I entered the summer of 2008 with an old problem and a new conviction. The problem, for someone who was approaching his ninth summer as pastor of the same church, was maintaining excitement as I planned summer sermons (often a season of inconsistent attendance and low energy). The growing conviction concerned the power of Christian biography to inspire a disciple of Jesus. Having recently been enriched by reading biographies of pastors like John Stott and David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, I could testify to the value of walking around in another Christian’s lived experience. But how could I share that value with my congregation?

A Preacher Named Boreham

I would like to think that it was the Holy Spirit who intervened in an unlikely way to help solve my homiletical problem and stoke my theological conviction. The Spirit did so by introducing me to a Tasmanian preacher named F.W. Boreham (1871-1959). In his excellent aid to Christian biography—50 People Every Christian Should Know—Warren Wiersbe devotes the 41st chapter to Boreham. Born to devout parents in England who nurtured in their son a love of God and learning, Boreham was the last student Charles Spurgeon personally selected to enroll in Spurgeon’s Pastors College. Boreham would go on to serve pastorates in New Zealand, Tasmania, and Australia. He was a sought-after speaker and prolific newspaper columnist and author.

What seized my attention, however, was the theme behind a five-volume series entitled Texts that Made History, a compilation of Sunday night sermons on noteworthy Christians and the Biblical texts which enlivened them.

Allow me to share one of Boreham’s sermons in this series—this one on Andrew Bonar, the 19th century Scottish pastor and biographer of his friend Robert Murray McCheyne. The sermon opens with Bonar as a child creeping into the balcony of his “kirk” and watching some of his peers preparing for their first communion. Bonar wondered if he would ever find himself at that altar, because “I found in my heart so much that must keep me from the love of Christ.” As a 20-year-old, however, Bonar found Christ, “or rather, that He found me, and laid me on His shoulders, rejoicing.” What made the difference in his soul? Ultimately, it was a verse in the first chapter of John’s gospel: “And of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace” (John 1:16 KJV). Bonar came to understand that nothing was required of him but simply to accept Christ’s generosity. “I did nothing but receive.”

In the remainder of the sermon, Boreham lays out some of the distinct points in Bonar’s life where such grace was made available to him. He finds grace when his wife dies, and grace when his two daughters find Christ. And on the 50th anniversary of his conversion (and on the 60th), Bonar can celebrate that all these years “the Lord has kept me within sight of the cross.”

I loved how Boreham’s sermon caused me to reflect more deeply on a beautiful verse and a beautiful life.

Boreham was opening up a pathway for me to achieve two pastoral goals with one block of time. You see, I grew up in an era in the 1970s when my fellow church members fronted an extraordinary amount of time during the week to be used as their pastors thought best. It would not be unusual for us to hear an evangelistic sermon on a Sunday morning, a study of missions or church history on Sunday afternoon, a doctrinal sermon Sunday evening, and an exegetical book study on Wednesday nights. In my context as a pastor in the 21st century, I was discovering that people designate much less time to their churches for Christian learning. If I wanted to introduce my church members to the beauty of Christian biography, why not borrow a page from Boreham and smuggle it into a Sunday morning sermon?

‘Mighty Cloud’

With all these aspirations moving inside me, I hatched my plan. I created a summer sermon series entitled, “Mighty Cloud,” after the “cloud of witnesses” spoken of in Hebrews 12 and outlined in Hebrews 11—folks like Abraham, Noah, Moses, and Rahab. I explained how these Old Testament heroes, while far from perfect, presented lives that illustrate some key aspect of Christian faithfulness. These flawed saints can teach us vital truths about what it means to persevere with Jesus. As we study their lives, we learn to run our “race” with greater motivation, passion, and endurance. In this series, we would be expanding our “cloud of witnesses” to include some noteworthy disciples in Christian history.

As I pitched the series, I acknowledged my anxieties up front. Because I am an expository preacher, I wondered how our people would respond to this change-up. I did not want anyone to think that we were substituting a good thing (Christian biography) for a much better thing (the Bible itself). So I made a commitment that as we looked at the life of each saint, I would ask God to help me use their life as a window to grasp more deeply some aspect of God’s Word. Ultimately, my prayer was that God would use the combination of his Word and faithful witnesses to help us run our race well. Then I assembled a short list of people in church history whose lives had impacted me in one way or another. Beside each name, I tried to list some quality of their life that had been an encouragement to me in my walk with God. Once I had a saint and a theme, I began to look for some substantive selection of Scripture which elucidated that theme.

Saints, Ancient and Modern

Two of the names on my initial list of six legitimately had “saint” prefixed to their names: St. Patrick and St. Francis of Assisi. Years earlier, I had read a book largely about Patrick called The Celtic Way of Evangelism (by George Hunter). The book highlighted the way that a young Brit named Patrick was kidnapped by the Celts and taken to Ireland. He managed to escape but later felt God calling him to return to Ireland, this time as a missionary. I was gripped by the way Patrick incarnated Christ’s love through conversation, hospitality, acts of blessing, and recruiting followers. As I searched the Scriptures, I landed in Acts 19, where the apostle Paul camps out in Ephesus, engaging in dialogue and sharing the healing truth and power of Jesus in many ways. As an added element to our worship service that Sunday, we also interviewed a local Young Life leader about the power of incarnational evangelism with teenagers.

