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 2376 to 2400 of 4959 results

2376. Our Three-Faced God

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... Jesus. He was a man with the spirit of Jesus, with the Holy Spirit that made him helpful. The wonderful good news about this truth of God the Spirit is that God can be closer to us than hands and feet. We do not have to look for God or desire him to come to us. In the person of the Spirit, God is truly with us and in us. It is God in Spirit who works in us to help us, to guide us into truth, to motivate us to do good, and to give us gifts by which we ...

2377. Converting the Converted

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... ages twelve and fifteen really understood what they were doing at their Confirmation? Some were confirmed because their friends were going to be confirmed. Some did it because it was a family custom. Even if some were confirmed on their own desire, how many youth of this age can comprehend the deep spiritual experience of Christ? This problem has been accentuated by the recent soft-pedalling of Confirmation in the Lutheran church. In some churches Confirmation is optional and the youth can get around ...

2378. What Do You Think You’re Worth?

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... and there is no end to what you can accomplish. Who in his right mind can accept that trash? All of these forms of self-exaltation mean that modern man is self-centered and proud. It points to the one basic sin of mankind - self-assertion or the desire for recognition. This was the first sin in the Garden of Eden and the sin still stands. Worth Nothing What do you think you are worth? If you ask a true Christian, he will tell you that he is worth nothing in himself. A genuine Christian is not concerned ...

2379. It Takes Two to Preach!

Matthew 13:1-23

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... earth is flat. Even when astronauts went to the moon and took pictures from outer space showing the earth as a globe, they still do not accept the fact that the earth is not flat. In contrast to that closed mind, you, as a hearer, need to be wide open desiring new knowledge, new insights, new life. To get that openness, prayer is a big help. Before coming to church or right before the sermon, pray that you might be receptive to God’s Word in order for God to help you. It would help, too, if you would pray ...

2380. Holy Tares!

Matthew 13:24-30

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... God, and he will have the victory over sin, Satan, and death. The time is coming when all evil and evil-doers will be consumed. Yet, when this takes place, in a sense God will be defeated. It is not his purpose that any one person should be lost. He desires that all shall be saved. But what can God do if there are those who will not repent and be saved? They send themselves to the fire of the weeds. Let it be crystal clear: God does not want you to die. God wants you to live and live forever ...

2381. Not For Sale at Any Price

Matthew 13:44-46

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... pearl means you and I will be open and receptive to what we want. Jesus enunciated this principle when he taught: "Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you." Solomon received wisdom because this was his greatest desire. If we keep an open mind and a receptive spirit, one day we will find what we are looking for. It may come unexpectedly or suddenly. In the middle of the night, a great preacher, Horace Bushnell, shouted, "I found it! I found it!" This awakened his ...

2382. Nag, Nag, Nag!

Matthew 15:21-28

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table." Then Jesus answered her, "O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire." And her daughter was healed instantly. [Matthew 15:21-28] A cartoon in a magazine showed a woman preacher speaking from the pulpit. Two middle-aged portly men were seated near the front. Looking up at the preacher, one of them said, "Nag, nag, nag." It is a ...

2383. On Being Able to Be Sorry

Luke 15:11-32

Sermon

Allan J. Weenink

... , it falls far short in terms of a Christian understanding of life. Two of the most difficult and humbling words in any language are: "I’m sorry." By the same token, they are two of the most wonderful words as well. In the Christian context, the ability, desire, and need to acknowledge sorrow, is the key to wholeness and the door to healing. In the story of the prodigal son, the young man who had decided to go it on his own, found that that was not the whole answer. The far country looked glamorous ...

2384. On Leaving Your Signature

Revelation 22:1-6

Sermon

Allan J. Weenink

... that end he signed his name to a document that contained the fundamentals of his faith. All of us can leave our signatures in writing on a document, whether it be check, will, letter, or some type of declaration. It is our inanimate authority, intent, desire, or expression. There are the words for anyone to read and your endorsement of them. What you are and what you want can be expressed on paper, within the limits of your ability to sign for them, whether it be financial, intellectual, authoritative, or ...

