This past Sunday evening, I preached a sermon on 1 Kings 19 focusing in particular on verses 14 and 18. I chose this text because of the unique encouragement it offers Christians living in cultures that have rejected the Lord. In such a context, it is easy to become discouraged or feel like you are alone. God’s response to Elijah in 1 Kings 19 is the perfect encouragement for such feelings: God is still active in sovereignly saving people for His own glory even in the darkest of cultures.
The video of the sermon is given below with the link to the audio file.
Because I only had one week to prepare this sermon on top of full time Master’s classes and caring for a 2 month old, I decided to use the Puritan Sermon structure. This structure particular shines when preaching a couple verses. In my case, because I knew I wanted to focus on two verses in 1 Kings 19, the structure was ideal. It enabled me to develop the following sermon outline in less than an hour. Then I had the rest of the week to fill out the outline.
Introduction
Initial Analysis
Context of 1 Kings
Overall Context of 1 & 2 Kings
Immediate Context of 1 Kings 19
Defining Key Terms in verses 14 & 18
Exposition
See the Darkness of the God-hating Culture
Israel had broken God’s covenant
Idolatry was rampant
God’s messengers were being killed
Wicked leadership
Notice Elijah’s Wrong Perspective
Elijah is hiding in a cave afraid for his life
He is questioning the effectiveness of his zeal for God
Elijah views himself as completely alone
Meditate on God’s Response
God promises Elijah victory in the end
The prophetic line will continue
God is preserving a remnant of true worshipers
The 7000 not a majority, but not a small number
These people not known by Elijah, but known by God
The 7000 have not fallen into the sins of the culture
Effect on Elijah: goes out in obedience
Summary of text and the reality it points to
Elijah despaired in a godless culture but God reminds Him that He has preserved a believing remnant
God’s servants should never despair because God sovereignly elects a believing remnant for Himself even in the darkest of cultures
Implications
Faith and trust in God’s sovereign election should give you indestructible hope
Labor faithfully for God in a godless culture even when you don’t see fruit in the present
God has a remnant from every tribe, tongue and nation who will believe in Christ & the Gospel
Where have you slipped into Elijah-like thinking?
Conclusion
Check out the Tools page to look through resources I use to prepare my sermons and study a passage. To listen to other sermons I have preached, head over to the Preaching page. Share and subscribe below and be sure to follow The Average Churchman on Instagram if you haven’t already.
Romans 1:11-12 Sermon: Mutual Encouragement and the Christian
This past Sunday, I had the privilege of preaching at my Church’s evening service. Since I taught a narrative text from Numbers 14 the last time I preached, I decided this time to choose an Epistle. I chose Romans 1:11-12 for my passage. Sermon title’s always cause me some difficulty, so I settled on “Mutual Encouragement and the Christian.” The link to the sermon video is below, along with the link to the audio file.
I keep a google drive with all sorts of “sermon skeletons“. Essentially, when a text of scripture grips me, I make a brief outline to lay out how I would teach that text if I ever got the opportunity to. This allows me to be somewhat prepared ahead of time if I end up getting a chance to preach. Even though I had many of these sermon outlines ready to go, when my Pastor asked me to preach, there was only one text I wanted to teach: Romans 1:11-12.
For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you—that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.
Romans 1:11-12, ESV
Why choose these couple verses? First, because these couple verses at the front of Romans have been on my mind all year. As a goal for 2021, I have set out to try to memorize the book of Romans. One of the benefits and blessings of doing this is meditating on lesser known portions of the Epistle. Verses 11-12 of Romans 1 in particular stood out to me as containing important truths about faith, encouragement, and the Church.
The second reason I chose these verses is I saw them come alive in my interactions with the local Church. Seeing and experiencing mutual encouragement among my fellow local Church members caused my mind to jump back to Romans 1:11-12. I didn’t just know these verses. My eyes were seeing them lived out in front of me. I was experiencing the truths of the passage as I was encouraged in ordinary conversations with local Church members.
In the end, there was no other text I wanted to preach. Paul’s couple sentences to the Roman Church had stewed in my mind for a couple months and I had seen enough examples of the verses come to life that I was gripped. Preaching gave me an opportunity to delve deeper into the verses myself and to share what I had learned with the body.
How I prepared the sermon
There were a number of tools I used to prepare this sermon. The first was breaking the passage into its components. I tried to understanding the historical setting, where the text occurs in the flow of Romans, and the characteristics of the two main “characters” in the passage (Paul and the Roman Church). After that, I identified the key words and phrases I needed to define in order to understand the passage.
The tool I used most for this sermon, however, was Iterative Bible Study. As soon as I heard I was preaching, I made a very rough outline of the text fairly easily. Using that, I identified gaps in my knowledge which I needed to go back and fill. Check out my Iterative Bible Study approach to see how I actually did this.
Finally, once I had done a couple rounds of study on the text, I started thinking of practical implications. To do this, I used the Puritan application questions. I love these questions. Simply by answering them, I was able to come up with about 7 implications that follow from the truths of Romans 1:11-12. I only gave 5 implications in the actual sermon for the sake of time.
