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 1001 to 1025 of 2415 results

1001. Amazing Grace

Romans 3:21-31

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

Before his conversion, Paul had fought passionately to be perfect, according to the Law, but he had found no peace, and now we hear him saying, "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Romans 3:23-24). Paul ...

1002. On Being Lifted Beyond Ourselves

Romans 8:18-27

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... , yet he was still in desperate struggle. Wesley did not become righteous at Aldersgate. He already was. He did not give himself in total service to Christ at that moment. He had already gone as a missionary to the Indians in Georgia. He did not gain a passion to save souls at Aldersgate. He had had that since Oxford. At Aldersgate, Wesley was ignited, set on fire. No longer was he Wesley’s man, he was God’s man. The assurance that comes from being God’s man was the new dynamic that changed Wesley ...

1003. The Importance of Unity

1 Corinthians 1:10-17

Sermon

Hubert Beck

... heart of their life together? Is it personal interest that feeds on particular emphases they have heard from Apollos or Peter or Paul? (Amazingly enough, some even dared, apparently, to be a "Christ party"!) Or is their full intention, the whole of their passion, given to glorifying Christ? The questions, of course, are rhetorical, self-answering. Christ is not divided, and if you serve him, then how can you permit these divisions to ravage your life together? Keep before you the one center for your life ...

1004. The Strength of Poverty

1 Corinthians 1:18--2:5

Sermon

Hubert Beck

... all things, but it is to place ourselves into bondage to the creation by treasuring the things of this world by laying claim to them as rightfully belonging to us. Then we must defend them. Then we must grasp for them. Then we must seek them with a passion that will eventually consume us. It is here, then, where we decide for or against ownership of things that God owns us or we lay claim to ourselves. A bishop in a church under persecution once spoke of the plight in which he found himself as the leader ...

1005. Binding Up the Fractured World

1 Corinthians 3:1-23

Sermon

Hubert Beck

... of men. For all things are yours; and you are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s." To belong to Christ is to belong to God. And to belong to God is to seek the unity of all that God has created. It is to long for it with a passion. It is to see the fractures of the creation and to "stand on tiptoe" longing for the sight of the coming of the Lord when all things will be restored. It is to pray "Thy kingdom come" with great fervency. It is to live with an urgent desire to bind ...

1006. A Daughter of Jacob

Matthew 15:21-28

Sermon

Richard Hoefler

... in even a stronger manner as he suggests in his sermon: Throw away your picture of Jesus as the idealized man, the man who never spoke a harsh word; the man who was never tempted by any deep-seated hostilities that plague us; never torn by the dark passions that tear us to shreds; the picture of Jesus that shed all his Jewishness when he was a boy ... There is a better picture of Jesus, of a man growing up into the stature of a mature human being; wrapped as everyone is, in the swaddling clothes of ...

1007. A Thinking Person’s Thankful Prayer

Philippians 1:1-11

Sermon

Raymond Gibson

... our thankful prayers of love must become thoughtful deeds of love in our community and world. It means that prayer must be our first act each day, that obedience to the plainly stated commands of Jesus must be our first concern, and that our life’s passion must be to do all we can to make our community a community of love. Only as we understand that Christians are Christians first, and everything else second, can we understand Paul’s thoughts in this prayer of thanksgiving. Only as we put first things ...

1008. Genuine Imitations

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Sermon

Raymond Gibson

... and the Thessalonians had forgiven them! Jesus had said, "By this, all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" - and the Thessalonians did love like that! Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me, All his wonderful passion and purity; O thou Spirit divine, all my nature refine Till the beauty of Jesus my Savior be seen in me. Nineteen long centuries would pass before Albert Osborn would put those words on paper, but the Thessalonians put them into flesh in the first century ...

