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 4626 to 4650 of 5000 results

4626. A Watery Grave

Mark 1:9-13

Sermon

David J. Kalas

... come up with very different descriptions of what an elephant is like. The fable may be used for all sorts of mischief, of course, but it does provide a helpful image: Namely, that some truths are larger and more complex than any one person can fully understand or adequately describe. Baptism may be one such truth. Such a variety of imagery is used in scripture and beyond to unpack the mystery of baptism. We meet a sampling here. As our people read their Bibles, front to back, they may be startled by baptism ...

4627. When You Drop the Ball, What Next?

Mark 1:21-28

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... him of his robe. New Zealand theologian and pastor Alan Jamieson, in his book Journeying in Faith (2009), puts it like this: The stark reality is that each of us at some point in the journey will fail. I don’t mean a little hiccup that everyone could understand and which could be talked about politely over scones in a home-group discussion. I don’t mean the failures we admit to as modern Christians that we aren’t reading our Bibles as often as we would like, or some equally inane slip-up. I mean fail ...

4628. Like a Butterfly

Mark 9:2-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... Peter would have asked Jesus if he could post pictures of this event on Facebook or Instagram. I can hear him now, “Master, is it all right if I take a selfie?” Peter had no clue what he was saying. That’s all right. This was an event beyond his understanding. And then, as if things had not gotten mysterious enough, a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” I don’t know about you, but if I heard a voice coming out of a cloud ...

4629. The Law of Unintended Consequences

Mark 1:40-45

Sermon

King Duncan

... , it probably shortened Christ’s ministry because it could not help but draw the attention of both the religious authorities and the Roman authorities. They could not help but see someone who might cause them trouble if his following kept growing. Of course, it’s all understandable. Jesus could not help but heal this man, even if it was not part of his core mission. Jesus’ nature was pure, unconditional love. So, of course, he was going to reach out to help someone in need, even if it wasn’t in his ...

4630. Everything Must Go: If I Were a Rich Man

Luke 12:13-21

Sermon

James Merritt

... you, and if you think it is for you, then you will handle your finances in a certain way. You will handle it the way most people handle their finances, because most people think that what they have came from them and what they have is for them. If you understand that everything you have comes from Him, and is for Him, you will handle your finances completely different. You can do one of two things, but only one. You can lay up treasure for yourself or you can be rich toward God, but you can’t do both. I ...

4631. Everything Must Go: Striking It Rich

1 Timothy 6:3-10

Sermon

James Merritt

... of saying three words and you know what they are, “Everything Must Go!” In this verse and the next verse, Paul is going to teach us the secret to satisfaction. He is going to put us on the course of contentment. The first key is real simple. Just understand everything must go. The second key is found in verse 8. “But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.” (I Timothy 6:8, ESV) In other words, get to the point where the essentials are enough. The word for “clothing” can also ...

4632. Joy Giver

Luke 2:8-20

Sermon

James Merritt

... not have joy? It is not just where this birth took place, but it is who the birth was about that should give you joy. “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:11, ESV) Do you understand who was born on that day 2000 years ago? He has three titles: Savior, Christ, and Lord. Those three words never appear together again in any other New Testament verse. Those three words are filled with joy. I don’t know if you like doughnuts or not, but my favorite ...

4633. The Right Connection

John 15:1-17

Sermon

James Merritt

... the fruit produced by the vine. The mark of every true follower of Jesus Christ is fruit. There is no such thing in the teachings of Jesus as a non-fruit bearing believer. The Christian life is a fruit bearing life. Do you know why this is so important to understand? If you are not a follower of Jesus Christ and the reason is you said to yourself, “I can’t live a Christian life. It is too hard.” You are half right. You can’t live a Christian life. Not because it is too hard, but because it is ...

4634. Reliable Witness

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

King Duncan

... are many Christians who need to deal with science in an open and honest way. I’m not going to deal with Creationism vs. evolution today. But I do want to address those of you who need more than a biblical explanation. And I do want you to understand that the more I know about science the deeper my faith in Christ becomes. There are many things we believe in this world that we haven’t seen. As children we learned that the earth is round. We’ve never traveled into space and looked back at the earth ...

4635. Just Grace

Matthew 20:1-16

Sermon

James Merritt

... they were looking for work. They got a job, because the owner was looking for workers and willing to give them a job. Understand the situation. These men had no steady employment. They were utterly dependent on an employer who was willing to hire them at ... glad that God is generous, not just to us, but to everybody else. Do you see the lessons that come out of this parable? Do you understand why when it comes to God and the way He relates to us it is just grace? Lesson #1 – God doesn’t owe us anything. ...

4636. It Was a Dark and Stormy Evening! Father's Day

Mark 4:35-41

Sermon

King Duncan

... same question could be asked of each of us. After all that God’s done for us through the years, do we still have no faith? Hasn’t God come through for us before? Though they called Him “Rabbi,” meaning teacher, his disciples yet didn’t understand his teachings. And we make the same mistake. Though we call him Savior (which means Deliverer), when our back is against the wall, we despair instead of trust. We murmur instead of praise. We forget how many times he’s brought us through the storm in ...

4637. Hamburgers Don't Grow on Trees

Mark 4:26-29, Mark 4:30-34

Sermon

King Duncan

... a brilliant career. “It was an awkward marriage at best, a young man with a Ph.D. in theology, full of ideas and ambitions, determined to improve his parish and bring them into the twenty-first century. Often he doesn’t understand his congregation, and sometimes they don’t understand him.” (6) It is only later that Lischer begins to see what he couldn’t see while he was striving to be the perfect pastor of that conservative congregation. The Kingdom of God was happening in that small parish even ...

