Sermon Illustrations
Search for Wedding Ring Tossed Out In Trash
What would you do if your wedding band ended up in a garbage truck? Do you make arrangements to get it replaced or search through literally tons of trash? Collen Dyckman said she accidentally threw out her wedding ring after cooking dinner Sunday night. She only realized it was missing the next morning. But, by that time, the garbage truck had already come by and taken the trash. She ran out of the house and chased down the garbage truck and its driver.
The driver then called Edward Wiggins, sanitation site crew leader at the Town of Babylon's Department of Environmental Control. Wiggins said he had the driver immediately stopped his route and started digging for about three hours through six tons of garbage. Dyckman said, "In that moment I thought…I'm not going to find it. I didn't see it. It's not in there."
But finally after four hours they spotted the lost ring. Dyckman said she was brought to tears. To show her appreciation, she later baked brownies and bought pizza pies and cookies that she took to Wiggins and his team during lunch. "We're really glad we were able to help her and get her ring back," Wiggins said today. "To be honest, in the 41 years I've been here, we've only been able to successfully recover lost items three times."
Possible Preaching Angles: 1) Christ, incarnation; Christ, love of; Lost souls are precious in the sight of Christ and he came to this fallen and corrupt world to seek and to save the lost. 2) Preaching; Evangelism; Gospel; Witnessing; Believers are to show mercy to unbelievers, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.