Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: thirstiness, dryness, parched, craving, strong desire, longing, yearning, avidity, hunger, voracity, keenness, eagerness, lust, appetite, passion, love, crave, want, covet, desire, hunger for/after, lust for/after, hanker for/after, have one's heart set on

Antonyms: aversion, distaste, apathy, dislike, hatred, antipathy, disgust, disregard, abhorrence, acrimony, wet, animosity, animus, antagonism, bad feeling, bitterness, be averse to, detestation

Showing 1 to 25 of 679 results

1. Yearning For A Loyal Friend

Job 6:14-30 · Matthew 26:69-75

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... Like Job's friends, Simon Peter came right up to Jesus when he was being tried in the court of the high priest. And like Job's friends, he would have been better off if he had kept his mouth shut. Job and Jesus, sitting on their ash heaps, were yearning for loyal friends. We are the same when life crushes in on us. We long for someone to support us. A little book titled Mr. Adams: A Parable is about a teenager reflecting on some of the things out of his childhood, especially the life and death of Mr. Adams ...

2. Yearning for Security

John 10:11-18

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

... the knowledge that someone else was in charge and so we happily allowed ourselves to slip over the edge of slumber the way only a child can, with literally no cares to make our minds too busy to sleep. We adults carry that memory in our sub-conscious and we yearn for something like it again. Indeed, we pine for it even more acutely because now we know what it is like to live without that security. Now we know what it's like to wait for results from the pathology lab. Now we know what it's like to watch ...

3. Yearning for Security

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Illustration

Rudolf Bultmann

... cannot secure endurance for his works. His life is fleeting and its end is death. History goes on and pulls down all the towers of Babel again and again. There is not real, definitive security, and it is precisely this illusion to which men are prone to succumb in their yearning for security.

4. Yearning For Rejection; Thriving On Insults

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Sermon

King Duncan

A young single man checked into a Hilton Hotel. A card left on his pillow said, "Turn down service available, 7-10 p.m." The message meant that a housekeeper was available to turn down the covers on the bed during those hours. This young man saw a different message. "Why would you ever want a service like that?" he asked. "A turn down service ” unless you have incredibly low self-esteem." He added, "Usually my turn downs come long before 7 p.m.." Have you ever been turned down? Rejected? Insulted? A group ...

5. Man, Give Me Some Bread: I Want To See God

John 6:25-59

Sermon

King Duncan

... just as we are about to raise our hands and volunteer, we hear the final phrase, "You will never see my face." (4) YOU AND I YEARN TO SEE GOD. We may not look for him in tortillas, but we would like to think there is a special room in our church ... Fortunately Augustine was able to get back inside himself where he and God could commune. I hope you and I are that fortunate. You and I yearn to see God. He is here--in this man, Jesus of Nazareth. "I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall not hunger, ...

6. The Spiritual Gateway

Sermon

Stan Purdum

... there to religious commitment, but it can happen and often does. One thing those wise men did during that period of religious decline was to at least keep values in front of the population, which in turn helped to keep the religious doors open. The yearning that occurs through our spiritual nature is like God knocking on the door of our lives, asking to be admitted. The spiritual gateway — conscience, values, worship impulse, a desire to believe — is one place God reaches out to us. Even those of us who ...

7. On Being Lifted Beyond Ourselves

Romans 8:18-27

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... that the awareness of reality rises up from the depths of my soul. It is my reality rising up to touch God’s reality; it is God’s reality making himself known to me. It is not just my yearnings; it is God’s yearning for me. When my yearnings and God’s yearnings for me meet and unite, then I am born as an eternal person. The Psalmist cried out, "Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted within me?" In response to this cry, God’s Spirit meets my spirit and there is healing. It ...

8. Prayers for Memorial Day, Election, Thanksgiving

Bulletin Aid

Rolland R. Reece

... bravery. We are humbled when we consider those who have been wounded, or killed, that we might continue to enjoy our freedom and our democratic way of life. We are chagrined that for two centuries we fought and failed to establish an enduring peace. Our world neighbors, who yearn for the end of war, have also failed to find peace. O God, in spite of our world's horrendous failures in this regard, we still cling to the dream that someday the lamb will take its rest with the lion. We search and pray for the ...

