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 3426 to 3450 of 5000 results

3426. "Hold Your Horses!"

Acts 1:12-26

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

... more than you can hurry mother nature. If you force a butterfly out of its cocoon before it is time, it will die. If you rush a chick from the shell, it will die. Joseph was in prison for two years before God freed him. Two years is a long time to be unjustly incarcerated, but his freedom worked out perfectly in the program of God, so that he could be the one who saved Egypt and his own people from starvation when the famine came. So, "Hold your horses!" Wait with patience. God is never off schedule, never ...

3427. Religion at a Minimum

Matthew 7:15-23, Matthew 7:24-29

Sermon

Dennis Kastens

... seem to be playing with religion - taking in just enough of it to become immune to the real thing. Many people attend just enough religious services to temporarily quiet their conscience; they attend just enough weddings, funerals, and special observances to keep them from longing for a genuine and thorough encounter with God who is so absent from their commitment. They have just enough religion to make them immune to the real thing. Evangelist Billy Graham puts it this way: "Every time I go to the Far East ...

3428. We Are Driven!

Jeremiah 20:7-18

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... whenever I speak, I cry out, I shout, "Violence and destruction!" For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. If I say, "I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name," there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut ... the evil and falsehood of our day. The Fire of Love There is no way we can keep love from expressing itself. Love cannot long be hidden, quieted, nor confined. It must "out." Even when we try to hide it or deny it, people can see love in our ...

3429. Bad Good News Won’t Sell!

Jeremiah 28:1-17

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... sin. We are eager to hear the good news but shudder at the bad news. Both are necessary, for God is both love and justice. As long as humanity sins, the bad news will be received. Yet, we loathe the bad news, and we tend to speak only of God’s love. In ... know, Johnny. While I was standing at the kitchen window, I saw what happened. Because I love you, I forgive you. I wondered how long you were going to let Sally make a slave of you." We, too, are needless slaves of sin. The Devil is forever whispering, " ...

3430. Christian The King

Ezekiel 34:1-31

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... claims, "I wanted to feel like a kingpin, the life of the party. You get to feeling you are bulletproof." Still another drug user reports, "The cocaine high is the way you would feel if you did something with your life. You think, for the first time in a long time, I’ve really got myself together." In other words, behind the present-day popular use of mind-boggling drugs is the desire to be a king or queen in control of their lives and world. This euphoria of being a king lasts only a short time, and the ...

3431. Claim Your Ministry

Matthew 20:20-28

Sermon

Robert Bachelder

... ministry of a barrel maker is every bit as important and valid as that of a parish minister. In no way could it be construed as inferior. In no way was the priest entitled to lord it over the worker. Who was the greatest? Both were great so long as they served their Lord. To my mind it is the saddest feature of the contemporary Church that we have lost a vital sense of lay ministry. By and large the Church takes much too limited a view of Christian service. We eagerly recruit people necessary to maintain ...

3432. Out of the Barnyard

John 11:38-44

Sermon

Robert Bachelder

... landed a force of twenty-five hundred men at New Haven and some one-hundred students volunteered to fight a delaying action. As they were marching over West Bridge, they saw the aged Dr. Daggett "riding furiously by on his old black mare with his long fowling-piece in his hand." The students cheered him, and then they were quickly dispersed by the British. But Daggett, from under the cover of the bushes, kept on firing his fowling-piece at the redcoats until he was routed out. The British commander, seeing ...

3433. Begging Bartimaeus

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

Richard F. Bansemer

... was a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, whoever he was. Bartimaeus sat by the roadside, day after day after lonely day. People passed him by like he was part of the landscape, no doubt: a tree, a bush, a boulder along the road. He had been there so long, no one paid him any particular attention. That’s life. People get used to things as they are. We accept life, with its cruelties. If we don’t, our choices for happiness seem limited. Blind Bartimaeus. Don’t picture him in your mind now unless you’re ...

3434. Father Damien

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon

Carroll Gunkel

... be punished, by being ordered to the mission station in Hawaii. The ecstatic Damien was tutored by his fellow priests on the long voyage to the Pacific so that within several months of his arrival in Hawaii he was able to be ordained. The newly ... loved him he was in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and she was in College Park, Maryland. The six dollars and eighty cents was for the long distance call. She did not want to delay for a moment the opportunity to express her love ... nor did Father Damien. Day after ...

