This is an illustration I came across last week. I was preaching about how the gospel of Jesus Christ shows up in so many of our great stories. The gospel is about what God has done for us—all that we cannot and could not do for ourselves—has been done through the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is good news—it is joyous news. Talk about joyous news…Ice Cream is good for you! Even if we don’t know why.
When trying to illustrate a point in my preaching, I try to find topics that are non-controversial or at least non-partisan. This last week I used the idea of Gun Rights vs. Responsible restrictions on those rights to talk about the balance between Rights and Responsibilities. I’m sure there are going to be folks who think I leaned too far one way or the other when describing the debate. In any case, I kept trying to come up with an example that might highlight how those on the Left also want to defend certain rights and ignore responsibilities. This is what I came up with but—with a sermon much longer than it should be—didn’t have space for.
Pastor Tim’s Summer Reading Group: Calling All Fans of well written History
I’m in the mood this summer to do some reading, and I love history when it is delivered well. So I am inviting you to join me in reading three books between now and September.
I found a wonderful illustration while preparing for Sunday’s sermon, The Gospel According to Aladdin/Disney. In the sermon I talked about how all of us were brought into this world to reflect the image of God that is within us. I wanted to use this story but ran out of time. Thank goodness I’ve got this blog so I can work in what I regrettably cut out and left on my study floor.
Archived Posts
Not Just for Parents
Our current sermon series is about How To Talk Parent, but it doesn’t require any of us to be parents to appreciate the bits of wisdom OUR parents shared with us growing up.
If Not Higher
Here’s a story I wanted to use when talking about ‘what you do when no one is looking’ yesterday. It’s a wonderful illustration of what Jesus was saying in Matthew 6:1-6—do what you do because of who you want to be, not so that others will take notice and praise you.
The Perfect Church
There is an old joke about the perfect church. We talked just a little about the perfect pastor, but turnabout is fair play. It goes like this:
The Clothes You Wear
Sunday I talked about Joshua the High Priest having his filthy clothing replaced by a cleaned and beautiful garments. I also used the illustration of a boy becomes a dragon—who ‘wears’ dragon scales—and is stripped of those scales in order to be restored to a boy. In fact, I could have done the whole sermon around all the clothing imagery in scripture.
What just missed the cut for Sunday’s Sermon
Naaman’s servants may actually become one of the hidden gems of the sermon. They say, essentially: “If the prophet had told you to do something difficult, you would have done it.”