In an old sermon titled "Looking at God Through Christ," John A. Redhead preached on the love of God, which, he said, will not let us down, let us off, or let us go. Toward the end, he tells the story of Harry Lauder, a Scotsman who buried two sons killed in the First World War. In his depression, he often took long walks. One evening, a little boy from the neighborhood who had befriended him joined him. The child pointed out the banners hanging in the windows of homes.

"Each star represents a son who served in the war," Lauder said. "And why are some of them gold?" the boy asked. "That means the son did not come back. He was killed in the war." Soon the sky began to darken and a star twinkled. The child saw it and said, "Did God send a son to the war, too?" Lauder said, "Yes. God sent His only Son to the greatest war ever fought, the war against sin, and it cost His life."

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Redhead concludes, "For the gold star of God's only Son, embroidered on the service banner in the window of heaven, attests a love that has gone all-out to seek and to save."

At the end of a sermon called "It Pays to Pray," David Jeremiah tells of the time Professor Howard Hendricks stood before his seminary class and said, "My seventy-five-year-old father received Jesus Christ as his Savior. That might not be meaningful to you unless I tell you that for forty years, I have prayed for his salvation. And after forty years, God finally said 'yes'." Jeremiah concludes, "It pays to pray."

Go back to the front of the message where it all began, to the issue it raised, the problem it presented, the need, the question, the allusion, and now tie it together. Let the message end where it began.

One of Francis Schaeffer's most memorable sermons was "The Lord's Work in the Lord's Way." In his introduction, he quotes the first verse of a hymn which his theological school always sang at commencements. In the conclusion, he quotes the last verse, and ties the message together perfectly.

In the introduction to the sermon "Jesus said, 'Father'," J. Wallace Hamilton tells of the time G. Studdert Kennedy was walking on the seashore at night, taking in the majesty of the stars while massive waves crashed against a nearby cliff. Kennedy was so conscious of a divine presence nearby that he felt like asking, "Who goes there?" Eventually, the impression was so strong he did call out those words, and received back the answer, a single word, "God," that imbedded itself in his heart.

Hamilton's sermon went on to present various ways people have answered the question, "Who goes there?" and climaxes with the divine revelation in Jesus. He concludes this message with the story of the prodigal son:

Every evening the father had watched down the road from the roof top, and one evening there he was — something in the way he walked was familiar. And when he was a great way off, the father saw him and ran. There was a heart cry in the twilight, and the lights went on in the father's house.