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 2976 to 3000 of 4961 results

2976. Jingle Bells at a Funeral

1 Thessalonians 5:12-28

Sermon

King Duncan

Dennis Wilson is a backup singer in the country music’s unofficial capital, Nashville, Tennessee. In the book Real Country Humor Wilson tells a true story about a friend of his who sings professionally at funerals and weddings. Sometime back this friend got a call from a lady whose husband had died of a heart attack. She said, “I heard you sing at my cousin’s funeral, and I wondered if you’d sing at my husband’s funeral. He just died.” Wilson’s friend said, “Yes, ma’am, that’s what I do. Did you have ...

2977. How Can I Know God's Will?

Acts 1:12-26

Sermon

King Duncan

Wesley D. Tracy tells about a woman whom he calls Kate Dowd. That is not her real name, but she is a real person. Kate, a dedicated wife and mother, volunteered at her church, helped with Cub Scouts, tatted lace, and knitted scarves. Then she discovered something that was more exciting than all the rest of her activities combined riverboat gambling. Almost immediately her life was completely changed and not for the better. Kate would cross the river daily to Illinois and board either the Alton Belle or the ...

2978. A Faith that Works

2 Thessalonians 3:6-15

Sermon

King Duncan

Someone visited an office and saw these signs hanging on the wall: “Work fascinates me,” said one, “I can sit and watch it for hours!” “I don’t mind going to work,” said another. “But that 8-hour wait to go home is awful!” “Hard work may not kill me,” another said, “but why take a chance?” People have all kinds of attitudes about their work. Actor Robert Benchley said, “Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.” That one may hit close to home. An ...

2979. Running over the Cat

1 Thessalonians 4:13--5:11

Sermon

King Duncan

There is a story that Chuck Swindoll told years ago that is both sad and somewhat ironic. In 1978, firemen in England went on strike in the middle of a hard cold winter. This is not unusual in Great Britain. Civil servants are notorious for their “industrial actions.” The British Army was called in to take over emergency firefighting. On January 14 these substitute firefighters were called out by an elderly lady in South London to retrieve her cat. The soldiers arrived with impressive haste, very cleverly ...

2980. Close Calls

Mark 4:35-41

Sermon

Ron Lavin

Have you ever had a close call? Have you ever been in an accident where you almost died? Have you ever been overwhelmed by an event or loss so great that you wondered how you would ever get through it? When a close call came, have you ever felt that God either didn't care or that he was asleep because you couldn't reach him? That is what is going on in our story, the story of the apostles in a little boat during a violent storm on a lake called Galilee where the wind rushes down from the hills with such ...

2981. Do You Believe in Miracles?

Mark 7:31-37

Sermon

King Duncan

Joe Sardler had been blind for six years. His blindness was caused by atrophy of the optical nerve. One night Joe tripped over his dog’s dish which had been left on a step. Subsequently he fell down the basement stairs. As he fell, his head slammed against a wall--and suddenly, miracle of miracles--his vision was restored. All of a sudden Joe could see things he hadn’t seen in years, such as the face of his five-year-old daughter. Can you imagine such an incident? Can you imagine how this event made him ...

2982. A Good Name

Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9

Sermon

Will Willimon

“A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold." Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9 Do you believe that? It's from the book of Proverbs. You get this sort of moral platitude there. "A good name is better than silver or gold." Sounds a little quaint, this talk of "a good name." But this is typical of Proverbs. Here is ethics done the old-fashioned (600 B.C.) way -- an older person telling a younger person how to live in order to have a good life. The book of Proverbs is, ...

2983. When Following Is Not Enough

Luke 9:28-36, (37-43a)

Sermon

John B. Jamison

The crowds had been coming constantly. A lot had happened since the day Jesus spoke to the group on the hillside by the sea. His reputation had grown, and he knew that meant that his time was growing shorter. So Jesus got Peter, James, and John, three of his first disciples, and as they had done several times before, he led them out to a place away from everyone where they could be alone and pray. In the past, they had gone up north to Caesarea, and they had taken shorter trips into the wilderness to the ...

