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 1326 to 1350 of 1838 results

1326. The Lord of All

Revelation 1:4-8

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... God and Father to him be glory and power forever." To Him, you know who fills us with love and frees us from sin and gives us a purpose larger than ourselves. Oh, yes, that is life and we are invited to live life, not in shame or guilt or bitterness, we are invited to live life in all of its abundance. You will know life to the fullest when you crown Christ King of your life. III. CHRIST IS LORD OF DEATH. Christ is the firstborn of the dead. If God has the power to raise Jesus from the dead ...

1327. Love

John 15:9-17

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... spent more than 15 minutes with Joe has heard the story. Every taxi driver who has driven him more than 2 miles has heard it. The postman knows; the woman at the check out counter knows. His rage has become his very being. Joe is his bitterness. Do you want to live a life of hate? Then learn to forgive. To love is to become compassionate. Jesus said, “Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate" (Luke 6:36). On the surface compassion seems easy. Who is not touched with emotion to see people running ...

1328. Pray

Matthew 6:5-13

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... to Pray. Among her suggestions are these: - Give an alarm clock “Alleluia" when the alarm clock goes off. Mentally commit to living in gratitude for the day. - Practice shower power. As you soap and rinse, pray to be cleansed from all feelings of anger, resentment, bitterness, or regret. - Make a red light act of contrition. Use a red light as a call to prayer. Use the moment to think about your day. One of our Sunday school classes has been challenged to use red lights as a call to intercession. - Do ...

1329. By Enduring

1 Peter 2:19-25

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... make it to Paradise; it only had to transport a person to Detroit. That is what endurance does for you. It helps you hang on until the time is right and the power is available for radical change. James Weldon Johnson eloquently says: Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod, Felt in the days when hope unborn had died, Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet Come to the place for which our fathers sighed? We have come, over a way that with tears has been watered. We have come, treading our ...

1330. By Belonging

1 Peter 2:2-10

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... . But that is the absolute last thing we want to do. Henri Nouwen says it so well. “So much of our pain remains hidden even from our closest friends." How often do you go up to someone and say I'm anxious, I'm needy, I'm angry, I'm bitter. I need your help." There is vulnerability in that confession that makes us fragile. So, as self-reliant people, we would rather do it ourselves, tough it out on our own. We are foolish for trying. Why is it so hard to ask for help? Why is it so difficult ...

1331. Sharing God’s Blessings

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... reward will be great in heaven. I find that to be a hard blessing to swallow. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just all be nice to one another as nice folks should and do? Or would such pseudo-community which tastes good with the first bite grow bitter with the second and third chew? If God did not expect you to have a few enemies, why would he have spent so much time telling you to love them? Here is the truth. We learn more from our problems than we do from our successes. People sail through the ...

1332. The Cost of Discipleship: Get Lost!

Mark 8:31--9:1

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... mention first? Surely that angel’s book would tell of enrichment brought by God’s great gifts of love, and home, and nature, and the beauty of the world after page there would be to tell how trouble, and difficulty, and bereavement, and bitter disappointment, and hopes frustrated, and dreams that flickered out and died — all the things which hurt and leave a mark. The pages would be filled with stories of suffering that had brought blessing by imparting a new depth, new insight, to the soul” (James ...

1333. Building a Barn

Luke 12:13-21

Illustration

Dave Barry

... weeks debating the membership and organizational structure of the Barn Architect Selection Committee, whose members would then get into a lengthy squabble over the design of the logo to appear on their letterhead. Ultimately this issue would become a bitter and drawn-out dispute, be taken to court, and the people involved would start complaining of depression and anxiety, and psychologists would announce that these people were victims of a new disease called Barn Committee Logo Dispute Distress Syndrome ...

1334. Looking at Jesus from Behind Prison Bars

Matthew 11:2-11

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

... judgment. He was the one in prison. God hadn't released him. The powerful one hadn't released him. He woke up each day to the same four walls. He had been thrown in that prison for speaking the truth. Was he frustrated? Was he angry? Was he bitter? With our lack of information, should we choose the safest adjective and say he was disappointed? John had once made the crowds tremble with his words. Now he had to pass messages by way of his disciples. He couldn't even ask Jesus the question himself. He couldn ...

