Sermon Illustrations on Following

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A Literal Kind of Following

Author

Keywords

Scripture

John 15:null

A rabbi’s followers, known as his talmidim in Hebrew, went everywhere with him, not just to hang on his every word and learn theology from him. They followed him everywhere so that they could mimic wh...

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Following Can Be Harder than Leading

Author

Adele Ahlberg Calhoun

Keywords

My experience with following indicates that it can be even more difficult than leading. Following requires humility, risk, attention, awareness and guts. It means serving someone else’s agenda and fol...

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Following: Harder than it Looks

Author

Adele Ahlberg Calhoun

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 9:23, Isaiah 58:11, Psalm 25:4-5, Proverbs 16:9, John 10:27, Matthew 4:19

In her book, Invitations from God, Adele Ahlberg Calhoun shares a great analogy of the difficulty of faithful discipleship: it’s not always easy to follow: Recently I had to follow another car to a ...

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Following Always Includes a Coming Down

Author

Adele Ahlberg Calhoun

Keywords

Scripture

Mark 9:35, Matthew 23:11, Matthew 23:11, Matthew 10:24, Luke 16:13

Following always involves a coming down, a humbling of oneself and a serving of others. Jonathan Edwards, the Puritan theologian, captured this condescension of God in his sermon "The Excellency ...

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The Art of Followship

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Colossians 3:16, Philippians 2:5-7, John 13:34-35, Matthew 11:29, Mark 8:34-35, Luke 9:23

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: ...

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Following a King

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Scripture

1 Peter 2:21, Hebrews 12:2, Philippians 3:8-9, Revelation 17:14, Luke 9:23, John 10:27, Matthew 16:24

The Gospel is not about choosing to follow advice, it’s about being called to follow a King. Not just someone with the power and authority to tell you what needs to be done—but someone with the power ...

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Defining What it Means to “Follow”

Author

Keri Wyatt Kent

Keywords

Following

Jesus made it fairly simple, at least to start. He said, “Follow me.” The word follow, diluted by our culture, begs for a biblical definition. In English, you can follow the directions (or not); you c...

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Where are the Nails?

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Deuteronomy 13:1-3, 1 Kings 22:19-23, Isaiah 53:3-5, Matthew 24:23-25, John 20:27, Psalm 34:18, John 20:25, 1 Corinthians 1:23; 2:2, Galatians 1:8-9

St. Martin of Tours was a Frankish soldier in the Roman army who abandoned his military post to follow Jesus at a time when Christianity had only begun to take root in France. He later became the bish...

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The Difference Between Jesus and Mental Patients

Author

John Stott

Keywords

Some years ago I received a letter from a young man I knew slightly. ‘I have just made a great discovery,’ he wrote. ‘Almighty God had two sons. Jesus Christ was the first; I am the second.’ I glanced...

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God the Father had Two Sons?

Author

John Stott

Keywords

Some years ago I received a letter from a young man I knew slightly. ‘I have just made a great discovery,’ he wrote. ‘Almighty God had two sons. Jesus Christ was the first; I am the second.’ I glanced...

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Playing Second Fiddle

Author

Andy Cook

Keywords

Scripture

1 Peter 5:5, 1 Corinthians 12:25-26, John 3:30, Galatians 5:13, Ephesians 4:2-3, Mark 9:35, Romans 12:10

An Admirer once asked Leonard Bernstein, celebrated orchestra conductor, what was the hardest instrument to play. He replied without hesitation: “Second fiddle. I can always get plenty of first violin...

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Following Jesus Requires Real Commitment

Author

Bradley Long

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 3:5-8, Matthew 22:37, Romans 12:1-2, Luke 14:26-27, Deuteronomy 6:5, Luke 16:13, Mark 12:30, John 14:15, Matthew 16:24-26, Luke 9:59-62, Matthew 6:24, Hebrews 11:13-16, Hebrews 10:38-39, Matthew 6:33-34, Matthew 10:37-39

What are you willing to do for love? An instructor for the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course shared with a class the major hang-up he had to get over before asking his wife to ma...

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Following Your Desires

Author

David Brooks

Keywords

Desire

You follow your desires wherever they take you, and you approve of yourself so long as you are not obviously hurting anyone else. You figure that if the people around you seem to like you, you must be...

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Following the Sunstone

Author

William Rowley

Keywords

Vikings made long open-sea voyages when most European cultures were sticking close to the coasts. This allowed them to reach Iceland, Greenland, and even the tip of North America. But this was long be...

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Following the Good Shepherd’s Voice

Author

Kenneth E. Bailey

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 23:null, Revelation 7:17, 1 Peter 5:2-3, Hebrews 13:20-21, Luke 15:4-5, Ezekiel 34:15-16, Isaiah 40:11

In his excellent study of the famous Biblical passage on shepherds, ( The Good Shepherd: A Thousand Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament) , scholar Ken Bailey provides context to the 23rd...

