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 701 to 725 of 1400 results

701. A Peculiar People

1 Peter 2:1-10

Sermon

John E. Harnish

... Africa, now teaching at Duke Divinity School, led the South African Methodists through the difficult and challenging days of their witness against the evil of apartheid. In a sermon in 1989, before the liberation of his nation, Peter said: In South Africa, the pagan notion of racial purity and pride has become the nation's god and that sick, false religion stains everything we do. One of the great tragedies of my homeland is that some parts of the Christian Church have become mouthpieces, not of God but of ...

702. Bugles in the Afternoon

Philippians 2:1-11, Psalm 46:1-11

Sermon

John E. Harnish

... mountains shake into the sea. Be still and know that I am God. The Lord of hosts is with us, The God of Jacob is our refuge. (Psalm 46) Through Andy's death and a host of other tragedies, I have long since given up on the notion that "God has a reason for everything." But deeper still, I have become more and more convinced that in everything, God is our refuge. God is faithful. Following the tsunami last December, Nathan Nettleton in Australia preached a sermon called "A Christmas Tsunami Lament." In it he ...

703. High Noon

Psalm 91:1-16

Sermon

John E. Harnish

... think we have the boundaries in place, that we know just where Jesus sits and what his territory looks like. We can shrivel and we lose sight of the vastness, the grandness, the incredible immenseness of God, and we die in the noonday heat with our petty notions of God's boundaries in our lives. O God, at high noon, don't let me settle for a narrow faith and a stifled spirit. Keep me growing and alive, ready to discover new insights, new visions, new breadth and height and depth to your love. The Psalmist ...

704. Yet Alive....Are We?

Romans 12:1-13

Sermon

John E. Harnish

... be a Methodist, John Wesley wrote a pamphlet which has become a classic, called "The Character of a Methodist:" The distinguishing marks of a Methodist are not his opinions of any sort, his accepting of this scheme of religion, his embracing any particular set of notions, or mouthing the judgments of one man or another. All these are quite wide of the point. As to all opinions which do not strike at the root of Christianity, we think and let think. The rhetorical question is: "What, then, is a Methodist?" A ...

705. What Ever Happened to Norman Rockwell?

Colossians 3:1-17

Sermon

John E. Harnish

... if taken seriously, has the potential to transform relationships: "Husbands, love your wives," and to the Ephesians, St. Paul adds to love them "as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it." (Ephesians 5:22) What a shocking, revolutionary concept. The very notion of sacrificial, self-giving love as the pattern for marriage was unheard of. It is, in fact, the new word, the word which will reshape the marriage covenant. "Fathers, don't provoke your children to anger." The very idea that fathers should ...

706. Toward the Cross

Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

John E. Harnish

... , "How far will God go with this?" When a teenaged Jesus finds himself in the temple and discovers his own identity and he tells his parents, "Didn't you know, I have to be about my Father's business?", you want to ask, "Yes, boy, but do you have any notion what that will mean in the long haul?" When a young, itinerant preacher returns to his hometown to preach his first sermon and he chooses for his inaugural text, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has called me to preach good news to the poor ...

707. Deep Calling to Deep

Ephesians 1:3-14

Sermon

Donald Charles Lacy

... the surface of a depth mostly beyond us. Nevertheless, the exercise is indispensable to our well-being. 3. Pleading ignorance in spiritual matters can be disastrous. In dismay, my discoveries lead me to any number of church people, who appear not to have the slightest notion of the depths of our religion. A once each day devotional is about as far as they get. Even those who are fairly regular in worship attendance can embarrass themselves. Naming the gospels and the golden rule may be about as far as it ...

708. From Father Failure to Divine Father

Romans 8:12-17

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

One of the most significant steps in our growth as human beings is the discovery that our earthly parents, contrary to our childish notions, are imperfect. A friend remembered well an incident in that process of discovery in his own life. He always thought his father was the perfect driver and that he was absolutely safe riding with him until one day he almost hit the side of a bridge. His father was a ...

