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 3726 to 3750 of 5000 results

3726. The Prayer Life of Highly Effective Christians

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... it mean that when we come to God with our needs we are to knock on his door over and over until God gives us what we want? That doesn’t sound very spiritual. Or does it mean that we are simply to be bold in our asking, whatever that means. Then he continues, “So ... , and in great pain. He could not move; he could not swallow; he could not breathe; he had to stay in an iron lung. He wanted to die. He even prayed, “Lord, I’m so helpless that I can’t take my own life. Please take it for me.” But God ...

3727. Hard Words to Hear at Christmas

Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

... find ourselves having to unlearn some things in order to see what the scriptures teach us about God's act in Jesus. We've let the culture around us snatch away much of the meaning of the birth of the Savior. We have to reclaim that meaning if we really want to be ready for what God is still doing in the miracle of Christmas. This morning we will hear about the meaning of the arrival of Christ from someone who may actually have gotten ahead of himself. No one would be better for helping us get back to basics ...

3728. Strong in God’s Name

Matthew 4:1-11

Sermon

Lee Griess

... to overcoming temptation is not our willpower but God's power. It is not our resolve, but God's Spirit. One of the greatest Christians who ever lived, the apostle Paul, knew this. Remember what he said, "Woe is me. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But only what I hate, I do ... Wretched man that I am. Who will rescue me from this sinful nature? Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ my Lord!" The key to dealing with temptation is not found within ...

3729. If Your Sense of Purpose Ever Becomes a Burden, Remember Your Value

Matthew 10:40-42

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... a cup of cold water, has offered it to our Lord, has encountered God entering into his or her life. Think of it, friends. Jesus Christ, God himself, is at your door, making small talk with you, in need of your assistance! Will you give him what he wants. Who could say, "No," to him as he stands before you? This must truly be the meaning of Christian life, our purpose, the opportunity to serve God. It seems like a natural, something Christians should be pleased to do. But we know that it does not happen that ...

3730. How Jesus’ Friendship Makes Your Burdens Light

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... are hidden from the wise and intelligent (Matthew 11:25). In the final sermon he preached, Martin Luther explained why this has been necessary. He pointed out that the wise and intelligent in the world are always asserting themselves. In the Church they do things the way they want. They feel that they just improve everything God does.2 If you and I are going to submit to Jesus' authority, as he was endeavoring to have us do in his remarks in today's gospel lesson, then we need to be alerted to the sins of ...

3731. Hunger and Politics

Matthew 14:13-21

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... In other words, the old adage is true: "You are what you eat." So life beckons us to follow the latest fad, to search for the newest fulfillment, to seek the richest treasure. We consume and devour until we are fed up with life, so to speak, and still we want more. You are hungry, and you are what you eat. The cravings of your soul will not be stilled. A meal will reset the alarm of your biological clock. Food will keep your hungry body going. Potato chips and a soda will stop the munchies for a while. But ...

3732. Political Pardon

Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... part of the king. This is a very important point to remember. If we can't have our way in some matter, we often want to make sure that at least the other person can't have her way either. If I hurt, he has to hurt. If I have been wronged, at ... minimum the other person should be required to make a public show of sorrow. Tit for tat. We want the scales to be balanced somehow, even if it is by way of some kind of mutual expressions that hurt has been caused. But Jesus is not ...

3733. Testing, Testing

Matthew 22:34-46

Sermon

Chris Ewing

... ; and what is loving toward our children may be something quite different from what is loving toward our spouse, or our boss, or the homeless person we pass on the way to the bus each day. Ah! Another "Test ... test...." question! What does it mean to love? Well, if you want part of Jesus' answer on that, you can turn to Luke 10:25 and read the story he told there, about the guy who got beat up on the way to Jericho, and the folks who cared about him, or not. But I don't think that's going to ...