3435. Anne Sullivan

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon

Carroll Gunkel

... may encourage such a course, but only agape could bring the suggested course into reality. Agape lives in the wife who daily treks to the hospital to sit by the bedside of her comatose husband, continuing to share the love they professed at the altar. Long after the physical passion has gone from a marriage, agape lives in the devotion husbands and wives give to each other. Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller would be pleased to know that agape still lives. Every human being is richer for the existence of that ...

3436. Telling the Right Story

2 Timothy 3:10--4:8

Sermon

George Bass

... him, he is in considerable demand to speak to all sorts of groups, clubs, and churches about his experiences in football and television. His popularity continues to grow in this newer phase of his life. Saint Mark must have been known in parts of the ancient church long before he wrote his version of the gospel. Paul’s letter to Timothy not only mentioned him but cast him in the role of one of Paul’s assistants. Just what he did and how he was "useful" to Saint Paul cannot be determined. He must have ...

3437. A Person Approved by Christ

John 1:43-51

Sermon

George Bass

... in computer design," or "I want to build one," Carl Alsing would ask, "What makes you think you can build a major computer?" And, as the interview progressed and Alsing liked the person’s possibilities, he would describe the tough competition between the engineers, the long hours that had to be worked. If the engineer was still enthusiastic about the prospective job, Alsing would comment, "We can only let in the best of this year’s graduates ... We’ll have to let you know." Then they let him or her in ...

3438. The Joy of Sorrow?

Matthew 5:4

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... support. No one of us lives totally unto himself or herself. We are social beings. Part of us is made up of other people. All we need do to realize this is to stop and think of how much our friends contribute to our happiness. Most of us have lived long enough to discover that there is nothing like the night to bring out the stars. A jeweler places a diamond on a piece of dark velvet cloth, so that the dark background will bring out the diamond’s luster. So it is in hours of darkness, rather than sunny ...

3439. He Bore Our Sins

2 Corinthians 5:11--6:2

Sermon

Dennis Kastens

... temporal but eternal life? And yet, how many are the excuses rejecting so great a salvation. How many foolishly refuse God’s provision in Christ. They do this in various ways. So many offer the excuse, "I’m sincere. As long as a person is sincere, he’ll be alright. It doesn’t matter what I believe so long as I am sincere in what I do believe." But a person can be sincerely wrong. Suppose you board a plane which you think is going to New Zealand, but it is actually headed to Chicago. In spite of your ...

3440. The New Covenant

1 Corinthians 11:17-34

Sermon

Dennis Kastens

... that was indissoluble. The next step in this ceremony was the planting of trees, trees that were known for their long life. After this planting the chieftain stepped forward and shouted, "Come, buy and sell with Stanley, for he is ... earlier practices, originating quite possibly already with Adam and Eve. And when he read Luke 22:15ff., these words of Jesus impressed him profoundly: "I long to break this bread with you and drink this cup"; and after he had blessed the bread and brake it, he said, "This is my ...

3441. Facing Up to a Power Problem

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... I go unto my Father." (John 14:12 KIV) For years this was a hard saying for me; then the meaning began to dawn on me. As long as Jesus was on earth, he was limited as we are limited. He was limited to one spot of space and to one moment of time. He ... to do the same. You can be God’s leader in the business world of your area. He will speak to you again and again, as long as you are open and obedient. It will not be a burden, it will be an increasing joy. You will be coming fully alive." Thus, the ...

3442. The Surprise of Absolute Victory

Romans 8:28-39

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... we escape now We shall not escape Turning a key in a lock, Dropping a well-placed bomb, Signing a paper: Nothing so simple. No flip of the coin Or toss of the dice: it goes deeper than that. Even though we escape now We shall not escape. Too long have we blasphemed the name, Lifted to our lips the chalice of empty form, Drinking damnation. Even though we escape now We shall not escape. (War is not the only way to death.) Nothing can save us now But an earthquake at heart And centuries of tears Wearing down ...

