13 Sermon Illustrations on Relationship with God

Man's greatest possession is an unhindered relationship with God. I think of two friends who were passing a large tract of land that belonged to one of them. "What do you think this land and the buildings cost me?" asked the landowner. "I don't know what they cost you in money," replied his friend, "but I think I know what they cost you otherwise." "What?" "They cost you your soul," was the sorrowful reply.

Dwight L. Moody in his sermons used to tell of a mother who had an only child that was an idiot. When it was fourteen years of age a neighbor came in and found the mother weeping in the bitterness of her soul. Asking what was the matter, the mother answered: “For fourteen years I have cared for that child day and night; I have given up society and spent my time with her, and to-day she does not know me from you. If she would only recognize me once it would pay me for all I have ever done for her.”

Mr. Moody would add: “How many are there over whom the Son of God has watched and cared for and blest, and who have never once recognized Him, have never once looked up into His face and said, “Thank you, Lord Jesus.”

The movie “The Ultimate Gift” concerns a rebellious rich kid who learns he has to accomplish several tasks before receiving his inheritance. Through these arduous missions and the grounded people he meets along the way, the young man comes to a spiritual enlightening.

Based on the book by Jim Stovall, “The Ultimate Gift” doesn’t preach, it merely suggests. (The movie is rated PG for thematic elements, some violence and some language.) “Had I come out with a blatant faith message I would have lost a lot of the target audience I want to reach,” Stovall said. “I had to be cognizant of why people come to the movies. They didn’t come to get a motivational, inspirational, biblical message. They came to enjoy their evening.

“If we are doing what I think we’re doing with this film, people will walk up the aisle after having invested two hours and 10 bucks thinking about their lives,” he added. “I can’t give them all the answers in two hours, but I’m hoping they can start thinking about some of the questions. For many of those people it will take them down a path that will lead to a personal commitment.”

Stovall has a personal commitment with Christ.

“I grew up in a Christian home, I went to First Baptist Church in Tulsa (Oklahoma), and I made a decision in Vacation Bible School,” he said. “But what often happens when you come face to face with a crisis, you learn the difference between religion and relationship. That happened for me in my 20s. Suddenly, the quarterly lesson of the week was not enough. You gotta get down to a real relationship with Christ.”

The crisis Stovall speaks of concerns his physical blindness.

“A degenerative eye disease started when I was 17,” he said. “It was a slow decline until age 29.”

Like many determined people, Stovall doesn’t allow this obstacle to eclipse his mission.

“Any time we have a challenge, it causes us to think of what’s important and what’s not,” he said. “People go through any number of personal or family problems and we’re only as big as the smallest thing it takes to divert us from where we want to be.”

Though his book has sold over 4 million copies and is being taught as a curriculum in almost a thousand schools, Stovall doesn’t consider himself a writer. He is the co-founder and president of the Narrative Television Network, which makes movies and television accessible for the nation’s 13 million blind and visually impaired people and their families.

“I wrote the book in five days,” he said. “I dictated it between my calls and meetings.”

The book and now the film concern a 12-step journey of self-discovery. The grandfather has shown his love for his grandson by sending him on 12 missions, each designed to develop his character.

And what are those gifts? According to the story, they are:

• Work: He who loves his work never labors.

• Money: Money is nothing more than a tool. It can be a force of good, a force of evil or simply be idle.

• Friends: It is a wealthy person, indeed, who calculates riches not in gold but in friends.

• Learning: Education is a lifelong journey whose destination expands as you travel.

• Problems: Problems can only be avoided by exercising good judgment. Good judgment can only be gained by experiencing life’s problems

• Family: Some people are born into wonderful families. Others have to find or create them. Being a member of a family is a priceless privilege which costs nothing but love.

• Laughter: Laugher is a good medicine for the soul. Our world is desperately in need of more such medicine.

• Dreams: Faith is all that dreamers need to see the future.

• Giving: The only way you can truly get more out of life for yourself is to give part of yourself away.

• Gratitude: In those times when we yearn to have more in our lives we should dwell on the things we already have. In doing so, we will often find that our lives are already full to overflowing.

• A Day: Life at its essence boils down to one day at a time. Today is the day!

• Love: Love is a treasure for which we can never pay. The only way to keep it is to give it away.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #16847]

The politicization of prayer continues to abound.

