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

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1226. Herding Cats

Matthew 9:35-10:8-23

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... common interest! Not likely to happen! But put out 10 food bowls, and you won’t have to say a thing. Their supersonic hearing will already have switched on the desire button in their brains, and they will appear together immediately and at once, all sweet and eager, ready to eat. Now cats are not the only creatures with minds of their own. Parents, you know the challenge of getting your toddler to eat broccoli or your teenager to clean his or her room. If the desire and motivation isn’t there, no amount ...

1227. A Courageous Leader

Judges 4:1-7

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... into the audition, the producers stopped everything and asked, “What did you do to your voice? We want the real you.” (5) There are plenty of voices around us trying to shape our reality. Friends, family, colleagues, news sources, social media—they are ready and eager to tell us how to feel about the world around us. The voices we listen to, the people we trust shape how we respond to the world. Do you listen to the voice of courage or fear? Caution or action? Deborah listened to and trusted God ...

1228. Ambassadors For Christ

2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10

Sermon

John B. Jamison

... to do about it. Paul had just returned from a second visit to the church in Corinth. He had made the trip looking forward to a reunion. He had heard how the church had grown; both in numbers and in its influence in the city, and was eager to celebrate that success with his church family. But something had changed. Instead of arriving to enjoy a reunion, he was met with suspicion and accusation. Instead of being welcomed as the one who helped establish the church in Corinth, he was received as someone who ...

1229. Come and See

John 1:43-51

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... more than someone who has accepted the friendship of Jesus. It has been truly said that Jesus could go into any factory or farm, into any office or classroom, and his presence would not make people uncomfortable. In fact, his next visit would be eagerly looked for. Why? Because in his presence men and women felt their inner, better selves revived within them. Jesus lifted their hearts. He saw all their dormant possibilities, and he made the people see their true potential. What is more, he made them desire ...

1230. Who Moved?

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

You may have seen that cartoon that pictured an older couple driving down the road on Sunday afternoon. She is leaning against the door on her side of the car and he is driving. They're eager to get where they're going, but they're slowed down dramatically by a young couple who are cuddling in the car ahead of them and in no hurry at all. Finding it impossible to pass, the older couple finally began to strike up conversation. The older woman looks across ...

1231. Is This All There Is?

Revelation 21:1-6

Sermon

Will Willimon

... in agreement. They, even with their enthusiasm, education, brains and determination are not the hope of tomorrow. Tomorrow needs more than to look to them for hope. If that's all there is... A field of flowers, young leaves in spring, a bright April sun, eager young graduates on the threshold of greatness? No. Life is, life is also the child that dies, the cancer that won't heal, hatred between nations, and all that too. As Paul says, “The whole creation groans in futility and death.” There has never ...

1232. The Seventy “Sevens”

Daniel 9:20-27

Understanding Series

William Nelson

... days certain renegades came out from Israel and misled many, saying, ‘Let us go and make a covenant with the Gentiles around us, for since we separated from them many disasters have come upon us.’ This proposal pleased them, and some of the people eagerly went to the king, who authorized them to observe the ordinances of the Gentiles” (1 Macc. 1:11–13 NRSV). “In the middle of the ‘seven’ [i.e., “week”]” indicates three and a half years, which relates to “time, times and half a time ...

1233. Seeing With The Eyes Of Faith

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

Thomas C. Willadsen

... are you? The man who was filled with joy at being able to see? The one who turned to follow Jesus? Are you part of the crowd, urging the persistent blind man to keep quiet? It’s both, isn’t it? Jesus calls to both parts of you — the faithful eager follower and the stubborn. He calls to the blind crowd member — he calls and calls. And he invites. His call is persistent and faithful. He’s calling us even now. Amen.

1234. Bread for the Journey

Mark 12:28-34

Sermon

Thomas C. Willadsen

... off the I-road, and we share the Lord’s Supper. This is the sacrament that Christ commanded his followers to do to remember him. This is the sacrament that reminds us that we are one in Christ. At the end of a work camp when we’re tired and eager to get home, it’s good to pause for a moment and remember what we have been through, together, on the journey that we are about to complete. As Christians we’re all on a journey, even if that journey doesn’t lead us to another city. What’s your ...

1235. Steadfast Change

Mark 13:1-8

Sermon

Thomas C. Willadsen

... for this congregation, for the work that awaits us, for opportunities we do not yet recognize. Opportunities to be an example and a bearer of Christ’s love in this community. We like to plan, control, and word our motions precisely, but we need to be ready, eager even, to look away from what’s familiar and comfortable and find a risk worth taking for the gospel of Christ to be proclaimed here and now. We need to be attentive to something new, because the God we love and serve makes us, and all things ...

