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 1776 to 1800 of 4959 results

1776. The Adventure Of The Empty Tomb

Mark 16:1-20

Sermon

Jerry Eckert

... ! Before us, back on Baker Street, sat a marvelous lamb stew Mrs. Hudson had prepared for us for our evening meal. Holmes pounced upon it with delight. He had enjoyed the sunny ride back from the Cathedral as had I. But now my curiosity built up and I desired to ascertain what else he'd done during the time he was there. "Yes, Watson, I'll tell you," he said in response to my query. "Arriving well before the Archbishop did, I set out to be sure I found the proper tomb. I could have followed the Archbishop ...

1777. Epiphany Day

Matthew 2:1-12

Bulletin Aid

RobertT D. Ingram

Call to Worship Leader: Bethlehem-born king of kings, your people have come to worship you. Right: Star-marked Savior, we bow before you. Left: Desire of prophecy and prayer, we offer you our worship. Right: Downfall of Herods everywhere, we bow before you. Left: Joy of wise men and women, we offer you our worship. Prayer Our holy Father, Creator of all life, we join our brothers and sisters in bowing before your Son. Like ...

1778. Coming Clean

Mark 7:1-23

Bulletin Aid

RobertT D. Ingram

... , and hold us close to you forever. Amen. Prayer of Confession and Pardon Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.Restore to ...

1779. Taking Christ's Side

Mark 9:38-41

Bulletin Aid

RobertT D. Ingram

... saltiness, how can you season it?" Congregation: Lord, if love does not flavor our actions; then what value are we to anyone? Leader: Jesus said, "Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another." Congregation: Lord, let love season our every thought and desire, and use it to bring peace to our fellowship. Acts of Confession God of heaven and earth, forgive us for our jealousy. We see the congregation down the street succeed where we have failed, and we assume that their theology is wrong or that ...

1780. Seeking Honor

Mark 10:35-45

Bulletin Aid

RobertT D. Ingram

... , too. Though your baptism drowns you in hell's flames, we will be baptized, too. Where you go, we will go. Then, as we join you in death, may we be lifted with you into new life. To sit at your right hand or left, we have no desire, merely put us at your feet, and our hearts will be full. Now, Merciful Teacher, grant us the grace needed to live as faithfully as we pray. Amen. Commissioning and Blessing Rulers lording it over others -- No! Great ones acting like tyrants -- No! Servants giving themselves for ...

1781. Son of David, Open Our Eyes

Mark 10:46-52

Bulletin Aid

RobertT D. Ingram

... the block, to the church fellowship hall for refreshments, or wherever Christ would have them go! This may be a good time for the congregation to celebrate their healing ministries by including a ritual for healing in the worship service. Let worshipers desiring healing come forward to receive prayer, anointing with oil and the laying on of hands. Holy communion is often connected with healing liturgies, too. Provision may be made for praying for the healing of people who are not in attendance. Such prayer ...

1782. MAY 29-JUNE 4

Mark 2:1-12

Bulletin Aid

RobertT D. Ingram

... out the two conflict stories in the gospel lesson. Visuals Ask the congregation's banner makers to make two banners. One should picture stalks of wheat and "the bread of the Presence." The second banner should show a man with a "withered hand." If words are desired, one banner could read "The sabbath," and the second banner, "is for humankind." Wheat and a loaf of bread could be worked into a floral arrangement for use in the sanctuary. Ask one of the artistic people in the congregation to prepare a worship ...

1783. Christmas 2

Matthew 25:31-46

Bulletin Aid

RobertT D. Ingram

... at the simplicity and the depth of your words, O Lord. Teach us again, Rabbi of the heart, and bless us with your wisdom and favor. Prayer Like Jesus, we must be in your house, heavenly Father. We hunger for the discussions of your Word. We ache with the desire to please you with righteousness. We long for communion with you, and we only live when we lift up your praise.Accept us into your house today, Father of grace and love, and let our souls be at home with you forever. Amen. Prayer Help us, Father, to ...

