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 451 to 475 of 480 results

451. Love

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon

Will Willimon

... we might be willing to die for a righteous person but God shows his love for us in that Christ died for sinners." "And if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." Does Paul really mean to go this far? Fancy, manipulative speech, smug knowledge -- we gladly grant that love is better. Around here, we have a surfeit of big- headed, intellectual prigs but a shortage of love. Here Paul ups the ante: If I had enough faith to move a mountain, and had not love...How much faith ...

452. Good Sex

Genesis 2:4-25

Sermon

Will Willimon

... a daily battle waged with weapons of manipulation, seduction, coercion, violence, and perversity. Like so many of God's good gifts -- money , knowledge, power -- we pervert the gift of sex into our own selfish, lonely, struggle for godlike power. Liberation becomes a fancy way of saying "loneliness" and, in the words of the popular song, "freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." All free, liberated, on our own, looking out for number one, doing your own thing, scoring, making, laying, and ...

453. No Partiality

Acts 10:34-43

Sermon

Will Willimon

... East and West Berlin, and between the Arabs and the Israels. The way to live with the Soviets? Keep a good high wall. Keep stacking up the bombs, bomb for bomb. They put one on and we match with another of our own. National defense is a fancy way of saying "Good fences make good neighbors. Partiality, partition, apartheid--I'm sure they all have the same derivation. In our distant past, somebody looked across the field at his neighbor, their eyes met. And he searched for a stone, and then another stone and ...

454. Giving Our Best

Mark 7:24-37

Sermon

King Duncan

... . “All right, all right, Mr. Smith, I’ll taste it . . . So, where’s the spoon?” “Aha!” replied Smith, “That’s the question. Where is the spoon?” After telling this story, Glenn Van Ekeren, adds this observation for business owners; “Fancy products, gimmicks, and catchy slogans are not facilitators of excellence. Tasty chicken soup without a spoon rarely impresses anyone. If you want excellence, pay attention to the little things.” (1) Some of you will remember the name Cathy Rigby. Ms ...

455. The Family

Genesis 37:1-36

Sermon

Will Willimon

... , I watched American students outside the Uffize Gallery in Florence turn away and not go in because they couldn't afford the entrance fee while Japanese, Korean, and Spanish students happily paid the necessary nine dollars. And in Munich it's been years since fancy restaurants put ''We speak English'' in their windows to attract well-to-do tourists. You know what language they're learning now. And did no one here feel just a tinge of resentment, older brother or little brother resentment, that our sons and ...

456. Preachers, All!

Acts 2:1-13, Acts 2:14-41, Acts 2:42-47

Sermon

Will Willimon

... . How do we find the words to describe that being, that deep experience that is so often so indescribable? Furthermore, there are powerful forces against speaking about God. Years ago William Buckley said, ''You may be able to bring up the subject of religion at a fancy dinner party once, but if you bring it up twice during the evening, you won't be invited back." There are powerful tendencies in our culture to keep religion private, personal. We don't want to be showy, wear our faith on our sleeve. We don ...

457. Life Between the Times

Revelation 22:7-21

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... s coming.[6] A life lived with this kind of hope, with confidence that the future is in God’s hands, is also a life full of joy. Nineteenth-century German writer Johann von Goethe made that point profoundly in a poem: Why go chasing distant fancies? Lo, the good is ever near! Only learn to grasp your changes! Happiness is always here.[7] We have previously noted that there is sound scientific evidence for this observation about the benefits of living with openness to and confidence in the future. When you ...

458. The Thing About Evil

Luke 8:26-39

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... faces and freezes our hearts in fear –abominations so horrible that we can barely take them in. If evil were merely the stuff of horror films and superstitions, we might go about our day relatively unmussed and unmoved, waving it off as a flight of fancy. But we all know better. Don’t we? Yet an old saying reveals that a little kernel of truth always underlies every tale or myth. Some of these underlying “truths” helped us overcome superstitions of folks we thought were evil. For example, the myth ...