709. Jesus, Don’t Say That

Mark 7:24-37

Bulletin Aid

Frank Ramirez

... bay. We have hidden behind stereotypes to excuse our hardness of heart, and believed the worst of people to escape from ministry. We have allowed anecdotes to replace hard scientific fact, listened to talking heads instead of the word spoken aloud in our worship. Strip away our notions, leave us bare to infection by the needs of this world, drench us in the sorrows of your people that we might be made whole and healthy at last. Amen. Hymns Praise To The Lord Awake, My Soul, And With The Sun Go Now In Peace

710. Getting Down To Basics

Romans 3:19-28

Bulletin Aid

Frank Ramirez

... . Prayer Of Confession Great God of grace, we throw the word "grace" around like it was a law or something, and forget to receive it for ourselves and grant it to others. We return to your word and pledge to pare away all distractions, all notions, preconceptions, and paraphernalia that draw us away from you, while recognizing that you speak to us in all the media, all the mouths, and all the miracles that surround us. Let this be your re-formation, and not a reorganization for our convenience. We praise ...

711. Weaving the Spirit’s Trail

Matthew 20:1-16

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... a “dog eat dog” world, and that to get ahead you must walk over many backs. It messes with those who live careful, obedient, loving, faithful lives. What good is it to “do good” if it doesn’t get you a “leg up?” It messes with the notion that good is rewarded and evil is punished. The kingdom of God messes up ALL our expectations! Good thing. For here’s the truth: ALL of us are those “last hour hires.” The fallacy practiced by all artists who feel they need to intentionally introduce a ...

712. Grace and Generosity

Matthew 20:1-16

Illustration

James W. Moore

... the meaning of grace, but wasn't getting very far. She tried definitions and abstractions, to no avail. Finally, she realized something the boys had known from the start. She was not connecting. She was not getting through to them. They didn't have the foggiest notion what she was talking about. So she took a deep breath and tried again: "Look boys, grace is the break you get when you don't deserve it. That's the simple explanation. But you won't really understand it till you experience it." And that ...

713. Mary, Did You Know?

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

King Duncan

... s absurd. Jesus’ birth was a miracle. Underline it again. Nothing is impossible with God. Remember that the next time you are in a hard place. Nothing is impossible with God. Now there are many theologians and Bible scholars who have real difficulty with the notion of a virgin birth. For one thing, Isaiah didn’t really prophesy that a virgin will conceive and bear a son. A better translation is simply that a “young woman” will conceive and bear a son. That’s all right. It really doesn’t matter ...

714. Unacceptable

Mark 8:31-38

Sermon

David T. Ball

Going off to college can be an unsettling experience for Christian students. Somewhere, sometime, college students are going to encounter, and many for the first time, the notion that there is no such thing as absolute truth. Truth with a capital “T.” We may wish that the situation could be otherwise. Parents may especially wish, after all they’ve invested in trying to instill positive values in their children, that the college experience would reinforce rather than undermine ...

715. No Substitute

John 2:13-22

Sermon

David T. Ball

... rather have us live consistently, with integrity, in all aspects of our lives, in whole-hearted faithfulness to God. So what was so bad about the money-changers and the animal vendors in the temple? They constituted an organized system that reinforced the notion that God’s favor can be bought. Whether one bought and sacrificed a small bird or large livestock, this still represented an organized effort that proceeded as if God would be satisfied with these substitutes for our very selves. We may not think ...

716. Where Is Your Trust?

Mark 4:35-41

Sermon

George Reed

... almost silly to bring the question up in a congregation, and yet the question needs to be asked of all of us, "How securely have we anchored our lives in God?" Are we sailing along on smooth seas, sure that nothing can overwhelm our little boat, but with a vague notion that there is a good God out there somewhere who will no doubt take care of us because, after all, we are pretty good compared to some others? Is our trust in God based on what others have told us about how God has taken care of them and we ...

717. The Political Versus the Spiritual

Matthew 22:15-22

Illustration

Greg Rickel

... the students just about fell out of their chairs, and he said, "institutions aren't Christian, people are, and the best we will ever be is a group of Christians working at our faith within this institution." We get very caught up in this too, this notion of a Christian nation, a Christian school, a Christian perspective. My point is this, we must not blur the lines between our spiritual life and our political life. We can't. In fact, I would submit, that good, faithful people are what keep this government ...

