Category Archives: Sermon Illustration

Ramblings, Sermon Illustration

Scooby-Doo

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My children were raised with liberal doses of television.  I will admit sometimes I too was caught up in the cartoons of the day.  Now I am not to the level of a devote or a critic, but I do remember one series that sticks in my mind.  Scooby-Doo.  If you don’t remember this bit of comedic drama, here is the description from Wikipedia:

Each episode featured Scooby and the four teenaged members of the Mystery, Inc. gang: Fred, Shaggy, Daphne, and Velma, arriving to a location in the “Mystery Machine” and encountering a ghost, monster, or other supernatural creature, whom they learned was terrorizing the local populace. After looking for clues and suspects and being chased by the monster, the kids come to realize the ghost is anything but, and – often with the help of a Rube Goldberg-like trap designed by Fred – they capture the villain and unmask him. Revealed as a flesh and blood crook trying to cover up crimes by using the ghost story and costume, the criminal is arrested and taken to jail, often saying something to the effect of “…and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for you meddling kids!”

What brings this to mind today is that in reality it a picture of the change of the world has morphed through in the last couple of hundred years or so.  It is the transition from the perception of life full of monsters and witches to a world of science.  Scooby is always afraid of the monster and ultimately that monster is revealed as something considerably less frightening.  Previously our world was filled with ghosts, demon possessions, witches and things that go bump in the night. In that day there two worlds of the spiritual and the natural.   These two worlds were held apart only by a very thin veil.  One world was always invading the other. Now it is called superstition.  Black cats and walking under ladders was bad luck.

Scooby was always the first to acknowledge this invasion of the dark world into his by running away and grabbing Shaggy and crying in fear.  But once the mask was removed even Scooby had to acknowledge the impossibility of the monster.  But next week he fell for the same ruse.

Today there is little use for monsters outside of the movies.  We have become more modern.  We have put away childish things.  Science, technology and skepticism now rule. We have become so modern we have to purposely go to the movies to be scared.  An entire entertainment genera exists just to scare us. We have become so hardened to the spiritual we have to artificially experience something just to feel.

Thinking again about Scooby-Doo I realized how closely the show traces, in a single episode, this movement from enchantment to disenchantment. The episodes begin with enchantment, with a supernatural monster, specter, ghoul or ghost. But as the kids investigate they get suspicious, reason asserts itself and the monster–the agent of the occult–is eventually revealed to be Mr. Jenkins the greedy banker. The story ends with disenchantment. The supernatural was simply a “cover” for workaday greed, theft and corruption.

We moderns think the world has been rid of the dark forces–the ghouls, ghosts, demons and monsters. But these occult forces of evil haven’t been expelled, expunged or exorcised. They still haunt and torment.  We may well call them other things, but in reality the spiritual world exists.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Ephesians 6:12

Contemplating Scooby-Doo I began to wonder. Perhaps this isn’t a tale of disenchantment after all. Perhaps Scooby-Doo really is a story about the occult and the demonic. We’ve just lost the ability to see it.

What do you think.  Leave a comment.

Life, Personal, Sermon Illustration

Ship on the Horizon

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Growing up with a father that always seemed greater than life was not always easy. He worked all the time.  If he wasn’t at Ordside Garage, he would be working on some other car for a neighbor or friend.  It was a rare treat to spend time with my dad alone.  One special Sunday I was invited to an adventure. We were to go to the Monterey wharf to see one of the last three mast sailing ships still working the coast of California.  I could not have been more than 9 or 10. We toured the ship just me and my dad.

It was amazing.  Tall masts with furled sails.  The hull was made of iron but the rest was all wood and rope. We toured through each berth and saw the cook in the galley. It was a wondrous time.  The smells and the sights were so much better because I was sharing with my dad.

But the tide was going out and we had to disembark.  So we watched as the brightly uniformed crew of that grand old ship pull all the lines in and set its grand white sails and moved into that arching blue bay.
It was going to San Francisco, its next point of call. That ship was an object of beauty and strength. We stood there until the white sails became nothing more than a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky came down to mingle with one another. Then someone in the crowd said, “Look, she’s gone”!

