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 444 results

1. The Bent-over Woman

Luke 13:10-17

Sermon

R. Robert Cueni

... she didn't return the money and no one noticed. She took a little more and a little more. Now she owes thousands. She got away with it for years. She is terrified. It is only a matter of time until she is caught. The worry and fear have bent her over. Maybe she has been having an affair with the man who lives next door. It began innocently enough. A little innocent flirting. Then one thing led to another. Day by day, the weight of the guilt accumulated until now the burden bends her over. Maybe some other ...

2. Bent Out of Shape

Luke 13:10-17

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... for the sabbath.” All of the synoptic gospels drive home this quote more than once, for Jesus is adamant, the Sabbath was not intended to burden people but to ease their burden. Whether the man with a withered hand or this woman bent and disabled, Jesus restores their ability to function as a vital part of their community again. Not only is their physicality restored, but their dignity, their relationships, their name, their future. Their shame has been negated, their “sin” removed, their past wiped ...

3. Love to Life

Luke 13:10-17

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... of the other roadways in our body, all the muscles and nerves, all suffer together. In this week’s gospel text Jesus deals head-on with a debilitating back issue. The woman Jesus sees in the synagogue, the woman he calls forward without her ever seeking him out, is “bent over and quite unable to stand up straight.” Luke’s text doesn’t tell us anything else about this woman. We do not know if she was rich or poor, a paragon or a pariah, someone who was honored or ostracized. All we know is that she ...

4. Now Stand Up Straight!

Luke 13:10-17

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... of the abuse he had received as a child. Nobody had every told him, I love you. He asked this crowd of young people, "Will you love me?" God so loved the world he sent his Son. The Son sent his disciples into the world to touch those who are bent over, so that they will stand up straight. One of the most gratifying and also the most humbling experiences that a pastor can have is to receive a testimony from somebody who has been healed in the Church. Most of the time they can't pinpoint when it happened, or ...

5. Straight Backs And Rekindled Dreams

Luke 13:10-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... designed a bicycle treadmill pump to get water up to the hillside paddies on which the people depended for food. For centuries this water had been carried laboriously by pails. Homer's wife Emma was curious about the fact that every woman over sixty had a bent back. Then she noticed that after the monsoon season the sweeping of debris from the streets was inevitably done by older people who used a broom with a short handle. Since wood for longer handles cost too much and was in short supply, Emma found a ...

6. Cure for an Aching Back

Luke 13:10-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... the Sabbath. I admire her. I wonder if I would have that kind of courage to be in public with that kind of condition. Even more important she had not allowed her physical condition to impair her relationship with God. She had been this way for eighteen years all bent over and unable to rise up. The pain was sometimes severe. Yet, her habit was to be in worship to praise her Maker. Friends, that’s faith. That’s devotion. I know people who will miss church if they have a slight headache. Or if there is a ...

7. Remembering Jesus

Matthew 26:17-30

Sermon

David O. Bales

... remember Jesus, it sinks into us from our freed and forgiven memory that we’ve been lifted up to true life. The consequences of the meal Jesus serves remind us in miniature of what his entire life accomplished: Jesus lifts us up. Even if we are perpetually bent by arthritis or confined daily to a wheelchair, in the eyes of our Lord Jesus we stand before him as true human beings, heads lifted — not in arrogance, but looking now at the world as did Emma Atkins, in order to see where Jesus summons us to ...

8. A Crippling Spirit

Luke 13:10-17

Sermon

Brett Blair

... in some way it is responsible for this woman’s tragic circumstances. As we take a closer look at this story there are other spirits at work. Take a look at them with me. There is at work a crippling spirit. I. Because of her particular ailment she was bent over and her eyes were always facing the ground. She missed the sky, the birds, and the rainbow. But physical ailments can do far more than bend a back. It can rob us of our livelihood and cause bankruptcy. It can take us away from our families. It can ...

