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 1101 to 1125 of 2173 results

1101. Grace in the Midst of Unanswered Prayer

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Sermon

Glenn McDonald

No one ever really prepares you for your first theological bull session. Usually it arrives without fanfare or advance warning. Usually it happens long before you enter the relative clear-headedness of your adult years, or before you take that philosophy course in college. Usually it happens when you're a junior high school student, up late with friends at a sleepover, or camping out in somebody's backyard. There's just something about a smoky fire and charred food and stars out overhead that turns twelve- ...

1102. Lethal Weapon

James 3:1-12

Sermon

Harold Warlick

A popular series of movies has been the Lethal Weapon series. You might remember that in the series Mel Gibson plays a semi-unbalanced police officer named Riggs. Riggs is a capable detective but occasionally he goes berserk and mentally flips out. He's called a lethal weapon because you never know when he's going to go off. Each of us has the potential to become a "lethal weapon." We possess within ourselves a weapon against which there is little insurance others can take out. This weapon enables us to ...

1103. Joy to the World

Isaiah 61:1-11

Sermon

Curtis Lewis

Open the hymnals. Pull out the stops on the organ, for we are going to sing a song. What song shall we sing? We could sing Martin Luther's hymn of the Reformation, "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." Maybe a hymn by Charles Wesley, such as "And Can It Be," would express how we feel about our Christian faith. We might want to consider something on a little more feeling level like Joseph M. Scriven's "What A Friend We Have In Jesus," or Fanny J. Crosby's "To God Be The Glory." No, let's not sing any of these. ...

1104. The Way Up Is the Way Down

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

Potato chips, cheese curls, and candy may be some of your favorites, but for twenty-four mule deer in the Grand Canyon National Park, these indulgences proved deadly. Park rangers were forced to shoot more than two dozen mule deer who became hooked on junk food left by visitors. It was death by Cheetos and suicide by Snicker bar! Why eat twigs or chew bark if a Twinkie is nearby? Once deer taste the sugar and salt of snack foods, they develop an addiction and will go to any lengths to eat only junk food. ...

1105. More Than We Are - Graduation

Philippians 4:2-9

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

Do any of you remember the name Cabeza DeVaca? He was a sixteenth century Spanish Explorer. He and one other person were the only survivors of a shipwreck in the Gulf of Mexico. They were washed up on the Florida Coast. In his account of his exploration of Florida and his Westford journey between the years of 1528— 1536. DeVaca tells how the Indians came to him and his companion asking them to cure the sick. The two white men were themselves half starved, lost and filled with blank despair, but the Indians ...

1106. Personal Politics

Matthew 18:15-20

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

Thomas Browne said that "the vices we scoff at in others laugh at us from within ourselves." More than any other relational failure this is true of hurt and vengeance. When the great nineteenth-century Spanish General, Ramon Narvaez, lay dying in Madrid, a priest was called in to give him last rites. "Have you forgiven your enemies?" the padre asked. "Father," confessed Narvaez, "I have no enemies. I shot them all." Too often that is the story of our lives, and Jesus knows it. Lewis Smedes wrote a book we ...

1107. The Place beyond Revenge

Esther 7:1-6, 9-10, 9:20-22

Sermon

Donna Schaper

A custom is begun! Because of the vengeance that the king took against Haman for Esther, the Jews are to remember their salvation. On the fourteenth and fifteenth day of the month they are to send gifts of food to one another and presents to the poor. Oh, God, help me to understand violence! Help me to understand vengeance. I am pretty good at the other sins, like lust and greed, pride and gossip, but violence I just don't understand. I also don't really understand the tribalism that is beyond it. Is that ...

1108. Blind Ambition

Mark 10:35-45

Sermon

King Duncan

It’s been more than twenty years, but I suspect most of us remember the case of the “Texas-Cheerleader-Murdering-Mom.” Wanda Webb Holloway of Channelview, Texas wanted her daughter Shanna, 13 at the time, to be picked for the high school cheerleading squad. Her rival for this honor was a girl named Amber Heath. Wanda Webb Holloway was the organist at the local Baptist church. She was a respected member of the community. However, that did not keep her from going to extreme measures to try to get her ...

