Preparing Expository Sermons

first of all go ahead and take out your research worksheet you'll see on there's two sides on this one is called research and the other side is sermon writing so turn it over to your research side and we can make another copy for any of you that want to take one of these home as a template but go ahead and write on this one today expository sermons are where you take the the Bible has a lot of stories and it's nice to be able to pull your sermons out of those stories but not all the Bible is story Paul for instance writes more in the Greek way he writes proposition proposition proposition proposition okay lots of ideas lots of different things and you can't just tell a story about it last time that we were here I asked everybody to pick a story and and it was kind of interesting how many people could not pick a story they had to go to Paul's writings and and pull something out of there and I said no no you need to you know it needs to start with once upon a time that's a story the rest of them are not stories they're good stuff but they're not stories and so this is how do we deal with what did we do you know what it is I'm glad you're here Marilyn okay so what you're doing is you're not asking what shall I preach about you're asking where shall I preach from your Bible is closed you don't know where you're going to preach from yet so first of all start off by saying asking the Holy Spirit for guidance please help me to know what you weren't where where you want me to preach from and then choose a passage whatever that passage is let's just take one at random anything let's just turn to Paul's right let's just take the one that we did for the scripture reading let's say that you wanted to do Romans chapter eight verses 35 to 39 okay who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword and so on and so forth so you feel like maybe that the Holy Spirit is leading you to that passage if you're not positive that's okay you know you can work with it that's alright he's going to work with you so first of all what you have to do is you need to grasp the context it's very important that you are preaching about a specific passage within its context all of you know of other people not you of course but other people who have rested a piece of scripture and are using it totally out of context like for instance somebody was was concerned about the scripture in mark seven seven something anyway where it says in parenthesis by sin saying this Jesus declared all foods clean okay now this person was really upset and said that's not really in the original because you don't see it in the King James but that's because the manuscripts that included that were discovered after the King James so but there are many many preachers out there that take that and apply that to you can eat anything you want now right but is that the context of the scripture no the context is washing your hands when you eat okay so it's extremely important that when you're going to preach a propositional sermon that you know what's going on well they say Hitler's favorite chapter in the Bible was Romans 13 right yeah obviously he was taking it out of context it was about how everybody was supposed to obey their rulers and God put them up as the you know the punishment whatever so very important that you have the context so when you're reading you're wanting to do something on Romans chapter 8 verses 35 to 39 don't just read those verses start back at the beginning of verse 8 and go all the way to the end of verse 9 now you may notice a distinct shift in subject and you can stop there that's fine but understand what's around it make sure that whatever you're going to be doing is within that framework everybody with me on that I think I'm getting ahead of myself on these things here okay read around the passage what's the general idea now we're going to be able to do all of this stuff together okay so to do it for it to practice it for an actual practical application now once you've read it you've got the context you've gone through your your passage three or four times maybe maybe more you'll notice that it really the more you read it the more comes out of it if you'll take the trouble to memorize it even more will come out of it so when you are when you have finished and you feel like you've got the context down pretty well wrestle with the meaning of the passage yourself the the temptation before putting your mind to work trying to figure out what things mean the temptation is to jump right to a commentary that's the idea you know okay now we need to figure out what we're going to say about it grab a commentary well avoid that temptation at first there's a time and there's a place for the commentary but you're going to do yourself a favor you're going to do your congregation a favor if you try on your own to figure this out this is going to do a number of different things first of all it's going to seat the scripture in your own brain better it's going to help you learn how to stretch your own mind around something rather than relying on somebody else's mind to explain it to you that's also where this journaling and your morning devotions will come in so handy this morning I was in Isaiah by the way if any of you are interested in following that just this year I realized that I was doing all of this and I was just keeping it to myself and shame on me I shouldn't do that and so I've started posting it in a blog where every day I just do whatever I worked on that morning and I just put it out there and there's a bunch of people following it which is neat I don't even know most of them and and and they're they're following these these things that are going so if you're if you're interested in looking at them just go to my website Scoggins dot bi z and you'll see a whole bunch of completed studies and the one I'm working on right now but anyway that will in both where I started going on this was this morning I started into as a ax 49 I think it was and it's a it begins the suffering servant series which I always assumed was about Jesus Christ which is but as I was reading through it I realized hey wait a minute as I was writing about it I realized there's a problem here this if this is saying this about Israel in verse number three and so I finally went to the commentary the Adventists commentary and that's what they said well let's switch a subject and I was still disturbed by that a little bit so wait something's going on here and all of a sudden it occurred to me after praying about it a little while that there doesn't need to be a conflict this can be about Jesus and it can be about Israel and it can be about the Christian Church all at the same time because Jesus came oh it's a long story chapter six in this book goes through how that works how Jesus came and he relived the the life of Israel to become the new Israel and how the Christian Church has been modeled on that so there doesn't have to be a a conflict between who this is it can talk about all three of them easily in in this passage so this is just something that this morning Bing you know I grew in a way that I hadn't before and that one was in spite of a commentary so resist the temptation to jump straight to commentaries