2385. God’s Great Chalkboard

Luke 18:9-14

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

... what we did wrong and remember not to make the same mistake again. God wants to forgive us. He is always looking for an opportunity to help us out of our trouble with love. That’s why we should not be afraid to tell God about our sins and our desire to be forgiven by him. The next time that you see someone writing on a chalkboard, or you have a piece of chalk and you write something down, then you can remember about how God forgives people for their sins and yet allows them to remember the things that ...

2386. Keeping Our Promises

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... a good marriage. She related that when she had been in high school, her mother, unlike many other mothers, made her keep her commitments relative to dates with boys. If an undesirable boy called her and she accepted a date with him prior to one of her desired friends calling her, she was forced to honor what she had done. "I went many places with ‘creeps,’ " she noted, "simply because they had called me first. At a very young age," she added, "I learned the importance of keeping my word. Since then, I ...

2387. It’s Not So Bad To Be A Beggar

Acts 3:1-10

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

... and now he is in the church, walking, leaping, running, shouting, and praising God. (I can’t blame him for that, can you?) The service that day probably didn’t have much dignity, but it probably didn’t have any apathy either. Propriety is to be desired, but not to the exclusion of expression. Orderly worship services are my personal "choice," but may God help us not to stifle his working among us. Aren’t you a little tired of those who never get "turned on" for God? They are excited over a hockey ...

2388. Hooray for Humility!

Philippians 2:1-11

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

... put mud on your eyes?" "Certainly not!" "Then," the first retorted, "you are still blind!" (And so another fuss began.) Paul calls for humility and union on the basis of Christ’s humility. Paul warns us of the causes of disunity: selfish ambition, desire for personal prestige, concentration on self. He says: "Do your good works, not for personal advancement, but simply because you are ‘in Christ.’ " We would do well to examine our motives in Christian service. Ask yourself: "Would I do the good things ...

2389. When Love Runs Out of Breath

Matthew 22:34-40

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

... we catch a glimmer of truth as to just how capable of wrong we are. Really now, aren’t you surprised at the things you are capable of saying to another person in sudden anger, aren’t you surprised at what you can think, aren’t you surprised at your desire to hurt, to cut, and to wound? If God would just be good enough to us to let us see how bad our own sins are, how great is our own need, how far short we come of the perfect example set for us in Christ - then we would probably ...

2390. Love of God, Self, and Neighbor

Matthew 22:34-40

Sermon

Jerry L. Schmalemberger

... her wrists. She just could not accept the fact that she was good and God-made. In an average year in the United States, 22,000 people kill themselves, and 100,000 more try. The real cause for such attempts, say the psychiatrists, is a sense of guilt and a desire to punish oneself. G. K. Chesterton calls the great lesson of "beauty and the beast" that a thing must be loved before it is loveable. If we are God’s creation, and if we are created like God, we must think well of ourselves. We are well-made, we ...

2391. When We Mourn

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Jerry L. Schmalemberger

... beautitudes like this: "Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor; the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them! "Happy are those who mourn; God will comfort them! "Happy are those who are humble; they will receive what God has promised! "Happy are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires; God will satisfy them fully! "Happy are those who are merciful to others; God will be merciful to them! "Happy are the pure in heart; they will see God! "Happy are those who work for peace; God will call ...

2392. The Embalmed Come Alive

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... to. Why do I have absolute confidence that I am reaching your hearts and minds, many of you? Why am I preaching of the unlimited power of the Holy Spirit, about which I used to have a rejecting, cynical skepticism? Explain why I’m preaching this gospel without the slightest desire to do so, and that a power infinitely greater than I am is forcing me to do it. As St. Paul says: "Woe unto me, if I preach not the gospel." I’m not doing it because I want to, but because I have to. Explain all that, and then ...

