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 666 results

26. A Faith That Burns

Luke 12:49-53

Sermon

W. Robert McClelland

... exhausted from their efforts to increase profits. "Come to me, all you who~ labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Peace, I leave with you." We have sentimentalized God's love, just as we have so many of the stories surrounding the King. The birth narratives of Jesus, and the seasonal sentimentality surrounding them, are a case in point. They were never written as Christmas stories to be acted out in Sunday school pageants by people wearing bathrobes. We have trivialized these gospel stories ...

27. Liking the New and Improving the Old

Isaiah 43:14-28

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

... It was really pretty messy, but the best we could do. The chances are good, however, if you ever had an ice box, that this story has awakened all kinds of memories of your own and we could all become pretty sentimental and nostalgic just thinking about the past. But for me, that's all it is: good memories and nice sentiment, but I don't want to go back to the old ice box of my childhood. I like having a cold refrigerator with a freezer on the side, with an ice-maker that spills out cubes by just pressing a ...

28. The Bottom Line

Micah 6:1-8

Sermon

Robert Beringer

... us with grace. I am thankful we worship a God who is both tough-minded and tenderhearted. If God were only tough-minded, God would be a cold, passionless despot sitting in some far-off heaven. But if God were only tenderhearted, he would be too soft and sentimental to function when things go wrong. Thank the Lord for a God who is tough-minded enough to transcend the world, and yet, tenderhearted enough to live in it!"2 What's the bottom line in religion? The bottom line in terms of what God expects is to ...

29. What Christmas Is About

Isaiah 9:1-7

Sermon

Robert Beringer

... this term takes us to the heart of what Christmas is about. What could be more peaceful than that beautiful scene of a holy night, with shepherds watching and angels singing, and Mary placing the baby in Bethlehem's stable? But Christmas is much more than a sentimental remembrance of the birth of a baby long ago. Christmas is about God's plan for peace on this earth, and as another Christmas breaks on our not-so-peaceful world, we are challenged once more to ask ourselves what we have done in the past year ...

30. Checking The Vital Signs

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

Jerry L. Schmalemberger

... attitude, that person will be sure he is dead and never came out of that grave. Love is a beautiful thing. The God of Easter is a God of love and he wants one of the signs of the congregation to be an accepting and beautiful love that is not sentimental but is carried out in actions and justice. When I came home after preaching to those 1,700 people, I promised myself that in two weeks I would revisit that “Easter high” and test out if it was really true that you and I had experienced again God coming ...

31. One Flock, One Shepherd

John 10:1-21

Sermon

Jerry L. Schmalemberger

... other denominations are blood brothers and sisters of ours, and belong to the same flock, even when they don’t see us in that way. Just as we show our love in different ways (not all husbands get their wives flowers or all wives send cards with sentimental poetry), down through the years as we have become aware of our God and what he did for us on Calvary, we have worked out different ways to get together and express our thanks. Lloyd George, the British statesman, once remarked: “The church I belong to ...

32. Death at Christmastime

Luke 2:1-7, Luke 2:8-20

Eulogy

Allen Puffenberger

... - sending cards, decorating the tree, exchanging gifts, singing carols, going to church, and gathering around the table - take on luster, because we join in them at home, with loved ones. How sad it is to be separated from family now. Who here is not stirred by the sentiment of the song, "I'll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams"? The pangs of death are acutely sharp now, for all around you are reminders of the love you shared with Adam, the love you have lost. Any holiday activity may stir remorse ...

33. Advancers Over Decliners

Luke 19:11-27

Sermon

... each writer has his own unique elaborations, in substance both of them are writing the same story. But this one does not occupy a cherished place within the hearts of most of us as other parables of Jesus do. This one can’t be sentimentalized as we have often sentimentalized the favorite and familiar. This one can’t be sweetened with a little sugar from the bowl of pop-style religion. It doesn’t throw us into the welcoming arms of God as though he were our heavenly babysitter. When we sweep aside the ...