wrestle with it yourself try to understand it yourself at first okay now let's just do this first of all we need to condense the theme of the passage after you've wrestled with it after you've got the context turn to John chapter four okay this is the the woman at the well I'm going to need some water I wonder if there's O'Meara Thank You Marilyn John chapter 4 and now it's for sake of time we're going to go through a bunch of stuff here so we're not going to be able to really wrestle in depth with all of these so I tried to pick a couple here that you're fairly familiar with everybody knows the story of the woman at the well right John chapter 4 beginning in verse 1 so without reading the entire the entire thing and by the way if anybody wants these slides I have some copies of them later that you can have if you were to take and this is what you do next once you've got all the context in your mind and you've wrestled with it you're going to want to condense the theme of the passage into a one sentence you know why you do that because this is the main point that you want to communicate to the people that are there so if you were to take John chapter 4 the the woman at the well and and there's not just one main point you there you can you know we could have as many themes as we have people in here on that so anybody want to just put your hand up and just say here's a theme that I could bring out from the from the woman on the well thank you very much what's a theme okay excellent that's a that's a great theme anybody else okay living water meet people where they're at good okay worship God in spirit and truth excellent mmm good now you're you're not using full sentences which is fine for here but what you're going to want to do when you're doing that is make it into a whole sentence and that sentence is going to drive your entire sermon how many of you understand some marketing principles where where they say single message you know you don't put out a ad that says buy this o and buy this and buy this and buy this invite right okay the advertisers they know that if they want you to get something they're going to say coca-cola and they're going to say it quickly and they're going to say it simply in one message that is all a gift okay in a way you want to do that with your sermon that doesn't mean that you're not going to draw other things out but there is one thread that you're going to use that tie it all together okay got it now all of those themes that you taught that everybody mentioned throughout the course of your sermon you may mention those things you may say you know but you may pull out that lesson but they're not going to remember all of those what they're going to remember are your stories and the one thing that you said over and over and over and over again so let's just take the the condemnation how did you say that again conviction without condemnation okay let's just say that that was the the the major thread that you went and you go through and you tell that story and you say that Jesus was hungry see Jesus was was weak even like we are okay that's a lesson and but when you come to that the part you know of the conviction without condemnation that's what you blow up and that's what you keep coming back to when his disciples came why are you talking to a Samaritan woman Jesus didn't jump all over them conviction without condemnation you know and by the time they're done when they're walking out if you are shaking their hands they're saying what was the sermon about they should say conviction without condemnation okay you see where that it just ties it together it makes it so that people can take something away that you can't take away too much it just our brains don't do it we ought to be able to I suppose but we can okay yes no it depends it's a hard question to answer if you go to Russia do not plan to speak less than an hour if you go to Africa do nots plant plan to speak less than a day I'm serious I'm serious I mean when you walk 20 kilometers to come to church you don't want half an hour sermon you're going to be there for the day and you want somebody to talk okay it doesn't work that way in the United States and and that's that's a that's a commentary on us we we are guilty in this but it's a reality that we have to deal with rule of thumb 20 minutes is about where people can handle it if you're a bad speaker people handle less if you're a great speaker people will sit there for three hours and not notice the time is quick ticking you know that's not me I can't I can't do that so Abraham Lincoln they asked him how long should a man's legs be you remember his answer long enough to reach the ground okay that's what a sermon should do a sermon needs to accomplish its purpose and then it needs to stop and every one of you can can remember the preachers where they you thought they were getting to the end and then they start over again and you go right don't be that person don't be that person get to the end and stop yes mm-hmm no please don't do that suffer suffer and and and tell yourself I will never do that okay now if a preacher is hurting people if they are if they are preaching heresy there you know okay there's a different situation if they're just going too long don't do it and if you're the one scheduling the preacher don't invite him back or suggest he's you know do something else so good question by the way if you have any questions feel free to jump in at any anytime so all right so that's how you condense the major theme and you'll want to do this at the very top okay you've written down here pray for Holy Spirit guidance you've written down the passage that you're going on have you ever gotten done with your sermon and then thought oh I need a scripture reading and gone back and found one to give I hope you all say no I've done it and that's bad that's bad what did your sermon come from write your cut sermon came out of your head it didn't come out of the scripture start out with your passage and bring your sermon out of that passage so you write down the passage you write down the context you know what's going on around it and then you write down that theme the theme of that I'm going to pull out of this one is is that Jesus was able to create conviction without condemnation okay that's going to be your theme and then bring that out as often as you can and end with it okay everybody clear on the theme how you condense it down to the theme let's do one more real quickly okay well here's a couple that I found Jesus exhibited an excellent method for sharing our faith okay that was actually essentially what you said method okay here's another one we receive physical benefits from sharing our faith you know where I got that jesus said I don't need the food I I have food that you know not oh right so that's another theme that I pulled out of it here's another one then oh wait before we do that let's do this with the same story this is going on and this is the core of of expository preaching you've gotten your passage you've gotten your context you've gotten your theme and now what you're going to do is you're going to break apart the passage you're going to break it down into two or three if you have two four you're really pushing it if you get five