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 4401 to 4425 of 4962 results

4401. Proper 6

Lk 7:36 - 8:3 · Gal 2:15-21 · 1 Ki 21:1--21 · Ps 5

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

COMMENTARY Lesson 1: 1 Kings 21:1-10 (11-14), 15-21a For refusing to sell his lot to King Ahab, Naboth is falsely accused and murdered so Ahab can take possession of the land. Here we have only the beginning and ending of a dramatic story involving a king, a subject, and a prophet. To understand it, one must know and tell what happens between the first and last verses of the pericope. King Ahab offers to buy or trade the lot of Naboth whose land is next to the palace for his vegetable garden. Because he ...

4402. I Am Who I Am

Sermon

Ronald Lavin

...Though he was in the form of God, (he) did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself,. being born in the likeness of men. -- Philippians 2:6-7 (RSV) Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am." -- John 8:58 (NRSV) ____________ The most crucial question that was ever asked about Jesus is the one the people asked as he came riding triumphantly into Jerusalem that first Palm Sunday: "Who is this?" (Matthew 21:10). It is a familiar question. It was ...

4403. Proper 18

Lk 14:25-33 · Eze 33:1-11 · Phm 1-20 · Prov 9:8-12

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

COMMENTARY Ezekiel 33:1-11 The watchman saves his life by giving God's warning to the wicked in the hope that the wicked will repent and live. The setting for this pericope is the defense alarm system of Ezekiel's day. A watchman was posted on a hill to warn the city by blowing a trumpet when an enemy approached. This gave the people in the fields an opportunity to come into the walled city for protection. If the watchman failed to warn, he was responsible for the death of those killed by the invaders. On ...

4404. All You Need To Know About Heaven

John 14:5-14, John 14:1-4

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

I'm thinking of another Easter morning approximately ten years ago. Four neighborhood churches in Columbia, South Carolina were sponsoring a sunrise service. Some 300 folks gathered in the front yard of a Baptist church, with coats buttoned snugly against the early morning chill. Sometime in the midst of the service, I noticed Jimmy, sitting in his car as close to the crowd as possible, with the window rolled down. I thanked God for the P.A. system that enabled him to hear. His wife had driven him to the ...

4405. Astonishing!

Mark 1:21-28

Sermon

Brett Blair

For centuries people believed that Aristotle was right when he said that the heavier an object, the faster it would fall to earth. Aristotle was regarded as the greatest thinker of all time, and surely he would not be wrong. Anyone, of course, could have taken two objects, one heavy and one light, and dropped them from a great height to see whether or not the heavier object landed first. But no one did until nearly 2,000 years after Aristotle's death. Legend has it that in 1589 Galileo summoned learned ...

4406. God's Verdict Upon The World (Looking At The World Through The Eyes of God)

John 3:1-21

Sermon

Brett Blair

This week has brought to our living rooms the reality of war. It’s reality TV gone berserk. Now we watch as embedded journalists show us marines and soldiers on the front line as they engage the enemy. Is it a surprise to any of us that mankind loves darkness rather than light? I don’t think these images should be shown 24/7, live, at the push of a button, to every household in America. And yet I cannot tear myself from the TV. I watch in astonishment at image after image. It seems surreal. But the danger ...

4407. Grace and Golf

1 Corinthians 9:1-27

Sermon

David E. Leininger

"Beatin' balls and beatin' balls." That title comes from our fair city's attention to golf this week with the presence of the PGA Tour here for the Greater Greensboro Chrysler Classic. (It will always be the GGO to me though.) "Beatin' balls and beatin' balls." Whoever happens to win this afternoon will undoubtedly offer a phrase like that to anyone looking for advice about how to win at golf. Get out on the practice tee and spend hour upon hour upon hour upon hour "beatin' balls and beatin' balls." As ...

4408. Forgiven!

Galatians 2:11-21

Sermon

King Duncan

Recently a religious talk show hostess was interviewing a new believer. The new believer had come from the wrong side of the tracks-economically, socially, morally, and spiritually. As he gave his testimony, this man, who had seen it all and done it all continually thanked God for the change God had made in his life. "I can’t express," he said, "the gratitude I feel that God has changed my life." The talk show hostess knew where he was coming from-for she, too, had walked on life’s wild side before coming ...

