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 4726 to 4750 of 4959 results

4726. You are Anointed

1 Samuel 16:1-13

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... . It was a consecration of a mission of holiness, a sending. And the reminder was a lasting fragrance.** When Samuel is sent to David, he is sent along with a horn of oil for anointing a king, someone who will exhibit certain qualities God desires –humility, servanthood, artistry, calm, a good and innocent heart. David found joy in his life in the fields. His face shone with the ruddiness of joy. He exhibited the “fragrance” of covenant in his life, and would therefore receive the oil of gladness upon ...

4727. God Powered Impact

Exodus 3:1-22

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... as a place of transformation, practicing discernment. These and others are signs that God’s powerful Spirit has touched down in your church. Just as in the kinetic energy burst of Pentecost, God’s Spirit never appears on demand nor can be dispatched as we may desire. But wherever two or more are gathered in Jesus’ holy name, you can be sure, the wind will be stirring. For the church of Jesus Christ from the very beginning was created to be God powered. Like a sailboat, it only takes a little bit of ...

4728. Song of Promise

Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 1:46-56, Luke 1:39-45

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... life, but we don’t have to take the responsibility for it. Sometimes we want dreams to stay dreams. Yet we need dreams. We are a people who need those songs that bring us hope for a different future. We are a people who sincerely desire a different kind of life, especially for those in difficulty and pain. Our faith is filled with people who sing those songs, those dreams. Think of those songs we call “spirituals.” They were called spirituals for a reason! They were songs filled with spirit, hopes ...

4729. Heart of a Pelican

Matthew 17:24-27, Exodus 30:11-16

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... the wondrous act of salvation that God has given us in Jesus. It’s like that for us in the church too. We give from our means for the benefit of the church and its ministries and missions, because we are a community. And our community desires to be the Church together in this way and in this time. We do ministry together, we serve a hurting world together. We enjoy our style of worship, our own meeting place, our rituals, and our traditions, our songs, our food, our liturgy, yes even our beautiful ...

4730. House of Prayer

Matthew 6:5-15, Matthew 6:16-18

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... the strength of an addiction. These are the idols of our time, those that allow us never to be challenged, altered, or changed. Like a built-in security system, we have essentially walled out anything but our own voice. We hear what most corresponds to our greatest desires –or often, our own agendas. That’s probably the best prescription of what’s going on in our culture today. That, and we have lost trust in the idea of universal truth. Let me put it this way. We have lost faith in the authority of ...

4731. Mercy Me!

Romans 14:1--15:13, Luke 6:27-36, Luke 6:37-42, Luke 6:43-45

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... or her heart. For that kind of malice and insidious behavior goes further than one’s shoulder, doesn’t it? It’s not just skin deep, but comes straight from the bulls-eye of a haughty heart. When the human heart is filled with pride, anger, and a desire for power and control, the tongue can become a vicious instrument, a WMD (weapon of mass destruction) to anyone in its path. But the burden that lies upon that person’s own spirit is the true harm done. What did Jesus say? Blessed are those who are ...

4732. Dorcas, Dinah, or Delilah (Who are You?)

Genesis 34:1-31, Judges 16:1-22, Acts 9:32-43

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... to God to uphold certain traditional behaviors that symbolize his deep commitment to his faith and God’s power. That consecration runs through him as one of Israel’s tribal “judges” (Saviors). Delilah is a Philistine who takes advantage of Samson’s love for her and his desire to please her and betrays him to his enemies for a sum of money (think Judas). The story warns us not only that there are true dangers in the world outside our own. But the danger is not coming from the other people, but from ...

4733. Crossing Over

Luke 10:25-37, Genesis 48:1-22

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... that God made them just for food. But if we think in truly human terms for a moment, let’s admit it. None of us most of the time do anything without having a good reason for doing it. Even if we’re being spontaneous –we still have some desire to cross that road in the first place. There’s something lying out of our reach that we want to attain, to claim, or to be in relationship with. There’s something across that road beckoning to us to follow, something powerful that allows us to bypass all of ...

