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 776 results

1. Is Suffering Punishment for Sin?

John 9:1-12

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... brothers and sisters did in the Holocaust. Millions of people suffer today because of the greed and selfishness of other people all around the world, from the Balkans to the Middle East, and all points in between. It is no wonder, then, that Jesus emphatically rejected the notion that all suffering is the result of God’s’ punishment of that person for his or her sin. He rejected the idea here in John 9 and again in Luke 13. But at the same time, He never really gave an answer to the problem of innocent ...

2. The Church: An Enclave of Resistance v1

Romans 12:1-8, Romans 12:9-21

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... , we must bind up the broken and identify with the oppressed in order to be a sign of the Kingdom. And three, we must seek and implement strategies for change that are consistent with the mind of Christ. Let me share the most dramatic picture of this notion of the Church that has come to me recently. I just received a gift that overwhelmed me. It is the praying hands of Jesus carved by Carlos Velazquez. It is a gift from Jeannine Brabon, one of our Asbury graduates who is a missionary in Medellin, Colombia ...

3. A Love For All Seasons (ii) (communion Meditation)

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... forgiveness. And I've just been saying that it is certainly weighed on the side of hope. Still the question remains, how many times do we take the Prodigal back? I also said that we would talk today about balancing the weight of the Gospel against the notion of tough love. We discussed that question last week in the context of drug dependency. And, nowhere is the question a more relevant one, because it's the most common issue with which we have to deal in terms of prodigal living, and taking the prodigal ...

4. Will the Real Jesus Christ Arise?

John 20:1-18

Sermon

Carl Jech

... Quest for the Historical Jesus. Beginning on this Easter Day we embark upon a series of sermons that ask the fundamental question: "Will the Real Jesus Christ Arise?" What about all these theories concerning the "Real Jesus"? Are we all just raising up our own notions of who Jesus really is or are we honestly listening to history and the Scriptures as they speak to us of this person named Jesus and his association with the title of Christ? Not long before his untimely death, the gifted theologian and bishop ...

5. Becoming What You Are

John 14:15-31

Sermon

Carl Jech

... , but if we take them too seriously and too literally they can do more harm than good. Our goal is not some static and abstract notion of perfection or peace. That is the kind of peace that the world may give, but it is not the kind of peace offered by ... of whether or not I believe in God with a flat yes or no. God will be what God will be regardless of our doctrines and pet notions. To believe in God is perhaps above all to be humble - and human. The book of Genesis tells us that as human beings we are made ...

6. To Hell and Back

Luke 15:1-7

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... on as unreal, half-material shades in a land of silence and forget-ting. Note: It was not necessarily a place of torment. That notion of hell was to come later, as a whole theology developed concerning rewards and punish-ments in the next life for what people did ... time to be part of the cleanup crew! It just doesn’t make sense! Think of the fun you will miss! A lot of people’s notion of what the Christian life is like might be pictured in an old story I once heard. It seems that there was a cowboy who ...

7. Aren’t All Religions Basically Alike?

John 14:5-14

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... that everything that happens, be it good, bad, or indifferent, is “the will of Allah,” with the Christian belief that our lives are not in the hands of a blind Fate, but rather in the hands of a loving God? How can one reconcile the Hindu notion that the soul is reincarnated again and again until at last it is purified and breaks from the law of karma with the Christian teaching about the resurrection of the individual unto life everlasting? And we also must consider the fact that the Bible doesn’t ...

8. Stirred, Not Shaken

Hebrews 13:1-25

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... : God knows and God will judge accordingly. These behaviors that are mandated by faithfulness are behaviors that continually stir the pot. They stir up the established notion that the "other" may be dismissed, discounted, disenfranchised, dissed. They stir up the established notion that caring for family includes only those with whom we have a blood relationship. They stir up the established notion that we're only wrong or bad if we get caught and/or punished by human powers. They stir up the established ...

