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 3576 to 3600 of 5000 results

3576. Following a God Who Flip Flops ...

Jonah 3:1-5, 10

Sermon

Schuyler Rhodes

... like to share an observation that I've made over the past couple of decades. Perhaps you haven't noticed this, but it seems to me that one of the standards of judgment that we hold for our political leaders is that they must be consistent. We want leaders, it appears to me, who never budge, who never change, and are resolutely the same no matter what happens. Does this ring true for you? A few years back, during a terrible international situation in Africa, the sitting president of the time set a policy of ...

3577. God’s Surprises

Acts 10:44-48

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... the front. I saw first the green suit, then recognized the pretty lady coming toward me. In her arms she carried a package. On her face was the brightest smile I had ever seen. I would swear a soft halo encircled her blonde hair as she kept walking. I wanted to tell her what she'd done, what the roses meant, but still unable to speak, I watched as she walked away. Tears clouded my vision. I looked down at the beautiful roses. How did she know? Suddenly, the answer seemed so clear. I wasn't alone. "Oh, you ...

3578. Inevitable Delays

Matthew 25:1-13

Illustration

William R. Ellis

... the universals of human experience is the frustration that arises when extended delays keep us from getting where we want to go, doing what we want to do. A plane full of people sat on the tarmac at O'Hare airport in Chicago for over ... delays are bearable. We can endure them because we know that sooner or later we will get where we need to be and do what we want to do. Sometimes the delay is so long that we become convinced that it won't end. At times we discover that this isn't a delay we are facing, it is a ...

3579. An Exquisite Attitude of Gratitude

Ephesians 1:15-23

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... Bell is Jesus. Jesus is playing exquisite music, the music of the spheres, all around us. And we are so busy we can not receive his gifts of burning bushes ablaze all around us. Do you get it now? Paul Potts is you and me. The ultimate music Jesus wants to play is in and through your life and mine, turning each one of us, frumpy and feeble as we are, fickle and feckless, with all our failings and foibles, all our chipped teeth and cracked pots, into exquisite sounds of love and life. Each one of us is ...

3580. Chutes or Ladders

Mark 9:2-9

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... is that then we've got it! The longed-for prize becomes just another new responsibility, another step on the ladder. "Success" is still somewhere else. Or as an old French proverb puts it: "You not only have to want what you want, but you have to want what you want leads to." Unfortunately, we've also been willing to strap our Christianity our missions, our ministries, our churches, our souls onto the rungs of this same success stepladder. What makes for "spiritual success"? According to the secular success ...

3581. A Go-Ahead God

Mark 16:1-8

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... of the covenant, God's presence in their midst, would always go ahead of them into battle. When the psalmists and poets of Israel described God's ever-guiding presence, they sang of the "mighty arm of God" that went ahead of God's people. When God wanted to speak to the people, a divinely called prophet was sent ahead with words of warning and comfort for all Israel. When the political entity of Israel finally fell, God went ahead of the people into exile. When the women who had witnessed Jesus' death and ...

3582. Sleep Loose

2 Corinthians 13:11-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... -the-day ritual is really a good-bye, a farewell to the day we shared together. Do you remember the last words your parents spoke to you before you went to bed at night? Did it vary from night to night or did you have a set routine? (You may want to go out in the congregation and get them to tell you about their childhood bedtime rituals.) What is the last thing you say to your kids before they go to bed? Susan Goodwin Stiles, of Foley, Minnesota, has two little girls ages 6 and 4. As she tucks her ...

3583. The Four R's

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... from whence my family hails, there were '4-R's' taught reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic and the road to Roanoke (That is the fastest way out of West Virginia!). Apparently, this was the local version of the maxim that a good education can take you anywhere you want to go. There are another '4-R's' that will get you even further than Roanoke. These 4-R's are the key survival skills of the 21st century: roots, rituals, relationships and realities. Jesus' parable of the sower and the seeds suggests the power of ...

