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 34 results

1. Communion Is Running No More

Mark 9:42-50

Sermon

... carry with us that basic nature which is rebellious to God wherever we go and whatever we do. Psalm 51:5 says: "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." Each of us was born with the propensity to sin. And that propensity, that tendency to rebel against God, manifests itself in many ways in our daily lives. It permeates our thought patterns, our actions, and our relationships. It is a powerful force in our lives! It leads us into believing that the world should revolve ...

2. The Plank

Matthew 5:38-48; 7:1-6

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees who judge with no introspection? For Jesus, judging should be advice, not condemnation; assistance, not separation (threshing). What is in your eye is in your heart and mind. But for Jesus, in removing the plank from your eyes (your propensity to blind judgment), you can now see clearly in order to help to remove the chaff from your neighbor’s eye. There is an Estonian proverb that says, “Do not eat (stand) downwind or you’ll get chaff in your eyes.” This is obviously ...

3. Christian: Don’t Get So Hung Up On Churchy Things!

Revelation 21:10, 22--22:5

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... every sphere of our lives. This takes away our excuses for not worshiping, because an Incarnate God is present in the ordinary things of life, including our singing and liturgy. The problem, you see, is not with God’s incarnational propensities but our sinful condition louses things up, our propensity to take creatures and make them our gods. We make our own gods, Martin Luther said, when we put our trust in some physical entity or value.[3] Too often we are guilty of making money, pleasure, power, or our ...

4. Suffering And Service

Isaiah 51:17--52:12

Sermon

Douglas J. Deuel

... function only for the saints. As long as we place our trust in humans and institutions (including the church) made up of humans, we will be severely disappointed. Somehow we have forgotten the lessons of history. Throughout history humankind has shown a propensity for cruelty and hatred to one another. From the medieval days to the Crusades to the Nazi occupation in Germany to the bloodshed of Rwanda, people have shown an unrelenting creativity in dispensing evil toward one another. Human sin is such that ...

5. Milestones And Mustard Seeds

Luke 17:1-10

Sermon

John G. Lynn

... feet with her tears he had said, "Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Go in peace." With the traps of betrayal and denial set clearly on the road ahead, no wonder the disciples wanted more faith. They wanted to be healed of their propensities to fall into traps. They wanted to go in peace. Sometimes the snares in our lives are like those around that seminary in Kurseong -- little wire webs to keep us from moving into villages where it would be helpful for us to go. Only faith -- the disciples ...

6. Black Preaching: A Four-Cornered Universe

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

... integrity of scripture. In other words, extant in black preaching is a cultural hermeneutic or a biblical dynamic always closely approximating the mood, ambiance, and aesthetics of scriptural passages while coalescing them with the cultural ethos and linguistic propensities of black audiences. These portraits of the text are disseminated in the idioms which are very close to both biblical and contemporary milieu. While the structural norms of exegesis may not always be followed closely, black sermonizing ...

7. God Works Through Opposites

Matthew 21:1-11

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... wonder that evil and oppression are still the order of the day, and that God still seems so powerless. It is all because we have a God who works through contrasts - who kills in order to make alive, who wounds in order to heal. God's propensity to work through opposites - to use means which are entirely contrary to the ends which he aims to achieve - is apparent in today's second lesson from Philippians. In that text, Paul outlines how God revealed himself and his purposes through his Son. The eternal and ...

8. The Footwashing

Luke 7:36-50

Sermon

... At least he had no time for the strange woman because he had little or no need for forgiveness. He thought of himself as a righteous individual; all was well between him and God. He fell victim to the plague that preys on religious people - the propensity for judging other people instead of loving, forgiving, and serving them. A sense of selfrighteousness deceives us into thinking that we are God instead of his forgiven children. And that cuts us off from the fullness of life God offers us in Christ. It was ...

