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 901 to 925 of 2415 results

901. Six Nails of the Cross V: The Nail of Hatred

Luke 6:17-26

Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

... resentments. It is easier to shoot the villains, to seek retribution for the satisfaction of our moral feelings, than to get at the root of villainy or to transform the villain. It is easier to kill bad people than to build bridges. The passion hatred, which periodically sweeps through people like a storm is almost always misdirected. It is easier to kill the villain than to build bridges of trust and understanding. Ethnic mistrust breeds and thrives on hatred. It is hatred that breeds apartheid, anti ...

902. What Reasons to Betray the Savior?

Matthew 26:17-30

Drama

Joe Barone

[Note: During this Lenten season, we're trying to look at the happenings in Jesus' passion and death as several people in the story might have seen them. What would have been Peter's reaction to the portion of the story that we have today? Here's what I think it might have been.] Dramatic Monologue: Simon Peter I don't know why I couldn't ...

903. When Life Closes In

Matthew 26:17-30, Matthew 26:36-46

Sermon

Robert Allen

... on us with a vice-grip. What do we do when this happens? When life closes in, what do we do? Do we fight back? Do we throw up our hands and quit? What do we do when life closes in on us? When we look at Thursday (or the Passion) during the last week for Jesus, life was definitely closing in on him. Today, I want to suggest some steps you can take when life seems to be closing in on you. The ideas I suggest are really the steps Jesus took. I. When Life Was Closing In, Jesus Sought ...

904. Some Illusions (Symbols) Are Better Than Others

Acts 14:8-20

Sermon

Carl Jech

... exchanges your life will be shallow and empty. In both Equus and Amadeus, playwrite Peter Shaffer is commenting on this relativity of success and failure in life. The psychiatrist in Equus knows he can "cure" the boy, but he wonders if this crazy, passionate boy isn't actually better off than he, the drab, well-adjusted pillar of society. In Amadeus we see Salieri, the "success," and Mozart, the "failure." But who was the truly successful one? Which one was really favored by God? And what a wonderful ...

905. God is About to Strike

Acts 9:1-19a

Sermon

Carl Hoefler

... from his horse, and he lay prostrate on the ground. Like thunder, after the lightning, a voice rumbled around him saying, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" It was not an angry voice; it was the deep and resonant voice of profound and passionate concern. When the voice was silent, Paul broke the stillness with his guilt-induced question: "Who are you, Lord?" And the amazing answer came back, "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting." It is significant that, when our Lord identified himself to Paul, he ...

906. Compassion for the Suffering

Luke 13:31-35

Illustration

Glenn E. Ludwig

... and a sense of calling to help in a specific way, began this movement in England in the 1950s. It later moved to the Americas and is now used everywhere and in every town. It is called the Hospice Movement, and it draws its inspiration from Jesus' own passion and compassion for his children -- "as a hen gathers her brood under her wings." My prayer is that God will continually come to us in new ways and in fresh images, so that more Cicely Saunderses among us can be moved and inspired to take risks to join ...

907. Preaching Because We Have Something To Say

Sermon

James Angell

... waits in the wings. But the preacher cannot default. He cannot stand there mute, helpless to bring the Word to life. If the Word's servant retreats into the obligation to "say something" because it is Sunday, it is a poor substitute for the passion of proclamation that cannot and will not be stilled. All who preach, or have preached on any regular basis, will admit to having done both - sometimes from calendared necessity, and other times when the sermon is so electric, so urgent that it writes itself ...

908. Windows Of Wonder

Sermon

James Angell

... , baptismal waters and wedding vows, struggle and serenity, the prophet's mantle, the banquets of the heart. Suffering is a well-known window on patience and brilliant courage. Hope is a window on the future. All sermons are windows of meaning, filtered through the passion and the sincerity of the preacher. Lord, how can man preach thy eternal Word? He is a brittle, crazy glass; Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford, This glorious and transcendent place, To be a window through thy grace. But when thou dost ...