1784. A Solitary Witness

Mark 6:14-29

Sermon

Leonard H. Budd

... better, so must we too, who believe in the eternal kingdom, risk everything in order to receive a great reward there." He wrote: "The surest mark [of the follower of Jesus] is found in deeds showing love of neighbor. To do to one's neighbor what one would desire for oneself is more than merely not doing to others what one would not want done to oneself. Let us love our enemies, bless those who curse us, pray for those who persecute us. For love will conquer and endure for eternity. And happy are they who ...

1785. How Can We Restore the Christian Home?

Mark 10:1-12

Sermon

Donald Macleod

... cure them; it never has and it never will. Love's a thing that grows slowly and has roots and can stand wind and weather." Centuries ago, Tertullian wrote: "How beautiful, then, is the marriage of two Christians, two who are one in hope, one in desire, one in the way of life they follow, and one in the religion they practise." Both of these opinions are true. Only a vital religion can provide the power needed to cultivate and sustain this love that cements human relationships in depth and through time. You ...

1786. How Does Religious Conduct Work?

Mark 7:31-37

Sermon

Donald Macleod

... is to stimulate the feelings and then give them nothing to do." This is the story of much of the emotional religion abroad in America today. Emotional religion divorced from action results in sentimentalism, insincerity, self-adulation, and hypocrisy. Equally perilous is the desire to be liked or popular, because it tends to compromise the Gospel, to make religion comfortable, and to cater to human wishes rather than people's needs. Jesus, on the other hand, held to his own basic need: a constant link with ...

1787. Making the Mystery Work for You

John 3:1-21

Sermon

Charles R. Leary

... to give 100% in my academic and career pursuits. It makes no matter whether you are in your youth, your senior years, or in between, these rules will work for you. Start where you are. Strive with all your might. Stretch every muscle, emotion and desire within you to discover your maximum potential. Remember Jeb Stuart Magruder, one of the men caught in the Watergate web? Back in 1958 Jeb Magruder was a senior at Yale. The chaplain at Yale was the Reverend William Sloan Coffin, Jr. Chaplain Coffin tells ...

1788. What Can I Do for You?

Mark 10:35-45

Sermon

Thomas Peterson

... to give you the right or left hand. It is God’s.” Then he goes on to do good to them by providing a genuinely helpful answer: though God alone can give such special favors, Jesus teaches them how to stand a chance to gain the heavenly blessing they desire. To do so they must be servants, obeying the demands of servanthood, and accepting whatever comes of it. “If you would be great,” he taught, “you must be least of all; and if you would be on my right or left side in my glory, then be slave of ...

1789. Would That God. . .

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

Thomas Peterson

... faith in the self is a willful fantasy and not a working one. Jesus has permitted us to see into ourselves through his eyes. What are we working out? Some left-over resentments from youth? Some perceived shortages in life such as poverty, mistreatment, unfulfilled desires. We begin to see how we are always in a slow burn, cutting off our noses to spite our faces. Primarily we see that the self is always at the center, always self-protective, on the defensive. Jesus enables us to see for ourselves. Though ...

1790. Giving with Open Hands

Mark 12:41-44

Sermon

Thomas Peterson

... at another nor compute the return. Along with the gift goes personal recognition. It does not have to be love or lifelong devotion; it can be respect for a job well done, recognition of effort, appreciation for an attitude or a simple desire to make another happy. Marriage would no longer be the primary institution for founding a home if the self were not given wholly with open hands. There is neither bargaining nor bartering. Parents continue giving themselves unconditionally, with open hands. The great ...

1791. Winners Losers

John 8:31-41

Sermon

Thomas Peterson

... to their lives. Losers are disciplined, too, but in a mindless, inverted fashion. They discipline themselves to obey their own wishes without thought of consequences or value. Every act of self-will deepens the inversion. Winners come to see the differences between their own desires and the better way. They come to know what will happen to them if they persist in their own way; and, therefore, become able to make choices for the best that lies before them. Losers never make comparisons. To do so would cost ...