9. A Glimpse of Eternity

Mark 9:2-13

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... caked with mud from the occasional periods of rain and the times he walked along side the sea of Galilee and other bodies of water he crossed in his travels. Perhaps the mud came from the time he placed a mud pack on the eyes of a blind man yearning to see. Gone were the demands of thousands who pushed and pulled to hear him preach and teach on a mountain side. The robe which was probably soaked with the smell of charcoal fires and the penetrating aroma of fish and baked bread warmed by the breakfast fire ...

10. Poem: In Memoriam

Eulogy

Alfred Lord Tennyson

... him, whate’er he be, And sing the songs he loved to hear. CVIII I will not shut me from my kind, And, lest I stiffen into stone, I will not eat my heart alone, Nor feed with sighs a passing wind: What profit lies in barren faith, And vacant yearning, tho’ with might To scale the heaven’s highest height, Or dive below the wells of Death? What find I in the highest place, But mine own phantom chanting hymns? And on the depths of death there swims The reflex of a human face. I’ll rather take what fruit ...

11. In the Bleak Mid-Winter

Isaiah 55:1-3, Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... head…the woman taken in an act of adultery brought for stoning…”Neither do I condemn you…your sins are forgiven.” His great gift to us is forgiveness. He would want us to be forgiving people. A long time before Jesus, one of the prophets who yearned for His coming as Messiah, Hosea employed two figures in describing the compassion of God for us persons: The divine husband and the divine father. The divine father is our most valued symbol for God. We rarely apply the imagery of husband for God. But ...

12. I Found It!

Luke 15:1-7, Luke 15:8-10

Sermon

Carl B. Rife

... casual dabbling, the second level earnest living. The third level, he says, is divided into two and he calls them Religion One and Religion Two. Religion One has to do with what we were talking about in this bumper sticker where we seek the truth, where we yearn, where we reach out to find this something extra we know is somehow a part of life. That is Religion One and the emphasis there is on truth. So you go pleasure, good, truth. But he said there is another level that we have discovered. This level ...

13. "I Don’t Want to Be Perfect - Or Do I?"

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... as I can be. I will never be mathematically perfect, everything just right, fixed. But as long as I live, I am going to be yearning after something that I have not yet achieved, and I am going to be responding to a pull that ever tugs me to a higher level ... degrees." I don’t want to be "half dipped." I do want to have the spirit of Christ. I am hungry to have his love. I am yearning after perfection of inner life and attitude. Why didn’t God just make us the way he wants us to be and save himself and us ...

14. The Flight From Light

Isaiah 60:1-22, Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

Erskine White

... 4). It is also the light of peace. It is a light which disperses the dense darkness of violence and aggression which have bedeviled us for so long and empties out once and for all the boiling caldrons of war. Since the dawn of time, what has humanity yearned for more feverently than peace? What has humanity been more tragically confused about than the methods and means of achieving peace? Now, at long last, a light has come into the world to end our confusion, to be our peace (Ephesians 2:14) and to show us ...

15. O Come, O Come Emmanuel

Isaiah 1:1-31

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... us what lack of attention means. It means: promiscuity -- intimacy without love. It means despair -- total absence of anyone or anything to cling to. It means utter loneliness, living among the indifferent. But, it also means the cruelest yearning -- yearning for those who are still with us -- yearning for those who are close to us, but don't give us their attention. Your loved ones and friends need your attention. When they have your attention, they have you. Jesus wants your heart because when he gets ...

16. Homesick For a Future: New Life for the New Millenium

Genesis 12:1-8

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... be an end to death, and to mourning and crying and pain; for the old order has passed away!” Then he to sat on the throne and said, “Behold, I am making all things new!” (Revelation 21:1-5, NEB) Such a vision leaves us breathless because the gnawing yearning for a new intervention of God in history has never been keener. I claim no special vision about this new land, nor gift of prophecy as to its imminence. I do believe, however, that persons of faith need to be in to mark the road of God’s coming ...

17. The Prodigal

Luke 15:11-32

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... is just waiting for us to accept it, if only we will lay aside our pride, our sense of justice, our vindictiveness, and our judgements, even our own guilt, and allow Him to welcome us back into relationship with Him. Jesus is a Big Spender. He is excited and yearning to spend and expend the most amazing grace and love upon us in every kind of way. All we need is to realize, repent, return. Come home. Jesus issues every one of us an invitation to His heavenly Feast. Which of you will enter in? Will you enter ...