1335. The Horror before the Blessing

Matthew 2:13-23

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

... sins" (Matthew 1:21). The birth of Jesus is a time of hope, of rejoicing. Maybe a year, but certainly not more than two of relative tranquility follow. The visit from the Magi reveals Jesus to the wider world. The tranquility comes to a bitter end. Herod learns of the significance of Jesus' birth. With cold deception he discovers that Jesus is in Bethlehem. What Herod does next seems almost unthinkable. Herod considers Jesus a threat. He wants to eliminate the threat as quickly as possible, so he sends ...

1336. Those Who Most Need a Blessing

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Charles L. Aaron

... position where we hunger and thirst. Glen Mitchell, of Jacksonville, Florida, qualifies for Jesus' blessings many times over. Over two decades ago, his son was murdered in a senseless crime. That crime placed him among those who mourn. Rather than giving in to bitterness or seeking retribution, he began a relationship with one of the young men involved in his son's slaying. Of those who participated in the murder, Ellis Curry showed genuine remorse. He served twelve years in prison for his part in the crime ...

1337. Why We Need the Pledge of Allegiance

Matthew 13:31-35, Matthew 13:44-46, Matthew 13:47-52

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... "most powerful leaders in the world." God doesn't have his own political party, though a few small groups attempt to lay claim to him as leader. Back in 1951, shortly before he was forced from his throne by a military coup, King Farouk of Egypt confided bitterly to British Lord Boyd-Orr, "There will soon be only five kings left — the kings of England, diamonds, hearts, spades, and clubs." That is sometimes the way we see the kingdom of God, sifted through the world like the kings in a deck of cards. The ...

1338. The Road No One Wants to Travel

Matthew 16:21-28

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... . Holden was a coal town where everybody worked the mines. News media were gathering that day because a mine shaft had collapsed trapping 38 men underground. Rescue teams rushed down as the clock ticked out the anxious limits of human survival. The weather turned bitterly cold. It took three days to clear the passageways and get within striking distance of the ensnared men. Finally, at 2 a.m. on the morning of the fourth day, the first of the desperate miners cleared the surface and stumbled out of the ...

1339. Restoration Frustration

Isaiah 63:7-9

Sermon

Tony Everett

... who Christmas against us." Well, Mark, maybe you are closer to our actual experience than we want to admit. Our annual expectations that the Christmas season itself will restore lasting meaning and joy to our lives inevitably results in a bitter disappointment: a restoration frustration. Restoration frustration! That certainly describes the situation in our text in Isaiah today. Many of those who were living as captives in Babylonia had just returned from their fifty-year exile. Instead of returning to ...

1340. No Room for Gloom

Isaiah 9:1-4

Sermon

Tony Everett

... darkness, the gloom of anguish; and they will be thrust into thick darkness" (Isaiah 8:20, 22). In today's text, Isaiah states: "In the former times he brought into contempt the Land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali" (Isaiah 9:1). On the one hand, this was a bitterly humiliated and devastated group. Their sin had brought the wrath of God upon them. For God's people, it was the worst of times. On the one hand, many of us may be feeling the same way about our own situations in life. It may seem to us that ...

1341. What Did The Turkey Say? (Or Contentious Communities)

Isaiah 58:3-9a (9b-12)

Sermon

Tony Everett

... parking lots and emails and living rooms we resume the contentious quarrels of Christians throughout history. Christians fight, and make no mistake about it, we fight dirty - even, and often especially - among ourselves. It is a rare congregation that has not experienced the bitter divisiveness of a church conflict. So then, where is our hope? Where is God's promise? Why doesn't God just thrust us into the freezer before popping us into an eternal oven? Why didn't God just obliterate the returning exiles ...

1342. A Way of Seeing

Genesis 21:8-21

Sermon

Stan Purdum

... hollars," I met a woman named Edna. She was a poorly educated backwoods woman who had been impoverished all her life. But she was rich in faith. She told me about another woman, a friend of hers, who recently separated from an abusive husband. The woman was angry and bitter at God. Then Edna told me that she'd had a similarly unhappy marriage and had left her husband. But the effect of that for her was different than from her friend. "It drives me to hold on tighter to God," she said. "I need it to help me ...