3584. Do You Look Good On Wood?

Matthew 16:21-28

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... disciples: "Take up [your] cross and follow me .... those who lose their life for my sake will find it" (vv. 24-25). These are calls to sacrifice, and they intrude rudely into our safe, secure, convenient faith-lives. In the words of Father Daniel Berrigan, "If you want to follow Jesus, you had better look good on wood." Would you look good on wood? Do today's churches offer a faith strong enough that it can command a sacrifice? Do you have enough faith to offer up a genuine sacrifice for Christ's sake? Can ...

3585. Jesus' Good News of a New World · Part 3

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Mike Ripski

... Jesus taught you lately? What are you practicing with other apprentices? We are sitting on the hillside with those who have experienced God’s new world through Jesus’ healing them. He says, “Sit down and let me tell you about what God is doing through me and wants to do through you.” Jesus begins his sermon by turning the present world on its ear. Those who are “cursed” are God’s top priority. Jesus tells them, “You are the ones God is going to use to show the old world what the new one is ...

3586. I'm a Leper, You're a Leper

Mark 1:40-45

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... comes my prayer would be just this one that you might pick me up and notice that I am just a little smoother in your hand Verse 2 Sometimes raging wild sometimes swollen high never have I known this river dry The deepest part of you is where I want to stay and feel the sharpest edges wash away CHORUS: You might even consider passing out a smooth stone to everyone present. Have them watch the video once. The in a moment of silence, have them write on the stone their leprosy, what they’re most afraid of in ...

3587. The Fork in the Road

Mark 8:31-38

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

... Mark in terms of chapters and verses, it is also theologically the center point at which the ministry of Jesus takes a decisive turn toward the cross. Jesus seems to know what he is doing and also where he is going (or, better said, where he must go whether he wants to go that direction or not). For the disciples, however, Mark 8 does present a kind of fork in the road. And like Yogi Berra, as they look at the fork in the road, they ...

3588. Give Me All

Mark 8:31-38

Illustration

Donald Deffner

... 's will in Beyond Personality (and his words are a challenge to you and to me): "Christ says, 'Give me all. I don't want so much of your money and so much of your work I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don't want to drill the tooth, or crown it, stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self instead. In fact ...

3589. Worship on the Mountaintop...And Everywhere Else

Mark 9:2-13

Sermon

Mike Ripski

... calls it love. He shows us how to do it as he washes the disciples’ feet. E. Not in our control. The final truth from the Mountaintop about Christian worship is that our spiritual experiences refuse both our preserving them and our duplicating them. Peter wanted to build booths to house Moses, Elijah, and Jesus. This way he could hold on to the experience and revisit it. The temptation of mountaintop experiences is to believe that, once we have them, we can replicate them. So we go on a retreat, glimpse ...

3590. From Me to We

1 Corinthians 9:1-27

Sermon

Mike Ripski

... world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I want to be in on it! (I Corinthians 9:19-23, The Message) I. Let me introduce myself You must be thinking: “What or Who can make someone care enough about people to associate with those with whom one disagrees and even detests? What has this Christ ...

3591. Epiphany 2

John 1:43-51, 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, 1 Samuel 3:1--4:1

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

... the reality in human affairs. 2. Ark ( v. 3). Like the altar in a church, the ark was the symbol of God's presence in the temple. Samuel did not sleep only in the "church" but in the sanctuary where the altar was. He slept close to God. If we want to experience God and hear his Word, we must put ourselves in the right place. The best place to hear God's Word is in church. 3. Speak (v. 10). God, in this case, reveals himself to Samuel through speech. Often God reveals himself in visions and dreams. Since the ...

3592. Proper 17

James 1:19-27, Song of Songs 2:1-17, Mark 7:1-23

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

... it desperately to the point one could say one could not live without it. To get wisdom we must "cry out," "seek" and "search" for it. This desire calls for the total person to want wisdom: "ear," "hear" and "voice." Why want wisdom? Because God is wisdom. To have wisdom is to have God. 3. Gives (v. 6). It is one thing to want to be wise but another to get it. Wisdom is not the same as education or knowledge. The most highly educated and the best informed people may be foolish in the use of their knowledge ...

