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 65 results

1. Man Of Sorrows

Isaiah 52:13--53:12

Sermon

Larry Powell

... not a single voice was raised along the Via Dolorosa to point out that the required 24-hour period between sentence and execution had been violated. The authorities had needed two things: (1) a go-between, and (2) an execution, carried out under the guise of legality. Both were awkwardly accomplished, so that the conspiracy had achieved its objective. There Had Been a Choice It was a custom at Passover that the governor would release a prisoner, the choice being left to the people. According to three of the ...

2. Life’s Three Guides on the Pilgrim Way

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... not “toil nor spin.” But flowers know how to put down roots, suck up nutrients, stretch for the sun, move with the wind. If we are going to recognize and integrate the guides God sends us into our lives, we need to discern the “guises” and “disguises” these “guides” might come in. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle testified that “on important issues, we do not trust our own ability to decide and call in others to help us deliberate.” There are at least three kinds of guides, divinely ...

3. The Happy Hypocrite

Matthew 6:1-4, 5-6, 16-18

Sermon

King Duncan

... a despicable and dissolute man named Lord George Hell. Lord George fell in love with a beautiful young lady. He knew he could not win her heart if she knew what he was really like, so over his bloated features he wore a mask--the mask of a saint. The guise worked, and he wooed and won her. After they had been married for a while, a woman showed up from Lord George’s past. She was angered by his pretending to be good! In the presence of his wife she stripped off his mask. And to her great surprise--and ...

4. The Best Seat in the House

Luke 14:1, 7-14

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... assertiveness. Let me say that again. We live in a culture that lauds narcissism in the guise of assertiveness. Don’t misunderstand. To be assertive can be a very good thing, especially when one needs to be heard. Sometimes, it’s a grave mistake to keep silent when things need to be said. But we can draw a fine line between healthy self-promotion, the kind of ...

5. It Is Blessed To Receive

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon

William G. Carter

... Irene and Mary For their contempt for me! But praise not my self-sacrifice, And censure not their contempt; I reared them, I cared for them, true enough! -- But I poisoned my benefactions With constant reminders of their dependence. All through their lives, under the guise of generosity, Constance said, "Girls, I took you in when your mother died, and I never want you to forget it." As long as they lived beneath her roof, as long as they sat at her table, they were reminded how their very lives depended on ...

6. It Is Blessed To Receive

Sermon

William G. Carter

... Irene and MaryFor their contempt for me!But praise not my self-sacrifice,And censure not their contempt;I reared them, I cared for them, true enough! -- But I poisoned my benefactions With constant reminders of their dependence.4 All through their lives, under the guise of generosity, Constance said, "Girls, I took you in when your mother died, and I never want you to forget it." As long as they lived beneath her roof, as long as they sat at her table, they were reminded how their very lives depended on ...

7. Plan Your Leisure - Jesus Did His!

Mark 6:30-44

Sermon

Charles R. Leary

... relaxing without any thoughts of responsibility, someone calls and asks you to be a Reader or Usher or sub a Sunday school class Sunday morning. Does it ever end? Busyness why, even in the church we can drive you to a frenzy under the guise of caring and doing good. I have felt guilty taking the phone off the hook while I walk down the hall and back! You find yourself often pushing, striving, worrying, deciding, promoting, struggling, and only sometimes enjoying. You struggle to keep yourself going, keep ...

8. A Sleeping Bag God

2 Samuel 7:1-17

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... not as a domesticated, but instead as a dynamic God. God cannot be cabined and caught; harnessed and held; isolated and studied. No. God is too busy for that. God is constantly on the move with his people, seen now in this event and later in quite another guise. God rejects the suggestion that he can be placed here or there, or that he can be the object of a definitive analysis. As confident as we are that God has disclosed himself in Christ Jesus, there is still truth in the words of Isaiah: For my ...

9. A Wilderness Prophet · John The Baptist

Jn 1:6-8 · Mt 3:1-12

Sermon

Gordon Pratt Baker

... shaken by the wind." (Matthew 11:7) Here was a herald who had come unscathed through the austerity of the desert with lightning bolts scoring crags above his head, sandstorms lashing hapless travelers, brigands pouncing on unwary victims, and death in the guise of vipers lurking behind every rock. Moreover, when the moment for action had struck, whatever its nature, he seized it with the tenacity of a hawk snatching its prey, pinioning its challenge with a moral judgment as piercing as that bird's talons ...

