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 276 to 300 of 502 results

276. Confused as Pigeons

Matthew 16:13-20

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... insights and epiphanies, the disciples at last put their intuitions and inspirations into words. " . . . Who do you say that I am," Jesus directly asked his faithful followers. Acting as spokesperson Peter volunteers what the disciples as a group had already grasped while wetly wallowing in the hull of their nearly swamped boat: "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God" (verse 16). In Matthew's text Jesus rewards Peter's confession with words of praise and blessing. Jesus affirms that the words of ...

277. Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord

Ephesians 1:15-23

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... hope, this glorious inheritance, and this great power. Grand Hope First, this grand hope. Hope isn't easy to come by nowadays. Everywhere you read, and everywhere you look, there are people who are throwing in the towel or at least hitting our hope with wet blankets. Here's John Peterson, of the W. Alton Jones Foundation: "A hundred or more novel chemicals are swilling around in our bloodstream, chemicals which, before this century, were not found in human beings. It makes all of us, as well as our children ...

278. Night Vision

2 Peter 1:12-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... out and hung above the western horizon in the early and dark morning sky. It was beautiful but distinctly strange - to have a bright celestial light shining down on the Sweet family from the west while eating our breakfast cereal. A dreary week of dark wet skies had made sunlight a distant memory, so this moonlit breakfast was the brightest, fullest light we'd seen in days. This moonlight breakfast was a surprising gift in the midst of endless days of darkness. There are two kinds of people in this world ...

279. Move Life from Duty to Destiny

Luke 21:5-38

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... follow them” (v.8). Yet Jesus now reveals more “bad news” to his listeners. “Wars and revolutions” will be features of the future, but these events do NOT serve as the welcome mat to the millennium. Jesus’ words are a wet blanket on the ardor of would-be revolutionaries or liberationist freedom-fighters who hope to hasten the arrival of the eschaton by actively participating in armed insurrections against established power structures. Participation in battles between nations and kingdoms, which ...

280. For All the Saints

Luke 19:1-10

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... on-grey that cloaks the Pacific Northwest. We are a part of the country that embodies the word "watershed." The western side of our Puget Sound, the Olympic Peninsula, is officially designated a rain forest, albeit a temperate, not a tropical wet wonderland. Water is everywhere – and eventually we'll drink it, generate electricity with it, run factories and manufacturing plants with it, and hopefully, grow lots of new baby salmon with it! As gloomy and ceaseless as Northwest Novembers, Decembers, Januarys ...

281. Obstacles as Popsicles

Exodus 1:1-22

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... upon all male Hebrew babies, and that knowledge alone prompts her remarkably compassionate and defiant behavior. She does not share Pharaoh's fear of the Hebrew's as "'am benei yisrael people" or "family" of Israel. She accepts the baby, brings his own mother to him as wet-nurse, names him, and welcomes him unequivocally into her family. Sam was asked by a neighbor to drive her son to a hospital. Although he had other things planned, Sam didn't know how to say no. So he put the child in the car and started ...

282. Poison Control

Romans 7:7-25

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... square inch – and these are phones at work, not phones at airports. "People slobber on their phones," says Gerba. The desktop? 21,000 bacteria per square inch. "People spill coffee and eat their meals there, and nobody cleans it. Or they just use a wet towel that spreads things around," he says. The keyboard? 3000. And the average office toilet seat? Just 50. "People use disinfectant to clean that," he explains. If you eat at your desk, that's the worst. Receptionists' desks, where lots of people pause ...

283. Set Life Free

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... with life. Gardeners put their hopes in dead-looking seeds. Gardeners invest sweat equity in nurturing and cultivating specks of dust. Gardeners put up with weeds, insects, evil-sounding rusts and smuts, and weather that's too cold, too hot, too dry, or too wet. Why? Because gardeners get addicted to setting life free. Gardening is the world's oldest profession for a reason. (See Genesis 1 and 2.) Gardeners can't make seeds. Gardeners can't control the weather. Gardeners can't tell which seeds are viable ...

