Sermon and Worship Resources

Antonyms: loss, disadvantage, debt, lack, need, payment, resource, want

Showing 1 to 25 of 4979 results

Luke 15:1-7

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... return on one lost soul, saving one struggling sinner, brings exponential amounts of joy into heaven, and should do the same on earth. But not everyone on earth calculates according to kingdom math. Some people are more into self-interest and current interest than compound interest. On September 1, 2010 twenty-three year old New Yorker Thomas Magill was so despondent and depressed that he tried to end his own life by jumping off the thirty-ninth floor of his upper west side apartment building. Miraculously ...

2. A Christian With A Conflict Of Interest

Isaiah 5:1-7

Sermon

James McLemore

... do not want to do -- this I keep on doing." Paul was saying, "I want to do right, but I keep on doing wrong. I keep running into this conflict. Conflict all around me, conflict inside me. I am trying to be a Christian, but I have a conflict of interest." There are things that I should do. I should go to church on Sunday, but Sunday conflicts with my rest time, and my play time, and my personal time. I should read my Bible more often, but Bible study conflicts with my rest time. I should go to Sunday school ...

3. Interest vs. Commitment

Mt 13:1-23

Illustration

King Duncan

In his book, The One Minute Manager, Ken Blanchard says, "There's a difference between interest and commitment. When you are interested in doing something, you do it only when it is convenient. When you are committed to something, you accept no excuses." Good soil represents the company of the committed " people who are determined to serve Christ to the best of their abilities, people who are willing to make whatever sacrifices ...

4. The Difference between Interest and Commitment

Luke 5:1-11

Illustration

Steve Goodier

... success of any endeavor. Happy people are committed people. They commit to other people, they commit to themselves, they commit to God, and they commit to their dreams. They know that nothing is possible without firm resolve. Author Ken Blanchard has said, "There's a difference between interest and commitment. When you're interested in doing something, you do it only when it's convenient. When you're committed to something, you accept no excuses - only results." What about you? Are you ready for results?

5. Interesting Sins

Illustration

Charles Merrill Smith

Do you recall the story about Martin Luther who, in his preReformation days, was such a compulsive confessor of moral peccadilloes that his priest, in exasperation, told him to commit some interesting sins in order to relieve the tedium of the confession?

6. Freedom With Interest

Illustration

Douglas E. Moore

... he could secure better wages in Ohio, he went there. . Notwithstanding that the Emancipation Proclamation freed him from any obligation to his master, this black man walked the greater portion of the distance back to where his old master lived in Virginia, and placed the last dollar, with interest, in his hands. "In talking to me about this, the man told me that he knew that he did not have to pay his debt, but that he had given his word to his master, and his word he had never broken. He felt that he could ...

7. Personal Interests

Illustration

Charles Colson

... settled the issue by posing an unanswerable question. Rhodes sat down, unable or unwilling to respond... Basic human nature dictates that when an individual is left to make moral decisions without reference to some standard above self, he or she invariably makes those choices on the basis of self-interest. Relativism results in radical individualism. As sociologist Robert Bellah concluded after an exhaustive survey, Americans have two overriding goals in life: personal success and vivid personal feelings.

8. Not Interested

Matthew 4:1-11

Bulletin Aid

Frank Ramirez

Call To Worship Let us come together in worship, confident in the knowledge that there is no place we can go, no trial we can face, no temptation we might endure, where we will not find Jesus has been before. Collect Let us gather in worship today, prepared to hear anew the story of the temptation of Jesus, and to celebrate the daring idea from God to enter into history not in power, but in the majesty of vulnerability. Amen. Prayer Of Confession In the face of our temptations let us draw strength from ...

9. A Vital Interest

Illustration

Michael P. Green

A U.S. Army officer told of the contrast in his pupils during two different eras of teaching at the artillery training school at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. In 1958–60 the attitude was so lax that the instructors had a problem getting the men to stay awake to listen. During the 1965–67 classes, however, the men, hearing the same basic lectures, were alert and took copious notes. The reason: these men knew that in less than six weeks they would be facing the enemy in Vietnam. One reason that Bible study seems to ...

