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

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4976. His Last Command ... Our First Concern!

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

Stephen M. Crotts

... it your own ego or Satan or some man who compels you to do these things?" And Jesus consistently pointed to God as the basis of his authority. It is the same today. You just get busy going and discipling and teaching, and real soon, somebody's going to want to know why. Out on the college campus a few years back, a young man named Gary broke up with his girlfriend, his grades were poor, and a fraternity had not asked him to join. So Gary slit both wrists in a suicide attempt. He was found, hospitalized, and ...

4977. Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired?

Matthew 9:35-10:8

Sermon

Stephen M. Crotts

... Albee's play, The Death of Bessie Smith, a character rages, "I'm sick! Sick of everything in this fly-ridden world! I am sick of waking up, I am tired of the truth, I am tired of lying about the truth, tired of my skin! I want out, I want off this world!" Now, that, my friend, is desperate sickness! And perhaps today, as you read this, you find yourself ill. My question is, "Would you like to be well?" Have you ever wondered about sickness? Wondered what the Bible says about healing? In the text, Christ ...

4978. Do You Get It?

Matthew 16:21-28

Sermon

Stephen M. Crotts

... , "God, keep America number one" the way some Jews of the first century looked for the restoration of the Davidic empire? Do we want America to be blessed without any corresponding sacrifice on our part, or without having any concern about being a blessing to others? If we ... 's people. The fact that that status is given to us freely doesn't mean that it's going to be easy. "For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them ...

4979. Prime Time Waiting

2 Peter 3:1-18

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... of Christ and end-time events was not a sign of divine disinterest in the world. Rather, it was a sign of God's compassion and patience. Second Peter declares that God, a God of second chances and lost causes, delays because God doesn't want "any to perish, but all to come to repentance" (verse 9). When we read that message in the twenty-first century our first thoughts go to the expansion of Christianity that occurred over the past two millennium. Christianity is still the fastest growing religion in ...

4980. You've Already Won a Valuable Prize

Ephesians 1:15-23

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... . When considering what to do with their enormous, almost incomprehensible personal wealth, both Bill and Melinda agreed they didn't want to give it to the kids. Although it is doubtful that the Gates' children will be working at McDonald's ... grindstone, our pennies pinched in our pockets. But with billions at their disposal, the Gates have decided what they want to leave their children is not more stuff. Rather, they want to leave their kids a disease-free world. Not bad for amateurs. I guess it's the best ...

4981. Trip Questions

Matthew 22:15-22

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... I'm saving this one for when I get to heaven. You made life so short to begin with, God, why isn't sleep a design defect? You want us to spend one-third to one-half our life dead to the world, dead to life? c) Why death? No, I can come to terms with ... how can we fix it?" can become the Trip question of: "What's possible here? And who cares enough to explore those possibilities?" I want to end the sermon this morning with two Trip Questions. The first comes from a husband and wife who were preparing to go to ...

4982. Show Me Your Passport

Philippians 1:12-30

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... text Paul frankly admits it would be far better to die and thus go and be with Christ (verse 23). But he uses that admission to guide the Philippians to his real message. Living a Christian life isn't about doing exactly what you want, when you want to, how you want. Christians live constrained lives. We live in relationship to each other. We live as a community of faith. We all must "live your life," Paul says, "in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ" (verse 27). Here's where Paul uses the Greek ...

4983. The Devil Takes Visa

Isaiah 55:1-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... labor for that which does not satisfy?" (verse 2) Normal stuff just isn't ever going to satisfy our spiritual longings. That is why we have such an out-of-bounds, off-the-wall God. All God asks of us is to join in the madness! All God wants is for us to receive God's covenant, the Master's Card, which enables us to Forgive, when you feel like condemning. Accept when you feel like blaming. Love when you feel like hating. Give more when you feel like quitting. Return when you feel like running. The Master ...

