Sermon Illustrations for New Year's Day (2017)
Illustration
Object:
Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
Our culture is often governed by a clock. We get up in the morning at a particular hour. We start work when the clock tells us it’s time to begin. We leave work when it’s time to go. We have meals when it’s time to eat. We agree to meet people at set times. There seems to be a time for just about everything. Time is important to us, and we expect things to happen on time. That’s the message that Solomon has for us in Ecclesiastes 3. This chapter notes, in a way that has inspired songs and poems throughout human history, that there is a time for every activity under heaven.
The passage for today highlights time and points out that God’s people are to take life each day at a time, enjoying what God has given them. That truth rises up against the question that emerges from this text and from the heart of humanity: what is the whole plan for life? Since time is so important to us as humans and we understand that there is a time for everything, we are anxious to know when and how things are going to happen. The answer to that is direct, though. “They cannot find out what God has done from beginning to end.” We don’t get to know how everything will work together or what lies down the road. We simply get one day at a time.
As we stand on the precipice of a new year, our hearts and minds may be contemplating what is ahead. We may think that 2017 is the time for marriage, retirement, starting a family, or a host of other things. Does God have those things in mind for us this year? Is this the time? Maybe. We aren’t privy to that information. Enjoy each day as it comes and trust him. He will bring all that we need in its proper time.
Bill T.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
Seasons come and seasons go. Time passes and brings with it grace and challenge, hope and loss. This passage of scripture is so well-known. To everything there is a season... Yet I think we do not always accept the message of the passage. There will be good days and there will be difficult days. There will be joy and there will be pain. There will be peace and there will be war. It is the nature of existence that things do not stay the same, that change is inevitable.
Most of us don’t like change. We also don’t like to wait for things to change. Watch the impatience some folks have at traffic lights, or waiting in line at the store, or trying to get the attention of a clerk. We don’t have a lot of patience. This passage reminds us that some things take time: growing, learning, loving -- these all take time. Seasons come and seasons go. Well, friends, feelings come and feelings go. We have a choice to be impatient with the times and the situations or to learn patience and tolerance and a willingness to ebb and flow with the movement of seasons and time. It is a choice we make. There is a time...
Bonnie B.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
We all know that there is a time for everything under the sun. As children we learn that there is a time to play, and a time to listen and obey. There is a time to do homework, and a time to stop and have our meals or go to bed. Our kids may be looking for a time to watch television or visit friends. Some sports fans know that there is a time to watch football!
When we get older we know that there is a time to find a job and earn money to live, as well as a time to relax and enjoy life. I found a time to retire, and I still have to decide what to do every hour! Life is just ups and downs. We may not want a time for war. Neither do we want a time for hate. Is that really what God wants us to know? Do we want some of those negative times?
I made a list for my kids of all the places I have lived -- country and city, suburbs, farms. I told them that I liked them all. There were some things I liked about each place, but some things that were not great. That is life! We can’t decide to have only the good side of everything. We have to learn to live with everything the Lord gives us, but we also know that God has a final reward for us that is all positive. That will be our New Year (when it is a “time to die”). We won’t realize that until it comes. Until then, all we can do is work daily. The Lord will guide us!
Bob O.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
In Shakespeare’s England, Fortune was depicted as blind so as to demonstrate she showed no favorites. Everyone had their turn at good and bad fortune. And one spoke of the wheel of fortune to illustrate the way we rise and fall and rise and fall again with good and bad fortune. In Shakespeare’s play Henry V, the character Pistol laments the fact his friend Bardolph will soon be executed for what he considers a minor crime. He says: “Bardolph, a soldier who is loyal and stout-hearted and full of valor, has, by a cruel trick of fate and a turn of silly Fortune’s wildly spinning wheel, that blind goddess who stands upon an ever-rolling stone...”
His superior Fluellen makes it clear there will be no mercy for his friend, in part because of fickle fortune: “Now, now, Ensign Pistol. Fortune is depicted as blind, with a scarf over her eyes, to signify that she is blind. And she is depicted with a wheel to signify -- this is the point -- that she is turning and inconstant, and all about change and variation. And her foot, see, is planted on a spherical stone that rolls and rolls and rolls” (Henry V, Act 3, Scene 6).
Frank R.
