Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: contest, tournament, match, game, round, heat, fixture, event, meet, encounter, rivalry, competitiveness, vying, contesting, opposition, contention, conflict, feuding, battling, fighting, struggling, strife, war, opposing side, other side, other team, field, enemy, foe

Showing 1 to 25 of 4452 results

1. Love Your Enemies

Luke 6:27-36

Sermon

King Duncan

... prayer, `...forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us...' has taken on a whole new meaning." Forgiving our enemies is the first step toward loving them. You say, "But pastor, what she did to me was too horrible. I can't forgive ... And I ask, who is your anger and resentment hurting most of all? My guess is that it is worse on you than it is your enemy. Why not begin with a clean slate from this day forward? Why not clear the decks and make a new start, today? 1. George Burns, WISDOM ...

2. How To Treat Your Enemies

2 Samuel 18:1-18

Sermon

Stephen M. Crotts

... responsibilities, hoped they'd quit, but fired them for incompetency when they didn't. No, the world has not changed all that much since Nabal sheared his sheep. Revenge! Back to the text. What's David going to do? He's done right. But he's been treated like an enemy. So David goes into what we might call a "slow burn." And when he gets hot enough, he tells several hundred of his men, "Strap on your swords." And they move to attack Nabal, to kill every man of his tribe before a day is out. They'll take what ...

3. Loving Our Enemies, Christian or Crazy?

Matthew 5:43-47

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... are you trying to prove?" The church goes on. People go on. Life goes on. They are stuck in some miserable yesterday. Why forgive your enemies? So you can live, that is why. C. God has a better idea. God causes the sun to shine on the evil and the good, ... empowered; now who is in control of their behavior? This is the principle Jesus is trying to teach. III. How Can We Love Our Enemies? A. Seek the truth. Some of you were obviously nervous about this sermon. You sent me emails warning me not to go soft on ...

4. Dealing With Your Enemies

Luke 6:27-36

Sermon

King Duncan

... He was Israeli. He found her lying in the street and decided to help. “Mister,” he said through his tears, “there must come a time when we realize that we are all family.” (3) Do you know of any other hope? I don’t. How do you treat your enemies? Jesus said to love them. Think what might happen if we, like the shepherd-soldier, young David, let our religion affect how we regard those who would do us wrong. The whole world might be changed. 1. John A. Redhead, Jr., The Past Speaks to the Future--50 ...

5. Love Your Enemy? Are You Kidding, Lord?

Luke 6:27-38

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... . God's blessings are available to all alike, at least in this life. To be sure, there will come a day of judgment. But that is not our worry. What Jesus is telling us is that, as far as this world is concerned, our treatment of other people (even enemies) is to be based on seeking the highest and best for them ... agape ... love ... just exactly the way God does. The Lord makes another point here. If we do not act that way, what makes us any different from anyone else? If you only love the people who love ...

6. Can We Really Love Our Enemies

Luke 6:27-36

Sermon

Charles H. Bayer

... which actually recorded the teaching, never intended that we could live like that -- at least not for long. Schweitzer held that the early church believed Jesus was going to return to earth very soon -- in a few years at most, and that the command to love one's enemies was a temporary edict; what was called an interim ethic. It was like holding your breath. You can do it for a while. But Jesus did not immediately return, and the church was stuck with an ethical command no one can live up to. Paul, who had ...

7. Love Your Enemies--It Will Drive Them Crazy

Luke 6:27-36

Sermon

Richard A. Wing

... . I don't like the idea of you being a victim." Then she finally says, "They took your life." And Jesus, not even looking up, just poking in the fire, says with a victorious half smile, "They didn't take my life. I gave it." Jesus said, "Love your enemies. Do good. Expecting nothing in return, your reward will be great, and you will be children of the most high." I had a dream the other night. Actually it was more of a nightmare. I was preaching this sermon, using this text. Someone in the back row came up ...

