This Week's Sermon Illustrations
Simple Hope
Source: Donald William Dotterer, Living The Easter Faith, CSS Publishing Company, 1994.
Joyce Hollyday tells the story of a school teacher who was assigned to visit children in a large city hospital who received a routine call requesting that she visit a particular child. The teacher took the boy's name and room number and was told by the teacher on the other end of the line, "We're studying nouns and adverbs in this class now. I'd be grateful if you could help him with his homework, so he doesn’t fall behind the others."
It wasn't until the visiting teacher got outside the boy's room that she realized that it was located in the hospital's burn unit. No one had prepared her to find a young boy horribly burned and in great pain. The teacher felt that she couldn't just turn around and walk out. And so she stammered awkwardly, "I'm the hospital teacher, and your teacher sent me to help you with nouns and adverbs." This boy was in so much pain that he barely responded. The young teacher stumbled through his English lesson, ashamed at putting him through such a senseless exercise.
The next morning a nurse on the burn unit asked her, "What did you do to that boy?" Before the teacher could finish her outburst of apologies, the nurse interrupted her: "You don't understand. We've been very worried about him. But ever since you were here yesterday, his whole attitude has changed. He's fighting back; he's responding to treatment. It's as if he has decided to live."
The boy later explained that he had completely given up hope until he saw the teacher. It all changed when he came to a simple realization. With joyful tears, the boy said: "They wouldn't send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a boy who was dying, would they?"
This wonderful story invites us to celebrate the gift of life even when all we seem to see around us is pain and disappointment and brokenness. It shows us that on the other side of pain, there is resurrection. It reminds us of what is possible whenever there is hope.
Fashioned for Faith
Source: Dr. E. Stanley Jones
Contributor: Paul Fritz
I am inwardly fashioned for faith, not for fear. Fear is not my native land; faith is. I am so made that worry and anxiety are sand in the machinery of life; faith is the oil. I live better by faith and confidence than by fear, doubt and anxiety. In anxiety and worry, my being is gasping for breath—these are not my native air. But in faith and confidence, I breathe freely—these are my native air. A John Hopkins University doctor says, "We do not know why it is that worriers die sooner than the non-worriers, but that is a fact." But I, who am simple of mind, think I know: we are inwardly constructed in nerve and tissue, brain cell and soul, for faith and not for fear. God made us that way. To live by worry is to live against reality.
Simple Faith
Source: Billy Graham
Contributor: Richard Burkey
Faith is the avenue of salvation. Not intellectual understanding. Not money. Not your works. Just simple faith. How much faith? The faith of a mustard seed, so small you can hardly see it. But if you will put that little faith in the person of Jesus, your life will be changed. He will come with supernatural power into your heart. It can happen to you.
Puff the Magic Dragon
Source: Rex Koivisto, One Lord, One Faith (Bridge Point, 1993)
Contributor: Brian Mavis
In his book One Lord, One Faith, author Rex Koivisto warns: "We cannot read into the [biblical] text some meaning if it conflicts with the writer's intended meaning. [For example,] in the early 1960's the folk group Peter, Paul, and Mary sang a song about a young boy's imaginary world, which sadly falls aside as he grows into manhood. When I first heard that song in junior high, my friends told me it had a hidden meaning about marijuana. The "magic dragon" was supposed to be the marijuana, which, of course, you "puff" on. We bought into this secret meaning because it was not unlike contemporary musicians to hide counter–cultural messages in their songs. That, to us, was what the song meant.
"But is that really what the song meant? Peter, Paul, and Mary had a 30–year reunion tour. Late in the program, Peter Yarrow was about to lead the audience in singing "Puff," which had since become a popular American folk song. But he prefaced the song with a comment: 'Many people thought this song was about drugs. But it never was. It was a simple song about a boy and his dragon, and the sorrows of leaving boyhood. I know. I’m Puff's daddy.'"
I Serve, God Does
Source: J. Donald Walters, The Art of Leadership. New York: MJF Books, 1987. p. 65-66.
Humility in leadership can be achieved if one learns to view his role as a simple service to others. Indeed, this is the very essence of leadership: giving energy, not receiving it. And perhaps the surest way to ensure such an outward flow of energy is to think of oneself always as serving one's subordinates. Finally, and (provided you have the faith) most helpful of all: see God as the doer. Give him the credit for any good that you do. Offer your work as a service to Him.
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