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 1626 to 1650 of 2173 results

1626. Candlelighting and Prayer

Isaiah 9:1-7

Bulletin Aid

Thomas A. Pilgrim

Lighting Of All The Candles Leader: Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this. People: These candles we light today, after Christmas remind us to keep the light of Christ burning in our hearts through all the days ahead. Leader: Amen. Prayer Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, who is the ...

1627. Changing the "Too Much Syndrome"

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

David M. Oliver

Everyone I know has something to say about the time leading up to Christmas. I have heard people say that this season involves too much busyness, too much fatigue, too much pressure, too much eating, drinking, baking, and buying. With all the hopes, expectations, traditions, obligations, dreams and fantasies that surround Christmas, it is easy to see why this time seems to be reduced to too much of almost everything. I invite you to lay down and lay aside these experiences for the moment. This worship is ...

1628. The Importance of Unity

1 Corinthians 1:10-17

Sermon

Hubert Beck

Sometimes want to cry when hear non-Christians say that they have rejected the church because of its divisions. They may mean denominational divisions on occasion, and that is bad enough. But more frequently they mean the internal strife that characterizes all too many congregations. For it is, after all, on the local level that most people encounter the church, and when they see discord and argumentation marking a congregation, they want nothing to do with that. I want to cry because the very body of ...

1629. THE ART OF EXPRESSING LOVE

Illustration

John H. Krahn

The sharing of human warmth and affection is something which we all desire and need. Loving and being loved is one of the staples of human existence. Although love and physical affection enhance each other, too often the concept of love is too narrowly defined and even misconstrued when one makes physical affection synonymous with love. It simply is not! The art of expressing love is a very broad, inclusive, endeavor. To discover how to be really good at expressing love, we must look to God - the greatest ...

1630. THE WITCH OF ENDOR

Drama

Marcia Miller

This is a play about necromancy, the art of communicating with the dead to predict the future. The actual story appears in 1 Samuel 28:7-25. But the period of history is not important, in that witchcraft has remained more constant than other religions throughout the ages. Costuming should be simple. The Witches should be in the traditional dark (black) colors, whereas Saul and his aides should be in bright reds, purples, and blues. Saul is not dressed as a king or a soldier, but as a peasant. When Samuel ...

1631. Holy Tares!

Matthew 13:24-30

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

Another parable he put before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the householder came and said, to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then has it weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us ...

1632. God’s Great Chalkboard

Luke 18:9-14

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

Object: A chalkboard, chalk, and eraser. Good morning, boys and girls. Today we are going to learn something by using a very familiar friend in a different way. [Bring out the chalkboard.] How many of you have used a chalkboard before? What do you do with a chalkboard? [Let them answer.] That’s right, you write on it with chalk. I have a piece of chalk and I will write down some things like 2+2=4, C A T spells cat, and I will draw a picture of a stick man. Can everyone see what I have written on the ...

1633. Sharing with Others

John 6:5

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

Object: The cans of food or boxes that you asked them to bring last week, and some pictures of very hungry children and a large box to pack it in Good morning, boys and girls. I've been waiting all week for this moment when all of us would be like missionaries. How many of you know the story of Jesus feeding 5,000 people? Do you remember how he asked one of his disciples to tell him how all of the opeople who had come to hear him teach were going to eat? The disciples didn't know. But Jesus asked a small ...

1634. Great Grace Was Upon Them!

Acts 4:32-37

Sermon

Durwood L. Buchheim

Let us pray: Lord, help us to be faithful in our devotion and worship during these tempting days of spring and summer. Light within our hearts the flame of gratitude that in this complaining and selfish world our light may shine. In the power of your love, enable us to tell the difference between desires and necessities; between enough and too much; between making a living and making a life. Help us to follow your Son in the freedom from the idolatry of things. In Christ’s name. Amen. I am glad you are ...

