In Sermon Illustrations: "Guard Your Tongue"

Abundant Life  PRO

Contributed by Sermon Central on Apr 7, 2009

ABUNDANT LIFE In December 1990, the threat of war with Iraq was looming. Many reserves and National Guard troops were mobilized. There were some homes where father and mother were both deployed. Recognizing this situation (that both father and mother would be gone overseas), a civic organization ...read more

Scripture: John 10:10

Tags: Joy

Kind Deed Of Pows Saves ...

Contributed by Sermon Central on Oct 16, 2009

Kind Deed of POWs Saves Lives There is a World War II story that shows how the smallest deed can make all the difference. During the last months of the War, the British conducted daily bombing raids over Berlin. One night the bombers were attacked by a large group of German fighter planes. During ...read more

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12:27-28, 1 Corinthians 1:27-29

Tags: Kindness

Catherine Lawes: A Story Of Compassion

Contributed by Sermon Central on Mar 8, 2011

CATHERINE LAWES: A STORY OF COMPASSION Max Lucado relates this story. When Catherine Lawes’ husband, Lewis, became the warden on Sing Sing prison in 1921, she was a young mother of three daughters. Everybody warned her never to step foot inside the walls. But she didn’t listen to them. When the ...read more

Scripture: John 13:34-35

Tags: Compassion

Walk With You  PRO

Contributed by Sermon Central on May 11, 2011

WALK WITH YOU During WW2, two young Jews lived as close friends, (BFFs, we can call them), more than real brothers in a dingy Nazi concentration camp jammed with helpless-hopeless-exhausted-abused Jews. They shared everything, literally everything. One day, one of them felt weak and started to ...read more

Scripture: Proverbs 18:24

Tags: Trials And Difficulties

Freedom

Contributed by Tim Smith on Sep 25, 2016

In the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, VA, there’s a special display for a rickety, home-made aluminum kayak. This tiny, makeshift boat seems oddly out of place in the midst of displays for impressive Navy vessels and artifacts from significant battles on the sea. But a bronze plaque tells museum ...read more

Scripture: Hebrews 12:1-2

Tags: Freedom, Persecution

Denomination: Methodist

The Substitute  PRO

Contributed by Paul Steen on Oct 8, 2016

The Moose was in the game to score. He took the handoff at the five-yard line from the quarterback and stunted to the right. The right guard and tackle had split the defenders and there was a slight hole in the line for him. Moose instantly was in the hole. He put his head down and fought through ...read more

Scripture: Romans 8:3

Tags: Substitute, Substitute Sacrifice, Our Substitute

Denomination: Calvary Chapel

Love Of God

Contributed by Sean Harder on Jun 16, 2010

LOVE OF GOD Let’s say you had a child who kept getting in trouble, you kept bailing him out as a child, and eventually as he grew up even you couldn’t bail him out anymore, you had to let him go live his life the way he was choosing because nothing you or anyone else did could stop ...read more

Tags: God's Love

On Prayer--Part ...

Contributed by Sermon Central on Mar 13, 2009

ON PRAYER--PART 2 Samuel Pepys was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament in the seventeenth century, who is now most famous for his diary. "Prayer is not a lazy substitute for work. It is not a shortcut to skill or knowledge. And sometimes God delays the answer to our prayer in ...read more

Scripture: Matthew 6:5-15

Tags: Prayer How To

Ellen Petrakis  PRO

Contributed by Sermon Central on Jun 18, 2007

ELLEN PETRAKIS Hi guys…this isn’t easy for me to get up here and speak in front of you. I am a kindergarten teacher and do much better speaking to 5 year olds then teenagers. But God impressed on my heart to tell you my story so here it is… I was about 14 years old, just starting high school, when ...read more

Scripture: 2 Peter 1:1-12, 1 Chronicles 10:1, 1 Chronicles 10:1, 1 Chronicles 10:1

Tags: Vision, Missions, Hope, Truth, Blind, Vigilant, Patient, Teacher, Choice, Patience, Respect, Father's Love, Determination, Sexuality, Encouragement, Faithfulness, Story, Wait, Potter, Choose, Reconciliation, Chosen, Sight, Investment, Dedication, Purpose  (view more)  (view less)

Joseph Valachi Was A Gangster Who Worked For ...

