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 1676 to 1700 of 5000 results

1676. Five Smooth Stones

1 Samuel 17:1, 4-11, 21-24, 32-50

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... matter how far away we get from God, no matter how LOST we become, God wants us back. And when we turn around, when we head back to God, God comes running to greet us. And that's when you discover God forgives you. V. God Is With You God loves you, God knows you, God treasures you, God forgives you, and God is with you. One of my favorite passages of Scripture is John 14:18 where Jesus says, "I will not leave you orphaned." And then in Matthew 28: 20, the very last words of the Gospel, "And remember ...

1677. The Short List

Micah 6:1-8

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... the bailiff to pass around a hat to everyone in this courtroom, and I am fining everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a city where a man has to steal in order to have bread to eat." The money was collected and given to the defendant. I love that story, because it's a perfect example of justice being meted out in full and paid in full, while at the very same time, mercy and grace were also enacted in full. (7) You and I are called to act in the same manner as that Judge. We're ...

1678. Freedom to Set Free

Galatians 4:21-31

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... of what we own, or whom we know, or what we accomplish, but in terms of our own self-integrity - our response to his love. Probingly, as with the Rich young Ruler and the Samaritan Woman, he calls us from our false illusions, our empty hopes, our aimless ... I who live but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20 RSV). What ever else this means, and it means a full life, it certainly calls me to act in ...

1679. One to Take the Place of Jesus

John 14:15-31

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... is not an easy thing.” (Barclay, Ibid., p. 194). So what is Jesus saying? I will not leave you to struggle with the Christian life alone; I will not abandon you to your own strengths and skills to love as parents and children the way you are called to love. I will give you a helper, the parakletos, the one who will stand by you! Later in our scripture lesson, in verse 18, Jesus used a family word. “I will not leave you desolate, or forlorn — I will come to you.” The Greek word here is orphanos and ...

1680. Not a Servant, but a Son

Galatians 4:6-7

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... , we’ve been freed, and with our freedom, we have access to the father, and to the whole family. We can join others who have been adopted by grace, and sit on the porch and enter into the conversation with the lord and share all the abundance of God’s love. “You are no longer a servant but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ,” Paul says in verse 7. Keep that image in mind when you pray. All the riches of God, all the joy and communion, all the comfort of relationships, all the ...

1681. The Holy Spirit and You

John 14:15-27

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... the alphabet." To live is to discover how little we know and how much we have to learn. To live is to be a student of life. Helen Keller once said there are four things we need to learn in life: 1. To think clearly without confusion 2. To love people sincerely 3. To act in everything with highest motives 4. To trust God without hesitation Could you use some help in the school of life? The Holy Spirit can teach us to pray. The Church was born in a prayer meeting. That little group of 120 faithful disciples ...

1682. The Power of a Single Life

2 Corinthians 6:3-13

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... to leave this earth a better place than we found it, we will need to open the doors of our hearts. Open-hearted people do not live on the defensive. They have no need to hold back, be on guard, act cautiously. They are free to live and to love, to rejoice and to care, to forgive and renew, to believe and move on. Open-hearted people seize the day. They possess the power to see it through. Edison didn’t give up on the light bulb even though his helpers seriously doubted the thing would ever work. Luther ...

1683. Encountering Incomparable Riches

Ephesians 2:4-10

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... Lost Our Will. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do (Romans 7:15). Who in their right mind has not experienced these woes of St. Paul? Christ Saves Us. Paul says in Ephesians 2:4: But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in our transgressions. Charles Wesley wrote “He speaks, and listening to His voice, new life the dead receive." You can be alive, abundantly alive, fully alive, completely alive, eternally alive ...

1684. Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Deuteronomy 30:11-20

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... First Testament text we read the final words of Moses’ third and final Deuteronomic discourse on the law and the covenant God has put before the people. As has been the focus throughout Deuteronomy, Moses’ final emphasis is on the divine demand for loyalty, obedience, and love. *Loyalty to the one and only God and a rejection of all the enticing and powerful other “gods” of the cultures that surrounded and threatened to overwhelm Israel. *Obedience to God’s law, to each and every part of the Torah ...

