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 2275 results

2226. God's Ridiculous Commitment

Acts 2:14a, 36-41

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... of God’s character and purposes. To all who are baptized in his name, he offers a new life with God. And the second thing Peter offered them in Jesus is the promise of the Holy Spirit empowering their new life. There are a few key qualities that the Holy Spirit develops in a believer’s life. It helps us understand the truth of God. It provides comfort and strength. It creates unity among believers. It is essential in the development of Christ-like character. And it bestows spiritual gifts upon believers ...

2227. What Fills Your Life Now?

Acts 7:55-60

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... , “If we can just be even a portion of the person he was then I’ll feel fulfilled in life.” (1) It’s always great to hear when adults want to emulate their parents. But we all have the opportunity to inspire others. What is that special quality that causes one person’s life to have such a powerful impact on others? I like a quote I read from business author Adam Grant: “Popularity is how many likes you collect. Impact is how many lives you enrich.” (2) Our Bible passage for this morning is ...

2228. The Mud Room

John 9:1-41

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... today, the need to control our future, our success, our relationships, and our plans, and he calls instead for us to embrace “messiness.” He tells stories of inspiring people doing extraordinary things and notes that our most impressive human qualities, such as creativity and resilience, are produced by disorder and disarray in our lives, not by order and control. Think about it. Unexpected changes of plans, unfamiliar people, unforeseen events –these generate new ideas and relationships. Disorder is ...

2229. Living the FIRE Life

John 17:1-11

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... ? Scholars tell us that the word “eternal life” here in the Greek is “zoe aionis.” The phrase suggests a kind of life that happens in the fullness of time. It refers not to a duration of life or a future destination in life but to a “quality of life” based in the “knowledge” (ginosko) of God (the Father/Son/Holy Spirit). As we said when we talked about the “Way” of Jesus, “eternal life” in this sense is not something we look for in the hereafter, but something we can have right now ...

2230. When You Are Weary

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... offers us his peace. This is the final component in finding the rest for our souls that Jesus promises. Jesus embodied the goodness and faithfulness of God. Our peace comes from Jesus living in us through the Holy Spirit, continually reminding us of these qualities. Meditating on the goodness and faithfulness of God defends us from anxiety and fear and hopelessness. The Rev. Dr. Michael Brown tells of a man he visited in the cardiac ICU a few years ago in New York City. The man had experienced complications ...

2231. The Ease of Stress

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

... under stress -- especially as we are exposed to the public. We need to take time -- time to rest our bodies, time to let our minds slow down, time to give some ease to our souls, time to reflect and pray, time to worship, time to join ourselves in quality relationships with those who love us, in order that their love might calm our spirits and restore our souls. We need time to be with God and with those we love -- in order that we will be persons who have something to offer others when we are with ...

2232. The Human Predicament

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

... across a person who has a peace and a joy that you don’t understand. There’s nothing frantic about him. He’s not into what everybody else is in to. As you come to know him, you realize he believes that life is not a matter of quantity but quality. It’s not a matter of getting, it’s a matter of giving. It’s not a matter of the material, it’s a matter of the spiritual. Then we know it’s true. “The danger is not that there is no bread, but that we have convinced ourselves that ...

2233. Catholic

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Sermon

William G. Carter

... , there is no room for any kind of arrogance, self-promotion, or violence, because it is God’s kingdom. It is God who rules over the kingdom of heaven. And that kingdom is not located on a distant cloud sometime in the afterlife. Rather, it is the very quality of life for which Jesus teaches us to pray: the will of God, on earth as it already is in heaven (Matthew 6:10). This is what grows. This is what rises. Not the accomplishment or the arrogance of humanity, but the rule of God over all life. The ...

2234. A Good Name

Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9

Sermon

Will Willimon

... much in what they do to the world, but in what they are doing to you. The most pressing ethical question is not "What ought I to do?" It's ''Who do I want to be?" We're talking about that rather old-fashioned quality called “character.” Character is the accumulation of certain dispositions, certain dependable virtues, over a life time. ''That's just what I would have expected her to do" is an everyday affirmation of character, a recognition that she is a "Character'' - a coherent, purposeful personality ...

