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 1201 to 1225 of 1259 results

1201. Breaking News: A World Gone Wild

Romans 8:18-27

Sermon

James Merritt

The media called 2010 “The Year The Earth Struck Back.” Take your pick–tsunamis, typhoons, and tornados. What is called “Natural Disasters” killed a quarter of a million people in that 12 month period. More people were killed world-wide by natural disasters in 2010 than were killed in terrorism attacks in the past 40 years combined.[1] When it comes to Breaking News you can always count every year on some natural disaster interrupting your regularly scheduled programming. Let’s just take four of them and ...

1202. All In: Calling Your Bluff

Romans 12:1-8

Sermon

James Merritt

Financial advisors will tell you that the wisest way to invest money is to be diversified. As the old saying goes, “don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.” Yet when it comes to the most important investment you will ever make which is your life—God’s strategy is just the opposite. The strategy is not diversification but concentration—taking all of your life and giving it completely to Jesus Christ. We are in a series called “All In.” Our theme verse is Luke 9:23, “And he said to all, ‘If anyone would ...

1203. Faith’s First Impressions

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

You only get one chance to make a first impression. First impressions form lasting images. The first words and first actions we present to another person resound and resonate throughout the duration of that relationship. It is not that we are intentionally standoffish and skittish when presented with a new face. It is more about the unconscious gurgling up of the instinctual “fight-flight-freeze-fawn” response all of us possess. Whether we experience a “first impression” as engaging or annoying, easy-going ...

1204. Poem: Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard

Eulogy

Thomas Gray

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds; Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary ...

1205. Poem: Epitaph On A Friend

Eulogy

Robbie Burns

An honest man here lies at rest, The friend of man, the friend of truth, The friend of age, the guide of youth; Few hearts like his, with virtue warm’d, Few heads with knowledge so inform’d; If there’s another world, he lives in bliss; If there is none, he made the best of this.

1206. The Word Became Flesh

John 1:1-18

Sermon

King Duncan

There is a reading by J. B. Phillips called The Visited Planet. It’s about a junior angel who is being given a tour of the universe by a senior angel. After touring all the galaxies of the universe, they come at last to our solar system. The junior angel is tired and bored and not very impressed by what he sees. The senior angel points to the earth and says, “Keep an eye on that planet.” The younger angel thinks the earth looks small and dirty and insignificant. “That is the Visited Planet,” say the senior ...

1207. Miracle of Jairus’ Daughter

Mark 5:21-43

Illustration

Michael P. Green

Ray Stedman has told the story of a time when he and his wife were driving through Oregon with his little daughter, Susan. She had developed a fever the night before, when they were staying in a motel, but it didn’t seem serious. As they drove along, all of a sudden the little girl went into convulsions. Her eyes turned up, her body began to jerk, and she obviously was in great danger. Stedman’s heart clutched. He stopped the car, grabbed Susan, and stumbled across the road to a farmhouse that happened to ...

1208. Priscilla, Aquila, and Apollos

Acts 18:18-28

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

The end of the “second” and the start of the “third missionary journey” are narrated here with almost breathless haste, as though Luke were anxious to have Paul start on his work at Ephesus. The brevity of the narrative leaves us guessing at a number of points as to where and why he went, but for the most part we can plot his course with reasonable confidence and make good sense of all that he did. Because of the broad similarity between this journey and that in 20:3–21:26—the common elements being a ...

1209. Final Greetings

1 Peter 5:12-14

Understanding Series

Norman Hillyer

And Now, Farewell! 5:12 It was common practice at the time this letter was written for the real author to take over the pen of the amanuensis and add the final words of personal greeting (Gal. 6:11). This may have happened here. Peter says he has written his letter with the help of Silas, an expression that, according to examples in Greek literature, can have several interpretations. Literally, the Greek is simply “through Silas.” That can mean that Silas was the bearer of the letter, or that he was the ...

