Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: touch, feel, sense of touch, tactile sense, tactility, contact, using one's hands, sensation, sense, suspicion, sneaking suspicion, notion, inkling, hunch, fancy, apprehension, presentiment, premonition, foreboding, love, care, affection, fondness, tenderness, warmth, warmness, emotion, sentiment, emotional state, compassion, sympathy, empathy, fellow feeling, understanding, concern, solicitude, solicitousness, tender-heartedness, brotherly love, sensibilities, sensitivities, self-esteem, ego, pride, opinion, belief, view, impression, intuition, instinct, estimation, guess, theory, hypothesis, thought, way of thinking, point of view, atmosphere, ambience, aura, air, mood, climate, character, overtone, undertone, tenor, spirit, quality, flavour, colour, aptitude, knack, flair, bent, talent, gift, skill, art, trick, faculty, ability, propensity, inclination, sensitive, warm, warm-hearted, tender, tender-hearted, caring, soft-hearted, sympathetic, compassionate, empathetic, responsive, receptive, intuitive, thoughtful

Antonyms: bad feeling, acrimony, animosity, animus, antagonism, antipathy, aversion, bitterness, detestation, disgust, dislike, disrelish, enmity, friction, grievances, grudges, hatred, hostility, loathing, malevolence, malice

Showing 2601 to 2625 of 4947 results

2601. Power!

Mark 1:4-11

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... have come to see an itinerant preacher who is more than strange — a coarse camel's hair tunic with a leather belt around his waist, the uniform of a prophet since the days of Elijah. It was longing and anticipation that brought this mass of people out — there was a sense that something was missing in their walk with God, so they were ready to listen to a new voice. This is a powerful voice: "You pack of snakes! Who warned you to run from the anger of God that is coming on you? Clean up your act! And do ...

2602. Winning Over Worry

Matthew 6:25-33

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... . He pointed toward the sky and said, "Look at the birds of the air (those little insignificant sparrows); they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" (v. 26). That made sense. It has always been true that the God who has provided life also provides the necessities to keep that life going. The point, of course, is not that the birds and animals are taken care of without work; that is obviously not true - it has been said ...

2603. Christmas In the Crossfire

Titus 2:11-14

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... and so on and so on. No, no, no — everything was fine. No problems at all. Finally, with relief in the caller's voice, the conversation came to an end and she said, "Oh, and by the way, ‘Merry Christmas.' It just feels so good to say that." The sense of joy in her voice was almost palpable as she said something that, one would have thought, had been absolutely forbidden up 'til now. Wow! Merry Christmas! It sounded a little weird, frankly. I think I held the phone away from my ear a moment and looked at ...

2604. How Can This Be?

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

Robert J. Elder

... The fact that it is being asked at all suggests also some underlying recognition that some things in this world just don't make rational sense and never will. Mommy says, "I love you." The child says, "But how can this be? I just broke your favorite crystal bowl and you ... question to Gabriel — "How can this be?" — she was not speaking with an angel of her own bidding. Gabriel was in every sense a messenger of God, placed in whatever place Mary found herself to do the work of God, and not the whims of Mary ...

2605. Speaking Peace

John 20:19-31

Sermon

John Smylie

... evening of that day, that first Easter Day, the disciples were gathered together, but as yet none of them had seen their risen Lord. There they were behind locked doors. We can begin to imagine the thoughts they held within their minds, we can almost sense and feel the depth of their fears, and we can listen for their quiet conversation among themselves as they questioned everything. There in the middle of the room were the deepest feelings of guilt because they had scattered and abandoned their Lord at the ...

2606. God’s Anthills

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

Sermon

Kristin Borsgard Wee

... the disciples had with feeding the multitude was that they were operating with a different set of assumptions from those Jesus had. The disciples were operating out of a sense of scarcity. They looked around and saw no picnic baskets, no 7-11 stores, and they assumed the task was hopeless. Jesus, on the other hand, operated out of a sense of plenty. He looked at the same scene the disciples were seeing, and where they were seeing not enough, he was seeing plenty: plenty of time, plenty of imagination ...

2607. Tough Talk for Tentative Disciples

John 6:56-69

Sermon

Robert Leslie Holmes

... a while, but the reality is that even then he could never really walk away. Once we have tasted the light of Christ's glory and have sensed the touch of the master's hand on our lives, and once we have known the best that he has to offer us, we will never ... we go? You have the words of eternal life." We may wander away for a time, but like the prodigal son we will come to our senses and remember that life in the Father's house is life worth living, and we will come home. The call of this day is for each ...

