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 26 to 50 of 142 results

26. “Lucky” Is The Saddest Word

Jeremiah 20:7-18

Sermon

Keith Hammer

... always tell me how much I can win. A cool $6 million if I am lucky in the “Super Lotto” drawing. But there are hundreds of other prizes, from thousands of dollars to just another ticket of some kind to keep my habit going. I have a hunch that preaching against the lottery and other games of chance like it is not a very popular subject today. All of us participate sometimes, even if we don’t play the lottery. We take part when we purchase tickets for raffles held by various community groups, sometimes ...

27. Throw Your Heart at the Sky

John 21:1-14

Sermon

Carl Jech

... much better with one another if we become aware of the fact that, for example, the personality type of most clergy is quite different from the personality type found among most parishoners. Most clergy are Intuitives (focusing on hunches, speculation, inspiration, fantasy, ingenuity and imagination), while most parishioners are Sensates (focusing on guidance from past experiences, realism, and down-to-earth practicality.) I know of a mother and son whose relationship was greatly improved when they learned ...

28. Full Barns and Empty Hearts

Luke 12:13-21

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... his place. Having full barns alone doesn’t bring inward peace, nor does it fill the empty places of the heart. Do we ever really reach the point where we quit worrying about economic security - even when the barns are full and overflowing? I have a hunch that the wealthy take as much Sominex as do those on the lower edge of the economic heap. My guess is that they, too, have trouble sleeping because of gnawing anxieties over the security of their barns. Certainly they know that their prosperity doesn’t ...

29. Watching Jesus

Luke 14:1-14

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... , for scholars tell us that some Pharisees already stood with Jesus on the issue of inward faith. Obviously, they were not a majority; but one can think that some of them watched Jesus and were able to see him. Whatever we make of Nicodemus, the Pharisee, we can hunch that he represents one or several of his group who watched and saw Jesus. The New Testament and the church are witness to the fact that many watched Jesus and saw in his words, and deeds, and presence, the love and glory of God. This is behind ...

30. The Family Reunion

Matthew 9:35-38

Sermon

Glenn L. Borreson

... you do know, you wish you didn't! Truthfully, that's not how I feel about family reunions. Mostly I enjoy them. But Erma Bombeck might describe these events as people you've never seen before, all claiming to be your relatives, while your spouse hunches over the picnic basket muttering, "Never would have married him if I'd been to one of these before the wedding." That is perhaps a Bombeck-style response which picks up on a certain truth to these gatherings: there are always some disappointments amidst the ...

31. Invincible Harvest

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

... . He has a slightly wicked grin on his face. As he swiftly turns the dial from zero to full volume he says, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." The audience is not visible, but one imagines them sliding down in their pews, shoulders hunched, hands clasped tightly over their ears. I think I know several preachers who would dearly love to do what their cartoon counterpart did. Not only could they be sure that everyone heard what had been said, but they would see some visible sign that eardrums had ...

32. I Started to be Grateful

Luke 17:11-19

Illustration

Brett Blair

... had lost faith in himself, in other people, in God--he found no joy in living. One rainy morning this man went to a small neighborhood restaurant for breakfast. Although several people were at the diner, no one was speaking to anyone else. Our miserable friend hunched over the counter, stirring his coffee with a spoon. In one of the small booths along the window was a young mother with a little girl. They had just been served their food when the little girl broke the sad silence by almost shouting, "Momma ...

33. Giving Thanks Before Thanksgiving

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon

Brett Blair

34. Is Jesus Still in the Healing Business?

Luke 4:38-44, Luke 4:31-37

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... will make the sick person well." (James 5:15) Dr. Harold Koenig of Duke University Medical Center states that preliminary results of surveys show that "people who attend church are both physically healthier and less depressed" than those who don’t. I have a hunch that Methodists are the healthiest of all but I can’t prove that. Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School explains why church attendance is healthy. People who go to church have strong networks of friends who care about them when they are ...

