Preparations For A Sermon

*This is kind of how I see the sermon going in my head. Everything is definitely subject to change. This is by no means the entire sermon...just the introduction. Enjoy!




We always hit around it. We say, “I read my Bible, I go to church, I pray...” and what we don’t realize is that the Pharisees did all of those things too. But the Bible says in Matt. 5:20 that unless our righteousness exceeds that af the Pharisees then we will not “enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Think about it, if you are just reading your Bible, praying, and going to church you are doing the exact same thing that the muslims, hindus, and Pharisees do. They all go to their churches, read their “holy books” (or Bibles in our case), and pray to their gods.
So you may ask, “What is the difference?” or, “So what am I supposed to do then?” and this is where the glory of the gospel comes into play.

SO WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?

The difference is huge. The difference is that God, the real one and only true God, has the desire to save His people. But what we must understand is that He is not saving His people for His people’s sake. Rather He saves His people for the sake of His name. A good example of this is seen in 1 John 2:12 which says, “…your sins are forgiven for His name's sake.” The fact that people either don’t seem to notice or try to avoid is that there is nothing special about you. There is none good in you. God did not choose to save you because you are a good person, or because you will be a good person. God chooses to save people so that He may display His almighty power to us all. Not only His power though, but also His grace and His love and His mercy.

THEN WHAT DO I DO?

This question is answered differently depending on the way it is asked. If someone asks this question but means, “How can I save myself?” then the answer is there is absolutely nothing you can do. You can not save yourself. Your works will not save you. Your church will not save you. Reading your Bible will not save you. Praying a sinner’s prayer and announcing to the church that you are now saved WILL NOT SAVE YOU!

But for some reason we think it can. For some ungodly reason we think that since we just walk around saying that we are Christians then we are truly Christians, but that is just not true.

Now you may ask me, “But doesn’t the Bible say that if we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord then we will be saved?” And the answer to that question is yes, but that is not all that it says. It goes on to say that you must believe with your heart that the father raised him from the dead. There is much more depth to that then just saying, “Oh yeah God raised Jesus from the dead, I believe in Jesus.” And then going to do all the sinful acts that your heart desires. If you are truly saved you will be a changed creature. Sinful things will not be a desire to you. Will you sin? Yes, every day, but by the grace of God you will repent and be forgiven, this leads into the second way that the question, “What do I do?” can be asked.
The second way of asking this question is to have the meaning, “What must be done on my behalf to receive the Father’s grace?”

The first thing you must do is see yourself for who you really are. Romans says there are none good. Isaiah say that your righteousness is as filthy rags. The book of Leviticus lays downs God’s law that we must follow if we desire to be perfect and reach heaven ourselves, but I guarantee you as soon as we were born we broke that law in some way.

You have to understand that you are the epitome of evil. That there is no good in you now, and that there will never be any good in you. But don’t just tell yourself this, you have to see this. You have to feel this. You have to believe this.

Then, when you feel how horrible you are and the weight of your sin, compare yourself to the light of Christ and see how deserving you are of being sentenced to hell. You deserve nothing less than hell, as a matter of fact if such a thing existed, we would all deserve a punishment worse than hell.

After seeing your filth and feeling your condemnation then turn to the Lord, see the love in His eyes. Feel His mercy and His grace, and throw yourself upon Him. Beg His forgiveness, repent of your sins, turn from them, sin no more. Cast yourself on Jesus and His mercy, and He will be faithful to forgive you and to save you, but, once again He is not saving you for you. He is saving you for His name’s sake.

*Once again I stress that this is just a beginning thought for an intro, there are many more things that I wish to stress and many more things that I wish to explain more fully. For now though I just wanted to give you a glimpse into my thought process. I hope you enjoyed it.