How to Stand Up to Temptation – Sermon Ideas

September 15, 2009 by admin

You are preaching a topical sermon about temptation, and your text is 1 Corinthians 10:13. Your church sermon thrust is as follows: “Because you know that God will not let you be tempted beyond what you can handle, stand up under it!” These words are practically taken right out of the passage.

So your subject is something like “Tough Repeat Temptations.” The response being called for is that people will stand up to them.

It’s a great text. The subject is relevant, and it’s hard to miss the response called for in God’s Word. So how effective will your Sunday sermons be? It depends on the practicality of your “how to’s.”

Christians know they shouldn’t yield to troublesome temptations. Even so, many, including some who know this verse by heart, still do … again and again. The simple truth is that they don’t know how to stand up under it! So—do you know what to tell them?

What specifically did you do in your past to know victory over an attractive devilish lure? What have been the experiences of some of your church leaders? What past or present victory secrets do they have to share? Here’s where input from various members of the church body can be extremely helpful. Call them on the phone or e-mail them asking for their thoughts.

After coming up with a number of suggestions, narrow your “how to’s” down to the three or four best. Share these in your bible sermon, and I believe you will preach a real winner!

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Preaching Sunday Sermons for Changed Lives Takes Commitment

August 25, 2009 by admin

A family of five has been dysfunctional for many years. Because the chaos has become almost unbearable, the dad and mom decide to attend a weekend seminar on better parenting. This proves to be incredibly helpful. Not only do they get a picture of what a healthy family looks like, but they receive good handles on how to begin to pull things off. Wonderful testimonies are also heard from parents who turned things around by following what they were taught.

Returning from the weekend with a head of steam, all of a sudden Dad and Mom run into opposition from their children, ages 15, 12 and 9. None of them were involved in the training, and these three have no vision of what could be or how to get there. Cooperation means a radical change of behavior on the part of everyone, and they aren’t buying in. What will happen is anyone’s guess.

This is similar to what takes place when a pastor begins preaching with changed lives clearly in mind. Church sermon suggestions or “how-to’s” are resisted or ignored. It’s like, Who decided all of a sudden that we congregants wanted to be all that Christ-like? Let’s get back to the ‘weekend devotional thought’ Sunday sermons with a nice closing illustration, like we were used to hearing.

For a pastor to see changes in lives will take a real commitment that includes the willingness to stick with this approach in spite of opposition. Are you ready to make that church sermon commitment?

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Church Sermon Texts with Numerous Responses

July 1, 2009 by admin

Can you have more than one desired response per church sermon? That question comes up often when I’m teaching.

Usually it’s asked by someone who preaches in a verse-by-verse fashion, who wonders what to do with passages such as at the end of certain epistles that call for any number of different responses.

I confess that my concern rests more with the listener than the preacher. A church sermon that asks for several different and often unrelated responses is certainly more difficult to follow and absorb than a message with a single response. Especially this is true now that people’s attention spans are decidedly shorter than they used to be. As a result, Sunday sermon time in most churches has been reduced from an hour-plus to 20 or 30 minutes. So for the sake of maximum communication I would recommend trying to stick with one desired response per sermon.

I’m also assuming that additional time is needed to instruct people regarding the “how-to” of each desired response, a element of Sunday sermons I will write about in the near future.

It’s true that some preachers are skilled enough to keep the attention of a congregation through a passage calling for several different responses. Be aware that they are the exception rather than the rule. I don’t believe I have the necessary skills to fit in that category, and my assumption is that very few of my readers do either.

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Preaching for Life Changes

June 2, 2009 by admin

Most ministers are trained to go to the Scriptures to find their preaching material. I affirm the value of that practice. But in the process of preparing a church sermon each week, they sometimes forget what their bottom line is.

Preaching is not an end in itself. In other words, the goal of these messages is not to have people say that you are a dynamic speaker. Of course, if that’s how your listeners feel, great!

Carefully explaining what the Bible teaches also falls short of the ultimate purpose. Again, it’s obviously to their benefit if listeners learn more of what the Bible has to say under your ministry.

In short, preaching should seek to make people more Christ-like. We preach bible sermons to challenge listeners to put into practice the words of our Lord, along with the many other commands found in the Bible.

If after years of ministry your congregation is essentially the same people they were spiritually as when you came, you probably haven’t done your job all that well. Think about Christ. After three and a half years with His disciples, there were huge changes in how they lived. Were they perfect? No. But in many ways their lives had been radically transformed.

In what ways will those in your congregation be more Christ-like as a result of the years you invest with them as their spiritual leader? That’s a question all pastors need to wrestle with, and it relates directly to their preaching.

It’s also another reason why early on in your sermon outline preparation you need to figure out not only what your sermon subject is, but the desired response being called for as well.

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