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 171 results

1. A Sympathetic High Priest

Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... gratitude, no matter how bad things look, Christians see Jesus on the cross and gratefully see God suffer for them, both on Easter and in the tragedies of their own lives. But we Christians also know that Easter is coming. We have hope buoyed by our sympathetic God that things will be all right in the long run. Dietrich Bonhoeffer beautifully reminds us of this realistic hope. As he put it: Where there is still hope, there is no defeat; there may be every kind of weakness, much clamor and complaining, much ...

2. I'm a Chunk of Coal, but I'm Gonna Be a Diamond

Jeremiah 1:1-19

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... the stone's interior. "What have you done to it!" exclaimed the amazed customer. "This is an opal," the jeweler explained. "It is what we call a sympathetic jewel. It needs only to be gripped by a human hand to bring out all the color, depth, and beauty trapped within it." Are you a sympathetic jewel or a Centenary Stone? God's favorite gemstones are the sympathetic jewels – those that only really dazzle and radiate their colors when gripped by another. It is the warmth and life of the hand that sets fire ...

3. Recovering From the Blahs

1 Kings 19:9-18

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... the burden of concern. This is one way we can help the discouraged. Just lend an interested and sympathetic ear to troubled people. Ann Landers reports that she receives daily thousands of letters from people who need to share their problems. We do not have to ... say anything nor give advice. It is a service of sympathetic listening. It helps the discouraged person just to cry on a shoulder. Like Elijah, we have bad news to tell God. A young ...

4. Blinding Specks

Matthew 7:1-6

Sermon

Herchel H. Sheets

... away from our own defects, and when we are forced by untoward events to consider them find it easy to condone them."7 Perhaps then if we gave more attention to the why, and not just to the what, of others’ faults and wrongs, we might be more sympathetic toward them. Robert Burns wrote: Then gently scan your brother man, Still gentler sister woman; Though they may gang a kennin wrang, To step aside is human. One point must still be greatly dark, The moving Why they do it; And just as lamely can ye mark How ...

5. A Cup Running Over

John 11:17-37

Sermon

James W. Robinson

... call to mind that verse in the Letter to the Hebrews, "For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sinning" (4:13). Yes, he is One who is sympathetic enough, and sensitive enough, to burst into tears over a friend’s misfortune. A man, who as a child helped on the route, remembers how his milkman father sang as they made their deliveries early in the morning. I can still hear him (he says), and his voice ...

6. The Baptism of Our Work

2 Thessalonians 3:6-15

Sermon

King Duncan

... coping with a 3 year old, a 1 and 1/2 year old and a new born baby. Her husband came home one day to find five dozen diapers hanging on a line in the back yard. "I saw all the white flags in the backyard," he said sympathetically. "I take it that you have surrendered." There are times when we may be tempted to surrender. Some of us have occupations that are filled with drudgery with few tangible rewards. Yet most of us understand that work is important in our lives even beyond the financial necessity ...

7. Help For Hurting Dads

Galatians 3:15-25

Sermon

King Duncan

... me see that, under the circumstances, he might have done much worse. By the time he died, I can honestly say we were friends." (2) Some Dads have problems that prevent them from being the kind of Dads they should be. Some Dads never had a model for the loving, sympathetic father that their children crave. Some Dads are full of anger, full of selfloathing, full of fear. And to a certain extent they can't help it. But there is a second thing we need to see: IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO BUILD NEW BRIDGES. If you see ...

8. Building A Home

John 14:15-31

Sermon

King Duncan

... how much his family had changed. He was looking forward to two things when he got off the plane: telling his mother how much her letters had meant to him, and hearing his little nephews call him Uncle Michael. Patsy, a mother herself, was able to offer a sympathetic ear. She told him about her son's return from fighting in Guam. When he got off the plane, he pulled Patsy into a long and heartfelt hug. It had meant the world to her. Before the plane landed, Patsy informed a flight attendant about Michael's ...

