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 2551 to 2575 of 4959 results

2551. Paul's Thorn In The Flesh

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... Then comes the refrain of that country song: "Thank God for unanswered prayers." Some prayers do not receive positive responses because God in his wisdom knows that something else is better for us. But what about our prayers for sick people? We know that God desires healing instead of illness. Why do some prayers for healing seem to be answered positively while others are not? I pray for the healing of sick people all the time. I believe that those prayers are always answered. God heals in three ways. The ...

2552. God’s Wounded Healers

Jeremiah 8:4--9:26

Sermon

Gregory J. Johanson

... our human world with devastating expectations. We ignore what we already know with the deep-seated intuitive knowledge that no love or friendship, no intimate embrace or tender kiss, no community, commune, or collective, no man or woman, will ever be able to satisfy our desire to be released from our lonely condition. This truth is so disconcerting and painful that we are more prone to play games with our fantasies than to face the truth of our existence. Thus, we keep hoping that one day we will find the ...

2553. The Courage to Be Me

Sermon

Gregory J. Johanson

... mind dares not learn to use its full powers in searching after the truth of physics, chemistry, and psychology, and then fail to use these powers in the search for ultimate truth. It takes courage to face where I am in my present understanding without desiring to flee from the tension of my doubts. The acknowledgment of doubt, where I feel it, almost implies that a fuller knowledge, a more complete understanding, a more mature grasp is both possible and worth seeking after. One day Jesus was called to the ...

2554. A Little Child Shall Lead Them

Isaiah 11:1-16

Sermon

Gregory J. Johanson

... if it had not happened to me. I was talking to a strong and wealthy man of the world, a man who has taken a very difficult business situation and made a great success of it. We were discussing his childhood, a childhood which left much to be desired. In his youth this man had never felt accepted, always being forced to become what his parents wanted him to be. The result was that the little child which all of us have within us still dwelt within him unaccepted and unhappy. He felt divided and less than ...

2555. Be Careful How You Live

Ephesians 5:15-20

Sermon

Brett Blair

... . We drank for bravery and became afraid. We drank to make conversation easier and slurred our speech. We drank to feel heavenly and ended up feeling like hell. We drank to forget and were forever haunted. We drank for freedom and became slaves. Paul asks a man who desires to be wise, Which spirit will you allow to control your life?” Both promise life but only one will fill you with it. But you might ask me, preacher do you believe drinking alcohol is a sin. No, I do not. Let me say right now something I ...

2556. "Who Do You Say That I Am?"

Mark 8:31--9:1

Bulletin Aid

James Wilson

... enemies? Leader: The Christ is sent to bring life through God's love and forgiveness. All: Blessed be the name of the Lord! Collect O God, through Your Holy Spirit we hear Your call upon our lives. Yet You have not called us to focus on our own needs and desires but to be about the task of caring for others. In Christ we pray. Amen. Prayer Of Confession Lord, we asked for You to come and to save us, but when You came it was not as we expected or wanted. We asked for You to lead us but Your ...

2557. The Man Who Couldn't Hear

Mark 7:31-37

Sermon

Brett Blair

... The idea was to let people know they were in the vicinity, and also rouse the curiosity of the people. Coming out of their houses they would want to know what the peddler was selling. It might be something they lacked and needed, or simply something they desired. What do you lack? We may have sight and hearing, but what do we lack? Take an honest inventory of yourself. Have you found contentment? Are you close enough to God to receive his guidance and strength? Have you secured peace of heart and peace of ...

