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 1051 to 1075 of 3108 results

1051. Bearing the Cross

Mark 8:31--9:1

Sermon

King Duncan

I want to pose a situation for you. It is a situation that the esteemed writer Frederick Buechner had to confront. He writes about it in his book, The Sacred Journey. Ask yourself how you would have handled the same situation. Buechner had been looking forward to an evening with his mother. They didn’t get to see each other as much as they wanted, so when she invited him over for a nice meal, he gladly accepted. As he and his mother sat down to eat, he received an urgent call. A colleague needed Buechner’s ...

1052. The Family: A Place For Persons

Colossians 3:18-4:1

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Listen to this newspaper advertisement: Shrimp lovers platter with champagne and dessert -- $10.75 -- now until February 17. Come to Red Lobster from now to February 17, and along with our other specials, we'll woo you with our very special "Shrimp Lovers' Platter". Start off with an Alaskan Shrimp cocktail; after that, enjoy a delicious combination of fried shrimp and stuffed shrimp. Then get a valentine: Your choice of a glass of champagne or soft drink and a dessert. All for only $10.75. But hurry! You ...

1053. The Ministry Of Making Many Rich

1 Timothy 6:11-21

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

One of the most effective and colorful congressmen to ever go to Washington was a crusty old gentlemen from Texas named Sam Rayburn. He served Congress for over 50 years — during the last ten of those years, he was Speaker of the House. But the real greatness of Sam Rayburn was not in the public positions he held. It was in his common touch. One day he heard that the teenage daughter of a Washington reporter had died. Early the next morning he went over to the reporter’s house and knocked on the door. “I ...

1054. Discipline

Hebrews 12:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

A young man decided he wanted to be a boxer. He decided to take private lessons. He found a boxing coach at a nearby gym who agreed to give him twenty-six weekly sessions. As part of his instruction, the young man was required to spar with other aspiring pugilists at the gym. After the first session, he was sore and swollen. He didn’t realize that it would be this difficult. The battered youth had some questions for his coach. “You say there are twenty-six lessons in this course?” “That’s right,” answered ...

1055. Get Lost

Mark 8:31-38

Sermon

Mark Trotter

The old Hollywood westerns always followed a formula. The plots were always the same. There were good guys and bad guys. Every town had a saloon. Every saloon had swinging doors on it. And every swinging door had someone, at some point in the movie, come flying out of it. Every western had a hero with a sidekick, and a villain with a black hat. There was a beleaguered sheriff, a damsel in distress, and at the end, a gunfight. That was the plot of every western. The dialogue in westerns also followed a ...

1056. Stirred, Not Shaken

Hebrews 13:1-25

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

On the morning the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley, died, a good-sized earthquake hit Hawaii. I know because a group of college students from Linfield College was there (Elizabeth Rennie was one of them), doing a summer studies program at the University of Hawaii. How appropriate it seemed to this group of teenagers to have the whole world around them shake, rattle, and roll as the news of Elvis' death came over the airwaves. Even as he left this world there was a whole lot of shaking going on. ...

1057. Show and Listen

Acts 8:26-40

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Nothing brings out bad manner and bad language like a phone call from a telemarketer. Can I get an Amen? The moment you say hello, and are greeted first with that brief static-buzz on the line and then with an overly-cheery voice chummily asking for you by (mispronounced) name, you can feel your blood pressure rising. Is it just me, or is it your experience as well that these calls come on the busiest days, at the busiest times? Dinner is cooking, kids are fighting, the door bell is ringing . . . and this ...

1058. The Lost and Found Coin

Luke 15:8-10

Sermon

James W. Moore

A few weeks ago (February 4, 2005) one of the major TV news networks (ABC Nightline) presented a powerful and amazing true story about the redemption of a notorious drug addict who had been lost… and then found. The program was entitled, The Doctor and the Reverend. The Doctor was an African-American man who was well-known and much feared in one of the roughest and toughest sections in the United States… the Badlands of Philadelphia… a run-down inner-city neighborhood infested with drug addicts of all ages ...

