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 4501 to 4525 of 5000 results

4501. DisArming Christmas

John 1:6-8, 19-28

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... left us sitting on top of a heap. This Christmas, seriously commit to downsizing your involvement in this arms race. For our children's sake, as well as our own, let us declare that Toys "R"(NOT) Us. 2) Magnify At Christmas we love to sing "Little Jesus Boy." As long as Jesus stays "little Jesus boy," we're safe. Just don't let Jesus grow up. Herod's killing of every child under 2 was also an attempt to prevent Jesus from growing up and to drive Jesus out of the culture of his day. You see, if Jesus grows ...

4502. A Match Made in Heaven

Isaiah 61:1—62:12

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... . They excitedly estimated the size of the new crater that had been formed on the planet's surface. They thrilled to the spectacle of huge billows of dust (or ice) that rose up into what passes for "atmosphere" out there. They theorized on the long-range planet-wide effects of the collision on Jupiter. It took a while. But eventually someone asked what should have been the most obvious question about this whole phenomenon of meteors crashing into planets: "What if it had been us?" In the last few years ...

4503. Stone Testaments

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... person God has made you to be. Once you've fastened your mind and spirit on this event or person, look up and connect that milestone with some piece of architecture in this church. Let me give you some examples. Maybe you heard a sermon from this pulpit a long time ago that has haunted you, but you never acted on it, you never marked it in your life as holy ground. Maybe the organist/pianist played a piece of music that transformed your soul, and yet you have not lived strongly enough in the harmony of that ...

4504. Treasure Hunters

Luke 12:13-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

We are called to lay up treasures in heaven, not possessions on earth. Not too long ago, small was "in." The trendy catch phrase touted "small is beautiful." Advocates of a conscientious style ... soul might require large amounts of space, but very little music. One soul might need symphonies, but have only a slight requirement for fine food. One soul might long to taste every gourmet "goody" that comes his/her way, but need only a humble abode. That is why, as the Parable of the Talents teaches us (Matthew ...

4505. Fan the Flames

2 Timothy 1:1-14

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... is that it takes a lot of time and effort to maintain that degree of enthusiasm for any length of time. That is the reason not many New Year's resolutions make it past March. The joy of exercising gradually becomes just another chore on your long list of "things to do." Old habits and tastes cry out to be satisfied with a Big Mac. Getting away to that perfect fishing hole never seems possible on your schedule. Sunday morning services and Wednesday night praise group and Friday lunchtime Bible study seem to ...

4506. Learn Your ABCs

2 Timothy 3:14-4:5

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... to keep it vital, growing, self-conscious yet selfless. First, we must know our tradition and learn from it. Second, we must know that all our most basic spiritual roots are nourished and strengthened at one source - Scripture. It used to be (not so long ago) that in order to impress the faith upon the hearts and souls of our children, they were required to memorize an entire catechism of theological questions and answers before confirmation. Most of us today would cringe at the prospect of such an exercise ...

4507. Enemies of Promise

Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... been granted a momentary look into a lonely child's heart .... All I could do was breathe a prayer that somehow he had been comforted by Mary's unchanging expression of love." The promise of love, of life eternal, of the divine fulfillment of all our longings and desires, is offered anew to us this season. Just as our Nativity scenes and creches are set out each year, so the promise that the baby Jesus embodies is reaffirmed every Christmas. With that little boy, we should all take turns climbing in to that ...

4508. What Jesus Wants for Chrismas (Part 1)

Isaiah 35:1-10

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... with his birth. Isaiah's text sings the true miracle, the true meaning of Christmas. In the season of Advent, we are called to look forward to the arrival of a Messiah who will do nothing less than save the world. At Christmas, the long-promised Messiah arrives and with him, a season of untold wonders unfolds. The miracles accompanying Christ's birth are not pretty twinkling lights and stacks of glitzy gifts. The miracles of Christmas are the tough, demanding miracles of a wilderness given bloom, the blind ...