Revelation 21:1-6a
In the spring of 1573, Roman Catholic authorities in Antwerp arrested Maeyken Wens, who was an Anabaptist. They subjected her to torture, trying to get her to renounce her beliefs since she opposed the Catholic teaching on baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Failing to convert Wens, on October 5 they sentenced her to death. Her tongue was screwed tight so she could not speak to bystanders when she was taken to be burned at the stake. While in prison she wrote a letter to her husband, saying: “Oh, how easy it is to be a Christian, so long as the flesh is not put to trial, or nothing has to be relinquished; then it is an easy thing to be a Christian.”
Application: In Revelation we learn that only those who can see a new heaven and a new earth will have the faith and courage to put the flesh on trial.
Ron L.
Revelation 21:1-6a
New Year’s is a time of new beginnings. The church’s festival of naming Jesus is in line with this theme, for Jesus’ receiving his name was a new beginning. On this day, then, it is so appropriate to consider with this text the new beginning God has in mind with the End of Times. John Wesley nicely reflects on this vision of the end times, and his reflections offer good insights for our fresh starts. The Methodist founder claimed that most everything in creation will remain, but it will function only for good purposes. Thus fire will be present, but “it will forget its power to burn.” The air will not be disturbed by storms. No more will the cold be so intense (Works, Vol. 6, pp. 290-291). So let us take the things of the old year (weather conditions and even our flawed personal traits and professional problems) with us into the new, confident that God can put them to good use.
To these reflections about the End, Wesley adds: “But the most glorious of all will be the change which then will take place on the poor, sinful, miserable children of men.... Hence will arise an unmixed state of holiness and happiness... (Works, Vol. 6, pp. 295-296). Bring that passion for holiness and a lot of happiness with you into the new year, for God will be there to make 2017 full of holiness and happiness. And so he wipes away all our tears.
Mark E.
Matthew 25:31-46
It was a simple question in an “icebreaker” exercise at a staff meeting I attended a while ago. However, this random inquiry caused me to do quite a bit of thinking. What is this wonderfully insightful question, you ask? It was “How do you want to be remembered?” I struggled with that. I think all of us want to be remembered, but how? Do I want to be remembered for my career? Do I want to be remembered for my generous giving? Do I want to be remembered for some great feat or accomplishment?
In our text for today we are given a challenge. Jesus talks about the day when the Son of Man comes. On that day he will divide people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. Jesus will say to those on his right, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” They will ask him when did we see you like this, and he will answer, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” The passage goes on to talk about how those on his left failed to do this, but what struck me on this first day of the new year was the statement of Jesus to those on his right. They had done it for “one of the least of these who are members of my family.”
If there is a good way to be remembered, isn’t it to have been one who did what he or she could for the least of these who are members of my family as if it were for Jesus himself? In this new year you will have all kinds of opportunities to do all kinds of things. You may well resolve to do some things differently or better than before. Will you resolve to be remembered for reaching out to Jesus and to the least around us?
Bill T.
Matthew 25:31-46
Sheep and goats and their separation seem foreign concepts to us in 21st-century America. What should not seem foreign is the notion of the separation of wealth, power, and influence present in our country. We are reminded in this passage from Matthew that we are called to do more than pray and sing and move into worship with God through Jesus. We are called to make the world different; to set the standards of the world on their heads; to turn the world upside-down. Caring for those with the least -- the poor, the hungry, those without homes or clothes, the infirm, the imprisoned -- is how we follow Jesus, is how we love Jesus.
The world may not reward us for saying that it is our responsibility to make sure the hungry are fed, the homeless have homes, the naked have clothes, the ill have health care, or that the imprisoned be loved and cared about. God cares. Jesus cares. We can call on the Holy Spirit to do the tough things -- to move against the world, to share our money, our time, our passion, our very selves for the least among us. That is a New Year’s resolution I can get behind.
Bonnie B.
Matthew 25:31-46
Israel Poulson Sr. (1770-1856) was one of the old Dunkers, part of the plain folk of Pennsylvania, but he was cast from a different mold. Half Native-American, this pipe-smoking, tax-collecting, fiddle-playing preacher encouraged women to enter the ministry. He was famous as a storyteller. One of his stories, titled “The Loaf of Bread,” concerned a vision of the Last Judgment, in which “an immense concourse of people” slowly pressed forward to a set of giant scales. Their good deeds were on one side, and for many their good deeds were not enough to shift the balance in their favor. According to his story, when he stepped on the scales:
For an instant he seemed to hold his own, then he could feel himself slowly but surely rising. “Weighed and found wanting.” He was just being condemned, when the judge was halted by someone running in the distance, frantically waving his hand and calling at the top of his voice. It was a boy who held something under his arm. On he came, pushing fiercely through the crowd as fast as he could. The judge waited. The boy forced himself under the scales. Taking what was under his arm in both hands, he gave it a toss up onto the scale in which Brother Poulson was standing. Down came the scale in balance. “Accepted,” pronounced the judge. Brother Poulson looked down at his feet. There lay a loaf of bread. He recognized it as the loaf he had once given to a poor widow.
