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 451 to 475 of 1570 results

451. In The Beginning God

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

William L. Self

... "and God said that it was good" (v. 9). He begins a work and confirms that it is a good work. As Mark says it, "You are my Son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased." These words of affirmation are words of grace. Grace is what we hunger for. Baptismal affirmation empowers us for ministry. The descent of the dove empowers the baptized not only to defeat every form of evil, but also to be the people of God -- as God has called them to be. Henry David Thoreau once went to jail rather than pay his poll ...

452. Famous Last Words

Deuteronomy 18:14-22

Sermon

William L. Self

... time for him to say good-bye. After the long course his task had been completed. The plagues were over, the shadow of the death angel was gone, the sea of chaos crossed, and the murmuring of the people was over. Their thirst had been quenched and their hunger filled. Now he stood upon his mountain as the people worshiped in exultation in the presence of Jehovah God. Moses knew that he had truly been called of God to do this task, but who would follow after him? What kind of leader would the people select ...

453. All Dressed Up And Somewhere To Go!

Isaiah 62:1-12, Isaiah 61:1-11

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... 's people are not only all dressed up. They have somewhere to go. God's people are not to stand quietly on the church's walls, dressed in royal garments, and remain silent while friends die of cancer and AIDS and the world tears apart through war and hunger. We are called to break our silence so all may come through the great tragedies in life with a spirit of hope. We are to break the silence and indifference of our privileged positions so others may be able to recover from the pain and suffering of their ...

454. Paring Down Our Pantheons

Acts 17:16-34

Sermon

Gerald Whetstone

... Call it What-Everybody-Else-Thinks-Is-More-Important-Than-What-I-Know-Is-Right. Put it on a column. It's a start. After hearing the announcements at church Sandra squeezes her bulletin hard, and whispers to her husband under her breath, "All this money for world hunger just when we're getting ready for vacation. We gave some money at Christmas. Who knows where it all goes anyway? I'm not going to feel guilty just because we want everything that's best for our family." Let's look for another column. And let ...

455. All The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise

Acts 10:34-43

Sermon

Gerald Whetstone

... which is not fully here but is real, visible, already broken onto our horizon. Now we venture into the life we most profoundly longed for, not the life we've settled for. Not the keeping on that passes for life, but rather the life for which we have hungered and hoped, the life God intended for us. All this is possible because we know that God has the power to bring life from death. Such an event should be no less wondrous just because we have heard the story so many times. Still, let's try translating ...

456. The Christmas Cactus

Isaiah 35:1-10

Sermon

Paul E. Robinson

... the One who created him or her. The drives for success, for money, for power, for a "high," for comfort, for security, whether we realize it or not, are attempted replacements of the basic need to be connected with God. Unfortunately many people have bought into the lie that the hunger they feel can be sated by something else, a substitute, like money or sex or a hot car or a good movie or a new job. We are all on a journey. And it is a very "long, long trail awinding" indeed, into the land of our hopes and ...

457. People With A Mission

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

Gerald Whetstone

... nothing will separate us from his love for us in Jesus Christ, not even death. There's a place for the laughter of children and our pleasure with friends. There's need for appreciation in the lovely and terrible beauty of the changing seasons. There's profound hunger for the affirmation of being loved. And there's joy in all these experiences and more. But the greatest joy the world can know is that promised by the angel over the shepherds' field near Bethlehem: "I bring you news of great joy for all the ...

458. The Peace Treaty

2 Corinthians 5:11--6:2

Sermon

Sandra Hefter Herrma

... . I don't want to wait until you think you've 'got it.' I am willing to suffer anything, any hardship. I will do anything to make you understand that you are loved, cared for, wanted. In fact, I already have. I have endured prison, beatings, riots, sleepless nights, hunger. I have done this because my Master asked me to, because it is so important to God that you hear this plea." How shall we answer this petition of peace? How does your heart answer in this moment? Can we trust this offer? Or is it too much ...

