Sermon Illustrations on God's Love

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The Love of God Wrapped About Him

Author

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 4:1-3, Psalm 30:5, Romans 8:28, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, Psalm 34:18, Isaiah 43:2, Psalm 23:4, Job 1:, Job 2:, Job 42:, 2 Samuel 11:, 2 Samuel 12:, Genesis 37:12-36, 1 Kings 17:8-24, Daniel 6:, Psalm 34:18

The sense of Presence! I have spoken of it as stealing on one unawares. It is recorded of John Wilhelm Rowntree that as he left a great physician’s office, where he had just been told that his advanci...

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A Love that Will Not Let Me Go

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 29:15–30, Job 1:2, 19:25, Isaiah 54:4–10 , John 21:15–19, Romans 8:35–39, Psalm 34:18

George Matheson was just entering the bewildering teenage years when doctors informed him he was going blind. Undeterred, he pressed on with his education and graduated from the University of Glasgow ...

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Falling in Love with a Pronoun

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

John 3:16, Romans 8:38, 1 John 4:7-10

John Newton, the former slave ship crewman turned pastor and writer of Amazing Grace, fell in love with a particular pronoun in the well-known passage of John 3:16. He put it this way, “If I read ‘Go...

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“I love you, my son. I will answer your prayers.”

Author

Tod E. Bolsinger

Keywords

Scripture

1 John 3:1

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...

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The Sap, the Strong Bond of Love

Author

Daniel Bourguet

Keywords

Scripture

John 15:1-16, Luke 19:1-10, John 4:7-26, John 21:15-19, Galatians 5:22-23, Ephesians 3:17-19

The strong bond that unites the vine and the branches has to do with the sap that flows through them. Jesus does not here use the word “sap,” but nonetheless gives a lengthy excursus on love in a way ...

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Putting us in our True Place

Author

M. Basil Pennington

Keywords

The fact is there is nothing that we are doing that God could not raise up a stone in the ﬁeld to do for him. The realization of this puts us in our true place. Though, lest we get too knocked down by...

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Kindness and the Character of God

Author

Christopher H. J. Wright

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 34:6–7, Genesis 39:21, Micah 6:8, Titus 3:4–5, Luke 6:35–36, Psalm 136:1

In the Old Testament, God is often praised for his kindness. There is a beautiful word in Hebrew— hesed —which is so rich in meaning that it gets translated in many ways. Very often it is translat...

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God Speaks, God Listens Too

Author

Adam S. McHugh

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 18:22-33, Exodus 3:1-12 , 1 Kings 19:9-13, John 5:19-30, John 16:12-15, Psalm 116:1-2

The God who shares power is a listener. Listening is not something that becomes necessary for God only after the world is created. Listening is who God is. In God’s very being, communication does not ...

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What Matters Supremely

Author

James I. Packer

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 49:15-16, Galatians 4:9, John 10:14-15, Matthew 10:29-31, John 17:9-10

What matters supremely, therefore, is not, in last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it- that He knows me. I am graven on the palms of His hands. I am never out o...

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The Three Most Longed-for Words

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Scripture

Jeremiah 31:3, Isaiah 1:18, Exodus 16:4-15 , John 3:16, Luke 15:11-32, Psalm 23:5, Mark 14:22-26, Luke 22:14-23, 1 Corinthians 11:23-25

Mark Rutland humorously recalls a survey asking Americans which words they most long to hear. As expected, the top response was, “ I love you. ” The second was, “ I forgive you .” ...

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What God Do You Believe In?

Author

Timothy R. Jennings

Keywords

Scripture

Galatians 5:22-23, Ephesians 3:17-19, Philippians 4:8, 1 John 4:16, Romans 12:2

In The God-Shaped Brain , medical doctor Timothy Jennings various aspects of our God-given brains, how they function, and how they can be optimized for a full-life. In this excerpt, he describes the ...

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Desperate for Attention

Author

Ashley Hales

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 16:13, Exodus 33:14, Isaiah 49:15–16, Matthew 18:3–4, Luke 15:20–24, Psalm 139:1–3

We’re little children wandering the aisles of the internet because we’ve lost the presence of our loving parent. We are desperate for the attention of a good Father who sees us. We have no idea how to...

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Søren Kierkegaard’s Advice on Reading the Bible

Author

Phillip Yancey

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 22:1-14, Exodus 14:21-31, Micah 6:6-8, Matthew 22:36-40 , James 1:22-25, Psalm 119:105

Søren Kierkegaard offers two suggestions for the reader who tackles difficult portions of the Bible. First, read it like a love letter, he says. As you struggle with language, culture, and other barri...

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Shadowed by the Illusory Person

Author

Thomas Merton

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 27:18-29, Exodus 3:11-14, Ecclesiastes 2:10-11, Luke 15:11-32, Matthew 23:27-28 , Psalm 139:23-24

Thomas Merton once said, “Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self, This is the man I want myself to be but who cannot exist, because God does not know anything about him. A...

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God Hinting

Author

Debra Hirsch

Keywords

Scripture

1 Corinthians 7:1-9, Matthew 19:3-12 , Psalm 139:13-16 , Genesis 2:18-25, Song of Solomon 4:1-16, Proverbs 5:15-19, Genesis 2:18

James Nelson describes sexuality as the central clue to what God is up to in the world. While this might seem a little over the top, when you think about it, sexuality factors integrally in our relati...

