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 4201 to 4225 of 4943 results

4201. The Question That Will Not Go Away

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Sermon

Edward Inabinet

... at her request sang, "O Worship the King" and "Now Thank We All Our God." Dr. Craddock said you should have been there. It was wonderful. It was really, really something how they sang! Today, I want to share with you three things for your consideration concerning "The Question That Will Not Go Away." DEATH REVEALS TO US THE VALUES WE HAVE CULTIVATED IN OUR EARTHLY PILGRIMAGE. A story is told of a young couple on a fast track in their social life. As the season approached, they went to the social matriarch ...

4202. To Hell and Back

Luke 15:1-7

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... exist in the underworld, a region of shadows and futility; they lived on as unreal, half-material shades in a land of silence and forget-ting. Note: It was not necessarily a place of torment. That notion of hell was to come later, as a whole theology developed concerning rewards and punish-ments in the next life for what people did or did not do in this life. In the beginning, Sheol was merely the abode of the dead. It was not good or bad, just there. The one primary characteristic of Sheol was that it was ...

4203. What Happens When I Die?

John 14:1-4

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... God will provide a re-created life for the whole personality beyond the grave. The God who made us in the first place, can do it again. That is all we can know, or need to know. The Christian Faith has always frowned on too much speculation concerning what the resurrection will be like. And those who give us detailed maps of heaven or compile a directory of hells inhabitants are going far beyond the limits of human knowledge. At this point, a reverent Christian agnosticism is in order, and we should say: I ...

4204. What’s the Good Word?

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... “word” can also be translated as “event.” This reflects the Biblical manner of speaking. It also suggests a common mistake many of us make, for most of us tend to be more Hellenic than Hebraic in our thinking. We want to describe God. The Bible is much more concerned that we obey God. I have a rabbi friend who says that “God doesn’t even care whether or not we believe in Him; just so we obey Him.” That is a very Hebraic way of putting it. The Bible tends to use verbs about God, while we ...

4205. On Doing the Truth

John 3:14-21

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... He said that of course we should work hard at getting more people “born again,” and brought into the kingdom of God. But we are also faced with an even more difficult task, he said, “I incline to think that so far as our troubled world is concerned, the greatest thing that could happen would be for some of the babes in Christ’ to grow up.” He reminded his listeners, who happened to be Methodists, that one of the distinctive messages of the movement known as Methodism is not the new birth, but the ...

4206. Jesus and the Divorced Evangelist

John 4:1-26

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... person showing by his or her life what the Lord can do in terms of a changed life. Thus, this five times divorced woman from Samaria became the first Christian evangelist. She had a rather checkered past, but Jesus did not seem to be as much concerned about her past as her future. Somewhere in my reading I came across a phrase, taken from the world of business and stock markets, “dealing in futures.” Now, my ignorance of the stock market is vast. For me, it ranks somewhere between witchcraft and voodoo ...

4207. Is Suffering Punishment for Sin?

John 9:1-12

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... , and try to see the deeper meaning behind it. I just love this fellow Jesus healed. Again and again he is badgered by the religious authorities who are angered that (1) Jesus healed him, and (2) that Jesus did it on the Sabbath. Their concern for the poor fellow himself seems non-existent. And so he soon finds himself engaged in a heated theological debate with Jesus’ antagonists. But he cuts through all the pompous verbiage and says simply but firmly, “There are many things about this man from ...

4208. How Do You Explain the Resurrection?

John 11:17-37

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... . Lepeaux made this visit, he said, to tell Talleyrand that he had invented a new religion which, in his judgment, was far superior to Christianity. His difficulty was that few people were accepting his new faith. Lepeaux wanted Talleyrand’s advice concerning how he should present this new religion to the French people. Lepeaux explained the superiority of his religion to Christianity. He told of his own efforts and the efforts of his followers to propagandize their faith. He ended his presentation by ...

