Illustration results for romans 6
Free Memorial Day Resources
Sermons & Illustrations: Top SermonsTop Illustrations
Sermon & Worship Packages: Time to Remember
Illus.: “Falling Out of Bed”
A little boy constantly fell out of bed. No matter what his parents did, the boy couldn’t sleep without rolling out of bed. An uncle came to visit and in the middle of the night the usual thump and cry was heard. In the morning the uncle teased the boy and asked him why he fell out so often. The little fellow thought for a moment and then said, “I don’t know, unless its because I stay too close to the place where I get in.”
Theologian Charles Hodge explained the relationship between divine grace and the human heart. “The doctrines of grace humble a man without degrading him and exalt him without inflating him.”
Illus.: “You Can’t Practice Burying Me”
Shortly after a recent seminary graduate had assumed his first pastorate, he and his wife went to visit his family. His mother sensed that her daughter-in-law was unhappy, but not wishing to interfere, she pretended not to notice. As they were leaving, she heard her daughter-in-law say, “All right, we can go by the church and you can practice baptizing me just one more time. But remember this—when you have your first funeral, you are not going to practice burying me!”
A New York City businessman moved to the country and bought a piece of land. He went to the local feed and livestock store and talked to the proprietor about how he was going to take up chicken farming. He then asked to buy 100 chicks.
"That’s a lot of chicks," commented the proprietor. "I mean business," the man replied.
A week later the new farmer was back again. "I need another 100 chicks," he said. "Boy, you are serious about this chicken farming," the man told him.
"Yeah," the man replied. "If I can iron out a few problems...
The fact that our good deeds are not good enough to get us into heaven is no more cruel than it’s cruel for you to tell the fish in the water (I hope your not talking to the fish in the water) “I just can’t breath in your environment.” To say that, is not a cruel statement it is just a statement about your nature. You can’t breath under water. To say that my good deeds to God is like water to my lungs is not to say anything cruel about God it’s just the facts. God can’t tolerate us. And that’s not mean and it’s not cruel it’s just the facts. And in the world of our modern celebrities who seem to represent the thoughts of our culture, they in essence want us to believe that God can hang with sin. That God, the perfect God can somehow tolerate imperfection. And God can look at people like you and me, people who’s lives are out of sink and say “you know what, it’s OK”. But God would cease to be God the day He said that. You don’t want a God who accepts sin. Because a God who accepts sin is not a holy perfect God. It’s like when Grocho Marks said “I will never join a club who will accept me as a member.” And in reality we don’t want a God who looks at us in our sinful fallen state and say, “it’s OK your alright your in.”
The fact that you can’t breath underwater isn’t entirely true. People can breath underwater when equipped with scuba apparatus. You can conquer the environment but it’s going to take something, something you don’t have inherent in yourself. And that is what Good Friday is all about. Good Friday is about what we have in a bloody cross that allows us to live in God’s environment. And God says I’m going to provide the oxygen tanks for you, I’m going to make you acceptable in my sight. But you must recognize that there is an exchange that has to take place; your life for my Son’s. You take His life and you trade yours in for it and you can be with me. God will accept us but as the Bible puts it He will only accept us in Christ. I don’t want to just be accepted in David, I want to be accepted in Christ. That retains God’s perfection and makes me understand that I cannot be accepted aside from Jesus Christ. What I need I can’t provide, God is going to have to provide it for me.
The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is (scuba gear) eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:26) God says in effect you put on the scuba gear; put on Christ and you can survive in my environment.
"DON'T SIT ON ME, LORD!"
Romans 6:8-14 Key verse(s): 6: "For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the bod of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin...”
There are many things that a dog does not like. Chief among them for many dogs is the seeming innocuous task of having their nails clipped. Dogs have very sensitive paws. I have often been amazed as to the amount of time our little dachshunds and the lab spend grooming them. The lick and lick is often followed by nibbles and chomps directed at the skin between the toes. Taught at a very early age to be fastidious groomers by their mothers, what we might regard as almost ritualistic and surely repetitive is really more than it seems. Dogs don’t sweat. For the most part they exchange body heat largely through panting. But there is one place on their bodies that is the exception and that is the bottom of their paws. The only place on a dog’s entire body that sweats is its paws. Stress a dog and make it pace, then touch the bottom of their paws. Surprisingly they are quite moist. It is no surprise, therefore, that dogs are so sensitive to the manipulation or grooming of their paws. Their paws are precious to them, providing not only their sole means to escape enemies and pursue prey, but also the one avenue by which they are able to employ evaporation as a means of cooling down.
