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 2351 to 2375 of 2669 results

2351. Surprised by Joy

Luke 2:8-14

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... 2,000 years, but because we are angry, fed up, and tired of being victims and we are standing, arm in arm and marching in lock-step, up to those cash registers and demanding that those clerks, regardless of their personal feelings or religious beliefs, wish us a Merry Christmas...or else. A couple of years ago my daughter spent the Advent/Christmas season working as the manager of a small retail store in an outlet mall. This was during the height of the “War on Christmas” media blitz. Occasionally ...

2352. Know Jesus--No Peace

Luke 12:49-56

Sermon

George Reed

... . That is what we are subjecting our children to in the most graphic, realistic forms. At the very least, we need to insert some balance into the lives of the young people who have been entrusted to our care by God. We need to let them hear us state our belief in a God of love and a Savior who turned his back on violence as a means of solving problems. We need to stop worrying about whether or not our children like us as friends and see to it that they respect us as adults. This should be done not ...

2353. Wing of Faith

Illustration

Richard S. McDermott

... of Israel being one of them; Who brings down the mighty and lifts up the poor; and Who has done so all throughout history, and will do so till the end of time. Believe whether there is such a God or not--the founding generation did, and relied upon this belief. Their faith is an “indispensable” part of the story.”

2354. The Lord's Prayer

Matthew 6:5-15

Illustration

Marcus J. Borg

... petition asking God to take us to heaven when we die. It’s not about material success. There is no petition asking God to see that we “prosper” - an important point because of the prevalence of the prosperity gospel in some Christian churches today. It’s not about belief. It does not ask God to “help us to believe.” It’s not about Jesus. Though the gist of it may go back to Jesus and thus tell us about his central concerns, there is nothing in it about believing in Jesus as the Son of God or ...

2355. I Am Baptized!

Illustration

Kenneth H. Sauer

... , the great 16th century figure of the Reformation used to take great comfort from these words. When it seemed to him that the whole Church had left the precepts of the Gospel, when he was under scrutiny from Church officials as to the truth of his beliefs, when his life was being threatened and when he suffered self-doubt he would boldly proclaim: “I am baptized!” And those words don’t just belong to the Martin Luther’s of this world. They belong to each and every baptized person. To each of us ...

2356. Lord of the Sabbath

Mark 2:23-3:6

Sermon

George Reed

... try. The problem is that it gives us comfort in the wrong place. It gives us confidence in our own good works instead of in the grace and love of our God. This is what we mean by living by faith. It is not our good works or our good beliefs that make us loved by God. It is God's love that makes us loveable. We trust in the compassion of a God who loves us and cares for us and guides us in life. We trust that we are loved by God and respond to the directions we are ...

2357. Keeping the Faith

Luke 18:1-8

Sermon

Molly F. James

... humble enough to accept the grace of God when it is offered to us. I can ultimately speak from a place of strength about the importance of “keeping the faith,” but that is because I have struggled with my faith. I have struggled to hold on to my belief in the goodness of God and the possibilities of hope and resurrection in the midst of darkness and loss. I had bone cancer as a young teen. I had eighteen chemotherapy treatments, and each time I was in the worst of it, I would feel horrible. I would have ...

2358. An Invitation That Went Astray

Matthew 3:13-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... movement. Now Christian dedicates his time and energy to reaching people within the white supremacist movement and convincing them to give up the hate and prejudice and violence they preach. He also trains police officers and FBI agents in the methods and beliefs of neo-Nazis and white supremacists. Journalist Scott Pelley from CBS News interviewed Christian on his new life. He asked him, “Do you fear for your safety?” Christian replied that he receives death threats on a daily basis. But the way he ...

2359. The Time Is Near

Luke 21:5-19

Sermon

Molly F. James

... temptations. We are, in fact, in great danger of being led astray. The temptations in this world are great. Many of us may be confronted by those who demean our faith and point out all that is wrong with institutional religion. They often seem content in their beliefs and can tempt us to think our lives would be easier if we just gave up on this whole following Jesus thing. Every day we are bombarded by advertisements that tell us that if only we drank this coffee or drove this car or banked at this ...

