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 2051 to 2075 of 5000 results

2051. Live and Learn

Matthew 15:21-28

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... until the age of thirty, when we next hear from him. He learned. "And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years and in divine and human favor" (Luke 2:52). These silent years aren't Jesus' lost years. They were his learning years. He needed that long to integrate his humanity and divinity, to become the most fully integrated human being who ever lived. Matthew would have us note something every more: that Jesus KEPT learning, even as he entered into his active public missionary phase of life. In today's gospel ...

2052. Gone with the Wind

Matthew 14:22-36

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... wind picks up here in the San Juan Islands of Washington State, a great changing-of-the-guard takes place. Out with the sea kayakers. In with the sailors. When the wind gets gusty and gutsy, those who love to sit below sea level and solo pilot their long, lean crafts grouse and grumble and haul out onto dry land. With the calm, glassy surface of Puget Sound broken by wind-whipped white caps, the waters are no longer for them. But the sailors rejoice. With the first white curls on the water's surface come a ...

2053. Cross Purposes

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... ' words and works were most often directed at those who were out-of-the-loop, those without power or prestige, those who had been left behind by the culture. In many societies the practice of abandoning unwanted or imperfect infants has been long established and accepted. In the ancient world, children with obvious birth defects, girl-babies, mixed-race offspring, and other undesirable kids were by definition outcasts at birth, and so were quite literally cast out. The child would be taken to the outskirts ...

2054. Soul Deep Not Skin Deep

Luke 16:1-15

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... intrepid hunters drive around with old doors or ratty-looking sheets of plywood strapped to the hoods of their cars, or hanging out the tailgates of their pick-up trucks. These hunters are after one of the most vicious of quarry, one capable of both long slashing wounds and deep punctures. It can only be approached by cautiously creeping towards it on a broad protective plank - like a door - and even then one of its hundreds of arms is sure to inflict some painful scratches. We're talking blackberry picking ...

2055. An Uncomfortable Comforter

Luke 11:1-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... of offering comfort. Comfort is a big selling point in our consumerist culture. No one wants to be uncomfortable--whether its while jammed into a center seat on the coach section of a 727 or while trapped in your car in some massive, hours-long traffic jam. We happily pay extra for comfort--more leg room, in-flight movies, and better meals to take our minds off our in-flight discomforts; lavish leather seats, surround-sound stereo systems and perfect climate-control for our private commute-mobile. We want ...

2056. Don't Be a Turkey (Thanksgiving)

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon

Alex Gondola

... But, if a dime were there, the hawk could spot it. The hawk’s vision is eight times more acute than ours. A bee has a different kind of vision. Its eyes have 15,000 facets that enable it to see the sun as a single dot and to navigate long distances with the sun as a reference. A kingfisher has two kinds of vision: one for spotting fish as it flies overhead and another for seeing fish underwater. There are different ways of seeing, and we may need to see things in different ways if we are to experience the ...

2057. Follow That Star (New Year's Day)

Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... endpoint of our journeys barely noticing the actual courses we are taking to get there. In the first century, journeys were measured in weeks, months, or years-not hours or days. The wise men Matthew tells of in his gospel text this week were long-distance, marathon travelers. From the time they observed the auspicious, awe-inspiring new star in the heavens until the time they reached King Herod's court, they may have been on the road for years. Learned in astrology but lacking in historical theology, these ...

2058. Generations

John 4:1-26

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... it. Here's what they found. The top reason busters like church? 1. Being with friends 2. Learning about God The top reasons busters dislike church? 1. It's conformism and lack of realism destroys individualism; inhospitality to new thinking; 2. Sitting for so long/having to dress up; 3. Boring; 4. Phony music; 5. Judgmental adults and uptight old people who won't change. When a Gallup poll asked people between the ages of eighteen and twenty-nine what is important in their lives, forty-four percent answered ...

