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 1 to 25 of 80 results

1. Transfiguration

Exodus 34:29-35, Psalm 99:1-9, Luke 9:28-36, 2 Corinthians 3:12--4:2

Bulletin Aid

Julia Ross Strope

... Transfer our self-absorption to respect for the planet and all its creatures. Amen. Sermon Idea Lay the lectionary texts beside each other. All speak of an external something that people identified as holy. Not then and not now can light, auras, and energy fields be boxed, “templed” or “museumed.” They are temporary, ephemeral, transient, unstable, and unpredictable. Yet, we long for radiance to engulf us. And when we have such an experience, we seek it again. Perhaps we can describe the experience ...

2. Promises, Promises, Promises

Luke 1:26-38

Sermon

Paul E. Flesner

... on the events we read about? Because we consider the Bible "holy," we somehow mentally conclude that the events had a "holy aura" about them -- that they were somehow different than events which happen to us today. The problem comes when you and I look for the presence of ... God in our lives today. I have a hunch that we secretly look for that "holy aura" in the things that happen to us, and when it doesn't appear, we mistakenly conclude that God is "avoiding us." What I'm ...

3. Sweet-Smelling Fragrance

Ephesians 4:17--5:21

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... physical beauty, a home "shows" better when it is furnished. Sellers are advised to have the home cleaned, have a fire going in the fireplace, turn on lamps, have soft music playing in the background, and place fresh flowers on tables and cabinets. The aura and smells that are presented to the customer are important. In major shopping malls the smells of baked cookies are sometimes injected into the ventilation system to lure customers toward the food court. Accessories top off a room in a home. In fact, it ...

4. Revitalizing the Lo-cal Church

Acts 1:12-26

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... Fenelon: "Lord, teach me to pray. Pray thyself in me." Prayer is the breathing of the soul. Have you ever walked into a room where people were praying? Then you have sensed that hallowed aura, that special power that the earth exhales into the atmosphere of prayer-inhaling places. Every church needs that special aura, that special power again. America's oldline denominations are trying to get out of their tailspins of decline and loss by landing on their feet. We ought to be landing on our knees instead ...

5. Proper 16 & Pentecost 14

Matthew 16:13-20, Exodus 1:1-22, Exodus 2:1-10, Isaiah 22:1-25, Isaiah 51:1-16, Romans 11:33-36

Sermon Aid

Russell F. Anderson

... made for his own habitation ..." In the neighborhood next to me, million dollar houses are being constructed. One edifice particularly caught my eye; I'd have to be blind for it not to. The place is enormous, with an eight-car garage. Giving it an unmistakable aura of permanence and strength are four gigantic pillars made of cement. They may or may not be weight-bearing pillars. Dating back before the glory of Greece, pillars were used to support the weight of the building. That's why Paul uses it as a term ...

6. Proper 27

1 Thessalonians 4:13--5:11, Hosea 11:1-11, Joshua 24:1-27, Matthew 25:1-13

Sermon Aid

Russell F. Anderson

... don't choose consciously, we select by default. Joshua was wise to this reality and so he urges his people to make a conscious decision to serve the Lord, in response to God's redemptive acts. Choose this day (v. 15). This matter of choosing one's god has an aura of urgency surrounding it. Today is all we have. Tomorrow is only a hope. We are called to choose while we still have the freedom to do so. There is another aspect here. It is not enough to choose the Lord just one day. This choice we must render ...

7. Trinity Sunday

Mt 28:16-20 · Jn 3:16-18 · Gen 1:1--2:4a · Ex 34:4-9 · 2 Cor 13:11-13 · Ps 8

Sermon Aid

Russell F. Anderson

... which would infringe on our freedom. The Bible is no longer the authority, even for most who claim Christianity. Most regard with skepticism religious institutions and denominational leaders. The teacher, the policeman, even the doctor, has lost his or her aura of authority. Most of the established Protestant denominations are diminishing because Christ's authority as Savior and Lord has been rejected. This rejection is usually not explicit but by default. Jesus said, "All authority in heaven and earth has ...