909. Make Way For Poets Of The Heart

Sermon

James Angell

... preaching in the Southern hemisphere), Native American and Asian servants of the word (like Kagawa). I can't change that. I can only hope for some balance by the willingness to share what has flowed into my inner world from so many sources - their passion, hallowed imaginations, knowledge of the world, their books, their poetry, their ability to move life forward, to teach and to care, to finish in their own way the prayer "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace." Preachers, of course, do not preach to ...

910. Confessional Services

1 Corinthians 11:17-34

Bulletin Aid

G. William Genszler

... that I omit to do and by the secret doubts and rebellion against Thee that I hold in my heart. Forgive me and grant me Thy mercy for Jesus sake. Amen. Absolution Sample bulletin for special confessional service for Holy Thursday or Good Friday based on persons of the Passion St. Paul says that a person ought to examine himself before he comes to the Lord's Table. St. John instructs that if we confess our sins, God is faithful, and will forgive us all of our iniquities. How can a man know his evil if SIN, by ...

911. Is Christianity Practical?

Jeremiah 17:19-27

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... argument. He rose from the dead. He didn't just talk about the need for humility. That's an ideal. He got down and washed his disciples' dirty feet. He didn't try to argue that you could serve God in sorrow or suffering. He confronted suffering in his passion, and he took unto himself the cross. He didn't talk about the equality and worth of all people in the sight of God. He sought out the outcast, the sinner, the poor and the downtrodden, and associated with them and ate with them. He didn't discuss the ...

912. Why I Believe In The Resurrection

John 20:1-9

Sermon

Brett Blair

... grant you that. But people are not going to die to perpetuate what they know to be a myth. Maybe one. Maybe even two or three. But not all twelve. They were not men who had a death wish. They knew what they had seen. They believed in it so passionately that they were willing to put their lives on the line in their efforts to tell the story to others. They were resurrection people. The Apostle Paul wrote: I have died to sin and have been raised with him. This is what I am talking about. The resurrection is ...

913. Called to a Higher Standard

Acts 9:1-19a

Illustration

Douglas J. Deuel

... an excellent educator but he also went to great lengths to build the confidence and the sense of self-worth of the student. He showed interest in the boy's family life and he encouraged the boy's participation in sports. This teacher was rare in the passion and the caring he brought to his students. Then the boy went on to the sixth grade. He began to hang around with a different group of students. The boys that he was now hanging out with were notorious for their shoplifting, their indifference to school ...

914. What's Our Purpose?

Acts 2:1-21

Illustration

Brett Blair

If we are to reach people for Christ we need people with passion and power. But we also need people with a purpose. In the late 1800’s, no business matched the financial and political dominance of the railroad. Trains dominated the transportation industry of the United States, moving both people and goods throughout the country. Then a new discovery came along—the ...

915. Sermon Opener - So Much To Say, So Little Time

John 16:5-16

Illustration

Alexander H. Wales

... prominent place in the order of things, a little like first graders lining up at the water fountain at school. For twelve grown men, you'd think that they would have been more sophisticated, but we have to remember that these were commoners, men of passions, used to living lives of intensity on fishing boats, on farms, in workshops, and in tax offices. They were the blue-collar workers of their time, skilled and yet not educated, used to the basics, not interested in what the future might hold because they ...

916. Let Your Light Shine

2 Corinthians 4:1-18

Bulletin Aid

James Wilson

... , so often we have taken for granted the wonderful Good News You have entrusted to us to share with the world. Too often we have even treated Your Gospel as though it were unimportant or, even worse, as if we were ashamed of it. Forgive us, Lord, and restore our passion to serve and live for You and to share Your Gospel with all who will hear. In Christ we pray. Amen. Hymns "Abide With Me" "Jesus, Joy Of Our Desiring" "He Touched Me"

917. Seeking What Matters

Matthew 13:44-46

Sermon

... it took him a hundred years to do that!" Apparently here was a fellow who had never gone for much of anything - he had just sort of ... gone! But most people, going, do go for something. There is a lot of seeking in the world, much of it with passion, much of it frantic, some of it desperate. In all our seeking, the most important consideration is this: What do we seek? The use of life versus the waste of life - what makes the difference"? The answer is, very simply: What one seeks, what one goes for. Here ...

