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 98 results

1. Tale of the Tares

Matthew 13:24-30, Matthew 9:35-38

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... . It’s not your job to judge. It’s mine, and it will happen in the end of the age. Not now. And not without Me. We were not meant to be weed killers. Our second inclination is to worry that the wheat will become ruined and poisoned by its entanglements with the weeds! We worry that good in people will be “poisoned” by associating with the bad –or those we identify as “bad.” Jesus says, you don’t have the discernment to be able to tell who is “fodder” for the bread of the world and who is ...

2. A Way Made Ready

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

Darrick Acre

... .” The second category is sin. John the Baptist’s preaching, with its call to repentance, focused more on this second emphasis. Scripture is clear here: we will never receive Christ in the fullness of His coming when we entertain sin, remaining entangled in its web. We must turn away from envy, selfishness, unforgiveness, disobedience, promiscuity, and every other act that violates the Creator’s intent that we love Him and love others with all we are. All the wondrous things the Scriptures promise to ...

3. Cheering from the Stands

Hebrews 12:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... forgives our sin, but still God longs to help us get that chain off our legs, get rid of that sin, so that we can be what God has called us to be. So, the writer encourages us to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and . . . [to] run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” That’s the first thing we need to see. The heroes of the Bible were not perfect, but God did not give up on them any more than God gives up on us. They believed God and God forgave ...

4. A Lesson Learned from a Snake

Luke 19:1-10

Sermon

King Duncan

... life I’ve wanted to be loved,” she said. “God’s love is the most complete love, and I think that’s what I was looking for.” That is why the Son of Man came into the world--to seek and save the lost--to free us from our hopelessly entangled lives. Jesus sees within each of us more potential than we see in ourselves. In him we see both hope and holiness. That is why in any encounter with Christ, the believer seeks to correct the problems in his or her own life, not out of duty, but out of ...

5. A Cloud of Witness

Hebrews 12:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... women who did great works for God by faith. Then he begins chapter 12 with these words that give us our text for today: “THEREFORE, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the ...

6. Serpentine Soul

Numbers 21:4-9

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... vitriol at Moses, who was doing his best to lead them into God’s promised paradise by walking their bitter, ugly disposition out of them. Spin is what issues from a twisted around, tangled, circular and boldfaced untruth. “Spin” uses words in an exaggerated way to entangle the issues. We describe it as cunning, sneaky, lying. That kind of sin comes from what I call a “serpentine spirit.” A Serpentine spirit is one filled with venomous and poisonous vitriol…which makes everything complicated and ...

7. No Weedless Garden

Matthew 13:24-30

Sermon

Richard L. Thulin

... . The student may have been naive and my grandfather may have been bitter, but the Church is not a weedless and ever-ripening field. It is a field in which weeds and wheat grow side by side. It is a field in which their roots are so entangled that it may be impossible to tell them apart or to separate them. Growth and decay, beauty and ugliness, nourishment and deprivation; this is the Church of our experience. It is also the Church of Jesus' parable. "So when the plants came up and bore grain," Jesus ...

8. The Things That Are God’s

Matthew 22:15-22

Sermon

... Matthew concludes this little slice from the life of Jesus by noting that when the Pharisees and Herodians had heard Jesus’ astonishing comeback, they left him and went away. Foiled in their attempt to embroil him in a controversy, they left, I suspect, having entangled themselves in an inner controversy. If they took Jesus’ words to heart and found in them the truth that was surely there, they had to ask of themselves some troubling questions. "Have I rendered to God my life, which life bears His image ...

9. Jesus, Where Are You?

John 12:20-36

Sermon

King Duncan

... was so busy taking care of themselves, they never heard the cries for help. Knofel Staton goes on to say, "The multitudes are all around us. Many are already in the water without an inflated raft, and the parachute lines of complex living are entangling them. Some are still floating. Others are beginning to sink. Where are the rescue teams?" (2) You and I are God's rescue team. And friends, there are a multitude of people who need to be rescued. Families are coming apart. Teenagers are losing themselves ...

10. Freedom Faith Brings

Galatians 5:1-15

Sermon

James Merritt

... economic and intellectual freedom is, there is no freedom like spiritual freedom, no liberty like the liberty that comes from the Lord Jesus Christ. I. The Lord of Liberty "Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage." (v.1) True freedom is found only in the Lord Jesus Christ. "If the Son makes you free you shall be free indeed." There is a difference between freedom in Christ, and freedom from Christ. One brings fulfillment, the ...

11. No Fear

Psalm 23:4

Sermon

James Merritt

... and pull him back into the fold. Other times the sheep might slip over a steep ravine and get entangled in a thornbush or stumble into a rocky creek bed. Then the shepherd would take that staff and put it under the belly of that sheep and gently lift it up ... out of that hole or that entanglement, and restore it to the flock. There was nothing more comforting to the sheep than the sight of the rod and the sight of the ...

12. Satan’s Talking Points

Mark 13:1-31

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... pretty soon we’re talking real money” has become “a trillion here, a trillion there”— it is easy to succumb to sorrow and discouragement. But for Evagrius, and probably for us today, Satan’s most deadly talking point was pride, the ultimate madness which entangles us in Project ME and deludes us into thinking that we can do anything without God. This is the ultimate in Global Warning: Life in the Youniverse, and its unholy trinity of me, myself, and I. It’s time we learned how to sing “How ...

