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 526 to 550 of 754 results

526. Repairing Our Lives

1 Corinthians 15:19-26

Sermon

Richard Gribble

Once upon a time, there was a king who ruled over a small kingdom that wasn't powerful nor was it known for anything of any great value. But, the king did possess a large and perfect diamond that had been in his family for many generations. He kept it on display for all to see and appreciate and people came from all over the country to admire this rare and precious gem. People from other lands, hearing about the great diamond, also came and they, too, felt some sense of pride simply by gazing upon the ...

527. I Am the Bread of Life

John 6:25-59

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

It is absurd to apologize for mystery. Keep that sentence in your mind now because I will be coming back to it in the sermon today, and may be coming back to again and again in this series of sermons which we begin this morning. It is absurd to apologize for mystery. Now a story. Some of you movies buffs will remember an Italian film of a few years ago entitled Le Dolce Vita. As that movie opens, a helicopter is flying rather slowly and not very high above the earth. Slung from the helicopter is a kind of ...

528. Never Too Old For God: Abraham And Sarah

Genesis 18:1-15

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

A husband and wife were on long trip when they got into a large-sized argument over a small-sized issue. We've all done that haven't we? Well, the air was so icy between them, they probably could have turned off the air conditioner. And for a number of miles they refused to even speak to each other. The strained silence continued until they drove past a couple of mules grazing in a pasture. The husband finally broke the silence: "Are those some of your relatives?" And his wife answered, "Yes, they're ...

529. Follow Your Failures (Series: An Invitation to Christian Discipleship)

John 21:1-14

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

Some people say life is like an ice cream cone. The moment you think you have it licked, it drips on you! Regrets? I have had a few, how about you? Mistakes? I have made my share, how about you? When it comes to faults and failures, how can we find our way through? That is what I want us to think about today on our way to Holy Communion. I. Failure is Certain We catch up with Simon Peter today, back in Galilee. He is fishing and catching nothing. The same Peter who saw the empty tomb first-hand and ...

530. A Defeated Babe Ruth

John 21:15-25

Illustration

Brett Blair

Babe Ruth had hit 714 home runs during his baseball career and was playing one of his last full major league games. It was the Braves versus the Reds in Cincinnati. But the great Ruth was no longer as agile as he had once been. He fumbled the ball and threw badly, and in one inning alone his errors were responsible for most of the five runs scored by Cincinnati. As the Babe walked off the field after the third out and headed toward the dugout, a crescendo of yelling and booing reached his ears. Just then a ...

531. Freedom to Set Free

Galatians 4:21-31

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

We are continuing our sermon series on Dynamic Discipleship. Last Sunday our theme was in the image of Charles Wesley’s hymn: “He breaks the power of cancelled sin.” The big word of that message was “Christ frees us from something - specifically, from meaninglessness, guilt, and death. Today, we pursue a variation on that theme. Christ not only frees us from something, He frees us to something. Let’s begin by exploring our scripture lesson. Verse 1 of Galatians 5 is Paul’s Magna Charta of spiritual freedom ...

532. God's Chosen People: Partners

John 15:1-17

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

A certain society matron took a course in First Aid. A few days after completing the course, she was an on-the-spot witness of a bad auto accident. Occupants of the car were thrown out by the impact and lay seriously wounded on the street. Later, describing the accident to a friend, the matron said, “It was awful, awful — and it happened so fast, right there in front of me. Tires squealed, breaks screeched, and all of a sudden there was the grinding crash. The next thing I knew people were lying in the ...

533. Whatever Happened to Respect?

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

During the days of the Gold Rush, a young man and his bride set out across the country to make their fortune. Some where along the way they drank some contaminated water, and the young bride died before they could reach Fort Kearney. Heartbroken the young man took her body to the highest hill and buried it, using the wagon bed to make a coffin. He drove down some wooden stakes to mark the grave, thinking that he would go on west and later come back. But as he thought about it, he said to himself, “I’ll ...