3593. Proper 23

Job 23:1--24:25, Hebrews 4:1-13, Hebrews 4:14-5:10, Mark 10:17-31

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

... , a rich man can enter the kingdom. (v. 27) The occasion for this teaching is a man (rich young ruler) who asks Jesus how he can receive eternal life, life not necessarily in its quantitative but in its qualitative dimension. His kneeling shows that he really wants more than physical life; he comes begging. Does he see Jesus as the Son of God because he calls Jesus "good?" Jesus points out to him that only God is good. Though he obeys the commandments, he still does not have true life. Jesus perceives that ...

3594. Proper 6

2 Corinthians 5:11--6:2, Mark 4:30-34, 2 Corinthians 5:1-10, Mark 4:26-29, 1 Samuel 16:1-13

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

... solution to our problems, for better days ahead. 2. What is the purpose of life? (5:19) "We make it our aim to please him." Need: What is the aim of your life? For what are you living? The average person says, "I don't have any particular purpose. I want to get through school, get a good job, make plenty of money and have a good time before I die." Can a Christian be satisfied with no goal or with a materialistic purpose in life? Where does God fit into the picture? Paul says that it is his aim whether ...

3595. Too Good Not to Be True

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

King Duncan

... I had not bought a ticket. In the second place I would disbelieve for joy. It would be too good to be true. I would want to hold that check in my greedy little hands just to make sure. So it is with God’s gift to us in the resurrection ... you made that discovery yet? There is no joy in half-hearted faith. Many of us have just enough religion to make us miserable. But Christ wants to make our lives a miracle. Are you afraid to believe the good news that Christ is risen? Is it simply too good to be true? ...

3596. Paul’s “We-With” Body-Building

2 Corinthians 8:1-15, 2 Timothy 4:9-18

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... , his “notebooks” to him while he was in prison. As Paul faced his own impending death sentence, his concern was not for what Rome might do to his body, but what he could do to “we-with” the body of Christ. That’s why Paul wanted with him the complete library of his writings to the churches. Almost immediately after his death, collections of Paul’s letters, compiled in those shabby, shunned papyrus codices, began to be passed around the world. Those slim volumes that made up what we now call ...

3597. How to Fail Successfully - Sermon Starter

Mark 6:1-13

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

... be the gas station attendant and he would be President of the United States. It's a matter of perspective isn't it? Success and failure mean different things to different folks. Today I want to talk about "how to fail successfully". Does that sound like a oxymoron? How to fail successfully. No one wants to fail. Everybody wants to succeed. That being the case, if we are going to fail, we should do it successfully. A few years ago Fast Lane magazine conducted a survey to find out whose lives its readers ...

3598. Taking Offense & The Market Place

Mark 6:1-6

Illustration

Will Willimon

... it but because the choir knows that we are called to be a sign, a signal, a foretaste, a beachhead of God's Kingdom in the world? What if I'm preaching this sermon, not because I think it's uppermost on your list of weekly wants, but rather because I believe this is what God wants? What you get out of what is done here should not be as great a concern among us as fidelity to the peculiar nature of God's Kingdom. What is the greatest service the church can render the world? Perhaps the service we render is ...

3599. Public Pressure

Mark 6:14-29

Illustration

Brett Blair

... my Christian friends." An elderly woman said, "My sister thinks she has all the answers about the faith and tries to convince me of her point of view. I feel pressured to become her brand of Christian, but I keep thinking if it means being like her, I don't want it at all. When she calls, I just put the phone on my shoulder and let her rant on while I do other things. A half-hour later, she's still on the line blasting away, but I still feel pressure." A young pastor at a clergy conference said, "I ...

3600. Tear Down This Wall!

Ephesians 2:11-22

Sermon

King Duncan

... agreed upon and the contractor began his work. But after a short time the contractor began having trouble finding rocks for the wall. So he called the owner to complain about the situation. The owner sharply replied, “I don’t care where you get the rocks, I want you to build that wall!” Some time later the owner came to see the progress of the work, and found a beautiful high wall. He was immensely impressed with the fine work the contractor had done. It was a perfect wall for his castle. But then he ...

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