Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: ruler, sovereign, monarch, supreme ruler, crowned head, majesty, Crown, head of state, royal personage, emperor, prince, potentate, overlord, liege lord, lord, leader, chief, star, leading light, luminary, superstar, mogul, giant, master, kingpin, celebrity, lion

Antonyms: queens, peasant, serf, slave, subject, servant, average joe, common man, rank and file, lower class, common person, workers, commoner, the masses, the poor, plebians, bourgeois, proletariat, laborer, working class, middle class, blue-collar, a nobody, subvassal

Showing 1 to 25 of 3672 results

1. The Poor Man in the Mercedes

Luke 16:19-31

Sermon

King Duncan

... that while a few poor people are that way because they refuse to work, most are the victims of circumstances over which they have no control. Throughout the entire Bible, Old Testament and New, there is this concern for the unfortunate. Jesus was concerned about the poor, as this story and several of his other teachings reveal, as was the early church. If you love God, you care about people—all people, rich and poor alike. You and I have so much. Others have so little. The seven billionth baby was born ...

2. The Poor In Spirit

Sermon

John A. Terry

... , "That's right, Cathy. Putting your own needs first is one of the most important things you can do to maintain your self-respect." Cathy looked sad when she asked, "How can I have any self-respect if I'm being selfish and inconsiderate?" The poor in spirit are not the poor spirited, folks without vigor and force in their lives. Being "poor in spirit" is not being weak in spirit, but, having an attitude of faith which looks to God alone to preserve us in the midst of affliction. It is an awareness that we ...

3. The Poor In Spirit

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

John A. Terry

... is expressed in Ruddigore, a Gilbert and Sullivan opera: If you wish in the world to advance Your merits you're bound to enhance You must stir it and stump it, And blow your own trumpet, Or, trust me, you won't have a chance! The opposite of the poor in spirit are the proud in spirit. There is the pride of Peter who, blowing his own trumpet, said to Jesus, "Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away." He thought himself rich in his own power and determination. Soon Jesus was arrested ...

4. The Poor - With Us Always?

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... would donate materials for the family. They claimed, perhaps correctly, that if they did it for some, they’d have to do it for others. They went so far as to try to coax me to forget the family and not worry about them because Jesus himself had said "the poor will be with us always." Several years ago a guilt-laden man gouged out his own eyes. He did this because he read literally the biblical injunction, "If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out ..." This morning you and I could walk down the corridor of a ...

5. The Poor in Spirit

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

... clothing that a person wears, but the kind of person inside the clothing, that really counts. It's not the kind of church that a person goes to, but the kind of person inside the church, that has ultimate significance. By saying, "Blessed are the poor in spirit," Jesus was driving at something very fundamental and quite basic. Jesus was saying, "Happy are those people who feel their spiritual poverty." If a person is poor, that person feels his or her poverty. Poverty is not academic or ethereal, but deeply ...

6. When the Poor Become Rich

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

... is solely to please God, to be opened to receive his love, to experience the happiness of knowing that life is a gift. They are seldom disappointed by life, for it brings to them far more happiness than they could ever earn or achieve by their own striving. For the poor in spirit, sorrow and pain are real and not to be denied, but they are not afraid or without hope, for they ask, "If God is for us, who is against us?" (Romans 8:31) These are the meek who inherit the earth. Theirs is the blessed assurance ...

7. You Will Always Have The Poor With You…

John 12:1-8

Sermon

Schuyler Rhodes

... It must have been an incredible moment. So Mary takes the expensive perfume and anoints Jesus’ feet. The exchange is familiar to us. Judas challenges this, claiming that the money could have been given to the poor. Jesus responds. “Leave her alone. She bought it that she might have it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” A common and oft heard interpretation of this passage is that Jesus said there would always be poor among us, so why should we ...

