Sermon Illustrations

NOW YOU KNOW HOW TO TREAT HIM

A true story, a friend of mine 'John' was new at a company. He was told be careful with the new photocopier it gets hot and can melt overheads when you put them through the photocopier. So treat it carefully.

On his third week there he stayed back late and absent-mindedly put 10 overheads through the machine. One of them melted and jammed up the whole machine. All the mechanical parts of this expensive machine melted together and welded shut.

John was devastated. The office manager was a short man who liked to pick on other people and John knew he would be in trouble. He knew he had done the wrong thing. John panicked because he would lose his job. He tried and tried to fix it, but the plastic had melted everywhere. Not knowing what to do, he just left.

He comes into work the next day and sure enough the office manager is grinning, and John knew he was going to get into trouble. Suddenly the company owner comes in, and John thinks it can’t get any worse. In front of everyone, the office manager starts to yell at John. The owner looks at the office manager calmly and says, "There is no need to yell at John, I have already called photocopy repair man, and the company will be covering the bill." As the office manager slinks back to his desk, the boss turned to John and simply said, "At least now you know how to treat the photocopier." I know personally that John truly liked his boss.

We are all like John, God tells us not to do something and we mess it up. We are selfish, rude, we don’t read our Bibles, we don’t pray, we don’t think of others and it goes horribly wrong. The devil gets ready to taunt us and make us feel really bad for the things we have done wrong. But Jesus, who is God and human, paid the price for our sins and now just wants a relationship with us.

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