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 326 to 350 of 679 results

326. Life From God's Perspective

John 12:12-19

Sermon

King Duncan

... in a churchgoing home. My parents had met at church, and much of the family social life had centered around church activities." Deep inside something was missing. Dr. Koop reflects, "I didn't have a clue about who I was spiritually. I must have felt a spiritual yearning because in 1948, during our summer visit to my parent's cabin I sat on rocks amid the splashing surf and read the New Testament twice." A trusted friend, a nurse at Philadelphia's Children's Hospital, invited Dr. Koop and his wife to attend ...

327. Pax Augusta, Pax Christi

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... lived in these times, these days of Caesar Augustus. He said: ". . .while the emperor may give peace from war on land and sea, he is unable to give peace from passion, grief and envy." Says Epictetus: "He cannot give peace of heart, for which humanity yearns more than even for outward peace!" And so it is that Edward Gibbon begins his great seven-volume work on THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE precisely at this point! Because, in the days of Caesar Augustus, the PAX AUGUSTA ruled the nations, but ...

328. Come Home For New Year's

Jeremiah 30:1--31:40

Sermon

King Duncan

... Hofer proved that was true. In 1678 Hofer, a Swiss medical student, coined a word to describe an illness whose symptoms include insomnia, anorexia, palpitations, stupor, and, above all, a persistent thinking of home. The word he coined was NOSTALGIA. There is a yearning within the human breast to return to that place where we were secure, loved, made to feel important. The people of Israel longed to return home. They had been in captivity for many generations. Jeremiah speaks to them on behalf of God and ...

329. Is Suffering Really Necessary?

Hebrews 4:14-5:10

Sermon

King Duncan

... knows how you feel--you aren't the only one--why, he was paralyzed too." Joni glared at her. "What? What are you talking about?" Cindy continued, "It's true. Remember, he was nailed on a cross. His back was raw from beatings, and he must have yearned for a way to move to change positions, or redistribute his weight. But he couldn't. He was paralyzed by the nails." The thought intrigued Joni. It had never occurred to her before that God had felt the exact piercing sensations that racked her body. The idea ...

330. The Gift Of Freedom

1 Peter 1:13-2:3

Sermon

Landon Winstead

... in the beginning. And then as the years past, maybe you become more comfortable. How excited the animal is to get out of the cage when you have left him at the animal shelter; or bought him from the humane society. Freedom. Every living thing yearns for freedom. Yet one could make the argument that there are prisoners behind bars for lifetime sentences that experience more freedom than many of us. You see, FREEDOM IS A STATE OF MIND. There are people so frozen by fear, that they cannot experience freedom ...

331. When You're Dreaming One Thing And Living Another

Jeremiah 30:1--31:40

Sermon

King Duncan

... of Israel knew about such unintended results. They typed in "the chosen people of God," but chosen for what? Much of their history was filled with pain, suffering and exile. Even as Jeremiah writes the beautiful words from our Old Testament lesson, the people are yearning to see their homeland restored. In our Epistle, Paul is writing to the church at Ephesus. Early Christians knew what it was to type in one thing and to read something else entirely on the screen. What do you do when the result you are ...

332. People Who Inspire Us

2 Thessalonians 1:1-12

Sermon

King Duncan

... for their patience and complete faith in God, in spite of all the crushing troubles and hardships they were going through. He said he thanked God for them and that he remembered them in his prayers--that God would make them the kind of people God yearned for them to be. That's interesting. Notice that Paul does not pray that the church at Thessalonica would be delivered from its troubles. His prayer was that these troubling experiences would mold the members of this church into the kind of people God meant ...

333. Easter In November

Luke 20:27-40

Sermon

King Duncan

... wanted a wife, And the Devil sent him Anna." A widow wrote this epitaph in a Vermont cemetery: "Sacred to the memory of /my husband John Barnes /who died January 3, 1803 His comely young widow, aged 23, has /many qualifications of a good wife, and /yearns to be comforted." A woman wrote in to a Minnesota newspaper to tell of an unusual funeral she attended. A prominent woman in the community had died. Crowds of people filled the church for her memorial service. At one point in the service, the pastor ...