918. The Importance of Believing

Matthew 16:13-20

Sermon

... in, they can look up. When sorrow overtakes them, they know that joy is somewhere ahead. Sensitized for feeling, their capacities expanded, they can experience at the same time the joy of the Lord and the heartache of a world; in one heart they can hold a passionate hatred of all that is evil and a loving compassion for all who hurt. These are foundation people, the kind you and I can count on and the kind upon whom Christ can build. Thank God for people like these, people of the foundation kind. And they ...

919. The Quality of Mercy

Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon

... . The debt is not settled; it is remitted. The ledgers are not balanced: they are just wiped clean. Thus, you see, the only way the problem of my sins can be resolved is by God's forgiveness of them. This being true, then I should have a passionate concern actually to receive the forgiveness which he offers. So the question is: Under what conditions may I be forgiven? Certainly, whatever else is involved, whatever else is necessary, it is required of me that if I am to receive God's forgiveness of my sins ...

920. The Call of the Cross

Luke 9:18-27

Sermon

... of death; his faith was that he would be "raised" from the dead, and then the time would be at hand for his followers to open their mouths and tell the world what God had done for all people in Jesus Christ. In his book, Ambition: The Secret Passion, Joseph Epstein, editor of The American Scholar, discusses the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald and points out that he went from early success to a second phase where he sold himself out to Hollywood, drank too much and spent too much, and died at forty-three. But ...

921. Lord, Teach Us to Pray

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

... enables us to affirm Robert Muller’s last lines in his Most of All, They Taught Me Happiness (New York: Dutton, 1981, p. 212): My conclusion, Mueller says, would therefore be: decide to be happy render others happy proclaim your joy love passionately your miraculous life do not listen to promises do not wait for a better world be grateful for every moment of life switch on and keep on the positive buttons in yourself, those marked optimism, serenity, confidence, positive thinking, love pray and thank ...

922. Real Security

Luke 12:13-21

Sermon

... of the human condition in one of the noblest organizations (the United Nations) ever born from the heart of man. I will go in peace and joy, thankful for having been blessed with the miracle of life. He adds, I will have loved my life with passion, embraced it with fervor, cherished every single moment of it. I will have contemplated with wonder the sky and its running clouds, my brethren the humans, my sisters the flowers and the stars. I will have feasted unceasingly on the treasure of life in all its ...

923. Heaven Can’t Wait

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

... . The disciples had grown calloused through the years to the usual behavior patterns, the never-ending push for personal progress that uses others as its stepping stones, the eye-for-an-eye and the tooth-for-a-tooth philosophy, the lust for power, passion, and possession. They would often victimize themselves in that same atmosphere, as they elbowed for the seats of honor at the banquet, argued about their comparative greatness, and looked for their own names among the MVP’s. But as they listened to his ...

924. Are There Any Questions?

Luke 20:27-40

Sermon

... out the door, "I’m glad you asked that question." Even though it had been asked in ridicule, it sets the scene in which to challenge our priorities in life, that myopia which only sees the present moment. It challenges our hopes, our goals, and all the passions that consume us, the direction that our lives are taking, and our vision of the kingdom. The Ultimate in Faith It is the ultimate in Christian faith that we are heirs to a great fortune put in trust for us, that we are children of the resurrection ...

925. Christ Is King

John 12:12-19

Sermon

... of them could play for her the gospel hymns she loved to sing on winter evenings. I remember in particular the one we never missed. It had the line, "Wondrous Sovereign of the sea, Jesus, Savior, pilot me." Too bad we lost it in our high church passion for the perfect hymn. Although less than forty miles from the beaches of Lake Michigan, we had never seen a sea, but we knew what it meant, this Edward Hopper line, and it would stand us in good stead through boisterous waves and hiding rocks and treacherous ...

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