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 526 to 550 of 2415 results

526. Begin With the Blueprints

Deuteronomy 6:1-9

Sermon

James Merritt

... real thing. These kids watch these parents go to church and they go through the religious motions, but they don't see a passionate love for God - a love that loves God with all the heart, soul, mind and strength. There is a word that is repeated ... to love God, I want my grandkids to love God. If my kids cannot say about their dad that they saw in him growing up, a passion love for God, then in perhaps my greatest role, I failed. They saw a cracked mirror. I heard about a Sunday school teacher that was talking ...

527. Melting Mountains of Ice

Illustration

King Duncan

... need to be all on fire, for I have mountains of ice around me to melt." Well, the only way any of us can melt mountains of ice is to be on fire. The only way Christ can use any of us is when we are driven by a great passion, when we feel or hear his voice within our heart showing us a great cause that needs to be championed. Nothing is accomplished in this world by people who have no ...

528. Things Change

1 Samuel 3:1-10 (11-20)

Sermon

Stan Purdum

... lives and ask if God might be working with us in them. And if we conclude that he is, then we should ask how we can cooperate with those changes. We can predict a few of those changes — we will get older, our kids will grow up, some of the passions of our youth will burn out or become less important — but for the most part, many of the changes that occur in our lives will come as surprises. In each of those circumstances, we can ask how God might be working, and then listen for what God might want us ...

529. Peter Listens to His Heart

Mark 8:27-38

Illustration

David A. Van Dyke

... ?" Almost like Jesus somehow expected more from him. Do you suppose that despite his flaws, Jesus was looking for someone just like Peter—is looking for people who listen to their hearts? Who aren't afraid of their own emotions? Who are passionate about the things he was passionate about? People who are downright uninhibited and unafraid? Because if left merely to the rationale of our human ways of thinking and being, we'd always look for an out. We seem to be most comfortable when we are in control, when ...

530. Carrying the Burdens of Others

Philippians 2:5-11

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... like a ball and chain. We are unable to move forward; our growth is stunted. Thus, we were encouraged to break out, let go of the past, and move forward onto new vistas which have so much promise. As we approach the celebration of the paschal mystery, the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ, we are called by Paul to take on the humble attitude of Jesus and through our efforts find the exaltation which is God's reward to all the faithful. Demonstrating humility in the form of dying to self is a great ...

531. Jesus Brings Hope

Revelation 1:4-8

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... comes from Jesus under the threefold title faithful witness, firstborn of the dead, and ruler of the kings of earth. Here John is reviewing the Christian understanding of how Jesus brought hope. The three titles represent the passion, resurrection, and exaltation of Christ. When all hope seemed lost at his passion, Jesus restored trust and faith through his rising from death. Now, he reigns over all as Christ, the king of heaven. We can be confident of Christ's power to convert our world for he transformed ...

532. Do Not Be Quickly Shaken

2 Thessalonians 2:1-12

Sermon

Donna Schaper

... David Heifetz, "When you question their values, beliefs, and habits of a lifetime, you place yourself on the line. You tell people what they need to hear, rather than what they want to hear. Although you may see with clarity and passion a promising future of progress and gain, people will see with equal passion the losses you ask them to sustain." We must learn to be stable in destabilization. We must learn to be not shaken when we are all shook up. We want God to both stabilize us and challenge us. We don ...

533. Don’t Hope…Decide

Mk 10:1-12

Illustration

King Duncan

... much, Zach!" Then he turned to their little girl (perhaps one or one-and-a-half). He kissed her and held her close. He handed his daughter to his oldest son and declared, "I've saved the best for last!" and preceded to give his wife a long, passionate kiss. "I love you so much!" He said to his wife softly. Hargrove interrupted this idyllic scene to ask, "Wow! How long have you two been married?" "Been together fourteen years total, married twelve of those," the man replied, as he gazed into his wife's face ...