situation points out of a text if if it's a text where you're getting more than that you might need to consider making two sermons out of it rather than making one sermon and fitting everything in that's harder if you don't preach that often but but still better to leave them wanting more than saying I'm never going to do that again and then we're going to bring that person back again you don't do that so you're going to break down the passage into bite-sized pieces that have a common thread okay this is something that will come with practice this is not easy to do I still struggle with doing it it this takes some brain work the one that we did last time that was your sermon that you can pull out of a hat and run with this one you need to plan to put some time into it some of them are easier than others as we will see but this is this is the heart of what you do okay you take you break it down into some some bite-sized pieces that have a common thread linked to the theme here's an example okay same passage the woman at the well first of all Jesus awakens this is Jesus's method all right this I said the first one here Jesus exhibited an exec cellent method for sharing our faith okay here it is that was my theme that's what I want to pull out of the story so this is some of what I found first of all and his method he awakens in her the desire for something better point number one point number denied and you can see how you can expand on that you can you can put an illustration you can talk about it you can put supporting verses he awakens and heard the desire for something better next he convicts her of personal need and for of her personal need okay that's that's point number two point number three this one had four calls for a decision to recognize him as the Messiah and then finally he moves her to action based on her decision do you see what I did from that verse from that that that that passage I pulled this method out because in reading it I saw okay here's the theme now when you're doing the theme you're also looking for these things it would be easy to pull a theme out where when you go back to the passage you say wait a minute that's a valid lesson but it's not a theme I can pull throughout the whole thing and you might need to go back and say maybe I need a different theme because there's more about it we can pull a lot about the way that Jesus worked we might pull out less about the food aspect what I talked about okay if I went through there because I don't think I did that let me see here no if I were to go through and try to pull out those same three different themes about the food idea I might be a little more challenged to find it well that is a clue that maybe that's not quite the right theme to be pulling out of this particular passage because in order to do it you're going to have to do some violence to the passage you're gonna have to do some twisting and turning to make the passage say what you think you might be trying to say that's probably not a good idea might be better to go back and pull something else that comes out that flows out of it a little more naturally everybody with me so far okay let's do it again this one is more work I realize that let's do that again with Psalm 51 who can tell me off the top their head what Psalm 51 is about victory over sin is it just victory repentance yeah David had really messed up we'll just say it that way and he went through a significant period of mourning and repentance for the things that he had done okay so if you are going to condense a major theme out of this passage into one sentence what might that theme be just throw some out say it again long-suffering God okay so so the picture then would be focusing on God's part of this process good anybody else okay his mercy good anything else how about from David's point of view okay make a sentence out of that I'm good the rewards of true repentance and at their end of Psalm 51 there are some of those rewards good anything else say the first part Oh cleansing okay good the cleansing of the sinful past okay all of those are potentially good themes now what you're going to want to do is you're going to want to see if there are our supporting parts of that passage that you're using that will expand on that theme here's what I kept alight I came up with God will forgive the worst sins okay that might be a possibility or maybe full repentance follows a process I think that was yeah and that's the one I want to expand on is the last one they're full repentance follows a process this helped in reading steps to Christ how many of you remember what the process of repentance is in steps of Christ okay confession repentance and consecration now this is something that that I felt very blessed to have seen it took quite a while of going through a round and round with that but when I coupled steps to Christ along with this something they're very interesting fell into place verses 1 to 6 I'll deal with confession the first part verses 7 to 12 I'll deal with repentance and verses 13 to 19 which is the end of it deal of consecration it was the same the same things that Ellen White brought out and steps to Christ's fascinating so there's the three points that deal that come back to the theme full repentance follows a process and so you can see how pulling that theme that thread through the entire sermon would work right does that make sense okay like I said this one is more work than the last one so this is when you'll have a little extra time to put into it and I'm going to show you some easy ones you can do this with some easier verses - okay so those are those are the the passages that we're dealing with now I want to do this with each of you later but what I'm going to do now is I'm going to run through a whole bunch actually before we do that let's do the structure thing first here one of the things that they that help in teaching teachers will will tell you is as you start out by telling them what you're going to tell them then you tell them and then you told them what you told them okay and that helps to stick it in their minds they say that in advertising if I'm remembering the numbers right that a person needs to see an ad seven times before it finally breaks through interesting in much the same way that's teaching teaching works and so if you tell them what you're going to tell them then you tell them and then you tell them what you told them it's three times they just got hit with that particular thing so you begin with your introduction you'll set the stage for them do something that will engage their minds it might be telling a story it might be giving the the okay what what was David looking like how was he feeling what had happened set the story the setting all of those things then you then you're going to deal with your points then at the end you're going to make your conclusion you're going to wrap up with your peel in your action okay that is the the structure of your sermon and I think we have that on the back okay that'll be your worksheet for later and we'll we'll deal with that here in a little while so consider setting the theme just like you do a narrative story you know sights sounds smells people are going to key into that and then we'll go on to our next