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 676 to 700 of 1199 results

676. Swept Away!

Matthew 24:36-44

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

... all, in the midst of all this chaos and dysfunction, Russia's vast nuclear stockpile sits inadequately monitored. And what about Africa and the Middle East and Ireland, where religious persecution and suspicion and warfare boil and bubble in deep cauldrons of ancient hatreds? A few years ago in Egypt 1,000 Coptic Christians were manacled to doors, beaten, and tortured with electric shocks to their genitals. All the while, teenage girls were raped, babies were beaten, and men were nailed to crosses. All in ...

677. Road Rage

Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

... lambs and tenderly carries us home. This Jesus is the angry prophet who turns over tables of greed. But he is also the Savior, who unconditionally forgives the prodigal son and the prostitute daughter. This Jesus is the demanding teacher who confronts us with our hatreds and our prejudices and our selfishness. But he is also the healer, who casts out our demons and opens our blind hearts and feeds us with the very bread of life. Yes, Jesus is the Way, the straight and promising path through the treacheries ...

678. The Rest of the Story

Matthew 2:19-23, Matthew 2:13-18

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

... all over the world, why should we pretend that Jesus is immune from such terror? Just substitute the name Hitler or McVeigh or bin Laden or Hussein for the name Herod, and you have a thoroughly modern tale of murder and slaughter and hatred. Several years ago, in Bethlehem, the following version of "O Little Town Of Bethlehem" was sung (written by an American from Littleton, Colorado, and circulated on the internet): O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie; Above thy deep and restless ...

679. The Offense of Grace

Matthew 5:43-48, Matthew 5:38-42

Sermon

Susan R. Andrews

... with the plates?" The police, surprised and confused, reluctantly let the thief go. Like Joseph's brothers cowering in fear before the one they have wronged, Jean Valjean expects blame and condemnation for his actions. Instead, he receives forgiveness and mercy. He expects hatred, and, instead, he receives love, and at that moment evil is transformed into good. Our story today is a true story of grace, and as such it is God's story. In fact, it summarizes the gospel - the good news which we have received ...

680. Through the Lens of God

John 4:5-42

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... . Lent is a time when we seek to be transformed and to be renewed. Jesus provides the perfect example and today's celebration is the ideal environment to enter fully into this process. Let us, therefore, be renewed by breaking down the barriers of hostility, hatred, prejudice, and exclusivity. Let us build bridges of friendship, love, peace, and justice. Let us do what we can to build God's kingdom in our world this day. If we can, our reward in heaven will be great. 1. Paraphrased from "Maum Jean," in ...

681. True Reformation

John 8:31-36

Sermon

Stephen M. Crotts

... , the church is called to be a light to the nations, to be a means by which divisions are healed by making the truth known. That will not happen simply by making true statements about Christ. We must, of course, always be ready to speak the truth, but suspicion and hatred are not overcome just by reciting the creed, true as it may be. As the truth is incarnate in Jesus Christ, and as the church is the Body of Christ in the world, we are called to express the truth of Christ in the ways in which we live and ...

682. A Cubed Community

Matthew 18:15-20

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... will not be there. As the church we have been given the power to cube everything we do and say. All our actions all our decisions are taken to the power of three. But first we must gather in Jesus' name. If Christians gather in the name of fear or hatred--Christ isn't in their midst. If churches gather in a quest for power or prestige--Christ isn't in their midst. If two or three gather strictly to oppose a different group of two or three--Christ isn't in their midst. To "gather in my name" sounds ...

683. I Like Brussels Sprouts, but...

Matthew 9:9-13, Matthew 9:18-26

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... sprouts," the mother asked. "I do," answered the girl. "But not enough to actually eat them." We Christians like a lot of things - peace, love, harmony. But not enough to actually do something about them. Of course no one in church this morning wants hatreds and prejudices to grow; wants ignorance and despair to flourish; wants violence and poverty to define the life cycles of any of our children; wants creation to be vandalized and destroyed by greed and gluttony. But do we really care ENOUGH to DO ...