459. Our Helper

Acts 8:26-40

Sermon

Robert Beringer

... was obviously seeking a sense of purpose and meaning in his life. He had been to the Temple in Jerusalem to worship. No doubt, like many non-Jews of his day, he had been attracted to the moral law he found in the Ten Commandments of Judaism. But his heart hungered to know God in a personal way, so even as he rode in his chariot, he was reading from the prophet Isaiah. I hope someone else was driving the chariot! Do you remember the teacher who was telling the story of Abraham and Lot, and made a point of ...

460. Flashing Lights

Acts 9:1-19a

Sermon

Robert Beringer

Flashing Lights There is a hunger in human hearts for an experience of God that transforms human life. Years ago, the shrill ring of the telephone awoke me in the night. It was a local doctor asking me to join him in the emergency room where a boy had been taken after a bad drug trip ...

461. It Will Be Heaven

Romans 8:18

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

... as her little brother who had died when he was three years old. All of a sudden she realized where she was. She was in heaven! Sarah had died and gone to join all of the other good people in the Lord's special land. There would be no more hunger or pain or fever or sadness. Here there was only beauty -- and, of course, the Lord himself. Don't you think Sarah was a lucky girl to be able to join her friends in heaven? (Let them answer.) She certainly was. We don't know if that's exactly the ...

462. Satisfaction Gauranteed

Sermon

Paul E. Robinson

... the goodness of the Lord, irrespective of how much money we have or presents we get. I will repeat what I have said before. I believe that all of our longings have at their center a longing for relationship with God. That is our basic hunger. Unfortunately many people perceive that longing as a longing for something else, for things, for toys, for sex, for money, for adventure, for power, for food. I believe that all those drives for things are put in their proper place when the longing for relationship ...

463. Risen And Recognized

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

Robert Beringer

... Changi Jail by the Japanese when they took control of Singapore. The jail, built to accommodate a maximum of 450 prisoners, would be her home for the next two years. She and the other political prisoners would suffer from the crowded conditions, the hunger, the flies, the filth, and most of all, the isolation. No news from the outside world reached them. As Easter Sunday approached that first year, Ethel went to the prison commandant, requesting permission for herself and a small group of Christian women to ...

464. Second Thoughts

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Robert Beringer

... . But as a pastor for many years, I have also seen that testing bureau of second thoughts robbing people of those impulses to Christlike love and action. Like the Levite in Jesus' story, many of us want to do the Christlike thing in the face of hunger, poverty, injustice, and desperate human need. Yet, when the moment comes, we let our all too-abundant self concern for safety and security rob us of the ability to act in love. In Hemingway's book, A Farewell To Arms, the author describes two soldiers talking ...

465. Broadway

Matthew 7:13-14

Sermon

Robert Beringer

... hearts as we meet people at the turning point. One way to understand this tale of father and sons is to think of it as a drama in three acts. Act One -- Give My Regards To Ol' Broadway Jesus begins his story with the younger of the two sons whose hunger is for the sights, sounds, and pleasures of Broadway and 42nd Street in New York. Here's a very modern person who is fed up with life at home. He's ready to "do his own thing," so he asks for what is rightfully his, and sets off to break ...

466. Week Three Of Lent

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... good on the second chance. He realized that he had come late to God. As he wrote so beautifully in his autobiography The Confessions, "Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you. ... I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst no more." Augustine's second chance became the second chance for many of us who follow his lead. Our readings today on the Lenten journey speak clearly of forgiveness. They also clearly speak about how God has given us a second, a third, a hundredth ...

467. Now, Even Now....

Joel 2:1-11

Sermon

Gerald Whetstone

... family gathered around the radio. They think of special nights filled with the music of Glenn Miller or Rosemary Clooney or the Platters or the Beatles; it all depends on the wonderful yesterday that fills their senses. Even in the church, there are people who hunger for an age when hymns seemed sweeter, sermons more compelling, pews more full. They know there was a time when faith was less complicated, more solid. Some people want to live in an imaginary past. Do you? Of course, some people are trying to ...