534. Have We Been "Slicked"?

Jeremiah 2:4-13

Sermon

Lee Ann Dunlap

... promises we want to believe. How often in our own lives have we given up what is truly valuable for the cheap stuff — like routinely giving up time with our children for that time-and-a half overtime pay, or trading fidelity in marriage for a temporary fleeting passion? As one preacher remarked, "I've never heard anyone at the end of their life say 'I wish I'd worked more hours' or 'I wish I hadn't wasted so much time playing with my kids.' " How often have we ourselves exchanged the glory of a sunset ...

535. A House for Our Home and a Home for Our Faith

2 Timothy 1:1-2:13

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... that had really impressed them, and one statement that he made really impacted their lives, as I hope it will impact ours today. He said, parents, don’t be too concerned about leaving your children in a state of financial security. Leave them with a passion for ministry and mission. Do you hear what I’m saying? Are your children learning that from you – how to use money as ministry, as the expression of your Christian commitment, or are they simply learning to make money, to keep money, to use it ...

536. Reviewing Our Hungers (Series: Questioning Our Values)

Luke 6:17-26

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... it meant. I replied, “Righteousness is like country ham, fine wine, or Krystal hamburgers. You have to develop a taste for it.” Righteousness is a passion for the right, the good, the worthy. It is doing all the good you can, in every way you can, for as long as you ... the Martin Luther King’s of the 21st century?” It’s a question worthy of our consideration. Have you a passion for the poor? What about single mom’s and neglected children? What about people suffering from AIDS? What about the issue ...

537. Jesus’ Trail of Tears (Series: Questioning Our Values)

Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... and your children.” If you visit the Stations of the Cross this week, you will come to the encounter of Jesus and the women at Station 8. A traditional prayer at this point goes something like this: “O Jesus, grant that I may understand the true meaning of your passion and be so inflamed with love for you, that I may shed tears of blood over my past transgressions.” It is Holy Week! Will you drink this Cup? Will you eat this Bread? The cup is the cup of salvation. The bread is the bread of life. Would ...

538. Magnificent Fools

1 Corinthians 3:1-23

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... claims laid upon us and may appear to be foolishness to man. Take one instance. In his ninth chapter, Luke records casual conversations Jesus had with some people like you and me, people who said they wanted to be Christian, but there was no passion in their desire. The first man, obviously without thought, said, “I will follow you wherever you go.” With his uncanny way of reading innermost minds, Jesus recognized that this man was acting out of impulse without counting the cost. So, Jesus said to him ...

539. The Essence of the Gospel

2 Corinthians 4:1-18

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... time I answered the call to preach as a seventeen- year-old country boy in Mississippi, I’ve always had a passion for preaching. I believe with all my heart that that was the call of God upon my life. I believe with all my heart that that has always been ... the call of God upon my life. That passion for preaching is still alive - I hope you know that — and I continue to be humbled every time I mount any pulpit, or stand before ...

540. Let God Be God - As if It Could Be Otherwise

Exodus 7:14-24

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... unfortunately most of us have never learned that there is a connection between sin and suffering. If we’ve learned it, we don’t act as though we know it. We continue blithely on our way, living life as we please to live it, giving in- to the passions and desires of our lives, forgetting that there is a day of reckoning not in terms of judgment on some final day - though that is certain but even now. There is a connection between sin and suffering. When John Birkbeck was our houseguest a couple of weeks ...

541. Taught by a Golden Calf

Exodus 32:1-33:6

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... of idols usually is rooted in missing the way at one big point: We make the means an end This happens all the time at the church. I know some people who do that with the Bible. The Bible itself becomes an idol. Listen carefully to people who passionately crusade to “save the Bible”. That’s their word —— save the Bible. Look at their lives. We can angrily wage a war to protect the inerrancy of the Bible, and appear to be righteous in the cause, and still lose our souls. That’s the problem Jesus ...

542. When God Seems Far Off

Psalm 10:1-18

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... times in my life when God seemed far off, beyond the reach of communication. I have awakened at 3 o’clock in the morning, morning after morning after morning, and anguished in spirit until day break, but my praying was more frustrating than fruitful. My passionate pleas seemed to bounce off the ceiling and ricochet around the walls. It never shocks me when a person comes to my office, is hardly settled in his chair before he blurts it out: “Preacher, I can’t pray; there’s no connection —— I feel ...