9. Jesus, Mary, Gustav Mahler, Brother Martin, and the Magi

Luke 20:9-19

Sermon

Carl Jech

... own way. His great "Resurrection Symphony No. 2" is one of the great contemporary statements of the Christian theme of resurrection. It would be impossible to calculate how many people have been inspired by this amazing piece of music. Nietzsche's virtually irreligious notion of self-reliance seems to fly in the face of the Christian message of reliance upon the grace of God, but on one level at least, these opposite concepts lead to a similar attitude. Out of traditional Christian reliance upon the grace ...

10. Giving Away the Store

Luke 22:7-38, John 13:1-17

Sermon

Carl Jech

... Jesus - "Take and drink. This is my blood." To the extent that we accept the concept of "eatingand drinking the body and blood of our Lord" as an appropriate symbol we have to realize that such imagery would have asked Jews to give up one of their most pious notions - the kosher taboo against eating blood. In a sense, to ask Jews to give up this taboo is like asking them to "give away the store." Here we have an example of how we may sometimes give up a pious and seemingly central belief for the sake of a ...

11. Jesus Meets Buddha and Confucius

Luke 24:36-49

Sermon

Carl Jech

... interpretation of Jesus as a Messiah whose main project was to bring saving knowledge. What is to be preached in the name of Jesus is not knowledge, but love and forgiveness of sins! "Repentance" is a change of mind not toward an abstract notion of cosmic consciousness but a change of mind that affects our everyday behavior in relationship to others. The grace of God as seen in Jesus is directed primarily toward helping us face the ethical challenge of promoting righteousness and justice, without falling ...

12. Pilgrim Living in a Vagabond World

Matthew 7:13-14

Sermon

Leonard Mann

... ; it just happens while people nibble, not really going anywhere, and seeing no farther than the next sweet morsel to be nibbled at. I know that the prospect of walking in the "narrow way" comes through to many people as boring and unexciting. Many have the notion that what is right is dreary and unadventurous. I recall hearing of an elderly lady who had never eaten ice cream. When the opportunity came to partake of it, she took one taste, pushed the dish away, and said, "Anything that good can’t be right ...

13. Whatever Happened to those Mansions?

John 14:1-4

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... or challenge would not be heaven, but would, in fact, be hell. “In my Father’s house are many dwelling places.” We may stop and rest awhile in one of them, but I have an idea that we then move on to greater glory. This is a most helpful notion, for it answers the age-old question: “What is God going to do with those who have sinned and fallen short, and who might not feel comfortable in heaven immediately?” (I have an idea that includes most of us!) This idea, if correct, means that we have an ...

14. Does God Give Out Blank Checks?

John 15:1-17

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... asked her why, she replied, “I’m mad at God.” “Why?” her parents asked. “Because I’ve asked Him and asked Him to make me six, and He won’t!” Of course not. There are some things even God cannot do. That’s not a heretical notion, for across the centuries theologians have insisted that God cannot do something that is logically contradictory. All sorts of dumb questions have been asked like, “Can God make a square circle?” or “Can God make a stone so heavy that even He cannot lift it ...

15. How Do You Get Rid of Evil without Destroying Good?

Matthew 13:24-30

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... of law the ultimate route of God. It interests me that some of the groups that are rigid in doctrine, purists in their belief, are cold and calloused, and in my mind, furthest from the compassionate mind of Christ. Others who hold to the notion that the church is to be a “called out people—untainted by the world,” put their emphasis on morality. And usually the emphasis is upon what they would call “sins of the flesh.” They refuse to marry people who have been divorced. They excommunicate ...

16. Imagination

Luke 1:39-45, 46-55

Sermon

Will Willimon

... angels, expectant virgins, and songs in the night because we are rational, analytical, skeptical, people. But I'm wondering if it's more truthful to say that we are limited. Of course, it's important to "face facts." But I'm wondering if we have a far too limited a notion of "facts." I know a pastor who believes it to be a fact that cricket is the most engaging, fascinating sport played by humanity. I, for the life of me can't see it. My friend says I will not accept this fact because I'm not English, I ...