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A Day with Jesus

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Mark 10:13-16, Luke 19:1-10, Matthew 9:10-13, John 15:15, Mark 5:35-43

A group of fourth-graders at a Christian school was given an assignment to draw what they would like to do if Jesus spent a day with them. After working diligently on their pictures, one little girl a...

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Our Reward

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 4:10, Revelation 3:20, Acts 4:13, Matthew 18:20; 28:20, Isaiah 43:2, Genesis 28:15

*it is possible this story is apocryphal, we were unable to find the original source of the story. Admiral Nelson of the British Navy was renowned for his mastery of naval strategy, a genius fro...

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Suffering is Walking in Jesus' Path

Author

Elizabeth Elliott

Keywords

Scripture

1 Peter 2:21, Luke 9:23, Philippians 3:10, 2 Timothy 2:11-12, Matthew 16:24-25

Amy Carmichael was a passionate missionary to India. She gave her life for the sake of those who had suffered the consequences of an unyielding caste system. She also had her suffering, due to physica...

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Not Like Himself

Author

Andy Stanley

Keywords

Scripture

Mark 2:17, Luke 15:1-2, Luke 19:1-10, Matthew 11:28-30, Romans 5:8, 2 Corinthians 5:18-20

But it wasn’t just his new message that made Jesus irresistible. It was Jesus himself. People who were nothing like him liked him. And Jesus liked people who were nothing like him. Jesus invited unbel...

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The Most Striking Feature of Jesus’ Teaching

Author

John R. W. Stott

Keywords

The most striking feature of the teaching of Jesus is that he was constantly talking about himself. It is true that he spoke much about the fatherhood of God and the kingdom of God. But then he added ...

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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...

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Systems Can’t Fix Us

Author

Dallas Willard

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 5:20, Romans 14:17, Luke 17:20-21, Matthew 28:18-20, Philippians 2:14-15

T. S. Eliot once described the current human endeavor as that of finding a system of order so perfect that we will not have to be good. The way of Jesus tells us, by contrast, that any number of syste...

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How Jesus Prayed

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 1:, Luke 4:16, Luke 2:41-52, Matthew 6:9-13

Many of us may have wondered what types of prayers Jesus would have prayed during his time on planet earth. In his book Praying with the Church , Scot McKnight notes that Jesus and his disciples,...

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Theories about Jesus

Author

N. T. Wright

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 9:6–7 , Micah 5:2, Isaiah 53:3–5 , John 1:1–3, 14, Colossians 2:8–9 , Psalm 2:1–2, 7

We hear of wild new theories about Jesus. Every month or two some publisher comes up with a blockbuster saying that he was a New Age guru, an Egyptian freemason or a hippie revolutionary. Every year o...

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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 ...

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Experiencing Racism at a Bible College

Author

Bryan C. Loritts

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:26-27, Numbers 12:1-10, Isaiah 56:6-7 , Luke 10:25-37, Galatians 3:28, Psalm 34:18

While I was born much too late to be the legal property of a person in America, I have been the recipient of racism. When a classmate called me a racial epithet in my first year of college, I was deva...

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Look Up, See Possibilities

Author

Bruce D. Strom and Eugene Cho

Keywords

Scripture

Hebrews 12:2, Psalm 19:1, 2 Corinthians 4:18, Psalm 123:1, Isaiah 40:26

Maybe this sounds silly, but go outside and look up. You cannot see yourself. All you see is a vast expanse of possibilities. Look down. You will see yourself and little else. This is true in life. Lo...

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Studying our Parts

Author

Brian Dembowczyk

Keywords

Scripture

Philippians 2:5, Ephesians 5:1-2, 1 Peter 2:21, Colossians 3:16, 1 John 2:6, John 13:15

Imagine you were cast to play the role of legendary baseball player Babe Ruth in a biography of his life. You could simply follow the script, reading out what is written. How much better, though, to s...

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Starting With the Boots

Author

R. Kent Hughes

Keywords

Scripture

John 13:14-15, Philippians 2:5-7, Matthew 23:11, James 4:10, Mark 10:45, 1 Peter 5:5-6

In 1878, when William Booth’s Salvation Army was beginning to make its mark, men and women from all over the world began to enlist. One man, who had once dreamed of becoming a bishop, crossed the Atla...

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Christ’s Name

Author

Tertullian

Keywords

Scripture

Revelation 11:15, Matthew 28:19, Galatians 3:28, Matthew 8:10-11, 1 Corinthians 15:25-26

What shall I say of the Romans themselves, who fortify their own empire with garrisons of their own legions, nor can extend the might of their kingdom beyond these nations? But Christ’s name is extend...

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