9. The Proof Is in the Pudding

Exodus 17:1-7

Sermon

David J. Kalas

... the face of troubles and injustices, "O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen?" (Habakkuk 1:2). At Rephidim, the people of Israel voiced such a quintessential question of faith: "Is the Lord among us or not?" We may be instinctively sympathetic with Israel's question, for it may be a question we have asked along the way. In a hospital room, in a financial crisis, in the aftermath of some natural disaster, in the wake of some tragic accident, we have wondered, too: "Is the Lord among ...

10. The Ear, the Tongue, and the Temper: A Lesson in Spiritual Anatomy

James 1:17-27

Sermon

Thomas Lentz

... ... important enough for me to take an hour and a half of my time to listen. Your words and message are of concern to me." Are our ears more attuned to gossip than to the gospel? Which do we listen to more closely? We are called to listen more sympathetically to others. We are called to examine our sense of hearing. Be slow to speak. The power of speech differentiates us from the lower animals. Yet the misuse of it can degrade us lower than any animal. Our speech is one of the most revealing aspects of our ...

11. When Mickey Mouse Recognizes You...

Luke 14:1, 7-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... restaurant in town knows you by name. It’s where you sit at the final banquet table which Christ has prepared for all his saints. Those places are reserved for people with compassionate hearts who are willing to do more than give sympathetic nods to those who are hurting, but will also offer a sympathetic hand. There is an old, old story about a young boy who, on an errand for his mother, had just bought a dozen eggs. Walking out of the store, he tripped and dropped the sack. All the eggs broke, and the ...

12. 2025 Lent Sermon Series

Sermon

Various Authors

... Up For Jesus And What’s Ahead – Philippians 3:4b-14 7. God Doesn’t Always Behave Like We Think He Should – Philippians 2:5-11 8. In the Presence of Christ – 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 9. Look What Happened on the Cross – Hebrews 10:16-25 10. A Sympathetic High Priest - Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9 11. Why the Resurrection Makes Sense – 1 Corinthians 15:19-26 12. Easter Makes Us One! – Acts 10:34-43 Navigating the Sermon in Lent by Various Authors 1. Dust in the Wind - Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 2. A ...

13. Good News Among The Rubble

Luke 21:5-38

Sermon

J. Will Ormond

... able to withstand or contradict." What a challenge and what a promise! Look for opportunities to bear witness to the Christian faith in the worst of circumstances. Many of us find it difficult enough to speak a good word for Jesus Christ when we are in a sympathetic situation, much less when the atmosphere is hostile. We feel that we don't know what to say. We are uncomfortable and hesitant. We fear failure. Can we lay hold of the promise Jesus gave his first disciples? He told them not to worry about what ...

14. Which Way To Jesus?

John 12:20-36

Sermon

Harry N. Huxhold

... who you know." That is true whether you are looking for a job, trying to get tickets to the Final Four, or trying to meet the guest soloist backstage at the symphony. The Greeks went to someone who could understand them and probably would also be sympathetic to them. Philip responded to that well enough. Though he wanted to do something for the strangers, he was rather timid himself. He went to get another Greek-speaking disciple by the name of Andrew, and the two of them were able to usher the Greeks into ...

15. The Perisitent Noise Of Solemn Assemblies

Luke 10:25-37

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... for real reformation. But let it not be that for the church either, knowing that we shall receive the greater judgment. We are called for involvement, for participation in the world. We are called for reform, for new visions of social structuring, for generous and sympathetic aid for the weak and suffering. Christianity is not a religion for the survival of the fittest, or the richest, or the privileged, or the most brutal. It is a religion for the survival of the weak as well as the strong, the poor as ...

16. Learn To Wait Creatively

James 5:7-12

Sermon

Richard Hasler

... First, how do we learn patient waiting? I am convinced that we all need a quiet center where we can go away for a time from our hectic schedules and frantic living and simply learn to be still by engaging in prayer and meditation. In such a sympathetic environment we can learn patient waiting. Of course, saying this is easier than actually doing it. Consider a few practical guidelines. One, it will be helpful if we develop a special time to remind us to cultivate our interior life. I heard of a woman who ...