That day is often brought to memory.  My sometimes over shadowing Father, the perfect blue sky, and  while sails as they seemed to fall off the edge of the world. But it also brings to mind that exclamation from the crowd, “Look, she’s gone”.  But we must ask, “Gone where?” Gone from my sight, that is all. That grand ship with its large mast and hull was not any less strong or able to cut the waves. That ship was diminished size only because of my perspective.  That ship is “gone” because I can not see it any more.

My dad is no longer with us.  He has sailed over the horizon.  Is he gone?  I don’t think so.  He is just out of sight and never out of mind. In my golden years of retirement I often wonder how I will be remembered when I am “gone”.

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Ministry, Preaching, Sermon Illustration

Knowing of God and Knowing God

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Hank, had just graduated from college ….with Landscaping contractor’s license.  He moved to a small rural town and opened a small office, bought a new pickup truck and waited for his first job.

The first job that was offered him was to remove a stump in a farmer’s field.

Wanted to act as if he knew what he was doing when he met the farmer in the middle of the pasture and all the cows.  Dynamite was the logical choice.  After helping the farmer to move all the cows to another pasture, Hank pulled out the box of explosives.

Hank dug a small hole under the base of the very large tree just as was illustrated in his textbook he had read the night before. He knew he would have to pack it in with enough dirt to contain the blast.  He used a calculator to determine the length of the fuse.

The problem was how much to use… He had no idea….  He didn’t want the farmer to know he as an amateur so he simply guessed at the number of sticks of dynamite.  So hoping it would be enough to move the stump but not so much as to kill them all, he put in the charge with the fuse, tamped it in carefully, covered it with dirt.

The moment came with a look at the farmer and a nod he lit the fuse and ran for cover.

An eternity seemed to pass.  In the middle of faint mooing of cows in the distance and huddled down behind the farmer’s tractor, it happened.

It was a mighty blast

The stump not only moved but it was catapulted into the air fifty feet.  It did three complete revolutions and landed right in the middle of the cab of his new pickup.

In the calm that followed, in the deathly silence, the farmer turned to hank and said: “With a bit more practice you should be able land those thing in the truck bed every time.”

There is a great difference between hearing how something is done and actually doing it.

And so there is a great difference between hearing what God is like and Knowing God.

 

Life, Sermon Illustration

Kids and Grandkids – Prayer

My kids now have kids of their own.  My prayer is the same.  I want so much for them and I know the only answer to their modern situations, their modern pains, their modern struggles is God.

Heavenly Father, thank You for my kid’s salvation. Thank You for a plan that included them and part of that plan included You. Thank You that You have lavished Your riches and Your inheritance on them, although they could do nothing to earn it or deserve it.  They have their own wills, yet I am praying that you reach out to them and grasp them in your hands.  Provide your grace.

I pray for my kids’s legs to walk in step with your will. Always with You, not racing ahead, not lagging behind, not wandering off, but day-by-day walking with Jesus, so that He is their constant companion. God, take them where You want them to go and keep them from the places they shouldn’t go. Give them strength to continue when they feel weak. Give them courage to keep on walking with You, even when the road ahead looks uncertain and dim. Give them grace to bridge gaps, to leap walls, to span the separations between people and groups.

I pray for my kid’s feet, that You would place them where You want them to stand. Plant their feet on the immovable rock of Jesus. Talk to them when storms come or the world’s attractions try to lure them down its path. Whisper in their ears and to their spirits, “Stand firm.”

Through my kid’s arms, always do Your work. Strengthen them, hold them up, and direct them to do whatever You want them to do. Make their time valuable for eternity, not just the quick flash that is the span of their days on earth.

I pray for my kid’s hands that they will often fold them in prayer. Make them mighty in prayer. Teach them to pray after Your own heart. Enable them to live their lives so that everyone will see Your signature, “This one is the Lord’s.”

