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 4676 to 4700 of 5000 results

4676. Lean on Me

Luke 18:1-8

Sermon

John Wayne Clarke

... and read their Bibles. But successful Christians read and pray, and then some. The widow only asked for justice and that is what God grants. The parable this morning is not telling us that God is some sort of super discount store that will give us whatever we ask as long as we are as vigilant as the widow before the judge. Rather, the lesson this day for you to take with you is that if what you seek is within God's character, you will persevere over all the evil judges in the world. But, if our prayer is ...

4677. Standing Tall in the Lord

Philippians 3:17-4:1

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... individually or communally, always takes second or lower priority. Too often today, people believe the error of sin has taken flight. We live in a pervasive world where one often hears, "I will do ‘my own thing.' " People speak and act as if anything goes so long as we don't hurt others or get caught. In general, secularism seeks to push the sacred away from the light. God is asked to take second place to the world. We concentrate on the here and now; any energies placed toward our external existence with ...

4678. Carrying the Burdens of Others

Philippians 2:5-11

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... had to find some way to carry him. He brought with him a blanket from his knapsack and made a sling out of it. He got the man into the sling and hoisted him onto his back. Then together they began the arduous climb up to the path. After a long time, Sundar, drenched with perspiration, finally got back to the path. He continued to struggle with his heavy burden through the snow which was becoming increasingly deep. It was dark now and, thus, it was hard to find his way, but he continued along the way in the ...

4679. God’s Grammar

Galatians 3:23-29

Sermon

John Jamison

... in those situations when the disciples are faced with interacting with those people who come from outside the Jewish faith; the unclean. On one occasion, Jesus sent a group into town for food, and he was met with real protest. The protest was not because it was a long walk to town, or they just didn't want to go shopping, but because they would probably run into unclean people there, and they just didn't want to do that. It is interesting to remember that to finally get them to go, Jesus sent twelve of them ...

4680. God Is Rock Solid

Hebrews 12:18-29

Sermon

Clayton A. Lord

... Exodus 1:8 where the author says, "Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph." Everything changed. Before long, Joseph's descendants were turned from friends to slaves. In other countries today, change often takes place swiftly and unexpectedly. You can ... it is often lost on us. Nonetheless, it is important to us because God is still the source of our hope and our grace. As long as God is in control we know that we have an advocate in high places. We have someone who cares for us and will seek ...

4681. Flying Coach to Nirvana

2 Timothy 3:10--4:8

Sermon

Donna Schaper

... way I think about the lament in today's letter to Timothy. The writer says he has been poured, spent, done, and still God stuck with him. We travel through life and we are all poured and spent. Just think about how you feel when you return home after a long trip: you are both filled and empty. When the writer of Timothy talks about being poured and spent, we are in a similar situation. We have ended one piece of our journey and are on our way to another part. We have exited to enter. We know we have nothing ...

4682. The Good News about Money

Mark 10:17-31

Sermon

King Duncan

... that question is always the same. There will be a murmur. A sort of collective, "Wait a minute. What right has he to ask me that?" Then a few hands will go up, tentatively. Somebody will blurt out, "Compared to what?" He writes, "If I hold the silence long enough, I’ll start to get comments such as, ‘With my mortgage and tuition payments, I’m darned near broke!’" Then, he says, there will be nervous laughter, always nervous laughter. "Why do we work so hard to hide the fact that we are rich?" Mead ...

4683. Good News about Ambition

Mark 10:35-45

Sermon

King Duncan

... principal and guiding force behind Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, which he founded in 1881. Soon he was recognized as the nation’s foremost African-American educator. There is nothing wrong with aspiring to be the best we can be at the things we do, as long as these are honorable things. Indeed, this is why God gave us good minds and healthy bodies. Jesus did not condemn James and John for their ambition. People who achieve great things in this world by definition are ambitious people. It is important to ...

