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 401 to 425 of 841 results

401. Return and Be Forgiven

Isaiah 55:1-13

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... of our Old Testament lesson tell us about the absolute otherness of God. "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways, says the Lord." That is a revelation that we need to remember whenever we try to identify the Lord with theological theories from our own imagination, or whenever we try to say that one of our social programs is identical with the will of God. All of our theologies and philosophies, all of our programs and projects, both in and outside of the church, are tainted by our ...

402. The Conversion of Saul

Acts 9:1-19a

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... fulfilled and was at an end. That was too much for Pharisee Saul. It has been the common stereotype to say that Saul was converted because he could not follow the law and that he finally realized that he could be saved only by grace. But that theory has no basis in fact. Paul himself states that as to righteousness, he was blameless under the law (Philippians 3:6). Paul could follow the law to the letter. It was not his own spiritual or psychological inner state that led to his conversion. We should give ...

403. Following Summons

Acts 9:32-43

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... Kings 4:32-35) and like Jesus in the Gospel according to John (John 11:38-44), Peter raises Dorcas from the dead. It is not our role as preachers and hearers of the Word of God to question or doubt the event. We are not to make up fanciful theories, supposing that Dorcas was not really dead but in a coma. Nor are we to take the account as a pious exaggeration. No. The story is simply there, and Luke expects us to accept it as an actual event. Indeed, in Matthew, Jesus tells the twelve disciples that they ...

404. The Nature of the Church and Christian Discipleship

1 Peter 2:4-12

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it unto me…” Our proclamation of the wonderful deeds of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light is by word, but is also in deed and sign. A Stanford University physiologist, Dr. Festinger, has a theory, which he calls “cognitive dissonance.” As strange and as new as it may sound, it is very simple. It refers to my awareness of the big gap between my ideals and my actions, what I believe and what I do, my goals and my deeds. Our big ...

405. The Proof Is In the Pudding

Luke 7:18-35

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... , Texas, called the “Living Room.” Any patient entering that room was under strict orders not to talk about his or her illness. Consequently, the conversation was mostly story-telling. There was lots of laughter. Some folks poked fun at his theories and referred to his conclusions as “giggling more important than gargling.” I was interested in Cousins long before his marvelous work on laughter as a healing dynamic. His commentaries on current events and his editorials in The Saturday Review were ...

406. Abraham and God's Promise

Genesis 15:1-18

Sermon

King Duncan

... one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” (3:8) And that’s true! Time does not mean the same thing to God as it means to us. It was Einstein who introduced us to the theory of relativity, often illustrated like this. A second seated on a hot stove seems like an hour; an hour in the arms of your beloved seems like a second. Time is relative. Now imagine the truth that God stands outside time. God is timeless. God does not age. And when ...

407. The Curriculum of God’s Kingdom

Matthew 4:12-17

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... he is. After hearing him say what he said and seeing what he did, people often asked, “Who is this man?” The kingdom of heaven is at hand, close enough to touch us. In Jesus’ ministry, which is only just beginning, God’s rule has gone from being a correct theory to a present experience. God’s rule and reign is moving in like a warm front, which means that a cold front is now on the retreat. The kingdom of God is breaking in with the result that the other kingdom, the alien rule of the Evil One and ...

408. Getting Your Politics Right

Matthew 6:5-15

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... -moral renaissance here in America. We could again be a good people and show the nations the way forward. How naive I was, how misguided, how uneducated about the seriousness of sin and evil and how it infects all we touch, even our noblest impulses. My theory of history is now much chastened and more modest. We are moving towards an ultimate collision with the kingdom of God, but we are not progressing towards it. It is not onward and upward till God rewards us by topping off our labors with the gift of ...