All in all, this was the easiest and most pleasant sermon preparation I have experienced yet. My other two times preaching took a lot longer and I struggled much more with the structure of the sermon. But because I had spent so much time thinking about the text personally and since I took advantage of some of my own Bible study tools, prepping for teaching was a breeze.
If you are going to teach, you need good tools. The better the tools, the less time you will spend thinking of where to start and the more time you can devote to meditating on the text itself.
Outline of the sermon
I conclude with the outline of my sermon. In a future post, I will format my notes for reading. In the end, I tried to structure my sermon the way John Flavel laid out his sermons: define the terms of the text, define the doctrine, expound the doctrine, apply the doctrine. I plan to do a future post on the different ways to structure a teaching. Personally, however, I found this structure very effective for preaching a shorter couple verses like Romans 1:11-12.
Introduction
Why text is important
Overview of sermon structure
Definition of terms and doctrine
Define key words
Summarize key reality/doctrine of text
Expounding the doctrine
Encouragement in the NT
Truth encourages
Christ Encourages
God encourages
Other believers encourage
How faith can encourage
Faith sets an example
Other people’s faith in action makes ours more enduring
What do Paul and the Roman Church have in common
Not much at a surface level
From different geographies
Different levels of knowledge
Paul called as an apostle
Much on a spiritual level
Same problem-sin
Same need-Christ’s righteousness
Same present-living out Christian life
Implications of doctrine
Your faith needs encouragement
You need the local Church
Talk about your faith with others
Don’t think your faith is above encouragement from others
Even small conversations build up the Church
There you have it! I truly am grateful to the Lord and my Pastor for giving me this third opportunity to preach from the pulpit. The best way to learn how to preach and to improve is simply to do it. I pray the tools on The Average Churchman will help you when you are called to teach or preach.
Check out the Tools page to look through resources I use to prepare my sermons and study a passage. To listen to either of my other two sermons, head over to the Preaching page. Be sure to follow The Average Churchman on Instagram if you haven’t already!
What does sinful fear look like? What can sinful fear do to your life? Numbers 14 gives a clear picture of what happens when your fear is misplaced. It stands as a warning for all of us.
In a previous post, I detailed why Numbers 14 is an integral passage within the Pentateuch. Israel is at the edge of the promised land, but they do not enter because of unbelief. (Click here to listen to my whole sermon on this passage).
But how does this unbelief manifest itself? Fear. Fear of circumstances and the nations who already inhabit the land.
Unbelief in God and His promises will often show itself in sinful fear of man.
In this post, I want to show you the different aspects of Israel’s fear and how it instructs you and I today.
14 Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. 2 And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! 3 Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” 4 And they said to one another, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”
Numbers 14:1-4 ESV
Emotive aspect of sinful fear
This passage comes right after Israel hears from the spies who entered the promised land. Numbers 13:36-33 gives their report. What is Israel’s reaction to the report?
They break down.
Fearful emotion is everywhere in the first couple verses of this passage. The text says Israel is crying loudly and weeping into the night.
This word used for weeping can also be translated lamenting. These aren’t just a few fearful tears. It is a bitter, despairing weeping.
Notice also this is not a minority of the people. The text says the whole community, the entire congregation is lifting up their voices and crying.
All this emotion comes simply from hearing the spies’ report. Israel has traveled all the way from Egypt to this land, and the spies’ essentially report back “Forget about it! No way are you entering the land!”
The spies said the people living in the land are stronger than Israel. Their cities are fortified. They spies even use some pretty colorful metaphors to get across to Israel just how scare the people in the land.
The spies compare Israel to grasshoppers. They say the land devours its inhabitants.
Basically, the spies tell Israel: if you try to enter the promised land, you are going to be eaten for breakfast! Squashed like bugs!
So Israel hears all this and what is their reaction? Crying. Not crying because of sadness. Crying because of their fear.
Israel is now afraid to enter the promised land.
Sinful fear leads to questioning the Lord
Forgetting God’s Promises
But in verse 2 and following, Israel doesn’t just stop at fear. Their fear makes them start to question God.
It says in verse 2 Israel started complaining and murmuring.
If you have been reading the Pentateuch, this word is like a warning sign for the reader: rebellion is coming! Sin is coming!
Three times in Exodus this word “murmuring” shows up in the context of Israel disliking their current situation. This is not the first time Israel has let their sinful fear lead to outright rebellion.
Israel then asks a “why” question in verse 3: “Why did God bring us into this land to die by the sword?”
So, Israel has now let their fear lead them to accuse God. In three short verses, Israel goes from crying to doubting the very God who brought them out of slavery.
Israel says essentially: “God, you brought us all this way just to kill us! You had this secret plan all along to harm us!”
Now remember, Israel had been in slavery in Egypt for years. They were not free, they were oppressed and mistreated. Then God through His own mighty power rescued them.
But in their fear, Israel does not remember this. It is an instructive point for us.
When you are afraid and let that fear take over, you forget reality. You don’t think clearly.
Israel should not be questioning God’s faithfulness or God’s plan for Israel. God multiple times up to this point has told them why He is bringing them to the land.