9. Talents and Trust

Matthew 25:14-30

Sermon

... enables us to take, to make use of the talents and gifts he has entrusted to us. Sure it’s scary. Few things worthwhile are not. That’s life, and God called it good. But what about the persistent old problem of sin and human cussedness - the propensity to screw things up? God does not leave us alone. As Sustainer and Sanctifier of life, God continues to meddle in our affairs. As counselor, God’s Spirit gently and persistently guides us - and guides us always back to the God who says, "Go on. Live the ...

10. The Level Ground Beneath The Cross

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

Sermon

Bill Bouknight

... 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, was invited to Harvard to speak on the topic ...

11. What Is Heaven Like?

Matthew 13:44-46, Matthew 13:31-35

Sermon

Brett Blair

... officer." "My dear," replied his wife, "if I had married him, he'd be the chief executive officer and you'd be the gas station attendant." Yes, we often think we have the proper perspective on an issue when in fact we are way off. Jesus understood this propensity for us humans to get it wrong. Especially when it comes to things spiritual. So he told a few parables. He said the kingdom of heaven is like: I A small seed. A mustard seed to be precise. Why did Jesus choose such a small item to represent ...

12. Your Undivided Attention, Please

Deuteronomy 6:1-25

Sermon

Alton F. Wedel

... . And worst of all, that first and basic sin when we enthrone ourselves as center of the empire and surround ourselves like little kings with all the alms we have solicited from God to serve our comforts and our needs and our insatiable appetite for things - that propensity is also ours. "My business, sir, is to solicit alms. I do not run errands." Hear, O Israel: Your attention, please: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Stick it in your ear and paste it on your forehead, but the change is in your heart ...

13. In Praise of Feeling Guilty

Psalm 51:1-19

Sermon

Gregory J. Johanson

... , for instance, demonstrate that we do have the possibility of control over even body processes formerly thought completely involuntary. This leads to the third element in why feeling guilty went out of style: c) Rebellion - a complex interplay of changing technology and the very human propensity of, "I’ll see for myself." "To some extent all of us repeat the experience of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, seeking to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in order to find out for ourselves ...

14. The Star Thrower

Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... stay our minds on and be staid. That's it: the Heavenly Star Thrower wants to stay our minds so we carry neither praise nor blame too far. I Consider first the matter of praise. One need not look long to see humanity's age-old propensity to carry praise too far. Consider, for example, some of the titles of rulers of the past: Alexander the Great, Herod the Great, Caesar Augustus, Antiochus Epiphanes, meaning the manifestation of the Divine. Can you hear it now? Governor Pataki the Great, or President Bill ...

15. Journey To Jerusalem

Luke 9:51-56

Sermon

Brett Blair

... rows on top of each other, he imagined that they could bring to focus a picture. Bingo! The results were better than anything the world of science had ever conceived. What did Farnsworth invent? Television. It was his vivid imagination coupled with a propensity toward science that has literally changed the world. But unfortunately he was not credited with the idea since he was only 14 years old. Two business men, George Everson and Les Gorrell took an interest in Farnsworth and invested their life savings ...

16. God Shows No Partiality

Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... can't associate with us." Someone took a poll once in a particular denomination and found that three-fourths of the members of that church thought they would go to heaven. But they were sure that only one-fourth of their neighbors would. Such is our propensity to take upon ourselves the judgments that belong only to God and to shut out others from our exclusive club. But Peter, in our Old Testament lesson, has learned differently. That strange vision that he had from God, the arrival of the delegation from ...

17. Don't Forget the Mustard

Luke 17:1-10

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... to embody salt's preservative qualities. In being light to the world, we help bring revelation and wholeness to those in the world through Christ. In being mustard to the world, we not only enliven it, but we bring mustard's healing propensities to it, and help create preservation and promote wholeness. The mustard seed "resists infection and adversity." (Clement of Alexandria, as quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary, II, Mark 4:30-34). In being like mustard, we through faith in Christ resist infection ...

