One more thing. Some of my best sermons were inspired by something a preacher did poorly. (The point being, do not rule out the Holy Spirit using a most unlikely message, even a lousy one you read or hear.) I recall one Easter sitting in a congregation where the pastor preached on Job’s question from 14:14, “If a man dies, will he live again?” The pastor preached all around that, and did a fair job except for one thing. He failed to point out that Job answered his own question in 19:25-27: “And as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God, Whom I myself shall behold … and not another.” You will want to know that not long after I preached that scripture, and did so with every ounce of conviction within me.
Pay attention. Christmas symbols, reminders and messages are everywhere. You should have no trouble finding a hundred illustrations.
The other day, I purchased a collection of short stories by well-known mystery writers under the title The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries. Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, Mary Higgins Clark, John D. MacDonald and similar writers of the present and past generations are represented here. I posted a photo of this book on Facebook and asked, “What are the REAL mysteries of Christmas?” So far, answers have ranged from the actual date of Jesus’ birth to the identity of the star of Bethlehem, from the value of the gold, frankincense and myrrh to the wonder that God would go to such extremes to redeem such people as you and me. There’s a sermon in there somewhere, preacher.
Sermon ideas and illustrations are all around you.
One online resource is this blog. The easiest way to find a listing of the numerous articles/sermons we’ve posted here is by googling “Christmas + Joe McKeever.” I did that just now and found a full lineup of messages on “The Christmas Fraud,” “The Christmas Disappointment” and such. Use anything you find there with our blessings; no need to give credit.
Call two or three of your preacher buddies and suggest an idea/story exchange. Your people may have heard your great Christmas stories, but they’ve not heard your friends’ stories. You can help each other out.
I’m always good for a story, as a few of my friends have discovered. Sometimes a pastor will send a few sermon ideas he’s working on and ask if I have any insights or stories on those subjects. An hour later, I email him a dozen or more. (The joke is when I preach in his church, he tells his people, “When Joe tells one of his stories, act like you’ve not heard it before.”)
Look back over your sermons from previous years. Some of these were so rich and so inspiring, you could rework them and improve on them and enjoy them all over again.
I’ve told here how I kept a daily journal for the decade of the 1990s. In addition to recording the daily comings and goings of a busy pastor, each Saturday night I would jot down sermon notes for the next day’s messages. Now, some two decades later, re-reading those 40-plus books is fun, and they are a mother lode of sermon ideas and illustrations.
Yesterday, looking back over some articles on Christmas from this blog, I found a lovely little story I had told once and promptly forgotten. Sam Allen, a member of the Nashville gospel trio called No Other Name, tells this on himself. Sam grew up on a Christmas tree farm in Florida. As a teen, it was his job to listen for a car horn and run outside and help a customer find a tree, and complete the sale. On this particular day, the lady who drove up at suppertime was a Yankee, Sam says, and he gladly assisted her in picking out a good tree. He cut it down and tied it up, then jotted down her address for delivery the next day.