4984. Your Cheatin' Heart

Luke 6:17-26

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... , all your inspirations. · Your addictions - be they drugs, alcohol, food, tobacco, sex, gambling, shopping - whatever you find yourself planning your life around so that particular activity always has first priority. How completely opposite is God's offer to redeem our heart. God wants to re-create within "our cheatin' hearts" a new heart that throbs for others first and not for ourselves. God doesn't "steal" our heart. God gives us a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26). A sure sign that this is not just another ...

4985. Who Put It There? (Mother's Day)

1 Peter 5:1-11

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... and confident, nurtured to full potential. The sufferings in motherhood pale in comparison to such a glorious, prayed-for result. "A Baptist pastor in Austin, Texas, received a telephone call one day from a man in his congregation who had become a new father. The man wanted the pastor to be present when he told his wife, the new mother, that she had given birth to a beautiful baby – healthy in every way but one – the baby had no ears. The baby had auditory openings and all the inner ear parts necessary ...

4986. By Heart

2 Timothy 3:10--4:8, Deuteronomy 30:11-20

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

I remember reading a few years ago that the fear that ranks number one in the minds of the majority far above the fear of death and the fear of cancer or snakes is the fear of public speaking. We all want to be a star. But we're all afraid of the spotlight. I have a thesis why this is so. Who doesn't know the meaning of public humiliation? And when was our first public humiliation? Everyone of us has a painful childhood memory of the first time we had ...

4987. Living in the Red

Galatians 6:11-18

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... We don't get to choose how we'll die. But we do get to choose how we will live. In today's epistle lesson, Paul wants Christians to understand something very basic: We don't get to choose whether to take up a cross or not. We all must suffer for ... and my unworthiness." On a Hill Too Far Away, Stood an Old Rugged Cross. Has life gone so bad that you don't know whether you want to continue living? Has your life gone sour, and nothing you taste is sweet? The cross offers new lives for old: The nails were not ...

4988. The Four Marks of Failure

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... a cut-throat bunch of CEO-wannabes compete furiously to stay-in-the-game or face getting fired by deal-maker tycoon Donald Trump. But each week all of the competitors know that one of them is going to get the axe bounced right out of the game. Nobody wants to lose. Nobody wants to be known as a loser not even in the church. Notice how we love to talk about winning people to Christ, or winning souls for Jesus? And since Jesus Christ is the head of the church, we tend to envision him as a kind of ultimate CEO ...

4989. Inside-out Living

Mark 7:1-23

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... of clean and unclean is a little strange, think about how when someone does something bad we say they got their hands dirty; and for the same reason we scrupulously avoid the person in the office who just got in big trouble with the boss because we don't want that person's tainted image rubbing of on us, Jesus' words on uncleanness pack a real punch today. The punch is doubled because Jesus argues that because it's what's inside that makes us unclean, none of us no, not one can be deemed ritually clean. We ...

4990. Transmission

1 John 3:11-24

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... ; A sense of security they're safe; family is their refuge; A sense of hope; A desire for godliness a passion for God and the gospel. In today's 1 John text, the author has considered what he most wants to transmit to the fledgling house churches he is parenting. What he most wants to transmit is love. The newness of Christianity, its reliance on eyewitnesses and oral traditions, its fragile place in the social structure of the first century world all made it critical for early church leaders to make sure ...

4991. Get Out of Your Big Pickup Truck!

John 12:20-36

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... truck. Eventually he grew too weak to have any real options anymore. By Christmas he couldn't have walked out if he had wanted. At the end of January a group of back-country skiers inadvertently came across Tom and his safe haven big pickup truck. Tom' ... I'm not one who usually asks for signs, but as we stopped to pray, I asked God to help me see what I was to do. I wanted to do what was the best thing for continuing to extend the Kingdom. We bowed to pray. As we finished praying, I looked down at my feet, ...

4992. Catch the Fever

Mark 1:29-34

Sermon

James Caldwell III

... , the one Jesus had, that's so evident in everything we see and hear in this morning's text. It's the fever that God wants us to catch as we minister in his name in his world. The passage starts with a physical fever, doesn't it? Jesus and some ... healing reported in Mark's Gospel. Don't tell me that Jesus is telling us that healing begins at home. That is the last place we want to do it. All too often, the healing words and touches we offer our colleagues and even competitors at work are left at the doorstep ...

