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 3301 to 3325 of 4947 results

3301. Fox in the Henhouse

Luke 13:31-35

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... their house is left to them” to defend on their own (35). The pain in Jesus’ spirit feels palpable. He cannot save them, as they do not believe they need to be saved. When they look at Herod their compatriot, they cannot see the fox. In a sense Luke is using cultural metaphors to help people understand the threat of Herod’s brand of cultural and moral influence. And it comes out in the way these Jewish religious officials behave toward others in the faith. Jesus, the Lamb, the Hen, the Door, and so ...

3302. Famine of the Heart

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... either of his sons expected! The Father is wise. He knows exactly what has happened. And instead of decrying the past, he embraces his son’s future. He recognizes his repentance, delights in his return, and celebrates his restoration, his “resurrection.” In a sense, his heart, which had suffered in his spiritual famine, had been revived again! So the father responds: “Let us eat and celebrate, for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found! And they began to celebrate ...

3303. The Accent Of Heaven

John 13:31-35

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... for the worst. Amazingly Chad’s face was glowing. He marched through the door triumphant. “I didn’t forget anybody!” he said. “I gave them all one of my hearts!” That day Chad gained something more than just friends. He gained a sense of himself. He won a sense of dignity and worth. “I gave them all one of my hearts!” he said. That is the accent of heaven in our earthly speech. That is the first sign of re-creation civilization. Edwin Markham, Oregon’s onetime poet laureate pictured it ...

3304. Keep On Moving

Luke 9:51-62

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... them that he has very little time, and he needs to keep on moving. He cannot stop this time to wait for those who have other “first priorities” other than his mission. If they want to join the “force,” they have to stay the course! And keep on moving. We sense the urgency in Jesus at this point in Luke’s gospel. His mind is set, and he knows what he has to do. He knows what will happen when he arrives in Jerusalem. He knows his time has come, and he knows his death is near. He also knows that ...

3305. The Power of Story

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... heart. Our minds follow our emotions. When our emotions are activated, when empathy for others kicks in, we begin to make sense of the world from a new perspective. We begin to “understand.” We also know that stories can mimic interpersonal relationships ... , and allows for new perspectives that hadn’t been seen before. For when we “feel with” others, when we begin to sense our shared humanity, we no longer exist alone, but in a new kind of community. When our perspective changes, our definition ...

3306. Do You Have JDD?

Luke 10:38-42

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... of busyness and urgency for detail and function in her sister Mary as well. When our faith becomes dead and rote, empty, ritualistic, habitual, and tradition-based instead of vibrant, vital, alive, and passionate, it no longer serves the kingdom but only our own sense of busyness. Jesus is not worried that his dinner will be less than perfect, cold, or delayed. He is more interested in who is at his table, and the worshipful manner in which they take joy in his presence. Had Martha been delighting in her ...

3307. Good News / Bad News

Luke 12:49-56

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... writers still talk about the joy they used to take in interviewing the great New York Yankees catcher, Yogi Berra. Yogi was something of a rough-hewn philosopher given to malaprops and seemingly contradictory statements that managed to, somehow, still make a weird kind of sense. It was Yogi who said: “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” And, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.” When giving his opinion of a New York restaurant, he’s reported to have said, “Nobody goes there anymore; it’s ...

3308. God Is Like...a Parent

Hosea 11:1-4 · Luke 15:1-32

Sermon

Kenneth L. Gibble

... of God. To the extent that you are angry at your parents or still rebelling against them or controlled by your experience with them, to that extent thinking of God as heavenly parent is not especially helpful. Your spiritual health may require other images. There is a sense in which God as parent can hold us back. Yes, it may be comforting to think of God as the kind of heavenly father Jesus described. Each of us has a deep longing to return to the security of childhood when we were cradled, fed at our ...

