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 926 to 950 of 1400 results

926. 1 Peter 2: 2-10

1 Peter 1:13-2:3

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... a “lithos proskommatos,” a “stone that causes stumbling” to all those who “disobey or reject the good news of the gospel itself, the one who is the cornerstone.” Finally Peter weaves together the “chosen nation” motif of Isaiah 43:20-21 with the notion from Exodus 19:16 of “a royal priesthood” and “a holy people.” These familiar images now are used to describe a new situation and a new people. God’s “own people” are those who have heard and accepted the truth that is Christ ...

927. You Know Your Master Is There

John 14:1-14

Illustration

Alan Carr

... the doctor fumbled for a reply, he heard a scratching at the door, and he had his answer. "Do you hear that?" he asked his patient. "It's my dog. I left him downstairs, but he has grown impatient, and has come up and hears my voice. He has no notion what is inside this door, but he knows that I am here. Isn't it the same with you? You don't know what lies beyond the Door, but you know that your Master is there."

928. When Doubt Sets In

John 14:15-31

Illustration

Barbara Lundblad

... there's another piece of truth here. When things get tough up on the mountain, when fear sets in, many a climber is tempted to say, "This is crazy! I'm going home." The life of faith can be like that-doubts set in, despair overwhelms us, and the whole notion of believing in God seems crazy. Jesus knew his disciples would have days like that. So he told them we're tied together like branches on the vine-or like climbers tied to the rope-tied together by the Spirit, to trust in one who is always more than we ...

929. Wrong!

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... deep trouble. Increasingly, church people can’t see others as simply being wrong but evil. Why must we always demonize the other side? What can’t people just be wrong without being demonic or evil? In fact, isn’t the ultimate in evil the notion that you’re always right and never wrong? Benjamin Franklin had an early respect for “wrongness.” It was a refrain with Benjamin Franklin to talk about the “erratum” he had made, or the numbers of errata he had committed. He believed that while truth ...

930. Romans 8:12-25

Romans 8:1-17

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... Israel was often referred to as God’s “child” or “son.” The people of Israel stood in a unique relationship with the divine as “God’s chosen people.” But when Israel ceased to exist as a political reality the notion of “sonship” became more eschatologically oriented (see Hosea 1:10). In post-biblical apocrypha it is eschatological Israel that is promised its rightful “inheritance” as God’s children. With this eschatological relationship in mind Paul now applies the status as ...

931. Power!

Mark 1:4-11

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... , then raise them again to a better life — neat ceremony — wonderful symbolism — Sonny Dewey understood. And in the hands of a dynamic personality, too ... so forceful and impressive that some were led to think that John was the promised Messiah finally come. He debunked that notion out of hand: "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." Then ...

932. The Thoughts of Our Hearts

Luke 2:22-40

Sermon

Robert J. Elder

... So Luke, a Gentile himself, wrote his gospel to be read mainly by other Gentiles. If that is so, on reading this enchanting little passage about Jesus' first trip to the temple in Jerusalem with his parents, we have to wonder why Luke is so possessed with notions of the ritual law of the Jews. As a Gentile, Luke had no big stake in the Jewish law. Yet from these verses we hear Luke mention five times that the observances surrounding Jesus' birth were carried out according to the provisions of the law. Luke ...

933. The Little Golf Club

Sermon

John Smylie

... said than done. Love is such an overused word in our society, and even in sermons, that it's sometimes difficult to get a grip on what it is that love really means. Perhaps our Lord's love is particularly difficult to get a handle on because of the preconceived notions we may have about him. Sunday school images of the mild and gentle Jesus may come to mind: Never a harsh word spoken, a smile on his face, a sweetness in his spirit ready to tend to every one of our needs. This image of Jesus, an image that ...

