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 2226 to 2250 of 3285 results

2226. Stand Up and Raise Your Voice

Deuteronomy 30:11-20

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... possible for us to have a voice. Like Prince Albert. As handicapped and weak as we are, we have been given a voice to love and raise. Jesus calls us to stand up and trust our voice, to stand up and raise our voice. Not to tout ourselves or our abilities. But to announce to the world that it is chosen, and to choose the life that comes with chosenness. We have been offered life and love. And it is this life of love which we are to announce to the world. The country duo “Sugarland” was asked by CNN to ...

2227. Life’s Three Guides on the Pilgrim Way

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... going to recognize and integrate the guides God sends us into our lives, we need to discern the “guises” and “disguises” these “guides” might come in. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle testified that “on important issues, we do not trust our own ability to decide and call in others to help us deliberate.” There are at least three kinds of guides, divinely programmed guidance systems, that accompany us on our Jesus journey towards the kingdom of God. If you join Jesus on “The Way,” you ...

2228. John 20:19-31

John 20:19-23

Sweet

... of the disciples and to highlight the miraculous entrance of Jesus into their midst. Although later in today’s text the risen Jesus’ true physicality will be emphasized, here his sudden through-locked-doors appearance points up his trans-human abilities. After rising from the tomb and teleporting into their locked safehouse, Jesus’ initial greeting to his disciples is almost comically mundane. “Peace be with you” (“shalom alekem”) was the most common form of casual greeting. It was a kind of ...

2229. When Christians Pray

Acts 1:12-26

Sermon

King Duncan

... . 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 the ability to do what needed to be done in every situation. Do I need to say that each of us needs God’s presence in our lives for the very same reason? It reminds me of a couple that I read about recently. Rachel and Jim owned a commercial building ...

2230. Acts 2:1-13

Acts 2:1-13

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... was intelligible. But often these outbursts were wholly unrecognizable speech. The experience of the disciples at Pentecost is clearly that of expressing coherent, discernable languages, languages they themselves did not know. This was possible only “as the Spirit gave them ability.” Before the resurrected Jesus had returned to show himself to his disciples, his followers had sought to hunker down and hide out in Jerusalem. A couple even decided to high-tail it out of town and headed for Emmaeus. Only ...

2231. Wrong!

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... also did not seem to “require so much active energy” as did error. Franklin claimed that error, as “the pure and simple creation of the mind that invents it,” is often more interesting than correctness. It is in our apparently limitless ability to err, Franklin contended, that “the soul has room enough to expand herself, to display all her boundless faculties, and all her beautiful and interesting extravagancies and absurdities.” (See Benjamin Franklin, Report of Dr. Benjamin Franklin, and Other ...

2232. In Our Own Language

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... tongue! Think about that for a moment. Think how difficult communication is, even among those who speak the same language. Communication is difficult even among people who share the same experiences. How many couples in counseling say, “We’ve lost the ability to communicate.” And here on the day of Pentecost we have people across the spectrum of languages and nationalities and experiences understanding these humble messengers of God. There is much we can learn from the first Pentecost. First of all ...

2233. Those Kissing Christians

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... will embrace truth. The church testifies with its life and its lips the “grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit.” “Trinity Sunday” is not about theology. It is about kissology. It is about kissmetrics: the ability and facility of the Body of Christ to offer the “first kiss” of salvation to a world that is desperately in need of divine embrace: the touch of love, the touch of faith, the touch of hope. As disciples of Christ we have the calling and ...

2234. Times Were Hard

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Illustration

Trace Haythorn

... to pass. When a prophet spoke out, they were vilified, punished, especially if they called into question the decisions of the government. Voices of hope arose, but just as quickly they fell as questions arose about the character of the speaker, about their ability to deliver, or about the transgressions of their past. Apathy was the prevailing ethos in the community. It was not hard to imagine the people asking, "Why even bother when nothing seems to change?" Kind of hard to figure out the time referenced ...

2235. Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Matthew 13:1-23

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... that while all the “seeds” in this final group fall on “good soil,” there are different results. Good soil, a genuine hearing and understanding, will still produce different rates of production in different disciples. Yet these “good soil” disciples produce all they are each capable of according to their abilities. Whether it is one hundred-fold, sixty-fold, or thirty-fold, these yields are success stories. They have “heard” and “understood” and acted upon the good news of the kingdom.

2236. Finger Food

Matthew 14:13-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... of pure triumph and joy. Mastering the “civilized” way to eat with forks or sticks is nowhere near as much fun. Does anyone have fond memories of chasing peas around your plate with a fork, or trying to carve up a Cornish game hen without it regaining its ability to fly, right into your lap? But using utensils is a “must” in polite society, even though worrying about whether you are using the right fork can suck all the fun and flavor out of eating. In fact it seems that the joy a meal brings is ...

2237. Send Her Away!

Matthew 15:21-28

Sermon

King Duncan

... , “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.” Certainly it was nothing new for someone to come to Jesus crying out for healing either for themselves or for someone they loved. News was traveling fast about Jesus’ ability to heal. The feeding of the 5000 that we dealt with two weeks ago came about because of the crush of people coming to the Master to be healed. But a Canaanite? They were “religious scum” as far as the Jews were concerned. And it ...

2238. My Shepherd

Psalm 23:1

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... at the knee of parents or grandparents. It is one of the first Bible passages we learn, and as often, we hear it at funerals, it is among the last words said over us when we die. It is a wonderful affirmation of our faith in God's ability to protect, to guide through unfamiliar, "uncharted" territory. "The Lord is my shepherd...." Someone has suggested that this is a psalm of faith that covers present, past, and future. "The Lord is my shepherd" ... right now - not was nor will be. And because the Lord is ...