4684. Shoots of Tomorrow

Jeremiah 33:14-16

Sermon

Mary S. Lautensleger

... weary bones and to reminisce of days gone by.1 But, that stump wasn't the end of the memorable old tree. From stumps that have seemed long dead, new shoots can spring to life and become trees once again. God can make the dead come alive. God is making all things new, when an ... : "Someday I will appoint an honest king from the family of David, a king who will be wise and rule with justice. As long as he is king, Israel will have peace, and Judah will be safe. The name of this king will be 'The Lord gives ...

4685. A Little Town of Great Renown

Micah 5:2-5a

Sermon

Mary S. Lautensleger

... from exile in Babylon. But none are bigger than the events in the little town of Bethlehem. This is not another in a long series of God's actions in shaping world history. This is God in the first person singular. Luke tells the story of those who ... a place to plant our feet. There is a permanence in the child given to us at Bethlehem. Through this child we become heirs of the long history of God's people. Roots of yesterday become shoots of tomorrow. As we wait anew for the birth of a baby in Bethlehem, we ...

4686. Home at Last

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

Sermon

Mary S. Lautensleger

... family of God. He advises this congregation that the Law of Moses is not a burden, but a gift, one they can receive with gratitude. Long ago, Moses had met with God on Mount Sinai. God gave Moses laws, instructions, and guidance to pass on to the people of Israel. ... bend in the road. The rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were only a pipe dream. Africans longed for their homeland, or their heavenly home. An uncivil war granted an illusive freedom, while most African Americans were still ...

4687. Sowing Eternal Seeds

Isaiah 55:10-13

Sermon

Mary S. Lautensleger

... pastors and lay professionals who, in turn, will equip others to plant seeds and spread God's Word. Through eternity, they will sing on because the voice of Allison has set the song into motion. Their influence will never end. Toss a stone into a pond and long after that stone has settled into the silt on the bottom, you will continue to see the circles on the pond's surface ever-expanding, widening, disturbing, encompassing more and more of the once-placid surface. That's how it is with God's Word, once it ...

4688. Gateway to Grace

Joshua 5:9-12

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... of tremendous drudgery, of hard work from dawn to dusk just to scrabble out survival. If historical dramas and books show us the glittering world of the very rich in ages past, we forget that most people were bitterly poor. They did not live long lives. The slightest infection could cast them into eternity. They were subject to the whims of rulers who believed they were descended from gods but whose personal morals suggested they were more likely descended from demons. Those who look back with fondness to a ...

4689. Essentials

Isaiah 50:4-9a

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

D. L. Miller of Mount Morris, Illinois, was a world traveler among a people who didn't travel much. He was a Dunker, one of the Plain People, who lived in the late nineteenth century. He wore a dark coat and dark pants and a long beard without a mustache. When others bought cars, the Dunkers kept their horses and buggies. If you were a believer, then you dressed like everyone else in your church, and acted like everyone in your church, and made a point of never standing out. His people made a point of ...

4690. The Easter Era

Acts 10:34-43

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... having to become Jews first. The faith was cracked wide open! In the same way, it took a long time — centuries really — before people realized that a person can become a Christian without first becoming European. Africans, ... in (the British colonial officers) and sent his young men to work on the roads or forced them to fight in their wars. But this is the first time in his long life that he has seen a white man get down on his knees in the dark and wash a black man's feet! And if that is what this new ...

4691. Fruit with Feet

Acts 9:1-20

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... a single blow, and how it had required twelve men with mule spurs to pull Cain Lackey off the former champion. Brother Elgin also told him about the man's father, who kept him from school, worked him from dawn to dusk, made him sleep outdoors all summer long, and how Cain had built a working mill by himself at the age of ten. No one could level another man with his fist like Cain. No one was stronger or meaner. "Well, he certainly looks like the strongest man in the county," Brother Dove said, watching the ...

4692. The Undoing of Babel

Acts 2:1-21

Sermon

Stan Purdum

... helpful, he wasn't sure what the professor was looking for, either. Finally, my wife decided to simply answer the question as literally as possible, which resulted in a paper only a page and a half long. When she got to class, she discovered that most of her fellow students had papers ten to twelve pages long, so she was convinced that she had misunderstood the assignment, but having nothing else, she handed the paper in. At the next class, the professor was angry that students had wasted his time with such ...

