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 376 to 400 of 679 results

376. Love without Limits

John 13:31-38

Sermon

John K. Bergland

... , "That won't stop me!" Jesus is relentlessly in love with the world. And thank God for such love. Where would we be without such love? For if the truth be known, all of us, to one degree or another, are on the outside, where it's cold and lonely, yearning for Christ to pull us inside and wrap his warm arms around us. And would you believe there is enough room in his arms for everyone? There is room. There is plenty of room. 1. Thomas G. Long, Pulpit Resource, ed. by William H. Willimon, 29.1, p. 16. 2 ...

377. Guidance for a Time of Chaos

John 16:5-16

Sermon

King Duncan

... doubled, but the number of Americans who reported being very happy remained the same. All the advances in medical sciences, all the achievements in technology, all the increase in material wealth and prosperity has not supplied us with an answer to our deepest yearnings or fulfilled our deepest needs. Never have we been so self-reliant, or so lonely. Never have we seemed so free, or our prisons so overstuffed. Never have we had so much education, or such high rates of teen delinquency, despair and suicide ...

378. A Time of Grief

Luke 7:11-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... I couldn’t avoid feeling the pain of Connor’s death. I had to go through the suffering.” Out of his suffering, Clapton turned to his music and wrote a very personal song to express his grief . . . his struggle to live with the loss of his son . . . his yearning to know peace in his life again. You may remember the song. It became a popular hit. It is called, “Tears in Heaven,” and its lyrics speak of Clapton’s search for the healing of his shattered heart. These are the words he wrote to his son ...

379. Something to Sing About

Philippians 1:12-30

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... thin, when he was being attacked by his detractors who followed him all around his churches, and now when he is imprisoned by the government. They never left him. They had been through everything together. He concludes the salutation, therefore, with these words: How I yearn for you with the affection of Jesus Christ. That's not like Paul. His other letters are much more formal: "Grace to you and peace through Jesus Christ. Now about that matter that you wrote about..." He gets right down to business in the ...

380. Prayer

Psalm 42:1-11

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... about prayer as a discipline for Spiritual Formation. I. Prayer Is a Hunger Prayer is a hunger. And nothing, absolutely nothing can completely satisfy that hunger. It is a hunger to experience meaning, to know that life has purpose. It is a restless yearning to probe beneath the surface of our being, to penetrate the depth of ourselves and understand those feelings and notions and intuitions that come from we know not where. It is a baffling astonishment at the spontaneous bursting forth of insight. It is ...

381. Experiencing the Reality of God

Acts 2:1-21

Sermon

James L. Killen

... world. Fred appreciated the effort. He studied the book seriously. But ultimately, it didn't work. He was so completely enveloped within the secular lifestyle that nothing written about the spiritual life could be meaningful to him. Both men were disappointed. Many people yearn for something more than the flat and meaningless life that comes from living just in relationship with the things we can see and touch. Some seek that something more in the world of fantasy or science fiction, the world of Star Trek ...

382. The Witness of Being

Genesis 1:1—2:4a

Sermon

James L. Killen

... of the first chapter of the Bible. God created. And the creation witnesses to the reality of the creator. That is a message that we need to hear when we are feeling lost and alone in a world that seems flat and indifferent. Then we may have a deep yearning to get in touch with some greater reality that can give it all meaning. Our skeptical culture tells us that the only things that are real are things that can be seen or touched. But the very existence of the things we can see and touch points to the ...

383. An Incredible Encounter

Genesis 32:22-31

Sermon

Arley K. Fadness

... silence. It comes in loud, crashing, bashing, lashing tumults of life -- sickness, death, divorce, tragedies, and sadnesses. It comes in a song, a worship moment, in the sweet sacraments. The presence of God can be highly emotional or an intense intellectual searching and yearning. There's great glory in worshiping an awesome God and at the same time wrestling in the dirt with Elohim. God often is in our adversity. God is not the perpetrator of adversity and trouble, but struggles with us in the desperate ...