Contributed by Austin Mansfield on Sep 22, 2007

Joseph Valachi was a gangster who worked for various crime bosses in the Mafia during the mid-20th Century. He handled mostly low-level criminal activity such as numbers rackets and gambling. Valachi was eventually arrested for dealing heroin, along with his crime boss at the time, Vito Genovese. ...read more

Denomination: Episcopal/Anglican

God: "I Have Time For You"

Contributed by Sermon Central on Mar 28, 2011

GOD: "I HAVE TIME FOR YOU" There’s a great story about a California lady named Francis Green. She was 83 years old. She lived on Social Security. She had little money, but for eight years she’d been sending one dollar a year to the Republican National Convention. Then one day Frances got an RNC ...read more

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12:14-26

Tags: Gratitude

Doing Nothing Is Harder Than I Thought

Contributed by James Snyder on Aug 29, 2020

After being so long in a lockdown situation, the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage planned a short vacation time for us. It took her quite a while to put all of the pieces together, but she succeeded as always. As I was preparing for this little adventure, my wife looked at me and said, ...read more

Scripture: Luke 6:31

Tags: Vacation, Holiday

Denomination: Christian Missionary Alliance

The Parental Challenge Of Helping Teenagers

Contributed by Sermon Central on Jul 30, 2010

The Parental Challenge of Helping Teenagers Face Their World And I wanna share a story with you. It’s a traumatic one and one that actually happened. I did a funeral about four or five years ago and in this funeral it was really bizarre, because as the high schoolers came in about a third of them ...read more

Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 2:11-12

Tags: Death, Parenting

Charlie's Thanksgiving List

Contributed by Perry Hancock on Nov 22, 2022

Charlie’s Thanksgiving List The pastor at the downtown men’s shelter was ready to begin the Thanksgiving service. Everyone was ready for him to begin and finish since the service was before the meal. After a few hymns were sung, it was time for the pastor’s Thanksgiving sermon. This year he had ...read more

Scripture: Psalm 103:2

Tags: Thanksgiving, God's Blessings

Denomination: Baptist

Chuck Mistler Testifies  PRO

Contributed by Izak Shipman on Jun 13, 2002

Chuck Mistler testifies A few years ago, we flew back to California late one Sunday night from a seminar in Washington State. Tired and hungry, we still had to face another one-hour drive home from the airport. Trying to check out of the airport parking lot, we found at least 30 cars in ...read more

Tags: Holiness, Love Of The Disciples

Denomination: Evangelical/Non-Denominational

Radical Faith  PRO

Contributed by Ken Pell on Jan 24, 2011

RADICAL FAITH I want to read to you the opening story from David Platt's book "The Radical Question" (Multnomah Press). Imagine a scene that took place in Asia not so long ago: A room in an ordinary house, dimly lit, all the blinds on the windows closed. Twenty leaders from churches in the ...read more

Scripture: Revelation 12:10-17

Tags: Persecution, Better Together

Denomination: Nazarene

Works-Driven Rituals

Contributed by Sermon Central on Aug 4, 2011

WORKS-DRIVEN RITUALS Every year a great throng of people make pilgrimage to the Shrine of Guadalupe in Mexico, a site where supposedly the Virgin Mary once stood...however unlikely that is. They go there hoping to get her attention, and to get her to intervene for them with her son Jesus. They ...read more

Scripture: 1 John 1:7-10

Tags: Action

In The Early 1900's A Major Revival Began In Los ...

Contributed by Mark Opperman on Jan 3, 2008

-In the early 1900’s a major revival began in Los Angeles. It became known as the Azusa Street Revival. What the Holy Spirit did there was really quite revolutionary for its time. Here is what Dr. Gary McGee of the Assemblies of God writes about Azusa St.: According to the Los Angeles Times, a ...read more

Denomination: Assembly Of God

Impotent Man  PRO

Contributed by Vera Hughes on Feb 20, 2008

John 5:1-7 (Impotent man) 1 After this there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2 Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. 3 In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, ...read more

Tags: Finding Fulfillment

Denomination: Evangelical/Non-Denominational

Questions For ...

Contributed by Sermon Central on Aug 11, 2008

QUESTIONS FOR SELF-EXAMINATION Andrew Murray, whose devotional books are still popular nearly a century after his death, said this: "It is when we face ourselves and face Christ, that we are lost in wonder, love and praise. We need to rediscover the almost lost discipline of self-examination; and ...read more

Tags: Sanctification