Sermon Illustrations for Easter 6 (2014)
Illustration
Object:
Acts 17:22-31
Colonel Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll was a lawyer, a Civil War veteran, political leader, and an orator in the United States during the "Golden Age of Free-thought." Robert was noted for his broad range of culture and his defense of agnosticism despite the fact that his father was a noted Congregationalist minister. He had many friends who did not share his agnostic beliefs, including Henry Ward Beecher.
One day Beecher and Ingersoll were together in Beecher's office. He had a globe that was given to him by a manufacturer. The globe had on the surface raised figures of the constellations and stars. According to the Youth's Companion, Ingersoll asked Beecher who made the globe? Beecher responded, "Who made the globe, Colonel? Why nobody made the globe. Isn't that what you believe?"
Paul wrote, "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth" (Acts 17: 24).
Derl K.
Acts 17:22-31
Each morning an elderly woman was seen kneeling before a statue of the Virgin Mary at the city's great cathedral in Florence. Savanarola, the respected pastor of the city, commented to a friend on how devout the woman was. But the great fifteenth-century preacher was offered a word of caution. The woman he sees kneeling each morning, when she was young she was asked to pose as the Virgin Mary by the one of the cathedral's sculptures. What Savanarola was witnessing was not an act of contrition but one of egotism. She was kneeling before herself.
Application: The woman truly was worshiping "an unknown god."
Ron L.
Acts 17:22-31
There are no atheists. Martin Luther made clear that everyone has a god: "A god is that to which we look for all good and in which we find refuge in every time of need. To have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe him with our whole heart... For those two belong together, faith and God. That to which your heart clings and entrusts itself is, I say, really your God" (Book of Concord [2000 ed.], p. 386).
What you care about most (Jesus, money, family, fame) is your god. But our text testifies that amidst all the gods, the one true God makes himself known to us, even in our experience. Augustine nicely explains why we can't miss the God who is Jesus Christ: "For such is the energy of the true godhead that it cannot be altogether and utterly hidden from any rational creature, so long as it makes use of reason" (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 7, p. 400).
The energy emanating from the source of life and being cannot be missed reasonable people. This leads to the conclusion of John Calvin: "For God hath not darkly shadowed his glory in the creation of the world, but he had everywhere engraven such manifest marks, that even blind mean know them by groping" (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. XIX/1, p. 166).
Mark E.
1 Peter 3:13-22
We see in the news that the president and some in Congress try to do good, but their "good" is often interpreted by their enemies as "bad" -- especially if they don't belong to the right political party.
I hear members of other denominations having to suffer if their doctrine doesn't match ours. Only God will determine who is right. The same goes for us. We may have to suffer for what we believe is right. We should always be prepared to give an answer to those who question our "hope." Again, only God will determine who is right when we go to be with him. God will more likely judge our motivation and our Spirit in sharing our feels than in the accuracy of every word we say.
If we are slandered for our beliefs, remember that it is the Lord's job to repay: "Vengeance is mine says the Lord!" Too many want to handle the revenge themselves while they are thinking of it. It may come as an automatic response.
Think how many were lost in Noah's day who didn't believe. They discovered too late the error of their ways. We don't want to see the ark pulling away from us if we have turned down our ticket to sail in it. God is giving us that ticket through our baptism and our trust in the resurrection of our Lord.
Our bodies may not endure torture and suffering, but if we believe, our spirits will survive.
Jesus died for both the righteous and the unrighteous. If we are out in the ocean drowning and someone throws a life preserve out for us. We have the choice of grabbing it and being saved or ignoring it and drowning. God gives us the free will to decide. When we propose marriage, our prospective mate has the free will to decide whether to accept or reject the proposal.
We just need to remember who is in charge. We like to think that we are, but check out the scripture and see what it said for hundreds of years. Since the fall of Adam and Eve, man without the Spirit has made the wrong choices.
Bob O.