one here all right at the call-to-action at the very end you don't want to leave people with just you want you want to call the to do something with what they have read I mean what they've heard today will you give your heart to Jesus today will you pray this prayer will you make your faith real by doing such and such a lot of people will do an altar call but I've noticed that to do that with the same group every single week it loses impact you know so you want to find different ways it might be raise your hand with me it might be will you just say in your heart you know different ways but somehow appeal to people to make some sort of a non passive you know some sort of an active decision fought whatever in your sermon okay so then you'll drop you all of your research into the writing worksheet that comes in the back and in there you'll see your opening song your closing song your scripture your theme and children's story and I would challenge you if you do children's stories to work in the children's story with your theme it takes a little extra work but not just the kids that appreciate it it's a it's incredible opportunity to set your sermon in a light that the adults are going to understand quite differently than they might otherwise you can say some things and speaking to the kids that you might not say to the adults and but yet it's a message to the adults as well I always do because uh I have four churches and I interact that means I never get Sabbath school I I don't I preach in the morning and then I preach at the eleven o'clock service and so I almost never get Sabbath school that means I never interact with the kids which is terrible and so I I this is my one opportunity to interact with the kids on a particular level I enjoy doing it number one number two it helps them key into the sermon because what I'll do is I'll say alright here's the story I'll tell the story they'll be into now say now if you listen to the sermon you'll see how this plays out how effective it is I you know who can say I know my kids hear it and the other reason is is because it's a tremendous opportunity to speak to the adults in a way that I wouldn't get away with otherwise you can't can't shake your finger at adults and say you must trust your Heavenly Father you can't do it that way you have to do it in a more sophisticated way right but when you do that to the kids and they'll be laughing and you know you don't do it in a mean way you do it in a way that they enjoy it but that same message goes to the parents you know so that it's just a really a tremendous opportunity when you when you tie in your story with the sermon that way so yeah good question all right so you'll drop that in will we'll do that I think here in a little bit now what I want to do before we go in what I've done what I have is I have a bunch of texts here and I'm going to give you each one and as the teacher I did that I got this idea from a preaching instructure after Elliot seminary and he says you are going to get these at random but they're not random the Holy Spirit is making sure you're getting the right one whatever it is and this is what we were to preach about for the class and so this is going to be your next sermon maybe hopefully but we'll do that afterwards what I want to do now went to a ministry convention in Lincoln a couple years ago and I went to hear one professor that I never had but that I had a lot of respect for and I wanted to to hear what he had to say and when we walked in it was like there were no preliminaries or anything he put up this not not this but I mean he started just going through verses and it took me a you know five seconds to figure out what he was doing but then everybody goes oh and grabs their pin and just start writing as fast as we can go because one after the other like staccato he said first Corinthians six 13 to 14 context this theme this points this boom boom boom boom and and what he was doing was he was he was saying here are some examples and he was inviting us to take these and use them of expository sermons one after the other he didn't give us the entire sermon he gave us this work that he had done okay and that's what I'm going to do for you now I'm going to give you these and you can take these and you can study them out and and and try to understand how I came up with them and maybe expand on it now I don't care how many times how many of you wrote this this exact thing here with my context my theme and my points not a one of us will come up with the same sermon right every one of us will come up with a different sermon even with the same same stuff so open up to first Corinthians 16 and let's just do this maybe half a dozen times all right first Corinthians 16 and we're just we're going to practice this whole idea of how this works first Corinthians 16 13 and 14 here's what it says be on your guard stand firm in the faith be men of courage be strong do everything in love okay just two verses what is the context there somebody read around it if you struggle to find one you're all right because I struggled to find one two I didn't find a context is that possible yes and no there is a context week.the the whole context is everything that he was saying to the Corinthian church but this particular thing has to do with his final thoughts okay he's just he's pulling out some random final thoughts so the overall context is less important because he wasn't tying this into other context this was a oh by the way and oh by the way okay that's what he's he's doing here so the context in this particular piece is less important now that doesn't mean you skip the context you might do some extra research and understand what Paul's relationship with the Corinthian church was okay he was writing a pretty tough letter overall because of some pretty bad things that were going on in the Christian in the Corinthian church and he was dealing with that so that might have something to do with your sermon and you can at least be aware of those things but as far as context that effect this particular thing this was an oh by the way text all right Thieme who can tell me what the theme of those two verses are be on your guard stand firm in the faith be men of courage be strong do everything in love okay do everything in love good anybody else there's not a right answer you can have lots of different answers on these be prepared okay that's what I got was basic Christian principles okay basic Christian principles so then we want to take those those basic Christian principles and break them up into three perhaps different points okay who can pull out three different points out of this one this one's fairly easy because you kind of got a list number one point number one keep the faith what else okay here's what I'm seeing be on your guard number one stand firm number two stand firm in the faith be men of courage number three be strong number four do everything in love number five okay I said there you're stretching it when you're doing getting that many points right you can get away with them if you keep them brief and some if you really have time and and and we'll get to a couple of them where I did this but I don't usually have time to do this some preachers will spend a lot of time making