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 5000 results

2351. God Does Not Desert Us

Matthew 28:20; Deuteronomy 31:8

Illustration

... that kind of grace frankly. I do not deserve his eternal presence, nor do you. Yet, God has forever identified with the human dilemma. There may not be a soul in the world who truly understands your feelings. God understands. All in your life may fall away. God will never fall away. In Tom Brokaw's book The Greatest Generation, a story is told of Mary Wilson, presently of Dallas, Texas. You would never know by looking at this modest woman that she was the recipient of the Silver Star ...

2352. Back to Real Life

Matthew 2:13-18

Sermon

King Duncan

... behind the tree stepped his youngest daughter.” (4) What if he had passed by that night? What if he had decided not to get involved? What I want to say to you on this Sunday after Christmas is this: We will only have the true spirit of Christmas when we understand that every child on this earth is ultimately our son, our daughter, our brother, our sister. It’s good that we take care of those we love. However, as people of faith, the babe in Bethlehem’s manger calls us to expand those borders, to ...

2353. BAPTIZED IN SOLIDARITY WITH US

Matthew 3:13-17

Illustration

Johnny Dean

... , sometimes because of linguistic problems in the translation, and sometimes just because their logic escapes me. Not so in this circumstance. This little book was a God send. In it, Dr. Cullmann not only acknowledges the difficulty in understanding why Jesus submitted to a baptism of repentance. He also offers a simple explanation for it, one that had for some reason eluded me. I had dived deeply into the pool of the intellect searching for an answer that was floating in plain view on the surface. Cullmann ...

2354. Daring Thomas

John 11:1-16

Sermon

King Duncan

... plane was falling, her mother Paula, unbuckled her own seat belt, got down on her knees in front of her daughter, wrapped her arms and body around Cecelia, and would not let her go. (5) Celia survived because of her mother’s love for her. You and I understand that. You who are parents would gladly trade your life for the lives of your children. But besides your children, for what or for whom would you be willing to give your life? Some of you would answer, your country. There are men and women who this ...

2355. Matthew 5:38-48

Matthew 5:38-42

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... shirt. The third example, going a “second mile,” points up the hated practice of occupying Roman troops “dragooning” members of the population into forcible labor for them. This right of “angareuo” limited such service to one mile. But it was understandably despised by the local residents, for it forced them to serve Rome and her needs. Jesus’ directive subtly undermines the power of the oppressor, for the second mile becomes the free choice of the individual. Jesus’ directive also sets up ...

2356. John 4:5-42

John 4:1-26

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... the dumpster. While the Samaritan woman may have been hoping to sidestep Jesus’ probing into her personal life it is his spot-on knowledge of her marital situation that convinces her that he is “a prophet.” (v.19) This new understanding of Jesus leads her to begin discussing the theological differences between Jews and Samaritans. Despite the fact that her immoral lifestyle choices have surely put this woman outside “acceptable” status within her community, she nevertheless knows well the decisive ...

2357. Family Resemblance

John 14:5-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... 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 some mindless diversion to keep her occupied for the hour long train ride home. But she spoke with them, and laughed with them, and ...

2358. A Lesson from Dr. Seuss

Romans 6:1-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... grace, he knew of God’s power to help us choose rightly. W.E. Sangster chose to be a servant of God rather than a slave to sin. Please don’t let the first-century imagery of being a slave or a servant get in the way of your understanding. We could use the imagery that Christ used of “taking up his yoke” (Mt 11:29), and we would be on the same road. Let’s use another example. Thirty years ago a psychologist named William Glasser wrote a very helpful book titled, Positive Addiction. Think about that ...

2359. The Receptive Heart

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

King Duncan

... busy, too concerned about all the things that are important to us. We are like the seed that fell among the thorns. But there is a final group of people in Jesus’ parable. “The seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” That is the wonderful thing about seed sown on fertile soil. It can lead to a harvest bountiful beyond imagination. As someone has said, you can count ...

2360. I Went Down to the River to Pray

Mark 1:4-11

Sermon

Robert J. Elder

... It is a phrase that says and promises much more than the person saying it can possibly foresee, or the person receiving the words can fully comprehend. I sometimes have to smile when I am asked — as I often am — whether baptism shouldn't wait until the "age of understanding," when a child is ten or twelve years old and can make his or her own confession of faith. While I can appreciate the hope that a confession of faith will some day be made by all the children of the church, I smile at the thought of ...

2361. Family Values

Mark 3:20-35

Sermon

Kristin Borsgard Wee

... worried. You and I know that it is not a demon that drives Jesus, but the Spirit of God. Apparently, his family didn't know. It is sad that his mother and brothers, who should be closest to him, do not understand. Jesus says his true family are those who do understand and do the will of God. This is an explosive statement! Jesus is threatening the most fundamental of structures, the human family. Blood ties mean nothing, nor do family values. According to Jesus what really unites us is spirit and truth ...

2362. King Me!

John 18:33-37

Sermon

... promise anything! I want to talk about another board game, and how it imitates life. If you play chess, you may take a nap; you are way too sophisticated and enlightened for what I am about to say. But if you play checkers, you will likely understand. Checkers is a game about moving forward; advancing toward a goal. The way you get there — the way you succeed in checkers — is to conquer your opponent. Jump them and they no longer exist. Double-jump them and they disappear faster. I love checkers, though ...

2363. The Eyes of Faith

2 Corinthians 4:3-6

Sermon

Scott Suskovic

... or beliefs that you have to accept before becoming a part of the club or joining a church. But more recently, I've come to see faith in much more active terms. There are a lot of people who believe in God but don't have faith. Do you understand the difference? You can believe in God without having faith. Faith is living against the odds. Faith has less to do with what you believe and more to do with how you decide to live. Faith is seeing the enemy surround you, the problem overtake you, the crisis ...