3734. All Who Share This Hope

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Chris Ewing

... In the city, where most people remain anonymous, it's too easy to slip into a kind of indifference; coming back to his home community, to the saints he grew up with and to whom he still feels accountable, reminds him of the kind of life he wants to live, the kind of person he wants to be. Coming here, he gets a fresh glimpse of his Christian values in action; he is reminded that what he does and the way he treats others matters; and so he is encouraged to keep putting one foot in front of the other back in ...

3735. Stop, Drop, Cover, and Roll!

Isaiah 7:10-16

Sermon

Tony Everett

... her well-crafted message. The point here is that we do not always get what we expect or even want from our carefully constructed plans for our children, our lives, our families, even for our congregations. We are not always in control. God is. Life is ... Pastor Terry and her congregation certainly experienced this lesson on that fourth Sunday in Advent. In our Old Testament text, King Ahaz didn't even want to ask God for help with his plans. God invited Ahaz to "ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be as deep ...

3736. What Were You Thinking?

Micah 6:1-8

Sermon

Tony Everett

... us to demonstrate Christ's saving, amazing grace in the present. And that's not all: God promises to continue to save God's own weak, vulnerable, weary children in the future. What were we thinking anyway? Because of our sin, we were thinking only of ourselves — our wants — our happiness. Because of our sin we have not been mindful of the needs of others. Now, here's the good news. Because of our sin, God gave his only son to die for us, to rise for us, to cancel the power of sin, forever. Because of ...

3737. Whosoever Will

Acts 2:1-21

Sermon

Stan Purdum

... makes all the decisions about our fate. Since some people are saved and heaven bound and others are not, said Calvin, God therefore must want it that way. God must have chosen or "elected" some people to be saved and others not to be. This idea was called " ... so much for the history lecture, but what's the importance of all this today? For one thing, it means that God really wants everybody to be saved. You see, despite this long battle, free will was not a new idea dreamed up by the reformers; actually ...

3738. A Man of the Moment

Genesis 25:19-34

Sermon

Stan Purdum

... about his brother. Jacob wasn't a model of righteousness either, but he clearly did have the ability to delay gratification and to work for long-term goals. If you follow Jacob's story, you'll see that he worked for seven long years to obtain the wife he wanted. After his father-in-law pulled a sneaky trick on him, he worked another seven. It could not have been easy, but he did it. Jacob was the brother through whom the people of Israel descended, and in part, he was able to fit into God's plan because ...

3739. Hearts on Fire

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Sermon

Timothy J. Smith

... take a stand, God will bless our effort. We discover this principle throughout the pages of the Bible as well in the lives of the reformers and millions of Christians. It was often dangerous for the prophets of old to speak the word of God. No one wants to be told they are doing something wrong in the sight of God and must change their ways. As a result, prophets were not always popular. Jeremiah was a case in point. Jeremiah criticized just about everyone including the king and the priests. At the gates of ...

3740. Oddballs for God

1 Peter 1:17-23

Sermon

David O. Bales

... I are in our fifties and sixties. Makes no difference. If we're at a family event and Aunt Mary is there, we three are attracted to her as iron to a magnet. Her kind of love creates a reverence, which helps me understand reverent living for God. We want to please God, because God loves us like the perfect Father, or like the perfect aunt. Verse 23 recalls for Peter's friends that their new life and understanding of God has come about "through the living and enduring word of God." We take our place in God's ...

3741. So, Explain It to Me

Sermon

Steven E. Albertin

... Trinity is that they treat it as an intellectual exercise that seeks to clarify a mystery that defies explanation. Unfortunately, that often results in doctrinal formulas that are simply "imposed" upon us. We are told that this is what we "gotta" believe, if we want to be a Christian. Sometimes I get the impression that when we teach the Trinity to our young people, what we are essentially telling them is "Shut up and believe it!" The Trinity is really something altogether quite different. We miss the point ...

3742. Can I Give Enough?

Mark 12:41-44

Children's Sermon

Marti Kramer Suddarth

... were at the temple. In many churches today, an offering plate is passed during the service and people who would like to give money to God lay the money on the plate. In Jesus’ time, however, there was a box in the back of the temple. People who wanted to give money to God put the money in the box on their way in or out of the temple. Jesus and his disciples were watching the box. They noticed several people giving a lot of money. (Demonstrate the next two paragraphs while reading them.) Some of them ...

