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 3576 to 3600 of 4653 results

3576. A Revolution in Seven Verses

Luke 13:10-17

Illustration

Mickey Anders

... to her, Jesus jettisons the male restraints on women's freedom. 2. He calls her to the center of the synagogue. By placing her in the geographic middle, he challenges the notion of a male monopoly on access to knowledge and to God. 3. He touches her, which revokes the holiness code. That is the code which protected men from a woman's uncleanness and from her sinful seductiveness. 4. He calls her "daughter of Abraham," a term not found in any of the prior Jewish literature. This is revolutionary because ...

3577. Center Stage

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

... what to do about Mary's pregnancy. Did he fight within himself over a course of action? However juicy these details might have been, however much they might have drawn us more deeply into the narrative, they only hover briefly in the background for Matthew. He touches on them only enough to set the stage. What takes center stage for Matthew is how God is working in this messy love affair between Joseph and Mary. Mary's pregnancy is of the Holy Spirit. That is far too mysterious a matter for us to speak ...

3578. A Strange Way in and a New Way Out

Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

... of human hearts. We value this kind of wisdom. Yet another kind of wisdom is mantic wisdom. A person who had the skill, or maybe the gift, of mantic wisdom could discern things that could not be learned just by observation. Mantic wisdom had a touch of the supernatural. A person with the gift of mantic wisdom could interpret dreams and visions. A person with the gift of mantic wisdom could explain signs and omens. The Magi in this passage fall more into this category. They studied the stars to interpret ...

3579. Strong in God’s Name

Matthew 4:1-11

Sermon

Lee Griess

... money to marry his long-time girlfriend. The plan was to pool their money and, when he returned, put a down payment on a house, and get married. As he bid his sweetheart farewell at the airport, he promised to write her every day and keep in touch. However, as the lonely weeks slowly slipped by, his letters came less and less often and his girlfriend back home began to have her doubts. "Spain is filled with beautiful women," she wrote, "and after all you are a handsome man." When he received that letter ...

3580. Streams of Living Water

John 4:5-42

Sermon

Lee Griess

... them. But inside of us still lies the heart of a mouse. We avow that our Christian faith is important to us. We say that we trust in God. We go through the motions of being religious, but we refuse to draw close enough to God to allow God to touch us and change our hearts inside. We attend church when we can. We open the hymnal and hold it in front of us. We hear to the pastor's words each Sunday, but inside a thousand other thoughts are running wild. The same self-righteous judging of others still plagues ...

3581. Set Free for Life

John 11:17-37

Sermon

Lee Griess

... . And if you need help, just give it a tug.” "This is it," Webb thought. "I'm going to die down here, stuck in the mud, face down on the ocean floor. This is how it ends." However, after several minutes, which seemed like an eternity, Webb felt a gentle touch on his shoulder. The crew, sensing that he was in trouble, had sent down an experienced diver to pick him up, unstick him from the mud and get him back on his feet again. In the same way, Jesus comes to us in our need. Jesus enters our world. He ...

3582. Hope to Carry On

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

Lee Griess

... hope for the future. And our Savior himself, unknown to them, patiently listening to them, his nail-scarred hands undoubtedly buried deep within his robe to keep them from recognizing him. As he heard those words of grief and sadness, no doubt his heart must have been touched by their pain. Do you hear what they are saying? Can you understand what is happening here, for there is a message for us today. Listen to what they say: "He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The ...

3583. Always with Us

John 14:15-21

Sermon

Lee Griess

... . It has the power to lift drooping heads and fill empty hearts. No wonder people were healed just by coming into the presence of Jesus. Did you ever wonder about that — those stories in the New Testament that tell of someone who just came to Jesus and with just a touch or with just a word were made well? There's no secret to that. If we believe that Jesus was God's love incarnate, God's love in the flesh, why shouldn't people be healed by just coming into contact with him? For love has the power to do ...