4509. Christmas Surprises

Luke 1:26-38

Illustration

King Duncan

... of joy to be in a wonderful country in which a Buddhist gives a Jew a Christmas gift made by a Hindu!" A time of miracles. A time for stories. From time to time we hear someone say, "Wouldn't it be great if it could be Christmas all year long." Surprise! That was God's intent. That is why God invaded our planet and gave us the gift of God's Son. There is only one thing that stands in the way of celebrating Christmas all year ...

4510. Invitations from the Christ Child

Luke 1:26-38

Illustration

King Duncan

... deep yearning to attend church again. Kneeling before the Christmas scene, she studied the figure of the Christ child whose arms were outstretched. She wished with all her heart that those arms were reaching out to her. She remembered Christmases of long ago when her family attended church together. The Nativity scene then was lit with colored lights and pine boughs scented the church. Afterward friends invited her family to breakfast. They would return home from sharing fun and laughter, and then exchange ...

4511. Entertaining Angels Unaware

John 1:1-18

Illustration

Mark Trotter

... doing it to Christ, who said, "If you have done it to the least of these, you have done it to me." Tom Long teaches at the seminary at Princeton. But for a while he lived in Atlanta, and attended a Presbyterian Church in downtown Atlanta. Like ... this church when we open our buildings as a shelter in the winter months, to have people from the church serve as hosts and hostesses. Long volunteered to be a host one night. The night came and since no one else volunteered, he invited a friend to come and join him. ...

4512. Christmas Is about Finding

John 1:1-18

Illustration

... to get jumbled together. I've got 60 years of seekings and findings ... and losings ... and reseekings ... and refindings. Except, as I remember it, the surprise was on John, in that Jesus found him. I guess it's like that, sometimes. To those who wait for it long enough ... and who want it badly enough ... occasionally the good stuff falls in their laps. I heard this story the other day and it sounded unbelievable. But the guy who told it swears to its truth. It seems that there was a lady of limited means ...

4513. Matthew 2:1-12

Matthew 2:1-12

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... as "innocent as doves." Now as they return to their own land secretly they are at last as "wise as serpents." It is hardly surprising that these men, following the star of a king, of a new, powerful ruler, chose to journey to Jerusalem first. Jerusalem had long been the home of those who shaped the destiny of the land around them. And yet Bethlehem is only a few miles from Jerusalem - a suburb of the grander city, in today's geography. The name Bethlehem means house of bread, defining Bethlehem as a small ...

4514. Mark 6:7-13

Mark 6:7-13

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... missionaries to cajole and convince reluctant listeners, but to shake the dust of a rejecting household off their feet as they leave (an image Jesus knew would be burned in the brains of those inhospitable households). Somewhat uncharacteristically, we are not treated to a long argument from the disciples. For once they apparently took Jesus at his word and obeyed his instructions to the letter. Until now it has not been made clear what exactly the disciples were to do out on their missions. But now we see ...

4515. Mark 9:38-50

Mark 9:38-50

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... a seemingly insignificant neophyte to the faith. Only by sacrificially participating in this radically expanded concept of a community of faith can the disciples hope to retain their unique "saltiness" in the world. Their spiritual piquancy is maintained only so long as they accept the inverted rules of importance and belonging that Jesus has revealed. Relating the Texts The Epistle text for this week is actually two distinct units with their own agendas. But James' words continue to stress the surprising ...

4516. Mark 13:24-32

Mark 13:24-32

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... discourse, cataloging his final instructions before the grueling test in Jerusalem. According to Mark, Jesus concludes his earthly ministry by commanding the faithful to maintain an active watch. Mark seems to anticipate Jesus' absence and yearn for his returned presence more pointedly than do the other gospels. The longing in Mark's Little Apocalypse is answered in verse 30 by Jesus' promise to the church that he will return. But as a strong reprimand to those who would pretend to know exactly when this ...

