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 399 results

1. Controlling Our Cravings

Luke 12:13-21, Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... be valued above the house. However, if you have never asked your wife whether she loves you or her house more, I would advise you not to press that question. The Hebrew word for "covet" is "hamad." It means to desire or to crave or to grasp for more. Is it wrong to desire or crave anything? Of course not. The Bible tells us to desire wisdom and faith. Jesus said we would be blessed if we hunger and thirst after righteousness. Is it wrong to desire possessions and wealth? I think we would agree that there is ...

2. Greed - Putting Things In Their Proper Perspective

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

R. Curtis Fussell

... 's not one. Instead, there's just the opposite kind of clubs, ones which help you gain more by buying in bulk, but none to overcome compulsive buying. There aren't even any books to help you overcome the compulsion to have more, such as, How to Stop Your Craving for Money. Greed promises us a full and happy life. How many times have you heard it said, "If I only had more, life would be better." But as Mr. Atwater said, "You can acquire all you want and still feel empty." Think of a hand glove. By itself ...

3. Enemies of the Cross

Philippians 3:17 - 4:1

Sermon

Steven E. Albertin

... bullet, for us ... and our salvation. When we gather here to eat and drink, to be washed and "born again," to receive the words of peace and consolation, it is under the cross. For it is here at the foot of the cross that we are given the status we crave. The hunger in our "bellies" is satisfied. Here God welcomes us home with the hug we thought we could find elsewhere. Here God dresses us in the finest clothes, kills for us the fatted calf for the feast in our honor, puts a ring on our finger, and declares ...

4. Freedom's Year

Galatians 3:26--4:7

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... , aren't we? We all want our freedom. And we don't want anyone to take it from us! But freedom is such a slippery thing. You crave it one day. You have it the next. And then it becomes your worst nightmare. Not long ago, a family in the Maritimes won big in a ... lay down cash for it! They didn't need to work! They could purchase all the toys and the trinkets their hearts had ever craved! They had it made! And a year later, Saturday Night magazine did a follow-up article on the family. How had they coped with ...

5. The Way Up Is the Way Down

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon

Phil Thrailkill

... need of God. Cursed are the ones who are always laughing; they have made a cruel joke out of a badly broken world. Cursed are the pushy and demanding; in the end they will drive away their friends, even God, and be left with nothing. Cursed are those who crave everything but God and his ways; they will never get enough to be satisfied.”11 If the curses sound harsh, then good; they are meant to be. A blessing is an invitation; a curse, either stated or implied, is a wake up call to rouse a morally sleepy ...

6. Ingratitude and Judgment

Num 11:1-35

Teach the Text

Joe M. Sprinkle

... that without the miraculous gift of manna they would have starved long ago. We must not forget God’s blessings. Second, ingratitude is an expression of unbelief (vv. 18–23). Desiring good food is not a sin. But Israel’s complaints are not innocent. Their cravings lead them to reject God’s plan for their lives. They complain, God tells them, “because you have rejected the Lord, who is among you” (v. 20). Many Israelites no longer believe that God has a better life in store for them in Canaan ...

7. Holy Quail!

Exodus 16:1-36, Numbers 11:4-35

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... at McDonalds, or Burger King, or KFC, or some other fast food joint, and gobble down a couple of cheeseburgers and a pack of fries. And then by the time you get to dinner….you’re not really hungry anymore. And the next day, your craving cheeseburgers again! It’s weird how that happens, right? Well, it’s not weird. It’s called addiction! The Israelites in our scripture today had something like “fast food addiction” too! They had left Elim, apparently a town with some decent food and a place ...

8. The Righteous

Sermon

John A. Terry

... John Stuart Mill said his life was changed by his suddenly asking himself this question: "Suppose I attain what I am now pursuing. What sort of man shall I be at the end?" Jesus promised that there is a way of satisfying the hunger of the soul just as we crave to satisfy the hunger of the body. We try to satisfy ourselves with what we can see and smell and taste, but Saint Paul said, "No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived what God has prepared for those who love him" (1 Corinthians ...

