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 83 results

1. Is Anything Unforgivable?

Mark 3:20-30

Sermon

David G. Rogne

... person loses his own soul. Jesus is warning us about this. There is also a positive message to be learned from these words. The lesson is that we must keep ourselves alert to the way God is working in the world. Remember that those who were seeking to discredit Jesus were religious people. Their problem was that they just didn't expect God to be acting as Jesus said he was acting, so they missed the movement of God in their midst, and in fact, they called it evil. Today God may be speaking to us in causes ...

2. "Gotcha" Questions from Mean-Spirited People

Sermon

R. Robert Cueni

... claiming victory for our Lord, be reminded of the tenacity of the mean-spirited. They don't give up easily. In fact, all they do is reorganize and try again. The mean-spirited decide to have Jesus killed without waiting for him to say something that discredits him in the eyes of the people. It might be said at that moment those religious leaders crossed the threshold from mean-spirited to downright evil. As you know, they are successful with this final version of the plan. The week that began with the ...

3. Who?

Acts 5:27-32

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... 's as if we have climbed a mountain. Suddenly we can see everything laid out before us and things make sense. Prophets come among us and challenge our comfortable assumptions. Most of us want to be let alone. The tendency is to attempt to discredit these prophets instead of listening to them. Take the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., a Christian minister who preached nonviolent resistance to the racism that was accepted in his day. Even people who thought racism was a bad thing assumed there was nothing to ...

4. Speak From Personal Experience

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

Robert V. Dodd

... have raised in the past three thousand years! Our purpose is not to be an expert on the Bible or theology, but to tell the story about what Christ has done and is doing in our lives. When you speak from personal experience, there is no way that others can discredit you. My good friend, Robert G. Tuttle tells in his book, One Man's Journey, of an attempt to counsel a person who came to him terribly disturbed Dr. Tuttle said to the man, "I cannot tell you to trust God. It would not mean anything to you. But I ...

5. His Teachings

Luke 20:27-40

Sermon

Brett Blair

... essence, a pacifist. But Jesus also challenged the old ways. His prediction of the destruction of the Temple and the driving out of the moneychangers cast him as anti establishment. So this conference was called not in an attempt to plot to assassinate Jesu but rather to discredit him. They did not want a martyr on their hands. They would much prefer to make him a fool. Let’s give him enough rope and he may just hang himself. Thus, each group would in turn ask him a question, not because they thought that ...

6. The Political Controversies Of Jesus

Luke 20:27-47

Sermon

Brett Blair

7. In The Beginning And The End...God

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put the conclusion almost beyond question." So the battle, friends, is not a battle between science and the Bible not at all. There is no point in the Christian trying to discredit a scientific approach because the scientific approach is leading many into a deeper and deeper faith. In the beginning, God created incandescent amazement. God calls Creation out of chaos and rejoices. Read the story, "Let there be light", and there was light, and ...

8. Epiphany:The Joy of Fulfillment

Luke 4:14-30

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

... faith does not stand or fall with the trustworthiness of the Gospels. The gospel, he said, was preached to the world before a single Gospel was written -- for nearly a full generation -- and it would continue to be preached if all the written Gospels were discredited or destroyed. The Christian faith has been conveyed to us in the scriptures, and we cherish and honor the Book. We are grateful that we have it as a written record of the faith we firmly believe. But great as the scriptures are, they would ...

9. Epiphany: The Tragedy of Rejection

Luke 4:14-30

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

... "were astounded at his teaching, because he spoke with authority" (Luke 4:32). To the good fortune of the people of Capernaum, they were not handicapped by hometown images of Jesus. They did not lay the insight and power of his words alongside the discrediting measuring stick, "Is not this Joseph's son?" They accepted Jesus' words and person in their own right, and they saw authority. And as a result, they were privileged to see miracles. An epiphany a wondrous revealing is only as good as our ability ...

10. The Unforgivable Sin

Mark 3:20-30

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... ’.’ (Carl F.Henry, Ibid). And that’s a challenge to us in our relation to needy family members where is our main concern? The second challenging thought to consider while we’re on this side path. Isn’t there a tendency on our part to try to discredit the experience of others when we are intimidated by their experience? Think about it for a moment. Haven’t you felt threatened by a close friend, or even a family member who moved to a new level of Christian commitment, and began to take his or her ...

11. In Whose Likeness?

Matthew 22:15-22

Sermon

Chris Ewing

... popular support. It seems that no matter how he answers, he's in trouble. Which, of course, is exactly what his questioners want. Coming from these people, the question about taxes is not a faith or conscience query; it is a hostile question designed to make Jesus discredit himself. And it looks as if they have him over a barrel. Is it right for the chosen people of God, citizens of Israel, who have no king but God and God's anointed, to pay tribute to an occupying pagan power whose emperor demands to be ...

12. Aha! An Epiphany!

Matthew 3:13-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... 1927, at age thirty-two, a young man named Buckminster Fuller was standing on the shores of Lake Michigan. He was intent on committing suicide by throwing himself into the freezing waters of that great lake. His first child had died. He was bankrupt. He was discredited. He was jobless. He had a wife and a newborn daughter, yet he felt hopeless. But, suddenly he had a realization, an epiphany if you will. He realized that his life belonged not to himself but to others. He chose that moment to embark upon an ...

13. A Family Member · Salome

Mt 20:20-21 · Mk 15:40; 16:1-2

Sermon

Gordon Pratt Baker

... , and families often have a way of underestimating their own. Nor were the Master's kin beyond it. For at times Mary had doubts about her son despite the revelations made to her at his birth, (Luke 2:48-51) while his brothers did not hesitate to discredit him openly. (John 7:5) Yet here was Salome committing herself to Jesus as her people's last, best hope. Watching Jesus grow up Salome had become convinced of his closeness to God. To her it was evident in both his bearing and the depth of his insights ...

