Sermon and Worship Resources

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 145 results

1. Day People

1 Thessalonians 4:13--5:11

Sermon

King Duncan

... War re-enactors are a fascinating breed of history buffs, according to this article. These men research the Civil War meticulously, especially the manner in which the war was fought. Then they spend their spare time setting up the most realistic re-enactments of the historical battles of the War possible. According to re-enactor Michael Melford, these men “prepare for battle 365 days a year.” Re-enactors live, eat, and breathe like actual Civil War soldiers. They wear soldiers’ garb that is sewn out ...

2. Celebrating Eucharistic Time

Mark 14:12-26

Sermon

Charles R. Leary

... little fellow’s eyes would be on the face of Lincoln. And then, with tears flowing from her cheeks, she said, “Take a long, long look, honey. He died for you.” Jesus did both a recall and a re-enactment at the Last Supper. Using the format and the elements of the Passover Meal, he re-enacted the deliverance of the Jews from Egypt. Not surprisingly, he used the familiar symbols but reinvested them with new meaning. He signified the bread as his body and the wine as his blood. Then he linked the meal to ...

3. Bloody Doorposts

Exodus 12:1-30

Sermon

... . Being repentant, he goes and tells her how sorry he is and how badly he feels about it. But after hearing his apology, what would it mean if all she says is, "That's okay -- it doesn't really matter. It doesn't make any difference -- forget it"? Has she enacted forgiveness? NO -- what she has said is this: "I don't care enough about you to be bothered by anything you say or do. You're really not that important to me."1 What would it take? What would it take really to convince a husband that his wife had ...

4. The Four Marks of Failure

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... hearts and souls staggering under the cares they had helped heap upon themselves. A carefree life is an inconceivable life for a body of Christ working to bring in the Kingdom of God more fully each day. In October of 2002, a prophetic enactment of the biblical Jubilee took place on Wall Street, the heart of global capitalism. "One hour before normal trading began on Wall Street, the activists joined with dozens of homeless persons outside the New York Stock Exchange. The festivities began with the blowing ...

5. The Turning Point

John 13:31-35

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... than we have for ourselves. And God has a bigger heart for us than we could ever muster. The story of Judas is a sad one. After his betrayal of Jesus, when he realized that Jesus was who he said he was and rose as he said he would, enacting a much bigger God plan than any human could afford, he couldn’t deal with his conscience. Some believe that Judas meant well even if manipulative –that he thought that in turning Jesus in to the authorities, that it would force Jesus’ hand, that he’d be finally ...

6. Point Of Origin

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... the world we live in, our family and friends, the work we are committed to -- we are dead for a while. Then, without even a hallelujah chorus, we wake up in the morning. Each day we all enact the familiar biblical metaphor of death and creation, of sleeping and waking. Each year we all enact the metaphor of creation, of standing at bay the chaos of past experience and bringing to birth a new historical recognition. January is the time when we mark a new beginning, a new creation, on our calendar-conscious ...

7. I Am The Servant

Sermon

Ronald Lavin

... the fact that that is what he meant when he said, "Here am I among you like a servant" (Luke 22:27). In addition, in the enacted parable of the foot washing reported in John 13:1-17, the theme of servanthood is clear. The Story Of The Foot Washing When Mark, ... got out the bowl and towel and went from one person to the other, washing their feet like a servant. It was an enacted parable. It is the story of Jesus, the servant, which has been told again and again, generation after generation. "Each time we hear ...

8. Harnessed Power

John 20:19-23

Sermon

Richard L. Thulin

... connection between gift and task we also miss the need for faith. The promised power is connected to the act, not to those who act. Each time we enact the task our Lord has given us we have to step out in trust. We have to act believing that God's power will make the act ... reasonable to assume that the task of forgiveness is given to each and every Christian and that it is to be enacted in the concrete situations of human life. Surely there is no home, no office, no community, no society, no church where ...