2235. Will God Be With Us?

Exodus 33:12-23

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... As Moses discovered, to truly know God, we must know God’s glory and God’s goodness. Dr. Nicholas J. Schaser defines God’s glory as “a concrete manifestation of divine presence that interacts with people.” Glory and goodness are the essential, integral, definitive qualities of God. They cannot be separated from one another because they are God’s very nature. When Moses asked to see God’s glory, the Lord replied, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my ...

2236. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning

Deuteronomy 34:1-12

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... life stories. McAdams found that the life stories tended to follow one of two patterns: a contamination sequence or a redemption sequence. In the contamination sequence, the person looks back at their life and sees a challenge or heartbreak or failure with no redeeming qualities. It represents a loss in their lives. An example: I lost my job, and it took me a couple of years to get over the loss. In the redemption sequence, the person looks back at their life and finds good things—new opportunities, new ...

2237. When God Leads

Joshua 3:7-17

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... ways. We see God’s methods for empowering His people in this passage from Joshua 3. As the editors of the Wesley Study Bible write, “The Lord gives a promise, reassurance and direction to Israel’s leader.” (4) I find that all three of these qualities are contained in the first six words of our Bible passage: “And the Lord said to Joshua . . .” Remember, generations of Israelites had spent more than 400 years as slaves in Egypt. Egypt had the largest pantheon of gods in the ancient world. The ...

2238. More Than Just Image

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24

Sermon

King Duncan & Angela Akers

... darkness.” “I myself will search for my sheep. . .” God never gives up on us. Since the beginning of humanity, God has worked through judges, priests and kings to establish God’s Kingdom of peace, justice and flourishing on the earth. But all these qualities are simply byproducts of living in a right relationship with God and with one another. Our sinful nature drives us to put our needs and happiness first, to crown ourselves king of our own little universe. There is no earthly power—either judge ...

2239. Trouble in the Vineyard

Matthew 20:1-16

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... s world in the gospels. A vineyard is a growing field, in which grapes are grown for wine –the staple of the Mediterranean. The purpose of a vineyard is to carefully cultivate the vines, feeding them and nurturing them, so that they grow into quality plants that yield the best possible tasting grapes. Grapevines are notoriously hard to grow. The soil is important (the terroir), the weather, the conditions of the vines, and the way the fruit is grown and handled. Cultivating excellent grapes takes a lot of ...

2240. A Model for the Church

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

... boy and girl was some individual who really cared. Maggie Koone, who has headed the great panthers, told some interesting facts about the sand hill cranes. These large birds commute great distances and traverse continents. They have at least three remarkable qualities. For one thing, they rotate leadership. No one bird stays out front all the time. Second, they choose a leader who can handle turbulence. And three, all during the time one bird is leading, the rest are honking, signaling their affirmation ...

2241. Good Life or Good Death

Illustration

Maxie Dunnam

... them a good death." Whatever else Dr. Barnard meant, he put his finger on a significant truth. The real enemy of life is not aging. The real enemy of life is not even death. The real enemy is not really being alive while you live. The important thing is the quality of life that we have.

2242. The Practice

Mark 1:9-15

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... mistrust, and opposition of others and respond with compassion, understanding, empathy, acceptance, and love. Difficult? You bet! And yet, this is our commission. And the way we learn to grow in our discipleship and in our love of Christ. These kinds of qualities, these kinds of “fruits of the spirit,” do not usually come as innate abilities for us human beings. They require preparation. They require practice. But they will always result in our growth and in the growth of faith and reassurance in others ...

2243. The Lord Is With Us

Luke 1:26-38, 2 Samuel 7:1-17, Romans 16:1-27

Sermon

Will Willimon

... the eternal, the fleshly and the spiritual. Oh, there are parts of the Bible which are noble and inspiring to be sure. But have you noticed how often this or that detail of Near Eastern folklore or geography keeps intruding upon the otherwise universal quality of the Bible's message? Here you go, reading along in the Old Testament, moved by some passage of unusual sensitivity and beauty, impressed by its universal relevance for people of any age or place, when without warning you are set upon the heights ...