459. Sheep and Shepherds

John 10:11-16 · Psalm 23

Sermon

Will Willimon

... whom these words are spoken: I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. She had literally given her life in twenty years of urban ministry. Forsaking the career in medicine that her wealthy parents had planned for her, leaving her fancy eastern finishing school, she had made her place in the ghetto where she stood by those who had no one to care for them or to fight for them but her. And when we buried her, dead at thirty-eight, a victim of overwork and overcaring, gathering ...

460. Bigger, Better, Basta!

Luke 12:13-21

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... hoarder, some people can get caught up in having more, more, more of everything, not only more but better, the best of everything! Some people derive their sense of identity from the flashy things they own: the big house, the name clothing, the fancy car, the sparkling diamonds. Their life becomes something of a status symbol in itself for how much “they” are worth. Whether from self-esteem issues or simply loneliness, we as humans often try to “fill” the emptiness in our lives with “stuff” and ...

461. People First

Illustration

Ryan Holiday

... mark things for sale. For two months he sells on the lawn of the Great Emperor’s Palace, the jewels and robes and couches, the fineries owned by the emperor. He’s sending a message. He says, I’m not going to put myself first. I don’t need these fancy things, not when people are struggling. He says, I’m gonna do the little things that make a difference. To me this is like the CEO who takes a pay cut in a bad economy; this is the athlete who renegotiates their contract so the team can bring on new ...

462. Have a Very Messy Christmas!

Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon

John Jamison

... snakes!” he said. In my imagination there was a scattering of applause from the crowd on both sides of the river, common folks just happy to hear someone finally call a snake a snake. John went on to really tell them off, telling them that their fancy robes and their high-falootin’ positions weren’t worth anything at all to God, even if they could trace their family tree all the way back to Moses himself. I can hear them yelling back with their theological rebuttals, but John had no time or interest ...

463. Persistence And Prayer

Luke 18:1-8

Sermon

Richard Hasler

... to make a sword. He was dissatisfied with the end product and put it back into the hot coals determined this time to make a garden tool. Once again, he was not pleased with what he had; therefore he tried making a horse shoe. That too did not please his fancy. “As a last resort, he put the iron bar in the hot coals one more time. He removed it from the fire wondering if there was anything he could make from it. Deciding that there was nothing he merely stuck it into a barrel of water. At the resulting ...

464. Are We Living In The Last Days?

Luke 21:5-19

Sermon

Richard Hasler

... -authors of their highly successful Left Behind books and movies, both based on premillennialism. American church historian Sydney E. Ahlstrom notes that although adherents of this view claim to be literalists, dependence on highly debatable (not to say fanciful) interpretations of some obscure apocalyptic passages have led many to insist that its interpretation is anything but literal.[3] The third view of millennalism is what might be called amillennialism. This view regards the thousand years, like other ...

465. The Hedge

Matthew 5:21-37

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... In our scripture for today, Jesus is addressing the issue of “hedging.” In Jesus’ time, many Jews, particularly those in authority, were fond of “bending the rules”while bringing the hammer down on others when it suited their needs or fancy. Remember the case of the “adulterous” woman in which Jesus was consulted? Before addressing the accused, he addressed those in favor of stoning her for her “crime” –an accusation most likely brought about by her husband for less than truthful reasons ...

466. More Fully Understanding Christ

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... was still being developed, a police department in Louisiana had to temporarily replace its advanced voice recognition call system with a lower-tech substitute. Why did they have to replace their high-tech system? It was because their fancy new technology couldn’t understand Southern accents. The Shreveport Louisiana Police Department added high-tech voice recognition equipment to their call center that would let people request different departments or individual people within the police department. The ...

467. Wrestling with God

Genesis 32:22-31

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... reign supreme” and this is the best one they could think of. (1) Lancashire, England is home to the World Gravy Wrestling Championship, which happens every year in August. There are separate competitions for men and women. Wrestlers earn points for “fancy dress, entertainment value and wrestling ability.” The man and woman wrestlers with the most points at the end are declared the winners. The World Gravy Wrestling Championship is a charity event that raises funds for the East Lancashire Hospice. (2 ...