Give my kids the patience to wait on You, Lord, so that You may renew their spirits and they may soar as on eagle’s wings.

Give me the strength to continue in prayer for my kids.  I trust in your mercy and grace.  I live in faith that you will make a mighty difference in their lives.  My prayer is that they may know You.

AMEN

Life, Ramblings, Sermon Illustration

Hello Weekend with an Angel..

Not long ago my family joined in a long weekend in Bodega Bay, California.  One of the participants is the sweetest angel of a grand-daughter that God has ever given to a proud Pop Pop.  On the outside porch we were all talking, and being the demonstrative family we are our voices were verging on being loud.  The family was all looking out over the ocean in the distance and my grand-daughter was staring at us with the ocean behind her.  Well my little angel realized there were voices coming from behind her.  It was an echo.

She turned and at the top of her lungs she shouted, “Hello.”  And in rapid response came that same sweet voice right back.  It was a discovery of the innocent.  There was wonder in her eyes and her joy that gave me joy.  Her smile made me smile.  The rest of the weekend, she took every opportunity to stand facing the far distant ocean and shouted over and over, “Hello.”

She is yet too young to understand that while most people call this event just an echo, but it is much more than that.  It really is about life.  It gives back everything you say or do.  Our life is simply an echo of our actions and attitudes.

If you want more love in the world, create more love in your heart. If you want more joy in your family, improve your own joy. This relationship applies to everything, in all aspects of life; life will give you back everything you have given to it.”  My sweet angel’s smile was reflected by my smile.  Her joy was reflected back by my joy.

Life is not just a number of coincidences.  Life is a reflection of you.

 

Life, Sermon Illustration, Theology

Absurd

ab·surd

adjective

    wildly unreasonable, illogical, or inappropriate.

   “the allegations are patently absurd”

    synonyms:      preposterous, ridiculous, ludicrous, farcical, laughable, risible, idiotic, stupid, foolish, silly, inane, imbecilic, insane, harebrained, cockamamie;

It just does not make sense.

I am a man without parents.  They are both deceased. I am an orphan. But, you would say, “most people out live their parents.”  Sure, but it is more than that.  I am an orphan in other ways. To my knowledge man, (and I use that as a generic term for human kind), is the only creature in the universe who asks, “Why?” Other animals have instincts to guide them, but man has learned to ask questions. “Who am I?” man asks. “Why am I here? Where am I going?” Generations have come and gone. There have been repeated efforts to eliminate anything that would amount to authority. More and more are trying to throw off the metaphorical shackles of religion.  But the questions still exist.  If there is no God, “Shy am I here? And Where am I going?”  still need answers.

If we take God out of the answer, if we try to answer the questions of life without reference to God we are faced with dismal answers. The answers are not hopeful, helpful, encouraging, but dark and terrible. Without God in the answer then man is nothing more than the accidental by-product of nature, a result of matter plus time plus chance. There is no reason for your existence. All you face is death.

Modern man thought that when he had gotten rid of God, he had freed himself from all that repressed and stifled him. Instead, he discovered that in killing God, he had also killed himself. For if there is no God, then man’s life becomes absurd.

The absence of God means that both man and the universe has but one end.  And that end is death.  Man like a bug hiding under a rock, must die. Without a hope for immortality there is just bleakness and despair.  Might as well “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow die.” Like Shakespeare said in Macbeth:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

Without God we are just food for the worms, a flash amid the thousand stars, lost amid the blackness. If you push out God you also push out eternity.

Call me absurd but, for me there has to be more than that.

I know not why God’s wondrous grace to me he hath made known,

nor why, unworthy, Christ in love redeemed me for his own.

But I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able

to keep that which I’ve committed unto him against that day.

I know not how this saving faith to me he did impart,

nor how believing in his word wrought peace within my heart.

But I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able

to keep that which I’ve committed unto him against that day.

I know not how the Spirit moves, convincing us of sin,

revealing Jesus through the word, creating faith in him.