1059. The Lost and Found Coin

Luke 15:8-10

Sermon

James W. Moore

1060. Those Romans 7 Moments

Romans 7:7-25

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

We are a “celebrity culture,” fixated and fascinated by the rich and famous because everything they do seems so much larger than life. They are over the top gorgeous. (Angelina Jolie/Brad Pitt, anyone?) They are outrageously rich. (Julie Roberts gets $20 million per movie). They are hysterically funny (one of my favorite comedians, Bill Murray, has a sister who is a Sister: Nancy Murray, a member of the Adrian Dominican Sisters, a flourishing Congregation of the Order of Preachers, which has a motherhouse ...

1061. The Ministry of the Holy Spirit

John 16:7-11

Sermon

James Merritt

I heard about a pastor who left the pastorate after twenty years, and decided to become a funeral director. Somebody asked him, "Why did you do that?" He said, "Well, I spent about twelve years trying to straighten out John. He never did get straightened out. I spent fourteen months trying to straighten out the marriage of the Smiths, and it never did get straightened out. I spent three years trying to straighten out Susan, and she never did get straightened out. Now when I straighten them out, they stay ...

1062. Pulling Weeds

Matthew 13:24-30

Sermon

King Duncan

Last week we talked about planting seeds. This week we’re talking about pulling weeds. The two go together. Every gardener knows that planting seeds is the easy part of having a successful garden. It is much more time consuming to weed that same garden. And it’s hard work. As someone has said: “When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant.” There is a corollary to that truth: “To ...

1063. Wake Well, Wake Welcome

Romans 13:8-14

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

Anyone here this morning NOT ever had the experience of “getting up on the wrong side of the bed”? So, we have no superior beings here this morning. Good, I can feel right at home. But there is something even worse than “getting up on the wrong side of the bed.” It’s eating breakfast across from someone who “got up on the wrong side of the bed.” Nothing starts the day off on a more sour note than a crabby crash encounter with a wrong-side-of-bed person while you are both still in your pajamas. These days ...

1064. Pray, Baby, Pray

Philippians 2:1-11

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

I see we’re all here this morning, in spite of a lot of warnings that we wouldn’t be. Or are we only here in some parallel universe? Pinch or touch your neighbor to see if they’re really here. Okay. We’re all here. On 08 September 2008 the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was finally turned on, and we weren’t turned off. What is the Large Hadron Collider? It’s the largest machine ever built, a seventeen mile long circular tunnel designed to smash together protons in a re-enactment of the Big Bang. How’d it do? ...

1065. The Resolution to End All Resolutions

Luke 2:41-52

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

The ultimate resolution a Christian can make is to live in the light of divine intentions, not human inventions. Did anyone come down to breakfast this morning and announce "I'm so hungry, I feel as if I haven't eaten since last year!"? It's fun to play with all the brand-new possibilities open to you on January 1. Go jogging this morning, and you've exercised every day this year. Get through lunch without eating potato chips or a candy bar, and this year reflects a whole new healthy and perfectly-kept ...

1066. One Year to Live

Jeremiah 28:10-17

Sermon

James Merritt

Years ago on the front page of the human interest section of a Los Angeles newspaper was the picture of a lady named Mrs. Agnes Human. The picture was framed with a heavy black border and over her picture in large black ominous letters were the words, "One Year To Live." Underneath was the explanation: "Mrs. Agnes Human, 30, of Chicago, has only one year to live. Doomed as a result of atomic poisoning contracted in work at the Oakridge, Tennessee Nuclear Plant, she is pondering the fate of her four ...

1067. Only the Lost and the Least

Luke 15:1-10

Sermon

Ron Lavin

A woman approached her pastor with a question: "Where is the lost and found department in our church? I've lost my glasses and I just can't see well." The pastor replied, "We don't actually have a lost and found department. You might check the secretary's desk. Maybe you'll find your glasses there." After the woman left, the pastor rethought his answer. "Actually, the whole church is a lost and found department. The business of the church is to find the lost." The incident that gave rise to Jesus' parables ...

