Sunday Sermon Series: Colossians 1:15-23

Good morning everyone, I hope you are well. Today I have an illustration for you from a sermon by Pastor Shaun Hart two weeks ago(to listen to that sermon click here). This illustration became so complicated that it took me longer than usual to assemble all the pieces.

The main point I took from this sermon and scripture is: Jesus in all things is first and foremost. Through Him all things were created. He is one with the Father, and through Jesus I am saved. Keeping my focus on Him both helps me through times of trouble, and keeps me from other troubles.

One illustration Shaun used to drive this point home was the story of Odysseus and the sirens from Greek mythology. The sirens if you recall were half bird, half fish creatures who would beguile or lure the sailors who were passing by. The sirens sang a song that was so beautiful the sailors would either sail right into the rocks, be shipwrecked and die, or they would jump overboard and try to swim to the rocks and be killed that way. When Odysseus heard of this he decided he could fix this problem. So he stopped up his ears with wax and tied himself to the mast so that he could not be seduced. In the Argonauts Orpheus tells Jason he has a different plan. Orpheus played on his harp a greater song, so great that the sailors never even heard the sirens.

A greater song. Such is the song that Jesus sings. His song is so much better on so many different levels that the songs we hear in this world. So much so that when we listen to Jesus, the songs of this world have no appeal to us. When Jesus is at the helm, the wind at my sails, and the very ship I sail only then can I manage this world.

As I worked on this illustration (which I would dearly love to have time to animate!) I listened as I often do to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. Through no coincidence I am sure, I was surprised to hear Alistair relating the same story to illustrate the exact same message. Here is the link to that sermon: Truth for Life. I had to go through quite a bit to find that link for you, apparently the archives for listening through your phone are completely different than those on the web here. Thankfully on the mobile app you can share a link to a sermon, so I shared it with myself and got you the link. Ovey. The whole sermon is great, the part I reference specifically is about 17 minutes in. You should give it a listen.

This pencil sketch was done with a Pentel .7mm P207 mechanical pencil in a Pentalic Sketchbook on 70lb paper. It was scanned and then colorized in PhotoShop. I hope you enjoyed this post, and that it encouraged you or challenged you. God bless, and have a great day! --Ryan

Chicken Running

Hey-howdy-hey friends and neighbors! Today I have an animated gif for your viewing pleasure.

Earlier this week I was working on my next Sunday Sermon Series illustration. I realized yesterday that I wasn't going to finish any time so soon I switched to working on the concept you see here which was mentioned by Pastor Shaun. He mentioned in passing (I don't remember it as one of his main sermon points, but it stuck with me as you can see) that the church without Jesus is like a chicken with it's head cut off. There is simply no point to Christianity without Jesus.

So of course I quickly drew a chicken with it's head cut off, spastically running along, dead as a mackerel even though the chicken doesn't know it. The chicken is supposed to be moving in a hurky-jerky manner. I couldn't tell if the shadow on the ground was distracting or not. Without it I thought it looked a bit like the chicken was just floating. Either way, this short animated loop serves as a nice interim post while I finish off the more involved illustration which includes sirens, the singing mythical half bird/half fish creatures. Ooooo! Look for it next week sometime.

This pencil sketch was done with a Pentel .7mm P207 mechanical pencil in a Pentalic Sketchbook on 70lbs. paper. It was scanned and then colorized in PhotoShop. The animation was also done in PhotoShop. I use Photoshop for straight forward frame by frame animation quite often. As always I hope you enjoyed this post. God bless, and have a great day! --Ryan