I grew up with the reputation of being a squeaky-clean church kid—and I liked it. I had the approval of my parents, peers and teachers. What could be better?

Unfortunately, this approval led to self-righteousness and self-centeredness. I thought life was about me—and I had it good! I didn’t need to think much about seeking or obeying Christ because I assumed I already was doing both. I didn’t use bad words or get in trouble at school—that must mean I’m pretty good, right?

I began to take my faith more seriously in high school when friends in my public school started asking me questions—questions I didn’t have the answers to. In addition, I knew my squeaky-cleanness was only external—secret sins had a grip on my heart in a way Christ didn’t. I knew answers were out there for these questions and my struggles, I just hadn’t found them yet.

A Growing Desperation

I never expected my first semester at a Christian college to thrill me and challenge me like it did. I enjoyed new freedom and new friendships. What I didn’t enjoy was my new identity crisis. Who was I and what was I about? The answers seemed to change daily. “Squeaky-clean church kid” didn’t mean as much in a sea of squeaky-clean church kids.

I learned the hard way that trying to be like someone you’re not is a great way to embarrass yourself. I learned the nasty cycle of sin that leads to isolation that leads to even more sin. I learned what it felt like to cry myself to sleep at night.

One day while getting my hair cut, I came to grips with how bad things were. As chunks of my hair fell to the floor, I realized I couldn’t go on alone. I tried to please people and be someone I wasn’t—and I hated it. I felt like my life had fallen apart.

The passage that changed everything

That January I took an intensive Bible course that required students to read the whole New Testament in a few weeks. As I read the Bible, something happened that had never happened to me before: I was gripped by what I read. I had always respected the Bible and would have verbally said it was true—but this time it was as if someone had unlocked the secrets of the universe for me.

As I tried to absorb the rich truths of Scripture, I stopped in my tracks while reading Jesus’ conclusion to the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 7.24–27″ data-version=”esv” data-purpose=”bible-reference”>Matthew 7:24–27, CSB):

Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed. It collapsed with a great crash.

I was stunned. This was a familiar passage to me, but it was as if I read it the first time. I looked up from my Bible and thought: “I’ve built my life on the sand for my entire life. That’s why things have come crashing down.” I had heard the words of Christ all my life but had never desired to put them into practice. Christ revealed my wickedness to me, and it was like a sledgehammer to my soul.

As I considered the rubble of my life, despair turned to hope as I realized that Christ would put me back together—and put me back together He did.

In the Lord’s grace, I grew in leaps and bounds as I sought to repent of my sin and obey the risen Christ. I finally came to grips with who I was-a beloved child of God; and what I was about, pleasing Him with all I do and think.

The good life came not by keeping God at arm’s length, but by drawing near to the risen Christ and surrendering all of myself to Him. His was the only approval I needed, and this solid truth was something I could build my life upon.

This article originally appeared here.

Is it wrong for me to binge watch Netflix? What about putting my kids on a select soccer team that plays on Sunday mornings? Am I spending too much time at the gym?

The Bible doesn’t have specific answers for these kinds of questions. But this doesn’t mean the Bible doesn’t have something specific to say.

RUN THE RACE

If we are going to run the race of the Christian life with endurance, there are things we must lay aside—if they are hindering us, tripping us, restricting our movement.

Netflix may or may not be tripping you up. It might be enabling you to lust, shirk responsibilities, neglect rest and neglect enjoying God and his word. Or, it might be a proper way to rest and enjoy God’s world. Your hobbies, while good, can get out of control and start to control you—or they can be what God intends.

The writer of Hebrews tells us to act like marathon runners, chucking the items weighing us down so we can plow forward looking to our crucified and risen Jesus.

“Let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus the source and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1–2).

TWO CATEGORIES

I love how the writer of Hebrews gives two categories, sins and hindrances.

Sins is the obvious—from the Bible—category, non-arguable things in our lives we must kill and lay down. Lust, envy, lying, drunkenness, pornography, greed, gluttony, fear, etc.

Hindrances is the non-obvious category. They aren’t blatantly clear in God’s word. Social media usage isn’t lined out by the Apostles. But God gives us the Spirit, his word and his wisdom to assess our running.