1109. Obedience: Our Gift to Jesus

Hebrews 10:5-10

Sermon

Richard Gribble

One day a man went to his son's bedroom and found him sitting on his bed with a whole stack of comic books around him. The father said to his son, "Matthew, where did you get the comic books?" Matthew responded, "I took them out of the library." "You took them out of the library? You mean you stole them from the library?" The boy responded, "Yes." The father called the library and said he was going to march his son immediately down with the comic books to apologize and to restore all he had stolen. After ...

1110. Parables of the Kingdom

Mark 4:1-20

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

Big Idea: Jesus has sown his kingdom truths among the crowds, the leaders, and his disciples. They are the soil in which his gospel seed is placed, and God holds them responsible for their receptivity to the message of the kingdom. Understanding the Text This parable discourse (chap. 4) is one of two extensive teaching sections (with chap. 13) in Mark, and it interprets the action and mission of Jesus in chapters 1–3. These are “kingdom parables” describing the implications of the arrival of the kingdom in ...

1111. Deliverance through adversity

Sermon

Willie Soler

INTRODUCTION Throughout biblical history, both Old and New Testament times, adversity has been prevalent in many of the stories that we have come to recognize. Stories that depict the trials and tribulations that God’s chosen people, the Israelites, and the adopted Gentiles, have had to endure. However, since the beginning of time, God’s plan and purposes have always been to provide deliverance in some form or fashion. God’s unconditional love desires that we live free. Today, we can see adversity taking ...

1112. Sowers Of The Seed

Psalm 119:1-176, Romans 8:1-17, Genesis 25:19-34, Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon Aid

William E. Keeney

This parable is titled "The Sower." That puts the emphasis on the person who preaches or teaches the word. Yet the parable does not do much in the way of describing the characteristics of the sower. In this particular instance one would suppose that Jesus implies that he is the sower. If we choose to emphasize this aspect of the parable, then we might concentrate on the question of how the contemporary sower corresponds to Jesus as the one who proclaims the message. We might also call this parable "The ...

1113. Wedding: With Communion

Bulletin Aid

Derl G. Keefer

The Prologue Pastor: Welcome to the wedding of (Groom) and (Bride). They have discovered that the many-faceted dimensions of love include the spiritual dimension. Love's power can transform the world. Many times we find the level of love that is so emotional and social, but there is a loftier dimension. God is in the midst of this kind of love. He is the weaver with the thread of gold. Through marriage we invite the highest spiritual experience in the eternal joy of love. (Bride) and (Groom) desire to ...

1114. Christ the King

Luke 12:1-12

Bulletin Aid

Dennis Koch

Gospel Note This pericope overlaps two sections: vv. 33-38, describing the crucifixion; and vv. 39-43, dealing with the penitent thief. Luke clearly distinguishes between the people who stood watching and the rulers and soldiers who sneered and scoffed, showing the latter as universal symbols representing the enemies of the Gospel. Jesus' universal kingship is revealed by the power of divine love demonstrated to the penitent thief and by his death on the Cross for all. Liturgical Color White Suggested ...

1115. Christmas 2

Luke 1:1-4

Bulletin Aid

Dennis Koch

Gospel Note The light-imagery that begins in v. 4 recurs throughout this Gospel (see 3:19, 9:39, 12:46), and the later references serve as commentary on this theme. Especially important for the evangelist is the Word's discerning or discriminating ability: It distinguishes the evil lovers of darkness from the good lovers of the light, only the latter of whom receive the life that the Light brings. Liturgical Color White Suggested Hymns Of The Father's Love Begotten Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent He Whom ...

1116. God's Reliable Unpredictability

Matthew 24:36-51

Bulletin Aid

Dennis Koch

Gospel Notes This passage comes toward the end of Matthew's version of the "Little Apocalypse" in Mark 13 and, like its source, emphasizes the unpredictability of the expected and desired parousia, and the consequent need for watchfulness and readiness. For Advent, the passage provides an excellent reminder that, despite the reliability of God's promises, God acts in God's own good time, and therefore predictions and pronouncements about when (or, for that matter, how) God may or may not act in the future ...