1068. A Puzzling Parable with a Sharp Point

Luke 16:1-13

Sermon

Ron Lavin

A young boy used to describe foods like spinach by saying, "I hate it." His wise mother responded, "Don't say you hate it. Just say, ‘I'm not very fond of it.' " She also taught her son that when he really liked some food to say, "I'm really fond of this." The boy said, he was "really fond" of cookies, candy, and cake. His mother told him, "Too many cookies, too much candy, and cake can be bad for you. You can be very fond of the wrong things." Something like that is going on underneath the story of the ...

1069. The Freedom to Interpret

John 8:31-36

Sermon

John Wayne Clarke

Reformation Sunday is one of those unique times in the church year when we take a moment to remember a movement that changed the religious landscape forever. It is within this landscape that we find John and his gospel message this day. How does this story of Jesus and Abraham relate to Reformation Sunday? First of all, it is important to see that Jesus' followers would be encouraged by this passage because it places them in the position of seeing that Jesus had faced what they were facing; some members of ...

1070. Have We Been "Slicked"?

Jeremiah 2:4-13

Sermon

Lee Ann Dunlap

In many small towns across America the annual Volunteer Fireman's Fair is the social event of the year, or at least it used to be. In days gone by, a typical carnival might have the usual carousel or Ferris Wheel, sometimes pony rides, and always there were the games of chance. (Today we might frown upon these as "gambling" — but back then it was just small-town fun for a good cause.) Bingo was usually preferred by the adults; but the youngsters had other ideas. For a boy named David in Freeport, Ohio, the ...

1071. Saturday: The Week Of The Cross: Lazarus, Come Forth

John 11:1-7, 17-44

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

There was a guy riding in a cab one day. He was new to the city and was looking for a good place to eat, so he leaned forward, tapped the cabby on the shoulder and said, "Hey, Buddy." The driver let out a blood curdling scream and lost control of the cab. He nearly hit a bus, jumped the curb and stopped just inches from going through a huge plate-glass window and into a crowded restaurant. For a few minutes, there was dead silence in the cab. All you could hear was two hearts beating like bass drums ...

1072. We Serve a Risen [and Rising] Savior

Luke 24:1-12

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

This year the International Air Guitar Championships were held in Denmark. Contestants “played” before huge crowds, screaming devoted fans, and enjoyed World Wide Web exposure. The Air Guitar games are dedicated to world peace. According to the ideology of the Air Guitar Championships, wars would end and all bad things in the world would disappear if all the people in the world played air guitar. [At this point, you might consider arranging for one of your kids to come to the front and show the ...

1073. The Fellowship of Kindred Minds

Philippians 1:1-11

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

A cartoon, in a Saturday Evening Review, features a young boy sitting under a tree taking inventory of his relationships. “So far, I have 14 people who love me, 22 people who like me, six people who tolerate me, and I have only three enemies. I’d say that’s not bad for a little kid.” When it comes to relationships, how are you doing? We are made for community; we will never be satisfied to be self-reliant. We need one another. The friendships in the fellowship of the first century Church were so focused ...

1074. The Gentle Healer

John 9:1-11

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

The Gentle Healer came into our town today. He touched blind eyes and the darkness left to stay. More than the blindness, He took their sins away. The Gentle Healer came into our town today. The Gentle Healer of which Michael Card speaks is the Jesus I want to know. The 9th Chapter of John is a kind of showdown for Jesus. He heals a blind man and encounters the wrath of the powers that be. Come, let's listen in on this drama involving the disciples, an unnamed blind man, Jesus, the community, the parents, ...

1075. By Belonging

1 Peter 2:2-10

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

When I was out three years ago trying to raise eleven million dollars for building expansion and renovations, a member of this congregation gave me a brick. She didn't throw it at me even though she might have felt like it. She discreetly handed it to me after a meeting saying, "As we forge into the future let us not forget the past." You see, the brick came out of our old building on Church Street and she had kept it all of these years. I don't plan to keep it. I plan to put it in the archives being ...

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