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 2801 to 2825 of 4959 results

2801. First Things First

Philippians 3:12-4:1

Sermon

King Duncan

... this because the book of Philippians ends with these words, “All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar’s household.” (4:22) Christians in Caesar’s household? Where did they come from? They came from this man Paul’s irrepressible desire to share Christ. Theologian Paul Tillich once said that whatever our ultimate concern is, that is our God. Paul’s ultimate concern was to be like Jesus. What is your greatest ultimate concern? Several years ago, billionaire J. Paul Getty’s teenage ...

2802. Grace: Amazing or Mystifying?

Romans 3:21-31

Sermon

King Duncan

... Grace is both amazing and mystifying. Through faith in Christ we are washed totally of our sins. They have been buried in the depths of the sea never to be retrieved again. It is as if they never existed. And yet, God is a righteous God who desires righteousness on the part of those who worship Him. Have we no responsibility? Responsibility is the key if we understand our actions as a response to God’s grace. Often when we say someone is responsible, we mean that someone lives according to the laws of man ...

2803. Day People

1 Thessalonians 4:13--5:11

Sermon

King Duncan

... training in the mock village is vitally necessary to their work. As they say, “The more you bleed in training, the less you bleed in combat.” (5) When you are a soldier in combat, you have to believe in your mission. You have to subordinate your own desires to the task at hand. And you have to give yourself completely. No half-hearted commitment will do. So it is with people of the day. We are soldiers of Christ in a war against the forces of darkness. Some of us may be uncomfortable with the imagery ...

2804. Great Reasons for Great Giving

2 Corinthians 8:1-15

Sermon

Edward Inabinet

... giving relates us to the great purpose of God as He deals with sin in people''s lives, loves them and redeems them. When the passionate Christ comes into people''s lives they, too, become passionate about the work of God. They don''t have the time or desire to argue about whether or not to tithe. You see, the New Testament never commands a tithe, but can a Christian who has been bought from sin and eternal death by the death of Christ, and then blessed beyond measure, give any less than the Hebrew who was ...

2805. Proving Your Love

2 Corinthians 8:1-15

Sermon

Edward Inabinet

... say that money talks," writes Robert McCracken, "and that’s for sure! A person can tell a great deal about another when he learns how he earns his money and how he spends it. For then you know a great deal about his motives, his standards, his desires and what his real religion is all about." When we investigate the New Testament we find that one-third of all Jesus’ parables and one-sixth of all his teachings have to do with money and material possessions. Jesus approached life from the perspective that ...

2806. Yes, Virginia, There Is a Hell!

Luke 16:19-31

Sermon

Edward Inabinet

... dark. I don''t guess he''s coming today." He could sense through those words the yearning loneliness of this wife who loved him so and whom he had neglected all those months, and perhaps all of their married life, consumed with his own concerns, his own desires. And all the sorrow he felt could not change what might have been. He lived with that regret every waking moment of his life on this earth. His biographer and friend wrote later, "For many years after she had left him, whenever we passed the spot in ...

2807. Things That Cannot be Taken Away

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon

Edward Inabinet

... Corinthians 13. Hear his truth. FIRST, LIFE IS A TRANSIENT POSSESSION. In verse 8, Paul speaks about the things religious people may hold on to--things that give them status with others. He mentions prophecies, tongues and knowledge. Paul says that as desirable as each of these may be they are only temporary. They disappear with the passage of time. Prophecies fail, tongues cease, knowledge vanishes away. Indeed every physical and earthly thing is subject to decay and death. How penetrating is the reminder ...

2808. A Way Made Ready

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

Darrick Acre

... we are. All the wondrous things the Scriptures promise to us, we will never receive until we have made this “about face.” Until we do, the highway of holiness is too cluttered with roadblocks. There is a dam cutting off the flow of the Spirit. The Lord desires to come to us, but there is no access ramp, until we repent. So John the Baptist calls us to repentance. We need to hear his message well. You see, we can preach all the wonderful messages we want to about Christmas, Jesus, and what He’s done ...

2809. What Happens When I Die?

John 14:1-4

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... also clothe us with a spiritual body, fit for heavenly existence. II. AND SO THE CREED SPEAKS OF THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. That is a puzzling phrase, and has caused us all sorts of problems over the centuries. Some have taken it literally, and have desired to be buried in a certain place, or facing in a certain direction, so they will be raised in a certain way. Others have forbidden cremation, feeling that it would somehow be more difficult for God to raise us up from ashes than from dust. One fellow ...

2810. The Glorious Interpolation

John 7:45--8:11

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... the record of their own sins. By His actions as well as by His words He was saying, “All right, stone her. But let the one among you who is without sin cast the first stone!” The word here translated “without sin” may mean “without a sinful desire.” I have a hunch that many people are moral only because the opportunity to be otherwise has not yet presented itself! One gets the impression that this self-proclaimed mob of morality mongers cared not a whit for the woman or her sin; to them, she was ...

2811. The Devil Is a Liar

John 8:42-47

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... , then that person is not really a child of God at all. In fact, (and now comes the really scary part), such a person is really a child of the devil! Jesus says strong words: “You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44) Those are, indeed, strong words. What ...

2812. So Who Needs A Shepherd?

John 10:1-21

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... shout out the warning: “Prepare to meet thy God!” as though meeting God would be a terrible calamity, something to be avoided at all costs. But what if God is like Jesus? What if God really is the Good Shepherd, who loves us even more than we love ourselves, and desires to care for us in kind and gentle ways? Let’s take a few minutes to think of the possibilities such a picture of God might present. “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me,” said Jesus in John 10:14. He says that ...

