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 226 to 250 of 622 results

226. Proper 11

Matthew 13:24-30

Sermon Aid

... the silent prayer of confession. Then print in the bulletin, the following for the people to consider: Silent prayer of Confession: 1. We confess to a faithful Christ an ambivalent self - full of doubt, forgetfulness, worry, laziness, anger, lust, prayerlessness, talkativeness, overbearing, self-centeredness, false pride, unreasonableness, resentment, hypocrisy, racism, sexism, timidity ... 2. We confess to others our enjoyment of the luxury of self-pity and our lack of empathy for the plight of others. You ...

227. The Fashioning of Christians

Ezekiel 36:1-38

Sermon

... a nice "R-rated" sermon illustration. 2. Baptismal nudity is a symbol. What does it mean? Saint Paul alludes to the practice and explains its meaning: Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4:22-24) The clothes that early Christians discarded as they stepped into the baptistery represented ...

228. Bitter-Sweet Recollections

Isaiah 50:1-11

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

... heart to be so ignobly exposed to all who passed by! He was deprived of all of the respectability of covering for his human form. In our culture that nearly worships nudity, and where brevity of dress is fashionable and smart, where exposure is license for lust, we sometimes forget that for Christ, it was a vulnerability nearly unendurable. Only his desperate, divine love for us could ever have held him to the cross in naked shame. And while we are remembering it all, let’s not fail to reminisce about The ...

229. Echoes of Eternity

Matthew 10:24-32

Sermon

Dennis Kastens

... another reason for the soul’s value is the price of its redemption. "Ye were bought with a price," says St. Peter. We needed to be bought, for we had sold ourselves - our souls. Our first parents, in whom all here are included, gave over their souls for a lustful look and a taste of forbidden fruit. You and I have done the same thing a thousand times over, bartering away our soul for a vengeful thought, a moment of sinful pleasure, a handful of clinking coins. We didn’t know the value of a soul. But God ...

230. Listening or Hearing?

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

Dennis Kastens

... be open so the blessing of Calvary can fall and be imbedded upon your soul." So, with this glorious prospect in mind, the prospect of the Word of God yielding one hundred-fold in our lives, we plead: "Weed out the thorns. Don’t let the lusts and passions and glitter of this passing world crowd out the things of eternity. Plow up the hardened time schedules where there is no daily ten or fifteen minutes in all the twenty-four hours for meditation and spiritual nourishment. Pulvarize those sterile rocks of ...

231. Have This Mind

Philippians 2:1-11

Sermon

Craig Erickson

... , sexism, bigotry, and wanton disregard for the environment). 3. "Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love Of God?” Evil corrupts the personal life as well, tempting us to give in to hatred, back-biting, jealousy, envy, strife, dissension, lust, self-pity. These are the forces of evil that threaten to undo us from within. Baptism is the church’s prayer that those who enter it will have the mind of Christ, will turn from sin, and will continue to renounce it throughout their ...

232. What’s God Going to Do With You?

Hosea 5:1-15, Hosea 6:1--7:16

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... a woman, we say, "He is a sick man." When a major crime takes place every two-and-one-half seconds and when one-third of American homes are victimized by crime each year, you can be sure we are a sick society. We are sick with lust, greed, and selfishness. The tragedy of our moral sickness is that we rationalize our sin to be good behavior. Harold Robbins, in his book Spellbinder, tells the story of an electronic preacher who does not practice what he preaches to the millions over TV. One of his associates ...

233. If You Had But One Request

1 Kings 3:1-15

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... life. But pleasure in terms of sex only, without wisdom, leads to dissipation, debauchery, and death. Paul urges us to be wise in our love - "Your love may abound more and more with the knowledge and all discernment." (wisdom) Love foolishly and love becomes lust. Love wisely and joy results. Then there was Alfred Adler who took the position that humanity’s most basic need is power. He claimed that human behavior is determined by the pursuit of power. It is what motivates many to seek positions of power ...

