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 1 to 25 of 59 results

1. The Gospel of God in Christ through Paul

Romans 1:1-17

Teach the Text

C. Marvin Pate

... lesson would be to show that Paul first makes it clear in the former section that justification before God is based on faith in Christ alone, while the latter section expounds on the life that results from justification. Illustrating the Text While abhorrent to many, the crucifixion is God’s power and wisdom for salvation. Art/History: Alexamenos Graffito. The Alexamenos Graffito, also known as the Graffito Blasphemo, is an inscription carved in plaster on a wall near the Palatine Hill in Rome, close to ...

2. Entering the Lord’s House

Psalm 5:1-12

Understanding Series

Craig C. Broyles

... all entrants into Yahweh’s presence. We may now summarize the development of Psalm 5 as follows. In the opening section a speaker expresses the desire that Yahweh “give ear to my words” (vv. 1–3). In verses 4–6 we hear confessed Yahweh’s abhorrence and judgment of the wicked, who thus may not have an audience with him. The speaker then petitions to be granted entry into “your holy temple” (vv. 7–8). To ensure that one would not enter this sacred space under false pretenses, we next hear ...

3. The Other Ninety-nine

Luke 15:1-7

Sermon

John G. Lynn

... sheep in a pharisaical world. The Pharisees, of course, never walked those tracks. "We are safe in the sheepfold," they said. "We know where the pasture is and we are never lost." Who needs a shepherd when we, the sheep, are in control?" How abhorrent to a Pharisee, a lost sheep. Nothing turned their stomachs more than those tax collecting men and those alabastered women, the lost sheep of Israel. The gospel word we translate as "lost" really means destroyed, utterly devastated, crushed by a rock or chased ...

4. Summer Fruit

Amos 8:1-14

Sermon

Richard L. Sheffield

... harsh words in a smooth season." (To saying out loud what people knew inside but didn't want to hear about their lives.) "He denounced Israel, as well as its neighbors, for reliance upon military might, and for grave injustice in social dealings, abhorrent immorality, and shallow, meaningless piety."3 As I read that I thought, there's a lot of that going around! Even 2,700 years later. In the newspaper recently there was an article about ongoing debate in medical and world health circles, about what ...

5. Palm Sunday

Isaiah 50:1-11, Psalm 118:1-29, Psalm 31:1-24, Philippians 2:1-11, Luke 19:28-44, Luke 22:66--23:25

Bulletin Aid

B. David Hostetter

... mercy on us for the sake of Jesus Christ, your suffering servant and our Savior. Amen. PRAYER OF CONFESSION Sympathetic Parent, Suffering Servant, Consoling Spirit, forgive our apathy in the face of your identification with our sins. We are still so insensitive to the abhorrence you have to all evil. Despite your holiness you forgive our sins both deliberate and unknowing. Hear us as in the silence we bring to mind our more obvious sins... Only in the name of Jesus do we have assurance of pardon and any ...

6. Peacemaker -- A Liturgy

Drama

Thomas A. Renquist

... Reader 1: When we commit ourselves to the task of being peacemakers, there is a paradox which we must face sooner or later. It is the paradox of affirming life, on the one hand -- your own life, the lives of all around you, an abhorrence of killing. And yet, on the other hand, the paradox involves a willingness, a commitment to give your life for peace. Not to kill for peace, but a willingness to be killed for peace. Reader 3: “The meaningfulness of death… the meaninglessness of killing.” Reader ...

7. In The Valley

Eulogy

Joe Barone

... the impersonal He who provides us everything we need. Now God is the friend who walks with us in our grief. Even in our anger and our terror, God brings us comfort. Nothing makes this act of violence any less obscene, and nothing changes our or God's abhorrence toward it. But the God we worship is the one whose Scripture promises that those who come out of the great tribulation will have their robes washed in the blood of the Lamb. "For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd," it says ...

8. Mary Of Nazareth

Luke 2:1-7, Luke 2:8-20, Ephesians 1:15-23

Drama

Lynda Pujad

... expecting a baby, he decided to divorce me but in a kindly manner so that no or little harm could be done to me. I had not only become disgraceful in the eyes of my betrothed, but also between our families. The thought of being considered unfaithful to Joseph was abhorrent to me. I was very much alone in my pain. I had to be dutiful to God and his plans even though I did not exactly know how I was to do it, or how painful the price would be for me to do it. I was deeply hurt about ...

