Sermon Illustrations
The Work of Christmas
When the song of the angels is silent,When the star in the sky is gone,When the kings and the princes are home,When the shepherds are back with their flocks,The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers,
To make music in the heart.Poem by Howard Thurman
Footprints – Leona Lewis
This was the video that Leona Lewis did for Sports Relief in the UK in 2008.
Footprints In The Sand
One night a man had a dream. He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene, he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand, one belonging to him, and the other to the Lord.
When the last scene of his life flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that many times along the path of his life there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times of his life.
This really bothered him and he questioned the Lord about it.
“Lord, You said that once I decided to follow You, You’d walk with me all the way. But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life, there is only one set of footprints. I don’t understand why when I needed You most You would leave me.”
The Lord replied, “My son, My precious child, I love you and would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.”Footprints, Author Unknown
Because He Lives
This is a video from Igniter Media www.ignitermedia.com
I used this video during a baptism service and it was very powerful.
This song was born out of trying times for Bill and Gloria Gaither. Each day was becoming a struggle. They faced huge uncertainty in the days ahead. But through it all, they were reminded that life, in both the good and bad times, is worth the living because Jesus lives.
BishopsThe Boy And The BreakfastBishops
Little Johnny’s father was a pastor in a small church. One day, his father told Little Johnny that a very important bishop was coming and that he would be staying with them. Little Johnny became very excited and asked his father if he would get to meet him. His father thought about this and decided that he would let Little Johnny bring the bishop tea in the morning and wake him up. Little Johnny agreed to do this and was very excited.
His father gave him instructions: first, knock on the door of the bishops room and then say to him “It’s the boy, my Lord, it’s time to get up.”
Little Johnny was very excited and rehearsed his lines repeating them over and over. Finally the day came and Little Johnny had learned all his lines. He went to the door and knocked. He was so excited and nervous though that his lines got mixed up and the boy said, “It’s the Lord, my boy, and your time is up!”
Quoted from funny(at)net153.com email list
The March Of The Unqualified
God can’t use me or at least shouldn’t use me. We’ve probably all thought it at some point. However, studying the Bible shows us that many flawed people were used by God in powerful ways. They were just as unqualified as you. So now what’s your excuse?
Adapted from the writings of Matt Tullos.
From Ignitermedia a high quality edition of this is on their website at www.ignitermedia.com
What If The Bible Was As Important As Our Mobile Phones?
Ever wonder what would happen if we treated our Bible like we treat our mobile phone
What if we carried it around in our pockets or purses?
What if we flipped through it several times a day?
What if we turned back to go get it if we forgot it?
What if we used it to receive messages from the text?
What if we treated it like we couldn’t live without it?
What if we gave it to kids as gifts?
What if we used it when we traveled?
What if we used it in case of emergency?
This is something to make you go … Hmmmmm … where is my Bible?Oh, and one more thing … unlike our mobile phone, we don’t have to worry about our Bible being disconnected because Jesus already paid the bill.
Makes you stop and think ‘where are my priorities’?
Mixed Up Bible History
In the beginning, which occurred near the start, there was nothing but God, darkness, and some gas. The Bible says, ‘The Lord thy God is one,’ but I think He must be a lot older than that. Anyway, God said, ‘Give me a light!’ and someone did. Then God made the world.
He split the Adam and made Eve. Adam and Eve were naked, but they weren’t embarrassed because mirrors hadn’t been invented yet. Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating one bad apple, so they were driven from the Garden of Eden. I’m not sure what they were driven in though, because they didn’t have cars.
Adam and Eve had a son, Cain, who hated his brother as long as he was Abel. Pretty soon all of the early people died off, except for Methuselah, who lived to be like a million or something.
One of the next important people was Noah, who was a good guy, but one of his kids was kind of a ham. Noah built a large boat, and put his family and some animals on it. He asked some other people to join him, but they said they would have to take a rain check.
After Noah came Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob was more famous than his brother, Esau, because Esau sold Jacob his birthmark in exchange for some pot roast. Jacob had a son named Joseph who wore a really loud sports coat.
Another important Bible guy is Moses, whose real name was Charlton Heston. Moses led the Israel Lights out of Egypt and away from the evil Pharaoh after God sent ten plagues on Pharaoh’s people. These plagues included frogs, mice, lice, bowels, and no cable. God fed the Israel Lights every day with manicotti. Then He gave them His top ten Commandments. These include don’t lie, cheat, smoke, dance, or covet your neighbor’s bottom (the Bible uses a bad word for bottom that I’m not supposed to say, but my Dad uses it sometimes when he talks about the President). Oh, yeah, I just thought of one more: Humor they father and they mother.