468. Mind Your Manners

Luke 14:1, 7-14

Sermon

Will Willimon

... . Her hosts were understanding, but she was mortified. That night, her how to eat like people from Connecticut. "People in North Carolina don't eat artichokes," her Mother said in defense. A major White House position is the "Chief of Protocol," a fancy name for someone who determines where people sit at state dinners. More than one international crisis has been precipitated by putting some dignitary in the wrong place. People from various classes may mix freely in the classroom, on the playing field, in ...

469. The Reckoning

Matthew 14:13-21, Genesis 32:22-32

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... a problem, you make a determination, and you declare a solution or result. But in life, when you face a dilemma or a crisis of faith, that reckoning, the struggles you feel, the disbelief, the urge to doubt, the times when reason kicks in and miracles seem fanciful or silly, that moment of decision when you need to trust Jesus, who he is, and what he’s capable of in your life, is your true time of reckoning. God often comes into our lives in our greatest times of desperation and dilemma, most often when ...

470. The Gracious Dream

Genesis 28:10-17

Sermon

Will Willimon

... told a story of sleepless nights, tossing and turning, wild meanderings which bad finally led him to the surprising question, "Does Go want me to do something special with my life?" Well, I barely extricated myself from that conversation in time to get to a fancy restaurant where a search committee I was on was meeting with a candidate who had flown in from the Midwest. The waiter appeared and took our orders. Then this waiter said to me, "You're a preacher, aren't you?" There was widespread giggling around ...

471. A Little Foolishness

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Sermon

John B. Jamison

... Hap made it his mission to knock them down a notch. And since education and wisdom helped those people feel so superior, that’s what Hap went after. It was Hap’s way of humbling those who had position, who wore the robes in the pulpits and the fancy clothes in the pews; those who looked at Hap and those like him and saw them as different; as something less. It wasn’t about wisdom, it was about something else. Actually, it was exactly what Paul was writing about to the church in Corinth. Hap didn’t ...

472. You're In the Army Now

Ephesians 6:10-20

Sermon

Will Willimon

... talking about mere flesh and blood here, a few bad people misplaced in high places. We're talking about “principalities and powers, world rulers of this present darkness, the spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places”; which is a fancy first century way of saying that it is as if evil is organized; a great, faceless bureaucracy, which transforms us, like Kafka's poor character in “Metamorphosis” into insects, numbers on computer printouts. “Principalities and Powers” is the biblical way ...

473. Prophet Without Honor

Mark 6:1-13

Sermon

David Coffin

... was a temporary presence who was a different ministry than resident pastor, who in that day would be the resident rabbi of the community. They were to stay at the accommodations offered to them by hosts. They were not to seek a nice hotel or a fancy bed and breakfast with more choices for food and possibly a pool or other accommodations. They were to do their mission and then move on. Most commentators agree that one message the disciples were to preach at this point was to repent, as John the Baptizer ...

474. The Case of the Hardened Heart

John 6:1-21

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... the gospels, a case of “confirmation bias.” They have been raised as “good Jews.” They know what’s “true” and what’s not, as they’ve been taught. They also, although they come from varied backgrounds, are seasoned men, not tempted by fancy or anything out of their current line of “vision.” Why does Jesus so often speak of the ability to “see” and “hear” differently? Confirmation bias is what keeps people from seeing Jesus as who he is and his mission as different than what ...

475. Words

John 1:(1-9), 10-18

Sermon

John B. Jamison

... expectations of what God is like, what God asks us to do, or what it means to believe in and obey God’s word. Fortunately, God doesn’t pay that much attention to our expectations… What does God expect of us? What is the Word of God? John uses his fancy words to that question once and for all: “The Word became flesh and walked among us.” If you want to know what the Word of God is, what God’s words are and what is expected of us, don’t look for angel armies, golden chariots of fire, and some ...

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