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 201 to 225 of 4962 results

201. Proper 23

Job 23:1-9, 16-17, Mark 10:17-31, Hebrews 4:12-16

Sermon Aid

Russell F. Anderson

... God's abode, that he might defend himself. The writer of Hebrews claims that we can approach God's throne of grace with boldness because of Jesus Christ, our great high priest. He has given his life to defend and save us. Gospel: Mark 10:17-31 To have one's cake and eat it too. The wealthy man in this story had all that the world could offer wealth, position, respect but he wanted more. He had probably inherited his wealth but he also wanted to inherit eternal life. Jesus told him that he would have to ...

202. Proper 20

Exodus 16:1-36, Isaiah 55:1-13, Jonah 3:1-10, Jonah 4:1-11, Philippians 1:12-30, Matthew 20:1-16

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

... gospel. Faith and works, doctrine and life, religion and ethics must be equally emphasized. They should not be separated. Believe and accept God and equally practice that faith in everyday living. What kind of life is worthy of the gospel? Paul says it is in having one spirit and one mind as the people work together to build the church. Untold damage is done to the cause of Christ when Christians do not live up to their faith. 2. Joy (v. 25). This letter is peppered with "joy." It is amazing because Paul ...

203. Mother's Day

Proverbs 1:1-7

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... definitions of "mother" found in the Webster''s New World Dictionary of the American Language is as follows: "That which gives birth to something, is the origin or source of something or nurtures in the manner of a mother, has the quality of a mother." I was privileged to have one of the great gifts on earth--a mother who had faith in God and a father as well who taught us by word and deed. They weren't perfect-- but they were consistent. In late June, John and I will be going to share in my mother''s and ...

204. Jesus Wuvs Me and Dat's Dat

John 15:1-5

Sermon

James W. Moore

... Teresa was asked by a reporter one day, “What is your biggest problem?” Without a moment of hesitation, Mother Teresa answered with one word: “Professionalism.” She said: “Here are these servants of Jesus who care for the poorest of the poor. I have one who just went off and came back with her medical degree. Others have come back with registered nurse degrees. Another with a master’s in social work… and when they came back with their degrees… their first question always is, ‘Where is my ...

205. Miracles? No Problem!

Luke 2:1-7

Drama

Lois Anne DeLong

... . Mary: I could have gotten them. You’re not supposed to drag heavy things around now. Elizabeth: I’m not dying, I’m pregnant. I wanted to take a walk. Mary: But you’ve got to think of the baby. Especially since, well, since you’re kind of old to have one. Elizabeth: Thank you for stating the obvious. Mary, this baby is a miracle, a gift from God. Now if God wanted me to have this child so badly that he’d let me get pregnant, he’s not going to let a few vegetables hurt it. Mary: (pulling the ...

206. The Last Parable

Mark 12:1-12

Sermon

James McCormick

... because it catches up the meaning of the whole Bible. It’s really the gospel in miniature. Once we understand it, I think we will never be able to forget it. Mark calls it a parable, but it is not like the other parables. Typically, parables have one main point. Once you get the main point, you get the truth Jesus is communicating. But this story from Mark’s gospel has many points – it’s more like an allegory than a parable. Everything in the story represents something else. Clearly, the owner of ...

207. Step Eleven - Spirituality

Mt 26:36-46 · 1 Thess 5:12-22 · Ps 25:1-15

Sermon

John A. Terry

... grips of the old way of living have been broken. We rejoice when people have been released from the nets that held them. We rejoice when peoples' lives are transformed by the renewal of their mind. Christ's life embodied that deeper joy. In the life of Jesus we have one who both prayed for himself to understand and to do God's will, and who in love reached out to pray for others, that they would also know and do God's will. Let me set the scene for the gospel reading. That night Jesus celebrated his last ...

208. Home By Another Way

Luke 2:1-7

Drama

Lois Anne DeLong

... not to go. They wouldn’t listen to them, anymore than Herod would have listened to the Shepherds. Wise Man 2: Set up camp quickly, servants. I want to go to sleep early so we can be sure of reaching Herod tomorrow. Wise Man 1: It will be nice to have one night’s sleep in a bed at the palace before the long trip home. Wise Man 3: I’ve been thinking a lot about this. Maybe, our servants are right and we shouldn’t go see Herod. Wise Man 2: Don’t tell me you’re starting to believe these ...

