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 3301 to 3325 of 4959 results

3301. Close the Loopholes

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... to be commonly referred to as a "mean spirit." It's not a "meanness" that denotes cruelty or abusiveness. It's a meanness that takes no joy in the presence of others. A mean spirit cannot see beyond the drive to satisfy its own needs and desires. A mean spirit hoards away happiness and labels exuberance and laughter as frivolous. The mean spirit is concerned only with keeping itself going day by day, with no time or compassion for the welfare of others. A mean spirit may do no apparent wrong, but neither ...

3302. A 24-7-365 God

Hebrews 7:23-28

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... ear," i.e., hearsay about God. Now, however, Job knows God through experience, which he expresses as "now my eye sees you." But what does Job "see"? Above all, he sees that he does not "see," that the ways of God are beyond his understanding, that his desire for God to vindicate him reduces God to little more than an idol created by human imaginings. We have a 24-7-365 God, but his approachability doesn't mean he is like us, only better. Sometimes we endow God with so many human characteristics that there ...

3303. The World's Fittest Human

Mark 12:28-34

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... your heart, making every heartbeat keep pace with God's love for you? Does love of God inform your mind, making love the mainspring of all your thoughts? Does love of God penetrate your soul, making your every prayer a plea not for yourself and your own desires, but an offering formed and normed by love? Does love of God flow through the strength of your body, making your every step a step toward love in action? As admired as Tiger Woods' accomplishments are, it is hard for us non-golfers to think of ...

3304. Mazing Grace or Amazing Grace

Isaiah 42:1-9

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... . It always helped to do a few unexpected good deeds as well - make your bed, take out the trash, pick up your room and just generally be around and be good company. Only when all these signs were favorable would you dare broach the subject of the desired event or item. If something went wrong - dinner got burned or a bad day at work - forget it! You knew the answer ahead of time: Permission denied! Children may complain about having to follow house rules, but the truth is that it is reassuring to know just ...

3305. Dr. God

Matthew 9:18-26

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... connection" is impossible. Healers of all stripes testify to this common belief that the ability to extend love toward the ones seeking healing is the first step. Love it seems is what opens up that connection between a healer and one who desires healing. After feeling the touch of the hemorrhaging woman, Jesus turns and addresses her directly but with a profound gentleness. He offers her encouragement, "take heart," and opens his own heart to this woman by addressing her as "daughter." While love is ...

3306. Day-Timers or Begging Bowls

Matthew 14:22-33

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... their peddlers; girls bailing out their boyfriends; and drunks who disturbed the peace the night before slinking out on their own. As I took in the sleazy parade, I began to see everyone in it as a full-time, obsessive-compulsive, addictive, hopeless loser. By noon, I lost any desire to know any more about them than that. At mid-afternoon, I decided to go out for a cold drink. As I walked out the door, I met a lanky black man wearing a black suit with a priest's collar a prison chaplain, I figured, on his ...

3307. A Bill of Rights

Matthew 15:(10-20) 21-28

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... the corridors of political power. 'Let justice roll' into a church made lukewarm by its conformity and isolated by its lack of compassion. 'Let justice roll' and set free all the captives those under bondage to poverty's chains and those under bondage to money's desires. 'Let justice roll' and let faith come alive again in all of those whose eyes long to see a new day." Jim Wallis, "Life's Unlimited Value and Our Limited Resources," in Life as Liberty, Life as Trust, ed. J. Robert Nelson (Grand Rapids, Mich ...

3308. Do You Look Good On Wood?

Matthew 16:21-28

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... Just like the Romans, we want to see the faces of those who are in the final throes of dying. Just like the Romans, bombarded by images of brutality, numb to the heaps of bodies that pile up on our small screens, we seem to desire ever more heinous acts to quench our blood lust. Think this is okay because television violence is all "make believe"? Think again. One difference between past and present media violence is the weapons. "In 'The Blackboard Jungle,' for instance, defiant students used their fists ...

