Sermon Illustrations on Glorifying God

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“An Old Man with a White Beard”

Author

Keywords

Scripture

John 1:14, John 14:9, Revelation 1:12-16, Philippians 2:5-7, 2 Corinthians 4:4, Hebrews 1:3, Colossians 1:15-16

My friend and colleague Keas Keasler, who teaches a class on spiritual formation, recently asked the class to close their eyes and picture God. After a few moments he had them open their eyes and, if ...

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Seeing Through the Lens of Jesus

Author

Shane Claiborne

Keywords

Scripture

Colossians 2:9, John 14:9, Hebrews 1:3, John 1:18, 2 Corinthians 4:6, Philippians 2:6-7

By the way, I have terrible eyesight. When I don’t have my glasses on, I can see shapes and forms and colors, but not much else. And that’s sort of what I think it’s like to look at God without Jesus....

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Connecting Glory and Epiphany

Author

Fleming Rutledge

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 33:18-23, Isaiah 53:2-5, Zechariah 9:9-10, Matthew 5:3-12 , Philippians 2:5-11, Psalm 24:7-10

How does the theme of glory that predominates in Epiphany fit with the large amount of space devoted to the Sermon on the Mount during the season? It all depends on what one means by glory. The “g...

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Ratatouille and Surrendering to God

Author

Casey Clark

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 8:6-11, 1 Corinthians 2:16, Galatians 2:20, Colossians 3:3, Philippians 2:5

When we watch cartoons, it is fun to see the way we can so easily allow some of the craziest stuff to just be taken at face value. Movements that don’t follow the laws of physics? Sure. Talking animal...

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Beethoven is Everything

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Scripture

1 Chronicles 29:10-13 , Daniel 2:19-23, Philippians 2:3-11, 1 Corinthians 3:5-7 , Psalm 115:1

The renowned conductor Arturo Toscanini once led a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in London. His mastery and the orchestra’s precision resulted in thunderous applause from the audience. At ...

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The Self-Miniaturization Of God

Author

Frederick Dale Bruner

Keywords

Scripture

Colossians 1:15, John 1:14, Hebrews 1:3, John 14:9, Philippians 2:6-7

Origen, in the third century, had a great analogy. He told of a village with a huge statue—so immense you couldn’t see exactly what it was supposed to represent. Finally, someone miniaturized the stat...

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The Paradox of a Healing God and a Sick World

Author

Andy Reimer

Keywords

Scripture

Philippians 2:25-27, Hebrews 9:27, Romans 8:22-23, John 11:25, Revelation 21:4, 2 Kings 13:14

I believe that it is the paradox between serving a healing God and the persistence of illness and even death that ultimately lies behind most theological debates about divine healing in the Church. ...

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God is a Gentleman

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 11:2, Ecclesiastes 3:1, Matthew 7:12, Philippians 2:3-4, Psalm 138:6

Frank Buchman, an American Lutheran who founded the First Century Christian Fellowship in 1921, later renamed the Oxford Group in 1928, was known for his belief in divine guidance. One evening, Presid...

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The Roots of the English Word “Worship”

Author

Fleming Rutledge

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 9:6-7, Micah 5:2, 1 Kings 8:10-11, Matthew 2:1-12, Philippians 2:6-11 , Psalm 95:6-7

In the English language, worship is an important word. It comes from ancient Anglo-Saxon and means “worth-ship”—to ascribe ultimate worth to something or someone. Matthew is portraying the nature of t...

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Celebrities vs. Saints

Author

Ben Lansing and D. J.Marotta

Keywords

Scripture

Micah 6:8, 1 Samuel 16:6–7, Isaiah 42:1–3, Matthew 5:14–16, Philippians 2:3–8, Psalm 1:1–3

The saints of the church flicker like candles along a dark corridor. They are not 1400-watt LED floodlights to blind you with their brilliance; those are the celebrities. A celebrity is a flashbulb st...