Your budget, movies and hobbies may not be sinful, but it’s possible to sin with them. This doesn’t mean we need to pursue modern-monkery. No way. This is about whether we are eating, drinking, reading, playing, working out or Netflixing to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31).

This is tricky too. These hindrances aren’t universal. Sins are universal; if the Bible says this is sin, it’s true for all of us. There is no, “Oh, maybe for you, but I can do this.” But with the weights/hindrances, these are not standard. What is a hindrance to me may not be one to you. So we have to be honest and assess our own running before the Lord.

IS IT HELPING?

Hebrews is elevating the cost of discipleship. We want to do more than meander through life. We want to run for Christ.

So, the question is: Is this helping or hindering me? Does this help me run the race, living with an unfazed focused on Jesus Christ? Is this hindering me? Is this a good thing that I’ve allowed to distract me? If we are sinning, we cease and desist. If we feel distracted, unsure, restricted, we should ask for example:

• Is the way I’m using Twitter helping me run the race with endurance, keeping my eyes on Jesus?
• My eating habits, are they helping me run the race with endurance, keeping my eyes on Jesus?
• My spending, is it helping me run the race with endurance, keeping my eyes on Jesus?
• My downtime at night, is it helping me run the race with endurance, keeping my eyes on Jesus?

We either need to dial back, putting things in their proper orbit—or, we lay it aside altogether so we can run with endurance.

This article originally appeared here.

You may have noticed at the end of church on a Sunday morning people will tend to go out singing the songs rather than reciting the sermon.

One Sunday a few years ago, the BBC broadcast a service from the famous Keswick Convention in the English Lake District. The music was led by modern hymn-writer Stuart Townend, and the service included several of his songs, including In Christ Alone.

Before leading the congregation in singing that, Stuart spoke for about one minute on the significance of songs in worship, highlighting their teaching function and their capacity to allow us to express our feelings and emotions to God who in turn interacts with us.

He raised a few chuckles when he suggested that people are more likely to leave church singing the songs than reciting the sermon.

The point is not that sermons should be done away with (the Keswick Convention would be an odd place to suggest that); it’s an observation about the power of music.

Here are a few reflections on this—some for preachers and some for music directors and worship leaders.

For preachers:

1. Let’s face it: He’s got a point. Have you ever heard someone reciting lines from your sermon in the car park after you have preached for 40 minutes? You may get the odd memorable line or two making an appearance on Twitter; and there may be some people leaving with a page or two of notes (what does anyone do with all those notes, by the way?).
2. But that does not mean that we do away with sermons. However there is a challenge to us to do what we can to make our sermons more memorable.
3. Which in turn does not mean you have to arrive in the pulpit having parachuted through the ceiling or driven up the aisle in a Formula 1 racing car; nor does it require you to replace the pulpit with a trampoline. All of these would make the occasion memorable, but possibly not for the right reasons.
4. It may involve a judicious and creative use of some kind of visuals on the screen. If you are going to use Powerpoint or the like, try to make sure that it supports your message rather than distracting from it.
5. It may involve the use of stories and illustrations. People who struggle to follow a detailed argument may come alive when you tell a good story. As with visuals, make sure it supports your message. (One of the dilemmas a preacher faces is when there is a great story, begging to be told, but it doesn’t quite fit the sermon.)
6. Why not make use of a catch phrase or a tag line that accurately reflects the message of the passage you are preaching? You can repeat it several times during your message.
7. Consider using alliteration or parallelism to outline the main sub-points of your message. For example: Preaching sometimes involves pulpits; preaching should never include plagiarism; preaching should always involve power.
8. Ask the Holy Spirit to use the written word (Bible) to reveal the Incarnate Word (Jesus). Ask him to bring a word for the moment to the listeners’ lives. Ask him to open listeners’ hearts.