209. Are There Two Baptisms?

Acts 2:14-41

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

... ." The understanding of the Holy Spirit’s work in this action is often like that of the little girl whose family lived across the street from the cemetery. Often she listened to the minister as he spoke the words of the committal service. She decided to have one of her own in her backyard. She thought she would bury her teddy bear. After digging a grave, she solemnly lowered the toy bear into the ground, saying ever so seriously the words she thought she had heard the preachers say again and again in the ...

210. After A Lost Election, Field Of Dreams

Jeremiah 8:4--9:26

Sermon

James Angell

... small city dealt with changes brought about by the Civil Rights movement with courageous openness. The "colored" and "whites" signs came down. Black students moved into the dorms at the University of Kentucky. Second Church became recognized as having one of the clearest voices of all, appealing for the dismantling of segregation. Hubert Humphrey telephoned from the Senate Office Building to commend the town's progress toward helping to create a genuinely inclusive society. I played the Christus ...

211. What Is Caesar's and What Is God's?

Matthew 22:15-22

Sermon

Brett Blair

... and a symbol of their lost freedom. So, what to do? He calls for a coin. If you were to hold a Roman denarius in your hand you would quickly understand the use Jesus makes of it. Go to any serious coin shop today and they will have one on display. The head displays the reigning emperor, and on the tail an inscription, reading, in the time of Jesus, “Tiberius Caesar, Son of the Divine Augustus, Pontifex Maximus.” The emperor was the high priest of Rome’s pagan religion. There is a bit of humor here ...

212. Following Orders

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... if we realize that of the almost one billion people in the world who call themselves "Christian," TWO-THIRDS of them live in nations where Christianity is a persecuted faith, we know that sacrifice is still the order of the day. Fortunately, Christian soldiers have one tremendous piece of assurance about our task. We have a promise from the commander, "...and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age," the abiding presence of a commander-in-chief who has promised he will never leave us nor forsake ...

213. The Excitement of Meaningful Living

John 10:10 · Matthew 6:33 · Ephesians 3:20

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... business, to live abundantly, to help each other live fully, to call the world back to wholeness of life. Dr. Richard Goodling, Professor of Pastoral Psychology at Duke Divinity School, quotes Daniel Day Williams, "What, then, does it mean to be saved? It means to have one’s life in all its good and evil, its hope and brokenness, restored to participation in the love of God ... a new relationship to God, and to neighbor, and to one’s self." Dorothy, in the Wizard of Oz, discovered that the wizard was ...

214. An Invitation to a Feast

Matthew 22:1-14

Sermon

Jerry L. Schmalemberger

... friends of the king. Once Winston Churchill received an invitation from George Bernard Shaw to one of his opening plays back in the early 1900s. The note read, "Enclosed are two tickets to the performance of a play of mine. Bring a friend - if you have one." Churchill sent back this reply: "Dear GBS, I thank you very much for the invitation and tickets. Unfortunately, I am engaged on that night, but could I have tickets for the second night? - if there is one." Let’s be honest and admit that the things ...

215. Who Put It There? (Mother's Day)

1 Peter 5:1-11

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... when he goofs up and say, 'I understand and I love you' without so much as uttering a word.' 'Lord,' said the angel, touching his sleeve gently, 'Come to bed. Tomorrow.' 'I can't,' said the Lord, 'I'm so close to creating something so close to myself. Already I have one who heals herself when she is sick, and can feed a family of six on one pound of hamburger, and can get a nine-year-old to stand under a shower.' The angel circled the model of the mother very slowly. 'It's too soft,' she sighed. 'But tough ...

216. Trash Cans or Treasure Chests

1 Corinthians 1:18--2:5

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... the name java, from this island. This coffee bean has an interesting story. This is supposedly the most exquisite, exotic, and is the most expensive coffee in the world. It costs $300 a pound. They sell this coffee by the ounce, the only coffee sold by the ounce. You have one of these beans. If you want to taste this coffee you are going to have to pool your beans and roast them yourself. Kopi is Indonesian for coffee, Luwak is Indonesian for the name of how we get this coffee. Luwak is a cat. It's a Civet ...