Communities in Virginia are debating a federal court ruling that outlawed prayer to begin town council meetings. In Canada, a court decision is forcing the military to change its policies on how soldiers must act during a prayer. In Boston, parishioners from a church closed down by the Archdiocese of Boston are using prayer as a form of protest.

And a cover story in the Dec. 20, 2004, edition of U.S. News and World Report explores the topic of prayer and what people pray for.

But regardless of the status of prayer in society -– regardless of whether the government restricts public expressions of prayer or not -- for Christians prayer will always be a spiritual discipline of vital importance, according to Union University professor George Guthrie.

“At its heart, Christianity is relational,” said Guthrie, the Perry Professor of Bible and chair of Union's Christian studies department. “It is a relational religion. This is not just about what we do for God. It's not about us simply conforming to a set of rules. It's that God has invited us into a profound relationship with Himself. The barriers have been torn down. He is still awesome, and He's God and we're not, but we have been invited into His presence.”

Prayer then is the vehicle through which that relationship is nurtured and strengthened. Prayer is a communication tool that allows Christians to grow in their relationship to God.

“If I do not relate to my wife, if I do not communicate with her in an ongoing way, then our relationship's going to stagnate,” Guthrie said. “It's the same way with our relationship with God. We need the ability to talk to Him about things.”

But for many Christians, prayer isn't the easiest of tasks, said Todd Brady, Union's campus minister. “It's easy to be spiritual these days, but the kind of prayer that we are called to from the Scriptures, no I don't think it's easy,” Brady said. “Even the disciples had major difficulties in prayer. We see that in the Gospels. The kind of prayer that is Christian prayer requires focus, patience and diligence, and that's what makes it hard.”

Only through an appreciation for the Word of God and knowledge of the purpose and nature of prayer can a Christian pray obediently, Brady said. That involves studying the examples of prayer in the Scriptures to understand God's standard.

“There's a standard to which we must aspire,” Brady said. “Simply praying is not enough. We must pray rightly. I don't think that it is possible to be faithful in prayer apart from a knowledge of the Word.”

John Franklin, a pastoral ministries specialist for LifeWay Christian Resources, listed several keys to a strong prayer life.

“Number one, prayer begins with an absolute expectation that God wants to use you and is doing something around your life, and He can do anything,” Franklin said. “Your expectation is that something's going to happen.”

Christians also must truly desire that for which they are praying, and they must be God-centered in their prayer. Franklin said the apostles provide an illustration of this.

And, Franklin said, “When you look at the Gospels, [the disciples'] spiritual power is very anemic. When you look at the Book of Acts, they are radically changed. The primary difference was they went from trying to do things on their own agenda, from their own perspective, to doing things for God's sake and God's interests.”

In praying properly, Union President David Dockery said Christians would do well to follow the model prayer of Jesus.

“Our first responsibility is to recognize the greatness and goodness of God,” Dockery said. “We acknowledge His majesty and mercy by saying, 'Hallowed is Your name, how great is Your Kingdom.’ The model that Jesus gave us helps us understand that first of all, prayer is more about God than it is about us.”

Secondly, another dimension to prayer includes thanksgiving for God's blessings and the opportunity to make daily requests. Other examples in Scripture include believers making specific requests to God in times of illness, danger and anxiety.

“We recognize our dependence upon God for every provision of life,” Dockery said.

Guthrie added that proper prayer includes praying for God to advance His Kingdom in the world, for forgiveness, for authorities and government, for church leaders and for other people -– namely, for all relevant parts of life.

“That presupposes that this world isn't divided into two spheres –- the religious sphere and the real world,” Guthrie said. “That two-sphere view of life is not the biblical view. The biblical view is there's only one sphere. It's all God's sphere, and therefore God can intervene and invade in all aspects of it.”

Dockery acknowledged that the concept of prayer can be complex, especially when addressing questions about whether God changes His mind because of the prayers of His people.

“Somehow in the great mystery and providence of God, He has willed that His purposes are accomplished through various means,” Dockery said. “One of those means is prayer. Thus, prayer does not change God, but it is what is used to advance God's purposes in our lives. God is immutable, faithful, constant, changeless, but He does seemingly respond to His people in Scripture when they come to Him in humble recognition of His divine sovereignty.”