2813. Some Said It Thundered

John 12:20-36

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... cross. “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say, Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.” (John 12:27) In this chapter we find our Lord fighting His own personal battle with His all-too-human desire to avoid the cross. No one wishes to die. No one wishes to die at age 33. (Give or take a few years. We are unsure of Jesus’ actual age.) No one wishes to die upon a cruel Roman cross. John’s Gospel does not give us the story of ...

2814. One Commandment, Slightly Used

John 13:31-38

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... that person instead—that is Christian love. And that kind of love is not an emotion, it is a position. It does not say, “I love this person because I have good thoughts toward him or her.” It does say, “I will act lovingly toward this person., desiring his or her good, not because I feel like doing it, but because I have committed myself to doing it.” I have always been fascinated by Nikos Kazantzakis’ novel Zorba the Greek. It has been made into a play, a musical, and a movie. Some years ago ...

2815. Whatever Happened to those Mansions?

John 14:1-4

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... always wondered, “How long is until?” Does this mean universalism, that God will ultimately get everybody? I have no idea. I hope so, but I simply do not know. I only know that, because of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, I have no desire to put any limitations on God’s love, this side of the grave or the other. Most Christians in most centuries have believed that there is some opportunity for growth and change—even after death. Perhaps we have made the whole thing far too complicated. Perhaps ...

2816. Aren’t All Religions Basically Alike?

John 14:5-14

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... religion is the way.” The first Christians were called Followers of the Way. It is our faith that in Jesus Christ something has happened to the world which is of cosmic consequence. “And the word became flesh and lived among us.” Our human desire to achieve a connection with God through religion failed. But God took the initiative and established the connection from the other side. Some years back there was a popular fad for some Christians to sport bumper stickers on their cars with the slogan, “I ...

2817. The Jesus Connection

John 15:1-17

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... is not an emotion, but a position. We tend to say, “If you like someone enough, you may grow to love them.” The New Testament position is that if we truly “love” someone enough, we may grow to like them. “Love” is not “like.” Love means nothing less than desiring the highest and best for the other person. It is in the nature of such love to reach out to the other. Jesus said, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:3) And these words of ...

2818. Whatever became of Kingdomtide?

John 16:17-33

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... come, it would be the sheer gift of God, and not something which we can usher in by our own efforts. I came to the conclusion that it was probably omitted because we Methodists seemed to be the only ones using it, and there was an understandable desire to bring us more in line with other branches of Christ’s universal Church. Or perhaps the name of the season became an embarrassment to a church which attempts to be inclusive, smacking of masculine imagery as it does. I can sympathize with these points of ...

2819. God Doesn’t Take Vacations

John 5:1-15

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... , when suddenly he came upon a man dressed in the garb of a huntsman coming toward him. The man recognized the apostle and was astonished at what John was doing. “Are you that John whose eminent and widespread fame has filled me also with a great desire to know you? Why, then, are you engaged in such lowly amusement?” John looked at the man and replied, “What is that which you carry in your hands?” “A bow,” replied the huntsman.” And why do you not bear it about always strung,” asked John ...

2820. That Would Be Some Miracle!

John 6:1-15

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... took it for one; but even so, not very spectacular. No banquet table, no soup, no salad, no dessert: just fish and bread. (Presbyterian Life magazine, October 1, 1961, pp.43-44) Let’s look at the setting of the story. There were times when Jesus desired to withdraw from the crowds. He was under continuous strain and needed rest. One of his favorite places of retreat was on “the other side” of the Sea of Galilee, that is, the “Gentile” side, an area where he could usually escape being mobbed by the ...

2821. On Panicking Close to Shore

John 6:16-24

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... atoms in random motion, we might speculate about how someone like Jesus could walk on water, for even the floor we stand on is composed of atoms in random motion and, theoretically at least, we could fall through at any time. I believe in miracles, but I have no desire to make a miracle out of a Gospel story where one does not necessarily exist. Here each of us has to do what a seminary professor of mine used to say: “You pays your money and you takes your choice!” I can point to competent and committed ...

2822. Son of Thunder, Son of God

Mark 10:35-45

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... point of the Gospel is that Christ can take a “Son of thunder” and make him a “Son of God”...or “daughter of God.” Christ can take us and recycle us! He can take all of these natural impulses and reactions which cause so much trouble in human life—the desire to be out front, to get ahead of others, to put others down—change them, and turn us around. Again and again in the history of the Church, Christ has taken men and women who seem to be the last people on earth who would be candidates for ...

2823. Secretary to Saint Peter

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... for many of the ideas in this opening sermon in my series on the Gospel of St. Mark. I. HOW DO SCHOLARS KNOW WHICH GOSPEL WAS THE FIRST? They don’t. Their theory is based on a highly-educated guess. It is a complicated process and I have no desire to bore you to death with the technical details of what is called the Four-Document Hypothesis developed in the early part of this century by Prof. B. H.Streeter in his famous book The Four Gospels (1924). Suffice to say that when we read the Gospels we see ...

2824. The Chicken or the Egg

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... repentance in action, as He walks along the shore of the Sea of Galilee and begins to recruit His disciples (Simon, Andrew, James, and John.) These four fishermen changed the direction of their lives. They left their former lives, former concerns, former dreams and desires and began to share Jesus’ dreams with Him. Jesus said, simply, Follow me. And they did. And that is repentance. Repent says Jesus. And the word gives us trouble. In the minds of many people, the church is very much like those strange ...

2825. Wining and Dining with Jesus

Mark 2:18-22

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... stadiums to come and accept Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour, we may not realize that such a practice is relatively new: dating from the revivalists of the late 19th century. In the 18th century, when Wesley preached and people responded with a desire to enter into the Christian life, he invited them forward to receive the Eucharist. After all, Wesley reasoned, who ate with Jesus? Was it not the sinners. Some were harlots, some were church leaders; some knew they were sinners, others did not. But ...

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