9. The Righteous

Psalm 107:1-43

Sermon

John A. Terry

10. It’s Time to Grow Up

Ephesians 4:14-15

Sermon

James Merritt

... looked at Socrates and said, "Master, why did you do that?" Socrates looked at him and said, "When you want to learn as much as you wanted to breathe, then I will be your teacher." When you want to really grow as much as a baby craves milk or as much as a drowning person craves air, then you will be on the road that can lead to deeper spiritual maturity. II. I Must Develop My Spiritual Maturity How does this process begin? What does it involve? What are the steps that I must take? We have read a couple of ...

11. Appetites and Desires

Romans 7:7-25

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... . We all get them. Whether they are the need for ice cream at midnight, or hot wings during the big game, or some Sunday evening yearning for a mystery casserole your grandmother cooked up when you were eight. We crave flavors with our taste buds, but even more we crave them with our memories, and our souls. As life unfolds our “good food” memories are too often gradually replaced by appetites of a different nature. Instead of sweet or salty, savory or creamy, we desire more expensive, heady, sometimes ...

12. Pop Verses: John 3:16

John 3:16

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... it can set you free too! Whether you are a Christian seeking renewal or a skeptic seeing something more in life the truth of today’s verse can you set you free from whatever is holding you back in life. It can give you the peace you are craving. Jesus spoke about the freedom we crave in the 8th chapter of John. Let’s take a look: Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free ...

13. Zophar's Second Speech to Job

Job 20:1-29

Understanding Series

Gerald H. Wilson

... ”—as if the poor have been mercilessly attacked and left for dead by the road. Similarly, the wicked have seized houses they did not build. 20:20–23 These verses turn from the poisonous consequences of filling oneself with what is evil to the insatiable craving for evil that consumes all and yet leaves no satisfaction. A more literal translation of the first half of verse 20 is: “He knows no contentment in his belly.” Although NIV takes the second half of verse 20 to mean that the wealth of the ...

14. Soul Hunger

John 6:24-35

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... things in endless silos. We don’t need to stuff ourselves with endless fillers. We don’t need to spend our lives pursuing the things of this world. They will not fill us up. They will not help us feel fulfilled, sated, or complete. Our endless cravings for bigger, better, more will only deplete us. They will never fill us. But Jesus will. He is the Bread, the spiritual sustenance that can make life, no matter how hard, feel easy, smooth, full, and complete. When our hearts are filled with Jesus, our ...

15. Soul Food

John 6:25-59

Sermon

Larry Goodpaster

... food chains in every village, of drive-through windows, of buffet lines and all-you-can-eat salad bars, we are today offered a different food, the Bread of Life. It is food for a hungry soul. It is eternal food which, when you eat it, satisfies the craving of your heart and opens your eyes to see that all else is imitation and second rate. The pictures flash before us again in rapid succession across our imaginary screen: a loaf of bread, a dinner spread, a cruciform Christ. Now do you get it? Can you see ...

16. Discipleship - Path to Fulfillment

Mark 10:35-45

Sermon

James W. Robinson

... to receiving recognition for one reason or another. For example, the kitchen crew responsible for preparing and serving the church supper would feel slighted if the master of ceremonies failed to have the guests express appreciation with a round of applause. James and John craved far greater recognition. They thought in terms of sitting at the head table, or on the platform, with the Guest of Honor. In all honesty, I must confess that I have never been one to resist being escorted to the head table at a ...

17. A Strategy For Status Seekers

Luke 14:1-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... best friends. That is true today. It was true 2,000 years ago. Jesus knew that, and he saw an opportunity to use that very natural craving to teach some very useful lessons. "When you are invited to a wedding feast," he said, "do not sit down in a place of honor. A ... know your name, wipe your feet, state you business, and be on your way. We’ve got butter to churn." A pathetic craving for recognition can cause people to do crazy thing seven become a notorious killer. But pride can hinder us in other ways. ...

