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 2701 to 2725 of 4950 results

2701. Taking the Long View

2 Peter 3:8-15a

Sermon

Donald Charles Lacy

... of time or lack of it. For the Christian this is very comforting because we can rest in the assurance love is at work, especially in the birth, death, and resurrection of the Christ. Our hope is in the everlasting love of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our souls are worth more to God than we can comprehend. The persistence and consistence of such a view envelops both the good and evil. Struggle as we may, this Creator is at every turn. Our calling is to be found "without spot or blemish." Our free ...

2702. Getting It Straight

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Sermon

Donald Charles Lacy

... make everyone look, more or less, exactly the same. To get things straight means we become human beings who stand out in the Lord. Yes, the body has many parts, and each of us is a special part. More in Pauline language, our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. Think what a magnificent quilt we are throughout the world! There are too many shades and sizes to count. We were all bought with a price and that adds immensely to our image. Christ died and arose for us. Now, we die and arise with him. We are a ...

2703. Gift of Positive Thinking

2 Corinthians 1:18-22

Sermon

Donald Charles Lacy

... , is given birth by such illumination. Then, the gift of positive thinking glows in magnificence even on our bad days. Indeed, how shall anyone escape who neglects so great a salvation? Our only really conclusive failure is the rejection of Christ and the Holy Spirit on a permanent basis. We acknowledge goals must be set and evaluations done in this world. The sometimes harsh actuality of these processes may very well send us into tantrums or to hospital beds or spur us to greater energy and focus. On the ...

2704. Prayer: A Way of Life

James 5:13-20

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... Thomas, for he is a holy man and full of light. Certainly it could not be Brother Eldred. He is old, crotchety, and often mean-spirited, but he always seems to be right, no matter what the situation or question. The rabbi could not have meant Brother Phillip. He is ... months for families to come and have picnics on the grounds. During this period people who came seemed to sense the new spirit of respect and love that was present at the monastery. The people returned often and one day a young man came to the ...

2705. Half the Gospel

Acts 19:1-7

Bulletin Aid

Frank Ramirez

... well pleased. One: As we gather together with the assurance of God's love, acceptance, and favor, we pledge to extend these gifts to all others as well. Collect Receive the Holy Spirit in truth and power. Cast aside your cloak of fear and walk into the light! Claim God's power to heal and reveal. Descend upon us, Holy Spirit! Surprise the world again with your gracious power! Amen. Prayer Of Confession What just happened? The Ephesians knew only part of the gospel. There was more, so much more, to be given ...

2706. Comforters And Quilts

John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

Bulletin Aid

Frank Ramirez

Call To Worship Welcome the comforter in our midst. Take courage, God's people, for now we are never alone! Collect I rejoice in the Lord. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Praise the Lord! Amen. Prayer Of Confession Spirit of God, moving, revealing, we have looked everywhere for signs of your presence and missed the wonder of your dwelling in our hearts. We will not try to control you, co-opt you for our causes, nor claim to speak for you when it is our convenience and comfort we ...

2707. Time to Come Home

Jeremiah 31:7-14

Sermon

Schuyler Rhodes

... any of that. The real reunion is the one we have with God. The real coming together is the reclamation of our relationship with our Creator and our Redeemer. Where we are isolated from God, the call comes to us to return. Where we are alienated from God's Spirit, the call comes to leave everything and come home to God. Where we have lost sight of God, the beacon of holy love shines out so that we might follow the light back home. My friends, I want to say to you in closing that having one family reunion ...

2708. Mark 1:1-8

Mark 1:1-8

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... Baptist acknowledges the preparatory and temporary nature of the baptism he is administering to the people, a baptism “of water” only. An entirely different sort of baptism will be offered by the one he proclaims, a baptism both of water and “of the spirit.” This baptism “with the Holy Spirit” (v. 8) reveals that God’s presence and power will be released from this one John awaits. The Holy Spirit is God’s alone in the Old Testament tradition. By having the power to baptize “with the Holy ...