4693. Wisdom's Delight

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

Sermon

Stan Purdum

... been many creative acts before God made the world, but the first one the Bible records is God's creation of Wisdom. In Proverbs 8, Wisdom, speaking in the first person, says, "The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago." Taken literally, that verse means that Wisdom was birthed prior to the creation of the world. What's more, in that same chapter, Wisdom, which really is an attribute of God, is personified as a woman. Bear in mind that Wisdom is not really a separate ...

4694. Choosing to Believe

1 Kings 18:20-39

Sermon

Stan Purdum

... , sick man named Lazarus, covered with sores. He was so hungry that he wished he could have even the crumbs that fell from Dives' table. But Dives ignored Lazarus, and eventually the poor man died and was carried by angels to be with Abraham in paradise. Not long afterward, Dives also died, but he went to Hades, the final destination of the unrighteous. There he was in misery. He called to Abraham to send Lazarus to him with a drop of water for his tongue, but it was not to be. Abraham responded kindly but ...

4695. As Seen from the Solitary Broom Tree

1 Kings 19:1-18

Sermon

Stan Purdum

... their son, Wade. At sixteen years of age, this promising young man was killed in an auto accident when a freak wind blew his vehicle off the road. Frankly, there is nothing like the death of child to knock the stuffing out of a parent. But not long after her son's death, Mrs. Edwards quit her job as a bankruptcy lawyer and threw herself into creating a computer lab for underprivileged high school students. She set it up right across the street from the high school Wade had attended. She did it because she ...

4696. A "Somebody Done Somebody Wrong" Song

Hosea 1:2-10

Sermon

Lee Ann Dunlap

... the Assyrian army and its people exiled. The northern kingdom came to an end. A hard lesson learned by a people long ago, yet we flirt with similar disaster when we forsake Christ to pursue selfish ambitions. In our efforts to secure material ... time, talents, and treasure. Such betrayal ultimately leads to judgment. Keep it up, and Sir Dumpty's "great fall" will not be long in coming. Some of us, individual Christians or communities, may already have learned such truth the hard way, and our lives may ...

4697. God's Eminent Domain

Jeremiah 18:1-11

Sermon

Lee Ann Dunlap

... to die. The movie called into question many assumptions and values of a changing country, and probed the tension between personal rights and public progress. As with most real-life stories about these events, the ending was bittersweet. We, the people, determined long ago that roads, public recreation, electric power, and public utilities are all good things that come with a human price. Now shopping centers fit into this category as well. Regardless of how we feel about eminent domain, it is here to stay ...

4698. What a Deal: Investing in Hope

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15

Sermon

Lee Ann Dunlap

... legal system crumbled around him, the prophet took extreme care to follow procedure. He weighed out the money (a generous price considering the market) and secured the proper deeds. Then he arranged to preserve the documents, "in order that they may last for a long time." All of this was a public demonstration of confidence — not in the economy, nor in the government, but in the power and compassion of Almighty God. "For thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards will ...

4699. Building the Temple of God

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

Sermon

John Wayne Clarke

... of us gathered in this church on this day, God's purpose was fulfilled in God's Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ. My brothers and sisters in Christ, the message from Haggai this morning is a powerful incentive to do the ministry that has been placed before us. As long as we are doing that ministry, we remain valued participants in God's great program of making God's salvation known to all who will listen. If we do whatever it is that God has called us to do in sincerity to the best of our ability, we carry ...

4700. The Shepherd King

Jeremiah 23:1-6

Sermon

John Wayne Clarke

... God. Finally, on Christ The King Sunday we need to be careful in how we understand what it is to be a shepherd. Too many times we make the mistake of thinking that it is the job of the pastor of the church to care for the church. And as long as we persist in seeing ministry as the singular responsibility of the minister, we will always be linked to the notion of the church as a professional group that employs people to do the caring. When we do that, we make the ministry just another job. And when someone ...

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