3443. Shepherding One Another in a Collapsing World

Romans 9:1-29

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... the relations with his people in Russia. He gave up much of his wealth in order to live a simple life. He wore the costume of a peasant. He was one of them. He loved them. Gorky said of Tolstoy, "I am not an orphan on earth as long as this man lives in it." The peasants of Tolstoy’s estate held a banner in his funeral procession: "Leo Tolstoy, the memory of your kindness will never die for us, your orphans." This kind of God-inspired caring becomes the framework of righteousness. Evil and love are deadly ...

3444. Binding Up the Fractured World

1 Corinthians 3:1-23

Sermon

Hubert Beck

... things are yours; and you are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s." To belong to Christ is to belong to God. And to belong to God is to seek the unity of all that God has created. It is to long for it with a passion. It is to see the fractures of the creation and to "stand on tiptoe" longing for the sight of the coming of the Lord when all things will be restored. It is to pray "Thy kingdom come" with great fervency. It is to live with an urgent desire to bind up the fractures of the ...

3445. The Need for Transfiguration

2 Peter 1:12-21

Sermon

Hubert Beck

... eternal, the time-bound seems so common by comparison that one just doesn’t want to return to it. Here on the mount Peter, James and John had caught only the briefest of such visions, but it was enough to tie them to the mountain for as long as possible. Jesus denies them such a privilege, though. They must immediately set their feet back to the valley again. To have seen Jesus in his transfigured moment before them is to have seen beyond what their eyes could ordinarily discern of him, to be sure - but ...

3446. Journey To The Cross II: Jesus And The Hemorrhaging Woman

Mark 5:21-43

Sermon

James W. Moore

... a partition right down the middle of the building and made it into two stores. In anger, they refused to speak for the next 20 years. One day a stranger pulled up in a car and entered one of the two stores. “Have you been in business very long here?” the stranger asked. “Yes, 30 or 40 years,” was the answer. “Good,” continued the stranger, “I very much need to tell you something… Some 20 years ago, I passed through this town. I was out of work and homeless. I jumped off a boxcar. I had no ...

3447. DEATH: THE SAD CELEBRATION

Illustration

John H. Krahn

... possibility of an eternal lease on life. We simply must claim his promises for our lives. I like to think of life as a long hallway with a door at each end. We have all gone through the first door called birth. Someday we will all pass through ... : three years, ten years, twenty-one years. For others somewhat longer: thirty-three, forty-seven, fifty-eight years. Still others, rather long: sixty-six, seventy-eight, ninety years. The length of the hallways is not as important as what happens in our lives. As ...

3448. FOLLOW THE LEADER

Illustration

John H. Krahn

... . By plastic, I mean things that lack substance compared to love, joy, peace, patience, and kindness which the Bible describes as the fruits of knowing Christ and following him. If you haven’t tasted joy for awhile and peace is something you have been longing for, consider getting your eyes back on the Leader. We do that by getting back into the Bible, by talking our life over with him in prayer, and by tasting his forgiveness at the Holy Communion table. Goodness, patience, and kindness can be ours ...

3449. The Necessity of Moral Commitment

Gen 3:1-24 · Is 28:15

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... to the meaningful arrangement of God: to live it the way if is, by the help of God. John Davidson wrote not long before his suicide, "I will create in my own image - for that cannot be surpassed." He rebelled against the established, created ... shall be annulled, your agreement with hell shall not stand."3 The grace of God brings us back to moral commitment. It was a long way from Egypt to the Promised Land, but the Mount of Commandment, of moral order, of meaningful arrangment, stands at the beginning of the ...

3450. The Excitement of Meaningful Living

John 10:10 · Matthew 6:33 · Ephesians 3:20

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... our health and our future are in good hands. If a baby is not deeply aware that it is cared for, it cannot last very long. When we are exaggerating every symptom and accepting defeat at the hands of this disease, not believing that God can handle every tissue in ... of your place of sorrow ... and tears and pain, or your mounting frustration ... a resurrection as sure as that which happened ... so long ago."5 Abundant life is a miracle. It is a gift from God. It comes through trusting him. Get that one channel ...

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