1792. God’s Flowing and Our Ebbing

Isaiah 6:1-13

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... the fact we are forgiven, And even longer to become inclined to share forgiveness. (Alive Now! May/June 1981, p. 42) Has the seraphim of God drawn near to you and me, carrying the burning coal of forgiveness, only to find our hands defensively outstretched, desirous of keeping that distance from God that insures our continuing misery? Are we ebbing when God would have us flow? Send Me Hence the resolution of it all for Isaiah: And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will ...

1793. From Mourning to Morning

2 Samuel 18:19--19:8

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... love and loss. To withhold grief is destructive; to release it, healing. The writing of this book was my life-line. May the reading help your grieving time. You are not alone.” (p. 35) A few years back, a colleague experienced his father’s death and it was his desire to preside at his dad’s funeral. My wife and I attended, and how we wished that our friend would have allowed himself to be a grieving son and not a strong pastor. His mother sat in the front pew with relatives; his wife sang in the choir ...

1794. Swansong as Themesong

2 Samuel 23:1-7

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... believe just the opposite that they believe you can behave as you want to and it won”t make any difference? Eat anything you want to, give yourself away indiscriminately, say anything you want to, violate body, mind and soul, raise the children any way you desire it”s all immaterial. Yet again and again, evidence appears to the contrary. It all does make a difference. Let small children wander from pillar to post and fend for themselves as best they can, and they will be damaged. Eat too much, and your ...

1795. In Search of a Leader

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... Paul Minear’s description of vocation: The sense of vocation ... gives a person a point of origin around which his memories can coalesce, a destination that can include all expectations, and a set of priorities that enables him to order his conflicting desires ... [Vocation] connotes an identity conferred on a person and accepted by that person as his own. (Bulletin From the Hill, June 1982, p. 3) One cannot speak of Christian vocations without immediately implying the role of God in that process, and ...

1796. Music as Prescription

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... stress and I prescribe the following. Each morning when you arise and each evening before bedtime, listen for one half hour to music and choose from one of the following: Debussy’s Afternoon of a Fawn, Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, Samuel Barber’s Adagio For Strings, or Aaron Copeland’s Appalachian Spring.” Sound surprising? It would be, because we are just at the starting line in understanding and utilizing the therapeutic nature of music. Sound novel? It shouldn’t, because the servants ...

1797. We All Sin So What?

Genesis 3:1-24

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... a rhythm of birth, maturity and death. Human beings are a part of nature. When the Bible speaks of death, it means spiritual death. Death is separation from God. To be separated from God means hostility, isolation and estrangement. The good news is that God does not desire the death of a sinner; instead, the sinner can turn to God, receive forgiveness and live. Jesus was sent to call sinners to repent and to give abundant life to all who believe. The good news of sin continues in verses 20 and 21. Our First ...

1798. Here They Come, Singing

Jeremiah 30:1--31:40

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... ask at this point whether such persons are specially included among God’s people in the church today. It is not enough to have slots designated for wheel chairs. There must be an intense concern and love for such “differently abled” persons, culminating in a desire to have them in our midst and to receive a blessing from them. Their talents must also be used in the mission of the church through its witness and service. In one church a mentally retarded woman was thought to have little to contribute in ...

1799. The Banquet Bowl

Mark 9:38-41

Sermon

Robert Salzgeber

... years. We've never had a woman president and look how messed up our country is at times." The conversation ended with that remark. This is a situation where Jesus' purifying fire burns up and destroys an insider's illusion of what he thinks God desires the church to be. Actually, holy scripture suggests no guidelines for priestly gender. A reciprocal of this example: Bill, a friend of mine now deceased, was thought by many to be not only unchurched but also selfish and self-centered. He did not belong to ...

1800. Charlie Used To Do That

John 6:25-59

Sermon

Robert Salzgeber

... are so dirty?" There always seems to be at least one person who remembers and says, "Well, Charlie used to do that." Nobody ever really knew because Charlie always made sure that nobody was around when he did his little deeds. Accolades Charlie did not want. He only desired to work with Jesus in being the bread of life for others. And even today someone will come forward and say, "Well, Charlie used to do that." 1. Adapted from the story "Could He Ever Be the Same Again?" in Courage in Both Hands by Allen A ...

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