4409. Are You In the Know

Job 19:23-27

Sermon

James Merritt

Most of us don't remember, but many years ago doctors used to make house calls. That is, they would actually come to your house with their little black bag, and they would examine you. One day a man took deathly ill, and his wife called the doctor and the doctor came out to the house. When he walked in, the wife told him that her husband was upstairs. He told her to wait there; he went upstairs; was gone for a little while; after a few minutes came down and asked for a screwdriver. She gave him one. He ...

4410. An Unidentified King

Matthew 21:1-11

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

I have always sensed there was something strange about the original Palm Sunday celebration in Jerusalem. A huge question mark looms over the whole event. Think about it...A crowd estimated to be between 100,000 and 200,000 lines the roadsides to cheer an itinerant preacher from Nazareth named Jesus; yet they are not really sure why they are cheering. They are not even sure who Jesus is. What if a ticker-tape parade was held on New York's Fifth Avenue for an unidentified celebrity...and a half-million ...

4411. Quenching St. Anthony's Fire

Mark 8:27-38

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

The world invites us to climb ladders; the gospel invites us to lift crosses. What will it be? The Ladder or the Cross? There are two contemporary works of art that have rare symbolic power: the Vietnam Memorial and the AIDS Quilt. Both address the mystery of suffering that has no rhyme or reason; both restructure reality to enable us to deal creatively with the mystery of suffering. In the last half-millennium, a work of art which has exerted great symbolic power on a vast number of people is the " ...

4412. Preparing the Way

Malachi 3:1-4

Sermon

Mary S. Lautensleger

Preparing the way can become an all-consuming endeavor. Unforeseen obstacles often have a way of getting in our way to hamper progress and sidetrack us. Then, Murphy's Law goes into effect: "If anything can go wrong, it will." Plans for the Paris subway system were begun in 1845, but the actual work was not begun until much later. A civil engineer, Fulgence Bienvenue (1852-1936), was assigned the task of preparing the way. His first big task was to dig the network of underground tunnels for the trains. The ...

4413. Who Touched The Remote Control?

Jeremiah 17:7-8

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

Maybe you've heard about the family who was asked by their pastor how much time they spent together in meaningful discussion. The father said that they spent about two-and-a-half hours a day in meaning discussion. The pastor was impressed. "That's wonderful! That's more than I spend with my own family, a lot more! What kind of things do you discuss?" Mom rolled her eyes and then volunteered additional information left out by the father. She said, "We only discuss one thing: who gets to hold the remote ...

4414. Come and See

John 1:29-42

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

While growing up there's something my folks used to say that's always puzzled me. I've even said it to my kids. And you've probably said it to yours. It usually happened when we were very young and hadn't learned all the etiquette of life. But I can clearly remember seeing someone dressed or acting strange, pointing at them and my mother slapping my hand and saying: "Billy, it's not polite to point." I've never understood why. So I did a little research. SwissAir Gazette says: "Pointing at objects is not ...

4415. Like a Waving Flag

Luke 7:36-50

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Those of us who live in the United States have no experience with royalty or with “kingdoms” ruled by kings or queens. We have no royal family, so we have to invent our royalty. We had the “King of Rock’n’Roll,” Elvis Presley. We had the “King of Pop,” Michael Jackson. We had a “King of Soul,” James Brown. We have a Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. We have a “King of all Media,” Howard Stern. We have a Queen of Clean, Linda Cobb. We even have a King of Greasy Goodness” for the Queen of Clean to clean up: ...

4416. I Doubt It

John 20:19-31, Act 4:32-37

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

The Apostle Thomas could have been related to Eliza Doolittle from the musical My Fair Lady. She expresses the same idea as Thomas when she cries out, "Don't tell me you love me, show me! Show me!" Thomas could have been related to Saint Francis of Assisi, as well. Because St. Francis said something very similar when he said, "Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words." Thomas had to be from Missouri. He had to be from the "Show Me" state. He was a visual and kinetic learner. He had to see it ...

4417. Enough Foolishness!

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sermon

King Duncan

Is there anyone in the room who has felt dumb in front of a computer? It’s happened to all of us at one time or another, I suspect. A technical support advisor received a call from a woman who had been told that her computer was infected by a virus! This alarmed her. She wanted to know how she could disinfect it. The tech advisor asked her what software she was using. She sounded a bit confused. What did he mean, software? After a few minutes on the phone, the tech support guy realized that she had ...