1009. The Only Fact That Really Matters

1 Corinthians 15:12-34

Sermon

Raymond Gibson

... belie advancing age as do the people of the generations of which you and I are a part. No one pays their morticians more to disguise the actuality of death than do the citizens of twentieth century America. No other creature has such a passion for avoiding the factuality of death as does the human person. There are now several dozen bodies, scattered throughout this nation, which repose in stainless steel capsules of liquid nitrogen, quick-frozen to -320 F, because their owners devoutly hope (at the rate of ...

1010. Leah

Genesis 49:29--50:14

Sermon

Warren Thomas Smith

... Hapless Leah became the unwanted bride. True, Jacob demonstrated remarkable perseverance in serving the additional seven years for Rachel, but consider what those years mean to Leah. Not desired, yet subject to the passing whims of a husband, she underwent hate, estrangement, passion, and fear. "What is this you have done to me?" stormed Jacob at his father-in-law. Jacob might thunder curses at Laban, but his brutal anger fell upon Leah. She had to endure, endure, endure. RETRIBUTION Leah had reason to turn ...

1011. Living Water for a Thirsty Soul

John 4:1-26

Sermon

Brett Blair

... you say that there are four months left unto harvest? I say to you that in Memphis Tennessee the fields are white and black unto harvest. Let our prayer at First church be to the Lord of the Harvest, that He sends us more laborers people who have a passion and urgency to the Kingdom of God, people whose lives are filled with living water. It is interesting to note that in her enthusiasm to tell her story, she lost the shame of her sin. She came to the well in solitude; she returns in congregation. She cam ...

1012. Jesus Replaced Someone At Calvary

Mark 15:1-15

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... way to the Corinthians: “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” Let me try to put atonement in our own words. God loves us immensely, but hates our sin with a passion. God hates our sin as a parent hates the malignant tumor that threatens her child’s life. Because God is just and holy and altogether righteous, He could not ignore sin. Sin is a direct challenge to everything God represents. In this world God built on righteous foundations ...

1013. Converting the Converted

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... . What have you done for me?" This moved him so mightily that he gave his life to Christ and became the fearless and energetic leader of the Moravians. It can be music that will bring you closer to Christ, maybe Handel’s Messiah or Bach’s Passion According to St. Matthew. The reading of a book might do it, too. John Wesley was converted when he listened to the reading of Luther’s Preface to Romans; His brother, Charles, had a similar experience when he read Luther’s Preface to Galatians. These two ...

1014. What Do You Think You’re Worth?

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... was brought up the wrong way. Lack of self-control implies that a person is nothing but good and should not be curbed lest damage be done to the psyche. Could this be a reason for today’s preoccupation with violence? We allow ourselves to express our passion to the hurt of other people. This view of one’s self leads to a false self-sufficiency. Andre Gide advises, "Believe in your strength and your youth. Learn to repeat endlessly to yourself: It all depends on me." This leaves God out of the picture ...

1015. Invitation to a New Life-Style

Matthew 11:25-30

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... been out for money in terms of high wages and large profits. We have said that what makes a man successful and what gives him status is the amount of possessions he has in terms of real estate, stocks, and bonds. There is no doubt that materialism has been the passion of our lives. We have to admit that we have been a tremendous success at it, too. We boast that we are the richest nation in the world, and we are proud of the fact that we have the highest standard of living of any people of all time. We ...

1016. Running With Patience

Hebrews 12:1-13

Sermon

Allan J. Weenink

... here: run with patience. Just exactly how do you do that? When we run a foot race, we don’t want to be hampered by anything. The competitor throws off all restraints and eagerly thrusts forward to the goal, unencumbered except with a burning passion to finish first. Is there any such thing as being able to run with patience? Definitely yes! Using a figure of speech from the races of the first century world, this verse says that life is like a long distance marathon, calling for good conditioning ...

1017. Little Things Affect Little Minds

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... the air: "You are charged with making mountains out of molehills. You have spent your entire life making mountains out of molehills - that’s what you’re guilty of. When things were trivial, you made them tragic. When men and women were affected by small passions. you were pompous and lectured them. "Yes, you were on the earth for eighty years, yet you never got beyond your childhood images of what is significant in life and what is not. You did not even see the potential in what was going on around ...