For worship leaders and song writers:

1. Realize the powerful influence you have! Music sticks with people. How many times do you go through a day with a tune buzzing around your head?
2. Since music is so powerful, make sure you get people to sing songs that are actually worth remembering. It works two ways. Silly, superficial words, set to a catchy tune, stick. Sometimes your dilemma will be that you have to ditch a song whose melody you really like, because its lyrics are not good enough. If some things are worth remembering, others are not.
3. On the same lines, if you are a song writer, don’t waste your time writing nonsense! Give us things that we need to remember; give us things that will give wings to our spiritual lives.
4. Remember the difference between songs that work really well at a rock concert, but don’t cut it in corporate worship. Corporate worship means the people sing, not listen.
5. Writers: You need to write tunes that ordinary, not-terribly-musical people can sing and will remember. Don’t forget that while you can probably pick up a new melody after you have heard it once, some people will need to hear it, be taught it and practice it multiple times before it sticks with them.
6. Consider working with the preacher to choose songs that will support the theme of what is preached. Even if it doesn’t work for every song in the service, work hard to make sure that the final song will reinforce what has just been preached. For example, if the preaching has focused the grace and love of the father in the story of the Prodigal Son, why not finish with something like “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us”?
7. If you are a writer, why not set yourself the challenge of writing new material to reflect a series that is being preached in your church. It will stretch your writing skills and it will provide a great resource to your church (and possibly the church wider afield).

This article originally appeared here.

Did you know that most people forget 90 percent of sermons within 24 hours?

That’s depressing.

Your message is too important to be forgotten so fast. So how can you help people remember?

There are a lot of ways that people try to preach unforgettable sermons. Some work; others don’t.

But the best way is to learn from Jesus.

His sermons were so memorable that we still remember them almost 2,000 years later.

Here are just three examples that we can learn from Jesus:

1. BE SIMPLE

Jesus preached in simple and powerful statements. A great example is, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 19:19).

Jesus spoke in simple ways to simple people. For the most part, it doesn’t take a college degree to understand Jesus’ teaching. Most of his concepts can be summarized in a single sentence.

A simple and memorable statement will have some artistic nature to it. They may rhyme, have alliteration or be an interesting play on words.

For example, I preached a sermon where the main idea was, “What would you do if you knew God was with you?”

I emphasized the rhyme of “do,” “knew” and “you.”

Another simple point I have used is: “If you want your kids to follow Jesus every day of their lives, you need to make Jesus part of your everyday life.”

These crafted, simple statements are easy to remember and help your listeners carry the message with them when they leave the building.

If you can’t summarize your message in a single, simple sentence, you aren’t ready to preach it.

2. BE SHOCKING

Jesus often used outrageous examples, exaggerations or shocking statements to get people’s attention. These statements were not all meant to be taken literally, but they got the point across.

For example, Jesus didn’t mean that we literally have to rip out our eyes and amputate our hands for causing us to sin (Matthew 5:29-30). Otherwise, all Christians would be blind amputees.

Another great example from Jesus is when he said, “Blessed are the poor” (Matthew 5:3).

That must have caught his audience by surprise. People don’t associate being poor with being blessed. Most people think, “Blessed are the rich.”

Jesus said unexpected things that shocked people to help us all remember his point.

3. BE A STORYTELLER

Jesus was a master storyteller. “He told them many things in parables” (Matthew 13:3).

Think about all of Jesus’ parables: the prodigal son, the good Samaritan, the lost sheep, the sower and the seeds, and more.

Jesus knew how to weave a story to communicate his message in a memorable and powerful way.

• He could have said, “Love everyone like they are your neighbor.” Instead, he told the story of the good Samaritan.
• He could have said, “God wants to save all lost people.” Instead, he told the story of the lost sheep.
• He could have said, “Not everyone who hears my words will follow me.” Instead, he told the story of the sower.

People don’t always remember my sermons, but I am always surprised by how much they remember my stories.

Years after I told a story and forgot that I ever shared it, people have reminded me of it.

Stories are powerful. The good ones stick with us the rest of our lives. Jesus knew this and used it to help us remember his teaching.

So here’s the bottom line:

If you want to preach unforgettable sermons, preach like Jesus.

Learn from Jesus and be a simple, shocking, storytelling preacher.

You can find these tips and more in my book Preach and Deliver.

This article originally appeared here.