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

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Hope is the belief, more or less strong, that joy will come; desire is the wish it may come.

Sydney Smith

A strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means.

William Hazlitt

No tendency is quite so strong in human nature as the desire to lay down rules of conduct for other people.

William Howard Taft

Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

C. S. Lewis

2155. The Art of Critique

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Sermon

Lori Wagner

Today, as our world continues to become ravaged by COVID-19, people are feeling anxious, impatient, frustrated, and critical. We are less busy with the things that normally hold our attention. We are bored with staying inside, refraining from seeing the people we love and doing the activities that animate us. We are sick and tired of being “sick and tired!” The more cooped up we feel, the angrier we get. And our often kind and calm demeanor is turning testier and more critical. As humans, when our ...

2156. In Search of Light

Humor

When Daniel Webster, the 19th century statesman and orator, was a young boy, he was zealous to read and learn. The only book available to him at that point was the Bible. As he lay in bed reading his Bible one night, he accidentally managed to set the covers on fire. In response to a strong scolding, he explained, "that he was in search of light, but was sorry to say that he received more of it than he desired."

2157. Our Light

Genesis 1:1-5 · Mark 1:9-11

Sermon

Will Willimon

Carl Michaelson knew a philosophy professor at Colgate who, whenever a student used the word "God" in his classroom, would stop and beckon the student to come forward and stand with him at an open window. "Show him to me," the professor asked. What a disadvantage believers have when it comes to empirical evidence for God! At first glance, this seems to be a uniquely modern problem. In the old days, Biblical people are always chatting with God, strolling arm in arm with God in the garden. God is everywhere ...

2158. How Does Your Garden Grow?

John 15:1-8

Sermon

Timothy W. Ayers

Our scripture reading from the gospel of John tells of Jesus teaching his disciples about remaining connected to him in order to grow strong in their Christian lives. He used an illustration that people of his day would have understood easily. Grapevines were readily handy and they were most likely grown by most homes as a source of food and drink. The disciples, who were once boys, would have tended to the family’s vines and would know experientially the right ways to trim, groom, prune, and train a vine ...

2159. Responding to God's Love

1 John 4:7-21

Sermon

Richard Gribble

A long time ago there lived a little boy whose parents had died. He was taken in by an aunt who raised him as her own child. Many years later, after the boy had grown and become successful in business, he received a letter from his aunt. She was terminally ill and from the tone of her letter quite afraid of death. Thus, the man who had been raised and touched by this woman decided to write her a letter in response. He began, “It is now 35 years since I, a little boy of six, was left quite alone in the ...

2160. The Gospel Ship

John 6:1-21

Sermon

Lori Wagner

“I will make you fishers of men.” -- Jesus [Prop Suggestion: For effect you could play “The Old Gospel Ship” by Iris DeMent as a postlude or ending to this sermon. If you can, use a visual or visuals of boats or ships on the Sea of Galilee.] How many of you like boats? Cruises? How many of you have been on a boat or a ship? How does it feel? Exciting? Adventurous? Exhilarating? Anticipatory? Do you feel happy? Free? For most people, there’s something amazing about fresh salt air, the wind on your face, the ...

2161. God Think

Mark 8:27-38

Sermon

Lori Wagner

Leadership is a widely celebrated quality in our culture. Our educational institutions love to train leaders and to fete the success of their alumni. Companies applaud and reward their best leaders, whose minds and spirits forge new pathways, sell products, and make tons of money for boards and stakeholders. Leadership qualities like initiative, innovative thinking, risk-taking, and analytical skills fill countless resumes. We have a mixed sense of both fear and admiration for out of the box thinkers and ...

2162. Seeing Is Believing

Mark 10:46-52

Sermon

Lori Wagner

Our eyes are interesting organs. For most of us who can see, we comprehend our world much by what we see. Our sensory organs in effect make us living beings who experience our surroundings in certain ways that either please us or frighten us. The eyes in particular are the source of our longing. What we see, we want. What we see, we believe. In the Jewish tradition, the eyes are the first source of sin. They can betray us and lead us in wrong directions. They can create in us feelings of covetousness and ...

2163. Sustaining Faith

Mark 12:38-44

Sermon

Lori Wagner

“You are worth your weight in gold!” We use this phrase to indicate someone who is extremely useful, helpful, or valuable to someone else. It can refer either to a person or to a thing, but we most often use it to refer to a person. The idea behind the phrase is gratitude –that “we” could not manage without that person, because he or shehas become so valuable to us and to our process or goal in what he or she is able to accomplish on our behalf. While we might say this about an old refrigerator that has ...

