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 26 to 50 of 1838 results

26. The Third Kind of Love

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

James W. Moore

... , my wife has left me, I can’t get along with my children, I’m cut off from my parents and my in-laws, I’m having conflicts with my co-workers, I have been drinking heavily… Everybody’s left me and I don’t blame them. I have been bitter and hostile. I have done so many mean and cruel things… and now I have so many problems.” He paused for a moment, took a deep breath and then he leaned forward and said: “To tell you the truth, I think all those problems are really symptoms. My real problem ...

27. Reviewing the Past

Numbers 33:1-56

Teach the Text

Joe M. Sprinkle

... many places. 1. Rameses (v. 3) is where Israel has been oppressed (Exod. 1:11). God has delivered them from that oppression. 2. God parts the Red Sea (v. 8), saving Israel but drowning Pharaoh’s army (Exod. 14:21–28). 3. At Marah (v. 8) God makes bitter waters sweet (Exod. 15:22–25). 4. In the Desert of Sin (v. 11) Israel receives manna and quail as food from God (Exod. 16). 5. At Rephidim (v. 14) God provides water for Israel and answers Moses’s prayer to let Israel defeat the Amalekites (Exod. 17 ...

28. Joseph's Pit

Genesis 37:1-11

Sermon

Jerry Eckert

... to get anyone down on me. "It was easy to tell," Joseph said quietly. "When people sleep, their eyes and mouths move. In your case, I also noticed that your fingers moved." I don't know which was the greater surprise, his knowing I could write or his not being bitter about becoming a slave. Let me say a word about how he came to be in our caravan. He told me how he grew up in a large, wealthy family. He has ten older brothers, but his father favored him. "I guess I was spoiled," he told me. "My older ...

29. Walk In Love

Ephesians 4:1-16

Sermon

King Duncan

... Oswald. (5) An extreme example, to be sure. What I hope we will see, though, is that the same sense of inferiority that drove this tortured man to act out his rage on a president can cripple many of us. The list that Paul gives us bitterness, wrath, clamour, evil speakingare all the product of our feelings of inferiority. Paul, however, gives us the prescription. "Be ye therefore followers of God..." One translator (ASV) has rendered this as be "imitators of God." That's a big order. Who among us is up to ...

30. Screaming at the Television

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sermon

King Duncan

... are filled with anger. We see it on the road road rage it’s call. We see it in our offices people who tend to fly off the handle at the slightest provocation. Some of us live with someone like that at home. Perhaps we have a spirit of bitterness and anger ourselves. It causes us much grief. Each New Year’s we make resolutions that this year we will learn to control our temper. And after every tirade we apologize to our loved ones. We truly do regret that we have allowed ourselves to get out of control ...

31. The Tale Of Three Women

Ruth 1:1-22

Sermon

John A. Stroman

... make Naomi's God her God. This did not come about by Naomi putting on a "happy face," but by being her true self. Here is hope for us, as weak and faulty as we may be. God can use us, as God used Naomi in the midst of her bitterness and grief, to accomplish no small part in the work of God in the world. Orpah Naomi pleaded with her daughters-in-law to go back to their mothers' houses in Moab. She pleaded with the Lord to deal as kindly with them as they had dealt with her and ...

32. A Time for Tears

John 11:17-37

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... cheer up this young woman, who thinks that she may be pregnant with another child. How? What do I tell her? WHAT DO I TELL HER? Tell her that she shouldn’t cry, that "everything happens for the best?" Tell her to dry her tears and stifle her bitterness, because "there’s always a silver lining in every cloud?" Tell her that everything that happens is God’s will, and so she must just "grin and bear it?" I remember very well a young, fledgling pastor that might have said those very things. He knew all of ...

33. In All Things Be Thankful

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sermon

Brett Blair

... with the issue of “why me?” For a season it might offer some comfort but it does no good in the end. Do we ever ask that question when some joy comes into our life? Not really. We must learn to become thankful or we shall surly become bitter. II Secondly, we must learn to be thankful or we will become discouraged. It is an inescapable tenant of Christianity that hardship will come. No one is immune, from the greatest to the least of us. But there is another inescapable tenant of our faith; we are not ...