2360. The Law of Unintended Consequences

Matthew 5:13-20

Sermon

King Duncan

... composed of four different groups—each with its own interpretation of the Torah. These were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Zealots, and the Essenes. The Pharisees believed in following traditions and laws. They looked to the past for their standards and beliefs. The more liberal Sadducees claimed that the old laws and traditions needed to be re-interpreted for more modern times. The Essenes believed that happiness came from separating one’s self from the world. They moved out into the wilderness and ...

2361. You Have a Story to Tell

John 9:1-41

Sermon

King Duncan

... along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’” There it is again. This issue of earning our privileges, deserving our blessings, has been around a long time. The underlying belief here is that all of life should be just and happy and under our control, so injustice and suffering must have a root cause. We must deserve it in some way. Because if the blind man didn’t deserve his disability, then we don’t deserve ...

2362. I Believe

John 9:38

Illustration

Jon L. Joyce

Children in church school sing "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so." To retain this simple belief all through life is the kernel of Christian faith. Jesus said "unless we have faith as a little child" we will not enter into the kingdom. In a sense we always remain "children" of the heavenly father. One time the world-renowned theologian Karl Barth was asked what he would ...

2363. But What of Lazarus?

John 11:1-16, John 11:17-37, John 11:38-44

Sermon

David & Marian Plant

... who believe, will be raised. It was a teaching of the Pharisees, one to which she adhered. Martha heard the reminder and accepted its words of comfort. This death, painful as it was, had a time limit, as will her own. She reassured Jesus of her belief and the comfort it afforded: “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” But Jesus had not meant the resurrection on the last day. He intended by his words something much more in the present — something life-giving — something ...

2364. Broken Yet Sincere

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... themselves they couldn’t recognize Jesus, even when he walked and talked beside them. Their faith had been shattered like this pot. [You can shatter a pot if you wish...or hold up the pieces of a shattered pot]. Their hopes had been decimated. Their belief in everything they thought Jesus was and would be had disintegrated along with their faith in the future he had promised, in the future God had promised. Doubt is one of the most shattering of illnesses. Doubt is one of the most difficult illnesses to ...

2365. The True Story Wins

Matthew 28:11-15

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... hearts back to God, slices through the muck of doubt, shakes us back to a reality greater and more mysterious than we could imagine possible. Stories are the muscle of our hearts, the marker of our identity. Each of us have “stories” that underlie our behaviors, our beliefs, and our belongings. In a sense, your story is what makes you who you are, and guides you in where you want to go. Stories can either make or break us. They are powerful forces that can either lift us up or drag us down during the ...

2366. By the Sea

Matthew 4:18-22, John 1:35-42, John 1:43-51

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... as the “shepherds” of Israel. Jesus starts his ministry much as John left his off –with a call for repentance! Similar to Jonah’s message years before (the prophet was also from Galilee), the call for repentance precedes the promise of restoration. The millennial belief (see Micah 4:3-4) was that all people would return to God and receive the abundance of God’s blessings: and “every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree.” The fig tree as metaphor has a rich history. The fruit ...

2367. The Sweet Fragrance of Brokenness

Luke 7:36-50

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... with ointments of nard kept in elaborate Egyptian jars. Although the alabaster jar has an exotic story, there is also no particular reason to believe that the woman from the city was of another faith other than Jewish. Was she however succumbing to folk beliefs in wanting to protect the messiah from harm by slathering Jesus in protective perfumed ointment? Is her sin one of idolatry? Or desecration of the faith? Believing in charms? Or was she simply a Jewish woman who had many husbands, or lied with a ...

