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 3101 to 3125 of 4947 results

3101. Searching for Happiness

Ephesians 5:15-20

Sermon

King Duncan

... Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” You may remember that a couple of weeks ago we quoted theologian Paul Tillich who said that the great fear of our time is meaninglessness. Solomon was the wisest man of his time and yet he could not make sense of his life. He was not a happy man though he sought diligently for happiness. First he thought the road to happiness would be found in intellectual pursuits. And who could argue with that? There is a certain nobility in seeking knowledge. We salute ...

3102. Do You Believe in Miracles?

Mark 7:31-37

Sermon

King Duncan

... Martin Luther and John Calvin, the two great leaders of the Protestant Reformation, were in this camp. But many other Christians believe this as well. They cite Jesus’ words that his miracles were but signs affirming that he was who he said he was. And that makes sense too. We don’t have to witness his miraculous powers to believe he is the Son of God. We have our Bibles, which contain numerous eye-witness reports from people who were there when he healed the blind, the deaf, the lame and the mute. We ...

3103. Called to Love, Not Like

John 15:9-17

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... , love is not primarily an emotion, but an act of will."1 What is this saying to us about our faith's distinctive understanding of love? First, it says that love in the Christian sense has a cognitive dimension. When Jesus commands that we love, it is with the qualifier, "as I have loved you." Christian love is referentially learned. We know something about the mandates of love because we have first been loved. At no place in the New Testament is this referential nature ...

3104. Crisis Management

Luke 21:25-36

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

It is a newspaper image I will never forget. And for me it is an image of Advent. The time was the early 1990s. The place was Sarajevo — the gutted, bombed out epicenter of the Balkan War — when ethnic violence had destroyed beauty and buildings and any sense of human community. One day, a man put on his tuxedo, picked up his cello and a chair, and went and sat at the central intersection of town — in the cross fire of hatred and brokenness and devastation — and there he played his cello for hours ...

3105. The Future Present

Luke 1:46-56

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

... One of the mantras of Mrs. Smith’s Bible lessons was instructive not just to the children but to the adults as well. She said that when we allow our lives to magnify God, we automatically become small in comparison — not small in a poor-me sense, but small in a divine/human sense. In that smallness we can fit into that one unique spot each one of us has in this intricate puzzle called life — that one unique spot that only we can fill in God’s magnificent vision of peace and joy. My friends, on this ...

3106. Hard and Soft Hearts

Mark 10:2-16

Sermon

Steven E. Albertin

... of morbidity. It's not that I delight in other people's suffering. Rather, it has to do with how receptive people are to ministry. At the time of death, people are much more receptive to facing the ultimate issues of life. They have a far greater sense of their need for the gospel. They have just experienced the limits of life and are primed to listen to the word of hope in Jesus Christ. However, at a wedding there are so many distractions that the last thing anyone wants to hear about is their need for ...

3107. Patterns of Possibility

Luke 2:41-52

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

... level, I had come home. These experiences which shaped my childhood give me an entree into today’s gospel story that may be different from yours. Jesus’ behavior in this wonderful tale has never particularly bothered me or surprised me. Actually, it makes total sense to me that Jesus would stay behind in the temple, comfortable with the space and the priests and the holiness of the sanctuary. Why not? He had been raised by faithful parents who took him regularly to his hometown synagogue, and who had ...

3108. Three Men Changed by God

1 Corinthians 15:1-11, Isaiah 6:1-13, Luke 5:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

... out, singing hymns and praying as she screamed in the agonies of withdrawal. But in the depths of her suffering she suddenly had a wonderful sense of peace and love. Jesus, she felt, was by her side. She believed in him. From that point on she recovered quickly, and she knew ... pray that God will help us in our daily lives to experience His amazing grace and power. And finally, we need a sense of direction, lives patterned after the life of Jesus. Then, and only then, will we become the kind of people God has ...