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Prayer: When Words Become Superfluous

Author

Carlo Carretto

Keywords

Prayer is like love. Words pour at first. Then we are more silent and can communicate in monosyllables. In difficulties a gesture is enough, a word, or nothing at all—love is enough. Thus the time com...

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Our God is Great as God is Good

Author

Gardner C. Taylor

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 5:8, Psalm 90:2, James 1:17, Psalm 145:3, 1 John 4:8

The great African-American preacher Gardner Taylor, preacher of the Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn for over 40 years, begins one of his sermons with a paean to the God revealed to us in the 66 boo...

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Wound With Mercy Round and Round

Author

James Bryan Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 8:38, Psalm 139:7-10, Luke 15:11-32, Isaiah 54:10, Psalm 103:17-18, Lamentations 3:22-23, Jeremiah 31:3

Nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate us from God’s love. St. Paul reminded the Romans of this when he wrote, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things p...

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The Hound of Heaven

Author

Max Lucado

Keywords

Scripture

Jonah 1:1-4, Genesis 3:8-9, Hosea 3:1, Luke 15:4-7, Psalm 139:7-10, Acts 9:3-6

In 1890 Francis Thompson, a Roman Catholic poet, described God as “The Hound of Heaven”: I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him,...

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The Father is Fond of Me

Author

Brennan Manning

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 33:12-14, Isaiah 43:1-4, Zephaniah 3:17, John 15:9-11, Romans 8:38-39, Psalm 139:1-6, 13-16

Brennan Manning shares a true story about a priest from Detroit who traveled to Ireland to visit family. One morning, he walked along the shores of Lake Killarney with his uncle. As they watched the s...

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40,000 Amalekites

Author

Phillip Yancey

Keywords

Scripture

Deuteronomy 25:4, 1 Samuel 15:2-3, Ezekiel 37:1-14, Matthew 5:38-48, John 6:66-69 , Psalm 103:8-12

The experience of Barry Taylor, former rock musician and now pastor, suggests a reason. He told me, “In the early 1970s my best friend became a Jesus freak. I thought he was crazy, so I started search...

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He’s Quite Fond of Me

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 43:1, Hosea 11:3-4, Zephaniah 3:17, John 15:9, Romans 8:38-39, Psalm 103:13-14

Brennan Manning recounts the story of an Irish priest traveling through a quiet countryside when he comes across an elderly peasant kneeling in prayer by the roadside. Struck by the man’s devotion, th...

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How Americans View God

Author

Baylor University Media Communications

Keywords

The Baylor Religion Survey "is the most extensive and sensitive study of religion ever conducted," aiming to go beyond just whether someone goes to church or believes in God, but probing at...

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The Three Lies

Author

Jennie Allen

Keywords

Scripture

Numbers 13:25-33, Romans 8:38-39, Matthew 10:29-31, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Genesis 1:27, Luke 10:6-7, Ephesians 2:10

My friend Christina, a licensed therapist, tells me that Psychiatry 101 teaches therapists that when you and I choose to believe a lie about ourselves, it’s one of these three lies we believe: I’m he...

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True Justice is Love

Author

John M. Perkins

Keywords

Justice

Scripture

Romans 3:25-26, Zechariah 7:9, Hosea 12:6, Psalm 33:5, Isaiah 30:18, Jeremiah 9:24

For decades I’ve tried to meet people where they hurt. I’ve preached and desired to see “justice for all,” and I still fervently believe in it. God loves justice and wants His people to seek justice (...

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Our Loves Can’t Hold the Weight of our Expectations

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Scripture

John 4:4-26, Genesis 22:1-19, Luke 10:38-42, Mark 10:17-27, Matthew 6:33

The ultimate reason for our misery, however, is that we do not love God supremely. As Augustine so famously put it in prayer, “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they fin...

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The Number Doesn’t Matter

Author

Mia Levetan

Keywords

Scripture

Zechariah 9:9, Isaiah 55:1–3, Exodus 16:1–36, John 21:1–14 , Psalm 23:5

John 21:11 tells us that the disciples caught 153 fish. Why 153? According to John Wesley, the number doesn’t matter. Along the same lines, Karoline Lewis writes, Abundant fish. Don’t meta...

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Love in Action

Author

Dawn Pick Benson

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 25:34-40, John 13:14-15, 1 John 3:17-18, James 2:15-16, James 2:15-16, 2 Corinthians 3:2-3

When I was growing up, my dad was a farmer, not a Christian. He had little interest in faith, having been told by his father that the Bible was a fairy tale. But then a local pastor took an interest i...

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Every Self-Salvation Project

Author

Jen Pollock Michel

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 4:3-7 , Exodus 16:14-20, Psalm 103:10-12 , Ephesians 2:8-9 , Romans 6:23

At the core of every project of self-salvation is the staunch unwillingness to believe that God’s love and forgiveness can be unmerited. Those who would try and save themselves prefer work to rest, ef...

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St. Valentine & The Origin of Being “Your” Valentine

Author

Ben Lansing and D. J.Marotta

Keywords

Scripture

1 Kings 17:17–24, Isaiah 6:8, Exodus 24:3–4, John 15:12–13 , Acts 13:46–49, Psalm 119:105

[Saint] Valentine was a priest in Rome when Emperor Claudius II began his hostile reign. Valentine was arrested for performing Christian weddings. While imprisoned, Valentine befriended the jailer’s d...

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