Sermon Illustrations on sustainer

“When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman” (Gen 12:14). What is considered beautiful is one of those things that often goes without being said. Sarah was about...

The word stewardship has recently fallen on hard times. To many it’s no longer relevant to the day in which we live. To some it’s a religious cliché used to make fund-raising sound spiritual. It conju...

In 1989, the advertising world welcomed a new icon into the world. It was pink, it was furry, it wore sunglasses, and sported a drum-set. Can you picture him? It’s the Energizer bunny. Television scre...

Consider the banyan tree, a remarkable species found in India and other subtropical regions. As it grows, its sprawling branches become increasingly heavy. But instead of breaking under their own weig...

Almost as important as oxygen for human survival is hope. According to Dr. Arnold Hutschnecker, “Since my early years as a physician, I learned that taking away hope is, to most people, like pronounci...

A friend of mine once remarked that how we care for the land often mirrors how we care for those dependent on it, especially women and children. Is our attitude one of entitlement and privilege? Do we...

The author John Steinbeck once wrote a letter to the diplomat Adlai Stevenson, which was later published in the Washington Post in January of 1960. In it Steinbeck said, “A strange species we are. We ...

In the growth cycle of fruit-bearing plants, fruit comes at the very end. The cycle starts with a seed being planted in the ground. When watered, the seed will break open and begin to put down roots. ...

On the fifteenth of each month, Alicia has thirty dollars withdrawn from her checking account to sponsor Belyse, a beautiful, brown-eyed girl from Kenya, who then gets school and a hot meal each day. ...

Every meal—not just Communion, but including Communion—is a reminder that we are dependent on God as creatures. We are not self-sustaining. Much of our food is grown, processed, distributed, and possi...

Awesome stuff never satisfies. Nothing in the entire physical, created world can give rest, peace, identity, meaning, purpose, or lasting contentment to your awe-craving heart. Looking to stuff to sat...

Contentment is when we tell the Shepherd that His provision is enough for all our physical and material needs. If our old car gimps down the road, that is fine. If we get a shiny newer auto with less ...

If you think of your identity and heart as an engine, you could say there is a kind of fuel that powers it cleanly and efficiently—and a kind of fuel that is not only polluting but also destroys the e...

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I made the long drive from San Antonio, Texas, to Pasadena, California, where we now reside. We passed through hundreds of miles of southwestern desert, most of whic...

Sabbath honors the necessary wisdom of dormancy. If certain plant species, for example, do not lie dormant for winter, they will not bear fruit in the spring. If this continues for more than a season,...

A. Parnell Bailey visited an orange grove where an irrigation pump had broken down. The season was unusually dry and some of the trees were beginning to die for lack of water. The man giving the tour ...

The man who is wise, therefore, will see his life as more like a reservoir than a canal. The canal simultaneously pours out what it receives; the reservoir retains the water till it is filled, then di...

I was listening to a show on the National Geographic channel. Two deep-sea diving experts were discussing the physics of a submarine. I found it fascinating that every square inch of a submarine’s hul...

Tolerating absence is, in essence, trusting presence—even when the one who is present to us is not physically present. Think of the two-year-old gradually loosening his clinging grasp to the leg of hi...

There once was a town high in the Alps that straddled the banks of a beautiful stream. The stream was fed by springs that were old as the earth and deep as the sea.  The water was clear like crysta...

Is your job demanding more from you than ever before? Do you feel as if you’re working additional hours but rarely getting ahead? Is your mobile device leashing you to your job 24/7? Do you feel exhau...

Spiritual nourishment cannot be seen purely in our outward behavior. The process of sanctification is a deeply internal process. Outside growth is merely a symptom, and acting better does not mean our...

Patience is more than endurance. A saint's life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, and He stretches and strains...

When we focus on saving our own life we lose sight of the source of life itself—it’s as productive as trying to conserve our air supply by breathing into a plastic bag. Just as our lungs need a consta...

We all need [blessing] desperately. It is the one great need we all share in common. We were born for it and there is no lasting joy without it. What oxygen is for the lungs and protein for the body, ...

While I was at a concert in college, I responded to a flyer requesting volunteers to sponsor a child overseas. For years I read the letters from this little girl in El Salvador. Ruth seemed happy to b...

Abide is an old English word for “remain,” “stay steady” and “keep your position.” What it means to abide in Christ—that is, always to be resting on him, anchored to him, fixed in him, drawing from hi...

Joy’s trick is to supply  Dry lips with what can cool and slake,  Leaving them dumbstruck also with an  ache Nothing can satisfy.

An Irish Catholic priest, returning to his old parish in the warmth of spring, was delighted to spot an elderly man he had long known. “Pat!” he called out cheerfully. “You’re still with us—I’m glad t...

One of the stunning realities of the Christian life is that in a world where everything is in some state of decay, God’s mercies never grow old. They never run out. They never are ill timed. They neve...