4638. About Getting Drunk

Ephesians 5:15-20

Sermon

King Duncan

... this is not strictly a modern problem. Paul writes to the church at Ephesus and says, “Be very careful, then, how you live--not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving ...

4639. No Turning Back

John 6:60-71

Sermon

King Duncan

... the crowd turned back or many that he fed turned back. We would expect that. Like many people today, there will always be people who church hop. They will keep shopping until they find a church that gives them exactly what they want. No, we could understand it if John said that many of the 10,000 turned back, but what he says is, “From this time, many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.” This means some of the church’s [elders, deacons, board members] Sunday School teachers, choir ...

4640. Right Answer - Wrong Conclusion

Mark 8:27-30

Sermon

King Duncan

... everyone else expected. Maybe this is why Jesus sternly warned his disciples not to tell anyone of his identity. They weren’t ready to talk to people about what it meant to say that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah. They didn’t understand it themselves. People had many false notions of “Messiah.” The promised Davidic Messiah was commonly thought to be a political, nationalistic figure who would free the Jews from Roman domination. Jesus’ mission was not at all like that. Jesus’ mission wasn’t ...

4641. The Word Became Flesh

John 1:1-18

Sermon

King Duncan

... in the straw arranged on the floor was a single word “Immanuel.” Which means, of course, “God with us.” (2) What great good news that is. We are not alone. We do not live in a cold, impersonal universe. God has been and is among us. God understands our situation. We live on a God-visited planet. I was reading recently about a stand-up comedian named Greg Dean. Early in his career, Dean made little money and consequently had no money to buy Christmas presents. So he came up with a unique idea. He ...

4642. Shall We Waddle or Fly?

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

Sermon

King Duncan

... all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body . . .” Well-known retired seminary professor Dr. Fred Craddock once pointed out that the church was not born full grown. It needed to grow in its self?understanding. What was the church? How should its life be shaped? As Craddock pointed out, there was no shortage of models from which these early Christians could draw. For example, they could have patterned their church life after the Temple. They loved the Temple. It was ...

4643. What Did Jesus Do?

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

Sermon

King Duncan

... . For Easter was coming as well as Pentecost . . . Then what had been hidden from those who followed him would suddenly be made clear to them. And he knew they would rise to the occasion. Do you understand now when I said the first thing he did was he made an extraordinary investment in the church? The church is the reason Christ came into the world. We are the means by which Christ will transform the world. Paul writes in another place: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, ...

4644. Sunday's Here

John 20:1-9

Sermon

King Duncan

... one minute. And then, six months after that, his first child died. It didn’t matter that she had limitations. There was an enormous hole in his heart. Shelley says by this time he was full of some honest and hard questions for God. You can understand that. You’ve had those same questions if you’ve watched a loved one suffer. Marshall Shelley asked those questions. Afterward he said, “God’s not offended by [our asking questions]. In fact, He invites it!” We don’t know how God renewed Marshall ...

Mark Twain Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture which they cannot understand; but as for me, I have always noticed that the passages in Scripture which trouble me most are those which I do understand.

Mark Twain

Understanding the workings of the atomic bomb is child’s play compared to understanding child’s play.

Michael P. Green

4647. Be Faithful Where You Are

Illustration

Michael P. Green

... and the pressures of being a monarch, applied to a monastery to be accepted for a life of contemplation. The religious superior of the monastery, Prior Richard, is reported to have said, “Your Majesty, do you understand that the pledge here is one of obedience? That will be hard because you have been a king.” Henry replied, “I understand. The rest of my life I will be obedient to you, as Christ leads you.” “Then I will tell you what to do,” said Prior Richard. “Go back to your throne and serve ...

4648. Solomon Builds the Temple

2 Chronicles 3:1-17

Understanding Series

Louis C. Jonker

... cult. Second Chronicles 4:9 (without a parallel in the source text) now elaborates further on the spatial division of the temple area. The courtyard of the priests and the large court are distinguished from the rest of the design and probably reflect the understanding of temple design of the Chronicler’s own day (i.e., the spatial division in the so-called Second Temple, which had an inner court for the priests and a bigger, outer court for laypeople). Second Chronicles 4:10 returns to the position of ...

4649. Solomon's Other Activities

2 Chronicles 8:1-18

Understanding Series

Louis C. Jonker

... the background to the next episode, in which Solomon’s wealth is the center of attention. Additional Notes 8:16 The Hebrew verb kun, used in this verse (translated in the phrase all Solomon’s work was carried out), is a term that structures the Chronicler’s understanding of the monarchical history. The verb occurs five times in the Solomon narrative (1:4; 2:7, 9; 3:1; 8:16), with the present reference being the last one. The very last occurrence in Chronicles is in 35:20, where it is stated after the ...

4650. The Queen of Sheba Visits Solomon

2 Chronicles 9:1-12

Understanding Series

Louis C. Jonker

... line with the way in which Solomon’s kingship is presented in the Chronicler’s own material in 1 Chronicles 28:5: “he has chosen my son Solomon to sit on the throne of the kingdom of the LORD over Israel.” This reflects the Chronicler’s understanding that the actual king of Israel is Yahweh. Solomon might be the center of literary attention in this episode, but with this small change to the source text the Chronicler reminds his readers that Solomon was not occupying his own throne but was rather ...

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