1635. Stewards and Our Bodies

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Sermon

Jerry L. Schmalemberger

Esther and Walter Hupman were their names. The Hupmans had the only round barn in Darke County, Ohio. Next to that barn was the tenant farmer’s home. The tenants came and went on the large Hupman farm. Some did a beautiful job caring for the land, their home, the barns, and cattle. Others couldn’t care less; they got everything out of the farm they could and then left a mess. We have seen already that you and I are a lot like caretakers: that is, temporary tenants of God’s good creation. The first sermon ...

1636.

Drama

David E. Ullery

CAST (in order of appearance) Claudia: The wife of Pontius Pilate, Procurator of Palestine. She has been influenced by Jesus. Rachel: A Jewish servant-girl in Pilate’s household. Joanna: Wife of the chief steward in Herod’s household. She is a follower of Jesus. Pilate: Pontius Pilate, the strong-willed Procurator, symbol of the hated Roman conquerors. Sergius: A Roman soldier, personal body-guard of Pontius Pilate. Caiaphas: Chief Priest and leader of the Jewish Sanhedrin, an evil and crafty man - a ...

1637. Man, Where Are You?

Genesis 3:1-24

Sermon

Alton F. Wedel

The story of the fall of Adam and Eve disturbs a lot of people, raises many questions, and poses many problems. How can anyone who lives in this advanced society with our advanced technology and our unlimited horizons believe in talking serpents? • Or with our advanced theology how are we to understand a God who hangs our fate in trees? • Or when we have passed the finals and the orals and have gained all wisdom and all knowledge, how can anybody be this stupid? • Or how could God be so harsh as to impose ...

1638. A Story Worth Sharing

Mark 8:27-30

Sermon

David E. Leininger

WATCH YOUR MOUTH! What a lesson. There is a classic story about a minister who comes to church one snowy Sunday morning to find that only one lady has been able to make it to worship. As it happens, the text and sermon for the day came from this third chapter of James and focused on the damage done by gossiping. It also turned out that, of all the people in the congregation, this one lady was more guilty of this particular sin than anybody! So, one-person congregation or not, the pastor proceeded as if ...

1639. On Being Mistaken For A Mannequin

Acts 2:42-47

Sermon

King Duncan

The sign on the stage proclaimed, "The Motionless Man: Make Him Laugh. Win $100." The temptation was irresistible. For three hours boys and girls, men and women performed every antic and told every joke they could dream up. But Bill Fuqua, the Motionless Man, stood perfectly still. Luis Palau in his book HEALTHY HABITS FOR SPIRITUAL GROWTH, tells about Fuqua, the GUINNESS BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS champion at doing nothing. Fuqua, says Palau, appears so motionless during his routines at shopping malls and ...

1640. Overcoming "Work-avoidance Syndrome"

2 Thessalonians 3:1-5

Sermon

King Duncan

Have you ever noticed how some people are lazy? Oops ” how many people have work-avoidance syndrome? I heard about two men who were talking about going to Australia. One of them said, "Did you hear? The news says there's a diamond mine in the Outback where diamonds lay all over the ground. All you have to do is bend down and pick them up." The other guy looked offended and said, "You have to BEND DOWN?" There was a PEANUTS cartoon several years ago. Linus is addressing Snoopy who is asleep on the roof of ...

1641. In Praise Of Doers

Matthew 25:14-30

Sermon

King Duncan

Earl Fitz is a doer. According to a recent article in CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Fitz is 81 years young and he has been the mayor of Iowa Falls, Iowa four times. But that's the easy part. In Earl's midfifties he left his teaching job and began a new career, selling Bibles. Earl bought 10,000 Bibles from a publisher getting out of Bible sales and sold them all. Today, Earl is the founder and president of Riverside Book and Bible House, which sold $33 million worth of books last year. He's succeeded with a lot of ...

1642. How Can I Know It's Real?

Luke 19:1-10

Sermon

King Duncan

Regardless of what you may have heard or read, Frank and Jesse James, two of the most famous outlaws of all time, were cold-blooded murderers. Their father, though, was a Baptist pastor and the founder of William Jewel College in Liberty, Kentucky. Their mother was raised in a Catholic convent. Both parents espoused values very different from those that their sons held. Yet, Robert James, their father, deserted his wife and sons while they were still very small so that he could search for gold in ...