4209. So Who Needs A Shepherd?

John 10:1-21

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... if God did get us all, eventually. Would you? I get the impression from some preachers I have heard, especially those on television, that a part of what makes heaven “heaven” for them is the idea that some folks are going to hell. To me they seem more concerned about saving hell than saving people from hell. But Jesus says that God is a Good Shepherd, who seeks after the sheep “until he finds them.” I wonder: “How long is until?’ “ I have a hunch that God never gives up on any of us. I am not ...

4210. Love Is Extravagant

John 12:1-11

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... be: “Let her alone. Let her perform her act of love now so that, by anticipation, she may prepare my body for the burial which will soon come. She need not save the ointment. It is proper for her to pour it out in this way. If you are really concerned for the poor, then let her example of generosity inspire you to use the daily opportunities you have to help them. They are always present, and always in need of your help. But this is a special occasion. The time to show this kind of lovingkindness to me in ...

4211. Some Said It Thundered

John 12:20-36

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... at Him and looked through Him and saw the Divine at work in Him; but others saw nothing to wonder at and could only repeat the contemporary clich, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46) And so a decision had to be made concerning this man from Nazareth—and still has to be made. Some of Jesus’ contemporaries asked, “Is this not merely the carpenter’s son?” (Matt. 13:55 ) as though anything or anyone can be explained by its antecedents. “Is this not only Mary’s son, one whose ...

4212. One Commandment, Slightly Used

John 13:31-38

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” That’s the Fourth Gospel’s way of saying it. When Jesus commanded His disciples to love one another, He did not leave them without any guidance or guidelines concerning that love. He said, “Love..as I have loved you.” Others may have taught like Jesus, but nobody ever loved like Jesus. St. Paul could never get over the wonder of it. In Galatians 2:20 he exclaimed, “... it is no longer I who live, but it is ...

4213. Whatever Happened to those Mansions?

John 14:1-4

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... have had a discussion with a friend who urged that he consider what might lie beyond. He replied, “One world at a time, please. One world at a time.” There are many people who believe that Christian hope in life beyond death takes the edge off concern for this world and this life. A promise of heaven in the next world takes their attention away from doing something about the hells in this world. This point of view is expressed with great cogency by Rabbi David Small in the fine series of mystery novels ...

4214. Aren’t All Religions Basically Alike?

John 14:5-14

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... to abandon the project because they could not agree on how to address God! The Christians made the naive suggestion that at least all could pray the Lord’s Prayer, but that suggestion was indignantly rejected. The idea of God as “Father,” a personally concerned divine Parent of us all was simply not acceptable to many of the non-Christian religions who considered it blasphemous to address God in such a personal way. Now can you see the fallacy of saying that “All religions are basically alike, they ...

4215. The Shy Member of the Trinity

John 14:15-31

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... war and peace and justice and all kinds of things. And I don’t give a damn what someone says when he misses a shot.” We may not wish to express it in just those words, but he made the point that there are some really important things which should concern us under the heading of “sin,” and not just the petty peccadilloes which so often go by that name. The real blasphemy of our world is not words, but war. So: the Holy Spirit comes to show us where we are wrong in our understanding of judgment and of ...

4216. Is Conscience the Best Guide?

John 16:5-16

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... he had lost his "ethical compass." The compass is an apt metaphor for the conscience. A compass can guide us, but it must first be set right. A few years ago I purchased a compass for my small sailboat. I then tried to follow the directions which came with it concerning how to set the thing properly. They told me to face north and then set a screw a certain way, and then face east and set it another way; and then to face south, and west and do the same thing. I did this in my car, and I prayed ...

4217. On Panicking Close to Shore

John 6:16-24

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... you can, too. We all have our fears. “You tell me your fears, and I will tell you mine.” “All God’s children got fears!” Now, many of us have good reason for our fears. We live in a pretty scary world. If it is not the fears we have concerning our health, then we have fears about the future. Some are afraid that they might not live to see the future; some are afraid that they will! If we aren’t afraid about ourselves, we fear what other people may think of us, or do to us. The basic problem ...

