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I’m under the theological belief that a glorious, beautiful, understandable picture of who God is, what he’s done, and what he’s called us through, through the Gospel is compelling. And so we wanna be compelling. We wanna be clear. We wanna be Christ exalting. So I guess what I’m saying is we don’t have to dumb things down to reach
people.
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I actually think people wanna know that our faith is ancient. People wanna know what our faith is about that. I think our sermon series have to be greater than mere
pragmatisms for life. But we don’t follow Jesus because it works. We follow Jesus because he defeated sin, death and evil, and He’s working his gospel in us.
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And that’s for the believer as well as those who are yet to believe in in Christ. So after I lay that foundation out, then I move to what are the names of the sermon series? And
our team will take the names and they’ll shorten them for SEO on the Internet and all that type of stuff. Right? So this is a finished product.
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So, January 7, 2024. First sermon out the gate is, My Name Is Yahweh Raah. That means the Lord is our shepherd. It’s on Psalm 23:1-6. This is a sample sermon outline of Psalm 23:6.
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As our Shepherd, He recognizes we need His presence. As our shepherd, He guides His people through the valley of the shadow of life. As our Shepherd, He is our host and
welcomes us with His life-giving love. As our Shepherd, Jesus is the great Shepherd. And so I exegetically walk through Psalm 23.
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Okay, so that was sermon number one. Sermon number two in My Name Is I am. It’s based on Exodus 3:15. In this sermon, we learned that God is I am, or Yahweh, the self-
existent, eternal, mighty one that keeps his covenantal promises. Our response is to trust Him, to follow Him and share Him with the lost.
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And so an example of the sermon outlined would be, I am your God and Father. I am your deliverer, Passover. I am the one who defines you. I am with you, Jesus. Okay, let
me give you the third one.
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My name is Yahweh Tsidkenu. The Lord is our righteousness. The text was Jeremiah 23:6. In this sermon, we learned that God is righteous, and all he does is upright, just, and good. Sin is brought about unrighteousness, but God in Christ has become our
righteousness to restore our original vocation, which means embodying God’s righteousness on the earth, which is an upward love relationship, an internal love
relationship with yourself, and an external love relationship with the world.
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The righteousness of God is the embodiment of God’s covenantal love with God, self, and your neighbor. So that’s just an example of how we unfold, how to do a sermon series, and then break down the sermon titles and even the sermon outlines. Now, one of the things that helps me tremendously to stay ahead and to have margin is every summer since the beginning of Transformation Church, way back in 2010, I take six to seven weeks for a study rest break. So what I do is the first three weeks, I am resting, I’m recharging, I’m praying. What I do the next three weeks is I begin to pray and sense like God.
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Where are you taking Transformation Church? Where in the sacred Scriptures do you want us to discover the unsearchable riches of Christ? And so I’m able to take those three weeks and plan out the rest of the year. So currently, right now, I have sermons that are set for the first quarter of 2025, moving into the second quarter. So I’m able to have margin.
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How am I able to have margin? Number one, I’m very disciplined about my time. Priorities shape my time. Whatever I say yes to, I’m saying no to something else. I have to make sure that my yeses, first and foremost is to my wife, my kids, Transformation Church, and sermon preparation.
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So I have to have margin. And then what I do is I’m sensitive and I’m always praying and listening. God, what are you doing? What are you doing in a culture? And one of the things that’s helped me tremendously is in pastoral care, I can get a sense of what’s tumbling and rumbling in people’s souls.
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And so it’s actually a beautiful process where I’m connected with the people of God in our local context, I’m connected with the culture, but more importantly, I’m connected with the sacred scripture. And so what this allows me to do is to have margin, to be able to be proactive. And I think I can say this on a firm foundation. Our production team, our music team, and even our staff love how far out ahead I am in my preparation. Even
our staff encouraged me and challenged me to get out as far ahead as possible.
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Then that allows us to sit in the sermon series, that allows us to breathe and to pray. Sometimes people will say things like, man, you just need to trust the Holy Spirit. Well, let me say this. I believe the Holy Spirit allows us to be proactive and not just reactive. If I could say this respectfully, don’t blame your lack of action on the Holy Spirit.
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Don’t blame your lack of time management on the Holy Spirit. I would say that some of us need to get more disciplined about our time. Some of them need to have greater priorities so that we can use our time wisely. And I don’t want my staff running around not knowing what I’m going to do. That puts a lot of pressure that releases cortisol and all types of unhealthy things.
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So, to summarize, in preparing a sermon series, there are multiple questions that I walk through and answer and prepare and then share with the staff, specifically our creatives, our calm team, and our music team. And then the whole entire staff gets in line with it. But those questions allow me to dig deep, to pray, to prepare the word of God, to preach it in a clear, compelling, Christ-exalting way. Listen, it’s worth it. Also, give yourself time to be able to grow into learning how to do this.
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But I promise you, your staff will enjoy it, your church will be blessed by it, and you will grow as a communicator, a preacher, and teacher of the Gospel of King Jesus. Listen,
when the church is transformed, the world will be transformed. This is Dr. Derwin Gray. Marinate on that.
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You know, if you listen to the podcast, you know that I love research used to lead a research company. So I love when research helps to illustrate a question we have. And one of the questions a lot of people are having is how do we look to the decline of the family, maybe the relationship around fatherhood and issues of faith and church. Well, again, the Communio nationwide study on faith and relationships actually points to the collapse of marriage, where resident fatherhood fits into that, and how they all point ultimately to a relationship to Christianity and decline in the church. So visit communio.org study to download communio’s nationwide study on faith and relationships. Thanks for listening to today’s episode of Transforming the Church. If you found this episode helpful or encouraging, please subscribe.
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