these things rhyme or having some kind of a staccato effect and that's beautiful if you can do that most of us just don't have that time I'll show you a couple where I managed but I'm not on that level can't do that okay but there you can see that you've got your sermon did I write these out or oh no it just goes to the next one so if you want to you can just write these down or I've got them on them no I don't have that on the background Heather so be on your you've got the list this was an easy one you could pull these right out be on your guard talk about that for a while what does it mean to be on your guard how do you be on your guard here's a story about when somebody was on their guard and what happened it might be another Bible story here's another text that says how to be on your guard you got it okay stand firm well here's how you stand firm here's an example of a time that somebody stood firm or here's a text that goes with that be men of courage who is a man of courage briefly tell a story of Gideon or something you got it you see your sermon developing out of there where's your sure coming from is it coming from your head no it's coming right out of the text your head is involved the Holy Spirit is speaking to you he's bringing illustrations he's bringing other other stories he's bringing other texts into your mind but the sermon is being drawn out rather than being forced in okay let's go on to the next one here turn to first Peter 3 I mean first Peter 1 13 to 16 first Peter loin thirteen to sixteen first Peter one thirteen to sixteen when you see a list and Paul does a lot of lists and lists are easy to make points from okay therefore prepare your minds be thinking about a theme as we read through this okay as and what you're going to if you see points and you see a common thread between them that's the best theme you can pick be prepare or prepare your minds for action be self-controlled set your hope fully on the grace to be given to you when Jesus Christ is revealed as obedient children do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance be just as he who called you is holy so be holy and all you do for it is written be holy because I am holy alright what is the context here the context is overall he is praising in the subhead helps a lot that right there he is praising God in suffering because he has hope and he has grace in Jesus it's a privilege to suffer in Christ's service okay that's the overall that's what the context is he's not talking about not drinking alcohol he does say self be control be self controlled he's not talking about pornography even though he says be self controlled right he's not talking about those things he's talking about suffering so that needs to affect your sermon what he was actually talking about that way you don't take it out of context and the theme then anybody want to take a stab at it with that context in with this one we just read in mind anybody want to take a stab at what maybe a theme might be dedication can you make a sentence out of that I know what sinful world okay so how to live a Christian life in a sinful world perfect beautiful that's what I came up with I said it differently I said in order to serve Him learn to be holy but you did it you pulled out with those of those points because you can tie in the rest of those verses I mean those points with that exact theme how do you do it what are some what are some themes that you see in there okay keep it in a sentence for your own sake because because you're what you're doing is you're starting to develop the point which is great that's what you're going to do but start out with just the the quick point so prepare for action that's the first part there and that'll be your head your heading right and then you can take the other stuff that you started to say and that will build your sermon so perfect that was good prepare for action what else it's a list what's the next thing be be sober or be self-controlled okay and then you can you can pull out a story you can pull out an example you can develop that okay that's point number two and when you get done with that point you can say in order to serve Him learn to be holy and then point number three depend on his grace and you expand on it and you put an illustration and you put another a verse or whatever you come up with and you say in order to serve Him learn to be holy right you just keep saying it at the end of each point and when you get done that and when they walk out hopefully they're going to say I know what the sermon was about it was about in order to serve Him we must learn to be holy and it's a powerful sermon quash selfishness which is in verse 14 okay those are all all points are you beginning to get a little bit of an idea of what we're trying to do here in each one of these now okay let's try it again Ephesians 6:10 to 18 this is a fun one now this one actually has a whole bunch of points and I did preach this one not very long ago and in each point I had to keep down to like just three or four sentences otherwise people will get discouraged if you go a long way Ephesians chapter 6 okay fusion 610 218 and again this is a list the lists are so easy some of these are harder but I'm starting it with the easy ones finally be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand to get the devil schemes for our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers and against authorities against the powers of this dark world against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms therefore put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes you may be able to stand your ground and after you have done everything to stand stand firm then with a belt of truth buckled around your waist with a breastplate of righteousness in place with your feet fitted with a readiness that comes from the gospel of peace in addition to all this take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil and take help the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God and pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests with this in mind be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints okay there's a little long along than there what would be the context of this whole passage that we just read what's he talking about okay so the context might be obedience to God could anybody else have any ideas okay mm-hmm okay if you were to just narrow this because we read such a long long passage that we have quite a bit of context just in that passage itself if we were to limit it to this what would you say the context of everything that we just read is okay okay that's what I got spiritual warfare that's that's the way I saw none of what you said was wrong but everything it comes out to a different for different people different ways all the time so the context in my my thinking was this was spiritual warfare that we're dealing with okay the theme somebody take a stab at one of a theme go ahead okay standing against the devil good what else look to the needs of your brothers and sisters okay anybody else spiritual warfare put it into a sentence okay how we stand strong in spiritual warfare good so you might develop that and you might make it into a an imperative statement that's