This Week's Sermon Illustrations
Who Owns Your French Fries?
Contributor: Jerry Falwell
A steward is like a manager of a local McDonald's restaurant who carries out the aims of the owners, maximizes profits, while handling all the problems. Dr. Towns teaches a stewardship lesson in the Pastor's Bible Class at Thomas Road Baptist Church which is the most requested lesson of all he has taught: "Who Owns Your French Fries".
It is the story of a man who buys his little boy some French fries. Then the father does what all fathers do: he reaches over and takes one French fry to taste it. The little boy slaps his fathers hand and says, "Don't touch my French fries."
The father thinks that his son is selfish. The father knows that he bought the French fries and they belong to him. The father knows that his son belongs to him. The father could get angry and never buy his son another French fry again to teach his son a lesson, or the father could "bury" his son in French fries. The father thinks, "Why is my son selfish, I have given him a whole package of French fries; I just want one French fry."
God has given us money, when He asks for a tithe, people figuratively slap His hand and say, "Keep Your hands off my money." God owns everything we have. He wants us: 1. To manage what we have for His glory. God expects us to manage our time, talent, temple, testimony and treasures. 2. To give back a portion of what he has given us.
What is your Colt?
Source: Mark Adams, "The Roads He Walked - Palm Avenue." Illustrations for April 13, 2003. Contributor: Wade Hughes, Sr.
Bill Wilson pastors an inner city church in New York City. His mission field is a very violent place. He himself has been stabbed twice as he ministered to the people of the community surrounding the church. Once a Puerto Rican woman became involved in the church and was led to Christ. After her conversion she came to Pastor Wilson and said, "I want to do something to help with the church's ministry." He asked her what her talents were and she could think of nothing—she couldn't even speak Englis—but she did love children.
So he put her on one of the church's buses that went into neighborhoods and transported kids to church. Every week she performed her duties. She would find the worst-looking kid on the bus, put him on her lap and whisper over and over the only words she had learned in English: "I love you. Jesus loves you."
After several months, she became attached to one little boy in particular. The boy didnt speak. He came to Sunday School every week with his sister and sat on the woman's lap, but he never made a sound. Each week she would tell him all the way to Sunday School and all the way home, "I love you and Jesus loves you." One day, to her amazement, the little boy turned around and stammered, "I—I—I love you too!" Then he put his arms around her and gave her a big hug.
That was 2:30 on a Sunday afternoon. At 6:30 that night he was found dead. His own mother had beaten him to death and thrown his body in the trash…"I love you and Jesus loves you." …Those were some of the last words this little boy heard in his short life—from the lips of a Puerto Rican woman who could barely speak English. This woman gave her one talent to God and because of that a little boy who never heard the word "love" in his own home, experienced and responded to the love of Christ…. What can you give? What is your "colt". You and I each have something in our lives, which, if given back to God, could, like the colt, move Jesus and His message further down the road.
Encouragement is a Talent
Contributor: Richard White
There once was a woman who really felt she had nothing to share with or give to God and his people. During the services she would sit, sing softly to herself, pray to herself, engage in little small talk afterward. On Sunday the preacher gave a message on Expressions of Gratitude.
When she went home, she thought about the message, she decided to call the preacher and tell him how the message moved her and she wanted to thank him for being her friend. After that conversation, she thought, well that song that David sang, how beautiful was his voice, she decided to call him and tell him how much she appreciated his singing and how much that song meant to her. Later, she thought about the piano player and how beautifully she played, she decided to write her a note thanking her for playing every Sunday. As she was writing that note, she thought about the Sunday School teacher and decided to write her, then the Children's church teacher, and on and on the list went on as she wrote these notes of encouragement. Finally she realized she did have something to give—encouragement—and she would give it totally. She saw this as her talent for God.
A Pencil in the Hand of God
Contributor: Wade Hughes Sr.
The interview was with Mother Teresa of Calcutta, India. Mother Teresa gave her life to feed starving people and later to minister to the dying. In this article, the writer asked Mother Teresa about her feelings of being used of God to minister to the poor, then the world. Her little work was known worldwide, even the President of the USA knew her and her love labor. She answered, "But it is His work. I think God wants to show His greatness by using my Nothingness."
She was asked later, "You feel you have no special qualities?" Mother Teresa replied, "I don't think so. I don't claim anything of the work. It is His work, and I am like a little pencil in His Hand. That is all. He does the thinking, He does the writing. The pencil has nothing to do with it. The pencil has only to be allowed to be used." What a beautiful story of this little woman using her talent to cook and feed others.
Work for the Love of Work
Source: Bits and Pieces, May, 1991, p. 2.
Contributor: Mark Brunner
The story goes that when the company founded by Andrew Carnegie was taken over by the U.S. Steel Corporation in 1901 it acquired as one of its obligations a contract to pay the top Carnegie executive, Charles M. Schwab, the then unheard-of minimum sum of $1,000,000. J.P. Morgan of U.S. Steel was in a quandary about it. The highest salary on record was then $100,000. He met with Schwab, showed him the contract and hesitatingly asked what could be done about it. "This," said Schwab, as he took the contract and tore it up. That contract had paid Schwab $1,300,000 the year before. "I didn't care what salary they paid me," Schwab later told a Forbes magazine interviewer. "I was not animated by money motives. I believed in what I was trying to do and I wanted to see it brought about. I cancelled that contract without a moment's hesitation. Why do I work? I work for just the pleasure I find in work, the satisfaction there is in developing things, in creating. Also, the associations business begets. The person who does not work for the love of work, but only for money, is not likely to make money nor to find much fun in life."
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