234. Christ My Light

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sermon

Dennis Kastens

... present. Here, definitely, light is needed. But, you may object, sin is not dark; it is light, bright, dazzling. Yes, that is the way it starts, but it ends with the night of despair. It promises gleam but produces gloom. It lures us with lust, illicit love, and brimful life; but it finally yields disgust, delusion, death. David can testify to that. If offers us the enticement of money and applause, but it leaves us poor, deceived, forsaken. Judas learned that. It holds before us glamour and popularity, but ...

235. The Forgiven and the Forgiving

Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... . The king had compassion on him and forgave him the total debt. That is the good news. Now we get to the bad news. This servant of the king then went out and saw one of his own poor servants who owed him twenty dollars. You would have thought that lust after he had been forgiven he would have rushed up to the poor servant, saying, "I forgive you. I forgive you. The king has just forgiven me." No, he grasped him by the throat. He started to choke him, and he said, "Pay me. Pay me, or I will throw ...

236. Caiaphas and Pilate

Drama

Jon Joyce

... used, it should make both Pilate and Caiaphas appear fierce. If no stage make-up is used, do utilize some lipstick and some eye shadow to make both men appear evil. Servant’s make-up is described under "Costumes." Directions PILATE is a vicious man whose lust for power and money drives him to stop at nothing to be on top of things. He despises the "barbarians" who live in Jerusalem, is hated by the people, and is conniving with Caiaphas, the high priest, to keep things under control to fill his own pocket ...

237. Annas, Caiaphas, and Judas

Drama

Jon Joyce

... , too? ANNAS: [His answer is muted by a large crash of thunder and a flash of lightning outside the palace window. His answer is not to be discernible as positive or negative by the audience.] CAIAPHAS: [Once the thunder has subsided] It’s all nonsense. He was lust a Galilean troublemaker who came down here to upset everything we had going for us. At least now we’re rid of him. ANNAS: You can be grateful for that, son-in-law. An extra prayer in the Temple might be in order - a prayer of thanksgiving ...

238. The Cunning Craftsman, God

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

Allan J. Weenink

... live the Christian life. We join a great throng, an innumerable host of those who through the ages have come to submit themselves to the cunning craftsman, God. The Good Book tells of Moses who lost his temper in opposing God, David who submitted to uncontrolled lust, Peter who gave in to cowardice and denial, James and John who sought the chief seats in the new kingdom, Paul who was a cruel inquisitor. Reading its pages we realize that here is recorded not only good about men, but also the worst, as well ...

239. The Hard-to-Believe Promise

John 14:5-14

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... strength was his weakness. Power corrupts. Men lose their respect for human rights and human dignity. They begin to feel superior to moral law, to divine law, to human rights, to any right, except their own, backed up by their own invincible power. The lust for power works like termites, boring from within, leaving outside what appears to be strong but is rotten and crumbling at the core. Wasn’t it Alexander the Great who became so arrogantly irritated when the terrible storm would not allow his great ...

240. Drastic Surgery

Matthew 5:27-30

Sermon

Herchel H. Sheets

... that his hand should suffer first because it had been an instrument of sin. Jesus said that we are to use drastic measures to put an end to sin. We must cut off or pluck out whatever it is that causes us to sin: this amusement, this lustful book or magazine, this degrading association, this seductive habit, this misleading goal. Whatever it is that leads us to sin must be dealt with immediately and decisively, so that we may not sin. This is a call to vigilance. When Bishop Francis Asbury was just a young ...

241. The Evangelism Of Emphasis - 1946

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Kent Moorehead

... hopelessly distorted. Life’s meaning gets lost; and like lost sons everywhere, we then "would fain fill our bellies with the husks that the swine do eat" (Luke 15:16). With sure insight Jesus recognized how easily and how fatally man is seduced by his lust for things; how money becomes such an obsession that character itself is sold for a price, and social well-being is reduced to the sad state of corruption. So he hated covetousness as a mother hates the disease despoiling her children; and like the Good ...

242. Christians In A Warring World - 1941

Galatians 6:1-10

Sermon

Kent Moorehead

... pacifist believes that war is suicidal. Sooner or later it destroys those who resort to it. Hence, nothing could be worse than modern war, for it has within itself the essence of all other evils - hatred, vengeance, murder, atrocity, deception, lust, defense of falsehood, evil, loss of moral standards, disease, famine, poverty, despair, violence, revolution, lawlessness, crime, and death. To talk of curing any evil by compounding and intensifying all evils is, to the pacifist at least, sheer madness. Yes ...