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Remembering who we are and whose we are

Author

Mia Levetan

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 8:1, Genesis 19:29, Exodus 2:24, Exodus 6:5, Exodus 13:3, Exodus 32:13, Leviticus 26:42-45, Deuteronomy 4:10, Deuteronomy 8:2, 18, Judges 3:7, Psalm 78:11, 1 Samuel 1:11, 19, Psalm 63:6, Psalm 74:2, Psalm 77:11, Psalm 78:35, 42, Psalm 105:42, Psalm 106:45, Psalm 111:5, Psalm 119:52, 55, Psalm 143:5, Isaiah 44:21, Isaiah 57:11, Jeremiah 14:21, Jeremiah 51:50, Jonah 2:7, Mark 14:72, Matthew 26:75, Luke 22:61, Luke 22:19, Matthew 27:33-55, Mark 15:22-41, Luke 23:33-49, John 19:16-30, 1 Corinthians 1:18, Philippians 2:8, Hebrews 12:2

God remembers Noah. God remembers Abram. God remembers Lot. God remembers the Israelites. The Israelites, in the book of Judges, do not remember God—this was their problem. God remembers Hannah. The P...

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A Glimpse of Eternal Life

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 25:35-40, James 1:27, Philippians 2:3-4, John 13:3-5, Micah 6:8, Isaiah 58:6-7, 1 John 3:18

An ancient legend tells of a well-respected rabbi who would vanish from his synagogue for a few hours each Sabbath. His mysterious absences sparked curiosity among his students, who wondered if their ...

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One of the Great Ironies of Sin

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 23:12, Romans 12:3, 1 Peter 5:5, Daniel 4:37, Philippians 2:3-4

One of the great ironies of sin is that when human beings try to become more than human beings, to be as gods, they fall to become lower than human beings. To be your own God and live for your own glo...

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Clashing Kingdoms

Author

Eugene Cho

Keywords

Scripture

John 18:36, Matthew 6:9-10, Matthew 6:33, Luke 17:20-21, Matthew 5:3, 10, Philippians 2:9-11

While I don’t agree with late professor and scholar Marcus Borg on significant theological positions, I appreciate how he described the context surrounding Jesus’ new paradigm of kingdom living: In hi...

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Three Perspectives on Work

Author

Source Unknown

Keywords

Scripture

Hebrews 6:10, Matthew 5:16, Proverbs 16:3, Philippians 2:13, Ephesians 2:10, 1 Corinthians 15:58

In 1927 Bruce Barton wrote a multi-faceted parable that is believed to be based on a true story. This story is related to the work of Sir Christopher Wren, whose design of St. Paul’s Cathedral in Lond...

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Our Character

Author

Dan B. Allender

Keywords

Scripture

1 Timothy 4:12, Galatians 5:22-23, Philippians 2:15, 2 Peter 1:5-7, Proverbs 27:17, Romans 5:3-4, Genesis 1:27

The actual word in the Greek—charaktér—originally was used in connection with tools designed for engraving. And character is indeed a tool that marks us—that in one sense cuts us, shapes us, and engra...

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Identity and Achievement at L'Arche

Author

Henri J. M. Nouwen

Keywords

Scripture

Galatians 1:10, Philippians 2:3-4, Matthew 23:1-12, 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, James 4:1-10, 1 Peter 5:1-11

All of us struggle with our own desires for accomplishment and ambition. Christians especially find it difficult to discern their own worldly ambitions vs. following Jesus’ comand to seek first the ki...

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Kingdom-Based Coffee

Author

Jonathan Walton

Keywords

Scripture

Colossians 3:23-24, Galatians 6:9-10, Philippians 2:4, Matthew 5:16, Proverbs 31:8-9, James 1:27

Brandon and Faith Lee, who started Bird and Branch Coffee, are what faithful witnesses look like. When they sat down across from my wife and me, they had a dream to start a coffee shop that would serv...

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The Cave

Author

William Rowley

Keywords

Scripture

1 Corinthians 12:8-12, John 1:, John 17:18, Philippians 2:6-11, 1 John 1:7, Romans 8:1, Colossians 1:13-14

The Cave One of the most famous passages in Plato's Republic is his "Allegory of the Cave," which is found at the beginning of book seven . Socrates imagines the human condition al...