3109. From Deep Unto Deep

Luke 22:14--23:56

Sermon

R. Robert Cueni

... all the bad news of Holy Week and go right to the good news of Easter. However, we cannot do that. In order to get to the joy of resurrection and victory, there first must be death and defeat. Without the cross, the empty tomb makes no sense. Moving our spiritual lives from deep unto deep depends on grasping the significance of how the struggles of Holy Week are followed by the certainty of Resurrection Sunday. This journey takes us from the darkness of Holy Week to the light of Easter; from sadness to joy ...

3110. Can I Get Some Help Over Here?

John 14:23-29

Sermon

R. Robert Cueni

... come back. You will be all right. I love you.” Jesus gave his followers that assurance. “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you” (14:18). In the next few verses, Jesus told his followers that even though the world would not see him, they would sense he was near to them. When they cry out, “Can we get some help over here?” his holy presence would be palpable. They will feel his ongoing, unbroken love in their midst. Of course, there is more to it than that. I am sure little Billy Johnson ...

3111. Making the Most of Life

Illustration

Editor James S. Hewett

... of life and duty, and thus bless my brother; if I can wipe from any human cheek a tear, I shall not have lived my life in vain while here. If I can guide some erring one to truth, inspire within his heart a sense of duty; if I can plant within my soul of rosy youth a sense of right, a love of truth and beauty; if I can teach one man that God and heaven are near, I shall not then have lived in vain while here. If from my mind I banish doubt and fear, and keep my life ...

3112. Commercial Communication

Illustration

Neill Postman

... , he or she will see something approaching one million television commercials at the race of about a thousand a week. This makes the TV commercial the most voluminous information source in the education of your child. These commercials are about products only in the sense that the story of Jonah is about the anatomy of whales. A commercial teaches a child three interesting things. The first is that all problems are resolvable. The second is that all problems are resolvable quickly. And the third is that all ...

3113. Jesus' Guide to Wise Investing

Luke 12:13-21

Sermon

King Duncan

... he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” Many people today are what I would call functional atheists. That is, they may believe in the existence of God, but it makes no real difference in the way they live their lives. They have no sense of their own personal accountability to God. What does it mean to be “rich toward God?” Protestants have a real bind at this point. We believe that salvation is only by grace and not by works. We have a difficult time when it comes to personal ...

3114. A Strange, New Math

John 17:20-26

Sermon

Glenn E. Ludwig

... Discourse of Jesus. This last speech, if you will, that Jesus makes to his disciples concludes with these verses from the 17th chapter. It is really a prayer of Jesus to his Father in heaven and has often been called the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus. In a sense, it is Jesus' last will and testament, his parting shot, his last effort to teach, to exhort, to encourage, to empower his disciples. Now for the math part. Listen to Jesus' words: "I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who ...

3115. Joseph, When Did You Know?

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

King Duncan

... . But really, we should name it the season of Waiting. Because the whole Christmas season is about waiting on the promises of God. Waiting and trusting in God’s faithfulness, even when it’s hard. Even when it doesn’t seem to make sense. It was undoubtedly hard for Joseph to make sense of it all. So how can we call this last Sunday in Advent the Sunday of Peace? There are some ways. First of all, it’s a reminder that knowing God’s character and knowing God’s faithfulness allows us to have peace ...

3116. Missing God

Illustration

Julian Barnes

... Though he admits he never had any faith to lose (a “happy atheist” as an Oxford student, Barnes now considers himself an agnostic), he still finds himself dreading the gradual ebbing of Christianity. He misses the sense of purpose that the Christian narrative affords, the sense of wonder and belief that haunts Christian art and architecture. “I miss the God that inspired Italian painting and French stained glass, German music and English chapter houses, and those tumbledown heaps of stone on Celtic ...