9. Settling Our Differences

Matthew 5:21-26

Sermon

Joe Pennel

... than the deed. Who we are becomes more important than what we do. That is the higher ethic. That's the greater standard. That is the better righteousness. The law, though important and necessary, can only take us so far. We need, for example, to enact laws in this country which will guarantee women equal opportunity in every phase of life. But, that's the very least we can do. Passing laws which will guarantee my daughters the same opportunity that I had is crucially important, but such laws, written in ...

10. He Bore Our Sins

2 Corinthians 5:11--6:2

Sermon

Dennis Kastens

... . No, this was not a drama or passion play. The hooded figure was that of a conscience-stricken French sinner whose identity was known only to the local curate. From wherever he had come, the man was there voluntarily to atone for his sins by enacting the role of Christ making his way to Calvary. So popular is the part, that it is booked solid for the next forty years by applicants from as far away as Madagascar. The list includes gamblers, adulterers, exconvicts ... all seeking peace of mind. The message ...

11. Food for Faith

Matthew 14:13-21

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... soul. Do not starve yourself any longer." On the surface it may not seem as though our text deals with this kind of bread. Scholars tell us that this account of the feeding of the five thousand is closely related to the Eucharist. It seems like a re-enactment of the Last Supper: "Taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples ..." This is the only miracle given by all four Gospels, and there are six accounts of it. This shows how ...

12. Blessed among Women

Luke 1:39-45, 1 Samuel 2:1-11

Sermon

Erskine White

... Mary - giving us the good news of Christ’s birth in all its radical fullness! Here is Mary making sense of why God chose her among all women and explaining to the rest of us that when God’s will is enacted in the world, He radically inverts our worldly values. When God’s will is enacted in the world, the last become first and the first become last; the dishonored are exalted and the honored are humbled. As we live by the ways of the world, honoring the rich and fawning over the famous, God comes to ...

13. What If What They Say Is True?

Jeremiah 1:1-19

Sermon

John W. Wurster

... , a system, a practice, a prejudice, a habit, a value. Maybe you are being called to be a voice for change, an agent of plucking up and pulling down, of destroying and overthrowing. You won’t know how to respond to that call and you won’t feel qualified to enact that call. But if you are willing, God is willing. And then there’s no limit to what God can accomplish through you. God’s word to Jeremiah though is not just to tear down; it is also a call to build up. Maybe that is what God is calling ...

14. Jesus Came Preaching

Mark 1:14-15

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... can fail; without it nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who moulds public opinion goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. (Sweazey, op. cit., p. 9) Physicians and farmers labor to keep people alive. Preachers labor ... outmoded. Many in the Middle Ages believed that the sacraments had replaced the sermon. Now, sacraments are important: they are “enacted sermons.” But they are not a substitute for the sermon. During the Reformation some Christians declared that since the Holy ...

15. The Three Stages to Truth: A Biblical Philosophy of Education

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... Notice that the disciples in Emmaus did not say, "Did not our hearts burn within us when he broke the bread and ate with us." Rather they testified that it was "while he was talking with us on the road" that they remembered their hearts stirring. Their present enacting of truth gave life and power to the previous discussions of truth they had experienced on the road. (Isn't that the way you find it in your own personal life? Some events don't take on real meaning until much later, until after you have come ...

16. A Parable in a Miracle

Mark 1:40-45

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... so often missing quality in relationship. That’s who Jesus is – the Compassionate One. That’s how He responds to us. But let’s press for meaning as we see this act of Jesus as a parable — a parable which we as persons and as a church are to enact. Go back to the leper’s hopeful, yet hesitant word: “If you will,” he said with halting reservation, “If you will, you can make me clean.” The leper does not presume something. He doesn’t know how Jesus is going to respond. He has heard of the ...

17. The Great Reveal

Luke 4:14-21

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... . But just as throughout scripture God’s plans are typically misunderstood by many, so too was Jesus’ mission much misunderstood. Many saw him as merely a revolutionary, on a mission to set people “free” from Rome’s oppressive rule. Some assumed he would enact a literal Jubilee, in which they would receive land long lost to them, money, and Jewish status within the world. Some assumed that lawbreakers and insurgents would be set free and that political upheaval would ensue. Some would see him as a ...