468. Life's Loose Threads and The Tie That Binds

Deuteronomy 34:1-12

Sermon

Robert S. Crilley

... of a maternity ward as along the corridors of a nursing home. In fact, it is almost a paradigm of elemental poignancy that we never fully achieve all to which we aspire; that our reach inevitably exceeds our grasp; that we are able to stave off hunger but not appetite. When the final pattern is knit, the concluding stitch sown, and everything we've attempted to weave from the tapestry of life at last unfurled, there will invariably remain a few loose threads left dangling. Even the Scriptures, I think, bear ...

469. Recalling, Remembering, And Rejoicing

Deuteronomy 8:1-20

Sermon

Robert S. Crilley

... way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness," Moses tells the people, "in order to humble you, testing to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep the Lord's commandments. God humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord" (Deuteronomy 8:2-3). Or to put ...

470. Give To God The Things That Are God's

Matthew 22:15-22

Illustration

Phyllis Faaborg Wolk

... invite and welcome your neighbors to church -- not only those who are like you, but those who bring different perspectives and talents and needs to this body of Christ. I see God's image as this congregation reaches beyond itself to support missionaries and relieve world hunger. Whenever you give of yourself to others, the image of God within you is being revealed. You are the bearers of God's image. Jesus said, "Give to God the things that are God's." You are God's. Jesus says, "Give yourself to God." But ...

471. Epiphany 5

Matthew 5:17-20, Matthew 5:13-16

Sermon Aid

William E. Keeney

Salt is very important to life. If a person lacks salt, the hunger for it is one of the strongest desires we have. Any farmer knows how cattle will find a salt block and lick it to maintain the proper balance in its body. Salt is so valuable that in some societies it has been used as a medium of exchange, a substitute ...

472. Country Songs and Easter Hymns

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

Thomas Long

... ." It is no mistake, then, that Jesus told a city story to make a point about prayer. If one listens to the rhythms and cries of the city, beneath the cacophony one can hear prayer, for at the base of every authentic prayer is a plea for justice -- a hunger for God to set things right. Not only that, but Jesus also knew that capacity of even the godless city to supply, here and there, moments of justice, like a widow's plea finally heard by a begrudging judge, is a sign of answered prayer, a sign of God ...

473. Two-and-a-Half Cheers For Hypocrites

Matthew 6:1-2, Matthew 6:5-6, Matthew 6:16

Sermon

Thomas Long

... old Hasidic tale about three pious Jews who decided to travel to a distant city to spend the high holy days with a famous rabbi. They set out on their journey, without food or money, intending to walk the entire way. Several days into the journey, weak from hunger and still a long way from their destination, they knew they had made a mistake and they must do something. They came up with a plan. They decided that one of them would disguise himself as a rabbi. That way, when they came to the next village, the ...

474. The Seven Last Words Of Pilate

Sermon

Thomas Long

... , is the benediction. "Could a nervous giggle, a great hesitancy in parting at termination, or a tendency to drag the hour on beyond its formal end be interpreted as a nonverbal demand for a ... blessing?"2 Here in a secular therapeutic environment, there is the hunger to close with more than a "so -- we'll see you next time," but with a blessing. The secular cannot keep the sacred out; the world, like Pilate, ironically worships even when it is trying to rid itself of God. Before Jesus was brought to ...

475. Confidence To Spare

Psalm 27:1-6, 13-14

Sermon

Robert G. McCreight

... ways. We are a selfish and self-indulgent people. You call us to minister to the needs of our brothers and sisters, yet we point our fingers at one another and gossip. We are timid disciples who walk past your children, blinding ourselves to hunger and homelessness. O God, although we are unworthy of your love and care, guide us in the acceptance of opportunities for joyful service. Amen. Declaration of Pardon In the past you were spiritually dead because of your disobedience and sins. But God's mercy ...

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