But I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able

to keep that which I’ve committed unto him against that day.

I know not when my Lord may come, at night or noonday fair,

nor if I walk the vale with him, or meet him in the air.

But I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able

to keep that which I’ve committed unto him against that day.

Words: Daniel W. Whittle

Music: James McGranahan

Church, Sermon Illustration

Church and Grace

The minister in a small town who stopped one Sunday at a café to eat something and had his Bible and sermon notes to read through. A man sitting in the corner yelled out “are you a preacher or something?

“Yes” he said,” I preach at the Christian Church here in town.” 

He got excited and said,”Hey, I’m a member of that church.” 

The church was small and the preacher knew all the regulars .. “I’ve been preaching there for about three months and I’ve never seen you there.”

The other man looked a bit puzzled and said to the Minister ..  “I said I was a member of that church.  I never said that I was fanatical about it!”

The church may be seen as old fashioned or boring, but it still is God’s plan. Let me quote Philip Yancey “Yes, the church fails in its mission and makes serious blunders precisely because the church comprises human beings who will always fall short of the glory of God. That is the risk God took. Anyone who enters the church expecting perfection does not understand the nature of that risk or the nature of humanity. Just as every romantic eventually learns that marriage is the beginning, not the end, of the struggle to make love work, every Christian must learn that church is also only a beginning.”

The church with all its foibles is still filling the gap that no one else seems to want to step into.  The church should and has to provide a place for grace. It is a place where the past does not dictate the future.  It is a place where acceptance is first and foremost.  Grace, the unmerited favor of God. It is the free offer to the hopeless for hope.  It is a free offer of love to the most unlovely. It is a free offer of peace in a world trying to pull itself apart.  The one thing the church should do is offer grace .. that wonderful God quality that lifts people up to a new life full of hope and joy.. something that can change their lives forever.

I am just trying to discover why people who need Jesus the most don’t like being around us? Why do we make them feel so uncomfortable, so out of place? In what ways is God calling us in the church to be a more grace-full community when the wounded are in our midst? If only we could share the truth of Jesus to more people in the words of John 1:14 “The Word became a human being and lived here among us. We saw His true glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father. From Him all the kindness and all the truth of God have come down to us”. That’s the message of the church that people need to hear.

 

Ministry, Ramblings, Sermon Illustration

Decisions are never easy.

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All my decisions no matter how they were made, have not been always the best.  I have made lots of bad decisions in my life.  These decisions were made when I was young and not so young.  Some were made in the ministry, while others were made in the business world.  I have made bad decisions pertaining to my family and even in my marriage.  I have never set out to make a bad decision. My methodology of decision making changed over the years but sometimes one will raise itself up and bite me on the behind.  Some bad decisions I have made resulted in personal despair and some have even been repeated with an expectation of better results; but not very often has the result changed.

So what can I do to improve my decision making process?  How can I make them and significantly increase the quality?

In my experience, there are a few common factors that lead to me making a bad decision.

Haste is the enemy of good decisions – Some would say that the mark of a good leader is the ability to make a quick decision. We want to make the decision to overcome the anxiety of indecision.  I often find myself wanting to make a decision just to get out of the responsibility for making it. I completely understand the need for decisions in a crisis.  When the avalanche is coming your way, it is probably better to run, then to assess the percentage of survivability based on the gross weight of the mass coming in my direction.  But these avalanche decisions are far and few between. I have discovered when the potential outcome is significant, however, the more time I can give to it the less likely I am to make a mistake.  And the vast majority of conclusions should not be made ad hoc. In my experience, taking an extra moment has improved the outcomes. Learning when to wait, seek God, the counsel of others, and for better personal discernment is part of maturing, but can help us avoid some of the costlier bad decisions.

