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 3151 to 3175 of 5000 results

3151. Seeking What Matters

Matthew 13:44-46

Sermon

... certain freedoms that we may have for certain others. Whatever scenic road we take, we take it at the price of denying ourselves the scenery along the other roads we might have taken. We like to believe that what we are getting is worth the sacrifice we are making. We want to think we are giving up a thing of less value to get something of greater worth, that what we get is worth the price we pay. You may know this, or you may not, but you, my friend, are very, very rich. You have a fortune, and you are ...

3152. The Quality of Mercy

Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon

... Merchant of Venice Shakespeare has these lines: The quality of mercy is not strain'd; It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice-blessed; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes ... And so it does. And if you and I want the blessing of God's forgiveness of our sins, then it behooves us to cultivate the quality of mercy in every dimension of our living day by day and year by year through all of life. As Jesus taught and as Saint Francis said, "It is in giving that ...

3153. Do I Give Up Praying Too Soon?

Luke 18:1-8

Sermon

... . We thought we’d been hanging on like pet bulldogs and not letting go. But we had so many reasons to give up. "That job I want: surely others are praying for it too. How can God give it to all of us?" "The money I need: think of all the people in ... this; yet thy will be done." Did he get out of it? No. Was God’s will done? Yes. Did God’s Kingdom come? Would we have wanted it any other way? Do I give up praying too soon? This isn’t the only issue involved in our prayer life. Lack of persistence isn’ ...

3154. Some Man

Luke 10:38-42

Sermon

... , it seems, between her duties as co-hostess when Jesus visited the home where she and Martha and their brother Lazarus lived. She wanted to hear what the Christ had to say, so she "sat at the Lord’s feet" and drank in every word. And that was ... for the 100-meter dash were on Sunday afternoon. His sister - they were children of missionaries to China, and they planned to return there - didn’t want him to run at all. But he said to her, "I believe God made me for a purpose; he also made me fast." And so ...

3155. The Man, the Message, and the Mission

Luke 12:49-53

Sermon

George Bass

... to become a great, renowned artist and avoid that laziness in your fingers, you must never touch a drop of wine or alcohol.’ I obeyed him faithfully all my life." Jesus, you see, never calls us to ministry and mission under false pretenses. When the disciples wanted places of honor next to him, he asked, "Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?" and "Are you able to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?" Mark reports that he said, "You will be baptized ..." - die for the faith - and ...

3156. Dead or Alive?

Joel 2:28-32

Sermon

... the people that God had set before them blessing and cursing, life and death, and he pleaded with them to choose life. John reported that God’s concern in sending Jesus into the world was that all who would respond in faith might have everlasting life. Jesus wanted to help everyone have life - and have it in joyful abundance. In his great parable of the prodigal son, he ascribed the father’s joy to the fact that a son who had been dead was now alive again. On one occasion, too, when Jesus was urging ...

3157. Formula for Life

Amos 5:1-17

Sermon

... little girls who were about to be late to a school presided over by a stern teacher comes to mind. One, in tears, said to the other, "Let’s stop and pray that God won’t let us be late." The other replied, "You can stop and pray if you want to, but I’m going to pray while I’m running." How could the poet have been wrong when he said that prayer is "the soul’s sincere desire, unuttered or expressed, the motion of a hidden fire that lingers in the breast"? A prominent American philosopher, not noted ...

3158. Keeping on Top

Romans 12:21

Children's Sermon

... water and then it will sink. (Try that and show them that you can’t sink it). Well, how about that! Maybe, that’s why I want to call you corks. No matter how hard I try, I can’t keep the cork down. Right now, there are a lot of things around ... you that would like to make you bad. There are bad books, bad people, bad T.V. shows and a lot of other things that want to make you like them. They keep pushing you down, like I pushed the cork down, waiting and hoping that you will be bad like them. But ...

3159. How Was Jesus' Death Different?

John 19:28-37, John 19:17-27

Sermon

... and adoration. To think that he loved us enough to suffer all of that for sinners such as we! We look at the figure on the cross: a cross-crowned brow, a sweaty face, bleeding hands and feet. There is no beauty in him. He is despised and rejected. We want to turn our faces from him. The look is too horrible to take. Yet, there is something about him in his suffering that draws us. We cannot help but adore him even as he is. We say: O sacred head now wounded, With grief and shame weighed down. Yet, though ...