John 14:15-21
The monks of the early church who lived an ascetic life in the deserts of Egypt referred to laziness as the "noonday demon." When the sun reached its zenith for the day with the accompanying heat, they experienced the nadir of the day, and with that a loss of desire to work.
Application: It does take work to keep God's commandments.
Ron L.
John 14:15-21
According to a 2001 poll of the Barna Research Group 7 in 10 Americans think you have to do works in order to be saved. Little has changed about this matter in the last decade.
True enough the Gospel Lesson does speak of keeping God's commandments. But there is a big difference between having to do these works, and spontaneously and joyfully doing them. Martin Luther makes that very clear in two quotations about this text: "He [Christ] completely abolished Moses for his Christians, and now he does not want us encumbered again with the intolerable burden of the law. For we invariably find that where laws rule, especially over the conscience, there is no end of commands and precepts" (Luther's Works, Vol. 24, pp. 101-102).
"But as Christ said earlier, it all depends on whether you feel and find that you love this man [Jesus]. For if you truly believe this, then love will be there, and your heart will be moved... Should I not thank, praise, honor, and service him with my life and my goods?" (Ibid., p. 146).
As the Reformer put is elsewhere: In Jesus Christ we have been made so rich with God's gifts that like empty cups into which more has been poured than they can hold, the goods of God just spill over on to other people (Ibid., Vol. 31, pp. 365-366). That's how it is that whoever loves Jesus keeps his commandments (v. 21).
Mark E.
John 14:15-21
I was at a church service where the minister had a large glass jar resting on a stand. During his sermon he took large rocks and filled the jar to the top. He rhetorically asked if we thought it was full. "Yes" was the response of the audience. He repeated this action with marbles, sand, and then with water. Each time he asked if the jar was full.
Our lives are crowded with many things such as work, study, church, school activities, concerns, and more. When Christ promised the Holy Spirit would come and fill our lives he meant that even though our lives are filled with things, the Holy Spirit would give life, substance, and tone to everything we do!
Derl K.
Colonel Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll was a lawyer, a Civil War veteran, political leader, and an orator in the United States during the "Golden Age of Free-thought." Robert was noted for his broad range of culture and his defense of agnosticism despite the fact that his father was a noted Congregationalist minister. He had many friends who did not share his agnostic beliefs, including Henry Ward Beecher.
One day Beecher and Ingersoll were together in Beecher's office. He had a globe that was given to him by a manufacturer. The globe had on the surface raised figures of the constellations and stars. According to the Youth's Companion, Ingersoll asked Beecher who made the globe? Beecher responded, "Who made the globe, Colonel? Why nobody made the globe. Isn't that what you believe?"
Paul wrote, "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth" (Acts 17: 24).
Derl K.
Acts 17:22-31
Each morning an elderly woman was seen kneeling before a statue of the Virgin Mary at the city's great cathedral in Florence. Savanarola, the respected pastor of the city, commented to a friend on how devout the woman was. But the great fifteenth-century preacher was offered a word of caution. The woman he sees kneeling each morning, when she was young she was asked to pose as the Virgin Mary by the one of the cathedral's sculptures. What Savanarola was witnessing was not an act of contrition but one of egotism. She was kneeling before herself.
Application: The woman truly was worshiping "an unknown god."
Ron L.
Acts 17:22-31
There are no atheists. Martin Luther made clear that everyone has a god: "A god is that to which we look for all good and in which we find refuge in every time of need. To have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe him with our whole heart... For those two belong together, faith and God. That to which your heart clings and entrusts itself is, I say, really your God" (Book of Concord [2000 ed.], p. 386).
What you care about most (Jesus, money, family, fame) is your god. But our text testifies that amidst all the gods, the one true God makes himself known to us, even in our experience. Augustine nicely explains why we can't miss the God who is Jesus Christ: "For such is the energy of the true godhead that it cannot be altogether and utterly hidden from any rational creature, so long as it makes use of reason" (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 7, p. 400).