how we stand for in spiritual warfare okay you can see how you can pull that through an entire sermon can't you so then you'll break down your points and that's real easy the breastplate of truth the the I mean the belt of truth the breastplate of righteousness the shoes of the readiness to share the gospel okay and you develop each one of those those of you that have heard this sermon know how I did that just recently right you remember that in Wadena um and so each one pull out and then punctuate it with saying that's how you protect yourself or that is how you you prepare yourself for spiritual warfare by the time we're done people have the idea and that is ideal what I did was I made them each very short I spoke about the belt of truth okay the belt is what holds you together you know it keeps your pants up when you when when we believe like so many people do today when we believe and if you want to see how this worked in action go to my my youtube channel and you can actually see it just look for the sermon that deals with that one and and you can see how I actually dealt with each one of these but I just briefly in in two minutes I said I talked about truth okay the postmodern mind says there is no truth truth is whatever you want it to be that leaves us exposed to the the temptations of the enemy because truth is whatever I think it is well what kind of belt is that you know it's not going to hold you together we need the belt of truth boom then jump to the next one what is the breastplate of righteousness what is righteousness hit some texts real quick you know some things like that and so we're still done in 20 minutes half an hour and I don't tell people we've got I did this because I remember being discouraged when a pat when I'd hear pastors say we've got eight things to talk about today and it takes twenty minutes on the first one and I go oh no you know so I don't warn them because I know that we're going to whip through them fast but what I was wanting to leave them with was not a particular thing about truth and I wasn't trying to leave them with a particular idea about righteousness okay if I was going to do that I'd build an entire sermon out of every one of them that wasn't my point my point was is the theme to fight a spiritual war you've got to protect yourself spiritually that's what I wanted them to come away with how do you do that you find out what is truth you do what is righteous you are willing to share the gospel with other people you have faith which is your shield you have the assurance of salvation and you wield the sword of the Spirit which is prayer okay that's what I wanted them to get away this is how you meet spiritual warfare if you want to sum it up in a sentence have a relationship with Jesus Christ you know that's what I wanted them to get out I wasn't making any statements on what is faith or what is righteousness out well yes because I wasn't hoping if when when I when they come out and if I were to ask them what was the sermon about I didn't want them to say it was about how truth does this and righteousness does this and faith does this what I wanted them to say is you've got to to wake up in the morning and you've got to prepare yourself to meet evil okay that's that's what I wanted them to walk away with and hopefully that's what happened they didn't need to remember every little detail of what I said but because I repeated the theme that I wanted them to get through it that hopefully that's what people came away with yeah if you have the time to do that it is helpful not everybody likes it but a lot of people do and when when you do I do my classes that way and so and when you write it down it's it's that much better so yeah I'm always dealing with a tight schedule and so I'm I'm not able to do that all the time but if you can yeah that's very helpful yeah no he is talking about having like a worksheet where you know you fill in the blanks and especially if you preach from a manuscript that works a lot better if you don't if you're one of these train of thought preachers you know you don't know what you're going to have you're not knowing what you're going to say and so you can't do it I don't recommend that I recommend writing it out always it just there's there are a few people that are particularly talented I'm not one of them that can just talk like that and have a clearly flowing train of thought that will bring people from point A to point B to Point C there I could talk I could stand up and I could talk for an hour but it's probably not going to be as effective as it could be because it's going to be train of consciousness what I think about next and you know and my brain isn't quite organized enough to be able to lead people that way I've got it I got to work it out beforehand so good question how you doing you need a break or are you still okay okay I don't think I have very many more of these here's a here's one where I actually took the time because it was a class I made it rhyme okay you'll like this one you won't understand the words because I really had to reach I didn't even know what the words meant Romans chapter twelve one and two this is a wonderful passage I think everybody ought to preach on this passage of course I could say that for all of these passages but I love this one because everybody asks how do I know what God's will is for my life right everybody wants that answered their question and this is the answer to that question it's not an easy one but it's the answer therefore I urge you and view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices holy and pleasing to God this is your spiritual act of worship do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is his good pleasing and perfect will okay wonderful text what's the context what's going on why did he say this this is in the middle of very el valle lotta context all right when you see the word therefore which verse one starts with what does that tell you about what's before it he's summing up a whole bunch of stuff before that so what's the context can you remember off the top of your head it'll take a little bit of reading I'll just tell you the context is of the Jews were pruned from the vine because of disobedience therefore don't think you can't be pruned off as well therefore okay that's what's going on around this that needs to color what you do with this fat verse okay don't think that you can't be cut off too which part the context the Jews he was talking to the Gentiles the Romans I mean yeah the Romans here he was saying the Jews were pruned from the vine they were cut off they were no longer God's special chosen people they were cut off they were pruned from the vine why because of disobedience and then he says to the Roman Christians don't think you can't be pruned off as well if God could do it to them he can do it to you also therefore I urge you brothers in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices okay this is what you need to do about it Thieme somebody want to take a stab a stab at the theme okay yes there's you know I summed up the context in in a sentence that's not adequate in in coming up with the context you're going to have read of all of this and you're going to have all of it in your mind you'll