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 476 to 500 of 1270 results

476. A SERMON-DRAMA FOR EASTER

Drama

Tom Eberle

... perimeter of the Mediterranean Sea. Our own mental computers can calculate that we are arriving some 270 years after the time of Christ. For over two centuries now, longer than the life span of our own nation, Christians have been infiltrating the generally hostile territory of the Roman world. The more studious among us, who remembered to bring along a history book, announce that Diocletian is now emperor, and will soon unleash the last major persecution upon the early church. It will be short-lived, for ...

477. A LITURGICAL DRAMA FOR ALL SAINTS’

Drama

Tom Eberle

... and yet separated. We live in the same community as neighbors, but not always as friends. We are Christians, but we are also [your denomination], who sometimes think little of [another denomination] or [a third denomination]. We live on a small planet with divisions and hostilities as numerous as the sands of the sea. We don’t know if the parade of saints is for us. We sit here, tied down, holding to the seats, yet wanting to stand. We pray now to be freed from our self-tied restraints. Amen. Words ...

478. Are You Exercising Your Faith?

Mt 4:1-11 · Phil 3:12 · Gen 32:3

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... ought to be doubted, so that in our quest for a deeper and more expansive faith we move off dead center. To become frozen at the point of doubt, willing to live forever - tediously balanced on the tightrope of doubt-fighting - is like a hunter going forth to hunt hostile game with a rifle filled with blanks. When he comes face to face with the game, it’s going to be all over. Similarly, if we refuse to trust our doubts and move beyond them to something more creative, when we come face to face with some of ...

479. What Is Your Holy Week Address?

Matthew 27:45-56

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... inveterate optimist, thus revealing her spiritual address. The events of Holy Week, culminating in Easter, also provide us with a series of spiritual addresses where people choose to live. First, we have the dismal events that lead to Maundy Thursday. Those hostile to and threatened by Jesus - his style and his messages - finally gain the upper hand and their poisonousness even infects Jesus’ intimate inner circle of supporters. The mood here is one of tension. Tension had been in the air for weeks, and ...

480. Easter Headlines

Matthew 28:1-10

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... devil smiles when he sees a crack cocaine addict steals from his own mother or murders a complete stranger in order to support a destructive drug habit. The devil smiles when racists of all colors try to re-segregate America, hustling us into hyphenated, hostile camps. The devil smiles over every vehicle that heads south to Tunica's gambling halls, knowing that one in ten will become addicted to the games. The devil smiles when sex is ripped from its beautiful place in the covenant of marriage and degraded ...

481. What Do You Think You’re Worth?

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... be inhibited. Parents sometimes think that their children are always right and can do no wrong. A grandmother once wrote to Ann Landers about the way her daughter allowed her children to express themselves and not to hold anything back. If they are angry and feel hostility and fury, they are told to go to a "scream room" and let it out. The grandmother said she was taught to control herself and she wonders whether she was brought up the wrong way. Lack of self-control implies that a person is nothing but ...

482. The Cross Way of Life

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... to go to church while the rest of the family sleeps late. Soon the Christian grows away from his family because he has higher values, and enjoys Christian friends. The discipline on the cross road of life is maintaining this first-love of Christ in the midst of a hostile environment. A Road of Hardship The cross road of life, in the second place, is a road of hardship. In our text Jesus says, "He who does not take up his cross ..." The Christian way of life is the cross way. If it is a cross, why would it ...

483. Caiaphas and Pilate

Drama

Jon Joyce

... left of the table; offers a shallow bowl, an act he detests, yet performs because it helps keep PILATE working with him when CAIAPHAS so desires] Your excellency. PILATE: [With a careful wave of the hand, his voice neither friendly nor hostile] Good evening, Caiaphas. Be seated. CAIAPHAS: [Smiling craftily] A matter of utmost urgency has brought me here, Pontius. [As CAIAPHAS emphasizes PILATE’S first name, PILATE grimaces slightly but says nothing] It is a very private matter. [He glances toward ANTONIUS ...