The energy emanating from the source of life and being cannot be missed reasonable people. This leads to the conclusion of John Calvin: "For God hath not darkly shadowed his glory in the creation of the world, but he had everywhere engraven such manifest marks, that even blind mean know them by groping" (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. XIX/1, p. 166).
Mark E.
1 Peter 3:13-22
We see in the news that the president and some in Congress try to do good, but their "good" is often interpreted by their enemies as "bad" -- especially if they don't belong to the right political party.
I hear members of other denominations having to suffer if their doctrine doesn't match ours. Only God will determine who is right. The same goes for us. We may have to suffer for what we believe is right. We should always be prepared to give an answer to those who question our "hope." Again, only God will determine who is right when we go to be with him. God will more likely judge our motivation and our Spirit in sharing our feels than in the accuracy of every word we say.
If we are slandered for our beliefs, remember that it is the Lord's job to repay: "Vengeance is mine says the Lord!" Too many want to handle the revenge themselves while they are thinking of it. It may come as an automatic response.
Think how many were lost in Noah's day who didn't believe. They discovered too late the error of their ways. We don't want to see the ark pulling away from us if we have turned down our ticket to sail in it. God is giving us that ticket through our baptism and our trust in the resurrection of our Lord.
Our bodies may not endure torture and suffering, but if we believe, our spirits will survive.
Jesus died for both the righteous and the unrighteous. If we are out in the ocean drowning and someone throws a life preserve out for us. We have the choice of grabbing it and being saved or ignoring it and drowning. God gives us the free will to decide. When we propose marriage, our prospective mate has the free will to decide whether to accept or reject the proposal.
We just need to remember who is in charge. We like to think that we are, but check out the scripture and see what it said for hundreds of years. Since the fall of Adam and Eve, man without the Spirit has made the wrong choices.
Bob O.
John 14:15-21
The monks of the early church who lived an ascetic life in the deserts of Egypt referred to laziness as the "noonday demon." When the sun reached its zenith for the day with the accompanying heat, they experienced the nadir of the day, and with that a loss of desire to work.
Application: It does take work to keep God's commandments.
Ron L.
John 14:15-21
According to a 2001 poll of the Barna Research Group 7 in 10 Americans think you have to do works in order to be saved. Little has changed about this matter in the last decade.
True enough the Gospel Lesson does speak of keeping God's commandments. But there is a big difference between having to do these works, and spontaneously and joyfully doing them. Martin Luther makes that very clear in two quotations about this text: "He [Christ] completely abolished Moses for his Christians, and now he does not want us encumbered again with the intolerable burden of the law. For we invariably find that where laws rule, especially over the conscience, there is no end of commands and precepts" (Luther's Works, Vol. 24, pp. 101-102).
"But as Christ said earlier, it all depends on whether you feel and find that you love this man [Jesus]. For if you truly believe this, then love will be there, and your heart will be moved... Should I not thank, praise, honor, and service him with my life and my goods?" (Ibid., p. 146).
As the Reformer put is elsewhere: In Jesus Christ we have been made so rich with God's gifts that like empty cups into which more has been poured than they can hold, the goods of God just spill over on to other people (Ibid., Vol. 31, pp. 365-366). That's how it is that whoever loves Jesus keeps his commandments (v. 21).
Mark E.
John 14:15-21
I was at a church service where the minister had a large glass jar resting on a stand. During his sermon he took large rocks and filled the jar to the top. He rhetorically asked if we thought it was full. "Yes" was the response of the audience. He repeated this action with marbles, sand, and then with water. Each time he asked if the jar was full.
Our lives are crowded with many things such as work, study, church, school activities, concerns, and more. When Christ promised the Holy Spirit would come and fill our lives he meant that even though our lives are filled with things, the Holy Spirit would give life, substance, and tone to everything we do!
Derl K.