4517. 2 Timothy 1:1-14

2 Timothy 1:1-14

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... Paul's sense of impatience and importance. The very name "Amos" is derived from the Hebrew verb "to load" or - more explicitly - "to carry a load" - a name that implies both something about Amos' message and Amos' character itself. A little of Amos went a long way. Amos is from a region outside Jerusalem known as Tekoa, where he makes his living as a sheep breeder. His personal wealth in terms of livestock and land give him considerably more social standing than that of any simple shepherd. Oddly, for a man ...

4518. Isaiah 42:1-9

Isaiah 42:1-9

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... himself now acts as the crucial link between God's demand for justice and the divine insistence upon compassion and mercy. The servant is named as the "covenant" between God's justice and mercy. This new covenant extends beyond the national boundaries of Israel - long a covenant partner with the Lord. Isaiah's focus on God as Creator here reminds readers that the first covenant between God and creation was pledged before Noah (Genesis 6:17-18) and was also between the Lord and all creation. Likewise now ...

4519. 1 Corinthians 1:18-31

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... to the even more insidious divisiveness suggested by those who touted one form of theological knowledge or insight over another. Corinth was an extremely Greek Roman city. Its Greek heritage was long; its identity as a Roman town relatively new. There was still a deep-rooted love and longing for all things Greek running through Corinthian culture. The rhetorical tradition of Hellenism that championed the abilities of human wisdom and power and glorified the pride and prestige of knowledge appealed strongly ...

4520. Matthew 20:1-16

Matthew 20:1-16

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... agrees to pay is the accepted amount of a standard day's wages for such workers. The normative "day" required for these men to earn their wages is at least 12 hours from dawn until the first stars are visible in the evening sky obviously, a long and exhausting day of work. After hiring his first batch of workers, the landowner returns "about nine o'clock" to the marketplace the "union hall" of the first century and finding unemployed laborers waiting there, he promptly hires them and sends them out to his ...

4521. Philippians 4:1-9

Philippians 4:1-9

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... of those who are active in the main body of the Philippian church, with no apparent references to outside agitators. The personal ties between Paul and these people are evident as he addresses them in 4:1 as those he loves and longs for. This "longing" Paul voices is an emotional ache, perhaps best understood as a kind of "homesickness." Paul's letter is written while he is imprisoned forcibly kept far away from those who offered him a spiritual "home base." Paul next describes these Philippians as ...

4522. Luke 9:28-36 (37-43)

Luke 9:28-36 (37-43)

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... John journey together to a mountaintop for prayer. This is a moment of retreat before Jesus proceeds on the long road toward Jerusalem and to the hostilities that await him there. The Transfiguration also employs opened heavens and the ... records, "the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white" (v.29). When Moses descended from Sinai after his long exposure to the divine, he, too, is significantly altered in his physical features. Moses' face is transformed; "the skin of his face ...

4523. Philippians 2:5-11

Philippians 2:5-11

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... , limiting their meaning to a supreme example of the behavior Paul wished to inspire in the Philippians ignores the message contained in the second half of this "hymn." Focusing only on the humiliation Christ voluntarily embraced was a pitfall St. John Chrysostom long ago worried about when he read these verses. This early Christian father warned that verses 6-11 might be used by those who would deny Christ's actual divinity making him into merely an outstanding human example of humility and obedience. (See ...

4524. Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21

Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... response, "Amen." For good measure and a sense of liturgical finality, the text then utters one more marana tha, "Come, Lord Jesus." John's Revelation clearly expects that Jesus will literally be returning at any moment. The struggling, persecuted, fragile churches in those first years long for the new age to be inaugurated by Christ's presence. But until the Parousia becomes a reality, the infant church finds solace and strength by bringing Christ's presence into their midst through the Eucharist. Their ...

4525. Luke 12:13-21

Luke 12:13-21

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... smacks of Epicureanism a philosophy Judaism had quarreled with repeatedly. Epicurus (342-270 B.C.) articulated a philosophy that advocated increasing personal pleasure while avoiding pain as its primary motives. Although advocating hedonism was not Epicurus' intention, it did not take long for devotees to define Epicureanism as the license to "eat, drink and be merry." These are the exact words, and that is the precise attitude, that the rich farmer uses to describe his future as he sees it. Not until verse ...

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