484. Hindering Riches

Matthew 19:16-30

Sermon

Herchel H. Sheets

... available to secure what one wants. This increases selfishness. One becomes more and more concerned that his or her wants be satisfied, and becomes less patient with delays or obstacles in the way of their satisfaction. W. Robertson Nicoll said once, "There is perhaps no hostility so violent and reckless as that roused by the exposure of brutality, cruelty, and filth by which money is made."7 This is true because money tends to blind to true values and to become valued far beyond its own worth. As all of ...

485. A Faith for the Uncharted Way

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Leonard Mann

... woodsman’s axe or of Amazing Grace sung in common meter beneath the canopy of a brush arbor. That frontier is memorable for the lonely rider and trails blazed from tree to tree, for the hot summers and the cold winters, wild beasts and hostile Indians, "consumption" and typhoid fever and diphtheria - it was not an easy life. It was packed with danger, but with adventure, too. There was a certain romance about it; the fascination of making conquest, of wrestling the wilderness and wresting from it a road ...

486. The Names of the Christ-Child

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... rearing in America a small percentage of teenagers who are dangerous. Many of them were born into poverty in single- parent households. They were barely fed and clothed; no one bothered to teach them about God or values or ethics. And so, they emerge into the teen years---hostile, street-wise, and conscience- less. What was the sin? Abuse and Neglect. Who will pay for it? All of us. Is there a way to cure all that sin? Jesus is the only way. When he offered his life as a sacrifice for sin on Calvary's cross ...

487. God's Best Gift in the Worst Times

Micah 5:1-4, Micah 5:5-15

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... religion was formalistic and cold, and the dominant religion was materialism. Yes, that could be a description of contemporary America, but actually I'm talking about Judah in 700 B.C. To make matters worse, Judah was a tiny nation precariously perched between two hostile superpowers--Assyria and Egypt. The nation had about as much security as a gambler's dollar in Tunica. At that critical moment, Micah lambasted the nation's sin. But he did much more than that. Inspired by God, he looked out into the ...

488. "Almost" Is A Sad Word

Matthew 19:16-30

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... coast of Mexico. After landing he ordered his men to have all and metal fittings and cannon removed from the ships. Then he ordered the ships burned so that there could be no retreat. For his crew it must have been a terrible sight--standing there on a hostile beach facing a mysterious continent, and watching their means of escape going up in flames. Are you willing to burn the ships in your life? Are you willing to say “no retreat”? Are you tired of being an "almost" kind of disciple? Are you ready to ...

489. How God Guides

Exodus 13:17--14:31

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... from slavery in Egypt to the promised land of Canaan is a true epic. Other than the Resurrection, the Exodus was the mightiest expression of God's power in human history. 600,000 Hebrew men, along with all their dependents, were led by God for forty years across a hostile desert. Never was God's guidance more direct. They were told where and when to move. A great cloud guided them by day, and a pillar of fire by night. God no longer uses the cloud and pillar of fire. But I notice five other ways by which ...

490. SURVIVAL IN THE RAT RACE

Psalm 46:1-11

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... could see it in the popularity of the Guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi - the instant response that he had, especially among the young people in our colleges and universities. His point is simple. We are tense. We are at war within ourselves, and the hostilities. His methods called "Transcendental Meditation," is the process of withdrawal from the world for a contemplation of peace and joy within oneself. He says you can achieve bliss by just enjoying what you are. But that sounds like heresy, doesn’t it? Oh ...

491. Chapter VI

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Frank H. Seilhamer

... pastime of all Japanese troops was either to rape every woman they could find or impale babies on their bayonets. When the war was over, we learned again what we had known before it started, that they were human beings just as we are. But when hostilities flare up, we quickly forget what we have learned in saner times. We don’t remember that they are men into whom we are popping bullets, burning with napalm, or shelling with artillery. Like ourselves, they bleed when they are chopped down by a machine gun ...

