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 1701 to 1725 of 4971 results

1701. Christmasize Your Life

Isaiah 11:1-16

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... among all nations. He doesn't describe a giant, or a sudden storm of divinely-charged power. Instead the prophet's image starts small. The long awaited Messiah arrives as a shoot, a tiny, tender, green sprout. This shoot doesn't spring up out of a carefully prepared, plowed and furrowed field. Its source for germination is the decaying stump of an old, once-powerful name. Jesse, the father of David, was thus the father of the entire line of the Davidic monarchy. Jesse gave life to a king, who in turn gave ...

1702. I Like Brussels Sprouts, but...

Matthew 9:9-13, Matthew 9:18-26

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... no food and the waters are "glumped" and the air is filled with "smogulous smoke" - all to feed the insatiable need for more thneeds. In his final words to the reader, Dr. Seuss puts the future firmly in the hands of his readers: "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." The United State's most read columnist, Thomas Friedman, likes to tell a story he got from Johns Hopkins University's foreign policy professor Michael Mandelbaum (in his book The Ideas That ...

1703. The Best Places to Live

Jeremiah 29:1-23

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... to get along in a foreign land. His oracle reasserted the divine intention of this exilic experience. The Israelites had not been abandoned by God, even though they had suffered divine judgment. In their exiled state they were still in God's presence, God's care, God's hands. Our eleven year old Thane just came home from a birthday party with this...a delightfully icky party favor [have some examples to play with or pass/toss out]. It is a slimy, slippery substance called "gooze" which takes on the shape ...

1704. The Lamb's Book of Life

John 1:29-34

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... . Every prisoner could call his mother free on Mother's Day and his father free on Father's Day. Mother's Day was a big hit. Father's day was a flop. Why? Prisoners didn't know their fathers, and those who did didn't care to talk to them because they cared not for them as children. How sad. How revealing. But as morally degrading, morally bankrupt as such talk show displays are, they point an equally accusing finger at those on stage, those doing the interviewing and marketing, and those of us who watch in ...

1705. Undercooked Turkey and Unwrapped Presents

Hebrews 2:5-18

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... when we think back to the very first Christmas, when the wise men went to see the baby Jesus, and, according to the Book of Matthew, "presented unto him gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh." These are simple words, but if we analyze them carefully, we discover an important, yet often-overlooked, theological fact: There is no mention of wrapping paper. If there had been wrapping paper, Matthew would have said so: "And lo, the gifts were inside 600 square cubits of paper. "And the paper was festooned with ...

1706. You've Won the Heavenly Sweepstakes!

John 14:15-31

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... . We just want to "trust the process." Here the tapes playing in your skull right now: "Act, don't' react." "Leave nothing to chance." "Never be surprised." "What's your plan?" Using a child's logic we still believe if we can just do everything right, move carefully from "a" to "b" to "c" to "d", everything will have to turn out all right. The trouble with "trusting the process" is that the world refuses to play by static "process" rules. We have so very little "control" over life. You were going to finish ...

1707. Son-burned, Wind-blown, Earth-Stained

Luke 12:35-48

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... were a few years ago, there's no doubt that we now live in a dressed-down world. The days of dressing up to travel are long gone. Comfort and adaptability (and maybe stain resistance and wrinkle resistance) are the only requirements for travel clothing. Who cares what you look like? Wear long pants with big zippers around the knees that you can zip-off into shorts if the weather heats up; Wear bright, puffy sneakers with everything to keep your feet well supported and slip-free; Wear T-shirts with expensive ...

1708. When Self-esteem is Snake Oil

Galatians 5:1-15

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... about it: the Mafia code of silence (omertia) is broken, not by torture or by terrorists but by the self-esteem code of confessionalism. The number one cause of everything wrong in the world? Low self-esteem. The truth? No one can live without self-care and self-confidence. Call it self-esteem if you will. But there's a huge difference between self-esteem and a self-absorption; between self-esteem and selfishness; between self-esteem and a self-centered life. Jesus argued that the self must be strong and ...

1709. I've Got Your Back Covered

Revelation 22:1-6

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... peace knowing there's always one who has our back. So the next time you hear this word Paraclete, or think of the Holy Spirit, don't think babysitter or blanket. Jesus isn't sending us a comforter in the sense of a babysitter who's going to take care of us. Jesus isn't sending us a comforter who is going to blanket us with warmth and encouragement, telling us to cheer up and be chirpy everything will be fine. This Paraclete is our battle companion and protector who will, in the words of one preacher, "bear ...