2608. It’s God’s Will?

Ephesians 1:3-14

Sermon

Scott Suskovic

... written. I might as well eat, drink, and be merry because God has already chosen me for heaven or hell. I'm a drunk because I'm destined to be a drunk. I'm an adulterer because I'm destined to be an adulterer." Such fatalism didn't make sense to Arminius so he taught we have free will to accept, decide, and choose Jesus Christ as our Savior. From this group we have the Baptists, Assembly of God, and Pentecostals. Luther said that when it comes to our day-to-day living — getting a job, finding a spouse ...

2609. A Grandmother’s Touch

Acts 19:1-7

Sermon

Scott Suskovic

... across the yard. It was one of those games children play that looks complicated to the outside eye but for them it makes perfect sense. They had brought out a shovel and dug a hole in the soft dirt of the garden, dragged over the garden hose, and had ... called the dark night of the soul. It is then, perhaps more than any other time, the gift and the promise of baptism make the most sense. They are not gifts that turn on or turn off like a switch depending on whether or not I feel it. God is not present only ...

2610. The Struggle for Freedom

1 Corinthians 8:1-13

Sermon

Scott Suskovic

... struggles to run faster, the braces finally break, fall off his legs, and suddenly he is set free to run fast. The point is this, Forrest never knew what it felt to be free or how fast he could run until he took that step or, in a better sense, was forced to break out of braces, and live differently, to live beyond himself. He never went back to the braces. On the surface, Paul wrote about practical issues. Can we eat meat sacrificed to idols? This is where the freedom of the gospel hit the harsh reality of ...

2611. I Love You, Too

1 John 4:7-21

Sermon

Nancy Kraft

... experience. From their experience they do the best they can to figure out who God is. We do the same thing. We all try to make sense of God according to what is going on in our lives. But we have added information about God that people in Old Testament times didn't ... the name of God. And God is love? Why don't we get it? If John had said, "God is hate," our actions would make more sense. But God isn't hate. God is love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say "I love God," and hate their brother or ...

2612. Loving God

1 John 5:1-6

Sermon

Nancy Kraft

... course, Wakefield did go home in the end. We don't know if his wife was like the waiting father in the story of the prodigal son or not, but we do know that that's how our God is. He's always waiting for us to come to our senses and find our way back to him. But in the meanwhile, how much are we missing? Wakefield missed twenty years of his life because he was a stubborn old fool. God's love is all around us. May we have enough ...

2613. Life in The Spirit

Romans 8:22-27

Sermon

Gibson “Nibs” Stroupe

... is the center of our own particular lives and indeed is the center of all life. Paul is not asking us to escape from the struggles of the world but to go back into those struggles, go back to them with a renewed sense of God's love for us and for the world, with a renewed sense of hope and possibility. Because we are asked to stay in the world, Paul reminds us that life in the Spirit will be characterized by struggle. Life in the spirit is not all sweetness and light — it is often marked by struggle. The ...

2614. I’ve Got a Home in that Kingdom

2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17

Sermon

Gibson “Nibs” Stroupe

... be connected to one another. Especially in today's world, where we feel so disconnected and so lost, we want to find our home. Our sense of being lost makes us easy prey for the idols of the world. In our anxiety we open our ears and our hearts to hear ... verse 6: "While we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord." There remains in many of us who are Christian a sense that we prefer heaven to life on earth, and that is natural because of the slings and arrows of our lives but also because we project ...

2615. Dividing Walls

Ephesians 2:11-22

Sermon

Gibson “Nibs” Stroupe

... This basic distinction was seen most vividly in the temple where a wall divided the court of the Gentiles from the space reserved for Jewish people. Today's lectionary passage in Acts 2 uses the word "aliens" to describe the Gentiles, those outside the wall. I received a sense of the power of these dividing walls when I took a time-traveling tour several years ago when my son, David, was a freshman in high school. I didn't use a time machine similar to H. G. Wells in The Time Machine, or a hyperspace trip ...

2616. The Great Thanksgiving

1 Timothy 2:1-7

Sermon

Patrick J. Rooney

... to the Lord of all who gave his all in his Son. We thank the one who gives us the gift and the way we say thank you says a lot about how we see both the gift and the giver. That Greek word, Eucharist, or "giving thanks," has a sense of being a cause for delight and rejoicing in a shared good. It is similar to the Jewish idea of blessing, which often takes a prayerful expression. Praising the gift giver for his or her kindness is, in effect, a gift exchanged. Our thanksgiving can also take on another form ...