2393. Salvation as Personal Experience

Romans 9:30--10:21

Sermon Aid

T. A. Kantonen

... and resurrection of Christ. "We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin" (Romans 6:6). "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires" (Galatians 5:24). "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). By the cross of Christ "the world has been crucified to me and I to the world" (Galatians 6:14). "But if we ...

2394. Blinding Specks

Matthew 7:1-6

Sermon

Herchel H. Sheets

... Archbishop, and eventually achieves his goal in spite of Folliot’s opposition. But he is disappointed in Becket, and in time determines to get rid of him. He goes one night to the church where Folliot has just concluded a service of worship to discuss his desire and plans with him. The Bishop is uncooperative at first. When the King seeks to assure him that they are alone, he replies, "The Church is never empty. A little red lamp burns in front of the High Altar." The King replies impatiently, "Bishop, I ...

2395. Hindering Riches

Matthew 19:16-30

Sermon

Herchel H. Sheets

... is dominated by interests that are contrary to the purposes of God, one cannot readily submit himself or herself to the rule of God, and so will be shut out of God’s kingdom. Rampant Wants Closely related to this is the stimulation of desire which riches may bring about. Van Wyck Brooks said once, "Nothing is sadder than the consequences of having worldly standards without worldly means."5 But the increase of means does not usually mean a lowering of standards of living. It means a raising of standards ...

2396. Unlimited Forgiveness

Matthew 18:21-35

Sermon

Herchel H. Sheets

... forgiven person, too. The one who has been wronged is to be concerned for the welfare of the aggressor, as well as for one’s own. And any demands which one makes for requital are not to be for requital’s sake, but for love’s sake. Forgiveness cancels the desire to "pay the other person back" or "to get even" with him or her. This is true not only on short-range terms, but on long-range terms, too. And this means that to forgive is not just to store the injury safely away in memory. It is not to ...

2397. The Narrowness Of The Christian Way - 1950 (date estimated)

Matthew 7:13-14

Sermon

Kent Moorehead

... indulgence. The doom of destruction looms up before them, and a paralyzing sense of their impotence has seized them. But there is one all-important fact so many seem to have forgotten. There is a Teacher at hand seeking to make contact with us. He has no desire or intention of trying to restrict us, hem us in, inhibit us in any way. Quite the contrary. He is desperately anxious to emancipate us, release us from the bondage of our fears, and give us life more and more abundantly. But there is only one method ...

2398. The Evangelism Of Emphasis - 1946

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Kent Moorehead

... do with his redemptive power. Not everything, by any manner of means, for his saving influence derived primarily from the richness of his God-filled personality. But certainly this element of emphasis had something to do with it, for if anyone is genuinely desirous of "following" Jesus, one of the most effective ways of doing it is by following his example of emphasis. If anyone thinks I am stressing unduly this matter of emphasis, consider for a moment how important a part it plays in the ordinary events ...

2399. Christians In A Warring World - 1941

Galatians 6:1-10

Sermon

Kent Moorehead

... what it says: "peacemaker" - from the Latin, pacem facio - I make peace, or as the dictionary has it: "A Pacifist is an advocate of the abolition of war." Is that anything to be ashamed of? Is not every man, woman, and child of good-will desirous of being just that - a Pacifist? And what higher commendations could there be than that of the Master himself who said: "Blessed are the ‘Pacifists’, for they shall be called the children of God" (Matthew 5:9). Suppose we quit this vile business of calling ...

2400. Preaching Unpopular Truth - 1943

John 18:38

Sermon

Kent Moorehead

... will of the majority? We shall only get ourselves soundly disliked, and the result will be such loss of influence as will destroy our effectiveness altogether. I frankly confess that I feel the appeal of this argument. It is an altogether legitimate, normal, and valuable instinct to desire to be popular. In fact, I believe it is our duty to be popular. For only as we are liked, admired, held in esteem do we have the positive influence over others that we ought to have. For any one to say he does not care ...

Showing results