10. "The Bitterness Of Betrayal"

Mark 14:43-52, Psalm 55:1-23

Sermon

R. Sheldon MacKenzie

... in the evening, had gone his own way. And then, with an armed arresting party Judas arrived quietly in the dark garden. There was no warning of their arrival. The disciples who had been left on watch were fast asleep. Judas came into the garden in the guise of a disciple. And with the greeting of a disciple he marked out his Master for the arrest. He was seized. There was a scuffle. And one person was wounded. In his remarks to those who arrested him Jesus exposed their misunderstanding both of who he was ...

11. "The Scandal Of Disloyalty"

Psalm 62:1-12, Mark 14:66-72

Sermon

R. Sheldon MacKenzie

... three times Jesus had come to Peter for support. And three times Peter had been sound asleep. After each time Jesus had been left to face alone his confrontation with God. In the courtyard of the High Priest temptation had come three times to Peter in the guise of a servant girl and some onlookers. And three times Peter had given in to it. Three times he denied, the last time with an oath, any relationship whatever with Jesus. This was the final rejection of Jesus by the disciples. The desertion of Jesus by ...

12. Let It Shine!

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

... light through clandestine means. They ingratiate themselves with you and make you feel like you're one of them so as to saturate your light. Your light already outshines them but since they couldn't intimidate or annihilate, they'll saturate you under the guise of legitimacy and goodness. Let your light shine. Don't let the saturators steal your light. These saturators are everywhere. On the job. Maybe in your home. Even sometimes in the church. They make an art of faking left and going right. They never ...

13. Empty Prisons Without Walls

Acts 5:17-42

Sermon

Carl Jech

... street" is just as valid a tool for social change as is the letter to the senator. What I do not admire or respect is the "mutiny-minded" attitude which is simply the childish desire always to have one's own way masquerading under the guise of moral righteousness. 1. Prisons With Walls There are many reasons why people find themselves in very real prisons with very real walls. The apostles offended those whom they accused of misunderstanding Jesus, and they landed in jail for it. Martin Luther King spent ...

14. Jesus Meets Buddha and Confucius

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

Carl Jech

... on the basis of ethical principles that transcended mere cultural prejudices. It remained for Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism, to make this kind of ethical thought and critisim legitimate in China. Narrow-minded, culturally biased moralism - often masquerading under the guise of "common sense" - frequently produces the opposite of ethics. It can cause a lot of injustice and pain. In our own society I think of people who are embarrassed about medical procedures simply because of the parts of the body involved ...

15. Let God Be God

Zephaniah 3:1-20

Sermon

... God so beautifully revealed in Jesus? Let us not kid ourselves. It has been said that one’s god is that to which he or she gives supreme allegiance. If that is so, the practice of idolatry is surely rampant in our midst. Our idols appear in many guises, and their shrines dot the landscapes of both private and public devotion. If we do not stay on guard alertly, we will be seduced into their worship without realizing what we are doing. Are you and I willing to consider seriously the possibility that we are ...

16. Sowing to the Flesh

Romans 8:1-17

Sermon

Dennis Kastens

... in judgment of the living and the dead (something they confess in the Creed almost every time they appear in church). And so they slip away into a few more hours of Sunday morning sleep, or into the backyard, or piously putter around the house under the guise of getting caught up, or maybe at some resort spot where they won’t even so much as have devotions with their family over an entire weekend, or listen to a religious radio broadcast which brings them the gospel they so desperately need. Yes, not only ...

17. The Trinity

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

Brett Blair

... , and has been, attributed to the work of the Holy Spirit. Whether it’s the capital punishment of heretics as was done in the middle ages or the moving of pedophile priest from church to church today, the church has sanctioned some horrible behavior under the guise of “It seems good to us and to the Holy Spirit.” We will be speaking more of the Holy Spirit as the season of Pentecost progresses. I would simply like to close with this thought on the Trinity. It perhaps might help us to understand this ...

18. The Testing Law Man

Sermon

Leonard H. Budd

... the Law. And his reply to the just charge showed no remorse, no hint that he was in the wrong. But I believe the illustration that best establishes the case deals with a story he told. He was good at concealing his real thoughts in the guise of dialogue or drama. The particular scandalous story centers on three men. Two are pictured as respected leaders. The third is a foreigner. It is set on the roadway to Jerusalem - dangerous because of banditry. A certain man went this road and was attacked. He lay ...

19. Surprise, It's Christmas!

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

Brett Blair

... them? One after another, surprise after surprise. Christmas Morning is wonderful in that way. I can remember still today the way I felt as a child, the amazement, the astonishment of Christmas morning. Chuck Swindoll writes, "surprises come in many forms and guises: some good, some borderline amazing, some awful, some tragic, some hilarious. But there's one thing we can usually say surprises aren't boring." Surprises are woven through the very fabric of all our lives. They await each one of us at unexpected ...

