Sermon Illustrations on Political Freedom

illustration

We cannot have true justice unless

Author

Keywords

Scripture

Micah 6:8, Exodus 22:21-22 , Isaiah 58:6-7 , Matthew 22:37-39, James 2:1-9 , Psalm 103:6

We cannot have true justice unless it is motivated by love, just as God’s greatest act of justice, sending Jesus to die for us, was motivated by love. Years ago, before the emancipation of slaves, Fre...

illustration

A Venomous Creature At Your Bosom

Author

Frederick Douglass

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 25:40, Jeremiah 22:3, James 2:1, Psalm 82:3-4, Micah 6:8

Frederick Douglass describes how the evils of slavery and racism acts as a sap on the integrity of both our country and our faith in a God where there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free: Fello...

illustration

They Came for Me

Author

Martin Niemoeller

Keywords

Scripture

James 2:15-16, Hebrews 13:3, Matthew 25:35-36, Micah 6:8, Jeremiah 22:3

In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the...

illustration

Justice is Personal

Author

Andy Crouch

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 25:40, Leviticus 19:15, Galatians 3:28, James 2:8-9, Amos 5:24, Micah 6:8, Isaiah 1:17

When did the topic of justice become important to you?” Gideon Strauss posed that question to two dozen people crammed into our living room one fall evening in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Some of us wer...

illustration

Seeing Through the Eyes of Jesus

Author

Richard J. Mouw

Keywords

Scripture

Micah 6:8, Exodus 23:2–3, 6, Proverbs 31:8–9, James 2:12–13 , Luke 6:36–37, Psalm 103:8–10

Christian civility does not commit us to a relativistic perspective. Being civil doesn’t mean that we cannot criticize what goes on around us. …Civility is a different matter, though. I can treat ...

illustration

The True Test of Faith

Author

Brennan Manning

Keywords

Scripture

1 Samuel 16:7, Micah 6:8, Proverbs 22:2 , James 2:1-4, Luke 14:12-14 , Psalm 146:3-7

Impostors draw their identity not only from achievements but from interpersonal relationships. They want to stand well with people of prominence because that enhances a person’s résumé and sense of se...

illustration

Race and Friendship

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Colossians 3:11, 1 Corinthians 12:25-26, Romans 12:10, James 2:1, Galatians 3:28

In a 2009 stand-up special, Chris Rock made a funny, and perhaps true, statement: “All my black friends have a bunch of white friends. And all my white friends have one black friend.” It turns out, R...

illustration

A Christianity for Those with their Backs Against the Wall

Author

Howard Thurman

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 3:7–10, Isaiah 58:6–10 , Amos 5:21–24, Luke 4:16–21, James 2:1–7, Psalm 9:9–10

I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that I have heard a sermon on the meaning of religion, of Christianity, to the man who stands with his back against the wall. It is urgent th...

illustration

The Justice System for the Rich and Poor

Author

Jonathan Walton

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 2:11, James 2:1-4, Psalm 82:3-4, Zechariah 7:9-10, Proverbs 21:15

Robert H. Richards and Ethan Couch illustrate how opportunity bends toward affluent white males. Richards was found guilty of raping his three-year-old daughter, but because of his connection to the D...

illustration

The Problem with the Human Race

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Scripture

Galatians 3:10, Psalm 130:3-4, 2 Corinthians 5:10, Ecclesiastes 12:14, James 2:10

Imagine you have an invisible recorder around your neck that, for all your life, records every time you say to somebody else, “You ought.” It only turns on when you tell somebody else how to live. In ...

illustration

Hard to Care about Anything

Author

Lily Rothman

Keywords

Scripture

Galatians 6:9, James 2:14-17, 1 John 3:18, Revelation 3:15-16, James 4:17, Hebrews 6:11-12, 1 John 3:17, Romans 12:11

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, a pervasive sense of societal malaise seems to be affecting a significant portion of the population. Journalist and managing editor of Time , Lily Rothman, ...