3584. Connected to God

Luke 24:44-53

Sermon

Lee Griess

... him a good whack, breaking his arm in two places. It was a shame. He was not being electrocuted at all. He was merely listening to his new iPod. Well, what would you have done? You walk in the kitchen and think your husband is being electrocuted. You can't touch him for fear of being electrocuted yourself. So this woman grabbed a board and hit him. How was she to know that he was just dancing to the music coming out of the tiny headset? She had to make an instant decision. And who knows? Maybe he deserved a ...

3585. If Your Sense of Purpose Ever Becomes a Burden, Remember Your Value

Matthew 10:40-42

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... to serve their neighbors when Jesus comes to them in the person of these neighbors. Christian living, living out your purpose, is no burden. When you're clear about your value to God, Christian living is a wonderful opportunity to flourish and thrive. Of course, a touch of humility is also relevant here. Rick Warren does not seem to have heard this point, as he makes what you and I do as Christians a bit too important in contending that a Christian's mission has eternal significance, that it continues Jesus ...

3586. Why We Need the Pledge of Allegiance

Matthew 13:31-35, Matthew 13:44-46, Matthew 13:47-52

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... is not my home, I'm just a-passin' through; My treasures are laid up, somewhere beyond the blue. The angels beckon me from heaven's open door And I can't feel at home in this world anymore. An All-Encompassing Citizenship We have all been touched by each of these views of the kingdom of heaven. Yet today, as we read Jesus' parables again, it is important to hear the undercurrent of what he is saying. First of all, the idea of "kingdom" implies citizenship, or at least allegiance to a governing authority ...

3587. Hunger and Politics

Matthew 14:13-21

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... us to think about. Who are these people that Jesus feeds? Who would be so foolish as to go unprepared out into the wilderness running after Jesus? Why would anybody do that in the first place? I find a clue to that in books like John Hull's autobiography, Touching the Rock (New York: Random House, Inc., 1992). His is both a personal story and a spiritual saga. At age seventeen, Hull began to go blind in his left eye. One day he realized that the only way he would ever see his left shoulder again would be by ...

3588. Mistaken Identity

Matthew 16:13-20

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... with someone in the intimacy of the kind of relationship they have had with Jesus and yet linger on the fringes of mistaken identity? As the song put it some years ago: The greatest man I never knew lived just down the hall And everyday we said hello but never touched at all He was in his paper, I was in my room How was I to know he thought I hung the moon The greatest man I never knew came home late every night He never had too much to say; too much was on his mind I never really ...

3589. Why Is God Unfair?

Matthew 20:1-16

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... deadline arrived, three papers were missing from the pile of student productions. The student who had previously asked for an extension was back, and so were two others with him. As before, all the reasons expressed for failure to complete the assignment were touching and moving and tear-jerking, and the professor again allowed some latitude. The deadline was set aside, and the papers were required by the end of the week. A veritable chorus of praise filled the professor's small office, and blessings were ...

3590. All Who Share This Hope

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Chris Ewing

... .2 The word "saint," in fact, simply means "holy": one like, or one set apart for, God. Says Frederick Buechner, "A saint is a life-giver ... A saint is a human being with the same sorts of hang-ups and abysses as the rest of us, but if a saint touches your life, you become alive in a new way."3 This is kind of like the definition you may have heard, given by a child who had been told that the figures in stained-glass windows were saints: "A saint is someone the light shines through." Lydia Gruchy4 was that ...

3591. Kiss The Chef! Thanksgiving Day

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon

Chris Ewing

... appreciate, the effort that has been made on your behalf, and the love that this person has for you, and you enter into that loving relationship with your participation: you reach out, and you smile, and your eyes soften, your heart lights, and your lips touch and you do so much more than kiss the chef. You renew the relationship, and you refresh your own soul. That's the kind of difference there is between being "cleansed" and being "made well," being saved, being whole. That's the difference gratitude can ...

3592. Losers, Weepers

Isaiah 49:8-16a

Sermon

Tony Everett

... assert themselves in specific acts of witness and rebuilding, "saying to the prisoners, ‘Come out,' to those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves' " (Isaiah 49:9). Because God, in Christ, has found and kept us, therefore, we "losers and weepers" are sent to touch the lives of those who are trapped in the darkness of despair, rejection, and violence. Because Christ has inscribed us on the palms of his hands, therefore, we "losers and weepers" are sent to rebuild hearts and souls that lay in ruins, just ...

