Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing all results

1. Deepest Desire

Illustration

Philip Yancey

The psychiatrist Gerald C. May observed, “After twenty years of listening to the yearnings of people’s hearts, I am convinced that human beings have an inborn desire for God. Whether we are consciously religious or not, this desire is our deepest longing and most precious treasure.”

2. From Good Friday to Easter

Illustration

Philip Yancey

The German theologian Jurgen Moltmann expresses in a single sentence the great span from Good Friday to Easter. It is, in fact, a summary of human history, past, present, and future: "God weeps with us so that we may someday laugh with him."

3. Happiness Is A Scratched Itch

Illustration

Philip Yancey

There is an ancient Chinese philosophy which says: ‘To be dry and thirsty in a hot and dusty land—and to feel great drops of rain on my bare skin—ah, is this not happiness? To have an itch in the private parts of my body—and finally to escape from my friends and to a hiding place where I can scratch—ah, is this not happiness?’ Pain and pleasure are inextricably linked. The pleasure would not exis...

4. Harder With Time

Illustration

Philip Yancey

In an essay on prayer, C.S. Lewis suggested that God treats new Christians with a special kind of tenderness, much as a parent dotes on a newborn. He quotes an experienced Christian: "I have seen many striking answers to prayer and more than one that I thought miraculous. But they usually come at the beginning before conversion, or soon after it. As the Christian life proceeds, they tend to be ra...

5. Healing - Gone With One Call

Illustration

Philip Yancey

Even back then I was searching for hard evidence of God as an alternative to faith. And one day I found it on television, of all places. While randomly flipping a dial, I came across a mass healing service being conducted by Kathryn Kuhlman. I watched for a few minutes as she brought various people up on the stage and interviewed them. Each one told an amazing story of supernatural healing. Cancer...

6. How Sweet the Sound

Illustration

Philip Yancey

A few years ago, journalist Bill Moyers created a documentary based on the hymn “Amazing Grace.” One of the more unusual scenes in the film takes place at a massive benefit concert in England. All day, fans had been blasted with hard-driving rock music. Strangely, the concert organizers had scheduled opera singer Jessye Norman to close the concert. Fans reacted negatively when Ms. Norman first...

7. Jesus Our Intercessor

Illustration

Philip Yancey

As Jesus once prayed for Peter, now he prays for us . . . In fact, the New Testament’s only glimpse of what Jesus is doing right now depicts him at the right hand of God ‘interceding for us.’ In three years of active ministry, Jesus changed the moral landscape of the planet. For nearly two thousand years since, he has been using another tactic: prayer.

8. John Donne Undone

Illustration

Philip Yancey

John Donne, a 17th century poet, experienced great pain. Because he married the daughter of a disapproving lord, he was fired from his job, as assistant to the Lord Chancellor, yanked from his wife, and locked in a dungeon. Later, he endured a long illness which sapped his strength almost to the point of death. In the midst of this illness, Donne wrote a series of devotions on suffering, which ran...

9. Let Your Light Shine

Illustration

Philip Yancey

Dr Paul Brand was speaking to a medical college in India on "Let your light so shine before men that they may behold your good works and glorify your Father." In front of the lectern was a oil lamp, with its cotton wick burning from the shallow dish of oil. As he preached, the lamp ran out of oil, the wick burned dry, and the smoke made him cough. He immediately used the opportunity. "Some of us ...

10. Resist the Shortcuts

Illustration

Philip Yancey

Human beings grow by striving, working, stretching; and in a sense, human nature needs problems more than solutions. Why are not all prayers answered magically and instantly? Why must every convert travel the same tedious path of spiritual discipline? Because persistent prayer, and fasting, and study, and meditation are designed primarily for our sakes, not for God's. Kierkegaard said that Christi...

11. Sun Gazing

Illustration

Philip Yancey

Once, as an experiment, the great scientist Isaac Newton stared at the image of the sun reflected in a mirror. The brightness burned into his retina, and he suffered temporary blindness. Even after he hid for three days behind closed shutters, still the bright spot would not fade from his vision. "I used all means to divert my imagination from the sun," he writes, "But if I thought upon him I pres...

Showing 1 to 11 of 11all results

Showing all results

1. Deepest Desire

Illustration

Philip Yancey

2. From Good Friday to Easter

Illustration

Philip Yancey

3. Happiness Is A Scratched Itch

Illustration

Philip Yancey

4. Harder With Time

Illustration

Philip Yancey

5. Healing - Gone With One Call

Illustration

Philip Yancey

6. How Sweet the Sound

Illustration

Philip Yancey

7. Jesus Our Intercessor

Illustration

Philip Yancey

8. John Donne Undone

Illustration

Philip Yancey

9. Let Your Light Shine

Illustration

Philip Yancey

10. Resist the Shortcuts

Illustration

Philip Yancey

11. Sun Gazing

Illustration

Philip Yancey

Showing 1 to 11 of 11all results