3309. God Will Be God

Matthew 20:1-16

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... . God will not be domesticated to our fads and fancies. God has purposes and ways that are far beyond us and our reckonings. In the parable told in this week's gospel text, Jesus provides a wry glimpse at the difference between God's designs and human desires. Jesus' parable opens a tiny portal of light into the Divine as he incarnates the genuine kingdom of God (or "heaven") by engaging us in his story. The landowner's generosity is bestowed on these last-hired laborers for a reason known only to him. He ...

3310. Just Showing Up Doesn't Get the Job Done

Matthew 25:1-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... William Bridges, one of the top "management theorists," on the need to give up "management" theories. "In this day of heightened accountability, it's tempting not only to do our best, but to try to manipulate the system to bring about our desired ends. But we cannot ultimately control outcomes, and when we try to, we either alienate others or drive ourselves crazy. Wisdom through the ages has always counseled a wise relinquishment: Learn to do what you are able, then let go." (Managing Transitions [Reading ...

3311. Fifty-Fourth and Lexington

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... The periodic resurgence of this story must be trying to tell us something about our culture (Might it be "Buyer beware!"?). Recently another, much more serious story has been working its way through a kind of underground rumor mill. It, too, reveals something about the desires and fears of postmodern life. When first heard, this story seemed too amazing to be true. It had all the earmarks of a "snake-in-the-Kmart"-type rumor. But the tale has persisted, and we have finally tracked it down to its source. The ...

3312. Heads Down, Thumbs Up

Philippians 2:5-11

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... diseases we still cannot control or cure and pray to God.... - Let us kneel in the face of the ravages we have committed against our earth's waters, lands and skies and pray to God.... Let us rise: Now that we are emptied of our false hopes, selfish desires and insincere words, God fills us with both the humility and the confidence we need to make a difference for God in the world. From our knees, we can rejoice and from there we can give the thumbs-up sign to the world. [End by saying something like, "Now ...

3313. Fingerprints of the Soul

Romans 5:1-5

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... claims that it is through endurance, character and hope that we synergize God's love in us. It is God's love "poured into our hearts" (Romans 5:5) that is both the starting gate and the finishing line of a virtuous life. And it is the desire to make that love available to all the world that keeps deepening the grooves of faith so that we end up with strong fingerprints of the soul. Alternative Sermon Idea "The Rhett Butler Syndrome" seems to be pervasive in American culture. And what is "the Rhett Butler ...

3314. A-wake or A-live

Galatians 2:15-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... know that "I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional" (Wendy Kraminer); we know that "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" (John Gray); we know that "You Just Don't Understand" (Deborah Tanner). We're suffering from gnosism- "excessive knowledge applied to inadequate desire." (You might discuss here, as a humorous aside, how many Methodists use your own denomination it takes to change a light bulb. There are many variations on this theme. Here are a few: It takes 24 Methodists to change a light bulb: - 1 ...

3315. What Is a Good Samaritan?

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... Graham has been preaching to the world for 40 years, if you want to make a difference, you have to be different. This was the error of the lawyer Jesus spoke with in today's gospel text. The lawyer wanted to reach his goal, his desired finish line of "eternal life" by doing something, by achieving something. The Good Samaritan parable demonstrates that we cannot do discipleship. We must be disciples. We must be the neighbor to each person we encounter. Only when we become Christ's messengers of faith, love ...

3316. Seeker-Friendly

Luke 15:1-10

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... customs before speaking with God. While it is true that the church serves as a community for the faithful, a place where Christians can feel at home, it is not the mission of the church to become some kind of closed clan. The church cannot use its desire to be "user-friendly" to the known and knowledge- able members of congregations as an excuse to be inaccessible to those still living without the entry password. The greater part of the church's mission is to be "seeker-friendly" to offer to the lost and ...