2239. The Earth Is the Lord’s ... And Don’t You Forget It!

Psalm 24:1

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... scientific knowledge, not simply to do what we want when we want just because we want, but to make this little globe that we borrow better for all of us, all more than six-billion human beings plus lots of other plant and animal life? We certainly have the ability. But with it comes responsibility because, like it or not, we are in this together. An old Jewish proverb tells of a man in a boat who began to bore a hole under his seat. When his fellow passengers asked him what he was doing, he answered, "What ...

2240. Transitions

2 Kings 2:1-12

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... of our troops? A health care system that takes care of everyone and not just the very rich and very poor while leaving the vast middle at risk? Changes in the tax structure that more fairly reflect an individual's and an industry's ability to pay? Immigration reform that neither rewards bad behavior nor penalizes someone's legitimate aspirations for a better life? More attention paid to issues of poverty, not just the millions of our own people considered by the government as living below the poverty line ...

2241. The Thoughts of Our Hearts

Luke 2:22-40

Sermon

Robert J. Elder

... thoughts were revealed, both good and bad, to the disgrace of some, in order to cleanse and heal others. The Old Testament prophet, Malachi, had predicted that many would not endure the day of his coming. We would all be revealed for what we are. It was his ability to see and speak the heart of the matter that was Jesus' undoing. So what was a Gentile convert doing writing about the laws of the Jews? And what are we, people not a little exhausted from the rigors of the celebration of the Christmas just past ...

2242. Grand Opening

Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

Robert J. Elder

... appropriate question we face any time we read the story of the magi is, or should be, "What gift" — or more appropriately, "What thank-offering — can I bring?" Sometimes the answer is as near as our own backyards. It is certainly always within our own ability. Consider the story of Earl Miner,4 a rather unspectacular citizen of Marshfield, Missouri, and of the kingdom. Earl decided that he wanted to make a contribution to world peace as his thank offering to the Prince of Peace. So he invented a TRAG, a ...

2243. On Your Mark, Get Set, Go!

Mark 1:9-15

Sermon

John Smylie

... measuring rod to mark our great piety. Perhaps our own wilderness will leave us very little room for the familiar methods by which we have met our Lord in the past. Perhaps we shall have to struggle to realize one day at a time it is not ultimately our ability to meet the needs and demands of those with whom we come into daily contact that will save us, making us holy. Perhaps we will realize during Lent that it is not our own challenging situations in life that define us or give us our value but rather the ...

2244. The Elephant in The Living Room

Mark 8:31-38

Sermon

John Smylie

... welcome. My father was deeply offended and retreated to his bedroom. He never came out and he has refused to speak with me ever since. He even refused to meet his grandchildren, blaming me. The abuse of alcohol can pervert a human being, ruining his or her ability to feel and reason with any kind of a semblance of reality. He had no answer. He had no gracious or real relationship with any member of his family, except an abusive one. His primary love was the alcohol. After my challenge to him, after he had ...

2245. Disintegration and Reintegration

Mark 14:1-15:47

Sermon

John Smylie

... every one of them coming apart at the seams, disintegrating before us. The painful passage, the many verses that we are encountering today point to a picture of human frailty, a picture of human weakness, an essay portraying a lack of loyalty as well as the human ability for betrayal. We begin in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper. We hear of a woman who broke open a jar of very costly ointment who then poured the contents upon our Lord's head. This action is one of generosity and compassion but the ...

2246. Silence and Darkness

John 18:1-19:42

Sermon

John Smylie

... 's something of a skeptic in me. How in the world, I wondered, could that little splinter have come from the piece of wood upon which our Lord was crucified? Then again, it didn't really matter if it was genuine or not, what really mattered was their ability to fall flat on their faces in genuine reverence before their Lord who sacrificed everything to take away the sins of the world. Lord, help me today find the grace to worship you with genuine and honest reverence. In the late 1980s and early 1990s I had ...

2247. The Logical Conclusion

Luke 24:44-53

Sermon

John Smylie

... one who shares that view. There are others whom I would describe as liberal literalists who have shared his opinion. In fact, one of the more published bishops of the Episcopal Church shares this view. What their comments showed was their narrow and limited minds' ability to grasp the mystery of the incarnation. The fact is that none of us will likely be able to grasp the fullness of the mystery of the incarnation yet we may grasp that the incarnation is always messy and unmanageable and a scandal to our ...

2248. The Inconcealable Christ!

Mark 7:31-37, Mark 7:24-30

Sermon

Robert Leslie Holmes

... imagine that this man travels to Decapolis having been stricken by deafness before his childhood speech patterns were fully developed. We can suppose that he was not born deaf because in this era to be born deaf would mean that one would develop no speech abilities at all. Such a person is simply referred to with the social slur "deaf and dumb," and usually is sidelined from the mainstream by family members who realize society regards such birth defects as evidence of God's judgment. The lesson of these two ...

2249. Right-Handed Sinners!

Mark 9:42-50

Sermon

Robert Leslie Holmes

... hell" (v. 45). Eye Sins! "If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell" (v. 47). What more precious gift do we have than the ability to see clearly? Yet, according to Jesus' words, these eyes that behold nature's wondrous beauty are also capable of taking us to hell. What are the sins of the eye? Eye sins are what we look at. It is through the eyes that almost all sinful offenses enter our ...

2250. This Gospel Is for Our Children

Mark 10:13-16

Sermon

Robert Leslie Holmes

... about you? Remember, Jesus says, "... anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it" (v. 15). Second, to live with the faith of a child means to live with trust and dependence on Jesus. Personal abilities and accomplishments are not factors in receiving God's kingdom. Children understand life in very simple terms. Theological controversies and mysteries do not distract them. They take God's word as they find it. Listen to the conversations of children. They are very ...

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