Analysis paralysis  – In as much as we have to slow down in our analysis, so also we must not be set in stone waiting for all the information to be available. Waiting on all the facts to made available slows and even stops progress. There are times when a fast decision is easy; even prudent. If I know the right answer—if it has a Biblical basis, for example, or my conscience is clearly convicted but we become reticent to implement because it would mean a lot of work.  Work for me and work for others. I’ve learned that waiting seldom makes the decision easier and often only complicates the process. There has to be a medium between not to fast and not to slow. Again, from my experience some decisions make matters worse by delaying them.

Happy People – All of the decisions I have made in the past have had people implications.  I have yet to make a decision that everyone agreed with. Management, leadership, decision making is seldom the popular position to take. People pleasing as a decision motivator rarely accomplishes matters of worth. It often makes the worst decision of the options available.

Angry Decisions – I am not a very emotion person in my senior years.  When I was younger you probably would have seen a completely different personality.  I was angry often.  I would lash out in retribution towards all that didn’t agree with me.  In my mind I could hear, “I will be a better friend than an enemy.” Often emotions were the downfall of my process. If I’m angry—or emotional in any other way—I tend to overreact or under react. Emotionally based decisions, especially immediate decisions, are often ones I tend to regret later.

Without consultation – “Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.” (Proverbs 15:22). Two things here.  I have worked with committees, boards, councils, and assemblies.  True, I may have an opinion but I also must have the ability to allow others to change my mind.  “Don’t confuse me with facts, my mind has been made up,” is not a good place to be. Secondly, a part of leadership is standing alone at times, never-the-less rarely are we really alone. We should always walk in the counsel of God’s Spirit.  If it is only up to me to stand in the leadership gap and none are included or even allowed to make the decision.  I have come to the realization that God is there.

Reaction or Adhocracy – Ultimately I want to work from a plan. I work best from a script.  A set of absolutes to which I will not move.  And no matter the passion, conviction, and verbiage, there is a line I will not cross. I need to be in a place where decisions are made before before the decision is needed. We want proactive decision-making. That’s obviously not always possible, but in my experience, I’m more likely to make a bad decision when I’m reacting to a situation, rather than having thought about the scenario and my response beforehand.

Perfect Love casts out fear – We are called to walk by faith, yet fear is often a more powerful initiator. But I’ve learned, when I decide because I’m afraid to—or not to—do something, I almost always make a mistake. Following my faith gut, even when afraid, is part of leadership. And part of life.

There are probably a hundred or more different ways to make a bad decision and only a few ways to make a good decision.  But for me this is my decision making list.

Preaching, Sermon Illustration, Theology, Worship

Home Plate and God

Kids today are introduced to sports at earlier and earlier in their lives. Sports teach valuable lessons on teamwork, creates opportunities to get exercise, and gets them out of the house.  When I was young, and that was a very long time ago, my first organized sport was baseball. In our little town, there were two levels of Little League: National League and American League.  All the good kids, the ones that actually had talent were all in the National League and the not so talented were in the lower American League.  The year I started I was in the not so good group.  For some unknown reason the coach decided that I was going to be the catcher.

I played in the American League for two years and finally moved up to the big league.  I never moved out of the role of catcher.  I learned the game from the side of the plate most don’t see.  All the other players had positions inside of the playing field.  Only the catcher has a position outside of the foul lines.

Since that time, I have played both baseball and softball.  Most of the time I always was outside of the lines.  Once in a while I pitched, but most of the time you could find me squatting down behind the batter with a mask, a breast protector, knee pads and waiting on someone else to do something.

The game has changed much from a little kid with a wood bat to modern aluminum double walled nitrogen filled force multiplying bats of vengeance.  But one thing has not changed.  The home shaped base where everything started and ended never changed.  It was always seventeen inches wide.  In the first year of the American League to now that seventeen-inch-wide white home plate has always been the same. Uniforms would change, bats would change, even the ball changed, but the plate stayed the exact width of seventeen inches.

If a pitcher would miss the edge of the plate it was not up to the umpire to make the strike zone a little wider because the pitcher was outside by only an inch.  The strike zone was defined by the width of the plate and the plate was always seventeen inches.  The strike zone was not fungible because the plate did not change.  It was a constant.  No matter what park you went to, no matter what game you saw on the television it was unalterable.