13. Exit and Entrance

Galatians 4:21-31

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... with the Galatians to accept the freedom that was theirs, and not be reshackled in the bondage of law. Verse 1 of Chapter 5 is the text of our message today: “Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty with which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” This verse is really the conclusion of the last eleven verses of chapter 4, which we read as our scripture lesson. Let’s look at those verses in order to get the full impact of our text. To grasp allegorical meaning ...

14. Real Heros

Hebrews 11:1-40

Sermon

King Duncan

... life may throw at you. It means serving God and serving humanity and giving your all to make this a better world. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of ...

15. Jesus' Final Exam

Luke 20:19-40

Sermon

Will Willimon

... Religion 101, but in life. If Jesus flunks this, he's lost all; he's dead. This isn't a matter of being shut out of med school; it's a matter of life or death. "Then the Pharisees went and took counsel how to entangle him in his talk,..." (Matthew 22:15). The method of entanglement is Exam Question #1, a devil of a question, if ever there was one, a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you don't sort of question. "Teacher,....you are true, and teach the way of God truthfully, and care for no [human] opinion....Tell ...

16. Shake It Off

Mark 6:1-13

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... IS Lord of the dance! Jesus knows that joy and the ability to shake off worry and stress are vital to our ability to stay energized on God’s mission in the world. Cause things can get tough. People can be hard. And when situations get hairy and entangled, that residue has a tendency to “stick” to our spirits like gum on a shoe. What an image right? That’s the image that the writer of Hebrews, who early scholars believed was Paul, but we really don’t know, offers us about just such situations. He ...

17. Love And Money

Mark 10:17-31

Sermon

William G. Carter

... the man to cut all ties to the things of the world which enslave and tangle. He invited the man to become free: free from having to possess things; free from determining his importance by the size of his bank account; free from the invisible entanglements of wealth; free from the quiet, deadly grip of materialism. What does it mean to become free in this way? Ask a family who dumped some possessions at a recent garage sale. After discovering how much junk they had accumulated over the last few years ...

18. Tears At The Tomb

John 11:17-37

Sermon

William G. Carter

... of his sick friend. Instead he remained where he was for two days longer. By the time he went to Bethany, Lazarus had been stone-cold in the tomb for four days. When Jesus arrived in Bethany, he seemed strangely free from gushy sentiments or emotional entanglements. He went on his own initiative, not in response to human demand or personal request. He embodied the gracious initiative of God, who moves toward us before we ask for help, who loves us before we love him, who comes to bring abundant life even ...

19. When Did Jesus Pray?

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

John G. Lynn

... the Lord's Prayer that no one can escape temptations and allurements so long as we live in the flesh and have the devil prowling about us. But we pray here that we may not fall into them and be overwhelmed by them. Many times tribulations and entanglements arise in congregations. They come for a multitude of reasons and a multitude of purposes. Today's gospel lesson gives us a clue as how best to deal with them. Church members can vote in meetings; they can argue procedures; they can discuss in forums. This ...

20. Friendship? Yes, Please!

2 Samuel 11:1-27

Sermon

Stephen M. Crotts

... trouble of a newborn infant leaves her child in a basket on the door step of three practiced bachelors. And the three men, adopting the child, soon realize that children, indeed -- people in general! -- are not at all convenient. So we instinctively avoid messy entanglements with others. Beyond convenience and privacy is yet a third value we're really into today, and that is mobility. The average American moves every three years. Life is reduced to little more than a game of musical chairs. We don't want to ...

21. The Highest In The Lowest

Luke 2:1-7, Luke 2:8-20

Sermon

John A. Stroman

... his tax office conducting his business as he does every day. In that normal, ordinary, everyday setting he meets Jesus and follows him, never to return to the office again. The same is true for us. Christ comes to us right where we are, amid all of our human entanglements. It is hard for us to think of God in such ordinary terms. God -- So Near And So Ordinary This is exactly why the hometown folks in Mark 6 had such difficulty in accepting Jesus as Messiah. He was too much like them. If this was God, then ...

22. The Eighth Meal

Sermon

Robert F. Scott

... Jesus at supper with all sorts of people: outcasts like Levi and Zacchaeus, honored Pharisees and learned scribes, women of the streets, neighbors who crowd in to listen, the highest and lowest of society, those who come to adore him and those who set a trap to entangle him. Now we come to a different supper. This is the supper Jesus desired, and it gives meaning to all of the others.Jesus makes the transition from guest to host. He is not with strangers who invited him or who dropped in from the streets ...

23. Don't Sell Your Inheritance for Cabbage Soup

Genesis 25:19-34

Sermon

R. Robert Cueni

... showing signs of an evil nature even before he was born. This patriarchal family is not composed of nice, conventional, moral, religious people. The point, however, is that God chose to work through and with this family. In today's story, God's purposes are entangled in a web of self-interested, self-seeking people. Yet God works to accomplish His task with Jacob, the "at-risk" kid and his dysfunctional family. As Paul observed more than a thousand years after these events, God uses the weak, the lowly and ...

24. Loving Jesus, Hating The Church

John 9:35-41

Sermon

Thomas Long

... , "Frankly, I'm not into organized religion." At the very least, such thoughts reflect the underlying assumption that the church, with its institutional trappings -- its clergy, stewardship drives, potluck suppers, roof repairs, educational programs and bureaucratic entanglements -- is simply a heavy, unnecessary and optional shell around true faith. Vibrant faith needs no institutional husk; it flutters free of its churchly cocoon and soars through the air unencumbered, alighting as easily on the ninth ...

25. The Highest In The Lowest

Luke 2:8-20, Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

John A. Stroman

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