Sermon Illustrations on loving others as yourself

Not long before his death, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke to the congregation at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church: If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. An...

Let me tell you the story of a great missionary named Frank C. Laubach (1884–1970). He grew up in the farming community of Benton, PA, and served as a Congregationalist missionary in the Philippines. ...

Imagine making the shape of a valentine heart with your hands and holding it up to your face. That’s the posture of seeing with compassion. You might picture yourself looking through the heart at a pe...

Once, while on vacation, on our way to church, Terri and I got into a disagreement over something. When I felt I was losing, to make my point, I stopped the car and got out. We were on a country road....

The basis of life is people and how they relate to each other. Our success, fulfillment, and happiness depend upon our ability to relate effectively. The best way to become a person that others are dr...

I heard a story about a little boy who wanted to give God an offering but had nothing to give. He sat on the floor, watching people pass by and place their offerings in large wicker baskets. How he lo...

In this beautiful illustration from Tom Long’s well-known preaching guide, The Witness of Preaching , a pastor shares a true story of what valuing human life can look like when God’s Kingdom takes ro...

I am among the minority of people who are hardwired (genetic science now demonstrates this) to loathe cilantro. I can’t stand it. I call it the adolescent of herbs: notice me, notice me, NOTICE ME! To...

What he [Jesus] was attempting to instill in his disciples was the attitude of a servant: humility and a willingness to put others ahead of oneself. In that culture, washing the feet of others would s...

The apostle Paul said, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on thin...

To become peacemakers, then, we must begin with ourselves. We must ask ourselves, “Why do I make cutting remarks to another person? Why do I make demeaning remarks about them?” We must also ask oursel...

R.W. DeHann wrote of a missionary who, shortly after arriving on the field, was speaking for the first time to a group of villagers. He was trying to present the gospel to them. He began by describing...

Identities—what makes us who we are, the kind of people we are—is what we love. More specifically, our identity is shaped by what we ultimately love or what we love as ultimate—what, at the end of the...

One of my favorite Bible illustrations of someone willing to go against the norms of society to befriend another based on love and forgiveness is found in the New Testament book of Philemon. It is a m...

The Golden Result is a corollary to the Golden Rule, which calls us to do to others as we would have them do to us. The Golden Result says that people will usually treat us as we treat them. If we bla...

One of the most powerful expressions of humble, servant-like caring for others is found in C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce , in the character of Sarah Smith of Golders Green. Her quiet life of love tra...

In The Good and Beautiful God , James Bryan Smith describes a new Christian he happened to know who came to him one day feeling dejected. He was so excited to be a follower of Jesus, but he just co...

We need silence in our lives. We even desire it. But when we enter into silence we encounter a lot of inner noises, often so disturbing that a busy and distracting life seems preferable to a time of s...

Perhaps the greatest irony in the life of continual comparison is that while it involves so much attention to the attributes and gifts of other people, it’s actually quite self-focused. From that hype...

The fact that our works are done in the service of God is not enough, by itself, to prevent us from losing our interior life if we let them devour all our time and all our strength. Work is good and n...

The Swiss-German novelist Hermann Hesse published a short story in 1932 called "Journey to the East." In it, a group of men go on a long journey. Throughout their trip, they are accompanied ...

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart,” said the apostle Paul, “as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” (Colossians 3:23) ...[H]ow you do anything is how you’ll do everything. Dr. ...

Kevin Vanhoozer draws on 1 Corinthians 4 to argue powerfully for reading and teaching the Bible as drama. As Paul talks about his apostolic ministry, he says this: “For, I think, God has exhibite...

We can learn a thing or two about discipleship and the discipline required of a disciple from our fourth-century monastic brothers and sisters. Like them, we do basic, ordinary activities every day. W...

Editor’s Note: The following illustration came from one of my own (Stu’s) sermons, as I was trying to help the congregation make a paradigm shift from the church as a building, to the people of God: ...

Some years ago, the syndicated newspaper columnist Sidney J. Harris shared an interesting anecdote from one of his friends. Each evening, this friend would stop at the same newsstand to buy a newspape...

Please know that when I take up my cross every day I am not talking about my wheelchair. My wheelchair is not my cross to bear. Neither is your cane or walker your cross. Neither is your dead-end job ...

I heard about a woman who married a very demanding, hard, and unloving man. Her husband made her existence miserable by presenting her with a list of his demands and expectations… The woman’s husband ...

During my training [as a therapist], a supervisor once told me, “There’s something likable in everyone,” and to my great surprise, I found that she was right. It’s impossible to get to know people dee...

Where do you turn for marriage advice when you aren’t religious? This is becoming an ever-increasing question as western cultures become more and more secular. One option is to turn to the London-base...