17. Sermons

Sermon

John R. Bodo

... , frequently overwhelmed. Christians are, for the most part, extremely responsible people. In a nation where at any time millions are in full, headlong flight from responsibility, this is a sincere compliment: to Martha and to most of us who find it easy sympathetically to identify with her. We have among us several million alcoholics who have escaped from responsibility -- into a tragic prison of their own making. We are aware, more dimly but with far greater distaste and fear, of hundreds of thousands of ...

18. The First Hole

Acts 2:42-47

Sermon

Robert R. Kopp

... at its best is about loving like Jesus (invitationally, inclusively, and unconditionally), and met the most influential woman and man of my adolescent years. Grace Blanchard was 104 when she stopped teaching Sunday school. Maybe that's why I'm not especially sympathetic when our most seasoned members cite age for begging off boards, committees, and so on. Besides, the tired, tested, and true always have a lot more to offer than ecclesiastical rookies. That's why our pastor emeritus continues to be so vital ...

19. A Positive Addiction

Romans 1:1-17

Sermon

Robert R. Kopp

... of it will be ours. It will be you shining on others through us. Let us thus praise you in the way you love best by shining on those around us. Let us preach you without preaching not by words, but by our example by the catching force the sympathetic influence of what we do the evident fullness of the love our hearts bear to you. Amen. That's the enfleshment of saying, "Our vocation is to belong to Jesus." Paul Azinger, the great golf champion who was diagnosed with cancer shortly after winning the 1993 PGA ...

20. Welcoming Christ

Romans 14:1--15:13

Sermon

Frank Luchsinger

... months before had been stolen from the back seat of her parents' borrowed car and the wedding was hours away. "I was hysterical, crying, 'My dress has been stolen! We'll have to cancel the wedding!' " "We'll find you a new dress," a friend reassured. A sympathetic security guard heard the commotion and called several stores until he found a store detective at Marshall Fields and asked if he could open the store early so a young lady could shop for a dress and get to her wedding. "My heart really went out to ...

21. Growing No Feathers

Exodus 3:1-22

Sermon

... his own class. And he learned compassion, but his empathy had no outlet. He was Pharaoh's adopted grandson, which made him too close to criticize. With no outlet, one day he exploded! He murdered an Egyptian taskmaster. He killed for a slave. He was so sympathetic, he threw away everything and became an outlaw. God looks for someone who is filled with the compassion of divine will. In 430 B.C. the historian Thucydides recorded: "It was in those who recovered from the plague that the sick and the dying found ...

22. The Pure In Heart

Sermon

John A. Terry

... to ask the teacher's help with a problem she was having. The mother said, "My son has horrible eating habits. Please speak with him. He will listen to you if you tell him to stop eating foods with so much sugar." The teacher listened sympathetically and said, "Please come back in a week and make the request again." The mother agreed and returned seven days later. "My son's problem continues," she said. "I am greatly concerned about his health. He rarely eats vegetables or fruits. Please, won't you talk ...

23. Acquaintances Or Friends?

2 Samuel 16:15--17:29

Sermon

Arthur H. Kolsti

... familiar with David. You may not be as knowledgeable about Jonathan, the eldest son of the tormented first king of Israel, Saul. He is worth knowing. Reflect on his story and a configuration of adjectives will come to mind: generous, gallant, loyal, sympathetic, valiant, magnanimous. Jonathan can be described in all those ways and more. Jonathan enters the biblical narrative in 1 Samuel 14 and there you will meet him serving on the field of battle in his father's army. Jonathan and his armor bearer ...

24. Learning to Live Without Jesus

John 16:5-16, John 15:18--16:4

Sermon

William G. Carter

... added, "I don't know how we're going to live without Jerry."1 Whether or not we know Jerry Garcia and his music, most of us know how difficult it is to say good-bye to a hero. Those of us who belong to the church can be especially sympathetic. For, in a far more profound sense, we too have lost a loved one who has been the center of our lives, the source of our joy, the wellspring of our celebration. Each week we gather in the name of a leader who is not here. And whether or not ...

25. The Pure In Heart

Psalm 42:1-11

Sermon

John A. Terry

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