9. The First Council

Acts 15:1-21

Sermon Aid

CSS

... to his ruling made good common sense. He set only four general rules or restrictions for Gentiles who sought admission into the Christian community. The first was that they abstain from eating food which had been offered to idols, since this was abhorrent to Jews and would conflict with the Christian ritual of eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ. Second, they were to avoid unchastity. This was extremely important because of the cults of temple prostitutes and phallic worship in the Greek ...

10. What Do You See?

Isaiah 52:13--53:12

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

... ll tell you when I hated cancer most. It was when I stood by a bedside in Mexico, Missouri, and saw a gracious, saintly woman suffering agony and torment, gasping for her next breath. That dying woman was my mother, and from that day to this, I find cancer abhorrent, loathsome, and despicable, and I rejoice in every victory that medicine makes over it! So it is with sin. I hate it when I see what it does to our world. It causes war and greed and makes us kill one another. It makes people ugly, proud, mean ...

11. What Are Christian Liberals? - 1951

John 16:5-16

Sermon

Kent Moorehead

... as true of the left as it is of the right. The worst sin you can commit, from the standpoint of the Communists, is any sort of deviation from the line, and they will do all things to coerce you into that kind of thought control. This is abhorrent to the liberal. There must be tolerance. We come then to the fifth major characteristic, which is the test or the guide on which liberals rely. Not in any absolute sense, but as a major guide, there is reason. The supremacy of reason - my reason, your reason. Any ...

12. When You Feel Helpless

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Sermon

King Duncan

... perils at that stage of life. You may remember the phenomenon known as the “Romeo and Juliet Effect"--named for the young lovers in Shakespeare's drama who committed suicide because their love was doomed by a feud between their families. Their parents' abhorrence toward their romance seemed only to fuel the fire of Romeo and Juliet's devotion to one another. That's not unusual, according to researchers. Studies show that the opposition of parents to a teen relationship can often cause the pair to feel ...

13. Strategic Kindness

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sermon

King Duncan

... form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you . . ." 1. Much of this material comes from MovieMinistry.com. 2. What's So Amazing About Grace? (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1997), 120. 3. Illusaurus. 4. Wayne Austerman, "Abhorrent to Civilization," Civil War Times Illustrated (Sept., 1985), pp. 37-38. 5. Dr. Daniel Lioy, Tarbell's Lesson Commentary, September 2004- August 2005 (Colorado Springs: Cook Communications).

14. Taking Aim

Acts 2:14-41

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... as the first martyr of the Dominican Order, on his feast day of April 29 – two weeks from today. His murderer, Carino, later repented and became a Dominican lay-brother. Of course, today Christians look at such a story with abhorrence, almost incapable of believing how Christians could murder a fellow Christian in such a despicable manner. Surely these Cathari were primitives, somehow essentially different from postmodern pilgrims like ourselves. Think again. (I am presenting this as a story you can ...

15. Epiphany 2

Psalm 40:1-17, Isaiah 49:1-7, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9, John 1:29-34, John 1:35-42

Sermon Aid

Marion L. Soards, Thomas B. Dozeman, Kendall McCabe

... The nations (kings and princes) will see something that they had previously been blinded to, which will prompt them to worship. Second, what the nations will see is a surprising reversal with regard to strength—namely, that God chooses weakness (the despised, abhorrent, and servant) as a channel for power. This reversal is the light to the nations that the servant embodies in his character. Third, v. 7 reintroduces ambiguity concerning the identity of the servant, for God is identified as the "Redeemer of ...

16. Finding Unity through Christ

Sermon

Richard Gribble

... and Perpetua. History tells us of infamous persecutions under Nero, Diocletian, and other Roman Emperors. The Jewish community was often hostile as well. Jesus' claim to be the Messiah was rejected by many and his proclamation to be the Son of God was abhorrent for it threatened the monotheism which was so central to Jewish belief. The Acts of the Apostles (4:32-37) specifically says that the followers of Jesus banded together, holding all things in common. Christians, in imitation of Jesus, worked for the ...

17. Palm Sunday

Psalm 31:1-24; 118:1-29, Isaiah 50:1-11, Luke 19:28-44; 22:14-23:56, Philippians 2:1-11

Bulletin Aid

B. David Hostetter

... Have mercy on us for the sake of Jesus Christ, your suffering servant and our Savior. Amen. PRAYER OF CONFESSION Sympathetic Parent, Suffering Servant, Consoling Spirit, forgive our apathy in the face of your identification with our sins. We are still so insensitive to the abhorrence you have to all evil. Despite your holiness you forgive our sins both deliberate and unknowing. Hear us as in the silence we bring to mind our more obvious sins. Only in the name of Jesus do we have assurance of pardon and any ...

