Loading...
Search, filter, and discover the perfect illustration for your sermon
Free to browse · Sign up free to unlock most illustrations · Premium ($9.95/mo) for the full library of 50,000+ illustrations
In Jiro Dreams of Sushi, 85-year-old Jiro Ono has made sushi for over sixty years. His restaurant has three Michelin stars. He still wakes early, still perfects his craft, still dreams of better sushi.
In Atonement, Briony Tallis tells a lie as a child that destroys two lives. She spends the rest of her life trying to atone—becoming a nurse, writing novels, seeking forgiveness. She cannot undo what she did; she can only offer her broken story.
In Wonder, Auggie Pullman enters middle school with a severe facial difference. He is stared at, bullied, isolated. Yet the film insists: he is fearfully and wonderfully made. The Psalmist says, I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
In Saving Private Ryan, Captain Miller leads his squad through hell to find one paratrooper. Every soldier asks why risk eight lives for one. But deeper, Miller goes because he was sent. Isaiah heard the voice of the Lord asking, Whom shall I send?
In Gran Torino, Walt Kowalski is a racist Korean War veteran who despises his Hmong neighbors. When gang violence threatens the teenage boy next door, Walt—the last person who should help—becomes the unlikely savior. He gives his life protecting people he once hated.
In The King's Speech, Lionel Logue isn't a credentialed speech therapist—he's an Australian actor. But he sees something in stammering King George VI that others don't: a voice worth hearing. Through years of unconventional therapy and genuine friendship, Lionel builds up a king.
In A River Runs Through It, the father teaches his sons to fly fish on Montana rivers. "Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it." The river becomes sacred space—where father and sons commune, where grace flows even when words fail.
Chiron carries his true self buried so deep even he can barely find it. In a world that demands he be hard, he builds walls of muscle and silence. Only Juan, a drug dealer who becomes a father figure, sees the frightened boy inside.
In Scrooge (A Christmas Carol), Ebenezer Scrooge wakes on Christmas morning transformed. He has not merely resolved to be better—he has been remade. He buys the biggest turkey, gives Bob Cratchit a raise, becomes a second father to Tiny Tim.
In Philadelphia, Andrew Beckett—dying of AIDS, fired for his illness—hires Joe Miller, a homophobic lawyer, to fight his discrimination case. Joe must overcome his prejudice; Andrew must find dignity in dying. Both men change. Act justly, love mercy, walk humbly.
In Unbroken, Louis Zamperini survives a plane crash, 47 days on a raft, and brutal POW camps. His tormentor, "The Bird," tries daily to break him. Louis endures through something beyond human grit—a peace his circumstances can't explain.
The Sanhedrin spoke solemnly of 'putting down error' and maintaining doctrinal purity, yet their true motive was *zelos*—jealousy, not genuine zeal.
For thirty years, under the guardianship of the High Priest Jehoiada, the king remained faithful to his conscience and duty.
God's purpose is explicit: "God hath sent His Son into the world, that the world through Him might be saved." Yet formidable obstacles obscure this gracious design.
Rather, He sets him apart for Himself—to converse with him, to communicate Himself to him as a friend and companion, making him His delight.
Neither Ezra nor Nehemiah originated this gathering—they obeyed "a popular impulse which they had not created." This is extraordinary because Ezra, who had labored thirteen years in Jerusalem fighting corruptions among the returned captives, had never before promulgated the law...
They possessed nothing—no influence, no numbers, no world support.
First, recognize what we desperately need: the King of Glory dwelling within.
The Holy Spirit recorded a mystery of consolation: healing came through the *pistis* (faith) of others.
In The Impossible, the Belon family is separated by the 2004 tsunami. Maria and Lucas are swept miles away; Henry searches with the younger boys. Against all odds, they reunite. What survived the wave? Not their possessions—family, love, determination to find each other.
These unnamed men, bearing no vision, no command from Jerusalem, no precedent to guide them—only truth in their minds and the impulses of Christ's love in their hearts—solved the question that had vexed the apostles: whether salvation belonged to Gentiles.
Exell's *Biblical Illustrator* offers three principles for this conquest.
These phases repeat with such regularity that he compares them to *the white and red lights and darkness reappearing in a revolving lighthouse lantern, or figures recurring in a circulating decimal fraction*.
Yet understand: there is no opposition between Christ and His people requiring conquest.