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 3082 results

326. Come, Learn Your Worth

2 Corinthians 5:11--6:2

Sermon

Various Authors

... . How dare you think badly of yourself when God thinks so ultimately well of you? How is your opinion of yourself to be compared with his opinion of you?" The Apostle Paul makes a grand insistence. "From now on," he writes, "we regard no one from a human point of view ... if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation ..."2 I must look at each person, including myself, as one whom God loves and for whom Christ died. I must know that every person is capable of becoming a new creation. A person’s worth is ...

327. Cured Cripples and Crabby Critics

Luke 13:10-17

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... suicide when she realized that her paralysis was a permanent condition. Since she had no use of her arms or legs, she asked a friend to assist her in taking her life. The friend refused. Joni was bitter and filled with resentment. From a human point of view, who could blame her? Yet, she says that her attitude crippled her as much or more than her accident. Feelings of helplessness and depression gained control until she turned her condition over to Jesus Christ. Today, Joni is a painter, an author, and a ...

328. The Ascension of Our Lord

Acts 1:1-11, Ephesians 1:15-23, Luke 24:36-49, Luke 24:50-53

Sermon Aid

... Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.' " The bulk of the psalm is interpreted to describe how God will deal with the enemies of the Messiah during the interim between his ascension and his Second Coming (from the Christian point of view). The Psalm Prayer Almighty God, make known in every place the perfect offering of your Son, the eternal high priest of the new Jerusalem, and so consecrate all nations to be your holy people, that the kingdom of Christ, your anointed one, may come ...

329. To Live Is to Choose

Matthew 7:13-14

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... Kevin to copy the words down because I couldn’t understand them all. Listen to this commentary on the lifelessness of indecision. He’s a real no-where man, Sitting in a no-where land, Making all his nowhere plans For nobody Does not have a point of view Knows not what he wants to do Isn’t he a bit like me and you? Indecision is poisonous because our powers are scattered in pointless existence. Do you remember the record of Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost? In at first Christian sermon ever ...

330. Whoever Would Be King

2 Samuel 5:1-5

Sermon

... to turn the image of king upsidedown. Kings are to serve, not be served. This king does his Father’s will, not only in heaven but also on earth. Life is about doing the Father’s will. This king creates a new starting point, a new point of view, a new way of looking at things. This king gives new lenses. In the words of Bornkamm, "Redemption now means ‘change of rulers,’ liberation from the tyrannies of the powers of the world. But still more: it means liberation to obey him who himself was obedient ...

331. When Losing Your Baggage Is a Good Thing

Hebrews 12:1-2

Sermon

James W. Moore

... will say to me, “I don’t want to scare you, but I have a lot of questions about faith.” That doesn’t scare me at all. What scares me is the person who thinks he has all the answers. He won’t listen to anyone else’s point of view. That’s the “scary guy” because he carries with him everywhere the baggage of the closed mind. In the Peanuts cartoon, Lucy is the epitome of the closed-minded person. She will not listen to anybody and she thinks she is always right. One day she gets upset with ...

332. Some Illusions (Symbols) Are Better Than Others

Acts 14:8-20

Sermon

Carl Jech

... both are unreal. Or we can stress with theologian Paul Tillich that, while both illusions and symbols are inadequate and partial reflections of the truth, they do participate in the greater or deeper reality to which they point! From this latter point of view, illusions and symbols are not purely deceptive and unreal; they are, rather, "deceptively simple" and "partial pictures" of reality! Once we have understood this sense in which illusions and symbols can both be positive things, we can begin to discuss ...

333. Scandal!

1 Corinthians 1:18--2:5

Sermon

... way we never anticipated. Scandal, a respectable, redoubtable term for the Christian? Well, says this sermon, "It had better be!" Perhaps the pugency of the Christic enterprise could be recovered if scandal, as this sermon sees it (not to mention the Good Book’s point of view), were more genuinely at the center of things. The halls of the United States Senate were cheerless this past week. A Senator, a man convicted of taking a bribe in the Abscam case, was cajoling his fellow Senators to let him keep his ...

