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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1601. Will God Be With Us?

Exodus 33:12-23

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... and you have found favor with me.’ If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.” Do you hear the deepest yearning of Moses’ heart? In his opinion, there is no blessing that compares to knowing God and God’s ways. Do we believe that too? Clinical psychologist Larry Crabb writes in his book Shattered Dreams, “The highest dream we could ever dream, the wish that if granted would make us happier than any ...

1602. When Payday Comes

Matthew 20:1-16

Sermon

Steven Molin

... carried the day and the motion passed. On the following Tuesday morning, a couple came to see me – old timers – and they were upset about the meeting. “We think new members in the church should only get half a vote at congregational meetings. Their opinion shouldn’t be as valuable as those of us who have been around longer.” Remember Randy? Yes, these were his parents sitting across from me. Apparently, the pumpkin doesn’t fall far from the tree! In the twenty years that have passed since those ...

1603. Simeon (A Monologue)

Luke 2:22-40

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... false teachers; we are the ones ordained by God to keep the faith in the face of a hostile and unbelieving world. It is a grave task, but one which every one of us is pleased and honored to undertake. To be sure, there are great varieties of opinion among the members of the Sanhedrin. Some are Sadducees... including the high priest. They are the most conservative of us. They go so far as to say that nothing matters at all except what is written in the Torah. For them, any further explanation is the work of ...

1604. The View From The Mountaintop

Mark 9:2-9

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... confessions, he was even more orthodox than Beecher. During the war Dabney served on the staff of General Stonewall Jackson; afterward he presided over seminaries in South Carolina and in Texas. Yet from wherever Dabney viewed the conflict, his opinion was the same. The war, he thought, was “caused deliberately” by evil abolitionists who persecuted the south “with calculated malice.” When fellow southerners asked him to soften his views on denominational colleagues in the North, Dabney had only ...

1605. The Glory of God

Romans 11:33-36, Matthew 16:13-20

Sermon

Will Willimon

... do people say that I am?'' Jesus asks. ''Some say John the Baptist, others think that maybe you’re Elijah.'' ''But who do YOU think I am?'' That puts it all a bit close to home, doesn't it? Not who do the scholars say, or what the latest public opinion poll indicates, but how do YOU answer? The Battle of Hastings? The purpose of my life? The nature of Christ? Wouldn't it be good always to be as adept with the answers as was Peter that day in Caesarea Philippi? His hand the first to go up, ''You are ...

1606. I Love You — If You Know What I Mean

1 John 3:16-24

Sermon

John B. Jamison

... ? I mean, if I do it and they don’t change their ways, what’s going to keep them from getting back in the same situation later? I wonder if John might respond by saying that another person’s suffering is not based on our rules or opinions? Whether or not a person is suffering and feeling pain isn’t based on what we believe qualifies as legitimate suffering. We just need to remember that each one of us has the same need for some feeling of security, the need for access to food and nourishment ...

1607. Prophets and the Powerful

1 Kings 21:1-3, 17-21

Sermon

Will Willimon

... East Room of the White House, or even be asked to pay a visit. “Wait for another administration,” you say, “perhaps you'll be invited then.” But no, if even my congregation here at Duke Chapel is uninterested in my-political opinions, how much less interested will be the President and the First Lady. Preachers and politicians make strange bedfellows--right, Mayor Gulley! The trouble between preachers and politicians has something to do with power. Politicians have power -- they make laws, determine ...

1608. Where's God?

John 16:12-15

Sermon

David Coffin

... this God has three expressions. Later in John’s gospel, Nicodemus’ faith evolved. He was a voice reminding his Sanhedrin colleagues that Jesus’ words and ideas need to be carefully weighed according to the Hebrew Bible laws, rather than simple knee jerk opinions by angered leaders. After Jesus is crucified, he provides customary embalming spices for Jesus’ body to assist Joseph of Arimathea in the burial of the body (John 19:39-42 RSV). Jesus has given this inquiring Pharisee Nicodemus a sense of ...

1609. Steadfast Change

Mark 13:1-8

Sermon

Thomas C. Willadsen

... congregation and fight change with everything we’ve got, we will change. We are changing whether we accept or deny that fact. Transformation is also inevitable, but transformation is a more radical altering than mere change. Transformation is a change that, in my opinion, requires divine assistance. We can seek to change ourselves, but to be transformed we have to let God work through us. In fact, after thinking about these two words for a few weeks I looked them up. One synonym for “transform” is ...

1610. Christ, Our King

John 18:33-37

Sermon

Thomas C. Willadsen

... the emperor.” John 19:12 (NRSV). The authorities did not seem troubled at all because the name Barabbas means, “son of the father” …hmm. It’s fascinating, this powerful ruler was fearful of one whose authority was not from this world. Pilate, in 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 ...

1611. Christ, Our King

John 18:33-37

Sermon

Thomas C. Willadsen

1612. Living Through Hard Times

2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10

Sermon

Bonnie Bates

... on righteousness, sincere love, and reconciliation? As I write this, our nation is still in the throes of a pandemic, still divided over issues of faith, race, and governmental decisions. We still, in the US, focus on our individual perspectives and our individual opinions, sometimes to the detriment of civil conversations and relationships. This seems to me to be the antitheses of the gospel and of Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth. We know from studies of this church and through Paul’s letters ...

