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 951 to 975 of 1199 results

951. Of Peace and War

Deuteronomy 20:1-20

Sermon

James Merritt

... those of us who are Christ-followers, who do have a biblical worldview that even in the middle of the war we can never forget who we are. William Temple said it best, “We Christians in war are called to the hardest task of all – to fight without hatred, to resist without bitterness, and in the end if God so grants it, triumph without vindictiveness.” Even while we fight we are to pray for our enemies, love our enemies, and pray that somehow God can use even war to change the hearts of our enemies and ...

952. Up Close & Personal: Seeing Clearly

Isaiah 6:1-13

Sermon

James Merritt

... away, and your sin atoned for.’” (Isaiah 6:6-7, ESV) What you see here is a perfect illustration of that truth, “God loves a sinner, but hates the sin.” What Isaiah hates in himself God hates even more, but God’s love for the sinner is greater than His hatred for the sin. Isaiah is cleansed and Isaiah is forgiven. The one thing that has to happen for you and me to have a relationship with this God is we have to get real. We have to see Him for who He really is and we have to see us ...

953. Lost Baggage: Losing Your Baggage

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sermon

James Merritt

... Christians?” He said, “That is right.” The pastor said, “There was a man who did believe in God, but he hated Christians. His name was Paul. He had as much rage in his heart as you do in yours, but for different reasons. When he met the risen Christ his hatred was replaced by God’s love, his grudges were replaced by God’s grace and his bitterness was replaced by God’s blessing. What God did for him God can do for you. What was said to that solider I say to you today. There is only one hope for ...

954. An Announcement from Our Lord

Isaiah 61:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

... The words “prisoners” and “the blind” are much broader than simply those who are behind bars and those whose eyes are damaged. Prisoners can be captive to a host of oppressors. People who are addicted to drugs are certainly prisoners. You can be imprisoned by self-hatred or guilt or fear or prejudice. People can be spiritually blind just as easily as they can be physically blind, blind to the needs of those around us, blind to the ministry God has purposed for our life. Sometimes we are blind to our ...

955. The Condemning Heart

John 3:1-21

Sermon

King Duncan

... the shame that used to be attached to a young woman pregnant out of wedlock. Her sin was public. It was out there for all the world to see. But Jesus knows there are people who carry invisible sins all the time sins like envy, sins like bitterness and hatred, sins like having a condemning heart. But God sees those sins. So Christ instructed in Matthew 7: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to ...

956. A Family Celebration - Maundy Thursday

John 13:18-30

Sermon

King Duncan

... experience this kind of tragedy, this loss severely damaged their relationship. As time passed the husband and wife grew apart. Their love for each other just wasn’t the same any more since their little daughter was killed. Finally their love got cold. A bitter hatred came into their lives. Finally they agreed to separate and to divorce. As they were in their home one day going over the various items they had accumulated over the years of their marriage, they got tired and sat down a moment to rest. Their ...

957. The Big "W"

Mark 8:31--9:1

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... first twelve for two thousand plus years, not to “do God a favor,” but to “favor” ourselves with the proper orientation to life. Put God first, and place into the worship experience the message of a Messiah who had to endure the human heartbreak of hatred and humiliation. When the Psalmist declared, “God inhabits the praises of his people” (Psalm 22:3), these were the same words that Jesus himself sang from the cross. The psalmist’s claim is not that God is found in the notes or the nouns of ...

958. Let's Take This from the Beginning

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

James Merritt

... the beneficiaries of the grace of God. They were perfect. Perfectly related to the God of perfection. There was peace. There was happiness. There was contentment and there was joy. Then we look at the world we live in today with weeds, pests, bacteria, viruses, murder, rape, war, hatred, violent and we have to ask, “So what happened?” That is part two of the story. The lesson of the first part is this - there is a hole in your soul that can only be filled by the One who created you. The reason why the ...

959. She Looked Great, But...

Mark 7:1-23

Sermon

... and some of the teachers of the law had come from Jerusalem to “investigate” Jesus. On the outside these Pharisees were the epitome of respectability. On the inside, however, they were full of fear and envy, and they were growing in their hatred for Jesus. They looked for any excuse to cast aspersion on him and his followers. On this particular day, they observed some of Jesus’ disciples eating food without first washing their hands. This, of course, offended them. Understand . . . this wasn’t about ...

960. She Looked Great, But...

Mark 7:1-23

Sermon

King Duncan

961. Peace Comes to Our Hearts

Philippians 4:4-7

Sermon

King Duncan

... ending, couldn’t it? We’ve seen confrontations in our own land the past few years that have had far different endings. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We could have the gentleness of Christ, a gentleness that transforms anger to laughter, hatred to love. That’s the kind of gentleness Paul is urging us to adopt in our own lives. Then he writes, “Do not be anxious about anything but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” No wonder Paul ...

962. The Challenge to Forgive

Luke 7:36--8:3

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... goodness shining through the all-too-real badness of prodigals and prostitutes. Dr. John Shea states it profoundly when he says, "forgiveness is not magnanimously forgetting faults but the uncovering of self-worth when it is crusted over with self-hatred." Shea adds, "The graciousness of God focuses exclusively on the fact that although nobody deserves it, everyone gets it." Even our enemies. Or to say it again in Shea's words, "forgiveness reclaims the essential worth of the person" (The Challenge ...

963. What Did Jesus Do?

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

Sermon

King Duncan

... cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” There will come a time when this world will be reconciled unto God. Though it is fragmented at present, there will come a time when it will be healed and made whole. Though it is filled with hatred and strife, it will one day be a world of peace and goodwill. That is Christ’s promise to us this night. What would Jesus do? He would continue to invest in his church. He would continue reconciling the world unto himself. He would continue to lay down ...