3743. David And The Giant

1 Samuel 17:1-58

Children's Sermon

Marti Kramer Suddarth

... and foot.) If Goliath was this tall, his hand was probably about this size. His foot was probably about this size. (Let the children pass the hand and foot around and compare their to their hands and feet.) Imagine someone with hands and feet this size yelling that he wants to fight you! In Bible times, people didn’t have access to all of the food and medical care that we have today, and they had to do a lot of very hard, physical labor just to survive. Most people didn’t grow as tall as we do today ...

3744. Sometimes, God Says, “No”

Matthew 7:7-12

Children's Sermon

Marti Kramer Suddarth

... then I’d be helping the foundation help people who are sick! I could start a scholarship with some of that money! Scholarships help people go to college, which helps them get good jobs, and with good jobs, they can buy houses and food and warm clothes. God wants us to help people who need homes and food and clothes. If I started a scholarship with some of that money, wouldn’t I be helping those people? So I don’t understand it! I had good plans for that money ... plans that would help other people in ...

3745. Step Into The Vision

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-15

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... we can't break out the lawn chairs, sit back and let someone else bring in the harvest. Now we have to be about that business as well. Conclusion Sharon Tucker has agreed to chair a new Futures Committee or Long Range Planning Committee or Visioning Team, whatever you want to call it. There are a few members on this Team but if you're interested, you're invited. We haven't set a date for the first meeting yet, but be watching for it. And be watching for those Visioning meetings as well. In the book, What's ...

3746. Living The Faith For Dummies

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... your neighbor as yourself." [28] And he said to him, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live." [29] But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" [30] Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and ... mine, I'll keep it." And Third, there's the Samaritan's philosophy: "What's mine is yours, I'll share it." That's how I want us to look at this parable today, through the lens of each of those. I. What's Yours Is Mine, I'll Take It There are ...

3747. Reversal of Fortune

Luke 6:17-26

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... the food you were fed " "Keep in mind that regulations are like catsup - you either get none or a lot more than you want." "Act accordingly." "A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains!" "The fortune you seek is in another cookie." Help, I'm being ... On The Plain. Let's explore this passage together through the idea of "Reversal of Fortune." I. Blessed Beyond Belief A. I want to show you what I mean by this "Reversal of Fortune" through a clip from the 1998 release of Les Miserables ...

3748. It's Not Booby Trapped, But . . .

Ephesians 5:15-20

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... 1 year old. "For use by trained personnel only." On a can of air freshener. "Fragile. Do not drop." Posted on a Boeing 757. "Caution: Remove infant before folding for storage." On a portable stroller. "May be harmful if swallowed." On a shipment of hammers. (1) What I want to know is, are we all related Wile E. Coyote. I know some folks who aren't the sharpest knife in the drawer; I've even been like that about certain things. But are we all dumber than a bowl of pudding? Apparently the Warning Label people ...

3749. Made Perfect In Weakness

2 Corinthians 12:2-10

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... lady standing quietly at her side, she asked condescendingly: "And how old is your family, my dear?" The younger woman smiled and quietly came back, "Well, I can't really say. All of our family records were lost in the Flood." What is it about human nature that makes us want to boast? We all do it. We all get together and somebody tells a story and pretty soon we all start playing that little game of one-up-man-ship. We may not do it very often but we all succumb to boasting from time to time. So, let's ...

3750. Eyes To See, Ears To Hear

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

James McCormick

... has chosen to reveal Himself, He has always spoken with a Galilean accent!” In other words, it looks and sounds like Jesus! So, if you want to know how to recognize God, the thing to do is to get to know Jesus. We believe that in Jesus we see God most ... letter from a friend of mine. He didn’t know I was having a down day and the letter wasn’t about anything, really. He just wanted to be in touch, to affirm our friendship, and to let me know he was thinking about me. But, you know, as I read his words ...

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