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 626 to 650 of 655 results

626. Tales from the Field

John 10:11-18

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... flock, all made in the image of God, unified in their faith. By keeping our focus on Jesus, we become unified in Him. But the moment we take our eyes off of Jesus, our focus can easily shift onto each other and the differences between us. The inclination of human beings to separate sheep into “folds” is insidious and real. It takes energy, faith, and focus to effect the kind of true unity that comes with focusing on Jesus, as he leads us out of the confines of our walls and borders and into the ...

627. Deliverance through adversity

Sermon

Willie Soler

... be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand…. (Eph. 6:12-13) e. Adversity is God’s method of purifying our faith. Faith is essential for living the Christian life, because the ways of God are opposite to the natural inclinations of man. Thus, adversity may come at the hand of those who mock God’s principles, or it may come when we violate God’s principles. In either case, adversity is designed to strengthen our faith. “. . . Now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness ...

628. God Doesn’t Always Behave Like We Think He Should

Philippians 2:5-11

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... hymn: so that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (vv.9-10). The Palm Sunday/Holy Week sequence reflects God’s inclination to confound us by doing just the opposite of what we would expect him to do. The king, the creator of the universe, comes to Jerusalem — on the foal of an ass (Luke 19:35ff). The glory of God sits on a humble ass. It is a study of contrasts ...

629. Acres of Diamonds

1 Timothy 6:10

Sermon

Russell Conwell

... because he has gotten ahead of us; that is the whole of it -- just gotten ahead of us. Why is it Mr. Carnegie is criticized so sharply by an envious world! Because he has gotten more than we have. If a man knows more than I know, don't I incline to criticize somewhat his learning? Let a man stand in a pulpit and preach to thousands, and if I have fifteen people in my church, and they're all asleep, don't I criticize him? We always do that to the man who gets ahead of us. Why, the man ...

630. The Dare Prayer

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... evil [one] [who would try to make us stumble]. This is not a long prayer, but it’s a powerful prayer and one that will challenge us to the core, bring us to our knees, and guide us to pray in a way that is not most likely our first inclination. Let’s face it. When we pray, we often ask God to fulfill our wishes, kind of like God is a genie in a bottle, who can grant our every whim. Or we pray in earnest fully expecting God to give us the answer we have already formulated in our ...

631. Depart from Me

Luke 5:1-11 · Isaiah 6:1-8

Sermon

Will Willimon

... not about the joy of being in the presence of God but rather the terror. ''It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,'' says the Bible. A fearful thing. Be careful. Worship would be easy if this were the weekly meeting of religiously inclined dilettantes to further the study of deity, or a memorial dinner to resuscitate the memory of a departed hero. But no, to gather here is to risk falling into the grasp of the living God. Here's a love that can blow you to bits, turn you inside out ...

632. Bigger, Better, Basta!

Luke 12:13-21

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... decides to tear down his existing barns and build newer, bigger ones, so he can store up everything he has. Now, it’s clear from this that he doesn’t need that much to feed his household. He can’t possibly eat that much in a year. But his inclination is not to share it with those who need it. He simply wants to keep it for himself, thinking he can find “rest” with all of this “stuff” he has! In the story, the Greek word for “take it easy” is actually “rest.” This is the twisty trick to ...

633. Do You See Lazarus On Your Doorstep?

Luke 16:19-31

Sermon

Richard Hasler

... scripture nor the witness of Christians to the good news that God had raised one from the dead who not only by his words but by his life demonstrated that God was dead serious about obedience. Even more pointedly, the story converged with their own inclinations to equivocate. They too had Moses and the prophets; they even had the witness of the greatest of them all, John the Baptist; they had the testimony of Jesus’ preaching of the good news of the restored rule of God; they had the Easter proclamation ...

