sermon-illustrations
Featured Illustration
Sight without Vision
Helen Keller, the blind-and-deaf woman who made history by learning to overcome her disabilities, was once asked if there was anything worse than being blind. She answered, “Oh yes! There is something worse than being blind. It is being able to see and not having any vision.”
Search by topic, scripture, category etc..
61 Results in 101ms
Display
Sorted By
-
illustration
The Problem with Apologetics
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
What Trust Looks Like at its Brightest
When most of us grow up in a faith tradition, we begin with an assumption that faith is good, while having doubts is bad. As we mature however, we realize that faith and doubt are not opposites, but i... -
illustration
The Frustrating Unpredictability of Faith
Writing about ministering to postmodern skeptics, Don Everts and Doug Schaupp share a helpful insight into the mystery of God's movement: The first lesson they have taught us about the path to f... -
illustration
Humor Preludes Faith and Begins Prayer
Humor points to faith in that both humor and faith spring up in response to the reality of the paradox and the incongruities at the heart of human experience. But while humor responds well to the lowe... -
illustration
Holding on to a Thread in the Catacombs
In the [Roman] catacombs, we are told, explorers take a thread with them through all the dark passages and tortuous windings, and by this thread they find their way back again to the light. There is s... -
illustration
God loves to use those that the world deems
God loves to use those that the world deems too small, too weak, too insignificant to make a difference. As Francis Schaeffer wrote: Consider the mighty ways in which God used a dead stick of woo... -
illustration
Two Golden Days
There are two golden days in the week, upon which, and about which, I never worry—two carefree days, kept sacredly free from fear and apprehension. One of these days is Yesterday; Yesterday, with its ... -
illustration
Heart & Head?
At a Christian high school, a theology teacher strode to the front of the classroom, where he drew a heart on one side of the blackboard and a brain on the other. The two are as divided as the two sid... -
illustration
Who to Reach for In Death
The story of young Matthew Huffman came across my desk the week I was writing this chapter. He was the six-year-old son of missionaries in Salvador, Brazil. One morning he began to complain of fever. ... -
illustration
How to Face Massive Challenges: Advice from John Wesley
On February 24, 1791, Christian revivalist and pastor John Wesley penned a letter to encourage a Christian walking through some faith challenges: Unless the divine power has raised you up . . . I... -
illustration
The Great Bell that Rings Above the Ears of God
“The Prince of Preachers”, Charles Haddon Spurgeon once shared a thoughtful analogy for the life of prayer in most people’s lives: Prayer pulls the rope down below and the great bell rings above i... -
illustration
The DIfficulty of Grasping the Unsearchable Riches of the Gospel
Some years ago our pastor told an unusual story about a Southern plantation owner who left a $50,000 inheritance to a former slave who had served him faithfully all his life. That was quite a sum of m... -
illustration
An Unlikely Story of Redemption
David (Yonggi) Cho would go on to lead what is recognized as the largest church in the world (the Yoido Full Gospel Church), but his spiritual journey began far from Christianity. Raised as a Buddhist... -
illustration
The Power of a Grateful Heart
Gratitude has a ripple effect, spreading warmth and positivity to those around us. It is nearly impossible to hold onto resentment or self-pity while maintaining a grateful heart. John Kavanaugh share... -
illustration
It is Better to Question than Merely Accept Difficult Circumstances
If the Book of Job reaches across two and a half millennia to teach anything to men and women who consider themselves normal, decent human beings, it is this: Human beings are sure to wander in ignora... -
illustration
The Life-Sustaining Power of Hope
Survival requires more than the basic biological necessities we readily acknowledge—oxygen, food, and water. It also demands something less tangible but equally vital: hope. When hope vanishes, the hu... -
illustration
Soon and Very Soon?
My kids are still young enough that they ask cute questions. My youngest is still learning what all the measurements mean. He’ll ask, “Mom, how long until we leave?” “15 minutes.” “Is that long?” “No,... -
illustration
Blind Bartimaeus and One-Eyed Thor
I absolutely love Marvel movies. I’m talking about Thor, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Black Widow, Guardians of the Galaxy. All of them. In Ragnarok , Thor, the Norse god, played by the incredibly good-... -
illustration
Not Wanting to Let Go of This Life
Ted Williams—often called the greatest hitter in Major League Baseball history—has spent the years since 2002 not in a hall of fame or resting beneath a headstone, but inside an unassuming warehouse n... -
illustration
Are People in the West Abandoning Faith or Just the Church?