*

My first Uber ride was a memorable experience.

I was in Boston with a group of South Carolina pastors for a North American Mission Board “Catch the Vision” tour, meeting about 15 church planters with a passion for the Gospel and for their city.

When it was time to return home, we decided to take an Uber to the airport. Our driver was a Chinese man named Michael.

Michael and his family moved to Boston from Hong Kong 37 years ago. Three other pastors were in the car with me during the trip a few weeks ago, and we began to engage Michael in a Gospel conversation. It was an amazing ride as he was genuinely interested in what we were sharing.

Michael was very much against religion. Everyone seemed to have their own religion, he said, and none of it was of any use to him. I agreed with Michael that religion would not provide the answer he was looking for and mentioned to him that the Bible teaches you can have a relationship with God through Jesus.

That’s when Michael said, “You can have a relationship with God? I’ve never heard that before!”

It’s not just what he said that amazed me but how he said it. He seemed genuinely surprised and excited at the possibility. Later in the conversation, Michael asked again, as if trying to comprehend what he had heard, “You can have a relationship with God? I’ve never heard that before -- never.” The pastors and I continued to talk to Michael about Jesus and the new life He makes possible.

As we were approaching the airport, Michael stated for the third time, “You can have a relationship with God? I’ve never heard that before.” This time Michael seemed to be talking to himself.

He was fascinated by the possibility of this new information he was hearing.

Suddenly, Michael blurted out with amazement, “If that’s true, it would change your life!”

I thought about Michael a lot on the plane ride back to South Carolina. Everyone deserves to have a day like Michael had -- a day when he heard good news he had never heard before.

There are so many people like Michael who literally have never heard what we take for granted.

Lost people don’t understand who Jesus is. They don’t understand the Gospel. But every time you go and share, you are helping them connect the dots. You are helping them understand the picture until one day they see it -- and they are amazed that Jesus died on the cross for their sins.

Evangelism doesn’t just happen. Most of the time, it happens as a result of intentionality -- people who know Christ intentionally connecting with people who don’t. We need a new realization that Jesus has placed the news that changes eternities in our hands.

How to Have a Merry Christmas. And it doesn’t require you doing another blessed thing.

________

This isn’t exactly the best time of year to bring this up, but religion can be oppressive, can’t it?

I’m not talking about other religions — Islam, Hinduism, and so forth. They look as oppressive as the next religion to me, but I don’t live in them, so I can’t really speak to them. I do live inside the Christian religion, and it indeed can be oppressive.

I know it’s Christmas! It’s one season when our religion feels anything but oppressive, with all the lovely services and general cheerfulness. But as I’ll soon note, there are gremlins afoot who are trying to sabotage even this most splendid time of year.

Our religion becomes oppressive when we are not sure what to do with God. He can be so aggravatingly vague. We’re told by Jesus that we’re supposed to love God. Well, what does that mean? How can you love a God whom you cannot see or touch, and whose voice is so hard to hear most days? So to make our religion manageable, many have decided that to love God means to obey his commandments. That’s a lot clearer, since those commandments are in black and white. There’s a measure of truth in this. But the funny thing is that if Jesus were really interested in our subservience, I think he would have just said that the greatest commandment is to obey God. But he didn’t say that. He said the greatest thing we can do with our lives is to love God.

Another example: the apostle Paul reminds us time and again that we are in Christ. Jesus himself said we are to abide in him. Again, we’re often puzzled by what that means. So again, we take refuge in something that makes sense to us: we assume that being in Christ must mean obeying Jesus’ ethic or following Jesus’ example. But another funny thing is this: Paul and Jesus did not merely tell us to obey Jesus and follow him, but to live in him and abide in him.

But we like practical religion, religion that makes a difference in the world, religion that is less about mystery and more about mastery, a religion that helps us feel good about what we’re doing with our lives. That’s one reason we’re impatient with preachers who wax eloquent about the love of God but then don’t “apply” the sermon “to our lives,” — that is, they don’t tell us what to do. There is something noble in this desire — better this than yawning at the end of your preacher’s mighty efforts! And we simply cannot pretend that the Book of James doesn’t exist — indeed, faith without works is dead.

