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 351 to 375 of 5000 results

351. Prepare the Way - Sermon Starter

Mark 1:1-8

Illustration

Brett Blair

His name was John. People knew him locally as the Baptist. Some would say of him that he was a religious eccentric. Others less kind would dismiss him as being simply a flake. He definitely did not seem to be the kind of "How to win friends and influence people" type of personality to usher in the news of the Messiah's coming. He just somehow doesn't seem to fit in with shepherds and wise men and the other characters that we traditionally associate with the Christmas story. Yet, this was God's unlikely ...

352. Living Life The Easy Way

Acts 3:1-10

Sermon

Harold Warlick

Life is composed of a series of choices and experiences. Usually there is an easy way to accomplish a particular task and there is a hard way to achieve the same end. Many people experience addictions, burnout and nervous breakdowns not because of the sheer weight of their life, but because they fight life. Many people have trouble with college, not because college is hard, but because they fight college. Instead of doing something the best they can, and doing it as easily as they can, they fight the job, ...

353. The More Excellent Way

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon

Robert Allen

The 1988 Winter Olympics were marked by controversy for the U.S. team. The controversy centered around the fact that we had not won as many medals as expected. In fact, the last time we had done so poorly was in 1936. We won a few medals, and those winners have become household names. Debi Thomas went head to head with the East German, Katerina Witt, and came away with only a bronze medal, Bonnie Blair won the gold medal in speed skating as well as a bronze, Brian Boitano picked up the gold in figure ...

354. When Tradition Gets in the Way

Mark 7:1-23

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

Do you remember the opening soliloquy which begins the musical “Fiddler on the Roof?” Tevye, the dairyman who is always carrying on lengthy conversations with God, says to the audience: “A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy, no? But in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof, trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn’t easy. You may ask, why do we stay up here if it’s so dangerous? We stay because Anatevka is our home. And ...

355. A Way of Seeing

Genesis 21:8-21

Sermon

Stan Purdum

Remember your childhood suspicion that both your mother and your teacher had eyes in the back of their heads? As you got older, you realized it wasn't literally true, but it was a way of describing their awareness of what you were doing. Well now, we are coming to a place where it could be a much more literal statement. In fact, they could even have eyes in the back of their mouths. There have been some interesting developments in the field of perception, spurred in part by research to help the blind, but ...

356. Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow

Proverbs 16:1, 9, Philippians 3:12-15

Sermon

James Merritt

Some years ago, Newsweek magazine reported a fortune tellers' convention in Dublin, Ireland. Palm readers, crystal ball gazers and astrologers from all over the world gathered for a week to compare notes, learn techniques, and make new predictions. While they were all together in one of the convention meetings, a thief broke into their hotel rooms and stole all of their crystal balls and tarot cards. When the police investigated the crime, they asked the fortune tellers the obvious question: "Why didn't ...

357. Not a Servant, but a Son

Galatians 4:6-7

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

A few weeks ago, my son Kevin asked me to make some suggestions for his reading. I thought about that only for a moment - immediately I suggested that he read one of my favorite writers, Loren Eiseley. I went back and reread some of his marvelous stuff myself. In his book, All The Strange Hours, he talks about the experience he had at his father’s death. During the last days of his father’s illness, there had been no sign of consciousness. His father on his death-bed. Then, Leo came. Leo was his half- ...

358. Was There No Other Way?

Isaiah 52:13--53:12

Sermon

King Duncan

Are you familiar with the legend of the robin? According to this tale the robin was originally a little brown bird. That is, until Good Friday the FIRST Good Friday. On that dark day this little brown bird saw a man nailed to a cross, slowly dying. He was all by himself . . . and there was no one to help him. The little brown bird began trying to free the man from the cross. The bird flew around and around until he found a way to remove a thorn from the crown of thorns that circled the man’s head, and in ...

359. Is This Any Way for a King to Behave?

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16 · Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

Will Willimon

King David is in a magnanimous mood. In today's first lesson, King David offers to build God a huge, marvelous temple in which to live. Is King David embarrassed? He has such a fine house of cedar, but the Almighty God of Israel has had for years to content himself with mere tents and mobile tabernacles. Is that any way for a King to treat his divine benefactor? So King David announces a royal building progran1 in which a huge temple shall be built in Jerusalem. Surely God will be flattered. After all, a ...

360. When Is It Tolerable to Be Intolerant?

Mark 9:38-50

Sermon

Donald Macleod

John said to him, "Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he was not following us." But Jesus said, "Do not forbid him; for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon after to speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is for us. For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ, will by no means lose his reward. "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be ...

361. I Cried All the Way Home

John 16:17-33

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

"So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice." (John 16:22) "Parting is such sweet sorrow" is a common saying. When parting comes for us, we may have our doubts about the "sweet" part, but we are sure of the "sorrow." It is sorrow for the one leaving. A certain man and woman were deeply in love, but they lived a thousand miles apart. Because of their work, they got to visit each other only at three-week intervals. They took turns flying to each other. After one such visit ...

362. A New Way To Escape From Prison

James 1:1-18

Sermon

King Duncan

According to II Timothy 3:16, all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. Paul might have added, "and for jimmying locks on jail cells." That's what happened in Dorchester County, Maryland according to a recent news story. Two inmates in the Dorchester county jail discovered that a stiff cover on a Bible left in their cell was just the tool they needed for prying back the defective lock on their jail cell door. That door led ...

