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

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1476. You Can't Handle It!

John 16:12-15

Sermon

Lori Wagner

One of the most famous lines in film history comes from Rob Reiner’s 1992 film based on Aaron Sorkin’s 1989 play, entitled “A Few Good Men.” In the movie, a military court scene plays out in which Navy lawyer Tom Cruise (Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee) pushes Colonel Nathan Jessup on the stand (played by Jack Nicholson) to admit that he ordered a “code red,” a hazing, violent disciplinary measure that allowed two marines, Dawson and Downey, ultimately to kill fellow peer, Private First Class William Santiago. ...

1477. A Miracle of Grace

Philemon 1:1-21

Sermon

King Duncan

Many years ago, Deputy Sheriff Bill Cromie was called to investigate a traffic accident in Constantia, New York. A drunk driver had crashed into the pumps at a gas station. Fortunately, none of them exploded. The situation was under control. But the driver was nowhere in sight. Deputy Sheriff Cromie ran into the nearby woods to find him. It didn’t take him long. The man was nearby, crashing around in the bushes. As soon as Cromie shined his light on the suspect, the driver surrendered. The intoxicated man ...

1478. God So Loved

John 3:16-17

Sermon

Will Willimon

Driving through the mountains of North Carolina, winding my way carefully along a narrow, circuitous mountain road, I looked up and saw painted on a rock, large white letters: PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD – READ JOHN 3:16. Fortunately, I already knew John 3:16; but I shuddered at the thought of some other motorist madly thumbing through his Bible trying to find John 3:16 when he should have been watching the road! Right after I saw the painted religious rock, the next hairpin curve took me to the very edge of a ...

1479. Why the Cross?

Hebrews 2:17-18

Sermon

Charley Reeb

Why did Jesus have to die a brutal death in order for God to forgive us? If you struggle with that question or you know someone who does, this message is for you. Most Christians believe that the cross represents God’s redemptive act in Christ forgiving us of sin and reconciling us to him. Take a look at these words from Hebrews: For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make ...

1480. In the Wilderness

Matthew 4:1-11

Sermon

April Yamasaki

In Hannah Hurnard’s classic allegory, Hinds’ Feet on High Places, little Much-Afraid leaves her home in the Valley to journey to the High Places at the invitation of the Great Shepherd. In the High Places she would finally be delivered from all her fears, her crooked feet made straight, and she would be transformed into Grace and Glory. As she travels, she passes through lovely meadows filled with flowers, over paths where she must clamber over sharp rocks, uphill, downhill, and through the wilderness. ...

1481. When the Way Means Staying Home

John 11:1-45

Sermon

April Yamasaki

A fellow pastor once remarked that a church in our city would need to grow by ten to fifteen percent a year just to stay the same size. His evidence was clearly anecdotal without any survey data or other numbers to back up his comment, but I understood his point. People move from church to church and across denominations. Some people fall ill and become unable to attend as regularly. Some pass from this life to the next. There’s movement in and out of our busy urban and suburban area. One family from our ...

1482. Sola Fide

1 Peter 1:3-9

Sermon

Dr. Ronald Love

Peter was so excited about his new life in Christ that he opened this section of his letter with a doxology. He began this section of his letter with this verse from a doxology, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!” Doxologies have always been a part of worship, with the earliest form dating back to Solomon. But the doxologies used in Jewish worship were given a new meaning in Christian worship. In Judaism the doxology was sung to a God who is distant and remote. The Jews would sing ...

1483. Converts Or Disciples?

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

William G. Carter

Whatever else we want to say about this story, it is an Easter story. At dawn on the day he was raised, the risen Christ said, “Tell my brothers to go to Galilee.” When they did, they saw him, just as he promised. Our text is the only Galilee appearance that Matthew reported. It sounds like other Easter stories. Christ is present...and the disciples have mixed feelings. As Matthew noted, “When they saw him, they worshiped him, and some doubted.” It’s like every Easter Sunday, for it’s a mixed house. Have ...