18. Dust and Ashes Wednesday

2 Corinthians 5:11 – 6:13

Sermon

David O. Bales

... article in this Sunday's Parade magazine. Paul must seem like any other homeless drudge. He doesn't have a permanent home, little family that he mentions, no money or possessions, and wherever he goes he gets into trouble, often landing in prison. He's abhorrent to most Gentiles and despised by most Jews. In every Roman colony there are plenty of people around like him — like the dust the wind blows in. Paul presents two views of himself and his small group of Christian missionaries. One view is how non ...

19. From Temple to Table

John 10:1-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... greatest danger for small dogs and cats? Why else would deer have replaced moles, grubs, and crabgrass as the biggest landscaping challenge all over suburbia? The only thing worse than having all your flowers nipped off by marauding Bambi’s is the absolutely abhorrent smell of deer repellent. To keep deer from munching down your roses, pansies, zinnia’s or cosmos, you now have to willingly endure a certain degree of . . . what shall we call it? Stink! Stench! Wretchedness! It goes by the formal name of ...

20. Get the Monkey off Your Back

Matthew 22:15-22

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... backing out of an enclosed parking lot, all their words were barbed and barbarous. The “humanzee” behavior that comes in the form of calculated genocides, the carnage of war, the horrors of holocausts and suicide bombers is as obvious as it is abhorrent. But humanzee behavior is not that easy to isolate. The truth is we all participate in humanzee behavior to some extent. Even more, we are all busily broadcasting humanzee-ity to the next generation. The “teen-age soap operas” sprinkled throughout ...

21. Mud Makeovers

John 9:1-12

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... an action that would delight all children, but was an absolute symbol of uncleanness and pollution to the reigning religious authorities. Blood, sweat, spit, all those “icky” human fluids were considered not just to be unattractive. They were deemed absolutely abhorrent and ritually unclean. Spittle was considered to be a pollutant, and even today, to spit upon someone is the ultimate sign of contempt. But when Jesus encountered the man who was “born blind,” an individual who had been “blind from ...

22. Paul Before Agrippa

Acts 25:23--26:32

Understanding Series

David J. Williams

... force them to blaspheme (the name of Jesus) (cf. 13:45; 18:6). Again the tense of the Greek verb (imperfect) may indicate repeated attempts, but the real significance of the expression is that it leaves open the question whether he ever succeeded. In contrast to the abhorrence that he now felt for his own part in this, there is an undisguised note of admiration in Paul’s words for the fortitude of those who suffered at his hands. 26:12–13 Next Paul spoke of the critical moment of his life. His encounter ...

23. Freedom In Christ

Galatians 5:1-15, Galatians 5:16-26

Understanding Series

L. Ann Jervis

... in the world is confirmation of the truth of his message and the integrity of his life. Acts states that the Jews persecuted Paul (e.g., Acts 26:21). Paul himself mentions the Jews as his persecutors (2 Cor. 11:24). The gospel would have been abhorrent to Jews, as it had been to Paul (Gal. 1:13; Phil. 3:6). Paul also includes other “servants of Christ” (2 Cor. 11:23) among his adversaries. On account of his law-free gospel for Gentiles, he experienced active opposition from some Jewish Christians. It ...

24. Personal Injuries

Exodus 21:12-36

Understanding Series

James K. Bruckner

... was liable, but not a murderer. The death of the bull by stoning was unique to Israelite law. The burial of the bull under a pile of stones (after the stoning) made profit from the meat impossible, treated the death of a person by an animal as abhorrent, and marked the location of the crime for all to see. Verse 31 amends the major case and the contingent case to include children who were killed by bulls. This reflects a higher value on the life of all children than in the Code of Hammurabi, which called ...

25. Nehemiah's Final Reforms

Nehemiah 13:1-31

Understanding Series

Leslie C. Allen

... who had featured in the earlier stories of opposition to the wall project in chapters 2, 4, and 6. In the context of the memoirs, the idea of one so hostile to the work of God occupying a room in the temple precincts was obviously abhorrent. But how did the editor relate it to the established guidelines? To a certain degree the problem illustrates the first one, since a room dedicated to contributions for the temple staff was misused. But it was mainly regarded as impinging on the second guideline. The ...

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