1018. Cross-Bearing

Matthew 16:21-28

Sermon

Jerry L. Schmalemberger

... deny himself." What Jesus is asking of us is that we put God first in all our considerations, that we remove ourselves from center stage and put God there. We wipe ourselves out as the top priority of life and put God as the ruling principle, the ruling passion of our life. Zinzendorf asked John Wesley, "Do you think it was self-denial for the Lord Jesus to come down from heaven to rescue a world? Was it self-denial? No, it was love - love that swallows up everything, and first of all self." During Lent, we ...

1019. The Embalmed Come Alive

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... that Upper Room, frightened, isolated. And then a strange power began to move through them. They sensed that they were no longer just a disorganized bunch of individuals, but that they were a fellowship, bound together by a common experience and by a passion to share that experience with everyone else in the world. As this new power laid its hold upon them, they realized that it was not their own contriving, but of God himself. Remember how a cowardly, braggart, blowmouth, denying weakling named Peter burst ...

1020. Salvation as Personal Experience

Romans 9:30--10:21

Sermon Aid

T. A. Kantonen

... crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. "We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin" (Romans 6:6). "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires" (Galatians 5:24). "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). By the cross of Christ "the world has been crucified to me and I to the world" (Galatians 6:14). "But ...

1021. What Are Christian Liberals? - 1951

John 16:5-16

Sermon

Kent Moorehead

... the liberal stands resolutely by his principles and expediency is the wickedest of immoralities to him. Finally, not only is principle his guiding force, but he has a profound respect for and belief in the importance of the individual human being. This is his passion. His major thesis is that nothing is so important as persons. He is profoundly concerned with the betterment of man. So it was liberals who have fought to bring real progress; the abolition of the slave trade, the enfranchisement of women, the ...

1022. EPISODE 2: THE SECOND WEEK IN LENT

Drama

Robert Clausen

... devil! To speak that way to me, Peter, is to become my worst enemy. You’re thinking only of what you want, not of what God wants. PETER: What does God want of us? What does he want? JESUS: He wants you to deny yourself ... every thought, every action, every passion that is rooted only in yourself ... and to follow me. PETER: It’s hard, Lord. JESUS: It’s very hard. But I’ll show you the way. MARY MAGDALENE: But, Lord ... you don’t have to die? JESUS: I’ll die, but on the third day I’ll rise ...

1023. The Art of Living Until

Matthew 24:36-51

Sermon

Leonard Mann

... wanes, eyesight fails, footsteps falter, breath shortens, the heart flutters, familiar objects grow dim and seem to float away and away - and the river overflows. One by one the great importances of other days have dwindled into insignificance. Only one consideration is left, one passionate hope: to hear One who said this long ago say it again, "Today you shall be with me in Paradise." You see, when Jesus said, "Be ready," he fully understood what life is like and how the course of life runs. Life is a ...

1024. A Faith for the Uncharted Way

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Leonard Mann

... human scene - spaces that may be geographical or spiritual or moral or intellectual. And we are called to move on out, and go. Do you remember the story of Robert Moffatt, the British missionary who first explored the inner dark of Africa? Fired with a passion to get the Christian gospel into that continent, Moffatt returned to England and said, "I have stood on a mountain top in Africa and have seen the smoke of a thousand villages where no white man has ever been." David Livingstone heard Moffatt say that ...

1025. A Courtroom Confrontation

Matthew 27:11-26

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

Our scripture lesson for today describes a classic courtroom confrontation. On this Passion Sunday it is altogether appropriate that we consider it. Courtrooms are often places of high drama and suspense. Judge Ito's courtroom in Los Angeles has dominated America's attention since January. Enormous power is wielded in courtrooms, power to levy large fines, power to decide between freedom and prison, ...

Showing results