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 2326 to 2350 of 5000 results

2326. Eyes To See, Ears To Hear

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

James McCormick

... world to do away with religion.” “What?” I thought. “I always thought Jesus came to start a new religion, Christianity.” I thought long and hard about what he said. I wrestled with it. I lost sleep over it. And then it hit me. Of course! What he ... for the kind of voice you could record on a tape recorder? Well, if that is what you are listening for, I suspect you will have a long wait. I don’t think that’s the way God does it. No, the still, small voice the Bible talks about is more the sense of ...

2327. Climbing the Tree

Luke 19:1-10

Illustration

Larry R. Kalajainen

... , straddling a limb and holding tightly to one above it, swaying in the breeze with the leaves fluttering around him. It was an exhilarating moment for a seven-year-old. He was on top of the world. But when the time came to climb back down, he was terrified. As long as he was on his way up, his vision and his focus was on the branch above him. But on the way down, all he could see was how far below the ground was and how many protruding limbs there were between him and the ground. Very gingerly, he made ...

2328. Advent 3

Psalm 145:5-10, Isaiah 35:1-10, Matthew 11:1-19, James 5:7-10

Bulletin Aid

Amy C. Schifrin

... cries, Leader: a phone that doesn’t ring, All: a child who hasn’t returned home, Leader: waiting in our darkness; All: we remember your promise, and we are not alone. Leader: O God of all the ages, we pray that you would come to us who long to see you, who long to hear your voice. Breathe life into us as the night’s darkness deepens, that all our fears may be swallowed up in your eternal joy, through Jesus Christ our Lord. All: Amen. Hymn And Prayer For Lighting The Third Advent Candle Sing verse 3 of ...

2329. Back to Real Life

Matthew 2:13-18

Sermon

King Duncan

... remember the world to whom Christ came and for which he died. Why did Christ come into the world? One reason and one reason alone: Because, “God so loved the world.” That’s it. Christmas is centered in love. We want to keep the Christmas spirit all year long, because the Christmas spirit consists of loving our neighbor and loving God not just one day of the year, but all the year round. I want to close with a haunting story told by author W. B. Freeman. A man was walking down a dimly lit street late ...

2330. Eyewitness News

John 20:1-9

Sermon

King Duncan

... one more time. He was asked what his favorite song was. He replied, “One Billion Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” We don’t know how long it would take to sing all the choruses to “One Billion Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” but suffice it to say, he wasn’t ... off the freeway of life that goes nowhere. That is our fear but our hopes reside elsewhere. Deep in our hearts is the longing that the bridge of life has been completed. That life goes on. That those we have lost in this world will be reclaimed ...

2331. Act Quickly - Catch It Early

Matthew 5:21-26

Sermon

King Duncan

... they hurt is themselves. Jesus, as usual, hit the nail squarely on the head. “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his ... his zoo, but the rest of the population was shut out. This man collected animals from all over the world, and it was not long before his zoo was one of the most complete collections the zoological world had ever known. One day, the man heard about a rare ...

2332. Rock Solid

Matthew 7:24-29

Sermon

King Duncan

... [in] uniform. I wondered how many times I might have seen him and not even said “good morning” or anything else, because you see, I was a fighter pilot, and he was just a mere sailor.” He thought about the many hours that sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship unseen by everyone carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands the fate of someone he did not know. That lowly sailor was unseen and unsung, and yet, because he did his job ...

2333. Matthew 17:1-9

Matthew 17:1-13

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

Graduation ceremonies are a big deal. The graduates are lauded for completing their course of work, for meeting all the requirements, for formally finishing what they had started so long ago. On graduation day all attention is focused on the graduates, celebrating their special moment. But the next morning…time to go back to everyday life. Graduation day does mark a new beginning. But for a while, at least, that new beginning might look like same old, same old. Sometimes ...

2334. A Life in God’s Great Adventure

John 3: 1-17

Illustration

Lee Griess

... to follow Christ that faith takes on its true dimension. That's what Jesus was trying to tell Nicodemus. You must be born again. You must risk a new beginning. You must trust yourself to a new birth in God to truly be part of the kingdom of God. As long as you hold on to the old, as long as you are afraid to follow, as long as you are unwilling to risk your life for God, you will not be part of God's great adventure.

2335. Suddenly, Their Eyes Were Opened

Luke 24:13-35

Illustration

Scott Hoezee

... released Odysseus and he arrives back home at last. But instead of simply waltzing through the front door and crying out some Greek equivalent of, "Honey, I'm home!" Odysseus decides that he wants to determine if anything has changed during his long absence. Did his wife still love him? Had she been faithful? In order to find out, Odysseus disguises himself so as to approach his home looking like a stranger in need of temporary lodging. The housekeeper, Euryclea, welcomes the apparent traveler and performs ...

2336. Family Resemblance

John 14:5-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... the train ride, her mother made a game with her of finding the temperatures in different cities, as listed in the newspaper, and then figuring out which city was warmer or colder than another city. Through it all, Mother never wavered. It had to have been a long day, and she was surely tired. It would have been easy for her to decide that Grandma didn’t really need to understand something instead of explaining it to her patiently for the fourth time. It would have been easy for her to give her daughter ...

2337. I Am Counting with You

John 14:1-14

Illustration

Mark Trotter

... She had two goals in teaching. One was to teach her girls to be ladies. So she taught them manners as much as she taught them music. She also taught them to play one piece perfectly for the May recital. She rehearsed them and drilled them all year long to play that one piece perfectly, including instructions on how to sit on the piano bench, to spread your skirt as you sit down, and how to announce the song by standing straight and holding your hands together at your waist. The night of the recital came. It ...

