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 2376 to 2400 of 4340 results

2376. The Devil Is a Liar

John 8:42-47

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44) Those are, indeed, strong words. What are we to make of them? Is Jesus here stepping out of character and being unkind, or is He merely revealing the true nature of things? And what are we to make of Jesus’ words about the devil, anyway? Over the years many of us have abandoned any belief in the devil. We have been embarrassed by the fact that Jesus seems ...

2377. Doors Are for Entering

John 10:1-21

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... Vast numbers of people have heard Jesus words, and taken Him at His word, and have discovered that He was and is the gateway into the heart of God. He was, and is, the door to the finest and truest understanding of God’s nature and God’s character that the world has ever known. Before Jesus’ coming into the world people were confused and uncertain. They tried all sorts of doors, but they only led them into blind alleys, Then Jesus came, and a door was opened, that seemed to be closed before. No longer ...

2378. Lazarus Laughed

John 11:17-37

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... He praying about which course He should take? Is this what caused His delay...not purposely keeping Mary and Martha in a state of anxiety and grief merely to show off His wonder-working power. Surely such a thing is more consistent with the character of the Jesus we know. The record says that Jesus was “greatly disturbed” twice! The commentaries give all sorts of meanings to Jesus’ words in this chapter. They wonder whether He was disturbed, chafed, angry, moved with pity, upset, or agitated. His was ...

2379. No Longer Orphans

John 14:15-31

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... of us. Most sermons are simply the result of blood, sweat, toil and tears, as the preacher grapples with the sacred text and tries to make it applicable to the modern world. It isn't easy. I have often thought that the patron saint of preachers ought to be that character from Greek mythology by the name of Sisyphus. Sisyphus was a cruel king of Corinth condemned in Hades forever to roll a huge stone up a hill only to have it roll down again on nearing the top. And then he would have to roll it back up again ...

2380. The Jesus Connection

John 15:1-17

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... of this. In a Christmas sermon he once remarked, “Our Lord was born of a line of ancestors whom the Evangelist Matthew arranges with artistry into three groups of fourteen patriarchs, fourteen kings, and fourteen princes. Among the latter were a number of disreputable characters, as we learn from the Book of Kings, and there are no savory women. God holds before us this mirror of sinners that we may know that he is sent to sinners, and from sinners is willing to be born!” (“The Martin Luther Christmas ...

2381. If Christ Had Not Come

John 15:18--16:4

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... that such a world would be an improvement; but on balance, I believe that they are wrong. In a provocative recent novel titled “A Skeleton in God’s Closet,” Paul Maier, professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University, has one of his characters proclaim his belief that Christ’s coming has had nothing but a negative impact on the world. The critic says, “Look to the past... What’s Church history but the unholy saga of oppression and wars over the faith: Christians from Venice looting ...

2382. Life Begins at Thirty-Eight

John 5:1-15

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... gathered together to try to discover what God was calling them to be and do in what was called the “North American Ecumenical Youth Assembly.” At that time they premiered a musical production titled For Heaven’s Sake written by Helen Kromer. In one scene, one of the characters sings a song about excuses. It goes something like this: As soon as I’m out of college, And pay all the debts I’ve carried; As soon as I’ve done my army stint, As soon as I’ve gotten married; As soon as I get promoted ...

2383. That Would Be Some Miracle!

John 6:1-15

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... the wilderness, recorded in Matthew 4 and Mark 1, Jesus specifically rejected the Devil’s suggestion that he turn stones into bread and thereby win followers by feeding them. Many scholars are uncomfortable having Jesus do something here which seems so out of character with what He did and said elsewhere. A second view of what happened that day along the seashore comes with the recommendation of no less a personage than Albert Schweitzer. At the beginning of this century in his classic book, “The Quest ...

2384. Food for the Fed-up

John 6:25-59

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... it that way. Being a Christian entails a continual communion with Christ, absorbing His nature into our own human natures. When Jesus said, “I am the Bread of Life,” I think that he meant that you and I must feed on Him, absorb His teachings, character, and mind into our hearts and lives; absorb His ways until His ways become our ways. It means to appropriate His way of looking at the world. Someone once said that true love was not necessarily looking into each other’s eyes, but rather looking at ...

