Calling – Sermon Illustration Ideas

Accepting your Calling

Calling, Destiny, personal calling, Struggles, submitting to the destiny

The movie Dungeons & Dragons: Honor among Thieves (directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, Paramount Pictures, 2023) centers on a quest to retrieve a…

Doing Something With Nothing

Calling, Following Jesus, God's power, Good Works, Kingdom of God, Sharing the Gospel, Vessels

In the 1980s, there was a popular TV show called MacGyver. The title character was a genius who could seemingly do anything with nothing…

Convictions And Calling

Calling, Caring for Others, Convictions, God's Plan, Jesus' Humanity, Mighty God, Trusting God

Sometimes valor in life comes from the most unexpected places—such as the story of Desmond Doss, a conscientious objector who chose to serve in…

The Father

Calling, Father, Following God, God's power, Guidance, Journey, Relationship with God

The process of God empowering us as he calls us is like a father helping his young son learn a trade skill, like carpentry….

The Holy Spirit Came Over Him

Calling, Following Jesus, Holy Spirit, John The Baptist, Scripture

Before 1930, Joseph Babalola was a young road builder in Nigeria. Then the Holy Spirit came over him. He found himself unable to sleep…

Set Free

Calling, Forgiveness, Freedom, Guilt, Jesus' Healing, Set Free, Sharing the Gospel, Sin

Prison is a place a lot of us may feel reluctant to go. But in prison there are many people yearning to be set…

Cicely Saunders

Calling, Life, Mission, Theme

Cicely Saunders, medical director of St. Christopher’s Hospice in London, “founded the first modern hospice and, more than anybody else, was responsible for establishing…

Our Collective Calling

Calling, Church, Failure, Purpose of the Church, The Church

The church is a place where grace must abound if we want to live in true unity. It should be a place where people…

Career Changes

Calling, God's Will, Purpose, Sacrifice, Surrender

Find someone in the congregation who has made difficult career changes based on what God has asked them to do. Other than those who…

Answering Jesus’s Call

Calling, Evangelism, God's Plan, God's Will, Purpose

Titus Coan (1835–81), a New England–trained educator and physician, used his knowledge of both fields to work as a missionary on the island of…

“Every Day Is Exactly the Same”

Calling, everyday purpose, Life, Meaning, Purpose, Repetition, Routines

In the Nine Inch Nails song “Every Day Is Exactly the Same,” Trent Reznor describes his struggle of life, saying, “I believe I can…

A Life of Meaning

Calling, Purpose, Relationship with God, Vocation

The idea that we need to live a life that matters can be overwhelming, especially when we’re in our late teens and early twenties….

Waiting For Job Charming

Calling, Gifts, Purpose, Vocation, Work

There’s a danger in trying to make a calling—and the exercise of the gifts associated with it—something more exciting, or just sensationalizing it. But…

You Follow Me

Calling, Challenge, Disciples, Discipleship, Following Jesus, Peter

As a child did you ever try and deflect responsibility from yourself to another by asking, “What about So-and-so?” Do your children ever do…

Marco Polo

Calling, Hearing from God, Seeking, Seeking God, Vocation

Sometimes finding God’s calling/vocation on your life feels like a giant game of hide and seek, in which you constantly look in all the…

Imposter Syndrome

2 Corinthians 12:10, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Calling, Dependence, Exodus 3:1-17, Fear, God's Strength, Inadequacy, Insecurity, Jeremiah 1:4-19, Jeremiah 29:11, Psalm 147:10-11, Romans 8:26, Sufficiency, Weakness

Have you ever heard of “imposter syndrome”? It’s the persistent fear of being secretly incompetent or inadequate for your job. A lot of us…

Mixed Messages

1 John 2:15-17, Calling, Confusion, Culture, Identification, Imitation, Inclusiveness, James 4:4, Matthew 7:13, Outreach, Pastoring, Romans 12:2, Romans 8:13, Urban Ministry, Worldliness

On one episode of “The Calling,” a Christianity Today podcast, host Richard Clark interviewed pastor Tommy “Urban D” Kyllonen about his ministry in the…

Humility For Unity

2 Corinthians 8:9, Calling, Change, Christ's Character, Christ's Example, Hebrews 4:15, History, Humility, Laying Down, Mark 10:45, Matthew 11:29, Philippians 2:5-11, Resonate, Stakes, Unity

The 2016 Southern Baptist Convention was historic for many reasons. One in particular revolved around the SBC presidential election. When candidates Steven Gaines and…

Is God Your God?

1 John 5:14, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, Calling, Church, Colossians 4:2, Commitment, Exchange, Idolatry, Love, Mark 11:24, Philippians 4:6-7, Prayer, Priorities, Private Time, Worship

“What you think about in your private time is what you worship.”- Pastor Timothy Keller. Jesus calls for us to make time to pray…

“The Calling”

Calling, Change, Circumstance, Dreams, Gifts, God's Sovereignty, Isaiah 46:10, Job 42:2, Nehemiah 9:6, Path, Placement, Plans, Psalm 135:6, Trusting God, Zechariah 14:9

One episode of The Jim Gaffigan Show, “The Calling,” examines how one’s calling can vastly differ from one’s gifts or placement. In this video,…