Sermon Illustrations

2 weeks ago in Boston I had dinner in the hotel with one of the other speakers at the conference I was at. He was from Los Angeles and I made a fairly instant judgement about him when he ordered a beer and then went outside to smoke while he waited on his food. In the course of the evening I told him of my plans after the conference that I’d be going to Nevada and Nashville and he told me that he was considering going to Ohio to see his mother and brother but couldn’t face it so probably would stay in Boston. I didn’t pursue it and didn’t take the fork in the road during our conversation. The next morning I was having breakfast when Peter came and joined me. He told me that he had a strange experience after I left him. He’d went outside for a cigarette before bedtime and a tramp approached him and said he didn’t want any money he just wanted to talk to someone. He told me that he talked to the man about how he had ended up on the street and the conversation led to his brother in Ohio, an alcoholic and drug addict who had just fallen of the wagon and was in re-hab. Peter didn’t want to go there to face that situation – one he’d faced numerous times before. He then told me that he was going to go because the man told him something he had experience of – he said he couldn’t help his brother but he could be THERE for him and that would in the long term make a real difference to his brothers life….. He told me over breakfast that he felt that if ever God had sent an angel to him he had sent one that night. What was God saying to me – that faced with my reluctance to speak up God used a down and out to prick that mans heart? That morning God was presenting me with the opportunity I had missed the previous evening and I felt so strongly that God had just told me that I need to have more grace, more faith and more courage to speak when he presents me with an opportunity.

Related Sermon Illustrations

Related Sermons