217. The Short List

Micah 6:1-8

Sermon

Billy D. Strayhorn

... wrong choices but have been forgiven. We deserved justice but through Christ's sacrifice on the cross, we've received mercy. How we live is in response to our experience of God's Mercy. Remember the old bracelets people used to wear? Some of you may still have one? WWJD. "What Would Jesus Do?" The passage today tells us it's not enough to know what Jesus would do. A better bracelet to wear would be one with the letters WWJHMD on it. "What Would Jesus Have ME Do?" That's more in keeping with this imperative ...

218. The Christian Journey II: The Mountain

Sermon

John N. Brittain

... at the foot of the mountain isn't always so hot. Who hasn't attended a particularly meaningful worship experience and then had a fight in the car on the way home? Or been picked up at church camp or from a retreat on a particular spiritual high only to have one's parents go over the litany of undone chores at home. Many times we, like Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration, want to stay at that high: "It is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah ...

219. Loving Our Enemies, Christian or Crazy?

Matthew 5:43-47

Sermon

J. Howard Olds

... those who do not agree with us. We must, indeed, learn to love our enemy. If Jesus had not expected us to have some enemies, why would he have instructed us to love them? Stanley Hauerwas, of Duke Divinity School says, “Methodists have one theological conviction. God is nice." Methodists have one ethical corollary, “We ought to be nice too." Have we become so bland and uninteresting that we no longer have enemies to love? Some of us have seen the enemy. They are the people we have hurt. The enemy is us ...

220. Easter 2

Acts 4:32-37, 1 John 1:5--2:14, John 20:19-23, John 20:24-31

Sermon Aid

Russell F. Anderson

... 32-35 1. Sermon Title: One In The Spirit, One In The Lord. Sermon Angle: The Christian community is filled with all sorts of people from every walk of life. We have different political views, we come to some different social stands and express ourselves uniquely. However, we have one magnet that draws us all together: the Spirit of our Lord and risen Savior. "We are one in the Spirit," as the song says, "we are one in the Lord; and we pray that all unity may one day be restored." This is the source of unity ...

221. But Is It True?

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

Sermon

Scott Suskovic

... in John 8. The earliest manuscripts don't have it. It was probably added later by a scribe. We don't have one manuscript saying that it was a virgin birth and the other saying that Jesus had a striking resemblance to Joseph. We don't have one manuscript saying that Jesus died on the cross and another saying he wiped off the blood and got back in the game. We don't have one manuscript that says Jesus rose from the dead and another saying, "No, he pretty much stayed dead." In other words, the discrepancies ...

222. Overcoming Envy

Matthew 20:1-16

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... was reportedly convinced that her neighbor had grown so jealous of Marion’s beautiful garden that she’d trained a squirrel to destroy it. And that was Marion’s immediate reaction: If Marion couldn’t have a beautiful garden, her neighbor couldn’t have one either. (1) Isn’t that both hilarious . . . and sad? Our theme for today is overcoming envy. Jesus told a parable about a landowner who went into the marketplace early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard--a common practice in rural ...

223. Lent 1

Lk 4:1-13 · Rom 10:8-13 · Deut 26:1-11 · Ps 91

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

... the cross. At the temptation Jesus chose the way of the cross. Lesson 1: This passage summarizes God's marvelous liberation of his people from Egyptian bondage to the promised land of freedom and peace. This was done under the leadership of the great Moses. Now we have one greater than Moses who comes to us to lead us through the wilderness of temptation to peace with God by means of the cross. Lesson 2: Paul assures us that if we believe in our hearts and confess with our lips that Jesus is Lord, we will ...

224. Crossing Boundries

Mark 7:24-30

Bulletin Aid

RobertT D. Ingram

... .Like Jesus, let us do the right thing, so that others can see your power shaping us and be drawn to your eternal truth and life. Amen. Prayer O God,why do we have to have one church for Blacks, another for Whites, another for Hispanics, another for Natives, and another for Asians?And why do we have to have one church for professionals, and another for bluecollar workers, and another for people on welfare?This is not the way Jesus taught. He crossed all the boundaries in his day. Send him to lead us across ...

225. Watch What You Eat

1 Corinthians 8:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... set up some rules for herself for eating or not eating food on her many travels. She offers the following suggestions: Never eat anything you can't pronounce. Beware of food that is described as, "Some Americans say it tastes like chicken." If a country does not have one single head of cattle, no range and no cowboys, don't order beef. This is no time to be a sport. When they tell you how the skin of what you are eating makes wonderful shoes and handbags, leave it. Resist eating anything that when dropped ...

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