8. Blessed are the Poor in Spirit

John 20:24-31, John 20:19-23

Sermon

Mike Ripski

... s in it for me?” There are those who say that no one ever does anything without some thought of what will be received in return. Parents love their children, so they’ll have someone to care for them in their old age. Compassion towards the poor is an attempt to create a society with less crime. Forgiveness is offered, because one anticipates needing to be forgiven someday. Everything is tit-for-tat. I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine. Jesus’ ethic, when he walked the earth, can be portrayed ...

9. Serving the Poor—Compassionately

Matthew 25: 31-40

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

On August 31, 1997, Princess Diana and her boyfriend Dodi were trying to outrun the paparazzi through the streets of Paris when their driver, Henri Paul, hit a pillar in a tunnel, killing three of the four passengers in the car. The world was stunned. This princess, who could make the headlines by waving her hand or send sensations through the media by wearing a party dress, was dead. The queen of people's hearts was gone. Over one billion people watched her funeral as Elton John sang about a candle in the ...

10. Love Is Down to Earth

John 12:1-11

Sermon

Carl Jech

... that we must treat people as ends in themselves rather than as simply means to end, so Jesus is pictured by John as wanting to be treated as an end in himself and not just as a means to an end. Jesus is not just a symbol of the poor and oppressed; he is himself specifically "stricken, smitten and afflicted." The musical Hair has within it a most provocative song called "Easy To Be Hard." The gist of the song is that it is easy to "care about the bleeding crowd" while yet totally ignoring "a needy friend ...

11. Rich Man, Poor Man

James 2:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?” This is the one place where the teachings of Christ definitely clash with the ways of the world: how we view the poor. This discrepancy is apparent in a question we often ask about people a question to which we apparently do not give much thought. We might ask of someone, referring to a third party, “How much do you think he or she is worth?” What we are asking is, “How ...

12. Poor Relations

James 2:1-13

Sermon

Mike Ripski

... going to be from mine. I’d spend the day with family. There’d be plenty of food. Plenty of everything. Respect and love would be taken for granted. All he was asking for was what I wanted and didn’t have to ask for. 4. Could it be that the poor challenge those of us who, as the hymn puts it (“God of Grace and God of Glory”), are “rich in things, but poor in soul”? Barbara Brown Taylor tells about taking a group of youth from her Atlanta church on a mission trip to Appalachia. They worked on a ...

13. Salvation Includes Social Justice

Jeremiah 23:1-8

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... not the way it is in the United States today. This is a society in which the gap between rich and poor is ever widening, even while the rich and many of us in the middle class get richer. We are a nation that has turned to bashing the poor. We blame the poor for their own problems. It is their laziness, their lack of initiative, that has gotten them in the mess they are in, we say. Few of us seem willing to concede that poverty might have to do with injustice, to an imbalance of power that rigs the system ...

14. Plain Talk

Luke 6:17-26

Sermon

Charles H. Bayer

... right? I guess it depends on what you need. Those whose stomachs are full tend not to be fixated on hunger. But nothing is more important to those whose stomachs are empty. It is clear whose side Luke and Luke's Jesus are on. They are on the side of the poor, the left out, the desperate, the marginalized. And if I read the statistics right, that's most of the people of today's world. Which gospel do we read -- and love? If I asked how many of you have heard of and can even quote sections of the Sermon on ...

15. Love Is Extravagant

John 12:1-11

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... not doing so. It seems, then, that what is mistakenly believed to give us an excuse for doing nothing is really Jesus’ mandate to do everything in our power. Indeed, if there was any prejudice in the heart of our Lord, it seems that he was prejudiced on behalf of the poor. It is recorded that He once said that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God (Cf. Mark 10:25 and Luke 18:25). Now, some commentators would have us believe that the ...

16. Poor Mary

Luke 1:39-45

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... is betrothed to a man who worked with his hands and by the sweat of his brow. Poor Mary. She's a country girl, and she is the one who is chosen. What does this mean? I don't know about you, but I have to fight back looking upon the poor with some contempt. I have been conditioned in this society to see them that way, as lazy, immoral, as certainly failures in many respects. We are raised, probably all of us in this room this morning, to believe that with a little gumption and some hard work, and just a ...