4418. The Unchanging Christ in a Changing World

Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

When we come to church, we usually do not come primarily to learn about doctrine. We come to find inspiration, to lay our hurts at the altar, and to draw strength from the fellowship. Doctrine can seem kind of dry. Doctrine causes arguments and who needs more of those? The book of Hebrews has been committed to the idea that a proper understanding of doctrine sustains our faith and keeps us from drifting away from it. Our passage for today has something important to say about how we understand Christ, and ...

4419. All In: Calling Your Bluff

Romans 12:1-8

Sermon

James Merritt

Financial advisors will tell you that the wisest way to invest money is to be diversified. As the old saying goes, “don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.” Yet when it comes to the most important investment you will ever make which is your life—God’s strategy is just the opposite. The strategy is not diversification but concentration—taking all of your life and giving it completely to Jesus Christ. We are in a series called “All In.” Our theme verse is Luke 9:23, “And he said to all, ‘If anyone would ...

4420. The World's Largest Covered Dish Lunch

John 6:1-15

Sermon

The Rev. Paul Brunner tells a wonderful story about a young man named Jeff. Jeff learned one Sunday morning that his church was holding a picnic that afternoon. He hurried home from church to pack his lunch and get to the picnic grounds. But, lo and behold, when he opened the refrigerator door, he discovered only a single piece of dried up bologna and two stale pieces of bread (one of them a heel). And to make things worse, there was barely enough mustard to color his knuckles when he tried to scrape the ...

4421. Doing What is Good

Titus 3:1-11

Understanding Series

Gordon D. Fee

Instructions for Living in State and Society: After a brief exhortation to Titus (2:15) to “teach these things” (at least 2:1–14), Paul returns in this section to the major concern of the letter—“good works” (i.e., genuinely Christian behavior) for the sake of the outsider (3:1–8) and in contrast to the false teachers (3:9–11). This section, however, makes a decided turn in the argument. In 2:1–14 the concern for “good works” had to do largely with relationships between believers, which when seen by ...

4422. Parables of the Kingdom

Mark 4:1-20

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

Big Idea: Jesus has sown his kingdom truths among the crowds, the leaders, and his disciples. They are the soil in which his gospel seed is placed, and God holds them responsible for their receptivity to the message of the kingdom. Understanding the Text This parable discourse (chap. 4) is one of two extensive teaching sections (with chap. 13) in Mark, and it interprets the action and mission of Jesus in chapters 1–3. These are “kingdom parables” describing the implications of the arrival of the kingdom in ...

4423. “Truly My Soul Finds Rest in God”

Psalm 62:1-12

Teach the Text

C. Hassell Bullock

Big Idea: God is our “all in all,” and that truth prompts us to invite others into our faith. Understanding the Text Psalm 62 is an individual psalm of trust.1 (See sidebar “Psalms of Trust” in the unit on Ps. 16.) The crisis that has called forth this marvelous expression of faith is not clear. However, we can be confident of this much: David has been assaulted by the unscrupulous attacks of his enemies, who flattered him with their words but cursed him in their hearts (62:3–4). Their erroneous assessment ...

4424. All for Some Dumb Sheep

John 10:11-18

Sermon

King Duncan

There was a best-selling book in 1995 by Daniel Goleman called Emotional Intelligence. This book provided us with many examples of the effects that our emotions can have on our rational brain. The book begins with the story of Gary and Mary Jean Chauncey, who were in an Amtrak train that crashed into a river after a barge hit and weakened a railroad bridge in Louisiana. Gary and Mary Jean were trapped in their compartment as they tried desperately to save their eleven year-old wheelchair ridden daughter ...

4425. Shockwaves of Joy

Matthew 28:1-10

Sermon

King Duncan

One of the most spectacular characteristics of the Hollywood film industry is special effects. How many times have you walked out of a theater thinking “Wow! How did they do that?” For example, those of you who are James Bond fans might already know that the biggest stunt explosion in movie history was in the 24th Bond movie, Spectre. It’s even listed in the Guinness Book of World Records. It’s an impressive scene. It took over 2,000 gallons of kerosene, 300 detonators, 24 explosive devices and a mountain ...

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