334. Lord of the Sabbath

Luke 6:1-11

Understanding Series

Craig A. Evans

... to save life …? Lachs (pp. 199–200) notes that the rabbis permitted healing on the Sabbath only if life is in danger (see m. Yoma 8.6). In the case of the man with the withered hand, Jesus could have—and from the Pharisaic point of view should have—waited until the next day. 6:11 they were furious: The word translated “furious” connotes “mindless rage” and probably contributes to the theme of the hardened heart that stubbornly refuses to believe. Mark 3:6 reads, “how to destroy him,” but ...

335. Dancing in the Wind

Mark 4:35-41

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... on the effects of living out of a sense of joy, tells us that joy, whether from optimism, positivity, laughter, inspiration, gratitude, or relational engagement can entirely change the way we look at ourselves and the world. Joy literally changes not only our point of view but our entire physiological, psychological, and spiritual make up. Joy has the power to shift our minds and hearts in a way that 1) opens us up to see things differently. As our vision or perspective changes and widens, so does our ...

336. Bread of the Eucharist (Bread of Life IV)

John 6:25-59

Sermon

Charles R. Leary

... ministries that will make you feel your are atheistic if you do not believe the Bible literally. Actually, when you think about it, the literal approach is a safety technique. The hardliners of a literalistic approach insulate and protect themselves from differing points of view and from new knowledge. It is no secret that many of these zealots have a major problem dealing with religious pluralism. To them there is only “one way.” Their literalism becomes a way of luring people to that “one way” and ...

337. The Parable of the Lost Son

Luke 15:11-32

Understanding Series

Craig A. Evans

... his degradation. He ends up working for a Gentile (as implied by the reference to the “distant country”) for whom he feeds the pigs. Not only does he feed swine, he even eats the very pods that the pigs were eating. From a Jewish point of view his disgrace and degradation have reached their lowest level. (Fitzmyer [p. 1088] cites b. Baba Qamma 82b: “Cursed be the man who raises pigs.”) Eventually he came to his senses. As the context suggests, the younger son has finally come to a true understanding ...

338. Do We Live in ‘Why’ or ‘Whynot’

Romans 12:3-8, 16-18

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... carefully spread all the animal-shaped crackers over the kitchen counter. "What are you doing?" his mom asked. "The box says you can't eat them if the seal is broken," the boy explained. "I'm looking for the seal." Certain aspects of life depend on our point of view don't they? That's why this particular title from the peculiar cities of Why, Arkansas and Whynot, Mississippi. We have to choose which one to live in. Let's look at our Scripture passage from Romans 12:3-8, 16-18 (NRSV) [3] For by the grace ...

339. Epilogue: The Wife of Noble Character

Proverbs 31:10-31

Understanding Series

Roland E. Murphy

... collections of sayings and it adds to the intriguing nature of this work. The Hebrew phrase, ʾēšetḥayil (cf. Ruth 3:11), “wife of noble character,” has been rendered in many ways: mulier fortis (Vulgate), etc. Her qualities are described from a male point of view. But the description of the woman is such that no human being could possibly possess all these qualities. Hence many look to another level of meaning in the poem; cf. T. P. McCreesh, “Wisdom as Wife: Proverbs 31:10–31,” RB 92 (1985 ...

340. Isaiah’s Interruption

Isaiah 40:1-31

Sermon

Richard F. Bansemer

... prophet. It’s important to put them in the right place, so stick with me for a half minute of Hebrew grammar. Believe it or not, the Hebrews didn’t use quotation marks, so all of them had to be placed into English by scholars who argued their point of view. The issue here is simply, who says the "All flesh is grass" passage? The prophet? Or God? I vote for the prophet, because there seems to be a note of melancholy common to us as mortals, and uncommon to God as immortal. Hear some of the words again ...

341. A New Heaven And A New Earth: Our Problems Are Fading Away!

Revelation 21:1-6

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... to be interpreted in light of God’s concern to redeem the whole world, the whole universe. Likewise our lives and our circumstances need to be interpreted in that light, in light of God’s concern to redeem the whole world, the universe. From that point of view, God is tearing us away from ourselves, tearing us away from the petty personal anxieties, form the latest trend, tearing us away from your personal hang-ups so we’re really free to recognize that God has in a sense already begun creating the ...