3309. God Is Like...Fire

Malachi 3:1-4 · Luke 3:1-6, 9,16-17

Sermon

Kenneth L. Gibble

3310. A Place at the Table

Luke 14:1, 7-14

Sermon

Jill J. Duffield

... and cheese and that congealed salad that only appears in the fellowship hall. I want to follow my princess tour guide down the halls and around the corners and through the staircase and into the choir loft in all the church buildings that often make no architectural sense because they were built too many decades apart often with not quite enough money to do what was actually planned. I want to sit at a table with you and be as comfortable in that space as every young PK I know is in the church where their ...

3311. Where's the One?

Luke 15:1-10

Sermon

Jill J. Duffield

... school dorm, when a young, tender-hearted seminary student came out waving a slice of last night’s pizza just close enough to get the untrusting pup’s attention. Even so, I could not get that darn dog out of my head. He made me sad in that global sense of nothing is right with the world, sad. The dog, the lost or abandoned dog! Not the war in Syria, not homelessness, not the fact that we have no cure for Alzheimer’s or cancer, not people who’ve lost their communities due to fire, famine of floods ...

3312. It Goes Without Saying

Luke 17:5-10

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... their faith and trust in him, and their commitment to the Way. He instructs them to start walking the talk in real time, to leave the discipleship “classroom” and start functioning on their own with all of the responsibilities that their role implies. In a sense, he is pushing them out of the nest to see if they will fly! Jesus’ challenge remains ours also today. Too often, we become complacent, allowing ourselves to receive from God, to take our faith for granted, and to imagine a one-hour on Sunday ...

3313. Prayer Power

Luke 18:1-8

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... and outside of our world –and inside and outside of ourselves. But this requires us to do something radical –to give up our sense of control in order to call upon and rely upon God’s power! Jesus’ power! The power of the Holy Spirit! And this for ... renew our faith –a faith that allows us to believe in things beyond what we can see and what we can know with our 5 senses. A faith that allows us to open our minds to a God who not only exists but has the power to intervene and to alter our lives ...

3314. Defining Justice with Jesus

Matthew 20:1-16

Sermon

Will Willimon

... to some social order, some vision of the world, of what ought to be, where we're all headed, of who’s in charge. Christians get our accounts of justice from Jesus. Just after telling us that the "first will be last and the last will be first" (an odd sense of justice, that one!) in this morning's gospel Jesus says, a far1c1er has a job to do. His vineyards are ready for harvest. So he goes downtown and hires some people, agreeing to pay them the usual daily wage. He takes them to the farm. They go to work ...

3315. To Be Alive

Luke 20:27-38

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... of death, or the mystery of what happens next. In fact, none of these human, philosophical attempts at defining or sustaining life help us as Christians to know what will happen at the point of physical death as we know it. Because “to be alive” in the sense of an afterlife beyond what we currently experience is not a matter of knowledge but a matter of faith. Faith for all who believe in God, trust in Jesus, and rely on the witness of scripture, provides us with, not a knowledge but, an assurance that ...

3316. Investing Our Inheritance

Deuteronomy 26:1-15

Sermon

Douglas J. Deuel

... chest, which displayed two bright red circles that looked conspicuously like the hoof prints of a horse. To a great extent, we choose what we believe, don't we? We also choose the outlook and the perspective that governs our lives. For Christians that outlook should reflect a sense of gratitude for what God has done in our lives. We can choose to ignore the evidence of God's goodness if we want. Yet, if we look through the eyes of faith, we will see God's faithfulness and we will be compelled to respond in ...

3317. Living A Triumphant Life

Joshua 5:1-12

Sermon

Douglas J. Deuel

... circumcision and the observance of Passover. Their priority was to get right with God before attempting to do battle. They recognized they needed spiritual resources in order to fulfill God's purpose for them. Can we learn from that picture? God's people sensing that danger is imminent still make time to strengthen their relationship with God. At great risk to themselves, they express in solidarity their need for God and their confidence that God will provide. The secular world watches us and stands all too ...