34. Grieve Not The Holy Spirit

Ephesians 4:1-16

Sermon

King Duncan

... we feel like we've been run over by a wagon. It is about the other times, the times when we're tempted to run over others. St. Paul wrote: "And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." (KJV) I hope St. Paul isn't describing somebody you know ...

35. Feasting and Fasting for Lent (Part II)

Luke 13:22-30

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... our Scripture lesson finds Jesus answering the questions whether or not those who will be saved will be few. He warns about those who knock at the door and the Lord will not know them. Indeed our Lord will not know us if we have feasted on bitterness rather than the forgiveness of God. One of the greatest proofs of a person who has been saved by the Lord is that they feast on forgiveness. The world has a larger door known as revenge, and unfortunately, many travel this road. Many will gossip rather than ...

36. Getting Rid of Anger

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sermon

King Duncan

... man said, “I’m ready for a new hymn book.” He does have a problem. In our lesson for the day from Ephesians, St. Paul says, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.” What does it mean “to grieve the Holy Spirit of God”? The Holy Spirit is that part of the Godhead that dwells within us. It is the voice of God speaking to us about our ongoing ...

37. Cured Cripples and Crabby Critics

Luke 13:10-17

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... daughter. Two weeks later, her pastor friend said, "I'm going to the hospital to visit a patient. I'd like you to come along." Together they visited Steve, an eighteen-year-old young man who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Steve told Joanne that he had been bitter about his cancer until he was confronted by a Christian who asked him directly if he was ready to die and face God. When he thought about it, Steve said, he realized that although he was a pastor's son and had been in church all his life ...

38. Poem: In Memoriam

Eulogy

Alfred Lord Tennyson

... To the other shore, involved in thee, Arrive at last the blessed goal, And He that died in Holy Land Would reach us out the shining hand, And take us as a single soul. What reed was that on which I leant? Ah, backward fancy, wherefore wake The old bitterness again, and break The low beginnings of content. LXXXV This truth came borne with bier and pall, I felt it, when I sorrow’d most, ‘Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all? O true in word, and tried in deed, Demanding, so ...

39. Taming the Tongue

James 3:1-12, James 3:13-18

Understanding Series

Peter H. Davids

... 2; Phil. 3:6). But this virtue easily merges into jealousy and rivalry, which the same word condemns in vice lists (Acts 5:17; 13:45; Rom. 10:2; 13:13; 1 Cor. 3:3). James seems to indicate that the moment one senses even a hint of a bitter spirit, it is time to examine one’s true motivations. See further A. Stumpff, “Zēlos,” TDNT, vol. 2, pp. 887–88. The problem of party spirit was well known in the early church. The first indications are in Acts 6; then follow the Galatian Judaizers, the groups in ...

40. The Angel and the Little Scroll

Revelation 10:1-11

Understanding Series

Robert W. Wall

... ’s (cf. Ezek. 2:8–3:3), they have all noted this distinction: the scroll of divine revelation given to John turns his stomach sour. While both John and Ezekiel found divine revelation as sweet as honey (cf. Ps. 119:103), only John found it bitter (pikrainō). Why? The question is more difficult if the interpreter limits the content of the little scroll to chapter 11. If its message extends through chapter 16, as some insist, then the souring of John’s stomach could be understood as a reaction to the ...

41. Two Kinds of Wisdom

James 3:13-18, James 3:1-12

Understanding Series

Peter H. Davids

42. The Open Hand

Mark 2:23-3:6

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... to depend on God instead of self. If is hard to take the chance of making a fool of yourself. But it is worth taking the chance because it is the only way to experience new life. The clenched fist, clinging to the clammy coins of booze, bitterness, or brooding which will kill, comes from a stubborn mind and hard heart. We may not be alcoholics, spoiled children, or people with psychiatric problems, but the stories of these people can help us to realize the malady of stubborn resistance to God and God's ways ...