2385. The Saint Who Played Second Fiddle

John 1:35-42

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... . When we think of the great personages who have flashed across the pages of human history, when we think of the great men and women of the Bible and of the Church, somehow we tend to leave Andrew out. He was not one of the outstanding characters of the New Testament. But Andrew had a Friend. And wherever we meet him on the pages of the New Testament, we find him introducing people to that Friend. I. IT ALL STARTED IN A LITTLE FISHING VILLAGE CALLED BETHSAIDA. “Bethsaida” means “House of the Fisherman ...

2386. Believing Thomas

John 20:24-31

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... (THE MASTER’S MEN, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1959, p. 49) It does seem that way. Thomas was the man who was always asking questions. Finally, Thomas was the man who was absent when Jesus appeared on that first Easter Day. His absence fits his character, for he found Jesus’ teaching about resurrection too good to be true. And he simply could not believe the second-hand information he got from the others after the event. There is no doubt that the early Christians saw this resurrection appearance in the ...

2387. Philip the First

John 1:43-51

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... of a man who really disliked having responsibility. He disliked making decisions. When you are a person with that kind of personality, William Barclay suggests, there are but two courses of action open to you. You either do nothing or you have the strength of character enough to know your own weaknesses and shortcomings and refer the matter to somebody who knows more about it than you do. (Ibid., p. 90) Evidently, Philip knew when to refer. IV. PHILIP MAKES ONE LAST APPEARANCE IN THE GOSPEL RECORD. It is in ...

2388. Salty Saints

Mark 9:42-50

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... selfishness. They don’t even have to say anything. Their lives of quiet faithfulness to the Gospel shame us all. They make us uncomfortable. Sometimes we need that. One of my all-time favorite authors, Halford Luccock once wrote: “There are many more endearing characters than the professional ‘radiator’ of goodness. Too much sugar is not good for the body...continuous good cheer and uplift can be hard to take. Maybe that is the reason why one man said he never liked the clergy ‘in bulk.’ Tea is ...

2389. The Lord Has Need

Mark 11:1-11

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... us. What if we should pray: “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done...in ME!” That changes things a bit. Most of us are quite willing to have God’s will be done - as long as it does not cost us anything. In George Eliot’s novel MIDDLEMARCH, a character named Dorothea sums up her faith: “That by desiring what is perfectly good even when we don’t quite know what it is and cannot do what we would, we are part of the divine power against evil - widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with ...

2390. Not the Seasons for Figs

Mark 11:12-19

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... . There were no figs. Only leaves. Mark gives the reason, bluntly: “It was not the season for figs.” And then Jesus does something startling. He says to the fig tree: “May no one ever eat from you again!” How odd and out of character! A prominent actor, whose interpretation of Mark’s Gospel from memory attracted crowds in Britain and America during the 1970s, had Jesus glance around nervously to see whether the disciples had heard his hasty, spiteful words. But Mark says “His disciples heard it ...

2391. Only the Abba Knows

Mark 13:32-37

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... one! It has always seemed to me to be a little presumptuous for any present-day preacher to claim to know more than Jesus knew about the subject. And I have always wondered why apocalyptic preachers seem to think that Jesus is going to change His character sometime between His first and second coming. What I cannot understand for the life of me is why people assume that Christ in His second coming will be vastly different from the Christ who came the first time. The Christ whom they preach seems somehow to ...

2392. On Doing Beautiful Things

Mark 14:1-11

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... as Mary, the sister of Martha. But that may not even be the same event. “A woman came,” says the Gospel. Parenthetically: Prof Williamson asks us to note that “The reprehensible roles in Mark 14:1-11 are played by men; the one praiseworthy character is identified only as ‘a woman.’” (Lamar Williamson, INTERPRETATION: Mark, Atlanta, John Knox Press, 1983, p.247) It was almost the last act of kindness that anyone ever did for Jesus. In a few short hours, He would be crucified, dead, and buried ...