(from History of the Church of the Brethren of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 1708-1915, p. 200)
Frank R.
Matthew 25:31-46
Those poor goats! Sheep and goats are both God’s creatures. This is symbolism -- Jesus is the lamb of God, so his people are sheep. All the people of the world are symbolically sheep or goats (Democrats or Republicans?). We are not the ones to separate the two. Our actions separate us, not our denomination or political party. Our actions may not even determine whether we are Lutherans or Catholic or Pentecostal. There are good and not so good people in every denomination and party, and maybe even those of every faith or no faith! There are thoughtful Muslims. It is up to our Lord to determine who are the sheep.
One thing to observe is that neither side knew which kind of animal they were. One implication of this is that those who are generous are not doing it for brownie points. Neither side should brag about what they have done -- or not done. Some brag about making the poor struggle for themselves (like they think all good Americans should). Some would not think of helping someone in prison (who in their opinion are only getting what they deserve).
When someone came to me who looked bedraggled and hungry, I felt sorry for him -- and in some cases when I had the time, I took him to lunch or even to a clothing store. I seldom stopped to think whether I owed it to him or if I wanted to please God. I was not doing it for a personal reward. Yes, I sometimes felt a reward, but that did not lead me to do it, though I suppose some did help others for a reward from God (or others or for income tax benefits).
I have seen such a proud look on the face of someone who made a generous contribution to a cause and heard the applause.
We are still helping a woman in prison who my wife had taught in school many years before. We have grown to care for her more every year, but I never think that we are giving because of a reward from Jesus.
Sometimes I have refused to give to someone who looked like they were only raising money for alcohol. I might even try to counsel them, if they would let me.
Our generosity must come from the heart. God can put compassion in our hearts. Our church can help us. Sometimes compassion can grow in our hearts when we see it growing in our friends and fellow Christians. Then we may realize that we also need to feed God’s sheep!
Bob O.
Our culture is often governed by a clock. We get up in the morning at a particular hour. We start work when the clock tells us it’s time to begin. We leave work when it’s time to go. We have meals when it’s time to eat. We agree to meet people at set times. There seems to be a time for just about everything. Time is important to us, and we expect things to happen on time. That’s the message that Solomon has for us in Ecclesiastes 3. This chapter notes, in a way that has inspired songs and poems throughout human history, that there is a time for every activity under heaven.
The passage for today highlights time and points out that God’s people are to take life each day at a time, enjoying what God has given them. That truth rises up against the question that emerges from this text and from the heart of humanity: what is the whole plan for life? Since time is so important to us as humans and we understand that there is a time for everything, we are anxious to know when and how things are going to happen. The answer to that is direct, though. “They cannot find out what God has done from beginning to end.” We don’t get to know how everything will work together or what lies down the road. We simply get one day at a time.
As we stand on the precipice of a new year, our hearts and minds may be contemplating what is ahead. We may think that 2017 is the time for marriage, retirement, starting a family, or a host of other things. Does God have those things in mind for us this year? Is this the time? Maybe. We aren’t privy to that information. Enjoy each day as it comes and trust him. He will bring all that we need in its proper time.
Bill T.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
Seasons come and seasons go. Time passes and brings with it grace and challenge, hope and loss. This passage of scripture is so well-known. To everything there is a season... Yet I think we do not always accept the message of the passage. There will be good days and there will be difficult days. There will be joy and there will be pain. There will be peace and there will be war. It is the nature of existence that things do not stay the same, that change is inevitable.
Most of us don’t like change. We also don’t like to wait for things to change. Watch the impatience some folks have at traffic lights, or waiting in line at the store, or trying to get the attention of a clerk. We don’t have a lot of patience. This passage reminds us that some things take time: growing, learning, loving -- these all take time. Seasons come and seasons go. Well, friends, feelings come and feelings go. We have a choice to be impatient with the times and the situations or to learn patience and tolerance and a willingness to ebb and flow with the movement of seasons and time. It is a choice we make. There is a time...
