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 1976 to 2000 of 4988 results

1976. Acts 2:14a, 36-41

Acts 2:14-41

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... ” may ask for the forgiveness of their sins. This new baptism “in the name of Jesus Christ” not only offers the penitent forgiveness. It is associated with a unique new gift, “The gift of the Holy Spirit.” In Acts baptism is not always the conduit for receiving the Holy Spirit (see Acts 8:15-16; 10:47-48), but the gift of the Holy Spirit, like the forgiveness of sins, is first and foremost dependent upon the expression of genuine repentance. It is turning away from a previous state of disbelief ...

1977. When Christians Pray

Acts 1:12-26

Sermon

King Duncan

... a nun wearing a habit, but she looked the guard in the eyes and defiantly said, “Yes, I have my prayer books.” (4) The early followers of our Lord prayed for God’s power. They also prayed to receive God’s presence. Jesus had promised them a gift. He had promised them they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit. They did not know yet what this meant. They would discover what it meant at Pentecost. It meant that God would be a daily presence in their lives and would give them wisdom and comfort and ...

1978. Wrong!

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... ’s prophecy was about a new “beginning” — the beginning of the age of the Holy Spirit and the Church of Christ. Yet no matter how right the disciples-now-apostles got it on the Day of Pentecost, the first birthday of the Church, our wonderful human gift for error has led us down some very wrong paths over the past two millennia. Martin Luther told a group gathered around his kitchen table in 1533: “Girls began to talk and to stand on their feet sooner than boys because weeds grow faster than good ...

1979. Sex, Sex, and More Sex

Song of Songs 2:8-13

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... 18). Women and men are, quite literally, made for each other. Sex is a part of being human. "Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh" (2:24). Romance is another of God's good gifts. So saying, it can also be tough. A half-century ago, two University of Minnesota sociologists surveyed some 900 campus love affairs and discovered that about half of them resulted in serious emotional trauma. Much later, sociologists at the University of Wisconsin found that ...

1980. The Miegakure Messiah

Matthew 16:13-20

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... a new and shocking “reveal” Jesus offered. Much of God’s design to bring us back into the garden would still remain hidden from the hearts and minds of the disciples. Until Easter morning. Until the risen Christ’s visits with his followers. Until the Ascension. Until the gift of the Holy Spirit. Are you one of those people that flip to the back of the book to check out the ending before reading your way through to the end? If so, you are not alone. A team of researchers analyzed and quantified the ...

1981. Clearing Out the Pipes

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Sermon

John Smylie

... , and we eat and drink the death and life of our precious Lord. Here we learned the price and the liberation of letting go." That truth was brought to Betsy years ago one time when she received communion at an unfamiliar church. As she saw the priest offering "the gifts of God for the people of God," the bread and wine of communion, she noticed above the altar a small stained-glass window of the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of her son. She realized then how hard it must have been for Mary to let go of ...

1982. Silence and Darkness

John 18:1-19:42

Sermon

John Smylie

... be some moments of contact, but most of the time he appreciated his solitude and so I resided in the room next to his spending the time working on contemplative prayer, breathing the name of Jesus for about seven hours each day. One of the gifts of living in the monastery was the opportunity to participate in the daily worship. When I first arrived, the brothers gathered eight times in the monastery chapel each day for prayers and holy communion. Later that year, after the approval of the 1979 prayer book ...

1983. Weed and Feed

Sermon

John Smylie

... a good buzz cut, my dear wife asked me if I had been aware that one of the plants around the tree that has the bird feeder attached to it was not a weed. No, I had no idea that one of the plants I had just trimmed was a gift from a friend. It was green and it was growing tall and it looked like a weed to me. She then proceeded to tell me that the plant was growing better than it ever had. She hadn't noticed my original unintentional pruning job. But because of cutting back the ...

1984. Curiosity and Questions

John 3:1-7

Sermon

Kristin Borsgard Wee

... Jesus? We don't know. But there is a hint later in the story. Nicodemus is going with Joseph of Arimathea to Jesus' tomb. Nicodemus is carrying with him 100 pounds of precious ointment for his teacher's body. Do you suppose the very extravagance of his gift means that he got it, that he began to understand the new reality? Do you suppose that he knew Jesus' death was for him — Nicodemus — a new life, covered with the extravagance of God's love? Good question. Did he understand? I wonder. Do we? Amen. 1 ...

