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 326 to 350 of 635 results

326. Finishing Strong

Philippians 3:12-14

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... psychology. He has counseled many professional golfers. Commandment number 7 in his 10 Commandments for Golfers is this—“See where you want the ball to go before every shot.” He says, “The more your mind is consumed with the target, the more your instincts and subconscious will help you.” (2) Dr. Rotella is just affirming the advice given by perhaps the greatest golf coach in history, Harvey Penick. His favorite saying was “Take dead aim.” (3) I want to invite us as a church to take dead ...

327. An Excellent Epitaph

2 Timothy 4:6-8

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... in the Middle East will tilt toward Islamic radicalism. If a safe haven is created in the Middle East for the production of weapons of mass destruction and the training of terrorists, then Israel and America will be in great peril. Though we Christians almost instinctively hate war, this is a war we cannot avoid. The enemy claims publicly that Americans are too soft and lacking in character to hold out very long. The calling of this generation is to prove them wrong. Our men and women in uniform are setting ...

328. Hope In A Hostile World

Matthew 1:1-17

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... back in Rome, members of what was then a new religious group called Christians began to take in those outcast newborns and to care for them. Before long, the Romans began depositing their unwanted babies on the doorsteps of the Christians. Instinctively, even those pagan Roman parents knew that those unwanted children had a right to live. We live in a cultured, highly developed, supposedly religious country. Yet we allow almost one million of our most vulnerable children to be destroyed each year through ...

329. Hearing the Voice of God

Matthew 16:13-20

Illustration

John R. Brokhoff

... , Lord, for I am a sinful man." Haven't we in the church lost something of this unworthiness in the presence of the holy Christ? It is not uncommon to hear no confession of sins in a worship service. If you come to the pure Jesus, why do you not instinctively say, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner"?

330. No-fault Religion

2 Corinthians 5:6-10 (11-13), 14-17

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... but God does not choose to ignore us. And God's judgment of us is a manifestation of his incapacity to be morally indifferent and to let evil alone, says Dr. Strachan. "Divine love is also divine goodness. No love can be called good which lacks the capacity for instinctive repulsion in the presence of the mean and the base," says Strachan.1 If it does not really matter to God what we do and who we are, we are hardly more than insects and worms. The cynics and skeptics would be right. If God doesn't care, if ...

331. The Paradoxical Power of Weakness

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... all their power, really are quite weak. Of course, some of you are likely to object, saying the baby posed no threat to the father. Therefore, he could let down his guard. His little child appealed to his love of life, rather than to his competitive instincts; stimulated his true humanity, penetrated to his heart of love; and called forth his sense of wonder and mystery and his joy over the miracle of life. And you are right. By his/her weakness, his little baby conquered more than that baby ever will know ...

332. God’s Wisdom or the World?

James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... contrasts two forms of wisdom is an excellent example of the dilemma we have in exercising one of the greatest gifts given us by God, namely the opportunity to choose. Animals have no choice; even the most intelligent of God's creation operates on instinct. They are programmed to do whatever they do. However, humans are given free will. God does not demand compliance; we are never placed into handcuffs or a straightjacket so as to force our actions. Free will, that quality along with the ability to think ...

333. Where Is Love?

Hebrews 9:1-28

Sermon

Lee Ann Dunlap

... yearning for love and acceptance, yearning to belong to one someone, and to community — thirsting for God "as the deer pants for the water" (to use the psalmist's words). We have, in fact, been created with the capacity for just such a thirst. As an infant instinctively knows to suckle its mother for life-giving milk, so, also, do human beings yearn to be near to the heart of another, and ultimately to be "near to the heart of God" (to quote another songwriter). Yet, as we look around us, and look within ...

334. Jesus the Iconoclast

Matthew 22:15-22

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... else. They have to decide see things differently, and to be willing to "reframe" the issues of the day. Second, an iconoclast must successfully squash their natural fear response. In other words, an iconoclast must replace the "flight or flight" instinct with a "let’s see what happens when I do this" commitment. Third, a successful iconoclast (and remember - only the successful are remembered) must have a honed sense of social intelligence. In other words, despite their "differences," an iconoclast must ...

335. Blazing a Path to Christ

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... Columbus was a trailblazer who dared to believe that it was possible to reach the East Indies by sailing west across a vast uncharted ocean. By its very nature the voyage was dangerous and the sailors who braved the challenge were filled with fear. People are instinctively afraid of what they do not know. Yet, even with the odds stacked against him, Columbus sailed with his flotilla of three ships. His eventual discovery of the New World blazed a path that many have followed. He was the first in a long and ...

336. Beware: Hypocrites on Premises

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Sermon

David T. Ball

... outbursts that can happen at church board meetings. Or maybe they simply think there isn't enough of a match between how people behave in church and how they behave during the rest of the week in their daily lives. When I began to hear these comments, my first instinct was to come to the defense of the church. "Hey, it's not really like that, at least not where I worship!" But as time passed, and I heard the complaint again and again, my attitude began to change. I began to think that even if the complaint ...

337. Where Are You From?

John 18:1-19:42

Sermon

David T. Ball

... of what was important to the Jews. Pilate remembered these confrontations, and with the crowds that had come to Jerusalem for the Passover being this insistent on crucifixion, he probably knew that this was one more confrontation that he couldn't win. His first instinct had been to stay out of it, as his successors would do. When presented with religious cases, they refused outright to get involved. They kept their Roman distance. But this time they had Pilate boxed in. It was only Pilate in the region who ...

