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 51 to 75 of 4962 results

51. It Ain't Over Til It's Over

Matthew 5:31-32

Sermon

James Merritt

... Psychiatry at Harvard University, writes: The divorce rate rose 700% in the 20th Century and continues to rise. There is now one divorce for every 1.8 marriages. Over a million children a year are involved in divorce cases and 13 million children under 18 have one or both parents missing.2 The United States has about 5% of the world's population, and yet has ½ of all of the divorces in the entire world.3 The median duration of first marriages is approximately eight years; of re-marriages between five and ...

52. Visit

2 Corinthians 13:1-10, 2 Corinthians 13:11-14

Understanding Series

James M. Scott

... , the situation is still tense; Paul is still in a position of having to defend himself. His statement in 7:16 is clearly an exaggeration, designed more to effect a positive response than to compliment the church for already having one. 12:21 Scholars have debated whether the vice lists in v. 21b (impurity, sexual sin and debauchery) and v. 20b (“quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance, and disorder”) reflect two different factions within the Corinthian church ...

53. Give Me A Break!

Matthew 11:25-30

Sermon

Larry Goodpaster

... and from the grace that is extended to give courage and power and passion for living. “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants (Matthew 11:25, NRSV).” After having one of those days, Jesus finds it in himself to offer a prayer of thanks to God. Whatever the source of that kind of faith and life and experience, it’s just what I need when I am having those kind of days. It’s just what we all ...

54. Remember: Live Worthy of the Calling

Ephesians 4:1-16

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... , needs ice cream, a freezer and a scoop. Paul tells us in this passage that as Christians, part of our job is to be builders. We're called to build up the body of Christ by equipping the saints for the work of ministry. All tools in our tool box have one purpose: "to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ" B. Let's briefly look at some of those tools. 1. Bible: Of course the first tool in our tool box is the Bible. Scripture paints the background for and tells the ...

55. Weary in Well Doing

2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Sermon

Donna Schaper

... bigger-is-better world. I watched two men at the hospital the other day. They knew each other only slightly. One said, "I just had three parts of my heart done." The other said, "That's nothing, I had five." I thought, "Oh, boy. Isn't it great just to have one part done, if it is blocking blood to the heart? Why is it better to have more?" But I know that our world is inoculated with the large — and I know how lethal that largeness is. Bigger says it's better, but it's not. The mightiest nation in the ...

56. First Thing

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

James Merritt

... ’t just as the old saying goes, “Let go and let God.” There is a difference between being pro-active toward a problem and being pre-occupied with a problem. There is a difference between being active in solving a problem and being anxious that you have one. What happened is that he realized that his priorities were out of order. This is also illustrated in a story I read about Desert Storm. There was a colonel by the name of William Post. He was in charge of receiving all of the incoming supplies for ...

57. Proper 19

Lk 15:1-10 · Hos 4:1-3, 5:15--6:6 · 1 Tim 1:12-17 · Ex 32:7-14

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

... a chief sinner even after his experience of mercy in Christ. "I am the foremost of sinners." Luther explained that a Christian is a sinner and saint at the same time. One sinner plus one saint makes one Christian! A Christian lives in the tension of having one foot in heaven and one on earth. The sermon is needed to help church members understand why they act like devils at times when they are supposed to be in Christ. Outline: How one and one make one. A. One sinner - v. 12-13a. Before Christ: "blasphemed ...

58. Here Comes the Judge!

Matthew 25:31-46

Sermon

Johnny Dean

... present our faith as so rational, so predictable, so systematized that a lot of the sheer excitement of following Jesus has been lost. Lots of folks think of us Christians as folks who don’t know how to have a good time and don’t want anybody else to have one either. Some folks think church people take the same approach to life that a dieter takes to food. Most diets - and I’m authority on this - are based on the premise that if it tastes good, you’d better spit it out! It’s bound to have too many ...