20. He Commanded Us to Preach

Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

... lovingly for wrongdoing and are afraid to put themselves on trial for their own sins. Parishioners are afraid to confront preachers and other parishioners for fear of rejection and rebuke. What emerges, then, is a culture of lies, untruths, and deception that is promulgated under the guise of not wanting to hurt the other guy’s feelings. But if we approach people in love and with the awareness that we are all sinners in need of God’s amazing grace, why can’t we speak the truth in and outside of the ...

21. A Most Confusing Doctrine

John 3:1-21

Sermon

King Duncan

... this is the heart of the Christian message. We are not Deists. We do not believe that God set the world in motion and then walked off and left it. We believe God visited our world in the life of a humble carpenter. Notice I did not say in the guise of a humble carpenter. I said in the life of this carpenter. Jesus was not God masquerading as a man. No, God emptied Himself and became fully human when Christ was born in the manger of Bethlehem. He cried real tears, and sweat real sweat and bled real blood. He ...

22. It's Not Nice To Call Someone A Dog

Matthew 15:21-28

Sermon

King Duncan

... such figures? We do it by showing them the real thing. Parents who profess one set of values and live another are setting themselves up for rebellion on the part of their young. That rebellion may be against their Christian faith or it may take the guise of a fanatical obsession that rejects their parents’ hypocrisy. I do not hesitate to say that if you and I live the life of love and faith and hope that Jesus exemplified we will protect our young from religious phonies. We will also protect our society ...

23. Who Will Wipe Away Their Tears?

Revelation 21:1-27

Sermon

King Duncan

... and the street noises were so loud it was difficult to hear the priest recite the prayers. At the conclusion of the service, Mother Teresa took a few minutes to speak to the volunteers and give them encouragement. Her message was very simple: "Jesus is found in the distressing guise of the poorest of the poor," she said. "What you do to them, you do to Him." She held out her hand and touched each finger as she repeated, "What you do to Him; what you do with Him; what you do for Him. Look at the fingers of ...

24. Finishing In The Top 10%

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon

Frank Lyman

Two tiny legs disappearing under the water. That is all the 16th Century Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel depicted of poor Icarus. Two tiny legs. Pieter Bruegel was a moralist as well as a paintera moralist who saw human folly in many guises. In his work, "Landscape With The Fall of Icarus," he portrayed that folly through an interpretation of the Greek myth of Icarus. We recall that Icarus escaped King Minos' labyrinth by fashioning wings from wax. However, he flew too close to the sun, melted his wings and ...

25. The Heart Of The Matter

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... told of Lord George Hell, a despicable and dissolute man, who fell in love with a beautiful young lady. He knew he could not win her heart if she knew what he was like, so he put over the bloated features of his face the mask of a saint. The guise worked, and he wooed and won her. After they had been married for awhile, a woman showed up from Lord George Hell's past. She was angered and scandalized by his masquerade. How dare he pretend to be good! In the presence of his wife she went up to him ...

Showing results

Antonyms: do nothing

Showing 1 to 25 of 65 results

1. Man Of Sorrows

Isaiah 52:13--53:12

Sermon

Larry Powell

2. Life’s Three Guides on the Pilgrim Way

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

3. The Happy Hypocrite

Matthew 6:1-4, 5-6, 16-18

Sermon

King Duncan

4. The Best Seat in the House

Luke 14:1, 7-14

Sermon

Lori Wagner

5. It Is Blessed To Receive

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon

William G. Carter

6. It Is Blessed To Receive

Sermon

William G. Carter

... Irene and MaryFor their contempt for me!But praise not my self-sacrifice,And censure not their contempt;I reared them, I cared for them, true enough! -- But I poisoned my benefactions With constant reminders of their dependence.4 All through their lives, under the guise of generosity, Constance said, "Girls, I took you in when your mother died, and I never want you to forget it." As long as they lived beneath her roof, as long as they sat at her table, they were reminded how their very lives depended on ...

7. Plan Your Leisure - Jesus Did His!

Mark 6:30-44

Sermon

Charles R. Leary

8. A Sleeping Bag God

2 Samuel 7:1-17

Sermon

Robert Noblett

9. A Wilderness Prophet · John The Baptist

Jn 1:6-8 · Mt 3:1-12

Sermon

Gordon Pratt Baker