1210. Jethro Visits Moses

Exodus 18:1-27

Understanding Series

James K. Bruckner

Jethro, the non-Israelite, met Moses and the Israelites in peace. The first half of Exodus 18 describes the circumstances of Moses’ reunion with his father-in-law Jethro, his wife Zipporah, and his sons. The conversation and action, however, focus on Jethro. Moses’ witness to the Lord’s deliverance is followed by a description of Jethro’s belief and celebration meal with the elders of Israel. The second half of Exodus 18 describes Jethro’s detailed advice to Moses concerning his legal administration. ...

1211. How the Gold Has Lost Its Luster

Lamentations 4:1-22

One Volume

Tremper Longman III

The Luster Has Faded for the People of God: The fourth poem of the book is also an acrostic, but of a different structure than the previous three chapters. Each verse starts with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and in this way is similar to chapters 1 and 2. But a simple comparison of the verses in English or Hebrew shows that the verse-stanzas thus formed are much shorter (comprising two rather than three bicola per verse). Thus, this chapter is about a third shorter than chapters 1 and 2 and ...

1212. Witnesses Summoned Against Israel

Amos 3:1-15

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Achtemeier

Summarizing Oracles (3:1-12): By including both Israel and Judah in the series of oracles against the foreign nations in 1:3–2:16, Amos has shown that the people of God have joined with the rest of the nations in a common rebellion against the lordship of Yahweh, thereby profaning God’s holy name. The prophet will then in 3:13–4:13 spell out the specific indictment against Israel. But before he does so, as Amos’s book is now arranged, he must first include some summarizing statements, in 3:1–12, that lay ...

1213. Driving Out the Nations

Deuteronomy 7:1-26

Understanding Series

Christopher J. H. Wright

Israel’s Election and Its Implications: Like several of these opening chapters of Deuteronomy, chapter seven displays a careful stylistic structure, a concentric arrangement of several layers. It begins and ends with the destruction of the Canaanites and their idols (vv. 1–6, 20–26). The reason for that destruction lies in Israel’s distinctive identity and relationship to God, succinctly expressed in verse 6 and spelled out in more colorful detail in verses 13–15 and 17–24, with verse 16 summarizing the “ ...

1214. Peter Denies Jesus

Mark 14:66-72

Teach the Text

Grant R. Osborne

Big Idea: This is the second terrible contrast during Jesus’s trial: the horror of Peter thinking only of himself and denying Jesus with greater intensity on each of three occasions, versus Jesus, who suffers and dies for Peter as his redeeming Lord. Understanding the Text As seen throughout the Passion Narrative, Jesus is in complete, sovereign control of the awful events taking place. The leaders of his people have not only rejected him but also have placed him on trial for his life, declared him guilty ...

1215. Two Memorable Healings

Luke 5:17-26, Luke 5:12-16

Teach the Text

R.T. France

Big Idea: Jesus brings not only physical healing and social restoration but also spiritual liberation by the forgiveness of sins. Understanding the Text These two episodes develop Luke’s portrait of Jesus the healer, a theme that was alluded to in 4:23 and spelled out in 4:40, and that will remain a prominent feature of his ministry throughout the time in Galilee and on the road to Jerusalem. In 4:40 we learned of Jesus’s ability to heal “various kinds of sickness,” and here that bald statement is filled ...

1216. A Blind Beggar and a Rich Scoundrel

Luke 19:1-10, Luke 18:35-43

Teach the Text

R.T. France

Big Idea: Two incidents at Jericho demonstrate Jesus’s mission to save the lost, whatever their place in society, whether oppressed or oppressor. Understanding the Text The journey that began in 9:51 is near its end, as Jesus and his disciples cross the Jordan and enter Jericho before the final climb up to Jerusalem. Two events in Jericho illustrate again the deep social divisions that came to our attention in 18:14–30, and the issue of the salvation of the rich (18:18–27) is explored further in the story ...

1217. At the Tomb

Luke 24:1-12, Luke 23:50-56

Teach the Text

R.T. France

Big Idea: Jesus is given a respectful burial, but two days later the tomb is empty, and angels say that Jesus is alive. Understanding the Text This is the point at which the whole story turns around. The apparently inexorable process of Jesus’s arrest, trial, and execution has now run its course, but that is not to be the end. Earlier in the Gospel we heard Jesus’s predictions of resurrection “on the third day” (9:22; 18:33), but these seem to have barely registered with the disciples, who are taken by ...