35. Stephen’s Stones

Acts 7:54--8:1a

Sermon

Richard F. Bansemer

... Think back for a moment to the reading of this lesson from Acts. Did any of us feel anything at all when this account of murder was read from Scripture? Maybe the story is so familiar that it discourages any kind of reaction. But a cynical hunch says that not a person here today really felt anything like sorrow, or bewilderment, or despair, because of this historic stoning. Rather, the suspicion is that our minds were elsewhere in this beautiful country - on the lake - by the seashore; in the woods - on the ...

36. Nicodemus

John 3:1-21

Sermon

... but somehow he feels he has missed some crucial truth. There is a reason he is going to Jesus. He has an inkling that he is missing an important detail. That something has been lost in the translation. What is remarkable about Nicodemus is that he followed his hunch. Why him and so few of the other religious leaders? For the next few minutes let’s take a look at this remarkable man and his search to understand this Jesus. What can we say about Nicodemus? I First, we can say of Nicodemus he was a religious ...

37. Trumpets in Church on Easter, The Very Idea!

Mark 16:1-20

Sermon

Jon L. Joyce

... passed. Four. The water was almost halfway up the room. What was keeping it from the pocket where we were? At the end of the fourth day our food ran out. Some of the men found crusts tossed aside by miners days before and wolfed down those scraps. We hunched closer to each other to keep out the cold, not moving much, to conserve energy. And the water rose. It was on the seventh day that I suddenly wondered if word prayers were enough. In the Bible, men didn’t only say they believed, they acted like it ...

38. God's Design for Marriage

Ephesians 5:22-33

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... give you hope and a future.” God is our designer and knows what is best for us. In our scripture for today, we have a pair of admonitions, one for the wife and one for the husband. Let's take them in reverse order; I have a hunch that might help. HERE IS THE ADMONITION FOR THE HUSBAND: LOVE YOUR WIVES AS CHRIST LOVED THE CHURCH. That means, first, that we husbands must cherish our wives because Christ surely cherished the church. To cherish means to treat as dear, to care for tenderly, to regard another ...

39. Standing Room Only Religion

Mark 2:1-12

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... the healing process. Standing room only religion? Can it happen again? It certainly can whenever genuine faith and forgiveness are expressed. Oh, by the way, when there are genuine faith and forgiveness, you never have to worry about roof repair. I have a hunch the healed paralytic was back the next day with his four friends fixing Jesus' roof. Prayer: Eternal God, whose Mind is beyond our knowing, but whose Spirit penetrates to the farthest reaches of the universe and searches out the inmost secrets of our ...

40. Deformed, Disfigured, and Despised: A Marred but Magnificent Messiah

Isaiah 52:13--53:12

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

... but who would put a permanent hurt on our enemies. The new Messiah would usher in the new age and all would bow at his feet and be subject to his dominion and authority. How could our conquering hero be a suffering servant? Could this little, scrawny hunch-backed man become our savior for the ages? Why would God play such a cruel trick upon his people? He is ugly and unattractive. He cannot save himself. He has no political connections. He has no money in the bank and no armies marching behind him by ...

41. Remembering Charlie

Job 38:1--41:34

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... not of answers, but wilderness appreciation...until finally Job whispers, "I spoke foolishly, Lord. What can I answer?" By the end of story Job could say, "I am ashamed of all I have said and repent in dust and ashes."(5) One commentator writes, "I have a hunch God could have said anything to Job - could, in fact, have read from the Yellow Pages - and produced the same stunning effect...What [God] said was not nearly so important as the mere fact of making [the] appearance."(6) Is that enough for us? We who ...

42. Crying On Palm Sunday

Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... calling as Christians to "Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep." (Romans 12:15). Is it too much to ask: if Christ is weeping, why are we not? What will it take to bring a tear of two to our jaded eyes? I have a hunch that, just as Jesus wept over Jerusalem, God weeps over our world. There is a sense in which Jesus is just about the most popular personage in the world. Everybody wants to get onto His bandwagon. Sometimes it seems as though the Pharisees' murmuring about Jesus is still ...