1685. Romans 8:26-39

Romans 8:18-27

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... epistle text this week is such that we are going to focus on just the final portion of Paul’s great message (vv. 31-39). Here Paul offers a capstone to his argument, begun in chapter 5, that despite any suffering Christians might experience, it is the love and power of God that will ultimately prevail in the lives of the faithful. Although elsewhere Paul uses the phrase “What then shall we say?” (“ti oun eroumen”) to add “umph” to his arguments in Romans 3:1 and 4:1, here Paul’s query is ...

1686. Being Two People at Once

2 Samuel 11:1-15

Sermon

Donna Schaper

... made the choice to take Uriah out. David missed it. The good news is that he didn't miss all his chances. He managed to serve God and find his way to casual consistent beauty. He was forgiven a terrible crime, a hideous lust. He was forgiven the way he loved beauty too much. First he had to pay the price in the death of the son he bore by Bathsheba whom he took as his wife, after murdering Uriah. But one day at a time, one story at a time. We can receive the same power, the same forgiveness, and ...

1687. Adopted

Ephesians 1:1-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... offer for me to make to you‑‑you might be tempted to reject my offer completely‑‑but I make it to you without reservation. Also, I realize it may seem foolish to make such an offer to one who cost my Son his life, but I now have a great love and an unchangeable forgiveness in my heart for you. “Finally, you may be concerned that once you accept my offer you may do something to cause you to be denied your rights as an heir to my wealth. Nothing could be further from the truth. If I can forgive you ...

1688. You Provoke Me...and That's Good

Hebrews 10:1-18

Sermon

King Duncan

... person may become an angel or a monster and thus we need, in all things, to encourage one another in order to bring out the best in everyone we meet. Lewis is saying what the writer of Hebrews is saying: Let us “spur one another on toward love and good deeds . . .” A great Jewish rabbi named Abraham Joshua Heschel once wrote, “When I was younger, I used to admire intelligent people. Now that I am older, I admire kind people.” Why do you think he said that? It is because he knows that kindness is ...

1689. Your Home Page

Hebrews 13:1-25

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... personal home page. You might say one’s “home page” is the new “home land” — the habitation of all our personal loves and loyalties. Our “home page” is a small, safe, satisfying universe around which our lives orbit. Our home page is our “ ... quests to our “home page,” not to worry. Jesus will help us figure it out. The ethical, empathetic and, most essentially, loving software provided by Jesus’s spirit will clear out all the toxic viruses and soul-sucking spam that the world sends our ...

1690. A New Name for a New Year

Ephesians 1:1-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... Revelation 21:5: “See I am making everything new.” He said practically the same thing through Isaiah the prophet, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing” (Isaiah 43:18-19). That is the exciting thing about knowing God. God loves doing a new thing. You and I are often afraid of change. We long to be able to cling to the status quo. Someone has said that status quo is Latin for “the mess we’re in.” It’s dangerous to stick to the status quo. Let me give ...

1691. Appetites and Desires

Romans 7:7-25

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... of his previous appetites had nothing to do with his soul’s satisfaction. It was only after Paul’s encounter with the risen Christ that he felt the “desires” of his earthly life miraculously and suddenly fulfilled in the love of God and the love of others. Yet human appetites are not all “bad.” The hoopla of human joys — of births, triumphs, milestones, graduations, birthdays, anniversaries those are all good things. The problem is that our appetites for such moments become overwhelmed by the ...

1692. Poem: Adonais

Eulogy

Percy Bysshe Shelley

... death And mock the merry worm that wakes beneath; Nought we know, dies. Shall that alone which knows Be as a sword consumed before the sheath By sightless lightning? – the intense atom glows A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose. XXI. Alas! that all we loved of him should be, But for our grief, as if it had not been, And grief itself be mortal! Woe is me! Whence are we, and why are we? of what scene The actors or spectators? Great and mean Meet massed in death, who lends what life must borrow ...

