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 1276 to 1300 of 1838 results

1276. Dealing With the Pain of Rejection - Sermon Opener

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Illustration

James W. Moore

... has not rejected him at all. In fact, the parable is misnamed. Instead of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, it should be called the Parable of the Gracious Father! Because, you see, the theme of the parable is not the revelry of the Prodigal, nor is it the bitterness of the elder brother, no; the theme here is the goodness of the father, the faithfulness of God. The message here is that God cares and that He wants both of His sons (all of His children) to come and be a part of the celebration. But the elder ...

1277. A Simple Answer

John 12:1-11

Illustration

Lee Griess

... forgiveness, life holds little joy and the future is hopeless. Someone once said that the person who knows himself or herself to be a sinner and does not know God's forgiveness is like an overweight person who fears stepping on a scale. There once was a very bitter man who was sick in soul, mind, and body. He was in the hospital in wretched condition, not because his body had been invaded by a virus or infected with some germ, but because his anger and contempt had poisoned his soul. One day, when he was at ...

1278. Valley of Rejection (Series: Peace in the Valley)

Luke 4:14-30

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... some rejection that’s worth the cost. II. How Can We Handle Rejection? We can handle rejection with respect. Respect for ourselves and respect for others. Our first reaction to rejection is anger. Anger at ourselves for assuming we deserve what we got and bitterness toward others who perpetuate the rejection. In the face of rejection we will be wise to follow the advice of St. Paul who said, “Be angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down on your anger.” Avoid self-defeating assumptions. One rejection ...

1279. Discover The Joy Of Christmas

Luke 2:8-20

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... . Let me share a poem with you. It's titled: Cleaning Out The Heart I tried cleaning out my own heart one day. So many memories and feelings piled in the way. I knew it was cluttered but oh, what a mess, Seeing all that garbage fueled my distress. Bitterness, fear, anger and strife, Lay in the dust of my tarnished life. Pettiness, jealousy, old words I regret, Hadn't been swept out since, well, I forget. Down on my knees I started to scrub and to scrape Trying to get my heart back into shape. But no matter ...

1280. How Does Your Garden Grow?

Matthew 13:1-9

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... The Stony Heart. This is the hardened heart. It can be packed and hardened by any number of things. Broken relationship, old wounds, dried out spirit or flagrant rebellion, one which has said no to God. No one or nothing is getting in. This is the wounded, bitter heart, totally surrendered to the world and anything NOT of God. In the Stony Heart, the seed of God's Word gets gobbled up by the desires of world before it even has a chance to even settle. In the movie Secondhand Lions, young Walter, played by ...

1281. Stewardship of All (Series: Stewardship: Discover This Word and Love It!)

Matthew 26:6-13

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... is. The fragrance of a deed well done lasts forever. “Truly I tell you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her” (Matthew 26:13). The end of Jesus’ life rocks with so much bitterness, treachery, tragedy, blood, sweat, and tears, is it any wonder that this little story shines like an oasis of light in a dark and dreary world? The human soul is still hungry for beauty. We seek it everywhere. In creation, in cosmetics, in clothes and ...

1282. Jesus’ Trail of Tears (Series: Questioning Our Values)

Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... must have felt in that moment, sensing the pain and the brokenness of the world as he cries out to his Abba, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me.” We need to sense and understand that he, in fact, drank the cup. If the cup tasted too bitter and the anguish felt too great, then we ask the question, what gave him the courage to do it anyway? Let me suggest just a thought or two. One is he had tremendous trust in his Father, Abba. You remember how he said it? “If you, being evil, want only ...

1283. Praising God All the Way Home

Psalm 150:1-6

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... , but they were wrong. Within weeks this exuberant, warm-hearted man had friends eager to take him fishing or out for a cup of coffee. He delighted in the unlocked kitchen refrigerator, where he could have all he wanted to eat. Roy could have been bitter. Instead he found himself rejoicing in all that he discovered, becoming a delight to himself and others. If you are breathing, you need to be praising God. Let the women say praise the Lord – “Praise the Lord!” Let the men say praise the Lord ...