put the cut I put the context in especially what I was pulling out in that sermon but this is a massaging process from beginning to end yeah you might get done with your sermon and go back and change your theme I've done that many times in fact you get done and say you know what now that I've wrestled with this quite a while a better theme is this or you know you're going through with this theme in your mind and you're looking for points and all these points are actually pointing in a different direction go back and change your theme there's nothing wrong with that the context is going to color it too but you can't go into all of the context but it should make a difference so I pulled out a particular part of the context that I ended up using there so the theme then you've got the context in your mind you don't want the theme from the entire context you want the cut the theme pulled just from these two verses that you're reading okay so just from those two verses what theme might you pull out of that and you kind of do this at the same time as you're looking for points you're looking for both and so people welcome you pull your pull your your your points and your themes maybe sometimes kind of the same time but if you were to pull a theme out of there somebody's take a stab at it we are living sacrifices okay is transformed by the renewing of your mind okay okay the living sacrifice is geared toward the my Marilyn how to be like Jesus good yeah how to live your life for God all of them good anybody else yeah okay good yep okay good you're missing the second verse look at the second verse I mean these are all good do what is acceptable to God all of these are good worships gun okay good you get that's worth it you cannot be a seventh-day have enough stood on Sabbath and of the world the rest of the time that is a sermon right there I love it read the last part of verse 2 and if you do all this stuff what's going to happen okay you scared me but yes nothing wrong with cushion perspective perfection just depending on how you deal with it this is God's will for you getting closer to where I was at somebody else read the last part of verse 2 yeah yeah it is it is but this is the way I wrote it learning to know God's will requires heart renewal okay I've tried to put both verses in there you are getting a lot of verse 1 in the first part of verse 2 but you weren't dealing with the last part of verse 3 that doesn't make you wrong you could do you could do all of you could have great sermons out of what you said and they would have been good sermons but I pulled in the last part because I constantly get pastor how do I know what God's will is I got a preach about that and it's all I can do to resist preaching it right now okay it's a it's a great wonderful sermon okay now this is the one that I did this for a class and so I had to put the the time into the rhetoric which I usually just cannot do but here's the three themes okay prepare to be impressed are you ready verse one oblation verse two imitation and finally transformation okay I made them all rhyme oblation imitation transformation now the kind of the congregation was not nearly as impressed with that as myself as I was yes those kinds of guys I mean I don't know how to do it and they do it effectively this frankly wasn't as effective as it could have been because nobody the idea is make the stuff stick in your brain well I'm sorry but nobody's walking around today because I they heard me say oblation imitation transformation it's John sorry it's just not me not happening but like I said I got a good grade for it so that was that was what was I was after on that one what is oblation sacrifice good it's it's sacrifice oblation is is sacrifice and and so I you know if I had been working in English I would have just said sacrifice and and okay but oblation the same thing imitation you see where I got that from be not conformed to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the you know by the renewing of your mind okay that the imitation and the imitation and the sacrifice and the imitation leads to transformation okay and when you are transformed by being a living sacrifice and by imitating the pattern of Christ not of this world you are transformed and when you do that then you will know what God's good perfect and pleasing will is so if you want to know the will of God change your life how's that that's not what they want you know what people want Google you know what I named the sermon googling God's will yeah what is your will for me here should I go this direction or this direction should I take this job or that job I'm sorry but God doesn't give his will that way the way that God gives his will is change your life and the more that you change your life and the more that you are transformed and the more that you go against the world and you go along with Christ's pattern and you make a living sacrifice out of your life you will begin to understand more and more and more what God's will is people don't like that because that's hard and that requires sacrifice and that requires changes and that requires transformation but that is the God's honest truth if you want to know God's will that's what you've got to do okay alright next one this is one where I actually took the prodigal son which is a story you could use this like the narrative kind that we did last time but this is where you do the same thing you do the expository thing with a story Luke 15:11 232 we're not going to read the whole thing there it's the story of the goods I mean the prodigal son what is the context of the prodigal son don't tell me the story I know the story why was Jesus telling the story what is the context that surrounds the story in Luke 15 that's in the context of the story but why did he tell the story what brought the story on okay the trilogy yeah absolutely yeah and that's a great that's a great observation but why did he go into the whole trilogy who was he talking to number one you remember the Pharisees and why was he talking to the Pharisees what were they accusing him of there you go he was associating with tax collectors and sinners that's the context of the story okay so let that context color what you bring out of the story okay so what might be a theme given that context and the story of the prodigal son what might be a theme now there's a ton of great themes so let's just spit some out what might some be okay is it just you but he loves remember your context God loves who including the sinners right okay you just let you've allowed you what you said first was right but now you've allowed the context to color what was actually happening God loves even sinners that's what I came up with God loves sinners all right now how do you break out some points oh yes go ahead more do you think God loves somebody more than another person apparently was in the parable who were the Pharisees they were the older brother right do you get the feeling that the father loved that son less than he loved the other you do how what gives you that impression read me something in there that gives you that impression I do too so yeah everything that I have is yours right yeah yeah that's right exactly exactly he was frustrated with his older son but