8. The Robe

John 6:25-59

Sermon

Robert Salzgeber

... he came down from heaven" was preconditioned by a particular Jewish mind-set of that day. The majority of the Hebrews, during the time of Jesus, believed that the spiritual world emanated from the physical world. Flesh, blood and race projected one's spiritual aura. So it is natural and normal for the people to grumble when Jesus says that he is the living bread that came down from heaven. But Jesus taught that the physical being emanates from the spiritual realm. "And the spiritual Word became flesh and ...

9. The Transfiguration

2 Corinthians 4:1-18, 2 Kings 2:1-18, Mark 9:2-13

Sermon Aid

Russell F. Anderson

... showmanship and psychology to milk the people's spiritual yearnings for his own gain. During the religious show he would put on a sequinned jacket that shined like 40 million dollars under the spotlight. He used the jacket to focus attention on himself and create an aura of divine glory. It was just a prop. When Jesus was transfigured, it was no razzle-dazzle, no show. If Jesus had intended it to draw attention to himself, he would have let it happen in a crowded place. No, this is purely an instance where ...

10. I Am Zacchaeus

Luke 19:1-10

Drama

Dr. Raymond Bailey

... said it was because of some carpenter turned rabbi -- Jesus of Nazareth. They shared with me how He turned their lives around. His teachings, they said, were unusual -- "He taught us to love," they said." But, it was more than His teachings. He seemed to exude the aura of the God of Abraham, whose son I am. He forgave sin. He healed the sick and the broken-hearted. He could bring peace -- shalom -- to His people." I began to wonder. What good is all my ill-gotten wealth, if everyone hates me, if I at last ...

11. The TV Revolution

Sermon

Michael Rogness

... by storytellers and poets speaking to their listeners. In oral societies language was highly poetic, because rhythm and rhyme enabled people to remember. Stories were rich with figures of speech, color and repetition. Speaking often took on a ritual aura, with villagers gathered ceremoniously around the speaker. In the schools of the ancient world the art of speaking and persuasion -- rhetoric -- was at the heart of the academic curriculum. The printing of the Gutenberg Bible on movable type over ...

12. The Robe

John 6:25-59

Sermon

Robert Salzgeber

13. Living Passionately

Luke 4:14-30

Sermon

Louis H. Valbracht

... , eyes sunk in fat, sodomy, double chins, illiterate emperors, fish fed on the flesh of learned slaves, all crammed into the arches of the Colosseum, and all wretched. And then, in this tasteless heap of gold and marble, HE came, Light enclothed in an aura, emphatically human, deliberately provincial, the Galilean, the Christ. And at that moment, gods and nations ceased to be, and MAN came into the glory of his being." Yes, there was a vitality in the early Christian culture, so that a handful of slaves and ...

14. The Call of the Cross

Luke 9:18-27

Sermon

... ." ... And Epstein continues: he made of his failures an elegant thing, next to which his success was made coarse, blatant, gross ... In truth it was nowhere so elegant (because) not much of this (meanness, drinking, etc.) is remembered. What is remembered is the aura of his life, the beautiful young man, the wondrous early success, the elegant defeat more touching than success ... The result has been that F. Scott Fitzgerald has had not merely a second act but a third act to his life. After his death his ...

15. Why Aspire to Sainthood?

Daniel 7:1-14

Sermon

... we taking the option seriously? Shall I ask each of us personally: Do you want to be a saint? If not, why not? Some of us may be deflected from such an ambition by the notion that a saint has to be perfect and surrounded by a certain aura of ghostly supernaturalism. If so, we should be reminded that Jesus said no human being is perfect, and we should remember that his obvious concern was for the fulfillment of the highest potentials in the natural dimensions of our being. God does not want us to be ghosts ...

16. Pentecost 4

Psalm 100:1-5, Genesis 25:19-34, Exodus 19:1-25, Romans 5:1-11, Matthew 9:35-38, Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon Aid

THEOLOGICAL CLUE The eschatological stance of the church year continues to throw its theological aura around the assigned readings for the day. It insists that the call to the ministry of the church and the proclamation of the gospel began with the calling and naming of the disciples, and that the church must establish evangelism as its outward thrust and its reach into the world. ...

17. Leadership: the Moses Model

Numbers 27:12-23

Sermon

... some difficulty understanding! Scholarship is fine - even indispensable - but people will not be led, willingly, by ideas and ideals they only vaguely comprehend. There were early Christians under the influence of Greek philosophy who thought secret knowledge, especially that carrying a divine aura about it, was the best of both worlds. God had given them secrets no one else had and this gave them power and influence over others. It was almost as if they carried God around in their hip pocket! On the other ...

