed to faith and faith is opposed to feeling."1 Feeling is against faith, and faith is against feeling. Sometimes I do not feel loved ...

16. Hard Times May Drop In For A Visit

Ezekiel 37:1-14

Sermon

Joann Hary

... a period of over two years, eventually destroying everything in the year 587 BCE. Nothing was left. The walls were leveled, the city burned. The temple was plundered. Leading citizens were executed and others were carried off to exile in Babylon. Zedekiah, the king, was apprehended in flight and forced to witness the execution of his family. Then, in order to fix that terrifying sight in his mind, they blinded him and carried him off to Babylon, where he died. It seemed that for God's people the glory had ...

17. If Only We Would Accept Responsibility ...

Ezekiel 33:1-20

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... hospital patients. A late call usually meant critical illness or death, but this call was from the police. The church’s security system had alerted the police, and they asked the pastor to meet them at the church. By the time he arrived, a "visitor" had been apprehended as he was leaving the building. He was carrying a bag of tools and one door showed the marks of his crowbar. "What were you doing in there?" a police officer demanded. Holding his bag of burglar’s tools, the thief replied, "I broke in to ...

18. The Importance of Forgiving Others

Matthew 5:17-20

Sermon

... King Arthur to Guenivere, "Lo, I forgive thee, as the eternal God forgives." And we must mean it! That’s exactly what the vicar in London did, because the people who had attacked him, his daughter, and the young man - and robbed them, too - had been apprehended and were facing trial when he preached his "forgiveness" sermon. "Are we losing the war on violence?" That’s a question that is being seriously asked. It must be faced head on in our times. It has been said that "Everybody knows that society is ...

19. The Divine-Human Nexus

Matthew 25:31-46

Sermon

... is lost. For that is what we learn from the whole counsel of God: the degree to which we are preoccupied with and anxious about our own performance and perfection is the degree to which the grace of God is an impossibility for us to comprehend and apprehend. By the same token, the freedom that is ours in Christ Jesus is not the freedom to show either callous disregard or even benign neglect toward the needs of others. What the whole counsel of God tells us is that human beings are to love one another "not ...

20. A Queen Bee’s Sting

2 Samuel 6:1-23

Sermon

... a husband and a wife. The writer of Samuel gives us short scenes from the marriage of David and Michal, two millenia before movies were invented. In the first scene we see Michal pursuing David with all the fanaticism of a Daisy Mae about to apprehend Lil Abner on the outskirts of Dogpatch. Sibling rivalry had made her jealous of her big sister Merab, who loved David. The callow shepherd from Bethlehem melted when he saw Merab, but Saul forced her to marry someone else. Saul distrusted David and did not ...

21. What Gives You Away?

Judges 12:1-7

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

... the dilemma. Then the Gileadites remembered that the men of Ephraim had a brogue of their own, making some words distinct from any of the other tribes. Shibboleth was the word that stood for river, and so when a man from Ephraim, fleeing for his life, was apprehended by a man from Gilead he would be asked: "Friend or foe?" Naturally he would respond that he was a "friend." Then came the big test: "Then say ‘Shibboleth’" - and no matter how hard he tried, no matter how he twisted his tongue, the best the ...

22. Embalmed Leaders

John 10:1-21

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... Aires wrote some time ago: "There is no more pitiful role on the world stage than that of the savior. Help and aid are everywhere received grudgingly and resentfully. The United States is increasingly experiencing the truth of this but without apprehending it. Having intervened in many countries in the supposed interest of its nationals, having extended generous aid, political and financial, the United States is the most vilified nation on the globe, simply because it proffered aid." He illustrates this by ...

23. Signs Of A Vital Church

2 Corinthians 2:12--3:6, 2 Corinthians 4:1-18

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... some Methodist preachers to America in 1784, gave them but one command. He said, "Offer them Christ." Back during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, a postal clerk named George Wilson robbed a train and in the process killed a guard. He was apprehended, tried, convicted, and sentenced to die by hanging. But in those days the public sentiment against capital punishment was great. A movement began to secure a presidential pardon for Wilson. President Jackson responded by granting the pardon. But then came an ...

24. Hungry for Anything?

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... When she was asked what she was doing with the money, she reported that she went around eating in fancy restaurants and leaving big tips for the waitresses there. It was her way of achieving importance. The first thing that many criminals do after being apprehended is to ask to see the newspapers so that they can read about themselves. Well, our Lord knew our desire for significance. He literally took people who were nobody and made them somebody. He took twelve of the most unknown and nameless men he could ...

25. Our Father Who Art on Earth

Proverbs 1:8-19

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... industry, morality and godliness. But despite all this, his son fell into the influence of this materialistic age of ours. The son wanted everything that this world had to offer, and he wanted it right now. Finally he stole a neighbor’s car, ran away. He was apprehended in a Southern state. It was my duty to go down and have him remanded to my custody. As we drove back through the night, this dirty, crushed, tired and hungry lad sat penitently by my side. As he thought of his father at home he alternated ...

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