2558. All

Mark 12:38-44

Bulletin Aid

Dallas A. Brauninger

... ourselves. Instead of sensing depletion of our energy, we know fullness of spirit and purpose. Giving of ourselves, like loving, opens us more fully to you, O God. In the name of Christ. Amen. Prayer of Confession Dear God, help us to rise above our selfishness, our greed, and our desire to be noticed and praised. Move us, rather, toward the compassionate giving of ourselves. In the name of Christ. Amen. Hymns "Christian, Rise And Act Thy Creed" "I Would Be True" "Teach Me Thy Way, O Lord"

2559. A Sad Heart

1 Samuel 1:1-20

Bulletin Aid

Dallas A. Brauninger

... to pray with sighs and silence until we find the words to tell you what we need to say. Teach us to pray, God, trusting that you are listening with the same intensity as we are praying. Through the Spirit of Christ. Amen. Hymns "Prayer Is The Soul's Sincere Desire" "Sweet Hour Of Prayer" "I Leave All Things To God's Direction"

2560. The Three Poison Pills of Position, Prestige, and Power

Mark 10:35-45

Sermon

Brett Blair

... that, would we? The aim in all of this is to make everyone equal. We are attempting to create a society where all men and women have the same standing. No one looses. Everybody is number one. Everyone is important. We have become obsessed with prestige. Prestige: The desire to be recognized by others, to be honored and respected by our peers. “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left when you come into your glory” is the request of James and John. They want a piece of the action. They ...

2561. You Don't Need Jesus

John 1:19-28

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... who is Christ the Lord." Jesus was born to die. The cradle and the cross are two sides of a coin. This is according to God's wonderful plan of salvation. It is not God's will for anyone to perish and go to hell, but it is his desire that everyone be saved and have life. The wonderful good news is that Christ did die for our sins. The way has been opened for repentant sinners to return to God and find acceptance, forgiveness, and love. Because of Christ man has freedom at last -- freedom from self, Satan ...

2562. You're Going To Have A Baby!

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... and they heard God speak, the disciples fell on their faces before the transfigured Christ. He said to them, "Get up and do not be afraid." God is holy, the totally other, and humans are sinful and unworthy to be in the presence of the Almighty. We often express a desire to be in the presence of God, but if God actually confronted us, we probably would be scared to death. It is like a certain man who did not have all of his senses. It was his custom each evening to go to the barn, take off his cap, and ...

2563. Someone Greater Than a Prophet

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... inspired by the Holy Spirit of God, and at the end of the Bible, at the very end of all history, John the Revelator says, "The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come.' And let him who hears say, 'Come.' And let him who is thirsty come, let him who desires take the water of life without price" (Revelation 22:17). There it is from beginning to end, the Biblical idea of the Spirit of God as power and presence and refreshment. And it was precisely this Spirit of power and presence and refreshment which was at work in ...

2564. Refueling

Titus 2:1-15

Bulletin Aid

Dallas A. Brauninger

... can reveal tenderness. Through your grace, we also can show compassion. Through your generosity, we also can give. Because of the birth of Christ. Amen. Prayer Of Confession Holy Creator, who sends your son to us at the right time, give to us the will and the desire to change our lives in the ways we need to change. Lead us toward a greater persistence as we try to pattern our lives after the example of Jesus. Amen. Hymns “O Come, All Ye Faithful” “From Heaven Unto Earth I Come” “Sing We Now Of ...

2565. Praying for a Whole New World

Luke 21:5-38

Sermon

William G. Carter

... ’s our own disappointment over a no-good, rotten day, or our disturbance over events on the 11:00 news, we look for God to come and make everything right. Whether we hope for a good corn crop or pray for the power to climb out of a rut, our desire for a new future is God’s opportunity to make something new. To make us new. And that is the heart of our Advent hope. We have to cope with change all the time. There’s a man who felt a mid-life crisis coming on. On the precipice of ...

2566. What Are Spiritual Gifts For?

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... still other trees access to sunlight, possessing the means to cooperate with one another is essential. The purpose, of course, is not cooperation but to survive and grow! Today’s text is one that is familiar to many. Often there is a great desire to speak on the types of spiritual gifts and answer questions about their authenticity. Paul gave us a priority ranking of the list of spiritual gifts. Certainly Paul’s reminder to the Corinthians about their earlier pagan days and the emotional practices of ...

2567. Living Free

Haggai 2:1-9

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... problem is that we Christians have not been exercising our freedom. Instead of exercising our socio-political responsibility or functioning as overflowing cups filled with all of God’s goodness and love, too many of us have been in bondage to satisfying our egos and desires. Too often you and I have been mired in that kind of bondage. Like the people of Judah in Haggai’s day, we have been too “busy” to care about spiritual things, too hung up on the latest trend to guard our traditions and values ...

