Paul and Tim Tebow – Two Abnormal Births

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul is speaking of the absolutely essential nature of the resurrection with regard to our faith.  Along the way, he gives strong evidence for the resurrection and discusses his own “abnormal” or “untimely” spiritual birth.  Tim Tebow’s own unusual birth story is well-known, so I won’t explain it here: here’s Randy Alcorn’s summary if you want details.

Tebow’s physical birth is a huge story of God’s grace and power, just like the story of Paul’s spiritual birth.  This is how I worded the connection between them:

“Tim’s birth was abnormal.  He almost died twice – once at the hands of the strong medicine, and once through the doctors’ medical advice.  But this situation wasn’t too much for God; it wasn’t too late for Him to intervene and bring His magnificent, glorious grace to the situation.  In Tim’s physical birth, and in Paul’s spiritual birth, He has shown that He is a God of great grace.”

From there, I think it is relatively easy to use both of these stories as pictures of God’s great grace in saving ALL of us.  My heart was no less in need of redemption than Paul’s heart.  In fact, I wasn’t preaching on 1 Corinthians 15 as my main text when I used this.  I used that passage as a cross-reference to my primary text, and then I used the Tebow story.

So, this illustration could be used for a lot of passages that deal with the miracle of God’s grace: Romans 3, Romans 5, Romans 6, 1 Corinthians 15, 2 Corinthians 8:9, 2 Corinthians 9:8, Galatians 1 (also about Paul’s story), Ephesians 1, Ephesians 2, 1 Timothy 1:14, 2 Timothy 1:9, and many more.

The Presidents’ Club – “Yes” Men

I’m reading an eye-opening book called The Presidents’ Club right now, about the very influential relationships between current and former presidents.  It’s rich with illustrative material and very enjoyable.  I recommend it to you.  I will be placing several illustrations from the book on this site over the next few days and weeks.

Here’s one I’ve already used:

The introduction to the book talks about the value of advice from former presidents to current presidents.  One of the valuable things about this is that advice from former to current presidents is often more straightforward.  Current presidents have so much power that the advisors around them are tempted to simply become “yes” men, just so that they will remain in favor with the president.  The lure of presidential power is too tantalizing to these advisors.

However, former presidents are not really swayed by that power, and thus are able to give more free advice and counsel.  Current presidents often see this as extremely valuable in crisis situations, even when they are from a different political party.  Quite often at strategic moments in history, advice of this sort has been gladly received from across the political aisle – for example, from Hoover to Truman during the post-WWII European food crisis, and from Eisenhower to Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I used this to illustrate the biblical principle that true wisdom is humble and teachable, seeking more than the counsel of “yes” men.  Rehoboam in I Kings 13 clearly was not concerned with truly wise advice.  He rejected the elders’ counsel before he ever went to his young friends; that tells me that he already had his plan in mind and was only looking for the counsel of “yes” men.  That was a big part of such a foolish decision, which cost him most of the kingdom.

This could be used for many other biblical passages that deal with wisdom, counsel, and humility: 2 Samuel 22:28, 1 Kings 3, 1 Kings 12, Psalm 25:9, Psalm 147:6, Proverbs 1, Proverbs 2, Proverbs 15:22, Proverbs 16:18, Daniel 4, James 4:6 and 10, and 1 Peter 3:8

Top 5 Deathbed Regrets

My wife sent me this article today, written by a palliative nurse, who lists the top 5 regrets people have revealed to her on their deathbeds.  She says these are the 5 most common, although it is unclear to me whether she actually tabulated the regrets given to her and came up with this statistical result.  That doesn’t really blunt the power of the article, though.

I think any of the five or perhaps all five could be used as part of any sermon dealing with life and death (Mark 8:36), the brevity of life (James 4:13-17), or having an eternal perspective (Psalm 39).  Below are her five, with other passages that could be used with each one.  I think it would be ok to use just one in a sermon.  You could say something like, “A palliative nurse compiled the 5 most common deathbed regrets, and one of the five dealt with exactly what we’re talking about.  It was ______.”

Here are the five:

1)  I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. [In this case, I’m thinking of it more like: “I wish I had lived a life true to God’s calling, instead of letting peer pressure or the world influence me as much as they did.”  The REAL life lived true to ourselves is the one lived in line with the purpose for which God made us.]