384. Shalom Shattered

Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28

Sermon

Arley K. Fadness

... to riches, but it is an overview of God preserving a family which in turn preserves a nation, which in turn preserves from its royal line the Messiah, the Savior. This scripture from Genesis 37 is not the end of the story. There is a discernible yearning for shalom, a wish that the dreams of Joseph could some day come true. An unknown author described some of the ingredients that make for shalom: On This Day Mend a quarrel. Search out a forgotten friend. Dismiss a suspicion and replace it with trust. Write ...

385. Can You Hear Me Now?

Exodus 3:1-15

Sermon

Arley K. Fadness

... justice runs through the Old Testament like a recurring theme in a symphony. The Psalms sing of it. The prophets decry it. The greatest salvation act in the Old Testament -- the freeing of the Hebrews in bondage -- is born out of the crimes of oppression and the yearning for the beauty and reality of justice. Then God clarifies Moses' call. "So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites out of Egypt" (Exodus 3:10). Moses replies, "Who am I? Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and ...

386. Bloody Lintels — Broken Bread

Exodus 12:1-14

Sermon

Arley K. Fadness

... Egyptian oppressors, a plaintive lament rises up to the heavens -- a great groaning from the Children of Israel to God: Sometimes I feel like a motherless chile, Sometimes I feel like motherless chile, A long ways, long ways, long ways from home. Oooo. Those Hebrew yearnings ran deep. "We want to be free -- free at last!" Moses arrives on the scene, the dust of the desert caking his face, his hair stringy and wild from the wind, the smell of sheep in his robe. He strides into the royal chamber and shakes ...

387. Grace for a Complaining People

Exodus 16:2-15

Sermon

Arley K. Fadness

... they were being received. "Yep," he says, "we've had a lot of changes in our congregation and I've been agin' (against) all of 'em." Archie and Edith Bunker, in the sitcom, All In The Family, loved to sing, "Those were the days" -- a duet yearning for the past. Memories they praised were of Glenn Miller, the Hit Parade, their old LaSalle, Herbert Hoover, and an independent, self-reliant lifestyle that proved "girls were girls and men were men." It's hard to accept that the past is to be learned from, not ...

388. Financial Freedom

Luke 16:1-15

Sermon

King Duncan

... silver spoon he was born with to the silver tray he was served on, to the silver sports coupe he left in the parking lot at Central Park. What the rich young man never had, evidently, was the joy and meaning in life for which he yearned. One of the investigators concluded that the young man’s suicide was the result of a very modern disease of the soul, something he called “affluenza.” (1) Affluenza. Think about that term. Affluence turned into a disease. “There must be more money. There must be more ...

389. Call on the Name of the Lord

Romans 10:5-15

Bulletin Aid

Frank Ramirez

... will look down from the sky. Younger: The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase. Older: Righteousness will go before him, and will make a path for his steps. (based on Psalm 85:8-13) Collect Let us pray: Lord, we yearn for steadfast love and faithfulness, your righteousness and peace which you demonstrate daily in our lives. As we gather together we pray that you will send your Spirit into our midst. Guide us in our worship this morning and in our lives day by day. These things ...

390. Expectancy

Romans 13:11-14

Sermon

James L. Killen

... heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ ..." (Romans 8:15-17). And finally, nothing in the whole creation "will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:39). But in that same chapter, he speaks of a yearning for and a movement toward a future salvation, "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also ..." (Romans 8:11). And, "... we ourselves, who have the first ...

391. A Hope for Peace

Romans 15:4-13

Sermon

James L. Killen

... bitter division that could turn violent. It was probably that hostility that eventually caused Paul's death. But Paul found that conflict very painful because he loved both his own people, the Jews, and the people to whom he was a missionary, the Gentiles. He yearned for their reconciliation and he believed that it had been accomplished, or at least made a real possibility and as a part of God's promise, through Jesus. Again in Ephesians, we read, "He is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into ...

392. A Gift for You

Romans 1:1-7

Sermon

James L. Killen

... with our unwillingness to make commitments. God has sent Jesus to show us what it means to love, and God surrounds us with love, God's love and other loves, that can love us into the ability to share love. That is the pearl of great value that we all yearn for. It is in the package. And purpose is in the package, too. Robert A. Raines began his book, New Life in the Church, by lamenting the lack of purpose in the nation, in the church, and in most of us as people. He compared us to plankton, the little ...