Bonnie B.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
We all know that there is a time for everything under the sun. As children we learn that there is a time to play, and a time to listen and obey. There is a time to do homework, and a time to stop and have our meals or go to bed. Our kids may be looking for a time to watch television or visit friends. Some sports fans know that there is a time to watch football!
When we get older we know that there is a time to find a job and earn money to live, as well as a time to relax and enjoy life. I found a time to retire, and I still have to decide what to do every hour! Life is just ups and downs. We may not want a time for war. Neither do we want a time for hate. Is that really what God wants us to know? Do we want some of those negative times?
I made a list for my kids of all the places I have lived -- country and city, suburbs, farms. I told them that I liked them all. There were some things I liked about each place, but some things that were not great. That is life! We can’t decide to have only the good side of everything. We have to learn to live with everything the Lord gives us, but we also know that God has a final reward for us that is all positive. That will be our New Year (when it is a “time to die”). We won’t realize that until it comes. Until then, all we can do is work daily. The Lord will guide us!
Bob O.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
In Shakespeare’s England, Fortune was depicted as blind so as to demonstrate she showed no favorites. Everyone had their turn at good and bad fortune. And one spoke of the wheel of fortune to illustrate the way we rise and fall and rise and fall again with good and bad fortune. In Shakespeare’s play Henry V, the character Pistol laments the fact his friend Bardolph will soon be executed for what he considers a minor crime. He says: “Bardolph, a soldier who is loyal and stout-hearted and full of valor, has, by a cruel trick of fate and a turn of silly Fortune’s wildly spinning wheel, that blind goddess who stands upon an ever-rolling stone...”
His superior Fluellen makes it clear there will be no mercy for his friend, in part because of fickle fortune: “Now, now, Ensign Pistol. Fortune is depicted as blind, with a scarf over her eyes, to signify that she is blind. And she is depicted with a wheel to signify -- this is the point -- that she is turning and inconstant, and all about change and variation. And her foot, see, is planted on a spherical stone that rolls and rolls and rolls” (Henry V, Act 3, Scene 6).
Frank R.
Revelation 21:1-6a
In the spring of 1573, Roman Catholic authorities in Antwerp arrested Maeyken Wens, who was an Anabaptist. They subjected her to torture, trying to get her to renounce her beliefs since she opposed the Catholic teaching on baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Failing to convert Wens, on October 5 they sentenced her to death. Her tongue was screwed tight so she could not speak to bystanders when she was taken to be burned at the stake. While in prison she wrote a letter to her husband, saying: “Oh, how easy it is to be a Christian, so long as the flesh is not put to trial, or nothing has to be relinquished; then it is an easy thing to be a Christian.”
Application: In Revelation we learn that only those who can see a new heaven and a new earth will have the faith and courage to put the flesh on trial.
Ron L.
Revelation 21:1-6a
New Year’s is a time of new beginnings. The church’s festival of naming Jesus is in line with this theme, for Jesus’ receiving his name was a new beginning. On this day, then, it is so appropriate to consider with this text the new beginning God has in mind with the End of Times. John Wesley nicely reflects on this vision of the end times, and his reflections offer good insights for our fresh starts. The Methodist founder claimed that most everything in creation will remain, but it will function only for good purposes. Thus fire will be present, but “it will forget its power to burn.” The air will not be disturbed by storms. No more will the cold be so intense (Works, Vol. 6, pp. 290-291). So let us take the things of the old year (weather conditions and even our flawed personal traits and professional problems) with us into the new, confident that God can put them to good use.
To these reflections about the End, Wesley adds: “But the most glorious of all will be the change which then will take place on the poor, sinful, miserable children of men.... Hence will arise an unmixed state of holiness and happiness... (Works, Vol. 6, pp. 295-296). Bring that passion for holiness and a lot of happiness with you into the new year, for God will be there to make 2017 full of holiness and happiness. And so he wipes away all our tears.
Mark E.
Matthew 25:31-46
It was a simple question in an “icebreaker” exercise at a staff meeting I attended a while ago. However, this random inquiry caused me to do quite a bit of thinking. What is this wonderfully insightful question, you ask? It was “How do you want to be remembered?” I struggled with that. I think all of us want to be remembered, but how? Do I want to be remembered for my career? Do I want to be remembered for my generous giving? Do I want to be remembered for some great feat or accomplishment?
In our text for today we are given a challenge. Jesus talks about the day when the Son of Man comes. On that day he will divide people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. Jesus will say to those on his right, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” They will ask him when did we see you like this, and he will answer, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” The passage goes on to talk about how those on his left failed to do this, but what struck me on this first day of the new year was the statement of Jesus to those on his right. They had done it for “one of the least of these who are members of my family.”