2393. On the Threshold: From Law to Gospel

Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon

David Busic

... from the king himself. Being invisible, he would never be caught. There would be no consequences for his actions whatsoever. Plato asks the question, if we remove all consequences, all fear of punishment, is there any reason to seek honesty, virtue, and character. It’s a good question. Matthew, the writer of our passage, is deeply concerned about connecting Jewish themes with the life and message of Jesus Christ. He connects Old Testament prophecy with events in Jesus’ life as a way of proving his ...

2394. Who Is the Light of Your Life? (I am the light of the world)

John 8:12-30

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... bulbs. Light is a symbol of God--but light itself is not our God. Remember, nothing can take the place of God. To replace the living God with something else would be to create an idol. The light represents God in that it represents: Purity of character--or clean motives Light reveals truth--it does not hide behind deception Light leads to life--not death Light dispels doubts--it does not create more Light is pregnant with love--not full of distortions and falsehood Light gives security--it does not take it ...

2395. The Lord's Prayer: A Surplus of Meaning

Matthew 6:5-15

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... MacMillian Company, 1943, p. 29.) We do not pray when we feel like it. We pray because we need to have communication and relationship with our God. It does not depend on our emotions or feelings. St. Augustine, who certainly is one of the most colorful characters in God''s redemptive work, shared with a widow named, "Proba," who asked the famous Bishop for instructions on how to pray: "If you were to run over all the words of Holy Prayers, you would find nothing, according to my way of thinking, which is ...

2396. The Lord's Prayer: Hallowed be Thy Name

Matthew 6:5-15

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." Let me share an illustration here. In C. S. Lewis''s masterpiece work, THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA, the lion is the Christ figure. C. S. Lewis depicts the lion in the book as a fun-loving character. The children love to hold onto the lion''s mane as he runs across the fields. They love to romp and play with him. However, C. S. Lewis also depicts the lion as one who growls and roars with a deep tone of voice. There is a time to keep ...

2397. The Lord's Prayer: Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done

Matthew 6:5-15

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... a surplus of meaning that it speaks to every age and every stage of life. However, the bottom-line is always a response, a decision, and a commitment. One Dr. Seuss book which many of us have read to our children and grandchildren has an excellent illustration about a character named "Zoad" who wrestles with a "response" that he needs to make. It goes like this: "Did I tell you about the Zoad who came to TWO signs at the fork in the road? One sign said to place one--the other pointed to place two. So the ...

2398. GIVE ME YOUR SINS: The First Word

Luke 23:26-43

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... everybody had sinned and fallen short--and thus he cries out in his first word from the cross, "Father, forgive them"--not Father, forgive only the small portion who have had major sins in their lives. Forgive them all. All sin is contrary to the nature and character of God. Give Jesus your sins--not just your neighbors''. The paradox is this: How can a God who declares that he is going to punish sin--forgive us? How can God be reconciled to sinners? How can God remain holy, righteous, and just--and yet ...

2399. Two Conversations with Jesus: The Second Word

Luke 23:26-43

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... , we see that he had discovered a number of insights about life and our relationship to a Holy God that the other thief had not yet grasped. First, he admitted that he needed help--he could not save himself. Second, he could recognize the pure, spotless, perfect character of Jesus while hanging on a cross. He recognized Jesus as the Son of God. Third, he was able to call his savior "Jesus," which, in the Hebrew language, is the word for salvation. Fourth, he had the courage to admit that the Kingdom that he ...

2400. Love's Redeeming Work Is Done: The Sixth Word

John 19:17-27

Sermon

Eric Ritz

... Christ is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. His blood was shed for us. In the Cross, God brings together the elements of Justice and Mercy. Justice is served in the sense that the power of sin, which is totally contrary to the character of God, is punished. A great debt is paid. Mercy is also revealed with the Cross, for God takes the punishment upon Himself. We could not pay the debt, so someone had to pay it for us. Someone else had to serve the sentence. Or, as Scottish Biblical ...

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