492. DREAM INTERPRETER

Genesis 40:8; Daniel 2:4

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

... area of sociological reckoning. This is the part that dreams play in our mental health. Ever since Freud published his monumental work, The Interpretation of Dreams, psychologists and psychiatrists have recognized the importance of the acting out of fears, hostilities, aggressions, etc., in dreams. So, in a very real sense, our psychoanalysts and psychiatrists today are dream interpreters. Of course, they don’t stop there and make a whole profession of it, as the ancients did, but they certainly recognize ...

493. SPY

Gen. 42:11; 1 Sam. 26:4

Illustration

Stephen Stewart

... are all sons of one man, we are honest men, your servants are not spies." 1 Samuel 26:4 - "David sent out spies, and learned of a certainty that Saul had come." With war going on simultaneously in all parts of the world, with border hostilities, with threats of disruption of our internal security being constantly dented into our ears, we are surely fully familiar with the concept of the spy. Espionage is big business. How many television and movie scripts have been based on spy stories; how many books have ...

494. Good News For Good Parents

2 Timothy 1:1-2:13

Sermon

... inscribed on the walls of our home the words of Dorothy Law Nolte’s work, “Children Learn What They Live,” and then kept this constantly before us in our daily activities. If a child lives with criticism, HE learns to condemn. If a child lives with hostility, HE learns to fight. If a child lives with ridicule, HE learns to be shy. If a child lives with shame, HE learns to feel guilty. If a child lives with tolerance, HE learns to be patient. If a child lives with encouragement, HE learns confidence ...

495. Episode III: Birth of the Church

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

Brett Blair

... a diner in Honolulu at 3:30 in the morning. But I prayed. I prayed for Agnes. I prayed for her salvation. I prayed that her life would be changed, and that God would be good to her. And when I finished, Harry leaned over, and with a trace of hostility in his voice he said, "Hey, you never told me you were a preacher. What kind of preacher are you anyway? What church do you belong to?" In one of those moments when just the right words came, I answered him quietly, "I belong to a church that throws birthday ...

496. A Kudzu-Kind of Kingdom

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... as that tiny amount of leaven can transform fifty pounds of bread, a few committed Christians can revolutionize society. Back in the 1960s Martin Luther King led a momentous march between Selma and Montgomery, Alabama. On a bridge they confronted Sheriff Clark and hundreds of hostile police. Clark shouted, "Turn back." And King responded, "We've come too far to turn back now." Clark warned, "If you don't turn back, we're going to bash in your heads." An undaunted King responded, "If you hit me, I will love ...

497. I Love You But I Don't Like You

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... dozen roses sent to her. Ruth got the message. Don't think that differences and confrontations are signs that you married the wrong person. When marriage is anchored to tough love and a shared faith in Jesus Christ, any conflict can be made creative. Couples discover joyously that the more hostility they move out, the more room there is for love to move in.

498. Half-Price Crosses

Luke 14:25-35

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... . Contrast our situation with some cultures where today the cross can cost you your life. In Nepal today there are 168 people in the court system charged with nothing more than being Christians. Recently a Christian named Abraham was killed in India by a hostile Hindu group. After Bishop Dolok of Indonesia visited us in September, he returned home to find that Muslim groups had burned down many of his churches, and one pastor's family was burned to death within the church building. Christians today are the ...

499. The Seeds of Social Conflict

Genesis 4:1-26

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... are just your brother’s brother or sister. In Act III of the drama, God punishes Cain, but puts a mark of mercy on him. In verses 11 through 16, God banishes Cain from the agricultural life. Cain becomes a transient, a nomad. But to protect him from hostile, border-conscious people, God put a mark on him. What that mark was, we do not know. But remember, the mark was not part of his punishment. It was a mark of grace, protecting Cain from harm and serving as a message that God had not forsaken him. The ...

500. Forgiveness

Luke 23:26-43

Sermon

Burton F. Blair

... them; for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34). This is the first word from the cross. It is prayer, a prayer for forgiveness. Isn’t this a strange time for prayer in the midst of such insanity? Should he not have had words of hostility? Who does he want forgiven? Is it the soldiers who punched and pushed him around with that silly crown of thorns? Is it the religious leaders who ridiculed him and rejected him? "If you are the messiah," they shouted in anger, "come down from the cross and we ...

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