1693. Concluding Exhortations

Hebrews 13:1-25

Understanding Series

Donald A. Hagner

... remember that God is with them and that they participate in a kingdom that cannot be shaken (12:28). With the Lord as their helper the readers can thus face every eventuality that may threaten them. Additional Notes 13:5 The single Greek word underlying free from the love of money (aphilargyros) occurs elsewhere in the NT only in 1 Tim. 3:3 in the list of qualifications for a bishop. The verb for be content (arkeō) occurs in 1 Tim. 6:8, where the same point is made by Paul. The emphasis on contentment with ...

1694. The Ten Commandments

Exodus 20:1-21

Understanding Series

James K. Bruckner

... possession” in its noun form (see comment on 15:16). God is rightly jealous, because the people “belong to” God, who has “paid for” or “purchased” the people, even though they pretend otherwise. The exiles in Babylon also founded their hope on God’s jealous love (Zech. 1:14–16; see also Isa. 42:8–17). 20:7 The third commandment is, “You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name” (see also Deut. 5:11). “Misuse ...

1695. Let Him Kiss Me

Song of Songs 1:1-17

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Huwiler

... be a woman’s voice. The as-yet-unnamed speaker is direct in expressing her desire (“let him kiss me”), but her speech darts about at a tempo that is difficult to follow. She talks first about the man, then to him. She speaks of his kisses, his love, and wine. Perfume seems to be in the air. Then suddenly the perfume is his name. Then she calls him “king” and she is again speaking about rather than to him. The celebration of him becomes clamorous: we rejoice and delight; we praise. By this time the ...

1696. Rend Your Heart

Joel 2:12-17

Understanding Series

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... God from our apostasy, according to verse 13, only because God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. We do not deserve God’s acceptance of our turning, but God receives it anyway. The description that Joel gives of ... ). When our lives are preserved and transformed, God’s power and mercy are magnified before the world. When we are saved by the undeserved love of God, that salvation resounds to God’s glory (cf. Ps. 98; Isa. 52:13–53:12). God’s light shed upon the people ...

1697. A Room with Locked Doors

John 20:19-23

Sermon

King Duncan

... doors were locked, he came and stood among them. This shows something about the nature of his new resurrected body--walls were no obstacle to him--but it also instructs us that no matter what walls and doors we hide behind, Jesus is able to come to us with his loving care. He is able to reach us behind the walls where we have hidden ourselves. He is able to dispel our fears and meet us right at the point of our need. Nothing is too difficult for him. In the midst of their fear and confusion, Christ came to ...

1698. No Confidence in the Flesh

Philippians 3:1-11

Understanding Series

F. F. Bruce

... explore the fullness of this relationship was from now on Paul’s inexhaustible joy. For him, in short, life was Christ—to love Christ, to know Christ, to gain Christ: “Christ is the way, and Christ the prize.” 3:9 To gain Christ means to ... much was this knowledge a matter of interpersonal union that to know Christ meant to experience the power of his resurrection. If the love of God is supremely demonstrated in the death of Christ (Rom. 5:8), his power is supremely demonstrated in the resurrection of ...

1699. Sermon on the Mount: Jesus Teaches on the Torah

Matthew 5:17-48

Teach the Text

Jeannine K. Brown

... 22). Or it may reflect contemporary sensibilities, such as those found in the Dead Sea Scrolls: “Hate all the Sons of Darkness each according to his guilt” (1QS 1:10; also 1:3–4; 9:16, 21–22).6Jesus broadens the command to love one’s neighbor to include love of enemies and prayer for their well-being. 5:48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. This exhortation of Jesus sums up the nature of Jesus’ teachings on the Torah from 5:21–48 and clarifies how his followers are ...

1700. “Weak and Strong” Should Get Along

Romans 14:1--15:13

Teach the Text

C. Marvin Pate

... strong in faith enjoy the blessings of the new covenant. (2) The weak in faith are in the new covenant but live like they are in the old covenant. (3) The strong in faith should demonstrate toward the weak in faith the ethic of the new covenant: love. Either way, the title of this unit—“Strong and Weak Christians: The New and the Old Covenants”—could serve as the title of the lesson or sermon on this passage. We might also compare the strong in faith today with those who feel comfortable with the ...

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