684. How Can Religion Go Bad Doing Good?

Matthew 7:21-23

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... to operate did so in the midst of normal, everyday life. Men and women went to work, went to school, went to church, went about their lives, without acknowledging - much less denouncing - the evil they had let into their lives. Nazi Germany circulated malice, hatred, and violence into every corner of its citizens' lives - corrupting all they did and all they said. By acquiescing in evil, Germany itself became an embodiment of evil in our world's bloody history. In today's gospel text Jesus' words are far ...

685. Tell You the Truth

John 14:5-14

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... which we hide away from the rest of the world, that he was rejected, abandoned, condemned, and crucified. What Lies Outside Jesus also told the truth about the larger world we have created in our own likeness. He told the truth about communities that have no communion, about hatreds that tear us apart, about the sin that can lurk in civility. "I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony'" (John 3:11). "Can any of you ...

686. Boxing Day

Matthew 2:13-18

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... of Nazareth - because he thinks they're signs of weakness in God's messianic plan. Instead, these events testify to the resilience of God's people, to the unquenchable nature of hope, to the ongoing relationship of God with God's people, despite the world's hatred, despite the worst that humans can do. Matthew isn't afraid to enumerate, even highlight, the out-of-the-box, unpredictable nature of God's presence and actions in the world. Jesus was literally born out-of-the-box. The box of a warm, supportive ...

687. Humans, Inc.

Luke 19:1-10

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... into martyrdom 10,000 Iranian children, who in the 1980s were thrown across minefields into the line of Iraqi fire, with a little key to paradise round their necks. Nature is red in tooth and claw. But its redness is related to hunger and survival, not hatred and racism. The great killers of nature - lions of the air (falcons, owls), lions of the land (lions, tigers, grizzly bears), and lions of the sea (great white sharks) - don't go on thrill-killing rampages just for the fun of it, or because they ...

688. Keep on Praying

Luke 18:1-8

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... for these words: "Lift off." Prayer is "lift off" for living. Christians are imperfect, humble people who love sacrificially, forgive generously, welcome unconditionally, act irrationally, live gratefully, listen constantly, and pray persistently . . . which enables us, in the face of death, to choose life; and in the face of violence and hatred, to choose peace.

689. Low Carb Christianity

Luke 14:25-35

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... fractured between family and faith could never hope to bear the burden of the cross each one of us must carry. Jesus knew that just as he would be rejected, abused, and killed by the world, that his disciples would also face extreme hostility and hatred. But if disciples could hate, that is reject, the earthly ties that bound them to human allegiances and loyalties first and foremost, then they could focus their faith and draw their strength from God's power, God's love, God's kingdom. Jesus went against ...

690. Generations

John 4:1-26

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... to name themselves – and they do so differently: slackers, hip hoppers, grungers, valley girls, Generation X, the "Gap Generation," twenty-somethings, Grunge Kids, 13ers, the Boomerang Generation, and many, many more. Equal to their resistance to being typed is their hatred of being hyped. Their loss of trust in caretakers, whether priests or politicians or physicians, necessitates a need for constant reality checking. Trust for busters is very difficult. One thing they all have in common is a fundamental ...

691. God's Original Seatbelt (Mother's Day)

John 13:31-38

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... , and received the highest commendations for their wartime service. When the war was over, and blue and gray veterans returned to the same communities, the same churches and in many cases the same families, there was a bracing for the feuds and prejudice and hatred that would continue on a local level the Civil War just concluded. Mrs. Jarvis conceived of an idea whereby her "mothers' work clubs" could be reactivated and redeployed to "kick the devil downstairs," as a phrase of the day put it. So she worked ...

692. Poison Control

Romans 7:7-25

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... can be just as deadly, and can literally kill us, and even others we love and with whom we have contact. · We have a voice to guide us when we realize how toxic a relationship has become. · We have the love of Christ as antidote to the hatred that fills our hearts. · We have the law of God to counteract the law of sin, when we feel ourselves irresistibly pulled towards polluting behavior. Many of us only think to call on Christ for poison control when the threat to our lives seems immediate – a crisis ...

