Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: humiliation, mortification, chagrin, ignominy, loss of face, shamefacedness, embarrassment, indignity, abashment, discomfort, discomfiture, discomposure, guilt, remorse, contrition, compunction, disgrace, dishonour, discredit, degradation, disrepute, ill-repute, infamy, scandal, odium, opprobrium, obloquy, condemnation, contempt, pity, misfortune, crying shame, cause for regret, source of regret, sad thing, unfortunate thing, discredit to, disgrace to, stain on, blemish on, blot on, blot on the escutcheon of, slur on, reproach to, bad reflection on, bring into disrepute, degrade, debase, defame, stigmatize, taint, sully, tarnish, besmirch, stain, blacken, drag through the mud/mire, give a bad name to, put in a bad light, humiliate, mortify, make someone feel ashamed, embarrass, abash, chasten, humble, put someone in their place, take down a peg or two, cut down to size, show up

Antonyms: honor, pride, respect, glory, praise, dignity, honor, esteem, glorification, laud, compliment, regard, credit, elevate, acclaim, pleasure, favor, kudos, recognition, flatter, admiration, greatness, happiness, self-confidence, reverence

Showing 1 to 25 of 109 results

1. When the Storms Come

Mark 4:35-41

Sermon

King Duncan

... the apples. They just didn't look as pretty as they usually did, and the farmer was afraid that the people who had ordered them might be disappointed and ask for their money back. Then he had an idea. He took all of the apples with the little blemishes on the outside and wrapped every one of them the same way he did every year. He put them in the same kind of packages. Then he added a note. It read: "Notice these high-quality apples. This year represents the finest crop. You can see the blemishes caused ...

2. "A" Lamb to "the" Lamb

Exodus 12:1-30

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

... lamb cookie which he selected was all cracked and ruined. No one would eat it, so they might as well be practical about it. But that’s not the way with God’s Lamb with the capital "L." His Lamb is sinless, spotless, pure, good, holy, perfect, without a single blemish on him. And that is the Lamb that redeems us! We may often give God our left-overs, but he gave us his best Lamb, his only Lamb! Do Something With the Lamb The solemn fact about this Lamb story is that the blood of the Lamb must be applied ...

3. Warts and All

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... education. Paul practiced piety with Pharisaic rigorousness. He successfully orchestrated some of the earliest, most efficient persecutions against the upstart Christina sectarians. He must have hated finding, admitting and living with this thorn in the flesh, this blemish on his reputation, this blister on his soul. Paul was a decisive, take-charge kind of person. As his forthright, pull-no-punches letters to the repeatedly problematic Corinthian church reveal, this apostle never sidestepped hard issues or ...

4. The Uncloudy Cloud?

Hebrews 11:1-40

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... the ground. The cloud of witnesses is cloudy indeed. We like to think of the cloud as a pure white, pristine pillow of shimmering goodness and light. But that word cloud has a double meaning: it also means something that darkens and obscures, or a blemish on a polished stone. A cloud on someone's reputation isn't a good thing. This cloud of witnesses here in Hebrews isn't a clear, shining beacon of unadulterated goodness shining in its midst. This cloud of witnesses is a condensation of troubled, sometimes ...

5. Lamb Parade

John 12:12-19

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... celebration, [clap, clap, clap-clap-clap] the shepherds were lining up the sheep for the big parade [clap, clap, clap-clap-clap], and the high priest was choosing what he thought was the most perfect Lamb [clap, clap, clap-clap-clap]. It needed to have no blemish on it. It needed to look white and clean. This would be the Temple Lamb, [clap, clap, clap-clap-clap] the Paschal Lamb [clap, clap, clap-clap-clap], the Lamb of Atonement to walk in front of the Lamb Parade [clap, clap, clap-clap-clap] [waving of ...

6. The Perfect Blemish

John 2:13-22

Sermon

John Smylie

When we think of the Lord Jesus, we tend to think of what he has done for us. We think of how he has liberated human beings from the bondage of sin and death through his own death and resurrection. Sometimes we may forget that our Lord is the Lord of all creation. His sacrifice once, for all, had an impact on a religious system where sacrifice no longer became necessary. The following story is told from the perspective of one of the animals whose life Jesus saved. Snap! Crack! Snap! "Ouch," I cried. You ...

7. Carbon Pure and Perfect

1 Corinthians 1:10-17

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Jesus is our diamond. Jesus is the carbon based incarnation of the divine transformed by the steady pressure of God’s endless love into the brightest Morning Star Diamond ever created. Jesus is our diamond. Jesus is Carbon Pure and Perfect, the pure and perfect way to the Father, our only eternal security. But there are many ways to look at Jesus, just as there are many ways to look at a diamond. This is what Paul was getting at in our epistle reading for this morning. Paul is urging the Corinthian ...