334. Dirty, Rotten Scoundrels

Luke 16:1-15

Sermon

King Duncan

... filmed one ending to his movie, not two. He was so sure that the audience would vote to kill the bad guy that he only filmed that ending to save money. (1) This quirky little story provides us a window into human nature: We have a yearning for justice. Take professional wrestling. [Pause.] Please. [Pause.] One of the staples of this well-choreographed sport is that there are good guys and there are villains. Each match is a morality play. Will virtue triumph? I imagine that depends on the script for the day ...

335. Search For Tomorrow

Matthew 28:1-10

Sermon

King Duncan

... 's not enough, though, to live on as a vaporous memory. We want to know that we will continue to exist as real people when we have shed this body of clay. We want the joy of being reunited with those whom we love beyond the pale of death. We yearn to know that our lives really matter to God. That's why Easter is so important to us. Do our petty concerns really matter? Do our lives have any significance? Dare we live and love with vigor and vitality with the knowledge that our lives really count? Life hardly ...

336. I Wish Life Came With An Eraser!

2 Corinthians 5:11--6:2

Sermon

Siegfried S. Johnson

... teaches that our "in the corner" moments of self-reflection and repentance have as a goal nothing less than the recreation of our innocence. Those who gather on these Sundays to partake of the Lenten spirit are those who join Dennis, and David, in yearning for life's eraser, for an opportunity to be made new. One can't help but notice the proliferation of self-help books. A recent Wall Street Journal article notes that one of the most intriguing marketing strategies of publishers in the last decade has ...

337. Nothing Is Impossible With God

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

King Duncan

... We pray for their restoration, but we'd be surprised if they actually kicked the habit. "For nothing is impossible with God." Some of us have lost our way in life. We're not sure what we want, but we know it is not what we've currently got. We yearn to believe that there is more to life than constantly running like a hamster on a wheel. But do we believe that God has the answers for our life? "For nothing is impossible with God." MARY'S GREATEST QUALIFICATION FOR BEING CHOSEN AS THE MOTHER OF GOD'S SON WAS ...

338. Redefining Life

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Sermon

King Duncan

... . So, what's one positive thing we can say about suffering? It destroys our illusions about life. Here's another. Suffering destroys our happiness. The lesson gets even harder. Suffering takes away our happiness. Can that ever be good? Possibly. When we are happy, we don't yearn for God. Pay close attention now. I'm happy because my team won the championships, I'm happy because I got the big promotion, I'm happy because I'm in love. But what happens when the team doesn't win, when you're passed over for ...

339. Aging Is Mandatory; Maturity Is Optional

Mark 9:33-37

Sermon

King Duncan

... Signed] Jane. "Dear God, are you really invisible or is that just a trick?" [Signed] Lucy. "Dear God, is it true my father won't get in Heaven if he uses his bowling words in the house?" [Signed] Anita. (3) Who among us doesn't yearn from time to time for the innocence of a little child. To believe again that all things are really possible. To believe that all people are really good. Children have unrestrained enthusiasm, unrestrained trust. And together those produce an unrestrained love. Nobody can love ...

340. Don't Be Ashamed . . .

2 Timothy 1:1-2:13

Sermon

King Duncan

... in the Christian faith. He's writing from his heart. He's more plain-spoken than in earlier letters he wrote to churches--at Rome, Corinth, Philippi, etc. This letter is to a personal friend--and time is running out. More than anything else this older gentleman yearns to see his young protege, who is a pastor serving hundreds of miles away in Ephesus. But that may not be possible. Travel was not as easy in those days as it is today. Just in case they are not able to connect personally, the older man ...

341. Hungry For God

1 Timothy 6:3-10

Sermon

King Duncan

... that it leaves no room for doubt or apathy. IN THIS PASSAGE, ISAIAH IS REACTING TO THE ABSENCE OF GOD AMONG THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. You and I can appreciate that. Many of us hunger for God to show Himself in our lives. Was there ever a time when you yearned to know that God was with you? Maybe there was a season of your life when doubt and anxiety crowded your every thought. You had to convince yourself to get out of bed in the morning. You tried to pray, and the words just wouldn't come. Have you ever ...