8. “Love Your Enemies” Doesn’t Mean Don’t Make Any

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... party where a man was interviewed by a reporter with the stupid question, “What one thing are you most proud of after having lived such a long life?” The old man replied, “Well, here I am, 100 years old and I don’t have a single enemy in the world.” The impressed reporter responded, “That is truly remarkable, sir. What made it possible for you to be able to say such a thing?” “Well,” said the 100 year old man, “I’ve outlived every one of them.” Not exactly “every one of them ...

9. Love Your Enemies Doesn’t Mean Don’t Make Any

Matthew 21:23-27

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

10. God, The Enemy

Luke 12:1-12

Sermon

... of the Lord within us. The same God who knows the hair-count of our heads and who cares for lowly sparrows wants our allegiance and our love, for we are of more value than many sparrows, Jesus says. Jesus tells us that God does not want to be our enemy, but until we have surrendered first place to him, the outlook for inner peace is bleak. Christ wants us to be able to say, "God is the master of my faith, the captain of my soul." That affirmation has a great bearing on this life, but where that may count ...

11. God, the Enemy

Matthew 10:24-39

Sermon

Stephen M. Crotts

... of the Lord within us. The same God who knows the hair count of our heads and who cares for lowly sparrows wants our allegiance and our love, for we are of more value than many sparrows, Jesus says. Jesus tells us that God does not want to be our enemy, but until we have surrendered first place to him, the outlook for inner peace is bleak. Christ wants us to be able to say, "God is the master of my faith, the captain of my soul." That affirmation has a great bearing on this life, but where that may count ...

12. “Love Your Enemies”

Luke 6:27-38

Teach the Text

R.T. France

... practical help to demand a totally positive attitude of loving, doing good, blessing, and praying for them (the four verbs of 6:27–28 provide a wholesome contrast to the four verbs of hatred and rejection in 6:22). The fact that the “enemy” is depicted as actively cursing and mistreating the disciple makes this the more remarkable. Compare Jesus’s own prayer for his executioners in 23:34 and also his example as Peter remembered it: “When they hurled insults at him he did not retaliate; when ...

13. Enemies of the Cross

Philippians 3:17 - 4:1

Sermon

Steven E. Albertin

... we could find elsewhere. Here God dresses us in the finest clothes, kills for us the fatted calf for the feast in our honor, puts a ring on our finger, and declares to the whole company of heaven that the lost have come home. Those who once had been his enemies are now not just his friends but his beloved sons and daughters. When Paul invites us to imitate him, it is an invitation in the best sense of the word. It is an invitation to a party where we will receive a gift and enjoy a blessing. This is no ...

14. Enemies of Promise

Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... them - they can still do and be anything. So what is it that transforms a carefree 4-year-old, who loves to swing or build with Legos, or dig in the dirt, into a drug dealer, or a drive-by shooter, or an armed robber? What enemies are we letting assault our children - now at ever younger and younger ages - that destroy the promise of life and love that buds out in their preschool years? What changes this beginning, when they were "Poetry itself" (see the Morley poem below), to turn munchkins into murderers ...

15. Who Are My Enemies?

Matt 5:38-48

Illustration

Phil Thrailkill

... because he thinks you are a savage. Or perhaps he is afraid of you because he feels you are afraid of him. And perhaps if he believed you were capable of loving him he would no longer be your enemy. "Do not be too quick to assume that your enemy is an enemy of God just because he is your enemy. Perhaps he is your enemy precisely because he can find nothing in you that gives glory to God. Perhaps he fears you because he can find nothing in you of God's love and God's kindness and God's patience and mercy and ...

16. A Conquered Enemy

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Eulogy

W. George Easson

... a place for you," is mindful of what we are able to bear and deals with us accordingly. The one sure thing about life here is that it will end. And death always seems so final. So, no matter when or how it comes, death is the arch enemy of life. The loss of those we love, of immediate family members, sometimes without warning, probably requires our greatest adjustments in life. Today we are faced with the loss of one who for many years has been a familiar member of his community; a family is faced with ...

17. Love for Enemies

Matthew 5:43-48

Understanding Series

Robert H. Mounce

... as a Semitic way of saying “love less,” it is better to understand the teaching as directed at Israel’s national enemies. The attitude reflects God’s own “hatred” of evil. David can say, “Do I not hate those who hate you, O ... love. Note that love is active concern: we are to pray for those who persecute us (v. 44). Followers of Jesus are to love their enemies as well as their friends. In this way they show themselves to be children of their heavenly Father. Without partiality, he causes his sun ...