2368. Your Faith Has Made You Well

Mark 5:21-43

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... of him just as a boy who grew up in their synagogue. When you insist on holding onto your doubts and misconceptions, you will prevent Jesus from healing you body and soul. There’s an old parable told by Rabbi Edwin H. Friedman called “The Power of Belief.” Here is how he tells it: One evening a man came home and announced that he was dead. Immediately, some of his neighbors tried to show him how foolish this notion was. He walked, and dead men cannot move themselves. He was thinking his brain was ...

2369. Scandal

Matthew 16:21-28, Matthew 17:14-23, Matthew 20:17-19, Matthew 26:1-5

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... is to be made of the rocks that lie upon the cornerstone, and build up the church of God in the world. The question is, will the church be a foundation upon which Jesus can build his mission? Or a stick of tension that could trip up someone’s belief in Jesus? Because, I can tell you now, where there is tension, where there is division, and doubt, and fighting….where the log of divisiveness is propped, someone will trip upon it. And the splinters will fly! Let me tell you a story. There was a man, who ...

2370. Stargazers

Luke 2:21-40

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... gentiles already. In addition, there was a widespread knowledge or expectation according to legend of the time of Jesus’ birth throughout the nations that a ruler would rise from Judea to rule the world: “There had spread over all the Orient an old and established belief that it was Fated at that time for mankind for Judea to rule the world.” (Roman historian Suetonius) “There was a firm persuasion that at this very time the east was to grow powerful and a Ruler coming from Judea was to acquire a ...

2371. What If It's True?

John 20:1-18 · Matthew 28:10

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... ? What if it is ALL TRUE? But you say “Prove It!” Show me the “proof” that it’s true! How do you “prove” if it’s true? In April 2002, 100 philosophers gathered at Yale University for a conference on ethics and belief. One of the keynoters was Richard Swinburne, Oxford University professor and Greek Orthodox Christian. Using the tools of philosophy to explore religious faith is a growing cottage industry, it’s also called philosophy of religion, and here was one of the most celebrated ...

2372. As I Am A Witness

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... Jesus had told them. Had they forgotten? Had their tears and grief created a veil over their memories? Their eyes? Their minds? Or had they not understood to begin with? We fear what we do not understand. And though bodily resurrection was a Jewish belief for the disciples, they did not truly expect to see it, witness it. But when Jesus demonstrated that he was truly there in body, and then led their minds through the scriptures, the veil was lifted, and they knew they had witnessed something impossible ...

2373. The Healer

Matthew 4:23-25, Luke 4:14-30

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... of humility and faith. And likewise both were stories of pride-fullness and doubt on the part of the Jewish people. People like them. The stories spoke for Jesus. He needed to say nothing else than name some names. Now they were angry! He had embarrassed them beyond belief. He had told them they could not recognize the heartbeat of God. They could not recognize the SON of God. They were the clueless ones when they thought they were the chosen ones. I’m not here for you, he said. You aren’t the ones I ...

2374. Born of the Spirit

John 3:1-21

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... . The kataphatic tradition says the divine can be defined best in words, symbols and images. The aim of Apophatic Contemplation is to engage the Holy Spirit with the most intense intimacy, in pursuit of a moment of "mystical" union through suspending all beliefs and disbeliefs. Those practicing such times of prayer aim for an empty mind and an open heart and seek to cross over into union with the perichoretic community of the Trinity. This involves crossing into the state of complete surrender - which is ...

2375. Translucent Grace

Mark 9:2-13, Luke 9:28-36, Revelation 1:9-20, Revelation 2:12-17

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... of Peter, as Peter tries to tempt him to swerve from his mission. To “put a stumbling stone” before someone is to be a tempter, to lead people into temptation, to “trip them up” or “snare them” into behaviors that go against their beliefs and their allegiance to Jesus. Some of these were infiltrating the church at Pergamum. The people couldn’t see it. They were blinded by those who masqueraded as Christians, who acted like Christians, who talked like Christians, but whose spirit was not that ...

Showing results