Sermon Illustrations

It is like the parable I read recently by Paul Kooistra, where he said, “I remember that one fateful day when Coach took me aside. I knew what was coming. ‘You don’t have to tell me,’ I said. ‘I’m off the team, aren’t I?’ ‘Well,’ said Coach, ‘you never were really ON the team. You made that uniform you’re wearing out of rags and towels, and your helmet is a toy space helmet. You show up at practice and then either steal the ball and make us chase you to get it back, or you try to tackle people at inappropriate times.’” Then he writes, “It was all true what he was saying. And yet, I thought something is brewing inside the head of this Coach. He sees something in me, some kind of raw talent that he can mold.” The potential is there, the question is whether we will get in the game. Will we be the transformed who transform our culture, or will we be transformed by the culture? Stanley Hauerwas, professor at Duke, says, “It’s hard to remember that Jesus did not come to make us safe, but rather to make us disciples, citizens of God’s new age, a kingdom of surprise.”