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 4701 to 4725 of 4952 results

4701. A Loving Parent

Revelation 7:9-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... Another mother texted her son: “Your great-aunt just passed away. LOL.” The son replied: “Why is that funny?” Mom texted back: “It’s not funny, David! What do you mean?” The son texted: “Mom, LOL means Laughing Out Loud.” Mom replied: “Oh, no! I thought it meant Lots of Love.” Then she added: “I have to call everyone back.” (1) That’s all right, Mom. It’s hard to keep up nowadays. A few years ago, the Des Moines Register newspaper asked readers to send in stories of their Mom ...

4702. In Search of a New Life

Revelation 21:1-5a

Sermon

King Duncan

... with his friends. He is in trouble in the water but doesn’t call out for help. A lifeguard notices his struggle and rescues him. Later he asks the teen, “You were drowning. Why didn’t you cry out?” The young man responded like this: “What would my friends have thought?” (3) Some of us have a voice within us that says, “I know I need to change, but I can’t ask for help. What would my friends think?” Some of us have a voice within that is saying to us that change is for other people--but not ...

4703. Setting His Face Toward Jerusalem

Luke 9:51-62

Sermon

King Duncan

... of a new soccer coach for a troubled team: “He was hired to take them in a new direction, and he did. Unfortunately, [the direction] was backwards.” (2) The disciples did not understand where Jesus was leading them. If they had known, they would have thought he was leading them backwards. “What do you mean you’re going to Jerusalem to suffer and die?” But Jesus was moving forward by obeying God’s will and fulfilling God’s plan for the salvation of humanity and the redemption of creation. That ...

4704. Lying By the Side of the Road

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

King Duncan

... I went this morning, and she got mad at me for spending my money on more flowers. She demanded that I do something else with that money. So, here, please accept this. It is my mother’s flowers.” (1) And so, gratefully, she did accept the gift. What a thoughtful act. We are always touched when we see one person do something kind for someone else. It gives both the giver and the recipient a good feeling. In fact, it’s a wonder more of us don’t perform numerous acts of kindness for one another just so ...

4705. Where's the Magic?

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-12

Sermon

King Duncan

... replied: “Check in my friend’s pocket. You will find all three of the candy bars there.” And, of course, they were there. That’s a pretty good magic trick if you disregard the ethics of it all. Have you ever sat in a worship service and thought to yourself, “Where’s the magic?” I don’t mean that when you come to worship you are expecting a magic show with a charming magician and his beautiful assistant and rabbits that appear out of no where. You may wish that was going to happen this ...

4706. No One Over 12 Inches Wide Need Apply

Luke 13:22-30

Sermon

King Duncan

... the narrow door . . .” I personally hope it’s wider than 12 inches or some of us are going to be in trouble. But there is a truth here that we need to see. The door to having a rich, fulfilling life is always a narrow one. Consider that thought for a moment and you will know it to be true. Many come to life’s open doors but only a few make it through. Thousands upon thousands of young boys and girls grow up bouncing basketballs and dreaming of life as a professional basketball player. But only a ...

4707. Making Your Life Count

1 Timothy 2:5-7

Sermon

King Duncan

... was standing nearby. Henri was mystified at the man’s words. “Are you in this sort of work?” he asked the man. “Oh, yes,” said the man, “but this is the first time I’ve been displayed like this.” Now Henri really was disturbed. “But I thought that this work was by the great painter Sargent,” he said. “That’s right,” said the man, “but it was me that made the frame.” St. Paul saw himself as the frame, but Christ was the painting. It was the power of the risen Christ working ...

4708. A Mystery

John 16:12-15

Sermon

Robert C. Cochran

... who will defend us, teach us, renew us, and unite us. The third person of the Trinity works through our minds as well as through our emotions. The Spirit is certainly present in ecstatic prayers, faith healing, and speaking in tongues but is also evident in thoughtful Bible study, in all forms of devout worship, and in the practice of loving-kindness and charity. Again, none of this sets the Spirit apart from the Father and the Son. The Spirit is merely God’s way of being in the world in the present ...

