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 324 results

1. Five Steps to Takeoff

Mark 1:14-20

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... a belted-in jet pilot encased within roaring engines, are necessarily large and visual. Take this opportunity to "act out" the gestures of the airboss and have the congregation follow suit. Let them master each hand signal and be prepared to act out ... you guess what it is? Get out of the way! The airboss takes a giant step to the side, then makes a grand forward-pointing gesture with his whole arm. The airboss points the pilot off the flight deck, into the direction of the carrier's mission. It is the airboss ...

2. The Curriculum of God’s Kingdom

Matthew 4:12-17

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... partially restored by the grace of God’s approach. Where once you were bound, now you have some wiggle room. It is now time to respond to God’s approach. Jesus is the path to God’s future and the door through which we enter. His hands are an open gesture of invitation. To follow him means that our feet must get into the act as well. Reach for the kingdom that is at hand, and put your feet in his steps. It’s the start of a new beginning. I grew up loving maps and geography. Perhaps because my father ...

3. The Two Washings

John 13:1-17

Sermon

Dean Lueking

... , knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. (John 13:5) What a remarkable verse! The Evangelist sets this simple gesture in a not-so-simple framework of divine truth. Jesus had come from God and was going to God. All things had been given to him by the Father - those are words of vast importance and a depth of meaning that we cannot fully wrap our minds around ...

4. All My Children

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Frank Lyman

... his side, equipped with the language. His job was to convey the speaker's story to the listeners. Lucado says he did his best to allow the speaker's words to come through him. He was not at liberty to embellish or subtract. When the speaker gestured, Lucado gestured. As the speaker's volume increased, so did Lucado's. When the speaker got quiet, Lucado did too. Lucado makes this parallel: "When he walked this earth, Jesus was "˜translating' God all the time. When God got louder, Jesus got louder. When God ...

5. Extravagant Guestures in a Cost-Effective World

Mark 14:1-11

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... , meal. We spend more money on that meal than we normally spend to eat, but it is a special meal because it is shared with people we love. The food we prepare is a reflection of the affection we have for these people. Note, too, that this extravagant gesture is not in competition with other expressions of generosity. When Jesus reminds this lady's critics that they will always have the poor with them, he is not for a moment suggesting they be put off to one side and forgotten. Tending to their needs is a ...

6. Receive The Holy Spirit

John 20:19-23

Sermon

Larry Powell

... the actual ordinations, I sat with the other participating elders at the front of the sanctuary, on the main floor, and to the side of the pulpit. Bishop White stood at the pulpit to preach. I could not see him. I could see his hands when he gestured. A large flower arrangement between the pulpit and chancel obscured my vision. I could hear his voice well enough and see his hands when they came into play, but I could not see the source. There was something mildly frustrating about that. It was like trying ...

7. Seeking Hands

Psalm 141:1-10

Sermon

... Hands are useful. They allow us to accomplish many things. Not only are they able to do, but they also help us communicate. All of us have probably been recipients of bad communications when people use their hands to make gestures that were less than complimentary. There are also good gestures - a gesture that says "hi," or a wave. In Brazil, if a mother beckons her child like this (palm up), the child understands that the mother is communicating for the child to come. But if she beckons the child like this ...

8. It Might Have Been ...

Luke 22:1-6, Matthew 26:14-16, Matthew 27:1-10, Matthew 26:47-56

Sermon

... him over the line; who know what little thing is the last straw for any of us? When he walked out into the night to betray Jesus, did he hope Jesus would call him back? Haven’t we done that? On impulse, we begin to make some gesture - one perhaps we didn’t even really want to carry through - but having committed ourselves, we move on. And nobody stops us. So our pride sends us on almost against our will. To his credit, Judas confessed. "I have betrayed innocent blood." It was a bonafide confession ...