1236. Christ, Our King

John 18:33-37

Sermon

Thomas C. Willadsen

... my opinion, got a glimpse of who Jesus was and what Jesus had come to do, but simply couldn’t move much beyond his narrow, earthly understanding. And the more he tried to make others responsible for Christ’s execution, the more eagerly the authorities proclaimed their allegiance to the emperor as well as to taking the responsibility on themselves. To put this struggle in regal or authoritative terms, the more Pilate abdicated, the more the authorities sought to enthrone themselves as loyal subjects of ...

1237. Christ, Our King

John 18:33-37

Sermon

Thomas C. Willadsen

1238. Hearing A Familiar Voice

John 10:22-30

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... . Only if the mighty human race, with all its immense capabilities and capacities, remained restless would it eventually seek its way back to its Creator. Herbert saw well that the strong talents and marvelous abilities of humankind would make us like impatient children, eager to strike out on our own and find our self-made destinies. Only if God would hold back a sense of full satisfaction from our souls would we search our way back home. This remains a perennial theological paradox: it is the creative ...

1239. The Call to Encounter

Luke 8:26-39

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... of the pigs, bobbing on the surf, to the swineherds whose pigs these were or who, at the very least, were being paid to tend them. They ran back to the city and the surrounding countryside to tell what they had just experienced. We can imagine that their eagerness to tell what happened may have had any number of motivations. They may have wanted to make sure their boss knew that it wasn’t their fault that his pigs were all dead. Or, if the pigs belonged to them, they may have wanted to report Jesus for ...

1240. The Art Of Transition

Luke 9:51-62

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... conversation, I thought that our generation, the baby-boomers were probably the first generation in American history who believed that change was a good thing for its own sake. For most of us, change does not come easily or gently. It is not something that we eagerly embrace; it is forced upon us. We go into it kicking and screaming. We age. Our bodies change. People we know and care about move away. We change jobs and have to learn new skills and face new responsibilities. Our doctor tells us we have to ...

1241. A Sermon About Prayer

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... he saying that God was like a curmudgeonly old man who doesn’t want to get off the couch but would relent just to get us off his back? No, of course not. What Jesus was saying, I believe, was that, if a friend, who should be willing and even eager to help you must be cajoled into it through constant badgering, then how much more would God be willing to help - God, who is loving, kind, generous, and anxious to help his needful children? Hence the next two verses: 9. “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be ...

1242. In Those Days: The Voice Of The Time Keeper

Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

... rebuild and restore. In John’s time, the people were to recognize in the midst of their short lives that something greater was going on, and they were a part of it. They were preparing to receive the great Messiah promised in times past and eagerly anticipated in their time. People answered the call. As we read in Matthew, rich and poor, the occupied and the military occupiers, the tax collectors and the overtaxed, religious leaders and those who felt marginalized by their faith, all of them came to the ...

1243. An Up-Close Nativity

Titus 2:11-14

Sermon

Heather Sugden

... The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all.” The book of Titus is a letter written by Saint Paul to his friend and mentee, Titus. Paul writes both about and to a young church that is growing into its own, and a young apostle eager to preach the gospel. As a Christian community, they are longing to tell others about the grace of God that has already appeared in Jesus Christ. They are also longing for the “blessed hope” that would appear when Christ comes again. As Paul writes to Titus ...

1244. A Place at the Table

Luke 14:1, 7-14

Sermon

Jill J. Duffield

... her sense of ownership and belonging. She’d been welcomed to congregational spaces from the time of her birth, and nothing was off limits from her exploration: the pulpit, choir loft, her dad’s desk chair; all her domain. Watching her bound through the church, eager to tell me all about not just the space, but the people and experiences, I thought: I wish everyone felt this at home in our churches, so unquestionably a part of our communities, so joyous about all the things we do when we gather. Would ...

1245. Calculated Christianity

Luke 14:25-35

Sermon

Jill J. Duffield

... epitomize that Protestant work ethic. When our oldest was in kindergarten and he had an assignment to create a family belief statement, we thought we’d be really creative and write an acrostic poem using the letters of our last name. (We were eager, he was the first.) So, we started with “D” and “thought ‘How about ‘determined’’?” “D” is for determined. But wanting to include the student we asked our son, “Joseph, do you know what determined means?” And he said, “I think so. It ...

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