2338. The Scope of Love

John 14:15-31

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... of a telescope. First, Christ‑breathed love has the sensitivity of a stethoscope. A Spirit-of-truth community feels the flutter of fear in the community it serves. A Spirit-of-truth community can detect the presence of a quickened pulse from hopelessness long before that gloom can transform a nation. A Spirit-of-truth community can discern the drop in heart rate that foretells a deathly drop in vision and vitality. A Christ‑breathed love acts on its discernment of these heart failures, offering itself ...

2339. When Christians Pray

Acts 1:12-26

Sermon

King Duncan

... of the alphabet, she experienced God’s closeness and God’s love. If we are awash in God’s presence we can handle any situation in life. The disciples of Jesus experienced God’s power in a magnificent way. It did not take the early church very long to become a major force in the Roman Empire. But individually, the leaders of the church often experienced torture and death because of their faith in Christ. If they had not felt that God was with them through the power of the Holy Spirit, they would not ...

2340. A Community of Practice, Not a Community of Perfection

Romans 7:7-25

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... the gospels. Start with the earliest gospel, Mark, where the disciples are the “Duh!-ciples,” I call them. Do they ever get it? At one point Jesus exclaims “How dull you are!” At another point he mutters in utter frustration, “Have I been so long time with you, and you still don’t get it?” There is no greater blessing to every new generation of disciples than the example of Jesus’ first twelve disciples — the ones who walked with him, witnessed his miracles, were imbued with healing powers ...

2341. Matthew 14:22-36

Matthew 14:22-36

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... .” It would seem that the disciples are some sort of magnet for stormy seas (Matthew 8:24), and this time Jesus is not in the boat with them. A continuous, contrary wind has driven their boat off course and far out to sea. It is a long night for the disciples, since Jesus does not leave his mountain-top prayer vigil until “the fourth watch of the night,” that is, somewhere between 3-6 a.m. There is little doubt that Matthew intends to describe Jesus’ approach to his disciples as more than spectral ...

2342. Hope

John 12:20-33

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... face, he finished: "But when I saw her, I realized that they wouldn't send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy ... would they?"[1] A few years ago, the psychology department at Duke University carried on an interesting experiment to see how long rats could swim. In one container, they placed a rat for whom there was no possibility of escape. He swam a few moments and then ducked his head to drown. In the other container, they made the hope of escape possible for the rat. The rat swam for ...

2343. Jesus and Divorce

Mark 10:2-16

Sermon

David E. Leininger

... to another man. There are many women in our day who chafe under the yoke of sexual discrimination, and rightly so, but be aware, things are so much better today than back then that there is no basis for comparison. As has been said, "You've come a long way, baby." "It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this [divorce] law," Jesus said. "But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female ... For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife ...

2344. When Did This Start? — Part 1

Mark 1:1-8

Sermon

Robert J. Elder

... have wondered, were those shoppers shoving each other around? To make a way for the Lord, to make his paths straight, or to be first in line to honor Jesus' birth? A friend of mine reflected that the sort of holiday that brings about department-store riots has long since lost any resemblance whatsoever to the celebration of the Messiah's birth. How easy it is to get caught up in the rush, and end up "doing the very thing we hate" (see Romans 7:15). How much more important, in this season, to listen to the ...

2345. When Did This Start? — Part 2

John 1:6-8, 19-28

Sermon

Robert J. Elder

... , "In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God and the Word was God" (John 1:1). And before too long, the local parish council wanted to know who this Baptist fellow was who was saying all these things, stirring up the population. "Who ... remind us of a world in the absence of light. Many leave for more southerly climates in this season; they find the short days and long dark nights too taxing on their spirits. But we do have an advantage in this part of the world, when the subject turns to light ...

2346. Can Anything Good Come out of Our Town?

John 1:43-51

Sermon

Robert J. Elder

... , doing whatever fishermen do on their day off, probably stitching a torn net. His friend approaches. Philip is excited. "We've found the Messiah, the one we always heard about and hoped for! He's here among us at last, the one we've waited for so long!" Nathaniel, cautious at first, puts down his work, his pulse quickens. Could it possibly be? After so many centuries, will this great thing happen in his generation? With his heart in his throat, he asks, "Who is he? Where did he come from?" Then comes the ...

2347. A Whole City at The Door

Mark 1:29-39

Sermon

Robert J. Elder

... this role, left Capernaum, and went out through Galilee pursuing his ministry of proclamation, and assisting his message with signs and wonders, but keeping the content of his message ever before him. The church that takes its cue in ministry from Jesus himself will look long and hard at his statement about his ministry and its purpose. I can't tell you how many hundreds of conversations I have had with people over the years about the things the church ought and ought not do in order to fill the pews ...

2348. We Wish to See Jesus

John 12:20-33

Sermon

John Smylie

... is for Judaism, for it to become a means by which we keep God at a safe distance, appeasing him and our own consciences by giving some time, and money, and even some of our talents, all the while keeping our hearts untouched by the finger of God who longs to write his name upon it. All of this is done innocently, unconsciously, and with the best of intentions. It has been my experience that most of us don't purposefully harden our hearts and walk away from God, just as most married couples in trouble don't ...

2349. For the Life of Betsy D. I. Smylie

John 12:20-36

Sermon

John Smylie

2350. Living Upside Down

Mark 2:23-3:6

Sermon

Kristin Borsgard Wee

... and the sparrows took flight and flew away chirping. For those of us who are willing to see the world upside down, we might just end up seeing it the way God sees it. It will take some getting used to. We've been living right-side up for so long. When we get the hang of it, though, we just may be surprised by an experience of divine love so strong that it pours over us like a rain shower and doesn't simply soak our clothes, but runs through our skin into our very souls. Amen. 1. Marcus Borg ...

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