{"id":41205,"date":"2015-08-01T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-08-01T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/lebron-james-basketball-star-hope-creator\/"},"modified":"2015-08-01T18:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-08-01T18:00:00","slug":"lebron-james-basketball-star-hope-creator","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/lebron-james-basketball-star-hope-creator\/","title":{"rendered":"Lebron James: Basketball Star \u2026 Hope Creator?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What comes to mind when you first hear the name Lebron James? Big ego, ball-hog, best NBA player? Lebron is hoping you will add a different title to that list: Hope Creator. Lebron and his foundation are partnering with the University of Akron to provide the 1,100 students that are a part of Lebron&#39;s program <em>I Promise<\/em>, with full ride scholarships to the University. Lebron recently said, &quot;As a kid growing up in the inner city and as an African American kid, you don&#39;t really think past high school because it&#39;s not possible or your family can&#39;t support you. For us to be able to do something like this &#8230; it means so much.&quot; Although, Lebron said that the cost doesn&#39;t matter, ESPN crunched the numbers. For Lebron and his foundation to send 1,100 students to Akron will cost 41.8 million dollars.<\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\"><em>Possible Preaching Angle: <\/em><\/h2>\n\n<p><em>This story has two possible preaching angles: (1) positively, it&#39;s an example of financial generosity leading to a rich legacy of helping others; (2) negatively, although we can credit Lebron with a good and generous deed and program (and hats off to the man), can any human being or institution really serve as a &quot;Hope Creator&quot;? Isn&#39;t there only one source for true and lasting hope?<\/em><\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\"> <\/h2>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3552,4043,4167,4546,4722,5066,5093],"tax_ctp_topics":[384,392,395],"class_list":["post-41205","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-celebrities","tax_ctp_tags-generosity","tax_ctp_tags-hope","tax_ctp_tags-news-that-illustrates","tax_ctp_tags-promise","tax_ctp_tags-sports","tax_ctp_tags-students"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Lebron James: Basketball Star \u2026 Hope Creator? - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/lebron-james-basketball-star-hope-creator\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lebron James: Basketball Star \u2026 Hope Creator? - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What comes to mind when you first hear the name Lebron James? Big ego, ball-hog, best NBA player? Lebron is hoping you will add a different title to that list: Hope Creator. 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