Sermon Illustration

A lawyer had successfully handled a difficult law case for a wealthy friend. Following the happy outcome of the case, the friend and client called on the lawyer, expressed his appreciation of his work and handed him a handsome Moroccan leather wallet. The lawyer looked at the wallet in astonishment and handed it back with a sharp reminder that a wallet could not possibly compensate him for his services. "My fee for that work," acidly snapped the attorney, "is five hundred dollars." The client opened the wallet, removed a one-thousand dollar bill, replaced it with a five-hundred dollar bill and handed it back to the lawyer with a smile.

In ancient times, a king had a boulder placed on a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the king's wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the king for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the stone out of the way. Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. After the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the King indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway. The peasant learned what many of us never understand! Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition.

Feeling footloose and frisky, a featherbrained fellow forced his father to fork over his farthings. Fast he flew to foreign fields and frittered his family's fortune, feasting fabulously with floozies and faithless friends. Flooded with flattery, he financed a full-fledged fling of "funny foam" and fast food. Fleeced by his fellows in folly, facing famine and feeling faintly fuzzy, he found himself a feed-flinger in a filthy foreign farmyard. Feeling frail and fairly famished, he fain would have filled his frame with foraged food from the fodder fragments. "Fooey," he figured, "my father's flunkies fare far fancier," the frazzled fugitive fumed feverishly, facing the facts. Finally, frustrated from failure and filled with foreboding (but following his feelings) he fled fairly fast from the filthy foreign farmyard. Far away, the father focused on the fretful familiar form in the field and flew to him and fondly flung his forearms around the fa...

Suppose you have a friend named Jim who tells you, "I am going to buy you a $50,000 automobile as a gift." He drives up in front of your house with that brand-new automobile. Suppose you were to say to him, "Jim, I can’t let you do that. It is just too great a gift. Here is a quarter. Here is twenty-five cents; let me help pay for this thing." And so Jim pays $49,999.75, and you pay a quarter. Now you are driving the car down the road, and someone says, "That is a nice car you have there." You say, "Yes, my friend Jim and I bought this car." That would be an insult to Jim, would it not? We must remember that we cannot take any praise or credit for our salvation. None whatsoever! It is all of God.