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 126 to 150 of 562 results

126. Get Ready, Get Set...Wait!

Matthew 24:36-51

Sermon

Johnny Dean

... we’re getting ready for the seven to ten pounds the average American will gain during the season (Lord, please let me be an underachiever this year!)? Or are we preparing for the suicidal traffic jams at Tanglewood Mall in Roanoke, or the general atmosphere of surliness and desperation? (A couple of years back I remember hearing on the local news in West Tennessee that shoppers were actually coming to blows for the right to buy a Holiday Barbie doll!) Are we getting ready for the depression, the anxiety ...

127. Time and Stewardship

Sermon

Larry Powell

... never show. The children grow up and leave the nest, the book gets put away, the person never gets visited, the air conditioner chokes, mama never got the letter we wish now we had written, our clothes fit tighter, the bird cage has created its own atmosphere, and the shrubbery has taken the place. Those tomorrows never came. Tomorrow never does. Today is the only sure time we have on the ledger. Tomorrow is overworked. It is too full. There is no way on earth that we could possibly accomplish all the ...

128. Commitment

Luke 22:54-62

Illustration

... needs rather than to serve God’s need for a redeemed, reconciled, and healed world.” Our concept of consumerism has crept into the church. To recruit persons and to be marketable we think that we need to be able to say: Look what our church can offer you. In this atmosphere of a sorority rush party, talk of discipleship is muted. Discipleship means knowing who Jesus Christ is and following the revelation made known to us in his teaching, death, resurrection, and presence.

129. When The Cheering Stopped

Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

Brett Blair

... s need for a redeemed, reconciled, and healed world.” Our concept of consumerism has crept into the church. To recruit persons and to be marketable we think that we need to be able to say: “Look what our church can offer you.” In this atmosphere of a sorority rush party, talk of discipleship is muted. Discipleship means knowing who Jesus Christ is and following the revelation made known to us in his teaching, death, resurrection, and presence. Commitment means, after the shouts of Hosanna, we walk to ...

130. On Staying Awake

Luke 12:35-48

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... the master finds awake when he comes ..." Perhaps this sermon need not be preached. The necessity of wakefulness may already be widely recognized as we gather for worship. We arrive tired, we endure preaching that is often supernaturally dull, and the atmosphere of quietness soon dispatches even the most faithful. This is not a modern problem. Our Puritan ancestors gave a high importance to staying awake. During their long services the ushers roamed the congregation with a long pole in hand. Male nodders ...

131. Booby Trap

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

... would affect them, they believed, adversely. A colleague tells how it is in his suburban neighborhood close to the seminary. For years, it had been inhabited by fine families, many of whom were university professors’ and seminary professors’ families. It had the atmosphere of a lovely and friendly village, but then the trouble - in the form of crime - invaded the tranquility of that scene. When over 100 break-ins occurred in the homes of people in a recent year, something had to be done. My colleague ...

132. An Encounter With Two Old Friends

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

... too familiar, the obsession of a bad self-image, a total lack of self-esteem. Analysis might suggest that as a child he was controlled at home by guilt, a favorite mechanism of control that parents use. His older brother may have used the putdown to create the atmosphere of inferiority in which he lived and that stayed with him through the years. Perhaps this is the reason why he had sold out to the hated Romans and had become an agent of the enemy. Or was he suffering a depression? Or was his prayer a ruse ...

133. Heaven Can’t Wait

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

... behavior patterns, the never-ending push for personal progress that uses others as its stepping stones, the eye-for-an-eye and the tooth-for-a-tooth philosophy, the lust for power, passion, and possession. They would often victimize themselves in that same atmosphere, as they elbowed for the seats of honor at the banquet, argued about their comparative greatness, and looked for their own names among the MVP’s. But as they listened to his word, they heard about a life in new dimensions. They knew that ...

134. If Only We Would Be Open To The Spirit ...

Joel 2:18-27

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... to get up an hour earlier each day. She prayed, during that time, for others, friends, family, church members. Less than a month from the day she began to exercise that discipline, she wrote in her diary: "Our worship service was one of ecstasy! ... the whole atmosphere was one of prayer. Wonder if my return to a daily communion with God has anything to do with it? I expect so." Dr. Killinger says that her journal shows that her whole life is permeated with God’s Spirit. She decided to say "yes" to that ...

135. How to Stay Humble in a Haughty World

Luke 14:1-14

Sermon

Brett Blair

... dinner party he singles out a man, sitting right in front of him, who is suffering from dropsy and heals him on the spot. This, to the owner of the home, is an affront. Jesus broke a Commandment in the home of a distinguished Pharisee. I can imagine the atmosphere from then on was so thick you could cut it with a knife. It is interesting to note that nether this man nor the hunchbacked woman asked to be healed. The point here is not the healing; the point is that people must take precedent over rules. Just ...

136. Honest to Goodness Religion

Hosea 4:1-19

Sermon

... novelist, C. E. Montague, entitled Rough Justice.9 The story tells of a little boy, Bron, who was brought to church for the first time in his life, where his uncle was the vicar. For the boy it was an intriguing experience. He was impressed with the atmosphere, the choir and the sound of the organ. His uncle stepped into the pulpit and began to preach. The boy listened intently. The pastor told a strange story, of a man who was the holiest, most kind and wonderful man who ever lived. Sick people sought him ...

137. The God Who Doesn’t Give Up

Hosea 11:1-11

Sermon

... other words. God is both father and mother and cares for us with the best qualities that a mother or father combined, can give. Being a parent can be an enjoyable experience. Do you remember bringing your first child home from the hospital, and how the atmosphere of your home was changed? There was a smell of baby powder in the air, and the house was hushed when baby was taking a nap. Your child grasped your fingers tightly in taking those first hesitant steps, laughing and giggling; You lifted your child ...