409. In the Cross of Christ We Glory

Mark 8:31--9:1

Sermon

Michael Milton

... have called Christianity a bloody religion. Dr. Delores S. Williams, the Paul Tillich Professor of Theology and Culture of Union Theological Seminary in New York City was spewing heresy at a conference a few years back when she said these words: I don’t think we need a theory of atonement at all. I don’t think we need folks hanging on crosses and blood dripping and weird stuff.[3] If I had been the president of that seminary, she would be gone or I would be gone. Alas, she is still there. But let’s ...

410. A Fool and His Money

Luke 12:13-21

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... all, where Jesus says, "Blessed are the poor." The beatitude in Matthew is, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." But Luke edits it, and says, "Blessed are the poor." There is other evidence that Luke's gospel is for the poor. In spite of that, I have another theory. I believe that Luke wrote his gospel for the rich, to warn us about the foolishness that you hear about wealth. In his day the foolishness was to say that if you are wealthy, that means that you are living a righteous life, and have God's blessing ...

411. Achieving Peak Performance

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... . I understand that in prisons, even in some hospitals, especially those for the very disturbed people, they let them raise pets. They give them animals to care for because it works better than anything else to bring about healing in their lives. The theory is so simple. The animal becomes the object of their caring. They give themselves to something outside of themselves. If you give yourself to something outside of yourself, you get outside of yourself and you start to feel better about yourself. It is ...

412. What Do You Call Success?

Luke 10:1-24

Sermon

King Duncan

... with a shopping mall. The pastor says the sermons are a Christian version of Oprah or Dr. Phil, heavy on successful principles for living--how to discipline your children, how to reach your professional goals, how to invest your money, how to reduce your debt . . . The theory is to give the people what they want; and what they want is what they see at the mall or on TV. (3) Now our purpose today is not to criticize other Christian groups. In fact, the truth is that some of them are helping people that ...

413. Irrevocable Gifts

Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32

Sermon

Jeff Wedge

... is not surprising that some people choose not to utilize their gifts. It would seem, however, that our problems with gifts don't end with a failure to use them at all. An even more serious problem is the way it is possible to misuse our gifts. At least in theory, the gifts we receive from God should be used to the glory of God. It seems so obvious, and yet, in practice, it is so difficult actually to do that. We sometimes suspect that the only way to use our gifts is to work for or in the church. And ...

414. Doing Well and Doing Good

Romans 13:8-14

Sermon

Jeff Wedge

... , from Paul's writings in the New Testament we can understand that early Christians were quite likely to stress the outward gifts such as healing, prophesying, or speaking in tongues, and frequently to lose sight of the basic duty of love. Not a simple theory, often nothing that looks impressive, but a bedrock for Christian behavior - You shall love your neighbor as yourself. No longer are we able to reduce the commandments to simple little actions we can hope actually to do, or a few things we should avoid ...

415. A Radical Faith

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... emotions inside of them as their son, in his father's eyes at least, threw away everything that he had hoped for his son. Some historians feel that this conflict with his father was the source of Luther's religious struggle with God. That is a theory made popular by Erik Erickson in a psychobiography called, Young Luther. But there is no evidence of that. There is ample evidence, however, that Luther was a typical person of his age. He was preoccupied with saving his soul and had the courage and commitment ...

416. Hope Is Medicinal

Mark 1:40-45

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... do it." So if it doesn't happen, it must mean that God didn't will it. There are many in our day who still think that way. You could call this the "reasoning of the pious," or the "reasoning of the religious." But there are those who have another theory. If you measure their numbers by the number of books sold that advocate this position, you would say that their numbers are great, and growing. These are the people who feel that in large part the healing is up to you. As if they had said, "If you will, you ...

417. Hosea's Marriage Troubles

Hosea 2:14-20

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... through his own painful, personal experience. All prophets interpreted the meaning of the covenant, our relationship with God. But Hosea did it in a most dramatic way. He personalized it. He meditated in his own life on what all of this meant. There are several theories of what actually happened to Hosea. There is only the barest outline of his life in the Book of Hosea. We know that he married a woman named Gomer, and had three children by her. The three children's names are recorded in the first chapter ...