2059. The CatWalk Church and the CrossLove Church

John 15:1-17

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... works over there, trying to look and act just like everybody else. CrossLove churches take wing as geese – hearing the common rhythm of Christ's spirit, but not afraid to adjust the tempo, live with a few tones of dissonance, even initiate a new tune – as long as there is this abiding in Christ's love. Arthur Blessitt has found a simple melody upon which to base his crosslove journey. Blessitt has literally taken up his cross. He has committed himself to being the first person to take a cross around the ...

2060. The Monsters We Are All Afraid Of

Luke 20:27-40

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... where the people are. The ninth egoboo is the Chicken Ego, which only pecks away at those lower on the social order. Finally, there is the Frog Egoboo, which specializes in leapfrogging from one problem to another or flitting from one place to another, avoiding tackling anything very long. If you recast Robert Louis Stevenson's poem from "My Shadow" to "My Ego" (again, thanks to Morowitz), it comes out like this: I have a little ego that goes in and out with me, And what can be the use of it is more than I ...

2061. You've Got Mail!

John 10:22-42

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... their own ears . . .they were deaf to Jesus' message, they were blind to Jesus' identity. Did you know that there are two different ways you can miss those amazingly instantaneous e-mail messages that come your way? The most obvious, of course, is to never log-on. As long as you don't sign on to your e-mail account, it doesn't matter how many messages you receive, you will never read them, you will never even know they are there. If you don't "click in" you'll never hear that affirming proclamation: "You've ...

2062. What's the Value of Your Life?

Genesis 28:10-22

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... value to be revealed as beyond price. For Jacob such an "aha" moment was the sudden revaluation of his life and its meaning that took place at that insignificant camp site he choose to stop at as the sun went down. It was a place like any other in the long trek between Beer-Sheba and Haran. To prop up his head, he pulled up any old rock to serve as his pillow. He saw nothing remarkable about this site. His soul felt nothing special. His mind was focused on the choices he had made that forced him to take ...

2063. A Case for Living Together

Revelation 7:9-17

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... the first non-stop transatlantic flight on May 20-21, 1927. Napoleon offered a prize to anyone who could preserve food for his troops. It led to canning. Carl Magee, a journalist in Oklahoma City, offered a prize in 1933 for a device that would track how long a car was in a space. It led to the invention of the parking meter. A $100,000 Fredkin Prize was offered for the first computer to beat a grand master at chess. Grand masters wouldn't risk the embarrassment until IBM boosted the jackpot to $700 ...

2064. Inward, Upward, Outward

Romans 9:30--10:21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... the devil's challenge that he make himself a meal seems straight-forward. But Jesus was also stuck out in the wilderness. So the devil might just as well have told Jesus to manufacture himself a good, fast camel out of those stones saving his feet a long walk back to civilization. While he was at it, Jesus could have transformed the desert into an oasis, whipped up a Saddam Hussein-style residence and settled in for a decadent vacation. Do you get it? The devil's temptation is not about bread. The devil's ...

2065. Are You Living the Three Advents?

Romans 13:11-14

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... the fullness of Christ in a new creation. This is the Advent about which we can know the least, but for which we long the most. It is for this Final or Third Advent, the Maranatha Advent that we live according to the Second Advent in ... corner for her. She is so tired. Wally relaxed his stiff pose and, for the first time, really looked at Mary. He paused so long that the audience began to get nervous. The prompter from the wings whispered: ‘Be gone!’ Wally repeated the whisper: ‘Be gone.’ Joseph sadly ...

2066. Learning the Three Step Faith Walk

Luke 5:1-11

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... myself humming an impatient gospel song that chilled me to the bone every time the congregation sang it, always as if we were standing at the station waiting for a tardy train that is carrying our soldier boy back from the wars.: 'Oh Lord, Jesus, how long?/How long ere we shout the glad song:/Christ returneth, Hallelujah, Amen.' "This is where I find myself now on the journey that God and I have been on, at the station called hope, the one that comes right after gratitude and somewhere not far from journey ...