9. The “Gratitude Salute”

James 1:19-27

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... MSfFYxSdKdo ] Mr. Truitt hopes that people will use this “sign,” not just for returning military, but to communicate thanksgiving to people who have done something good, true and beautiful. Christians need to offer God a “Gratitude Salute” — not just with a single gesture, but with our whole body, mind, spirit, with our whole being. A gratitude salute reveals a heart that is open and over-flowing, a heart that flows outward in the direction of others, a heart that is implanted with the Word of God ...

10. The Little Golf Club

Sermon

John Smylie

... and in his life. Our Lord invites us to love one another as he has loved us. His love is not found only in the big gestures, his love can be found in the little things of everyday life. There is a book that I have found helpful in counseling couples who ... another as he has loved us. We are invited to stretch out our lives for every one as well. The gospel challenges us. Our gestures of love may be as simple as making a little golf club and pulling up prickly weeds so the children in the neighborhood can have ...

11. The Spice of Death

Sermon

Harry N. Huxhold

... . However, Joseph was not handling this matter in a potter's field or something donated by the township trustee. Joseph took the body of Jesus to a garden and placed his body in a fresh tomb in which no one had been laid. That was a bold gesture that could cost Joseph the loss of a job and his prestige in the community. Likewise, Nicodemus may have been disgraced in the ruling order of the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin for participating in this right. That did not matter now. Joseph and Nicodemus did what the ...

12. A Blessing Behind Locked Doors

John 20:19-23

Sermon

William G. Carter

... indication that nothing can separate us from the love of God. More than that, it is also a sign that, in Christ, there is nothing that can separate us from the love of one another. When we pass the peace, we show our solidarity and support. Our gestures announce, "In the Risen Christ, God has stood for us, so today we stand with one another." Some time ago, there was a newspaper story about Ian O'Gorman, an 11-year-old boy who was undergoing chemotherapy. Ian wasn't feeling well. Doctors discovered a tumor ...

13. Giving with Open Hands

Mark 12:41-44

Sermon

Thomas Peterson

... just had a child. No sooner was the child born than the mother came forth with a long, itemized bill, listing every item she had purchased for him. This so angered the couple that they dedicated themselves to paying her off as soon as possible. A loving gesture turned out to be a closed-hands service. 3. Open hands. When we give with open hands we neither shove a gift at another nor compute the return. Along with the gift goes personal recognition. It does not have to be love or lifelong devotion; it can ...

14. The Set Face And The Turned Head

Luke 9:51-56, Luke 9:57-62

Sermon

Larry Powell

... the horn lightly. At that, the passenger in the convertible stood up in the front seat, turned around to stare hatefully at the woman, shouted obscenities and made numerous vulgar gestures. When the car finally did proceed, it did so at a slow, mocking speed with the driver turning around to punctuate the insult by adding additional gestures. I am relatively certain that the lady wished she had never touched the horn. As it happened, we all continued in the same direction and sure enough, found ourselves at ...

15. God's Christmas Greeting

Isaiah 11:1-16

Sermon

Robert Beringer

... left the statue to dry in his studio overnight. But the sea mists and fog came in that night and worked a strange change in the artist's handiwork. When the sculptor returned, he found the head of Christ fallen forward and the hands outstretched in a gesture of love and entreaty. In his heart Thorwaldsen knew what words he would place in the inscription beneath the statue: "Come unto me, all that are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." The hope which Isaiah envisioned so long ago comes to us in ways ...

16. Lent

Sermon

Betty Lynn Schwab

... received from the Lord." Reader 2: In earliest times, during the Festival of Shavuot the Jewish people sprinkled their gardens and fields with symbolic drops of water. This was done so the gardens and fields would yield good harvests. This sprinkling was a gesture of hope. It showed their belief in the goodness of God. At times the sprinkling became a joyful celebration. People sprinkled one another and lucky passersby! Reader 1: Symbolic droplets are also part of the story of Jesus' last days. On the night ...

17. Encounter with a Stranger

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

Robert Allen

... night. As they sat down to eat the evening meal, Cleopas asks the stranger to give the blessing for the meal. There was something in the way he gave thanks. There was something in the way he took the bread and broke it. There was something about his gestures that were recognizable. Perhaps, the folds of his robe fell back and they saw the livid red marks of the nails in his hands. But, whatever it was, in that instant they knew him. In that moment they recognized him. In that fraction of a second they knew ...