284. The Best Places to Live

Jeremiah 29:1-23

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... . So for song after song, the audience clapped and cheered. Desmond got better and better, singing as he had not sung in years. For the finale, he sang 'New York, New York.' The audience exploded in a standing ovation. Johnny Desmond, his face wet with tears, walked out into the audience, hugged people and said, 'This is the greatest night of my life.'" (Adapted from Donald O. Clifton and Paula Nelson, Soar With Your Strengths, (New York: Dell Publishing, 1992), 192-93). Paul put it like this: whatever ...

285. WaterFire Disciples

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... , a member of a religious congregation called the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, refers to a "holy longing" within each person that shapes our dreams and desires. "If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water." C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, rev. and enl. ed. [New York: MacMillan, 1960], 137.) Conclusion: Do you burn? Julia "Butterfly" Hill so burned for an ancient, 600 year-old redwood in the rainy Northern California forests that she ...

286. Are You Turned On to Christ?

1 Peter 1:1-12

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... their jobs, but that we are also spending more time participating in leisure-time activities. There are more community baseball, soccer, basketball teams than there have ever been. We flock to fancy, state-of-the-art, workout equipment gyms. In my home wet Washington state, people wait for the opening day of boating season like nineteenth-century millennialists used to wait on mountain-tops for the Second Coming. Not-so-active activities turn some people on. Malls are full of window-shoppers, stadiums are ...

287. Can You Jump for Joy?

Luke 1:39-45

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... huge crowds with his words of wit and wisdom. Do you really think Jesus would have been such a popular party guest on the "A" list of all the local rowdies (the tax collectors, the rich, the morally lax) if he was nothing but a sad sack, a woebegone wet blanket? When Jesus healed the man who had been confined to his bed for years, don't you think both the healed and the healer grabbed each other, whooped and danced, and jumped for joy at the audacity of such a miracle? Do you really think Jesus would have ...

288. The Whole Shebang in Six Words

John 11:38-44

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... washed his disciples feet. This ritual of foot-washing was so shocking, so scandalous, so unforgettable that in the early church it competed with the Lord's Supper as a foundational sacramental ritual. Note this: you can't wash anyone's feet without getting your hands dirty and wet. How many of us aren't living grace-filled lives because we're trying to keep our hands clean and dry? I suspect one of the test-questions at Judgment Day is going to be: Show me your hands? Are they clean? Are they dry? If so ...

289. Being Christian in the Family

Matthew 7:24-29

Sermon

James McCormick

... had gone out together for an outing. They had placed their beach towels, their umbrella, and other assorted paraphernalia on the beach, then remembered that they had left something in the car. The father started back toward the car, leaving his footprints in the wet sand. Everyone on the beach watched as their kindergartener began to follow his dad, stretching his little legs as far as they would go to make his feet fit exactly into the footsteps of his father. Remember that scene, because that is happening ...

290. Proper 19

Exodus 13:17--14:31, Matthew 18:21-35, Romans 14:1--15:13, Exodus 15:1-21

Sermon Aid

Marion L. Soards, Thomas B. Dozeman, Kendall McCabe

... Yamm, who represented chaotic power in this world. In Exodus 14:19-31, however, notice how the sea becomes a mere tool in God's hands to the point where Israelites can actually walk through the middle of this chaos without even getting their feet wet. As a cosmological story, the Red Sea event is a strong proclamation that God's salvation is absolutely reliable even when opposed by evil divine powers. Second, if we wish to interpret the whole story of salvation, then we must interpret Israel's divine rescue ...

291. Trinity Sunday

Genesis 1:1-2:3, Matthew 28:16-20, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, Psalm 8:1-9

Sermon Aid

Marion L. Soards, Thomas B. Dozeman, Kendall McCabe

... of earth prior to the creative activity of God. Verse 2, therefore, is best interpreted as a snapshot of uncreated chaos, which, from the imagery of the verse, might be characterized as an enormous oil slick: It is formless, dark, and wet. Furthermore, the Hebrew words for "darkness" and "deep" invite the interpreter to see personality in the chaotic oil slick, for these words suggest cosmic powers from other ancient Near Eastern creation mythologies like the Babylonian Enuma Elish. These allusions to ...

292. The Lost and Found Coin

Luke 15:8-10

Sermon

James W. Moore

... spots… and just as she turned off the engine, it started pouring down rain! There she was with two pre-school children and no umbrella. She thought: “It’s no use. There’s no way I can get into the church with these two girls without getting us all soaking wet. I guess we’ll just go back home and forget it.” But, just then, she heard a gentle knocking on her car window. One of our ushers had run to help her with two umbrellas. He took one girl and one umbrella and she took the other girl and the ...

