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 51 to 75 of 5000 results

51. The Shepherd Lord

Psalm 23:1-6

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... T. Campbell, sermon preached from The Riverside Church in New York City, “The Inverted Majesty of God,” December 12, 1971). Then into our limited and often distorted thinking about God comes the psalmist to cut our feet from under our overly ponderous way of thinking, to take our religious breath away: “The Lord is my shepherd.” There has been some scholarly debate about who wrote the Psalm. But, for me, David’s autograph is on every verse. “But when and where did it first utter itself upon ...

52. Dealing with Our Doubts

Mark 9:14-32

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... the agnostic Lee: “All my life I have searched for God but I found only man in all his suffering!” But of course, had he but realized it, when he found man in all his suffering, he found God! I know, this is not the usual way of thinking of things. Instead of seeing the presence of God in human suffering, we see instead God’s absence. Theologian Paul Tillich reported that when he toured the battlefields during World War I, soldiers most often expressed their disbelief in God in terms of not being able ...

53. The Focus of Christian Worship

1 Corinthians 14:26-40, 1 Corinthians 14:1-25

Teach the Text

Preben Vang

... kyrios (“Lord,” or “Patron” [14:37]). Interpretive Insights 14:20 stop thinking like children. By applying a present tense imperative, Paul instructs the Corinthians to stop doing what they presently are doing. It is time for them to give up their childish way of thinking (13:11; cf. 3:1–2).[1] When it comes to evil, however, they should move the other way and become like infants (n?piazete). Paul distinguishes between children and infants to underscore that in matters of evil they should be as ...

54. Epiphanies and Training Wheels

Mark 1:9-13

Sermon

Johnny Dean

... know," he said, "like the training wheels you have on your first bicycle when you’re a kid, before you learn how to ride. You have these little training wheels on the back to balance the bike so you don’t fall over so much. Well, religion, to my way of thinking, is sort of like moral training wheels. You need it when you’re young, before you’re old enough to get out into the world on your own, before you know what you’re doing. Once you get more confident in yourself, in your ability to handle any ...

55. An Empty Cup

Job 23:1--24:25

Sermon

King Duncan

... our goodness for? We aren't earning any return on our investment. This is the world view that puts the holy, holy, holy God on par with a gumball machine. Put in good deeds, and out pop good results. Insert a prayer, receive a blessing. This way of thinking leads us to believe that God is predictable, manageable, under our thumb. This mind set insists that God play by our rules. Pastor Vance Havner once hoped that his dying wife would be healed through some miracle. But she died, and in his grief he wrote ...

56. Look Who Is Standing at the Door

James 4:1-12; 5:1-12

Sermon

James L. Killen

... today? Take a good look at the lifestyle of our culture and recognize all of the things in it that are contrary to a life shaped by a relationship with the living God whom we know through Jesus of Nazareth. Don't let yourself be drawn into the world's way of thinking about things and of acting and of living. It really won't lead to happiness - in spite of what it keeps telling you. Follow the way of Jesus, the way of faith and love, no matter what it costs you. That will lead to the life that really is life ...

57. He Will Abundantly Pardon

Isaiah 55:1-13

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... amazing thing of all. What Isaiah is really talking about is the covenant God has made with his servant King David, but now God extends that covenant, that gift, that promise, with all the people — and all of us! This is God's plan. It's God's way of thinking. God is more aware than we of the king's failings, the people's failings, our failings, yet the promise is not only renewed, it is extended to cover a greater number of people. What should our response be? It should be immediate. "Seek the Lord while ...

58. By D Grace of God

Luke 6:27-38

Sermon

King Duncan

... other world. Because our world is all about “measuring and counting and weighing and competing and judging and paying back and hating and all the rest.” And we see the results of that way of life. Jesus wants to set us free from that way of thinking, that way of living. Many people resist following a religion because they think it will put too many restrictions on their life. But sometimes restrictions are a gift to us. Maybe you’ve had the experience of walking through a mega superstore and being ...