18. Jesus and the Women in His Life

Matthew 28:1-10

Sermon

Thomas Blowers

... one of the women took a jar of ointment and began anointing Jesus with its contents. Some of us thought the gesture was extravagant. After all such ointment was expensive and the money spent on it would have been better spent elsewhere. Others simply thought the woman ... was silly and her action out of place. But Jesus saw her gesture for what it was an act of human kindness. And he told us that for her spontaneous act of caring during times that ...

19. Helping People Fall Down

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

... as "worship" has the basic sense of falling down before another person and kissing that person's feet or garment hem or even the ground itself. In the world of Jesus' day, people behaved this way before others of great importance. In Matthew's Gospel, however, this gesture of the whole body is far more than a greeting of respect; it is an act of adoration of a divine object. In fact, the earlier story of Jesus' temptation reveals that it has to do with God alone. "You shall worship (fall down before) the ...

20. The Primacy of Human Relationships

Matthew 5:33-37

Sermon

Joe Pennel

... and the crowd was razzing him. "They were really on my case," he recalls. "I finally let everything get to me - playing badly and the crowd and everything. I guess I kinda lost my temper." Matt made obscene gestures at his tormentors. The crowd got even rougher. Matt responded with more gestures. And, suddenly, his father was at courtside, instructing the coach to get his son off the court. "I've seen enough," said Larry Turner, a Knoxville restaurant comptroller. "Go tell him to put up his racquet." During ...

21. Christ the King

Matthew 25:31-46

Sermon

Jerry L. Schmalemberger

... transcient who needs a pair of shoes, the Ohio State Reformatory resident who needs a letter, the refugee who needs a new start in a new country. If Christ is our King and on the throne, and we are really his subjects, we will respond instinctively with those little gestures that mean so much. Another thing we learn about our King is: "And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me’ " (Matthew 25:40). That’s a real surprise ...

22. Five Minutes After Death

Revelation 21:1-27

Sermon

Robert Allen

... trembling with fear. There was great agitation in his voice as he said: "Master, down in the market place I was jostled by someone in the crowd. When I turned around, I saw that it was Death who had jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture. Master," he said, "please lend me your horse, for I must hasten away to avoid Death. I will ride to Samara and there I will hide, and Death will be unable to find me." The merchant lent his horse and the servant galloped away in a great hurry. Later ...

23. OUR LORD DENIED

Sermon

E. Jerry Walker

... beyond what he had thought he was capable, had turned to ashes, been twisted into a sort of betrayal, and he could not, he would not accept this! What had his Lord expected of him? That he would stand there and let them take him? How could this one gesture of devotion have been an offense to him? Why hadn’t Jesus understood? How was it the Master had so little faith in him? He had meant it, with every tendon of his body, every fibre of his spirit, when he had proclaimed in that dismal upper room, "Though ...

24. Blow The Trumpet In Zion

Joel 2:1-11

Sermon

Larry Powell

... for a "special emphasis." Everything from a wiener roast for the youth to clean-up day at the church, to car pools, to meetings, to a new can opener for the church kitchen is referred to, at least once, as a "special" event or "special" gesture. I rejoice that he is so enthusiastically impressed that everything which comes to his attention is "special," but he has innocently neutralized his strongest word by causing it to be too predictable, too familiar. It is not as though the word no longer exists; it ...

25. Man Of Sorrows

Isaiah 52:13--53:12

Sermon

Larry Powell

... man. No need to employ an opportunist to fabricate a damaging rumor. No need to resort to character assassination in order to convince the people that hypocrisy was being committed against their own law. An inside job would do nicely. Simply dignify the gesture of the man from Kerioth with a small remuneration - not so much for his leading them to the garden, but rather for the spectacle he would create. Had there been a newspaper, the authorities would most certainly have seen to the headlines: DISCIPLE ...

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