293. The Lost and Found Coin

Luke 15:8-10

Sermon

James W. Moore

... parking spots… and just as she turned off the engine, it started pouring down rain! There she was with two preschool children and no umbrella. She thought: "It's no use. There's no way I can get into the church with these two girls without getting us all soaking wet. I guess we'll just go back home and forget it." But, just then, she heard a gentle knocking on her car window. One of our ushers had run to help her with two umbrellas. He took one girl and one umbrella and she took the other girl and the ...

294. Love One Another

Luke 7:36-50

Sermon

James W. Moore

... unfamiliar field. He fell into an old abandoned cistern… a deep, deep hole. He was a proud and strong man, so he said, “I can get out of here.” But he was knee-deep in mud and sand. He reached to sides of the cistern, mossy green and slick and wet… and he had no leverage. He could not get out. Finally, he swallowed his pride and cried out: “Help! Help!” A neighbor walking by heard his cry and looked down in there and said, “John, is that you? I can’t believe you are down there. Look at you ...

295. Life in the Living Stone Age

1 Peter 2:4-12

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... the earth. Chiseled and chipped by decades of wind erosion, these granite goliaths are more like sculptures than stones. Climbing up them you can discover nooks and crannies and caves to hide in. [A personal note: Our dogs’ favorite find, however, was all wet. Two divots, one large, one small, had been scooped out of the stone and filled in with rainwater. With lolling tongues Hannibal, our huge Great Pyrenees, and Signe, our dinky Eskimo dog, each waded into the pool sized perfectly for them, drank deep ...

296. The Spirit of My Mother's Church

John 7:25-44

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... . On a dismal, stormy, wind-gusty winter’s night, the owner of a neighborhood bakery decided to close early. “There won’t be any customers on a night like this,” he reasoned. As he was about to lock the bakery door, a man rushed in, shivering and wet from head-to-toe. “I’m here to pick up two sweet rolls,” he said. The baker was amazed that anyone would brave such bad weather for just two sweet rolls. “Are you married?” he asked the customer. “Of course I’m married,” the man replied ...

297. Bright and Loud: What Do You Miss?

Matthew 6:25-34

Illustration

John Killinger

... 's the kind of world we live in, and in that kind of world, that's what it takes." Bright and loud. Think about that response. It rules out a lot of things, doesn't it? He doesn't notice the different songs of the birds, or the color of wet bark, or the tiny stars that may in actuality be many times the size of our sun. He probably never sees the delicacy of a cat's fur or the eagerness in a child's eyes or the lines in an old woman's face. In fact, he's missing ...

298. Not Even a Hot Bath

Illustration

King Duncan

... door. A salesman wanted to know if he needed any brushes. Slamming the door, the man returned to the bath. The doorbell rang again. On went the slippers and towels, and the man started for the door again. This time, however, he took one step, slipped on a wet spot, fell, and hit his back against the hard porcelain of the tub. The man struggled into his street clothes and, with every move a stab of pain, drove to the doctor. After examining him, the doctor said, "Nothing's broken. But you need to relax. Why ...

299. No Higher Duty

Matt 10:24-39

Illustration

J. Burton Williams

... the retreat was to be meditative and prayerful. Nouwen was delayed and was late getting to the monastery on that miserable, rainy night. He rang the bell, well after bedtime, and was met at the door by one of the brothers. The brother warmly greeted him, took his wet coat, brought him to the kitchen and made him a cup of tea. They chatted in the late night hours and Nouwen began to relax and feel ready for the retreat. But he knew this monk was supposed to observe silence, so he finally asked him, "Why are ...

300. Sowing the Seed

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Illustration

David E. Leininger

... . When Thomas died, this friend had the feeling that there would be no one to go to the funeral so he decided to go, so that there might be someone to follow the old man to his last resting-place. There was no one else, and it was a miserable wet day. The funeral reached the cemetery, and at the gate there was a soldier waiting. An officer, but on his raincoat there were no rank badges. He came to the grave side for the ceremony, then when it was over, he stepped forward and before the open grave swept his ...

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