418. Let Us Pray

James 5:13-20

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... manipulate the forces of nature. They believe that the world is run rationally and consistently, no exceptions, so everything must have a natural explanation. But the trend now in the natural sciences is to discover the inter-relatedness of all things. Quantum theory, as I understand it, has presented a more organic, rather than mechanistic view of the world, so that what happens in one part of the universe can affect what happens in another part of the universe, far, far away. That realization has given ...

419. The Light of the World

John 20:1-18

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... name for that oceanic nursery. They called it the "Urschleim." They chose a German name to give it scientific respectability. In 1872, Sir Charles Thomson left England aboard a ship called the Challenger to sail through all the oceans of the world to test this theory. For four years they sailed the oceans, sixty-nine thousand miles, dragging the ocean bottom. They found rare forms of life, many of which were grotesque, but they didn't find anything new. Time and time again they would play out four miles of ...

420. Try to Be Nice

Philippians 4:2-9

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... in the third chapter sounds like the way you would end a letter formally. He says, "Finally my brethren, Rejoice." "Xairete." It is like saying, "Thanks for everything," "Keep in touch," "See you soon," "Sincerely." It is obviously the ending of a letter. I propose this theory, that he wrote a thank you note to the Philippians, because that is what is really in the first two chapters leading up to that first verse in the third chapter. It reads like a thank you note. The occasion of the letter is stated ...

421. Proper 9

Gen 24:1-67, Zech 9:9-13, Rom 7:7-25; 8:1-17, Mt 11:1-19, 25-30

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

... v. 25). Jesus thanks God for hiding from the "wise" - the scribes and Pharisees who are the religious leaders, the theologians of the day, the Bible scholars. Give the truth to the professionals and the truth might be lost as they spin their theories and add exceptions and conditions ad infinitum. The truth would lose its simplicity and purity. The professionals would make the truth so sophisticated and conditional that the plain person could not understand it. Jesus thanks God that he revealed the truth to ...

422. The Cry for Help

Matthew 15:21-28

Sermon

Stephen M. Crotts

... think that the obvious thing for him to say would be, "Of course I'll be glad to help. God loves everybody." We are the beneficiaries of centuries of the Christian church saying, "God shows no partiality" - it's in the book of Acts. Well, we know that in theory. But if we remember that we get a little nervous when we have to drive at night through an area of the city populated by people of a different race, or that we felt uncomfortable when that Arabic looking person got on the plane right after us, we'll ...

423. Come Back

Luke 21:5-38

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... God, and we betray each other, with our hypocrisy. Here's a little test: What did Walt Disney's breakfast consist of? I'll give you three guesses: 1. bowl of kumiss (Mongolian fermented mare's milk) 2. Dunkin' Donuts drowned in whiskey 3. Sushi (on the theory that it would be good for circulation). The correct answer is Dunkin' Donuts. But wait a minute: "Here was a man who announced, 'No liquor in my company' (but dosed himself daily on donuts and whiskey). Here was a man who said, 'No facial hair in my ...

424. From Black Holes to Red Holes

Luke 18:18-30

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... evidence that black holes exist in the universe. Although we cannot see black holes because their gravitational pull is too great for even light to escape, we can rely on the indirect evidence that builds quite a compelling case for the existence of black holes. One theory about black holes is that there is one super-massive black hole at the center of every galaxy and that is what holds all the different solar systems together. Wile the all-consuming mouth of a black hole may appear to us as simply a force ...

425. Nothing but Christ, and Him Crucified

1 Corinthians 1:18--2:5

Sermon

James McCormick

... your life. There is something, isn’t there, about that man on the cross? For two thousand years we have been trying to express the meaning of it in words. We have been trying to grasp it with our minds and our hearts. There is this theory and that explanation of what exactly was happening there. But the full greatness of it has eluded us. There are no concepts large enough. There are no words expressive enough. We cannot fully understand it, nor adequately express it, but we have experienced the power of ...

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