3318. Witnesses For The Lord

Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

Douglas J. Deuel

... that our children are vulnerable to a bomb as they play in a day care center is disturbing.2 The senseless and random deaths of so many innocent people violates what we cherish most -- security, the sanctity of life, and an order about life that makes sense. It reminds us of just how low humans are able to stoop in their cruelty towards others. It confronts us with the harsh realities of sin and human depravation. It compels us to see our need for God. The Resurrection The crucifixion was only the first ...

3319. A Faith That Overcomes

Acts 9:32-43

Sermon

Douglas J. Deuel

... of life in this world. After kneeling and praying, Peter turned to the body and said, "Tabitha, rise" (Acts 9:40). Tabitha responded by opening her eyes and sitting up. Then she took Peter's hand and stood up. Presumably, during Peter's prayer time he sensed that God would use him to raise up Tabitha. If this encounter would have occurred today, perhaps Peter would have needed to test the waters before acting. He may have wanted to call a meeting of the church's healing committee to see if he could ...

3320. God's Vision For The Church

Acts 11:1-18

Sermon

Douglas J. Deuel

... problems that had been going on for several years. After the minister had met with her several times, he suspected that she was not as eager to genuinely work through her problems as she was wanting someone to listen to her. Even more than that, he sensed that she had problems beyond that with which he could help her. So he advised her to seek professional counseling. He even suggested a couple of counselors she might consider. The woman went away angry that day. The minister told her things she did not ...

3321. Then There Was One

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon

J. Will Ormond

... and discolored. They appear as sturdy as they were when he was a youth. He gives a great shout. "My leprosy is gone! I am clean! I am clean!" Then all the others with great excitement and anticipation examine themselves and find that all are cured. An almost overwhelming sense of wholeness sweeps over the group. They cry out in joy and wonder. "The man said for us to go show ourselves to the priests. Hurry, let us run like the wind so we can be declared healed and return to our former lives. Come on. Let's ...

3322. Good News Among The Rubble

Luke 21:5-38

Sermon

J. Will Ormond

... from trees left standing but stripped bare of their smaller branches. "It is nothing but a pile of rubble," mumbled the father. The family huddled together, hugged each other and cried. "Where are we going to live? Where is all our stuff? This makes no sense," shrieked ten-year-old Andy. Nobody offered an answer. Slowly they moved toward the wreckage of their home. Despair and disbelief crept across their faces. For a while they simply stood there. They had no words. Then Amy cried out, "Where is Kitty Cat ...

3323. Food For The Body And Food For The Soul

John 6:25-59

Sermon

J. Will Ormond

... a fortune only to find that something still is missing. Perhaps we make a name for ourselves by great achievements only to come to the place where the praise of others sounds hollow. We travel the world to discover new wonders but finally lose our sense of wonder and one place begins to look as drab as another. In the last analysis, whether we recognize it or not, our ultimate hunger is for acceptance by and fellowship with God. Jesus Christ offers us this acceptance and fellowship in himself. He invites ...

3324. The King On A Cross

Luke 23:26-43

Sermon

J. Will Ormond

... such as these. Forgiveness is something for which he longs but does not expect to receive. But here is a man hanging beside him on another cross praying for forgiveness for those who execute him. What a strange strength is this! What a radical sense of mercy and justice! If he can ask forgiveness for those who kill him, perhaps he can ask forgiveness for me. Perhaps he can even grant it himself. Now the compassionate criminal witnesses another development in the compelling drama. The powerful leaders of the ...

3325. A Great Prophet Has Arisen Among Us

1 Kings 17:8-24; 2 Kings 4:1-37

Illustration

Richard A. Jensen

... hear that Elijah came to Shunem one day and had a bite to eat at the home of a wealthy woman. Since there were no fast food restaurants in Elisha's day, he stopped quite often at the house of the Shunammite woman to get something to eat. The woman sensed that Elisha was a holy one of God. So she persuaded her husband to fix up a permanent guest room for Elisha. She invited Elisha to stop and stay with them whenever he passed through Shunem. And he did. Free room and board is a pretty good deal, after all ...

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