4734. Sealed and Sanctified

Matthew 2:1-12, Genesis 14:1-24

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... with God. To be intimate with God means to be “face to face” with God, to stand revealed before God in all of our brokenness and imperfection, and to allow ourselves to be gaze-bathed in God’s light and mercy. God is a face-time God. God’s greatest desire is to shine God’s glory upon us! Listen to what we call the Aaronic blessing: The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn His face toward you and radiate upon you His peace. When ...

4735. Babel

Genesis 11:1-9

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... fortresses, hoping to make a “name” for ourselves rather than following the Divine Prime for us and “seeding” the world in Jesus’ Name. The bigger the fortresses we build, the more we wall ourselves off from God and from each other. The more selfish our desires, the more we lose our humanity and our own dignity as image bearers and the One I AM. In 1846, Edgar Allen Poe wrote a story called the “Cask of Amontillado.” Set in an Italian city at the time of Carnival, a man named Montresor ...

4736. Holy Goat!

Leviticus 16:1-34, John 20:24-31

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... upon Him, and He willingly takes them from us and upon Himself. Jesus is ever wounded, as we must continually afflict Him. In Jesus’ great love, He offers the gift of atonement (at-one-ment) to us again, and again, and again, and as many times as we need and desire. There is nothing too great for Jesus to bear.

4737. Scroll Bread and Honey

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... day he sat down in a corner, complained of feeling sick, and died.*) If you are diabetic, you cut out sugars and starches! At least you’re supposed to, right? Yeah, I know, we’ve also got the cheaters out there. But we try, right? Cause we have no real desire to poison our bodies. We all want to live well for as long as we possibly can. Today, more than any other time in history perhaps, we understand what food does for our bodies and how what we eat affects how we live. What we put into our bodies in ...

4738. What is Your Golden Calf?

Exodus 32:1-33:6, Luke 19:1-10

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... through comedy and laughter. One wonders if doing this wasn’t a healing endeavor for him as well. The traumas of our past stay alive within us until we can vanquish them somehow by coming to terms with our own insecurities and foibles, desires and disappointments. Something similar has been said of the iconic Mr. Rogers. In his recent biographical film, his wife revealed that by creating the characters he used in his weekly programs and displaying the relational problems between them, he could act out and ...

4739. Vendetta

2 Kings 1:1-18

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... themselves in denying the Holy Spirit and trying to deny the one whom God has chosen. Ahaziah does the same. He curses himself when he calls upon Baalzebub instead of YHWH to heal him. Sin is denying our relationship with God. Building an identity on our own desires, cravings, wants and envy instead of trusting God to provide for us, to care for us, and to choose to bless others, as God will. And in doing so, we condemn ourselves. Many of Jesus’ parables tell the same message: we can get consumed by our ...

4740. Plucked from the Blaze

Zechariah 3:1-10

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... . This is my story. This is your story. Whichever way you remember it, what emerges from remembering that story is re-membering of your story to that Awesome Story with deep gratitude --the re-membering of gratitude, joy, tears of relief, and the renewed desire to follow Jesus into the world for a lifetime of service to those people who are forgotten like Wesley’s poor and miners and convicts. Take a moment to look at that “photograph” of Jesus –that art, that stained glass, that sculpture, or that ...

4741. Sweet Vine

John 15:1-17

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... we allow God to make us relational creatures. Let us close our eyes for a moment….feel the arms of God around us. Let’s invite the identity of Jesus, His sacrificial, selfless, serving identity to change us, mold us, graft us, and create us into the image God desires us to be. All we have to do is surrender ourselves to Him. For on our own we can do nothing. But God can do anything with us and through us. The Divine Nature of the Almighty God has the power to reshape our hearts and redirect our thoughts ...

4742. Job and the Mind Storm

Job 42:7-17, Job 42:1-6, Job 38:1--41:34

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... ! It’s all about us. Those who have faith must lay thinking aside and rely on the heart. We must trust in a God bigger and stronger and wiser than ourselves to gift us with the abundance we dream of. We must let go of the desire to control our own destiny and achieve our own outcomes. We must rely on the providence of God. Faith leaves no room for overthinkers. And yet, most of us overthink at one time or another. Humans are compulsive overthinkers. Over-achievers. Over-controllers. We are definitely over ...