342. Piercing A Hole In The Darkness

Job 38:1--41:34

Sermon

King Duncan

... condemning him, "I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes--I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!" Job is confident in the fact that he will see God face to face--after his death. On his judgement day, then he will hear the voice of the Almighty. Then will he know the mind of God. But Job never expects God to answer him while he ...

343. Is There Hope for the Hapless Wedding Guest?

Matthew 22:1-14

Sermon

Darrick Acre

... with the flaming sword of judgment but with the plaintive cry of a wounded lover, “Adam, Eve, where art thou?” Who not only graciously forgives before they even ask, but himself clothes their nakedness. This king bears no relationship to the father whose heart so yearns for his lost son that he is out at the crack of dawn scanning the distant horizon; who when he sees that wastrel yet miles from home flies down the mountain, runs across the plains, scoops him up in his mighty arms, escorts him home and ...

344. Amazing Grace

Romans 5:1-11

Sermon

Edward Inabinet

... our hearts. We identify instinctively with the message it conveys, as it talks about the human condition--the despair, and the bondage, and the need for freedom from that bondage. We rejoice in the good news it tells, and if we do not know that good news yet, our hearts yearn for it as we hear his words. You may not know this about John Newton, but he was a man who had turned his back on God in life. He was one of the most anti-God, anti-Christian, blasphemous men you could ever meet. He had done it all ...

345. The Question That Will Not Go Away

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Sermon

Edward Inabinet

... We are asking questions with a need for an answer far beyond the realm of the ordinary and commonplace. We suddenly find ourselves asking questions about things far beyond today''s brunch or tomorrow''s duties or this summer''s vacation. There is a yearning deep inside of us. All the stock options, vacation clubs, money market accounts, timeshare programs cannot be of any help when it comes to the question of death. Christianity has never been about the denial of death but that there is something beyond the ...

346. The Living Hope

1 Peter 1:1-12

Sermon

Edward Inabinet

... ''s house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will surely come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am you may be also." How will it be when the happiness we have yearned for finally comes to us fully? I John 3:2 promises us, "It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but when He shall appear, we shall be like him." When that happens, we will know truly that "eye has not seen nor ear heard, neither has entered into ...

347. What’s the Good Word?

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... of a “Messiah” who had come into the world. The Greek word is Christos. It means, literally, “the Anointed One.” But how do you explain what that means to a Greek who is unfamiliar with the Hebrew Bible and the Jewish people’s age-long yearning for a Deliverer from called the “Messiah”? And so John reached into the lexicon of both the Greek and Jewish traditions and called Jesus the “Word” (Greek: logos) of God. He wrote: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and ...

348. It’s Hard to Eat While Lying

John 13:18-30

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... at first think that Jesus would be the kind of Messiah the people expected: a mighty military leader who would lead his nation to military victory over the Romans? Judas Iscariot, like his famous namesake Judas Maccabeus, may have been filled with patriotic fervor, yearning for freedom from foreign rule. That may have been why he cast his lot with Jesus in the first place. Perhaps here was the Messiah the people had awaited for so long! Perhaps Judas could have sung with eager anticipation that great Advent ...

349. Philip the First

John 1:43-51

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... literally—and dying to see Jesus in us. It sure beats bumper stickers! Philip had a questioning mind, and that is O.K. But he had the good sense to take his questions to Jesus, and that night he learned what theologians and philosophers and common folks have yearned to know down through the ages: What is God like? He learned the central truth of the Christian Faith which is not merely that Jesus is like God, but that God is like Jesus! If we come across anything that does not fit into the mind and spirit ...

350. When Compassion Overcomes Irritation

Mark 6:30-44

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... THEM, BECAUSE THEY WERE LIKE SHEEP WITHOUT A SHEPHERD.” (6:34b) Reading those words, we immediately think of Jesus’ words in John (10:11) “I am the Good Shepherd...” and in our mind’s eye we can see Him standing with arms outstretched, yearning to draw all of humankind into His fold. In an article in “The Circuit Rider,” Dr. Donald E. Messer, president of Iliff School of Theology in Denver, writes: “Recently I have become fascinated with a figure of speech known as an oxymoron. By definition ...

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