Daniel 3, Acts 5:29

2) I wish I didn’t work so hard.

Matthew 6:19-21, Matthew 6:24-34, Mark 8:36

3) I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

Ephesians 4:15, James 3

4) I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

Proverbs 18:24, Acts 20 (Paul’s closeness with the Ephesian believers), 2 Timothy 4:9-18

5) I wish that I had let myself be happier.

John 10:10, Philippians 4

 

By the way, you could also use this whole article as a contrast between the author’s this-worldly understanding of “happiness” (which seems to end when someone achieves “peace” and then dies) and the Bible’s infinitely deeper, eternal joy in the presence of Christ.  That would work with Matthew 25, Revelation 5, Revelation 21, Revelation 22, and plenty of others.   [I write all these references out so that they will show up when people search on particular texts.  I’m still trying to figure out how to make tag searches work like I want them to.]

Chandler: Human History from Heaven’s Perspective

In his book To Live is Christ, to Die is Gain, Matt Chandler makes a great statement about how, once we are in heaven, history will be rewritten for us: “The day will come – perhaps today – when you will die and see all of history being effectively rewritten from the halls of heaven.  The annals of history will not be filled with wars and kings; there will be one story, the heroes will be missionaries, and the victor will be seen clearly as Christ.  Knowing this, who cares if friends or enemies mock you?  Do not be ‘frightened in anything by your opponents’ (Phil. 1:28).  Be willing to get on a plane and go to dangerous places.  Be willing to take the pay cut at work to do what’s right.  Be willing, no matter who your opponent is, to be fearless.”

Chandler is illustrating Philippians 1:27-28 here.  I pictured history being rewound and then replayed for me, and most of the moments that I thought were big didn’t even show up in the footage, and tons of moments that I didn’t even know about loomed large in God’s TRUE version of human history.

 

This thought is helpful for Philippians 1 as Chandler uses it, but also would work with passages about suffering like Matthew 5 (esp.  verses 10-12), Romans 8 (verse 18), 2 Corinthians 11, or 2 Corinthians 12.  Also, it fits with any of the passages about Christian martyrs, like Acts 7 or 12.  You could also use it with missions-oriented passages like Matthew 28 or Acts 1, or passages that speak to the perspective of earthly approval/fame vs. your soul/eternal rewards – like Matthew 16 (verse 26 in particular), Matthew 25 (esp. verse 31 and following), Revelation 20, or Revelation 22.

Berlin Wall

Every time I read the second half of Ephesians 2, I think of the Berlin Wall.  The Berlin Wall is a great illustration of Christ tearing down the dividing wall of hostility, but not just because there is a wall that gets torn down in both instances.  There are so many more parallels between the two events that offer ripe illustrative material.  Here are three:

1) The Berlin Wall brought oppression, bondage, and imprisonment, just like sin did to us.  Christ liberates us from sin just like the tearing down of the wall liberated the East Germans.

2) The Berlin Wall brought disunity and division between people who had once been family members, friends, and neighbors – just like sin brings division, strife, war, and disunity between all people and even in the Church (if we aren’t living according to the truth of the gospel).  Christ defeats that disunity and creates “in Himself one new man…resulting in peace” (Eph. 2:15, HCSB).  Jesus brings this unity to ALL believers from ALL backgrounds – see Galatians 3:28.

3) After the Berlin Wall came down, the celebration was epic.  After the gospel brings us forgiveness, adoption, and reconciliation with God and one another, our lives should erupt in worshipful living and singing.

 

Could be used with: Isaiah 60, Matthew 28, Acts 1, Acts 15, Galatians 3, Ephesians 2 (and large parts of the whole book of Ephesians), Revelation 5 (especially verses 9-10)

Getting to the Root of the Problem

My Honda Pilot’s map light went out, and you don’t realize how much you use those until they die.  I didn’t know how to change the bulb, so next time I went in for some other maintenance work, I asked the service representative to have it fixed.  He comes back a little bit later and tells me that it is not a bulb problem; instead, the socket itself has a short and needs to be replaced.  It would’ve been over $1oo and I was already having some other expensive work done, so, needless to say, my map light is STILL out.