1284. Time to Get Wet

Revelation 22:1-6

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... into these mud pies the breath of God. For God to continue to mold you and shape you, your clay must be moist. What keeps your clay moist? What's your moisturizer? If your clay hardens, and loses its wetness, your soul gets hard, brittle and bitter. In the new creation, the newly redeemed, restored, reborn community of Christ’s presence is called to be "wet and wild." We are to be dunked, deluged, dripping with the living water we have received. The world should be able to trace the tracks of Christians ...

1285. Living While You Wait

Philippians 4:2-9

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... we think. The body of evidence to confirm that truth grows almost daily. Have we learned the lesson for ourselves? We are what we think. Sour dispositions create not only sick souls but also sick bodies. Feelings of worthlessness, bitter resentment and self-pity diminish us to fragments. A possessive nature, self-indulgence, self-protectiveness, and self-centeredness shrivel the soul, create dysfunctions within us, distort perception, blur perspective, and prevent the healing we need. The opposite of this ...

1286. On the Road with Zacchaeus

Luke 19:1-10

Sermon

James W. Moore

... s help I want to be better.” Late one night, I was surfing through the Television Channels when I came upon that blockbuster movie from many years ago called “Love Story.” Ali McGraw and Ryan O’Neal were newlyweds. They had had a bitter argument. Angry words were spoken. Their spirits were wounded. Their feelings were hurt. Their relationship was strained. In pain and frustration, they had pulled back from one another. Then, awkwardly, tentatively… they tried to fix it. Ryan O’Neal was trying to ...

1287. On the Road with the Little Children

Luke 18:15-17

Sermon

James W. Moore

... t stonewall your way through life! * Don’t lose the child-like ability to celebrate life! He gives us new life, new spirit, new heart, new birth. It’s so sad to see people become so beaten down by life that they give up and give in to bitterness and cynicism and crabbiness. But on the other hand, it is so beautiful to see people who live many, many years and never lose their zest and vitality and enthusiasm. One very special quality that children of all ages (and every Christian) would do well to prize ...

1288. The Essence of the Gospel

2 Corinthians 4:1-18

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... couldn’t take the new name. She acted with a crude cynicism of her exploited years, saying that Quixote was after what all men were after. But Don Quixote kept affirming her, kept trying to get through the hard shell of her bitterness and rejection, feeling for her virtue, her nobility, her beauty. Finally Aldonza asks, wonderingly: “Why do you say these thing?” Quixote says, “What things my lady?” “These ridiculous things you say,” responds Aldonza. Quixote says, “I hope to add some measure ...

1289. Some Second Thoughts about Giving

Mark 12:41-44

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... of all, he said, was that some people had cut all the buttons off the clothing they had given! Isn’t that a parable of our pattern of giving — we give, but often not ‘til it helps. Can you imagine some thin and hungry refugee trying to keep out the bitter cold of winter with a coat that has no buttons? Or can you see him in your mind’s eye trying to work in a pair of pants that he has to hold up with one hand? You get the point — we need to give till it helps. II Now ...

1290. Live the Questions

Exodus 5:22--6:12

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... 5: “The Lord looks upon you and judges because you have made us offensive in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.” (Exodus 5:21 RSV). That word literally means – “You have made us stink.” The bitterness that had festered in their souls for years as slaves, now turned into anger, and this anger was directed not at Pharaoh but at Moses. If the people were frustrated and confused, Moses was even more! Listen to him as he speaks to the Lord in verses 22 ...

1291. Let God Be God - As if It Could Be Otherwise

Exodus 7:14-24

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... , and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day. (Amos 8:9, 10) (CONCLUSION) We must not stop, however, though more often than not we kneed to hear the judgment, though more often than not we need to hear the word of judgment before we can respond to the word of grace. We must go back to ...

1292. Ministering Angels

Exodus 23:20-33

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... trouble and turmoil. Do you remember Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird? Atticus was a wise and generous man in that novel. He tells his son, Jem, about an old woman who was dying of cancer. Her name is Mrs. Dubose. She’s been a bitter critic of Atticus for his insistence on equal rights for Blacks in that small Southern town. So Jem hates the old woman for criticizing his father. But Atticus wants Jem to see the greatness of this cantankerous old woman. For years, she’d taken morphine at her ...