During all of those games and practices, I noticed something.

The plate was one of the most holy things in baseball.  It was holy because it was unchangeable.  It was always an absolute part of every game, the size and position of the plate was immutable.  It was holy because it was set apart from opinion; it was not dependent upon public opinion.  It was holy because majority rule did not dictate the width.  A pitchers preference has no bearing on it.  No one can change it.  It is sacrosanct from the smallest Little Leaguer, to the big show of the major leagues.

So what does this mean to theology?  What can we learn? If a man made game can consider something as small as the width of a piece of rubber being holy, what does God consider as Holy?  What does God set as his seventeen-inch home plate?  What does God consider Holy?  For that matter is raises the question of “Why is it Holy to God?”  And one more step in our rise to understanding, “Are God’s concept of Holy the same as my concept of Holy?”

Quickly here is a list that I believe is on the God’s Home Plate list.

You are holy.

If you are a follower of Christ, you have been bought with a price.  You are united with Christ and you are now holy because God’s holiness is your holiness.  You because of your acceptance of a free gift from God you are “set apart for a purpose.”

Human life is holy.

God’s plan was to create life that would be his.  Every beating heart matters to God.   It does not matter if that heart is in the chest of a prisoner, in the chest of an elderly senior in a convalescent home, in the chest of a great theologian, in the chest of a child in the womb of a mother.  All are holy to God

Marriage is holy.

When the officiant speaks of holy matrimony, it is not by mistake. Marriage is a set apart relationship.  That is true for good marriages or not so good.  It is not stretched to a different dimension just because the pitcher would like to be a little wider.  I believe that marriage even if there has been betrayal, or other circumstances that have broken trust, marriage is still holy.

The Sabbath is holy.

It is God’s dimension of our lives to take a day off.  Six days are enough.  And now that I am older I am thinking one and a half may suit me better.  But at last one day for God as the only focus of my life is what is designed.

Our tithe is holy.

“A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the LORD; it is holy to the LORD.” (Leviticus 27:30 NIV) The first ten per cent of everything you earn is, in God’s eyes, holy money. We never give it to God, we return what is already his. The tithe is holy.

The name of God is holy.

God’s name is holy.  It is not to be used in a slur or in a time of frustration.  The use of God’s name in profanity is simply making something holy to extend into the unholy.  It dilutes the holy name of God; it rubs the shine of His Glory of the beauty of God.  The world would like the children of God to be so common that God’s holy name becomes common.

The Holy things of God are few and many.  But they must be the same as they were in the old times and the modern.  As the width of the home plate will always stay at seventeen inches, so God will be the same and with that unchangeability comes the Holy things of God.

Our world around would have us change the definition of life not to include the unborn.  Sex outside of marriage is seen as the normal.  We work every day with the expectation to rest latter and we are rewarded for it by a bigger paycheck.  We want make it a free will offering and not a tithe. People become disposable.  Life becomes more of an existence instead of something to please God.  Everything of the world would have us say “that home plate is old school.”  “We need to make is broader so everyone can get a better shot at winning.”

The width of home plate is not up for discussion, neither is God’s call to holiness.

Life, Ramblings, Sermon Illustration

New Day New Chance

Every day is a new opportunity for a second chance.  In life, God allows and desires U turns. Every day as you wake know that it is not over.  God wants you to be more than you were yesterday.  It is never too late to change.  No matter how far you have come.  No matter what you have become.  It does not matter how big a failure you may thing you are.  No matter what others may think or say about you.

God gives us two gifts.  The first one is choice and the second is chance.  A choice of a good life and a chance to make it the best it can be.

Every morning that you wake up it is a another chance to get it right.

Dear past: Thank you for your lessons.

Dear Future: I am now ready

Dear Now: God thank you for another chance.

Oh God of the second chance and new beginnings, here I am…. again.