1484. Overcoming Envy

Matthew 20:1-16

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

There was a British woman, Marion Webster of Solihull, England, who woke up one morning and found her beautiful garden absolutely decimated. Someone or something had torn it to shreds. The first thing Marion did after finding her garden in such a condition was to march over to her neighbor’s flower bed and pull out all the pansies and roses and anything remotely resembling a beautiful plant. Her neighbor’s garden now looked as bad as hers. Why did she do such a horrible thing? You won’t believe it. Marion ...

1485. The Need to Be for Sure

Ecclesiastes 3:11

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

A college student went to the perfume counter of an exclusive store to buy a present for his girlfriend. The saleswoman recommended a perfume that was called “Perhaps” that sold for $35 an ounce. “Thirty-five dollars!” cried the young fellow. “For $35 I don’t want ‘Perhaps,’ I want ‘For Sure’!” There are some things we need to be for sure about. We need to be for sure that someone loves us. The surest way to be loved is to reach out and love others. We need to be for sure that our lives count for something ...

1486. The Grip

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Sermon

Lori Wagner

Readiness. This is a word that our culture often has lost sight of. We tend to be a rather impulsive people today. When we want something, we want it now, …or better yet, yesterday. We leap into new ventures without checking them out fully. We rush headlong into situations that may or may not do us harm. We rack up credit by the thousands without a plan to pay it back. We have children without thinking through what those responsibilities will mean for us. We lash out at our friends, partners, and spouses ...

1487. Stay—Tuned

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

David E. Leininger

Everybody loves a good story. We begin our earliest understandings through stories. The Tortoise and the Hare, The Three Little Pigs, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Ugly Duckling. We learned lessons in behavior from stories like The Little Boy Who Cried ‘Wolf ’ and Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The tradition of storytelling is as old as humanity itself. Ancient cultures have stories to tell younger generations about their heritage. Go to the earliest chapters of our scripture and see how our own cultural ...

1488. I Am Somebody!

Mark 1:4-11

Sermon

David E. Leininger

I suspect that, having made it to mid-January, you would say that you have successfully survived the holidays. True? The celebration of our Savior’s birth — Christmas; then the New Year; finally the Feast of the Three Kings on January 6th — Epiphany (which for many has become the Feast of Taking Down the Decorations!). Today I want to suggest that there is one more holiday we should be observing — this day, the one the liturgical calendar designates to remember the Baptism of the Lord. If the witness of ...

1489. Seeing What We Don’t Want To See

John 12:20-33

Sermon

Mary Austin

As we draw near to the end of Lent, how has your Lenten journey been? What spiritual practice did you add? What habit did you let go of to make room for God? I love hearing the variety of answers, such as reading a devotional each day, or dedicated time to read bigger chunks of the Bible. Maybe it is participating in a Lent Bible study or praying in a different way, just to try it out. Perhaps it is giving up a habit that distracts from God’s presence — online games, shopping, or taking your phone to bed. ...

1490. 2 Boys at Doc's

Luke 15:25-32

Drama

Arley K. Fadness

Setting: Medical doctor’s examining room Characters: Nurse Nelson Dr. Bone Brake Brother One Brother Two (Nurse Nelson ushers two brothers in for their exam. He/She gives each a sheet to wear.) (As Doctor Bone Brake enters the room Nurse Nelson begins to speak.) NURSE NELSON: Doctor Bone Brake, I have two brothers who have come for their physical. Boys be seated. You over here and you over there. DOC: Hello fellows. It’s good to see you. How are you? BROTHER ONE: I’m fine. Don’t really need this ...

1491. Teach Us to Pray

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

Will Willimon

“Teach us to pray” was one of the few things the disciples” asked of Jesus. He gave them a model prayer; “Our Father who art in heaven...” Tertullian calls the Lord's Prayer “an epitome of the whole gospel.” On Sundays, we, like those disciples before us, come to Jesus asking, “Teach us to pray.” The Prayer of Intercession comes right after the sermon and scripture because the word helps us to discern between true and false prayer, between praying as a pagan and praying as a Christian.” It tell us what it ...

