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 4001 to 4025 of 4963 results

4001. Overflowing Joy and Rich Generosity

2 Corinthians 8:7-15

Sermon

King Duncan

... $147 dollars (which would be equivalent to $5,000 today) and sent it to Ireland. The Choctaw tribe certainly wasn’t rich back then. But they were generous anyway. They saw others in need, and they sacrificed what they could to help. In 2020, in response to COVID-19 deaths in the Navajo Nation, the Choctaw and Hopi tribes set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for clean water and medical supplies for Native Americans. Donations to the fund have “flooded in” from the people of Ireland. One Irish donor ...

4002. Where Are the Nine?

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon

Richard Hasler

... we express our gratitude in a variety of ways. Our gratitude often reflects our unique personalities. Brant Baker in his book, P.R.A.Y.E.R.: Guidance for Church Leaders, teaches others how to teach prayer to those for whom they have a responsibility. He mentioned Isabel and David Kersey, good Catholics as they are and how they have used outstanding Catholics in history to show a variety ways this might be done. In a rather fascinating way using the different personality types represented in the Myers-Briggs ...

4003. A Trick Resurrection

Luke 20:27-38

Sermon

Richard Hasler

... in his face, and declare, “This is what is done to the man who does not build up his brother’s house. Throughout Israel his family shall be known as the house of him whose sandal was pulled off.” In other words, the brother who refused this responsibility was given a stigma that set him apart in Israel. The Sadducees as a group were not waiting for the resurrection of the dead; in fact, they did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. Their chief scripture was the Torah, the first five books of ...

4004. Fired Up and Fit for the Feast

Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... in the body of God’s people. Just as the shofar awakened the Jewish people to social, spiritual, and holy awareness, so John’s voice served as a coming-of-age “shofar” –God’s voice through the prophet calling God’s people back to the fold. Their response was to be baptism, for John, not merely a ceremonial washing in order to enter into a worship place or to follow Jewish law, but a true and down-to-the-core cleansing of one’s very soul –not only in ritual but in metanoia –visible and ...

4005. Imagine This

Matthew 3:13-17

Sermon

John Jamison

... about his work, Gamaliel had somehow caused Saul to wonder. I wonder if Saul had awoken that morning, looked up at the heavens that had given him the laws, and said something like, “Come on God, give me some kind of sign here. I thought it was our responsibility to show how powerful our laws are, not to be weak and let people walk all over them. Why don’t you say something?” Then God said something. It doesn’t matter to me if there was a heavenly flash or just one of those normal mountainside storms ...

4006. The Most Important Question

Acts 10:34-43

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... . It is simply the threshold to a glorious life with him forever. Jesus claimed to be God, to forgive sins, and to give us eternal life. When we truly see who Jesus claimed he was, we are forced to make a decision about him. The life of Jesus demands a response. You can’t read about the life of Jesus and simply say he was a great teacher or a notable figure in history. That choice is not on the table. Anyone who made these three huge claims is either a lunatic or is telling the truth. So, the pivotal ...

4007. When the Way Means Staying Home

John 11:1-45

Sermon

April Yamasaki

... . Several young adults are away at school. As much as I would love for them all to remain as part of the congregation, I know that God is calling them elsewhere at least for now. In response to the call of Jesus, Peter and Andrew left their fishing nets. The sons of Zebedee left their father with the family fishing business. Matthew left his tax collector booth. Women traveled with Jesus and supported him out of their funds. Crowds flocked to hear him teach and followed him ...

4008. When the Way Is Hard

Matthew 26:14-27:66

Sermon

April Yamasaki

... read. Alone in my room, I could hardly make it through. If I were to read this as part of worship in my church, I’d want to skip the regular sermon and plan some silence to reflect and recover before we’d sing a song of response. Just imagine living and dying through it all. Imagine the agony of Jesus praying alone in the garden, betrayed by one of his closest friends and followers and deserted by the rest. Imagine being arrested and interrogated, spat upon and slapped, then questioned again and again ...