3593. Forty Days and Forever

Exodus 24:12-18

Sermon

Tony Everett

... the face of Winnie-the-Pooh. Becoming annoyed, the manager said, "So? What's the big deal about this puzzle?" Finally, as the chanting subsided, a senior faculty member explained. "Everyone thinks that seminary professors have no common sense and are out of touch with the real world. We grew tired of being ridiculed, so we decided to set the record straight. Our entire faculty got together and purchased this puzzle. We put it together, working as a team among the community of believers." "Uh huh," replied ...

3594. Are All Your Sons Here?

1 Samuel 16:1-13

Sermon

Schuyler Rhodes

... sons and daughters are not with us. Whether it is the literal sons and daughters who fall away from church because of our inattention and lack of focus, or whether it's the sons and daughters in our wider community who are not even on our radar, their absence touches us. We are less without them. Are all our sons and daughters here? Let the invitation go forth that everyone who is a son or a daughter is welcome in our church. Let the doors fling open and let our eyes scan the horizon. Let the people of God ...

3595. God's Laughter

Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7

Sermon

Stan Purdum

... Comforter is coming." Dr. Samuel Upham was a professor of theology at Drew University years ago. He died in 1904 at the age of seventy. In his last hours, he was lying on his bed, surrounded by friends. At one point, it seemed that he had died, but one woman touched his feet and said, "No, he's not dead. Feel his feet. They're warm. No one ever died with warm feet." At that, Dr. Upham opened his eyes and said, "Joan of Arc did!" Those were his very last words — and evidence that even in his final moments ...

3596. A Match Made in Heaven

Genesis 29:15-28

Sermon

David J. Kalas

... is from the pews. I want to tell you, though, that a wedding is even more beautiful from the vantage point at which I get to see it. I get to stand here in the front. And from here, I get to see the faces. I am always touched as I watch the faces of the bridesmaids and the groomsmen while their best friends — or, often, their siblings — come to this long-awaited moment. More than that, I love to watch the faces of the bride and the groom as they speak their vows — those profound promises — to ...

3597. A Blessing in Disguise

Genesis 32:22-31

Sermon

David J. Kalas

... son to receive the coveted blessing, Rebecca arranged for Jacob to disguise himself as Esau, and then to carry in a meal she prepared for Isaac to eat. Because Isaac was old and blind, the disguise did not have to pass the sight test; only the touch and smell test. (Rebecca found, incidentally, that she could achieve both of those results by draping Jacob's arms and neck with goat skins, which gives us a sense for what Esau must have been like.) While Esau was still out hunting, Jacob entered their father ...

3598. The Names by Which He Is Known

Exodus 3:1-15

Sermon

David J. Kalas

... it was not burning up. Moses moved toward it to take a closer look, at which point the Lord called out to him from the bush. The Lord began by calling Moses by name. We may take that for granted, and yet it remains an unnecessarily personal touch. Calling someone by name may be required in order to get a person's attention, the Lord already had Moses' attention there at the bush. He could have begun speaking without personally naming Moses, much as the angel over Bethlehem began speaking without calling the ...

3599. The Proof Is in the Pudding

Exodus 17:1-7

Sermon

David J. Kalas

... , it's hard for us to think about much else. Satan knew this about us. Skeptical and unimpressed by Job's initial faithfulness, Satan curtly challenged God, "Skin for skin! All that people have they will give to save their lives. But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face" (Job 2:4-5). Job did not sink to Satan's expectation, but the Israelites in the wilderness often did. Faced with a physical need, they asked a question that cut to the very core ...

3600. Hearts on Fire

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Sermon

Timothy J. Smith

... Today, we remember the sixteenth-century Reformation, thankful for the faithful witness of Martin Luther ... and others through the centuries. Yet we also realize that the work of God continues to evolve in our day as well through us. May we go forth believing that God has touched our lives, has written God's law on our hearts, living out our faith. As we leave this place of worship may we do so knowing we can make a difference and cannot remain silent any longer. May we take our stand and speak out against ...

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