1343. A Man of the Moment

Genesis 25:19-34

Sermon

Stan Purdum

... Considering only how he felt at that moment, he agreed to exchange something of great value for bowl of red stew. It was a supreme example of short-range thinking, and even worse, it had long-range consequences; it set the stage for the later bitterness between the brothers. One indicator that Esau was thinking only of his present moment is captured in the Hebrew language in which this story was originally written. Our NRSV translation has Esau saying to Jacob, "Let me eat some of that red stuff," but rabbi ...

1344. Lighting up Lent

Ephesians 5:8-14

Sermon

David O. Bales

... the jungle's thick canopy and he exclaimed how wonderful it was, finally, to step out in the smallest clearing with light falling upon him. Often, people who recover from depression speak of moving from darkness into light. People who slowly drop their hate and bitterness and learn to forgive have described their experience as coming out of a dark cloud into the sunlight. Have you realized that taverns and bars are dark for a reason? So people can hide. I have a friend who goes to Las Vegas for market ...

1345. Spiritual Resuscitation

Romans 8:6-11

Sermon

David O. Bales

... and care for the needy. That's setting our mind on the Spirit. If it helps you in your following Jesus to think of seeing your breath as you speak to God, picture air leaving you as you speak to God in prayer. In prayer, exhale your bitterness, fears, laziness, sin, and disobedience. Then inhale God in prayer and receive the energy, inspiration, and more and more of God's loving Spirit into your life. Let us pray. Loving God, thank you for the new life that you've started in Jesus and that you continue ...

1346. Reasons for Rejoicing

Philippians 4:2-9

Sermon

Mary S. Lautensleger

... and on the playground; until neighbors can be tolerant of differences; or until we can worship amicably with other believers. Peace begins first with those we relate to on a regular basis. Each of us has experienced conflict and broken relationships, and we have tasted the bitterness of discord. We know how it feels to be on the outside looking in. One important fact to remember is that I am the only person I can truly effect a change in. Likewise, the only person you can change is you. We are strengthened ...

1347. A Man Named Useful

Philemon 1:8-25

Sermon

King Duncan

... .about.com/cs/2003seniortour/g/bldef_mulligan.htm. 5. http://www.foresthilluc.org/sermons/FeelingJudgedhtml.html. 6. Cited by Leslie Schultz, http://www.lesandhelga.com/sermons/2004/022204.htm. 7. Atlanta Constitution online, December 9, 2002. Cited by Dr. Ray Pritchard, http://www.keepbelieving.com/sermon/2002-12-15-Overcoming-Lingering-Bitterness/.

1348. The Challenge of Discipleship

Luke 14:25-33

Illustration

Mickey Anders

... thought, who could resist the appeal of a $1,000 door prize for a lucky worshiper. Contrast that experience with a newspaper ad that appeared in London in the 1800's which said, "Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful." The ad was signed by Sir Ernest Shackleton, Antarctic explorer. Amazingly, the ad drew thousands of respondents, eager to sacrifice everything for the prospect of meaningful adventure. Which approach ...

1349. LENT: The Passion of Christ: "Betrayed"

John 13:21-30; Matthew 26:14-16; 45-50

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... of not being believed and told that I was a liar, that I finally just gave up and gave in and said, "Yes, I did what you said." As a consequence I had to confess to my so called transgression to my 6th grade class and teacher. I stood there, bitter and angry and alienated as my Dad, watched me lie and confess to something I didn't do. I can't tell you how betrayed I felt. That's not the way Dad's were supposed to act. Dad's were supposed to believe you and defend you, no matter ...

1350. The Grateful Samaritan

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon

King Duncan

... he was never able to return to school, ultimately living out his days as an invalid. Years later, a reporter doing a story on Great Lakes tragedies found Spencer as an old man in a nursing home in California and asked for his recollections of that night. He said bitterly, “The only thing I remember is that not one of the 17 ever thanked me.” (1) Ingratitude. For some people it is a way of life a very ugly way of life. Everyone who lives a life dedicated to others encounters it at some time or another ...

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