634. Moksha

Romans 8:6-11

Sermon

Dr. Ronald Love

... is the only channel through which God’s great graces and favors may flow into the soul.” Reflecting on this Garbett began his meditation with these words, “Gracious Father, we earnestly implore the gift of the Spirit, that he may dwell in our hearts, and incline us to think and do such things as please thee. Take from us all ignorance and hardness of heart and enable us to receive with meekness thy Word.” Today, this fifth Sunday of Lent, as we journey to Easter, with one bookend on Ash Wednesday ...

635. The Mud Room

John 9:1-41

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... our lives, not by order and control. Think about it. Unexpected changes of plans, unfamiliar people, unforeseen events –these generate new ideas and relationships. Disorder is integral to our spiritual and emotional health. In opposition to that, our inclination for tidiness in our lives can mask a deep and debilitating fragility that keeps us from innovating and growing. Muddiness and messiness birth new things, grow ideas, generate thoughts, create new beginnings. Everything renewed or created, whether ...

636. House of God

1 Kings 8:22-30

Sermon

Will Willimon

... he speaks a humble, realistic word over all our attempts to circumscribe God: If heaven, even the highest heaven cannot contain God, how much less this house which we have built. We humans are caught in the tension, the paradox between the necessary human inclination to build walls, places, shrines for the holy and the divine nature to be bigger than all of this.· Our God is always too small, too caged, too tame, too predictable, too domesticated to contain the living God which even highest heaven cannot ...

637. Weeds

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Sermon

William G. Carter

... . It’s a job that needed to get done.” We sat for a minute. I took a sip of that delicious cup of water. Then I got up the courage to ask, “But what about the weeds? There are so many weeds. Even if I had the energy or the inclination, I could never get rid of the weeds.” He smiled and said, “Leave it alone.” I started to say, “But the weeds…” He interrupted me to say, “It’s my field.”22

638. The Contestant

Matthew 14:22-33

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... they are terrified and calls out saying, “Don’t worry, it’s just me!” Now, they realize that the boat is out in the middle of the sea and that there’s no way Jesus could humanly be walking toward them on the water. Their first inclination is mistrust. But Peter, always the brave challenger puffs up his chest, stands firmly at the end of the boat, and demands: “Yeah, right. If you are Jesus, command me to come to you on the water!” Peter’s bravado is unmistakable. He’s positioning himself ...

639. Love And Boundaries

Matthew 15:21-28

Sermon

William G. Carter

... . She knew right doctrine and knelt in right worship. So why didn’t Jesus heal her daughter? Did his love have boundaries? Was it because she was a native of a foreign country? I hate to bring this up, but the gospel of Matthew seems inclined to keep her nationality before us. Matthew calls her a “Canaanite woman.” When Mark told the story, he merely called her “a woman.” But Matthew insisted, “She was a Canaanite.” That word Canaanite is an old word. An angry word. A bitter word. When the ...

640. Stay—Tuned

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... consolation, previous generations were not exempt. I remember Tallulah Bankhead once famously proclaiming that her life was “as pure as the driven slush.” But that was in the days before Tabloid TV and 24/7 cable news channels. No wonder we are inclined to say we need a change. Truth be told, systemic change starts with individual change, that good churchy word “repentance.” As the old adage has it, when I point a finger at someone else, three fingers are pointing back toward me. Psychiatrist Tom ...

641. Be Near, Ye Faithful

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

Sermon

Ronald Love

... the flesh, so we must constantly avoid places and people who will tempt us. It means we forsake Satan, and we are always on guard to protect ourselves from Satan’s deceitful ways. It means we no longer walk in darkness; it means we don’t even have the inclination to walk in darkness. We only want to be individuals whose sole desire is to walk in the light. Paul calls us to always have the mindset of worship, or as a stanza from our hymn reads, “O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord.” Even though ...

642. Your Body Is a Temple

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Sermon

Ronald Love

... is, “Have we defiled the body of Christ?” Have we defiled the body of Christ through our actions and behavior? We may not be fornicators, having remained faithful to our marital vows. We may never have visited a prostitute. We may never even have had the inclination to visit a prostitute, but does that mean we have never defiled the body of Christ? It is time for all of us to examine our Christian lifestyle! We may not be fornicators. We may not have visited prostitutes. But does that mean we have never ...