1492. The Seventy “Sevens”

Daniel 9:20-27

Understanding Series

William Nelson

Daniel’s Prayer and the Seventy Weeks: Chapter 9 is unique for three reasons. First, it starts with Daniel reading a prophetic text rather than receiving a vision as in the surrounding chapters (chs. 7, 8, and 10). Second, the particular name of Israel’s God, Yahweh, is only found in this chapter (vv. 2, 4, 8, 10, 13, 14, 20). Third, most of the chapter is taken up with a prayer. Elsewhere, the author makes clear that Daniel believed in talking to God (2:18; 6:10), but only here does he record the lengthy ...

1493. AAA=A

John 6:35, 41-51

Sermon

Lori Wagner

“Jesus, the incarnate God, the substance of the Father come down from Heaven to teach, to feed, and to save.” It was hard for Jesus’ own disciples to believe, let alone those who knew his family, grew up with him, taught beside him, saw him as a fellow rabbi and Jew. Now Jesus begins to say some pretty unbelievable things, at least unbelievable to the rational mind, the Jewish mind, anyone’s mind! As we traverse through about 5 weeks of clips in this grand dialogue about Jesus as the Bread of Life, we ...

1494. Messiah’s Community

John 20:19-31

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

In his widely-read testimony, Man’s Search for Meaning, famed psychiatrist Viktor Frankl remembered a terrible day during World War II. He was on a work gang, just outside the fences that hid the horrors of Hitler’s infamous Dachau death camp. “We were at work in a trench,” wrote Frankl. “The dawn was gray around us; gray was the sky above; gray the snow in the pale light of dawn; gray rags in which my fellow prisoners were clad, and gray their faces.” Frankl told how he was ready to die. It was as if the ...

1495. Hearing A Familiar Voice

John 10:22-30

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

As parents of three wonderful daughters, my wife and I can sympathize with the couple who sent their child off to college, only to find out a few months later that she was dating another student, and that the two of them were already talking about marriage. The troubled parents urged their daughter to bring her boyfriend home so that they could meet him. When the college twosome arrived and hurried and worried greetings were made at the door, Mom shunted daughter off to the kitchen while Dad guided the boy ...

1496. The Divine Mission

John 17:20-26

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

A friend of mine taught ethics at a Christian college. Several years ago, there was a scare on campus because a student had been raped. Since my friend wanted his students to deal with actual ethical situations, he began the next class session with a question: “If a friend came to your room in tears, telling how her date had just raped her, what is the first thing you would do to help her?” After a moment’s reflective silence one student raised her hand and asked, tentatively, “Pray?” The whole class ...

1497. Bare Stage

Matthew 1:18-25

Sermon

Frank Ramirez

One of the best parts of Christmas is getting out the nativity set. There’s often a family history behind the one in your home. Perhaps it belonged to your grandparents, or was given to you by a beloved aunt. Maybe there’s a chip on Mary’s arm or the leg of the baby Jesus, which tells a story about how you played with it as a child. Maybe there’s a missing Magi, who has been replaced by a super hero action figure, by the kid who accidentally broke it, in the hopes you won’t notice. If our nativity sets ...

1498. God Is Like...a Face

Genesis 33:1-11 · 2 Corinthians 4:5-6

Sermon

Kenneth L. Gibble

God is like …a face. What a strange idea. Of all the understandings of God we’ve explored thus far in this series, this is surely the most farfetched. What can it possibly mean to think of God as a face? To answer this question we must consider the breadth and the limitation of human imagination. You and I have minds that can take us beyond the time and place where we are. We can imagine what it might have been like to live a century ago, a millennium ago. We can move, in our minds, from where we are not, ...

1499. The Grande Masquerade

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

Lori Wagner

In 1842, Edgar Allen Poe wrote a disturbing short story called “The Masque of the Red Death.” The story follows a character named Prince Prospero during a time in which a strain of plague is causing people throughout the land to bleed to death. Confident that he can outwit and escape “death,” Prospero seals himself and a large number of his friends inside of his abbey away from the outside world. He then decides to conduct a lavish masquerade ball. At the stroke of midnight, a strange guest appears, ...

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