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 2326 to 2350 of 4770 results

2326. Lifting the Burden of Guilt

Mark 2:1-12

Sermon

Robert G. Tuttle

... walk’?" And to convince them of his power to forgive sins, he commanded the paralyzed man. "I say to you, stand up, take up your bed, and go home." And before the astonished crowd, the sick man got up, took up his stretcher, and went out in full view of them all. Jesus said to the paralytic, whose inner house was so divided against itself that he could not move, "Your sins are forgiven. Your guilt is lifted. Your break with life, your break with truth, your break with God is healed. Get up, get back into ...

2327. Service

Mark 10:35-45

Sermon

Warren Thomas Smith

... giving her life to the outcast lepers. She seemed disappointed when told modern leprosaria were not unlike other hospitals and medical centers where patients with leprosy - Hansen’s disease - were treated by trained medical personnel. Hers, alas, was the early nineteenth-century view of going to the "poor lepers" and, like Father Damien, contracting the disease and dying in sacrificial love. Here we make a serious error. Ministry is far more than doing good to somebody in order that we might feel good, in ...

2328. Not Far From the Kingdom

Mark 12:28-34

Sermon

Warren Thomas Smith

... of external circumstances. Conversion? Possibly, but underneath, human nature remains human nature. In the end, humanity is nature "red in tooth and claw." Is that what we believe? It may come as a surprise, but the Christian gospel brings an altogether different point of view. Human nature can be changed; people do not need to remain the same. In short, we are all "not far from the kingdom of God!" Here are some examples: Nicodemus He was a brilliant member of the Sanhedrin, one very wealthy both in honors ...

2329. Enduring

Mark 13:1-31

Sermon

Warren Thomas Smith

... what it is, see the potential threat to the human race; but then what? Here are some suggestions: I can become informed; I do not need to be a simpleton. I can be responsible, as a voting citizen, as a member of my community. I can express my concern, my views. I can work through my church, for peace and justice. I can join with others of good will to register my commitment to sanity in the affairs of nations. I can, in all things, seek to know the mind of Christ. I can pray for peace in the world, pray ...

2330. And It Came To Pass

Mark 13:1-31

Sermon

Warren Thomas Smith

... , he comes with clouds descending, Once for favored sinners slain; Thousand, thousand saints attending Swell the triumph of his train; Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! God appears on earth to reign, God appears on earth to reign.1 What does it all mean? It is the Christian view of history. Ultimately, God will triumph. No matter what overtakes the earth, God is God. How clearly it is stated in the symbol of the fig tree. Fresh leaves appear and we know the winter is past; the time of the singing of birds ...

2331. Twenty-First Century Reformation

John 8:31-41

Sermon

Warren Thomas Smith

... a slave; he is always worried ... By contrast, who can fully conceive the honour and the elevation of a Christian? ... he exercises authority over all things ... Thereby it becomes clear that a Christian always enjoys freedom, and is always master.3 As Luther viewed the human situation, the hope of liberation from the tyranny of the world, and the world’s values, lies in Christ. In Christ people are free, free indeed. "But does this apply to the Twenty-first Century?" Luther’s response would be that it ...

2332. The Friends of Jesus

John 15:1-17

Sermon

Brett Blair

... polls in Jesus’ day. There were no computers to analyze his public standing. Of course, he was not engaged in a political contest. But he was a public figure. People reacted to him one way or the other. Some people saw him as a threat, while others viewed him as savior. He made friends, but he also made enemies. There were many, perhaps the majority, who were simply curious about him. What I would like to do is consider the constituency of Jesus, the people that we call his friends. Jesus said to his ...

2333. I Am The One Who Jesus Loves

John 13:23

Illustration

Brett Blair

... , an evangelist, an author of one of the four Gospels,' but rather, 'I am the one Jesus loves.'" What would it mean, I ask myself, if I too came to the place where I saw my primary identity in life as "the one Jesus loves"? How differently would I view myself at the end of a day? Sociologists have a theory of the looking-glass self: you become what the most important person in your life (wife, father, boss, etc.) thinks you are. How would my life change if I truly believed the Bible's astounding words about ...