34. Advent 4

Lk 1:39-55 · Heb 10:5-10 · Mic 5:1-4

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

... accept God's will that he should go to the cross. Jesus came to earth to die as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. The manger should have been in the shape of the cross. With the cross in sight, we can be saved from the usual sentimental baby-Jesus, meek and mild. In this sense Christmas has a bittersweet taste. 3. Offering (v. 10). People gave offerings to please and/or placate God. In the temple, offerings of animals were for the forgiveness of sins. If Christ's death was an offering for sin, does it ...

35. The Love God Wants

Matthew 22:34-40

Sermon

... and emotion, and they moved people to tears and generosity. But, Gantry was a charletan, a manipulator of people and their commitment. His words were hollow, self-serving, and deceitful. He captivated people by eloquently parading before them the beauty and sentimentality of love, and exhorting them to be more loving; but there was little love in Gantry himself, only an all-consuming desire to build a religious empire and garner its fame and fortune. In the end, Gantry perished, and with him the hopes ...

36. What Will He Find… When He Comes? - Shorter Version

Luke 18:1-8

Sermon

Theodore F. Schneider

... for you." The secular non-religious understanding of the word, sends shivers up and down my spine. I don’t like the word without it’s Christian meaning. I When the world says “I hope so..” doubt resides in the sentiment. Our hope is different. Our hope is not a sentiment. First, our hope is a hope that does not disappoint. How differently the Bible uses our word. Rather than resignation, the word bristles with excitement and expectation. It is for the writers of both the Old and New Testaments a ...

37. Advent 2

Matthew 3:1-12

Bulletin Aid

... ' mission, message, and ministry in its fullness, we may appreciate all there is to await and anticipate in the coming One, in whose name we pray. Amen Prayer of Confession God of empathy and care, we admit that we fall easily into the yearly trap of sentimentalizing the birth of Jesus for our own emotional satisfaction, and lose sight of the wonderfully tragic and redemptive life that lay beyond it. Forgive us, we pray, and help us to see that the Coming Christ for whom we prepare is more than just a baby ...

38. One Thing

Sermon

Raymond Gibson

... be able to say that I did try in my life to clothe the naked. I want you to say on that day that I did try to visit those in prison. And I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity." Surely, those were noble sentiments; but are they the only legacies of Martin Luther King to the Christian faith and the twentieth century? Years ago as a layman in a tiny church in eastern Kentucky, I recall the last sermon preached by a saintly pastor of that church. He concluded by saying, "Whether I have ...

39. Defended By the Divine

Mark 14:1-11

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

... that a man will pay one dollar for a two dollar item if he needs it, but if it is on sale for two dollars and worth only one dollar, a woman will buy it whether she can use it or not! Women are accused, too, of being overly sentimental. They cry at strange times - even happy occasions like graduations and weddings. Big things they handle calmly, then an unexpected small gift will break them up. And logic - "the logic of a woman" is a proverb all its own! Well, here a woman is not negated, berated, accused ...

40. Christians In A Warring World - 1941

Galatians 6:1-10

Sermon

Kent Moorehead

... . We sincerely believe that the Christian way is the Pacifist way. We are quite aware of the fact that the very term "Pacifist" is extremely repugnant and offensive to not a few. In the popular mind, the epithet all too generally suggests sentimentalism, spinelessness, weakness, even cowardice. It is used as a term of derision, contempt, and obloquy. But many words that are now held in high regard, words that were once thought of as designations of highest approbation, were as unpopular as the word ...

41. Preaching Unpopular Truth - 1943

John 18:38

Sermon

Kent Moorehead

... more important than winning the victory for freedom? To talk about loving your enemies, returning good for evil, and doing unto others as you would have them do to you sounds pious enough, but when so much is at stake, isn’t it almost subversive to express such sentiments? Won’t it weaken morale, slow up production, and cause disunity? Granted war is evil. Whether we will or no, we are all involved. We might as well make the best of it. And what is to be gained by defying the will of the majority? We ...

42. Just Common People?

Romans 12:1-8

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... ’t want to set the world on fire, we just want enough heat to make the house comfortable. Or let it be in the words of the old cliché’: "God must have loved the common people, because He made so many of them." Of this sacchrine sentiment, Philip Wylie in his "Generation of Vipers" has this to say: "I’ve noticed when people hear that repeated, they generally snicker with a warm sense of self-appreciation. It is, indeed, a bland, a balmy assumption that, intrinsically, the common man is a wonder of all ...