10. Miscellaneous Laws

Deut 23:15–25:19

Understanding Series

Christopher J. H. Wright

... not take advantage of, is far too weak; the Hb. word ʿāšaq, means to oppress by robbery or fraud, as it is properly translated in the parallel law in Leviticus 19:13) and that the payment for work should be prompt. The OT shows remarkable interest in the welfare of working human beings and even working animals (cf. the sabbath commandment and 25:4). This law refers to a particular category of workers who were likely to be poor and needy, namely, hired laborers. These were people who had no permanent (i ...

11. Exclusion From the Assembly

Deuteronomy 23:1-8

Understanding Series

Christopher J. H. Wright

... season or (in Leviticus) those who had fallen into severe poverty over a longer term. Such is the evil of human nature, that desperate human need is commonly an opportunity for unscrupulous exploitation. True to OT ideals of justice and compassion, the ban on interest in Deuteronomy, Exodus, and Leviticus is primarily concerned to stop the hardhearted from making a profit out of hard times. This may, as some think, be the reason why the ban did not apply to foreigners. The foreigners in mind (though not, it ...

12. Personal Accountability

Ezekiel 18:1-32, Ezekiel 19:1-14

Understanding Series

Steven Tuell

... ideas found in priestly material, especially in the Holiness Code of Leviticus 17–26. So, inter woven with moral and ethical concepts we would certainly applaud (e.g., justice for the poor in v. 7) are others we would question (e.g., the condemnation of interest on loans in v. 8), together with purity regulations that are strange to us (e.g., avoiding menstruating women, v. 6). All of this is, for the prophet, of a piece. Righteousness refers to right standing with God and neighbor, which in Ezekiel’s ...

13. Hindering Riches

Matthew 19:16-30

Sermon

Herchel H. Sheets

... is true because money tends to blind to true values and to become valued far beyond its own worth. As all of this happens, the springs of compassion may dry out and one may find it increasingly difficult to part with his or her money in the interests of persons or causes which do not promote one’s own welfare in some way. The fifth chapter of the Letter of James has some pretty rough things to say about rich persons. A cartoonist pictures a modern-day church leader marking through that chapter and saying ...

14. The World's Best Kept Secret

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... a part of life's greatest adventure. She was simply doing what she felt she was created to do. The greatest adventure in the world is goodness and the kingdom of God, because that's what we were made to do. Jesus called attention to the beauty and the interesting aspects of people and things doing what they were made to do. He spread his hands out over the fields. "Look at the lilies of the field," he said. "They neither toil nor spin. They do the things they were made to do. They are so attractive and so ...

15. Strained Gnats

Matthew 23:1-39

Sermon

Herchel H. Sheets

... Lost in the quagmire!8 We cannot do much about challenging the "chance of noble deeds" if we spend our time and energy straining out gnats and swallowing camels. Christ calls us not to leave our places vacant at his side, but to be there, sharing his interests and seeking to see things from his perspective, not only that we may find meaning and fulfillment, but also that our lives may make the difference they are meant to make. 1. Margery Wilson. I Found My Way, pp. 93-94. Philadelphia and New York: J. B ...

16. Complete Joy

Philippians 2:1-11

Sermon

Jeff Wedge

... this instruction. Suddenly we are speaking of obedience, even to the point of death, obedience to that advice to "do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus." Paul closes this lesson by re-emphasizing the idea of our obedience. "Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much ...

17. Numbered Hairs

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

Herchel H. Sheets

... goal for us. And thinking often upon the numerous evidences of the individualized and personalized care of God will help us toward that goal. Numbered hairs! With God one is never lost in a crowd. It does not take a hundred thousand persons to get his attention and interest. "Even the hairs of your head are all numbered!" Yet one is not a mere statistic with him. He knows and values each individual in the world as if he or she were the only one. That means that we have sufficient reason for valuing our own ...