4009. Smombies

Romans 5:12-19

Sermon

Dr. Ronald Love

... for what he has done. We always need to remember that in the middle of the word sin is the letter “I.” We stand front and center in our sins. We must take responsibility for our transgressions. We cannot justify what we have done by saying it was only a little white lie. Somehow sexual transgressions al- ways seem to be at the top of the hierarchy of sin, and we ignore how devastating it is to be critical of others. Consumed by the ...

4010. The Way For Troubled Hearts

John 14:1-14

Sermon

April Yamasaki

... for test results, or there’s a traffic jam, or you have to make a second trip to the store because you forgot to buy the milk. God is with us and at work at those times too. At the same time, trusting God does not absolve us of all responsibility. In fact when we’re troubled about something, that may well point to where we need to work, where we need to pray. So if we’re troubled about our children’s school, trusting God may mean we need to volunteer. If we’re troubled by safety issues in our ...

4011. The Power of Good

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... evil by teaching what it means to do good. This is not so different than what Jesus is asking you to do. Often, it gets too easy for us to sit back and go to worship, then go home and prepare our next meal without much more thought of the responsibility that we’ve signed up for when we agreed to be Jesus’ disciple. Whether you were baptized as a child and confirmed later, or baptized as an adult, you signed your name on the “dotted line” so to speak and agreed to follow Jesus, to be his disciple. At ...

4012. The Gift of Forgiveness

Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... to 15 years labor, but he could not forgive an amount equivalent to one day’s labor. In the same way we have been given an enormous debt by God; so, we are to forgive others as we have been forgiven. Forgiveness of others is part of our Christian responsibility. In 1983 Mehmet Ali Agca was in the midst of the crowd in St. Peter’s Square. He pulled a gun out of his pocket and tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II. He was arrested and imprisoned. In January 1984 the Pope visited the prison, and when he ...

4013. Division of the House

Matthew 10:24-39

Sermon

William G. Carter

... have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace. I have come to bring a sword.” The more these words sink in, the more I think to myself: how did he know? Our world has been visited by the Son of God. The stunning response is that his visit has created all kinds of problems. Just when we were touched by grace, sin grabbed hold and didn’t let go. Just when we saw glimpses of unity, division disrupted our better intentions. Just when we thought we knew the way beyond hatred, a sword ...

4014. Who Am I?

Matthew 3:13-17 · Isaiah 42:1-2

Sermon

Will Willimon

... and said, 'Yea, you're right. He's going to be a preacher.'" Ruben said, "I was twenty-four years old and a student at Boston University School of Theology before I found out that everyone had not gone to seminary the way I had." God's call, the divine response to the Who am I? doesn't usually come falling out of heaven. So we have to listen. If I were to ask you today, Who are you? How did you get here? I expect that you would explain your presence, in church, in this faith, trying to be a ...

4015. You Light Up My Life

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

... funeral service, this father walked over to the piano in the sanctuary and began to play with great feeling, “You light up my life, you give me hope to carry on, you fill my days with song.” It was an incredibly tender moment. So the song strikes a responsive chord in us. We all need someone to light up our life. Someone who will fill our days with song. God does that. But knowing some loving human beings helps also. Would you be willing to be loving music to someone? Do you need a community -- a few ...

4016. Immediately, They Followed

Mark 1:14-20

Sermon

Will Willimon

... of us cannot imagine that it is possible to leave everything and to follow on the basis of a simple invitation and promise. We are not simple, taciturn, uncomplicated fisherfolk like Simon, Andrew, James, and John. We are complex, educated people, people who have responsibilities, complications. We are not apt to drop everything and run off after some itinerant preacher who announces that the time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is now. No, we are apt to have discussions. We will weigh all the possible ...

4017. Weeds

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Sermon

William G. Carter

... wheat. The parable says, “When the wheat bears its grain, that’s when the weeds become obvious.” The question is what do we do about that? If there is good and there is evil, some want to pluck out the evil. Pull the weeds. That is an understandable response. Every once in a while, you hear about somebody who wants to purify the world, or at least their corner of it. They will go in there and separate the weeds from the wheat, the tainted from the pure, the evil from the good, the goats from the sheep ...