2334. The Advent Hope

Romans 14:1--15:13

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

... and annihilate all the enemies of God, hangs over the world until the sound of the last trumpet releases the avalanche. The full power is there but it is being held back. The result is the breathless tension of which the apostle speaks. Viewed from eternity, Calvary and the second coming occupy a single moment. They are two aspects of the same divine act. The atonement and the new creation belong as inseparably together as lightning and the thunder which follows it. Lightning and thunder are the effects ...

2335. Christ and Time

Galatians 3:26--4:7

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

... blue litmus paper red, so human thought turns everything temporal. We cannot think of anything that exists without presupposing that it exists at some time. Apart from our thought there is no such thing as time. The French philosopher Henri Bergson takes quite an opposite view. Time to him is the very stuff of reality. It bites into things and changes things. As Benjamin Franklin said, "Waste not time, for time is the stuff that life is made of." And so Bergson found in time - or duration, as he called it ...

2336. Clear and Clean and Good

Titus 2:1-15

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

... . He tells us, "the grace of God has made its epiphany for the salvation of all men," and now we are "awaiting our blessed hope, the epiphany of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ." Epiphany means appearance, becoming visible, the coming into view of what was hidden. Thus when Luke portrays a storm on the Mediterranean Sea and an impending shipwreck, he says that the ship was driven by a strong wind and "neither sun nor stars made an epiphany for many a day" (Acts 27:20). But throughout ...

2337. The Home Under God

Matthew 6:5-15

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

... particular emphasis upon the home as a place for training in Christian character and exercise of Christian virtues. He said that it was a thousand times better suited to this purpose than were the monasteries. His Small Catechism was written with this end in view. Parents who teach their children the word of God are priests and pristesses of God. The scripture texts before us place the Christian home in the perspective of the gospel. They focus our minds upon what our Lord himself has to say about fathers ...

2338. The Priesthood of All Believers

1 Peter 2:4-12

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

... done. The third principle of Alcoholics Anonymous is this: do something for others. Forget yourself in the service of others. Never mind whether you get paid for it or not, never mind whether you are appreciated or not. Just learn to look at life from the point of view of the needs of others. Here is the very heart of our priesthood. A Christian, as Luther put it, does not live in himself at all but in Christ through faith and in his neighbor through love. When we become consecrated to Christ, we get a new ...

2339. The Communion of Saints

Hebrews 12:1-13

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

... is there in it for me? Love "seeketh not its own." In Luther’s words, "faith seeks nothing for itself in this world or the next" and "faith is nothing where love does not follow." True faith is God-centered and neighbor-centered, not self-centered. A popular gospel song views the final goal of faith in this way: "When all my labors and trials are o’er, And I am safe on that beautiful shore, Just to be near the dear Lord I adore Will through the ages be glory for me. O, that will be glory for me, Glory ...

2340. True Freedom

John 8:31-41

Sermon

T. A. Kantonen

... people for the shooting going on in their province of northern Ireland. Yet there are viruses that infect the whole American way of life and constitute a genuine danger. Our bicentennial celebration will serve a constructive purpose if it leads us to view our way of life in the broad perspective of history. The renowned historian and philosopher Arnold Toynbee in his comprehensive work The Study of History lists nineteen great civilizations that have collapsed. He points out that only three of them were ...

2341. Letting Go

Sermon

Gregory J. Johanson

... totally alone. Yet in that risk we find that spirit meets spirit, that we are not cast into outer darkness but responded to, supported, affirmed. So may the Spirit of God hover over the darkness and void within us to bring light and form. Letting go may be viewed as self-surrender, a self-surrender which results in death to be sure, but a death followed by life, in a re-birth whose labor is as difficult as our first birth though now we bear the pain of birth. Letting go is the way to life through death ...

2342. When Jesus Speaks Your Name

John 20:10-18

Sermon

Gregory J. Johanson

... wineskins. So she calls him, the old term, "Teacher," when he is now so much more - Jesus the Christ, King of kings, Lord of lords. Conclusion: Perhaps if we too, could be freed of the dead weight of false expectations; of the fixations on old ways of viewing life; of the closures of our intellects, we might meet Christ in the garden of our hearts. We might, even now, hear his voice calling us by name. And we could answer, rise up, and follow him! Prayer: We rejoice, O Lord, in the glad day of resurrection ...