243. Still A Threat

Matthew 21:1-11

Illustration

... right down Main Street. But I'm equally sure that, by the end of the week, we'd have him nailed to a cross, too. Why? Because the Kingdom Jesus came to establish still threatens the kingdoms of this world -- your kingdom and mine -- the kingdoms where greed, power, and lust rule instead of grace, mercy, and peace. And who among us really wants to surrender our lives to that Kingdom and that King?

244. To Receive or Worship?

Matthew 22:1-14

Sermon

Jon L. Joyce

... kept saying, No. I like their looks in robes and rings, So He crowned a few more. And the kings as before Kept fighting and spoiling things. But at last man said, ‘I’m tired of kings,’ Sons of the robber, chiefs of yore, They make me pay for their lust and their war. I am the puppet, they pull the strings, The blood of my heart is the wine they drink. I shall govern myself for a while, I think, And see what that brings. Then God [who had made the first remark] Smiled in the dark."

245. Saints With Crooked Haloes

2 Samuel 12:1-31

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... giant Goliath, the musician, the military leader, the greatest king Israel ever had. One afternoon when King David was lounging around the palace, he took a walk on the roof. He happened to see a beautiful woman named Bathsheba taking a bath. Ethics were trampled by lust. The fact that both he and she were married to other people made no difference. A king takes whatever he wishes. Soon she turned up pregnant. Her husband Uriah was on active duty with the army. David ordered that he be sent home on furlough ...

246. The Stepfather of God

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... Mary. She tried to hide her tears as she turned and fled to her family circle. Joseph was crushed. He could not conceive of Mary being unfaithful to him. He assumed that she had been raped, perhaps by one of those hated Roman soldiers who cast lustful eyes upon Jewish girls. But if that had happened, Mary should have reported it promptly. She should have told him. Joseph had a tough choice. He lived in a society that was scrupulously moral about sexual matters. The only way to protect his reputation was to ...

247. Needed: Fidelity Insurance

Ephesians 5:22-33

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... Step II was curiosity. He wanted to see her up close. So he sent for her. Step III was temptation. Bathsheba's husband was off with the army fighting a war. David was king and she was one of his subjects, his for the taking. Step IV was lust. The Greek word is "porniya," the word from which we get pornographic. Step V was the act of adultery which later led to murder. Bathsheba became pregnant; therefore, David needed to get rid of her husband. The steps toward sexual sin I have just described are open to ...

248. The Road To Emmaus

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

Brett Blair

... . It is remarkable that between the 8th and 12th centuries his writings were more widely read than any other. And that was 400 to 700 years after his death. But he was not always a saint. Before he was converted at age 29 he lived to fulfill every lust and pleasure. But Augustine had one great quality that saved his pitiful life—a praying mother. She never gave up on him until one day he stopped long enough to listen to the voices around him. Augustine had just heard a sermon by Saint Ambrose, Bishop of ...

249. Christ Shall Return

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... ! ," A second truth I want to declare is this: MANY PEOPLE DON'T WANT TO BELIEVE IN THE RETURN OF CHRIST. That was true even in the First Century. Listen to Peter's warning: "...in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts and saying, 'Where is the promise of his coming?"' We still have plenty of those scoffers around. C.S. Lewis, that great Oxford and Cambridge scholar, the focus of the movie "Shadowlands," said that there are three reasons why people don't want to believe in ...

250. The Hiding Angel

1 John 2:28--3:10

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... to look like you." There was no spanking that night. Instead, they both got an explanation and a hug. But you might be thinking: There is not much chance I will resemble Jesus any time soon. I'm too selfish or too short-tempered or too lustful or too resentful. But remember, Jesus has a long and proud history of taking ordinary people and helping them become extraordinary. He took an intolerant bigot named Paul and made him the ambassador of a universal gospel. He took a wishy-washy fisherman named Simon ...

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