534. Led by the Spirit, Tempted by the Devil

Mark 1:9-13

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

A woman had a weakness for beautiful clothes. She was unable to resist the temptation…to the point of outrageous, extravagant spending. She and her husband had worked on it, and he thought she was doing better. Every time she was drawn to a clothing boutique or a display in a department store window, she would talk to herself, “Don’t do it…don’t do it…remember how much you owe…you don’t need it…you’ve worn the last dress only once…you owe a fortune still…remember how John feels about it…don’t do it…get the ...

535. Household of Faith

II Timothy 1:3-7

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

As speaker and author, Tony Campolo, tells the story, it happened during a sophisticated academic gathering at the University of Pennsylvania which neither he nor his wife wanted to attend. During their mixing among the faculty, a sociology professor came up to Mrs. Campolo and said, “What do you do for a living?" Mrs. Campolo, feeling the compelling task of raising children, gave this reply, “I am socializing two homosapiens into the dominant values of the Judeo-Christian tradition in order that they ...

536. The Power to Resist Temptation

I Corinthians 10:13-17

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

A minister parked his car in a No Parking Zone and left this note on the windshield: “I've circled the block ten times and cannot find a parking place. If I do not park here, I will miss my appointment. ‘Forgive us our trespasses.'" When the minister returned there was a ticket on his windshield along with this note: “I've been circling this block for ten years. If I don't give you a ticket, I will lose my job. ‘Lead us not into temptation.'" In the Lord's Prayer, we pray for provision—Give us this day our ...

537. The Door of Prayer

1 Timothy 2:1-8

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

During my seminary days, I pastored two small churches near Bardstown, Kentucky. One of those churches had Sunday night services. Since it has always been a challenge for me to produce one sermon a week worth hearing, the thought of two sermons a Sunday seemed overwhelming. So we had a lot of hymn sings for Sunday night service. At a hymn sing the people present call out their favorite tunes and everybody sort of sings along. Mrs. Stora Barlow was a public school teacher in that congregation. Every time I ...

538. The Power of a Personal Commitment

Romans 12:1-8

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

While my farmer father only had a fourth grade education, he was a wonderful story teller. One of his favorite yarns was about a chicken and a pig who encountered a hungry man beside the road. Moved with compassion, the chicken said to the pig, “Why don’t you and I go together and give this man a great ham and eggs breakfast?” The pig pondered the proposition for a moment and then replied, “For you that would be a contribution; but for me that would mean total commitment.” On this Sunday when we are asked ...

539. Why Am I a Christian?

Mark 1:4-11

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

Christian theologian C.S. Lewis once said that Christianity is a religion that you could not have guessed. It is not the sort of thing that anyone would make up. That the Almighty would humble Himself and become a human being in order to suffer and die on a cross to bring new life to His own creation, well, who would have thought it? How odd of God. Yet, it is here that Christians are distinct from other religions of the world. So, I want to begin this series of sermons on world religions by asking myself ...

540. Ruth: The Problem of Grief

Ruth 1:1-8, 16-18

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

It's a love story that would make Danielle Steele blush. It's full of sex and seduction. It has dead ends and new beginnings. It deals with grief and explores commitment. It's the story of Ruth. It takes place during the period of Judges. You can read it in about 15 minutes. But before you dig in let me glean a lesson or two about life that is worth taking with you. The Book of Ruth teaches us that: I. LIFE IS FILLED WITH DETOURS DETOUR AHEAD—don't you hate that sign when you are traveling somewhere? They' ...

541. The King on a Donkey

Mark 11:1-11

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Some of you heard my story about the husband and the wife who had quarreled. It had been a high-pitch quarrel, each digging their heels in to preserve the position they had vehemently taken. Emotions ran high. Both were nursing their hurt feelings in defensive silence. As they were driving to attend a family wedding in a distant city — it was an uneasy and quiet trip, both of them starring straight ahead or out the window as the miles went by in icy silence. The angry tension between them was so thick you ...

542. The Ladder from Our House

Genesis 28:10-19a

Sermon

Stan Purdum

There is a wonderful story about a city mayor. It happened that during one particular year, the mayor made trips to both Washington DC and to Israel. According to the story, while in Washington, the mayor visited the president in the oval office. During the visit, the mayor noticed three telephones on the president's desk and inquired about them. "Well," said the president, "The black one is a regular telephone, the white one is for calls within the White House and the red one is a hotline to God." "Gee," ...

