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 1876 to 1900 of 1913 results

The present offers itself to our touch for only an instant of time and then eludes the senses.

Plutarch

Any man will admit if need be that his sight is not good, or that he cannot swim or shoots badly with a rifle, but to touch upon his sense of humour is to give him mortal affront.

Stephen Leacock

1878. Your Wake-up Call

Philippians 3:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

One of the small luxuries that used to be available in most hotels was the personal wake-up call. Remember when the hotel clerk would ask you when you checked in, “Would you like a wake-up call?” Most major hotels offered this service. The next morning, right on time, you’d get a call from a real live person who woke you up with the words: “Good morning, (Mr. Jones or Miss Jones) this is your wake-up call.” And then you’d decide whether to go back to sleep or not. That task, like everything else, is now ...

1879. Choosing to Be Grateful

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon

Albert G. Butzer III

Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they?” — Luke 17:17 There was once a minister who was well known for his beautiful and moving prayers. He always knew just what to say because, I am told, his heart overflowed with gratitude. But one Sunday morning he woke up to the kind of day we preachers dread. If it was not a full-blown nor’easter, it came pretty close. The wind was howling and the rain was coming down in sheets. As a result, many people stayed home from worship ...

1880. Sword of Truth

Luke 2:22-40 · Hebrews 4:12

Sermon

Lori Wagner

“For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It pierces even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12) All of you probably know the story in one form or another of King Arthur and his mysterious sword Excalibur. Infused with divine power, the mighty sword could only be used by the “rightful King” of England and would thwart those who tried to use it for unworthy purposes. Powerful, the double- ...

1881. The Eleventh Commandment

John 13:1-17

Sermon

King Duncan

In his book The Wounded Warrior, Dr. Steve Stephens tells the tragic story of former National football star Pat Tillman. Some of you may recall Tillman’s fate. Pat Tillman thought his dreams had come true. He had a multi-million dollar contract with the Arizona Cardinals football team, for whom he played starting safety. Everything was lining up just right for young Pat. Then came 9-11. On September 11, 2001, you’ll remember that 19 al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four airplanes and carried out suicide ...

1882. Imagination

Luke 1:39-45, 46-55

Sermon

Will Willimon

Peter Gomes, Minister of memorial Church at Harvard, recently spoke of the Bible as "A book of the imagination" (The Good Book). Don't think of scripture primarily as rules, as lists of regulations. Think of the Bible as a book meant to speak, to stoke, to fuel the imagination. From what I see, imagination is in short supply these days. We modem folk tend toward mostly facts and figures. We're more in to statistics than symbols. We keep close to the solid stuff which we call "reality." Of course, when one ...

1883. Easter Power

Acts 14:8-18

Sermon

Will Willimon

We're now four Sundays beyond Easter. The Sunday crowd is smaller. We have no trumpets today and the music is not as stupendous as that we sang on Easter. Yet, if you put your ear to the ground, you can still hear it rumbling, even as the earth heaved on that first Easter mom. Beneath the somewhat sedate rhythms of today's service, you can still sense the throb of the Easter tempo when the stone was rolled away and the angels began to shout, when the power of God was unleashed, dead Jesus was unchained, ...

1884. The Sign of the Serpent’s Tree

John 3:1-17

Sermon

Lori Wagner

Signs of the Holy Spirit are not just stuff of Pentecost. God’s Spirit has been “with” God’s people since the beginning of human life when God breathed into us God’s spirit of awareness. From there, God has dwelled with patriarchs and prophets, kings and priests until God sent God’s only Son, God’s own Spirit, to move us and redeem us into restored relationship with God. Why restoration? It has to do with that blessed tree. The tree of Life. The serpent’s tree. Both and the same. The forbidden tree, the ...

1885. Metaphors Be with You

John 6:35, 41-51

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

His name was John Davis, he was my neighbor, and he was a peculiar person. Don’t get me wrong. I liked him but even his wife said John was an “acquired taste.” I sometimes think that, had he been born thirty or forty years later, he would have been correctly diagnosed as having Asperger’s Syndrome or some other condition associated with the higher functioning end of the Autism spectrum. He was a gifted man, to be sure, a tool designer and metallurgist who worked for a big corporation, very smart and very ...