3317. The Truth of Love

Luke 16:1-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... demand that he toe the line in matters of the law. Confronted with an opportunity to ask, "What is truth is it law or is it love?" Jesus boldly proclaims the word: Truth is love. This week's epistle text echoes this affirmation as Timothy says that God "desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4). What is this knowledge of the truth? None other than love. Clement of Alexandria presented a three-fold movement of the human soul toward the truth that is God. Clement ...

3318. Drawing Lines

Luke 16:19-31

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... . Each of the various disciplines within the social sciences likes to believe that it has its finger on what makes human beings "tick." For Freudian psychologists, sex is the driving force behind all we do. Disciples of Eugene Skinner see a simple desire to experience pleasure rather than pain as that which shapes our behavior. Economists find fiscal reasons lying at the root of all human activities. There is one branch of thought among certain behavioral psychologists that suggests all our actions and all ...

3319. Learn Your ABCs

2 Timothy 3:14-4:5

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... , but the words were no sooner out of his mouth than hands raised all over the hall. The evangelist, stunned into departing from his script, asked one boy for his answer. The young child immediately said this: "Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies." Moody, recognizing that the words were from the Shorter Catechism, declared: "Thank God, my boy, that you were born in ...

3320. Enemies of Promise

Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... a momentary look into a lonely child's heart .... All I could do was breathe a prayer that somehow he had been comforted by Mary's unchanging expression of love." The promise of love, of life eternal, of the divine fulfillment of all our longings and desires, is offered anew to us this season. Just as our Nativity scenes and creches are set out each year, so the promise that the baby Jesus embodies is reaffirmed every Christmas. With that little boy, we should all take turns climbing in to that cradle and ...

3321. Living for Balance

Illustration

Richard A. Wing

I read the words of Dr. Meyer Friedman, who said that lifestyle and creative use of leisure can be more important than diet and exercise in preventing heart attacks. Obviously a balance among all three is most desirable. I have observed many people who have paid attention to the body and diet and have neglected the spirit and are dying inside. Dr. Friedman gives suggestions for people to live less frantic lives by living more by the calendar than the clock: 1. Stop thinking about several things at ...

3322. Ephesians 2:4-25

Ephesians 2:4-25

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... as though God's love for us is so overwhelming that it cannot all be contained in one act - even an act as soul-saving and sin-shattering as the resurrection. An eternity is needed, this writer insists, before we can ever fully receive God's desires for us. Verses 8 and 9 pick up the parenthetical remark made in verse 5 and develop it into an articulate, even creedal, theological statement. Like Paul, the writer of Ephesians is anxious to impress upon his readers their complete dependence on God's grace for ...

3323. Mark 4:26-34

Mark 4:26-34

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... not only see things differently, but see different things. They need not even fear death (vs. 15). Third, to be "in Christ" means to march forward daily towards Christlikeness. The glorious hope in verse ten of being transformed at His appearing does not mitigate our desire now to progress in Christ's likeness. There is no excuse for stagnancy or the status quo in the life of the believer. Finally, to be "in Christ" has cosmic implications. The translation we deem best - "So if anyone is in Christ, there is ...

3324. Mark 6:7-13

Mark 6:7-13

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... remembering God's past gifts (verse 23: "Is there another nation on earth whose God went to redeem it ...") and acknowledging God's pledges for the future (verse 25: a... do as you have promised ..."). David's demeanor throughout is characterized by his wonder at God's generosity and his desire to present himself worthy of all these blessings.

3325. Mark 6:30-44

Mark 6:30-44

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... the time (verse 2) markedly contrasts David's role as king to the lives of his soldiers. The soft life behind the lines tempts David to abuse his power as king and reject the front-lines laws of God. Like a common despot David sees Bathsheba, desires her, and so takes her, without any consideration for her commitment to her husband, Uriah's commitment to his king and country, or David's own commitment to his God. If David is thoughtless and spontaneous when he takes Bathsheba, he makes up for it by then ...

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