18. God's Bankers

Matthew 25:27

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

... a year they will give me back the $1.00 and 6 cents extra for letting them use it for one year. The 6 cents we call interest. That is why people save their money in banks rather than saving it at home. If you keep your dollar at home for one year you will ... only have one dollar at the end of the year. So you make money by letting the bank save it for you. The bank pays interest. If you save your money at a bank they give you this little book and they tell you every once in a while how much they are ...

19. His Trial

Luke 22:66--23:25

Sermon

Brett Blair

... the town council, the business community, and even the church--decide that one person’s life is not an unreasonable price to pay for the common good. In the end they kill him. It is a devastating commentary of the words of Caiaphas: It is more to our interest that one man should die for the people, rather than the whole nation should be destroyed.” It would be so easy to dismiss Caiaphas as an historical figure who was nothing more than a footnote in the Lenten story, except for the fact that we are all ...

20. The Importance of Unity

1 Corinthians 1:10-17

Sermon

Hubert Beck

... public policy, we should suppress the unions or the laborers, the poor or the wealthy, the government or the people. Always the urge is present to have our way at the expense of others, to divide the house so that we can re-unite it again - in our own best interests, of course! This is not foreign to the church, for humans make up the membership in the church, and as humans, we too frequently forget that it is not our church to begin with. It is God’s church, and he calls us as its members to be the doers ...

21. Learning to Live Like Jesus

Philippians 2:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

... tears are in your eyes/ I will dry them all/ I’m on your side/ When times get rough/ And friends just can’t be found/ Like a bridge over troubled water/ I will lay me down . . .” That’s how we should be in the church. There is an interesting phrase that has entered our common vernacular in recent years. It is the phrase, “I’ll have your back.” If I say to someone, especially someone in a difficult situation, “I’ll have your back,” it means I’ll be there for you, look out for you, help ...

22. Nehemiah Helps the Poor

Nehemiah 5:1-19

Understanding Series

Leslie C. Allen

... 16 will make clear, what he particularly had in mind was his refusal to exploit the people by acquiring land when he made loans during the emergency and debts were unpaid (v. 10). Nor did he permit his family or staff to do so. Instead, he served their interests by devoting his energies and those of his retinue to rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem, as 4:16 had stated. The reference to 4:16 gives the impression that verses 14–19 were meant as a generalizing conclusion to 4:10–5:13, while verses 14 and 16 ...

23. Proper 10

Luke 10:25-37, Colossians 1:1-14, Amos 7:10-17, Psalm 82:1-8

Sermon Aid

William E. Keeney

... Him to an Inn." (v. 34) A small spring is found about halfway down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. It is probable that the Samaritan brought the injured man to that location of the inn. CONTEMPLATION Issues and Insights 1. Who is My Neighbor? It is interesting that we naturally assume that the person who is the neighbor is the man who was in need. Yet the lawyer says that it was the Samaritan who showed mercy. In a certain sense we would therefore conclude that our neighbor is one who shows mercy toward ...

24. Recollections of Abdul, Camel Boy for An Eastern Potentate

Luke 1:46-56, Luke 1:39-45

Drama

Robert A. Morgan

... friends. They made it by sheer grit and determination, and without any question, their example helped to keep the rest of us going. But I was telling you about my background and my job. I'll tell you more about the journey in a moment, if you're interested. My father was a rich man, and I was brought up with all the privileges wealth can buy. I think that's probably one reason I have spent so much time with Casper. He knows I understand his background, his style, and his standards. The difference between ...

25. Christ’s Twin

Philippians 2:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

... too careful. I can see the author of The Da Vinci Code weaving a complete novel out of the idea that Jesus secretly had a twin. So let me state categorically that Jesus did not have a twin. However, today’s lesson from Philippians provokes an interesting question. If Christ had a twin what would he, or she, be like? Paul writes, “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy ...

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