2984. Silly Love Songs

Sermon

Timothy J. Smith

"I can see no trace of the passions which make for deeper joy," wrote the French writer Stendhal about Americans in his 1822 essay titled "Love." "It is as if the sources of sensibility have dried up among these people," he observed. "They are just, they are rational, and they are not happy at all," he wrote. One cannot help but wonder what Stendhal would say today. It's no secret that relationships suffer in the fast-paced, impersonal world in which we live. We might rightly ask, where has all the love ...

2985. A Healthy Body

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

Sermon

King Duncan

Back in 1985, William R. Greer performed an in-depth chemical analysis of the human body and its mineral properties. His conclusions were published in the International Herald Tribune and The New York Times. Greer claimed that the average human body contained 5 pounds of calcium, 9 ounces of potassium, 1 and 1/2 pounds of phosphorus, 6 ounces of sodium, 6 ounces of sulfur, 1 ounce of magnesium, and trace amounts of iron, iodine, and copper. According to a professor at the Illinois Medical School, the total ...

2986. The Gospel of God in Christ through Paul

Romans 1:1-17

Teach the Text

C. Marvin Pate

Big Idea: Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, was divinely chosen to preach the gospel of God in Christ, the end-time fulfillment of the twofold Old Testament promise of the restoration of Israel and the conversion of the Gentiles. Understanding the Text Romans 1:1–7 forms the first half of Paul’s introduction to Romans (1:8–15 is the second half). The introduction, or prescript, to ancient letters consisted of three parts: identification of the author, identification of the recipients, and a salutation or ...

2987. A Thinking Person’s Thankful Prayer

Philippians 1:1-11

Sermon

Raymond Gibson

Dr. Wayne Dehoney, a Baptist pastor in Louisville, Kentucky, tells of a college freshman who attended his first dormitory prayer meeting. Rather unexpectedly he was called upon to pray a sentence prayer. The young man had a slight speech defect which became pronounced when he was under pressure, and thus he prayed: "Lord, make us more thinkful for all our blessings." That young man prayed a better prayer than he realized. Our English word thank stems from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning "think," and certainly ...

2988. Proper 7

1 Ki 19:1-18 · Lk 8:26-39 · Gal 3:23-29

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

COMMENTARY Old Testament: 1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7), 8-15a Threatened by Jezebel, Elijah flees for his life and is fed by an angel on his way to Mount Horeb. To understand this pericope, we need to get the background in chapter 18. On Mount Carmel, Elijah calls down fire from heaven to prove that Yahweh is the only true God. This is followed by his slaughter of the 450 prophets of Baal supported by King Ahab and Queen Jezebel who sends a messenger to Elijah to tell him that within 24 hours she will have his ...

2989. What Makes Those Disciples So Darn Happy?

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

"I tell you, those disciples had it made! I sure wish that I had been alive in those days. They had it easy. It could not have been very hard for them to believe in Jesus and in God. They had it made! They had Jesus with them all of the time. It is harder for us, because we do not have Jesus; he is with the Father. Consequently, we have to believe in him; faith is all we've got. But the disciples had him present with them. What a gyp! It really is difficult being a Christian when all you have going for you ...

2990. The Cracking Point

Mark 12:1-12

Sermon

Harold Warlick

Everyone has a cracking point. There comes a certain point in our relationships with others or in our feelings about ourselves when everything snaps. You and I are emotionally and physiologically structured so that we can withstand only so much. There is only so much garbage, so much heat we can take. Then, like the valve on a pressure cooker, we simply blow off. Perhaps the six most dramatic words in the English language are these: "I just can't take it anymore." Every person has a cracking point. It ...

2991. Who Is This Jesus?

Colossians 1:15-23

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

There used to be a great teacher of the Old Testament at Duke Divinity School by the name of Elbert Russell. Dr. and Mrs. Russell usually spent Christmas holidays in Greensboro, North Carolina with their daughter and her family. On one Christmas morning they opened presents at sunrise as usual. They sat down to a sumptuous breakfast. Dr. Russell's grandson Rusty was 8 then, and he had learned lots of things since he was 7. "Grandpa," he said, "I have made a discovery." "What is that?" his grandfather asked ...

2992. Nazareth: The Hidden Years

Luke 2:41-52

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

Although I have been privileged to travel in the Holy Land three times, I have been to Nazareth only once, and that was a hurried visit. Now and then I tell myself that I want to go to Israel again some day, and that when I do, I will decide (not the travel agent) how long I will stay in each place. If that ever happens, I will spend more time in Nazareth. If you go to Nazareth today, you will find a city of nearly 30,000 people. It was much, much smaller in Jesus’ day, of course, but around 600 A.D., ...