But it is just as true that works without love is oppressive. And our fear of not-doing suggests that for many of us, doing has become an addiction.

The most telling sign of our addiction to doing is what’s going on in your head right now. But what about all those commands in Scripture, commands to love, to pray, to give, to serve, to do? We addicts — and yes, I’m one of them — get nervous when someone suggests that doing may not be all its cracked up to be. It’s like someone telling an alcoholic that she really doesn’t need another shot of Jack Daniels. And we get especially nervous when someone starts saying that the heart of our religion is not responsibility but relationship.

Religion becomes oppressive when it is mostly about doing, doing, doing. Whether it is doing good for God, doing good for others, or doing good in the world; in the end, it all amounts to the same thing. Doing is the major chord and the minor chord, the first and last verse — and the refrain that repeats itself like an endless and vapid praise song.

Ah, but Christmas! Here we have a season that is decidedly not oppressive. Its major theme is not what we do but what God has done; it’s not about our journey to heaven, but about heaven coming to earth; it’s not building an award-winning church or ministry, but welcoming an infant lowly into our midst — having a baby shower!

In the large scheme of things, baby showers don’t sound very important, do they? Which is why religious leaders are not much interested in the inglorious side of Christmas. They mostly see it as a season they can exploit for their ministries. For some it is a great evangelistic season — time to grow the church! For others it’s the time to pull more donations out of people — time to grow the budget! It’s pretty hard to resist manipulating the season for our ministry ends given all the people who will show up at services. It’s pretty hard to let the season be what it is — a simple, magical affirmation of God’s extraordinary love for us, and teaching people how to enjoy that.

Religious leaders didn’t get to where they are — at the head of impressive ministries and institutions — by prostrating on their knees, basking in the wonder and miracle of God, but by getting things done, balancing budgets, building buildings and programs to make them worth building. So this season, watch your pocketbook, because there will be pleas for last minute donations “to specially mark the season of giving.” Watch your Daytimers, because there will be requests to “get more involved in the church this coming year.” Watch your spiritual back, because many of our spiritual leaders will not.

I know of what I speak. I was a religious leader once, a pastor of a church. I know the temptation to reduce the gracious dynamics of divine love to mere religious activity, and to equate an abundant Christian life with the busyness that occurs in the church’s building, programs, and ministry.

We sabotage our faith — and make our faith a dreary, oppressive enterprise — if we forget that through Jesus we now have a relationship with the Father, with Jesus as our Elder Brother. And that when Jesus calls us to love God he means first and foremost to bask in that love just as we would happily lie in the arms of our beloved. And that to abide in Christ really means to rest in his presence, like sitting in the glow of a warm fire on a winter night.

Addicted doers worry mightily that this will lead to indolence, to a religion in which people sit around pining after spiritual highs. I don’t know. I’ve never known an emotionally healthy couple, madly in love, whose relationship did not give them more zest than ever to do, to give, and to serve others — and with a joy that can be described as merry. And it all begins with love.

________

Mark Galli is managing editor of Christianity Today, and author of Jesus Mean and Wild: The Unexpected Love of an Untameable God (Baker) and Beyond Bells & Smells: The Wonder and Power of Christian Liturgy (Paraclete).

Copyright © 2009 Christianity Today.

How to Have a Merry Christmas. And it doesn’t require you doing another blessed thing.

________

This isn’t exactly the best time of year to bring this up, but religion can be oppressive, can’t it?

I’m not talking about other religions — Islam, Hinduism, and so forth. They look as oppressive as the next religion to me, but I don’t live in them, so I can’t really speak to them. I do live inside the Christian religion, and it indeed can be oppressive.

I know it’s Christmas! It’s one season when our religion feels anything but oppressive, with all the lovely services and general cheerfulness. But as I’ll soon note, there are gremlins afoot who are trying to sabotage even this most splendid time of year.

Our religion becomes oppressive when we are not sure what to do with God. He can be so aggravatingly vague. We’re told by Jesus that we’re supposed to love God. Well, what does that mean? How can you love a God whom you cannot see or touch, and whose voice is so hard to hear most days? So to make our religion manageable, many have decided that to love God means to obey his commandments. That’s a lot clearer, since those commandments are in black and white. There’s a measure of truth in this. But the funny thing is that if Jesus were really interested in our subservience, I think he would have just said that the greatest commandment is to obey God. But he didn’t say that. He said the greatest thing we can do with our lives is to love God.