2709. You've Got That Healin' Touch

Mark 5:21-43

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... -western hit single "Unanswered Prayer," thank God for "the gift of unanswered prayer." "It was done to them as they expected." This biblical phrase sets the stage for mindbody ("psychosomatic") medicine. Diseases of the body can often be directly related to attitudes of the spirit. Why else do the largest number of hospital deaths occur at 3 a.m.? Why else do so many people die within six months of retirement? Why else do the large percentage of accidents happen to a small percentage of the population? Why ...

2710. The Job Description of a Leader

2 Samuel 23:1-7

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... ." This means that true biblical leadership is not a skill or a technique or a body of knowledge that one reams and then practices. To be called by God to lead in some way is to have been chosen by God's Spirit regardless of whether you think you are able or not. Of course you are not able. None of us is. But we have a God who is able. In the words of Martin Luther, "God carves the rotten wood and rides the lame horse." Or in the more recent words ...

2711. Interior Decorations

Luke 21:5-38

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... receiving the faith to accomplish it. 2) If we would take Joseph's gift of justice out of the Christmas story, here's how the ending would come out: When Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. Joseph, her husband, when he found out her condition, being a man of the law and of high pride, went to the judges as the Deuteronomic code dictated and denounced his betrothed for her betrayal of their marriage compact. Mary, being a woman and without a ...

2712. Back to School

Luke 2:41-52

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... situation." Remember: Jesus commanded the disciples to spread the gospel by "teaching them to do all things whatsoever I have commanded you." Dallas Willard calls this phrase "The Great Omission" from "The Great Commission" of Matthew 28:19-20 in The Spirit of the Disciples: Understanding How God Changes Lives (San Francisco:: Harper and Row, 1988), 15. Just how deadly an omission is made pointedly clear by the sense of exhaustion and lethargy that permeates so many congregations. Education is the primary ...

2713. Church Slugs

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... that we like all types of people - as long as they are all our types. But the Church has been called to celebrate her diversity, not her conformity. There is no one right way to express the presence of Christ or the welling up of God's Spirit in your life. E Unus Pluribum, "out of one, many," should be the joyful affirmation of a Christbody community. Though you are reading this in the dead of winter, publication schedules demand that this writing take place during the dog days of summer. Summer's beauty is ...

2714. No Excuses

Luke 9:51-62

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... moving forward in order to prepare the ground. Jesus does not leave us where he finds us. Discipleship is not a static state. Rather than fretting over what may be socially or politically correct, Jesus gives us a new reference point for life - freedom in God's Spirit to truly love and serve each other. Luke's trilogy of discipleship drop-outs is hardly unique. The Bible is filled with people with piles of alibis - people who came up with all sorts of creative excuses for not serving God. But in the eyes of ...

2715. Toys R Us. NOT!

Ephesians 1:11-23

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... wealth or the number of "toys" that have been accumulated and passed on to us. We inherit God's eternal gifts of love, hope, faith and power. The Christian inheritance does not begin with death. It begins with life - a life reborn in the Holy Spirit. The week's sermon title takes its strange grammar from the bizarre yet popular 1992 movie Wayne's World. This sleeper hit, based on a skit concept from the television show "Saturday Night Live", features the lives of two weirdly nerdy types "Wayne" and "Garth ...

2716. Welcome Home, Joseph

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... Mary gave birth. Once the baby was cleaned and well swaddled, he was placed in the safety of a secure manger below, enabling Mary to get some much needed rest. Just as Joseph welcomed Mary and her child into his life, and just as he invited God's Holy Spirit to work through all of them, so Joseph's own relatives surely extended the hospitality of their home and their help to the young couple. Jesus' birth was therefore not a foreshadowing of his later rejection by the Jews. It is a lesson for all of us in ...

2717. Soul-Scrubbing

2 Corinthians 12:2-10

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... and under everything they do. Humility, the sense of self-smallness, is a kind of stack-scrubber for our souls. It takes our greatest weaknesses, our smelliest selves, and binds them to the power of Christ. True humility scrubs our souls and transforms our spirits into a breath of fresh air. There is no false perfume or faked sweetness in the air surrounding a humble Christian. In a humble believer, only an atmosphere of purity and, if we are lucky enough to detect it, the slightest whiff of the sweetness ...