363. Thy Will Be Done

Luke 20:27-38

Sermon

Molly F. James

Recently, I was in a bit of a hurry to get something done (which I am slowly discovering is rarely a good idea). I was moving things around at home, and I broke the lamp in my husband’s study. I felt very badly about what I had done, and I wanted to remedy the situation. I offered to go right out and buy him a new lamp. He said not to worry; it wasn’t his favorite lamp anyway, and we could go and get a lamp later in the week. There was no rush. This is where we do not see eye to eye. My husband is very ...

364. Do It the Right Way

Philemon 1:8-9

Children's Sermon

Object: A piece of wood, several screws, a hammer and a screw driver. Text: Yet for love's sake I prefer to appeal to you - I, Paul, an ambassador and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus. Good morning, boys and girls. Today we are going to learn about one of God's great disciples, Paul. He was put into prison for teaching about Jesus in a part of the world that thought it was wrong to talk about your God, when the people had a different god. Prison is not a good place to be, but because Paul was a special ...

365. Shepherd Of The People

2 Samuel 5:1-5, 6-16

Sermon

Charles Curley

It was over, and it was beginning. The long agonizing struggle between David and Saul was over. Saul was dead, and David's reign, the reign of David the king, was beginning. David had been only a shepherd boy when God chose him to be king, saying, "You shall be shepherd of my people." Now he was 30 years old, and the people acknowledged him as king. On that day, the people remembered God's word, so in the person of David, king and shepherd were forever joined. And David made a covenant with the people that ...

366. Religion - One Way to Get in God’s Way

Zechariah 7:1-14

Sermon

Another clash between religion and the worship of God. To put it another way, "The Bible is anti-religious because it is pro-God." That statement strikes at some of our most cherished traditions. Isn’t religion automatically pro-God? Both the Old and New Testaments say, "Not automatically so." The Bible takes issue not only with the pagan religions, it takes issue with the religion of God’s people when their religion puts God in second place. Christ said of some of the religious leaders who worshiped ...

367. Holy Believing

John 6:25-59

Sermon

Donald Macleod

"Truly, truly, Isay to you, he who believes has eternal life." (v. 47) No one wants to die. Yet, who among us would like to live forever? This is our paradox. This is our dilemma. To die means the end of what we are and have; it signifies also the cessation of whatever yet we had hoped to be. But wouldn't living forever be equally undesireable? For it holds out endlessness and sameness, like Shakespeare's "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow ..." Such would not be much even of a respite from sheer ...

368. Holy Believing

John 6:25-59

Sermon

Donald Macleod

Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, "I am the bread which came down from heaven." They said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" Jesus answered them, "Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last ...

369. Planning Your Way Out

John 6:35, 41-51

Sermon

Robert Leslie Holmes

A television news magazine told of a young, adventuresome man, full of life, flown into the desolate north country of Alaska in order that he might find himself among the natural beauty and mysteries there. He prepared for months. He carried sophisticated photographic equipment and more than 1,400 pounds of provisions. He packed boxes of notebooks, in which he intended to record his experiences. Record them he did. His carefully detailed notes describe his sense of wonder at the spectacular beauty of the ...

370. The Fork in the Path

Matthew 10:24-39

Sermon

Lori Wagner

“Your mission, if you choose to accept it…..” Everyone knows this famous line from the show “Mission Impossible.” In the show, Phelps receives his challenge mission via some kind of device. After he’s heard it, the device explodes or evaporates or otherwise disappears. From there, he must either accept the mission and go forward into his next adventure. Or he can apparently decline. The choice is inferred in that opening sentence. In the show, however, he never declines. If he did, we would have no show ...

371. Holy Diet

John 6:24-35

Sermon

Donald Macleod

So when the people saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, "Rabbi, when did you come here?" Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give to you; for ...

372. Christ Shall Return

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

One of you told me recently about a pastor who one day visited a dear elderly member of the church. He decided to check on her salvation. He said, "Aunt Susie, do you believe in the hereafter?" She replied, "All the time, preacher, all the time. I go to the kitchen and think to myself, 'Now, what am I here after?" That little story reminds us all that we have to specify what kind of hereafter we're talking about. This morning I'm talking about the long-term future of our world. I'm not referring to where ...

373. The Way I See It

Drama

Sarah Walton Miller

This skit, based on Luke 15:11-32, is a series of monologues in which each character gives his version of the conflict. The older brother has been made an older sister to show the story’s adaptability. Simple staging: four stools or chairs, so arranged that there is the illusion of isolation, each from the others. Always use any available levels. Actors, use your stools: stand by, sit or lean on them at will. Avoid eye contact with the other players. Freeze when not speaking. Characters are the FATHER, ...

374. Small Ways Every Day

Mark 4:26-34

Illustration

Martha Sterne

I hate to bring up The Ten Commandments when I'm preaching on the Gospel of Mark, but…remember that they are very rarely Cecil B. de Mille, big-screen, neon-sign events. They really aren't. They are small choices made on small days, over and over and over again. Such as choosing to remember that God made us for freedom and gave us as a gift, not a punishment, rules to live by. Small things such as remembering God made us, so we don't make God. Such as remembering that we had better not put God's name on ...

375. Easter Consecration

John 17:6-19

Sermon

Harry N. Huxhold

A. E. Hotchner has written an autobiographical account of his experience of the Great Depression. He titled this touching account of his boyhood experience in St. Louis King of the Hill: A Memoir. Anyone who lived through that dreadful economic period can readily recognize the painful burdens young and old had to suffer which the author describes. Anyone who did not live through that period would benefit from reading how deeply affected people were by the economic distress that appeared so relentless. ...

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