4018. The Reckoning

Matthew 14:13-21, Genesis 32:22-32

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... ’s crossing, bearing the visible signs of his internal struggle, he is a changed man, a humbled man, one who has reckoned with himself and has come to terms with what he’s done and who he is, and who is ready to take on the responsibility, the real responsibility and personality, of a true covenant bearer for God. At that, Jacob is able to make his transition. He crosses that river. Miraculously, he meets Esau on the other side of the Jabbok. They embrace, and the past is put to rest. That is what you ...

4019. Count the Cost

Luke 14:25-33

Sermon

Will Willimon

... . I don't know how long you'll be able to hide amid the "multitudes" before he calls your hand and makes you either ante up or leave the table. Awhile back I got a call from a parent, an upset, very upset parent. "I hold you personally responsible for this," he said. "Me?" I asked. The father was hot, upset because his graduate school bound daughter had just informed him that she was going to chuck it all ("throw it all away" was the way the father described it) and go do mission work with the Presbyterians ...

4020. Who Are These?

Revelation 7:9-17

Sermon

Will Willimon

... view, has a way of enriching the spectrum of our vision. And many of us are dying for want of options. For many modem people, religion is mainly a matter of narrowing life's focus. "I considered one or two possible responses to this problem and I narrowed them down to the one response which seemed right to me." Christian people are those who do ''what's right." They have a certainty of belief, firm commitment, correct action. And of course, when we are mainly listening to the voice of our own conscience, or ...

4021. We Have All Become Nicodemus

Romans 16:25-27

Sermon

Ronald Love

... a member of the Sanhedrin, the ruling assembly that presided over the Jews. Another reason to come unseen in the darkness of night. Nicodemus was aware of the teachings of Jesus and wanted to know for himself if this is how we are to live. In response to Nicodemus inquiry Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” Confused, Nicodemus asked, “How can someone be born when they are old? Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s ...

4022. Knowing, and Known

Romans 4:13-25

Sermon

John B. Jamison

... an advantage. He had grown up as a Jew. He was raised in a well-established family with the right lineage. He studied under the best teacher in Jerusalem and learned the Jewish laws from front to back. He became a member of the Pharisees, the group responsible for enforcing and protecting those laws. So he understood what it meant to be a faithful Jew. He had been trained to live it. Then he converted and became a Christian. He became as serious about his new faith as he had been about his old. He traveled ...

4023. Vengeance: Human and Divine

Matthew 13:1-9 · Isaiah 44:6-8 · Psalm 1-12, 17-18, 23-24

Sermon

Will Willimon

... bad people? That's too big a question for our time here. Yet we can note in passing that there is no way for God to love the oppressed, without also hating oppression. God cannot give justice to the poor and the downtrodden without punishing those who are responsible for economic injustice. In any court of law, when a wrong is put right, someone is going to be hurt. The vengeance of God is the inevitably dark side of the mercy of God. The Psalmist knows that the God of the Bible is never neutral, objective ...

4024. Praying the Lectionary: Easter

Mark 16:1-8 or John 20:1-18 · 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 · Isaiah 25:6-9 or Acts 10:34-43 · Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

Bulletin Aid

Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

... : (PAUSE.) This is the day that the Lord has made: C: We shall rejoice and be glad in it! P: All-powerful and ever-living God: Grant us your Spirit’s presence, that we may bask in the sheer delight of your all-sufficient grace now and always. In loving response to this precious grace, help us to freely serve you, one another and the whole creation. Assist us as we share the new life of our risen Master with the whole world. This is the day that the Lord has made: C: We shall rejoice and be glad in it ...

4025. Divine Things

Mark 8:31-38

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... and act as the crew he handpicked for this perilous but important mission –God’s mission. Throughout the scriptures, whenever someone is called by God for a special mission, the humble response is always a special Hebrew word: “hineni.” It means, “here I am.” Or you might translate it, “I am ready.” The response appears eight times in the Torah alone! From Abraham, from Moses, from Samuel, from Isaiah, and others. It means, we are “there,” fully available to God, fully ready to engage in ...

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