18. Orient Your "itudes"

Mark 1:21-28

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Money Magazine has selected its top "Sin Stocks." If you're going to invest in companies that make money out of our propensity to sin, here are the top Seven Deadly Sin Stocks, the stocks that will give you the greatest return on your investment (Money Magazine (November 2002), 2): 1. Lust: Playboy Enterprises 2. Anger: World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) 3. Avarice: Trump Hotels & Casinos 4. Sloth: La-Z-Boy 5. Envy: Allergan ( ...

19. Your Word is Your Bond

Matthew 5:33-37

Sermon

James Merritt

... your ‘No,' ‘No.'" That one statement speaks to a real problem we have in our society today, which is lying. The Institute of Behavior Motivation has found that 97 out of 100 people tell lies, and on average tell about 1,000 lies a year. This propensity to lie, cheat, deceive, shade the truth, has affected how we see ourselves and how we see each other. Several years ago the Roper Organization surveyed the public about its perceptions of who's telling the truth. In this study people said that the clergy ...

20. Denial Ain’t a River in Egypt

Isaiah 64:1-9

Sermon

Schuyler Rhodes

... God hides from people? Does God back off and leave us without help — void of resources or possibilities? Do we think, in our misbehavior, our disrespect, and our downright disobedience, that God responds by taking a vacation? Or could it be that we have a propensity, a predisposition, and a quiet willingness if you will, to slide into lives of gentle unconsciousness? It does, after all, seem a lot easier when we don't have to confront the collection of life's messes that surround us. Could it be that in ...

21. Blessed are the Poor in Spirit

John 20:24-31, John 20:19-23

Sermon

Mike Ripski

... . She described it as emptiness. She called it her darkness. Despite her constant requests for intimacy, blessed assurance, and joy, God gave her instead not what she asked for but what she needed. Some believe that she came to see that, due to her propensity toward the sin of pride, God gave her his absence to remind her that whatever she accomplished and whatever accolades she received, including the Nobel Peace Prize, it was of God’s doing and not her own. She came to see her suffering the same ...

22. God Loses, So We Can Win

Genesis 32:22-32

Sermon

Mike Ripski

... in which Jacob has Esau by the heel, grabbing him, trying to pull him back, so he’d win the birth race rather than Esau. There’s a good bit of research literature out today about how we are genetically hardwired for certain personality traits and behavioral propensities. As we get to know Esau and Jacob it’s like each of them was hardwired for the status the other got. Jacob thought he should be No. 1. He spent his life seeking to rectify the injustice. He spent his life seeking to be blessed – as ...

23. Whose Inheritance Is It?

Ephesians 1:11-23

Sermon

Donna Schaper

... the debt we owe to our Creator God, and giving it the nuance of our personal assembly, our personal "get up and go," we then return to the extraordinary dependency we have on God. Some of us get good chemistry in our brains; others get a propensity for depression. Some of us get good genes; others get early cancer. There are degrees and layers of awesome chance in the very physical make up that we have. Each is created and developed, made and given, determined and wildly open and free. There is an ...

24. Discipline and Means of Grace

Romans 12:1-8

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... Through the years Christians have used various means of reflections, including journaling. It is only as we examine ourselves in regular periods of reflection that we are able to see particular weaknesses gradually transformed. That gives us hope that current weaknesses — a propensity toward fear, for example will also be transformed. It’s exciting to see a weakness torn out or strength strongly planted in a moment of exhilarating prayer; but most often, God brings virtues out of us like a plant out of ...

25. Sick People Like Us Will Always Need The (Divine) Doctor

Matthew 9:9-13

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... Of course, you will say that you are no Pharisee. But how welcoming are you and I to the sort of folks Jesus accepted? In fact, you and I are no better than they are. In the church, there is another way of reinforcing these Pharisaic propensities. We speak of growing in grace. One of the most popular religious best-sellers in history, dealing with our purpose in life, tells readers that "God wants you to grow up ... It takes an intentional commitment."3 "We can get better," the most influential preachers in ...

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