From Sampler to Sower

Teaching Series: Look Up

Message Title: Elijah Was a Man Just Like Us

Sermon in a Sentence: “Elijah was a a man, just like us. He prayed earnestly (James 5:17a).”

Text(s): Psalm 121:1-2, 1 Kings 16-18, James 5:17

Message Summary:

We started a new series at Water’s Edge this week called Look Up. The theme verse from the series is Psalm 121:1-2:

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth (NIV).

The Psalmist asks where he can turn for help, and he knows the answer.  “My help comes from the Lord.”  When we need help, we don’t look to other things or other people.  We’re called to lift up our eyes and turn to God.  In this series we’ll be learning what it means to live a life a prayer — a life that looks up.

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Teaching Series: Cultivate

Message Title: Faithfulness and Self-Control

Sermon in a Sentence: Running to win the prize requires a certain trust and disciplined self-control.

Text(s): Galatians 5:22-23, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27

Message Summary:

This week marked the end of our Cultivate series. We’re still playing catch up from all the weeks we had to miss due to the snow and ice this winter.  While the other catch up combination weeks had a bit of logic to them — joy and peace; patience, kindness and gentleness — this mash-up of faithfulness and self-control wasn’t quite as natural.  Hopefully I did them justice, though to be honest I feel as though I may have shortchanged faith.  I would have liked to spend more time on the connection between faith and faithfulness.

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Weekend Teaching Series: Cultivate

Message Title: Patience, Kindness, and Gentleness

Sermon in a Sentence: God calls us to bear with those who typically would annoy us, actively offer grace to those who have nothing to offer in return, and to serve those “below” us in our social structure.

Text(s): Galatians 5:22-23, Exodus 34:6-7, 2 Peter 3:9, Luke 6:32-36, Matthew 20:25-28

Message Summary:

This week we continue combining some of the fruit in the hopes of finishing the series on time.  I had already planned on combining kindness and gentleness, since as concepts they are so closely related.  And like any good auctioneer trying to make sure everything has a chance to sell, I threw in patience for good measure.  Just trying to keep up with the weather cancellations.

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Weather is wreaking havoc on our Cultivate series.  We’ve had to cancel three of our last four services. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but our next series starts on Ash Wednesday. That means we have to double up on some of the fruit if we’re going to finish on time.  Therefore this week I bring you joy AND peace.

Weekend Teaching Series: Cultivate

Message Title: Joy and Peace

Sermon in a Sentence: In a world of suffering and injustice, God calls us to make peace and find joy in the grace He gives.

Text(s): Isaiah 65:17-25; Matthew 5:9, Romans 14:17, Galatians 5:22-23

Message Summary:

One of the challenges in preaching this message is the pre-conceptions people have about what joy and peace are. When we think of peace we think of the absence of conflict.  A peacemaker is someone who smooths over the hard feelings in our world and finds a way to keep everyone happy.

And joy is even more difficult because we have to deal with two sets of preconceptions.  On one hand, when we think of joy, we think of happy people.  A joyful person is that annoyingly bubbly person, always bouncing around, naively giddy, filled with the kind of saccharine sentimentality that sets our teeth on edge…

…Or maybe not.  Because you also have the sermons that explain there is a difference between joy and happiness.  Happiness, we’re told, depends on circumstances.  Happiness is affected by what happens to us.  Joy on the other hand is centered in God and manifests itself as an internal confidence that God is in control.  It’s possible, we’re told, to be in unhappy circumstances and still be joyful.

So we approach the subject of peace and joy with these preconceptions.  The question is are any of these concepts what Paul is talking about when he says the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy and peace?

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In the fifth and final sermon from our True Love Waits series, the goal is to help students understand the pledge we are asking them to consider making.  We look one more time at what the Bible has to say about living lives of sexual purity, and then we break down the True Love Waits pledge to see that it really is a reflection of Biblical values.  The service ends with an invitation to prayerfully make a True Love Waits commitment and to communicate that they made that pledge by turning in a commitment card.

As usual, after the jump you will find a summary of the lesson as well as a fill-in-the-blank outline master and sermon audio. Also include is a sample of our True Love Waits commitment cards and the parent’s letters that we send to the parents of students who make first time commitments, as well as those renewing their commitments, inviting them to take part in the True Love Waits ring ceremony.