18. The Deeper Meanings of The Christian Faith by Dr. Bryant M. Kirkland

Romans 8:18-27

Sermon

Leonard Mann

... by our standing on the shore of that broad expanse of Lake Michigan and gazing up into the sky to watch the Big Dipper and the North Star. It is an impressive thing to do, especially when one of the luminous satellites drifts by, and we can feel the aura of the vast environment in which we live. A parent who shared this feeling tried to teach his modern son the beauty of the night sky. He said to him, "Look up at the Big Dipper." The young modern technocrat said, "What is a dipper?" Now that isn’t ...

19. Men of Distinction

Acts 11:19-30

Sermon

Allan J. Weenink

... them "Men of Distinction." They were usually found in an elegant setting of impeccable decor, dressed stylishly, and bearing all the distinguishing marks of affluent, successful men of the world. There was a thoroughbred kind of casualness in the demeanor and an aura of "we have arrived." The ads had a compelling quality. The subliminal message fairly screamed that if one used the product promoted by a particular distillery, this ultimately led to success. Or, if one had arrived, he could do no less than ...

20. That Hallowed Name (The Third Commandment)

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... of God's name? There are several reasons. First, our God is a God of awesome holiness and righteousness. Every time we misuse his name, we push ourselves away from him. Picture yourself in a rowboat. You are near an island which is the residence of God. The aura of holiness and power and purity all about the island is overwhelming. If you then abuse his holy name, you in effect take your paddle and push yourself away fro~ the island. Since the devil wants more than anything else to distance you from God, he ...

21. Chapter IV

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Frank H. Seilhamer

... that we value, our efforts to guard them at times led us to become overly protective. Thus a weighty atmosphere grew up in some homes and communities that hovered over Sunday like a dark cloud. I can remember how, in my Grandmother’s house, the day took on an aura of grimness. We were to go to church, keep on the good clothes, sit on the porch and read the comics, or go for walks. When the radio played it was to be tuned to religious broadcasts, or music that was classic and sedate. Though it was not ...

22. Looking for Signs

John 4:43-54

Illustration

Larry Powell

... breath, "Does he look like a bishop to you?" The companion continued to heap up his plate, smiled, and softly replied, "No way." Apparently, they saw no sign of authority in his gentle manner, no sign of dignity in his congeniality, no sign of spiritual aura about his unpretentious appearance. Brother, were they wrong! Some people are always looking for signs. It is not a new thing under the sun. How many times do you suppose it was remarked behind Jesus’ back, "Does he look like a messiah to you?" Joseph ...

23. The Glory and the Cross

Mark 9:2-13

Sermon

Richard A. Jensen

... well to be here," we think to ourselves. "We have glimpsed God’s glory. If only we could stay here for a while!" We have those experiences when we are alone as well. It may be our prayer time. Sometimes those times alone with God seem charged with an aura of excitement. We can feel God’s presence within the room. There is holiness and mystery in the air. God seems so close we feel we could almost reach out and touch God. "It is well to be here." That is our overpowering feeling. We have glimpsed God’s ...

24. Happiness Is ... the Kingship of Jesus

John 18:28-40

Sermon

James W. Robinson

... by the sheer power of his personality. In like manner, Jesus towers over Pilate in the praetorium. Pilate seems uneasy, uncertain, unsure of himself, on the defensive, as if sensing that he is somehow outranked by the Carpenter of Nazareth. The other man has the aura of majesty that surrounds only a king or queen. "Are you king of the Jews?" Pilate asks. And later in the interrogation, Jesus makes it quite clear that he does indeed consider himself a king, but that his kingship is not of this world. I ...

25. OUR LORD BETRAYED

Sermon

E. Jerry Walker

... like hundreds of similar groups - at least ten men in each - who were gathering in Jerusalem for the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Mostly they walked in silence. Occasionally there was a sharp word followed by a quick retort from one to another. An aura of tension surrounded them that was as real as the dust which clouded softly as it rose from their sandaled feet. Now two had joined in a subdued, but terse, exchange which could have been only the ragged, tag end of a bitter running argument ...

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