The longer you allow a dog to go without grooming, especially a dog that is kept indoors and away from the natural corrosive environment that will normally serve to keep a dog’s claws blunted and short, the harder and harder it becomes for it to walk. As the claws grow, the paw is pushed upward, causing an abnormal pressure on the spine. Eventually a dog with unmanicured claws may develop back problems or become listless or agitated. Yet, as good as grooming is for a dog, the dog doesn’t seem to recognize the boon. It will pull, bite and writhe in your grasp as if you are trying to inflict great harm on it. And, the fact is, nail clipping is uncomfortable for most dogs since their paws are very sensitive to touch, temperature and pressure. The very thing that benefits them is the one thing they most fear.
Sanctification, the process by which we are made holy, like Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit seems to have the same effect on humans as nail clipping does on dogs. We want to be like Christ. We long to conform to the image of our Savior in every way possible. We long to walk uprightly and in a "holy" manner. Yet, the old Adam in us, has grown disproportionately to our ability to maintain a holy balance in our life. We often stumble and fall. But, sanctification? Sounds kind of painful and harsh, doesn’t it? Perhaps it is just better to let well enough alone and go on coping as opposed to confronting the nuisance and pain that must be involved to rid us of our old but "thank you, it will do and I will cope" nature.
As a dog must be sat upon in some instances just to convince it that what we are about to do will ultimately be for its own good, so too must our God sit upon us with the weight of his grace. Our hearts are sensitive and we strive to avoid any pain to them. Yet, they are fated to become calloused and anemic unless something crush them and break away the layer upon layer of daily sinful grime and worldly grief that serves to lacquer them. Sound painful? Death always is and that is what is transpiring on a daily basis in every Christian’s life. God is plucking the covering from our hearts; a covering we have worked hard to secure, even nurture. It is a destructive but necessary process in order to reveal what He designed in us from the beginning of time. The comfortable and warm covering of sin that helps us get through the day is seems like such a necessary enemy. We are willing to let it have its way just so we can avoid the cure that would, on the surface, seem more difficult than the illness. So on and on it grows, insidiously and silently wrapping layer upon layer so skillfully and cunningly that we are almost completely unaware of its stifling heaviness. That sin-loving nature we inherited from our father Adam will eventually hobble us. It’s crippling effect robbing us of our ability to walk uprightly in the presence of our God. Unless He sits on us, crushing our natural will to be sinful and clipping away the filth of sin, we will never know the tremendous relief that such a clipping can bring.
Author C.S. Lewis confirms these suspicions in his book God in the Dock, "Man or Rabbit?" He compares the rabbit’s nature to be careful while cowardly to our inherent willingness to avoid trouble by avoiding pain: "All the rabbit in us is to disappear--the worried, conscientious, ethical rabbit as well as the cowardly and sensual rabbit. We shall bleed and squeal as the handfuls of fur come out; and then surprisingly, we shall find underneath it all a thing we have never yet imagined: a real Man, an ageless god, a son of God, strong, radiant, wise, beautiful, and drenched in joy." (God in the Dock, [1946], para. 10, p. 112.)
According to tradition, this is how an Eskimo hunter kills a wolf. First, the Eskimo coats his knife blade with animal blood and allows it to freeze. He then adds layer after layer of blood until the blade is completely concealed by the frozen blood.
Next, the hunter fixes his knife in the ground with the blade up. When a wolf follows his sensitive nose to the source of the scent and discovers the bait, he licks it, tasting the fresh frozen blood. He begins to lick faster, more and more vigorously, lapping the blade until the keen edge is bare. Feverishly now, harder and harder, the wolf licks the blade in the cold Arctic night. His craving for blood becomes so great that the wolf does not notice the razor-sharp sting of the naked blade on his own tongue. Nor does he recognize the instant when his insatiable thirst is being satisfied by his own warm blood. His carnivorous appetite continues to crave more until in the morning light, the wolf is found dead in the snow!
Many begin using drugs, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, or engaging in unsafe sexual behavior for the same reasons that the wolf begins licking the knife blade. It seems safe and delicious at first, but it doesn’t satisfy. More and more is desired, leading to a crisis or death.
Don’t be fooled by the temptations of sin. Like the wolf, we can get away with it for a while. Eventually, however, its true character is revealed. Sin leads to death and destruction. "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord".
(Acknowledgements to www.dailywisdom.gospelcom.net where I got this illustration)
WASHINGTON BUREAU: Terry Mattingly’s religion column for 11/07/2001
It’s hard to miss the Big Idea when an artist puts it right on a painting in bold letters.
"He That Believeth Not Shall Be Damned. Not A Crown But Hellfire And Brimstone," wrote Howard Finster, using his unorthodox spelling and grammar. "If You Only Had One Sweet Son And You Gave His Life To Save Ten Wicked Men. And They Returned And Denied That You Gave Your Only Son For Them And Said You Child Never Exist No One Died For Us."