4218. Son of Thunder, Son of God

Mark 10:35-45

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... , but who seemed to be having more success with it than they were! Luke’s order of things follows Mark’s pretty closely. Jesus teaches about the real meaning of greatness, but the dumb disciples do not get the message. There seems to be a connection between concern for one’s own status and willingness to put down others. We seem to have the feeling that life is a teeter-totter, and that in order for us to rise, somebody else must fall. The assumption in both Mark and Luke is that we are the “chosen ...

4219. The Saint without a Name

Luke 6:12-16

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... .” Nathanael/Bartholomew said to Jesus in John 1:49: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” While nothing is told us about Bartholomew in the Synoptic Gospels besides his name, a number of legends arose concerning him in the early centuries of the Christian Church. Where solid information does not exist, legends tend to fill the void. Earliest tradition says that when the apostles went to their appointed fields Bartholomew, went to “India.” Eusebius of Caesarea, the great ...

4220. Secretary to Saint Peter

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... . What does he look like? the husband inquired. He looks like you’d better pay him, the wife declared. Well, this is part of the decisiveness involved in Mark’s portrayal of the Christ. If you ever confront Him, you have to make some decision concerning Him, take some action, DO something. The time for adjectives is over. The time for verbs has come. Go, Come, Follow, says the Jesus of St. Mark. And He looks like you’d better follow Him! Frederick Buechner writes: Mark ends his book, as he begins ...

4221. The Chicken or the Egg

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... “Repent!” we see repentance in action, as He walks along the shore of the Sea of Galilee and begins to recruit His disciples (Simon, Andrew, James, and John.) These four fishermen changed the direction of their lives. They left their former lives, former concerns, former dreams and desires and began to share Jesus’ dreams with Him. Jesus said, simply, Follow me. And they did. And that is repentance. Repent says Jesus. And the word gives us trouble. In the minds of many people, the church is very much ...

4222. Angels in the Wilderness

Mark 1:9-13

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... the form that angels usually take. At least that has been so in my experience. In Pier Paolo Pasolini’s film “The Gospel According to St. Matthew,” which came out a dozen or so years ago, the angels that speak God’s message to Mary and Joseph concerning the heaven-sent child that is to be born, appear to be youngsters playing nearby. You can make up your own mind whether they are meant to be natural or supernatural creatures. That’s much the same way that it is with the resurrection story in Mark ...

4223. Only a Carpenter

Mark 6:1-6

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... .” Some people are like that: they go through life being “religious editors.” They report on what God is up to in everybody’s life but their own. They are “sermon samplers,” wandering from church to church, quick to pick up a grammatical error in a bulletin, more concerned about syntax in a sermon than about sin in society. These are the people with whom Jesus has a hard time, and for whom He can do no mighty work. He wants to do so much for them, and they will let Him do so little. They are ...

4224. Jesus Out of Character

Mark 7:24-30

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... In a writing called the “Didache” (or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles) a manual of Syrian Christianity dated around the year 100, it says: “Let none eat or drink of your Eucharist except those who have been baptized in the name of the Lord. It was concerning this that the Lord said, ‘Do not give dogs what is holy.’” (Didache 9:5) Matthew, being the most Jewish Gospel, may reflect some of the prejudice against Gentiles of the early Church. A whole Church Council had to fight this battle. You read ...

4225. Salty Saints

Mark 9:42-50

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... had ever said about salt. The result is several very confusing sentences! On the other hand, a textual variant (noted in the footnote in the RSV) may help to explain it. It is possible that some early scribe put a reference to Leviticus 2:13 concerning preparations for ritual sacrifice in the margin, and a later copyist simply took them over into the text. According to Jewish Law every sacrifice must be salted with salt before it was offered to God on the altar. The reference to ritual sacrifice would be ...

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