2343. The Choice Is Always Ours

Ecclesiastes 9:1-12

Sermon

Gregory J. Johanson

... that when you have done all you can do, just stop; do no more; let the matter rest where it is. For there is nothing further that can be accomplished from initiating any motions that are superfluous or destructive. When the picture is clear in your view, cease your nervous and feverish efforts to do more than you can or need to do. When you thus summon your good senses, there comes an end to anxious concerns and nervous efforts. When impulsive - or compulsive - actions can be turned off, God delivers us ...

2344. Bringing the Gospel to Marriage

Genesis 1:1-2:3

Sermon

Gregory J. Johanson

... not survive. Their attitude was expressed this way: "If it feels good, do it; if not, blow it off." Dr. Burch said that for twelve to fourteen years we have had this, "I love ya, baby, but don’t tie me down," view of marriage. Fortunately, Dr. Burch’s experience is changing, and he sees persons moving toward accountability and more responsibility for the relationship.: Christian persons are looking at their own marriage relationships and at those about them, wanting support and encouragement - some ...

2345. The Family Was God’s Idea

Sermon

Gregory J. Johanson

... , hopefully finding something that will help. And we realize that we need to look again toward that which does not change: the kind of love that we find in Jesus Christ, and the conception of the family that is so eminently clear in the biblical view. Jesus Christ prayed in those very familiar and perhaps most frequently quoted words in all creation, "Our Father who art in heaven." Is this an accident? Or was Jesus telling us the most important thing about our lives, about ourselves, about him and about God ...

2346. Preconceived Ideas

Mark 8:27-38

Sermon

Brett Blair

... that they are right. These are lifeless, colorless Christians who never smile, and seem as if they have no good news to share. They feel that it is wrong to be yourself, wrong to be free, wrong to enjoy beauty. Jesus the pale anemic Galilean is their view of our Savior and they fail to see the new life and abundant living of which Jesus spoke. They fail to see that ours is a liberating Christ. They fail to see in Jesus' teaching a dynamic man who challenged, pushed, loved, enjoyed, laughed, cried. It's ...

2347. The Three Poison Pills of Position, Prestige, and Power

Mark 10:35-45

Sermon

Brett Blair

... a man named Zebedee, sense their opportunity to claim leadership positions. Perhaps, they said to one another, Jesus is partial to Peter and we must act now to gain his affections. Perhaps they felt they were better leaders and Jesus would come around to their view if they could but argue their case. Whatever the reason for their actions they wanted the first and second positions of power. They secretly take Jesus aside and ask, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” What is it? Jesus asks ...

2348. Location, Location, Location

Mark 10:46-52

Illustration

William G. Carter

... buying a home: location, location, location." To prove his point, he drove the couple to see two homes. The paint was peeling on the first house, and the driveway was heaving in spots. "It may be a handyman's special," he said, "but look at the view." The house sat at the foot of a purple mountain, adjacent to ten acres of untouched forest. Then the group went to see a charming two-story stone farmhouse with five bedrooms, a big kitchen, and plenty of closets. "Everything's immaculate," the wife exclaimed ...

2349. Advent 1: Won´t You Let Him Into Your Heart?

Luke 2:1-7

Sermon

James W. Moore

... of these caves were used as stables. They were not much better for an expectant mother, but at least there was warmth and quiet and some privacy. If this is what happened on that night long ago, then our whole image of the innkeeper changes dramatically – we view him not with contempt, but with kindness. He may well have made a wise, loving choice. Just a quick footnote here: The real key in whatever we choose and in whatever we do is in our attitude. Jesus talked about that a lot… the importance of ...

2350. You Don't Need Jesus

John 1:19-28

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... sin, we are not sorry that we did it. We are just sorry that we were caught. You know how it is: You get a ticket for speeding and after the patrolman leaves, you don't have tears of remorse, but you berate yourself for not having watched the rear-view mirror more closely. And since we accept sin as a fact of life, we try to control it if it gets out of hand. We are prone to legalize our sin. When gambling gets so popular that we cannot control it, we legalize gambling and get taxes from it. Several ...

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