18. For I Have Chosen You!

Haggai 2:20-23

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... , reminiscent of the prophecy in Haggai. But the great red dragon, who we are told later is called both the Devil and Satan (Revelation 12:9), waits to devour her child even as he is about to be born. However, in what seems to be a re-enactment of the death and resurrection of Jesus, the child, upon being born, is carried up to the throne of God, while the woman, who may now represent the early Christian church which abandoned Jerusalem before its destruction, flees to the desert. "Now war arose in heaven ...

19. Hope Against Hope

Jeremiah 33:1-26

Sermon

Robert A. Hausman

... services they had. The people knew that they would all have less: less land, less food, less water, less opportunity to ride the bus, less possibility of finding work. In response to the people's fear, the women of the barrio arranged a re-enactment of their own coming to the land and building. They retold their own story so that, remembering their own homelessness, they could better understand the plight of their new arrivals. By claiming their own story, they could participate in a new and better one ...

20. The Waste In Comparison

Genesis 37:1-11, 12-36

Sermon

... how Jacob favors Joseph over his ten older brothers. It seems to run in the family, this thing for picking favorite children. Yet, comfortable or not, the way the biblical story is told, picking favorites sets the stage and makes possible the continuing enactment of God's faithfulness. Unfortunately, favoring a child wreaked havoc in the tents of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob! Curiously, in every case picking favorites resulted in someone being sent into exile. In the case of Joseph, there was no doubt who had ...

21. The Demanding Crowd

Mark 1:29-34, Mark 1:35-39

Sermon

John A. Stroman

... . As such it has power -- institutional power and authority. But the source of the church's power is not the result of being an institution. It is the result of being called by God to proclaim God's Word. When God's Word, the enacted Word (sacrament), the written Word (scripture), the proclaimed Word (Jesus Christ), is properly presented through the Holy Spirit, then the church has power. We need to be faithful to the Word. Our Responsibility To God's Word Christians are responsible to declare the Word ...

22. A Hands-on Religion

Mark 1:40-45

Sermon

John A. Stroman

... to the wretched of the earth minister to Christ. Migliore goes on to point out that the true church is not only the church of the ear where the gospel is rightly preached and heard. The church is not only the church of the eye where the sacraments are enacted for the faithful to see and experience. But the church is also the church of the outstretched helping hand. This passage in Matthew 25 reveals clearly to us that Christ is among the poor, and the church is the people of God free enough to enter into ...

23. How Do You Remain Religious?

Mark 7:1-23

Sermon

Donald Macleod

... the issues of life come, and, therefore, the roots of sin must be torn from us. Someone said, "There is no power on earth to make a bad heart good." Or, similarily, to keep it so. Social reforms cannot do it. Education cannot achieve it. Armed conflict cannot enact it. Initially, it is the human mind that makes the decision to accept Christ; but it is the heart and will that make that decision stick and keep it firmly faithful to the end of one's life. Daily commitment to his person and prayer pleading to ...

24. Would That God. . .

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

Thomas Peterson

... light! Two stories come to mind which illustrate our text. The first is a play The Male Animal by James Thurber. A fortyish-year-old man managed to make a spectacle of himself at every party he and his wife attended. With the help of his buddies he re-enacted a famous touchdown he had made as a young man. Imagine: this man approaches Jesus. “What do you want me to do for you?” “Help me see.” Not “see” as with the eye, but see with the inner eye as others would see him. Jesus tells him to wait ...

25. Creative Preaching

Sermon

Michael Rogness

... Even more importantly, in the process of preparing and rehearsing the play the youth understood in a deeper way what Jesus' crucifixion really meant. I could have preached a sermon on that same theme, even telling the story of the play itself. However, seeing it enacted on the stage was a far more powerful way of communicating the message. The Word In Other Forms I recently heard a highly effective sermon given as a letter. Speaking in the first person, the preacher explained that he was a Jew, still living ...

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