17. Plain Talk

Luke 6:17-26

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... in the right time, in God's time. But in the meantime, it is not that way. In the meantime I have come to identify with the poor, the hungry, and with those who weep, to be with them, and to stand with them, and to let them know that they are God's ... now, and those who will be blessed later. Someday it will come. In God's time. In the meantime, Christians are to identify with the poor. You can't be a Christian and store up wealth for the future, and ignore those people who have nothing in the present. You ...

18. Acres of Diamonds

1 Timothy 6:10

Sermon

Russell Conwell

... before he got out of that hall. This is the whole question: Do you see a need?" I remember well a man up in my native hills, a poor man, who for twenty years was helped by the town in his poverty, who owned a widespreading maple tree that covered the poor man's cottage like a benediction from on high. I remember that tree, for in the spring -- there were some roguish boys around that neighborhood when I was young -- in the spring of the year the man would put a bucket there and the spouts to catch the maple ...

19. How To Be Rich And Poor

James 1:1-18

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... value of what we have. Now get it straight. What we have does not determine whether we have the Kingdom, but whether we have the Kingdom determines the value of what we have. So James is teaching us how to be rich and poor. He first addresses a word to the poor. Then he speaks to the rich. Let's read the text again, verses 9 and 10: "Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation,because like the flower of the grass he will pass away." I think of the story of the parrot and ...

20. On Doing Beautiful Things

Mark 14:1-11

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... the gate! Actually, it was written by Cecil Frances Alexander in 1848, who wrote a number of good hymns and good stanzas-but this is not one of them. Hence it is omitted from most hymnals as contrary to the spirit of Jesus. It is right to give to the poor. But this woman’s deed was of a different order of rightness. To anoint the head with costly perfume is aesthetically pleasing, but this woman’s act is of a higher order of beauty. What she does is admirable because it is timely. Jesus is about to die ...

21. The Richest Family in Church

Luke 4:14-21

Sermon

King Duncan

... title for himself. So what was Jesus talking about? If he was the long-promised Messiah, the hope of the nation, then what was God revealing about His nature and His plan for the world? The first thing we learn is that Christ came to bring good news to the poor. That’s a vital truth to understand about the Messiah. Because it tells us so much about God’s heart, about God’s character. When you have good news to tell, who do you want to share it with? You want to share it with those most affected by ...

22. Two Women

Luke 1:39-45

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... world today, only a few have most of the wealth, and the great majority of people are poor. So there are some who are suggesting that it is time that the rich nations forgive the debts of the poor. And the poor nations, at least reduce the indebtedness so that the poor nations will have an opportunity to bring justice to the poor. I remind you that Mary would have been among them. That's the message that Luke wants to get across to us. He wants us to see that Christmas is not only about Jesus, it also about ...

23. Blessed Are the Abnormal

James 2:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, ‘Here’s a good seat for you,’ but say to the poor man, ‘You stand there’ or ‘Sit on the floor by my feet,’ have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? “Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich ...

24. Determining Your Destiny

Luke 16:19-31

Sermon

James Merritt

... not primarily a contrast between a rich man and a poor man. It is really a contrast between a poor-rich man and rich-poor man. How do we know this? There are some clues. Just let me give you the first one. In this story there is one thing the poor man has that the rich man doesn’t. He has a name. This is the only story that Jesus ever tells where one of the players has a name. He gives this man a name, because his name is very important. The name “Lazarus” literally means, “the one God helps ...

25. Hated, Excluded, Reviled, Defamed — And Leaping For Joy

Luke 6:17-26

Sermon

William G. Carter

... . These are not suggestions about how to be happy or warnings lest one become miserable; blessings and woes as words of Jesus are to be heard with the assurance that they are God’s word to us and that God’s word is not empty.1 Blessed are the poor. Blessed are those who are cursed for Christ’s sake. How are we going to cope with these words? One suggestion might be to turn them into a strategy. It’s not hard to do. You can put yourself under the blessing and change your circumstances so it applies ...

Showing results