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Thanks, To Every One Of You!

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Four Ways To Use An Illustration: Previously, I had laid out three different ways to use an illustration.  There is an interesting fourth way to use an illustration, as exemplified by Pastor Steven Smith.

#4) — The fourth way to use an illustration is to have it set up your sermonic APPROACH!

If you were using this illustration that way, after laying out the story (as you choose whatever details you select), you would say something like . . .

You see, were I to just read the headlines, or read the article’s hook in the introductory paragraphs, every one of us would say — “Well, what happened.  What lead to that situation, outcome, tragedy?”  Knowing about the singular rescue of a nine-year-old is good news, but that doesn’t end our curiosity about what happened.

Likewise, when you read a Bible passage that is focused on the outcome, you still want to know more.

Hebrews 11 highlights a variety of stories of faith — it tells us the end of the story.  However, as most know and understand, it is not the whole story.

That is what we are going to do this morning — we are going to read the verses in Hebrews 11 about ______, and then show how remarkable it was that _____ was able to walk by faith.   We are going to go see “The Rest Of The Story.”

NOTE: Again, it is not the actual story that is used to illustrate a biblical truth or point, but a means of setting up the sermonic approach.

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Steven Smith is one of the most effective preachers I listen to regularly.
If you would like to listen to this approach being employed by Pastor Steven Smith, here is the link – or the Easter Video 04/12/2020!

Pastor Smith is using the story to set up his approach!
The story as a whole, not the details of the story, are used to illustrate his approach to the passage he is preaching on.

It is not the story, or any of our keywords, or key phrases that become part of the sermon. Pastor Smith could have used a wide variety of stories, with all different details or events.  It is not the story that is important, but his point is that when you hear that story, it makes you want to know the backstory.

Pastor Smith sets up the need to know the back-story if you are going to understand the ending.  Pastor Smith is setting up his sermon approach!  He is laying out why he going to do what he is going to do, why he is going to begin in Genesis . . .  He is making the point that in order to understand the conclusion of what has happened — the divine rescue through the resurrection — you have to go back to the beginning of the story.

Note: Here is another example of doing that in a completely different way, using another story.