2568. A Vision of Freedom

Isaiah 65:17-25

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... as you think you are? “Of course I’m free,” you say. “I’m an American.” But how about those anxieties you feel or the regrets you have about the past? How about the old destructive bad habits which paralyze you? What of those desires, the egoism, that hold you in bondage? Are you really free? Forget yourself for a moment, and consider the plight of your fellow human beings and of American society in general. Think of those trapped in poverty, addicted to drugs, victims of domestic violence, and ...

2569. There Could Be, Couldn't There?

Jeremiah 2:1-3:5

Sermon

John W. Wurster

... in what they were doing, what they thought was important, what they thought was needed, that they forgot all about who they were and whose they were. It is amazing that people loved by God, called by God, blessed by God would go after their own desires and whims and interests instead of the way that God had marked for them. It is astounding that those made in God’s image, would wrap themselves in images of their own making. It is incomprehensible that those created to glorify and enjoy God would instead ...

2570. "...Yet"

Jeremiah 4:5-31

Sermon

John W. Wurster

... . God gave of himself in every way, but the people remained indifferent. They served themselves. They worshiped gods of their own making in the temples of their own hearts. They lived their lives as if all that really mattered was satisfying their own whims and desires. They couldn’t see beyond themselves. They couldn’t reach out to others. They couldn’t reach up to God. All of God’s hopes for these people crumbled as they failed to remember who they were, whose they were, and why they had been ...

2571. Bad News from a Good Man!

1 Kings 21:1-29

Sermon

Robert Leslie Holmes

... God and the king’ ” (1 Kings 21:10). She was a murderer. “Then take (Naboth) out, and stone him to death” (1 Kings 21:13). That is how sin works if we do not take control of it and stop it. It is conceived in the mind as insatiable desire for that bit more than we have. Next it sets aside all principles and, finally, it brings out the worst in us. Do you see why it is important to recognize the spiral of human depravity? “Oh,” you say, “but that is Ahab and Jezebel, and everybody knows their ...

2572. The Second Touch for the Out of Touch

1 Kings 19:1-18

Sermon

Robert Leslie Holmes

... made by many young mothers in our high-pressure world. Elijah was on the edge. He was frightened. “He was afraid” (1 Kings 19:3). He wanted to be left alone. “He left his servant there” (1 Kings 19:3). One of depression’s primary symptoms is the desire for aloneness. Then, often when we are left alone, we crave company! He was detached from reality and caught in a web of ambivalence: “He got up and fled for his life” (1 Kings 19:3). Twice, it says, he had a sense that he stood alone against ...

2573. Not Your Leftovers But Your First Fruits

Deuteronomy 26:1-15

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

... of the new people in the new land. God must be honored first, for it is God, very God, who has saved them and kept them, promised and renewed them in their painstaking quest for the new frontier. God gave them the soil, the seed, the will, and the desire to plant and grow. God gave them the sun and the rain, the wind and the stars to nurture and keep watch over them. God, then, must be honored with their first fruits and not their leftovers. God must be placed first in all things because it is the ...

2574. He Commanded Us to Preach

Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

... a gospel of liberation and freedom will set people free from the various hindrances and encumbrances that cause them to be spiritual exiles from God. He commanded us to preach the word in season and out of season. Come hell or high water we must preach. The desire is like fire shut up in my bones. We must preach the word with power, authority, joy, and goodness as Peter and the apostles preached in the days of old. God give us the strength to preach the gospel unfettered and unfazed by the constraints and ...

2575. Light for Beauty

Isaiah 62:1-12

Sermon

Harry N. Huxhold

David Donald’s biography of Abraham Lincoln is a special effort to help us feel along with Mr. Lincoln the thoughts of his heart and mind as he aspired to the presidency. Mr. Lincoln had an earnest desire to be of special service to the nation he knew was in deep trouble. One senses the compassion he had for all the people. He also recognized that the people could survive only as one nation. No one knew better than he that not everyone would agree with his purpose ...

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