1886. Briny Faith

Mark 9:38-50

Sermon

Lori Wagner

When the heart malfunctions it sometimes needs a regulator. It’s called a “pacemaker,” a cardiac pacing device that keeps the rhythm of the heart steady and sure. For those who have heart failure or heartbeat issues, the pacemaker resynchronizes the heart and makes the heartbeat more efficiently. The heart’s electrical system controls the heartbeat. But aging, muscle damage from a heart attack, or some kinds of genetic conditions can cause the heart to beat abnormally. It can get sludgy, therefore not ...

1887. Passing on the Flame

Psalm 138:1-8

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

Garfield gets up one morning and still half asleep, looks in the mirror. Seeing his face he says, "Boy, do I need a shave." Then you hear the electric razor buzzing and Garfield's frantic thought, "Wait a minute!" In the final scene, John has this startled look on his face as he sees Garfield with the fur shaved off the bottom half of his face. And with a very perturbed look on HIS face, Garfield says, "I forgot I was a cat, okay?" (1) Just like Garfield, sometimes we forget who we are. Sometimes we forget ...

1888. The Richest Family in Church

Luke 4:14-21

Sermon

King Duncan

It’s tough to preach your first sermon at a new church. Most pastors experience at least a few jitters as they head to a new church to preach. Can they remember the main points to their sermon? Will the sound system work? Will the congregation stay awake? It’s nerve-wracking. Not exactly on par with the stresses faced by police officers or brain surgeons or middle school teachers, but nerve-wracking in its own way. So I appreciate a story Pastor John Jewell shared about his first time preaching as a supply ...

1889. More Certain Than a Tom Brady Pass

Jeremiah 1:4-10

Sermon

King Duncan

We all know what it’s like to wake up from a frightening dream and think, “Wait a minute! Was that real?” And once we get a little more alert, we realize that it was just a dream, and we hopefully fall back to sleep. Psychologists say there is one type of dream that is nearly universal. Can you guess what it is? It’s the dream of being unprepared for an exam. It’s awful, isn’t it? School children all over the world report having this dream, or I should say, this nightmare, for that is what it truly is. In ...

1890. Unto Us

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

Will Willimon

John says, ''The Word (the eternal Logos, the Christ) became flesh and dwelt among us." Flesh. Meat. Incarnation, which me.ans ''in the flesh," ''in the body." That's Christmas, ''The Feast of the Incarnation." Our God didn't stay up on Cloud Nine, aloof, unscathed by what troubles us in this world. In the flesh. Sometimes well meaning folk say, ''After all, when you get down to it, all religions are fairly much the same. Right?'' Wrong. When you get down to it, and today, on the Eve of the Feast of the ...

1891. A Question of Trust

Romans 5:1-5

Sermon

King Duncan

Does it seem to you that it is getting more and more difficult to trust anybody? It seems to get more and more discouraging to simply answer the telephone, for fear of being bombarded with scam telephone calls. It’s just as discouraging to turn on a cable news program for fear of being bombarded with fake news. And when it seems humanity can’t get any lower, we’re even afraid to open our email. Why? According to the Worldstart Computer Tips & Techniques Newsletter another email scam has been making its ...

1892. Constant Companion

John 14:23-29

Sermon

Lori Wagner

If there’s anything we learned about the pandemic is that the virus wasn’t the only one. We are living in a pandemic of loneliness like we’ve never seen before. Even in our current semi-post-pandemic world, loneliness continues to plague our psyches. “Isolation, grief, and loneliness which continues even in this phase of the pandemic has “changed our brain” and will continue to do so.”[1] Although necessary, social distancing along with fear of the virus has put us into an almost continual “fight and ...

1893. The Most Important Thing

Luke 10:38-42

Sermon

King Duncan

If you’ve ever hosted an event at your house—a Super Bowl party, a holiday meal, a book club meeting—you know that there are a hundred little details that need to be taken care of before the guests arrive. And one or two details could make the difference between a great event and a hosting nightmare. So it takes a certain spiritual gift and an inner fortitude to be a good host. Not everyone is cut out for this job. A woman wrote to a humor website to share the story of visiting her son at his first-ever ...