393. Someone Is Trying to Get Through

Acts 10:34-43

Sermon

James L. Killen

... than most because he had probably been required to participate in the execution of other innocent people, following the orders of some powerful person who thought it would be expedient. There must have been lots of painful guilt feelings. There must have been a deep yearning for some way to peace, both peace in the world and peace in his heart. When he heard the message of peace through Jesus Christ and of forgiveness of sins, and when he then experienced those things through the Holy Spirit, we can know ...

394. Worthy of God

1 Thessalonians 2:9-13

Sermon

Rick Brand

... of success in my mind. Yet as the pace of my life increased, my sense of self-worth diminished. Deep down, I knew something was missing. I consoled myself with money, clothes, and trips, but couldn't shake the subtle ache in the belly.... I yearned to step back from this crazy, frenetic dance of doing. Deep down, I was more than ready to move away from the heart-hardening existence of constant demands - more money, more sales, more projects. I wanted out of the harshness that this lifestyle was inflicting ...

395. Fathers in Their Generation

Psalm 103:13

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... thanks to people such as Arnie who have told me their stories, and then have waited patiently for me to come around. Also I couldn't help but be impressed with the phenomenon in our time, seen in Promise Keepers and the Million Man March, of the yearning on the part of men for spiritual depth in their lives. I could criticize the theology of both organizations, but no one can ignore this amazing phenomenon of hundreds of thousands of men who are seeking to ground their lives in spirituality. And so that's ...

396. When to Hold On

II Timothy 3:14-4:5

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... was kept alive by women, who like Lois before them, held on to the tradition, and taught the children. There was another phenomenon reported out of Russia by Malcolm Muggeridge, before he died. He visited Russia, too. He saw that there was a yearning among intellectuals in Russia for something deeper, something transcendent in their lives. He said the Communists were able to eliminate religion from public life, and they were able to narrowly constrict religion in church life, but they couldn't ban two of ...

397. The Burglar's Christmas

Luke 15:22-24

Drama

Matthew Powell

... sits on the stool in center stage) Narrator 2: He sank into the depths of the big leather chair with the lions' heads on the arms, where he had sat so often in the days when his feet did not touch the floor. He felt Will: (To audience) a sudden yearning tenderness for the happy little boy who sat there and dreamed of the big world, so long ago. Alas, he has been dead many a summer, that little boy! Narrator 1: He sat looking up at the magnificent woman beside him. Then, in the deep red coals of the grate ...

398. Easter

Acts 10:23b-48, Colossians 3:1-17, John 20:1-9, John 20:10-18

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

... 3:1-4 1. Death and Resurrection. Easter can mean nothing without the cross. How can there be a resurrection without a death from which to rise again to life? The Easter celebration means little to those who do not experience Good Friday. People often talk about and yearn for a new life, but they are unwilling to pay the price - death. "For you have died" (v. 3) is the basis for a resurrection. It, of course, is not a physical death, but a death of the old Adam - the proud, selfish, wicked self. Out of the ...

399. Proper 10

Genesis 25:19-34, Isaiah 55:1-13, Romans 8:1-17, Romans 8:18-27, Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

... God's people. Truth will win out! Love will win! Life is stronger than death! Lesson 2: Romans 8:18-23 (RC) 1. Creation (vv. 19-22). Creation as well as man (male and female) needs redemption. Until that time creation is in travail yearning to be delivered from decay. Man and creation are inseparable; both need redemption. Creation's redemption, however, depends upon man's prior redemption. In the beginning God placed creation under the dominance of man who, since the fall, has abused, misused, and polluted ...

400. Proper 11

Genesis 28:10-22, Romans 8:1-17, Romans 8:18-27, Matthew 13:24-30, Matthew 13:36-43

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

... there, the place is the gate of heaven, for heaven is being in the presence of God. Epistle: Romans 8:12-25 1. Creation (vv. 19-22). Creation as well as man (male and female) needs redemption. Until that time creation is in travail yearning to be delivered from decay. Man and creation are inseparable: both need redemption. Creation's redemption, however, depends upon man's prior redemption. In the beginning God placed creation under the dominance of man who, since the fall, has abused, misused, and polluted ...

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