18. If Your Eye Offends You

Mark 9:42-50

Sermon

King Duncan

... exercise? You feel miserable until you can get back out there on the track, or the tennis court, or the ballfield again. What about those of us who sit around a lot? Is it not true that we grow to crave sitting around? We begin to crave total leisure, and we watch our bodies self-destruct. But it seems that the less we do, the more we feel like doing nothing. That is the nature of sin. It is true not only physically, but it is true mentally and emotionally. Take the depressed person. The depressed person ...

19. Growing Up Is More Than Showing Up

1 John 2:12-14

Sermon

James Merritt

... , spewing water out of his mouth. He looked at Socrates and said, "Why did you do that?" Socrates looked at him and said, "When you want to learn as much as you wanted to breathe, then I will be your teacher." When you really begin to crave spiritual growth like a baby craves milk, you will then begin to really grow and mature in the Lord Jesus Christ. II. I Must Develop My Spiritual Maturity Now in order to leave childhood you must become a young adult, and according to 1 Jn 2:14 the mark of a young adult ...

20. Hunger and Politics

Matthew 14:13-21

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... we look and seek. But what will we find? And how will it become visible to us? Where will we see the smile between God and us? However it will happen, according to Matthew, it will be when we first believe that Jesus has what it takes to satisfy our cravings. A friend called me one Saturday. He was a perennial student, far away from the town that shaped him, and mostly at odds with his family. There was good reason for his mother to chide and nag and scold, for my friend had lost his faith, and his parents ...

21. When You Drop the Ball, What Next?

Mark 1:21-28

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... We earn degrees, save money, buy insurance, invest for retirement. We have a home, a family, a schedule, which gives structure and meaning to our days and nights. We build our lives on the secure foundation of predictability. But conversely, we also crave spontaneity. We hunger for those unexpected moments that bring uncontained joy and unconstrained excitement to our day-to-day existence. We ache to be astonished and amazed. That is why God made sports channels. There is nothing like the unscripted, uncut ...

22. Made Alive in Christ

Ephesians 2:1-10

Understanding Series

Arthur G. Patzia

... believers before they became Christians. What was true of the Gentiles was true of all humanity, for “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23): All of us also lived among them. To live as the Gentiles is to live according to the cravings of our sinful nature. This does not appear to be a reference to the doctrine of original sin as taught elsewhere in Scripture (Rom. 1–3; 5:12–14). The phrase is more suggestive of a pattern of life that emerges when one is left to follow one ...

23. Love of Money

1 Timothy 6:3-10

Understanding Series

Gordon D. Fee

... in 1 Cor. 1:18–4:21; 8:1–3; 2 Cor. 10–12; Col. 2.) Second, he has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words. With a nice play on words, Paul describes the opposite of “healthy teaching” as a sickness, a “morbid craving” (BAGD) for controversy. We have already noted that their teachings lead to “meaningless talk” (see disc. on 1:4, 6); we were forewarned by what was said in 2:8 that such “discussions” engendered strife. Now all of this is spelled out clearly (cf. 2 ...

24. Mary: The Handmaiden of the Lord

Luke 1:38-45

Sermon

Charley Reeb

... forget what you are supposed to forget.” Wow! Imagine having the faith to live that way in all aspects of life. To simply let the flow of God have its way in our lives. Many of us are just one moment of surrender away from the blessing we crave from God. Believing brings blessing. I know some of you will say, “Charley, isn’t this an excuse not to work, to be lazy.” Well, the only thing worse than laziness, is futility – using up your energy for something worthless, with no purpose. I see that more ...

25. Precocious

Luke 2:41-52

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... to the fields, everything in the world echoes God’s song, and we are part of that Song. When we refuse to sing, we remove ourselves from God’s beautiful creation. The world is our natural habitat. The world is full of sounds and voices. While sometimes we crave silence, it must be only a reprieve. From the silence we go out again to sing our praises to all who will hear us. Today’s scripture shows a young and precocious Jesus spending time in the Temple, His Father’s House. For him, it is exactly ...

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