43. Making Our Feelings Known

Job 23:1--24:25

Sermon

John A. Stroman

... of his soul:Therefore I will not restrain my mouth;I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. (7:11)I loathe my life; I will give free utterance to my complaint. (10:1) Here Job is correlating his own bitter defiance with the unrelenting pressure of God's hand upon his life. Job insists on seeking a resolution for his complaint not through the traditional religious practices of prayer and lament (as in the Psalms), but through a legal hearing, because he ...

44. Prayers for the Sundays After Easter

Bulletin Aid

Rolland R. Reece

... to reject them. Words can never express, O God, what it means to us that you sent your Son into our lives. To know that he felt the ache of tiredness that comes with a hard day's labor; the temptations that lure and pull at selfish motives; the full, bitter sting of complete rejection that breaks the heart, and yet did not succumb to self-pity or hostility, is for us an open door to hope. Help us to receive him who alone gave us the victory to overcome the destruction of life. We thank you for the members ...

45. A Remedy For Anger

Matthew 5:21-26

Sermon

King Duncan

... days later they discovered his badly beaten body. This is the hardest thing a mother or father is ever confronted with - the murder of their child. This tragic event would leave a mark on Mamie's life. Years after the tragedy she was asked, "Don't you harbor any bitterness toward the two men?" Mamie's reply reveals the depth of her faith: "From the very beginning that's the question that has always been raised. What they had done was not for me to punish and it was not for me to go around hugging hate to ...

46. Constantly Abiding

John 15:1-17

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... into hatred. At the time when she should have been dating and marrying, and perhaps having children, the energy of the family was someplace else and she felt victimized by it. Now, 40 years later, she was dying of bitterness and hatred, even though her parents had been dead for 20 years. She had to bury that bitterness and hatred. She had to allow the memory of that whole life situation to be healed. So, there on that log beside that lake, we had a funeral. She allowed that part of her to die, and we danced ...

47. Passing and Failing

Deuteronomy 8:7-18

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

... , they began to worship the Baals. If God did not show grace, we would flunk every test. If we truly understand God's grace, we accept it with humility and not with presumption. In another sense, we grade our own papers. We decide if we will let despair and bitterness get us down. If we punish ourselves or lash out at other people for our frustrations, we flunk the test. God can forgive us and other people can forgive us. By giving in to despair, do we not flunk our own test? Do we not rob ourselves of the ...

48. Don't Forget to Forgive

Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon

James Merritt

... happen to us. I'm sure that there are more than a few hearts here today that have become fertile fields for the root of bitterness. Perhaps you are sitting there thinking: "So I do have someone I'm angry with. So I do have someone I have a grudge against ... back in prison, and it was his own fault. There are many of you here today in prison built with the bars of your own bitterness. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale told the story one time of a lady that came to hear him preach one Sunday who was relatively young, well ...

49. Murder in the First Degree

Matthew 5: 21-26

Sermon

James Merritt

... that Jesus teaches here is this. It is incredible how giving forgiveness to someone or seeking forgiveness from someone unloads the gun in the other person's hand. The story is told that when the painter Leonardo da Vinci was painting The Last Supper, he had an intense and bitter argument with a fellow painter. Da Vinci began to think of a way to get this guy back. He came up with a devious plan. He decided to paint the face of his enemy onto the face of Judas Iscariot so it would be captured for time in ...

50. To Live in Joy

Revelation 1:1-3

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... into hatred. At those times when she should have been dating and marrying, and perhaps having children, the energy of the family was someplace else and she felt victimized by it. Now, 40 years later, she was dying of bitterness and hatred, even though her parents had been dead for 20 years She had to bury that bitterness and hatred. She had to allow the memory of that whole life situation to be healed. So, there on that log beside that lake, we had a funeral. She allowed that part of her to die, and we ...

Showing results