693. The Jesus RX and the Biology of Belief

John 20:24-31

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... of the world · another environmental disaster occurs--and we write off an ecosystem ("there goes another one" we shrug) · global warming, ignorance, and greed bring on a widespread famine--and we think "population control" · border skirmishes and long-nursed hatreds erupt into seemingly eternal wars--and we build higher walls to protect ourselves from the alien hoards The nocebo effect encourages us to believe the worst, accept the inevitability of bad news, and take all negatives as genuine truths. In ...

694. The Shadow

Genesis 3:1-24

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... out in friendship to someone you admired? · Did fear of judgment by others keep you from befriending someone who didn't quite measure up in the eyes of some? · Did fear of those who are different than you move you into the wilderness of hatred? · Did fear of vulnerability keep you from loving one who offered you love? · Did fear of failure keep you from ever knowing success and fulfillment? · Did fear of missing out keep you from ever knowing contentment and satisfaction? · Did fear of messing up keep ...

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

1 Peter 5:1-11

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... , but we do know that the age of Christendom is past, and that the days ahead will place untold, unseen challenges before our faith. 1 Peter's counsel when the sufferings came down was twofold: Resist and Relax. Resist the roaring lion, the seething hatred, the evil, the violence, that bombards your life from this world. Relax, for as you stand humbly before an all-powerful love you are safe in the "mighty hand of God." It is that combination of hanging tough, but being tender, that enables Christians ...

696. Son-burned, Wind-blown, Earth-Stained

Luke 12:35-48

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... given her a classic green-thumb. Likewise, watchful servants of the Son have a similar work-worn, earthy appearance. When we aren't down-in-the trenches (teaching the children, feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, working for just peace amidst violence and hatred), we must be down on our knees. Steven A. Ballmer is the CEO of Microsoft Corporation. He's Bill Gates' hand-picked successor. Earlier this year he was seen crawling on the floor of the General Motors' executive conference room, trying to ...

697. Living Outside the Box

Luke 16:1-15

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... power. That is, unless we allow ourselves to be stuffed into a box. (You may want to have some boxes here to show and play with. Or if you Floridians can find a baby crocodile, so much the better!) A box of callousness; a box of envy; a box of hatred; a box of bigotry; a box of ignorance; a box of preconceptions; a box of fear; a box of apathy; a box of despair; a box of pride; a box of self-righteousness. Most of the time these boxes are self-made. We build them about ourselves thinking we're ...

698. Building Bridges While Getting Shot at from Both Shores

Revelation 22:1-6

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... pick at the stranger in our midst" behavior. There's no record of them offering any words in their own defense. There isn't even a mention of some faith testimony that they might have declared. In the face of the all-too-human behavior of hatred, fear, and rejection, they kept their composure and yet kept their faith. How can Christians today keep faith while keeping alive a spirit of love and discipleship for the fractured, fractious world we live in? How can Christians not join in the cultural worship of ...

699. A Case for Living Together

Revelation 7:9-17

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... be, it almost always forces to newcomer to adapt and learn. There's no genuine understanding without genuinely standing under. Until we're able to immerse ourselves in the lives of the worlds others live in, we'll never be able to understand their joys and fears, loves and hatreds, contentment and yearnings. It's no longer the case that a fistful of Hershey bars or a bag of Big Macs will gain us admittance to the rest of the world. In order to get the attitudes and animosities aimed our way, we've got to be ...

700. The Christian's Wild Card

1 Corinthians 15:12-34

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... Daddy, God's back!" (With thanks to that great little publication, The Joyful Noiseletter, published by the Fellowship of Merry Christians). Happy Easter, everyone. God's back! This is the greatest news in the universe, the essence of the good news: God's Back! Hatred, cruelty, pain, suffering, even death itself, couldn't keep God away from us. God's back. And no matter how much every age tries to drive God away and keep him away with our rejection and disobedience and hyper-business, the Easter message is ...

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