543. Family Resemblance

John 14:5-14

Sermon

King Duncan

There was a story on the Internet recently that proves rednecks aren’t confined to the southern part of the United States. According to this story a man in Australia was fined after police discovered that he had used a seat belt to buckle in a case of beer while his five-year-old son was consigned to playing in the car’s floor totally unprotected. Constable Wayne Burnett said he was “shocked and appalled” when he pulled over the car one Friday in the Australian town of Alice Springs. A 30-can beer case was ...

544. 1 Thessalonians 1:1-8

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

An old “Peanuts” cartoon showed Linus asking his sister Lucy to check out the shine job he had done on his shoes. She says his shoes look great, but as he turns around to leave Lucy informs Linus that he forgot to do the backs of his shoes. They still are all scuffed. “Oh I didn’t forget,” Linus explains. “I just care what people think about me as I come into the room. I don’t care what they think of me when I leave.” That is the kind of attitude Paul is forcefully arguing against in today’s epistle text. ...

545. Lincoln's Autumn 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation

Illustration

Staff

This is the 1863 Autumn Thanksgiving Proclamation which is the beginning of our official holiday (Note: this is not the first thanksgiving proclamation. Proclamations go back to 1777 and the Continental Congress but this is the speech from the inauguration of the Thanksgiving Holiday). The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they ...

546. No Cleansing, No Refreshment

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Do you realize how much you pay to get “roughed up?” You heard me right. You even pay big bucks to get roughed up on a daily basis. To be sure, you don’t think about this activity as getting “roughed up.” You probably think of it as your morning shower or your evening bath. But consider what you do as you go about your daily cleansing rituals. Whether you use a washcloth, a loofah, or one of those “buff-puff” thingies, as you rub and scrub in the bathtub or shower you are roughing up and sloughing off dead ...

547. A Concert of Praise

Luke 1:46-56

Sermon

Cynthia Cowen

The Christmas concert was about to begin. The professional musicians were ready. All eyes were on the band director as he brought down his baton. Softly, flutes began weaving a magical introduction, capturing the audience's spirit. An instrumental duet formed with clarinets adding their voices. Then more wind instruments came in. Finally, brass and percussion entered and volume and tempo increased. Each section's contribution melded into a harmonious voice. The rehearsals had been worth it; the time and ...

548. Only the Best

John 2:1-11

Sermon

Cynthia Cowen

In areas where wine is made, there are places many go to sample the different varieties offered by each vineyard. People who are connoisseurs of wine — those who are critical judges in the matter of taste — can tell a good wine from a poor wine. The chief steward in our text was one of those who knew the difference, as does the winemaker, Leigh. After retiring from a career in special education, Leigh decided to take on a hobby, wine making. At first he bought grapes suitable for wine making. Then he ...

549. Lust

Galatians 5:16-26

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Remember the furor that arose a few years ago when Jimmy Carter was interviewed by Playboy magazine and was asked if he had ever had any extramarital affairs? He said that he never had but admitted to lusting "in my heart," which as Jesus made clear, was just as bad as actually committing adultery. Now, whatever one might think about Jimmy Carter's presidency, everyone would agree that he was and is a most committed Christian. If someone like Jimmy Carter would admit to a problem with lust, I suspect that ...

550. Proper 4

1 Kings 18:20-21 (22-29) 30-39, Psalm 96:1-13, Luke 7:1-10, Galatians 1:1-12

Bulletin Aid

Julia Ross Strope

Call To Worship Leader: We’re here again! It must be Sunday! The Old Testament poet invites us to sing to God — a new song! With the sky overhead and the earth suspended mysteriously in its place among the planets, it is easy for us to be awed and to sing and dance our praise. People: We certainly do not want to bore God with repetitious songs or old dances. Leader: Let’s try some new songs, some new words, and some new rituals. People: Hmm, we’re not sure we are comfortable enough to do that. Leader: How ...

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