3160. No Special Deals with God

Romans 11:33-36

Children's Sermon

... God has given me. [Let them name a few.] He has done a lot, but what can I give him? He has everything. If I wanted something really good from God, I would have to give him something that would really be special and very expensive. Can you think of something ... he just lets us use them? That's right. God owns everything, and there is nothing that we can give him that will make him want to pay us back. He doesn't give special favors. God loves us all and gives us everything that we need. The things of this ...

3161. Playing God's Game

I Peter 3:8-15a

Children's Sermon

... that is what games are for, aren't they? I mean, they let us have a lot of fun. [Now you hear them.] What do you mean, we didn't play the games? We talked about them, didn't we? In other words you are telling me that if we want to play the game we have to do more than just talk about it. I wonder if that is what God means when he tells us about peace. I hear people talking about peace all the time, but very few of the people who talk ever do anything about it ...

3162. The Golden Gift

Drama

... I don't think she likes me. BISHOP: Oh. It's not that she doesn't like you. She doesn't know you. JEAN: She doesn't want to know me. BISHOP: But I do. More wine? JEAN: Good wine! BISHOP: I like it. JEAN: I was born in Faverolles. I suppose I told you ... have to buy good clothes so that people will accept me at inns and not ask for my passport. BISHOP: What we have here is yours. We want to help you all we can. JEAN: You are kind, Father, but - BISHOP: I have a rule that I retire early. I believe it was the ...

3163. Prayer

Matthew 13:24-30

Bulletin Aid

... to remember it! I'm not perfect. I forget things. I procrastinate (Never do today What you can put off till tomorrow - Or longer!) I make mistakes, And I want - I expect - People to forgive me To make allowances Not to judge me too harshly. Yet I don't give others the same privileges! "I want what I want when I want it!" Instead of faulty memory, I see deliberate slights. Instead of mistakes, I see malice. Instead of charity, I respond in anger In judgment! Lord, forgive me my double standards - Expecting ...

3164. Angry Hands

Psalm 26:1-12

Sermon

... against the flow of the crowd in a busy mall or athletic arena. If the people are trying to leave, and for some reason you are endeavoring to enter, it is practically impossible. Our walk in this world against the flow could try your patience. The world wants you and me to be angry. When we look around us, we discover that there are a lot of things to provoke anger in us. There is destruction, there is injustice, there is poverty and war. There are many things that are obviously contrary to the way that ...

3165. Prayer: Our Crosses into Victories

Mark 8:31--9:1

Bulletin Aid

... it may mean living with a drunken spouse; for others it may mean living with a broken marriage; for others it may mean living with some kind of handicap; for still others it may mean personal problems, or money problems, or vocational problems. The truth is that none of us wants a cross, but all of us have a cross. And all Our Lord is saying to us here is this: that you and I don't have to go out looking for crosses, or manufacturing crosses, but all we have to do is bear the crosses we already have, and ...

3166. The Fourth Sunday in Lent

Matthew 20:17-19

Sermon

Kendall McCabe

... had those stupid boys answered? "We are able." Is this what she had asked for? If only she had known! And then the joyous recognition that the two men dying on the right and left were not her sons. Someone else had been found to serve. She had begun by wanting power for her sons - for herself. Now she was simply satisfied they had gained their lives. What she could not quite yet know was those who lose their lives will find them, for there is power in service; there is power in the cross.

3167. Authority Through Servanthood

Matthew 20:20-28, Matthew 20:17-19

Sermon

Dean Lueking

... who appear as threats, and the need to incessantly flex one’s own trappings of authority. Without even knowing it, no doubt, Mrs. Zebedee was setting her sons up for disaster. As we look at her, however, let’s recognize the "Jewish mother" in all of us. Wanting to occupy the place of authority is a mightily seductive force. I learned something about that at the tender age of nine. As a fourth grader I had a marvelous teacher whose name was Tillie Laughlin. Her name alone is a hint of her awesome gifts ...