43. Lesson From A Blind Man

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

King Duncan

Eugene was a wimpy prince; stunted in growth, ugly, sickly, pale and hunched back. Everyone in Louis XIV's castle had written him off and ignored him. The young prince wandered around in the shadows of the French monarch's castle going unnoticed among the nobles and royalty who attended the balls, ballets, and parties. Eugene's friends were the slaves. No one ...

44. What On Earth Is The Trinity?

John 14:15-31

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... They attend church fairly regularly, contribute fairly well. They are essentially good people. But their religion has little joy and power in it. They go through the motions, but there is something missing. They have a deep longing for something more, something deeper. They have a hunch that they are missing something, but they don't know what it is or where to go to get it. Again, their group is very large. Not as large as the first circle, but large. Then there is the third group, the Inner Circle. These ...

45. The Majesty And The Misery

Jeremiah 1:1-19

Sermon

King Duncan

... , bludgeon him to death, probably with his own shovel. He'd seen it happen many times. "As he sat waiting, head down, he felt a presence. Slowly he lifted his eyes. Next to him sat an old man with a wrinkled, utterly expressionless face. Hunched over, the man drew a stick through the sand at Solzhenitzyn's feet, deliberately tracing out the sign of the cross. "As Solzhenitsyn stared at that rough outline, his entire perspective shifted. He knew he was merely one man against the all-powerful Soviet empire ...

46. Way Down In Egypt's Land

Matthew 2:13-18

Sermon

King Duncan

... rearranged her bedroom. She had been talking about it for days but her mother asked her to wait until after the holidays. "I just wanted to get it done now," she explained. On Christmas Eve it started to snow as the family made their way to church. "I hunched in the pew with my arms folded tightly," Ron recalls, "thinking about whether I even believed that God was part of my life." It was near blizzard conditions by the time they reached home. Ron wasn’t asleep for very long when he heard a roar. The old ...

47. Where's George?

Luke 15:1-7, Luke 15:8-10

Sermon

King Duncan

... material goods forgetting their history and fearing the future struggling to find their way. The world is full of lost people. (3) They're everywhere. They look at you with hollow eyes on the street. They slink into alleyways so you won't notice them. They hunch over in the halls as if they are carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. The church is one enterprise that will never go out of business for lack of prospects. But we are confronted with this question. If there are so many lost ...

48. Straight Backs And Rekindled Dreams

Luke 13:10-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... girls don't realize how beautiful they are with their long legs and long arms. All they know is that they feel "œdifferent." And when you are 12-years-old, the last thing you want to be is different. And so this beautiful girl starts hunching her shoulders. She's crippled by a spirit of embarrassment. I've seen people bent over with a sense of responsibility. Not that their responsibilities are greater than anyone else's. What weighs them down is a sense of inadequacy to meet those responsibilities. The ...

49. Birdbaths and Flagpoles

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

King Duncan

... in the church." These bandana-wearing old grandmothers, who had kept the orthodox church alive for years during the Soviet period, had been the butt of jokes by both Russians and Westerners alike. Nothing could have seemed more pathetic and irrelevant than they, hunched over and wrapped in woolen shawls. They were widely regarded as evidence of the eventual death of religion in the Soviet Union. Yet on that critical night of August 20, 1991, when martial law was proclaimed and people were commanded to go to ...

50. Standing Tall

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

King Duncan

... charity from passers-by. But when he hears that Jesus wants to see him, he stands up in full dignity before the Lord. I believe there is something important for us to see here. Do you remember how your Mother used to tell you not to slouch--not to hunch over when you walk? Let me repeat David McKenna's words, "Posture always gives clues to self-esteem." It's true. People who feel good about themselves walk differently than people who do not. I want to say to every young person in the room: This time your ...

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