1643. Meeting Jesus Along The Way

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

King Duncan

There is an 80-foot tall maple tree in Milford, Connecticut that hasn ™t changed much over the years. There are new leaves every spring, of course, and the leaves fall off every autumn. And there is the spot where a limb came off when Hurricane Gloria blew through in 1985. Other than that missing branch the tree on Hawley Avenue has looked the same for as long as anyone can remember. The spot where the limb was blown off caused quite a stir in the neighborhood sometime back. One of the residents, Claudia ...

1644. Where Is Your Citizenship?

Philippians 3:12-4:1

Sermon

King Duncan

Mark Twain once categorized people into three groups: commonplace, remarkable, and lunatics. I don't know about you, but I can think of people who belong in all three groups. St. Paul, though, says there are only two kinds of people ” citizens of the world and citizens of heaven. And the contrasts between the two are stark. Here is how St. Paul describes citizens of the world. FIRST OF ALL, HE SAYS THEIR DESTINY IS DESTRUCTION. Recent wire reports carried the story of a motorist who stole $9 worth of ...

1645. Destined For Greatness

Jeremiah 30:1--31:40

Sermon

King Duncan

Whatever happened to the grand old doctrine of predestination--the view that all of life has been predetermined, preordained, fixed in place with no possibility of alteration? Some of our younger folks may not even have heard of this time-honored view of life, but there was a time when it was a hot topic. It even produced humor. Two pastors were good friends but had radically different theologies. Bob was a strong believer in predestination. He believed that everything that happens to us has already been ...

1646. I Can Make It By Myself . . .

Nehemiah 8:10

Children's Sermon

King Duncan

Object: On a piece of paper, write J-O-Y vertically with a black marker. After J, write Jesus with a bright colored marker and after O, write Others and after Y, write You. (As an option, make a JOY bookmark for each child. A piece of cardstock cut into 2" x 6" pieces works well for a bookmark.) There is a story in the Bible, in the book of Nehemiah, that tells of Ezra reading the scriptures to the people. The people didn't have Bibles of their own, so they depended on the priests to read it to them. ...

1647. Who Did He Praise?

Luke 16:1-15

Sermon

King Duncan

There was once a young businessman in Germany named Neckerman who had a burning ambition to build his small retail store into a large chain of department stores. His problem was that no one knew his name. He couldn't attract customers. He had only limited capital. This was shortly after World War II. As you might imagine there were shortages in Germany of almost everything. Thus, the existing big department stores saw no reason to cut prices. They sold whatever they could get at healthy margins. Neckerman ...

1648. On Panicking Close to Shore

John 6:16-24

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

Will Rogers once said that “a lot of what everybody knows ain’t so!” Nowhere is that more true than in the realm of Biblical scholarship. From my research in the gospel of John and many visits to the holy land I have discovered that a lot of what biblical scholars and commentators appear to know for sure seems doubtful at best, and downright wrong in some places. For instance, not too many years ago it was an accepted axiom among Biblical scholars that the author of the Fourth Gospel always tended to “ ...

1649. Wining and Dining with Jesus

Mark 2:18-22

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

Doesn’t it seem sometimes that the people who are NOT religious are a whole lot more fun than the people who are? At times the church suffers more at the hands of its friends than at the hands of its enemies. It suffers more from the rigidly righteous than from the blatantly irreligious. There are those who in their self-righteous zeal appoint themselves as monitors of other people’s morals and delight in pointing their fingers at the failings of everybody but themselves. Let’s face it: there have been a ...

1650. Palm Sunday (Prologue)

Matthew 21:1-11

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

Once upon a time, before television, there was radio. You know what radio is—television without pictures. Well, before television, one of the most popular daytime radio programs was called “Queen for a Day.” If I remember it correct-ly (and it was a long time ago!), each day four or five women from the studio audience would tell the host what they would like to have and do if they could be “Queen for a Day.” And then, on the basis of applause, one woman was chosen, and insofar as they were able, the ...

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