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The Child Born in the Night Among Beasts

Author

Frederick Buechner

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 7:14, Micah 5:2-4, 1 Kings 19:11-13, Luke 2:6-7, Philippians 2:5-8, Psalm 22:6-8 , Matthew 1:22-25

In this excerpt, Frederick Buechner shares a meditation on the vulnerability of Jesus’ birth: The child born in the night among beasts. The sweet breath and steaming dung of beasts. And nothing is...

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A Dream of Immanuel

Author

James Bryan Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:23, John 1:14, Philippians 2:6-8, Hebrews 2:14, John 3:16

When he was a young boy, twelfth-century church leader Bernard of Clairvaux fell asleep outside a church while waiting to go in for a Christmas Eve service. In his sleep he had a dream, a kind of visi...

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Christian Love: The Antithesis of Envy

Author

Robert C. Roberts

Keywords

Scripture

1 Peter 2:1, Galatians 5:26, 1 Corinthians 13:4, 1 Corinthians 12:12-13, Philippians 2:3-4

The Christian’s self-understanding is that she is precious before God—however much a sinner, however much a failure (or success) she may be by the standards of worldly comparisons—and that every other...

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Don’t Look Down But Up

Author

Rowan Williams

Keywords

Scripture

Hebrews 10:24-25, Philippians 2:3-4, Ephesians 4:2, Romans 12:10, 1 Peter 5:5

In his excellent book on the desert fathers, Where God Happens , former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams tells of an encounter between two monastic fathers. The first was Macarius, famous in...

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The Danger of Service Alone

Author

Thomas Merton

Keywords

Scripture

Philippians 2:3-8, Colossians 3:23-24, Mark 10:42-45, 1 John 4:19, Luke 10:38-42

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...

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Dying for His Subjects

Author

Charles Colson

Keywords

Scripture

John 15:13, Isaiah 53:5, Philippians 2:8-11, Romans 5:8, Hebrews 12:28, Revelation 17:14, Revelation 19:16

When I was in Moscow in 1990 preaching at the Moscow Baptist Church, just blocks from the Kremlin, I told a packed crowd of worshipers that all through human history, as far back as recorded time and ...

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The Keys of Death are In the Savior’s Hands

Author

Charles E. Hill

Keywords

Scripture

Revelation 3:7, Philippians 2:null, Revelation 14:13

Christ descended into Hades so that you and I would not have to. Christ descended to Hades so that we might ascend to heaven. Christ entered the realm of death, the realm of the strong enemy, and came...

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Read any study on human satisfaction

Author

Bryan C. Loritts

Keywords

Scripture

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 , Genesis 2:18, 1 Samuel 18:1-4, Mark 8:36, Philippians 2:3-4, Psalm 133:1

Read any study on human satisfaction and you will see the paramount role of relationships with others. And yet, so many of us readily exchange friendship and community for success and achievement, onl...

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Is it in You?

Author

David Lomas

Keywords

Scripture

John 7:38, Ezekiel 3:26-27, Philippians 2:13, Luke 6:45, 2 Corinthians 13:5

This may be a corny illustration, but I think about the Gatorade commercial where they ask, “Is it in you?” It shows athletes literally sweating Gatorade out of their pores. The point is that since Ga...

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The Origins of “Servant Leadership”

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Philippians 2:5-8, Mark 10:45, John 13:3-5, 12-15 , Matthew 25:21, Colossians 3:23-24, Matthew 6:3-4, 1 Peter 5:5-6

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 ...

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Casey at the Bat

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 16:18, Proverbs 11:2, Proverbs 29:23, Proverbs 8:23, James 4:6, Proverbs 16:5, 1 John 2:16, Philippians 2:3, Jeremiah 9:23, Daniel 4:28-33

“Casey at the Bat” has got to be the most well-known sports poem in American history. The “Mudville nine” are down four to two, with one inning left with two outs. Two men wait at second and third bas...

Sermon Illustrations on glorifying god

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