718. Tricky Questions

Matthew 22:15-22

Illustration

Johnny Dean

... two children - is leaving home and heading for California to make a new life for herself and her children. Naturally, Mother objects. And as mothers sometimes do, she tries to lay a load of guilt on her daughter in order to force her to reconsider this foolish notion. The daughter, however, has learned a few tricks from mother dearest over the years. She tries to turn the tables and put mom on a guilt trip for a change. She accuses her mother of never being interested in what was going on in the daughter's ...

719. Matthew 22:34-46

Matthew 22:34-40

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... of the Messiah. The “son of David” has been a frequently noted title in Matthew’s text. From this point on, however, the “son of David” reference is abandoned. The traditional military and political associations that were tied to the most popular notions of the Messiah are set aside, along with the title “son of David.” The Messianic identity that Jesus inhabits is far different than the historic expectations held by Israel. This new identity will link sacrifice and death with divinity and ...

720. An Exquisite Attitude of Gratitude

Ephesians 1:15-23

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... is “the riches of his glorious inheritance.” Don’t get greedy. This is not OUR inheritance. Paul is speaking of God’s inheritance. And what does God “inherit?” Us. A questionable deal for the divine. A godsend for us. Is there any notion more astounding than the idea that God has chosen frail and fallible human beings to be “chosen people,” to be especially beloved by God? If such an “inheritance” cannot elicit thankfulness, then what can? Finally, Paul recognizes and celebrates the gift ...

721. Tomorrow Will Be Anxious for Itself

Matthew 6:25-34

Illustration

Eric Ritz

An ancient Chinese parable tells of Old Tan Chang who had a small farm overshadowed by a towering mountain. One day he got the notion to get rid of the mountain. With the help of his wife and sons, he began to hack at the rock around its base. A neighbor walked by and scoffed, "You will never finish the job, old man! There are not enough days in the year for you to do ...

722. 1 Corinthians 1:3-9

1 Corinthians 1:1-9

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... the gifts of grace to this world. “Christ,” “Christos” (“The Anointed), or in Jewish history the “Messiah,” identifies the active mission of Jesus. That Jesus came as a sacrificing and saving Christ, not as a triumphant, military Messiah, redefined the notion of the power localized in that identity. But Paul’s thanksgiving also looks eschatologically to when the power of this crucified Christ will be fully revealed. The “Lordship” of Jesus Christ will not be completed until that end-time ...

723. Getting Ready

Mark 1:1-8

Illustration

King Duncan

... with the gold Arabic calligraphy proclaiming "Eid." By now it was clear that this was not such a simple errand after all. "Actually," he said, "I was looking for the ones with the mother and child. I'd like some Christian Christmas stamps." What a radical notion. Christian Christmas stamps. We are getting our homes, and our community and our church ready to welcome the King of Glory. Last week we said that the best way to prepare was to acknowledge the awesomeness of God. This week we focus on one of God ...

724. The Failure of God to Die

Mark 1:1-8

Illustration

Paul Johnson

... learned people from all the disciplines of academia that were predicting the death of Christianity. Not only the death of Christianity but the doing away with religion in society all together. They claimed that God and belief in God would soon be a silly notion of the past. Paul Johnson, a biblical scholar, says in his book The Quest for God, "The most extraordinary thing about the 20th century was the failure of God to die. The collapse of mass religious belief, especially among the educated and prosperous ...

725. A Camel on the Roof

Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... Homer's original maxim: "Get place and wealth if possible with Grace; If not, by any means, get wealth and place." -Imitations of Horace, Epistle 1, Book 1, 1.103. Not from education or the wisdom of the world. Not from science or technology. Not from star wars notions or war stars nations. The magi point us to where the world's best hope, the world's only salvation comes: bowing before the Christ who is found and served in "the places that stink and where no one loves," St. Theresa's definition of hell. It ...

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