934. Living Upside Down

Mark 2:23-3:6

Sermon

Kristin Borsgard Wee

... the sabbath according to the Old Testament. And then, as though that were not enough, God declared every seventh year as the year of the sabbath. For a whole year, everyone is released from roles and rules, free to forage in the cornfields of God. The sabbath turns notions about ownership upside down. Abraham Heschel said it like this: "On the sabbath we care for the seed of eternity planted in our soul."2 If we decide to take God up on this radical upside-down idea, then we will get to consider living in a ...

935. Out of Control

Mark 5:21-43

Sermon

Kristin Borsgard Wee

... of a miracle does. It strengthens faith through the pleasure of just remembering it. We could also say that a miracle is one of those times when things get out of control in a good way. God interrupts our orderly existence with something wonderful that doesn't fit our notions of orderliness. We need those moments in our memories for when things go out of control in a bad way. For each one of us, there comes a day when we feel like our lives have been hijacked by bad news. We go along day after day doing our ...

936. The Unsilenced Voice

Mark 6:14-29

Sermon

Kristin Borsgard Wee

... 'm doing things I always wanted to do, but never had time. I'm spending time with my wife. I'm finding energy I thought I'd lost forever. Getting crucified turned out better than I thought."1 Those who follow Jesus must not give in to the naïve notions that being faithful to God will be easy. It isn't. John lived for the truth and died because of it. John Chrysostom was a great preacher of the fifth century. He said of the beheading of John, "Herod cut off his head, but he did not cut off his ...

937. Planning Your Way Out

John 6:35, 41-51

Sermon

Robert Leslie Holmes

... system. It is reincarnation. The belief of ancient Hinduism has found new ground among many spiritually floundering people in our generation. This, too, stands on a premise that runs counter to everything the Bible and our Christian faith stand for. It promotes the notion of self-salvation. Reincarnation says that people who die are rewarded, or punished, by coming back to live a better, or worse, life on Earth according to what they did in their former life or lives. It teaches that people get a second ...

938. When The Baker Becomes the Bread!

John 6:51-58

Sermon

Robert Leslie Holmes

... of approval." — John 6:25-27 In short, Jesus is telling them, and us, not to follow him short-sightedly for what he might do for us but for who he is. Even the ordinary people have a hard time understanding him at this point. Ingrained in them is the notion of their leaders that salvation is not of God but of their own works. So, they ask him. "What must we do to do the works God requires?" Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." So they asked him, "What miraculous ...

939. The Heart of the Matter Is the Heart!

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Sermon

Robert Leslie Holmes

... robbed the people of a right relationship with God. The Pharisees passed these edicts from one generation of their sect to the next for a thousand years and nobody could know for sure where each law came from. Among them was a notion that whatever touched the hands was unclean and was eventually absorbed into the skin to corrupt the whole body. Therefore, when Jesus' disciples eat without observing the ceremonial hand washing ritual, the Pharisees consider them heinous lawbreakers. It is interesting that in ...

940. The Great Inescapable Question of Eternity

Mark 8:27-38

Sermon

Robert Leslie Holmes

... predicament. In Greek thought, God was removed, a mere spectator, like someone observing a play in an amphitheater or a game in a stadium — sometimes interfering in a helpful way, sometimes interfering in ways that were harmful. There have been all kinds of weird notions about Jesus expressed in the writings of humankind. Shakespeare, for example, in King Lear gave expression to some of this kind of thinking when he cried out,"As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport." It ...

941. Right-Handed Sinners!

Mark 9:42-50

Sermon

Robert Leslie Holmes

... saying that a sinning hand should be excised but that even if it is the dominant hand that sins it must go! Let us think about it, and especially what it means for us. The Harshness Of Jesus Christ The words before us bring into balance the syrupy notion of a weak and sweet "Gentle Jesus meek and mild...." Is Jesus Christ gentle? Yes, of course. He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.— Isaiah 40:11 ...

942. They Call It Grace

2 Peter 3:8-15

Sermon

Scott Suskovic

... ? The cross? The debate droned on until C. S. Lewis wandered into the room and asked, "What's the fuss about?" They told him that they were discussing Christianity's unique contribution among the world's religions. Lewis responded, "That's easy. It's grace." The notion of God's love coming to us free of charge without any strings attached seems to go against every human instinct. We want to get what we deserve. We want things to be fair. So, the Buddhists have their eightfold path to nirvana, Hinduism has a ...