59. Courage Under Fire

Jude 1:22-23

Sermon

James Merritt

... one." Well, I want to tell you there are plenty of lost people all over Atlanta, Georgia. They are next-door, they are in the office down the hall, they are in the shopping centers, the malls, and the grocery stores, and everybody can have one if they just want one, and will show courage under fire. 1 Clifton Fadman, ed., The Little Brown Book of Antidotes (Boston: Little Brown & Company, 1985), 58. 2 James C. Hefley, The Truth in Crisis, I, (Dallas: Criterion Publications, 1986), 224. 3 Russell Chandler ...

60. Slices of Life

Drama

Sarah Walton Miller

... ’s someone I don’t want to see later either. CINDY: Couldn’t I just say you can’t see ANYONE? GIRL: Cindy, you go tell them what I said or I’ll fix you good! IN A STORE two teens ONE: Miss! Miss! I’m in a hurry. I have one of these $.59 pins. Here’s the exact change and the tax and don’t bother to wrap it! Thank you. Come on, let’s go. TWO: Wait! Why are you running? Is it because you really picked up TWO pins? Oh, yes, I saw you. ONE: So what? They ...

61. She Had Great Faith

Matthew 15:21-28

Sermon

King Duncan

... -possessed and suffering terribly.” So, we see her situation. She is experiencing one of life’s greatest heartaches. Her daughter whom she loves dearly is suffering terribly. Is there a mother in this room who would not prefer to suffer yourself rather than to have one of your children suffer? You will travel to the ends of the earth and empty your bank account if your child’s suffering is severe enough. And this girl’s suffering was evidently severe. We don’t know what this woman meant when she ...

62. Trust in Me

Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... ïve. Adults are supposed to “know better” than to be bamboozled and bulldozed by things that don’t conform to the realities of life, that don’t fall into the realm of the tried and true, that smack of reckless danger and naked trust. In fact to have one “pull the wool over one’s eyes” is to be blinded to the reality of what’s “really” going on, despite the deception told to you. There is a famous Italian proverb that goes like this: fidarsi ˋe bene, non fidarsi ˋe meglio. [If you don ...

63. A Voice from Beyond

Genesis 12:1-9

Sermon

James L. Killen

... that great other who is in and beyond everything else in life. You know that you have lots of relationships with lots of different people and things, don't you? And you know that those relationships help to shape your life, don't you? You have one relationship with your spouse and another with your parents and another with your children. You actually have a relationship with yourself but that is sometimes a little hard to figure out. You have a relationship with your boss or your employees and your job or ...

64. Eternity 101: The Final Exam

1 Corinthians 3:5-15

Sermon

James Merritt

... years of your life go out the window. I can still remember the joy in my heart when I walked out of there knowing it was the last final exam I would ever take. Later, reading the text we are going to study today, I was reminded that I still have one final exam to go. This is a unique final exam. You cannot study for it. You cannot cram for it. The reason is you take this exam every day. You are taking it right now – that is if you are a follower of Christ. If you are a believer, from ...

65. Now, It's Personal

Matthew 5:21-37

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... you could seat 100 or more people — on the parking lot and use it for our opening gathering every evening. We would meet under it, shaded from the sun, for singing songs and making announcements and pumping up the kids for the evening’s classes. We were going to have one of those big tent companies come and set it up for us. They would drive stakes into the blacktop to hold the tent in place and, when VBS was over, they would pull the stakes and patch the holes. A couple of weeks before VBS was to start ...

66. The Dream Work of Teamwork

Nehemiah 3:1-32

Sermon

James Merritt

... some of us or most of us, but all of us. There was a guy in Iowa whose car tumbled into a ditch. He called on a farmer for some help, but the farmer said, "You would need a team of young stallions to pull up that car. I only have one horse - Dusty. He is blind and old, but I'll bring him over to the ditch and see what he can do, but don't expect too much." Well the farmer hitched Dusty to the car, snapped a whip in the air and said, "Pull Jimmy Pull!" Dusty never moved ...

