Plan for: Thanksgiving | Advent | Christmas

Sermon Illustrations

Jack was a man whose whole life fell apart in the span of about a year. His wife left him because he was a workaholic. His 15 year old daughter left home, his college age son dropped out of school, and the business he had built up collapsed around him. His business partner turned against him. And then on top of that he found out he had an advanced form of bone cancer.

In desperation he sought out religion to help him through the disaster, but religion offered him no answer. He tried self-help books, but they didn’t help either. Then he started reading the Bible. There was nothing there for him either. Then one day he got to the gospels and began to read about Jesus. It struck him that the Jesus he was reading about was different from the Jesus he remembered from Sunday school decades ago. This Jesus was involved in the lives of real people, people experiencing divorce and separation, alienation and illness, disappointment and even death. In the process he forgot about why he had opened the Bible in the first place--to find a cure for the cancer. He found Jesus gradually become visible to him.

Three months later when the cancer claimed his life, he was found in bed surrounded by notebooks full of all the things he had discovered about Jesus. And the remarkable thing was that when they gathered for the funeral there in the front row sat his wife, his daughter and grandson, and his son, and even his business partner. Each one stood to tell the story about how, in the last several months, their lives had been touched by the gift of grace through this man. Each had...

Continue reading this sermon illustration (Free with PRO)

Related Sermon Illustrations

  • Richard Moss Said, "The Greatest Gift You Can ...  PRO

    Contributed by Pat Cook on Aug 12, 2005
    based on 4 ratings
     | 4,076 views

    Richard Moss said, “The greatest gift you can give another is the purity of your attention.” That’s ...read more

  • Connected But Not Altered  PRO

    Contributed by Jim Kane on May 6, 2002
    based on 177 ratings
     | 8,992 views

    CONNECTED BUT NOT ALTERED David Yarborough tells the story from one of Max Lucado’s books of a lady who had a small house on the seashore of Ireland at the turn of the century was quite wealthy but also quite frugal. The people were surprised, then, when she decided to be among the first to have ...read more

  • I Loved You Enough  PRO

    Contributed by Bruce Landry on May 11, 2002
    based on 9 ratings
     | 3,250 views

    I Loved You Enough “You don’t love me!” How many times have your kids laid that one on you? Someday when my children are old enough to understand the logic motivation a mother, I’ll tell them: · I loved you enough to bug you about where you were going and what time you would get home. · I loved ...read more

  • Listen To What Shakespeare Has Macbeth Saying: ...  PRO

    Contributed by Martin Wiles on May 6, 2002
    based on 32 ratings
     | 3,356 views

    Listen to what Shakespeare has Macbeth saying: “Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, Out, brief candle Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player ...read more

  • Mother's Love  PRO

    Contributed by Bruce Landry on May 11, 2002
    based on 4 ratings
     | 5,008 views

    Mother’s Love A Mother’s love is something that no one can explain, It is made of deep devotion and of sacrifice and pain, It is endless and unselfish and enduring come what may For nothing can destroy it or take that love away... It is patient and forgiving when all others are forsaking, And ...read more

Related Sermons