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 325 results

1. Elephants in the Room: Sexploitation

1 Thessalonians 4:3-8

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... to fulfill your own desires instead of seeing them a children of God. Another problem with pornography is that it takes love out of sex, and God never intended for love and sex to be separated. Sex is holy and was never meant to be exploited. To exploit sexuality is like taking someone’s soul from his or her body and parading it around in a cheap way. Respect is removed – love is removed – true joy is removed – connection is removed – holiness is removed. It is not whole anymore; it is broken ...

2. Things That Make Jesus Angry

John 2:12-25

Sermon

King Duncan

... in his attempt to stop the fight, another knocked down. While no one was seriously injured, one of the men was expelled from the home. (1) You and I get angry over all kinds of things–some of them exceedingly silly. Jesus got angry when he saw people exploiting religion. That’s a little different from getting miffed over a salad bar. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. This was his one purpose in life. Can you imagine how he felt when he saw that there were some religious leaders who were using ...

3. When Wisdom Cries Out

Proverbs 8:1-36

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

... and disaffection we see among various youths and adults today. Wisdom cries out for prayer, caring, sharing, teaching, and learning within the family circle. Wisdom is crying out for morals and ethics in the culture of this land. In a culture of commercialization and exploitation, the fast buck is God. One writer said that if we took the words, "In God We Trust," from our currency, we could replace them with the words, "We Need Thee Every Hour." In a society where sex and violence are glorified for profits ...

4. Tempted By Good

Matthew 4:1-11

Sermon

Don M. Aycock

... throw yourself down from here. Then he quotes from Psalm 91: He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. This was a temptation for Jesus to exploit his relationship with God. "Make a spectacle of yourself," the devil said. "Create a circus. Gather the crowds and leap off the 150-foot tower to the ground below. If you are truly God's Son, you won't get hurt. God will come rescue you. Go ahead ...

5. Encounters With Christ VI: Jesus and Caiaphas

Matthew 26:57-68

Sermon

James W. Moore

... than anything else, this put Jesus on the cross. He came to Jerusalem and cleansed the Temple. He felt that the Temple… the sacred place of worship… had become a den of thieves. Josephus, the Jewish historian, tells us that at this time the Temple was exploiting the people. To get forgiveness, they had to buy a sacrificial lamb in the Temple and the Temple was charging fifteen times the amount of a lamb in the marketplace. Also, the people had to pay the Temple Tax in scheckels… not in Roman coins and ...

6. Numbered Hairs

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

Herchel H. Sheets

... difficult to believe that anyone could be interested in them for their own sakes. "Everyone has an angle," it is said, or, "Everyone is after something." Where can you find a person who is not wanting to use others? This desire is absent from God’s heart. Exploitation has no place in his intentions or deeds. He is not negligent either. He never fails to do what he should do. We may be guilty of that, but God is not. Diligence, rather than negligence, is characteristic of him. "But even the hairs of your ...

7. Different

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

Sermon

James L. Killen

... demonstrates that love is an act of costly commitment, we are really talking a foreign language for lots of people. As we look out at life, many of us see something that is entirely indifferent to us. Others see something that just lays there and waits to be exploited. And many of the rest of us see life as something hostile that attacks us and against which we have to defend ourselves. To see life as the gift and embodiment of someone who loves us and wants what is good for us is a real stretch. But when ...

8. Dare to Be Different

Romans 13:11-14

Sermon

John N. Brittain

... hard issues? One thing is very clear in Paul's teaching: All Christians are united by Christ's death and resurrection, and that common belief should outweigh honest differences of opinion. As Christians, we need to be united against a dark world where selfish, exploitive, and judgmental behavior rules the night. But within the body of Christ, we need the kind of diversity that can only grow from selfless love. When everybody is busy trying to be just like his or her neighbor, only a little better of course ...