943. God’s Great High Priest

Hebrews 5:5-10

Sermon

Nancy Kraft

... who he was and what he was all about. The writer of Hebrews has a unique way of describing who Jesus was. Hebrews is the only book in the New Testament where Jesus is called the great high priest. For the Jews who would have been reading this, the notion of Jesus being the great high priest would have been just plain wrong. Because, for the Jews, being a priest was a family thing. It was reserved for the Levites, and Jesus wasn't a Levite. That wasn't the family he belonged to, so how could anyone say ...

944. A Higher Calling

Ephesians 4:1-16

Sermon

Thomas Lentz

... when we fail to live up to a higher standard. The late philosopher, Will Heberg, said, "It is my belief that the really serious threat to morality in our time consists not in violating an accepted moral code, but in the fact that the very notion of morality seems to be itself losing its meaning for increasing numbers of men and women in our society." When the higher level of maturity is not reached, instead of lowering our expectations, we can strengthen our efforts to improve. These changes in ourselves ...

945. Ascension Answers

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

Ken Lentz

... wanted to demonstrate the power of the risen Christ. The power of the ascended Jesus is transcendent over all physical and spiritual powers; earth cannot constrain him and the spiritual realms must receive him. The ascended Jesus also transcends some of the banal and flip popular notions about Jesus. He is more than a rock star or the good-looking guy with long hair who lived a long time ago. He is more than the image on some of the popular "Jesus Junk" items sold at the local Christian bookstore. He is ...

946. Having a Good Name

Proverbs 1:20-33

Sermon

Donna Schaper

... move in opposite directions. We are made by the price of oil as well as what we had for breakfast and what we learned in school and whether we were born Christian or not. Surely some people — I think of many foundations and most school testing — take the notion of measurement way too far; contrarily, many of us take it not far enough. How would we measure if our church were a successful congregation for the next chapter? How would we know? If we felt good? If we made our own choices? Or if we had a ...

947. Absolute Perfection

Illustration

Staff

Lewis Thomas, the poet-philosopher of medicine, wrote the following in Harvard Magazine in 1981: I cannot make peace with the randomness doctrine; I cannot abide the notion of purposelessness and blind chance in nature. And yet I do not know what to put in its place for the quieting of my mind. It is absurd to say that a place like this is absurd, when it contains, in front of our eyes, so many billions of different ...

948. Make the Choice

Illustration

Staff

... is that there's something we're supposed to do to be happy make the right choices, or have the right set of beliefs about ourselves. Our Founding Fathers even wrote the pursuit of happiness into the Declaration of Independence. Coupled with this is the notion that happiness is a permanent condition. If we're not joyful all the time, we conclude there's a problem. Yet what most people experience is not a permanent state of happiness. It is something more ordinary, a mixture of what essayist Hugh Prather once ...

949. Immortality: Quality vs. Quantity

Illustration

Gary R. Habermas & J.P. Moreland

... : Resurrection and Immortality in the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983), pp. 199-201, 209-214, 232-236, for a stimulating and detailed study of this subject. We also want to be clear that the term immortality is not to be confused with notions such as the Greek concept of immortality of the soul. Actually, three Greek synonyms (athanasia, aphtharsia, aphtartos) are used only eleven times in the New Testament (ten by Paul and one by Peter) to refer to the believer's life after death. In no ...

950. The Right Education

Illustration

Thomas Sowell

... like drugs, STDs or teen-age pregnancy. Only those few people who have the time to research what is actually being done in "drug education," "sex education" or "death education" courses know what an utter fraud these labels are. For those are courses about how right and wrong are outmoded notions, about how your parents' ideas are no guide for you, and about how each person must start from scratch to develop his or her own way of behaving.

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