9. Christmas Gift

Isaiah 61:1-11

Sermon

Thomas D. Peterson

... in the worst of hard times. Israel was in exile, hundreds of miles from home, temple, and heritage. It was as though she would fall off the map of history. Just a little more and her name would be forgotten. Speaking the Word of God, Isaiah bent down upon the weary, defeated tribe and whispered into her ear, "Good tidings." Here was the ancient equivalent of "Christmas gift." The world was hearing an early proclamation of good news from God. What did the whisper amount to? At first it was the awareness that ...

10. The Broken

John 8:1-11

Sermon

James Merritt

... would Jesus do? Typical Jesus – something shocking! “This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.”(John 8:6, ESV) Every time I read this story I am dying to know ... and said to them, ‘Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.’ And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was ...

11. Pride: The Deadliest of the Seven Deadly Sins

Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

R. Curtis Fussell

... in the country for the first time. The city boy had never seen wheat growing in a field. It was an impressive sight for him, the wheat golden brown and ready for harvesting. He noticed that some of the wheat stood tall in the field, whereas some of it was bent low, touching the ground. The city boy said to his cousin, "I bet the ones standing tall are the best ones, aren't they?" His cousin smiled knowingly and reached over and plucked the head of one of the tall-standing wheat stalks and one that was ...

12. The God Who Doesn’t Give Up

Hosea 11:1-11

Sermon

... , "That’s enough. I don’t want to go through this again." The feeling is one of exasperation, disappointment and anger. You have bent over backwards to give a person a chance, but that person has failed to do his or her part. Some of the same ... a father, and a son who is undependable. This son chooses to disregard everything his father has taught him. In fact, this son seems bent on his own destruction and there’s nothing that the father or anyone else can do. Listen to this lament: When Israel was a ...

13. Resurrection: From Brokenness to Wholeness

Matthew 15:29-39

Sermon

Leonard H. Budd

... a youth, and this day he walked behind the crowds that followed Jesus. His walking was slowed because of his left leg being bent, never going straight. It meant that he would step-slide, step-slide, step-slide where others would step-step. For as long as ... so hard and with so little result that he dared not now cast too great a hope upon the moment. Jesus looked down to the bent leg, and stooped down to touch the twisted knee. "My friend," he said, "life is not just arms and legs - nor eyes, nor ears. Life, ...

14. Toward Health With Confidence

Sermon

Leonard H. Budd

... little. And my mother was a cripple. For eighteen years her back had been unable to right itself. She walked as a stick of wood bent in half. And it had been since I was born. They say - those who lifted me into this life - that my mother was a cripple ... the crowd. I had meant to go find her, for while we had not spoken of his power I knew that she wanted to bring her bent back to his healing. There she was. Right at the center of the crowd. Leaning against the wall of the well. Turning her head sideways so ...

15. The Love of a Father (Father's Day)

Matthew 10:1-42

Sermon

King Duncan

... legs crooked. We would have made him straight and tall like his brothers. But somehow you made it up to him. You gave him a way with critters. It comforts us to know that he is in a place where his being bent doesn't matter no more. We would like to think that you have taken that bent back and those crooked legs and straightened them. And Almighty God, if it ain't asking too much, we pray that you will give him some critters to play with maybe a few redbirds and a squirrel or two. Thy will be done ...

16. Listening for the "Ching-ching"

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1

Sermon

Lee Ann Dunlap

... when our fountains run dry and all our compassion is spent, God continues to care. Amidst the grief, the confusion, the chaos, and the uncertainty, Jeremiah points the way to God's own heart. This is a God who continues to care even for those of us "hell-bent on self-destruction." This is a God who refuses to give up even on us, and who continues to work redemption's plan. "Is there no balm in Gilead?" the lamenter asks. "Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?" The region famous for ...

17. How Much Are You Worth?

Matthew 10:29-31

Sermon

King Duncan

... his legs crooked. We would have made him straight and tall like his brothers. But somehow you made it up to him. You gave him a way with critters. “It comforts us to know that he is in a place where his being bent doesn’t matter no more. We would like to think that you have taken that bent back and those crooked legs and straightened them. And Almighty God, if it ain’t asking too much, we pray that you will give him some critters to play with--maybe a few redbirds and a squirrel or two. Thy will be ...