There’s more, written on the centerpiece of a 1990 exhibit in Washington, D.C. "Please Go Right Now And Call You Child To You. And Measure You Love For Him And Turn And Look At The Most Sinful Man You Know And Think If You Would Trade Your Presus Son For Him. God Is Love."
That seems clear. Nevertheless, the curators posted a sign to reassure troubled patrons. Thus saith the Smithsonian: "The historical, popular and biblical subjects of Finster’s portraits embody his concept of the inventor as someone whose creative process will provide the world’s salvation."
Funny, the preacher from northwest Georgia thought he was saying, "Repent!"
"Probably some people mean different kinds of salvation. I’m talking about the salvation of Jesus Christ. That’s what you gotta have," Finster once told author Frederica Mathewes-Green.
"My vision right now is to lead the world to the Bible," he said. Many are not "looking for a piece of art, they’re looking for a message."
So that’s what Finster offered -- a message. He spent four decades as a revival preacher and jack-of-all-trades repairman. Then, at age 60, he had one of his visions. He was fixing a bicycle when a blob of white paint on his hand formed a face that said: "Paint sacred art."
This didn’t make much sense, but Finster did it. By the time of his death on Oct. 22nd, the 84-year-old evangelist had produced 47,000-plus signed works.
This folk-art phenomenon shocked all kinds of people. To the modern-art elite, he was a force of nature. Yet no one could deny that Finster had a knack for touching tired, jaded souls. Meanwhile, some Christians couldn’t figure out what he was doing playing banjo on the Tonight Show and painting album covers for rock superstars. He was guilty by association.
"Finster was always a showman and the world of serious art considered him a kind of naive clown," said painter Ed Knippers. "But under that show, there was a very wise man. ... What he was doing was putting little artistic time bombs out in the living rooms of the very people who tend to be the most critical of Christianity."
Over time, Finster let his art do the talking. Some of his messages were, after all, offensive to the people he wanted to reach as customers and converts. One Washington art gallery reportedly dropped him when the owners got tired of being called "infidels."
So Finster learned some manners and mastered the art of being colorful on cue. But he never changed his message. The artist’s fundamentalist style was "so in-your-face it was almost campy...
WHAT THE FLOCK NEEDS FROM THEIR PASTOR
The breadth of my ministry is determined by the depth of my relationship with Jesus, "the most important thing that your people need from you is your personal holiness" --Dr. Bill Bennett, SEBTS Pastoral Ministry class
"Take heed to yourselves, lest you live in those sins which you preach against in others, and lest you be guilty of that which you daily condemn...If sin be evil, why do you live in it? If it not be, then why do you dissuade men from it? If it be dangerous, how dare you venture into it?...If God’s threatenings are true, why do you not fear them?...Do you not know the judgment of God that they who do such things are worthy of death; and yet will you do them?" --Richard Baxter in The Reformed Pastor
(From a sermon by Jason Jones, "So You Call Yourself a Pastor 2")
WHAT ARE YOU BEING SAVED FROM?
Vance Havner tells the story of a who lady came forward during the invitation in one of his meetings to be saved. She was a very sophisticated and refined woman. She had a graduate’s degree and was very articulate and intelligent.
When she came forward during the invitation, Dr. Havner asked her, "Why have you come forward?"
She said, "I want to go to heaven."
Havner doesn’t know why he said it this way, but he asked her, "Ma’am, do you realize that you are a hell-bound sinner worthy only of God’s judgment?"
She looked at him in shocked disbelief and said, "Why no. I’ve been good ALL my life."
He said, "Well, in that case ma’am, you cannot go to heaven. Why don’t you have a seat over there, because you can’t be saved."
Bewildered, she went to one of the front row seats. On the next verse of the song of invitation, she came forward again and said, "Sir, I would like to be saved."
He said, "Ma’am, to be saved, you have to have something to be saved FROM. To be saved is to be saved from SIN. Until you recognize that you are a lost, helpless sinner you cannot be saved. Jesus said, '...They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.'"
Suddenly it was as if he saw a light go off in her head. "Ma'am, do you realize that you are a poor, lost, wicked sinner in need of God’s grace and unable to add to His work on Calvary through any works or goodness of your own?"
Tears rolled down her cheeks as the shame for her sin overcame her soul. "Yes! I do," she said. When she said that, she was in a place where God could save her, and Havner was able to lead her to Christ.
(From a sermon by Charles Sligh, The Components of Salvation, 4/15/2011)
Pastor's MediaVault