59. If We Had Known It Was You

Matthew 25:31-46

Sermon

James McCormick

... is okay as long as we are not talking about someone important. That is what is implied in the statement, “If we had known it was you, we would have acted differently.” We have only to look around us to see how prevalent is that way of thinking and acting – one set of behavioral standards for the special people and another set of standards for everyone else. For example, it is generally acknowledged that in our society we have one level of justice for the nobodies and another level for the wealthy, the ...

60. Deep Joy For A Shallow World

Nehemiah 8:1-4a, 5-6, 8-10

Sermon

Richard A. Wing

... for what happens to us but in spite of what happens to us. That is why Paul speaks of "peace that passes understanding." If you are going to wait to think your way into acting differently, you never will. Instead, Paul asks us to act our way into a new way of thinking. I see a boy at his Bar Mitzvah, many years after Ezra and Nehemiah. The boy watches the Hasidic masters come forward as he reads and watches them place a drop of honey on the page he reads. He asks what that is for. They reply, "It stands for ...

61. Playing the Blame Game

John 9:1-12

Sermon

King Duncan

... were blind to what God was doing in their midst. They let their own petty interests and experiences blind them to a richer understanding of the blessings God had in store for them. They weren’t bad people. They were simply locked in to a certain way of thinking about life and about God. They didn’t see the bigger picture. It’s like a story that Dave Bosewell tells in his book, How Life Imitates the World Series. He tells a story about Earl Weaver, former manager of the Baltimore Orioles. Sports fans ...

62. Woe to the Obstinate Nation

Isaiah 30:1-33

Understanding Series

John Goldingay

... ’s sovereignty in the nations’ affairs goes beyond that in chapter 10. Yahweh not only uses their own instinct for self-aggrandizement, Yahweh inspires them in their actions—and thus leads them astray, because they come to their own destruction. The way of thinking recalls the motif of the stiffening of the Pharaoh’s mind in Exodus. While human beings are responsible for their actions (cf. “Pharaoh stiffened his resolve,” e.g., Exod. 8:15), the great Dramatist also inspires the actors to act the ...

63. That Carpenter Is God

Mark 6:1-6

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... . Is that the trouble today too? If we were willing to act on what we believe instead of acting on what we do not believe, we would learn to believe more. A wise bishop remarked. "More people act themselves into right ways of thinking than think themselves into right ways of acting." Rebellious, obstinate, stubborn resistance - that is what unbelief is. Willfulness. Pride. Arrogance. The biblical corrective is to live by the sufficiency of God’s grace. There are always some - in our day more plentiful ...

64. When the Dragon Wins

Luke 21:5-38

Sermon

R. Robert Cueni

... ; there will we great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven. But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you." (vv. 9-12a) As with any different way of thinking and speaking, the vocabulary of faith has to be learned. This requires study. That is particularly true of apocalyptic eschatology. Its purpose is not to serve as a guide for predicting the near future or for interpreting divine meaning into current ...

65. The Second Sunday of Easter

John 20:19-23

Sermon

Kendall K. McCabe

... in today's Gospel: "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." Source of disagreement or not, the words won't go away. Let's try to think of some other ways of thinking about them and how to hear them. First of all, it is important to recognize this is a resurrection event. The disciples, we are told, have locked themselves up, for fear they will meet the same fate as their Master. Only three days before, Jesus had been ...

66. Knowing, and Known

Romans 4:13-25

Sermon

John B. Jamison

... in the Pharisee’s library. Abraham believed, and he was known as righteous. If you want to know you are a Christian, believe in Jesus Christ. Paul wrote a lot more in the letter to encourage the people in Rome and to help them make the adjustment to a new way of thinking, but I think we have heard the message he had in mind for them. It’s a message that might be worth thinking about as we go through Lent asking what it means to be an ambassador of Christ today. For me, I’m hearing two things. First, I ...

67. Telling The Truth

John 8:31-41

Sermon

Steven E. Albertin

... 't all that bad. In fact, you can do something at least to gain a bit of God's approval. Gerhard Forde, a Lutheran theologian from Luther Seminary in the Twin Cities, spoke recently at our synod's professional worker conference. He said this about this way of thinking: "The medieval church saw God's grace as a matching grant!" If we are willing to contribute something, God will match our efforts with his grace and mercy. In the late sixteenth century it was buying a few indulgences. What is it today? I fear ...