2164. Where Are the Nine?

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon

Richard Hasler

The mother of a little boy questioned him, “Why didn’t you pray last night like you usually do?” His frank response was, “I didn’t want anything from God last night.” But is prayer only petition and intercession? Surely, “thanksgiving” is an integral part of prayer. People in Jesus’ time were threatened by leprosy, even more than we are today by the advent of AIDS. Definite regulations had been set up for the Jewish community to protect themselves from coming in contact with lepers. For example, in ...

2165. The Paradox of the Yoke

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Sermon

Lori Wagner

Most people would not prefer to be fastened into a yoke. Yokes are rigid. They are entrapping. They are hard, and they are inhibiting. Yet, you wouldn’t want to plow a field without one –if you lived in the first century that is. Think of it perhaps this way. You’re going on a hike through the wilderness. In order to survive well, you carry a fairly heavy, bulky backpack on your back. It may feel uncomfortable, hot, and annoying, but without it, you’re left to fend for yourself in the mountains and the ...

2166. Keeper of the Keys

Matthew 16:13-20

Sermon

Lori Wagner

“And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder, so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.” Isaiah 22:22 Remember those old, beautiful “master keys” that used to unlock every door in the house? The old doors had a large, fish shaped opening filled with secret crevices, and the master key was a large, ornate device with unique edges that would somehow activate each one. I’m including an image of one here: Because it could open any door, the master key was ...

2167. Your Body Is a Temple

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Sermon

Ronald Love

Eva Longoria married Tony Parker, the point guard for the San Antonia Spurs, on July 6, 2007, in a civil ceremony at a Paris city hall. They had a Catholic wedding ceremony at the Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois Church in Paris on July 7, 2007. On November 17, 2010, Longoria filed for divorce from Parker in Los Angeles, citing “irreconcilable differences.” Longoria told the media that she had discovered hundreds of text messages from another woman on her husband’s phone. The other woman was Erin Barry, the wife ...

2168. Flow

John 15:1-8

Sermon

Lori Wagner

In 1970, psychologist Mihaly Robert Csikszentmihalyi coined a mental state in which a person would be entirely immersed, energized, focused, fully involved, and fully engaged. He first became interested in the phenomenon as he observed artists at work, some of them so excited and engaged with their work that they didn’t know what was going on around them, sometimes forgot to eat or sleep, and seemed driven by curiosity and exhilaration. They exhibited a total immersion experience. Dr. C as we’ll call him ...

2169. Family Ties And Unties

Mark 3:20-35

Sermon

David Coffin

In the 1993 movie Rudy, Sean Astin plays Rudy Rudiger, a young man who grew up in a Roman Catholic working class family that was employed at the steel mills, which is major town economic bedrock. Rudy always wanted to play football for the University of Notre Dame. There were a couple problems. First, he was short, lacked strong talent, and he had difficulty in school due to dyslexia. His family and girlfriend all thought that he would fail in this venture. At age 22, when his best friend Pete died in an ...

2170. Bread and Call

John 6:35, 41-51

Sermon

David Coffin

Whenever my wife sends me to the store to buy a loaf of bread, I have to make a difficult decision as to what kind of bread. It depends where we are on our life journey at any given time. For example, while we lived in more urban areas with many bakery shops and stores, I would often purchase fresh bakery bread. It is softer, tastes fresher, and often has many varieties like sourdough, muffin, or cracked wheat bread. The down side of such fresh breads is they have a shorter shelf life and must be consumed ...

2171. When the Rules Change

7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Sermon

David Coffin

A couple who lived in separate apartments fell in love and decided to get married. However, both of their parents informed them that they would have to finance their own wedding, reception and honeymoon. In the good old days in that community, it was one of the couples’ parents who carried much of the financial burden for weddings. The couple decided it was prudent to live together in one apartment, and use the money saved for their wedding plans. For the more traditional people in their church, this is ...

2172. Pressing On In Faith

Philippians 3:4b-14

Sermon

Bonnie Bates

Recently at the gym, working out with my personal trainer, and straining to finish the third set of an exercise, the trainer began to encourage me. “You’re doing great! You can do it.” As I read this portion of Paul’s letter to the church of Philippi, I was reminded of this encouragement. To many, it seems, at least at the beginning of this reading, that Paul was bragging a little. No one deserved to be more confident in his acceptance into the faith than he did. After all, he was a circumcised Jew. He was ...

2173. Will You Sing With Me?

Romans 15:4-13

Sermon

Heather Sugden

My congregation has a wonderful institutional history of Christmas caroling. As the story has been passed on down to me, there was a time when every Christmas Eve worship service was packed with families, and every moment in between Christmas Eve worship services was an opportunity for community caroling. We might not be certain when exactly this time was in our history, but we know it happened, we know that it was fantastic, and we profess our desire to return to such a time. In these Christmas days of ...

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