8. Kintsugi Vessels

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Anyone here love “antiques?” How about “Antiques Road Show?” Did you know it’s been around for 36 years, since 1977? [This would be a good time to facilitate a short time of interaction with the congregation over their favorite “antiques,” their favorite shows dealing with “antiques,” what the difference is between “antiques” and “collectives,” etc.] “Antiques” and “collectibles” have value because they have survived intact for a long period of time. With the exception of those few things that are made of ...

9. Listen to the Angels

Revelation 5:11-14

Sermon

King Duncan

A layperson wrote on the Internet that he attends a small village church in rural Pennsylvania. On any given Sunday, he says, they may have six or seven faithful children who come with their parents. The pastor has a white bag which is passed from child to child, making sure they get equal turns to put something in for him to talk about. Each Sunday, the pastor calls all the children up and he opens the bag to find a “surprise” on which he bases his children’s sermon. Easter week, the bag went home with a ...

10. Broken Yet Sincere

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

Lori Wagner

Prop: Kintsugi pottery (or something similar) –a piece of ceramic broken and repaired with a gold filling. Scar tissue is visible history... Sometimes the joins are so exquisite they say the potter may have broken the cup just so he could mend it[1] The Japanese have a unique kind of artwork called “kintsugi” (to patch in gold) or “kintsukuroi” (to repair with gold). The artist takes a shattered bowl or pitcher and pieces it back together again, sealing the cracks and holes with pure gold. The result is a ...

11. Glory Guaranteed

Jude 1:24-25

Sermon

James Merritt

Before Woodrow Wilson became President of the United States, he was President of Princeton University. One day he had to endure an hour-long interrogation by an anxious mother who wanted to be sure that Princeton was the best place to send her son. He patiently tried to answer every one of her questions, and assuage every one of her doubts, but finally, his patience came to an end. He held up his hand and looked at her and said, "Madam, we guarantee satisfaction, or you will get your son back."1 There is ...

12. Repentance Is Relationship!

Luke 13:1-9

Sermon

Gary L. Carver

Repentance is relationship. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a short story titled, The Birthmark. It is a story about a man who married a very beautiful woman who had a birthmark on her left cheek. She had always thought of it as a beauty spot, but her husband saw the birthmark to be a sign of imperfection, a flaw. It began wearing on him so much that all he could see was that birthmark. He could not see her beauty, her graciousness, or her great personality. He could only focus on what he perceived to be a flaw ...

13. From Temple to Table

John 10:1-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

As the “wilderness” continues to shrink, the highly populated suburbs weirdly become the new “edges” of civilization. Why else would coyotes have become the greatest danger for small dogs and cats? Why else would deer have replaced moles, grubs, and crabgrass as the biggest landscaping challenge all over suburbia? The only thing worse than having all your flowers nipped off by marauding Bambi’s is the absolutely abhorrent smell of deer repellent. To keep deer from munching down your roses, pansies, zinnia’ ...

14. The Clanking of Coins

Matthew 27:1-10

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

Suppose that I tingled a batch of coins in my pocket or dropped some quarters on a marble floor. If you were to close your eyes and listen to the sound that money makes, what would it remind you of? ... A bank teller spilling out a deposit for counting?... A child shaking a piggy bank in hopes that a coin will slip through the slot?... A clerk dropping the money from your purchase into a register?... An expectant gambler at the fair, trying to make a penny land between the lines?... A woman searching ...

15. Desire Peace

Sermon

Alan Bacon Bond

Scripture: Psalm 29Amos 5:18-242 Peter 3:8-14 Text: Be zealous to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. 2 Peter 3:14 If you were an astro-physicist from Kitt Peak Observatory, or a nuclear scientist from the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, how do you suppose you would interpret these words? With a roar the sky will vanish, the elements will catch fire and fall apart, the earth and all that it contains will be burned up. (New Jerusalem Bible) You might nod your head in recognition. You ...

16. The Family Was God’s Idea

Sermon

Gregory J. Johanson

Currently J. Benton and Faye French Tulley Professor of Pastoral Psychology, San Francisco Theological Seminary, San Anselmo, California, and the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, EDWARD V. STEIN has been contributing books and articles to the field of pastoral care for a number of years, especially in the area of guilt formation and therapy. He has also engaged in considerable post-doctoral training in family therapy. The family in our day and time - ambiguous and needed, imperfect and hopeful, ...