1613. Hearing A Familiar Voice

John 10:22-30

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... folk in Jesus’ day already had a relationship with God. They knew of God. They knew about God. They worshiped God. At the same time, they were strangely attracted to Jesus. And some said that he was God. But that could not be. Everybody had an opinion about Jesus. Still, it was all so confusing. So the religious leaders came to him to ask him straight out: “Are you the Messiah?” Are you the representative of God? Are you God come among us? And Jesus gave them directly indirect answers. It is a ...

1614. Is This Any Way for a King to Behave?

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16 · Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

Will Willimon

... here in our town. The Lord is with you. This is the way this King does things, favoring ordinary people like Mary and Joseph or you and me, with us in places like Nazareth, or right here. In him, all our definitions of power, all our opinions about who is important, all our expectations for the way things work, get rearranged, refocused, changed. After the emissary of the King showed up in Nazareth, get ready for him to show up anywhere, here! saying, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." Peter ...

1615. The Art Of Transition

Luke 9:51-62

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... have gone from playing our parents’ 72 rpm records to playing our own 45’s through vinyl albums, to eight- tracks, to cassettes, to CDs to MP3s to streaming music on our phones. And nobody, you will notice, asked our permission or even our opinion before making these changes. How are we supposed to live with them? The Word In the gospel lesson, Luke showed how Jesus refused to be distracted from his calling and his goal. He set his face toward Jerusalem and, despite distractions, refused to be diverted ...

1616. The Power of Story

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... a character in a story would. When reading a news report, we can keep our defenses up, our biases intact, and objectify those mentioned. We typically do not engage our emotions when we read. It’s easy to identify people according to current opinions, applying blame or fault externally. However, when we read about characters in a story, we feel no need to protect our mental fortresses. Stories feel like safe environments to listen and introspect. Stories promote empathy.[2] We cannot prevent evil and sin ...

1617. For Someone Who Led A Magnificent Life

Ecclesiastes 3:1-11 · 1 Corinthians 2:9-10 · 2 Corinthians 4:6-11 · Luke 24:13-35

Eulogy

Richard E. Zajac

... Paul II didn’t die before Bill. Bill was a student of the papacy and, whenever Papal elections were held, he was in his glory. Papers would be strewn across his desk with biographies of the Cardinals, and he’d carefully handicap their chance for election with an opinion or two as to the politics of the process. I’d imagine that when the day of Pope John Paul II’s death finally arrives, Bill, from his perch in heaven, will do what he can to influence the choice of his successor. Think of how Bill ...

1618. The Main Thing

Luke 12:32-40

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... and the day and the days after that, until we die. Every time we have a chance, we renew that commitment, not in front of the church but in front of each other. We laugh together, we cry together, we kiss, we hug, we ask each other’s opinion, we share our ideas and feelings, we hold hands, and, sometimes we still manage to surprise each other. If we want to have and maintain a personal, loving faithful relationship, the first thing we do is to decide to commit to the relationship. The second thing we do ...

1619. Good News / Bad News

Luke 12:49-56

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... -hewn philosopher given to malaprops and seemingly contradictory statements that managed to, somehow, still make a weird kind of sense. It was Yogi who said: “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” And, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.” When giving his opinion of a New York restaurant, he’s reported to have said, “Nobody goes there anymore; it’s too crowded.” And, he may be best known for his advice to young people: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” When you come to ...

1620. An Up-Close Nativity

Titus 2:11-14

Sermon

Heather Sugden

... I wondered if they should go back to their previous spots. These expanding and ever-changing nativity scenes were odd to see at first. It took more restraint than you can imagine not to “clean up” the scene and put everyone back where they, in my opinion, belonged! But it was also clear that my children understood the Christmas story better than I did. “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 ...

1621. Chief Among Sinners

Luke 19:1-10

Sermon

Jill J. Duffield

... ? Wouldn’t we have grumbled, too? Don’t we grumble when we think God’s grace misplaced or when God’s judgment is lacking? Don’t we grumble when God’s mercy is far too, well, merciful? But Jesus acted out of something other than popular opinion. Jesus did not strive to meet our expectations. Jesus cared neither about the grumbling of the Pharisees and scribes, nor that of the crowds. Jesus sought out the lost, no matter who they were or where they were or how that lostness was exhibited. And he ...

1622. The Price of Success

Illustration

William H. Hinson

You may have seen the “Hi and Lois” cartoon in which Ditto, their little boy, went to visit one of his rich young friends. The butler met him at the door and showed him to entire rooms filled with toys. Ditto said to his friend, ‘‘You and your daddy must have lots of fun playing with all these toys.” The boy answered, “No, my daddy doesn’t have time to play with me. He’s at the office--he’s got offices all over the world. He can’t play with me.” The little rich boy reflected for a moment and then said, “I ...

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