3168. Seeing as the Lord Sees

1 Samuel 16:1-13

Sermon

... passed by, Samuel said to Jesse, "Are all your sons here?" Jesse admitted that there was another. He was the youngest. He was at home watching the sheep. Have you ever noticed how sometimes the youngest has to stay home and do what the older ones do not want to do when they go to some special event? Have you ever noticed also how we have a tendency to discount and to devalue the potential of youth? Notice that even Jesse, the father of David, had discounted him because he was the youngest. He was probably ...

3169. Is Repentance Necessary?

Acts 2:14-41

Sermon

... stop trying to perfect ourselves and accept the unconditional love and acceptance of God. Is repentance then really necessary? It is if you want to be free. It turns us away from our efforts at being our own savior toward the only One who ultimately can save ... that frees you to express it. A man came to my office, sat down and asked to talk with me. He said, "I want to be free of something and I want to have peace. For thirty years I have pushed something down that I did for which I am sorry, and I have never ...

3170. The Will of God

John 21:15-25

Children's Sermon

... great. I sure do like Christmas because I have noticed that people are different at Christmas time than at any other time of the year. Even things that would often make them sad at any other time do not seem to do so at this time of the year. People want to be happy. They will themselves to be happy, so they are happy. How many of you know what it means to will something to be done? Suppose, for instance, that I told you that I got up this morning, took my toothbrush and made my teeth clean. You could ...

3171. Seeing Things Clearly

John 20:19-23

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

... him the way they should. Well, we feel bad for those people, but we say there is something they can do about it if they want to. Let me show you a little experiment that might help you understand how God works with us. I have to use my special glasses ... 't see before, he can now see well. Just by breathing on the glasses and wiping them off, a person can see clearly whatever he wants to see. Now Jesus breathed on the disciples and when he did he breathed into them the Holy Spirit and they could not only see, ...

3172. All Saints Day

Matthew 5:1-12

Children's Sermon

... love God and other people are going to be the happiest people in this world and in God's eternal world. So the next time you go into a restaurant and ask for a menu and begin to look at the pictures and think about how hungry you are, I want you to remember that you should be just that interested in doing good things for other people and for God. When you feel like that, then you will be like all the others who have believed in Jesus and you will be remembered on All Saints Day also.

3173. Proper 8

Lk 9:51-62 · Gal 5:1, 13-25 · 1 Ki 19:15-21

Sermon Aid

... to be totally committed to Christ in the midst of daily claims for his allegiance. Outline: Like Jesus, a Christian - a. Knows where he is going - v. 51 b. Knows what he must do - vv. 51, 52 -- Jesus sends his disciples ahead to prepare the people for his coming. He wants to teach, preach, and heal, to bring the Kingdom to these people. c. Knows why he is going - v. 51. "When the days drew near for him to be received up." The time is short; his days are numbered. He must work while it is day, for soon the ...

3174. Proper 18

Lk 14:25-33 · Eze 33:1-11 · Phm 1-20 · Prov 9:8-12

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

... take a job, but are you willing to get up early each workday, deny yourself leisure, and put out the effort of doing a good job? These we can understand, but have we ever considered the cost of being a Christian? Outline: A prospective Christian should ask A. Do I want to be a Christian? B. Do I know the cost? C. Am I willing and able to pay the price? 3. People Jesus Excludes. 14:26, 27, 33 "He cannot be my disciple." Need: Some consider Christianity to be a "free for all." The road to the Kingdom of God ...

3175. Pentecost 27

Lk 19:11-27 · 1 Cor 15:54-58 · Isa 52:1-6

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

... In this passage God comes to the captives and awakens them. In our times, we, too, may have fallen asleep in our miserable situation - captives to sin, to the secular culture, and to the wicked ways of the world. This is no way for God's people to live. God wants to awaken the church to a new life of freedom. Outline: Awake! A. To your present condition of captivity - v. 2 B. To your future possibility - v. 1 C. To your God's power to free - v. 6 2. God is ready! Need: When God called, Isaiah replied, "Here ...

Showing results