964. Blinding Anger

Illustration

Michael P. Green

Alexander the Great was one of the few men in history who seemed to deserve his descriptive title. He was energetic, versatile, and intelligent. Although hatred was not generally part of his nature, several times in his life he was tragically defeated by anger. The story is told of one of these occasions, when a dear friend of Alexander, a general in his army, became intoxicated and began to ridicule the emperor in front of his ...

965. The Devil's Most Useful Tool

Illustration

Michael P. Green

The devil decided to have a garage sale. On the day of sale, his tools were placed for public inspection, each being marked with its sale price. There were a treacherous lot of implements: hatred, envy, jealousy, deceit, lust, lying, pride, and so on. Set apart from the rest was a harmless-looking tool. It was quite worn and yet priced very high. “What is the name of this tool?” asked one of the customers, pointing to it. “That is discouragement,” Satan replied. “Why have ...

966. Make Me An Instrument

Illustration

Staff

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace; Where there is hatred, let me sow love; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; and Where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much Seek to be consoled, as to console; To be understood as to understand; To be ...

967. Could It Happen Again Here?

Illustration

Michael P. Green

... his ceaseless pursuit of Nazi war criminals, he often speaks to college audiences about his activities. “Could it happen again, even in the United States?” Wiesenthal is asked by American college audiences. His reply is, “Yes. All you need is a government program of hatred and a crisis. If it happened in a civilized nation like Germany, which was a cultural superpower, it can happen anywhere. When I was a young man in the 1920s, our answer to Hitler was to laugh and make jokes. How could a man with ...

968. The Apostles Persecuted

Acts 5:17-42

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... on the resurrection. Their jealousy (Gk. zēlos) was an outbreak of partisanship (a common meaning of the word) against those of a contrary view. Undoubtedly, the spread of teaching related to the resurrection of Jesus was the underlying cause of their hatred, mingled still with their dread of any movement that was likely to disturb the delicate balance of society and therefore their own position of power within it. The context, however, implies that the apostles were arrested because of the miracles. If ...

969. Paul the Roman Citizen

Acts 22:22-29

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... times in John and four times in the Johannine passion narrative of the cries of the Jewish people against Jesus (John 18:40; 19:6, 12, 15). Their rage against Paul is historically credible. In the years between A.D. 56 and 66 the intensity of Jewish hatred against all things foreign was white-hot. 22:24 Meanwhile, the Roman commander could make little sense of what was happening. He may not have understood the language of Paul’s speech, or if he did, why it should have produced such a reaction. He decided ...

970. Before the Sanhedrin

Acts 22:30--23:11

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... to be confused with the Annas of 4:6, but the son of Nebedeus, appointed to this office by Herod Agrippa II in A.D. 47 and dismissed in A.D. 58 or 59. His Roman sympathies kept him in office longer than most but made him an object of hatred to the Jewish nationalists. At the outbreak of the Jewish war against Rome in A.D. 66, he was murdered by the sicarii. By all accounts Ananias was a violent and unscrupulous man (he had not hesitated to use the sicarii himself; see Josephus, Antiquities 20.204–207; War ...

971. Unity in the Body of Christ

Ephesians 4:1-16

Understanding Series

Arthur G. Patzia

... be …) when the body of Christ has attained its goal of unity and maturity in Christ. 4:15 From the negative, the apostle returns to the positive direction that the church is to take. A divided church is characterized by rivalry, suspicion, hatred, pride, selfishness, lack of direction, and so forth (cf. Phil. 2:2–4). Instead, he pleads that the church should be characterized by the qualities of truth and love (speaking the truth in love). Literally, the phrase should be translated “truthing in love ...

972. Living as Children of Light

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Understanding Series

Arthur G. Patzia

... is restricted by a series of negative admonitions: In your anger do not sin. Believers must learn to keep their anger in check. If one is legitimately angry (righteous indignation?), caution must be taken that it does not become the cause for such sins as pride, hatred, or self-righteousness. All anger is to be dealt with before the day is out. The translation do not let the sun go down while you are still angry suggests that there is no justification for carrying anger over into the next day; that surely ...

973. Rules for Holy Living

Colossians 3:1-17

Understanding Series

Arthur G. Patzia

... unity (lit., “the bond of perfectness”). The idea here is similar to Ephesians 4:2–3 and 15–16, where love is the manifestation of new life in Christ and what leads to maturity and unity in his body. Such love removes all feelings of anger, hatred, or an unforgiving spirit (cf. Rom. 13:8–10; Gal. 5:14). 3:15 The peace of Christ has a twofold application. Since it comes from him, it provides an inner peace for each believer; it is to rule (lit., brabyein means “to arbitrate,” “to control ...

974. The Christian and the World

James 4:1-12

Understanding Series

Peter H. Davids

... to enjoy her lover (Isa. 1:21; Jer. 3; Hos. 1–3). James, in applying this image to the church, accuses it of serving some “idol” as well as the Lord. The “idol” is easily found: It is the world. Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. The people should have recognized the fact, for the don’t you know shows that this teaching is not new. As in 1 John 2:15–17, the world stands for human culture ...

975. Haman's Plot to Destroy the Jews

Esther 3:1-15

Understanding Series

Timothy S. Laniak

... laws are different from all other people’s and the laws of the king they do not do.” Israel’s distinct laws (intended to attract the world’s admiration, according to Deut. 4:5–8) were in the Diaspora the basis of mistrust and hatred (so also in Dan. 6:5). The two verbs Haman uses to refer to the Jews emphasize the nature of the threat they supposedly present. Although they are “one” (?ekhad), they are “dispersed” (pzr), that is, they are not a clear, physically visible constituency. They ...

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