3117. His Grace IS Sufficient

2 Corinthians 12:9

Illustration

J. Oswald Sanders

... was drowned. He returned to the city devastated with grief. In his distress he knelt at the desk in his study and poured out his grief before God. He pleaded with God to make His grace sufficient for him in his deep need. But no comfort came. The sense of desolation was still as acute as ever. Through his tears, he looked up at the familiar text on the wall above the mantelpiece, but now with a new interest. The text was: “My grace IS sufficient for thee” (2 Corinthians 12:9). For the first time he ...

3118. How To Be Truly Happy

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

King Duncan

... one day, and I stubbed my toe against the edge of a treasure chest, jutting out of the earth. It’s treasure, I cried. I ran off and sold all I had, including myself, and bought that field; and I have been hugging myself ever since that I had sense enough to do it.’” (2) That treasure was, of course, E. Stanley Jones’ commitment to Jesus Christ. Find a humble person with a pure heart, a purpose for living, a love for people and a commitment to God and you will find a happy man or woman. Though that ...

3119. Wing of Faith

Illustration

Richard S. McDermott

... the American Founding.” In this book, Novak suggests the American experiment is symbolized by an eagle flying with two wings. One wing is the common sense of plain reason coming out of the Enlightenment and embodied in the writings of Montesquieu, Blackstone and Locke. The other wing of the American experiment is the humble Christian faith held by virtually all of the approximately 100 men considered to be founders of our country, as well as the ...

3120. Freeing Those in Bondage

Luke 13:10-17

Sermon

George Reed

... of the Torah. The new temple wasn’t as grand as the last but at least there was a place to sacrifice. But many did not return and Jerusalem was not the center of their world anymore. Jesus was participating in the faith community in the way that made sense and was open to the people at the time. The people were poor and oppressed. To put together enough resources to feed the family and be able to plant another crop was to be successful. There were no extra funds for a family pilgrimage to the temple in ...

3121. A Poor Banquet

Luke 14:1, 7-14

Sermon

George Reed

... most of us know the frustration of feeling hurt and angry because someone has slighted us by either not giving us a gift or giving us a gift that is “less valuable” than the one we gave them. We know how it eats at us destroying our sense of happiness and destroying our relationship with that person. What does it get us besides being angry and depressed? Absolutely nothing! So Jesus teaches us to take another route. Look at gift giving and party throwing as an opportunity to reach out to those who are ...

3122. Lord of the Sabbath

Mark 2:23-3:6

Sermon

George Reed

... of God's instructions to the people. Although the word torah, which refers in general to all God's instructions and particularly to the first five books of the Bible, is often translated as "law," it is not law in the strict legal sense we use in everyday life. It is more the sense of instruction or guidance. The Torah, the law, the instructions of God, are given for our good. In the long discourse of Moses in sharing with them the law of God, he tells them that it is given "for your own well-being ...

3123. Saved By the Light

Isaiah 60:1-6

Sermon

King Duncan

... not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God . . .” Light has entered our world. In a sense we can say that the two most significant events in the history of the universe were that time millions of years ago when God said, “Let there be light . . .” and two thousand years ago when God said, “Let there be Christ.” For without Christ all of creation ...

3124. You Are My Beloved

Mark 1:10-11

Sermon

Arley K. Fadness

... a dove on Him. And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son, the Beloved: with you I am well pleased.' " Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I tell you a tale of a little village in an isolated land where the people shared a boundless sense of happiness. The people in this village showed only one unusual feature about their life together. They had a custom -- a delightful custom -- of giving fuzzies to each other. Something about fuzzies felt good and made people happy. Then one day someone became upset over ...

3125. Should We Wash One Another's Feet?

John 13:31-38, John 13:1-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... spiders leave their eggs in a sac and wander off, one species does not leave her young’s fate to chance. She stays to protect them and find food for them. Like all spiders, when this one eats, she injects her poison and digestive juices into her prey. In a sense the victim becomes her stomach as she sucks out the life and the food from the victim’s empty shell. It is not a very pleasant thought, but it is part of the circle of life. However, sometimes there is no victim to be had. In this case, when ...

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