68. When God's Dream Captures Your Heart

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

Sermon

King Duncan

... For as [a person] thinks in his heart, so is he. (Prov. 23:7). Miller was also influenced by a famous preacher of that day, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale and his Power of Positive Thinking. This approach to life was radically different than the more rigid way of thinking in which Dan Miller had been raised. “We become what we think about.” That meant he could become more than he had ever dreamed if he just thought the right things. He knew such ideas would not be welcome in his house . . . so he hid Earl ...

69. A New Perspective

Deuteronomy 7:1-26

Sermon

Gregory J. Johanson

... . When you are in love with someone, you really do surrender your frame of reference to that person. Your whole orientation to life is captured by that person, and suddenly everything else is different. The world centers around him or her, and your normal ways of thinking about things and feeling about things just don’t fit. The person becomes unique. There is a line from one of the contemporary wedding services that says it well. "As God has put within the heart of man the wish to love many people, so ...

70. Man Proposes; God Disposes

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... , you in your way, and I in his." Hmmm. Second, we must recognize our own fallibility. None of us is infallible. Not one of us does right at all times. Sometimes we take ourselves and our opinions too seriously. Sometimes we stubbornly cling to our way of thinking, even when the evidence is against us. A wife said to her husband, "You are so stubborn. You always think you are right." He replied, "You're stubborn, too." "No," she said coolly. "You're stubborn. I'm indomitable." There is a pretty fine line ...

71. Hosanna!

Philippians 2:5-11

Sermon

John B. Jamison

... a miraculous destruction, or was he also thinking, “There is no way they are doing to let me live now that I’ve threatened the temple itself?” Honestly, I don’t know what if Jesus actually thought any of these things, but it seems they fit the way of thinking that the scripture presents. Jesus did not come to just overthrow a few crooked leaders or clean up a few unethical business people. Jesus was sent to die for our sins. Whatever else was going on, his role was to do what he was sent to do. If ...

72. The Most Stubborn Man in the Bible

Jonah 3:1-10

Sermon

King Duncan

... speaks English, but diversity has been America’s secret strength, particularly over the past century. There is no one that God does not love. Thomas Carlyle put it like this: “And Jonah stalked to his shaded seat and waited for God to come around to his way of thinking.” Then Carlyle adds, “And God is still waiting for a host of Jonahs to come around to [God’s] way of loving.” This is the lesson Jonah needed to learn: God is a universal God and God’s love is a universal love. God even loved ...

73. Saving The Best Till Last

John 2:1-11

Sermon

Brett Blair

... Jews attached great importance to the high moments of life. Thus a wedding was not just a brief ceremony, but an experience shared by the entire community. The typical wedding feast could last up to seven days. That sounds strange to our modern way of thinking, but this offered a bright interlude in an otherwise dreary existence. The ceremony would begin on Tuesday at midnight. After the wedding the father of the bride would take his daughter to every house so that everyone might congratulate her. It was a ...

74. On Welcoming the Imperfect

John 10:22-30

Sermon

R. Robert Cueni

... for a single day burned for eight days. Exactly how and why a one day supply of oil lasted for eight days, I do not know. It is a mystery. The lessons of Hanukah are many. Beware of Greeks bearing the gift of their ways of thinking and doing. Remember that impure pagans can lead you astray. Outsiders can take over your country, undermine your culture, and destroy your religion. Stay pure. Hang tight to your way of life. These are all incredibly important lessons. It is, however, also important to remember ...

75. Who Keeps Getting in My Way?

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... t it logical to say that Jesus saw the world more clearly than any other human being who has ever lived because he was one with his Heavenly Father? So he laid down attitudes for living in God’s world. Now Jesus knew when he gave these ways of thinking and acting that they would appear foolish to the world as we see it. He knew they would be intelligible only to those who could, because of their acknowledged relationship to God, see the world from God’s standpoint, as it really is. So he whispered these ...

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