67. Going the Second Mile

Matthew 5:38-42

Sermon

James Merritt

... a man got out of a big truck and walked over to me and said, "Do you know this area very well?" I said, "Pretty well." He said, "Can you tell me how to get to this street?" Well I didn't recognize the street, and my car happens to have one of those CPS systems in it, so I pulled up a map and found the street. As I began to try to tell this man how to get there, I realized it was going to be very difficult for him to find it because there were a lot of turns ...

68. Mark Twain's Briefcase And A Great Mental Attitude

2 Corinthians 4:1-18

Sermon

King Duncan

... a light shining in Paul's heart ” a light that had been there for many years. It makes a difference in a world of darkness if you can see a light shining. Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen tells of a twenty-four-year-old young man who had to have one of his legs amputated to stop the spread of bone cancer. This young man was angry and bitter. For a long time he couldn't seem to look beyond his disability. Eventually, through various therapies, including art therapy, the young man was able to confront his emotions ...

69. All In: Skin In the Game

Malachi 3:6-18

Sermon

James Merritt

... biggest single struggle most of us have in going “all-in” with Jesus is money. I am going to share with you a dirty little secret. If you struggle with giving to God what you should, then you also struggle with living for God the way you should. You only have one thing that you have to give to God that God cannot and will not take from you. It is not your money; it is your heart. Jesus said that if God doesn’t have your money He doesn’t have your heart. He said this, “For where your treasure is ...

70. That's Not Fair

Matthew 20:1-16

Sermon

King Duncan

... . This was a common practice in that part of the world, particularly during the grape harvest. Storms could easily ruin the crop and it was important to get the harvest in as quickly as possible. So for a time, anyone who wanted a job could have one. The work was hard; working hours were from dawn to sunset, which in a Mediterranean country means a twelve-hour day. The wage was a standard one, a ‘denarius’ or silver coin. Anglican pastor Tim Chesterton makes the point that a denarius was not only ...

71. Lord of the Harvest

Matthew 9:35-38, Luke 10:1-24

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. (John 4:35-36) So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building. (1 Corinthians 3:7-9) Talk about mixed metaphors. Jesus does it all the time. Shofar and voice. Shepherd and ...

72. Uncertain Certainties

John 20:19-31

Sermon

John Jamison

... around. This approach is helped along when we see the things that happened on Pentecost. The disciples received the additional help of God’s Spirit to make their point. Perhaps so, but it would still be really helpful for a lot of us if we could just have one little piece of the kind of solid proof that Thomas got. And I’ve been told that it is a simple matter of faith and not something we should even question. We simply have to believe. We should never question God because it demonstrates that we don ...

73. Miracle Ten: Healing A Blind Beggar

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon Aid

Harold H. Lentz

... was performed, Jesus did not touch the man or use any elements such as clay to restore sight. Jesus simply said to Bartimaeus, "Go your way; your faith has made you whole." Once again, Jesus is stressing the vital need of faith, not only to have one's sins forgiven and to receive the assurances of eternal life, but also to have an earthly desire fulfilled. Jesus put no price on his miraculous healing. He did not ask the man to become one of his followers. In fact, he actually suggested another course ...

74. Love Your Enemies--It Will Drive Them Crazy

Luke 6:27-36

Sermon

Richard A. Wing

... same one who participates in the various sins we preach against. When I read that as a very young man, I said, 'For that reason alone I can enter ministry.' As for perfection, you can forget it. I am the same as you are, no better." "Then, Dick, I have one question to leave you with, 'Why do you preach this message?' " And in the dream I remember saying to him that I have discovered that if we keep looking at this text that makes us so uncomfortable, if we keep reading it and confess in the presence of God ...

75. Just a Closer Walk With Thee

James 4:8

Sermon

James Merritt

... by skipping your devotions. Sincerely, Satan The Lord Jesus said Satan is a liar and a thief. He will lie to you and tell you that you don't have time for the quiet time; then he'll try to steal the time away from you that you do have. One of his greatest weapons is television. The following essay is extremely insightful about how TV can steal away time you could give to God. It is entitled "The Twenty-third Channel." The TV set is my shepherd, my spiritual growth shall want. It makes me to sit down and ...

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