In this excerpt, author David Zahl challenges the common belief that religion is “in decline.” He argues that while Westerners, particularly younger generations, may be distancing themselves from the ... -
illustration
Who We Really Are
Speaking on the essential element of gratitude as part of our faith, the Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar once said, “We need only to know who and what we really are to break into spontaneous p... -
illustration
The Proclamation of Good News
When I remember that the literal translation of the term gospel is “good news,” I recall a wonderful encounter with her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. In the summer of 2001, I f... -
illustration
“I will Answer Your Prayers”
One evening after a class in seminary, guest lecturer and Vineyard pastor John Wimber offered to have a prayer session for anyone in the class who needed prayer. Even though I was a student, I was alr... -
illustration
Certainty and a House of Cards
When we aim at certainty when it comes to our Christian beliefs, it sets us up for failure. …Imagine someone with a lot of time on their hands who painstakingly constructs a five-foot-high house of... -
illustration
Not All Who Wander are Lost
In the novel The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien, there is a poem called the “Riddle of Strider.” One stanza goes like this: All that is gold does not glitter; Not all who wan... -
illustration
Hanging Between Heaven and Earth
An atheist fell off a cliff. As he tumbled downward, he caught hold of the branch of a small tree. There he hung between heaven above and the rocks a thousand feet below, knowing he wasn’t going to be... -
illustration
I Won't Believe Unless...
There is a Peanuts cartoon in which Lucy and Charlie Brown are walking home from school. Charlie Brown tells Lucy that he got straight As. Lucy responds, “I won’t believe it unless I see the report ... -
illustration
What Do You Believe Doc?
In a quiet hospital room in North Carolina, an eager young doctor with a bright future evaluates his elderly patient with not much future left at all. She has a terminal heart condition, inoperable. A... -
illustration
Reflecting on Shusaku Endo’s Novel and Film, Silence
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
Certainty vs. Vulnerability
In this excerpt from his book Faith in the Shadows, pastor and author Austin Fischer shares a surprising truth about the need to be vulnerable with our own faith if we are likely to have a positive im...
Page 1 of 3
Index by Topic
A
B
C
- Calling (2)
- Calling On God (1)
- Captives (1)
- Certainty (3)
- Changing Habits (1)
- Changing Ourselves (1)
- Child of God (1)
- Children of God (1)
- Christian Culture (1)
- Christian Identity (2)
- Christian Service (1)
- Christian Tradition (1)
- Christian Values (3)
- Christianity (1)
- Church is the People (1)
- Civil Religion (1)
- Confession of Faith (1)
- Confidence (1)
- Confusion (1)
- Contentment (1)
- Control (1)
- Conversion (2)
- Courage (1)
- Crises (1)
- Crying Out To God (1)
- The Christian Faith (5)
- The Christian Walk (1)
D
E
F
- Faith (61)
- Faith and Doubt (4)
- Faith and Prayer (4)
- Faith in Action (2)
- Faith in Christ (3)
- Faith in the Dark (3)
- Faith of the Church (1)
- Faith Seeking Understanding (3)
- Faithfulness (1)
- Faithlessness (1)
- Fear of Death (1)
- Fears (1)
- Firm Belief (1)
- Following Jesus (1)
- Forgiveness for the Past (1)
- Foundations (1)
- Future (1)
G
- General Revelation (1)
- Generosity (1)
- Giving (1)
- Glorifying God (1)
- Glory (1)
- God (1)
- God's Absence (1)
- God's Abundance (1)
- God's Character (1)
- God's Hands (2)
- God's Power (Omnipotence) (1)
- God's Presence (1)
- God's Pursuit (2)
- God's Unfailing Love (1)
- Going to Church (1)
- Good News (1)
- Good Works (1)
- Gospel (1)
- Grace (3)
- Gratitude (2)
H
I
L
P
- Past, Present and Future (1)
- Patience (1)
- Perseverance (3)
- Perseverance of the Saints (1)
- Persistence (1)
- Perspective (1)
- Physical Blindness (1)
- Polarization (1)
- Positivity (1)
- Postmodernism (1)
- Praise (1)
- Prayer (2)
- Prayer Life (1)
- Praying with Expectance (1)
- Preaching (1)
- Preaching the Gospel (1)
- Presence (3)
- Prisoners (1)
- Private Faith (2)
- Proclamation Of God’s Word (1)
- Promises (1)
- Providence (1)
- Provision (3)
- Public Faith (1)
R
- Raising Children (1)
- Reason (2)
- Reason/Rationality (1)
- Redemption (2)
- Rejecting God (1)
- Relationship with God (1)
- Release (1)
- Religion and Public Life (1)
- Religious Arguments (1)
- Renouncing Faith (1)
- Rescue (1)
- Resilience (1)
- Resurrection (1)
- Revelation (1)
- Risk-Management (1)
- Role Models (1)
- The Resurrection and the Life (1)
S
- Sacred vs. Secular (1)
- Sacrifice (1)
- Sanctification (1)
- Science (2)
- Science and Religion (2)
- Scripture (2)
- Sea (1)
- Secularism (1)
- Seeking God (1)
- Sense of Humor (1)
- Sermons (1)
- Service (1)
- Sickness (1)
- Sight (1)
- Signs (1)
- Silence (1)
- Skepticism (4)
- Slavery (1)
- Spiritual Blindness (2)
- Spiritual Nurture (1)
- Spirituality (1)
- Stories (1)
- Storms (1)
- Strength (2)
- Suffering (1)
- Survival (1)
- The Spiritual Life (1)
T
Index by Reference