1293. When Nature Says No

2 Corinthians 4:1-18

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... June days, hand in hand; but once, for all, the birds must sing against us, and the sun strike down upon us like a friend’s sword caught by an enemy to slay us, while we read the dear name on the blade which bites at us! That’s bitter and convincing: after that we seldom doubt that something in the large smooth order of creation…has gone wrong. Most of us don’t live very long before nature says “No” to some “Yes” in us, and “walks over you in gorgeous sweeps of scorn.” That’s a big ...

1294. The Unsuspected Trojan Horse

Psalm 139:1-24

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... dead and switched into the dying. He says, “With this disease, you supposedly hate yourself – you reject your own tissues.” The writer of the article went on to describe Barnard as the most admired and the most disliked doctor in the world, and he described the bitterness which crept into the doctor’s voice as he talked about how it felt to have the whole world looking over his shoulder. Now I’m aware that this can be an over simplification, yet I hope you will grant me that as I suggest that this ...

1295. The Shared Life of the People of God, Part 2

Galatians 6:1-10

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... term pricked her pride. Small things, ordinarily passed over lightly, were magnified all out of proportion. Discussions became quarrels and the quarrels left deep, smoldering resentments. Resentments toward the one loved produced guilt and accompanying anxiety which in turn brought more bitter quarrels. There was literally no hope for that home except for its members to be delivered from the deadly sins of foolish pride. (Webb, Conquering the Seven Deadly Sins p. 45). So that’s one side of the coin, and ...

1296. When God Seems Far Off

Psalm 10:1-18

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... do it keep the world from changing me.” Amen to that. Look at verse 9 of our psalm: “Why does the wicked renounce God, and say in his heart, “Thou wilt not call to account” “Our psalmist spends a lot of time describing the harsh deeds and bitter attitudes of the wicked. His primary reason for doing this is to sup with God. He thinks that God should judge the wicked and surely, and God has not done so. In great detail he gives evidence of their crimes and pleads for justice: In arrogance the wicked ...

1297. Room When in Distress

Psalm 4:1-8

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... come in time, they were frustrated. Many were tempted to look to a pagan god like Baal, the Canaanite fertility god. When I insisted that the Lord of the creation and exodus, the God of Abraham and Moses, was the only One who could help, they turned on me with bitter and harsh attacks. “And I had to face my problem and take it to God. If I had tried to avoid it, it would not have gone away. It might have grown even more painful, and besides, if I run from my problems, how do I bring them to God ...

1298. Getting Out of the Pit

Luke 7:36 - 8:3

Illustration

Jimmy Moor

... The walls of the pit were dark and slimy, and he kept slipping back down. Finally, after great effort, he neared the top and then he slipped and fell all the way back down to the bottom. It took him many years to recover, all the time weeping bitter tears of grief and repentance, and then he started to climb up again. After many more falls and efforts and failures, he reached the top and dragged himself into an upper room with twelve people seated around the table. "We've been waiting for you, Judas," Jesus ...

1299. The Shepherd Lord

Psalm 23:1-6

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... had learned good by knowing evil, and who, amid the many varied experiences of human life, has fully tested the shepherd graces of the Lord of whom he sings. So I believe these words were first sung by one who had suffered deeply; who had tasted many a bitter cup; who had often been compelled to thread his way along many a dangerous path. We are told, in Persian story, of a nobleman in the king’s court who dedicated one apartment in his palace to the memory of earlier days, before royal caprice had lifted ...

1300. Characteristics of the Church, Part 2

Acts 2:42-47

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... lot in life that makes us feel toad-like. There are people who put us down, who make us feel ugly and warty, and depressed. A pool of tadpoles is meant to become a knot of toads. That is not my future or ours, yet giving way to bitterness, resentment, to self-pity, makes us inwardly toad-like. How different that early church? It was like an exultation of larks. They kept praising God, and everyone liked them. What was the secret of that magnetism? I believe it was that those early Christians saw their lives ...

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