illustration

Reflecting on Shusaku Endo’s Novel and Film, Silence

Author

Nikki Toyama-Szeto

Keywords

Scripture

1 Peter 2:12, Galatians 3:26-28, 1 Corinthians 12:12-13, John 13:34-35, Acts 2:42-47, Matthew 28:19-20, James 2:17-18

In Silence, Shusaku Endo writes of the journey of Portuguese Jesuits journeying to Japan. It is a conversation about those who intend to take the path of Jesus, only to find they are on the path of Ju...

illustration

This-Sidedness and Other-Sidedness

Author

Thomas Kelly

Keywords

Scripture

Micah 6:8, Colossians 3:2, Isaiah 58:10, John 6:27, James 2:15-17, Matthew 6:33

In his excellent little book, A Testament of Devotion , written almost a hundred years ago, Thomas Kelly describes the tension that all ministries must live in; the focus on this world or the wor...

illustration

An Eye for an Eye

Author

James S. Hewett

Keywords

Scripture

James 2:13, Matthew 5:7, Zechariah 7:9-10, Proverbs 21:3, Micah 6:8

Zaleusus flourished as king of the ancient Greek Locrians in about 500 B.C. His government over the Locrians was severe but just. In one of his decrees he forbade the use of wine unless it were prescr...

illustration

Justice as the Source of Conversion

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 21:2, Revelation 20:12, James 2:12-13, Matthew 12:36-37, 2 Corinthians 5:10, Romans 14:12, Hebrews 9:27

W.H. Auden is one of the greatest poets of the 20th Century, who grew up in England but who spent some of his life in the United States. In November 1939 he found himself in a German-language movie th...

illustration

Pursuing the Common Good Throughout History

Author

Don Everts

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 22:39, Philippians 2:3-4, 1 Corinthians 10:24, Romans 15:1-2, Galatians 6:10, Romans 12:10, Acts 20:35, Matthew 25:35-40, Isaiah 58:6-7, Proverbs 19:17, Luke 10:30-37, James 2:15-16, 1 John 3:17, Proverbs 31:8-9, Matthew 25:40, Acts 11:29-30, 2 Corinthians 8:13-15, Acts 2:44-45, Acts 4:32-35, 1 Corinthians 12:25-26

Pursuing the common good has been a strong marker of the Christian church from the very beginning. The early church had many habits that they became known for, of course—including meeting frequently, ...

illustration

A Better And Wiser Judge

Author

Source Unknown

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 21:2, Revelation 20:12, James 2:12-13, 2 Corinthians 5:10, Romans 14:12

Horace Gray was a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. During one of his cases, a criminal was about to be released, not because he was innocent, but because of a technicality. As Gray prepared to relea...

illustration

What is Faith? Is it a Way of Knowing?

Author

Travis Dickinson

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 15:1-6, Exodus 14:10-14, Joshua 1:9, Psalm 23:, James 2:14-26

There’s no shortage of the religiously faithless who seem eager to tell us what faith is. Many of these characterizations of faith are reminiscent of Mark Twain’s precocious schoolboy who quipped, “Fa...

illustration

Belief, Explained

Author

James I. Packer

Keywords

Scripture

Mark 12:30-31, James 1:22, James 2:14-17, 1 John 3:18, Hebrews 11:1, 2 Corinthians 5:17, John 1:12

When people are asked what they believe in, they give, not merely different answers, but different sorts of answers. Someone might say, “I believe in UFOs”—that means, I think UFOs are real. “I believ...

illustration

The Bible & The Land

Author

Desmond Tutu

Keywords

Scripture

Leviticus 19:18, Isaiah 58:6-7, Galatians 3:28, James 2:1-9, Psalm 82:3

There is a story, which is fairly well known, about when the missionaries came to Africa. They had the Bible and we, the natives, had the land. They said “Let us pray,” and we dutifully shut our eyes....

illustration

Is Faith Blind?