138. The Cost of Being Christian

Acts 7:54--8:1a

Sermon

... every step he took toward Jerusalem brought him that much closer to the ultimate showdown he knew was going to happen between him and those who wanted to get rid of him. He could see what the outcome would be. Now we see a different Jesus. Now the atmosphere is changed. Instead of saying, "Come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest," Jesus is encouraging his followers to count the cost before coming after him. To follow could mean death. "Anyone who is not willing to take ...

139. First Sunday in Lent

Matthew 4:1-11, Romans 5:12-21, Genesis 3:1-24, Genesis 2:4-25

Bulletin Aid

... submissive to him, that his victory may become ours, and our wills may become yours. We pray through Christ our Lord. Amen. Prayer of Confession We have learned to accept temptation's power without feeling a sense of guilt, Father. It surrounds us like the atmosphere, and we let it become the breath that sustains our life. But such life does not grow, and we feel close to death. Forgive us for our ignorance of the truth of temptation's power to kill, and for not experiencing victory over temptation through ...

140. A Claim to a Crown

Matthew 24:36-51

Sermon

George Bass

... man could do was contemplate death and what would be the easiest way to die. He had three options, he concluded: 1. Simply to allow his oxygen supply to run out and die by asphyxiation; 2. to rip open his space suit and allow the frigid Martian atmosphere to kill him in thirty seconds; or, 3. to take one of the pills in the "med kit" and die in fifteen seconds. His conclusion was: "I will drive (in the Marscar) through that lovely painted landscape ... And when my oxygen alarm gives its final ping..., I ...

141. Ask for a Sign

Isaiah 7:1-25

Sermon

... the more famous Battle of Midway. In North Africa, Field Marshall Von Rommel was still a power, but he would fade as the British planes struck his supply lines and a General named Patton began command of our tank corps there. That was quite an atmosphere in which to celebrate First Communion. Newspaper headlines told of war. The newsreels at the movies were filled with smoke and explosions, usually of airplanes crashing into the sea. When we played in the leaf piles at the end of the street, we always took ...

142. The Master Has Come - And Is Calling For You

John 11:38-44

Sermon

... things calling us - many demands being made upon our living. There are many diversions which interrupt life, calling us away from our best selves. There is one call we cannot escape. God has a claim on our living. John Baillie wrote, "My earliest memories have a definitely religious atmosphere. I cannot recall a time when I did not feel in some dim way that I was not my own to do with as I pleased, but was claimed by a higher power which had authority over me." God has a claim on our living - whoever we are ...

143. The Master Has Come - To Be Lord of Life

Luke 24:1-12

Sermon

... my father’s house are many rooms," he promised his disciples just the other night. Easter is the proof of it. A little boy attended the funeral of his grandfather. He noticed there in the funeral home that everyone spoke in hushed tones. There was a somber atmosphere he did not understand. So, finally he said, "Why all this whispering? No one’s asleep!" He captured what Easter means. The Lord of life has a power over death. II The Lord of life offers a power for living. The message of Easter means more ...

144. Getting Back To Work

Luke 17:1-10

Sermon

Brett Blair

... a better grade than your best friend. Your idea of a good marriage is not to find the woman who will make you whole, but to win the girl that everyone else wants. That's not how people are supposed to live. Give it up; come join us in an atmosphere where we all share and love each other." The young man had completed four years at a competitive high school to get into Stanford, plus two years of pre-med courses at the university. He was ripe for this sort of approach. He called his parents from Tokyo and ...

145. Getting Back to Work

Luke 17:1-10

Illustration

Brett Blair

146. I Started to be Grateful

Luke 17:11-19

Illustration

Brett Blair

... in the restaurant and said, "Bow your heads." Surprisingly, one by one, the heads went down. The little girl then bowed her head, folded her hands, and said, "God is great, God is good, and we thank him for our food. Amen." That prayer changed the entire atmosphere. People began to talk with one another. The waitress said, "We should do that every morning." "All of a sudden," said our friend, "my whole frame of mind started to improve. From that little girl's example, I started to thank God for all that I ...

147. Giving Thanks Before Thanksgiving

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon

Brett Blair

148. Good Morning, Jerusalem!

Drama

... Easter morning worship celebration, the following drama script intends to bring to the worshiper’s mind the sound and style of a familiar weekday morning American network television news/talk program. Any steps which the worship planner(s) can take to create this atmosphere will add to the effectiveness of the presentation. Depending upon the physical arrangements in the chancel area, it might even be possible to set up a comfortable living room setting with one or two soft chairs or perhaps a chair and a ...

149. Growing in Our Environment

Illustration

Bill Bouknight

... in an aquarium. People are like the shark in at least one respect. We grow according to the possibilities around us. If we live or work in a setting that is critical, harsh, and unloving, we never become very much. But if we live or work in a supportive, encouraging atmosphere in which we feel free to take responsible risks, our dreams become bolder and our accomplishments bigger. If people are telling us, ‘You can do almost anything you set your mind on,’ then our production soars.

150. All The More Reason To Give Thanks

Psalm 100:1-5

Sermon

Brett Blair

... blown out and he endured the miserable could German winter for days on end. On the day of sentencing he conducted a service for the other prisoners. One of those prisoners, an English officer who survived, wrote these words: Bonhoeffer always seemed to me to spread an atmosphere of happiness and joy over the least incident, and profound gratitude for the mere fact that he was alive... He was one of the very few persons I have ever met for whom God was real and always near... On Sunday, April 8, 1945, Pastor ...

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