1710. Trust that Leads to Transformation

John 2:1-11

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... do. Although Jesus' first response to the problem reveals no inclination to deal with it, Mary responds by going to the servants and telling them to do "whatever he tells you" (verse 5). It's Mary's indirect-directive that leads Jesus to perform what John carefully records as the first of his signs (verse 11). But Mary's actions are more than mere motherly manipulation. She alone knows of Jesus' miraculous birth. She alone has watched him grow and mature into manhood. It's hard not to believe that Mary was ...

1711. What Happened to the Leftovers?

John 6:1-15

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... , with those who were absent. There would be plenty of people near Esther's home who hadn't ventured out to hear and to see Jesus. Perhaps they felt whole, like they didn't need healing. Perhaps they'd had their fill of sermons for the week and didn't care to sit through another. Perhaps they simply hadn't heard. I can see Esther knocking on such a friend's door. "Let me tell you about Jesus," she'd say. She might be flustered. She might not know how to begin. And then the words would rush out. "You know ...

1712. Fear Factor

Psalm 25:1-22

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... backpack trip through Europe, their off-road walkabout in Australia, their exploration of the Holy Lands? You know what fear is. It's wise to fear some things. If a person does not fear high-voltage electricity and snakes, he or she is a fool. We need to be careful. In today's wisdom Psalm, the writer boldly addresses the Lord, asking to be taught God's ways and God's path (verse 4). The psalmist's confidence to petition the Lord comes not because he's perfect. On the contrary, he admits to the "sins of my ...

1713. Follow Me!

Matthew 16:21-28

Sermon

James McCormick

... They had to decide all over again: “Is this really what you want? Are you willing to pay the price of discipleship?” Let’s look carefully at what Jesus said to them, and what Jesus says to us. I. First, he said, if you want to be my disciple, you must deny ... m in charge! To give up control is not easy. But when we come to know that God is like Jesus, that He really loves us and cares about us, then we can trust that He knows what is best for us and that He wants what is best for us. Once we know that, ...

1714. Jesus' Forty Days, and Ours

Matthew 4:1-11

Sermon

James McCormick

... asleep. That story breaks my heart, because it has a familiar ring to it. His passion to be a good preacher - a good thing - had tempted him that night to be a bad father. Do you hear it? The tempter even turns our strengths against us if we are not careful. Well, if temptation is real and if we will be wrestling with it all our lives, how best to deal with it? Let’s look at how Jesus did it. There, in the wilderness, every time he was tempted, he quoted scripture. And, don’t miss the fact that all ...

1715. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

John 16:17-33

Sermon

James McCormick

... isn’t helpful. Resentment doesn’t do us any good. Mere stoic acceptance is no better. The best answer is the Christian answer. The Christian answer begins with God, with the kind of God we have come to know in Jesus. God loves us every one. God cares for us more than we care for ourselves. God doesn’t intend for bad things to happen to us. Like any good parent, God wants us to have the very best that life has to offer. But He doesn’t promise us a rose garden. He doesn’t promise even us Christians ...

1716. The Counter Intelligence of the Cross

1 Corinthians 1:18--2:5, 1 Corinthians 1:10-17, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... your own stories here would help . .. Or get someone from the congregation to tell a fish-tail story). There are winter driving schools where you can pay someone to help you intentionally put your car into a nasty, fish-tailing slide. Under the watchful care of an “expert,” you can practice doing what it takes to get back in control of your vehicle. It takes practice because the course of action we must take seems so absolutely wrong, so completely contradictory to all our basic instincts. When the back ...

1717. The Lonesome George Church

Matthew 4:23-25, Matthew 4:18-22, Matthew 4:12-17

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... imitated church in the world and one of the most financially successful churches in the world issues a public apology and admits a big “Oops!” or “We’ve gone down the wrong track” . . . . maybe it’s time to look at this text more carefully and what it means to be a “disciple.” According to our text this morning, what do disciples do? Two things. First, disciples follow a leader (Jesus). Second, disciples make more disciples. They reproduce. Disciples live and love in such a way that others ...

1718. Christmas Eve\Christmas Day

Luke 2:1-7, Isaiah 9:1-7, Psalm 96:1-13, Titus 2:1-15, Luke 2:8-20

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