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Careful boys, we don't want that going off in here!

In our fourth sermon of our True Love Waits series, we mix things up a bit with a surprise pop quiz. Given the format, we don’t have outlines to pass out, so no PDF files to download, but there are plenty of memorable visual aids involved, so your students won’t need notes to remember what you talked about.

As you prepare for this lesson, make sure you have a roll of duct tape, a short sleeve shirt, a sex bomb and a good healthy length of waterproof cannon fuse…

After the jump we’ll let you know what to do with it all.  And as usual, there is sermon audio of this lesson from our 2010 True Love Waits series at the end as well.

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In the third lesson of True Love Waits, we attempt to correct a common problem to purity series. Specifically, I’ve noticed it’s common to pay a lot of attention to the waiting part, but not spend much time even considering the issue of true love. Yet it’s true love that we believe is worth waiting for.  So what do we know about true love.

I start teaching this lesson by showing the scene from Princess Bride in which Inigo and Fezzik take what turns out to be a mostly dead Westley to Miracle Max in hopes of a resurrection pill.  Max proves skeptical and refuses to act for anything less than a noble cause.  When he puts the question (and a few billows of air) to Westley, Westley replies “true love.”

Max eventually acknowledges:

Sonny, true love is the greatest thing in the world…except for a nice MLT – mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich, where the mutton is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe.

And the Bible agrees.

Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot sweep it away.
If one were to give
all the wealth of one’s house for love,
it would be utterly scorned. (Song of Solomon 8:7, NIV)

After the jump we’ll talk a bit more about this incredible gift of love, as well as what happens when we despise the gift by trading it to satisfy carnal desires.  You’ll find a summary of our sermon, as well as our fill-in-the-blanks outline for the lesson, and sermon audio of the lesson taught live.

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In week two of our True Love Waits series we address the very prevalent problem of pornography that our students face.  The goal of the lesson is to challenge them to see through the myth that someone pornography will leave them more knowledgeable and more experienced, and as a result better lovers.  Instead we hope to help them see that pornography may, in fact, sabotage their hopes for a healthy sex life later in life.

This may seem like a bit of a backwards approach to the subject.  And really it is, at least according to our normal way of teaching.  Typically we start with Scripture and work from there.  But we find that students already know deep down that looking at pornography is wrong.  And yet they do it anyway.  They don’t need us to prove to them that pornography is wrong.  They need us to help them see that it is not only wrong, but also harmful.

After the jump you’ll find a summary of our sermon on the subject, as well as the fill-in-the-blank outline we use and audio from this sermon, as preached as part of our 2010 series.

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In the first lesson of our True Love Waits series each year, we attempt to redefine the goal.  True Love Waits (TLW) is not just about helping teens remain virgins, it is about helping them live lives of true purity.

We take as our text 2 Corinthians 11:2

I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. (NIV)

In modern English, “virgin” and “chaste” are practically synonymous (if, that is, anyone even  knows the word “chaste” any more).  Yet biblically speaking they are not the same thing.  Otherwise, Paul’s description here would be redundant.  Why does he feel the need to clarify the church is to be presented as a pure virgin?

After the jump, we’ll walk you through the rest of the lesson, as well as provide a copy of our sermon notes, a link to the audio of this sermon, and a script for a drama that can be used with this lesson. Just click on “More.”

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As I mentioned in a post a few years back, every three years our youth group features a special series called True Love Waits. Actually, I said we did it every two years, but we have since transitioned to a three year cycle.  The goal remains the same, to make sure we emphasize this subject and give every student the opportunity to make a True Love Waits pledge during their Junior High years.  We’ve transitioned to a once-every-three cycle because we’ve also transitioned from a 7 & 8 to a 6-8 Junior High ministry.

Recently some colleagues on my district have asked me to share the resources from this series so they can have a look at what we do.  And so I’m posting these here, not just to archive them for myself, but to make sharing them easier.

Today, after the jump, you’ll find the information we make available to parents at our parent’s meeting at the start of the series.  And in upcoming posts this week you’ll find the rest of the resources from the five week teaching series.

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