1894. Out On A Sycamore Limb

Luke 19:1-10

Sermon

Richard Hasler

Why do children love this story so much? Tom Wright offered one explanation: “Sunday schools love Zacchaeus. At least they love to act out his story and sing about him. The little man who climbs up a tree to see Jesus provides one of the most vivid short stories in the Bible. Children can identify with Zacchaeus; they often find themselves at the back of a crowd and can’t see what’s going on. Many adults too, can identify with, they like to get closer to Jesus, but find it embarrassing to do so, and ...

1895. Do You Know the Gift of God?

John 4:5-42

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

Would you say you’re a good conversationalist? If you were plunked down in a room full of strangers, how quickly could you start up a conversation with someone? Would it all be chitchat, or are you better at meaningful conversations? Nicholas Epley, a professor of behavioral science, studies communication and human interaction. In his studies on conversation, he and his colleagues compiled a list of “shallow” vs. “intimate” conversation starters. Some of the shallow conversation starters are: What do you ...

1896. What Fills Your Life Now?

Acts 7:55-60

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

I have a question for you this morning: who are some people who have had a lasting, positive influence on your life? Whose character or actions have inspired you to be a better person? I hope we all have someone we can point to who inspired us to become the person we are today. In our Maundy Thursday sermon last month, I told of two sisters who had tattoos honoring their father. There is another story of sisters, named Anna Harp and Abrielle Clausing, who have matching messages tattooed on their skin. The ...

1897. Broken

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

Lori Wagner

The Holy Scriptures are filled with ghost stories –holy ghost stories. From Saul’s encounter with the ghost of Samuel to Ezekiel’s “zombie army,” to the dead man who came to life after touching Elisha’s bones, to the raising of Lazarus, to the revival of Jairus’ daughter, to Jesus’ own terrifying resurrection –at least terrifying to the guards who literally froze in fear, these stories remind us that supernatural encounters come with the territory of our Christian faith. If anything stands out among these ...

1898. The Cocktail Party

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

One of T. S. Eliot’s characters in “The Cocktail Party” describes what happens to a person by his choices. Edward is pictured groping through the darkness of his own soul. He agonizes: There was a door And I could not open it. I could not touch the handle. Why could I not walk out of my prison? It was only yesterday that damnation took place, And now I must live with it... Day after day, month after month, Forever and ever. But I ask you, was it only yesterday that damnation took place? No. Every decision ...

1899. Weeds

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Sermon

William G. Carter

One summer day, it was my turn to mow the yard. The dew had burned off, the grass was dry. I fired up the Briggs and Stratton, lowered the blade, and took it for a spin. The job took about 45 minutes and it was done. Yet as I circled the front yard for the first time, I realized my lawn is full of weeds. Now I knew there were a few. A weed-and-feed expedition earlier in the spring eliminated most of the dandelions. It seems other undesirables have invaded our plot of land. That is a big deal in the town ...

1900. Dying, We Live

1 Corinthians 15:51-58

Sermon

Will Willimon

"O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?" It was a familiar story. A nice person like me with much work to do, trapped on a four hour flight from Denver to Durham, cornered like a caged animal, seated next to a person who is determined to set me straight before we land. Where does American Airlines get these people? Hardly had our wheels left the ground than she informed me that she was returning home from a ''Wellness Convention." ''You dig wells?" I asked cutely. That was my big ...

Showing results

Showing 1876 to 1900 of 1913 results

The present offers itself to our touch for only an instant of time and then eludes the senses.

Plutarch

Any man will admit if need be that his sight is not good, or that he cannot swim or shoots badly with a rifle, but to touch upon his sense of humour is to give him mortal affront.

Stephen Leacock

1878. Your Wake-up Call

Philippians 3:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

1879. Choosing to Be Grateful

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon

Albert G. Butzer III

1880. Sword of Truth

Luke 2:22-40 · Hebrews 4:12

Sermon