I could have replaced bulbs in that map light 100 times, but until I got down to the real problem, the map light would not have worked.  The bulbs not lighting up was just a symptom of a deeper problem.  We try a lot of things to give us happiness, forgiveness, peace, and fulfillment, but nothing is going to work until we get past the symptoms and deal with the ROOT of the problem.  Only the gospel of Jesus Christ does that.  The Holy Spirit has to come in and rip out that old nature (like the shorted-out socket) and put in a whole new nature.

This could work with Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 36, 2 Corinthians 5 (especially verse 17), Hebrews 8, and a lot of other passages dealing with sin, regeneration, and the gospel.

Chris Christie and Heaping Hot Coals

I used this a while back in a sermon to show the truth of Scripture’s admonition to love and bless your enemies, by which you heap hot coals on their head and receive reward from the Lord (Proverbs 25:21-22, Romans 12:20).

At the end of a gubernatorial debate, Chris Christie and his opponent Barbara Buono were both asked to share something nice (link includes video clip) about their opponents.  Buono took the opportunity to get in another jab, which initially looks like a positive for her in the debate.

“Well he’s good on late night TV, he’s just not so good in New Jersey,” she said as the crowd cheered.

Christie, instead, really DID say something nice, and the truth of Scripture became obvious.  The Washington Examiner even referenced the Scriptural idea of “heaping hot coals” in their article title that I linked to above.

“She’s obviously a good and caring mother and someone who cares deeply about public service in this state and she’s dedicated a lot of her life to it,” Christie said.  “And while we have policy disagreements, Christine, I would never denigrate her service and I think we need more people who care enough about our communities to be able to stand up and do the job that she’s done over the last 20 years.”

A brilliant political move, but it worked because it is God’s truth.

Would work with: Proverbs 25, Romans 12, 2 Kings 6, Exodus 23

 

 

The Songhai of West Africa

Found this in the International Mission Board‘s 10th edition of a prayer guide called “Loving the Lost of the Word Through Prayer.” I can’t find a PDF of it online, but you can order it for free here.  It’s a good resource to order in bulk and distribute to your church to get them thinking and praying missionally.

The Songhai of West Africa, descendants of an old African empire, don’t sing – they think that singing is the work of slaves.  Missionaries are working to reach them, so that the song of Christ may fill their hearts.

The miracle of the gospel leads us to worship through song – there’s a surface-level illustration here.  But not only that, the belief of the Songhai that singing is for slaves is interesting.  Essentially, from the Christian perspective, they’re right; we are slaves to Christ, and we sing in joyful acknowledgement of the slavery that has truly set us free.

 

I think this could illustrate these (and, of course, plenty more) passages: Matthew 25, Romans 6, Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 12, 1 Peter 2, Ephesians 6, Galatians 5

Dr. Mohler’s Books for Summer Reading

Dr. Albert Mohler, president of my alma mater (Southern Seminary), publishes a great list each year of books for summer reading.  Here it is.  I ended up adding all of them to my Amazon Wish List.  Well, to one of my Amazon Wish Lists – the one I reserve for History/Politics.  These wish lists are helpful for you to keep track of stuff you might get later – I need that, because whenever I am given a gift card, I experience this phenomenon in which all the stuff I’ve been thinking about purchasing flies out of my head.  Also, those wish lists are good for wives, church members, etc., who are thinking about getting you a gift.  You can make each list public or private.

Dr. Mohler’s list is always very interesting and full of military history, which I love.  It’s also ripe for illustrative material.  Check it out if you can.

Why?

I am a full-time senior pastor, and I think writing good illustrations is one of the hardest parts of preparing sermons.  It has been one of the areas I have had to work on the most in attempting to become a more faithful steward of the undeserved privilege of speaking God’s Word to God’s people.

I have tried to come up with personal practices that capture illustrations as I notice them – even if I have no idea when I will use said illustration.  And in my own reading, I try to select books that will provide great source material for interesting illustrations.  To that end, and with the knowledge that I still need much growth in every aspect of preaching, I am starting this blog and Twitter account (@Sermonillustr8r) to be of help to other pastors.  God bless your ministry!

 

Matt