14. Living The Alternatives

Luke 17:1-10

Sermon

W. Robert McClelland

... , but it is frightening. It calls on reserves of imagination that see beyond what is. Its vision threatens to disrupt the status quo. Instinctively we know that the comfort and security of our vested interests are in jeopardy. So we try to ignore it, discredit it, or destroy it. Jesus was not only cruicified as a political threat to the Roman empire, but as a spiritual threat to the religious establishment. Dead, the religious leaders could say what they wanted to about him. Alive, he spoke for himself ...

15. When is Patriotism An Idol?

Matthew 22:15-22

Sermon

George Johnson

... traditions, their allegiances, their positions of privilege, their patriotism. Attention was on edge. Jesus Is Tested Where Vulnerable So they put Jesus to the test. They wanted to get Jesus to comment and say what they thought he was saying, so they could discredit him, entangle him in his words, prove to the audience that he was a revolutionary that should be silenced. They suspected in their hearts that he was soft on patriotism, so they went after his Achilles' heel. You can feel the atmosphere. The ...

16. The Public Effect Of Private Living

2 Samuel 11:1-27

Sermon

Robert Allen

... and led to his resignation. John Tower was considered by many to be the ideal candidate to be the Secretary of Defense, but when the revelation of his private conduct involving excessive drinking and womanizing became public knowledge, he was tarnished and discredited so severely that he could not get Senate confirmation. A prominent minister with a bright future in the church becomes a major topic of conversation when his wife files for divorce and rumors that he has been involved with another woman begin ...

17. Marked For Ministry

Sermon

George Bass

“We do nothing that people might object to, so as not to bring discredit on our function as God’s servants. Instead, we prove we are servants of God….”2 Corinthians 6:3-4a “He said, therefore, to the crowds who came to be baptised by him, ‘Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the retribution that is coming? But if you ...

18. Jail House Joy

Acts 16:16-40

Sermon

Carl Hoefler

... predictions of the future through that person. What the insane girl was saying was true. However, her words were not inspired by God. Rather, they were directed by the Evil One, who was cunningly attempting to gain control of the situation and to discredit the effects of the witnessing of Paul and Silas. Paul, however, was able to discern the difference between the words of a demonically-possessed fortune teller and the authentic proclamation of one who had been blessed with a gift of prophecy from the ...

19. Give Them Good News...

Romans 5:1-11

Sermon

Robert V. Dodd

... live out their daily lives in their own private hells. Modern man may no longer believe in sin, but he is certainly bothered by it. We can waste a lot of time trying to make non-Christians act like Christians. We can waste a lot of energy trying to discredit scientific and technological achievements and put the fear of hell back into people's hearts. Or, we can give them the Good News of Christ. We've had enough of this talk about what a sick and sinful world we live in, I realize that all is not right ...

20. When The Cheering Stopped

Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

Brett Blair

... publicly attack him. That was something new. Earlier they had been afraid to speak out for fear of the masses, but they began to perceive that the fickle public was turning on him. Soon the opposition began to snowball. When they discovered that they could not discredit his moral character, they began to take more desperate measures. Before it was all over a tidal wave welled up that brought Jesus to his knees under the weight of a cross. Why did the masses so radically turn against him? How did the shouts ...

21. Watching Jesus

Luke 14:1-14

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... to the interior places of our personhood, it becomes very uncomfortable. Jesus was going beyond the comfort zone with his talk about the inwardness of meaning and motive. He would have to be watched. These "watching" people hoped that they could discredit Jesus so that his influence would falter. They watched, hoping that he might say the wrong word like politicians, whose careless words are used against them. They watched, perhaps thinking they could catch him in a compromising situation. Their behavior ...

22. Proper 9

Exodus 1:1-22

Sermon

... instrument, a person who can respond, who is captured by a dream beyond all reasonable dreams, one in whom love, judgment, and healing are combined. This personality breaks on the world like the dawn after a dark night. At that moment, ancient and discredited dreams suddenly become creditable and people begin to believe in new possibilities. Out of a baby, in most improbable surroundings, came the first strands of hope for a people who were without hope. People began to be infected with divine madness, a ...

23. More Real Than Food

John 6:25-59

Sermon

Carl Jech

... festival. Christians felt that they had a new and more profound reason to celebrate during this season when the daylight hours gradually begin to lengthen. In recent years a growing number of critics seem to be taking delight in an attempt to discredit Christianity by pointing out the ways in which many features of Christian belief and practice appear to be "borrowed" from the various mystery religions and other cults that were prevalent at and before the time of Jesus. Their assumption seems to be ...

24. You Figure It Out

Matthew 22:15-22

Sermon

... . As the movement in Matthew races inevitably to the final showdown and the crucifixion, the confrontations become more pointed, the accusations more shrill. In this text the Pharisees are actually described as plotting to entangle Jesus. The short-term goal was to embarrass and discredit him; the long-term goal was to get him into a dilemma from which he could not extricate himself, with the result that his own following would turn on him and he would lose his following, and, as a possible added bonus, the ...

25. The Gospel According to Christ’s Enemies

John 11:1-16

Sermon

Richard Hoefler

... s enemies.’ "18 Yet these words of hostility testify to the truth of Jesus the Christ as much as anything spoken about him by Christ’s friends. This is the amazing aspect of the gospel: that even the words of those who loath Christ, seeking only to discredit and destroy him, still testify to his truth. "It is better for you - you and me - all of us - that one man die for the people, instead of the whole nation being destroyed!" Who can in the face of this fantastic fact of history doubt the redemptive ...

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