1218. What Can I Get By With?

Luke 17:5-10

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

A son at college was seeking to apply pressure for more money from his dad. In a letter home he wrote: “I can’t understand why you call yourself a loving father when you haven’t sent me a check for three weeks. What kind of love do you call that?” The father wrote back, “That’s unremitting love!” [1] We smile at that. Some of us may even chuckle, though not out loud, because we have all been there. But who has ever really defined love that way? Unremitting. We usually think of it in completely opposite ...

1219. The God Who Comforts

Isaiah 40:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

A story came across my desk recently about a man who worked for the Post Office. This man’s job was to process all the mail that had illegible addresses. One day, a letter came to his desk addressed in shaky handwriting to God. He thought he should open it to see what it was about. He opened it and read these words: Dear God, I am a 93-year-old widow, living on a very small pension. Yesterday someone stole my purse. It had $100 in it, which was all the money I had until my next pension check. Next Sunday ...

1220. Chaos and Solitude

Mark 6:30-44, 53-56

Sermon

Ron Lavin

Everywhere Jesus went, people flocked to him. They wanted what he was offering. They wanted inspiration. They wanted healing. They wanted God. Mark's gospel tells us that "so many people were coming and going they (Jesus and the apostles) did not even have a chance to eat" (Mark 6:31). That coming and going provided a chaotic atmosphere for Jesus' ministry. That chaos meant that even before Jesus got to a town, the mass of admirers and hangers-on rushed ahead of him and waited for his arrival (Mark 6:33). ...

1221. Easter Crown

Illustration

Editor James S. Hewett

Crowns have always been the sign of authority and Kingship. Charlemagne, whom historians say should deserve to be called "great" above all others, wore an octagonal crown. Each of the eight sides was a plaque of gold, and each plaque was studded with emeralds, sapphires, and pearls. The cost was the price of a king's ransom. Richard the Lion Heart had a crown so heavy that two earls had to stand, one on either side, to hold his head. The crown that Queen Elizabeth wears is worth over $20 million. Edward II ...

1222. Special Sale Price

Illustration

Editor James S. Hewett

One afternoon three children, two boys and a girl, entered a flower shop. They were about nine or ten years old, raggedly dressed, but at this moment well-scrubbed. One of the boys took off his cap and gazed around the store somewhat doubtfully, then came up to the person who owned the store and said, "Sir, we'd like something in yellow flowers." There was something in their tense nervous manner that made the man think that this was a very special occasion. He showed them some in expensive yellow spring ...

1223. A Mystery

John 16:12-15

Sermon

Robert C. Cochran

Of all the theologians I read regularly, I think the religious writer who most consistently delights me is Peter Marty, son of long-time Lutheran writer Martin Marty. Like his father before him, Peter appears in The Lutheran magazine every month. For me, his article is usually the highlight of the magazine. One month, Pastor Marty spoke of prayer as a conversation with God, not as much a chance to get to know God as it is a chance to enjoy God. In prayer we celebrate our relationship with God while ...

1224. Surprised by Joy

Luke 2:8-14

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

The carol shouts “Joy to the world, the Lord is come!” In another the musicians are instructed to “play the oboe and bagpipes merrily.” In the little town of Bethlehem “we hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell.” The songs of Christmas are filled with “Hark!” and “Gloria!” and “Hallelujah!” The angels tell the shepherds to be not afraid because they are bringing “good news of great joy.” The Advent/Christmas season is one filled to overflowing with Joy. No wonder the secular world embraces ...

1225. Same Ol’, Same Ol’

Matthew 2:13-18

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

Herod I or Herod the Great was born in 73 BCE, the son of Antipater the Idumaean, a high ranking court official. Through a series of intrigues and coups more complex than we have time to unravel, here, he was declared King of Judea by the Roman Senate in 37 BCE. He would rule as “King of the Jews” for about thirty years until his death in 4 BCE. Historically, he is remembered mostly for his building projects. In 20 BCE he undertook the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple which had fallen into disrepair from ...

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