God from the beginning made it clear what His plans were with Israel:
2 God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the Lord. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself known to them. 4 I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. 5 Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. 6 Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. 7 I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. 8 I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord.’”
Exodus 6:2-8 ESV, Emphasis added
Notice: God in this passage is covenanting with Israel. God is promising to give them the land of Canaan as a possession. Why? Because God already promised the land to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
So, the problem in Numbers 14 is not with God. At no point did God promise anything but redemption and blessing for the Israel. More than that, God explicitly stated multiple times He would give Israel this land they are so afraid of entering.
But as is so often the case, the external circumstances blind Israel to the promises of God.
Misplaced Fear
Israel’s fear not only blinded them to God’s promises: it also blinded Israel to who they should have feared. God.
The God who is a consuming fire yet who is dwelling in their midst.
The God who single-handedly freed them from Egypt.
The God who parted the Red Sea.
The God who struck down Nadab and Abihu.
God alone should have been the object of Israel’s fear.
There are a lot of things in the world to be afraid of. And in Israel’s case, at a human level, their fear makes sense. Israel seemed to be facing certain defeat and death if the spies’ report was correct.
That is why who or what you fear is so important. Fear affects our behavior. It drives a lot of our actions. Fear can blind us to reality.
And often times you and I fear the wrong things.
If your house was burning down, you wouldn’t worry if your dishes were dirty. By comparison, the dishes would not be a big deal.
In the same way, if God is the one you fear most, if you fear displeasing Him, if you are in awe of his power, then you don’t have time for lesser fears.
Israel’s problem is the people inhabiting the land are bigger in Israel’s eyes, then God.
And you see in our text all the sinful places this misplaced fear leads Israel:
It causes overwhelming emotion
It causes Israel to forget God’s redemption
It causes Israel to harden their hearts to the truth
What you fear will drive your behavior. This is why the Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
Israel feared the wrong things. Make sure you are fearing the right things.
Don’t just ask yourself “What do I believe?” also ask “What do I fear?” Whether you fear the Lord or fear man will be seen in your behavior.
Sinful fear leads to rebellion
As if accusing God wasn’t enough, Israel goes a step further. Israel says they would rather be slaves again than continue forward.
At this point you might be thinking, “Israel is massively over reacting!” And they are. But that is how fear works. Fear takes you to the extreme.
Israel is so afraid that they want to be anywhere but here. They are ready to run. And you see this attitude many times in the Pentateuch: when circumstances get tough, Israel cries out “We wish we were still slaves in Egypt!”
And in Numbers 14, in addition to accusing God, Israel gets ready to act. they want to appoint a leader and get out of there.
This is a complete and total rebellion at this point. Israel is rejecting God, God’s appointed leader (Moses), and going right back to where they came from.
Back to Egypt. Back to bondage. Back to slavery.
How does this apply to Christians today? I think it serves as a sobering warning.
The other morning when I was praying, the Lord brought to mind a parable in Mark 4 that illustrates the same danger Israel fell into. It is the well known Parable of the Sower.
It is one of the few parables Jesus explained:
14 The sower sows the word. 15 And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. 16 And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. 17 And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.18 And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, 19 but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.20 But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”
Mark 4:14-20 ESV, Emphasis added
In the two cases I highlighted, circumstances choke the word. In the first case, negative circumstances like tribulation or persecution keep the word from bearing fruit. In the second case, it is prosperity and desires for material gain that keep the word from bearing fruit.
Our circumstances can affect you and I. Just like Israel, often times when circumstances get scary or difficult or even when they are prosperous, we forget God, forget Jesus, and forget the redemption offered in the Gospel.
Oftentimes, responding to circumstances with fear drives you back to those sins which Christ redeemed you from.
Just like Israel wanted to run back into bondage because of their fear, fear of man can cause Christians to spiral into unbelief and sin.
Numbers 14:1-4 gives a stark warning to us all: fear of circumstances or of man leads to sin. Fear of God leads to obedience, trust, and wisdom.
So, in your quiet time, in your prayer life, in your personal reflection as yourself:
Who and what do I fear more than God? Why do I fear that person/thing/circumstance more than God?
For a study on the blessings of belonging to God, check out this post from my ongoing series “Happy?” Follow The Average Churchman on Instagram to get updates whenever a new post is published.
I recently preached a sermon on Numbers 14. My Pastor was out of town, and he asked me to cover for him. I have decided to make this sermon available on this blog.
In a previous post, I discussed some of the challenges with preaching narrative. Numbers 14 was a difficult text to preach in one sermon. But it contains a lot of rich theology.
I think in particular, Numbers 14 reveals how sin flows out of unbelief. Unbelief in God’s promises. In His power.
It took me a while to get the sermon written. I would work on the sermon every morning for a couple hours before heading to work.
But in my opinion, take every opportunity you get to preach God’s word. It is an amazing privilege.
I personally love the sermon writing process. You start out digging deep into God’s word on your own. Then you think how you best can present your insight to the congregation.
You write an outline. You check your conclusions with commentaries. Then, you meditate on the text until you develop useful applications.
Finally, after much prayer and wrestling and rewriting, you present it to the congregation.