One of Moses’ best helpers was Joshua who was the first Bible guy to use spies. Joshua fought the battle of Geritol and the fence fell over on the town.
After Joshua came David. He got to be king by killing a giant with a slingshot. He had a son named Solomon who had about 300 wives and 500 porcupines. My teacher says he was wise, but that doesn’t sound very wise to me. After Solomon there were a bunch of major league prophets. One of these was Jonah, who was swallowed by a big whale and then barfed up on the shore.
There were also some minor league prophets, but I guess we don’t have to worry about them.
After the Old Testament came the New Testament. Jesus is the star of the New Testament. He was born in Bethlehem in a barn. (I wish I had been born in a barn, too, because my mom is always saying to me, ‘Close the door! Were you born in a barn?’ It would be nice to say, ‘As a matter of fact, I was!’)
During His life, Jesus had many arguments with sinners like the Pharisees and the Republicans. Jesus also had twelve opossums. The worst one was Judas Asparagus. Judas was so evil that they named a terrible vegetable after him.
Jesus was a great man. He healed many leopards and even preached to some Germans on the Mount. But the Republicans and all those guys put Jesus on trial before Pontius the Pilot. Pilot didn’t stick up for Jesus. He just washed his hands, instead.
Anyway, Jesus died for our sins, then came back to life again. He went up to Heaven, but will be back at the end of the Aluminum. His return is foretold in the book of Revolution.
Quoted from: www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi
The Bible In 50 Words
God made,
Adam bit,
Noah arked,
Abraham split,
Joseph ruled,
Jacob fooled,
bush talked,
Moses balked,
Pharaoh plagued,
people walked,
sea divided,
tablets guided,
promise landed,
Saul freaked,
David peeked,
prophets warned,
Jesus born,
God walked,
love talked,
anger crucified,
hope died,
Love rose,
Spirit flamed,
Word spread,
God remained.The Bible in 2 Minutes
1st off,
nothing… but God
2nd off,
God
starts it all up and
WHAP!
Stuff everywhere.
The snake does some word twising
Adam and eve fall for it
God
kicks them out of heaven on earth
death strolls in
They make babies
But the evil/good ratio goes through the roof
God
turns the flood taps on
“waterworld!”
Only noah’s family and the animals survive
to see the rainbow
“Never again” quote God
More babies
Then Abraham –
The 1st jew
And his boys
Isaac,Jacob and Joseph
400 years on
the Jews are a nation
but just slave labour for Pharoah
Then God waves them out of Egypt through the red sea into the desert via 10 plagues
Moses downloads the contract –
the big ten rules
The Jews break them all
Grumbling round the desert
for 40 years
once Joshua gets them into a land with milk and honey on draught
king David sorts out the giant goliath between recording his greatest hits compilation
Solomon comes out with some wise one-liners
Then naff king after naff king
Messing up the people
Elijah and the other couriers can’t stop the rot
So God lets the Babylon army
Trash Jerusalem
And the Jews are carted off
As slave labour
Again
Daniel gets to sleep
with the lions
Isaiah predicts a liberator
Esther stops a holocause attempt
and, 70 years on,
the jews trek back to do construction work in Jerusalem
But no shift in attitude:
More idol promises
wind God up.
So he stops
talking to them for 400 years.
Dot
Dot
Dot
Enter Jesus the Liberator
– good with hammers and nails
but he takes a career change at 30
and kicks off a 3 year
“heaven on earth” tour
with his mobile miracle clinic
and loads of stories
and questions
His team 12 love it
The public love it
The religious suits don’t!
Dodgy trial
Punishment beatings
Public execution
-more hammers and nails
2 days later he’s back
having sorted out death
He’s launching the
Jesus Liberation movement
Via Paul Benson
His foreign rep.
Who’s sending out loads of emails
Updating people on what it means that
Jesus came back to do
The sequel:
‘With God in us
We can bring heaven on earth
Bit By Bit’
All ending up with Jonno’s general memo
On how things are going to get
Wrapped up:
The snake gets bbQd
The Jesus liberation movement get limitless life
Heaven on earth
Absolutely!The bible in 2 mins – Rob Lacey