4709. Lincoln's Critique

Illustration

Jeff Vamos

... he and his aide visited the church, the president lingered there until after the worshipers had gone, ensconced in a private corner of the sanctuary. His aide finally asked, “Mr. President, what did you think of the sermon today?” Mr. Lincoln said, “I thought it was eloquent, well thought out, and powerfully delivered.” “Then you liked it?” the aide continued, trying to fill the silence. “No. It failed.” The president went on, “It failed because it did not ask of us something great.”

4710. Being Neighborly

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Robert C. Cochran

... responded by giving a formula that he had memorized: “You have to love the Lord your God with all your heart/soul/strength/mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus said, “Yep, you’ve got it right; now, go do it!” “Now, wait a minute,” thought the lawyer. “How did he get me to answer my own question?” He can’t very well attack the answer he himself gave, so he figured he would have to try something else. This time, he pulled a politician’s trick: he picked out a controversial ...

4711. A Vision of Beauty and Hope

Isaiah 2:1-5

Sermon

King Duncan

... first part of Isaiah’s vision. In the last book of The Lord of the Rings series, Sam Gamgee wakes up, thinking everything is lost. Instead he discovers all his friends around him. He sees his friend Gandalf and cries out, “Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead! Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?” “‘A great Shadow has departed,’ says Gandalf, and then he [begins to laugh] and the sound [is] like music, or like water in a parched land ...

4712. Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!

Matthew 24:36-44

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... of vicissitudes. Just look at the front page of USA Today. It’s raining. It’s snowing. The sun is out and then it’s gone. Surprise! The Dow is up... no, it’s down... no, it’s up... wait, it’s down again. Surprise! Governments we thought were sound are, in fact, corrupt. Governments we helped turn their backs on us. Surprise! Companies we trusted have cheated us! Food we trusted is bad for us. Beverages we eschewed turn out to be good for us. Surprise! The country is becoming more liberal, then ...

4713. Jesus Destroys the Power of Sin

Mark 2:1-12

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... valley laid out before them. Everything about the moment was filled with peace. At last the farmer spoke quietly, as if reluctant to break the spell. “Sarah,” he said, “we’ve had a lot of ups and downs together during these forty years, and when I’ve thought of all you’ve meant to me, sometimes it’s been almost more than I could do to keep from telling you.” Sometimes things just “leak” out of us, no matter how hard we try to plug them up. Sometimes we spring a “leak” that should ...

4714. Recognizing Who God Is

Job 42:7-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... care. "My ears had heard of you," Job said, "but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes." In this passage, Job is recognizing his humility before the Everlasting God. He is saying, "Before I saw You, I thought I had all the answers. I thought I could stand in judgement of Your ways. But now that I have seen You, I repent, I ask for mercy. And I return control of my life to You and to Your perfect plan." This is the sum and substance of the believers' response to ...

4715. An Invitation That Went Astray

Matthew 3:13-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... the participants came forward with joy, but one young boy really broke up the service when he came out of the water after his baptism shouting, “I'm alive! I'm alive! I'm alive!” The missionary asked the boy what he was doing. The boy said he thought he was supposed to die in the waters. Hadn’t the missionary said that he would be “buried with Christ in the waters of baptism”? Yes, that was a part of the liturgical reading for the service. But the boy had taken it literally. The attendees at the ...

4716. The Law of Unintended Consequences

Matthew 5:13-20

Sermon

King Duncan

... he sounds like the most dyed-in-the-wool traditionalist ever . . . saying that you can’t enter the kingdom of God unless you are more righteous than the Pharisees. “It’s impossible for us to be as righteous as the Pharisees and teachers of the law,” thought many of his listeners, “and now you’re saying we have to surpass them in righteousness before we can enter the kingdom of heaven? We might as well give up now.” And I think that’s exactly what Jesus wanted them to feel. Whether they were ...