1985. Celebrate This!

Mark 12:38-44

Sermon

Steven Molin

... That little girl on the Pine Ridge gave that pastor a nickel — joyfully gave him a nickel — because she recognized that she had two. Jesus and his disciples were sitting one day across the street from the temple treasury, as people were giving their gifts. In front of the synagogue there were large receptacles into which they placed their tithes and offerings. But they were not mere collection boxes with coin slots; rather, they were horn-shaped cylinders made of copper, similar to a tuba in a marching ...

1986. But Is It True?

Luke 2:8-20, Romans 16:25-27

Sermon

Scott Suskovic

... in a barn, betrayed by a follower, denied by a friend, and beaten by the guilty. I don't deserve a God who would do something for me that I couldn't do for myself — die on the cross. I believe because I don't deserve that kind of extravagant gift. Do you? Judas didn't ... but Jesus washed his feet. Peter didn't ... but Jesus gave him the keys to heaven. The shepherds didn't ... but they were the first to be invited. Mary didn't ... but she was chosen. The adulterer didn't ... but she was given a second ...

1987. A Grandmother’s Touch

Acts 19:1-7

Sermon

Scott Suskovic

... , smiled, and said, "Oh, you're baptized, all right. Over there. In the sink. By me. When you were two months old." Evidently, Grandma got some tips from her priest. She decided 24 years ago that no grandchild of hers was going to be denied the gift of baptism. "So," Cathy asked me, "am I baptized?" Let's begin there with the first question: "Is Cathy baptized?" The answer is, "Yes." What makes baptism work is not the location. Baptisms can be done outside of the church building. What makes baptism work is ...

1988. The Wisdom of The Cross

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Sermon

Nancy Kraft

... 's," isn't it?) This is a problem for the Corinthians because instead of working together, in unity, these factions are competing with one another. (Hmmm — I guess that has a familiar ring to it, too, doesn't it?) Well, apparently, there are those who are gifted in rhetoric and able to use that power to convince others to follow them and that's a big reason for the factions. Paul doesn't want the Corinthians to be suckers for smooth-talking rhetoric. He wants them to get beyond the honey-tongued preachers ...

1989. Time for the Offering

2 Corinthians 8:7-15

Sermon

Gibson “Nibs” Stroupe

... not in the way that he thought. The elder handed him a huge basket of produce, the firstfruits of the harvest. Mark protested, telling the elder that he and his family needed the produce much more than Mark needed it. He told the elder that he appreciated the gift, but that the elder should keep it. The elder protested in return, telling Mark, "Pastor, this is the way we live. God has been good to us, and we are good to you." In that early morning twilight, the light clicked in Mark's heart, and he accepted ...

1990. Filling the Job Description

Hebrews 5:1-10

Sermon

Patrick J. Rooney

... Son of God, this one has been appointed to the role of priest. And not just any priest, but a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedeck, that great and powerful priest and king who came from the midst of time in Israel's ancient history to bring gifts to Abraham. What better qualification is there than to be God's own chosen one, to be his anointed to fulfill this role of being the great high priest? But this is no ordinary applicant who has come to fill this job. Rather this Jesus is not only ...

1991. At the Banquet...In Your Pajamas

Matthew 22:1-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... his worthiness or unworthiness to be at the wedding. In the parable Jesus made the point that both good and bad were accepted at the king’s table. This is what grace is about, God’s amazing grace. Both good and bad people are invited by God to receive the gift of God’s love. It sometimes bothers us that the riff-raff of society have as much claim on the kingdom as we do, but Jesus stated that fact several times. God loves sinners, which is good since we all qualify. It’s like a minor fad that swept ...

1992. Whose Birthday Is It Anyway?

Matthew 24:36-51

Drama

Arley K. Fadness

... hymn or a Christmas carol. Optional Ending 2 Narrator: The baby Jesus will be kidnapped again this year and held for a ransom of millions of dollars. This year Americans will surrender about twenty billion dollars to the stores to buy gifts to swap. But it is Jesus’ birthday! Jesus ought to receive the gifts. Jesus said, “Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these my brethren you have done it to me” (Matthew 25:40). We give to Jesus when we give to the poor, the weak, the hungry, the homeless ...