43. A Reason to Hope

Lamentations 3:1-66

Sermon

Michael J. Anton

... 20th century. The people of Hiroshima and Nagazaki who were left after the A-bomb holocaust must have shared our writer’s sentiments. And the survivors of bombed-out cities and villages in war-torn Europe after two major wars must have sung the same ... is bad. And I didn’t come here to get the Sunday rehash. I came here to get away from all that for an hour." To that sentiment I can only respond with as much charity as possible, the Church is not a hideout or a hideaway from reality. The Church is not a ...

44. All You Need To Know About Heaven

John 14:5-14, John 14:1-4

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... this paradise are worry and grief and jealousy and frustration and lust and anger. You go to bed thinking that life can't get any better than this. But in the morning, it is! Now, if some cynic tells you that thinking about heaven is escapist or hopelessly sentimental, tell that person this: Only when I have my long-term future secured can I live fully in the present. If I don't know my final destination, I’ll be mighty confused along the way. The most significant things we can do on earth are to claim ...

45. Restoring Our Sense of Priorities

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Donald Macleod

... ’s phrase), with nothing that cares, and hence we feel no pull of any ultimate meaning to life. There is no rationale whatsoever for the Ten Commandments in an outlook such as that. 3. Our idea of Christian love has been reduced to a level of sentimentality. Love has been taken over by either of two modern concepts, both of which are wrong. Love, according to the "pop" singers, is a matter of emotion only; it has no depth, no fiber, no lasting quality any more than froth. Then there are the televangelists ...

46. The More Excellent Way

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon

Robert Allen

... was alive. She was enjoying her chance to be a star. At one point in the play, she begins to sing: I’m stuck like a dope, with a thing called hope. While that is a lovely attitude, it’s not exactly what I mean by hope. This is mostly sentiment. It’s like the little boy standing at the window of a pet shop to select a puppy for his birthday present. The father asks, "Son, have you picked one out yet?" "Yes, Daddy," said the little boy pointing to a puppy that was wagging his tail furiously. "I want ...

47. Bethlehem: Capitol of the Universe

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

... closing verse of his poem-carol: O holy Child of Bethlehem, Descend to us, we pray; Cast out our sin, and enter in, Be born in us today. That’s the point of the Bethlehem story. It is more than stuff for poet and playwright, more by far than a sentimental story of a poor carpenter and his bride who couldn’t find room in the village inn. It is the place where time was sprung. Not just history’s time, but your time, and mine. It is the place where, along with Calvary and the Garden Tomb, your time and ...

48. Christmas Every Day

John 1:1-18

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

... must be appropriated. This means that the story of the birth of the baby in Bethlehem is only the preface to the birth of the Christ-life in the hearts of men and women, of boys and girls. When Christmas ceases to be a seasonal sentimental story and becomes a living experience, it produces changed lives, more sensitive, more unselfish and sympathetic, more patient and loving. It is for this that Phillips Brooks prayed: "Cast out our sin, and enter in, Be born in us today." Christmas provides not only divine ...

49. Created For Freedom

Galatians 5:1-15

Sermon

King Duncan

... groups. For example, some of our most progressive laws are those calling for universal access to buildings. People with disabling conditions ought to be free to go the same places you and I go. Most of us would agree with that sentiment. And yet, even a noble sentiment such as that has its complications. Mother Teresa~s Missionaries of Charity bought two dilapidated buildings in New York City's South Bronx and spent $100,000 to restore them and turn them into homeless shelters. But New York~s bureaucrats ...

50. You Shall Call His Name Jesus

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

King Duncan

... ; "I hope you don't mind, but I told her that you were amazed at the way she had built up this small town library, and that you thought she showed good taste in the new books she ordered." (3) Love works. Not the cheap shoddy combination of sentimentalism and lust that the world calls love. But the spirit of good will and faith which we normally characterize as the Christmas spirit. Jesus can save us from our sins when we remember that all persons are part of his family “and when we live in our daily ...

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