4717. You Have a Story to Tell

John 9:1-41

Sermon

King Duncan

... some good karma, right? Former Texas governor Anne Richards once remarked about President George Bush Sr., “He was born on third base and thought he hit a triple.” (3) We really hold tight to this idea of being a self-made man or woman. We get angry ... what I said—it’s like it came in and went out, a lot like a gift of the Spirit. It’s not necessarily something I thought about and said. It just flowed.” Larry sat with the woman while she cried. Then he changed her tire and prayed with her. And when ...

4718. The Definition of Church

John 8:31-36

Sermon

Molly F. James

... a golden calf and decided to worship it instead of God. So many of us get sidetracked. They lost their focus and got caught up in the temptation of the material world. The Israelites thought they had the problem all sorted out when they built the temple in Jerusalem. The put the Ark of the Covenant there and thought they had solved the problem by providing a physical place to worship God. Then Jerusalem was invaded, the temple was destroyed, and the people were exiled. We then get the important lesson from ...

4719. Bless the World

Luke 6:20-31

Sermon

Molly F. James

... children was dead at the age of 38. The brain tumor that had taken his health and vitality, and had even begun to take his personality over the summer, had taken his life. Breaking into the silence of an empty nest, a phone rang in the summer of 1972. She thought it might be one of her kids calling or perhaps her surgeon husband calling to say he was on his way home. It was the phone call that told her that those swollen lymph nodes she had noticed were not the lingering effects of a winter cold: they were ...

4720. Grace Upon Grace

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... man. “Forget not, never forget that you have promised me to use this silver to become an honest man.... Jean Valjean, my brother: you belong no longer to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God!” I think, maybe, Philip Yancey is right. We can’t explain grace, we can only tell of it in stories, in parables and, sometimes, in our own biographies. Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson speak of ...

4721. I've Seen the Lord

John 20:1-9, John 20:10-18

Sermon

David & Marian Plant

... not see. The fact that it was the woman, the one who by all accounts of the time was the least important of all humans, who could see him. The men couldn’t see him but the woman could. The fact that the Lord, the teacher, the Rabbouni, was thought to be the gardener and the unmistakable linkage to God tending the Garden of Eden. In Christ’s death a new world has been created, one in which we would be unaccustomed to live. I have even grown accustomed to the incredible intimacy when Jesus told Mary to go ...

4722. Hosanna! Please Save Us!

Matthew 21:1-11, Matthew 26:14-16

Sermon

King Duncan

... power of Rome. From unjust laws. From the sting of being ruled over by a pagan government that didn’t honor their God or their society. They wanted to be saved from the sting of a lost identity and the defeat of their holy nation. They gave no thought to the rule of God in their lives, or the priorities of eternity. And when Jesus lost his popularity, when he looked like a victim of Rome and the religious leaders, they turned against him. The people wanted a flesh and blood king, not a king that offers ...

4723. The True Story Wins

Matthew 28:11-15

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... , they would need to concoct a more logical lie. Truth is always stranger than fiction. No one would believe the truth anyway, they thought. But just in case, they went with the most believable lie: the guards were to report that some of Jesus’ disciples had come ... this fake story, would be circulated among the Jewish communities so as to keep any possible revolt in check, any possible thought that Jesus really was the Messiah. The only report of this story is in Matthew, most likely because he was sensitive ...

4724. Cloak of Power

Psalm 5:1-12

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... you covered! Even if life isn’t filled with deadly bullets or hostile people, life is hard enough, isn’t it? You’re out of work, and the roof is ready to fall in. You just got the promotion you wanted, and then you found out you have cancer. You thought you were getting ahead and then you lost everything in a fire, or a failed investment. Your friend died. Your husband left. Your kids forgot Mother’s Day. Your dog was hit by a car. You name it. You know what I’m talking about. Life is filled with ...

4725. The House on The Rock

Lk 6:12-49 · Mt 5:1-12

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... , attention, creativity, skill, initiative to get it done, to build room after room, roof, floor, and doors. It is the metaphor of the inner temple. It can be a place where God resides, or a place you litter with the things of the world, bad thoughts, evil intentions, grudges, anger. A house must have a foundation. It can’t be built without one. And one must choose where to build it, upon what foundation. Everything built up comes up from that foundation and is of that foundation. If the foundation cannot ...

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