543. He Leadeth Me

Psalm 23:1-6

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... ecstasy is pure baloney, our piety is a rank form of idolatry, and our religious talk is mere rhetoric.” (Don Shelby, “When Our Ecstasy is Baloney.”) That’s one of the primary reasons I’m a Methodist. John Wesley, our father in the faith, passionately argued that there could be “no holiness but social holiness...and to turn Christianity into a solitary religion is to destroy it.” One of Wesley’s last written words was a letter to William Wilberforce, lone voice and an isolated force, waged a ...

544. Esther: The Problem of Opportunity

Esther 4:11-17

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... when I'm gone? Have I discovered something worth dying for? Or even better, have I discovered something worth living for? Esther says, “I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish" (4:16). Do you have that kind of passion about something in life? It's not about us; it's about the Kingdom of God on earth. II. IT'S NOT ABOUT CONVENIENCE; IT'S ABOUT OPPORTUNITY. Who knows but that you have come to the Kingdom, for such a time as this? Many of you know my affection ...

545. The Power to Do Good

Acts 10:34-38, 44-48

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... in order to pay a debt? No one took her seriously given her trashy clothes and earthy manner, but Erin Brokovich brings a small town to its feet and a California power company to its knees when she decides to passionately pursue the polluting of a city's water supply. Do you have any passion anymore? What's happened to your dreams of a better world? For goodness sake, act on your concerns, stand on your convictions, and invest your life in making the world a better place. IV. FOR GOODNESSS SAKE, FOLLOW YOUR ...

546. Valuing Life Without Playing God

John 10:10-15

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... decision opening the door for millions of abortions to happen in all 50 of our states. It also sets forth a debate that has now lasted for 30 years. Within the sound of my voice there are certainly persons with passionate views on both sides of the subject and I have no power to change a person's passion nor would I suggest I could in the brief moment of a sermon. So I just ask a couple of questions. What does the Bible say about the subject? a. Actually the word abortion is never mentioned in the Bible ...

547. Praising Our Savior

Philippians 3:7-11

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... . Here in a Roman prison he writes, “All things I once thought were so important for me are now insignificant dog dung. I have dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by Him." Have you that kind of purpose and passion for life? I want to know Christ. II. I WANT TO SUFFER LIKE CHRIST... ...by sharing in the fellowship of his sufferings. I've never given up anything to be a Christian. Being a Christian is less costly than being a Rotarian. The church reminds people of their ...

548. Ecological Politics

Matthew 14:22-33

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... . The horizon melted and sky merged with sea in a toxic soup. They thought they could play this lake like a dance partner, but she kicked them in the shins and was coming back with a kidney punch. They turned the boat into the wind and rowed with passion. They were more than a little scared, even if they wouldn't admit it. Terror And Tightrope Walking Then, suddenly, their fear turned up the volume. Like the bow of a ghost ship emerging from a fog bank, something was aiming for them out of the storm. A ...

549. Religious Balkanization

Matthew 15:21-28

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... . What could have happened? Was she hurt? Did I need to rescue her? Quickly she assured me that she was not in any danger. Then she asked one of those unanswerable rhetorical questions, "Dad, why do we treat each other the way we do?" She asked it with such passion and vehemence that I knew I needed to wait for a better explanation of her mood, and not too abruptly try to fix things. She had just gotten back to her residence hall after going to a movie that was shown on campus. It happened to be American ...

550. A Friday We Call “Good”

Hebrews 10:16-25

Sermon

David O. Bales

... us who have the average, even the predictable, problem of our worship drying up. What Jesus accomplished has to do even with us and with our difficulties in experiencing God afresh in worship. Jesus died so that even we could rekindle our expectancy for a burning, passionate experience with God. We're not the first to feel that worship isn't even as exciting as going for our yearly physical. At least going to the doctor can strike a little fear in you. No matter how much people enjoy criticizing worship on ...

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