9. Dinner Parties With A Difference

Luke 7:36-50

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... beyond her body to her soul, beyond her external glamour to her interior heart. He was not looking for bargain basement love. Rather he was looking at a self in need of genuine human feeling and acceptance and forgiveness. Simon, on the other hand, was really in the exploitative frame of mind. He had Jesus over to dinner more or less to test his credentials to see if he might "fit in" or if he might possibly be used for the Pharisees' cause. He cared little for Jesus as a person, except as he might enhance ...

10. Time and Stewardship

Sermon

Larry Powell

... more expanded memory banks? The real challenge is not in beating the computer, but in solving some of humanity's contemporary dilemmas. And the solutions are available, somewhere, inside the greatest computer ever designed - the mind of man. It is always easier to "play" or "exploit" than it is to come to terms with difficult issues. And the people who are willing to invest their time to think will always have the upper hand. Think about it! A popular slogan goes, "A mind is a valuable thing to waste," and ...

11. The Unexpected Universe

Matthew 11:1-19

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... revenge; the victory to end all other victories; the domination to end all other dominations; and the power to place into subservience all other powers. And he did it all in his own body, in his own person, saying, I did not come to dominate and exploit, but to serve, and to give my life as a ransom for many. Well, you might ask, is this unexpected universe in place and actually working? Are the blind seeing, the lame walking, the deaf hearing, and the poor having good news preached to them? Yes, because ...

12. I Am The Only One Left Who Cares!

1 Kings 19:9-18

Sermon

King Duncan

... one with the augur. "I'm drilling this hole beneath my seat alone. It has nothing to do with you." "But," shouted the other two men, "we are all in the same boat!" Our world is only slowly realizing that we ARE in the same boat. Brazil wants to exploit its rain forest. That is understandable. They are a poor country. They are where we were 100 years ago. It is difficult for us to say to them, don't destroy those forests when we have paved so much farmland with asphalt and when we keep spewing toxic fumes ...

13. DodgeGod

Amos 8:1-14

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... , "Rise up, O People of God," you respond by saying, "God's peace is for you." Leader: People of Ireland, torn and tired of being torn; RISE UP, O PEOPLE OF GOD. Congregation: God's peace is for you. Leader: People of Africa, exploited and tired of being exploited; RISE UP, O PEOPLE OF GOD. Congregation: God's peace is for you. Leader: People of the Middle East, turbulent and tired of being turbulent; RISE UP, O PEOPLE OF GOD. Congregation: God's peace is for you. Leader: People of South America, silenced ...

14. Just a Crazy Story

Philippians 2:1-11

Sermon

Larry Lange

... , sending the truck into a spin that took them all over the edge to their deaths. It was then that Zack truly became like God: When he had come to have the same love and mind of Jesus Christ who did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, who gave his life looking to the interests of others, and who was obedient in this way to the point of death — not death in a 1972 Ford pickup plunging off a switchback — but death upon a cross. Let that same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus ...

15. The Perisitent Noise Of Solemn Assemblies

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... to please ourselves" (Romans 15:1). The law of the jungle where only the strongest or fittest or most brutal survive has no place in the Christian faith, where the strong, instead of exploiting and destroying the weak, are to help them. But lest the weak turn that truth to their advantage wherein they are exploiting the strong, mooching off their generosity, greedily drinking in the milk of human kindness, let it be remembered that Paul advised that when they regain their strength, "each man will have to ...

16. Followership

Matthew 4:18-22, Matthew 4:12-17

Sermon

Mark Radecke

... violates that trust, then forgiveness is the dynamic force that has the power to make the relationship whole again. That is how God in Christ makes followers of the likes of you and me: by first making himself vulnerable to us; by forgiving us when we exploit that vulnerability, nailing it to a cross; by then loving us into a new life and a new relationship with him and with one another; and finally, by entrusting to us a task of extraordinary importance. In faith, we trust that Christ is leading us to ...

17. Pleased To Reconcile

Luke 23:26-43

Sermon

Larry R. Kalajainen

... had sufficient value to him that he would die for us, then we must place no less value on ourselves than he did. This means, among other things, that we do not abuse our bodies with substances that are destructive, we do not abuse ourselves or others with exploitative sexual behavior. We resolve to be the best persons we can be with the help of his grace. In that way, we honor his trust in us. If Jesus is king, he is king not only in the personal sphere of individual integrity and relationships with other ...