4743. Beautiful

John 20:10-18, Song of Songs 4:1-16

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... or to follow Jesus. To these people Jesus sends us today. For God’s promise is for all people. Jesus told His disciples several times that He came to seek out all of the lost, those who through generations have lost the roots of their faith and yet desire God and live good and beautiful lives that are sweet and kind. These too are part of God’s beautiful garden world. These too are beloved. Today, we come together to proclaim the Lord’s favor for all of God’s people. Today, we proclaim salvation and ...

4744. The Well Watered Soul

Ezekiel 17:1-24, Ezekiel 47:1-12, Matthew 12:1-14

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... is also clear –if one has made a mistake and has suffered the consequences, it is our blessing too to intervene on their behalf, and to ask God to restore them. Sometimes, it’s difficult for people to do this on their own. This is our mission –to pray, to desire, to seek the restoration of all of God’s people. For God’s rain/reign extends to all. God loves all.

4745. The Good Yoke

Matthew 11:25-30, 1 Kings 19:1-8, 1 Kings 19:9-18, 1 Kings 19:19-21

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... to offer. Jesus is the savior of the world because he frees us from the bondage (yoke) of sin and death. To take this mission statement merely literally or physically is to minimize the enormity of Jesus’ power and salvific message. We are all oppressed by our desires and made weak by our wandering away from Jesus. To be in relationship with Jesus is to take on the yoke or “way” of our rabbi teacher, who will lead us into the ways of righteousness for His Name’s sake! “I led them with cords of ...

4746. Calling All Wide Receivers!

Luke 2:8-20

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... loving, ultimately sacrificing Giver. When God sends Jesus to earth in the form of a human child, you can’t get any more giving than that. And God does it knowing that it may not go well, that our reaction as “receivers” may be less than desirable, sometimes downright terrible and ungrateful! Does God take risk? You bet! Because that’s what relationships are all about! And this is what it means to worship God! We enter into a relationship with God that we can either trust or not trust, respond to or ...

4747. Hiding in Plain Sight

Matthew 2:13-18, Matthew 2:19-23, Exodus 2:1-10, Exodus 2:11-25

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... today, we have stories of hiddenness. When Moses’ mother seeks to save her son from harm, she sends him among the reeds in a basket down river. There, hidden in plain sight, he is discovered by Pharaoh’s daughter, who saves him and nurtures him, so that God’s desires and designs might be fulfilled. Moses is chosen by God from the time of his birth. And yet the time is not yet ripe for him to fulfill God’s mission for him. Moses grows up in the courts of Egypt. Moses sees first-hand the perils of the ...

4748. House of Stone

Psalm 118:1-29, Isaiah 18:1-7, 1 Corinthians 3:1-23, 1 Peter 2:4-12

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... , and bridges to God from anywhere in the world. In union with Jesus, in relationship with God, we move from lifeless to living, from fossils to life-givers. In the scriptures, God designates the people to build both Temple and Altar from natural stone. God does not desire our own imprint upon these worship places, but they must be God-formed, made from origin-al God created stone. These are gathered and layered in a manner that is not fashioned but fitted. This is the way of the House of God (the people of ...

4749. The Overtaxed Soul (Even Me)

Luke 19:1-10

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... : The Lord Refreshes the Soul Psalm 139: There is No Hiding from God Proverbs 22:2: Rich and Poor Alike Proverbs 28:8-10: Those Who Overtax Others The Story of Jonah Blessed is the One Who Trusts in the Lord and Not in the World (Jeremiah 17:1-18) Desire Gives Birth to Sin but God Saves (James 1:1-18) Jesus Saves Sinners of Which I Am the Worst Says Timothy (1 Timothy 12-17) Jesus Sees Zacchaeus and Invites Zacchaeus to His Own Table Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the ...

4750. The Thorny Price of Perfidy

Esther 3:1-15

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... the Lord” (3:17-19). Even though obstacles seem to rise in our path, even though we may be fooled at times by the “Hamans” of the world, or the multiflora roses in our back yards, God assures us that the myrtle will prevail, that God’s desires for the world will always prevail, that love will always prevail over evil in the end. Though he wears a crown of thorns impaled upon his head by his haters, Jesus’ sacrificial love will always result in a garden resurrection that brings to us eternal life ...

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