2067. Will You Still Listen?

Jeremiah 1:1-19

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... by so much black, cold space it's as though we're down on the planet with them running our fingers through the red sand, placing our feet on the bleak, dry terrain, feeling the frigid (-63 degrees centigrade) Martian atmosphere on our face. Long distance communication is also a tradition among Israel's prophets. This week our Old Testament text focuses on Jeremiah. But his experience was remarkably similar to that of both his prophetic precursors and those who would follow after him. Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah ...

2068. Death by Chocolate

Hebrews 9:11-28

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... 's sunshine, flowers, laughter, dancing, friendship, and music. It's so much better! In fact, it's terrible if you stay in there too long." And the little one would argue back, "I don't know anything about any of those things. all I know is that in here ... d rather have what I know than what I don't know!" The mother would never convince the little one that to stay in there too long would actually be ghastly. Then Dr. Peale would pause and say, It's now 70, 80, 90 years later. That little unborn child is now ...

2069. The Woods Are Lovely, Dark, and Deep

2 Samuel 18:1-18

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... the eternally fatal consequences of our foray into the woods. In our life's story, it is Act I that has an unhappy ending, and Act II that ends happily. But the pain still lingers. Though we have the antidote, sin leaves a bitter, aftertaste that lingers for a long time . . . in our mouths and in the mouths of the ones we love. The nightmares don't evaporate when we awake from sin's sleep. So the next time you feel the magnetic pull of sin's lovely, dark and deep woods, ask the Holy Spirit to strengthen and ...

2070. Maker's Mark

2 Corinthians 1:12--2:4

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... the children and said, "Doesn't it smell lovely? Isn't the bracelet pretty?" and, taking her cue from the teacher, they all agreed. At the end of the day, when all the children had left, Teddy lingered, came over to her desk and said, "Miss Thompson, all day long you smelled just like my mother. And her bracelet, that's her bracelet, it looks real nice on you, too. I'm really glad you like my presents," and when he left, she buried her head on her desk and cried. The next day, when the children came, Jean ...

2071. The Oneness of Twoness

Romans 14:1--15:13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... reference to “the root of Jesse” that sounds the seasonally-correct note. In Isaiah’s text (Isaiah 11:12) the long-awaited Messiah of Israel is proclaimed as the one who also “rises to rule” over the Gentiles. Jesus is both ... Bible on a plane. Nowadays, want to keep people away from you? Carry a Bible on a plane. Here’s another: At a wedding rehearsal not too long ago, a 7-year old girl stood outside the church, crying hysterically at the top of her lungs: “I DON’T WANT TO GO IN THAT PLACE ...

2072. Looking for Shoots or Roots?

Matthew 11:1-19

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. *We ate cupcakes, bread and butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING! *We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. *No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K. *We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running ...

2073. Follow Me!

Matthew 16:21-28

Sermon

James McCormick

... like a woman trapped in a man’s body. He was saving his money for an operation. But, in the meanwhile, he had let his hair grow long and he was dressing and living as a woman. That’s why he wanted to know if he could come to our church. Privately I wished ... does he go to the rest room? What are we to tell our children?” And there were threats – “We won’t be back as long as Paula’s here.” It came to a head one night in a Bible study class. All the questions, all the concerns. Finally, I went ...

2074. Make Room for Mystery

Isaiah 55:1-13

Sermon

James McCormick

... human mind to understand life and the world in which we live. And, I am proud to say, the Christian Church has had a major role in the development of human knowledge. The first great universities in this country were founded by the Christian Church. We Christians have long proclaimed that God gave us minds and He expects us to use them. We have understood that a major part of our purpose in life is to search for the truth, wherever that truth is to be found, because all truth is God’s truth, and wherever ...

2075. If We Had Known It Was You

Matthew 25:31-46

Sermon

James McCormick

... sheep from the goats, he was talking about a mind-set which has given us human beings trouble from the very beginning. Jesus knew that in the minds of his hearers the refusal to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned is okay as long as we are not talking about someone important. That is what is implied in the statement, “If we had known it was you, we would have acted differently.” We have only to look around us to see how prevalent is that way of thinking and acting – one ...

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