18. The Saving Grace Of Gratitude

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon

Larry R. Kalajainen

... greedy human beings do not, stands over against such pride and power, and takes the part of the weak and the poor. God's judgment is not based on human standards, but on God's own truth and righteousness, and God makes it clear that oppression and exploitation will bear its own bitter fruit. The people, of course, do not want to hear this message of the prophet. "Don't preach this way," they tell him, "One should not preach this way; disgrace will not overtake us" (Micah 2:6). Micah, however, rages against ...

19. The Road To The Cross

Matthew 27:11-26

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... those of you more set in you ways have been susceptible to such influences. Are not your values, your way of doing retirement, or your image of the good life shaped by the American cultural agenda - the "American dream" (No matter if that dream has been exploiting the poor in our nation and throughout the world)? We really are like that Jewish crowd wich followed Jesus. How often, like that crowd, have we refrained from standing up for what we know was right, and instead gone along with the flow, along with ...

20. The Clanking of Coins

Matthew 27:1-10

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... then turned over the tables of the exchangers, loudly scattering the money in all directions. "You have made this House of Prayer a den of thieves." (Luke 19:46) Here was the sound of money that had gotten out of its proper place. Here was money exploiting a person's deep need for God, turning sacred rituals into gimmicks for personal gain, cashing in on the faith of the seekers. There was another sound of clanking coins during that last week. Again it was in the Temple, where coins sealed the worst bargain ...

21. WHAT IS MAN?

Sermon

Larry Powell

... at hand. In fact, alternate systems (from carburetors to energy sources) have already been developed, but are being withheld by private concerns who are not willing to be milked of their PROFITS. A national consciousness and concerted effort will weather any crisis, while exploitation serves to fragment society and obscure the issues. The fact that we are now fragmented ought to tell us something. We have a crisis in this country all right. But it is not gasoline. It is the inability to think "we" instead ...

22. Grateful For The Giver

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon

... screaming, oh how they prayed. (Couldn’t do any harm.) But when the crisis was over, so was the praying. It was in this sense the nine former lepers were still sick. The public health department pronounced them whole but Jesus did not. Any relationship that’s exploitative is sick. Where a man uses a woman or a woman uses a man - even though they might be married - the relationship is sick. People using their neighbors - that’s sick. In a re-run of The Mary Tyler Moore Show we saw Mary coming into her ...

23. Counsel for Discouraged Disciples

Habakkuk 1:1-4

Sermon

... into unknowing nothingness within the walls of one of the institutions where we store our social discards. There was the little twelve-year-old black girl who hanged herself in the closet of a shabby home in the inner city. Unloved, abused, exploited, she had had enough years to explore the depths of despair. A disturbed Jewish university student also comes to mind. He had been unable to measure up academically to the expectations of unloving parents. He had been taunted and tormented throughout his ...

24. A Fool’s Tools

Matthew 25:14-30

Sermon

... to function effectively in this kind of environment. Another very tempting misuse of tools accompanies the fact that gift-wise all are not created equal, and the five-talent individuals may find it very enticing to devote their tools to the padding of their own bunkers, exploiting those with fewer tools when they see as getting in the way. There are widespread examples of this kind of talent misuse: the salesman who sells the poor family a car or a house on which he knows they will not be able to keep up ...

25. Growing Up

Judges 17:1-13

Sermon

Michael J. Anton

... : a self-willed people - every person doing what was right in his own eyes. What’s so bad about that? This could be good. This means freedom. This is liberty. No king! Kings can be a world of trouble. They can enslave, they can misrule, they can exploit and oppress, they can corrupt and destroy a nation. How wonderful! No king. Every man doing what was right in his own eyes. That’s what growing up means, isn’t it? Being independent, making all your own decisions, living by your own moral code, judging ...

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