18. The Gospel According to Christ’s Enemies

John 11:1-16

Sermon

Richard Hoefler

... 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 deed of the cross when even the hated enemies of our Lord testify to the efficacious act of the cross? One man must die, if humanity is to live. The ultimate end of our story takes place on a lonely hill outside the walls of Jerusalem - the city of God built by men. There on that hill called ...

19. Love Your Enemies

Luke 6:27-36

Bulletin Aid

Carl Hoefler

Call to Worship Pastor: What blessings we receive from our friendships! People: We love our friends, and thank God for the happiness they give us. Pastor: God appreciates our thankfulness, but he is more interested in our making friends of our enemies. People: We have a difficult time loving those who mistreat us, but we know that is what God wants us to do. May God help us. Collect O Lord our God, who is merciful to the ungrateful and kind to the selfish: Help us to follow your example by loving ...

20. Love for Enemies not Eye for and Eye

Matthew 5:38-42, Matthew 5:43-48

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... ” is not an Old Testament quotation. It may be that the sentiment is an expression derived from texts such as Psalm 139:21–22. Jesus broadens the love command to explicitly include love of enemies and prayer for them (5:44). The rationale provided is that love of neighbor fulfills no greater ethic than that of tax collectors and pagans (5:46–47). Of the six cases of torah interpretation that Jesus has specified, only the final case includes a purpose. As Israel was to ...

21. From Enemies to Friends

2 Corinthians 5:20

Children's Sermon

... it feel when I stuck my fist out toward you? Did anybody get frightened? Did any of you get mad? A fist can make you feel that way. Because what do fists remind us of? (Talk about it.) Right. Fists make us think of fighting and being angry and being enemies. When Jesus was on earth, he hardly ever showed his fists to people. But he used his hands a lot. He used them to help people. He opened his hands and laid them on sick people to make then well. And he used them to pray for us. And one ...

22. Love Your Enemy

Luke 6:27-36

Illustration

Tim Carpenter

... been a guard at the death camp. She told him that she recognized him. Crying, he asked if he might receive the forgiveness of Christ of which she had spoken. She thought to herself that she could not, but she remembered the command of Christ to love your enemy and to forgive seventy times seven the person who has wronged you. She prayed that Jesus might give her the strength to forgive the man, and as she prayed, she felt a sensation begin in her heart and flow through her hand as it touched his. Then she ...

23. Love of Enemies

Matthew 5:43-48

Illustration

Joyce Hollyday

... all I know.' Sarah asked him to let her talk about it. While he kept his gun pointed at her and the other soldiers continued ransacking the house, Sarah opened a Spanish Bible the Sermon on the Mount. She read about Jesus' command to love one's enemies. 'That's humanly impossible!' the commander shouted. 'That's true, sir,' she answered. 'It isn't humanly possible, but with God's help it is possible.' She challenged him to let her prove it by killing her slowly: 'Cut me to pieces little by little, and you ...

24. The Jews Triumph over Their Enemies

Esther 9:1-17

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... Esther’s request to continue the slaughter and to have Haman’s sons impaled reveals her vindictive and bloodthirsty nature. Others have justified her behavior by pointing to her need to ensure complete safety for her people and to remove all possible future enemies from the kingdom. Public humiliation by impaling is not unique to the book of Esther. This practice was common in the ancient Near East (as depicted in the relief of the Assyrian siege of Lachish) and occurs in other biblical accounts (e.g ...

25. Love of Enemies

Luke 6:27-36

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... the nature or position of people who are his disciples (cf. 6:20–26). In the rest of the sermon he focuses on the way disciples should live. Jesus begins with the radical message that disciples should love their enemies. The enemies in view are clearly those who persecute disciples (6:28–29). Love for enemies manifests itself in terms of actions: do good to them (6:27, 32–33, 35), bless and pray for them (6:28), and lend to them (6:34–35). Jesus gives two examples of the nature of this love ...

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