If there is a good way to be remembered, isn’t it to have been one who did what he or she could for the least of these who are members of my family as if it were for Jesus himself? In this new year you will have all kinds of opportunities to do all kinds of things. You may well resolve to do some things differently or better than before. Will you resolve to be remembered for reaching out to Jesus and to the least around us?
Bill T.
Matthew 25:31-46
Sheep and goats and their separation seem foreign concepts to us in 21st-century America. What should not seem foreign is the notion of the separation of wealth, power, and influence present in our country. We are reminded in this passage from Matthew that we are called to do more than pray and sing and move into worship with God through Jesus. We are called to make the world different; to set the standards of the world on their heads; to turn the world upside-down. Caring for those with the least -- the poor, the hungry, those without homes or clothes, the infirm, the imprisoned -- is how we follow Jesus, is how we love Jesus.
The world may not reward us for saying that it is our responsibility to make sure the hungry are fed, the homeless have homes, the naked have clothes, the ill have health care, or that the imprisoned be loved and cared about. God cares. Jesus cares. We can call on the Holy Spirit to do the tough things -- to move against the world, to share our money, our time, our passion, our very selves for the least among us. That is a New Year’s resolution I can get behind.
Bonnie B.
Matthew 25:31-46
Israel Poulson Sr. (1770-1856) was one of the old Dunkers, part of the plain folk of Pennsylvania, but he was cast from a different mold. Half Native-American, this pipe-smoking, tax-collecting, fiddle-playing preacher encouraged women to enter the ministry. He was famous as a storyteller. One of his stories, titled “The Loaf of Bread,” concerned a vision of the Last Judgment, in which “an immense concourse of people” slowly pressed forward to a set of giant scales. Their good deeds were on one side, and for many their good deeds were not enough to shift the balance in their favor. According to his story, when he stepped on the scales:
For an instant he seemed to hold his own, then he could feel himself slowly but surely rising. “Weighed and found wanting.” He was just being condemned, when the judge was halted by someone running in the distance, frantically waving his hand and calling at the top of his voice. It was a boy who held something under his arm. On he came, pushing fiercely through the crowd as fast as he could. The judge waited. The boy forced himself under the scales. Taking what was under his arm in both hands, he gave it a toss up onto the scale in which Brother Poulson was standing. Down came the scale in balance. “Accepted,” pronounced the judge. Brother Poulson looked down at his feet. There lay a loaf of bread. He recognized it as the loaf he had once given to a poor widow.
(from History of the Church of the Brethren of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 1708-1915, p. 200)
Frank R.
Matthew 25:31-46
Those poor goats! Sheep and goats are both God’s creatures. This is symbolism -- Jesus is the lamb of God, so his people are sheep. All the people of the world are symbolically sheep or goats (Democrats or Republicans?). We are not the ones to separate the two. Our actions separate us, not our denomination or political party. Our actions may not even determine whether we are Lutherans or Catholic or Pentecostal. There are good and not so good people in every denomination and party, and maybe even those of every faith or no faith! There are thoughtful Muslims. It is up to our Lord to determine who are the sheep.
One thing to observe is that neither side knew which kind of animal they were. One implication of this is that those who are generous are not doing it for brownie points. Neither side should brag about what they have done -- or not done. Some brag about making the poor struggle for themselves (like they think all good Americans should). Some would not think of helping someone in prison (who in their opinion are only getting what they deserve).
When someone came to me who looked bedraggled and hungry, I felt sorry for him -- and in some cases when I had the time, I took him to lunch or even to a clothing store. I seldom stopped to think whether I owed it to him or if I wanted to please God. I was not doing it for a personal reward. Yes, I sometimes felt a reward, but that did not lead me to do it, though I suppose some did help others for a reward from God (or others or for income tax benefits).
I have seen such a proud look on the face of someone who made a generous contribution to a cause and heard the applause.
We are still helping a woman in prison who my wife had taught in school many years before. We have grown to care for her more every year, but I never think that we are giving because of a reward from Jesus.
Sometimes I have refused to give to someone who looked like they were only raising money for alcohol. I might even try to counsel them, if they would let me.
Our generosity must come from the heart. God can put compassion in our hearts. Our church can help us. Sometimes compassion can grow in our hearts when we see it growing in our friends and fellow Christians. Then we may realize that we also need to feed God’s sheep!
Bob O.