1993. Christmas Puppet Play

Luke 2:21-40

Drama

Arley K. Fadness

... from our sins and to be our friend. Christmas is the birthday of Jesus, our Lord. Carl: Oh, yeah. I almost forgot. Thanks for reminding us again, Frieda. We had just been to Toys R Us and could only think of our material presents. Yep, Jesus is the best gift at Christmas. How could we forget? Odie: Yo, Carl. I just thought of something. Rather than putting some of our presents in the closet or under the bed, let’s share some of them with people who never get any presents. Carl: That’s a great idea, Odie ...

1994. God Makes All Things New

Isaiah 61:10—62:3

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling headgear and shoes and sent them anonymously to the inner-city church. On Christmas Eve, I placed an envelope on the tree with a note inside telling Mike what I had done and that this was his gift from me. His smile was the brightest thing about Christmas that year and in succeeding years. For each Christmas we followed the same tradition, one year sending a group of mentally challenged children to a hockey game, another year sending a check to a pair ...

1995. Enough Spirit to Go Around!

Acts 10:44-48

Sermon

Ken Lentz

... have said, "We wish to thank Peter for his sermon from which the Spirit was poured out upon us!" Peter makes it clear that there is enough Spirit to go around for all interested parties. He appears to be finally convinced that God's Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit are plentiful enough to be poured out upon the Gentiles, as well. Of course, the few verses that relate the "Gentile" Pentecost hardly seize the imagination of the reader like the account in Acts 2 that led one leading one New Testament scholar ...

1996. Mother Spells Bankrupt

Illustration

Staff

The love behind a gift is more important than the gift itself. The person who has learned this will not be frustrated because his gift is small, like the husband who wrote the following lament to his wife on Mother's Day: M is for the mink coat you want, dear, O is for the opal ring you crave, T is for the tiny car you'd love, sweet, H is for the hat that ...

1997. Jingle Bells at a Funeral

1 Thessalonians 5:12-28

Sermon

King Duncan

... direction, pleasure comes. When fortune reverses, pleasure leaves. We have our small pleasures, and that’s fine. But one day they will fail us. Joy will never fail us. Joy resides within us and undergirds us regardless of what is happening on the outside. It is the free gift of God that comes with faith in Jesus Christ. If you believe in Jesus Christ and your heart is not filled with joy, ask God for it. It is your birthright as one who has given your life to Jesus. Christmas is a perfect time for doing ...

1998. Top 10 Things to Say

Illustration

... Things to Say About a Christmas Gift You Don't Like 10.) Hey! There's a gift. 9.) Well, well, well . . . 8.) Boy, if I had not recently shot up 4 sizes, that would've fit. 7.) Perfect for wearing in the basement. 6.) Gosh, I hope this never catches fire! 5.) If the dog buries it, I'll be furious! 4.) I love it, but I fear the jealousy it will inspire. 3.) Sadly, tomorrow I enter the federal witness protection program. 2.) To think I got this the year I vowed to give all my gifts to charity. 1.) I really ...

1999. Let Your Diamond-Light Shine

2 Corinthians 4:1-18

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... hits them. Unfortunately for “Lucy,” that means that the solid diamond core of that dwarf star is as unremarkable and unassuming as any other stone. You could take a drawer full of exquisite diamond gemstones and dump them in a drawer and — without the gift of reflective light—-you wouldn’t know you had anything different than a box of rocks. The miracle of reflected light is what Transfiguration Sunday is all about. In both the gospel and the epistle texts, it is the miracle of divine light that ...

2000. Are You Doing Time On the Bench?

Mark 1:9-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... have prepared for what God is calling you to do. You have received confirmation of your calling. You have heard God say: “You are my beloved son. You are my beloved daughter. I take great pleasure in you.” But here you are on the bench, on the coach. Your gifts and your graces not being utilized as you know God intends them to be. I know there are some Jeremy Lin’s here this morning. You feel you are wasting time in the wilderness, and the presence of wild beasts is hovering near. You are not sure how ...

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