2364. Becoming Like Jesus

1 John 3:1-7

Sermon

Nancy Kraft

... a journey, growing more and more into the spiritual likeness of Christ. People outside the church will often look at the church and pass judgment on us, saying that the Christian church is full of hypocrites. To them, it probably does look that way. But they don't really understand the point of being the church. It's not so that we might become a select group of people who are better than the rest of the world, because we know that's not the case. We are every bit as sinful as people are outside the church ...

2365. Flesh and Spirit

Romans 8:12-17

Sermon

Gibson “Nibs” Stroupe

... . We have become dominated by anxiety, by the sense that we are lost and lonely. In our sense of being lost, we turn to the idols of the world to ease our fears and our anxieties. This process is what Paul means by "flesh." Paul wants us to understand that this sense of anxiety and domination permeate our existence as individuals and communities. We learn this process long before we are aware of it. As a white person growing up in the South in the 1950s, I learned racism long before I was aware that I was ...

2366. I’ve Got a Home in that Kingdom

2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17

Sermon

Gibson “Nibs” Stroupe

... happen again: We will outlive our adulthood fantasy that we can take care of ourselves. Paul talked about this power of love, this mutuality, this connectedness in his first letter to the Corinthians, in his famous "love" chapter (1 Corinthians 13). I used to understand the love of this thirteenth chapter as sweet and sentimental and often unrealistic. I've come to learn, however, that this kind of loving is a harsh taskmaster that requires us, and indeed will motivate us, to go into places in ourselves and ...

2367. Filling the Job Description

Hebrews 5:1-10

Sermon

Patrick J. Rooney

... it up to me to define it for them. I was not to choose whether this was for me but rather I would be chosen. So it is that the job description of the high priest is laid out, the duties and responsibility outlined — to mediate, to serve, and to understand that he was chosen for this most important of jobs. But like the days of our flesh, the days of the earthly high priesthood will soon come to an end. Who will then step in to fulfill that role and will they be up to the job? Writing to the ...

2368. Jesus Would Do What?

Philippians 2:1-11

Sermon

King Duncan

... team” succeeding, when things were not going well, the great leader would look in the mirror and see himself or herself, and ask “what am I missing?” (6) When St. Paul looked at Jesus, the first thing he saw was Christ’s humility. Do you understand how important humility is to anyone who would do something of lasting value? Christian thinkers have always rated Pride, or hubris, to be the original and most serious of the seven deadly sins, and the source of the other sins. Why? Because pride leads ...

2369. The Psychological Tricks We Play on Ourselves

Matthew 21:33-46

Illustration

Roger G. Talbott

... was that they had the right stuff and he didn't. So also, we tell ourselves: Why should I fasten my seat belt? I haven't even scraped a bumper in 20 years. What are the chances that I am going to be in a car accident this afternoon? We understand these psychological tricks we play on ourselves. Well, let me put it this way: we understand these psychological tricks other people play on themselves. We seldom understand the psychological tricks we play on ourselves if we did, we wouldn't play them.

2370. Looking for the Child of Bethlehem

Luke 2:1-7

Drama

Arley K. Fadness

... Asher: That is my story. I am still asking that question. Is the Jesus you speak of in your Christmas holiday the same Jesus I seek? Was the baby born in our stable really the Messiah? Did his birth and life change the world? Leader: Wow! Now I can understand why you are so tired. Do you mean to say you’ve actually been going around asking people those questions? How did people react? Asher: Yes, that is what I have done. At first I tried asking people on the street, but I soon found that they were only ...

2371. The Difference Between Getting and Giving

John 1:1-18

Drama

Arley K. Fadness

... white robe to denote a transformation.) Narrator: Upon his entrance into heaven, the old man was met by the Lord, who took just a few short minutes to clear up the entire matter. (Lord appears in the form of a light.) Narrator: With a smile of complete understanding, the old man took his place with the rest of the saints and gave God praise for all the blessings he had received. And that’s the story of the old man ... What did God tell him? Well, the difference between giving and getting is so simple ...

2372. God Is the Hound of Heaven

Jeremiah 31:7-14

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... must share. We must break down barriers of discrimination or hostility that keep us apart and build bridges that will bring us closer together. Yes, we must do what is necessary to be present to others. One of the great hurdles that we must negotiate in understanding God's presence among us is to let go of the past and see today and the future as our goals. God certainly did not remember the mistakes and misdeeds of the Jews, but constantly sought ways to reach out and be present to them. The attitude ...

2373. You Are in Good Hands with God

Isaiah 40:21-31

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... eyes on high and see ... He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing" (v. 26). In other words, God is with the Hebrews in their exile. They might not understand at the time, but God will not abandon the people. If the Hebrews believed that the Lord was hidden, that God had disregarded the people's plight, the prophet assures them this is not true. Isaiah states, "Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord ...

2374. Ascension Answers

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

Ken Lentz

... :50-53; Acts 1:1-11) of the ascension of Jesus. The other three gospels don't mention it and, frankly, the story seems a little too mythical for twenty-first-century readers. Educated people of the western world have discarded the three-tier cosmology. In the understanding of today's universe, it's not possible to know what is up and what is down. People looking up into the skies today might be looking at other beings on other planets looking down at us. That is why the trapdoors high up in European church ...

2375. Being Two People at Once

2 Samuel 11:1-15

Sermon

Donna Schaper

... man of lust and violence. How can the same man be both men? Those of us who know ourselves know exactly how this can be. We understand. We also have a double nature. We may be very kind outside of our homes and very unkind inside. We may be lazy at work ... something as good as religion is comfort to some and poison to others, we do come, eventually, to understand our double nature. We understand the link between virtue and vanity, the link between lust and loveliness, the strange connection between praise and ...

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