2718. Heads Down, Thumbs Up

Philippians 2:5-11

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... it has never gone in much for humility. Unless you're an active square dancer, you aren't likely ever to see anyone bow to another person as a gesture of humility and respect. What has always driven our culture forward is an enthusiastic "can-do" spirit that confidently looks at every obstacle as a challenge. For Americans, the body language that best suits our style is the "thumbs-up" signal. Everyone, from astronauts about to take flight to 5-year-olds about to swing the bat, knows that a thumbs-up sign ...

2719. Acts 10:44-48

Acts 10:44-48

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... this week's installment the circle is completed with the consummation of the mission to the Gentiles. As usual the Holy Spirit's timing is impeccable. In Acts 10:43 Peter reaches the climax of his speech before the crowd of Gentile believers ... of a faithful community, barriers between these former Jews and former Gentiles disappear. Through faith in Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, now all are Christians. Relating the Texts John's epistle takes up the same theme as the text from Acts when it maintains ...

2720. John 3:1-17

John 3:1-17

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... not to be questioned. All this sets the stage for Jesus' encapsulated pronouncement of what it is God has now chosen to do and why. What Martin Luther called "the gospel in miniature," John 3:16, stipulates exactly "how" God has chosen to bridge the chasm between spirit and flesh (vs.6): with the gift of God's Son Jesus Christ. No less astonishing is the motivation behind this act: God's love for the cosmos and every living being in it. Relating the Texts From the First Testament we have the text recording ...

2721. Ephesians 6:10-20

Ephesians 6:10-20

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... Paul's analogy is fitting, for it is right that we should wear protective headgear when Christ smashes the power of death in our lives. It is only through Christ's presence on the cross and his absence from the tomb that we enjoy salvation. The Sword of the Spirit is an offensive means at the disposal of all Christians when confronting enemies. The word of God is also compared to a sword in Hebrews 4:12 - "For the word of God is alive and active. It cuts more keenly than any two-edged sword." God's presence ...

2722. Hebrews 10:5-10

Hebrews 10:5-10

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... of the fully cognizant Christ, a point made obvious in verse 9 when Christ affirms "See, I have come to do your will." Christ's obedience is in fact three fold, Hebrews maintains:first, the very act of incarnation, then the willingness of his spirit to become the ultimate sacrifice for sin, followed finally by the actuality of that sacrifice. Previously the sacrificed ones, the animals or even the cereals, had no foreknowledge of their deaths, and certainly had no free will to decide whether they would be ...

2723. Acts 9:1-20

Acts 9:1-20

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... longer an outsider persecuting the Church - he is now a true brother in Christ. And while his vision's words did not make the source of Ananias' healing ability clear, Ananias himself knows better than to take credit for such a miracle. The Holy Spirit, Jesus' presence here on earth, is the source of this healing and thus will fill Saul at the moment of Ananias' touch. The entire community at Damascus is apparently as accepting and trusting of Saul as was Ananias. This former enemy is immediately baptized ...

2724. Isaiah 42:1-9

Isaiah 42:1-9

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... "delight" to the divine heart. He is chosen, not just because he can perform a function, but also because he is loved. The task for which this servant is chosen consists of a three-fold call, outlined in verses 1-4. First, once he is anointed with the Spirit of the Lord, this servant will embody God's mishpat, God's justice, which is the essence of the Torah itself. Verses 2 and 3 emphasize what this servant will not do as he seeks to discharge his service - no great crying out, no shouting in the streets ...

2725. Luke 4:14-21

Luke 4:14-21

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... down" (v.20). Jesus is so thoroughly the center of Luke's synagogue service that it seems clear that Jesus himself chose the Scripture portion he reads that day. The text of Isaiah 61:1-2 first defines Jesus even as Luke did in verse 14 "the spirit of the Lord God is upon me" and then as Jesus himself experienced at his own baptism he "has anointed me." Next, this text foretells the very activities that Jesus' Galilean ministry is about to undertake "release," and "recovery." Whether Luke saw those texts as ...

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