2993. The Passing of the Peace

John 20:24-31

Sermon

George Bass

It was the evening of the day that Jesus rose from the dead. Mary Magdalene had told them that she had actually seen the Lord not far from the tomb where he was buried just three days earlier. "At first," she said, "I thought it was the gardener, but Jesus spoke to me and called me by name, and then I knew that it really was Jesus. He’s alive!" But the disciples hadn’t seen him, and now it was evening. They had to be discussing Mary’s report, as well as those other terrible and terrifying events of the ...

2994. Persistence In Prayer

Luke 18:1-8

Sermon

King Duncan

I believe you will agree with me that this is one election season that all of us will be happy to see come to an end. One of the candidates for president . . . I won’t say which one . . . was campaigning in West Virginia recently. Some of the coal miners were not real happy about it when the candidate asked for their vote. “Vote for you?” one of them jeered. “Why, I’d sooner vote for the Devil!” “Fair enough!” called out the candidate, “But in the event that your friend doesn’t run, may I have your ...

2995. Singing in the Storm

Mark 4:35-41

Sermon

Eric Ritz

Dr. Tony Campolo of Eastern College once told a delightful story concerning his friend's daughter. This girl had an incredible outlook on life. Tony tells: A friend of mine has an adorable four-year-old daughter. She is bright and talkative. If tryouts were being held for a modern-day Shirley Temple, I think she would win hands down. One night there was a violent thunderstorm. The lightning flashed and the thunder rumbled. It was one of those terrifying storms that forces everyone to stop and tremble a bit ...

2996. Grace in the Midst of Judgment

2 Corinthians 5:11--6:2, 2 Corinthians 5:1-10

Sermon

Glenn McDonald

In his book Making Life Work, Chicago area pastor Bill Hybels cites a study that was published under an intriguing title: 178 Seconds to Live. The study concerned twenty pilots, all seasoned veterans in the cockpits of their small planes, but none of whom had ever taken instrument training. One by one they were placed in a flight simulator and told to do whatever they could to keep their planes level and under control. The simulator generated the conditions of a storm, including impenetrable, dark clouds. ...

2997. The Nuclear Truth Of Christianity

Ephesians 2:1-10

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Amos Alonzo Stagg was one of the great football coaches of all time in sports history. As a coach he constantly tried to keep his substitutes prepared and ready on the bench. He had the habit of prompting alertness by suddenly popping questions at them while the game was underway. One afternoon he turned to a fourth-string player who hadn't seen a single minute of the game during all the season. Stagg barked, "You, Cartmell! What would you do if we had possession of the ball with one minute to play, the ...

2998. Who Loves More?

Luke 7:36-50

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

A friend tells about how when he was a small boy his father’s birthday rolled around, and he did not realize it until it was too late to get his father a birthday present. So, he went through all his resources and came up with 17 cents. He put the dime, the nickel, and the two pennies in an envelope and gave it to his father with a note: “I love you, Dad. Happy Birthday. Thanks for being the best dad in the whole world. Sorry I did not get you a gift. This is all I’ve got.” Years later, at his father’s ...

2999. Can a Rich Person Go to Heaven?

Mark 10:17-31

Sermon

King Duncan

A man named Murray put the following announcement in his local synagogue’s newsletter: “LOST: a black leather wallet containing precious family photos, personal ID documents, and $875. Finder can keep the photos and documents but please return the money, to which I am attached for sentimental reasons.” One man replaced all the windows in his house with expensive double-pane energy efficient windows. A year later he got a call from the contractor complaining that his work had been completed a whole year and ...

3000. Parenting 101

Ephesians 6:1-4

Sermon

James Merritt

There was a young couple who had just purchased brand new appliances for their house, and they decided to give their old refrigerator to their parents. Since they lived many miles apart, they just shipped the refrigerator to their parents. A few days later the phone rang, her mother said, "Honey, we want to send you a check for the refrigerator." The daughter said, "No, Mom, it's a gift. We want you to have it." The mother said, "But you could have sold it and made money." The daughter said, "Look, Mom, ...

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