Another example: the apostle Paul reminds us time and again that we are in Christ. Jesus himself said we are to abide in him. Again, we’re often puzzled by what that means. So again, we take refuge in something that makes sense to us: we assume that being in Christ must mean obeying Jesus’ ethic or following Jesus’ example. But another funny thing is this: Paul and Jesus did not merely tell us to obey Jesus and follow him, but to live in him and abide in him.

But we like practical religion, religion that makes a difference in the world, religion that is less about mystery and more about mastery, a religion that helps us feel good about what we’re doing with our lives. That’s one reason we’re impatient with preachers who wax eloquent about the love of God but then don’t “apply” the sermon “to our lives,” — that is, they don’t tell us what to do. There is something noble in this desire — better this than yawning at the end of your preacher’s mighty efforts! And we simply cannot pretend that the Book of James doesn’t exist — indeed, faith without works is dead.

But it is just as true that works without love is oppressive. And our fear of not-doing suggests that for many of us, doing has become an addiction.

The most telling sign of our addiction to doing is what’s going on in your head right now. But what about all those commands in Scripture, commands to love, to pray, to give, to serve, to do? We addicts — and yes, I’m one of them — get nervous when someone suggests that doing may not be all its cracked up to be. It’s like someone telling an alcoholic that she really doesn’t need another shot of Jack Daniels. And we get especially nervous when someone starts saying that the heart of our religion is not responsibility but relationship.

Religion becomes oppressive when it is mostly about doing, doing, doing. Whether it is doing good for God, doing good for others, or doing good in the world; in the end, it all amounts to the same thing. Doing is the major chord and the minor chord, the first and last verse — and the refrain that repeats itself like an endless and vapid praise song.

Ah, but Christmas! Here we have a season that is decidedly not oppressive. Its major theme is not what we do but what God has done; it’s not about our journey to heaven, but about heaven coming to earth; it’s not building an award-winning church or ministry, but welcoming an infant lowly into our midst — having a baby shower!

In the large scheme of things, baby showers don’t sound very important, do they? Which is why religious leaders are not much interested in the inglorious side of Christmas. They mostly see it as a season they can exploit for their ministries. For some it is a great evangelistic season — time to grow the church! For others it’s the time to pull more donations out of people — time to grow the budget! It’s pretty hard to resist manipulating the season for our ministry ends given all the people who will show up at services. It’s pretty hard to let the season be what it is — a simple, magical affirmation of God’s extraordinary love for us, and teaching people how to enjoy that.

Religious leaders didn’t get to where they are — at the head of impressive ministries and institutions — by prostrating on their knees, basking in the wonder and miracle of God, but by getting things done, balancing budgets, building buildings and programs to make them worth building. So this season, watch your pocketbook, because there will be pleas for last minute donations “to specially mark the season of giving.” Watch your Daytimers, because there will be requests to “get more involved in the church this coming year.” Watch your spiritual back, because many of our spiritual leaders will not.

I know of what I speak. I was a religious leader once, a pastor of a church. I know the temptation to reduce the gracious dynamics of divine love to mere religious activity, and to equate an abundant Christian life with the busyness that occurs in the church’s building, programs, and ministry.

We sabotage our faith — and make our faith a dreary, oppressive enterprise — if we forget that through Jesus we now have a relationship with the Father, with Jesus as our Elder Brother. And that when Jesus calls us to love God he means first and foremost to bask in that love just as we would happily lie in the arms of our beloved. And that to abide in Christ really means to rest in his presence, like sitting in the glow of a warm fire on a winter night.

Addicted doers worry mightily that this will lead to indolence, to a religion in which people sit around pining after spiritual highs. I don’t know. I’ve never known an emotionally healthy couple, madly in love, whose relationship did not give them more zest than ever to do, to give, and to serve others — and with a joy that can be described as merry. And it all begins with love.

________

Mark Galli is managing editor of Christianity Today, and author of Jesus Mean and Wild: The Unexpected Love of an Untameable God (Baker) and Beyond Bells & Smells: The Wonder and Power of Christian Liturgy (Paraclete).

Copyright © 2009 Christianity Today.