342. Master Teacher

Matthew 15:10-28

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... ability to identify him immediately as Lord, Messiah, Son, and Healer. But Jesus also knows, his disciples will not expect this, so he waits at first, and watches for their reactions. He needs them to react first, so that he can “twist” their point of view as the interaction unfolds. An astute and wise teacher, as the Canaanite woman approaches and cries out to him clearly identifying him as “Lord, Son of David” and pleading for mercy for her daughter, clearly believing that Jesus has the power to ...

343. Acting on Faith

Genesis 17:1-27

Sermon

King Duncan

... his hands on Sheen’s shoulders, and looked him straight in the eyes. Father Bergan asked: “Fulton, do you believe in God?” Young Sheen replied: “You know that I do.” Father Bergan said: “I mean practically, not from a theoretical point of view.” This time Sheen was not so sure. He said: “Well, I hope I do.” “Then tear up the scholarship,” Father Bergan declared. “Father Bergan,” Sheen protested, “this scholarship entitles me to three years of university training with all expenses ...

344. Mordecai Uncovers a Conspiracy

Esther 2:19-23

Understanding Series

Timothy S. Laniak

... turn relayed the information to the king, giving credit to Mordecai (literally, “in his name,” v. 22). The case was investigated and the conspirators were executed. The reference to naming Mordecai is important from both a historical and a literary point of view. Herodotus remarks that the Persian rulers were well-known for rewarding benefactors (Hist. 3.139–141, 153; 5.11; 9.107). For such an act of bravery and loyalty, one could expect any number of benefits—including a significant promotion and ...

345. Six Days to Make a Decision for Christ

Mark 8:27-38

Sermon

Rick McCracken-Bennett

... him out of the leadership position, put him behind himself once again, and remind him that he was not ready to assume leadership just yet. Peter's mind was not on divine things, heavenly things, kingdom things; he was instead looking at messiahship from a purely human point of view. Peter meant well. He didn't want his beloved teacher to suffer and die. But in saying this he told Jesus in no uncertain terms that he didn't understand the mission and wasn't yet ready to lead. Jesus broke up his one-on-one ...

346. Redemption: Clearing the Ground

Ephesians 2:1-10

One Volume

Gary M. Burge

... , the Jews are by nature under the wrath of God, just like the rest of humanity, namely, the Gentiles. This is no insignificant remark! First, it clearly precludes any human beings from supposing that they are exempt from judgment. From a Jewish point of view, the entire human race is either Jewish or Gentile, and both groups are by nature condemned. Second, this statement of a redeemed Jew to Gentiles embodies the humility characteristic of the newly created family of God (see Eph. 2:11–22). The ...

347. At The Potter's House

Jeremiah 18:1--19:15

Sermon

John W. Wurster

(Note: This monologue is from the point of view of an imagined contemporary of Jeremiah.) I was down at the potter’s house yesterday. Have you been recently? I haven’t see you there. In fact, I haven’t see many people there at all recently. Nobody much comes to the potter’s house these days. It’s certainly ...

348. The Unexpected Universe

Matthew 11:1-19

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... to be reinforced. The college cynic seems to be confirmed. And the village atheist smiles in self-congratulation. But there it was nevertheless. Time magazine's cover story asking whether the Bible really can be verified from an archeological point of view. Were the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, mere legendary characters with no real, historical existence? Was Moses pure myth, as my former seminary classmate and now eminent archeologist, William Dever, was quoted as saying? Was the famous Exodus of ...

349. Born One Of Us

Drama

... pews, then turn back on those lighting the front of the auditorium. Playing time: Thirty to 35 minutes, including readings, play and litany. These, plus music, prayer, and candlelighting service - one hour. Note: All stage directions are written from the actor’s point of view. Bethlehem In The Scriptures 1st Narrator: A woman named Naomi and her husband went out from Bethlehem in the land of Judea, into Moab. And there, after a while, Naomi’s husband died. Her two sons took wives of the women of Moab ...

350. House of Prayer

Matthew 6:5-15, Matthew 6:16-18

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... heard in any given situation, because people are naturally inclined to filter what they hear through what they already believe or accept as truth. Three quarters of the time, people will only hear what ascribes to their own currently held points of view.* “Selective memory.” We all have it. But certain situations or identities seem to drive it more than others. The report by these psychologists claims that issues of religion, ethics, or politics exacerbate one’s ability to hold onto preconceived views ...

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