17. They Should Have Fired That Shepherd

Luke 15:1-3 (8-32)

Sermon

Schuyler Rhodes

... to get out of the parking spot, these stories conspire to invade our sense of the way things are, challenging us to open our imaginations to the way things might be in the kingdom of God. It is in the parables of Jesus that we discover the almost unfathomable notion that in the love of God in Jesus Christ, all bets are off. As I consider the parables of Jesus I find myself drawn to the old hymn by Isaac Watts titled “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” When I survey the wondrous cross On which the Prince ...

18. When Matters Hang in the Balance

2 Samuel 12:1-31

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... . More than once people have raised that issue with me as their pastor. But this is bad no sick theology. It’s my impression that Old Testament thinkers and writers read this into the stories of these people. I have no problem immediately rejecting such notions out of hand. For instance, Jesus responded to the disciples’ query about a man born blind, “Teacher, whose sin caused him to be born blind? Was it his own or his parents’ sin?” And Jesus replies, “His blindness has nothing to do with his ...

19. A Sleeping Bag God

2 Samuel 7:1-17

Sermon

Robert Noblett

... of trust. Such a stance is informed also by the joyful conviction that God continues to reveal truth to his children. We worship not an idea about God, but God, and it is our encounters with God and God’s grace that should shape our notions. It is not our notions about God that should place us in the posture of second-guessing what our encounter with God is going to be like. Eric Hoffer’s book The True Believer is about fanaticism, and he describes the fanatic in these terms: To be in possession of ...

20. Some Women's Stories

John 7:45--8:11

Sermon

Carl Jech

... way and sin no more he was not necessarily condemning what she had done to get in the fix she was in. The author of the story may be thinking of Jesus as being aware of extenuating circumstances. (The Gospel of John does have a rather lofty notion of Jesus' God-like special powers.) But regardless of all that, the admonition to "sin no more" is simply Jesus' way of giving the woman another chance. The whole point of the New Testament emphasis on forgiveness in not to focus on past sins but continually to ...

21. Throw Your Heart at the Sky

John 21:1-14

Sermon

Carl Jech

... with arms and legs like ours. To make such a claim would be to believe too loudly, would be to think more highly of our own notions than we ought. What we mean simply is that God "relates to us in a personal way!" We can never truly comprehend God-language. I often refer ... She or It, is immaterial as long as we recognize the thrust of the Christian Gospel to be that a purely impersonal, mechanistic notion of God misses the heart of the matter. The heart of the matter is a matter of the heart. The real Jesus ...

22. The World's Best Kept Secret

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... since youth and I have quietly but faithfully attended and supported his church all of my adult life." We religious people also tend to give an inordinate amount of space and time to the former vices of our people. There is, indeed, this rather curious notion that wickedness is interesting while goodness is dull. It's almost like being good and the excitement of goodness is the world's best kept secret. Jesus Christ showed the world that the most fascinating pursuit in the world is that of being good. The ...

23. Respect

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... it is our forbearance, not our recognition of the equality of that other gift, that allows the person possessing it to be a part of the church. Toleration means only allowing something to exist. For many people the idea of toleration is bound up with the notion that those with different spiritual gifts will, in time, come to confess the error of their ways. Paul’s great description hammers home through the simile of the human body that each of us is necessary for the good of the Body of Christ. None of ...

24. Crying On Palm Sunday

Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... came to Birmingham". Note: that's "Birmingum" England. Not Birmingham, Michigan. But it could be. Or Detroit. Or Ann Arbor. Jesus is populara "superstar", a cult or culture hero. But not much more than that to many of us, I am afraid. Very few of us have any real notion of following Him. Especially if it is likely to cost us something. What has Jesus a right to expect of us? He has a right to consider us His "Passionate people." That is, people who are willing to suffer if need be to help others in His name ...

25. God’s Body Language

John 1:1-18

Sermon

Donald B. Strobe

... he read and studied the great pagan philosophers and had read many wise things, but he had never read anywhere that “the Word became flesh.” To the Greek that was the most impossible thing. The one thing that Greek philosophy would never have dreamed of was the notion that God could have a body. To the Greek mind, the body was evil, a prison-house in which the soul was shackled, a tomb in which the spirit was confined. To them God would never have anything to do with something as gross as a body. The ...

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