338. Somebody Should Have Helped

Matthew 25:14-30

Illustration

Bill Bouknight

... mother happened to a Memphis woman a few years ago. A woman named Anita was stopped for a traffic light at the corner of Highland and Southern. Suddenly a stranger opened the passenger door of her car, grabbed her 2-month- old baby, and ran. Anita's instincts took over. She slammed that car into park, jumped out, and ran after the man. A terrified mother can move with lightning speed. When she got near the man he threw her baby into a ditch and kept on running. Miraculously, the child was not hurt. Thinking ...

339. Multiple Intelligences

Matthew 25:14-30

Illustration

King Duncan

... accountants and scientists. Some people are gifted spatially. These are our artists and architects. Some are gifted kinesthetically. Their bodies are unusually graceful and coordinated. These are our athletes and dancers. Others are gifted interpersonally. They know instinctively how to get along well with the people around them. These are our sales persons, counselors, teachers. Some are gifted in their ability to look within. These are our philosophers--our wise people. Some are gifted musically. Here ...

340. The Job Description of a Leader

2 Samuel 23:1-7

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... surge of prayer every time he licked the envelope of a letter he had written, shook hands with a stranger, waved goodbye to a friend, sat down to a meal with his officers, or signed an order to his men. He developed this facility to such a degree that his instinctive response to virtually everything that happened was to breathe a little "thank you" to God. By being continually "instant in prayer," his life became one long prayer of praise and intercession.

341. Are You a Crazy Dog?

Mark 10:35-45

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... the meek shall inherit the earth, the hungry and thirsty shall be satisfied, and the poor in spirit shall possess the Kingdom of Heaven. This Kingdom is the hope and pain of Christianity; it is attained against the grain, through the denial of instinctive and social wisdom and through faith in the unseen." (pp. 8-9 in Alfred Corn, cd., Incarnation: Contemporary Writers on the New Testament [New York: Viking, 1990]). Unfortunately, the church forgets too often that its heart lies in trusting God's craziness ...

342. Church Slugs

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... tomatoes; there is fresh corn-on-the-cob; flowers of all sizes, shapes and colors decorate the landscape. But amidst all this abundance and loveliness there is a dirty little war going on; it's called "gardener versus the slug." With an unerring instinct these disgusting, slimy, slobbering creatures pick the evening before your fancy patio dinner party to launch an all-out assault on your precious petunias and impatiens. The next morning it looks as though a herd of tiny, slim-footed cattle had grazed its ...

343. When a Church Should Go to Hell

Luke 6:17-26

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... on earth, where should the church go in order to find the neediest souls, those farthest from God and closest to despair? To hell. As the hands and feet, eyes and mouth of the Christbody community, where should members of every congregation find themselves instinctively being drawn? To hell. Pumping your pew-mates' hands while earnestly urging them to "go to hell" is a way to reclaim and revitalize the mission and message of the Church. It doesn't take much imagination to uncover the hellish holes that we ...

344. Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda

Luke 4:1-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... thinkers have taken to the extreme the words of a church bulletin board sign: "Make peace with one's neighbors; make quarrels with one's faults." When we are confronted by people or situations or relationships that stir up our psyche, we instinctly revert back to a response pattern programmed into us since birth. There are basically three different avenues of response open to each of us. Either we react emotionally, cognitively or behaviorally - we cry, talk or punch. Those given to over-simplification and ...

345. The Monster Under Megan's Bed

John 6:1-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... even the youngest children seem to pick up and master the most advanced technological gadgetry suggests that these Megan mks (millennial kids) may be developing in the human species a kind of automatic electronic intuition. Unlike adults, the Megans of the world seem to know instinctively how to work the microchip. Children "save the day" for us adults as we try to lumber alongside them into the millennium-III, 21-C future. In today's story of feeding the 5,000, there is one person whose vision and faith go ...

346. The Four R's

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... 't have done, how can I avoid the consequences I knew, but denied, and just hoped would not happen?' Schlessinger confesses that her pet peeve is 'when callers protest that they are 'only human.' ONLY human? As if one's humanness were a blueprint for instinctive, reflexive reactions to situations, like in the rest of the animal kingdom. I see being 'human' as the unique opportunity to use our minds and wills to act in ways that elevate us above the animal kingdom.' Schlessinger then closes her point with an ...

347. Jesus' Bad Manners

Luke 19:1-10

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... go out into the world and seek others. There should always be strangers in our midst. When visitors come to our home, we know how to treat them hospitably. We welcome them and show them a seat. We don't expect them to know where the living room is by instinct. We bring them something to eat or drink. We don't expect them to know where the glasses are in the cupboard or where we keep the crackers. We direct them to the bathroom, and we walk them into the dining room. It's all just common courtesy. But our ...

348. Digging Mankind Out of his Snug Burrows

Luke 2:22-40

Illustration

Staff

... no reward except love. Is it any wonder that men were dazzled and blinded and cried out against him? Even his disciples cried out when he would not spare them the light. For to take him seriously was to enter a strange and alarming life, to abandon habits, to control instincts and impulses, to seek an incredible happiness."

349. Hebrews 13:1-8

Hebrews 13:1-8

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... self, sibling and stranger, the writer now presents one last test of true phil¡a. Christian love must extend beyond the realm of what is safe and reach over the walls and through the bars to those languishing in prison. Good intentions notwithstanding, the instinct for self-preservation told these struggling Christian enclaves to stay away from those in prison. Associating with those in jail would only bring down the keen eye and long arm of Roman law on the rest of them. Better to stay their distance and ...

350. Luke 6:27-38

Luke 6:27-38

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... not from human beings. By tying the "rule" into the string of insults and injustices the obedient may be forced to suffer, Luke's text suggests that our behavior should be governed according to God's principles _ not the retaliatory, revengeful, retributory instincts of human beings. Working against normal human responses is taken to even greater heights as Luke continues his text in verses 31-36. Here, loving the enemy is taken far beyond the mere reciprocal ethic that governs most people's lives. Just as ...

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