Sermon Illustrations

Category: Simon Ponsonby

  • Stop wallowing in the shallows

    Tiffany and my boys went to feed the giant koi carp fish in the large pond at the bottom of the garden. Suddenly Tiffany’s voice interrupted my thoughts, ‘Simon, come quick, there’s a fish in trouble!’ I got up and rushed to the end of the garden and there, stranded in the mud, in a…

  • Shackleton’s third man

    The experience of Shacklteon in the Antartic when on a perilous journey over ice mountains he and his colleagues were aware of a strange accompanying presence: Who is the third who always walks beside you? When I count there are only you and I together. But when I look ahead up the white road there…

  • Do I meet you praying?

    The saintly Methodist leader John Fletcher of Madeley is said to have prayed at all times, regularly spending all night in prayer and when walking, greeting his friends he would ask the question, “Do I meet you praying?” It is said the first sign of madness is talking to yourself – I suspect many might…

  • Jesus Walks

    Before his rise to stardom, the controversial artist Kanye West wrote a song titled “Jesus Walks.” It was about how Jesus walks with all kinds of people and is told from the perspective of a drug dealer contemplating God. Kanye West played it to many music executives, who all turned him down because it didn’t…

  • Astronaut vs Jesus

    Jim Irwin who was one of only eight people to walk on the moon (at least at the time of writing). He went to space agnostic, but returned a passionate Christian, leaving NASA to start his own Christian mission. He stated: The entire space achievement is put into proper perspective when one realises that God…

  • Laid in a manger significance

    One Jewish scholar Alfred Edersheim, drawing on Jewish tradition and lore, suggested that the place Jesus was born was Bethlehem’s Migdal Eder, the tower which was used to watch over the special sacrificial flocks of the temple from birth to temple sacrifice. The tower had a table where ewes delivered the lambs which were then…

  • Advent into adverts

    Our materialist culture has turned, or perhaps it’s our materialist nature, has turned advent into adverts. Three years ago, on Christmas day in the UK, £1 billion was spent online shopping – on Christmas Day itself Simon PonsonbyClick to TweetFrom the book “Amazed by Jesus” Available on amazon.co.uk*Available on amazon.com*

  • Home

    Frederick Beuchner insightfully claimed that when we hear the word “home’ we think of two things: we think of the place we come from and we think of the place we dream of. Simon PonsonbyClick to Tweet

  • Restoring clarity

    Philip Yancey described it like this, For me Jesus has become the focal point of faith and increasingly I am learning to keep the magnifying glass of my faith focused on him. In my Spiritual journey I have long lingered over the margins, puzzling over matters like the problem of pain, the conundrum of prayer,…

  • Make Jesus bigger

    It is said of the Renaissance master Michelangelo was asked by his pupil Raphael to comment on a portrait of Jesus that he was painting. Michelangelo went to his studio to see the picture when Raphael was out for lunch, and after examining the portrait, took a brush and painted across it theword AMPLIUS –…