643. The Great Reveal

John 12:20-33

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... “die” and allow God to resurrect us. Think Jesus’ born again conversation with Nicodemus! We must not only die physically in order to be raised up to eternal life in our heavenly future, but we must “die to self,” separate ourselves from our earthly inclinations, in order to be resurrected into “citizens” of God’s intended kingdom. This is why Jesus tells us that when he is lifted up, he will draw all people to himself. In and through Him, God’s kingdom can be grown, bearing fruit worthy ...

644.

Psalm 80:1-19

Teach the Text

Craig C. Broyles

... their kingship is a vassalage. The psalm remains fixed upon Yahweh who has bound himself to his people. Additional Note 80:2 Before Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh: Because of the tribes listed here (also Joseph, v. 1) and the omission of Judah, one might be inclined to read this as a psalm of the northern kingdom of Israel (922–722 B.C.). But several features tie it to Judah as well, either during the period of the united monarchy or even later. Benjamin was, in fact, part of the southern kingdom with ...

645. “I Will Sing the Lord’s Praise, for He Has Been Good to Me”

Psalm 13:1-6

Teach the Text

C. Hassell Bullock

... said that lament is about some troublesome circumstance, which is often explicit in the poem but other times only a hint. In this psalm it is the latter. Some believe David’s problem that gave rise to his lament was conflict with his enemies, while others are inclined to think it was some type of sickness (“or I will sleep in death,” 13:3b). Psalm 12 dealt with the question of falsity’s claim to triumph over truth (12:2–4), while Psalm 13 modulates to the enemies’ claim of triumph over this man ...

646. Daniel Interprets the Dream of a Tree

Daniel 4:19-27

Understanding Series

William Nelson

... this verse is that parts of it are missing from the LXX. On the other hand, there are many differences between the Greek and Aramaic texts, and it is not always possible to reconstruct the Aramaic text with confidence from the Greek. Since this is so, my inclination is to leave v. 23. Perhaps the author intended to begin with a longer quote and then continue with smaller, selective quotes or allusions. 4:25 The element you will eat grass like cattle is not in the dream (4:15). Some would add in a verb ...

647. Schadenfreude

Mark 2:23-3:6

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... .” Nowhere does it tell us that we are to serve as “judges” of others, or that we are to “impose our perception of justice” upon others, or that we are to seek retribution from others. No, we are simply to look at ourselves, our behavior, and our inclinations, and behave in a just manner toward others, and while we are doing that, we must do it while loving mercy and practicing humility. Now that’s a horse of a different color, isn’t it? For when we puff ourselves up and believe too much in ...

648. Woe to the Complacent

Amos 6:1-7

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... the words of the wealthy and influential, who are bragging about their supremacy over their neighbors. But in that case, one would think that the two questions would read, “Are they better off than our two kingdoms? Is their land better than ours?” My inclination is to see verse 2 as an insertion added after the Assyrian conquests and prompted by Amos’s reference to the evil day in verse 3. Those addressed in this woe oracle are the notable men of the northern kingdom’s capital city, who feel ...

649. The Lord's Answer

Habakkuk 1:5-11

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... not speak in these terms. But Yahweh had always also used other peoples as a means of acting in judgment against Israel, and Yahweh intends to continue doing this. In those earlier books in the OT there is no indication that the Israelites were themselves inclined to make war against other peoples; Yahweh had to turn a people who do not seem by nature to have been particularly warlike (a warrior such as David is the exception rather than the rule) into a fighting force. The Babylonians are very different ...

650. The Case of the Hardened Heart

John 6:1-21

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... factors, such as crowd influence, peer pressure, relational alignments, media influence, and environment, things get complicated indeed. Cognitive bias means essentially that our core motivations, identity, ideologies, our wishes, hopes, and even our fears combine to create an inclination toward believing what we want to hear over what we don’t. Although human beings are most certainly capable of rational thinking, we know that even science contains elements of bias. This is part of our human condition ...

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