2617. Make a 119 Call

Romans 14:1--15:13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... course of our lives. There is a heated exchange between Franny and Zooey (1961) in J.D. Salinger’s novel of the same name, stories which appeared originally in the New Yorker. Franny has tried every gimmick and guru around to produce within her heart a sense of the presence of God. Zooey makes fun of her antics, and uncovers the solution to her problem: “if it’s the religious heart you want, you ought to know right now that you’re missing out on every single . . . religious action going on around ...

2618. Our Fair Share

Matthew 20:1-16

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

... them: you know it's good for you, you trust the one who is giving it to you, but that doesn't make it very easy to swallow even so! Most of us are born into this world with a huge sense of infantile entitlement followed by, at a very early age already, a seemingly intuitive sense of fairness and unfairness. It's like Charlie Brown's little sister, Sally, in the classic "Charlie Brown Christmas Special." You may recall that at one point Sally is writing a letter to Santa Claus and in the process generates an ...

2619. “Love Your Enemies” Doesn’t Mean Don’t Make Any

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... to those who are “showing him the ropes,” whether they are demonstrating how to scrape up penguin poop or harvest worms. The underlying message of “Dirty Jobs” is that no matter how nasty, a job is a job and doing it well gives a sense of well-being and worth to humanity. Except . . . . and it’s the exceptions that prove the rule . . . some jobs have always been just too “dirty” to redeem. Jesus honed in on the performers of these most despicable jobs throughout his ministry. Jesus spoke with ...

2620. Love Your Enemies Doesn’t Mean Don’t Make Any

Matthew 21:23-27

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... to those who were “showing him the ropes,” whether they were demonstrating how to scrape up penguin poop or harvest worms. The underlying message of “Dirty Jobs” is that no matter how nasty, a job is a job and doing it well gives a sense of well-being and worth to humanity. Except . . . . and it’s the exceptions that prove the rule . . . some jobs have always been just too “dirty” to redeem. Jesus honed in on the performers of these most despicable jobs throughout his ministry. Jesus spoke ...

2621. It Isn’t How the Journey Starts, It Is How It Ends

Matthew 21:23-32

Illustration

Michael A. Sherer

... Britain in a series of radio broadcasts which became enormously popular among a population growing steadily more indifferent to Christ. A similar story can be told of Malcolm Muggeridge, a British thinker who in later life came to see that the Christian Faith made far more sense to him than clinging to agnosticism. He, like Lewis, became an apologist for Christianity. He said "yes" to the invitation, after he first had said "no." It isn't how the journey starts that counts. It's how it ends that matters.

2622. Baptism: The Light Shatters the Darkness

Genesis 1:1-5

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... earth, but the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep. Then God created the light. Immediately, God realized the light was good; it was preferable to the darkness. While the text of Genesis does not indicate any pejorative sense of darkness, there certainly seems to be a distinct contrast drawn between the light and the darkness of the world. God intentionally separates the light from the darkness. Since the light is good it is something that we want to seek. Darkness is lonely ...

2623. Responding to God

1 Samuel 3:1-10 (11-20)

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... of God. These invitations were always present, because they were gifts from God. Once the gift was found, it became a permanent part of who these people were. The lives of these three famous people present a good illustration of how it is necessary to respond to God. A sense of openness allows one to hear the call in a spirit of courage and conviction and sends the individual forward to do whatever it is that God asks of the person. Our first lesson today asks us to be open to God's call in order to do ...

2624. The Need for Transformation

Jonah 3:1-5, 10

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... out of sync in our life, when we feel things are not going the way we want, do we consider the possibility of change. Change and the ability to be transformed must be an ongoing process in our lives. In order to find transformation we must first have a sense of openness to the will of God in our lives, as we heard in last week's message. We must realize our need for transformation. No one is perfect; no one "has it all together." We need to be transformed in mind, spirit, attitude, and action in order to ...

2625. Who Am I?

Acts 8:26-40

Sermon

Ken Lentz

... of Egypt? Some historians have observed that the first century in the Middle East was an age of honest doubt and seeking. Many were tired of divine pantheons and loose morals. Many were searching for a religion that offered hope and made sense. The magi came from the east looking for new hope to which a suspicious star pointed. For some, the strict monotheism and values of Judaism offered an answer. Some Gentiles submitted themselves to circumcision and became proselytes. Others went to synagogue worship ...

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