For Francis, a worldly and wealthy young man who experienced the trauma of battle as a soldier, I was fascinated by his irresistible joy in Christ. His life is a testament to the joy that can be discovered among God’s creatures as well as serving the people God has created. In the life of Francis, who literally disrobed before his earthly father as a sign of abandoning worldly wealth to follow God, I located a wonderful companion story in 2 Samuel 6, where David stripped down to his holy skivvies (“linen ephod”) and danced with undignified joy before the Lord. This sermon, preached on the eve of our annual Vacation Bible School, gave me a chance to show how both David and Francis found joy in childlike simplicity and worship.

If I might share one more example, my opening sermon in that original “Mighty Cloud” series was about a saint who was still living at the time I preached the sermon—Billy Graham. For this North Carolina native who was led to Christ by the fire-breathing preaching of an Oklahoma evangelist, I chose 1 Corinthians 2:1-5. I discovered in Graham a preacher whose singular passion was to present, like Paul to the Corinthians, “Jesus Christ and him crucified.” In my mind, this intense focus on Christ and his cross led Graham to a life of great urgency (enduring grueling preaching campaigns all over the world), faith in the truth of the Bible (clarified after a season of doubt), and integrity (catalyzed by a decision to do everything possible to protect his ministry from scandal).

Over the course of that summer series, we also looked at the faith-filled prayer of George Mueller, the countercultural commitment of Cotton-Patch Gospels author Clarence Jordan, and the grace-shaped life of slave-trader-turned-pastor John Newton.

As I look back on that experience, I remain grateful to God for two things in particular. First, I felt God’s pleasure as I introduced new historical exhibits of his grace and new insights into ancient Scripture. Second, I was thrilled that many church members seemed to catch the vision. Some asked me for reading lists, and others located videos on the lives of some better-known saints. My overall experience was so gratifying that I repeated the series concept three years ago, with new saints for consideration.

When I originally preached the series (2008), it looked like this:

-Billy Graham: A Gospel-Focused Life: 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 – Graham’s secret being a life focused on “Christ and him crucified.”

-Francis of Assisi: Joy in Sold-Out Service: 2 Samuel 6:12-23 – Francis finding King David’s undignified joy.

-George Mueller: Faith-Filled Prayer: James 5:13-18 – Mueller’s audacious prayer life paralleled in the promises found in James 5.

-Clarence Jordan: Countercultural Commitment: Luke 10:25-37 – Showing how the author of the Cotton Patch Gospels started his Koinonia Farm with a Good-Samaritan-like mercy at the heart.

-John Newton: A Grace-Shaped Life: Luke 11:9-13 – a text Newton read on his slave ship that was instrumental in his conversion.

-Patrick: A Contagious Life: Acts 19:1-20 – Patrick’s incarnational evangelism showing deep similarities to Paul’s lengthy sojourn in Ephesus.

When I returned to this series idea (2015), I produced a shorter series, adding the following “saints” to the list:

-Fanny Crosby: Spiritual Vision: 2 Kings 6:8-17 – Crosby, though physically blind, possessed a kind of spiritual vision Elisha prayed for his servant to have.

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Sacrificial Discipleship: Matthew 16:21-28 – finding Christ’s powerful self-denial at the heart of Bonhoeffer’s teaching and life.

-Hudson Taylor: Spiritual Adventure: Romans 15:14-23 – Paul challenges ‘good’ Christians to embrace the ‘greater’ adventures and describes his travels from Jerusalem to Illyricum, demonstrating the adventurous spirit which would one day be seen in Taylor’s travels to China.

Getting Started on Your Own Series

Allow me to close with a few ideas on how to get started. Several months prior to the launch of this series, I recommend the following.

-Make a short list of historical figures in Christian history whose lives have had the most impact on you. It could be a missionary like Hudson Taylor, a writer like C.S. Lewis, a composer like Johann Sebastian Bach, a lyricist like the hymn writer Fanny Crosby, a reformer like Martin Luther, or an activist like Martin Luther King, Jr.

-Do some initial spadework online or with a dictionary that specializes in Christian biography.

-Try to isolate the theme of that person’s life that best summarizes their contribution to your life.

-Peruse theological libraries and half-price bookstores for slim but substantive biographies on your subject and schedule out your reading.

-Prayerfully consider which Biblical passages “harmonize” with your theme. Remembering that “all truth is God’s truth,” seek that passage of Scripture that this saint’s life best illustrates.

-Finally, float this idea early to staff and lay leaders. Let them hear your heart and enlist them in prayer.

As the author of the Book of Hebrews knew, nothing inspires our perseverance like the beautiful stories of faithful forebears. May God illumine your mind as you study these men and women, and may he enliven your preaching as you expound upon “God’s grace in its various forms” (1 Peter 4:10).

Larry Parsley is the senior pastor of Valley Ranch Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas. He is the author of An Easy Stroll Through a Short Gospel: Meditations on Mark (Mockingbird Ministries, 2018).