18. Proper 5

Genesis 12:1-8, Hosea 5:1-15, Hosea 6:1-6, Matthew 9:9-13, Matthew 9:18-26, Romans 4:1-25

Sermon Aid

Russell F. Anderson

... 's love for us has always been there for us but our love for God has often been lacking (v. 3) 2. Loyalty is not highly valued in our individualistic culture, leading to brokenness and unhappiness 3. Relationships are more essential than outward actions (v. 6a) God yearns for us to know and love him He also requires faithfulness in our earthly relationships 4. Know the joy of moving to deeper levels of loyalty with God Lesson 2: Romans 4:13-25 Sermon Title: The Flesh Is Weak But The Spirit Is Able. Sermon ...

19. The Way Of The King

1 Samuel 8:1-22

Sermon

Charles Curley

... price, the enormous price, "the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel: they said, "No, but we are determined to have a king over us, so that we also may be like other nations, and that our king may ... go out before us and fight our battles." We yearn for a king to bring order to our lives, to fight our battles for us, to fight everything that threatens us, no matter what the price. We cannot be satisfied with a God who says, "Trust me," but gives no guarantees. So when the ways of the king become ...

20. The Majesty Of God's Love

John 17:1-11

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... all man's relations to God and to society; the social relationships within the Trinity call out against any antisocial interpretation of personal religion." A triune God who is always yearning to bring the many into one wants his people to be that way, too. He wants people who are yearning to help make all human beings one people (John 17:18-21). Don't you yearn for it, too? Believing in the Trinity has all sorts of practical implications about the way you live your life. How dare we say we believe in a God ...

21. He Who Has Ears to Hear, Let Him Hear

Luke 8:1-15

Sermon

Larry Powell

... ? When would relief come? Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." No, Carlyle was not "really" present during Hubbard's visit to Chelsea. Neither was Lenore "really" standing among the shadows in Poe's drawing room. But they were both there. Love and memory and knowledge and yearning made them real! A "spirit" must first be in one's mind and heart before it becomes any kind of experience. Hubbard and Poe were able to come to their experiences because they loved and knew something about the ones of whom they wrote ...

22. One Nation, Under Mercy

Sermon

... be mercy for him, too, if he could just get close enough. Perhaps a little mercy might spill over onto him. The ideals spelled out in the poem of Emma Lazarus, a welcome for the stranger and the foreigner, a haven for the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, new life for the wretched refuse of the nations - these ideals may not have been entirely attained. Strong resistance was encountered when our doors were opened to the refugees of Southeast Asia, and when the people of the church whose hearts had ...

23. Looking For God?

Isaiah 55:1-13

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... my soul to seek him, seeking me; It was not I that found, O Savior true. No, I was found of Thee. Why then, if God is seeking us lost creatures, are we commanded, "Seek the Lord while he may be found"? Seeking on our part indicates an openness and yearning for God to become real and personal to us. It is not that God is lost, but we lost God. Seeking him allows God to find us because we are receptive and sensitive to his presence. The whole matter of salvation involves God’s seeking us and our seeking God ...

24. The Hiding Angel

1 John 2:28--3:10

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... girl quickly molded the angel back into a ball and asked everyone, "Now what is this?" Someone said, "It looks like a ball to me." "No," she said, "It's a hiding angel." The Bible declares that there is an angel or a saint inside each one of us just yearning to find expression. After all, we were created in God's image. He longs to adopt us as his sons and daughters if we are willing. When we allow Him to be Lord of our lives, he molds us like balls of plasticine until we become extraordinary reflections of ...

25. God Isn’t Dead - Death Is Dead

Mark 16:1-20

Sermon

Charles L. Koester

... look younger and smell better than we expend for the work of Christ. And teenagers - so many of you who can’t come to terms with being a teen. You attempt so desperately to destroy what you are, and what you have going for you - your youth. Why do you yearn to look aged twenty, or twenty-one? Why do so many attempt to seek reality in the dead years gone by, and for years not yet come to life? The old saying makes sense, "Yesterday is dead, leave it. Tomorrow may never come, don’t worry. Today is here ...

Showing results