Author

John Piper

Keywords

Faith

Scripture

Psalm 19:1-2, 2 Timothy 1:12, John 14:11, Proverbs 3:5-6, James 2:18, Romans 1:20, 1 Peter 3:15

In his book, A Peculiar Glory , John Piper provides an illustration of the kind of faith we are called to. This is no “blind faith,” in which we are supposed to simply believe without using our minds...

illustration

Dawkins View of Faith (For Contrast)

Author

Richard Dawkins

Keywords

Scripture

James 2:18, Romans 10:17, John 20:29, 1 Peter 3:15, Romans 1:20

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence…. Faith, being belief that isn...

illustration

The Problem with Apologetics

Author

Joshua Chatraw and Jack Carson

Keywords

Scripture

1 Corinthians 13:2, James 2:19-20, 1 Corinthians 8:1-2, Ecclesiastes 1:18, 1 Corinthians 2:5, Philippians 3:10, Matthew 7:21, 24-27, James 1:22

The Oxford scholar and apologist C. S. Lewis... once closed a lecture to a group of apologists like this: I have found that nothing is more dangerous to one’s own faith than the work of an apologis...

illustration

Saving Souls Without Discipling?

Author

Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:28, James 2:15-17, Romans 12:2, Isaiah 58:6-7, Micah 6:8, Colossians 1:19-20, Matthew 28:19-20

I had just finished presenting much of the material in this chapter [on the role of the Church helping the poor] to an audience in Africa. A very tall and muscular African man in the audience approach...

illustration

Be a Catalyst for Change

Author

David Peterson

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 3:7-8, James 2:15-17, Luke 10:25-37, Proverbs 3:27, Micah 6:8, Matthew 5:16

At the 5-mile mark in the Old Kent Riverbank Run a guy passing me said, “Hey buddy, you dropped your key.” There was no getting home without my key. Like a salmon swimming upstream I headed back into ...

illustration

Leo Tolstoy, the great writer, famously renounced

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 58:6–9, Micah 6:6–8, 1 Samuel 16:7, Matthew 23:25–28, James 2:14–17, Psalm 51:16–17

Leo Tolstoy, the great writer, famously renounced his inherited wealth and chose to live as an ascetic and hermit in his later years. One of his disciples, a writer named Chertkov, was a wealthy arist...

illustration

Realizing We are Biased

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Scripture

James 2:1-9, Leviticus 19:15, Deuteronomy 1:17, Romans 2:1-11

When I went to seminary to prepare for the ministry, I met an African-American student, Elward Ellis, who befriended both my future wife, Kathy Kristy, and me. He gave us gracious but bare-knuckled me...

illustration

Becoming Aware of Our Lenses

Author

E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien

Keywords

Scripture

Ephesians 4:25, Colossians 3:9, Psalm 15:1-2, James 2:1-4, Romans 2:11, 1 Corinthians 10:23-33

In their excellent book Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes, E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien share the importance of recognizing the lens through which see the world: We speak as insi...

illustration

Tell Them About the Dream, Martin!

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 5:9, James 2:8, Proverbs 21:3, Romans 12:21, Isaiah 1:17, Galatians 3:28

Most of us in the United States know the famous “I have a Dream” speech Martin Luther King Jr. gave at the Lincoln Memorial as part of the 1963 March on Washington. On a sweltering, humid day in the n...

illustration

These Impious Galileans

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 22:37-39, Matthew 25:35-40, Luke 3:11, Ephesians 5:2, Acts 2:42-47, James 2:14-17, Galatians 2:10, Psalm 72:12-14

A passage often referred to in order to describe the sacrificial, countercultural quality of the early church comes to us interestingly enough, from one of its strongest critics, known later to histor...

Sermon Illustrations on political freedom

Browse by illustration type

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

Genesis

Exodus

Leviticus

Numbers

Deuteronomy

Joshua

Judges

Ruth

1 Samuel

2 Samuel

1 Kings

2 Kings

1 Chronicles

2 Chronicles

Ezra

Nehemiah

Esther

Job

Psalm

Proverbs

Ecclesiastes

Song of Solomon

Isaiah

Jeremiah

Lamentations