Sermon Illustrations

Coach Tom Izzo of the Michigan State Spartans basketball team, came up with a great bit of theater to get his players’ attention on Selection Sunday, just before the field was announced. He put two game tapes on a table, then smashed them with a sledgehammer.

"One tape is the end of the regular season," he told his team, according to an account in the Detroit News, which had a columnist in the room. "The other is the end of the Big Ten tournament. We’re smashing it all, all the (stuff) that we can’t win the close games, that we can’t do this and we can’t do that. So get it out of your heads right now because it’s over!"

When we become born again, this is exactly what God does for us. He smashes the old tapes, all our failures, all our sin. We start over, a blank tape with all that we will do for the glory of God.

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