1117. Proper 27

Matthew 25:1-13

Bulletin Aid

Call to Worship Pastor: God offers the blessing and joy of his kingdom to all who will come to him. People: The invitation is given; but we must prepare ourselves to be ready for his kingdom if we are to be included. Pastor: We make ourselves ready through repentance, expecting the fulfillment of his kingdom. People: We do not know when that will be, but we desire to be ready at all times. Collect O God our heavenly Father, whose kingdom is the hope of all who prepare themselves through penitence and ...

1118. Christ’s Life Messiah

Isaiah 52:13--53:12

Bulletin Aid

Call to Worship Leader: Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. Women: He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like a man from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Men: Surely he took our infirmities and carried our ...

1119. The Christian Life A New Name

Proverbs 10:1-32

Bulletin Aid

Call to Worship Leader: A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed better than silver or gold. Men: Lord, in your eyes a name has great meaning. As Abram grew in faith, he became Abraham - father of many. Women: Sarai became Sarah - princess of a new nation - despite her attempts to work God’s will in her strength. Youth: When Andrew brought his brother Simon to Jesus, Jesus said, "You are Simon, son of John. You will be called Cephas, or Rock." With God’s help he became a rock. Leader ...

1120. The Church Living Stones

1 Peter 2:4-12

Bulletin Aid

Call to Worship Leader: "See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame." Men: Jesus is the cornerstone, rejected by men but chosan by God and precious to him. We who have tested that the Lord is good are living stones being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering ourselves as spiritual sacrifices. Women: We are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, declaring the praises ...

1121. Consecration Our Loses and Our Gains

Psalm 37:1-40

Bulletin Aid

Call to Worship Leader: Delight yourself in the Lord, and he shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way unto the Lord; trust in him and he shall bring it to pass. Congregation: We commit our lives, including our plans, our careers and all our earthly goods which come from his hand. Leader: Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and then all your needs shall be supplied. Congregation: We seek his mercy, his love, the glory of his abiding presence that will never forsake us. Leader: When ...

1122. Designer Religion

Matthew 23:1-39

Sermon

King Duncan

American Humorist Robert Benchley was leaving an elegant tavern one evening. As usual he had a little too much liquid refreshment and was a little tipsy. He found himself face to face with a uniformed man whom he took to be the doorman. “Would you get me a taxi, my good man?” Benchley asked. The uniformed man drew himself up proudly and said, “See here, I happen to be a rear admiral in the United States Navy.” Benchley then drew HIMSELF UP and said belligerently, “Get me a battleship then.” In Benchley’s ...

1123. View From A Height

Isaiah 40:21-31

Bulletin Aid

Frank Ramirez

Call To Worship Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. Collect We have known. We have seen. We will proclaim God's lordship to the ends of the earth. Amen. Prayer Of Confession Lord of the downtrodden, God of creation, Father of humanity, descend we pray, into our midst, and accept our offering of our brokenness, our infirmity, our weakness. Build us up together in your love with ...

1124. Drained To The Dregs

Philippians 2:5-11

Bulletin Aid

Frank Ramirez

Call To Worship At the name of Jesus, let every knee bow. Come, God's people, glorify God! Collect Look at this cup, drained on the altar, a perfect sacrifice. Now the cup is empty. How shall we fill it? Our Lord will fill it, and invites us to drain it again, this time filled with the fruit of the vine. Come, God's people. Let us share this walk together. Amen. Prayer Of Confession This week, Lord, we are tempted to become spectators, to cheer for Jesus as he enters Jerusalem, to listen with wonder to his ...

1125. Try Dry Bones

Ezekiel 37:1-14, Psalm 104:1-35

Bulletin Aid

Frank Ramirez

Call To Worship May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works! (Psalm 104:31) Collect Open the graves of our lost desire. Clothe the bones of our skeletal discipleship. Fill us with your Spirit, so we again become your Pentecostal people. We're shifting our weight uncomfortably, Lord, because we know if we claim this new life we're going to have to get up and get moving. These bones can live! Speak Lord. We will act. Amen. Prayer Of Confession Can these bones live? I believe, ...

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