18. What's a Human Book?

Luke 13:10-17

Sermon

King Duncan

... the church? Would you jump up with a smile and run up to the front? Or would you cringe and slump down in your seat and avoid eye contact? Most people aren’t comfortable getting “called to the front” of any gathering. And Jesus calls a woman who is so bent over that she can’t stand up straight at all. Put yourself in her shoes. What must she be thinking? Who is this man? What does he want with me? I wonder how she felt as she made her way through the crowd of worshipers to stand beside him. I ...

19. Disabled

Luke 13:10-17

Sermon

Dave Zuchelli

... God. The woman in Luke’s story had been dehumanized. She had been reduced to little or no value to others. The laws of Moses had become more important in people’s eyes than a disfigured woman. As much as the woman’s back was bent, a legalistic spirit bent someone’s soul even more. Nothing can choke the heart and soul of our walk with God like legalism. I will be the first to admit that Christians should be disciplined. However, we can become so rigid in our beliefs that our disciplines can cripple ...

20. The Prodigal Nation

Luke 15:11-32

Sermon

Erskine White

... depths of personal ruin. Look hard at anyone who is ruined by obsessive, compulsive behavior, and you will see people "hell-bent" on personal destruction because they hate themselves. More particularly, they hate what they have become. They have become the prodigal ... gone for many years - his father still recognized him. The son's clothes were ragged and he had no shoes on his feet. He was bent over under the weight of labor and shame. But even then, his father knew who he was and was glad to see his long- ...

21. Peace Through Sacrifice

Sermon

Alan Bacon Bond

... over at right angles. There were some fragments of wood on the spike, but most startling was the fact that the spoke had been driven directly through an ankle bone. Apparently, when the victim was crucified, the spike had struck a hard knot in the upright beam and had bent over. When his family went to retrieve the body for burial, they could not pull out the spike and had to cut off the beam and bury a portion of it with the spike still in place through the ankle. It is doubtful that any of us could be ...

22. Who Keeps Getting in My Way?

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Wallace H. Kirby

... churches in Copenhagen, Denmark. According to the story, just after the artist had finished molding it, something happened. Because of either improper temperature or material, the head of the statue bent forward. The decision was made to go ahead and place the statue without restoring the head to an upright position. The statue stands now in that Copenhagen Church with the head bent forward. The only way you can see the face is to get on your knees. A man is never so tall as when he is on his knees before ...

23. The Level Ground Beneath The Cross

Romans 3:21-31, Romans 3:9-20

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... word translated here "under the power of" is the same word used to describe the authority that a Centurion or Roman company commander had over his 100 troops. They were under his command. This means that all persons in their natural condition have a bent to evil, a bias toward disobedience, a propensity toward selfishness, a tendency to rebel against God. Like automobiles with the front end out of line, we are tilted toward the ditches of sin. A few years ago, Chuck Colson, President of Prison Fellowship ...

24. Recognizing The Hidden

Sermon

Leonard H. Budd

... those who worked at the craft of the leather workers were respected persons. In a small English town an old craftsman bent hard over his bench. The sunlight that streamed into his small workshop was diminishing, and the lamps were not yet lighted ... a place to sleep in the barn? He will receive a hard thrashing for not being near at his master’s call. Suddenly the old man bent double, his tool and pieces of leather dropped to the crude wood flooring. A pain in his chest - such pain he never knew. He lay still ...

25. The Shepherd Who Loved His Sheep

John 10:1-21

Sermon

George Bass

... theme of this gospel for Good Shepherd Sunday, and does it quite well. But this section of John’s "Good Shepherd chapter" seems bent on taking us behind Easter to the Passion and death of our Lord. Jesus not only calls himself the Good Shepherd, but he ... always stands in contrast to - and, in a sense, in condemnation of - the world in which we live. Human beings seem bent on destroying one another, not only through the threat of the Bomb, but particularly for reasons of self-interest. Richard Cohen, of ...

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