4993. Not What We Expected

Isaiah 11:1-16

Sermon

King Duncan

... . The future wife rolled her eyes and announced, “It was a set of tires!” “They were Michelins!” the young man protested. He couldn’t understand her lack of gratitude. And so Pastor Jewell opened up a conversation on the differences between men and women, wants versus needs, and many other mysteries that exist between the sexes. (1) In order to resolve some of the conflicts between those who are from Mars and those from Venus, someone has come up with a list of “The Top Ten Things Wives Don’t ...

4994. The Oneness of Twoness

Romans 14:1--15:13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... it is for enjoyment. No matter how large or small, exquisite or simple, professional or prosaic, in the choir/praise team there are always differing opinions about style, sound, song selection, and solos. In the end, however, all musical groups accomplish what Paul wanted for those Roman Christians two thousand years ago: many voices join together in one voice to glorify God. A choir or praise team is successful the moment it sings its first note. For in that sound the Church hears the “viva vox,” the ...

4995. It Is Also Blessed to Receive

John 13:1-17

Sermon

James McCormick

... receive help from them. I find it very difficult to ask someone to do something for me. I don’t know whether I just don’t want to impose on them, or whether I feel that I am not worthy of their time and effort, or whether I just don’t have enough ... to have significant relationships, I must be able to receive as well as give. Here’s an important part of that: when you love someone, you want to be able to give to them. But if the one you love thinks that he or she is self-sufficient and has no need of ...

4996. In Life Nothing Works but the Impossible

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... feed me. You pet me. You shelter me. You love me. I must be God.” A Far Side cartoon once depicted a scientist announcing a breakthrough in understanding cat language: “They say only two things: ‘Where’s my dinner?’ and ‘Everything here is mine.’” This morning I want to repent of my dog-mongering ways and begin the last Sunday in Advent with a cat story. You may have seen the story I’m about to tell in visual form, because it was all over the tv screens a couple of weeks ago. At the very ...

4997. Christmas Is Love

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

King Duncan

... a----um, a Duke and Duchess living in a fine mansion?” “Of course,” the fish replied, and then it leaped over the side of the boat. And for a very short time, the fisherman enjoyed peace and quiet at home. But he knew it couldn’t last. Soon, his wife wanted a bigger mansion and a better title. And each time she complained, the fisherman would go back to the lake and call for the fish to grant his wish. Finally, the fisherman’s wife decided that she ...

4998. Hypocrites

Matthew 6:1-4

Sermon

King Duncan

... human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross!” There was nothing phony about the Master. There was no desire to impress others. He was real to the end, and that’s what he wants from us. Be real, for Christ’s sake. It was late November 1943. The U.S. Navy and Marines had spent three days attacking the Japanese stronghold of Betio in the Pacific, in the bloodbath that came to be known as the Battle of Tarawa. More than a ...

4999. Mr. Hooper Is Dead

John 11:1-44

Illustration

Brett Blair

... viewers, most of whom are under the age of six? A staff writer describes it this way: "We asked ourselves: What do we want the kids to know? What can they absorb? What might open up things we can't answer? We try to create boundaries around ... over the likenesses. He's left with Mr. Hooper's picture. "I can't wait till he sees it," says Big Bird. "Say, where is he? I want to give it to him." One cast member explains: "Big Bird, don't you remember? We told you . . . Mr. Hooper died. He's dead." Big Bird says ...

5000. A Clear Conscience

1 Peter 3:8-22

Children's Sermon

Tim Carpenter

... them to fill the board. When the children finish, continue: The boy got pushed out of the way, and didn’t have a piece of chalk to draw. Then all of the children left, and the board was full of their drawings. So he was really sad, because he wanted to draw something on the board. Then he had an idea. What do you think it was? (response) Yes. He saw the eraser, picked it up, pick up the eraser, looked around, look around, and began to erase all of their writing. Erase a portion of their writing. Then ...

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