2244. Divine Things

Mark 8:31-38

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... Jesus sees that same “voice” of dissension and temptation coming from his own disciple, the foundation and strong leader of the bunch, Peter. Now, this is important to understand: Jesus does not need Peter to change who he is. He chose him for exactly these qualities. He’s headstrong, loyal, faithful, and has a voracious energy for God. But he doesn’t like what Jesus is telling him, so his first reaction is to disagree! He may be the “feisty” disciple, but he still can’t out shout Jesus! Jesus ...

2245. Jews and Christians: All in the Family

Romans 15:4-13

Sermon

Will Willimon

... together, on the Duke campus or anywhere else, is for us both to be more faithful to our beliefs. The more we Christians come to see our Christ as the fulfillment of God's promises to Israel, the more keenly we feel the unmerited quality of our amazing inclusion into those promises, the more quickly will be healed the tragic separation within the Family of God. To the extent that we believers - Christian and Jew -- allow our faith in God to be diluted through nationalistic loyalties, pagan philosophies ...

2246. God’s Reputation and the Destruction of Jerusalem

Psalm 79:1-13

Teach the Text

Craig C. Broyles

... (e.g., Pss. 8:1, 9; 9:10; 48:10; 74:7; 75:1; 76:1; 83:16). Thus, his self-revelation to humanity is also at stake here. Psalm 79:9–10 unfolds the significance of God’s name or self-revelation by imploring him to manifest three character qualities: mercy, loyalty, and justice. First, for your name’s sake God is to help and deliver us and forgive “our sins.” Above all, God has associated his name with compassion toward sinners (cf. esp. Exod. 33:18–19; 34:5–7). Second, God is implored to act on ...

2247.

Psalm 103:1-22

Understanding Series

Craig C. Broyles

... of the eagle’s renewal (v. 5) is echoed in Isaiah 40:31. 103:6–18 The next section offers a prime example of what the terms righteousness (vv. 6, 17) and justice (v. 6) mean in the Psalms, especially when they are qualities of Yahweh. In Christian theology, they tend to have negative connotations, related to condemnation. But here we see these attributes spelled out as liberation—as exhibited in the exodus from Egyptian oppression—and compassion—as exhibited in the rebellion centered on the golden ...

2248.

Psalm 112:1-10

Understanding Series

Craig C. Broyles

... a “household” (cf. the wordplay on “house” in 2 Sam. 7:1–16). Similarly, while wealth and riches are usually understood in a material sense, the equivalent term in the parallel line, namely his righteousness, qualifies these “riches” as a quality, not as something to be quantified like material possessions. This same word pair appears twice in Proverbs, where each time “wealth” and “riches” are qualified in a non-material sense (8:18–19; 13:7). We should also note that righteousness ...

2249.

Psalm 129:1-8

Understanding Series

Craig C. Broyles

... plowing the speaker’s back with the harnessed oxen (on “cords,” Hb. ʿabôt, as a harness for plowing, see Job 39:10; cf. Isa. 5:18). This act exhibits Yahweh’s righteous character, thus exemplifying for us that “righteousness” is not a limiting quality (as popularly conceived) but is a liberating one. In verses 6–8, all who hate Zion are likened to grass on the roof, which withers before it can grow. This reversal is key to the psalm’s development: the plowmen who control the land become ...

2250.

Psalm 147:1-20

Understanding Series

Craig C. Broyles

... (the young ravens), but, perhaps, not self-evident from creation are the objects of Yahweh’s particular delight. It lies not in the natural strength of his creatures, whether it be of the horse or of the legs of a man—it lies in a particular human quality. Here the Bible differs sharply from social Darwinism: contrary to what one may infer from nature, survival does not belong to the fittest or strongest but to those who fear him, who put their hope in (or wait for) his unfailing love (cf. 33:16–17 ...

Showing results