17. Bad News from a Good Man!

1 Kings 21:1-29

Sermon

Robert Leslie Holmes

There are two facts we all need to remember before we can make any real sense out of life. The first is that God is sovereign and holy, just and loving. The second is that we are not. We are servants, unholy, self-centered, and self-seeking. This Scripture passage is a marvelous illustration of this. You would think that seeing God send fire from heaven would change a corrupt heart every time. That, however, is not the case, as we can see from the life of Ahab and his Jezebel. I. The Sliding Spiral Of ...

18. Mud Below, Stars Above

Genesis 15:1-18

Sermon

King Duncan

Have you ever heard the little poem that goes something like this? Two prisoners there were who looked through bars, One saw mud, the other saw stars. Two basic attitudes toward life. What do you see when you look at life? Do you see mud? Or do you see stars? Of course, a lot of what we see is relative. A man went to his rabbi and complained, "Life is unbearable. There are nine of us living in one room. What can I do?" The rabbi answered, "Bring your goat to live in the room with you." The man was ...

19. God's Messenger

Malachi 2:17--3:5

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

If we read the Old Testament in tandem with the New Testament, we sometimes have to employ a double focus. Verse 1 of our passage promises that God will send a messenger ahead to prepare the way of his coming. And that is certainly true when we look toward Christmas. God gives all sorts of preparatory signs before Jesus Christ is born in Bethlehem. An angel choir announces to shepherds that the one born is the Savior of the world. A rising and leading star alerts Mesopotamian astrologists to the fact that ...

20. Taking the Long View

2 Peter 3:8-15a

Sermon

Donald Charles Lacy

So much seems to press upon us in our daily living that "taking the long view" may not only be remote but considered impractical and therefore shelved. A thousand years equals one day and one day equals 1,000 years. It all sounds so mystical and unscientific! Do you mean we have to rethink being captains of our own ships? That is so basic to the American way and you are suggesting we give it up? After all, we can accomplish anything we set out to do — that is if we just try hard enough. Planning is done ...

21. A Blessing in Disguise

Genesis 32:22-31

Sermon

David J. Kalas

I wonder how many of us here are named after someone. Chances are that a good many of us carry family names. We are named for a parent, a grandparent, an uncle, or an aunt somewhere on the family tree. Others of us had parents who named us after a character in the Bible, or perhaps some other significant character from history. All told, I expect a pretty fair number of us are named after someone else. When Isaac and Rebecca had their twin boys, they took an unusual approach to naming their babies. They ...

22. What Kind of Sheep Are You?

Luke 2:1-7, Luke 2:8-20, Ezekiel 34:1-31

Sermon

Lori Wagner

“I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments. (Psalm 119) Animation: “What Kind of Sheep Are You” Online Test: http://selectsmart.com/FREE/select.php?client=baaa Animation: Live Lamb (you can rent a lamb at your neighborhood 4H club or a nearby farm) Animation: Shepherd’s staff (any large natural wood staff will do) We love the Christmas story for its simplicity. Simple shepherds, simple sheep, simple message, simple mission. It all seems so simple. Hence ...

23. Unfettered Faith

Mark 1:35-39, Mark 1:40-45, Exodus 15:22-27

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... . What does this mean, this metaphorization? To understand, we need to think about leprosy, the disease. While leprosy was a generic term often for any skin condition, or any physically visible blemish, not always the deadly form, still, this “blemish” on the outside represented a kind of “sin” on the inside. While in the Jewish priestly tradition, this would lead to unfair labeling, ostracizement, and removal from community, we know today from our health care providers and psychologists that the ...

24. Weeds

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Sermon

William G. Carter

One summer day, it was my turn to mow the yard. The dew had burned off, the grass was dry. I fired up the Briggs and Stratton, lowered the blade, and took it for a spin. The job took about 45 minutes and it was done. Yet as I circled the front yard for the first time, I realized my lawn is full of weeds. Now I knew there were a few. A weed-and-feed expedition earlier in the spring eliminated most of the dandelions. It seems other undesirables have invaded our plot of land. That is a big deal in the town ...

25. God Is Like...a Lamb

Exodus 12:3-8 · Luke 22:7-20

Sermon

Kenneth L. Gibble

What’s the first song you ever learned? There are some perennial children’s favorites, such as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and in Sunday school, “Jesus Loves Me, This I Know.” But the odds are pretty good that for some of you here this morning, one of the first songs or maybe even the very first song you learned was “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” What an interesting lamb it was, not because its fleece was white as snow, but because of what it did …it followed Mary everywhere. One day it even followed her … ...

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