he didn't love him any less he invited the older son in he wanted him to be a part he was still his older son he still had everything that his father wanted to give him his love for him was still the same so there is no such thing as a person that God loves more than another period no no you cannot know and I'm glad you made that point it out because you're exactly right that doesn't mean it's an invalid point but this is not the passage to drive that with now what would you drive that pass it I mean that I deal with the idea that God loves everyone the same what would you thank you what would you drive that idea with somebody is there a verse that pops into your head John 3:16 and when we read just this morning neither height nor depth nor write nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord right nothing there's where you make that sermon out of yeah but no please don't ever think that God loves one person more than another he loves everybody equally he loves them all oh I mean you people you make me want to preach and I'm can't do it all right the story about the 11th hour workers yeah doesn't he love the ones that work the whole 12 hours more than the ones that worked the last one boy he put that to rest real quick didn't he good stuff all right so what's what are three three points three ways that we could break up this particular story and there's probably quite a number of ways that you could okay one give me three in a row boom boom boom I need three not just one I'll just tell you how I do it because we're going to give you an opportunity to to do this if we go after lunch some is that okay okay this is what I did I did the story from the prodigal sons point of view the father's point of view and the older brothers point of view okay that's that's the way I did it one time I could do it a dozen different other ways but that's just one way to break it up okay I remember how much further I need to go here I'm going to skip Romans 14 just because it's so much I'll just tell it to you house let's just do that the context of Romans 14 is that there is a church fight for lack of better terms between liberals and conservatives that's what's going on in Rome Paul tells them that you're both wrong those of you I wouldn't recommend using liberal and conservative those are those are very loaded terms he uses them he says strong and weak those are also very loaded terms so good luck dealing with that but what he's saying essentially is strong and weak Christians you both have a problem strong Christians you have a problem because you are not protecting your weaker brothers you're letting your liberties and he's not making any judgments on whether their liberties are good or not he's saying you're letting your liberties cause your weaker brothers to stumble shame on you those of you that can wear the wedding ring shame on you for wearing it those of you that think the wedding ring shouldn't be worn shame on you for thinking that you should let him wear it that's what he's saying okay not about wedding rings he says it about food does that make the conversation about food no he could have chosen wedding rings he could jozin anything okay he's saying you're both wrong leave each other alone have peace those of you that know that you might offend your brother don't do it those of you that are offended by them stop did you know that um yeah I won't go there all right so the theme is everybody is responsible for ensuring that they're not a stumbling block to somebody else okay that's it that's the that's the the theme that I found in there you could probably find more but you are responsible for ensuring that you are not a stumbling block it's not your job to ensure that somebody else is not being a stumbling block you only get it worry about yourself are you okay so there's the theme and then the points that I pulled out of it was don't look down on conservatives that's point number one number two don't judge the Liberals point number three therefore be sure you don't cause somebody else to stumble okay everybody's wrong okay Hebrews 12:2 to seven I'm going to go till twelve which is almost time up and I hopefully I'm getting close to the end here this is the faith chapter okay the context is by faith such-and-such you you have in your mind right the faith chapter so in the context is therefore we have such great examples of faith buck up I'm sorry that should be Hebrews 11 I think hang on a second let me just let me look at it yeah Hebrews 11 I bet I just made a typo there hang on a second I was not thinking Hebrews wait a minute no wait a minute two two through seven no no I'm sorry it's right he bruised two through seven the context is the faith chapter okay sorry about that no this is the what this is the verses that I wanted to look at because that's the therefore because we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses right so yeah the text is right context is the faith chapter so therefore because we have all these great examples everybody buck up alright so the theme is in this particular verses the theme is not faith necessarily in fact let's read it 2:37 let us fix our eyes on Jesus the authority author and perfecter of our faith who for the joy set before him endured the cross scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men so that you will not grow weary and lose heart in your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood and you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons my son do not make light of the Lord's discipline do not lose heart when he rebukes you because the Lord disciplines those he loves and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son endure hardship as discipline God is treating you as sons for what son is not by his father theme how to endure hardship there might be others but that's the one I pulled out okay how do I knew her hardship that's what I wanted them to get from the sermon how do you endure hardship how do you endure hardship constant issue that we'd all deal with and we constantly mean reminding how do we deal with hardship all right how do you do that point number one you fix your eyes on Jesus that's in verse two how else do you do that you contemplate him in his opposition that's point number two that's verse three point number three endure your hardship as discipline see it as discipline that's verse number seven okay those are the three points I pulled out of it and then you can each time come back this is how you deal with hardship you fix your eyes on Jesus this is how you deal with hardship you contemplate his opposition this is how you deal with hardship see it as discipline everybody with me it's lunchtime let me see how much further hurry do you want to go through more of these though I have just two more so let's let's come back to it after lunch and then we will do our practice time and we'll actually do this together you'll each get your verse and then I will help you work through some of them all right you

Channel: MinnesotaConference

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Keywords: Seventh-day Adventist, Christian, preaching, seminars, religion, church, camp meeting

Id: rCwlelvBhFM

Length: 74min 6sec (4446 seconds)

Published: Thu May 02 2013